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On Tuesday, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced that utility-grade solar panels have hit cost targets set for 2020, three years ahead of schedule. Those targets reflect around $1 per watt and 6¢ per kilowatt-hour in Kansas City, the department's mid-range yardstick for solar panel cost per unit of energy produced (New York is considered the high-cost end, and Phoenix, Arizona, which has much more sunlight than most other major cities in the country, reflects the low-cost end).
Those prices don't include an Investment Tax Credit (ITC), which makes solar panels even cheaper. The Energy Department said that the cost per watt was assessed in terms of total installed system costs for developers. That means the number is based on "the sales price paid to the installer; therefore, it includes profit in the cost of the hardware," according to a department presentation (PDF).
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), a DOE-funded lab that assesses solar panel cost, wrote that, compared to the first quarter in 2016, the first quarter in 2017 saw a 29-percent decline in installed cost for utility-scale solar, which was attributed to lower photovoltaic module and inverter prices, better panel efficiency, and reduced labor costs. Despite the plummeting costs for utility-scale solar, costs for commercial and residential solar panels have not fallen quite as quickly—just 15 percent and 6 percent, respectively.
It seems there are still big gains to be made in the installed costs of residential panels.
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Saturday September 16 2017, @09:08AM
> High temperatures can hamper the growth [soylentnews.org] of plants.
Now that is interesting. Hadn't heard of that happening before, although based on the abstract, it makes sense. Especially for plants with large leaf surface area. Depends on the plants though. If temps go higher then plants will adapt, or the ones already good at water retention (cacti?) will spread and be successful.
> Enzymes work best at certain temperatures.
True, they all have temps at which they are most efficient. However it is unlikely that it will ever get so hot that enzymes end up denatured en masse across the entire globe, so not the end of the world really.
> Transpiration is dependent on temperature. The availability of carbon isn't always the limiting factor in the growth of plants. Often, water is, and heat can be drying.
Yes, water can be a limiting factor, but if more water is lost to transpiration. other areas will end up with more rain. The water isn't destroyed, it just ends up somewhere else.
> But maybe you've decided global warming is bunk, and believe that temperatures will remain the same.
I remember when they called it global cooling, and drummed it into my head we were all doing to freeze out bollocks off in 10 years, then when that didn't happen, it was global warming, and we were all going to boil as the earth turns into Venus. As that didn't happen either, it ended up being called climate change, which is a cop out because no matter which way temps go, you can scream about it happening and how something must be done (usually involving taxes or restricting peoples freedom. Money, power and control, as always).
The earth is a chaotic system, the climate doubly so. So much of it is a function of big things outside our control, from the sun's output to earths tilt and position, to the currents in the seas. You look at Geological records you will see that the earth swings from ice ages to very warm wet periods, and back to ice ages. They has been quite a lot of study into such things (such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles [wikipedia.org] ).
So I don't think temperatures will stay the same, if temperatures did stay the same I would be very worried, because it means something seriously bad as happened (like the earth has died and has become a uniform barren rock).
Some humans however, have a autistic-like desire to keep things "just as they are", which is a bit like trying to fight entropy. Better to accept that things will change, and adapt to the new environment. All other life will do it, and so will we.
> Coal was laid down [scientificamerican.com] before fungi had evolved to break down lignin. That was 300 million years ago. When that coal is dug up and burned, it's not going to be redeposited as coal.
Yes, so? It will be redeposited as something else then. There are more stores of carbon than just coal.
> The increased concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere shows that carbon is not being removed from the carbon cycle as fast as we're emitting it.
Yes, but if a couple of volcanoes blow, more carbon will be emitted into the atmosphere then removed as well (at the rate of carbon absorption). Just means there is a bit more CO2 up there. One day it will all be deposited back, just like what happened in the first place. There have been many periods in the earths history when a large amount of CO2 was put into the atmosphere, and life survived.
> If we attempt to mimic the conditions of 300 million years ago by returning fossil carbon to the biosphere, that will be a problem for species that are adapted to more recent conditions.
Species which originally adapted from their ancestors, who went extinct due to the changes. They too will adapt (you may find they adapt a lot easier than expected, because they usually still have their ancient DNA, just that it isn't switched on by environmental factors, a bit like how chickens can get their fangs back due to a DNA switch) or they will go extinct, to be replaced by life more fit for the environment.