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Following up a previously stated desire to run off green and renewable sources, the city of Las Vegas, Nevada has effectively reached their goal.
Utilizing a vast array of solar panels, the 100-megawatt solar plant near Boulder City (named Boulder Solar 1) provides most of the energy needed to power the city's public sector -- that is, not including people's homes and businesses. That too, however, is on its way forward as solar panels are placed on homes and company rooftops; several casinos have also announced plans to move toward renewables (MGM Resorts, Wynn, and Las Vegas Sands as of reading the article sourced below). For some frame of reference on what the state normally produces, please look at the documentation on Nevada energy generation. The city has a 25-year contract to purchase 100 megawatts annually to feed into the grid. There also appears to be plans for the city to tap into the Hoover Dam, which despite being in the same state, Las Vegas has apparently never done so before.
Additional Source: The Independent
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday December 28 2016, @06:59PM
The price won't drop without R&D and without scaling up production, and neither of those can happen if people aren't buying the product to provide the money to do so. Sure, there's those "very limited" use cases where it's already worthwhile, but that alone never would have gotten us to the current scale and panel efficiency this fast.
So in your mind people should be hated for sacrificing their personal comfort to try to do something good for the world, and they should be congratulated for refusing to do anything good for the world unless it's also profitable to them personally? You can get paid in PR, or you can get paid in cash. You don't get both. Stop pretending you're entitled to get paid twice for the same job.
And remember that technology doesn't evolve in a vacuum. It's influenced by the economy, it's influenced by our culture. So if you're going to say you won't push for new technology economically or culturally what you're actually saying is that you just don't want new tech. Just push that oil refining as far as it can possibly go, then when we're on level 10 oil refining and we run out of oil, we've gotta drop back to level 1 solar tech because nobody bothered to research that yet because oil was more cost-effective.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Thursday December 29 2016, @01:22AM
The price won't drop without R&D and without scaling up production, and neither of those can happen if people aren't buying the product to provide the money to do so. Sure, there's those "very limited" use cases where it's already worthwhile, but that alone never would have gotten us to the current scale and panel efficiency this fast.
We have been subsidizing solar for about forty years now. Could you tell me exactly where the cutoff is where it stands on its merits or perishes? And no, let me reject your premise a bit. R&D is required for advancement, mass manufacturing at a loss and deployment via subsidy is not. It is doubtful much of the knowledge of production efficiency from the 1980s is doing much good now and certainly won't in another twenty years or so when wide scale solar will actually be cost effective.
Aviation went from the Wright Brothers to jets in the time scale solar has been subsidized. And does anyone believe solar will be installed at a profit anytime in the next decade? We will continue to see a lot of press releases making claims but if you look you can always find the subsidy. If the whole world used solar it would be a much poorer place.
And who says getting it here faster is even the best option? The government has a very poor track record for picking winning technology. Ethanol anyone? Still requires more energy to create a gallon of the stuff that most engines can recover by burning it. And removing all that corn from the world food markets had some nasty side effects. Our government in action. But we are told it is ok, they meant well. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions; judge results not intent.
So in your mind people should be hated for sacrificing their personal comfort to try to do something good for the world
Not at all. Go, do good. Or at least try to. I might think your plan is daft but I also think everybody has a Right to be Wrong and don't want anyone to have the power to tell folks who aren't hurting others they are Wrong and must stop what they are doing. But do it with your own goddamned money! What I object to is stealing -my- money, pissing it away on pointless projects so the ones doing the pissing away can feel good. Sorry chum, don't work that way. You only get karma for your own contributions, you can't order somebody else to contribute and claim the karma. Bill Gates funding research is wonderful. His money, his pet project, no possible objection.