What is your opinion on this solar power option?

Maybe because it’s a hoax?

I don’t think that democrats are against it. I think you will find extremists posting views claiming that someone is against things like this no matter what.

I think it is a great option. It takes care of the biggest problems, affordability and production.

I think it’s amazing.
As far as “why don’t we hear about it?” they do mention it’s still in an experimental phase (of course, that video was posted in December 2007). I’d guess they hit some snags, if it hasn’t been scrapped entirely.

@pdworkin Here is the link to the company http://www.konarka.com/index.php/company/about-konarka/ that would be a pretty elaborate hoax. I first looked it up to see if it is public. Looks like there are some big investors.

chris6137 would be a good person to ask if he doesn’t chime in. He’s an electrician and interested in off the grid solutions.

My bet, btw, is that no later than this kind of stuff going mainstream will we see carbon taxes taking up the revenue slack.

@kevbo thanks.

It looks good! I just spent a half-hour on Google. Too bad it’s privately held. (I don’t understand the paranoia part about Liberal Democrats, though.) Thanks, @JLeslie.

The vid says solar plastic tape may be out by 2010. That’s like in four months, I don’t think liberal democrats or anyone can stop them now. Where’s the queue?

The thing is the video is old, so the prediction of 2010 might not be a reality? I think we should have huge incentives for homebuilders to install solar if we can get the costs down, and instant hot water instead of tanks (why isn’t that standard already?) and I want the water pouring down from my roof when it rains to be held in a tank by the side of my house to water my lawn. Maybe there are incentives already out there that I don’t know about? Some of it has to be good ol’ boy syndrome I think? Builders keep giving business to the people they always gave business to instead of being innovative. I have seen that some parts of the country have made more headway than others, but overall we suck.

There is nothing in the clip about “Liberal Democrats” that’s just a tag that the person who posted attached to it, no doubt to give it a hook for people who wouldn’t ordinarily look at it. Or to drum up investor interest. Obviously it worked, since they secured $45 million in funding the year this was posted. But the notion that liberals or democrats are hostile to this or any other solar technology is, of course, absolute balderdash.

The Bush II Administration increased funding for solar power 78% to $148 million in 2007, at a time when “Liberal Democrats” controlled Congress. The Obama Administration has put up an additional $117 million for solar in the stimulus bill.

As a matter of fact, we do have huge incentives for homebuilders to install solar, and there are also huge incentives to solarize and weatherize existing dwellings.

The stimulus bill includes $5 billion for low income weatherization programs; $6 billion to modernize fedral buildings, with a particular emphasis on energy efficiency; $11 billion for “smart grid” investments; $3.4 billion for carbon capture and sequestration demonstration projects; $2 billion for research into batteries for electric cars; $500 million to help workers train for “green jobs”; $350 million for geothermal projects; a 3-year extension of the tax credit for biomass, geothermal, landfill gas and hydropower projects with the option of converting 30% of these credits into direct cash. In addition, the stimulus bill is loaded tax credits and loan guarantees for wind and solar industries.

There’s no good ol’boy system on getting in on this money. Look up your utility company for weatherization and solarization programs. Also look in the Pennysaver; you will find contractors willing to sell you subsidized double-pane windows, by the half dozen.

The Republicans are the party of Big Oil; they are the ones who gave us $4 a gallon gasoline. The Democrats are the party of renewable energy.

@MontyZuma Thanks for all of that info. The good ol boy I was thinking of was not to get in on the money; but rather, builders using the same companies who install hot water heaters over and over again, instead of going with a better system. Here in Memphis there arent any national builders, literally I can’t think of one (Beazer was here, but they left about 4 years ago I think, no Pulte, no Centex, no Lennar, no Toll Brothers, nothing) so it is small local builders who I assume many times use subcontractors who have been work colleagues for years, and continue to do things as they always have been done. And, they typically do not build an entire subdivision/developement, the developers sell to anyone.

I think solar is still very cost prohibitive even with incentives, that is why I am so excited about this solar ink stuff. But, even if solar is expensive if big builders were simply putting into every house the build, it would be simply part of the cost of the house. I move a lot. If I spend a bunch of money to put solar in, I would be fine with it, if I had a good chance of finding another house next time with solar, or if my whole neighborhood had it then all of the home prices in the neighborhood are comparable. I think for now, if you put it in you don’t get your money out if you have to sell quickly.

OK @JLeslie I too wanted water storage in my roof. I live up north and have a well. I thought a 55 gallon drum that collects rainwater would be a good idea until I considered: 1) 55 gallons with a tank weights 500 pounds. I would need a solid support for it. 2) The water would freeze and crack lines and the tank on a cold day causing all kinds of damage.
I figured it was safest and best to let the water drain away. At least I don’t have to worry about my ceiling.

Now about the solar panels mentioned here. I looked at their specs. You have to figure much of it is wishfull thinking but let’s assume it is totally truthful. The biggest panels they show are 26 watts the KT-3000 . It is about 1.5 square meters of surface area. Typical sunlight is 1 kW per square meter and a good solar cell is only 10–12 % efficient – call it 100 Watts.. NASA has stuff that is 16% but those are crazy expensive. These sheets are putting out 26 watts in 1.5 M^2. So they are only 1.5% efficient. That is ok if they are really cheap. .
How cheap do they need to be before it is worth putting them on your roof? They put out 26 watts in full sunlight . Let’s say you get 4 hours of full sun every day. That is not true where I live, but maybe you get it. (If you live somewhere that gets 8 hours just double my numbers and send me your address so I can visit in the winter.)
So, it will take 10 days to generate 1 kwhr of electricity. ! kwh here costs $0.12. Therefore, the largest cell they make is only putting out about 1.2 cents per day or $4.00 per year -if you get 4 hours of full sun every day! If you want a 3 year payback – let’s make it a 5 year payback for best case, the unit can’t cost more than $20 or you will not want to bother with it unless there is some other incentive. Taxes, much higher electricity cost, rationing, power failures etc. .
There is no big conspiracy. It’s just math, physics, and economics.
If they are somehow able to increase their efficiency 10x and can sell it for $40 – go for it. Buy two. I’ll take one

@Lupin Interesting. See, it sounded like it was much more efficient than what we have now, until you put your math to it, good to know. So, really the big selling points are it is thinner, easily transportable, and you could conceivably cover your entire roof with it and it would barely know it’s there, as oppose to a tall windmill (I know there are other wind possibilities than tall windmills) and bulky solar panels that do not conform to the shape of the roof or roof tile. When you say the unit can’t cost more than $20 is the the 1.5 square meter unit?

As far as the water…I was thinking of having a tank below ground. All of the water that travels through the gutters along my roof line and then down the down spouts, direct it to a tank, that has a basic filter of some sort for large particles. I think it would connect to the main water supply also somehow, so when I turn on my irrigations system it pumps from the tank and then if that runs out pulls from the public system. In FL we drew water from the lake behind my house, so it was free, here in TN I have a large lawn and use public water, bothers me. We aren’t in drought conditions typically here, but we are using energy to purify the water in the public system, seems like a waste.

@Lupin Let’s say you get 4 hours of full sun every day. That is not true where I live, but maybe you get it. (If you live somewhere that gets 8 hours just double my numbers and send me your address so I can visit in the winter.)
I must be missing something. Where do you live that gets you only 4 hours of sun a day, or what qualifies it as “full sun”?
Here in the summer it’s been sunny out from 7am till 7pm. In winter maybe cut 3 hours out of that.

@JLeslie The $20 I calculate is for the 1.5 Sq meter unit. the HT3000. All the numbers scalle up so if you put 4 of them on your roof you will get 26×4 oor 104 watts. Equivalent to $16 per year. It should cost less than $80 to make economic sense. But!!! I doubt that will be the selling price. I was just calculating the trade-off point. They will no doubt compare their unit to conventional soar cells (that are 10–12%) efficient and will price theirs at ¼ of the competition.

@Sarcasm. I live at 42 N latitude. The 1 kw /sq meter is direct sunlight perpendicular to your panel. The panel must be facing directly at the sun to get the full possible energy. The power drops off with the cosine of angle between the perpendicular to the panel face and the sun. If you could track it and adjust continuously you will get more but that would add a lot of cost. The Dept of Energy has tables and maps for the whole country to see the equivalent hours. Some manufacturers use units of “suns” when they talk about output. If your panel is 45 degrees to the sun you are only going to get 0.707 “suns” (Cosine of 45 deg).

I found the map and verified my numbers are pretty darn close. It is 4 hours here. TN is 4.5 to 5 hours Phoenix is about 6.5 hours . Alaska is 3 hours. You can find your own spot to help you decide if it is worth it.

@JLeslie The frost line for my house is 42”. I would have to bury the tank that far below grade.and then pump the water up to ground level. It was not worth the effort, escpeically if I needed to have a second pump. That’s why I wanted to store it in my attic where it already had the lift necessary to do work. But that causes other problems I mentioned before.
I don’t water my lawn – that’s how I save. Maybe a water retentions system would work for you. It just didn’t make sense for my home. Believe me, if it did, I would have it.

@Lupin the youtube video said that this ink can make energy with less sunlight, cloudy, days and I think less direct light? Maybe I am remembering incorrectly? You can get electric panels I think that tilt with the sun, but I am sure that is expensive.

I still have another question, because I am so ignorant about this stuff. You talk about 4 panels, I kind of remember people needing about 1.5 meters square just to heat their pool in FL…so these 4 panels, is that supposed to support the needs of a home? I mean are we talking 3000 sq ft home (I guess around 280 sq meters if my conversion is right if you utilize metric) or what?

I would not need the water in the winter so I could empty it part way and it wouldn’t matter if it froze up during parts of the winter. I’m not going to do it for this house, I’m trying to sell actually. I’m kind of gathering information for when I am ready to build again.

@JLeslie The specs say the HT3000 puts out 26 watts in full sunlight. So think about that a bit. In full sunlight that is enough to power run 2 CF light bulbs. That’s it. You can charge your ipod: 4 watts, listen to the radio about 4–5 watts. If you want to power your house you need many panels. 5kW is reasonable to run a house. Some people use much more, some less. When we lose power, I run my freezer, refrigerator, sump pump and a couple of lights with a 1.1 kW , 1100 Watts gasoline generator. I would need 40 of the HT3000s to get 1100 Watts.

Solar pool water heaters are much more efficient than photovoltaics. That is a great use of solar. It’s that conversion to electricity that kills you.

@Lupin Solar pool heaters aren’t converting to electricity? I’m learning so much. :) What is it doing exactly?

Passively heating water.

@pdworkin But how? Are you talking about the solar screens that lay on top of the water? I am talking about panels on the roof, I thought they “charged” the heater. Sorry for my ignorance.

Passive solar heaters use the heat absorption to transfer energy to water that snakes through the panel. Photovoltaic panels use light energy and convert it into electricity, but with much loss during the process. One heat, one light, both depend on the sun.

@JLeslie @pdworkin ‘s comment says it all. The heat conversion is very efficient and low cost so it is used. The conversion to electricity is not very good and the equipment is expensive so we will wait until it gets better. No conspiracy, just math, physics, and economics.

@pdworkin @Lupin do you have high hopes that through research they will discover a way to convert the energy more efficiently? I keep wondering why has science not come farther on the solar front?

In my opinion..a few things need to happen.
Electricty has to be more expensive than it is now. It is still so cheap we waste it.
The conversion efficiency must get to 50% or greater- They are killing themselves now to get 16%. There is a lot of research going on to push that up but it is difficult. There are too many wavelengths of light to absorb. If you come up with a coating that absorbs and converts IR, it will reflect visible and UV, and so on…The person/company that reaches 50% practically will be very wealthy.
The cost for a unit must have a payback of 5 years or less.

Don’t hold your breath.

So far, passive solar with eutectic solids or working fluids for storage make sense, but that does not give you electricity directly.

@Lupin Your bursting my bubble—JK :). I am hopeful, we have great minds in this world, we can do it.

That doesn’t mean we can’t use passive solar, gray-water leach lines, rain-water cisterns, white roof-tiles, insulation, high-quality windows and doors, and many other options to lower our carbon footprint in the meantime.

In Europe there are whole communities of passively heated and cooled houses, and that technology is starting to arrive here. We needn’t just twiddle our thumbs while waiting for highly efficient photovoltaics.

@pdworkin I agree completely. Passive makes sense today. Let’s do where we can.
I can’t do the cistern without breaking something.
I heat my house with wood and don’t have air conditioning. That knocks down my carbon footprint.
There is no solution that fits all climates.
If electricity here cost the same as in Europe and Japan we’d be doing those things too.

Anyone across the water got a price per kWh for electricity with all the taxes included? .( @JLeslie. You can ask that question.)

@Lupin Are you here in the states? You are asking about Europe?

I’m in the US. North East. Electricity costs $0.11 per kilowatt-hour. (kWh) It varies around the country too. This will be interesting!

Oh damn it! I was so excited about free green energy.

@Lupin I will start the kwh question, I wan to be able to post in the question what I pay, so I need to puul out a bill, I’ll do it in a little while.

Also, I was looking at the products on the Konarka site, I had not done that before. There is a computer bag you can buy that can also charge your computer battery, and it seems like the size of the “panel” is much smaller than what you were describing to charge something liek that? http://www.konarka.com/index.php/power-plastic/power-plastic-applications/ or had I misunderstood?