frflyer

Five Top Solar Power Stocks

Mauiwalt

I understand what you are saying, but it sounds like you are talking about living off the grid entirely. Grid tied solar has none of the problems you refer to.

PeteK

Nobody will put money into solar? Tell that to the venture capitalists who are putting more money into green tech than anywhere else.

you say- "Anything that has to depend on the gov won't have a future. Period"

You mean like the railroads, biotech, the internet, nuclear energy, oil coal, natural gas......?
Oil has been subsidized since 1918. Continuously.

Dirk
The correlation of the sun with warming is not disputed. In fact, it's what proves it can't be the cause over the last 50 years or so,
Tim Ball spent most of his career as a geographer, not a climate scientist.

Five Top Solar Power Stocks

sdcougar

Here's what real scientists think of the kind of sources you rely on.

"The decline of Tim Ball: Denier champion reduced to railing at real scientists"

www.desmogblog.com/dec...

"The Washington Post, abandoning any journalistic standards, lets George Will publish a third time global warming lies debunked on its own pages"
April 2nd, 2009

climateprogress.org/20.../

The Heartland Institute's Skeptic Handbook - Get Out the Shovel.
30 March 09

www.desmogblog.com/hea...

"Of course a real scientist making such baseless arguments among their peers would be laughed out of the room. That is why you will never ever see climate deniers make their claims in the scientific literature – only in the mainstream media. Meanwhile the voting public remains dangerously confused by this garbage. As they say, tick tock goes the clock."


www.desmogblog.com/lor...

solveclimate.com/blog/...

"In Congressional Hearings, Amateurs Invited to Confuse Climate Science"


"Cato Institute
a key study Cato uses to argue we may see much less warming than the models predict comes to exactly the opposite conclusion."

climateprogress.org/20.../


"NY Times blows it again, printing more rubbish by a non climate scientist, Freeman Dyson."

climateprogress.org/20...

climateprogress.org/20.../

George F. Will

www.washingtonpost.com...

Rebuttal by Chris Mooney of Will's blatantly unscientific op-ed piece in the Washington Post

another rebuttal of same
Letter to editor by Michael Jarraud
Secretary General - World Meteorological Organization, Geneva

www.washingtonpost.com...

Five Top Solar Power Stocks

sdcougar

That meeting in NY of skeptics has about as much credibility as the meeting of flat earthers. It is not a real scientific conference. It's a propaganda event aimed at the lay audience. If they had any credibility they would have been submitting scientific papers at the meeting of the AGU in SF in December, the way real science is done and where such papers are absent.

The Heartland Institute has even less credibility. They were also in the forefront of fighting for the tobacco companies to claim that cigarettes aren't bad for your health.
They are a right wing propaganda mill that has nothing to do with science, and everything to do with advancing conservative agendas.
The way these conferences are run make real scientists laugh. Expenses paid, offers of $1,000 for any speech refuting the AGW theory, and $10,000 for papers, which typically aren't peer reviewed. This year, they didn't invite denier mouthpiece Tim Ball because they knew he was too discredited even for their dog and pony show. Especially after the world found out he's a complete fraud, faked credentials and all. The rest of them aren't much better.

Five Top Solar Power Stocks

So we are to consider STP, Yingli, Trina,LDK,JASO,SPWR
as has beens?
STP is moving into thin film and BIPV
What about Concentrated PV, which EMKR builds cells for? No future there?
Nanosolar and Heliovolt won't be big players? (not public yet, but should be, once the market is more hospitable to IPOs)
If the world demand is to be so high, how will thin film fill the demand by itself?
Will tellurium costs rise while the cost of silicon panels fall?
No solar thermal? (look for IPOs when market improves)
What about solar equipment makers GT Solar and Spire?
A lot more questions than answers here.

An In-Depth Look at Solar Stocks

A few comments.
Thin film is less expensive to make as you say, and less effecient than normal silicon based cells. The point that is often missed is that they both have their markets. Where square footage is an issue, like on your rooftop, the normal silicon cells with their higher efficiency are the way to go. This assumes you are looking for the most watts per square foot. In less space constrained applications, like where you are using on the ground acreage for a large solar installation, thin film makes more sense, with it's lower cost. I don't see either one knocking the other out of the box.
I would also advise against underestimating how much solar power can contribute to our energy needs. Between PV installations on rooftops etc, which provides some needed "distributed energy", and solar power plants in the southwest and their centralized power, solar can be a majority power source and do so economically.

How many are using apples to apples comparisons when they compare wind or solar with conventional power supplies? Are the hidden costs of coal, gas and oil being considered? How about the hidden costs of nuclear? According to Set America Free.org,
the hidden costs of oil and gas in the U.S. amount to over $800 billion annually, which includes over $80 billion in tax credits and subsidies to the oil and gas industry. On top of that, oil is contributing well over $300 billion annually to our trade deficit. Then there are the wars in the middle east, with their losss of life, America's prestige in the world and all the other problems in the mideast, Venezuala etc. Have you read the proposal at Scientific American that promises to attain 69% solar energy in the U.S. by 2050, just using solar power plants in the southwest? Have you seen the proposals by Set America Free?
Wind industry people say we could have 20% wind power by 2030 or so. Denmark already has 20% wind power. Somehow the supposed problems with "intermittency" with solar and wind aren't stopping other countries, like Denmark and Germany. Parts of Germany and Denmark have 40% wind power. There is an overwhelming amount of dis-information out there, trying to downplay the potential of alternative energy, particularly solar and wind. All it takes is the political will to do what is right. That is where 90% of the hype is coming from, so the next time you hear about the hype of solar, take it with a grain of salt. In many sunny parts of the country, which also happen to have high electric rates, like California, solar is already at grid parity. According to Ausra, one of the solar thermal companies, they could power the whole country, at competitive rates, using less land than now used for coal mining.

"Like nuclear plants, coal plants tie up great gobs of capital during their extended construction periods. For the sponsors of such projects, the shifting sands of economic uncertainty can spell financial disaster, as many a utility learned the hard way during nuclear's fiscal meltdown."

"In contrast, solar, wind, and conservation all have shorter lead times, a fiscal advantage not sufficiently appreciated, especially in uncertain economic environments like the present. So in addition to loving these options for being "green," planners can also love them for being "just in time."
gristmill.grist.org/st...

There is a pdf, which you can download, called "The Lean Guide to Nuclear Energy",
which shows why nuclear is not the best choice.
Here are some links:

www.setamericafree.org...
A Blueprint For U.S. Energy Security

www.setamericafree.org...

Scientific American A Solar Grand Plan
www.sciam.com/article....

www.pluginpartners.org/

www.eoearth.org/articl...

www.ausra.com/

www.esolar.com/

www.brightsourceenergy.../

Solar Stocks Show Signs of Life

Solar bears or skeptics like Philly Jim have been fooled like a lot of Americans by the mountain of dis-information coming from those whose interests are threatened by alternative energy.
And example is a talking head on FOX news a few months ago, who said solar couldn't propel a small sailboat, never mind contribute meaningfully to America's energy needs. Of course no one at FOX challenged this statement.
Not supprising since FOX is one of the major disseminators of dis-information.

from Green Wombat
"Abu Dhabi is not content to just sell you the oil that
fuels your SUV; now its going to sell you sunshine to
keep your lights on and power your electric car
when the internal combustion engine goes the way of
the buggy whip. Masdar, the oil-rich emirate’s $15
billion renewable energy venture, and Spanish
technology company Sener on Wednesday announced
a joint venture called Torresol Energy to build large-
scale solar power plants in Australia, Europe, the
Middle East, North Africa and the United States."

"The irony is too rich to leave unsaid: A leading oil
producer invests billions in carbon-free energy while
a leading consumer of fossil fuels - the United States
- continues to subsidize Big Oil while while offering
only tepid support for green technology."

Maybe Americans will wake up soon enough to see the oppurtunities they are throwing away, along with their money wasted on the $800 billion annual hidden costs from oil, and the $80 billion annualy given to oil comanies.

That's the other part of the propaganda, pretending that alternative energy will need too much in the way of subsidies, which are miniscule compared with the subsidies for oil, gas, coal and nukes.

Sources.
www.setamericafree.org...
www.monitor.net/monito...
www.progress.org/2003/...
www.eoearth.org/articl...

Greentech Media: Solar Sector Headed for a Shakeout

The real price of petroleum is what no one wants to talk about. It's been estimated that gasoline would now cost about $12 per gallon, if all the hidden costs of oil were included. The annual hidden costs of oil have been estimated at over $800 billion annually. Tax credits and subsidies to oil and gas are over $80 billion annually. The military cost of protecting our oil shipments is estimated at over $100 billion annually. These numbers don't count the enormous costs of the war in Iraq.

Here's an article from Scientific American, describing how we could have 65% solar grid by 2050 and nearly 100% solar by 2100. The public money spent over about 20 years to achieve this is about 1/4 what we now give oil companies in subsidies, and about 1/40 the total hidden costs of oil.

Scientific America Solar Grand Plan
sciam.com/article.cfm?...

I know of seven solar thermal companies already operating in the U.S. Green Wombat website has several articles about what is already happening in California.
blogs.business2.com/gr...

Here's what one of these companies, Ausra has to say.

"Solar thermal power plants such as Ausra's generate electricity by driving steam turbines with sunshine. Ausra's solar concentrators boil water with focused sunlight, and produce electricity at prices directly competitive with gas- and coal-fired electric power."

"Solar is one the most land-efficient sources of clean power we have, using a fraction of the area needed by hydro or wind projects of comparable output. All of America's needs for electric power – the entire US grid, night and day – can be generated with Ausra's current technology using a square parcel of land 92 miles on a side. For comparison, this is less than 1% of America's deserts, less land than currently in use in the U.S. for coal mines."

"Solar thermal power plants can store energy during daylight hours and generate power when it's needed. Ausra's power plants collect the sun's energy as heat; Ausra is developing thermal energy storage systems which can store enough heat to run the power plant for up to 20 hours during dark or cloudy periods."
Fox news recently had some talking head saying that solar power couldn't propell a small sailboat, never mind make a real contribution to America's energy needs. This statement (propaganda) was never questioned by FOX.
There is too much disinformation about what is possibe and what is really good for our economy. Imagine what eliminating that $800 billion in hidden costs of oil would do for our economy.