Robert Sczech

Alternative Energy for Investors: High Volatility, Great Promise

To say that renewable energy is expensive in comparison to conventional fossil fuel energy sources, is equivalent to saying that oil is still cheap. What are you going to say when oil gets really expensive, say $500 per barrel or, even worse, oil is not available at any price? Are we going to sit in our houses in the dark and freeze simply because renewable energy was more expensive than fossil energy?

In my opinion, we should invest into renewable energy as long as the energy produced is much higher than the energy needed to produce this alternative energy infrastructure.

Promising Solar Power Technologies

Using concentrating mirrors in order to heat up water sounds impressive (and the first picture displayed surely is a smart publicity stunt). However, all of this does not change the fact that the total amount of energy harvested is limited by the area of the mirror. The power generated by the mirror displayed is perhaps only a few KW on a cloudless day. I doubt that this technology is economically viable.

Similarly, solar panels made from flexible thin film may be significantly cheaper than standard panels. But that advantage could be nullified by a possibly drastically lower life expectancy of the cheaper panels. The cost of a panel should be judged against the total amount of energy collected by the panel during its effective life time. The standard silicium panels come with a warranty of 25 years by their manufacturers. What is the warranty on the flexible sheet panels? 10 years would be insufficient.