If the world weens itself from its insatiable addiction to the dark stuff (coal), does that mean we can turn on the lights in our homes 24/7 while cranking the AC and heater on full blast?
Sure, the sun’s rays and wind’s breezes don’t emit CO2 or noxious gases, but that’s not the point of renewable energy. To paraphrase Immanuel Kant, we must treat our natural resources as an end not a means.
The sun’s value is the giver of life – when it shines flowers bloom, when it hides behind the mountains, the world turns cold. To treat it as a means to our greedy energy needs is nothing short of debasing the entire environmental movement.
Regardless of how much renewable energy infrastructure we can build, reducing energy consumption is still important with solar grids. The more energy we consume, the bigger the grid. The bigger the grid, the bigger the impact on nature – i.e. land and animal habitats.
The goal is not to replace one myopic energy plan with another. The goal is to keep looking to the future to account for our impacts. One of those impacts is our consumption!
Don’t install solar cells so that you can run your AC on high from April to September. Install them with the earth in mind.
November 5, 2008 at 10:33 pm
I think that the most feasable approach to solar (at least for residential applications) is for each house to have its own cells and batteries. With this system the solar cells would charge the batteries and excess energy could be put out onto the grid. Therefore, i don’t see any problem with someone running their AC. If their batteries have power I really don’t see what the big deal is. Solar energy is not like coal. Energy from coal can be saved. It is not going anywhere. Solar energy, on the other hand, cannot be stored beyond the battery capacity. This means any extra energy that radiates down is either used or lost. I don’t see a problem with using it.
November 6, 2008 at 9:07 am
You can’t run your AC all day if you’re relying on solar power because you can’t charge your batteries at night. You would have to choose what times of day to use your energy. Ipso facto we have to conserve our energy use no matter what technologies we use.
November 10, 2008 at 12:41 pm
If a house’s battery supply is able to store enough energy to run AC all night then why not? The batteries will just get charged the next day. Even if it can’t support a whole night then why not be comfortable for part of the night. Think of it in terms of a bank account. If you had an account that was credited with $10,000 everyday then you wouldn’t be too concerned about your spending habits. Even if you empty the whole account it is ok because the next day you will get another $10,000. Taking it a step further, let’s assume that your account could only hold 10,000. That means if you do not spend any money then there would be no room to deposit more the next day. This encourages spending just like renewable energy encourages consumption. On the other hand, imagine if you had an account that had a one-time deposit of $1,000,000. While this is much more than 10,000 it is not renewable. That means you would be more cautious of your spending habits. If you spend $10,000 a day like before then in only 100 days that account would be empty. This is how fossil fuels are. We have a lot of them but once they are gone we don’t get them back. Solar energy is the exact opposite; if you don’t use it you can never get it back.
November 10, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Well, my blog post is on the externalities of all energy sources. For your rooftop solar charged battery system the externality is the battery itself. If you are using your AC 24/7 (not taking into account for a second the environmental impacts of an AC), you need a pretty big battery. And with that big battery comes a lot of lead acid or other toxic chemicals which are difficult to dispose. Batteries are also highly unstable. To learn more about the explosive effects, look here: http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/yago87.html.
Certainly, better technologies need to be developed (and are, I just can’t remember where to find them) to store energy captured from solar, but with every new innovation there are trade-offs. One way to minimize the negative effects is to simply not use that much energy