New Jersey Outshines Most Others In Solar Energy 240
An anonymous reader points out this CNBC story which says that "New Jersey—known more for its turnpike, shopping malls and industrial sprawl—has become a solar energy powerhouse, outshining sunnier states like Hawaii and Nevada. And it's largely because of incentives that make it cheaper for residents and businesses to buy and install solar power systems."
Yet another generalization... (Score:2, Informative)
Turnpike? Shopping malls? Industrial Sprawl?
Clearly the submitter hasn't been through the Pineland's or seen the beautiful farming communities in the southern part of the state.
NJ != The Sopranos
Re:2% by 2012? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:2% by 2012? (Score:5, Informative)
Solar on my NJ house (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Carbon emissions sleep with the fishes (Score:3, Informative)
I'm going to be setting up such a system within a year or so, once I move into my new house.
Re:No, it's very, very expensive... (Score:4, Informative)
And yet others obviously don't see how long it would actually take to actually break even on it -- especially if you're financing the cost of putting it up with borrowed money, your own or somebody else's.
If you want to make it about cost savings, put 27000 USD into your favorite low-risk savings vehicle. Then wait the estimated amount of time it would take for you to break even on the 27000 you spent for the 6kW solar rig. Compare your cost savings from the solar rig vs. the investment. If you put your dough, for example, in a 10 year CD at 3.25%, you'd come away with ~10000. Then subtract what you (supposedly, by estimate) would have saved with the solar setup. Or...what if you invested half of that 27000, and spent the other half weatherproofing your home (also tax benefits there)?
A local guy put a 2kW rig on his roof. He was proud of his work, which is fine, but admitted it would take him 53 years to break even on the cost of the materials and install. I don't know how much maintenance is involved in solar configurations.
It wasn't about cost savings. That's fine if you have money to spend on the cause du jour. I just don't have that kind of money and my state doesn't either (Michigan). Truth be told, my country doesn't either.
Re:No, it's very, very expensive... (Score:3, Informative)
And of course, once you pay off the loan (5 years?) you're ahead of the game.
Re:No, it's very, very expensive... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:No, it's very, very expensive... (Score:3, Informative)
To put it into prospective, I have 80KW 3 Phase Natural Gas generator that at full load takes about 200 cubic feet of Natural Gas an hour.
Current rates for residential Natural Gas are ~14.20 dollars per thousand cubic feet. At full load producing 80KW it costs about 68.20 dollars to run for a day producing enough electricity to power the neighborhood. So, we have an 80KW generator for $10K, another $10K for installation, the remaining $28K can run it for another 400 days.
There aren't any economics of scale for this pricing either. residential rates are about 2x that than commercial rates for gas and efficiencies power generation increase with larger scale.
So yes, a mere 6kw of theoretic peak power creation for 48k. That doesn't include the maintainence required for the installation, nor the reduced winter power nor the diminished output over the life of the system.
Re:No, it's very, very expensive... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Carbon emissions sleep with the fishes (Score:3, Informative)
Although a few big cities have gotten big projects (such as boston, where the Big Dig was, in fact sorely needed), the condition of the roads and infrastructure in these areas tends to be absolutely horrible.
New York, in particular suffered from extreme neglect after the end of Robert Moses' tenure until part way through Giuliani's tenure. (Even still, New Yorkers foot most of their own taxes, receiving an insultingly low return on their state and federal taxes. The current mayor, Mike Bloomberg has actually threatened to secede from the state because of the tax situation)
Much of New York's massive metro/subway system was constructed between 1900 and 1930 by a private company. The remainder was constructed at the city's expense to keep the place actually inhabitable. The Lexington Avenue Subway line (4/5/6 on Manhattan) carries more traffic every day than the entire population of Boston. The city's roads simply couldn't handle that type of traffic. Arkansas doesn't have the population density necessary to make such a system effective.
Very few urban museums are funded using significant amounts of federal funds (the Smithsonian being the prime exception). I'm only directly familiar with New York's museums, although virtually all of them are self-funded.
Stadiums are an irritating by-product of our obsession with (watching) sports. I agree that they shouldn't be funded by tax money.