disdaniel’s Recent Comments

• Click here to view comment in original post

  Useless adenda

  Point 2) "Drought and other weird weather, possibly related to climate change. Southern Australia, a major ag-producing region, has been been in a brutal drought for six years, which may or may not be related to climate change."

  I'm sorry but "possibly related to climate change" and "may or may not be related to climate change" adds nothing to the point.  You could just as easily, and correctly say "drought possibly related to alien invasion" or "may or may not be related to black holes".

  And yes I believe 100% in climate change.  If there is evidence of a strong (or weak) link say so.  I wouldn't mind if you point out: Drought and other weird weather which climate models predict should become more widespread due to global warming.  But what you did say is frankly pointless.On What's causing the sudden run-up in food prices? posted 1 year, 7 months ago 39 Responses

• Click here to view comment in original post

  bad joke

  How does Bush spell renewable?

  Re-nuclear.On Thoughts on Bush's latest speech on climate change posted 1 year, 7 months ago 10 Responses

• Click here to view comment in original post

  oh the magic of leases!

  Interesting business model...how many systems have they installed?

  On their website they compare a sample solar lease to system purchase.  After incentives the purchase/out of pocket price for their 4kw system would be $25k to the homeowner, down from $35-$40k because of CA incentives (I assume).  For this analysis the CA incentives are a wash--the homeowner or solarcity get them either way.

  SolarCity offers you a 15 yr lease at ~$2,000/yr ($1500 in year one; $2500 in year 15) after charging you $2k down, and an extra $8k to buyout the system at the end of the lease.

  Solar City pockets a 30% federal tax credit worth ~$10k (an individual is capped to a $2k federal tax credit). This $10k plus the $2k down covers 50% of their outlay day 1.  Solarcity then charges ~$30k over 15 years of lease, plus the $8k residual ($38k altogether).  

  I think that is pretty cool...$30k in lease payments over 15 years takes the asset from ~$13k value down to ~$8k.

  I'm sure SolarCity gets some additional accelerated depreciation benefits...but I can sure see why SolarCity would want to sell this to the whole neighborhood.
  On Entrepreneur Lyndon Rive wants to solarize your house for a low, low price posted 1 year, 7 months ago 9 Responses

• Click here to view comment in original post

  cheaper solar

  Solar will be much cheaper once we start using the silicon more efficiently.  

  I have a patent pending panel design that pairs mirrors with cells.  The following link shows photos of how one could build a panel that uses 30% less silicon, by adding flat mirrors.

  http://time-is-energy.blogspot.com/2007/10/some-photos-of ...

  If you assume that silicon makes up 1/2 the cost of a solar panel this simple design would reduce the price of solar panels by ~15%.

  I've got another design that can bring the cost down 25%...the economics of both are described in more detail on posts at  

  http://time-is-energy.blogspot.com/On Borenstein analysis of solar PV misses the point of California's solar program posted 1 year, 8 months ago 10 Responses

• Click here to view comment in original post

  Thank you

  I really appreciate your pointing out how our environment of "lazy" media (or simply cost constrained) fails to point out logical connections between paid spokespersons and industry interest lobby groups.On Maddening posted 2 years, 7 months ago 3 Responses