[tt] [silk] McKinsey on the economics of solar power

[Eugen Leitl]

----- Forwarded message from Brian Behlendorf <brian at hyperreal.org> -----

From: Brian Behlendorf <brian at hyperreal.org>
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 11:26:46 -0700 (PDT)
To: Silk List <silklist at lists.hserus.net>
Subject: Re: [silk] McKinsey on the economics of solar power
User-Agent: Alpine 1.00 (DEB 882 2007-12-20)
Reply-To: silklist at lists.hserus.net

On Sat, 2 Aug 2008, Udhay Shankar N wrote:
>   * Solar energy is becoming more economically attractive as
>technologies improve and the cost of electricity generated by fossil
>fuels rises.

As photo-voltaic improves (efficiency being much less important than cost 
per watt) I think it has one big advantage over nearly all other 
approaches: no moving parts.  Installations of fixed panels can be nearly 
maintenance-free when compared to solar thermal, wind, wave power, etc., 
all of which involve components that can break or wear out.  The cells I 
put on my roof in 2002 were warrantied for 20 years, and even 30 years out 
should still be generating 75% of their initial capacity.  It's not 
completely trouble-free - interconnects can age, inverters/transformers 
can blow, lightning and other weather incidents can wreck havoc, but I 
predict these to be minor compared to maintaining the machinery to pump 
molten sodium through tubes to transfer heat to turbines.

	Brian


----- End forwarded message -----
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Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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