Good News

I read today in the Oakland Tribune that SunPower, Silcon Valley's largest solar manufacturer, has teamed up with Ford to offer a special price for installing solar for people who buy the Ford Focus, due out later this year.



They are offering a 2.5 kilowatt rooftop system for under $10,000, after tax credits, or about $14,000 before credit. What I like about this is that it simplifies the process--buy a car and get the solar all as a package deal. One of the things I have to admit about our installation last year is that I would not have had the time to deal with it when I was working (I'm retired)--getting bids, trying to select a contractor, reading up on Yelp to see who I liked, etc. Of course, our job was complicated by the need to replace our roof and upgrade our electrical system at the same time as we got the solar system. I'm not sure if SunPower will handle all of that as well for people who need it., but that would be nice.



Just to run the numbers a bit more: The Tribune article states that the Ford Focus can travel about 1,000 miles per month on the 2.5 kw system. Now our 3.2 kw system generates about 4200 kwh per year. So, by proportion, a 2.5 kw system would generate (2.5/3.2) x 4200 = 3281 kwh per year, or 273 per month. That means that Ford is expecting the Focus to go 1000/273 = 3,7 miles per kwh. By comparison our Volt is getting about 3.3 miles per kwh.



What the article doesn't explain, but what is very important for solar power and electric cars, is that the PG&E E9 rates are much cheaper for charging at night compared to what the solar power is paid for during the day. So the 3,281 kwh of solar power are worth $0.28 per kwh in peak summer hours during the week, $0.10 in the partial peaks and in the winter, and $0.04 for most of the weekend, so we earn about 13 cents per kwh for our solar.



Meanwhile the 3,281 kwh that the car needs can all be generated at the off peak rate of $0.04, if you have a 220 volt charger that can charge the car in 4 hours. If you charge the car with 110 volts, it will take more like 11 hours to charge so the cost will be around 6 cents per kwh combining off-peak and partial peak charges.



So you earn 13 cents per kwh, but you only pay 4-6 cents to charge the car--i.e. a net profit of at least 7 cents per kwh. Take that times 3,281 and you have a savings of $230 per year on your electrical bill. Now the cost to finance the solar panels with a 30 year loan at todays rate of 4.4% would be $600 per year, with a lock against increasing costs of energy over the years. That $230 should be added to the savings on gasoline that you get with an electric car--less than 2 cents per mile for an electric car vs. 10 - 20 cents per gallon for gasoline depending on your mileage and the constantly changing price of gas.



Of course I would urge people to go ahead and buy a big enough system to zero out their PG&E electrical bill (except for fixed charges). The more solar the merrier! For the 300 kwh per month that our house uses, plus the 250 kwh that the Volt uses, a 3.2 kw rooftop system does the job.

What happened?

The April, 2001 issue of Time magazine focussed on global warming (see front cover below).  The coverage was uncompromising: 

• "the trend toward a warmer world has unquestionably begun"


• "scientists no longer doubt that global warming is happening, and almost nobody questions the fact that humans are at least partly responsible"


• "the increase in temperatures is happening at a pace that outstrips anything the earth has seen in the past 100 million years."

Time's 2001 report points out that:

• "the 1990s were the hottest decade on record",


• "glaciers . . . are disappearing"


• "coral reefs are dying off"


• "the Arctic permafrost is starting to melt"


• "migration patterns. . . are being disrupted"


• "drought is the norm in parts of Asia and Africa"

Now after 10 years of all these trends intensifying, and even hotter weather, more extreme storms, and many disasters, you would think that the press would be howling for change.  But no.  Floods, hurricanes, droughts, wild fires, Snowmageddon last winter, and record heatwaves this summer are all just part of the "crazy weather" we've been having lately.

What happened??!!

IMHO, Time had not really thought through the consequences of their coverage.  If fossil fuels are causing all this destruction, the solution has to be to virtually eliminate fossil fuels.  Perhaps Time  thought that a modest reduction, such as proposed at Kyoto, would be enough to stave off global warming.  But that's not the case.  We need to reduce CO2 from 20 tons per person per year in the U.S. to 1 ton per person to really stop global warming.  And that's a problem.  The oil, gas, and coal companies are the most powerful companies in the world.  And in a society where dollars buy votes, and also where dollars buy advertising in media, it is no surprise that elected officials and media depending on advertising are not willing to call for the elimination of the companies that feed them.  So what was obvious in 2001, and is even more obvious today--namely that global warming is real, and is a terrible threat to humanity--is just not a proper subject for the media to dwell on or for Congress to take action on.

Now I may be a bit too harsh.  California's Democratic controlled legislature found the courage to pass some pretty good laws.  And many cities around the country are taking actions to build a sustainable future.  But the U.S. government is completely stymied by Koch Industries funded deniers, and the media is still pretending that there is an honest debate about global warming being real and being caused by CO2.

The good news is that the cost of wind and solar and batteries for electric cars have all plumeted in the past decade, so the alternatives to fossil fuels are much more affordable than they were in 2001.  Of course, it would have been nice if government had really promoted these technologies during that time instead of continuing subsidies to fossil fuels, but the time we have lost only makes our present efforts all the more urgent.

2010 Toyota Prius with Solar Panels

The Next-Gen 2010 Prius debuted today in Detroit with 50 mpg, based on Toyota's own internal testing. With a 1.8-liter Atkinson-cycle, four-cylinder engine.

In http://www.autobloggreen.com: The new Prius has three driving modes: Eco, EV-Drive and Power. The EV Drive isn't anything new – if you have a Japanese Prius. A first for the U.S., the Eco mode allows battery-only operation "at low speeds for about a mile, if conditions permit." This is still the nickel-metal battery pack, after all. The other modes should be fairly obvious, with Eco providing the best mileage and the Power giving the car a "sportier feel."

The optional Solar Panel roof will generate power for circulating air and keeping the interior temperature from going too high. There's even a remote-controlled A/C system that can run on battery alone and lets you set the temperature before you get in.