JUST ADD SUN!!
JUST ADD SUN!!
It’s that simple. JUST ADD SUN!! 
I love renewable energy. I love making it. I love using it. My home office is actually off the grid and 100% powered by renewable energy. My solar camping trailer powers my office when we’re not camping.
Our home has a 1.05Kw grid connected solar panel system on the roof, that supplies most of our home’s energy needs during the day. As the sun rises in the morning our energy supply is renewed throughout the day.
If we generate more power than we use, that power goes back onto the grid, and we’re paid AUS$0.44/Kwh for that power. At night we draw our power off the grid, but during the day our power comes direct from the sun. 
I love that it’s clean and FREE energy!! I love that it’s available to anyone. I love that the oil companies do not own the sun, and cannot control it. Governments can’t tax the sun. I love that anyone can buy a solar panel, a regulator and an inverter, and start using renewable energy.
I was camping last weekend with my solar powered camping trailer. There’s nothing like getting away, back to nature for a few days. So there’s this camp site near me and they’re using gas to power their camping lights, their camping fridge and their cooker and so on.
The chap comes over to my camp site, and asks about the solar panels on the camping trailer. He’s asking what I use them for, and questions like that. He asks why use solar when I could use gas. I tell him that my energy comes from a free renewable supply, and that supply is the sun. He nods with a kinda blank stare, so I explain some more.
Each morning the sun comes up I get FREE energy stored in my batteries, that comes via the solar panels, throughout the course of the day. I use that energy to power the lights, the laptop, the camping fridge, the cooker etc. He reckoned that made good sense and after another 20 minutes discussing this over a cup of tea that I boiled from the cooker powered by the sun 
he’s going to get buy some solar panels for their caravan. I gave him some rough directions of what he’ll need, and he has my email address if he needs anything further.
Carbon producing coal power station
It got me thinking about supply and what goes into making our energy. Coal power stations need VAST amounts of coal that is mined from the ground, and transported to the power plants. The coal is burned and creates steam, which turns large turbines that produce energy. The problem with coal is that this process also releases ENORMOUS amounts of carbon and toxic pollutants into the atmosphere. Coal power plants also use HUGE amounts of water for their cooling.
So think about what goes into a solar power plant. Just the SUN! Yep, just add sun. No need to mine coal and transport that coal to the solar power plant. No need to burn that coal to make steam to turn the turbines that make the power. No carbon emissions or toxins emitted from this process. All that’s needed is JUST ADD SUN!! It’s that simple.
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It looks like solar prices are going to drop next year. There’s some serious overcapacity.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2009/09/solar-crisis-set-to-hit-in-2010.html
I might get into it then.
Hey Gavin,
Thanks for stopping by my little green patch here.
We’re getting there. Hopefully we do enough to lay a good foundation for the next generation coming through, the school kids now. They’re the ones who will take the renewable torch to where it needs to be, as we evolve our economies over to low carbon economies.
Renewable energy is only getting better, as time progresses. Just think of PCs and where they were 20 years ago, with performance and price. Now think 20 years from now, and think where renewable energies will be, as the technology increases. Renewables will be the norm, and in the coming generations they’ll look back on our highly carbonised economies with scorn and shake their heads at how we mined and burned coal to make steam to turn turbines. :^)
Hi Bob, Love your blog, and a great intro video as well. This post hits it on the head. If all of our elected officials would just understand this, we would have no problems getting renewables off of the ground.
Gav
lol, sorry about that Jason. That pic of thesun is bright. =)
Thanks for the link on the solar panels too.
energy payback for solar panels is less than 4 years
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy05osti/37322.pdf
by the way Bob…that picture of the sun is making my eyes cross
nice post
Hey Henri
Good points.
Yes, panels need to be manufactured, no doubt. There is a term called the “carbon debt” of the manufacturing process for a solar panel, but there carbon debt exists for the manufacturing of anything. Think of it this way, once you’ve built your solar power station, what do you need to add to it to generate power?
Think of a coal power station. That needs to be manufactured too, and usually with enormous amounts of concrete. The manufacture or construction process for a coal power plant is obviously a massive project, that creates a massive carbon footprint or “carbon debt”. The problem with the coal power stations, is that they go on creating carbon and toxic pollutant emissions for the rest of their time being used.
Once you’ve built your power plants, compare the running costs, or what needs to be ADDed to generate the power, by the power station. Massive amounts of mined coal and water needs to be added to the coal power station, whereas only the sun needs to be added to the solar power station.
That’s the point I’m making, is that you just need to add the sun, to your solar panel plant, to make power. It’s insanely more environmentally friendly than what you need to continuously add to a coal power station, to generate power.
Coal power plants is a cheap and very dirty way to generate power, but we can no longer rationalize the cheap cost of the power, with the environmental damage they’re causing. Coal power will either go down the clean coal path, using an untested technology to limit the amount of carbon they emit, or they will eventually be closed down.
Power from coal plants will no doubt become a lot more expensive, as the coal plants have to purchase carbon credits for the carbon they’re emitting, through the Emissions Trading Schemes, that are being setup by most governments around the world. They’ll probably purchase these credits from renewable energy plants like solar and wind, and this will even out the price balance between the various energies. So the ETS will mean the coal power industry is offsetting their carbon emissions by funding the construction of clean energy power plants. So ironic.
I’m an ETS skeptic, but we’ll see how it pans out. I don’t think it’s right to tax carbon. The focus should be on making renewable energy the better option, so there’s no need for the stick (ETS) to force renewable energy into the market, when you have a great carrot.
Hi Bob,
I enjoy your updates.
>> All that’s needed is JUST ADD SUN!! It’s that simple.
However … solar is not *exactly* a 100% pure renewable resource.
Yes, after the solar panel is manufactured.. it is renewable. However, the actual creation of the solar panel does require some parts that are manufactured in a factory somewhere…
It would be interested to see data on the amount of energy needed to actually create a solar panel.
It kind of reminds me of the argument about not creating corn-based ethanol.. because the amount of corn crops needed to produce the ethanol necessary to fuel sufficient load would devastate the land for vast amounts of the country…
I do think/agree that sun is a pretty good way to go.. but unless the wafers and the panel itself are made with and using 100% renewable resources.. then it isn’t truly a 100% renewable method of generating electricity. Probably pretty close, though.