What other people have said

[oneoff]

I just ran across this discussion on another site and the thought came to mind that it summarizes in many many ways how various types of people reason and think(or maybe "out of hand" immediately rationalize and ignore every last detail mentioned
And I have no idea of who JoeSchmoe is....But Agriville forced splitting the reply by another contributer into the next post after this rant

JoeSchmoe - May 29, 2016 Reply
your $8575 cost estimate is off by a factor of at least 6, and probably more like 10…. to get all the panels, controllers, converter and other peripherals you’d need and the labor for installation, you are going to spend $50,000 and probably more like 60k or more for off grid 2,100 kWh per month… than add on another 10 – 15k for the batteries you need for storage for the days the sun isn’t shining….(you can physically mount panels yourself, but unless you’re an actual electrician, you’re not going to connect it all without about an 80% chance of killing yourself or burning your house down, so installation cost has to be figured in…. even if you are an electrician and a solar expert that knows all there is to know about connections and ideal placement angles or even putting all the panels on active sun angle tracking set-ups… do everything yourself, and buy everything at wholesale and below prices… there’s still just NO WAY you can get a system that produces 2100kwh per month, or 25,000 kwh per year for 8 or 10k… depending on where you live, 25,000 kWh at residential retail is anywhere from $3,500 to $6,000 from the electric utility/company… if solar could be had with that short 2 to 3 year payback… or even a 10 year payback, everyone that gets even partial sun would already have it… banks would falling all over themselves to loan money out to anyone with a house or land with any southern exposure to place panels on because it would be a cash machine… 3 years in and your system would be paid off and EARNING hundreds of dollars a month selling power back into the grid…. the TRUTH about solar is, with good, unobstructed souther exposure (in the US), a system that can provide enough power to break even at the end of the year for your “average” house is around $50,000…… so after tax credits, and rebates, maybe it effectively costs $30,000, so at a national avg 1,200 kWh per month household at national avg .15 cents per kWh… you might come close to breaking even on initial cost after 14 years… but that doesn’t include interest on a loan to buy the system, it also doesn’t factor in system degradation which they all are subject to, as the years add up, the systems output and efficiency drops off…. those are rough (very rough) numbers, but input your local utility rate per kWh, including all the transmission, transition, taxes, and all the other bs charges on your bill… regardless of what anyone tells you or what you read is the “cost per kWh” for your area, the REAL, TRUE cost is your total bill, divided by that months total kWh used, that’s your real cost (in RI its around 16.9 cents, use 1000Kwh for the month and your electric bill for the month is $161.90, that’s why everyone in the northeast uses oil or gas for heat and hot water)…. anyhow, you need to input your conditions, your regions annual avg sun exposure (potential solar energy avaiable)… and your specific site, house or yards southern exposure and shading conditions throughout the seasons… and whether you heat with elec or gas or oil, and the cost to switch systems from elec to gas/oil or from gas/oil to electric factored into the cost of solar system sized to produce at least 25%, and ideally 50% more than you need when sun conditions are ideal… anything less and you wont be producing enough to sell significant amounts of overages back to the grid, so you’ll be stuck buying half or more of your power from the grid annually unless you want to invest another $50,000 in batteries for storage …don’t believe me, go price a battery system with all it’s necessary switches and peripherals that’s capable of storing (and delivering after efficiency losses) 3 or 4 days worth of total household power… it’s easy if you live in a house that’s set up to use a little electricity as possible, but what’s the point of investing so much money and space to solar if it can’t provide enough power to take the gas/oil out of the picture as well…
solar is great, and great strides have been made in efficiency and battery storage capabilities and a well designed house oriented properly, built with the right materials and properly sealed and insulated with correctly designed overhangs and entire layout well thought out and properly designed and sized heating and cooling systems can be amazingly efficient and get by well with a reasonably sized solar array….. but 95% of all the pre-existing homes and buildings are NOT properly oriented to maximize solar gains and minimize losses, and 95% are not properly sealed which is twice as important as insulation, which probably 80% of houses are lacking enough of, and of all of them, those with enough, and those without, almost all of them have the insulation installed incorrectly, reducing it’s effectiveness by anywhere from 30-70%…. and almost none of the pre-existing houses (and 99.5% of those that will be built in the foreseeable future) are not well designed in general and take no advantage of natural landscape potential or essentially free simple design modifications and building material choices that can easily make any given structure more efficient by a factor of 2, 3 or even 5… adding solar to any house like this is just trading money you pay to utility company to pay for solar system,….
there really isn’t much in the way of savings until a decade or more out, and even then the savings are modest at best unless your system is sized to produce significantly more than you use which is impractical unless you use very little to begin with (ie: your house is designed from the ground up for efficiency and uses very little energy even during it’s heavy use periods) … adding a $40k solar system to your typical spec house is a barely break even eventually proposition… if the current solar technology made financial sense… ie: efficiencies were high enough… then all the utility companies would be building massive solar projects and selling all that “free” power to all of us through the grid… the “economy of scale” makes the utility/power company doing such a much better deal than for us…. they would receive much more bang for the buck than a homeowner and they also already employ at wage rates all the electricians and trained lineman, engineers, construction personnel ect to design, erect, and tie in their system, (as homeowners we dont pay wage rates, we pay contractors rates for all installation labor which is 4 – 10x the going wage rate, and retail prices for equipment… the utility has labor at cost and materials and equipment at wholesale and below…and many utilities could easily manufacture most of their systems themselves and get free federal grant money to cover most of their costs…. so utility company is forced to purchase, or drill or mine themselves for NG, oil, or coal to power their generators to make electricity to sell, or they could go solar for a small fraction of what it costs a homeowner to produce their needed kWh…. if the numbers made any financial sense at all, all the utility companies would already be selling all of us solar made power, as it stands right now mid 2016…. just over half of 1% of utility power in the US is derived from solar PV and Collectors combined… only in the sunniest, and hottest little areas of the country does it currently make financial sense…

if I’m wrong, then the extremely greedy CEOs, CFOs and corporate VPs willing to spend a millions studying and analyzing anything that might eventually add a few tenths of a percent to the bottom line must be missing something too… any region where solar could produce enough to pay-back costs and maintenance within 10-15years, the utilities would be all over it because they’d be operating at 60 or 70% profit instead of the 8-15% they’re at now when they must buy oil, coal, or gas to produce power… they would within a few months after pay-back become the most successful businesses ever in the history of the world and within a year or two have over half the worlds currency collectively in their hands…. utility scale, nearly free energy… they would literally OWN the world, and likely they’d need to raise an army to keep it from being taken by force

[oneoff]

This was the response that was immediately posted


joedontknow - November 30, 2016 Reply
Reading your diatribe was almost upsetting but irritating for sure. Its narcissists like you why innovation dont come to light people like you and bitter Americans that believe in the status quo and that way it is, first everything you said was a punch of crap. You would lead everyone to believe that buying from a huge electric company at .15 cant be achieved and would be cheaper and nobody should do it and how stupid they are for thinking outside the box of your ideals because it don't math out with your gorrilla math and crooked people that rippoff everyone anyways. and im hear to tell you i can produce far more then what is needed for my house and its 5,500 sqft and would make a fortune if the still did buy back and did the whole system for 3800 bucks and i now sell it everyday including a desalination plant that i produce water from saltwater at 00001 cent per liter. first of all solar manufacturing companies do not care how efficient the end user is thats why they stay a in the manufacturing business. if people like on this site try to educate themselves theirs morons like you knocking them instead of saying there is a million ways to get stuff done. Now that I sell what i know all the time if you take the time to learn every aspect of each portion you would see that storage of energy if increased like energy company’s do that will decreases the amount you need to charge your banks and you if you have far more capacity then needed then you will have energy for 8 to 9 days. and as far as experiences is concerned you make everyone think a soda is cheapest at the store when you buy one at a time but if your smart like me and bought a carbonizer 15 years ago you would never have to buy again and i haven't bought a soda for the house since and that was a 150 dollar investment that long paid for itself years and years ago. now if we take your moronic outlook on savings and debt if people follow what i do and super store energy with industrial size batterys like forklift or marine batteries that are cheap in line of powering a house and a small solar trickle charger like solar panels you would find that i can store 75kw and keep it trickle charged with a lot less panels like i do everyday for years . people like you seriously get under my skin because in all the crap you said it was based off of common knowledge of retail prices and rip off installers that dont know jack about storage of energy or how to prolong the storage and use of it. and if you contributed to your 401k instead of pay a multi billion dollar utility company every month that would tally to like a extra 200k in retirement. sorry for the insults but it couldn't be help after reading your unbelieveable biased horseshit

[sumdumguy]

paraphrased: blah-blah-blah

[oneoff]

[B]And the story seems to have pretty well ended there. One could speculate that no one else in the world cared orcould read those combined 11,000 some odd characters (according to agriville site bean counters). Or maybe it was a case of inabiliity to hold in one's mind those varying thoughts at one time to decide where the grains of truth actually were hidden.


Now I would anticipate that what will happen is that there with be dissatisfied people with a $7000 system and maybe equally with the $3800 system (all in costs I guess)as claimed by the responder. And I think that included a desalinizer thrown in.

Is the solution to live with what you bought; or expect more government homeowner protection or let the promoters rule and continue spreading incomplete information as being viable on its own merits, freely available now and sustainable in its own right? And maybe electricity can be had at way less than 15 cents a Kwh. But whats the coin of the realm worth and how much inflation or deflation are involved in calculations[B]

[oneoff]

Total agreed blah..blah....blah

And 67% of people got their full offsetting compensation for Alberta's 20 dollar a ton carbon tax. One would imagine they should be satisfied as they have done their part and it didn't cost that majority a dime....blah...blah...blah (summarized)

Maybe they will be so appreciative that the next provincial election will return the same results.

[Hamloc]

Appreciate all your posts on this topic Oneoff! I think what amazes me the most is that 67% will in theory be rebated the cost of the carbon tax and therefore really have no incentive to change behaviour but it is heralded by the NDP as a victory for the environment. Realistically it is only a victory for those who believe in larger government, higher taxes and lacklustre economic performance.

[chuckChuck]

Hamloc In fact the carbon tax is a market based solution to reducing C02 and many Conservatives see it as less interference and regulation than imposing other types of regulatory systems. Check out what Michael Chong Conservative leader candidate says about a carbon tax.

[chuckChuck]

CPC leadership candidate Michael Chong pitches tax overhaul, carbon tax

Chong’s plan calls for eliminating three of the five federal income-tax brackets.

Bruce Cheadle, The Canadian Press

November 2, 2016
Conservative MP Michael Chong speaks during question period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on April 7, 2014. The Conservative MP's bill, known as Reform Act 2014, is poised to pass the House of Commons today during a third-reading vote. (Fred Chartrand/CP)

Conservative MP Michael Chong speaks during question period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on April 7, 2014. The Conservative MP’s bill, known as Reform Act 2014, is poised to pass the House of Commons today during a third-reading vote. (Fred Chartrand/CP)

OTTAWA — Federal Conservative leadership candidate Michael Chong is proposing a dramatic overhaul of the tax system based on new revenues from taxing carbon.

Chong says his plan would cut overall federal income taxes by 10 per cent and corporate taxes by five per cent — while imposing an escalating tax on carbon emissions that would rise to $130 a tonne by 2030.

“We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to both lower income taxes and clean up our environment through the pricing of carbon,” Chong said Wednesday at a news conference on Parliament Hill.

Chong, one of 10 confirmed entrants in the Conservative race, says Canada already has a working model of a truly revenue-neutral carbon tax in British Columbia.

But his proposal goes much further than simply raising carbon tax revenues and cutting income and business taxes.

Chong proposes to eliminate more than a dozen other federal programs designed to curb emissions, including renewable fuel regulations and coal-fired electricity regulations.

His plan would also eliminate three of the current five federal income tax brackets, scrap half the current $22.9 billion spent on various tax breaks, and double the Working Income Tax Benefit for low-income families to $2.3 billion annually. There would also be a new carbon credit built into the existing low-income GST/HST credit.

“The level of detail in the report is truly impressive,” economist Trevor Tombe, a research fellow at the University of Calgary’s school of public policy, said in an interview.

“He explicitly wants to raise the carbon price to $130 per tonne. That shows he’s serious about meeting the 30 per cent reduction target — and he’s serious about doing it in the most economically efficient way possible.”

Chong, a Toronto-area MP since 2004, says his plan is based on conservative principles using market mechanisms that will get Canada to its 2030 international emissions-cutting target while boosting economic growth.

“Conservatives must have a credible, market-based plan to reduce these emissions,” he said.

But the 44-year-old is breaking with almost a decade of Conservative party orthodoxy on carbon pricing, which Chong’s colleagues have consistently critiqued as a “job-killing tax on everything.”

Conservatives also insist carbon taxes will put Canada at a competitive disadvantage with the United States, the country’s dominant trading partner.

Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall fired off an open letter to the federal government this week that again lambasted the Liberal carbon tax plan.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced last month that Ottawa will impose a floor price on carbon dioxide emissions beginning in 2018 if provinces don’t adopt their own pricing model by then.

Provinces must either have a direct carbon tax — such as those in B.C. and Alberta — or adopt a cap-and-trade market that prices emissions, as in Quebec and Ontario.

For provinces that fail to act, the national floor price will start at $10 per tonne of emissions and rise $10 annually until reaching $50 per tonne in 2022.

The federal Liberals say all revenues will remain in the province or territory where they are collected and that provincial governments are free to use the revenues as they see fit — whether for income tax cuts, business subsidies, green incentives or other measures.

Chong’s carbon tax would mirror the Liberal system from 2018 — when all provinces will be expected to begin taxing carbon at $10 per tonne — through 2020. Provinces would be allowed to keep the first $30 per tonne of revenues under Chong’s plan and would receive federal subsidies if they fully rebated those revenues through provincial tax cuts.

The federal tax component would start in 2021, even though Chong says his income and business cuts would come in the first budget of a new Conservative government in 2020.

“Our carbon tax will in fact be revenue negative for the first several years,” he said.

Chong said he’s the only Conservative leadership candidate so far to actually propose income tax cuts.
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Filed under:

carbon tax
Conservative leadership race
economics
Michael Chong

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[Hamloc]

Chuck2 no offence I didn't read the cut and paste. I agree that a carbon tax in its purest form will use the market to make the most cost effective cuts to C02 emissions. But what Premier Notley and Prime minister Trudeau are doing is wrong. Both are deciding what form of energy we will use by legislating the end of coal fired electricity. In Premier Notley's case they are shuttering coal plants prematurely, using the carbon tax to redistribute income and to create a slush fund to subsidize wind and solar power.

[oneoff]

Maybe its market based right up to the time a government cuts cheques for 67% of the people; thereby purportedly giving them back supposedly 100% of costs associated with the carbon tax.

Is it then still "market based" and are we still to believe that there is any requirement or incentive for any change outside what might have been done with a good propaganda campaign.