Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

https://thebulletin.org/2018/02/iter-is-a-showcase-for-the-drawbacks-of-fusion-energy/#

Not a rosey picture that.  Maybe he's wrong, we can hope anyway.

I'm not saying we shouldn't be looking at all these things. I'm an engineer. I love promising new technologies.

I've just been burned on them too many times not to realize that sometimes the hype when something shows nicely in a lab doesn't mean that it will actually scale.

Some of these technologies won't be successful. Some of the ones that work still won't become economical. But there is enough investment in a wide range of them that some of them will be successful.

And it's not just the technologies themselves, but the policies that enable them. For example, residential solar didn't really take off until third party financing and leases became mainstream. Unfortunately, there are still a lot of states that don't permit that because utilities hold too much political power in those states.

so, I think I made a mistake, but I click on a link to give me an estimate for solar panels on my roof.............  had to give my email and cell #

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Right now, while the 26% solar tax credit exists and net metering is in place, solar is typically an excellent investment for homeowners.

24 panels - system size 8.4 kW - annual production 9270 kWh

Electric bill savings over 25 years
ⓘ

$48,354.42 or $161/month


the cost:
Monthly loan payment on 20 year loan at 4.99%

$79 or $18,960 total

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I would guess my average monthly electric bill is about $125 the last 5 years - not sure how I can save $161 a month

don't know if these solar panels and system would last 20 years

Some people around these parts actually get checks back.  Solar produces more energy than they use, and they are compensated by the electric company.  

I did the math on it a few years ago and it was an 8 year payback.  

Most states have net-metering policies, so that customers only pay the difference between their consumption and their generation. That said, most states don't allow customers to get paid by the utility if they produce more than they consume during a giving billing period (any excess in a given period will simply be credited to the following month). It may still make sense to oversize your system if you plan on getting electric vehicle or electrifying another system in your home (eg. appliances and the hot water heater).

As I mentioned earlier, the states that allow leases and power purchase agreements are where roof-top solar has grown fastest because there is no up-front cost that way. I think this is up-to-date and it provides a better explanation of the payment structures: https://www.solarpowerrocks.com/solar-lease-map/), which largely correlate with the states that are not deregulated so the utilities still have all of the customers and at least some control over the generation mix.

Yes, you mentioned that about the Little Ice Age upthread.  Do you know what presumably caused the regional phenomenon (or phenomena) without affecting the rest of the world?

I've seen lots of criticism of the "hockey stick" by people who at least seem to know what they are talking about and have lots of academic initials after their names.  Perhaps coincidentally, I seldom see the hockey stick brought out as evidence any more.  Is it still considered valid by mainstream climatologists?

The quote you responded to... had a picture of the hockey stick in it.... 

I am not an expert on the little ice age, but there is an entire Wikipedia page on it with a lot of sources and far more detail.  

The “hockey stick” picture that you quoted had a grey area around a black line. The grey area is the area of uncertainty. Note how it shrinks as we move towards modern day. The “little ice age” is firmly in that period of uncertainty.  

Not that it matters. CO2 levels and temperatures have been consistently rising at increased levels for decades. 

Come back in say 25 years and we should have a better handle on this, more data with which to model.

But we won't have practicable fusion by then either.  The best way to sequester carbon is plant trees and then bury them, we don't need some fancy process fighting entropy.  Nature already figured it out and does it remarkably well.  Pine trees in the south grow "like weeks" and are planted to make paper and construction wood.  They are harvested in 20 years.  Eucalyptus in Brazil is harvested to make pulp for paper in seven years.  Paper that goes to landfill is not going to degrade for a long time.

The area is ripe for political PR of course.  Politicians can make noise signing agreements and holding climate conferences in snazzy resort cities every so often to make more commitments.  Voters seem to like these commitments, "By 2050, we will be carbon neutral" .... so says the 65 year old politician ....

Your questions are those of a pessimist.  But I'll bite and give you some optimism.

Fossil fuels are simply stored energy.  I believe that batteries (energy storage) are the real key to making viable "green" energy.  Battery storage continues to improve, as does the cost of battery production.  Who knows, maybe some government funded research in this area would produce something amazing.  Graphene looks like it could be an awesome capacitor, for example.

A Graphene supercapacitor is said to store almost as much energy as alithium-ion battery, charge and discharge in seconds and maintain all this over tens of thousands of charging cycles. link

I've already linked the progress being made towards nuclear fusion.  It really would be awesome if the US Government invested in more of this research.

Carbon capture systems continue to become more and more efficient, and will hopefully improve to the point to make a meaningful difference.  Again, would be nice if some Big 10 universities got federal grant money to pursue this topic.

We continue to become more energy efficient. 

There is a global effort to reduce carbon emissions, although it would be nice if the USA was on the forefront of this effort, instead of hindering it.  If we treat it like a joke, others will, too.

We continue to move away from oil and coal. 

There's more, of course.

I'm sure you'll put on your Eeyore hat when you respond to this post, and that's ok.  There are a lot of positive changes being made.  Put your tail back on.  Humanity isn't done for yet.

I see that you advocate for the Fed Gov't to fund this research. While that may sound good on the surface, the cost of doing so is too great for me to agree. Fed money NEVER comes without strings attached. Those "strings" or the consequence of those "strings", are generally worse than any good that comes from the research. 

Hell, most of my objection to the Climate Change propaganda is that it was pushed by government officials with an agenda.