admin answers:

The negatives include:

The worst thing about solar energy is that it is typically expensive to install. This means that the effective cost of the power is high compared with just buying it from your local utility company.
Solar panels can take up a lot of space.
You may find that your roof is not at a good orientation or angle to the sun, which would make the installation on your roof less effective or not possible.
You can’t make solar power at night, so you have to have a way to store it.
Your power output will also be affected by bad weather.

Positives include:
The greatest thing about solar energy is that it is virtually free to use.
Solar energy causes no pollution when you generate it.
You can get financial incentives from the government to help you pay for your system.
Companies are starting to produce rental plans that allow you to avoid the large capital costs.
There was a law passed a couple of years ago that allows you to “sell” your excess power back to the utility, reducing or eliminating your bills, and covering your need for power at night.
You don’t need to order any fuel to be delivered to your house, and you can’t run out.
Solar power does not suffer from inflation and increasing prices.
Typically there are no or few moving parts to a solar installation, cutting down on maintenance.
Solar power can be generated anywhere, even if there is no local electrical supplier, so you can have power in remote areas.
Using solar power reduces the amount of fossil fuel burnt, and decreases greenhouse gas creation.

admin answers:

1. Pros and cons – solar is a good choice. Make sure you realize though that if you go through a solar franchise / company you’ll pay waaay more than you need to. Source the parts yourself and get a local installer / electrician..

#2. Hail won’t be a problem.

#3. Wind won’t be a problem. They’ll only come off if your roof was going to come off anyway.

#4 & #5 – Battery storage technology has advanced a lot, you won’t have a problem unless you live in the polar winter.

admin answers:

Not at all. Many are for it, even if it might seem otherwise. Krugman is one. He notes that it is far from perfect, but is a step forward:

What everyone agrees is that it will cost some money. (After all, if it were free, we would have done it by now.)

One question is how much. The Congressional Budget Office, generally non-partisan, estimates about $175 per household by 2020:
http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/environmentandenergy/archive/2009/06/22/is-the-cbo-giving-a-boost-to-climate-policy.aspx
This is much lower than the scary figures that the Republican opponents have been touting.

The next question is who pays. In the end, of course, it will be the ordinary consumer. But the costs will not be spread evenly. Places where most of the electricity is produced with coal will pay more than places where it comes from natural gas, which will pay more than places where it comes from hydro-electric dams. But the variation should not be too great.

The bill will create a number of new jobs but it will also, gradually, make old jobs obsolete. In the long run, we don’t want to burning coal because it produces too much pollution. But that means that coal miners, people who work in coal-fired power plants, people who ship the coal from the mines to the power plants, etc. Will be put out of work.

But the old jobs can’t be eliminated till the new energy sources are in place, which means the new jobs start appearing before the layoffs do – which is just what we want in this time of high unemployment.

In the longer term, we can hope that alternative energy will become cheaper, but there is no reason to assume that it will ever be cheaper than coal has been. Our economy has been built on cheap energy, so higher energy costs mean that we will have to have a reduced standard of living or learn to do more with much less energy.

(Note that this has nothing to do with this bill but with the fundamentals of energy economics. Any mechanism that reduces the use of coal and oil or increases their price will have this effect. And we’ve already seen the price of oil rise dramatically over the past decade. The price has slid back somewhat, but it is still more than twice what it was 10 years ago. And when the recession ends, oil prices will start climbing again, so we will be facing this problem with or without this bill.)

Clearly, the bill provides various incentives to learn how to produce cleaner energy cheaper and use energy more efficiently. That is technology that everyone is going to want. If we get good at it, that is something we can sell to the rest of the world. If we don’t get good at it, it is technology we may have to buy from the rest of the world.

(The Chinese have many terribly dirty coal powered plants, but the new coal plants they are building are much cleaner than most American coal plants.

Of course, it would be better if they weren’t burning coal at all, but if you are going to do it, better do it as efficiently as possible.

The Spanish seem to be doing well in the area of thermo-solar power:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Spain

The Germans seem to be doing well in area of energy efficiency:
http://www.research-in-germany.de/coremedia/generator/dachportal/en/07__News_20and_20Events/VDITZ_20-_20News_26Events/Archiv/2009-03-24_2C_20Energy_20efficiency_20expert_20Jochem_20wins_20_20Bayer_20Climate_20Award.html
http://www.german-renewable-energy.com/Renewables/Navigation/Englisch/energy-efficiency.html
http://www.energy-daily.com/reports/Germany_Wants_To_Become_World_Leader_In_Energy_Efficiency_999.html
(They already make appliances that much more energy efficient than U.S. Appliances.)

admin answers:

You learn how not to be shocked when working with electrical tools and equipment.

The pay is good.

Seriously, every business uses electricity. The huge office buildings, the chemical refineries, automobile factories – all need electricity to power their motors and lights and computers. They also use electricity at much lower voltages for signals, control, and data transfer.

You could choose to be a high-voltage electrician, and work on the power transmission lines that march across the country and operate at voltages over 100,000 volts (100 kV), or on the power lines within neighborhoods that operate at 15,000 volts (15 kV). These require extra-special training and safety procedures, because at those voltages, the energy jumps out at you.

You could choose to work at the lower voltages – that’s what they call it in the power industry – of 120 to 480 volts AC, which powers homes and all small businesses.

There are lower voltages still, such as for electroplating, aluminum refining, solar power modules, but these are very high current levels, which again require special training.

The petrochemical refineries make extensive use of much lower voltage for their instrumentation and control signals. These are for computer-controlled processes and thus signal integrity depends on properly made cabling and protection of those cables.

Go to your library and find every book you can about “electricity” and read each one. While you might not understand a lot of terms and explanations at first, every time you read a new book you will see the same terms again and again, and they will make more sense. Learning this way helps you understand the language of the electrician.

Understanding what electricians do requires hands-on work, and most schools do not provide that. You should look for a local electrician union hall and ask what kind of training is available for people new to the electrician field. Being an electrician is difficult work. The books describe how to do various things, and working at a bench is easy, but when you are on a 20 foot ladder it’s not so easy ! And when you have to correct mistakes others have made, it’s not so easy explaining to a customer why the corrections have to be made.

You have to constantly train to learn new things. 30 years ago, there were very few wind generators and solar panel arrays; today there are many projects installing those things and they all have to be maintained and repaired after weather damage. The mechanical installation forces the electrical connections to made certain ways. There is an excellent magazine devoted to solar and wind power on residential and small businesses, called “Home Power”.

Wikipedia has an article about the magazine :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Power_Magazine

Their website :
http://www.homepower.com/