what is inexpensive about building and maintaining a solar power plant?
400635
Nothing it is all expensive.
560544
http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles/radabaugh30.html\nhttp://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects/89/393/42e5f26dcd2e5ccd20cee4891a8e032f.html\nhttp://www.panda.org/news_facts/education/middle_school/homework_help/project_ideas/index.cfm?pjid=2\nhttp://www.worsleyschool.net/science/files/solar/cooker.html
789204
Give the site below a try! Good luck.\n\n<This is for fun only. If you are actually trying to do this to heat your house or use for power, I don't think you can do that. You would need commercially made cells, but you could set up the system yourself.>
293823
If you want some info look at this magazine call mother earth news it has alot of info on solar energy, solar heating and other stuff. Try it, i'll give the webs site of were to get it. I am always look at solar earth and cheap heating. i hope this helps http://www.motherearthnews.com/
603100
if you have solar panels on your home and charge your vehicle at home, it's a pretty great deal. My EV and solar panel installation cost less than the last gas car I bought five years ago. Yes, the batteries will eventually need to be replaced (they can be recycled), and that may cost me anywhere from $3000-$30,000 if I decide to do it, but most estimates indicate I should get at least 100,000 miles out of the batteries. For me, that's more than 10 years away, and battery technology will keep improving during that time. EVs take significantly less regular maintenance than gasoline cars, saving money there, too.
140556
I don't know you, your abilities, or your grade.  Consider the following.  Maybe one of them will trigger you to come up with your own original ideas.\n\nTry building a homemade solar oven:\nhttp://www.everything-candles.com/homemade-solar-oven.html\n\nOr plan an energy efficient community.  Use your imagination.  How many people will live there?  How will the houses be constructed?  How will the roads be maintained?  How will the schools be heated?  What fuels will you use?  Types of energy?  Etc.\n\nWhich types of alternative energy would work well where you live?  Wind?  Solar?  Hydro?  Do some experiments and some research of local landforms and resources to see what type of energy could best be harnessed in your area.
400871
A thermal power plant uses heat.  I don't know what a 'themal" power plant is.  If you can't operate a spell-checker, I doubt you have the gray matter to expend on thermo-dynamics.
1123210
Make a solar car, a small one albeit.
10808
I would suggest that you consider installing two different solar devises; one for heating and one for electricity.  Water can be heated by collecting solar energy in a panel that allows sunlight to pass through a treated glass or plastic pane and shine on a black convoluted surface that avoids reflection.  The heat produced can not escapes as easily as sunlight enters.  This is the greenhouse effect that heats your car on a rather cool day.  Inside the solar panel there are tubes or pipes that circulate cooling water to carry off the heat to an insulated storage tank.  In cold regions the cooling water must contain antifreeze.  The panel shoud be placed on a roof nearly perpendicular to a line from the sun at noon durning the cold season.  In the upper USA that would be a southern exposure.  The solar panel can be used to pre-heat water that is further heated by an electric or gas waterheater.  The number of panels you will need will depend on the number of people using hot water and whether you use it as the sole source of warm water or as preheat.  Expect panels to cost hundreds of dollars, depending on whether you install them yourself. \n\nFor electrical loads, you should consider installing photovoltaic solar panels which produce direct current (DC).  This can be used for heating water or running electrical equipment and lights but heating may use up the entire capacity of the panel(s).  You may need a battery to store energy and a converter to provide the correct voltage (and AC?) as desired.  Expect voltaic solar panels to cost less as new technologies come to market.  DayStar is building a factory now to produce cheaper continuous film cells (that could cover a roof?).  \n\nThe wattage for various items you wish to power is usually included on the manufacturer's identification plate and depends on the size and model you have or wish to buy.  Good luck.
239071
get a solar panel and hook it up to your car.
933834
The first step to energy independance is to reduce to an absolute minimum.  Having electric wires coming into our homes, we have become used to unlimited energy availability.  Find ways to maximize efficiency and minimize the amount of energy required.\n\nThe only reasonable budget I've seen from someone installing a full off grid system was in a house which was far from the existing power lines.  The cost to run poles and wires was on the order of $15000.  That immediately created an option for solar / wind and off grid independance.  The home owner installed solar panels for heat and battery charging.  A wind turbine supplemented the photovoltaic system.  He budgeted energy consumption and purchased very efficient appliances.  In the end his total energy created was just slightly over calculated requirements.\n\nIf you are entering this project with dreams of living forever with free unlimited electricity you will be sadly disappointed.  The equipment and installation is expensive.  The amount of energy being created is greatly limited and you will have to cut back greatly.  You will learn not to leave the television on with no one in the room.  No more lights on in every room either.\n\nIt is a very positive project, and absolutely worthwhile.  I'm working on a small wind turbine project.  It will consist of a 800 watt generator mounted on top of an 80 foot guyed tower.  Right now it's tied up in municipal permits and other nonsense.  In the end I hope to generate about 10% of my household electrical requirements.  Payback time, assuming no downtime, maintenance or repairs will be about 12 years.  Clearly it is not a money saving investment.  I view it as a hobby to learn with and explore.  I could blow an equal amount of money in a few months on cigarettes or beer and have nothing to show for it in the end.  My justification for the money spent is to have fun with it.\n\nHave a look at the project as it has proceeded so far.  I have the wiring diagram, charge controller circuit, pictures of foundations, and so on online.  Contact information is there as well.\n\nhttp://members.rennlist.org/warren/wind.html\n\nGood luck with your project!
815781
Good question.\n\nThere seem to be many other sources of energy but they seem to be expensive to obtain or to require large amounts of land to be dedicated to crop growth or for collectors.  This is in itself a type of inefficiency. \n\nIn the long term prices may come down but energy such as crop based gasoline alternatives don't seem to me like they would cut it with a growing demand for gas their will be a growing demand for the amount of land that must be dedicated to its production. not to mention the population is growing and its not going to stop.\n\nIf we move toward becoming almost entirely dependent upon alternative energy we must move towards harnessing different kinds of power and not just search for one solution.\n\nA lot of money would be lost from a lot of big companies.\n\nFor instance there is a windmill type device you can purchase for your home needs right now for around $10,000 it is highly efficient\nand supposedly super quiet.  It is said to be able to generate between 30% to all of a homes energy needs depending on where you live. If too much energy is generated the excess may be sold back to the electrical company.  \n\nIf you could purchase three of these at the hefty price of $30,000 you could theoretically not ever have to pay a power bill again in some places or pay almost no bill at all. The electrical companies services could be utilized as a form of backup power.  \n\nIf everyone had these wind collectors this would certainly shrink the electrical power industry.\n\nThere is no information available to me about how much it can cost to repair these items or how well they can withstand the event of a hurricane or tornado. \n\nBut I dont think think alternative energy is a pipe dream it is just something that is going to take a large investment to start up and develop towards higher levels of performance and efficiency. \n\nThe engineering of rugged devices will have to play a large role and does currently, however, a lot of trial and error needs to occur to see what works where and why and what got destroyed by random acts of god and the forces of nature and how that can be prevented.\n\nShould things begin to look rather good for alternative energy... and it seems things look better day by day... energy companies would have to begin facing downsizing and new business models and perhaps invest themselves into the production of alternative energy or alternative energy generating devices for sale to the public.  Either way at some point they wont be the economic giants they have been to this point and thats probably gonna keep them from helping.\n\nAlternative energy will only be a pipe dream if people are afraid to nurture it and harness the energies available. This is something that is and will be heavily influenced by politics.\n\nOn another note, I think that nuclear power seems to be an "easy way out" but I don't believe that it is a good or secure solution.  There have been so many nuclear mishaps you dont hear about and so much waste that you cant prevent or do anything about. Aside from alternative energy being developed for fear of a lack of oil I also thought a large part of it was moving towards a cleaner earth. Moving towards nuclear power and nuclear waste is dangerous for everyone.  Radiation does not simply go away it is corruption of matter and it is "contagious".  Sure we could maybe launch it off into space, but should something go wrong on the way out of here we would face yet another type of radiological disaster.
518765
Lots of cheap electricity.\n\nNo dependence on oil.\n\nSome plants pay huge amounts of local property tax money.
873542
Better check with the electric company first but you need a special electric meter and connection.\nUnless you are more or less constantly generating more electricity than you need the cost of the electric meter will outweigh the benefit.\nSo much for eco-friendly electricity companies.\n\nWe kitted out a 3 storey office block with 100 sq mtrs of solar panels and even then we could not justify the import/export meter we just supplemented the electricity used in the building.\n\nFor 3 months of each year the building is self sufficient.
1156706
Build closed circuit pollution free hydroelectric power\nBuild new electric powered roads for electric cars and trucks\n\nmillions of high wage jobs building power plants\nmillions more jobs building new electric powered roads\nthousands of jobs building electric cars and trucks NO batteries needed this way the road has the electricity built in it\n\noverabundant 100% clean electric power 1,000,000 mega watts from a single power plant \n1000 times more power than the largest nuke plant(930 mega watts plant Volgtel in Ga.) more than Fusion!\n\nThis power plant has been all over the gov Clinton, Gore, Newt, Sam Nun, DOE\nClinton said"I'm to busy moving the counrty forward"\nGore said" good luck, I'm glad to see someone else is working on our energy problem"\nNewt "promised his full support" if I sold out to Ga. power .01c on the dollar to invent and patent this\nSam was to busy with armed services\nI have letters from these crumbs saying these things\n\nMason Wiggins of the Science,Space, and Technolgy Subcommitty a guy who knows tech,Newts energy guy said" this appears to be the secret we've been looking for" and took it to friends at the DOE.  DOEmanagement found out this came in the back door and threw out pollution free power. Mailed it back to me in an open enevlope with pages missing.  Said send it to NIST.  NIST said 5 years to get back to the DOE 5 more to decide to fund this; only $40,000 available to any 1 applicant\n\nBush's people do not even return calls or answer emails during energy summit\n\nGa power wanted to buy me out for.01c on the dollar\nSouthern Cal. Edison wanted .01c on the dollar\nPower Industry Consultants said revise your figure to 2% of my investment; they offered the most! 2%?\n\nGa to Cal. all attempts for gov funding got nothing!\n$50,000 in DC trips 1000's of calls and emails\nAll the utility engineers and not a single hole in this to be found ever!\nPatented! made no difference!\n\n400 page tech manual showing how and what size to buld these anywhere; got my patent allowed on the spot after 45 minute phone cal with my patent attorney and patent office examiner because my patent attorney could answer every question examiner put to him from my 400 page tech manual.\n\nOnly utility patent of it's kind ever!\n\nUtilites spend millions to patent even small improvements in existing power plants.\nPatent rights should be worth many times what a small improvement is worth!\n\nA first generation baby plant of 1000 mega watts generates $1billion per year of power in Cal. market\nSecond generation plants can make over 1,000,000 mega watts\nOverabundant 100% clean electric power to end conservation and Arab oil\n.05c per kilo watt electric power super cheap power all the power anything anywhere could ever use\n\nCould export electric power to the world; clean US made electric power\n\nGov wants us poor and working so much we can't get in their hair for being screw ups\n\ndems and reps have all the power so they bear all the blame\nvote! vote for anyone thats not a dem or rep\n\n2 nations and a US state pay not tax thier residents\nKuwait pays $58,000 y no rent, utilities, phone, hospital, income tax, gas is cheap free for motorcycles\nDubia pays\nAlaska pays\nI know it's OIL! Oil is just 1 of thousands of commodities. With all the thousands of commodities in your state why aren't you paid? With all the feds resources why don't they pay 50 times what Alaska pays?\n\npollititions lie, cheat, steal, back stab. corkscrew, dirty deal, murder, run the debt to the moon, raise taxes, int rates, give our money to foreigners that hate us, allow foreign co to cheat us out taxes they owe, send our jobs overseas, waste our money like no tommorrow, on yahoo 1.4 bil in bogus hurricane claims, deny money to renewable energy, MORE??????????
632650
hi,\n\nwith any kind of solar feature, the payback period is just the amount of time it takes until your energy savings surpass the installation cost.\n\nas for a sunspace, calculating how much energy they trap is a not straightforward problem.  there are some papers on this subject that all use a fairly complex software simulation to figure this out.  needless to say, this also depends a great deal on the shape and area of the sunspace, the kind of glass and/or coatings on it, your location (which determines average solar flux and temperatures), the materials involved, and a bunch of other parameters.\n\nhowever, if you ahve a look at this link:\nhttp://www.esim.ca/2002/documents/Proceedings/Session%203a-4.pdf\n\nyou'll see that they have done just such a simulation, and calculated the yearly energy savings for a 10ft x 10ft sunspace made of a variety of kinds of materials and in a few locations across canada.  you can see that the variations run from 11 MWh (37 million BTU) to 17 MWh (58 million BTU).  \n\nelectricity costs vary widely, but i'll use the US national average from nov. 2005, which was 9.74 cents per kWh.  this means that the 11MWh case generates the amount of heat that would cost $1071.80 to generate electrically.  the 17MWh case generates $1655.80 worth of electrically powered heat.\n\nif, however you heat your home with gas, which costs right now around $8 per million BTU, the cost of generating that much heat changes to $296 - $494.  \n\nso, if your installation costs maybe $5000 to install, and you live in a cold climate like ottawa where the savings are $494 per year, then your payoff period is around 10 years.\n\nagain, all this stuff will vary wildly with your specific designs.  \n\nhope this helps!
375923
The sun is a powerful thermonuclear device.  Very little will withstand exposure to sunlight forever.\n\nTypical modern plastic based solar cells will last for 15 to 20 years.  "Glass technology" can be extended to 25 to 30 years.  Premium quality last as long as 50 years and counting.