It's a cop show on SKY (my mates). Quite fun, and has made my kids a bit more interested in the power of maths, as opposed to statistics, which is anything you want it to be.
And what I have read here - Solar panels won't save the planet - seem to be matters of mathematical fact, and hence environmental (beyond the financial option) value:
"... a rather more general question-mark has been raised over their value by one of the country's genuine experts, Abu Bakr Bahaj, a senior lecturer in civil engineering, who based his figures on the experience of a large panel installation at his university in Southampton.
Since solar panels in Britain generate, on average, only 20 per cent of their potential maximum output (at a cost of £4,500 per kilowatt of installed capacity), he reported in the journal of the Institute of Civil Engineers that the average pay-back time of solar panels is more than 45 years (although 70 years, he wrote, "is a more realistic figure"). Yet the average life of a photovoltaic cell is only 25 years."
I have written to the quoted sources to see if this can be confirmed and turned into something that the public can use to assess actual £ & e-values to help their decision processes.
I'll let you know if they come back.
2 comments:
Yes, caution is always needed when it comes to green claims, but caution is also needed when it comes to their opponents, and the source for yours, the Sunday Telegraph, has been a vociferous denier of global warming for years. Convincing counter-evidence of the benefits of solar panels (as well as wind turbines) comes from Donnachadh McCarthy of Peckham, who has fitted panels and a turbine onto his small terraced house, and now sells back to the national grid 20% more energy than he buys. See http://www.micropower.co.uk/news/newsrelease17.html for the full story.
Agreed, which is why I read far and wide, and try to separate the claims from the facts, or at least establish a middle ground. The source I noted was in fact a civil engineer, published in the Telegraph, so may you being a tad selective in your attribution here, which I gladly post?
I guess the paper is a friend of business, which makes them more biased to industry when it comes to matters environmental. As to denying climate change, I'm not sure there is anyone left who is. However there are those (note I don't presume to say how many), myself included, who would prefer that we make decisions for ourselves and children's (financial and environmental) futures based on the best facts, and least agenda driven resources.
I have written to the quoted source to clarify, and as it happens also wrote a fair while ago to Mr. McCarthy. It will be interesting to see who replies, if at all in the latter’s case. Hence I can't judge or comment yet on the discrepancy between the two sources of 'fact'.
I do note that Mr. McCarthy makes a living selling the success of a lifestyle, and until he replies may have to view the claims made by him and passed on by vociferous [insert your favoured pro-green-directed pejorative slur or label here] as I would a right-wing media organ. I am not so sure I am so ready to dismiss the discoveries of a qualified scientist, who likewise has a panel on his university's roof. Especially as I, too, am a Civ. Eng (Hons).
There is a saying in that industry (which I left a long time ago): 'Any fool can do for a £ what an engineer can do for a shilling'.
The point is that just doing something is not enough, it has to be worth it. And I don't just mean financial ROIs, which is why I picked up this baton.
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