Comments on: Spain Builds Worlds Biggest and Stupidest Solar Project

By: Carolyne Tirri

Carolyne Tirri — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 03:15:34 +0000

You actually make it seem so easy with your presentation but I find this topic to be actually something which I think I would never understandIt seems too complex and extremely broad for meI’m looking forward for your next post, I’ll try to get the hang of it!

By: Rover

Rover — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 08:42:31 +0000

The Ballad of Greg Watson

Come and listen to a story
Bout a man named Greg
A poor old aging scammer
Barely kept his fambly fed
And then one day he was looking at his roof
Said I’ll dream me up a sunball
And I’ll say that it’s the troof

Well the sunball turned to suncube
And to mark two three four five
And the money kept on flowing
It felt good to be alive
But those customers kept asking
When those suncubes they’d be getting
And they started asking questions
Bout the things Greg kept forgettin

Like….Proof Greg
Simple proof
Taint hard

Well now Greg he chucked a wobbly
And he said you won’t be gettin
Not a single bloody suncube
Cos it’s secret…I’m not tellin
But youse can all still buy a share
In my solar funny farm
And I’m keepin all the money
So there’s no cause for alarm

Gold
Green and Gold
YEE HARRRR!

— Rover D’og

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.greenandgoldenergy.com.au

The Moving Finger Writes; and, Having Writ

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it

– Omar Khayyam

By: Rover

Rover — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 04:52:34 +0000

You can’t possibly believe anything that Greg Watson (CEO Green and Gold Energy) claims.
He is a serial con artist.
Check out his previous SMOT scam http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SunGrid/message/657
And the pissed off purchasers http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l@eskimo.com/msg05058.html
Then follow the sad saga of deception at http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SunGrid/message/1110
(the next 20 or so posts show just what kind of a deluded liar Greg is)
Woof

By: DV82XL

DV82XL — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 01:01:07 +0000

A parenthetic expression; I never thought you were supporting it!

By: Finrod

Finrod — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 00:41:59 +0000

Why apologise?

I hope you don’t think I’m endorsing this!

By: DV82XL

DV82XL — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 00:31:53 +0000

I’m sorry I see more hype than science on the website of this product. It’s the same for all renewable startups – grandiose plans and optimistic claims that always seem to get revised down after the IPO.

By: Finrod

Finrod — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 00:04:48 +0000

DV82XL said:

And the UV degrades these concentrated systems from two angles – the lenses breakdown and lose transparency and the cells age faster in the higher fluxes.

We’ve seen many claims for high perfomance solar converters that have not held up in the field. I would take this with a grain of salt.

He alleges an effective lifetime for these units of 20-25 years.

Being generous, we might then say that one unit can provide 18,750 KW.Hrs over its lifetime. I wonder if that’s enough to manufacture one of them to begin with, including the mining and whathaveyou.

By: KLA

KLA — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 00:00:13 +0000

Yes, you might get a slightly better deal. However, different than products that require a lot of manual labour, solar cell costs are mainly driven by material and energy costs in production, not labour costs. Large scale production only gets cheaper than small scale if manual labour can be replaced by automation. In semiconductor manufacturing that is already done to the extreme. The only reason semiconductor chips get cheaper (Moore’s law) is that a given area of silicon (a wafer) can yield more of them with advancing technology. However, when the area needed is fixed, as with solar cells, then higher demand will increase prices, as then shortage of raw material and energy to refine them drives up the price.

By: DV82XL

DV82XL — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 23:57:36 +0000

And the UV degrades these concentrated systems from two angles – the lenses breakdown and lose transparency and the cells age faster in the higher fluxes.

We’ve seen many claims for high perfomance solar converters that have not held up in the field. I would take this with a grain of salt.

By: Finrod

Finrod — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 23:48:18 +0000

KLA said:

That is still extremely expensive compared to any other option except wind. Does the 85 MW include for 1.8 G$ include the storage cost? The options on the table for that are estimated to be about the same in cost for other solar plans as for the panels themselves. On top of that, with CAES it requires 1000 btu of natural gas per stored kW for the retrieval in the very best, most optimistic case.

Nope. That’s just based on his qoute of $1800(Aus) for one suncube unit, peak output of ~285W. You might get a better deal buying bulk. I believe his scheme is to set up solar farms to provide power during the day. I haven’t seen anything which addresses the problem of storage.

The great advantage he claims is that a flat PV panel of the same performance currently costs ~$4500(Aus).