Grand Game: Jeannie Needs A Solar

Excellent Grand Game topic, from Anonyman.

Toronto schools go solar! They suck down solar subsidies for new roofs.

There's a bunch of dumb stuff here, but the one that made me gasp was their stating all the electricity generation in terms of "capacity." Friends, the "capacity" of solar power is calculated under the assumption that the sun is directly over head 24 hours per day, there are no clouds, and the sun does not move.

This is TORONTO.

The sun moves everywhere. But for 5 months of the year in Toronto the sun is nearly invisible, or at such a low angle that it will generate next to nothing.

And there are two other problems:
Even in Toronto, the sun moves.
Even in Toronto, even in the summer, they have the phenomenon known as "night." It's between evening and dawn (sun moving thing, again), both of which are bad for solar power. But not as bad as "night."

The actual performance of the solar roof? Likely to be 7% of the "capacity" numbers. We are talking about generating power at a cost of 20 cents / kwh, or more, and even then most of the time there won't be any power. If you include the cost of the panels when they are not generating power (Night. Winter. Clouds. That sort of thing.), the cost is probably nearly 50 cents per kwh. (Canada generates power at about 10 cents per kwh, on average, btw, from coal and nuclear plants).

I find it amazing that these schmoes in far northern countries where IS NO FREAKING SUN are the ones who think that anything they do to worship Gaia the Earth Mother is better than having actual schools.

Anyway, your turn. And, enjoy. (I have to go back this, because it is fantastic. First two paragraphs amazing. The reason sunny countries don't use solar is NOT that oil is too cheap. It's that...solar is too expensive! The only reason idiots in Germany and Canada do it is the artificial subsidies, and the belief that no cost is too high if it involves worship of Gaia.)