Guest libertas Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 Energy payback and financial payback are not the same. Financial payback depends primarily on how energy is valued (priced). If you use the market price of utility energy - from fossil fuel, usually, and based on capital investments made many years ago on average - then energy is not valued highly. That means that labor and other inputs dominate the cost side. Then the output must return the energy investment several times over, because the market price is relatively cheap. The financial analysis is obviously of great interest to someone buying a panel today, but a more interesting question long-term is what happens when energy becomes much more expensive. Solar will never be a total solution, but it probably has an important role to play. The most important thing in the meantime will be to reduce consumption. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brian4 Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 Top 100 after hours- Up-25, Unch.20, DOWN-55-as I said subject to sharp reversals! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sphinxter Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 Obviously the rampant printing of confetti by the fed has caused oil to go ballastic; why hasn't gold followed? Given the utter incompetence and sheer recklessnes of alphie and his merry band of statists, gold should trade in 4 digits. I'll take a stab at this one (recalling the immortal words of Jack the Ripper). Suppose the Federal Petroleum Reserve Bank loaned oil at about one percent. Suppose favored big shots could borrow that oil, sell it, and invest the proceeds in higher yielding debt obligations. Suppose the Treasury set out to encourage such carry trades by enabling the spread players to hedge with cheap "oil calls." Suppose that, nevertheless, the price of oil spiked anyway, from time to time, and the government met and crushed those spikes by dishoarding from its large stocks (accumulated after banning private possession of crude oil). Then you would see artificial cheapness in the oil market. The artificiality would make itself obvious, even to the most ill-informed, when people woke up one morning and there wasn't any left. Excellent analogy NWD, excellent! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anotherone Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 I said last night the Astro's were awful and the market barring an inversion should have a sharp down BUT if it inverted the sky was the limit-well it inverted all right and Da Boyz had their day in the Sun. However the same Astro's remain in effect for some days yet and what goes around, comes around. I agree with TE and Stain that we could pop to 1107 or just die along the way-but the caveat is (as Jesse Jackson would say) the Astro's "is what they is" and they are prone to reverse as fast as they inverted. Stay Tuned... Today's Mars Uranus Mercury action was something that could go either way. The panic was on the buy side ratheer than the sell side. Keep in mind Hurricane Charlie absorbed a lot of the negativeity that has been in the air lately. We have moon square Venus Thursday afternoon. We may see valuation issues and profit taking. Especially since we have a Moon square Saturn Friday moring which usually puts at least a hlf day damper on things. If it's impact is minimal on the downside, I will close my putfolio and go long for now. Closed my QQQ and SMH calls yesterday as today had the potential for downside panic if an unfortunate event occured. Without that happening price went up. In hindsight once the rally out of this morning's dip solidifed, I should have repurchased the calls. Taking a wait and see at this point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hypertiger Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 We're not talking about money payback. Different question. We're talking about energy payback. I am not making *any* argument as to whether or not PV solar is cheaper than utility energy. The energy payback question is, very simply, do you get more energy out of the device over some period than you put into making it. The answer is yes, you get the energy investment back quite quickly. This is an interesting question because solar energy is renewable and most utility energy still comes from fossil fuels, which will run out someday. The question is, what do we do then? The answer is a qualified yes if we ignore the frame issue. Most applications are going to demand a frame, while certain customized installations could be done without the frame. Look I am a firm believer in solar for a lot of reasons, but it has limitations. We cannot cover the entire SouthWest with solar panels nor can you realistically run a car/80,000 pound semi/train off of solar panels. I would dearly love to see all home lighting converted to solar/low voltage. I think this is one area that could offer a relatively quick payback and make a large dent in conventional power consumption. For not so sunny markets this can be supplemented with small wind generators. It's also something that's not too hard to retrofit to virtually any home. It won't work everywhere, but it will work in most places. But for powering things like washing machines, air conditioning, refrigeration, etc. it is not really practical, requiring large inverters and massive battery banks. America has set itself up to be an energy glutton for as far as the eye can see. Our homes are large, and so is their consumption. We have over 10X the retail square footage of Europe. We will continue to buy the largest gas sucking vehicles we can afford to fuel. The only thing that will change this is the price of the energy we can afford. We eventually will be forced to change our ways, but not until the gun is to our temple. SJ>> Eight months of treading water in my account...when's this MF gonna break?!? When Brian's pig drops it's umbrella and falls off the wire. Look we all know high oil prices are good for the economy. We know the jobs market is fabulous. We know that future profits are going to break all records. We know the economy is strong and getting stronger and will soon be the strongerest of all. What's not to like? Oh did I mention this is scam-o-rama week? You need a long term central storage system for it to work... Then like I said you are fighting clouds...You have to assume that the minimum potential sunlight will never be broken...If it is you are game over... It all boils down to the top sucking from the bottom...The top is hopelessly dependant upon the enslavement of the bottom to enjoy what the top considers freedom... Any plan that puts limits on the tops quest for imortality/absolute power is not going to be accepted...Ultimately the only plan in the end if the tops power begins to run out is the elimination of those at the bottom...You have 2 slaves polishing your shoes but only have enough power to sustain 1.5 shoe polishers...It is very simple, eliminate one shoe polisher...You can either send them to a slave labor camp or a death camp or a slave labor death camp combo... The problem with you people is you have no clue of what reality is...OTL < Out to lunch Where do you think all the products from China are produced? Huge slave labor factory hives in the interior... Row after row of high story apartments filled with bunk beds surrounded by barbed wire fences and check points... And again there is a finite limit to this quick fix stacked on top of all the other failed quick fixes to sustain your ability to maintain the fantasy world you are living in... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Space Modulator Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 ... but a more interesting question long-term is what happens when energy becomes much more expensive.. My assertion is that the cost of solar panels will rise proportionally, thus negating any advantage. Not including lower costs due to technology advances, of course. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrStool Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 At 1115 Will You Know What Time It Is Your Anals are loaded. Take a subscribatory and download RIGHT NOW! 30 Day Intro Subscribatory. Just $16.99! Get In RIGHT NOW! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The End Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 Just an observation. The futures today hit 1095.90, the cash high was the close at 1095.13? When the futures go above cash and cash can't keep up, we tend to reverse. This is an on going experiment. NOT enough data yet to form firm opinions. (the opposite is also true). Any thoughts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brian4 Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 TE- I agree that is generally a reliable indicator and does not happen that often, with the action in the after market the fair value numbers when they come out could be quite surprising. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dogsie Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 From what I see the 1095.90 high was at 16:00:34 which is after the cash market closed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bearman Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 Just an observation. The futures today hit 1095.90, the cash high was the close at 1095.13? When the futures go above cash and cash can't keep up, we tend to reverse. This is an on going experiment. NOT enough data yet to form firm opinions. (the opposite is also true). Any thoughts? I saw that . a certain guru had a sell order MOC for sept if cash closed above 1095.79 seems someone was stingy with the cash to stop moc sales from tripping Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HiHat Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 i saw futures trading 1pt+.....over cash a few times during afternoon session............. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bearman Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 saw 1095.17 cash h here Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bullseatshitndie Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 i saw futures trading 1pt+.....over cash a few times during afternoon session............. yes, both dow and s&p were trading above cash several times this afternoon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hypertiger Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 HyperTiger; Use the current developed by the solar panels to charge a battery bank. Deep cycle marine lead-acid batteries, for instance. You can still have current at night or during overcast weather. Size of the battery bank, number of solar panels dictated partly by historical trend of number of hours of sunlight per month, partly by expected load. You burn fuel to heat water until it turns into steam to run battery factories...You are not going to run battery factories on batteries...Or smelters to produce lead or the Mines or the Chemical plants... The vast majority of our power comes from the heating of water to produce steam...for the last 300+ years. You need to have a solar power system to produce a solar power system... That is a complete system, the whole thing...The entire infrastructure... That can not happen as fast as we currently can...It's that simple...Implosion is inevitable... Like I said put the peddle to the metal into the brick wall... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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