"The biggest problem the current generation has, is they have accepted the idea they can't when all the ones that have come before knew they could."

Do you have any evidence to support this claim? I find no lack of American delirium in Gen X or Gen Y, in that they'll all work hard and die rich. Perhaps an extra bit of wisdom/cynicism about that which they cannot control, but no lack of the perverted thinking that yields disproportionately productive workers relative to the rest of the world.

Sounds like a case of the yesterdays to me, uphill both ways I hear, but ye overcame.

This is a great off topic addition to the thread. One I try to add as frequently as possible. That often cited statistic is from a brief period many years ago. China's coal construction has seriously tapered off in the last several years... in favor of wind and solar. China's coal consumption and bogus factoids surrounding it are often used to justify all sorts of ignorant nonsense regarding GHG, grid modernization, economic competition etc.

The real story is that China, not the US has driven down the cost of solar to 1.11 $/kWh installed. Cheaper than all other forms of energy on earth, including imported coal. The only remaining barriers have nothing to do with the technical or economic costs of solar energy. Its all about waiting for the institutional inertia to catch up with the pace of change.

What a bizarrely worded statement. If Holder's actions reduce seizures by 43% (the maximum likely given state accounts for 57%) you won't be happy to give him due credit for it?

plan a

Go get a high GRE score write stellar essay and pick a program. Well rounded highschool students make great college students and well rounded college students make great scientists. Non stem BS degrees are typically less comfortable with fundamentals, which is more work and makes for a harder time around orals, but they get there. Remember half the american students with stem undergrads wont know fundamentals anyway, since that knowledge isn't part of the application process Another fourth are swapping fields so their fundamentals are less transferable. High caliber, well prepared students (hot on fundamentals) are rare. I am not one, but I did catch up from woefully deficient fundamentals.

plan b

Pick a prof you want to do research with, follow their advice and their advocacy will make it a cinch.

part2 to plan a and b, dont listen to any naysayers unless they supply advice to overcome the small surmountable problems you may encounter.

my typing and thinking are somewhat compromised atm so please overlook errors

I'm always puzzled that people who present critical views of renewable energy always seem to rely on old data. News flash, massively popular and fast growing industry changes quickly. You can build utility solar plants that profitably sell electricity at 0.06 $/kWh. Look no further than report released by Lazard today... When prices are 30% lower in 5 years, like will happen, they'll be citing 0.06 $/kWh as too expensive, meanwhile ppas will be signed for 0.045 $/kWh.

this is such myopic thinking. you do know there are hundreds of thousands of educated people all over the world with agreeable AND disagreeable view points that are not contaminated by your petty perspective, right?

Nice placement of hypothetical blame.

No. the 12% is not the cell or module efficiency. It is a low ball average on a modern, total AC system efficiency.

One just has to look at your final result to see that something isn't right. I don't want to pick apart your methodology, but frankly it is weird, and produces a result that is in conflict with power measurements from actual systems. See the other follow up to my own. Redo your calculation using a different method.

the german data I cited is the annual incident radiation on a horizontal plane per m2. Find a figure you like and match its location in online calculator, PVWatts for example is generally conservative. You will find you are off by an extra 1 / (0.12-0.15) because of your double counting somewhere.

Retail customers only need to displace retail costs. Avoiding net metering, the best thing to do is self-consume your solar energy and avoid the retail rate you would be otherwise charged.

Sure the answer is to design for winter load and use summer excess to charge something seasonal, hydrolyze water, make syn gas, heat the earth around your house, etc.

electric trucks can drive a mile. put the trailers on trains.

Can't wait for all the fossil fuel die hards to watch their ridiculously subsidized infrastructure crumble before their eyes, while they complain to me about solar energy subsidies.

I do in Minneapolis, year round. Not a big deal.

And if you were one of those people your participation on this thread would make no sense.

Do Not Grok. Panel efficiency especially matters in this context on the necessary area for the array. Panel efficiency matters in the residential market where space limitations are frequently present and many system costs now scale with panel number. Otherwise I was advocating the use of insolation data over GPs method.