They haven't run out of useful things to do - they are just stuck in a dark nasty place of having too much legacy support. I would love to see them start clean, run a win 7/8 whatever in a virtual machine, and build from scratch with all the lessons they have learned over the years.

Never happen but they could build an amazing OS if they took that approach.

I never said that solar doesn't work when there is less sun. But it is obvious that the greater the period of sunlight and the more energy in that sunlight the greater your electricity production will be.

My parents system (5kw) sees a fluctuation between 22kwhs produced in summer to 14khw produced in Winter. Winter here is mins of about 5c and max temps of 22c. If that looks a lot like your summer then you will produce lower power all year round. So your system has to be larger to cope.

Just because your system has to be larger doesn't make it necessarily uneconomical to an individual depending on unit cost of electricity and whether there are any feed in subsidies.

Also I have made a choice not to have solar on my house because I would have to cut down lots of trees. Kinda feels a little perverted to me that I would have to cut down over a dozen 20m+ trees so my solar doesn't get dappled by their leaves.

Maybe I'm reading this wrong but I read this as no different to wifi or bluetooth. you would have two devices talking over LTE - towers (and hence registatration on a network and monthly fees) not required.

Over what time period? Depending on what your inflation rate that could easily be nominally the same if you are talking 7+ years.

Surely it would behave just like wifi and there would need to be some kind of authentication shared before traffic is passed over it.

Your phone is probably actively sniffing for wifi spots right now. This would just be another format.

How are you paying for it?

Also I see this as a way of joining my home network with a friends a couple of houses away without buying any new equipment.....

So if I get this right you can have two phones communicate directly over LTE. In a couple of years time we will have these old LTE Direct capable phones just lying around doing nothing. To me that is the most awesome backbone of a decentralised wireless internet ever! Way way higher speeds then wifi, longer distance and built with hardware we would have otherwise discarded!

Plant is not the only capital cost. The poles, wires, transformers etc makes up a bigger component then the actual stations. It doesn't matter if you generate the energy via dirty coal or solar if the power has to be transmitted there will be a significant network cost.

Solar in the 'burbs may be incentivised by the increase in unit cost of electricity, but solar farms and wind farms will be impacted just as hard as traditional generation systems. Also as soon as density rises power needs cannot be met by localised solar.

Plenty of people have got to the point of being almost off grid but not decided to cut the cord. Also Australia is a really really really big place and while there are areas that get loads of sun there are areas that are like europe and get not so much.

There are plenty of nice DC & Gas fridge units. But they are expensive. Do the math on the lead acid batteries you need and you see that you need a lot. Also expensive.

The capital cost of going off grid is high and frankly I call bullshit on breaking even on the pannels and batteries in the first year. I have a high electric bill and it is $900 per quarter. That is still a huge amount less then the capital cost of even a 5kw system. Let alone the 20kw system and batteries you would need to be off grid.

ps. I'm in Queensland which gets a LOT of sun.

We already see this today. But the investment in achieving it is huge AND it requires you to be a relatively low power user. Finally most people want the peace of mind of knowing they have a backup.

My parents have a grid tied solar system and they receive money from their utilities provider every quarter. Usually around $300. This was a change from them paying on average $450 per quarter. Quite simply why would they want to disconnect from the grid? The grid tie is less then the profit of selling their excess generation.

That only works if this usage is the fringe case - as soon as it becomes the norm the price will go to 3x. It has to. The asset must be maintained.

Posting to myself for additional information.

In Queensland the breakdown in a typical bill is
21% Generation
24% Retail
3% Green Schemes
8% Solar costs
48% Network

Source - http://www.dews.qld.gov.au/ene...

If the amount of money made from the actual electricity falls too far then the cost will be transferred to a network connection costs.

This is already the case in Australia where the cost per kw/h is predominately made up but the cost of the distribution network rather than the generation costs.

You may see an increase in people disconnecting from the grid all together but I would suggest that will remain a fringe component for the foreseeable future. Battery costs are too high and most people's electricity consumption is very lumpy meaning they need a lot of storage. Finally people will pay for the security of mains power.

In Australia you tend to see a feed-in tariff - ie the electricity you put into the grid is priced. For a while this was heavily subsidised meaning the feed in rate could be more than double the buy rate. Which skewed the market terribly, basically the people who could afford solar systems were funded by renters and those that couldn't.

Now the feed in rates are a commercial competition between the various energy retailers.

In the end someone has to provide the wires, transformers and sub-stations. Those don't care where the power comes from. If it cannot be paid for by the generators it will be paid for by the consumer directly.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Vol...

Though there is someone wanting $500 for a complete set of lions still in their boxes with the pilots and keys....

Good condition complete sets of voltron are going for about $100. $30 for an individual Lion. I found a couple of "in the box" optimus primes that were about $110.

I like my models and things - I have a cabinet in my man cave which I have figurines and toys from various eras and shows. I have to admit to still liking my anime now so I tend to pick those up these days. The quality of those is incredible.