This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Solar Panels: Back to the Dark Ages
Click here to follow ZeroHedge in Real-time on FinancialJuice
France’s General de Gaulle once said that the only thing that would unite Europe would be China. At the time he was probably visionary in the knowledge that the Europeans would never unite. There was too much rivalry and there always has been. The British and the French have always been at odds and the French have always been jealously wary of the German’s capacity to work harder than they can and to show the full fruit of their industriousness. The Germans have always secretly known that they are the best and looked down upon the then agriculturally-oriented (and therefore worthless, in their eyes) countries like Italy, Spain and Portugal. He certainly got one other thing correct when he said that it would be the Chinese.
Europeans would only unite when the Chinese forced them to.
China has become not only demographically the leading country of the world, but they have become economically the country to invest in and commercially number one. That’s all cause for concern.
They have taken over from Japan as the Land of the Rising Sun. The sun set a long time ago on that Empire and we don’t even need to mention the failures of the US system that have resulted in its decline. The good thing about the Chinese is that they have no qualms about despising democracy and espousing dictatorship. The West just makes a show of brash support for the former and public outcry at the latter. Then, it does exactly as it chooses, flouting what itdictates to be democratic. The West dictates democracy while the Chinese plod on solemnly on their Long March towards success. China is already the number one trading nation of the world and has been since 2012.
Left in the Dark
The West will be left in the dark begging for the lights to come back on soon as they realize that China has not only become the world leader in yet something else, namely solar-panels, but also that the West has been pointing their own solar panels in the wrong direction now for years.
A new study that was carried out in the US has suddenly discovered that the solar panels that have been installed around the world and that all face South are in actual fact facing the wrong direction.
According to the study carried out by the Pecan Street Research Institute if the panels face West, they increase electricity production by 49% during peak demand.
What is surprising is that nobody has ever carried out a study on the best direction to gain increases in electricity generation. People simply presumed that it was South that would give the best energy-supply levels. The study showed the panels that faced South only generated a 54%-peak reduction (peak: 3pm to 7pm), while panels that faced Westwards were able to generate a 65%-peak reduction. The CEO of Pecan Street Research Brewster McCracken stated that “there was no other residential demand response tool generating 60% reductions.”
Europe and the West will be going back to lighting candles that they will probably end up buying also from the Chinese in the next few years. How is it conceivable to imagine that those that are paid to do research might not have actually carried out tests to see in which direction the solar panels should have been facing?
- By using solar panels the world could be powered with relatively little surface area covered today by their installation.
- It would take about the surface area of Spain to do so or just over 190, 000 square miles.
- Today however the US only generates 0.17% of its power from photovoltaic sources, generating 6.9 million megawatt-hours of electricity.
- Solar energy has increased in the USA and in 2007 it increased by 17%.
- There are some that believe that it could grow to an estimated 10% of energy needs of the USA within the next decade.
- The US accounts for 10% of the world’s market share of installations and its own electric capacity from solar power increased by 76% between 2011 and 2012.
- The Federal government believes that it is a viable source of energy and just powering the US would only use 0.5% of the available energy that the sun has, according to experts.
- There is a current investment of $968 million via federal subsidies to the solar-power industry in the US.
China is set to become the world’s leader in all renewable energy sources. Not only will they have the world economically-speaking but they will have the world in terms of controlling their energy supply.
- China plans to produce 21 gigawatts by 2015 from solar power.
- 80% of electricity comes from coal today in China and the recent problems with air pollution that have plagued major cities are set to be a thing of the past.
- China has become the world’s largest producer of solar panels in the world and they have managed to do so in just two years (with 30% of the solar-panel market today).
- Research (Harvard and Tsinghua Universities) shows that all electricity demand could be met by renewable sources within the next fifteen years for the country.
Let’s hope they manage to get the panels facing in the right direction!
Originally posted: Solar Panels: Back to the Dark Ages
Banks: The Right Thing to Do | Bitcoin Bonanza | The Super Rich Deprive Us of Fundamental Rights | Whining for Wine |Cost of Living Not High Enough in EU | Record Levels of Currency Reserves Will Hit Hard | Internet or Splinternet | World Ready to Jump into Bed with China
Indian Inflation: Out of Control? | Greenspan Maps a Territory | Gold Rush or Just a Streak? | Obama’s Obamacare: Double Jinx | Financial Markets: Negating the Laws of Gravity |Blatant Housing-Bubble: Stating the Obvious | Let’s Downgrade S&P, Moody’s and Fitch For Once | US Still Living on Borrowed Time | (In)Direct Slavery: We’re All Guilty |
Technical Analysis: Bear Expanding Triangle | Bull Expanding Triangle | Bull Falling Wedge | Bear Rising Wedge | High & Tight Flag
»
- Pivotfarm's blog
- 11336 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
I'm puzzled...
Why would a Western orientation produce more power than an Eastern orientation if a fixed Southern exposure that collects sun all day is less than optimal? Seems as if it would be more productive in earlier part of the day as accumulated heat, which degrades efficiency, is less in the morning hours?
No maka no sense, distance is static and assuming time exposure being equally divided at 90 degerees at noon, ie. no obstructions.
It has nothing to do with that, it has to due with maximizing value of the power produced which is a reflection of the demand.....
Peak demand is in the afternoon, think AC.....
Creating electricity isn't the issue.
Managing "the load" and distributing electricity is the problem.
Storing electricity well is the issue - if this ever gets solved, this will truly change the world.
Yay! Yay! Humans are evolving! Yay! Look at how advanced we are! Yay evolution is real! Yay Progress! Yay Forward! Human Race #1!
.
Anyone ever heard of solar trackers? Geeeeez
Yes, those give 35% extra gain (max) and the system costs 3 times a traditional system. So beter invest in twice the amount. Also fail save. Disclosure: I also have a tracker.
Yes, a classic example of the diminishing returns from additional complexity...
I lived for 10 years on a boat in the Pacific on solar panels but gosh, no air conditioning. Any guesses what percentage of the world living in hot zones use air conditioning? Hint: Only fat and lazy people in developed countries need it.
Chinese strength lies with fascism and paying millions of workers shit wages. Welcome to the new world model for prosperity for the corporate elite.
howd ya do on all dose solar investments 10 years ago?
li-ion too, some e-85, hahaha...
big bro wants to run a dick up your ass too...
With advancements in nano technology expect that future solar panels will be inbedded into everything: in roofs of houses and cars, in fabric, in paint on walls, etc. For storage of electricity hydrogen can become a good carrier. There are already experimental sites in Europe an other places. The only thing that stands in the way of alternative sources of (renewable) energy to replace fossil fuels is the petrodollar...
Nano shit generally is hyper energy intensive, everything about solar manufacturing is hyper energy intensive, plus transport, installation and short lifespan under optimal conditions.
Right now hundreds of thousands of boomer dipshits are investing in higher energy costs and landfills full of solar ewaste.
You have solar fantasy syndrome.
"... Required to Power the World"
Doesn't even mention if that covers only electricity or all non-renewable energy use.
Doesn't bother with energy storage in any way.
100% pure wishful thinking and bullshit.
I emailed a U.S. solar researcher a few years ago suggesting that panels be modeled after plants.
Their leaves and branches are arranged along Fibonacci spirals to maximize solar absorption.
In addition, plants use photo-tropism to rotate leaves and stems to follow the sun.
A static flat panel that doesn't follow the sun never made sense to me.
But it is cheaper. less prone to breakdown..
As always do the math...
Looks like I wasn't the only one with the idea, middle school kid did a science project on it, increased power 25%-50%:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/19/novel-idea-arrange-solar-panels-like-nature-designed-it/
BTW, I am not denigrating your idea, only pointing out that ideas have to be demonstrated to work... That is the hard part of research...
Thanks Flakmeister; now all i need is funding ;-)
comment, there:
Steve is probably an economist, and would bury the panels underground after getting government funding, then falsify the data to claim that underground panels are the most efficient because they absorb more FED rays.
Interesting in that you can optimize the value of electricity produced, but there is more to the issue...
What if I just want the highest integrated yield to run my stuff and charge my batteries?
Yep. that and
Why would I say this, knowing I'm going to be junked...But I run a 10 acre hobby farm, with 6 solar panels. I am in the harshest climate the lower 48 has to offer. I set these up just to play with it and salvaged some used batteries...I took this farm off the grid 2 years ago. My total expense was right at 2000 dollars including a generator to run air compressors, saws, and the like....I can not believe how hood winked people have been about solar power....A storm door cost more than the panels...the charge controller, and 110 inverter is where you spend some dollars...the panels are all but free by comparison. I'll go back on the grid, when I'm too feeble to split wood. You folks feed the bear, i'm out of bear food.
You need to make up your mind (or get your story straight).
"should you ever visit here...you would never know this place was off the grid" is not compatible with "running a 10 acre hobby farm, with 6 solar panels."
How much electricity are you generating from your six panels and what is being consumed on?
Well Urban, I won't try to encourage a debate here on the correct use of the english language, but I will happily give you some numbers to consider.
This household requires 1.7 kw to operate over a 24 hour period. I heat water using my wood stove during the winter, and a passive solar collector during the summer, so that saves me a whole lot of electricity. My refrigerator is fairly small as only my daughter and I occupy the place. For refigeration, I use a NSF rated comercial refrig, and if I could afford it I would prefer a propane frige. This farmstead has a deep flowing well(artesion well) that supplies a constant flow into the residence via an underground 1' plastic supply line at a rate of 1 gallon every 71 seconds, I simply boost that supply with a 12 water pump salvaged from an old motor home to 3 gallons per minute. I use both 110v lighting system originally installed in the home, plus a 12v backup lights patched in directly to the battery for backup in case something fails in my inverter.
When the battery is low, there is a much lower internal resistance, and on a clear day, my Charge Controller(CC) reports as much as 4.5 kw imput...4.5kw *.6= 2.7 kw. so as you can see, with only 3.5 hours of direct sunlite average daily input, each day of full sun develops an excess of 1.0 kw power.
The longest test of this system happened only this month where 9 consecutive days past with heavy clouds. At the end of this nine days, I elected to run the generator for the first time since november last year. So far this month I've used exactly 1.5 gallons of gasoline in the generator, and project yet another full gallon before the month is over. My generator is a 2.5 kw honda, and will run 3 hours and 15 minutes on a full tank of fuel...the tank holds 2 qts of fuel...while the generator is in use, the batteries are being charged via standard automotive battery charger...This system is not at it's peak effeciency, however, I use about 10 gallons of fuel per year when I include various construction equipment etc.
I forgot, My washing machine is a front load Maytag neptune model. When washing clothes, I do unplug my refrig.
A couple of side notes...on a cloudy day, I usually collect about .6kw, and my battery stores 900 kw h. So with that much battery in storage, I can ignore any cloudy series of days up to about 7 without a thought, however, the battery does get a fairly deep cycle at any 7 consecutive days of no sun.
My battery is designed for 1200 deep cycles, but the amount of shallow cycles available are difficult to determine. I can only say..these used batteries will still be fairly fresh in 10 years as I only deep cycle them during the month of november. Sun comes back in december, and the effeciency during the winter months is so elevated that these 6 panels will trip my CC off, at 80 amps. So I don't really have reliable information on power output beyond 80 amps and honestly don't care...with every thing on at the same time...IE...lights, water pump, refrige, television, and box fan to circulate air in crawl space, the house requires just under 3 amps.. so 80 amps is well in excess of my demand.
In summary Urban, you may submit your dollars to any lobby group you wish. It is a free country, and I have it on good authority, these lobby groups will accept your hard earned dollars with both arms wide open...personally I don't care who's lobby group you fund, and your dollars seem to be making great policy on capitol hill so far. /sarc
In summary - Your solution doesn't scale - and you would impose your standards on everyone else regardless of the variation in circumstance, that is indicative of a wanna-be tyrant who has no idea what he is doing- i.e. Barrack Hussein Obama.
You claim to endure the harshest climate in the lower 48 (and that no one is going to notice you're off grid) yet you use no electricity for heating and cooling... the btu's have to come from somewhere. Surface water is a luxury- as the only head to overcome is the household plumbing and a 1/4 hp pump will often suffice, try having to pump water from 800 feet and check the start-up surge on a pump that can actually do that, or irrigating an actual farm. You unplug the refrigerator when running the washing machine, god forbid you try and run a clothes dryer after using the washing machine.
BTW - you don't have 900 kwh of battery storage capacity that you spent only part of your total $2000 investment on, since $2000 would buy you about 20 kwh of battery storage (new, and getting a steal on a decommissioned telecom facility's batteries isn't reproducible), and the average "inefficient" home uses about 900kwh in a month.
With a 2.5kw peak load, the menu options for simultaneous appliance usage are pretty slim:
http://energy.gov/energysaver/articles/estimating-appliance-and-home-ele...
Thank you, but I'll keep my grid (and high efficiency dual redundant backup systems), and unless you sanction genocide, I would suggest be happy with that. Because while I'm very thankful for the what I have designed and built, I recognize it is an UNaffordable luxury for most and I wouldn't impose that cost others.
Good for you....
Never understood why the Libertarians here did'nt get a big woodie for a non-localized generation of electricity...
Either they are dumb as posts, hypocrites (going for the statist backed Nuclear solution), or more likely LINOs...
Good for you.... Never understood why the Libertarians here did'nt get a big woodie for a non-localized generation of electricity... Either they are dumb as posts, hypocrites (going for the statist backed Nuclear solution), or more likely LINOs...
@Flackmeister, nail on the head! You are exactly the kind of person I came on here to meet. Human beings where I live are pretty much all zombies, regardless of their so-called politics.
Yes, Virginia, there are LINOs and the litmus test question is to ask them if they believe that their so-called liberty requires overturning Roe v. Wade. If they reply "Life is more important than liberty," then you know you're talking to what I call a fake libertarian.
I actually did exactly that the other week recently when my past (always unsuccessful) attempts to find fellow libertarians by volunteering for political campaigns led to a phone voicemail where I was asked to come to a meeting for a local candidate for office using a slogan "XXX for Liberty."
I called back at the number provided for more info and explained to a volunteer that I wanted to know more about the candidate before I would go to the meeting. Ten minutes later the candidate himself called me ... small town .. and I opened by congratulating him on getting back to me because not even a volunteer canvasser had ever called me back after I had offered to do local campaign work for a few "libertarian" candidates.
Last year at this time I wanted to support Gary Johnson in his campaign for president so I did my own campaigning by using the candidates' "lawn signs" and poking holes in the two top corners to attach a strap and carry it while riding a bicycle. And no I only rode doing a mobile sign thing for the few blocks to local college campus which also had a polling place in the student union building where I set up shop just shy of the legally mandated distance from the doors of the polling place and talked to any of the passersby, saying things like very-popular "smart people vote libertarian," ... or the much-less-apppreciated "Jesus was a libertarian."
Gary Johnson is a good guy, but his "campaign" was infested by LINOs and no they had never called me back (till that XX for Liberty yoyo) ... because I am not a member of their chummy little "libertarian" club.
If I had gone on Facebook on election day (but not earlier, because it was last-minute, per stupid) and of course NOBODY CALLED ME THROUGHOUT HIS ENTIRE "campaign" ... then and only through FB I would have known that I could have driven two miles on election night to sit in an almost totally empty hotel ballroom where there would have been plenty of time to sit and talk story with Gary himself. Because on the 10 o'clock news they showed the totally empty ballroom on live tv ... and Gary himself apparently passed up the chance to talk on local tv news because he was still there, as they reported.
Yes, I have always wondered why, on home rooftops at least, they seemed to always point the panels exactly south. Living in a city laid out on a geographic grid the houses are oriented same. So it's very easy to tell they're pointing due south.
Now I know that it's because they didn't THINK. We have plenty of Piled-higher-and-Deepers here because of all the defense work. Ahah! It's the money that makes them stupid! But whey didn't that same money make me stupid? Huh??? I worked with them and even managed them, to the extent possible at least ...
HELP! Please email me at the address embedded in my PGP public key posted under Bio here.
I'm surrounded by zombies unable to THINK.
Pretty please?
I live with two cats. One of the cats has much higher intelligence than the local "human beings," for the most part. The other cat not so much. My cats both "talk" but I'm not intelligent enough to understand their language, even after living with cats for longer than I dare say.
Please email me.
I'll be more than pleased to interact here on the boards but that is where I leave it...
Hope you understand...
BTW, I agree with your litmus test, you can add mine, "Is a corporation really a person under the 14th Amendment?"
That is the one that really gets me going as well.
BTW, the Paul's seem to think so....
ZH has many LINOs. Libertarianism is more intellectually respectable than simply wanting everything to stay the way daddy said it was, because you're an intellectual coward.
People don't like to sponsor subsidized shit which is what solar has been.
No libertarian is against solar per se. If it works without state subsidies, great.
How would you quantify the level of subsidies to the FF industry?
How about the trucking industry?
Or do you think that there are not any?
Never forget the real world : The oil lobby has been subsidised by the politicians to allow first world type consumer age; (not saying they the Majors were not innovative and knowledgeable in their accumulated knowhow); and those crony, strategic lobbying generated subsidies allowed the Seven Sisters to RAPE the world of its cheap oil resources for our and their collective benefit until it led to this HUGE malinvestment hole due to hubris; as it always does at any given tipping point in any human construct; all under the US MIC gun. So those subsidies took two forms; tax breaks at home and political arm pulling in third world, like Mossadegh removal and Lumumba assassination etc. , allowing the Majors to then step into "sterilised" nations and impose their own price structures to exploit local resources on cowered political puppets like true Oligarchs.
So...if subsidising the oil sector in the past, by promoting its Oligarchy structure to revv up world oil resources under PAX Americana Saud handshake and what followed, was not a huge LONG RANGE civilization play all based on cheap oil feeding the now fast receding US golden age, then you are right : subsidising solar, allowing Moore's Law to take us down the curve (flat panelled or Fibonaccied, is just a detail) could save the world from Armageddon when fossil peaking and collateral polluting becomes noose of civilization's strangulation.
Your dogmatic, theoretically motivated, short term reasoning is not substantiated by human power plays; thats history.
I suspect some libertarians are just pissed off neo cons, now wallowing in their own frustration. As I have already posted the Libertarians in general correspond to 4 groups since the age of conservatie thinking in US became prominent with GOLDWATER'S appearance on the political stage, post November 22 1963 cataclysm in free world elitist thinking : evangelical deniers, anarchical free market zealots, frustrated neo cons (Dulles Bros and CIA breed) and predatory Oligarchs dressed in sheep's clothing (jaded Rockafella and new Koch circles). Take your pick.
People who don't like to sponsor subsidized "shit" should probably pack up and get lost somewhere in North Korea
The rest of us will gladly pay taxes so that we won't have to build our own roads or be our own doctor.
"China plans to produce 21 gigawatts by 2015 from solar power."
21 gigawatt of panels does not translate into 21 gigawatts of electricity.
1. Doesnt work at night or in low light conditions (overcast or even covered in snow or dust) On a yearly average most locations only provide 5.5 Hours of 100% output do to weather daylight hours, etc.
2. Only process rate when the sun is perpendital to to panel and the in optional temperatures (derate by 15% in summer heat)
3. Degrades over time. Most panels accept for expensive monocrystal panels degrate by 2% to 8% per year
4. You need a very large army of people armed with swegees to contantly clean the panels as dirty will degrade them
5. Need lots and lots of power conversion electronics to convert the power output effieciently (ie MPPT)
Solar will never replace fossil fuels for electricity.
"China plans to produce 21 gigawatts by 2015 from solar power."
21 gigawatt of panels does not translate into 21 gigawatts of electricity.
Here you have two statements...either the power they intend to produce, or the mathmatically possible number of panels it would take to produce the raw power.
Panels don't loose effeciency...are just use up a lot of what they produce to create common house hold current, way more if you intend to store it in a battery. Output *.6 to be exact.
I am strictly solar here on this small farm. I am just staggered when I read posts like the one above.people continue to ignore this technolegy not sure why, but none of the reasons above are accurate. I don't make enough income to pay an electric bill. My ROI was 500 dollars the very first year by building a lot of it myself, and salvageing things from an old motor home. should you ever visit here...you would never know this place was off the grid.
I know I'm going to get junked, but damn you guys...some one is parroting the coal lobby. There is a great way to get screwed by using panels....get a government grant...or use a grid tie system...and worse still, credit and forget it. 14 stadiums, UPS, HP, and countless huge companies have switched to panels...Walmart has even jumped on board...in my view, it's the best kept secret...but only in amerika.
I'm not junking you AGUY...but wow.
"Here you have two statements...either the power they intend to produce, or the mathmatically possible number of panels"
Your not getting it. Its like your car says its gets 41 MPG on the sticker. But that's in a lab on a closed level track and driven to maximize MPG. Its not a real world conditions. A panel will only produce its sticker value in full direct sunlight which only occurs in perfect weather with the panel pointing in the optimal direction. Let me ask you this: What is the power output of your panel night? Does it produce 100% of its rating? I bet produces Zero! What about its power output when its overcast or raining? Is Does it also produce 100% of its power output? What about power output at sunrise or sunset? 100% there too? Do you get 100% of your PV power output 24/7/365?
People think that 21 GW of panels will replace 21 GW of fossil Power plants. It will NOT! The sun does not shine 7/24/365. A Fossil Power plan will produce 100% of its rating 24/7/365 no matter if its pitch black, snowing, or raining.
In order to replace 21 GW of Fossil power, They would need to build 12 to 16 times the panel rating depending on where the panels are installed (due to weather and lattitude). At night there is no power being generated and they need to charge and store all of the power needed at night to accomidate demand. They also need extra capacity to address overcast (which can happen for several consectived days). The list of technical issues goes on and on.
"Panels don't loose effeciency"
Of course they loose efficiency! If they get too hot the produce less power (about 10%) and over time the dopients used to form the N and P sections migrate. Thermal cycling causes micro cracks in the silicon to cause them to loose efficiency over time. This is especially true with Thin film and polycrystalline panels. Google it!
http://www.cleanenergyauthority.com/solar-energy-resources/heat-and-pv
I am stagged by the amount of people that post things they think they are experts when they don't know the first thing! Its like the guy the buys and uses a computer and think he knows every thing about computers when he probably doesn't know the difference between a data bus and an address bus. Ugh! Just because you own a PV system does not make you an expert!
"14 stadiums, UPS, HP, and countless huge companies have switched to panels"
its A PR stunt and they only do it for the tax credits. UPS, HP, and Walmart are still very much reliant on the grid for power. Even the PV Solar factories are all grid connected because they need ultra-reliable power to process the sillicon. If they lose power or have a voltage dip the whole line has to be shutdown and reset which can take days and cost them big $$$. Stadiums and Night games or events? Sure I am sure they are Solar powered at night! Good Grief Charlie Brown!
Everything that works in parallel with nature will work best. TPTB have a problem with that as the answer is very simple, usually available to all and uncuffs us from the "matrix" and blows holes in many of their horseshit structures.
Those that believe solar energy will not work in the future are loopy. As our understanding to harness the power we have around us finally catches up, we will realize we have abundant, clean energy all around us. The question is simply: Will this technology will be allowed to evolve or will it be obfuscated and purposely tripped up so as to appear unable to cover our needs?
Good work
I always find this amusing. A few minor imagined difficulties with solar and "its impossible". But the difficulties of fracking or going miles under the sea for energy are ignored.
I see plenty of panels on roofs around here, never enough dust to matter, rain cleans them periodically.
Eventually storage will be an issue, but will only become major after solar output exceeds peak load. Meanwhile every watt of solar produced is a watt of peak load power that doesn't come from fossil fuels.
Power conversion electronics, cheap.
Prices go on Amazon and look for youself:
Solar panels a little over 50 cents a watt.
Grid tie microinverters a little over 30 cents a watt.
80 cents per watt in good sunlight, take your 5.5 hours a day, thats around $4/average watt for panels and inverters.
This already is cheaper than the capital costs of mosts forms of fossil fuel plants, not counting fuel, just the cost of the plant.
If solar continues to plummet in price it won't be long till it will be cheaper than any fossil fuel plant you can build, again not even counting the fuel cost.
You think FFs will last forever or that we destroy ourselves before they run out?
FM are you saying that free people are somehow obliged to save fossil fuels?
What other obligations exist that we didn't know about?
How did you come up with the above chestnut? It is a very impressive Non Sequitur...
PV solar panels will be entirely and totally zapped by EMP. Turned in to giant awnings and sunshades. Only good for whatever scrap aluminum or copper that can be salvaged.
An EMP would also most likely destroy any systems controlling coal, gas and nuclear power generation plants. That will be fun to deal with.
If there were an EMP event, powerful enough to wipe out solar panels, you will have much bigger problems to worry about..the panel replacement is cheaper than a storm door per unit. Just replace them...the expensive stuff is not the panels. I would say your battery is the spendy part.
Since solar energy was "only" 6.5 times as expensive to produce electricty as natural gas, the number is down to a mere 400% as expensive is pointing west. Thje bottom line is that it was alsways a crony scam