[citation][nom]whysobluepandabear[/nom]While we're on the topic of electricity, I find it amazing that we have this insane, free energy source, known as the Sun, that we never take advantage of.Yeah, that giant fusion reaction burning ball gives us 100% free and clean energy. You pay a lot upfront for the infrastructure, but in the very near future you recoup those costs. And for some reason, I doubt mining coal, paying workers and running plants somehow is more cost effective. Maybe short term, but definitely not long term. P.s. I live in Vegas. We have like what, 330 days out of the year of pure sunshine. Load up Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, parts of California, Texas and etc....and well....you could seriously just have grids of panels that could power the whole country. Believe it or not, I'm really not a hippie - I just think it's crazy we haven't immediately jumped on the Suns energy by now. From a business prospective, it looks very promising and lucrative.[/citation]
power companies are a legal monopoly. they cant charge to much, and they cant expand the same way other businesses are allowed to.
solar power is also highly inefficient, extremely costly, and counter productive to say the least, at least, at this time.
to realy take advantage of solar you need pannels that will last a long time, but the problem is, right now, you will never recup the costs of the pannels, and they are mostly a feel good power source.
acutual power plants with solar, are giant facilities and cant produce much power, but in desert areas, it would be a fairly good solution, but they are expenisve.
what we need are nuclear power plants. we have methods to store the spent rods forever, but it wont be online till 2015, we have FAR more efficiat reactors, but sadly, anti nuclear power people won... and no new reactors. what we do have is coal power plants which kill more each year than any nuclear disaster to date (non weaponized)