The California Desert Is Now Home to the World’s Largest Solar-Power Plant

For isolated traffic signs that need illumination at night or other hard to reach places sure. But if you have access to the grid they make almost no sense for the vast majority of homes. The guy who was tauting his lives in THE MOST sunlight intense area of the country and is paying about double the national rate for grid power. Still he refused to give the details such as how much power his panels produce, he has friggen 42 of them most installs are in the 20's. Claims the added cost did not add to his insurance, a $20,000 increase in the cost of the home and I wonder about the rest of his figures. And then of course the cost shifting.

As is true with most.

And with windmills the noise factor plays heavy into it. Heck I know sailors who will not anchor next to other boats with the little wind driven electric generators because of the noise they produce.

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Yes when you are talking about major projects and plants that require capital to build and maintain what other profit do you want to talk about?

 

Anything that can be beneficial to mankind can be considered a profitable return on an investment. Looking solely for monetary profits often leads to developmental hindrances that result in a general loss for innovation.

 

Well that sounds nice, but using the measure of "profit" brings in an entire text on an endeavors value as it relates and competes against other innovations. Profit is not only the measure of worth but of waste. Profit motive forces competition and a focus on productivity and waste. Remove "profit" and market influence, and effort, wealth, productivity and quality of life will be negatively impacted.

The free market is a good determiner of real value and what people value. Remove the market, as many government programs wish to do, and more often than not the program or intended result fails or isn't met. These failures cost more, squander more wealth, than the perceived negatives they intend to address. That's time, effort and wealth that would've been better allocated by the free market.

Cheers
Labour

 

Yes, it does sound very nice, and while monetary profit is usually a good indicator of real value and has a positive impact on life, it sometimes has the opposite effect. Google the current state of antibiotics research if you want a real-world example.