A carbon neutral big island?

[JWFITZ]

In terms of the solar, that fleshes things out a bit, Kapohocat. You're using at least 3 times the power they are. If you assume that the array makes 1 kw for 10 hours a day, which it doesn't, but lets assume, and there's no clouds in the sky at all for a year, the maximum that array can generate is 1kw x 10 hours a day, x 365 days. Which is 3650kwh, which at this moment will cost you 1642 bucks a year in electricity. In my experience, you better figure that you'll get half the rated power of the array, but whatever. You're using vastly more power. You can't compare "running a house" as there's lots of ways to run a house. The cheapest greenest way to go is to be on the grid and live like you run on solar. They have a very expensive, very large array, but they are also going out of their way to use very little power. Their power is costing twice to three times yours at least. That's their choice, I disagree as it's mostly a feel good thing, but that's their choice.

There's nothing wrong with solar panels in principle. The question is simply whether they're efficient, green, and benign. And the answer is no, at this level of technology. It is extremely fuel intensive to manufacture solar panels, and the reason most of the best panels are built in Europe is because they are very heavily subsidized to minimize manufacturing costs. It's questionable whether a solar panel will ever generate enough power to make up for what it cost in BTU's to manufacture the thing. It all looks good, but the carbon footprint is probably 5 times that of just running a generator.

I'm not being deliberately negative. The key isn't technology, it's lifestyle. The one and only answer we have is to live vastly less consumptively. There is no technology remotely imaginable that will perpetrate the livestyles we now possess.