Solar shingles, Part 2...

Yesterday I was mulling over the economics of powering my house with photovoltaic shingles on my roof. Such shingles do exist, they're looking more and more like regular shingles, and the costs have come down in recent years and months. But they're not quite ready for my roof, After googling a lot of  possibilities, it seems it would require too many shingles for my 1,800kwh monthly need, or they're too expensive or they don't really look like shingles.

So I checked out the decent looking solar panels offered by OkSolar (OkSolar.com). They have a model that puts out 580 kwh under average conditions (which means something different in Phoenix than it does in Boston, of course), so I would need three of these particular panels for my house. They cost $17,996 apiece, let's call it $18,000.  So for $54,000, my roof could be my power plant.

That's not as bad as I thought it would be. At 17 cents per kwh - which is where my light bill is headed - the system would pay for itself in 15 years. State and federal energy tax credits, dealer incentives and other factors would no doubt bring the cost down.

That's close to the five-year payoff I would need to convince me to install a solar system, but it's not close enough. Our current occupant wants the country to move towards energy self-sufficiency.  That goal might be as close as our roofs, and could justify the expense and national focus of a Manhattan-style project.

Ethanol is not the culprit in high food prices, according to a telephone gathering last week of prominent farm groups.  Officials from the American Farm Bureau, National Farmers Union, National Corn Growers Association and Growth Energy pretty much agreed that supermarket prices remained high while commodity prices were shrinking. High energy prices and an army of middlemen between farmers and retailers were cited during the teleconference. Special Sections Editor CharleneShupp Esbenshade reports of the conference in the current issue of Lancaster Farming.

How does your garden sound? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpfYt7vRHuY