Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Well, the man who has made billions with a “b” by sponging off of your taxpayer dollars, the man you can always find face-down at the government trough, is at it again.
Elon Musk now says that his whiz-bang glass solar roofing shingles will be, get this, cheaper than a “normal” roof, viz:
Musk told the crowd that he had just returned from a meeting with his new solar engineering team. Tesla’s new solar roof product, he proclaimed, will actually cost less to manufacture and install than a traditional roof—even before savings from the power bill. “Electricity,” Musk said, “is just a bonus.”
If Musk’s claims prove true, this could be a real turning point in the evolution of solar power. The rooftop shingles he unveiled just a few weeks ago are something to behold: They’re made of textured glass and are virtually indistinguishable from high-end roofing products. They also transform light into power for your home and your electric car.
“So the basic proposition will be: Would you like a roof that looks better than a normal roof, lasts twice as long, costs less and—by the way—generates electricity?” Musk said. “Why would you get anything else?”
Make no mistake: The new shingles will still be a premium product, at least when they first roll out. The terra cotta and slate roofs Tesla mimicked are among the most expensive roofing materials on the market—costing as much as 20 times more than cheap asphalt shingles.
Much of the cost savings Musk is anticipating comes from shipping the materials. Traditional roofing materials are brittle, heavy, and bulky. Shipping costs are high, as is the quantity lost to breakage. The new tempered-glass roof tiles, engineered in Tesla’s new automotive and solar glass division, weigh as little as a fifth of current products and are considerably easier to ship, Musk said.
First off, glass is heavy. I’m not buying for one minute that they would be cheaper to ship than asphalt shingles, for example. And I can guarantee you that the “quantity lost to breakage” will be greater than with asphalt shingles. If our cell phones have taught us anything, it is that even the toughest “Gorilla Glass” is still … well … glass. So the first conclusion is that for Elon, a “normal” roof is either slate or terra-cotta tile … hey, he’s one of the elite, cut him some slack, he likely hasn’t lived in a house with an asphalt shingle roof or an aluminum roof in a while …
Will Elon’s roof be lighter than terracotta? Perhaps … but at this point we only have his word. But in any case, I greatly doubt that the largest cost of a slate roof is shipping … digging the slate out of the ground is a major cost.
Next, he’s conveniently omitted the cost of the batteries you’d need to make the system work, as well as the inverter. His 14KWhr “BerlinWall” batteries, or whatever they’re called, are far from cheap at $5,500 a pop … even if you can get by with only one battery, it is still more expensive by itself than a 40-year asphalt shingle roof. And if he is worried about breakage when shipping terra-cotta, shipping those babies won’t be either cheap or easy.
Also, he’s blowing smoke about lifetime. An asphalt shingle roof replacement will last forty years and cost something like $3.80 per square foot. A slate roof replacement will cost about five times that. Musk is claiming his solar panels will last longer than slate??? … how on earth would he even know if that were true? And what lasts longer than slate, it’s freakin’ stone, for heaven’s sake.
Next, firemen hate rooftop solar for a good reason. Think about having to punch a hole into a roof to get inside when the rest of the house is on fire … you do NOT want to be punching through glass solar panels hooked up to an inverter and a giant battery. In fact, if such a house is on fire, the battery is both a toxic hazard and an explosive hazard, while the roof is a no-go zone …
And because that is the case, your insurance costs will go up, something you’d never even consider with a normal roof.
Next, these solar shingles will be much more difficult to install, and thus much costlier, than a regular roof, involving electricians, special installers, and other high-priced folks.
Finally, the cost of solar panels has fallen to where it is now about a buck a watt, which works out to about $15 per square foot just for the panel itself. This raw material cost is more than the INSTALLED cost for slate roofing. And while Musk might reduce that, I’d be shocked if he cut it much. In fact, if Musk could reduce the square-foot cost of solar panels, why is he not making panels themselves with his new glass technology? I leave the answer to the reader.
Net result? It’s the usual story. When Musk’s lips are moving he either counting how much money he has screwed out of the American public, or he’s lying about his upcoming products … the only good news is that with the new Administration, we can only hope that his long gravy-train ride is over.
However, he is a very, very smart man, so I wouldn’t be surprised to find him cozening the public out of yet more money before he runs out of suckers. Nobody ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the American greenoisie, and Musk has made a science out of playing to their worst fears.
Finally, do electric cars have an economically viable role to play in our transportation system? My answer, which may surprise some, is yes, quite possibly … but we should not make some guy insanely wealthy by subsidizing sparky cars which are NOT economically viable. If Musk is so damn smart, then let him prove it in the marketplace like anyone else. The government should not be in the business of supporting one solution over the other, no matter how wonderful the government’s intentions are, no matter if they are liberal or conservative, no matter what good outcome they blithely predict.
The solution is simple, and might even start soon. It is to
STOP SUBSIDIZING INEFFICIENT TECHNOLOGIES THAT ARE NOT READY FOR MARKET!!
Regards to all,
w.
My Usual Request: Misunderstandings start easily and can last forever. I politely request that commenters QUOTE THE EXACT WORDS YOU DISAGREE WITH, so we can all understand your objection.
My Second Request: Please do not stop after merely claiming I’m using the wrong dataset or the wrong method. I may well be wrong, but such observations are not meaningful until you add a link to the proper dataset or an explanation of the right method.
The Math: At present, Musk has received $4.9 billion dollars in taxpayer subsidies. In return he has delivered cars that are so expensive that the wealthy buyers of such cars get their own personal subsidy in the form of a tax deductions.
At this point, are we supposed to say “Thanks, Elon”?
Meanwhile, in the developing world, WWFA says a village-sized water well costs about $8,000 to put in … so the money we’ve wasted on Musk and his sparky cars would buy clean water wells for more than half a million developing communities.
I doubt that folks in those communities would say “Thanks, Elon” if they knew about that Faustian bargain …
Willis writes
The output from solar panels is low voltage. The inverter turns it into high voltage AC but not on the “roof side”. Are you sure its actually a “good” reason?
Also
There is a certain amount of irony here. Musk’s billions of “taxpayer money” seems to be almost entirely tax credits. That means he’s not paying tax…for the moment. One might ask who really is at the trough here because it seems to me that until Musk’s companies are profitable, he’s simply not filling it for others.
your point about low voltage is entirely valid, sir. thanks for thinking.
but musk’s subsidies are not all tax credits is the sense you describe:
” $195 million in transferable tax credits – which Tesla could sell for cash.”
“selling “carbon credits” to real car companies”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-05-07/king-crony-capitalism
Carbon credits aren’t Musk’s doing, he’s just one of many taking advantage of them. Just because they can be sold, doesn’t mean he’s going to sell out for a quick profit. Elon strikes me as someone who is it in for the long haul. He could retire very comfortably right now if he wanted…he’s a driven visionary and I have a lot of respect for the man.
tim-
i saw what part of ‘subsidy’ you failed to understand and i gave you some information to help you out.
i won’t bother if you are determined to give me earfinger lala over it.
Perhaps you could point out the specific part you think I misunderstand?
nope. not worth it.
gnomis, Tim believes that because delivery costs are less in the US, that therefore we are being subsidized by the energy companies.
The output from solar panels is low voltage.
The output from individual cells is low, but the cells in panels are connected in series, and the panels themselves may also be in series. We are enjoying a splendid sunset at the moment, and my solar output has dropped to zero watts, but the pv voltage still reads 196 volts. Believe me, when the sun is up, it is plenty more than that.
juan– if that is so, then what kind of batteries are they charging?
and where in this scheme is there an inverter and why?
Fair enough…but putting them in series is not a necessary feature of Solar Panels. Battery backed ones tend to use low voltage parallel configurations and ultimately we’ll need battery backing to stabilize the grid and optimize generation efficiency at coal fired (for example) power stations.
Hi gnomish
The inverter takes the DC output of the panels and converts it to AC to feed it into the power grid. We commonly refer to house current as 110 or 220 volts, but that’s RMS measurement; peak voltages are considerably higher. (Think 160 for your wall plugs.) Like most grid connections, I have no batteries. Though I hope some day there will be practical batteries that will let me disconnect from the grid entirely. It’s clear that Mr. Musk hasn’t got a solution for that.
Our local code requires a panel disconnect that is accessible from outside the house. But that only protects the utility workers–that high voltage is still there on the roof and in the conduits down to the inverter. So, out of consideration for the firefighters, we only allow fires at night, when the panels are inactive. : > )
He does, though.
https://naturalsolar.com.au/tesla-powerwall-2/
Tim,
He maybe thinks he does. I don’t think his power wall comes close to making economic sense. Seems to me somebody (maybe Willis?) took it apart on WUWT no too long ago.
Willis’ analysis was based on current prices of Li-ion batteries. Musk is addressing that one too with his largely automated mega factory that will double the worlds Li battery manufacturing capability. PV panel prices have dropped to the point where they’re becoming viable now. I’d expect the battery price to come down too.
tnx, juan.
i’m wondering if, with battery storage, those cells get connected in series up to line voltage (which consequent lower current) only to be inverted and transformed downward to charge the batteries, you see.
or would they be run at a lower voltage and higher current to charge the batteries and then inverted and transformed to line voltage.
gnomish
Gotta confess I don’t know zip about the power conditioning strategies of battery systems. I could speculate, but there are likely readers here who are well informed. Maybe Willis….?
In fact, there are regions in Nevada, for example the near-ghost town of Silver Peak, where the primary remaining industry was lithium extraction from wells in a deep playa accumulation. Ironically, despite the abundance of the element locally, for some reason, they could not produce it economically enough to keep the town alive. When I was there the bars were shutting down from lack of customers.
Timthe Toolman, “Have you ever touched a car battery’s terminals? Plenty of energy and current potential there…”
Yeah. Now consider a 3.6kw system. At 12v volts that is 300 Amps continuous. A short circuit current would be much higher.
lee writes
No you still need a higher voltage for electrocution. Are you familiar with the relevant simple formula I=V/R for DC? V is 12, R is determined by the resistance of the skin, gloves, whatever …basically its another constant in this case and from that you derive I, the current, and its approximately the same for a “3.6kW” Solar system at 12V as it is for a car battery at 12V.
“Are you familiar with the relevant simple formula I=V/R for DC? V is 12, ”
How do you think I calculated 300 Amps? 😉
Actually I used I=P/E
300A wont flow unless R is sufficiently low…and its not. As I said, there is plenty of power available in a car battery to kill if that were possible. A shorted car battery is capable of delivering way more than 300A
Here is a paper where they tested that and one result was 5450A
http://www.battcon.com/papersfinal2003/korinekpaperfinal2003.pdf
So just for a test, I used my trusty multimeter to work out from thumb to thumb I have a resistance of about 2.6Mohm, that’s across my heart and the kind of path I might make that might kill me…so that means for 12V I can expect about 4.5uW current. Not much at all.
I’d say from hand to foot would have a considerably higher resistance.
As you can see from this reference…
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2000/JackHsu.shtml
You need orders of magnitude more DC current to kill.
Timthe Toolman, “I used my trusty multimeter”
Generally 9v. Did you try it after thoroughly wetting your hands? The resistance will be lower.
Thank you for the reference-
“Currents of approximately 0.2 A are potentially fatal, because they can make the heart fibrillate, or beat in an uncontrolled manner.”
4.5uW of current? Did you mean uA(mps).
Did you mean uA(mps).
Yes. And I had moist hands and furthermore pushed the pointy ends of the leads into my skin. It was about as good a connection as one could reasonably expect to achieve.
Well less than the 0.2A needed…and that’s why 12V is safe.
TimtheToolman, “The output from solar panels is low voltage. ”
Yep and of course high current. Now how does a welder work?
The risk of electrocution is much greater at high voltages.
And it is the current that kills. Firefighters – Hot, sweaty- low skin resistance.
….wearing protective gear… 12V systems are not going to kill you, full stop. Have you ever touched a car battery’s terminals? Plenty of energy and current potential there… Similarly for 24V systems and its only 48V systems that will be at all dangerous and even then you’d have to be unlucky!
The fireman is on the roof of a burning building. Its not like he’s not doing something very risky!
TimTheToolMan
November 19, 2016 at 8:48 pm
Sorry answered up thread.
BTW- Firefighters protective gear is leather gloves. Often soaked leather gloves.
I used to run a broken (leaking) bottle-washer at 24V, and the entire electrical part was continually flooded with water. It worked fine, and there was no risk of electrocution. It eventually failed, only due to corrosion.
I can up the ante on this discussion about DC power. I have personally put my hands on bus bars coming off a 48V telephone exchange battery capable of 4800A and I am still here typing. Problems do arise from dropping spanners or aluminium ladders across them , most spectacular.
As a friend of min used to say: “It’s the volts that jolt and the mills that killl!”
With a dry body impedance of more than 2Mohms there’s not much risk, standing soaking wet in a puddle of water different situation.
Most grid-tie inverters have no transformer, so the DC input voltage needs to be greater than the 240 Volt AC output. This one, for example https://www.solar-electric.com/lib/wind-sun/SB6-11TLUS-12-specs.pdf Has a maximum 600 Volt DC input. The roof cells are wired in series to get these high voltages. The purpose of the cutoff switch is to protect the power company lineman who is working to restore grid power in an emergency and does not want some residence to energize the lines he is working on. So even if the cutoff switch is open, a fireman could encounter up to 600 V on the house roof.
Your point about low voltage is entirely incorrect. Each panel has an array of cells arranged in series. And panels are arranged in series. Series to increase voltage to reduce losses elsewhere.
Sure a photocell is only a few hundred millivolts, but a hundred in series is not. A typical panel is 12-24V output, and ten of those in series is 120-240V on a fine hot day..and that is enough to kill and burn easily.
Fireman now understand that, and should come equipped with wire cutters to isolate the panels one from another.
If there is not some other way to achieve this.
PS: The time it takes the fireman to safely deactivate your solar panels, is time that the fire is getting bigger and destroying more of your stuff.
yes good reason, high current DC is dangerous. Also all solar installations are not the same, mine is micro invertor based at the panels so 240V starts on the roof
DC is more dangerous than AC. With AC, there’s a zero cross over 120 times a second, this makes it easier to break an arc. New regulations require active monitoring for arcs on panels as well as positive disconnect features for when an arc is detected.
For someone who pretends to know a lot about solar, you sure don’t know much about solar.
The output of individual cells is low, but the cells are always mounted in series to produce much higher voltages. For some types of panels, up to 5kVDC.
Musk will save the government plenty with his reuseable rockets and competition. Look at the boondoggle Space Shuttle turned out to be!
Sounds like Mr. Musk is using tech similar to what DOW developed years ago. I remember talking to some DOW folks about solar roof shingles, when they were still a new idea, years ago.
You can add that the roof structure in most shingle roofed houses would need to be beefed up to support the far greater weight of tiles. Yet another Elron fantasy to sucker in the gullible, as usual.
We welcome all supplicants with open arms to the Church of Elontology
Now please join us for The Musk Prayer
Our saviour who sleeps in Freemont
Elon be thy name
On conference calls
Thy tell us tales
of profits that are non-GAAP
Tweet us this day our daily hype
and forgive those with bearishness
as we forgive thee for diluting thy stock
And lead us not into profitability
but deliver SolarCity more capital
For Tesla is the future
of the auto and for energy
until institutions sell out
Then Chapter Seven
a roof built for terra cotta tiles is skip-sheeted
http://brazilqualityroofing.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/skip-sheeting-300×225.jpg
terra cotta is framed differently than shingle or slate roof and it is cheaper than plywood.
the cost of the framing is irrelevant.
Those rafters look awfully small for a terra cotta roof …and the spacing dimension is ??
i fukt up, bob.
skip sheeting is for shakes, not tiles.
sorry.
http://wiki.auroville.org.in/w/images/thumb/6/66/Wrtc4.jpg/380px-Wrtc4.jpg
http://wiki.auroville.org.in/w/images/thumb/0/00/Wrtc.jpg/213px-Wrtc.jpg
http://www.inclineroofing.com/images/tile-roof-installation.jpg
this is possible when the roof slope is steep- the load is not the same as on a horizontal member
this is the usual way for lower pitch tiled roof.
http://inspectapedia.com/roof/Phoenix_103_2010_DJFs.jpg
Thanks , gnomish . Makes sense now . 8<))
BTW that framing is the same that was used for standard 3 tab shingles up until the 1950’s also. The original part of my house, built in 1943, has those 3/4″ x 4″ slats. And no, it never had a tile roof.
Skip sheeting is obsolete. Its purpose was to prolong the life of shakes by cooling and drying them from underneath. If you try to get a permit to reroof a skip sheeted house they will make you put plywood over the skip as a structural diaphragm and furr up like another picture.
Musk’s own house looks great with his “slate” and so would mine. His dormers required a lot more cuts that the simple gables his shingles are usually shown on. My asphalt is 35 years old and a nightmare of hips and valleys. Nevertheless, I would use his slate if 1) they were for sale, 2) the cuts could be done, and 3) I could figure out how to wire several thousand of them together reliably.
gnomish, for terra-cotta you need twice as many trusses, at least, plus the trusses have more internal bracing. The cost of a roof structure to support terra-cotta is usually about twice what it is for asphalt. Plus you lose the ability to store stuff in the attic, since it’s full of trusses now.
Tesla shows a profit if you back out the R&D, that includes his battery plant in Nevada. http://interestingengineering.com/video/get-glimpse-teslas-impressive-gigafactory/
Note:three stories high!
Good post Willis, electric cars would certainly be contributors to our transportation needs in the personal transport department if the US had kept on track to build and and bring on line ever more advanced nuclear power. The regulatory mission of the NRC is going to need a good old fashioned house cleaning in order to get that rolling again. There is no substitute for a robust power grid for rapid economic advance.
“Stop subsidizing inefficient technologies…”
Wrong. Stop subsidizing anything.
Capitalism is a subsidy to build something that one hopes will provide future returns.
So no, dont ‘stop subsidizing anything’. However the role of the State in subsidy is a different matter. Arguably the state should not subsidize anything.
you’re not the only one here who has made up his own language, i see.
pray, what do you mean by capitalism and what do you mean by subsidy?
if i go by the dictionary, your statement makes no sense at all…
The folks in River City have their marching band, their monorail…and now they’re ready for a visit from Elon Musk.
Somebody buy him a chequered suit and bow tie so he can really look the part. (He, er, doesn’t buy stuff himself. He has certain principles.)
What an article. Regarding “billions with a “b” by sponging off of your taxpayer dollars” do you have source? According to Bloomberg they’ve paid off their loan, has Ford and Nissan? In which case, is it a valid argument?
So, next, what subsidises are you talking about? the gigafactory? In which case many cities tempt businesses by offering less-tax-payable, in which case, not really a loss, more like less gain – but balanced by local construction, local jobs etc etc, this is a frequently used mechanism.
So I agree that subsidies for any businesses are bad – but loans – that will hopefully be paid back, I’m less worried about them.
Now, the tiles, your worry is “First off, glass is heavy” and thus worry about shipping. But in your quoted article Musk is specifically paraphrased as saying ‘…weigh as little as a fifth of current products…’ seems like a bit of a saving there. There’s also a material test involving traditional vs tesla roofing. It seems to hold up OK.
Your entire article seems to be a little to fervent……
Cassandra, I discussed the source and the full details of the money upthread.
And yes, Musk says that they weigh “as little as a fifth of the current products”. I showed that he is talking about slate, and discussed the weight of slate and the shipping costs. My point is clear—weighing a fifth of slate will save very little money in shipping costs compared to say asphalt shingles or aluminum roofing.
And yes, from your perspective I’m too fervent. From my perspective, however, most folks aren’t fervent enough about smooth-talking green-spouting charmers bellying up to the public trough.
w.
Cassandra says: “According to Bloomberg they’ve paid off their loan, has Ford and Nissan? In which case, is it a valid argument?” Ford never got a federal loan. They weathered the business downturn by selling off their interest in Mazda and their ownership of Jaguar and Volvo. As for Nissan, they are not a U.S. company and received no loan.
oooof.
What’s really sad, is that he actually believes those are the only subsidies. PS, if they paid normal interest on the loans, than it wasn’t much of a subsidy.
But here’s what the installed costs look like for the roughly 3,000 square feet of roofing needed to cover an average size home in the U.S.
Clay Tile: $16,000
Asphalt: $20,000
Slate: $45,000
http://www.consumerreports.org/roofing/heres-how-much-teslas-new-solar-roof-shingles-could-cost/
I just had about 25 squares of architectural asphalt shingle roof installed on a house for under $300/Square. For 3000 SF, it would be $9,000. I don’t know where Consumer Reports is getting its number from.
$275 a square for a weekend warrior or storm chaser who works without any liability insurance and does not have any worker’s comp or pay taxes.
up to $750 per square for a fully warrantied job completed by a high-end exterior remodeling company.
Gnomish…
Nope…a real contractor with liability insurance and everything (I live in RI). The labor part of it was about $55 a square. New roof…no rip off. It is a good price, I know, but not some weekend warrior.
I have extensive experience with this stuff. This was a good price but not ridiculously low.
please excuse my laziness to make such generalizations.
having the experience of first hand information in st louis, houston, los angeles and seattle as well as your present home, would you say your anecdote represents an average that would be useful for consumer reports magazine to use in to estimate job cost for someone in another location?
Thanks for the link, Gnomish. From their article:
Spending $70,000 to $100,000 on a freakin’ roof? This is the solution to our energy problems? And how does this accord with Musk’s claim that you pay for the roof and the electricity is free?
w.
$70,000 to $100,000 doesn’t even show up on the bell-curve (this chart is just asphalt shingles – double for steel – triple for slate..
http://www.kompareit.com/images/cost-roof-installation.jpg
Willis…you are exactly right. This whole thing about these tiles being “cheap” or something is just plain absurd.
Maybe they could warranty the structure for 100 years. However, long before that 100 years is up, those panels won’t be producing any electricity at all.
Normal panels are warrantied for 40 years or less, and experience has shown that they wear out a lot faster than that.
Even though slate is the most expensive, after 100 years all you have to do is renew the nails and you get another 100 years at the cost of nails and labour.
John Hardy November 19, 2016 at 4:27 pm Edit
John, just for future objections, it’s “bigoted”, not “bigotted”. In any case, thanks for the article. However, you didn’t follow it through to the actual analysis itself.
Their main objections are “but that subsidy is not to Tesla, it’s to the whole electric car industry” or “it’s not a subsidy, it’s a tax break” … I’m sorry, John, but none of their objections convert a subsidy into a non-subsidy. It’s all money out of the taxpayer’s pocket.
The funniest part is that you seem to think that pointing out that an entire industry is eating at the government trough means that Musk is not getting a subsidy … all that proves is that he’s not the only one getting a subsidy, and that makes it worse, not better.
They also make the hilarious claim that for half a billion of the money,
John, they appear not to have noticed, but you must know, that such taxes on manufacturers are directly passed on to the consumer in the form of increased vehicle prices. OK, so it’s not the taxpayers in this case being ripped off to make Musk rich, it’s the consumers of automobiles, which is like … all of us. So it is just another damn subsidy, except in this case it is consumers rather than taxpayers who is paying the bill.
If those are the only objections to the LA Times article, I’m sorry, but I’m going with the LA Times reporters over some blogger’s weak objections that it’s tax breaks and not subsidies and besides everyone’s doing it …
w.
Willis writes
No its not. Its a reduction of tax income to the government which could impact a government’s ability to provide services but the US government has an enormous number of places where it could cut its spending and have orders of magnitude greater impact than EV tax subsidies.
Is TimTheToolMan a Musk investor?
No. Nor do I own a Tesla.
I do, however support our move towards renewable energy and electric cars and align with Musk’s vision. I dont believe AGW is going to be catastrophic and think the immediate benefits of CO2 outweigh the possible future risks and am not opposed to using fossil fuels for as long as it takes to make the transition. I also dont believe we need to aggressively transition but I do believe we need incentives to make it happen because we need to be heading there.
TimTheToolMan November 19, 2016 at 8:34 pm
Unfortunately, what you are really saying is:
Tim, I fear your judgement on where we “need to be heading” is not sufficient justification for taking my hard-earned retirement money out of my pocket. Go dun someone else, or pay for the “incentives” your own dang self, I’m not interested.
w.
Willis writes
And how exactly is that happening with these tax incentives, Willis?
Dont be silly. Anything that reduces taxes in one place demands increased taxes in another. Unless you cut public spending.
Leo Smith writes
I’m not. Unless Willis expects to receive money from the government for his retirement, my question stands.
Musk built a battery factory and car factory has directly employed people…people who can use some of that money for their retirement. Also his factories are bringing back some manufacturing to the US. That’s got to be a good thing too as far as ongoing employment.
If none of that had happened no tax would be paid, either. So how is it a loss to Willis that he’s doing this?
It’s not a subsidy if the government is able to make up the cost by cutting some other program.
That’ has to be one of the stupidest things I’ve read today.
Anyone who actually believes that we have to transition to electric cars has demonstrated an inability to think rationally in the first place.
Sorry, Willis: not wrong, but not fully correct.
Unfortunately, slate is such heavy freight, only rich folks can afford to pay for slate shipped from far away.
Slate is stone, and like marble slabs/blocks, the biggest costs are in shipping.
Unlike granite or even marble, most slate is rather easy to quarry and shape. They use light blasting charges in lines of drilled holes to break free long wide rows of slate blocks.
These slate blocks are picked up by larger pallet lift vehicles and brought to the saws.
Slate layers are split out and the sheets are gang sawn to usable length/widths.
Roofers easily and quickly saw roof slates to size, or as is traditional use of a slate hatchet.
Most sellers and installers of slate roofs try to source their slate locally. Only those selling exotic slate types happily ship slate far.
Thanks, Theo. While you say that compared to marble and granite “slate is rather easy to quarry and shape”, that’s a very, very low bar—marble and granite are both very difficult. But even with soft stone, by the time you have drilled a long row of holes in the ground and moved everyone out of the area and filled the drill holes and shot it off and come back and cleaned up the mess, you already have bucks involved. And you’ve only started the whole process of producing a finished slate
For example, here’s data from an actual installation:
Note that although shipping the slate is expensive (shipping the slate further than 1,400 miles cost them $1,700), the end result is that shipping is only 17% of the cost of the slate
So I stand by my claim that the largest cost of a slate roof is NOT shipping …
My best to you,
w.
Willis:
I believe you misunderstood my statement.
Yes, granite is very hard to quarry. Drilling holes is slow in granite.
Marble is softer and a little easier than granite, only mud saws are generally used to slice out blocks from the quarry face.
Slate is soft. You can drill it with ordinary drills and slice it with circular saws, if you don’t mind the dust.
No diamond equipment needed. Slate is very common, in many areas.
Granite may be common, but good solid attractive granite isn’t always available; and there is a lot more expensive equipment required along with hard work involved.
I’ll stand by my statements.
Slate is relatively cheap when bought locally and quite inexpensive when bought at quarries. If one chooses to buy the discounted pallets offered by the quarry.
I grew up in Pennsylvania and am currently near a couple slate quarries in Virginia.
2,600 sq ft of roof (26 squares X 100sq ft= 2600 sq ft) at $3.25 per square foot.
If a square foot of slate is compared to a square foot of marble at the big box stores; that $3.25 is near the cheaper marbles and travertines. A rather irrational cost per sq. ft. when abundance and ease of quarrying is considered for slate.
Somewhere along the way, that Vermont purple morphed into expensive slate through middle men and marketing.
Direct freight shipping does add 65.3 cents per square foot.
Now some company ordered this slate and is likely responsible for installation. That freight charge is likely business-business and what is actually charged the customer will be a retail shipping cost.
It cost me $300 to ship a 250lb band saw from the west coast to the East coast. So, I find it very hard to believe a home owner is going to get charged so cheaply for multiple tons of freight.
Paying for slate installation will be the bulk of the cost. Especially guys whose specialty is repairing and reroofing historical type buildings.
I’ll still believe that shipping is the second highest cost, baked in somehow. Picking up slate a pallet at a time via pickup truck is cheapest.
I forgot to state, good article Willis!
Thanks, Theo. Look, I said that transport was NOT the major cost of slate. You questioned that.
I provided actual stats from a real job where the slate was trucked more than 1400 miles and the shipping was only 16% of the delivered cost of the slate.
Until you provide actual stats from a real job showing I’m wrong, I’ll say it again. The shipping is not the major cost compared to the cost of the slate itself. You have not provided one hard fact to dispute my claim. I fear what it costs to ship a band saw has little to do with a pallet of slate.
… OK, I just got an online freight quote. San Francisco to Phoenix, 750 miles, twelve squares of slate, 800 pounds per square,, $751.00. Per my previous quote, the cost per square (100 square feet) of the slate is $325 (or $3.50 per square foot). So the cost of twelve squares of slate is $3900. This means that shipping costs for slate from Phoenix are about 16% of the cost of the delivered slate. This is the same order of magnitude, and although it is not as far, it’s still Phoenix to San Francisco.
So I still stand by my claim. Even if I’m shipping the slate from San Francisco to Phoenix, the shipping cost is NOT the major cost.
w.
Re quarrying granite and marble, it’s almost all done these days using diamond wire saws at major quarries. I’ve consulted in the business and built my own quarry and plant in eastern Ontario, Canada. I also built a stone quarry and plant in Tanzanian using the old drilling off and splitting out of blocks with ‘plugs and feathers’ and stabbing using twisted steel wire with grit, mud and water (The gov wanted a labor intensive op- They got it!!)
Gary Pearse November 19, 2016 at 8:42 pm
Thanks, Gary. Impressive, in particular the Tanzania chapter …
w.
Do I buy photovoltaic roofing tiles at the same place I buy photovoltaic paint, and are they compatible? snark
“Much of the cost savings Musk is anticipating comes from shipping the materials. Traditional roofing materials are brittle, heavy, and bulky. Shipping costs are high, as is the quantity lost to breakage. The new tempered-glass roof tiles, engineered in Tesla’s new automotive and solar glass division, weigh as little as a fifth of current products and are considerably easier to ship, Musk said.”
At about $75 a square (including manufacturing, wholesale and retail mark up, sales tax, and shipping), there isn’t much room in there for savings due to shipping.
Elon Musk is good at one thing…attracting capital. Tesla will be out of business within five years.
A “Square” what, inquisitive minds would like to know.
A “roof square” is equal to 100 square feet
A “square” is short for 100 square feet.
Sorry…thanks to those who answered you first!
Tesla’s engineers are great, but are working on something that makes about zero basic financial sense.
Solar powered highways, Solar powered shingles, I guess next is solar powered umbrellas to power your cell phone. I can imagine the hype, “Muskbrellas! Umbrellas you can use on rainy AND sunny days!!!”
And lets not forget Musk’s Hyperloop, the fantastically stupid idea of maintaining a vacuum in miles of tubing, with people filled capsules jetting through at about 700 miles per hour. Yeah that seems safe, maintainable and financial viable.
His initial money was in the dotcom boom. Making web applications is not the same level of difficulty as building machinery that overcomes the laws of physics. Private investors and public institutions have to stop giving money to this scam artist as charming as he may be.
As safe as that rocket launch paid by facebook lol
How quickly can they fill that tube with air if one of those shuttles should crash?
That’s assuming anyone in the shuttle survived the explosive decompression in the first place.
This is out there like the solar generating roads tiles.
Well one thing you can say for the solar roofing is that is sure makes one hell of a lot more sense than solar road ways!
Willis,
It would be wise to wait for more details before being so critical. Ordinary glass has a UTS of >600,000 psi. It is fragile in normal use because the surface is covered with micro cracks that are perfect stress raisers and the material can’t yield to spread the stress.
Common thermal toughening provides a deep compressive surface layer to hold the cracks closed and locks up a lot of energy. Ion exchange allows the compressive stress to be very thin. (Used on aircraft windshields)
Glass is basically very cheap to make and if Musk has come up with a better way of toughening it, could make an ideal material for roofs. Toughened tiles should be strong enough to withstand hail, the PV surface will protect the surface and they should last for centuries. I doubt the PV would though.
For example it is possible to make a glass can with a 20 thou wall thickness that you could flex in your fingers and bounce off the floor, using what I called dynamic toughening, but of course nobody is doing it.
Adrian Ashfield November 19, 2016 at 7:34 pm
Thanks, Adrian, and you’re likely right … but then when was I ever wise? When the paper about the ocean losing half its plankton came out I condemned it immediately without any details. Six months later the details came out, and I was shown to be right. Go figure.
In this case, we have a man who has never been able to build a business that was not massively subsidized by the public. He’s offering again what is a very high-end product aimed at the wealthiest of homeowners. Do you think it is accidental that he has released so few details, just a boast that the electricity will be free? He wants to keep people from knowing as long as possible.
So I ask you, Adrian, even if I wait for more details, and even if when the details come in this proves to be the whiz-bang expensive product for the man with more money than sense, WHY SHOULD MY TAXES SUPPORT IT? We made the change from water power to wood and steam, and from wood to coal, and from coal to oil, without any government subsidies and without dipping into the taxpayers’ pocket. On the other hand, we’ve poured billions into solar power, and wind power, and sparky cars, and they are STILL not competitive in the market. And even if they are marginally competitive in some locations, how long until they repay the billions we’ve already sunk into them? As a business model, this sucks bigtime for everyone except Elon.
That was my main point, and that doesn’t change by waiting for more details.
Finally, I’m always playing what I call a “long game”, meaning that I often have more than one hope for my writing. Part of my intention here was to stir up controversy and to encourage people to take a reality-based look at the few details Musk has given us and see if they make sense. And in that, I’ve succeeded beyond my hopes.
Best to you,
w.
Willis,
“WHY SHOULD MY TAXES SUPPORT IT?”
It is not an easy question to answer. I think LENR (cold fusion) is real and three companies now say they will make a commercial reactor in 2017, If one does so solar power will become like the Dodo. No one else on this site seems to think LENR is possible and several have written about how foolish I am to think it is.
So I think any investment in solar power will be wasted. Is it any more of a waste of your money than spending 1.6 trillion dollars a year (2015) on the military, as much as the next seven countries put together? How about Space X? That wouldn’t happen without government funds. Do you think an insurance policy for human survival with an off world base is worth a dime?
I seem to have a minority view about the economic situation in the US. I think the real unemployment is higher than the government’s claim of <5% (there are 94 million Americans not working) and that it will get higher due to AI and robotics. There will not be enough new jobs for those laid off and more education will not help much.
Ultimately something like Universal Basic Income (UBI) will be required to avoid riots or a dictator. If you don't like Musk getting government funding how about UBI? I find it more aesthetically pleasing to use the money for "worthwhile" projects than simply giving it away or spending it on the military. On the other hand. I like the thought of the individual choosing how to spend the money (that happens with UBI). It's complicated.
“Ultimately something like Universal Basic Income (UBI) will be required to avoid riots or a dictator.”
Only a dictator can give you a ‘Universal Basic Income’, because it makes absolutely zero economic sense.
Yeah, right, I’ll build a fully-automated robot factory to build stuff, and then I’ll give money to people so they can buy the stuff I make, so I’ll get me back a small fraction of that money. LOL.
Sheer lunacy. But it’s the ‘last best hope’ for Communism, which is why all the Commies are pushing it now.
MarkG,
If UBI is madness, when the unemployment rate reaches 40 or 50% how are the unemployed supposed to live and eat?
“If UBI is madness, when the unemployment rate reaches 40 or 50% how are the unemployed supposed to live and eat?”
Most of our ancestors were never employed. Most of them didn’t starve, unless dictators stole all their food.
Leftism is an industrial-era ideology, so it’s stuck in an industrial-era mindset. So, when someone says ‘pretty soon, robots will be able to do anything!’ leftists don’t think ‘oh, wow, that’s great, I won’t have to work any more!’, they think ‘EVIL CAPITALISTS will be able to PUT THE WORKERS OUT OF JOBS!’
Let’s start from first principles here. If I’m Evil Capitalist, owner and sole employee of Robots That Make Everything, Inc, there is no economic reality in which giving $100 to Joe Unemployed so he can buy $100 of stuff from me that costs me $80 to make, thereby leaving me with $20 of that $100 I gave him makes any economic sense as a long-term strategy. All it does is make me poor.
So, if Valiant Dictator then tells me I have to do that, I either shut the factory down, or, more sensibly, build an army of a billion killer robots, and take over the world. In no circumstances do I just bankrupt myself making stuff for people who have nothing to offer in return.
Hence, in Left-Wing-World, the giant robot factory fantasy ends with Evil Capitalists building billion-robot armies and killing everyone who opposes them.
Sorry.
Back in the real world, if robots can do anything, then anyone who has a robot can do anything. If you have a robot and raw materials, you will be able to get the robot to build anything you want (including making food in a vat in your basement). There will be no Robots That Make Everything, Inc, because there’s little value to a centralized robot factory if everyone can have a robot of their own.
The only people who’ll be upset about this are the left, because no-one will want socialism in a world where the ‘workers’ own the means of production. Their ideology cannot survive in a post-industrial world where people just build whatever they want, themselves, which is why they’re pushing for a dictator who’ll give them Free Money for doing nothing, as a last-ditch attempt to stave off reality.
But, as mentioned above, that just ensures they’ll end up with a dictator with a billion killer-robot army who’s tired of being forced to make stuff for everyone else.
Entirely too much logic in that comment. Bad dawg, no biscuit! Socialism, like Globall Warmining, is a religion, as such both deny reality. Rolling reality up like a newspaper and beating them with it is simply ineffective. Starvation might break them out of their zombie-like stupefaction, although I doubt it, has not worked in Zimbabwe. Or Venezuela. Or,,,,,,,well, you get the picture.
AA.“If UBI is madness, when the unemployment rate reaches 40 or 50% how are the unemployed supposed to live and eat?”
MG. Most of our ancestors were never employed. Most of them didn’t starve, unless dictators stole all their food.”
Ah. You think half the modern population can survive by running a garden on land they don’t have: don’t need the fancy toys like TV, internet & cell phones or require medical help when they get ill. All is now clear.
It may surprise you that I’m not a socialist. But I don’t want my daughter to live through a violent revolution, nor do I think the 50% unemployed will vote for a government that does nothing for them. You do understand that the proposition is there will not be paying jobs for them? (Federal and State governments now employ 10 million more than in manufacturing.)
UBI is the panacea of those who don’t want to work for a living.
The only reason why unemployment rates are rising is because government is making it too expensive to hire workers.
150 years ago, 95% of the population worked on farms.
Thanks to automation, that number has dropped to less than 5%. So obviously the other 90% are now unemployed.
Adrian, except when government gets involved, automation makes products cheaper. Which means less work is needed to purchase them.
MarkG,
I see four replies but you have still failed to answer the question.
If not UBI how else are the 50% unemployed going to survive?
You may argue that there will be new jobs, but that doesn’t help if there are not, which was the proposition..
MarkG,
“The universal consensus from the smartest people in the world is that universal basic income is a given,” said John Marshall, chief innovation officer at Lippincott,
See http://money.cnn.com/2016/11/17/technology/trump-tech-populism-automation/
I want to know when Elon is going to create the first viable “flux capacitor” and the “Mr. Fusion” green waste reactor?
Round here we use the same crematoria as for normal folks. Nothing special about Green corpses – not even the Odor of Sanctity…:-)
The Villain with renewable subsides is the government and not the people taking advantage of them. People are trying to make Musk out as a mercenary when he’s just an opportunistic businessman (is that redundant?). And subsidies aren’t always a bad thing. In this case they are because it’s based on a false premise that promotes an ideology. I’m real curious about the actual cost they come up with. I certainly don’t believe for a second that PV shingles with electric connections can be made cheaper than even clay/ceramic shingles so I think he’s blowing some major smoke with that statement. How they interconnect and feed to the inverter should be interesting. Who cares if they last 100 years if the PV only lasts 20?
There is little doubt we will eventually go electric for transportation since fossil fuels will run down, although they did just find 20B bbls of new resources in west Texas and potential remains high elsewhere (Gulf of Mexico deep reserves of a similar volume, etc).
I’m all for continued development of batteries for the purpose but we should be using the cheapest reliable energy available to make it as economic as possible. Subsidizing both high cost energy sources and the transport tech to use it is idiocy.
Trump says he’s going to bring coal back and go gungho on O&G but I think he will need some good support on this as I’m not sure he’s other than a contrarian on the subject. Re windmills, I think we would quickly run short of neodymium and dysprosium. If the US can weather the storm against common sense, the rest of the world will follow US’s lead despite the threats we hear. With the cats so long away, the mice have made a he’ll of a mess of things.
Electric trains – definitely. Electric cars – no until we get a good battery. Or maybe a good fuel cell.
There is one possible battery that might enable adequate range – basically as far as you can drive without stopping for a break long enough to recharge, and that can be up to 600 miles or more – and that’s lithium air. In theory the energy density is there, enough that battery powered airliners could work. In practice its a vile technology and no one has got it to work properly and safely.
The simple thing to do when fossil fuel price point rises above a given level, is to make hydrocarbon fuel from cheap (Coal? Nuclear?) power of some sort. Using CO2 and water as inputs. Or with coal, using coal and water is inputs.
If we really decided to go that route, we would use uber cheap nuclear power driving various chemical synthesizers.
It would be very expensive even so, but it is probably the way things will happen. Hydrocarbon fuel has ideal properties of energy density, ease of transport and storage, reasonable safety and pre-existing distribution infrastructure and end user technology to make use of it. .
IN short making gasoline kerosene and diesel equivalent products with cheap nuclear power will be stacked up against best BEV technology and may the best man win.
“There is little doubt we will eventually go electric for transportation since fossil fuels will run down”
There will still be vast amounts of fossil fuels in the ground when we stop using them for transport. Drones, VR and local manufacturing will make mass transport obsolete well before the fossil fuels run out.
We will probably go electric for the remaining transport users, but only because it’s much easier to 3D print an electric car than a gas car when you need one.
@Gary Young Pearse:
I agree with you on electrics. As you are well aware, electric vehicles have been around for over 100 years. I am in danger of repeating myself on this site for the umpteenth time but Zermat, Switzerland has been all electric (or horse) powered for years. Mining and manufacturing has been using electric vehicles above and below ground for all my 70 years and probably longer. The largest electric powered machinery used in mining can be up to 6 megawatts. http://tractors.wikia.com/wiki/Dragline
Someday, Arizona cities will have real electric cars running about rather than all the retired folks running around in their golf carts in their resorts.
Meanwhile I think it will be a long time before there are electric trucks and tractors running around on the farm so there will be diesel storage tanks about long after all the people on this site have crossed the River Styx.
Of course, maybe we will go back to coal fired steam railway engines along with LNG after we don’t have diesel – or maybe we’ll have small nuclear running trains or electric trains in North America in a few hundred years.
Meanwhile, I think I’ll keep my diesel truck and flatbed.
It might be useful for hauling recycled wind turbine parts in a few years.
That’s one possibility. Another possibility is that we will find some other way to make the liquid fuels these cars require.
Regardless, we don’t need to worry about it for at least 100 years.
Our great grandchildren can solve the problem using technology we haven’t even dreamed of yet.
I can imagine the complex connections involved in networking all these solar panels; just envision all of the wiring and connectors that need to be made and waterproof. A few problems are quite obvious. If a panel’s connection is lost, how can it be located and fixed. I can see, from the hundreds of panels on a roof, that failures would be rather regular due to wind, snow, ice, pelting rain, animals looking for food, etc.. Then, there is the problem of keeping the panels clear. Everything from bird poop, leaves, and dirt will degrade performance, often radically. People need to understand that solar panels need constant maintenance. And, then there is the fact that, no matter where these panels are installed on a house, their performance depends on the latitude and the orientation of the house and will also vary with the season. It maybe that only one side of a roof should be solar panel tiles.
I believe there was a section of solar panel road put into experimental operation and the rate of panel failure was quite high.
What Musk Car, Musk Mars, Musk Rocket and Musk Roof have in common is Ponzi Scheme.
Elon might as well propose a Solar Power Pisser (in Austria at train stations the Pisser is the Male Toilet). Sort of goes with his South Africa Heritage eh!
The only Musk that is viable is the Musk Ox.
As I’ve mentioned several times, electric cars, when charged at night by Alternative Power (that source from where the sun don’t shine or the wind don’t blow) is not much more energy efficient than an IC car. But lets be fair, here. The railroads would never have been built if the govt didn’t subsidize them (with almost free land rights) and the roads wouldn’t have replaced the rails if the government had not paid for most of the roads ahead of time. Ditto battery technology, wind turbines (ugh!) and solar cells. A subsidized, forced markets MAY bring economies of scale and innovation, eventually resulting in good economics. Solar, by these factors, even with pumped storage or batteries, is economic in areas where new powerlines are the only alternative.
on what basis do you assert that the railroads would not have been built without ‘free land’ subsidies?
railroads came first.
i also have reason to doubt your claims about any and all other statements you made unless you can affirmatively substantiate them
nor will i accept as valid any claim that a value was produced if the price was far in excess of the cost or if humans were robbed in the process.
if you have 20$ taken from you and you get back 1$, that’s not production- it is sacrifice.
(that was alan greenspan’s estimate, btw)
The rail system would been built with or without the land grant system. Do please recall that the Federal government had too much land over a vast territory. Rails offered the fastest high tech solution to provide rapid movement, and governance, over huge areas. The government traded a fractionally small bit of empty land for access and freedom of movement and received back a continental nation. Musk, as far as his climate obsessed business, is doing none of that.
at the time the government gave away the land to anyone that would use it to farm, ranch or build railroad tracks … giving away somethiung you didn’t pay anything for and that you don’t charge anyone for is hardly a subsidy …
The Great Northern was built to the U.S. west coast without a land grant subsidy. It was the only transcontinental railroad that never went through a bankruptcy. It later merged with the Burlington to become the Burlington Northern, then merged with the Santa Fe to become BNSF, one of today’s most successful railroads that pays property tax on its rights-of-way.
“The railroads would never have been built if the govt didn’t subsidize them (with almost free land rights)”
If I recall correctly, the U.S. government was granting the railroads all the land a mile deep on either side of the tracks they laid. Although when the Missouri-Kansas-Texas (Katy) railroad was built through Indian territory, they were only given 100 feet on each side of the track they laid.
The way the Katy won the right to cross Indian Territory is a pretty interesting story in itself (they cheated a little bit with the help of some Indian friends).
I used to work for the Katy railroad before they got swallowed up by the Borg (UP Railroad). Busiest single track railroad west of the Mississippi river, and only one, east of the river, was busier, and it was automated traffic control(CTC). We ran trains like you wouldn’t believe. And we ran them using train orders, radios, and human station operators coordinating with dispatchers, not CTC or computers. It was hard work and a lot of fun. It really taxed every ability you had and was a challenge every day because the situation was constantly changing and you had to adapt on the fly.
In the 1800’s, companies were building canals for transportation without a single penny of government subsidy. Canals are a lot more expensive than railroads.
The government wanted railroads in order to open up the west faster. The railroads were already following the people. The government wanted the railroads to go where there were no people in hopes that the people would follow them.
Railroads would have been built, it would just have taken a few extra decades.
The same goes for roads.
The cost of utility scale solar is on course for 20 cents per watt and selling price at 32. The non panel cost of utility scale is also falling from drastic cuts in construction employment and larger format panels which you will never hear about from solar advocate groups or Musk or politicos claiming green job counts. Facts in the solar biz are inefficiently distributed much like the still emerging sector itself and the usual chaotic system called energy policy.
It really is fascinating the way you acolytes plop into any thread dealing with your peculiar religion, without reading any of the previous posts, and then repeat nonsense that has already been refuted multiple times.
The idea of having roofs and even walls made of solar panel material is a very good idea and will hopefully eventuate even with a few hiccoughs along the way.
If it’s such a good idea, then it doesn’t need subsidies.
Plywood roofs and asphalt shingles. First time I went to the U.S. I thought the whole place looked good but was built like a movie set.
I find Musk annoying. Obviously bright and doing great work at SpaceX but seems to have fallen for global warming hoax, hook, line and sinker.
The ‘trougherati’ care not about AGW. The only care about how much money they can suck out of the trough before everybody figures it out.