Where is this stuff made?

I have been looking at various stuffs online for my garden/yard, such as the solar globes mentioned a while back. However, my concern with alot of the solar accutremounts is the possibility that they are made by uber-polluting companies using slave labour.

I wish that online retailers would place a "made in..." description on all products.

Green is good, but I have a problem with the $600.00 Solar kit: it's an energy-negative venture. In my part of the country, a standard Kilowatt hour starts at 6.8 cents per hour for the first 600 kWh, and about 8.5 cents for the next 800kWh, or about 7.8 cents per kWh if you average it over 1400 hours per month. For the sake of simplicity I'll assume I'm right in the median of the country for energy costs.

Given 1kWh per week generated from this system, at these energy rates this system wouldn't recuperate its buy-in costs for a skosh over 150 years (without accounting for the Time Value of money or inflation). Well, sure every little bit helps, but there are additional costs to this system that aren't reflected in this price tag. How many kilowatt hours were spent to manufacture these batteries and harsh chemicals? And once consumed, how many of these batteries will have been dumped into the environment? How many amorphous-silicon modules have been made for this system and at what energy costs, and too have then been used and thrown away in the course of 150 years? How much energy and resources were consumed for the copper that was mined for the wires, how much "miscellaneous odds and ends" were generated, consumed, and disposed of at the cost of overall energy consumptions far greater than this system can never even repay?

I want to state that I significantly agree with alternative energy use and solar power in general. But this is a step backwards. Shifting energy consumption from the consumer to big industry is not a solution, it's a misnomer and a cover-up of the problem.

I thought treehugger's first thing to think about before you buy is "do you really need it?" I don't think anyone needs a solar address light or solarbricks.

Jason,
these are valid thoughts, but one also has to consider the new pardigms which emerge from things like these.

One can easily show that getting rid of your car and taking the bus/train/bike/etc is much cheaper than being owned by a car. But what is the value of being able to go to the hospital in an emergency in your own reliable timely car, at any hour of the day?

One might be able to show that solar panels never recover the energy used to make and maintain them. But if the grid goes down all Katrina like, and you will need power, what value are those panels worth then? (for powering the radio/cell phone/water purifier/gramma's dialysis(sp) machine etc.)

Centralised services outside of your control will likely always be cheaper, but they limit your actions. The more expensive tools which free you up in possible times of need (when central cservices are fubar), win back much more of their value than it ever took to make or maintain them.

You can see video of my latest small scale solar experiments at http://solarray.blogspot.com/2006/03/solar-video.html

Yes, a lot of this stuff is built in China or Taiwan or Korea or Japan or Germany. It used to be build in America but that's another story.

What's the payback for a system that keeps you going at emergency levels whenever the power goes out? The night I installed my solar reading lights my building had no electricity for aobut 5 hours. How much is a kwh worth in those circumstances?

You can see video of my latest small scale solar experiments at http://solarray.blogspot.com/2006/03/solar-video.html

Yes, a lot of this stuff is built in China or Taiwan or Korea or Japan or Germany. It used to be build in America but that's another story.

What's the payback for a system that keeps you going at emergency levels whenever the power goes out? The night I installed my solar reading lights my building had no electricity for aobut 5 hours. How much is a kwh worth in those circumstances?

Solar address light?
That's a joke right?

James,

Why a joke? I know several people who live off of dark country roads, and finding them at night is difficult at best. A conventional lighted address sign or uplighting requires more energy and contributes to unnecessary light pollution. This is a simple, off-the-grid alternative to an existing, more energy intensive product.

How does a light over the sign use more energy?

Okay, this one isn't as slick and sexy as the ones pictured on the website. But I purchased a tiny solar panel at Edmund Scientific http://scientificsonline.com/product.asp?pn=3039813&bhcd2=1145397969 and handed it to my almost-10-yr-old. It has been fascinating to see him work with it, from recharging batteries for his toys, to crosswiring his Electronics Lab to run off the panel rather than off batteries.

To me, this is the wave of the future. Rather than consumerist items (well said, Margaret Rolley), put these tools in the hands of our next generation of inventors, so that they grow up accustomed to thinking in terms of renewable power rather than fossil/disposable. That's what I pick as "solar for the home."

Sam,
I think you missed the point entirely. There is a philosophy that says green is better, limit our impact on the environment and our fellow man, give more and consume less. These self starter kits claim to follow that mantra but they aren't. They're not even independent energy sources: they require two large batteries as storage mediums: both of which can chemically generate more power than the supplied trickel voltage, batteries which on their own would power your radio, tv, etc. in a crisis.

I'm all for all forms of renewable energy and resources, but this self-starter kit suggests that it's benefiting the environment to the eco-friendly when in truth it taxes more upon the ecosystem and gives less back than the standard coal-outta-the-ground approach to electricity. Anything that claims to be better for the environment had better live up to that standard, and this darn well not only never pays for itself but is energy-negative.

The #1 solar upgrade for your home should always be solar hot water.the payback for this is almost always under 5 years.The simple fact is we in the USA use very inefficient water heating technology with our tank type water heaters,they are very inefficient,and have a large stand by loss-the water is kept warm all day all night if you need it or not!
Chris Hurst