Yeah, but there's power and there's "power." Know those semi-worthless solar chargers you can take camping? They've got a goofy little flashlight and a USB port and if you let them sit all afternoon they'll charge your iPhone like 4%? As chargers, they suck. As flashlights, they suck. As pack objects, But as something that will get your GPS up and running again if you're lost on a mountaintop, they're pretty damn badass. Presume your solar synfuel recracker operates at one tenth the efficiency of a refinery. Hit that refinery with a carbon tax that reflects the externalities of their environmental damage, then allow them to defray that cost by paying for direct solar recracking. It will always do a worse job than planting trees, but places we need to plant trees are often places we need to send troops and something like this promotes local industry. Magic bullet? No. Reasonable technology to pursue? Yes. Any commercial economy is going to leverage a whole lot more from building gadgets than from planting trees, especially as we tend to cut ours down for lumber.
Ahhh yes, the rational argument! The best argument! And out here in JesusLand, the wrong argument. We have this abomination to deal with. Solar out here rhymes with Satan and the legislature is actively fighting it. I'd love a real, punitive, carbon tax. I'd love to put solar on every residential rooftop that faces south. If I put solar on my roof as a hedge against our shitty power grid out here, I get penalized thanks to state laws that are protecting coal and the local utilities. And we cannot lease the power back into the grid like other states can. Moving 25 miles north into either Ohio or Indiana, and the picture changes, but that is not in the cards for me for various reasons. Good presumption and maybe a little low. And I completely agree with you. Every way to get energy that is not using carbon is a HUGE net positive. But as you say, there is "power," and then there is "Power." If we cannot move people off coal and have to wait for all the NewsCorp-watching old people to die, at least the trees are something to get everyone dragging along. Doing something, anything at this point, is a lot better than doing nothing.Presume your solar synfuel recracker operates at one tenth the efficiency of a refinery.
Never let it be said that I am anti-tree. Diversification, however, is often its own reward. That plate is amazing. By way of comparison, if you get a customized license plate in CA without it being any particular kind of special interest plate, it's an environmental plate.
Two points on this: First, in some cases it may be better to have them face west rather than south. Second, economies of scale make utility scale solar more cost effective than residential solar. While the wholesale panel costs may be similar, the simplified, standardized construction on a utility site pushes the costs down compared to houses with different construction, shape and sun exposure. I had no idea there was a coal license plate. That's amazing(ly sad). I like trees and should do more to plant more.I'd love to put solar on every residential rooftop that faces south.