But other places aren't the uk, we need to secure our own energy and pv cells in the uk are already workable and only improving.
I was saying this in the Japan earthquake/nuke discussions, global thinking would be great, where instead of having say 20 nuke plants in Japan and 10 here, and both countries having 50 coal power stations, we think globally and its safer and smarter to have 30 nuke plants here and have a lot less coal stations here and a lot more in Japan.
So there would be the same amount of polution and power but its safer having nuke plants in the uk rather than Japan.
But as you said, the world doesn't think on a global or sensible scale, and frankly it won't in our lifetimes, right now it doesn't matter if every solar panel produced COULD be more effective in another country, that doesn't help the UK at all, in any way.
Would it be great if in a global thinking way we load up Spain, Africa, southern Europe, south america etc with solar panels, and then "give us" energy back.
But end of the day, that isn't going to happen, we can spend money and generate "free" electricity, or other countries can spend money and generate their own electricity, and that doesn't help us at all.
The problem with solar though, is simply production, and how much space they require. In terms of solar farms, they take up HUGE amounts of space, in terms of having every house covered in them, its more feasible, especially if families/companies that suck up more power then have to pay a much higher fee to get enough panels.
But then the bigger problem is the production, we literally can't build them fast enough to keep up with current power growth in the world, let alone catch up and replace existing power production and thats not set to change any time soon and ignores things like what will likely be the incredibly power growth rate in more 3rd world countries and the biggest manufacturing based countries like China.
Its a nice plan, it lets individuals feel "greener" but taking out a few thousands peoples power needs(and only sometimes) off the national power grid won't make any noticeable dent in power requirements.
from their original investment of £12,000. I know a firm which has done/are doing 4,000 free installations. It's a great return - £48m investment which will be paid off in 8 years so you will have £6m per year coming in with no costs and after 25 years you have got £102m back. Great quick rich retirement plan for 8 years time.
