Why aren't golf courses users of solar power?

[Ready4Change]

I was thinking about this. I'm not a big golfer, but from what I've seen, golf courses don't use huge amounts of power. They have many large roof tops which could hold solar arrays (bunk houses, golf cart barns, mower and other landscaping sheds.) Many use electric golf carts which don't need extensive range, and usually also have roofs which could sport PV panels to extend their range and harvest power while golfers play.

Further, golf courses are most active when solar power is most plentiful, ie, nice weather. They are less active or inactive in bad weather and night time. Just what solar is good for.

Those same golf carts can provide a battery bank to store power over long stints of bad weather. After a period of bad weather unused carts could be moved out into the sun to expand the courses solar array.

If the golf course provides shower facilities, solar water heating will also be most effective at times of peak use, later in the day during nice weather. (As golfers shower after their rounds.)

And perhaps the biggest plus, solar power at golf courses would expose many of our more affluent citizens to the suns potential.

Thoughts?

[Rabrrrrrr]

1. That's a really good idea!

[madinmaryland]

2. No in my back yard.

It would disrupt the beauty and aesthetics of the golf course. Can't have that at my golf course.

:sarcasm:

Actually that sounds like a great idea.

[400Years]

5. solar power is a communist plot

whattya want to do, play golf with Karl Marx!?!

[Ready4Change]

13. LOL!

As long as he doesn't keep score any more seriously than I do, why not?

[Javaman]

10. Am I the only one here that finds it a bit weird when people have their...

house build on a golf course?

[Ready4Change]

19. I see a lot of retirement golf communities.

A lot of the Baby Boomers and the prior generation dreamed of retiring to nothing but playing golf. I think that happens with a lot of hobbies. Skiers who want a home on the slopes. Boaters/Fishers wanting homes on the water. Hikers in the mountains. I'm a pilot and I've considered homes in communities gathered around private airstrips, with garages in the front and hangars in the back. (No lie.)

Now, having the house ON the course, with golfers playing through your backyard garden could get old pretty quick. ;)

[Javaman]

23. Living near one is one thing, that's cool, but...

there are golf courses that have houses build right off the fairway.

I was shooting this thing for ESPN years ago and we had the opportunity to go to some of the biggest private courses in the nation. And literally, these people had houses right off the fairway. You walk out your back door and poof, there you are. I spoke to one of the people that lived there and they said that window breakage is a problem until the put in Plexiglas windows. It was the oddest thing I have ever seen. But I guess to each his own.

:shrug:

[BR_Parkway]

12. Cover the whole thing with a solar array and you could play even

when it's raining! The Jones's down the street don't have one of those.

[Canuckistanian]

3. Hey, wanna go into business?

That's a great idea there.

[Ready4Change]

14. If someone knows business, I'd be happy to be an Ideas guy.

I love, vividly, trying to figure solutions to problems, or identify problems to which solutions can sensibly applied. But I've little clue how to start up a business. I'd love to link up with some business guys and engineers and figure out how to get something like this rolling.

(I'm on the Mid-Atlantic coast, btw.)

[Canuckistanian]

25. I don't know either - hoping you knew

But they say it isn't too hard - Just write a business plan and go after some capital. Some of the biggest idiots I know have done it.

[SteppingRazor]

4. Great idea!

Now get out and get it done! :toast:

[phantom power]

6. Solar is currently used mostly by the affluent. But it's a good idea.

[jpak]

9. Not so

Many of the off-grid solar homes that were built over the last 25 years are owned by people of modest means.

...and many of them were owner-built (check out the back issues of Home Power magazine).

Please post some numbers to support this argument (i.e., median/average income of homeowners using PV or solar hot water).

:hi:

[phantom power]

Foiled again...

I'm busted. I have no median income statistics of all home solar installations.

All I've got is this: every write-up, photo, article, etc, of a home-solar installation I've ever seen has been on the top of an expensive home, generally something that looks like either a mansion or somebody's summer "cabin" that clearly cost twice as much as my house.

(That, and the fact that I personally found the cost of installing a system to be cost-prohibitive, and I think I fall into the upper middle class)

Could be that's just an effect of the kind of homes people like to write about. You can prove me wrong by posting median income statistics. Better yet, some kind of income histogram, hopefully with a large sample size.

[Ready4Change]

18. I think both of you are on valid grounds.

I've seen 2 basic types of solar adopters. Affluent people who have these system kind of like they might have a BMW or high end kitchen.

Then there are whay I'd call neo-hippies, who have these systems out of environmental or energy conservation concerns.

But I shouldn't pigeon-hole, as there are people all over the demographic map trying out this stuff. Just not a lot of them. (Yet.)

I recently went on a solar tour of homes in the Washington DC area. I was expecting to see the more affluent types, but only ran into the ne0-hippie type. I only hit a few of the 20+ homes, so I doubtless missed seeing a lot of interesting stuff.

[skids]

21. This might skew the data...

http://www.habitat.org/env/denver_project.aspx

See the following PDF for the original NREL one that had PV...

http://www.habitatmetrodenver.org/newsletter/summer2002nl.pdf

...as CIGS and TPV cells, and CPV arrangements, drive down costs of solar electricity, I expect even the poor will have it.

[phantom power]

22. Passive and water-heating are definitely cheaper.

I have some hopes that photovoltaics will get cheaper, but I'm waiting to see what happens.

[jpak]

24. Called me bluff

Don't have those numbers either...

:)

They would break the stalemate though...

[phantom power]

26. I was just thinking, it's probably tricky to compile that data.

To get a really good sample, you'd need income data from the customers of all the installers, plus any self-installs. Not the kind of information customers generally give out.

It would be informative, though.

[struggle4progress]

28. Google: "Habitat for Humanity" +solar

Low income families can take advantage of solar energy

[NNadir]

27. Oh, how about we just post the prices on solar buzz.

www.solarbuzz.com

If solar were cheap and affordable, you would see solar homes everywhere, not just on the back cover of esoteric magazines for survivalists.

Please support the vague word "many" by attaching it to a number.

To wit: How many?

A million? Ten million?

If there is already a million solar homes (1/110th of the number of US households) how come we have to jump up and down for Governor Hydrogen Hummer Steroid Boy's "Million Solar Roofs," bill. If they were cheap and affordable, wouldn't people be building them without huge subsidies?

If there is anyone here who lives in a neighborhood where 10% of the power is provided by solar PV cells, if anyone has even been to such a community, it would be interesting to hear from them.

As has been the case for 40 years of solar power mysticism, it's all handwaving, smoke and (pun intended) mirrors.

[jpak]

29. "people (would) be building them without huge subsidies?"

Google up Nuclear 2010 and Bush Energy Bill and tell us all about the history of nuclear power since 1973.

huge subsidies indeed...

:rofl:

[Name removed]

30. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[jpak]

31. The 6.8 billion dollars in nuclear subsidies in the Bush Energy Bill

including...

<snip>

Uncle Sam is on board - with a 10-year, $550 million grant program called Nuclear Power 2010 that began four years ago to help with the costs of new designs and licensing.

And last week the government stepped up with a new multibillion-dollar portfolio of financial guarantees and incentives.

Major provisions of the landmark energy bill that President Bush signed include:

Federal loan construction guarantees for up to 80 percent of costs.

Compensation for utilities building the first new reactors if completion is delayed because of litigation or foot-dragging by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Production tax credits worth millions to a utility once its new reactor begins operating.

Renewal of the Price-Anderson Act for 20 years to limit utility liability and help insure new reactors by providing a larger secondary insurance pool.

Whether the inducements will convince any utility that building a new reactor is financially prudent is uncertain.

<snip>

http://www.cleveland.com/energy/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/isene/1124019036219000.xml&coll=2#continue

BTW: nuclear power is the most-cost option to combat global warming...

[movonne]

7. I think I read somewhere that Clint Eastwood's golf course is all solar...

[Ready4Change]

15. I read that after posting this morning.

Sounds like he's got some involvement with a golf course community. Sounds like they have extensive PV panels on the golf course building roofs. Also, they are taking measures to process the waste water from the communities homes so as to not pollute the ground water systems.

However, what I read also noted that, despite their efforts, local environmental groups still object to the course, siting high water use and chemical runoffs.

I'd say that community has taken a step in the right direction, and maybe the environmentalists could help by presenting ideas on making the course even more earth friendly?

[gil ace]

8. Golf balls are famouse for braking glass. no text

[Ready4Change]

16. Good point.

PV panels are a bit tougher than they used to be, and some are even flexible. However, I suspect most would be damaged by a direct hit.

I was thinking about that earlier today. Most golf balls travel more horizontally than vertically. Thus they tend to hit walls and windows, rather than roofs. And on courses most buildings are located away from areas where a ball might be driven, but to avoid damage as well as to not disturb the game. PV panels on roofs should be pretty safe. The panels on the golf carts would be more endangered.

Hmmm. (One golf ball strike might = loss of a $600 PV panel. :( )

[htuttle]

11. Ecologically speaking, golf courses are a pus-filled cyst on Earth's body

It's not the energy usage, exactly.

It's the water usage and the chemical runoff that are most damaging.

The best way to save the environment via golfing is to get used to playing on crappier grass.

[Ready4Change]

17. Not being a golf purist I agree with you.

I've not played much, and all here on the East Coast where water is more plentiful. I've heard of the water problems in places like Arizona and imagine a grassed over golf courses water requirements must be relatively obscene.

Are there less water intensive ground covers that could be used? Are there golf courses in the US like one I saw from Australia, which was very arid-deserty?

Are there less destructive alternatives for artificial fertilizers that could be used in wetter climates to maintain more "standard" grasses?

Anyone working on these things? Or have both sides adopted the "us vs them" mindset?

[blindpig]

20. Couldn't have said it better.

And a terrible waste of prime habitat, particularly on the SC coast.

And as Mark Twain said, the ruination of a good walk.

And a bourgeois affectation.
Thank You.