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My roof is the floor of the people upstairs. I can't install solar!

True, but you could buy some shares in your community solar garden. It's not like the photons have to be gathered from your own roof; the solar panels only need to be sufficiently nearby that transporting the electrons to you is economical.

Well, yes, but MN also has not only regular "weather" (snow, clouds, rain), but often extreme weather (SNOW, hair, uber cold temps, very hot temps) which is hard on most materials (like, say, bridges or solar panels).

Though not much there is some solar energy in MN. MN is however great for wind. As are North and South Dakota to the west and Wisconsin to the east. However my post you replied to was specifically aimed at the statement "17cents us at today's exchange rate, yay, something is in fact cheaper here than in the states!" CA's energy costs are high for the US so to use CA's energy costs as a basis for the US is bad. In MN I pay something like 10 cents per KWH, maybe a couple of pennies higher after taxes are added. And there are a few of those I pay, there's city, county, and state taxes on the energy I use.

t is easy to be critical and not actually try to be part of the solution. Does your house have the most efficient heat and air conditioning?

Right now I don't own a home, I rent. While the whole building is heated from one gas unit, there is no air conditioning. Why I don't own it now the plan is that I will buy the building, which contains 4 apartments. Currently my sister owns the apartment building, because I'm on disability and don't work I wouldn't qualify for a mortgage to buy it. However once there is enough equity in it it will be transfered to me and I will take over the mortgage. Once I do I plan to save as much money as I can for a few years then hire an architect to create a better design. Reusing as much of the material as I can I'll gut out the interior and rebuild the interior adding more insulation ceiling fans for air circulation and radiant floor heating each unit can control themselves.

Prior to my disability I was roughly designing the home I wanted to build, being that I wanted to build it Off the Grid I was designing it to be as energy efficient as possible, then it would of been powered by a hybrid system using PVs and a wind genie, generator, with a battery bank to store the energy.

Are you driving a vehicle that gets 50+ MPG?

No, my car only gets about 30 mpg city. However I drive it less than 5,000 miles a year, I got it new in 2000 and I haven't yet put 40,000 miles on it. I'd love to have gotten a better mileage vehicle, such as a hybrid, however being on disability I couldn't afford it. Even when I attended college and worked though, I still rode my bike most of the tyme. Though I had a car, I rode my bike more than 200 miles a week. Actually that's how I ended up with my disability, while riding my bike I was hit by a moving van, the apartment movers sort, and I was not expected to survive. While in a coma the docs told my family it would be a miracle if I lived. Instead I survived a Traumatic Brain Injury, TBI, and my life has been a living hell since.

Your comments stating,"Yea, because energy users never actually see how much the energy they use costs." is a little ambiguous. Do you pay an electric bill?

Yes, I pay an electric bill. And nowhere on it do I see anything about paying for the pollution my use causes to be released. Frequently though the power company does include pamphlets on what they're doing about it, or tips on conserving energy. Actually my power company gets a lot of it's electricity from wind genies, the state I live in is Minnesota and it generates several megawatts of wind power. And it can be ramped up to produce more, which helps farmers as they get paid for the property rental the towers use.

What we really need to be doing on a worldwide scale is penalizing countries that harm the environment the most and give the money to countries with vast natural resources that need to be protected like the rain forests.

Oh, I agree. However I do believe ethanol can be "part" of a solution to a sustainable future. There is nothing, not one thing, that can replace all of the fossil fuel derived energy that will cause more problems. But when you add a bunch of little things together they may do the job. I think here's a big part of the problem, so many want one monumental solution to replace fossil fuel. Instead use what is possible where it is feasible. Use geothermal energy where it can be used, like Iceland is doing. Wind is good in midwest states like the Dakotas and Minneasota. Solar is good in other places as is tidal energy.

Teach the poorer countries how to be self sufficient and "green", don't just keep handing them cheap food to the detriment of your own citizens.

Oh, I don't like charity as such, it's not a solution. Instead of giving people a fish to eat I'd rather teach them to fish. However it's not always a matter of simply being poor. Politics and conflict have a big role, both can result in a country being poor. For instance Zimbabwe used to be the bread basket of southern Africa. Now however because of president Mugabe the country has turned into a basket case. Since Mugabe forced all of the white farmers off their farms and gave them to his cronies the country went from being able to grow enough food so everyone had enough to eat and allowed a lot of food to be exported to needing food to be imported so there isn't massive starvation.

I think that you misread me. That's the renewable energy subsidy if we gave wind power the same 'subsidies' that are 'given' to nuclear power. This system was set up by the Price-Anderson act

Thanks for the link. I didn't know the industry paid for insurance. I went ahead and both saved it to my hdd and bookmarked it.

Many people have battery banks to store the energy their solar, wind, or hybrid systems generate.

Don't get me wrong, but while people do it, it's not globally economic to do so. Most people who do these systems do so to avoid the expense of running line power to them. Meanwhile they do things like run special refridgerators and use hydrocarbon method of accomplishing tasks such as heating their home, water, and cooking. For example, solar power will make sense much more quickly in Sunny california with high electricity costs than ND with it's cheap electricity.

First, North Dakota isn't good for solar as you say but the state is a great site for Wind Gennies. As is SD and Minneasota. MN, where I live now, generates several megawatts of power by Wind Gennies. While it may be mostly those living off the grid in the US who's doing it, it's not the only place solar panels and batteries are used. The same think is done in the third world. In Africa one or more NGOs are going into small villages where they setup solar panels and battery backups to power lights, radios, refrigs, small tvs, and such. The lights allow children to read and do homework for school while it's dark. The refrigs allow medicine to be stored, and the radios and tvs keep the people informed about the world. They are also used for educational purposes. The IEEE's Spectrum had an article about how some people started a business in South Asia building solar energy systems they then sold in remote locations and other places without electricity. The business created jobs manufacturing them, it also allowed those who bought a system to improve education as well as earn more money. One example was of a person who ran a repair shop, he was able to use lights so he could work when it was dark thus he increased his income. In another Spectrum article they described how a group of EEs went into a remote village; in Cambodia, Thailand, or Veit Nam, I don't recall which, and setup a transceiver with a tower for the antenna so they could have radio communications with the outside world. Using a "home built" PC and a bike converted into a generator, the group was able to offer the village internet access as well as voice radio. If they wanted to power the system all they had to do was pedal the bike. If they had setup a solar panel the bike could of been for backup.

Fact is you only have a few years to make back the investment because the batteries degrade, eventually needing replacement.

Sure, the batteries eventually need to be replaced, however batteries today last longer than the deep cycle batteries of yesteryear, and they're cheaper. Batteries can now have 10 year warranties with 20 year life expectancies. Here's one with 7 year replacement(pdf), and 3 year prorated warranty for a total of 10 years. As for solar panels, they can be rated 20 years or more. The same with the chargers.

Ok this site has batteries inteneded for renewable resources for sale. The L-16HC seems to be the best deal, for the amp-hours. It's a 6 volt battery that has 420 amp-hours of capacity. That's 2520 watt/hours. Divided by it's cost of $288, that's $114 per kw/hour of capacity, and it's only rated for 3-6 years of 20% daily discharge.

Again, wind power should be viable, out in the countryside. But not here, in town. It's just not realistic, even though it's windy here. Of course, if you're off-grid in the countryside, then you need to deal with batteries...

Ok, I didn't pick up earlier that you were in the city. That changes a lot, especially as how cities have all those building regulations. In cases like this wind gennies don't make sense. They do in some rural settings though. I live in Minneasota and along with the Dakotas it produces megawatts of electricity. Wind genies also can help farmers, for every wind genie they're paid. As for living off the grid, for many who build homes where there isn't any powerlines near installing thier own system is the most financially viable exercise economically. It can cost 10,000s of thousands of dollars to have powerlines put in. For more than 20 years that's what I've wanted to do, build my home in the wildness.

As for a wind genie

I wasn't speaking of specific models, "wind genie" is short for "wind generator". I picked it up in "Home Power" if I recall right, another renewable or selfsefficient magazine if wrong.