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Solar Power Eliminates Utility Bills in U.S. Home
skyhawker writes "Yahoo! News is running an article about a New Jersey home that uses solar power to provide 100% of its energy needs, including fuel for the owner's hydrogen fuel cell-powered automobile. From the article: 'Strizki runs the 3,000-square-foot house with electricity generated by a 1,000-square-foot roof full of photovoltaic cells on a nearby building, an electrolyzer that uses the solar power to generate hydrogen from water, and a number of hydrogen tanks that store the gas until it is needed by the fuel cell. In the summer, the solar panels generate 60 percent more electricity than the super-insulated house needs. The excess is stored in the form of hydrogen which is used in the winter -- when the solar panels can't meet all the domestic demand -- to make electricity in the fuel cell.'"
How MY neighbors would feel if I loaded up their roof with solar cells...
Hmm?
And this is the reason so few people (including me) are "green".
Deleted
*I* wanted to be the first person in the U.S. to do that!!! I've been in the research phase for the past year or so. Basically, I want to be able to sever my connection to the grid except for emergency needs. Especially where my technological needs are concerned. Oh well... I might not be the first, but at least I'll be an early adopter.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
I'll get right on that!
Given the high dollar cost of this system, I'd bet that the total energy cost of all the equipment isn't any lower than just running on the grid: In other words, he has saved no energy at all.
He eliminated his electric bill, but couldn't eliminate the fact that he is in New Jersey.
Until you learn that the rig cost 5x what he would have spent on energy over his entire lifetime even though it will probably wear out in ten years. Also, now that his insurance company has read the story and knows he has a big ol' tank of hydrogen in his house he id uninsured, and uninsurable. Additionally, if anything ever does go wrong, his neighbors are sure to sue him into financial ruin.
Good job showing everybody how infeasible this kind of thing is though!
Greeat. It only cost a half a million bucks to avoid a
$100/month bill...
if his house is 3,000 feet then why is he even using a bulding his roof should be large enough.
I just read all 37 pages of the Home Owners Association guide. While it doesn't strictly forbid solar panels on the roof, They are going to have to be the right color and anything visible has to be approved before construction. They definitely don't want any windmills, decorative or otherwise, not even as part of the mailbox!
So how, exactly, can I put some of this technology to work in stealth mode? Apparently this is not part of the neighborhood beautification plan?
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It only takes investment of $500,000 save approximately $80-100 a month. It could take 416.6 years to pay off at the current energy prices.
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From the article:
"Caminiti argues that the cost of the hydrogen/solar setup works out at about $4,000 a year when its $100,000 cost is spread over the anticipated 25-year lifespan of the equipment. That's still a lot higher than the $1,500 a year the average U.S. homeowner spends on energy, according to the federal government."
Still interesting tho.
Hydrogen seems a bit over the top in this situation, why not just use a plug-in hybrid car? You may not totally eliminate the need for fossil fuel, but it is probably a better use of that extra power they generated than using a hydrogen, cheaper too.
Monstar L
Well I am glad that he was able to reduce his electric bill by a few thousand dollars a year. Too bad it cost him $100k to do it (and $400k from donations). I guess it will probably pay off for him in about 30 years.
I would love to find companies (and government agencies) willing to give me $400k to put additions onto my home.
--
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
And if you can't get all the grants and freebees, $500k! I want to have some green after I become green!
Just remember - if the world didn't suck, we would all fall off.
Utility companies aren't going to like this very much.
-ubuntu others as you would have others ubuntu you.
From the article:
Caminiti argues that the cost of the hydrogen/solar setup works out at about $4,000 a year when its $100,000 cost is spread over the anticipated 25-year lifespan of the equipment. That's still a lot higher than the $1,500 a year the average U.S. homeowner spends on energy, according to the federal government. Even if gasoline costs averaging about $1,000 per car annually are included in the energy mix, the renewables option is still more expensive than the grid/gasoline combination.Mind you, once you've bought the equipment, there are only the maintenance costs over that 25 years, where as the price of energy will undoubtedly continue to increase. And the price of solar cells is dropping, so the cost may go lower than $100,000. I for one would love to have solar -- not having to pay for electricity, being able to run my Christmas lights 365 days a year, and not losing my power in a blackout. Also, if you generate excess electricity, you can sell it to the utility companies, and actually make a buck when you have excess power.
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Solar power is nice since it does not pollute when in use and generating power. However, mass production of solar cells is very taxing for the environment. So I can't help but wondering which is worse: 1000 sq. ft. (which is, accounting for chip packaging and other overhead, still a HUGE silicon area) or heating the old fashioned way (e.g. with gas, which is less polluting than say coal, and using decent insulation) and using a car that is not a fuel-hungry SUV...
place by not paying the bill 6 months in a row. It's amazing, your monthly electric costs will drop to 0 very quickly!
Monstar L
Just for your information: This country is incredibly cool temperature wise due to its relatively high altitude. Problem is: Poverty.
People are whining about how it costs a half-million dollars. It is so expensive because of low volume. We need early adopters like this guy to start the ball rolling. Once more people buy into this form of energy production, the cheaper it will become.
Why bother.
For those who don't want to bother with the expense of buying and installing your own PV system, there's Renu. With a $500 deposit, they'll design and install an grid-tied PV system for you and charge you only for what it produces at the current rate, which you can lock in for 5 or 25 years. And if you've got a 25 year contract they'll move the system when you move.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
It depends on New Jersey's rates for power sent back to the grid, but would it be better to put the excess energy onto the grid & to use the check they send towards buying hydrogen?
This might only be a practical idea in regions where the power company pays you more than the going electric rate for any power you put back into the grid.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Of course it will be expensive for the early adopters. But as solar panels mature, and more energy independence options become available, it will be much more economically feasible. The first people to do this don't do it for the monetary savings (or if they do, they're wrong), they do it to make a statement that it can be done.
It has been possible to do this since solar cells were invented. It was not possible to get a real break even versus standard energy sources "back then" in the 60's, nor is it possible to get to break even now today in the next 25 years, and I submit from the article my evidence:
"Caminiti argues that the cost of the hydrogen/solar setup works out at about $4,000 a year when its $100,000 cost is spread over the anticipated 25-year lifespan of the equipment. That's still a lot higher than the $1,500 a year the average U.S. homeowner spends on energy, according to the federal government. Even if gasoline costs averaging about $1,000 per car annually are included in the energy mix, the renewables option is still more expensive than the grid/gasoline combination."
So what is new here?
I wonder how much better efficiency this technology might have in california, nevada, or arizona.
In the southwest you're gonna have more sunny days, higher solar intensity, and your energy usage is going to be higher in the summer (air conditioning instead of heating) when the solar energy is more abundant. You couple that with the booming population of pheonix, las vegas, and much of california, and your level of equipment costs might be considerably less.
I also wonder how much of the systems' cost is static, and how much scales with the size of the energy draw. Can I replace 80% of my energy usage for 50% of the cost, or will I have to pay 90% of the cost for a 40% drop in energy usage?
...I'd be livid.
The New Jersey project, which opened in October 2006 after four years of planning and building, cost around $500,000, some $225,000 of which was provided by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities.
So, a quarter million of their tax dollars were used to help this guy set up a clear demonstration of how ridiculous this technology is and to eliminate his electric bill... Return on investment? Near zero... But had the same money been used to, say, help elderly people on fixed incomes heat their houses?
Oh well.
Yeah, at $0.5M US, it's a steep price to pay just to be free of utility bills, or just to be "green". But please don't forget that it still has value.
;-)
This early adopter is proving that you *can* be self-sufficient using solar energy. That's a big deal. And, if a people -- and more importantly, organizations -- start seeing solar energy as having potential, more people will fund research into improving the technology and making it cheaper. At least, that's the hope.
Early adopters help drive the price of technology down, so don't be so quick to judge this guy's choice -- he's helping to make solar power more available to the masses, in his own small way.
Besides, in being the first, he'll probably make back his $500K in promotional considerations and/or the lecture circuit.
We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex—but Congress can. – Cullen Hightower
Last time I heard, production of solar panels was creating a significant amount of very unpleasant waste in process. So much for saving the environment. Besides, when you say that something costs NNN dollars, that means that in order to produce and deploy that system, an appropriate amount of resources and other products has to be spent; in this case hi-tech components are probably used, which have a longer production chain if we compare it with the oil-driven power supply. And the production of these components [or rather anything in this world at the moment] outputs some greenhouse gases and other waste. So one must think twice if switching to solar panels will really decrease our pressure on the Earth's ecosystem, since [as far as I understand] "more expensive" == "requires more productive effors" == "creates more pollution".
That said, I don't consider the modern energy production cycle okay - it's terrible. I just wanted to stress that for the moment, solar panels probably aren't the final solution of our problems, and we have to keep looking for something better.
I can buy 10,000 acres of rainforest ($50/acre), according to www.rainforest.org. Even if that's not a realistic cost, I could still buy 5,000 acres if land was going for $100/acre.
Despite the cost, this shows that indeed it is possible to make a home energy self sufficient.
The question is now, what would this cost if it were a *requirement* for all new homes? How low would mass production push the costs? Could the cost of new power plants that won't need to be built be used to subsidize this effort?
Many new revolutionary technologies (phones, electricy) required government regulation and subsidies (in many forms) to get past the chicken and the egg dilemma. Perhaps this is one of those times?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I about a hundred years, assuming no maintenance is required.
1. Installing your own solar array: $100k .... PRICELESS!
2. Cost of operating most appliances: $0
3. Value of watching your power meter run backwards when you're giving power to the grid
Isn't H2O also a greenhouse gas? What effect on climate increased humidity levels have if H2O emissions where substituted for CO2 worldwide?
an ill wind that blows no good
Sure it's not cost effective. Prototypes and one-offs rarely are.
As a proof-of-concept, though, it's highly successful. This guy is demonstrating, not just hand-waving, that one can be entirely energy self-sufficient through solar power, even with the crappy efficiency of current mass produced photovoltaic panels.
Find a way to increase the efficiency and/or drop the price of the panels (and H2 storage system, fuel cells, etc) and it starts to look really attractive. More so if you want to build somewhere way off-grid. And without some of the attendant problems of a windmill.
The next time somebody argues that you can't live off-grid just on solar power, you can point to this guy. Then the argument comes down to cost-effectiveness, which depends on a lot of other factors.
-- Alastair
We have a building with a 9KW system on an all-electric building that gets us a $0 bill for many months, and a 12KW system on a much larger all-electric (including heat pumps) building that saw a typical 60% decrease in its electric bill. They're both grid-tied and net-metered. Another 100 sq ft of panels and I could keep our Twike charged on solar alone!
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
It's proof-of-concept. Now that we know it can be done, the next step is to figure out how to mass produce it.
Think of your car, for example. If you went to a machine shop and had them custom grind every single part for your car, it would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Once you get a factory stamping them out...well, not so much.
This guy is one of the first. Of course it's going to be expensive.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Generating electricity in cleaner ways is nice but not nearly as efficient or green as simply using less. Production is a very small part of the problem. Consumption is what we have to deal with.
Funny createSig(Witty remark, Odd reference)
{
return (Funny)remark + (Funny)reference;
}
Until we find a fuel cell catalyst that isn't platinum, we're still going to have problems.
I don't believe that enough platinum has been mined to produce fuel cells for all the cars out there.
Check out my sysadmin blog!
Hi all,
My wife and I have been building a green, eco-friendly home in the heart of oil-city Canada - Calgary, Alberta. We have been blogging about our experiences at ramsayhome.com. We have had quite the experience so far...we had to fire our first contractor, dismantle some of the work, continue with a new contractor, etc. Everything is back on-track though and we will be posting some new pictures this weekend.
From TFA: the cost of the installation was about $500,000, including about $50,000 of lead acid batteries.
I would suggest that the environmental impact of building this house, and recycling the consumables far outweighs the lowered energy consumption.
Just recycling an estimated 1 ton of toxic, heavy metal, lead a year (assuming 10 ton installation with life expectancy of 10 years), has a big environmental impact.
Solar panel manufacturing also consumes a lot of resources, and end up not beeing so clean overall.
A $500,000 investment would probably give a thousand times better ROI if it was spent on pollution reduction in india or china, or to save rainforest.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
If there was HIAA, they'd slap "heat-theft" tax on every solar panel, then they would slap monthly tax on the heat that you're not buying from them, but they need to survive as a corporation for the good of other homeowners who happen to buy their heat from HIAA, blame foreign solar panel smuggling for lack of profits... wait. Maybe this WILL happen? In the global pursuit of corporate greed, I just don't see a way that houses coudl some day be self-sustaining when it comes to heating, electricity and solar power. Somehow the corporate greed will snatch this out of the people's hands.
"It was the humans who scorched the sky..."
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Yes, I'm a green and I act like an entrepeneur, not a terroist. From the article:
"You need to make the financing within reach of real people," Wentworth said.
That part is done as you'll see at my home page: http://www.jointhesolution.com/mdsolar
You can get solar for no more than you're paying now for electricity, no installation fee, no permit hassles, and no rate increases for up to 25 years.
I love what Mr. Strizki has done but I wish he'd heard of this opportunity first.
I see a lot of posts scoffing at this because of the high cost. Let me propose that reducing our reliance on non-renewable resources is about more than economic efficiency.
Consider that in Asia and the Indian sub-continent that there are roughly 2.5 Billion people, an increasing number of which are gaining in wealth. In 20 years, these coutries will have by far outsripped the U.S. in the demand for energy and building materials.
I submit that it is in everybody's interest to head off the imminent clash of interests between the ultra-consumers in the U.S. and up-and-coming consumers in the rest of the developing world. If we insist that it is our right to continue our disproportionate consumption of resources, then we will have to fight for it (a prospect that I find frightening at best).
Learn to live better, not cheaper.
Insisting on "correct" English is like saying that there is only one, definitive recipe for chili.
This is great people are becoming climate-conscious.
Last month is was talking to my landlord about installing geothermal pumps to counter rising fuel costs because it's only 3-8 yrs investment before the payoff. To my great surprise, he didn't laugh at me!
Besides, sound economics have a long-term perspective. Imagine the impact of this on energy dependence, jobs, climate,... I guess Exxon and friends know that this could be much more beneficial than their actual business in terms of GDP, corporate profit, health, nature... even foreign policy! ...and what about future generations?
Great article!
...that I do not have enough points to mod down all illiterates repeating the incorrect assertion that "IT WILL COST HALF A MILLION OMG DUDE THAT IS SO STUPID."
Read the fucking article. $500,000 is the prototype cost. $100,000 is the projected retail cost.
The solution here is not to completely go off-grid. Solutions like this must be revenue generating or revenue neutral and people adopting this technology must be allowed to sell excess power back, and use the grid when they aren't producing enough. Having massive amounts of batteries and other devices that are harmful to the environment, isn't solving the problem. In effect "the grid" needs to be the batteries for these setups, allowing you to push and pull as needed. I haven't fully made my mind up about hydrogen use.. but our use of it is likely to change some balance in the earth. What will the effects be of all that steam being generated? Rain clouds everywhere? I think a purely solar solution, that's plug and play, sits on your roof and puts energy back into the grid is what will save our society's energy problem. you also get the added effect of absorbing solar energy that would otherwise be heating up our planet. We're solving more than one problem here...
----------------------------
Esobofh - Currently drinking fresh mango juice.
I did this very same thing back in 2004. That is how I can say I lost $500K in the great Jersey Hail Storm of 2005.
I've always wanted to do some 100% solar power project, but what about Night time? is there really some sort of high volume capacitor out there?
This guy did a solar installation for about $12,000 using some very expensive solar shingles and a grid tie with deep cycle batteries for backup rather than expensive fuel cells and electrolyzers. You can also install enough panels and batteries to take one room in your house, like your bedroom or bathroom, off of the grid and simply add panels as you get more money. It's electricity, so it's easy to add capacity. Or if you want to go really low-tech, you can switch your water heater over to a solar system with an on-demand backup. Systems like that cost as little as $1,000 and can lower your utility bills significantly, particularly if you have an older tank water heater. Solar power is one thing that brings together geekiness with environmentalism. Where else do you have people hooking up elaborate systems and displaying live data over the Internet?
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
When you're installing things like solar panels for your house in France, you get tax credits, so it practically costs only a fraction of the price.
Are the same kind of dispositions existing in the U.S. ? other coutries ? TFA doesn't say (they're talking about sponsoring, though).
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
$100,000 over 25 years is $4,000 a year? Can I get the name of your bank please, 'cause I would seriously love refinance my home on those terms. That alone would save me more than my total utility bill.
The article states "Caminiti argues that the cost of the hydrogen/solar setup works out at about $4,000 a year when its $100,000 cost is spread over the anticipated 25-year lifespan of the equipment. That's still a lot higher than the $1,500 a year the average U.S. homeowner spends on energy, according to the federal government. Even if gasoline costs averaging about $1,000 per car annually are included in the energy mix, the renewables option is still more expensive than the grid/gasoline combination." Considering only the costs of gasoline in Europe http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/global_gasp rices/ which are a lot higher than in the US(up to 4x), the savings provided by using a hydrogen powered car would match the expense per year of the rig. No if I can only find how much the average European drives...
Shakespeare poems - infinite monkeys with infinite time.Computer tech support - a few trained ones working from 9 to 5.
A big tank of pure hydrogen gas in your basement, eh? That's great! I don't see what could possibly go wrong with that.
In fact, you should celebrate a job well done. Have a cigar!
/run
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Well, the hydrogen bit is, but the solar isn't. People have been building 'full featured' houses like this for several years now. There was an article in the Washington Post a couple of years ago about a house in Loudon County VA that was off the grid. I know a guy in southern Utah who built his house to be off the grid, mainly because it was cheaper than building out the grid to where he was.
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"Don't sever your connection. If you have any surplus energy, the supplier will pay you for it."
This is true in states with net metering laws. You can see a good summary of state by state net metering rules at http://www.dsireusa.org/.
Ten states have not yet got with program though I hear West Virginia is coming around.
----
Disclosure: I sell solar power (see my home page)
On a related topic:
I recently bought a house. It's an older place, built in the 1950s, with some renovations done since then.
And judging by how quickly it cools down when the furnace shuts off, it is not as well insulated as it could be.
It has the usual pink fiberglass in the attic, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if the walls were uninsulated.
So doing a better job of insulating would seem to be a good idea.
What I am having a hard time finding, however, are studies/statistics that relate various insulation levels and locations with heat loss (or heat rejection, in the summer) to delta temperature. So it is hard to equate a certain level of insulation (and the associated investment) to an improvement in heat retention (and the associated cost savings)
Anybody have links to relevent studies?
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding over the concept of 'netmetering' and getting money from the utility. Now keep in mind I don't work for an electric company, but I have asked quite a few questions on this subject.
Under next netmetering you will never get a check back from the utility. It's likely even impossible to reduce your electric bill to $0. Why? Most utilities will not let it happen. Under netmetering, the utility has to accept the extra energy you put back into the grid. They are required to reduce your bill to by the equal amount you put back. Notice I say reduce the bill. Under net metering, if you produce more energy than used, the utility gets to keep the excess energy for free and sell it back to consumers for a profit. They will only credit you to the point where your bill reaches zero. The net metering rules do not require them to compensate you for any more than that. As for bringing your bill to zero - it may show your electrical use as 0, but they can still charge their connection fees, etc.
Now I say most utilities because I have come across one that is willing to purchase excess electricity at wholesale rates. They are the exception because it its a very unique small town where all the utilities are city owned. It is the city of Ellensburg, Washington. The city is amazing to work with. In October they finished construction of a publically owned solar array. For $1,200 per kilowatt, the city has residents to buy into their array, and help expand it. That is CHEAP! So far it's in the 50KW range, but has many acres to expand. The city will cover all insurance and maintenance for 25 years, and will deduct the amount from your bill. They do all the work and you get all the benefits. If only the utilities worked as easy.
I was told by an energy efficiency agent from Seattle City Light, that the utility sees private solar & customers who generate their own power as competition, and won't help with any suggestions or ideas on PV arrays. I'm leading a project with my company to put up a 10kw array. The cost is $93,000. Factor in the 30% Federal tax rebate, and 5 year accelerated depreciation for businesses, that cost is closer to $60K. When all is said and done, the array will pay for itself in 7 years. Mind you that is in Seattle. The payoff is much quicker in Arizona or California.
At 1000 sq ft I could save money on AC in the summer just from the shade the panels would provide.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Parent is succintly insightful
It's crucial to realize that it's not important what the average homeowner pays per year for energy. What's important is how many homeowners pay more than $4000 per year for energy.
many people would balk at the $100,000/25 year price tag of this solar home. that's 4000 per year for yout energy needs. Right now people pay about 1000 to 1500 per year on gasoline for their cars and another 1000+ to heat their homes. THe article says that people pay $1500 fo their energy needs but I suspect that might be per person not per home, since the figure is too low.
Since it's certain that energy costs are going to rise faster than inflation it seems like locking in $4000 per year cost would be terrific. So the real issue is capitalizing this up front, and working to make it even more affordable.
Moreover, if everyone did this then my tax bill could remove some of the kilobucks I spend on military, homeland security, oil industry subsidy, and heath and environment costs for pollution.
this guy is using solar to generate hydrogen so he can store the energy for winter time and run his car. That storage and conversion to transportation fuels is perhaps more significant than the efficiency.
It seems very likely to me that nanotechnology break thoughs are the kind of thing likely to at least double or quadruple the efficiency of going from solar to hydrogen, and probably have a similar effect on the conversion of hydrogen back to locomotion or electricity. So I could see the cost of this dropping in a couple decades. Does that mean we should wait for that? Id' say no. just like the pharma industry, the huge profits have also bought lots of medical research.
If the world power consumption stays on its current growth rate, and if anything it's poised to accelerate, then by 2040 we will need to double the worlds energy production. To put this in perspective, if you were doing this via nuclear power alone it would mean building a gigawatt plant every day for the next 30 years. There is not enough water to do it with biofuels unless there is a breakthrough. One can do it with Shale oil, but the carbon load will create a crisis. So while shale oil may clamp the price of oil, carbon sequestration will up the cost. It's very easy to imagine that world wide competition for energy will either lead to enormous prices, environmental crisis or war, unless steps are taken to create a variable marketbasket of more environmental and cost effective renewable energy sources. Oil will always be part of the mix but it can't be the only source.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
You've hit an important point here. William McDonough http://www.mcdonough.com/writings/extravagant_gest ure.htm
argues that renewables allow us to live abundantly. I find his critisism of the eco-efficiency movement as lacking
anything that can motivate people quite interesting. Run you christmas lights and your neighbor's too.
But, be sure they're aimed down please. I don't like light pollution: http://www.darksky.org/
Disclosure: I sell solar power (reserve a system at my home page).
I would definitely try to get something like this going. Electricity bills are just terrible right now.
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"In the game of life, someone always has to lose. To me, if life were fair, that someone would always be Oklahoma." -DKR
Until the economics work, none of this stuff matters.
Bigtime Consulting - "We're the best because we cost the most"
They're guessing at the $100,000 figure btw.
My point was that people don't go green because it costs more to do so. If you want them to go green you have to make it cheaper for them than the status quo. The environmental problems we have are not technical, they never have been, they're economic. They can only be solved through economic measures.
http://www.whynot.net/ideas/2195
Haranguing people to be green is useless... and annoying. Christ, they've been at it for 20 years. It's simple. Give people a worthwhile incentive.
Deleted
Money represents resources, which ultimately have an environmental cost, whether through feeding more people to provide labor, mining more for metals, clearing land for roads... There are, of course, ways of decreasing the impact of any input on the environment - solar power generation is, ceteris paribus, one of them. However, the ceteris is not paribus, if you will. Though the array and its successors might compare well in use to a fossil fuel plant, their manufacture is no more environmentally neutral than nuclear and further their manufacturing expense means that there's a bunch of resources that could be allocated to producing other things sinking into solar panel manufacturing.
Really solar panels are great for power generation in places where transmission from centralized or semi-centralized is very resource intensive. Solar plants are (closest to) competitive for new generation in isolated communities or to serve communities that have slightly outgrown their existing power generation capabilities. Outside of that, thinking of solar power as a holy grail is just going to lead to a lot of waste and not a lot of environment saving.
I am the one true god. However, as an atheist, I don't believe in myself. I guess I have a self-esteem problem.
This get's modded insightful? How long since there's been a draft? A war for petroleum? Sheesh can't you guys smell a troll anymore?
Consider the fact that this guy believes in what he is doing. Sometimes doing the right thing adds value by virtue of the fact that the consequences of not doing it are more expensive.
There are some costs not included in the $1500/year the average Joe pays for thier heat and electricity that should be considered before discounting the costs of such a system.
Each and everyone of us collectively pays taxes i would guess in the amount of billions of dollars that go in part to clean up pollution.
Breathing power plant emissions has a negative impact on health and a increases the cost of staying alive.
Power plant emissions have can have other effects such as acid rain which means your home requires more $ for maintenence.
I'm sure there are plenty of other social costs. I beleive that if enough people can switch over to a rig such as this, our tax dollars would go to better things, our health costs would go down etc.
All in all, when weighing the costs of such a system it is inadequate to just consider the savings on your utility bill.
This has several effects on the economies of solar installation:
1) If your goal is simply to make a large reduction in your power bill, then you can install a system that across a year will generate a large percentage of your energy. There is no need to pay for a storage system (batteries, or as in the article an electrolysis system with hydrogen storage tanks and fuel cells). You can simply rely on running the meter backwards on sunny summer days when you have excess power, and running in forwards at night and in the winter. From the point of view of you the user, this is 100% efficient storage of power (as opposed to batteries, fuel cells etc. which will have some losses, so you'll need a larger solar grid to generate enough extra power to cover those losses).
2) It does not make short term[1] economic sense to get completely off the grid. The first few hundred kWh each month (at what they call the "baseline" rate) are cheap enough that solar is not competitive today). Predicting your exact energy requirements across a year sounds hard, and if you install too much capacity, you get no direct economic benefit from the excess capacity. Allegedly in the next year or so there should be good LED light-bulbs that will radically reduce energy needs for domestic lighting. OLED big screen TVs will be hugely more energy efficient that plasma screens. Compueters are using less power in newer processors. Etc. So the right amount of capacity today might be too much in the near future.
My solar PV install was attached to the grid in November last year. The installers predict that it will cover its after-rebate cost in about eleven years. http://solar.sippelhouse.com/ for some graphs of how it is performing.
[1] If Al Gore is right, the long term value will be higher ... but only if enough other people also do this.
Most people only look two meters in front of their own noses. Here are some things to consider: Solar: Calculate the energy that it will provide over its' useful lifetime, then subtract the energy used to mine, refine, manufacture, ship and install the solar panels. In most cases, this seems to still be a net winner and as manufacturing processes get better, will continue to deliver real value. Hydrogen: Really bad idea. First - if you have electricity, use the goddamn electricity. Don't waste 75% of it by converting it to hydrogen and then back to electricity. Hydrogen production is very difficult if you use electricity to do it. It is slow and inefficient. IF you turn the voltage up, you end up generating thermal energy as a second by product which causes steam contamination. Calculate the energy used to produce the hydrogen, all the equipment used to consume or generate it and subtract the energy the hydrogen produces. This will always be a negative boys and girls. Sorry - but the laws of physics cannot be repealed, no matter how cool it seems. On the plus side, if he has the electricity to produce hydrogen, he can probably power 2-3 fully electric cars. If the range is the issue, this could be an area where some entrepreneurs might start looking (quick change battery standard for electric automobiles). Imagine you pull into an "energy" station and instead of filling your gas tank, someone takes your battery and replaces it with another. To make this effective, someone would have to create an ecosystem around this to determine testing for batteries etc.
"Question everything, including this!" - http://technoracle.blogspot.com/
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This guy is a tax money leech.
A half million in tax breaks to a wind power farmer co-op would probably generate a lot more
power by several powers of ten.
Well, I think there is some rethinking to do if we go to renewables. I mentioned William McDonough's thinking in an earlier post. The main thing there is that everthing is done on current accounts. You use energy as it arrives at the planet rather than exhausting reseviors built up over geological time. In many ways, this removes scarcity considerations because we are never competing for sunlight that illuminates China or India. You don't really compete for renewable resources because they are not centralized.
I've been trying to think about these issues a little at http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/. See what you think.
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Disclosure: I sell solar power (see my home page).
My Slashdot Journal! YAY!
Parent poster is spreading FUD that hasn't been true for decades. Modern solar panels have a much longer life expectancy these days and enough bang for the buck to make the conversion worthwhile in expensive energy markets like New Jersey. I wonder if Elmer FUD here works for an energy company.
Incidentally, many homes across America have been "off the grid" for some time now. The solar array here is not news at all, nor is it even unusual among alternative energy enthusiasts. http://homepower.com/ has bee documenting this sort of thing for many years now.
That is an interesting project you've got going there, and if significant numbers of people start installing your system then the country will see a decrease in the amount of fuel used for power generation. However, it does not get you off the grid, and if more and more people start using your system it will drive the cost of power up.
You claim that the transmission and distribution of that electricity must rely on accurate operation and proper maintenance of its lines. But what happens when demand exceeds delivery capacity, or when lines fail. Your system does nothing to remedy this. Indeed your system relies on that infrastructure being there. There is no local storage of the power generated: the utility - in effect - stored the power that was produced by your REnU. You're selling power to the utility during the day, and buying it back at night (and in cloudy weather). So, instead of being a paying customer, they are a money hole. Not only does the power company still have to spend the same amount of money maintaining the infrastructure, they also have to pay their former customer. Costs go up, revenue goes down. Solution: raise the price of power.
Not only that, but you're still vulnerable to power outages. Sure, you'll have power during the day, when it's sunny, but you'll have no power at night when you need it.
Thanks, but no thanks. I'll find me a nice little waterfall to live by, and stick a water wheel in it.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
The solution you're proposing is already available: http//www.jointhesolution.com/mdsolar. Reserve now!
Unfortunately though, all that high grade electric energy still becomes heat when it is used. That's a law of thermodynamics. But, it does not hurt anything, we'd get the heat no matter what. What really counts is that there is no need to burn coal when you use solar. This means that the IR opacity of the atmosphere is not increased by the avoided CO2 emissions. Take a look at the calculator on my web site to see how much CO2 you can avoid emitting!
When there were tax credits for solar usage - and the technology grew and "everyone" adopted it. See? It's been 30 years, and the tax-credit thing was perfect.
Remind me... Why am I not running solar at home?
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
"t *should* be a painful, daily reminder to the practitioners -- like how some religious fasting is supposed to remind its practitioners of humility, etc"
Congratulations on setting the conservation movement back 1500 years.
If you're going to turn it into a religion, then it defeats the purpose. By all means, worship at the alter of self-flagellation, but don't think it makes you morally superior. It just means that instead of workship Jesus/Budda/Allah, you worship conservation.
Everyone else will try to figure out the more viable option of working with society to reduce the amount damage done by man to make sure the human race survives for the foreseeable future. We don't want to live in mud huts living like Gilligans Island because it serves some sort of bizarre Gaia worship that you enjoy.
We just want to make sure our cars, our big screen TV's, etc are as efficient as practical.
I think overall, we are still a ways off to getting more homes to have solar panel. The technology is still fairly new and people still like the good old electric power.
Changeboy
Mobileshout
American Idol
Um, I don't think this guys house meets the definition of self sufficient. The cells aren't on his property, there on an adjacent building. If he built on his property it sounds like he wouldn't have enough area to install all of his cells. So how is borrowing surface area from a neighboring building (which would req it's own power source as well ..) self sufficient?
It's neat, but anyone who's researched PV cells will agree that most American families can't be sulf sufficient on PV cells because they don't have enough good surface area to install them on. Including this guy.
"I doubt my family's simple, (more) earth-friendly lifestyle will leave any more/less legacy than yours acquiring a ton of stuff and travelling."
Your kids will hate you (actually, they already do, but they're bright enough to realize that they need you for their meager bit of food and shelter that you grudgingly provide).
Oh, but you saved the earth. Bully for you.
Technically though, wouldn't the earth be better off without people at all? After all, there is an environmental impact.
What is the Energy Payback for PV?
Energy Payback of Roof Mounted Photovoltaic Cells
At least here in "The Solar Radiation State" of Arizona, Tucson in particular, I am not allowed to "make a buck" off the power company. They will buy my electricity only up to the point where the yearly total of my electric bill is zero. That is, they still expect me to buy as much electricity in the winter as I sell in the summer.
http://www.sciencentral.com/articles/view.php3?typ e=article&article_id=218392803
If they have both nanotech ducks in a row there, you could do without the batteries even...
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Why they doesnt tried a solution based on a Stirling Engine? "A well-designed Stirling engine can achieve 50% to 80% of the ideal efficiency in the conversion of heat into mechanical work, limited only by friction and material properties. The engines can theoretically run on any heat source of sufficient temperature, including solar energy, chemical and nuclear fuels." from Stirling engine
The key concept is that it's a general principle. We tend towards the use of all available capacity of a resource. Be it oil, water, energy, roads whatever. It's why btw, we won't end up with perpetual gridlock in the future, no matter what we do to our roads.
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If you have $100,000 today and you calculate the future value of that money at 6% a year, the actual is around $430K over 25 years.
That's assuming you have $100K upfront to pay for it. If you have to take out a loan to pay for the system, the loan payments over 25 years are about $630 a month.
So that's $7,500 a year to pay for it, not the $4,000 claimed by Caminiti.
If you have the money upfront, you're losing the opportunity cost of the money (which is significant).
If you don't have the money, you need to take out a loan to pay for it (just under $200K over the life of the loan).
The reason the two scenarios have far different numbers is the opportunity cost assumes you never touch any of the money and let it accumulate interest.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
This is exactly why umbrellas should be banned from cities, to prevent rain. And it's exactly why hospitals and doctors should be rounded up, to prevent disease. And light should be stopped to prevent darkness.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Yes, the only reason to switch commodity services is to save money. For rational people, that is.
Go ahead, stand your ground, and fight the ideological battle. Meanwhile, when the prisoner's dilemma wears off, you can ask yourself why YOUR standard of living went down while everyone's around you went up. (Answer: because you spent more money to get the SAME services, albeit, in a "greener" way)
The tragedy of commons kicks in with respect to commodity goods delivered to the general public. You are fighting an uphill battle in many different ways when you expect or ask others to spend more money because of ideologies or principles. It usually just doesn't work that way -- no matter how severe the problem is.
Ahh cause and effect, supply and demand. How misunderstood they are...
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The interior is heated with a single wood-stove. It also uses deep-well windows fixed to aim at the Sun during the Winter months, using glass treated with a one-way filter for IR light. Even in the depths of Winter, you find yourself stripping down to tank-tops and tee shirts at almost no fuel expenditure. This is the most impressive use of insulation I've ever heard of. I don't know any of the R-values or other engineering quantities of the various materials.
Insulation. It isn't sexy, but when applied properly, it's the single cheapest and most effective way to keep a home warm in the winter.
By contrast, I was renting a 100 year-old house with terrible insulation; even with a new roof and lots of high-tech fiberglass pink, we were paying stupid heating bills which were basically a quarter of our monthly rent. Sounds like your situation.
As an experiment, I lined one of the exterior walls, (on the inside), with tin foil which I covered over with cloth, leaving about an inch of space between the cloth and the foil. The idea is that the foil reflects the IR back into the room. (Like an empty chip bag; when you hold your hand inside and do not touch the plastic/foil then your hand quickly starts to heat up.) This in combination with the facts that heat rises, and that the room was on the top floor, the results were that it was the coziest room in the whole building; always at least 5 to 10 degrees warmer than anywhere else in the house under normal heating conditions.
When I finally get around to building my own place, I'll be investing heavily the smart use of lots of insulation. Buying lots of heating fuel or electricity to heat should be totally unnecessary given the technology we currently possess.
-FL
I think we agree that there are generally two aspects to an item's environmental impact: production and use. Both panels and big screen TVs have negative production values, but panels thereafter have a positive or at least approximately neutral value* while TVs have a clearly negative one.
If we assume that panels and TVs have the same environmental production cost, then clearly spending money on the panels would be better. But even better than that might be just throwing your money in a hole - then you don't incur the production cost at all! Is that the environmentally-responsible course of action to which we should try to guide consumers?
Clearly this argument is a charicature, but I wanted the narrative to illustrate the extreme version of the consumer spending displacement argument. Obviously you want something more along the lines of people investing their money in environmental solutions rather than spending it on ephemeral pleasures. The problem, however, is that many environmentalists don't feel it useful to incorporate economic analysis into their decision making regarding in what sorts of environmental solutions they wish to invest.
Sometimes this makes me suspicious of the committment of certain self-described "environmental activists" to real solutions as opposed to, say, punishing greed or advancing some pet vision. I don't know how many times I've pointed out to some would-be savior of the earth living out in suburbia (or worse, some forest village) that for all their recycling and power conservation and all that if they were willing to live in urban high-density housing that their environmental footprint would be automatically cut up to 90%, but then the person says they can't bear to live in the soulless concrete wasteland or whatever. That's insincertity to me. I spend ~$400 extra a month to situate myself amenably to mass transit, living in a high density area generating very little waste and blah blah blah because I do care about the environment and I think it's a shame the way we subsidize** destructive styles of living (suburban, rural, road-commuter).
Costs exist for a reason and they signal something. Sometimes they signal government bias (tax structures, regulation and infrastructure projects massively favore low-density living) and sometimes they just signal for resources expended by the activity. In the case of solar panels, the government actually lowers their cost through subsidies and tax breaks, but these arguably only offset the various government advantages afforded to traditional power generation. The remaining high cost - the one we actually see - somewhat represents the capital costs of establishing manufacturing capability for solar panels plus the marginal cost of production, but is also significantly representative of research and development costs. All those researchers have to be educated, housed and fed. Further, devotion of research resources to the solar panel power field to some degree those resources for non-panel solar power, wind power, geothermal, nuclear, and so on, as well as for high-efficiency electronics, environmental-control smart materials and so on.
If I felt that in the future solar panels would prove to be a better solution to the big problems, I would probably have something else to say, but this to me appears to be a rich man conducting a distracting stunt, the message of which is: "If you're wealthy enough, you con't have to change your lifestyle or assumptions to maintain the pretense of environmental consciousness."
Yeah, I'm a little bitter, but I think a lot of these environmentalists' distain for taking economic analysis seriously represents a real threat to broader success.
I am the one true god. However, as an atheist, I don't believe in myself. I guess I have a self-esteem problem.
No, but I drive a car that gets 34mpg and walk places that are closer than 2 miles.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
RTFA: "Strizki also uses the hydrogen to power his fuel-cell driven car, which, like the domestic power plant, is pollution-free."
(T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)
To paraphrase an old Sinclair Oil slogan, "there's a zeppelin in my tank!"
Recyclers pay good money for lead acid batteries, that's why there's a core charge when you buy a new one for your car.
Solar water heating is very inexpensive and environmentally friendly (because no solar cells are actually needed, just something to soak up the sun's heat and a heat exchanger). You generally want to get a closed system heat exchanger, with a separate fluid loop, and not actually loop the water heater's water through the solar unit.
Battery backup is *NOT* inexpensive, nor is it environmentally friendly. Only lead-acid batteries have the kind of capacity required and they need maintainance and space and have relatively short lifespans (5-10 years typically). They require a separate charging system and a transfer switch. In short... if you have a good connection to the utility, putting together a battery system is not worth the cost.
The cheapest most environmentally sensitive solar electric system are standard solar panels and a direct grid-tie inverter. Not the shingles or any of the other experimental junk... they just don't have the life span or the efficiency. Zero maintainance, very long life. This is what I have on my roof.
In terms of (almost) zeroing out your electricity bill with net-meetering... well, it is fairly inexpensive if you have a newer home with energey efficient appliances. My system is somewhat bigger then a standard home needs, 2.5KW, and I can't zero out my electricity bill because I have a machine room. Note however that no solar system can even come close to the electricity requirements of a home Air Conditioner. If you need air conditioning you will never be able to zero-out your electricity bill with a standard 'home' solar electric system.
Solar Cell Manufacturing has gotten a lot better over the years. The environmental cost for manufacturing a panel is something like 6 months now vs the 30 year+ lifespan of the panel. Direct grid-tie inverters take up very little space and require no maintainance whatsoever. Generally you want to use a high voltage inverter, where the solar panels are linked in series instead of in parallel. Such inverters are a lot less bulky then LV systems (and the wiring is a lot less bulky too because it is high-voltage and low-current instead of low-voltage and high-current). My recommendation is a Sunny Boy direct-tie inverter. Never use an inverter which requires a fan.
Some states, in particularly California, have extremely good rebate programs. The Federal tax credit is crap.
Neighbors of mine have tried the shingles, and have tried flexible solar mats on their roofs, with terrible results.
http://apollo.backplane.com/Solar/
UYFB: What type of energy does a fuel cell produce?
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And that cost is almost always overlooked. Both by the fossil fuel industry, that tries to sweep the cost of global warming under the carpet, and by the "greens" who seldom do an overall cost study on their proposals.
If you want to think about total environmental cost, consider this: the total amount of waste generated by a nuclear power plant is in the order of a ton/year. Dividing by the number of people served, it's something like a teaspoonful of waste per person per year. Now, let's see, what is the amount of waste generated in making a solar panel...
Thank you Slashdot, I'm sharing this article with my girlfriend. I've been dreaming of this for a two years now, but now I know it's possible.
I think that the key landmark from this home is the fuel cell stack. The whole thread has talked about cost efficiency and redundancy and even overall environmental friendliness. But I think that the fuel cell stack is the right place to address many of those issues.
A powered up stack can help increase redundancy, without precluding the thing from being connected. Now, a power outage isn't fatal, just inconvenient. Now you can also increase equipment utilization. People need power intermittently and some power sources (solar, wind) only generate intermittently. These two "intermittences" are not always the same, so the stack helps mitigate the problem.
Moreover, some sources can generate power consistently (hydro-electric dams), but they don't. With a good distributed battery system, the dam can just keep running. The dam can "charge your batteries" overnight and then you can supplement the dam energy at peaks by using the "battery".
From an environmental perspective, the "stack" provides us with increased awareness of energy use. Much talk has been made of "the little things", but really, we're not very good at watching these. It's not like we really know what these numbers are anyways. Even on Slashdot, who knows how many kWh you consume on an annual basis? What about monthly or weekly numbers?
Where I live, you get billed for "Hydro" every third month. That's not really a great feedback mechanism. If we want others to learn about "energy efficiency" they need feedback on their energy use. They need to be able to look at a "month-end" number that says "You used X". I think that "the stack" can help this by doubling as an energy monitor. Once you can know your numbers, you can see the cost of your AC for the day or notice what it means to turn off the lights or run a toaster oven for small meals.
And once you have "the stack", you can start supplementing your energy use. You can now add "just a few" solar panels to an existing system and you can actually see the difference.
Seems to me like this "fuel cell in my basement" is actually the beginning of a solution to many possible problems. We get redundant power, the ability to store power from inconsistent power supplies and the ability to "just keep running" consistent power supplies. And we get the ability to "add our own" supplies to the grid while also receiving feedback about our usage.
Adding a stack in the basement seems like a great jump point for making a "greener" us.
I'll ask it anyway.
Why don't we try to make solar cells that can operate outside the spectrum of visible light? Is science working on a cell that can convert a wide variety of wavelengths into electricity? I'm not a pysicist, but it seems to me that if we had something like that then little things like nightime and bad weather wouldn't stop the cells from converting invisible wavelengths such as microwaves into electricity. Just a thought. Like I said, I don't really understand all the facts of solar energy production and this may be impossible.
Be Safe! Sleep with a Marine. Semper Fi!
I'll throw in one more: how much energy does it take to produce and maintain the solar panels, hydrogen tanks, insulation, etc? An interesting read: Can Solar Cells Ever Recapture the Energy Invested in their Manufacture?
Pakistan already has nuclear weapons, and missiles capable of launching them toward Israel. So MAD already exists(I know Pakistan has good relations with Israel, it wouldn't matter.)
Syria's military is suited toward internal repression, and is not really capable of offensive actions. Their mountainous border with Israel would make them sitting ducks for areal bombing(Israel, with or without American help, has massive air superiority), dooming any offensive reaction. In 1973, Syria had tremendous support from the Soviet Union, and still lost against Israel, despite the fact that Israel was being simultaneously engaged in a surprise attack by Egypt. Now Syria's military is much weaker in comparison to Israels, and there is no possibility of support from Egypt.
Iran's support would not be worth much. Any ground force would have to pass Iraq's heavily Sunni desert province, opening them up to both areal bombardment from Israel and sporadic attacks from local Sunnis(Assuming the Americans have magically left Iraq). Their Navy is incapable of force projection beyond the Arabian sea. Its air force might be capable of defending its airspace, but even that is tenuous, any attempted air strikes toward Israel would be shot down. Their missile force would be able to cause somewhat large civilian casualties to the Israeli population, lowering morale. But if Israels existence is at stake, I doubt morale will be an issue. The missiles would be unable to destroy most fortified structures, and pose little threat to existential Israel.
In any war, Syria would be annihilated, with their infrastructure devastated. Israel showed restraint in Lebanon. If Lebanon was knocked back 20 years, Syria would be returned to the stone age. Israel and Iran are too far apart from each other to cause much damage, though Israel could probably severely damage Iran's oil facilities. The Arabs have tried to "Overwhelm" Israel, twice. Each time, it has served to counter there interests, I do not think they would ever be stupid enough to repeat it.
Think about this rationally, why would Iran want to destroy Israel? Israel is a tool for Arab countries to control their population. Without Israel, Arab dictators would have to face their double-digit unemployment and corrupt inefficient economy. The real reason Iran wants nuclear weapons is not to guard against Israel, but its neighbors. Every one of its neighbors have attacked it in the last century. If Iran ever does uptain nuclear weapons, it is far more likely that nukes would land in Riyadh than Tel-Aviv.
...but renewable energy doesnt need to cost millions. Solar panels are still a ways off in terms of cost-effectiveness, but if you have access to a moving body of water, a simple micro-hydroelectric generator can be made from a Fisher & Paykel Smart-Drive washing machine motor and a turbine. This also works anywhere rotational energy needs to be converted into 3-phase AC, such as windmills, and can be made for very little, provided youre decent at soldering (and who isnt round here?). The only costly aspect would be the turbine, but this still costs far less than $500,000!
For more information...
http://www.watchtv.net/~rburmeister/smart.html
Did you not take the most basic financial math in school?
Go to your bank for a mortgage. They won't make the same mistake. $100K over 25 years, at today's 7% rate is about $8600 per year. If you'll give me $100K now I'll give you $5,000 per year and be happy to do it.
I hate how people who should know their math, people who own homes, people who sell solar panels, can make such a basic mistake.
At today's prices, PV _never_ pays for itself compared to grid power. Not in 12 years, not in 50 years, not ever. That's because typical installed costs are $7.50 per peak watt, and 1 peak watt is 2 khw/year.
You need to get to about $2.60 per peak watt to compete with grid right now. And, thanks to rebates and tax credits we are starting to get close to that, and CitizenRe is betting that combining the tax breaks and cheaper costs that they can take it to a profitable $1.50, which would be great.
Solar, right now, is green, but don't pretend it is competitive with grid power. But solar is going to get cheaper. (Of course as solar gets cheaper than grid, the grid will start using solar and grid power will drop in price too, though not as fast due to transmission costs.) However, I have hope for the future.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
In states with net metering laws, returning power to the grid in the main point. With our systems, all these issues are handled on the company side so you don't really have to worry about it. There are options to be able to use you're system during a power outage, and yes, anti-islanding is handled. Check http://www.jointhesolution.com/mdsolar.
Which of course is exactly what I said too. Only I used fewer words on an obvious point. I said the real issue was capitalization and making that affordable.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I agree that panel technology is just fine now, but why worry about warranty issues when you can rent and have the panels replaced if need be at no charge and with no hassle. If you replace a panel under a warranty, you still either have to do it yourself or pay someone to swap it out. If you rent, the company can't make money unless everything is working, so they're on it. Look at the terms and conditions at http://www.jointhesolution.com/mdsolar
"Somewhere in the world there's going to be a reddish explosion on the horizon..."
That would be CowboyNeal's Hammer.
The cost is actually much higher, you should calculate what the value of that 100,000 dollars would be after it was in a solid investment for 25 years.
Only if you can also predict energy prices for the next 25 years, and calculate the value added to this home in future markets (real estate is an investment too).
Actually the way to calculate it (if you plan to live in the house for the life of the system) is:
The sum of the average monthly maintaince costs plus the mortgage payment, less tax refunds for mortgage interest, for a 25-year fixed-rate mortgage loan (life of the project) to finance the initial installation.
The grandparent poster's suggestion is close to that, but it's more appropriate for a commercial instalation. This takes into account the financial effect of being in the money market (and tax rules) for home investments rather than the one for commercial operations.
The parent poster's point about effect on home price is well taken: A rational home investor would make a computation similar to the one I proposed, then perhaps ding it down for potential unanticipated maintenance problems. But some buyers may put a premium on it for the "I'm so green." social/feel-good points.
I'd expect the premium (if any) to be biggest if you plan to sell it very soon. With time there will be competition from more such places on the market (many with more advanced and less expensive equipment), maintenance datapoints, and with horror stories in the home-buying press about R.E. system disasters and problems with getting parts for obsolescent systems. This will drive the market towards realism and devalue the "It's Green!" premium.
The point about future fuel prices is well taken. But this is about computing the R.E. cost side of the comparison.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
People have been putting solar panels on their roofs for years. With convertors that allow them to sell excess electricity BACK to utility company at same pricess, an average installation generates enough electricity during the day to pay for electricity used at night. Many people end up with electric bills pretty close to $0 - AND without having the added complexity and danger of storing hydrogen gas. The only downside is that even with local and federal subsidies, you're still looking at about $10-15k, which is a ROI of about 12 years.
Still if the idea of watching your electric meter spin backwards appeals to you, these systems bear investigation.
not having to pay for electricity, being able to run my Christmas lights 365 days a year,
Whoa cowboy (slashdot line) having free power is not unlimited. It's just like dropping off the city water system and depending on rainwater collected on the roof. Just because it's free does not mean in any way way that it is unlimited. Just because you collect water from your roof, does not mean you can water your lawn everyday. By the same token, the energy effecient house is not running excess lights everyday. Believe me, they monitor their energy usage very close, much more than we would ever consider.
Over-use of the free electricity is a quick trip to dead batteries and long dark winter nights.
If you do run Christmas lights 365 days a year, may I recommend LED lights?
The truth shall set you free!
Funny, I've had two sets of batteries operating concurrently for 16 years and they are as good as the day I acquired them. That's 24 x 2 volt, 660 amp-hour flooded lead-acid cells.
I maintain them carefully, which is probably why I've never had to replace them, whereas others who think that batteries will look after themselves, seem to be replacing theirs every few years, at great expense.
I'm tired of hearing from all these people WITH NO EXPERIENCE WITH PV SYSTEMS telling the world how inadequate such systems are when I've been off-grid for years with no problems ever.
Then there are the guys who buy a PV panel or two, rustle up a few old car batteries, and think they can live utility bill-free forever...then whine like little girls when they don't get the performance they expected and there system craps out in a short time.
It's like any geek project: you have to plan and maintain.
Calculate the size of your PV array, then add another 50% capacity to cover unforseen loads (which always appear). Those who tell you that the juice dries up at the first sight of a cloud are talking out their asses, as usual. You will still get plenty of amps from a decent array on even the cloudiest of days. The only time your PV panel power quits is at night. If in doubt, add a wind generator to your system.
Obtain the heaviest cable you can. I've seen big systems wired together with ridiculously thin stuff, just to save a few bucks. Result? Burning smells, dim lights, and dashed hopes. And do a nice tidy job with all cable runs and connections. Duct tape and blutak just doesn't cut it. Work like a pro or don't waste your time.
Get a decent regulator and inverter. Over-estimate you loads, so that the unit can cope with peaks you otherwise wouldn't have anticipated. And get the type you can download live data from, as the difference it makes in your ability to manage your system is immense. It's hard manage a thing when you have no clue what it's doing. Extra money, yes, but either spend the cash or stick to paying your utility, the Piss-Or-Get-Off-The-Pot plan.
Acquire the correct battery type. Most people seem to want sealed lead-acid or gel types, which is fine, but they are blackboxware, and almost impossible to maintain, since you don't really know what's happening inside them. I've seen many of those type die brand-new. Why? There's no way of knowing. These types may be "cleaner" to have around the home (no electrolyte top-ups), but in the long term they actually cost a lot more, since you have to replace them fairly often, and a random selection of cells are guaranteed to fail prematurely at awkward moments.
I prefer flooded lead-acid cells. No, you can't use cheap car or truck batteries and have a usable system. It'll be fucked within months, or even weeks. And "Marine deep-cycle" batteries are not much better. You have to use the right type, and as far as I'm concerned that's the (usually) 2 volt flooded lead-acid standby/telecommunication variety. Heavy as hell, very expensive to buy new, but will last most people's lifetime, literally, if properly maintained, which means you have to forget all that shit your friend's cousin's brother told you, and learn something. It's not difficult or time-consuming, but the results are very expensive and inconvenient for the retards to lazy or stupid to take the time to do so.
A working off-grid system is perfectly feasible, a fact which many of us with working off-grid systems can and will attest to. Yes, it takes work, time, and money, and probably cost you less to stay on-grid, but if you don't care about that, or have no choice, then it's easily doable, so ignore the fuckwads claiming it isn't, because chances-are good THEY HAVE NO EXPERIENCE AT ALL WITH THE STUFF THEY'RE BLATHERING ON ABOUT.
"Everything is back on-track though and we will be posting some new pictures this weekend."
Will you be using enviromentally friendly photography?
Hate to see the monthly payments on that car!
So first you collect tiny bits of power at tremendous cost.
So now that you have a handful of volts and amps you've gotten at tremendous cost, what do you do with the energy?
Why, of course, you blow 70% of it making Hydrogen. (Electrolysis is very inefficient)
Call us back when the cost of this energy is only ten times as much as utilities charge now. You'll only have to improve the system by a factor of 100 to 1000 or so.
No, but I drive a car that gets 34mpg and walk places that are closer than 2 miles.
As an added bonus, my mortgage is much lower now that there's nothing within 2 miles of me.
paintball
What type of energy does a fuel cell produce?
Oh, you know - the shiny type of energy that makes that cute sizzling sound.
Any other stupid questions you'd like to ask?
Replied to the wrong parent
I am the one true god. However, as an atheist, I don't believe in myself. I guess I have a self-esteem problem.
There are endless possibilities with solar as long as the numbers pan out. A new company is making it possible for everyday individuals to enjoy the promise of solar energy without the huge upfront costs ($20-40,000). I signed up my own personal home for it, and would encourage others to give it a look as well. Imagine the possibilities! Greg http://www.jointhefuturenow.com/http://www.jointhe futurenow.com
Greg Clark
Solar: Join The Future Now!
..europeans walked onto arab lands and started killing arabs to create greater zion. And as to "terrorism", ever hear of the Irgun or Stern gangs? Israel was born from mass theft, murder and terrorism. Nothing else.
Israel as it exists today was an artificially built nation that came about from pure force of arms with a full bore long term invasion and is only maintained by force of arms. *They* started it, all the wars since 48 were attempts to take back stolen land. Or do you maintain all these Israelis just magically sprang up there from the ether? Nope, they invaded, by the shipload, and were supported inititially by england, france and the USA-because no one in those nations wanted the jewish refugees and the arabs were weak enough then to force them onto those people.
The holocaust occurred in europe, remember that historical non-mastermind, *europe*, any "tribute lands" should have come from european soil where the crime was committed and where the criminals came from.
The UN did make a partition plan after the Holocaust, but the area they called Israel was already populated by Jews, all of whom had arrived peacefully. The areas of Palestine that were Arab were given their own state. At this point, none of Israeli land was stolen, Arabs had sold it to them, or the cities had been built from desert.
The Arabs then attacked the Jewish state. The major powers imposed a arms embargo on both sides. But Israel managed to get around it by buying weapons from Bulgaria and Hungary, desperate for foreign exchange. Because of this, Israel won, and conquered far more than was originally allotted. At this point, they expelled people, and did many evil things.
After this, cold war politics got involved. But the assertion that Israel was created because of the holocaust is absurd. Israel did not start it, the Arabs did.
And by the way, all countries are only maintained by force of arms.
Nice rant and right on. I too am incredulous at the huge lack of knowledge about this subject on an alleged techie geek board. Of corse this is primarily a videogame board, but still... While 99% of the people have been believing the FUD the electric monopolies have been spewing since the 70s,(because home produced power is a HUGE threat to their bottom line, they want that check from you monthly forever) the other 1% has been quietly chugging along day in and day out with solar or solar/wind hybrid systems. They work just fine. It's practical today, it was practical 20 years ago. The power monopolies FUD makes microsoft look like honest choirboys.
My favorite ignorant FUD from the naysayers is taking todays power rate they pay and extrapolating some payback time based on the exact same rates. I have yet to see a one of these naysayers even notice that electrical rates from the monopolies always steadily rise, and you have no control over that price, none, nor do you have clue one what it might get to.
And the deal with batteries, double right on. Mine are only 9 years old and still work perfectly fine.
Yo dudes, what the parent said, just go google and find out that there are quality batteries you can get, the kind that can last for years and years. The battery industry has had quality batteries for ONE HUNDRED YEARS. It's not rocket surgery. They can be built god enough to run huge submarines, mining trucks, and smaller scale electric forklights--and for home backup power. Your car parts store and chinamart sell the grade d batteries *at best*. Grade D and if that is all you are familiar with you have never used or most likely even seen a good battery. The good batteries run industrial electric equipment, or as another poster said, the telco stations. I know several people who have used telco batteries they got second-hand cheap, they work fine and in solar enthusaist circles it has long been a resource to seek them out, because even starting at ten years old they are ususallyjam up good quality and still lotsa life in them..Going out to buy new, get the single cell, deep heavy ass batteries. They work then. Heavy @$$. Lotsa lead, lotsa acid. Works.
If you don't beat on them and get more than you need right off the bat, yes, they will last as long as the panels with sane shallow cycling and using the proper chargers along with desulphators inline.
This is the site where n00bz or pretenders are whipped mercilessly for asking or posting something "clueless", yet idiots talking smack about how expensive, difficult, or cost-inefficient renewable energy supposedly is (it isn't) get modded insightful and informative.
I don't care how skilled you are with, say, Gentoo. Don't try to lecture me on shit you obviously have no fucking clue about, okay? Yeesh.
The headline should read, "Huge capital expenditure eliminates comparatively small utility bill in U.S. home." The last time I checked, running a home on solar wouldn't pay off for at least ten years. This isn't news; it could've been done 20 years ago. It wasn't cost effective then, and it still isn't cost effective (yet).
By the way, for those of you who think storing excess electrical energy in hydrogen is a good idea, you should be aware that hydrogen generation through electrolysis in a typical home setup is only about 60% efficient. The rest gets released as heat which makes the electrolyte solution (usually concentrated NaOH) very hot. Then, you have to multiply that by the efficiency of the fuel cell used to regenerate the electricity (except for heating applications, in which the hydrogen can simply be burned.) You're probably better off storing it in a bank of cheap lead-acid batteries.
If you can read this sig, you're too close.
1948 - Isreal is formed
1956 - Israel declares war on Egypt and invades the Suez Canal. See Suez Crisis
1967 - Israel launched a pre-emptive strike against Egypt and resulting Six Day War ensues between Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and Syria. They occupy to this day the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights. See Six Day War
1967 - Israel bombs the USS liberty and kills 34 US servicemen. See USS Liberty
1978 - Israel invades Lebanon. See Lebanese Civil War
1981 - Israel Attacks the Iraqi Osirak nuclear reactor. See Operation Opera
1982 - Israel invades Lebanon Again - Retains a presence until resulting in the deaths of approximately 30,000 people. See Lebanon War and Lebanese Civil War
1982-1985 - Hezbollah Founded as a result of Israeli invasion and occupation
2000 - Isreal withdraws after OCCUPYING Lebanon for 18 years - Israel Withdraws. See above.
2006 - Israel invades after 2 soldiers kidnapped. Isreali-Lebanon Crisis
1967-Present - Israel regularly engages with attacks and counter attacks against civilians and militias in Palestinean territories occupied since 1967. See Israel, Israeli Palestinean conflict or search google for Noam Chomsky (Jewish by birth but not zionist) or Isreali palestinean conflict.
I don't think this is a really strong argument. Theoretically you could buy a long term futures contract for your energy needs, just like many airlines do for jet fuel. If the problem is energy price stability then the financial markets can handle that -- especially if you're willing to spend a large amount of capital on a sophisticated home energy system.
Most home heating oil companies, for example, will sell you a one year futures contract with a guaranteed price for next winter. In principle these contracts could be longer term if someone wanted them.
http://www.zeh.unlv.edu/
o de=about
http://www.betterhomebetterplanet.com/index.php?m
But then again Bush's Big Oil cronies would not get even more crazy rich....
If someone feels like figuring out how many homes would be able to receive the 25K subside by dividing it by the cost of the war let me know what it comes out to, cause I am too drunk and lazy right now :)
It's only paranoia if your wrong...
Let's see - remove the air from 1000 old 40GB drives, ... :)
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
The article mentions an annual $1000 dollar for gasoline to be used in the calculation. What is the situation here? Does the person have a super-lean car? Does the person not drive at all? Or is gasoline (`benzine` over here) still ridiculously low in price over there?
One thing which can be used instead of batteries is Pumped Water Storage. Hydroelectric and wind generators currently use this to store excess energy produced during non-peak hours. The way it works is when the solar/wind/hydroelectric system is producing more power than is being consumed, it uses the excess energy to pump water upwards into a reservoir. When the amount of energy needed exceeds the amount being produced, the system begins to pass water through a turbine which generates electricity. It's not perfect (how many homes have enough space for a water reservoir?) but it's a very reliable, efficient and nature friendly way to store energy.
The cost of the war, $360 billion http://nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com _wrapper&Itemid=182 divided by $30K, this
retail install cost for a grid tied system comes to 12 million systems. There are 300 million Americans so that is one system
per 25 people, or maybe 1 for every 7 families (3.41 family size). If we go by cost to install rather than retail assuming 300 MW/year
production facilites, we get to 1 for every 3.5 families. Call it one in four. This is roughly what the grid can handle in
renewables without new engineering. So, yes for the cost of the war we could shift to about 25% renewables. However, we borrowed
to pay for the war on the good faith and credit of the US Goverment. If we borrowed to convert to renewables we could do it with
clearly secured credit, so it might end up being cheaper depending on how the financing is arranged.
Wow. A well-reasoned essay in Slashdot. I must be dreaming.
10x :)
I can't understand why I was modded as flaimbait (your GP), when my post was so moderate and I tried to explain what MAD is and how the GGP is wrong. But I suppose there are people that can't read past the first line.
You left out the part where "following the State of Israel's establishment, the armies of Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon declared war on Israel". Then "in 1956, Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal, much to the chagrin of the United Kingdom and France. Following this and a series of Fedayeen attacks, Israel created a secret military alliance with those two European powers and declared war on Egypt". Once again Israel responds to attack.
Maybe the only pre-emptive strike ever launched by Israel; it was with good cause. "On the political field, tensions once again arose between Israel and her neighbors in May 1967. Syria, Jordan, and Egypt had been hinting at war [16] and Egypt expelled UN Peacekeeping Forces from the Gaza Strip. When Egypt violated prior treaties and closed the strategic Straits of Tiran to Israeli vessels, and began massing large amounts of tanks and aircraft on Israel's borders, Israel deemed it a casus belli for pre-emptively attacking Egypt on June 5. In the ensuing Six-Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbors, Israel defeated the armies of three large Arab states and won a decisive victory over their air forces. Territorially, Israel conquered the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula, and Golan Heights. "
"During the war, Israeli aircraft attacked the USS Liberty, killing 34 American servicemen. American and Israeli investigations into the incident concluded that the attack was a tragic accident involving confusion over the identity of the Liberty."
You skipped this part... "Finally, on October 6, 1973, the day in 1973 of the Jewish Yom Kippur fast, the Egyptian and Syrian armies launched a surprise attack against Israel. Despite early successes against an unprepared Israeli army, Egypt and Syria were eventually repelled by the Israeli forces. A number of years of relative calm ensued, which fostered the environment in which Israel and Egypt could make peace." Then you completely ignore this from the same article you cited originally. "PLO attacks from Lebanon into Israel in 1977 and 1978 escalated tensions between the countries. On 11 March 1978, eleven Fatah militants landed on a beach in northern Israel and proceeded to hijack two buses full of passengers on Haifa - Tel-Aviv road, shooting at passing vehicles. They killed 37 and wounded 76 Israelis before being killed in the firefight with the Israeli forces.[3] Israel invaded Lebanon four days later in Operation Litani. "
And the world thanks Israel for such a move.
Once again as a response... "The reason for the attack was to defend Israel's northernmost settlements from terrorist attacks, which had been occurring frequently. After establishing a forty-kilometer barrier zone, the IDF continued northward and even captured the capital, Beirut. Israeli forces expelled Palestinian Liberation Organization forces from the country, forcing the organization to relocate to Tunis."
Look at it this way: even if everybody cut their energy usage in half, we'd still be using a lot of damn power. It's got to come from somewhere. The folks who soothe their consciences by buying in to tech like this early do us all a huge favor-- they're paying the R&D costs for the systems, paying for refinement of production techniques, paying to give installers experience and exposure, and paying to be long-term guinea pigs for something very few people have done.
Early adopters might not be doing things the way you'd want them to in a perfect world, but they're a step better than the folks who do nothing. And their choice will pay dividends for everyone as the kinks get worked out of the process and manufacturing costs go down. Let them do it. It's the most positive choice they're likely to make, and we all see some benefit.
Your response seems to have taken a moral stance on whether Israel's attacks over the years were justified over the years. I did not state whether or not those attacks were justified but simply provided a list to you of what you asked for: how many times since it's inception Israel has attacked another country.
That is why I did not mention the Yom Kappur war, where Israel was outright attacked by Egypt during a religious holiday.
In most of these conflicts we can argue back and forth non-stop over who attacked who first and which side started a conflict.
For example, you mention that Israel only attacked Egypt after attacks by the Fedayeen and after Egypt nationalized the Suez canal. However, Egypt could argue that the attacks by the Fedayeen were in responce to regular raids in the Gaza Strip (egyptian territory at the time) by Ariel Sharon. In turn Israel could argue that because Egypt tolerated and possibly funded the Fedayeen, that they were responsible for their actions. My point is they can continue to split hairs over minor events.
If you want to take a moral stance on the issue, then consider how each side responds to such actions and whether their actions are effective and measured. Was Israel invading Egypt because of a minor conflict in which both sides were attacking each other? Or was it to regain control of the Suez for trading purposes or improve relations with England and France as well as help them re-establish influence in the region to pre ww2 levels? It was obvious to the rest of the world that the real issue was control over the Suez canal. The prime minister of England resigned and even the US was against Israel on this one and forced them to end hostilities with Egypt.
You mention that the Six Day war had good reasons behind it, which I partially agree with. However, the build up of Arms near an enemy's border is by no means a declaration of war. The US and Russia built up huge arsenals of weapons pointed directly at each other during the cold war but not necessarily because one planned on attacking the other but more so as a deterrent. It makes sense that Egypt would have placed military resources close to the Israeli border because Israel is the only actively hostile neighbour to egypt (similarly, it makes sense that Israel would have placed miliary resources close to the Egyptian border). As for the treaties which Egypt violated, I didn't find any specific ones but perhaps it was another reference of the closing of the Straits of Tiran. Of course this doesn't explain why they attacked Jordan or Iraq. (Syria had an alliance with Egypt so they had to declare war on both of them simultaneously).
In reference to the world "thanking" Israel for the attack against Iraq, whether or not they were "thanked" is irrelevant. They attacked another nation unprovoked and the statement that they may have been developing nuclear weapons is disputed. On another note, how many people are thanking the US or invading Iraq in the recent war?
The invasion of Lebanon was anything but a measured response. The number of Lebanese killed far outnumbered those of Israelis killed in pre-war attacks. It's disputable that the Isreali displacement of a Palestinean independance movement such as the PLO, which was formed as a result of the annexing of Palestinean territory by Israel (ie due to questionable acts by Israel), constitutes a noble act worthy of an invasion.
As for Hizbollah's goals, their "nobility" was not something I was commenting on, simply the fact that Israel brought about it's existence due to their invasion of Lebanon. As for the goals stated in their manifesto: 1) The eradication of western imperialism in Lebanon. This basically is stating that they want Lebanon to be independant. They don't want to be occupied or politically influenced by Israel, Syria, the US or anybody else. Many would consider this to be noble. 2) * Transformation of Lebanon's multi-confessional state into an Islamic state. Hezbollah offici