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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'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!
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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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.
Don't sever your connection. If you have any surplus energy, the supplier will pay you for it.
nothing
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.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
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
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?
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.
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
"But had the same money been used to, say, help elderly people on fixed incomes heat their houses?"
Then 90% of it would have been misappropriated and used for personal projects of the administrators, and the other 10% would have gone to people who didn't really need it, but felt they were entitled to it.
Consider this an investment in science. It's expensive, and rarely pays out immediately. They probably learned quite a bit about how to manufacture and install these items through the mistakes found in the process. You won't see the improvements immediately, but you will within your lifetime. And no, I don't know what they'll be yet. I'm not psychic enough. Some research doesn't have a specific goal.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
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.
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
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.
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.
Well.. don't let it bother you too much - these folks aren't the first. People have been living "off grid" for thousands of years, and people have been taking themselves "off-grid" since "the grid" was built.
There are many ways to do this, and whole communities that do this on a fairly freuqent basis in the US and Canada that I know of. Whole households can easily be powered by a small stream with enough drop or "head" to push a small hydroelectric generator. Heck, you can build one of these setups easily with generator from a scrap car and a couple batteries! - the trick is having a creek or stream nearbye that can push your homeade generator. Or wind? do some googling, there are alot of cheap ways to go "off grid".
My brother lived in a cabin for a few years that had only one small solar panel and one car battery. It was enough to power what limited lighting he needed.. and on occasion run a tv when he just had to catch an episode of whatever was popular at the time..
it can be done, it's being done... as with anything in this life, dollars can usually be substituted with hard work.
----------------------------
Esobofh - Currently drinking fresh mango juice.
Perhaps his roof isn't well-oriented towards the south, and the other building's roof is.
You don't dump half a million into a project only to have the solar cells facing away from the sun.
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
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
This would be a great project for something like the Ansari X prize: the first homeowner to generate 100 MBTU/Year for a capital investment of less than $100,000 gets 100x his investment back.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Sure there is; just recycle all the platinum used in the catalytic converters on current cars. Every car produced in the last 30 years has a couple grams of platinum in it already. Plating your anode/cathodes in platinum shouldn't use more than a catalytic converter does today.
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.
It's more than a transmission charge for wishing to backfeed electricty onto the grid.
When you have any solar system installed while being ON-Grid you will get your own accessable automatic system disconnect to remove you from the grid when the grid goes down to prevent "islanding" (you backfeeding electricty on the grid which could cause a repair lineman to be killed). The elec co's may also put in their own inacessable (to you) automatic disconnect which they then charge you rental fees on in most cases. So yes by code you must have your own disconnect on the system, as well as possibly having the elec. co's one as well.
Also many Elec Co's don't actually PAY you for the electrity you pump back out onto the grid, they have gone to a credit sytem, and they may limit how much of a "credit" you can recieve per year from them for backfeeding.
And on top of all that, as you mentinoed, you may get charged a seperate "backfeed" fee.
So really depending on the state you live in, the Elec Co you use, and the regulations they have in place it may NOT be feasible at all to go with an ON-Grid system that backfeeds but instead setup a Hybrid system where appliances that draw high AMPs on startup (like A/C units, refridgerators, freezers) are on standard grid outlets, while the grid feed is seperated from the output of your solar system and only used to seperately charge the batteries when the panels don't supply sufficent juice to charge them.
Oh and don't think you can get away by doing stealth solar backfeeds, most new meters they install these days won't run backwards, and if they think you are backfeeding they can easily swap out your old one with one of the newer models.
I would check an entry-level HVAC textbook. If I understand you correctly, there are accepted methods of calculating the things you're asking about.
'I ain't a liar, baby, and I ain't proud I just want what I'm not allowed.' -- Violent Femmes, 36-24-36
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Actually, as a New Jersey taxpayer, I'm not livid, and neither is the rest of New Jersey. Why? Because we voted for this. In the last election, New Jersey had three proposals on the ballot. If memory serves me correctly, all of which had some environmental impact. At least one of which involved a tax increase that would be allocating specifically for the purpose of researching alternative energy. So I'm glad that the state government is following through with this.
To those calling this a "stupid project" and does not show anything new, or even worthwhile, you are wrong. While this may seem to you like a crazy geek project by someone who could afford it himself, I see it as a proof of concept. Not just the solar bit, but the hydrogen piece as well. Not too many people with solar panels on their roof are also producing their own hydrogen, not only for energy storage, but to run his hydrogen fuel cell car. If this guy is successful in creating this concept, and people show a genuine interest in this kind of energy production, then much good will come. Costs will definitely drop once demand goes up and the economies of scale kick in. By keeping interest high, more innovations in this technology will come about.
I would even suggest a commitee to discuss possible scenarios for doing a mass roll-out of this type of energy. There are a lot of different things to consider, such as distributed or central hydrogen storage, or some kind of compromise of distributed central storage facilities. The fact that this man can run his entire house from the solar panels alone is significant and the publicity for it alone is a step closer to this becoming a reality for everyone.
"It's not whether you win or lose, it's how drunk you get." -- H. J. Simpson
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!
What is the Energy Payback for PV?
Energy Payback of Roof Mounted Photovoltaic Cells
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
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.
Deleted
If you bring the insulation in the walls to about R50 (fibergalss is fine) and the ceiling to about R70 then you can get rid of the furnace. The cost of insulating the house is going to be in the taking the walls apart and putting them back together... the isulation itself should cost you about a buk per square foot.
Along with this you want to install a very good vapour barrier and calk the plastic together. Air seepage is a major loss of energy. Use a heavy polyethlene sheeting as well. Remember - you only need to do this once and after it is done it will pay you dividends for as long as you own the place. When you sell it make sure you ask for a premium.
Next... the way to do this is to screw a 2x2 spacer onto the studs. Then screw a 2x2 to the spacer. Use about 3 of them per stud. The extension should make the wall exactly 1 foot thicker. This is sort of important for the finishing.
The windows and doors will then be in pockets. You probably won't want to feel like you are looking through a tunnel.
So get some mirror tiles (1 foot by 1 foot) and glue them to the sides of the window frame. That will finish it nicely. Get a nice floor tile and glue it to the bottom. Now you can put plants in the windows where they belong! Any water will not bother the tiles.
You'll have to move all of the electrical services of course... and with the walls apart you may as well wire it properly. Put plugs near the corners... within say 30" of the corners. People like to put coffee tables and end tables in corners and need plugs nearby. Many contractors like to put the plug in the middle of the wall. This is a pain. Their reasoning must be that you can always pull the couch out and use an extension cord.
While you are at it - install at least cat 5 and lots of telephone jacks and cable TV jacks. These should not be daisy chained together like electrical... they should run back to a service center. Label everything with plastic tags that won't fall off.
These little details will not cost you much and it is just so NICE to be able to have a separate phone line for instance for the kids or for a tenant down the track. Make sure you have two phone jacks in each drop... the duplex boxes cost about the same as the singles and you might want to add a fax someday.
Note: The future of telephones is probably VoIP and you might want to run an Asterix server someday as this will provide both local and long distance services to any other asterix server at no cost. This means you can probably call up your phone company and tell them to take a hike and cancel your services. This alone will pay for the wiring in about a year or less.
Finally... if you can figure out a way... see if you can provide a way to run fiber optics. I _think_ one way might be to just install plastic conduit into each room. Its pretty easy to fish whatever cables you might need in the future through a conduit. I've not priced this out... Also - talk to an electrician about how the fishing will be done. Electricians are brlliant at this.
I redid my house about 10 years ago. I made some mistakes and not thinking far enough ahead was the big one. So I ended up trying to figure how I could run 10base-T over TV cables. Now we have wireless.
But I still think that in the future if we get fiber to the house then we'll want fiber in the house... and this means to each room.
Before you start... watch Total Recall. Arnie and Stone have a gorgeous view from their window. Note this scene... its not a window - its a flat panel display that looks like a window. I expect these will be common place within about a decade.
Regardless where people live they tend to live in houses most of the time and look out windows. I see no reason why a camera can't be mounted at a nice beach and the image displayed in real time in a display that looks like a window. The displays are being built by companies like Westaim (wed.to) http://www.westaim.co
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
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/
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.
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
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.
"In the event of war, my enlistment in the Armed Forces continues until six (6) months after the war ends, unless my enlistment is ended sooner by the President of the United States."
This is the "stop loss" clause. Of course, it might interest you to know that only a few critical job classifications are covered by "stop loss". The way most service members are being held over on active duty has fuck all to do with "stop loss". Morons continue to call all extensions of active duty "stop loss" because they don't bother to do any research. Most service members are actually being held on active duty by a much more mundane thing: contractual obligation.
You see, when you enlist, you are signing up for eight years. Sure, the recruiter said 3 or 4 years of "active duty", but the part the weasel recruiters don't mention is that the 3 or 4 years is only the minimum. They reserve the right to keep you around ducking bullets and crapping in a hole for eight years. When you sign up, you're betting that Uncle Sugar won't have a pressing need for your services at the end. Right now, he does. Tough shit, man. It was in the contract. I know all about this kind of shit. I enlisted for four years originally, and currently have a total of 6 years active duty service time. In my case my reserve unit was called up (twice) rather than me being held over, but it's all the same crap sandwich, really. I'm in my last year of obligation, so it looks like I might be able to keep it at that...
For those interested in how it really works, here is a good overview that will dispell a lot of the ignorance spewed by dumbass journalists and politicians.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
The "war" we are in now is a generational struggle between cultures, like the Cold War. Three is no end in sight.
Nobody in his right mind thinks the troops have signed on for a struggle that is going to last for decades.
If you want to be legalistic, then the only declared war was over Sadaam's WMD. That's long over. We're dicking around in a conflict now. If it were warfare, we'd be winning. It's not and we're not. What it is is nation building. Our guys mostly aren't fighting battles, they're trying to police a country full of hostile inhabitants, a task they're not trained or equipped to do.
Technically, I'm not arguing that the President can't use stop loss. What I'm arguing is that it is morally wrong to use a clause that's there for dealing with a state of war to turn the military into a police force.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
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.