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Switching To Solar Power — Six Months Later
ThinSkin writes "Slashdot readers may remember an article regarding ExtremeTech's Loyd Case's experiences with solar power for the home after one month of usage. During that time six months ago, it sure seemed like a great deal, but the tables have turned significantly once winter approached. While it's no surprise solar power generation is expected to dwindle during the winter, Loyd compares solar power data of the last six months to determine if solar power is still worth the time and money."
There's an important step that this guy missed: cutting consumption. I have a roughly 3000 square foot house, and the most I've used since August '07 is 700kWh in a month... and that was a month when I had visitors for basically the whole month, so we used a lot more power. My average is around 500.
Now... we don't know how big this guy's house is, or how many people live there. But really... 1,635kWh? That seems pretty excessive for any reasonable house. Maybe if he's got a bunch of servers on all the time, and has electric heat, and lives in a cold climate, but it still seems high.
Let alone the man did it half assed.
I used to have a solar home. Step 1 is knowing your EXACT load before you start.
Step 2 is to understand the solar rating for your location, then cut it by 1/4 and use that number.
The man did neither. he should have a 35-50% excess for summer and have a 10-20% lacking in winter. Supplement that with a single decent wind generator and your intertie.
Finally your biggest step to solar is you REDUCE YOUR CONSUMPTION. We bought all low energy appliances and got rid of silly crap like plasma TV's and huge servers. you have to change your lifestyle or have a never ending supply of money to buy 4X the solar gear than you think you need.
It's a half assed install that was doomed from day one, and now he's bitching about it.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Yes the panels will drop in cost, but you are forgetting that Electric bills are going to go UP in price over the same time. 10 years from now, he can generate the same amount of power, and save more money than he does today.
Of course, those that wait will have a MUCH quicker payback, since their equipment goes down in cost, and rates go up. But then again, you probably don't own a computer, do you? Cause there is always one that is faster/cheaper coming in another few months. Sometimes you just gotta jump in.
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
No one expects Al Gore to live like a monk. But using *20 TIMES* more electricity than the average person and then going around lecturing *us* about conservation?!?!?!? I mean, Jesus Christ, that's like a guy telling you not to liter as he's dumping a barrel of toxic waste into the lake.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Actually, I seem to recall that all of his energy is now pretty much offgrid; solar and wind combined with a geo-thermal HVAC.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It's a half assed install that was doomed from day one, and now he's bitching about it.
Of course, technology marches on, and there will no doubt, with higher efficiency panels available at lower prices in the coming years. Alas, that's the price one pays for being an early adopter. But when I look at my power bill, I still have a nice, warm feeling inside.
... he is?
Can't we all agree that at the very least if he's going to fly around the country and world lecturing people about cutting their carbon foot print he should at least fly commercial and not take his giant carbon foot print private plane?
Yea, yea, powering a 10,000 square foot house that functions as the home and office of a guy worth in excess of 100,000,000 dollars...How dare he use a ton of electricity!
Seriously.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
If you equate 'free' with "allowed to create negative externalities", then yes, we are not living in any semblance of a free country. But your lost externality is a necessary part of preventing all those other externalities that you would hate, such as loud music.
That said, I agree that 'prettiness' is a difficult externality to quantify, and enforcement of non-quantifiable things is perilous.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
Every degree on your thermostat will save you about 3%. If you don't have a 7-day programmable thermostat, get one with 4 states, wake, leave, return and sleep. Increase the sleeping and leave temps to 85degF and then set to 78degF for the other periods. They are less than $100 and would pay for itself in a few months.
Depending on the orientation (North, etc) of the windows, replacing inefficient single panes with double panes that have some reflective properties that can lower the solar gain significantly. With the economy in shambles, you can get construction work done at a great discount. Depending on the number of windows you need done, you can get them for about $300-$600 a window.
I'm not not licking toads.
do you live in an apartment or a house? the author lives in a house, so that immediately makes their power needs much greater than say a 1 or 2 bedroom apartment. the author also states:
here in Southern California our tiny 2-bedroom apartment easily costs well over $100 a month to keep reasonably cool (80 degrees) during the summer. part of this is probably due to the building's old AC system (it was just upgraded 2 weeks ago, but we haven't really used it yet), but it is also partly due to the side of the building our unit resides on. also, for whatever reason my room is usually about 7~8 degrees hotter than the rest of the apartment, so to get my room down to a tolerable temperature the rest of the apartment needs to be cooled down even more.
heating is cheap compared to cooling, which can use a ton of electricity. and the greater the volume of space you need to cool, the greater your power expenditure. it would be silly to compare the electric bill in an apartment unit in NY to that of a house of California.
You're right, and I already choose not to live in those areas. However, it's still insane for any property owner to have to submit to such things. That's almost akin to saying that the Chinese don't really have any problems with their freedom because they can simply leave if they want to.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
His point is that you should try to live carbon-neutral, not that you should live like a caveman. He pays a premium for his power so that a portion of it has to come from renewable resources, and he puts money in to carbon offset funds. That's more than I do, and my bill is 1/10th of his.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Clearly, Al Gore should be living in a small, average house, or perhaps an apartment if that more matches the average person, just so he can be close to the national average of electricity use regardless of his actual net worth or funds.
Oh wait, that's stupid.
If he's gonna promote agreements like the Kyoto Accord then yes, he should. If he expects the wealthy countries to be more like the average why shouldn't wealthy individuals?
It's not stupid, it's hypocritical.
I agree it's not worthless, but people need to understand that the average ROI on a solar panel system is somewhere between 12-15 years. The panels themselves, however, are only rated to last 20 years.
I keep hearing about breakthroughs in solar power that are "just around the corner" that would bring the cost of a home system down from $15k to under $10k, and the ROI down to under 5 years. However, it's been about 5 years since I heard about such things and I'm still waiting.
Meanwhile, I have to wonder why more companies haven't tiled their roofs with solar panels? Google did it to their headquarters, mainly as a publicity stunt, but figures they'll cut their power usage during the day by about 30%. Putting panels on businesses makes more sense because they're in operation when the panels are at their most productive. It probably won't zero out their energy usage, as a home-based system will, but it would be a big help.
He does fly by regular carrier. He does not own a private jet.
That's not to say that he never, under any circumstances, flies in a private plane. When he does he buys carbon offsets -- not ideal of course, but the best you can do under the circumstances.
One of the Achilles' heels of conservative ideology is the inability to distinguish between practicality and expediency. It's always more expedient to travel by private plane. It's sometimes practical.
Cindy McCain got a lot of heat by saying that private plane was the only way to get around Arizona. The liberal reaction was the same kind of BS you're spouting here. Of course, she didn't literally mean you couldn't get from Phoenix to Flagstaff without flying, but as public figures the McCains do have to do a great deal of travel over a rather large state. As a Senator, John McCain spends most of his time in Washington, and if flying in a private plane means he gets to see more constituents, it's a sensible and pragmatic choice because it maximizes his productivity.
It's like the difference between driving a one ton pickup truck because you're a rancher and need to get feed out to your cattle through the snow, and driving the same kind of truck as a commuter vehicle. Environmentalists don't think it is morally wrong for a rancher to drive an F320. They don't think it's morally wrong for a cement truck to have a 400 horsepower engine and get 6MPG. Individuals commuting in a vehicle that got 6MPG would be a different thing.
As an environmentalist, I'm not even against sports cars. I'm just against sports cars as commuter vehicles. If you enjoy driving your Ferrari Enzo on the track at 8MPG, that's fine by me. But maybe you might want to look at an Audi A5 as your regular commuting vehicle.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Al Gore's carbon footprint should be measured against people with similar incomes, not against the average Joe.
No, it shouldn't. If Al Gore insists on promoting things like the Kyoto Accord that measure country's carbon footprints independently of income, then he should expect the same on an individual basis. Anything less is total hypocrisy.