However, the number of households are trending up. I'd also like to see on that graph the number of occupants(is it going down?). While I know the population has been trending up. Hmm... 1980 - 227M, 2.8 people per house. 1997 - closer to 2.7.
Minor, but still there. Still, it reminds me - saving energy takes increasing amounts of 'effort/expense'. IE it might cost X to cut your energy usage in half. To cut it in half again (using 25% the original energy) might cost 10X. Once you knock out the 'easy kills' like shutting the lights off when you're not in the room, you have to spend money to get better lights. Once you have the better lights, you need better appliances, then better windows, then more insulation in the roof/walls, then to get below that you're looking at having to specially design the house itself.
However, one of the problems that both wind and solar are currently facing is affordability. Take away wind's rare earth materials and it slips in competiveness.
What I think we really need to do is get away from the 'ONE TRUE POWER!!!' meme that seems to be popping up. I want the electricity of the future to be a mix of nuclear, solar, wind, hydro, tidal, geothermal, and many other small sources.
What, economics are stagnant? Thern there's no way that wind/solar could ever become cheaper than coal/conventional fission nuclear.
The only thing I ask is that people get away from the NIMBY and give nuclear/thorium a fair shot. Heck, in my power ratio nuclear is 'only' equal as a source to wind+solar. A mere doubling of current plants.
Preferably you actually build the 200 odd plants and shut down a mix of the polluting coal plants and older, less safe nuclear ones.
There's a couple problems remaining. I'm not sure I can describe it well, but I'll try.
The problem you have is risk and inflation. With inflation you have that present money is worth more than future money. Solar panels(and other green tech) suffer from the problem that they require great big up-front investments of capital; in many cases such that I can invest the money that would go into a solar install and more than pay my utility bills off the proceeds.
With risk, you have this big up front cost for something that might not last 25 years. Sure, it's warranteed, but ask yourself this: What happened to the warranties for the Soyndra panels that did get sold? Will the solar company still be around? Will you be able to prove that you're covered by the warranty? Will they honor it(or did they declare bankruptcy and write off the warranties 5 years ago)? Also, damage is typically not covered, and a lot can happen in 25 years - sure, they're rated for hail, but what if you get unlucky and it gets busted anyways? What if there's a house fire? Somebody outright *steals* them to feed their meth habit?
That's all risk, and and as a result, logical people will discount the savings in some way to account for said risk. How much they do so depends on their individual assessment and tolerance.
They caught some solar farms in Italy running gasoline/diesel generators to increase the power they were selling to the state due to the feed-in; they were caught because they left the generators running at night.
Yes, it's dropped 35%, but a lot of that was due to Chinese dumping and attempting to corner the market. last I checked, it needed to be about an OOM lower to seriously compete with wind, and wind needs to be 50-70% cheaper to compete with the better nuclear plants(I'm counting the first ones to be built as experimental/test reactors, most likely to be much more expensive than subsequents reactors of the same design built).
I recently figured out that a true self-driving car option(not the car, just the option) should be worth it at around $25k for the 'average' driver that commutes 1 hour a day, for 15k miles/year, that values not having to drive at $10/hour, and using an autodrive system that eliminates 90% of accidents.
I once figured out how much a self driving car would be worth. 1. Safety - The system is better than 90% of drivers. It may not get into the same accidents as a human driver, it doesn't get into as many, but it still has them. Value: ~$700-2100/year. High end is for bad/drunk drivers, otherwise it assumes a 90% average savings on insurance. 2. Average human values their time at around $10/hour. 15k miles/year@40mph = 375 hours Value: $3,750 3. Due to driving sedately/optimally, it saves 10% gas mileage. (25mpg average, 15k miles, $4/gallon) Value: $240 4. System has a 5 year lifespan before needing updates/recertification Worth it if it costs less than $5k/year, or $25k for the system. For a drunk driver, it's more like $6-7k, $30-35k for the system. Or somebody who drives more or values their time more(as long as they can do something more worthwhile while commuting as a result). As seen in California, if it allows a single individual into the 'special' EV/HOA lanes it could be considered worth it for a substantial population even at $100k.
If it's a rural highway, it shouldn't be known for it's numerous red lights or even stop signs.
In town I tend to attempt to time the lights - if that means going 5mph over to hit the green I'll do it. I'll also do 5mph UNDER to get the green, if that's the way it's timed - I've seen it, and laughed at the cars that pass me doing 5-10mph over towards the red light, and are forced to stop and are just starting up again as I cruise through the light just as it turns green.
#14 Tailgating #11 Unsafe lane change #1 Distracted driving of any sort #20 Drowsy Driving #3 drunk driving #4 Reckless driving
#2 is speeding - It says your reactions slow, my correction would be that you need to react faster to avoid an accident at higher speed. The difference between 60 and 65 can be over 100ft in stopping distance, or the difference between just missing the bumper of the car in front of you and plowing through it.
Anyways, I like being distracted; I don't particularly like driving. Bring on the self-driving vehicles! Or other way I can get to work/store without having to be behind the wheel.
Just got another netflix class action - I have about a month to take positive action to remove myself from the lawsuit. I'm considering doing so because from the description given Netlfix didn't do anything I'd consider wrong, and I'd rather Netflix spent the money expanding their catalog.
1. These class actions were typically for hardware(One was for RAM); no EULA agreed to. 2. Another was for a alleged deal between Netflix and Walmart where Netflix agreed to not get into the physical disc sale market and Walmart agreed to not get into the online streaming business. Not especially a big deal in my opinion. 3. The latest(that I just got the email about this morning) is somehting about Netflix keeping customer preference data for customers more/less than a year. I need to read the legalese again to see whether it affects those who were customers for less than a year, or former customers who have been gone for more than a year. Regardless, I agreed to let Netflix keep that data; rather obviously it's needed for them to give me good suggestions!
Basically, I don't consider the dealings mentioned in #2&3 to be such bad behavior that they deserve a multimillion lawsuit. Class actions should be more along the lines of 'you polluted this whole town, now you're liable for $x amount of medical bills for all the occupants'.
$5 clothsline; Heck, Let's go with a $25 clotheline setup (line, pins, maybe a pole or two).
Average dryer cost: 3 kwh(Saw figures between 2.7 and 4). Kwh cost: 10 cents. Savings: 30 cents per load. After 83 loads, you've broken even, even if you keep the dryer. That's 14 weeks to break even at 6 loads a week. I'll note that some might not like clothelines because it DOES require more labor. Value your time at $10/hour and line drying takes an additional 15 minutes of work for the hanging? That's $2.50 to 'save' 30 cents. Just keep this stuff in mind. 30 cents is less than 2 minutes of work at that 'wage rate'. Personal feelings about the 'feel' of line dried clothing may change things(I think line dried tends to be 'stiff').
Next up would be solar thermal heating - tends to havea 5 year payoff because the panels/install tends to be so much cheaper. A bit more limited, but it can knock off one of the top 3 energy consumers in the house.
Remember, Walmart tends to get federal, state, and city rebates for those installations, plus they're fully deductible as a business expense, then they get to do positive media about being green.
You could generate up to about 20% of the power in the area via solar and not have any problems at all - power demand increase during the day is about 50% higher than at night. It works out. If you start going above that it's time to look at ways to 'store' energy - or at least the work. One example would be to NOT let your house get warmer during the day; instead have it nice and nippy when the sun is setting, so you don't need to run the AC all night long. A more complicated system would be to have some sort of thermal storage that you get cold, you then circulate are through/around it to keep the house comfortable without active cooling for a period of time*. Sort of the reverse idea of the 120 gallon solar hot water tank.
*I'll note that in more moderate climates I'd support building philosophies that don't require active cooling at all. A touch of computer control, some fans/pumps....
The delivery charge is actually to maintain the lines running the power to your home. All those lines require *some* maintenance, as do the switching stations, transformers, etc...
The fee pays for the vehicles that keep vegetation clear of the lines, fixes the lines when they break during a storm, human action, whatever. Replaces fuses and transformers when necessary.
Oddly enough, my oil boiler was made in a factory powered by solar energy.;)
I've looked at installing solar panels. Of course I live far enough north that the front of my house has a better angle than the roof(I'd need an very steep roof to get to a good angle).
We have expensive power up here; but federal subsidies aren't quite enough to make installing the panels worth it. I'm looking into installing solar hot water for the summer; but haven't found anything 'good enough' yet.
We have those judges in the USA as well, and they're mentioned elsewhere in the thread. They preside over special courts called 'Small Claims Courts'. Exact verbage may vary by state, as does the exact rules and limits on awards. In general, though, $5k is a good rule of thumb and in most cases it's actually illegal(or greatly frowned upon) to bring legal representation(it's considered unfair to the other side). A business may send a representative, but it's supposed to be somebody in charge, such as the owner or manager. They can send an employee, but if said employee has a legal degree the court may forbid him from presenting/arguing anything, or handicap him; IE if I was using a point system you won on points, but didn't beat the 10 point spread because you're a lawyer, so I'm finding for the other party.
Class action lawsuits are an different matter. Early on they made sense where a company may/may not have violated contracts/laws/fair business practices with a large number of customers in a small fashion. Basically, too small for most to bother with small claims, but amounting to millions on the side of the company. It saves(theoretically) on costs because you don't end up with 10k court cases(small claims or not), plus allows the sort of deeper discovery a proper trial can have, getting a company for tricky rule-tweaking that can't be proved in a small court. Basically, a class action is for when multiple parties want to sue another for essentially the same thing, combining all their trials into one. Saves on the plaintiffs and defense alike. Traditionally used(and probably stil worth it) for things like when a factory polluted a whole town to the point it had to be abandoned or caused increased medical expenses to all the residents. Hard to prove increased sickness on the part of one person, much easier when you have enough people to do proper statistical analysis.
Sueing Netflix and Walmart over a supposed deal where Netflix doesn't get into DVD sales and Walmart doesn't offer an online rental/streaming business is a bit more complicated. In reality, most people wouldn't have sued over something like that anyways, such trials end up expensive messes, and the awards often aren't worth reading the paperwork to apply for them, mostly benefiting the lawyers.
I like how the anti-judiciary meme has spread to the point that lawsuits are always bad.
I've never said this, and I likely never will. However, I've never been involved in a 'good' lawsuit, mostly just picked up in class action sweeps. The explanatory documents have mostly been about nitnoid stuff, and the lawyers profit far more than the 'plaintiffs'. The businesses being sued have to make up the money in some way, as I see it, so it tends to make anything I subsequently buy from the company a touch more expensive to pay for the lawyers.
Of coures, I'm a moderate libertarian; so by default I'm pretty free market. On the other hand, as a libertarian I think that when businesses DO manage to violate laws that somebody should be going to jail/prison for a bit. In most cases it wouldn't have to be long to get executives concentrating on staying firmly within the (admittably somewhat looser) law/regulation structure.
How is this better than class action lawsuits, which from my experience has the lawyers sue a company I do/did business with, end up with a settlement where the lawyers get $10 per person and I get $1 for the company's supposed screwing me illegaly for $10?
I'd almost rather just be screwed for the $10, because I felt it was worth it at the time. Companies deserver their profits if they're good enough, and profits on computer stuff is razor thin as is, even with the occasional bit of price fixing(the normal reason for the lawsuit). I've never had a situation where I felt I was being screwed over when I bought something.
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68' north means a lot of optimizing for the summer. The other panels I've seen are nowhere near a mear 30.
However, the number of households are trending up. I'd also like to see on that graph the number of occupants(is it going down?). While I know the population has been trending up.
Hmm... 1980 - 227M, 2.8 people per house. 1997 - closer to 2.7.
Minor, but still there. Still, it reminds me - saving energy takes increasing amounts of 'effort/expense'. IE it might cost X to cut your energy usage in half. To cut it in half again (using 25% the original energy) might cost 10X. Once you knock out the 'easy kills' like shutting the lights off when you're not in the room, you have to spend money to get better lights. Once you have the better lights, you need better appliances, then better windows, then more insulation in the roof/walls, then to get below that you're looking at having to specially design the house itself.
makes electric generators cheaper
However, one of the problems that both wind and solar are currently facing is affordability. Take away wind's rare earth materials and it slips in competiveness.
What I think we really need to do is get away from the 'ONE TRUE POWER!!!' meme that seems to be popping up. I want the electricity of the future to be a mix of nuclear, solar, wind, hydro, tidal, geothermal, and many other small sources.
What, economics are stagnant? Thern there's no way that wind/solar could ever become cheaper than coal/conventional fission nuclear.
The only thing I ask is that people get away from the NIMBY and give nuclear/thorium a fair shot. Heck, in my power ratio nuclear is 'only' equal as a source to wind+solar. A mere doubling of current plants.
Preferably you actually build the 200 odd plants and shut down a mix of the polluting coal plants and older, less safe nuclear ones.
There's a couple problems remaining. I'm not sure I can describe it well, but I'll try.
The problem you have is risk and inflation. With inflation you have that present money is worth more than future money. Solar panels(and other green tech) suffer from the problem that they require great big up-front investments of capital; in many cases such that I can invest the money that would go into a solar install and more than pay my utility bills off the proceeds.
With risk, you have this big up front cost for something that might not last 25 years. Sure, it's warranteed, but ask yourself this: What happened to the warranties for the Soyndra panels that did get sold? Will the solar company still be around? Will you be able to prove that you're covered by the warranty? Will they honor it(or did they declare bankruptcy and write off the warranties 5 years ago)? Also, damage is typically not covered, and a lot can happen in 25 years - sure, they're rated for hail, but what if you get unlucky and it gets busted anyways? What if there's a house fire? Somebody outright *steals* them to feed their meth habit?
That's all risk, and and as a result, logical people will discount the savings in some way to account for said risk. How much they do so depends on their individual assessment and tolerance.
They caught some solar farms in Italy running gasoline/diesel generators to increase the power they were selling to the state due to the feed-in; they were caught because they left the generators running at night.
Yes, it's dropped 35%, but a lot of that was due to Chinese dumping and attempting to corner the market. last I checked, it needed to be about an OOM lower to seriously compete with wind, and wind needs to be 50-70% cheaper to compete with the better nuclear plants(I'm counting the first ones to be built as experimental/test reactors, most likely to be much more expensive than subsequents reactors of the same design built).
Ideally, I'd want *ALL* of them to win to some extent. I like having diversified electricity generation sources.
Solution: Test them for ~8 hours, and keep the simulator going while you hand them cheeseburgers/subs/drinks, etc...
I recently figured out that a true self-driving car option(not the car, just the option) should be worth it at around $25k for the 'average' driver that commutes 1 hour a day, for 15k miles/year, that values not having to drive at $10/hour, and using an autodrive system that eliminates 90% of accidents.
I once figured out how much a self driving car would be worth.
1. Safety - The system is better than 90% of drivers. It may not get into the same accidents as a human driver, it doesn't get into as many, but it still has them.
Value: ~$700-2100/year. High end is for bad/drunk drivers, otherwise it assumes a 90% average savings on insurance.
2. Average human values their time at around $10/hour. 15k miles/year@40mph = 375 hours
Value: $3,750
3. Due to driving sedately/optimally, it saves 10% gas mileage. (25mpg average, 15k miles, $4/gallon)
Value: $240
4. System has a 5 year lifespan before needing updates/recertification
Worth it if it costs less than $5k/year, or $25k for the system. For a drunk driver, it's more like $6-7k, $30-35k for the system. Or somebody who drives more or values their time more(as long as they can do something more worthwhile while commuting as a result). As seen in California, if it allows a single individual into the 'special' EV/HOA lanes it could be considered worth it for a substantial population even at $100k.
If it's a rural highway, it shouldn't be known for it's numerous red lights or even stop signs.
In town I tend to attempt to time the lights - if that means going 5mph over to hit the green I'll do it. I'll also do 5mph UNDER to get the green, if that's the way it's timed - I've seen it, and laughed at the cars that pass me doing 5-10mph over towards the red light, and are forced to stop and are just starting up again as I cruise through the light just as it turns green.
Per this study, that would be:
#14 Tailgating
#11 Unsafe lane change
#1 Distracted driving of any sort
#20 Drowsy Driving
#3 drunk driving
#4 Reckless driving
#2 is speeding - It says your reactions slow, my correction would be that you need to react faster to avoid an accident at higher speed. The difference between 60 and 65 can be over 100ft in stopping distance, or the difference between just missing the bumper of the car in front of you and plowing through it.
It's not like an accident can't have multiple checkmarks on 'cause' - speeding, tailgating, running red light, AND drunk.
I've heard that speeding isn't the leading, so some research:
Distracted Driving (speeding #2)
Distracted Driving (Speeding #4)
Not using turn signals 2x worse than distracted driving?
distracted driving
Disparities noticed:
Fatigue: #20 in the first list, #2 in the second
Anyways, I like being distracted; I don't particularly like driving. Bring on the self-driving vehicles! Or other way I can get to work/store without having to be behind the wheel.
Just got another netflix class action - I have about a month to take positive action to remove myself from the lawsuit. I'm considering doing so because from the description given Netlfix didn't do anything I'd consider wrong, and I'd rather Netflix spent the money expanding their catalog.
1. These class actions were typically for hardware(One was for RAM); no EULA agreed to.
2. Another was for a alleged deal between Netflix and Walmart where Netflix agreed to not get into the physical disc sale market and Walmart agreed to not get into the online streaming business. Not especially a big deal in my opinion.
3. The latest(that I just got the email about this morning) is somehting about Netflix keeping customer preference data for customers more/less than a year. I need to read the legalese again to see whether it affects those who were customers for less than a year, or former customers who have been gone for more than a year. Regardless, I agreed to let Netflix keep that data; rather obviously it's needed for them to give me good suggestions!
Basically, I don't consider the dealings mentioned in #2&3 to be such bad behavior that they deserve a multimillion lawsuit. Class actions should be more along the lines of 'you polluted this whole town, now you're liable for $x amount of medical bills for all the occupants'.
$5 clothsline; Heck, Let's go with a $25 clotheline setup (line, pins, maybe a pole or two).
Average dryer cost: 3 kwh(Saw figures between 2.7 and 4). Kwh cost: 10 cents. Savings: 30 cents per load. After 83 loads, you've broken even, even if you keep the dryer. That's 14 weeks to break even at 6 loads a week. I'll note that some might not like clothelines because it DOES require more labor. Value your time at $10/hour and line drying takes an additional 15 minutes of work for the hanging? That's $2.50 to 'save' 30 cents. Just keep this stuff in mind. 30 cents is less than 2 minutes of work at that 'wage rate'. Personal feelings about the 'feel' of line dried clothing may change things(I think line dried tends to be 'stiff').
Next up would be solar thermal heating - tends to havea 5 year payoff because the panels/install tends to be so much cheaper. A bit more limited, but it can knock off one of the top 3 energy consumers in the house.
Remember, Walmart tends to get federal, state, and city rebates for those installations, plus they're fully deductible as a business expense, then they get to do positive media about being green.
You could generate up to about 20% of the power in the area via solar and not have any problems at all - power demand increase during the day is about 50% higher than at night. It works out. If you start going above that it's time to look at ways to 'store' energy - or at least the work. One example would be to NOT let your house get warmer during the day; instead have it nice and nippy when the sun is setting, so you don't need to run the AC all night long. A more complicated system would be to have some sort of thermal storage that you get cold, you then circulate are through/around it to keep the house comfortable without active cooling for a period of time*. Sort of the reverse idea of the 120 gallon solar hot water tank.
*I'll note that in more moderate climates I'd support building philosophies that don't require active cooling at all. A touch of computer control, some fans/pumps....
The delivery charge is actually to maintain the lines running the power to your home. All those lines require *some* maintenance, as do the switching stations, transformers, etc...
The fee pays for the vehicles that keep vegetation clear of the lines, fixes the lines when they break during a storm, human action, whatever. Replaces fuses and transformers when necessary.
Oddly enough, my oil boiler was made in a factory powered by solar energy. ;)
I've looked at installing solar panels. Of course I live far enough north that the front of my house has a better angle than the roof(I'd need an very steep roof to get to a good angle).
We have expensive power up here; but federal subsidies aren't quite enough to make installing the panels worth it. I'm looking into installing solar hot water for the summer; but haven't found anything 'good enough' yet.
We have those judges in the USA as well, and they're mentioned elsewhere in the thread. They preside over special courts called 'Small Claims Courts'. Exact verbage may vary by state, as does the exact rules and limits on awards. In general, though, $5k is a good rule of thumb and in most cases it's actually illegal(or greatly frowned upon) to bring legal representation(it's considered unfair to the other side). A business may send a representative, but it's supposed to be somebody in charge, such as the owner or manager. They can send an employee, but if said employee has a legal degree the court may forbid him from presenting/arguing anything, or handicap him; IE if I was using a point system you won on points, but didn't beat the 10 point spread because you're a lawyer, so I'm finding for the other party.
Class action lawsuits are an different matter. Early on they made sense where a company may/may not have violated contracts/laws/fair business practices with a large number of customers in a small fashion. Basically, too small for most to bother with small claims, but amounting to millions on the side of the company. It saves(theoretically) on costs because you don't end up with 10k court cases(small claims or not), plus allows the sort of deeper discovery a proper trial can have, getting a company for tricky rule-tweaking that can't be proved in a small court. Basically, a class action is for when multiple parties want to sue another for essentially the same thing, combining all their trials into one. Saves on the plaintiffs and defense alike. Traditionally used(and probably stil worth it) for things like when a factory polluted a whole town to the point it had to be abandoned or caused increased medical expenses to all the residents. Hard to prove increased sickness on the part of one person, much easier when you have enough people to do proper statistical analysis.
Sueing Netflix and Walmart over a supposed deal where Netflix doesn't get into DVD sales and Walmart doesn't offer an online rental/streaming business is a bit more complicated. In reality, most people wouldn't have sued over something like that anyways, such trials end up expensive messes, and the awards often aren't worth reading the paperwork to apply for them, mostly benefiting the lawyers.
I like how the anti-judiciary meme has spread to the point that lawsuits are always bad.
I've never said this, and I likely never will. However, I've never been involved in a 'good' lawsuit, mostly just picked up in class action sweeps. The explanatory documents have mostly been about nitnoid stuff, and the lawyers profit far more than the 'plaintiffs'. The businesses being sued have to make up the money in some way, as I see it, so it tends to make anything I subsequently buy from the company a touch more expensive to pay for the lawyers.
Of coures, I'm a moderate libertarian; so by default I'm pretty free market. On the other hand, as a libertarian I think that when businesses DO manage to violate laws that somebody should be going to jail/prison for a bit. In most cases it wouldn't have to be long to get executives concentrating on staying firmly within the (admittably somewhat looser) law/regulation structure.
How is this better than class action lawsuits, which from my experience has the lawyers sue a company I do/did business with, end up with a settlement where the lawyers get $10 per person and I get $1 for the company's supposed screwing me illegaly for $10?
I'd almost rather just be screwed for the $10, because I felt it was worth it at the time. Companies deserver their profits if they're good enough, and profits on computer stuff is razor thin as is, even with the occasional bit of price fixing(the normal reason for the lawsuit). I've never had a situation where I felt I was being screwed over when I bought something.