Solar price have come way down. My neighbors told me they paid $30/watt back in the 80's. You can now buy solar for $0.40/watt. The falling price in the material and equipment has been offset by the people who make money selling and installing systems. Something like $3/watt.
It is easy and relatively cheap, but you have to live in the right area. I assume since you use GBP you are in or near England. Bad idea. Someplace like the American southwest will have 2-3x more insolation making it 2-3x less expensive. I get 6 hours of good sunlight per day, 350 days a year and 12hours in the summer when it is needed the most (running the AC, by far the largest user of electricity in my house). 2.5kw of solar panels easily powers my house year round, it's invisible, nearly maintenance free (5 minutes/week battery check) and I have 30A of clean 120v sinewave power running into my breaker that feeds all the standard outlets. I could bring in electricity from the street, make one connection (two wires) and not know the difference.
It's funny you mention home wind turbines. The builder in the neighborhood where my parents bought their house offered a wind turbine option with their houses. In two square miles, there was only one person who chose this. I think it generated something like 25 watts when the wind blew (rarely). When they sold the house, the new owners took it down,
It's not in your mind. All of the solar businesses that I've seen, granted only four, charge a ridiculous amount of money for doing a couple hours of trivial work. One wanted nearly $5k for doing work that took me 4 hours + $300 to get a certified electrician to sign off.
OTOH, I proposed this as a design project in college and am the same age as Musk. It's good to ask these questions. Years of scientific training taught me to be skeptical.
That is how my house is wired, but it's all off grid. You can add a transfer switch if you want to be grid connected, but it's all or nothing. The solar/generator half does not feed back into the grid.
Yeah...I don't get this. I built an internet output plug around 1997 to learn how to do some interfacing. Other than showing off the a few classmates who were like meh, I couldn't think of anything useful to do with it so threw it in a box. A few years ago I found it and interfaced it to a thermometer when I was playing around with arduino, but after the initial enthusiasm and still lack of anything to do with it, I put it back in the box when a wire broke and couldn't be bothered to find the electrical tape.
When I was in HS, I stayed overnight at a friends house. Walking to the bus in the morning, I saw a woman in front of a McDonald's holding a 'will work for food' sign (this was a big thing in the 80's, there was even a song about it). The McDonald's was in the parking lot of a grocery store and I saw a person coming out of the store bring over a full shopping cart of food to the person with the sign.
The person waited graciously thanked the donor (a woman with 2 kids) waited till she drove off, then pushed the shopping cart behind the dumpster in back and went back out in front with the sign.
Get an EE degree. If you study hard (and not just to pass the test, but to learn the material) and take the right electives, you should be able to create and program a computer out of raw materials. After this, it's only a matter of scale.
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Solar price have come way down. My neighbors told me they paid $30/watt back in the 80's. You can now buy solar for $0.40/watt. The falling price in the material and equipment has been offset by the people who make money selling and installing systems. Something like $3/watt.
It's funny you mention home wind turbines. The builder in the neighborhood where my parents bought their house offered a wind turbine option with their houses. In two square miles, there was only one person who chose this. I think it generated something like 25 watts when the wind blew (rarely). When they sold the house, the new owners took it down,
http://sunelec.com/solar-panel... is advertising grade A panels solar at $0.41/watt in pallet quantities (12kw).
It's not in your mind. All of the solar businesses that I've seen, granted only four, charge a ridiculous amount of money for doing a couple hours of trivial work. One wanted nearly $5k for doing work that took me 4 hours + $300 to get a certified electrician to sign off.
There was an analysis done last year showing that south facing panels are not necessarily the best. It doesn't match optimally with the demand curve.
thousand regulatory bodies will attempt to outlaw it in some way,
This. Mostly to guaranty jobs to approved companies.
OTOH, I proposed this as a design project in college and am the same age as Musk. It's good to ask these questions. Years of scientific training taught me to be skeptical.
That is how my house is wired, but it's all off grid. You can add a transfer switch if you want to be grid connected, but it's all or nothing. The solar/generator half does not feed back into the grid.
I've been to a few of those countries. I can show/tell you where the poverty is for the price of a few plane tickets.
That was painful to read
de-googled. Is that like alphabetted?
Only if you are not in it for the long run.
So whatever happened to that guy on China who sold his kidney for an iphone?
Why? Honest question as I haven't used either. Has anyone tried recompiling cygwin for them?
Yeah...I don't get this. I built an internet output plug around 1997 to learn how to do some interfacing. Other than showing off the a few classmates who were like meh, I couldn't think of anything useful to do with it so threw it in a box. A few years ago I found it and interfaced it to a thermometer when I was playing around with arduino, but after the initial enthusiasm and still lack of anything to do with it, I put it back in the box when a wire broke and couldn't be bothered to find the electrical tape.
That is a perfectly correct English sentence.
Maybe a $500 education program to tell people not to be stupid would be better.
My dog got stitches. It cost me $700.
The person waited graciously thanked the donor (a woman with 2 kids) waited till she drove off, then pushed the shopping cart behind the dumpster in back and went back out in front with the sign.
But dioxin is organic.
Technically, nobody has a good job. Everybody would rather be doing something else.
According to studies backed by the department of energy, the average car will be at its advertised MPG at 55 mph. But as the speed increases:
- 3% less efficient at 60 mph
- 8% less efficient at 65 mph
- 17% less efficient at 70 mph
- 23% less efficient at 75 mph
- 28% less efficient at 80 mph
http://www.mpgforspeed.com/
As I said, it's only a matter of scale. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Get an EE degree. If you study hard (and not just to pass the test, but to learn the material) and take the right electives, you should be able to create and program a computer out of raw materials. After this, it's only a matter of scale.
Can you explain how they have any influence over me or where I can find this?