We tried out Trac and found it annoying creating separate Trac instances for each project. With bugzilla, we have some degree of knowledge sharing with everything in one place, and issues can move between products if they're miscategorized, or if they apply to more than one.
Bugzilla is too hard-coded as a software issue tracker, but Trac is even more so. Both begin to break down when used for tracking hardware problems, customer inquiries, etc. We're still searching...
4x the average efficiency of I.C. of 20% would be 80% efficient.
First, note I said 3-4x. Sure, your I.C. engine might have a 20% theoretical efficiency, but real-world values are more like 13-15%. By the way, even your optimistic 20% is merely the combustion efficiency -- you overlook upstream inefficiencies such as gasoline distribution.
Unless you ignore the average efficiency of the actual generation plants used and assume all power comes form 45% efficient combined cycle plants.
Actually combined cycle plants would likely be considerably better than 45% efficient, and closer to 75% if used for cogeneration (generation of electrical energy and heat). I don't think it's unreasonable to use highly-efficient energy generation technology that exists today as a comparison to a marginally-improved theoretical I.C. engine that may or may not ever see production.
possible to improve the efficiency of gasoline engines by 15 percent to 20 percent, making them[...]
...still way less efficient than an EV. The wells-to-wheels efficiency of electric vehicles (yes, that includes losses from transmission, distribution, and charger) is still a whopping 3-4 times that of even the best internal combustion engines. That means, on balance, 1/3 the CO2, 1/3 the pollution, and electric motors have wildly superior area under the torque curve.
My household uses time-of-use metering from PG&E (our local energy company). This means that between noon and 6pm our energy rates are dramatically higher, but moderately lower at all other times. We have a solid-state digital electric meter that knows the time and date, and it accumulates the two periods (peak and non-peak) separately. It's programmed to adjust automatically for DST.
A few weeks ago we received a letter from PG&E explaining that they weren't planning to reprogram our meter for the new DST, and thus for the overlapping 3-week period, our peak period would be shifted by one hour, from 1pm to 7pm, because basically the meter will still think we're on standard time.
I've heard numerous explanations that the government changed the DST period to determine conclusively whether DST actually provides any net energy savings. But if energy companies can't be bothered to change their own metering schedule, then there's no incentive to shift use to the new schedule, and thus I don't think any results garnered about energy savings will be meaningful.
A smart college kid would choose a career based on what they love to do, rather than on money, or they just are not a smart kid to begin with. It makes no sense to destroy your life doing something you dont want to do, because the odds are, you will suck at it and be a failure anyway.
How, then, do you explain the existence of proctologists?
Quality control on the mass-produced compact flourescents is terrible. They suffer from "made in China" syndrome and the packaging is often deceptive.
I spotted some in Fry's a few weeks ago that loudly advertise "Guaranteed for 9 years!" on the package. What that "guarantee" means in english is undetermined, because, incredibly, if you read the fine print, they only offer free replacement for 2 years, and of course you have to mail in the actual bulb, along with original packaging and store receipt. How you can claim a 9-year guarantee without actually offering one is unfathomable.
Read carefully -- the cheap Chinese-made bulbs _always_ have deceptive labeling like this, the actual replacement warranty is way less valuable than you think, and the bulbs won't last long.
People like me who don't have clothes dryers find this sort of well-intentioned legislation offensive. By not using a wasteful electric clothes dryer, I save more energy than I could possibly save even with fictional 100% efficient lighting.
Don't get me wrong; I'm all for conservation, and I do have efficient lighting installed everywhere possible, but this is silly.
Personally, I live about 75% off the grid and am looking forward to be able to afford to get all the way off -- but I need to get my roof re-done before I can even think about solar panels or mounting a wind turbine up there.
I admire you for this, but I believe "the grid" is part of the solution, not the problem. The problem is the way the grid's energy is generated, not the grid itself. The load-balancing effects of the grid are a net benefit to everyone.
There are no sidewalks, no back roads that go through, no bike lanes[...]
First, I hope you were joking about the sidewalks, because riding your bicycle on the sidewalk is extraordinarily dangerous.
Bicycle lanes are advocated by people who mean well but know nothing about the science of traffic engineering. John Forester (the Effective Cycling guy) has loads of articles and scientific analyses that explain it all better than I can:
www.johnforester.com/Articles/facilities.htm
Actually I'm being a little of a smartass there - but in the last two years I've been playing direct stocks in a portion of my retirement accounts, my returns have been in the 28% range.
Same here, actually, but it's not such a useful comparison, unless you're confident that you can keep that 28% up indefinitely. Stock market investments are phenomenally risky compared to a PV system, which will almost certainly return you 8%.
Really what's driving my 3-5 year rule of thumb is that outside of 5 years, the probability that I move becomes much higher.
If you're thinking of relocating, that's definitely a valid point. However, it appears that the PV system will likely add more than 100% of its cost to the value of your house, so personally I'd weight that towards installing the PV.
At 8% which I agree is reasonable estimate (especially at the rate electricity costs have been rising in CA) - IIRC the payback comes in 10-12 years?
I'm don't think payback times are a useful way to evaluate investments. I prefer to compare the ROI to that of whatever else I could have done with the same capital.
By the way, you may know this already, but you can get a PV return of 15% or more by sizing the system just large enough to offset the higher rate tiers from the utility company, rather than trying to offset your entire net consumption. It looks like the California rebates are going away faster than the system prices are declining, so now is definitely a good time to get in.
1 - the stuff is expensive, but the cheapest way is the grid-tied no storage setup like this
Not only cheapest, but grid-connected systems are the best for the grid and the planet. Triple bonus!
2 - It requires a lifestyle change. You cant be the typical American power pig. You have to reduce your consumption
Not true. Solar and Conservation have nothing in common other than the fact that they're both great ways to reduce your energy bill and ecological footprint.
Although it's unfortunate, energy pigs often have the most to gain from solar power when energy prices are tiered, because the best investment comes from buying just enough solar to offset your highest energy use tiers, and paying commodity prices for the rest.
If instead of buying photovoltaic cells you buy shares in your local electric company, you'll get about $120 to $240 a year in dividends (power companies often have a 2-4% yield)
Strange logic. Unsubsidized net-metered solar will generate a 3-5% annual return in most of the US today. In California, with rebates, 8-15% is typical at today's energy prices, and the return will get better as energy prices rise. Why would you trade 8% for a puny 2-4% dividend?
Real numbers: Our system (in California) cost about $12000 and saves us about $1000/year. The system will still be running 40 years from now, and requires no maintenance.
I've been waiting for the financial payback of a PV system to fall under 3-5 years and have been running the numbers unsuccessfully once a year or so.
Have you thought about what your statement means? Whether or not you realize it, you are expecting a 20-to-30 percent annual return on your investment. Do you demand that kind performance from your other investments? At 5%, solar energy begins to make sense for the motivated. At 8% (a realistic current return in California) it's a no brainer -- you can roll it into your mortgage and be cashflow-positive immediately.
You're more likely to win the lottery three days in a row than find an ultra-low risk investment that pays a 20% annual return.
One big issue is: how long will they take to pay themselves off?
No, that's the wrong question. For some reason this "payback time" nonsense always appears in discussions of solar electric power, and most of the "analyses" make some really naive assumptions about the value of money over time. Payback times are a really assinine way of comparing investments.
The proper way to evaluate an investment is to compare the annual return to that of other potential investments. With a properly-sized system in California (with current rebates), you can get about a 15% annual return on investment at today's energy prices. If energy prices rise (and almost everyone agrees that they will), your return gets even better.
The best investment comes from sizing the system just large enough to offset the most expensive energy tiers on your bill. If you size the system large enough to offset all of your annual energy consumption, you can still get a 7-9% annual return on investment.
7% isn't earth-shattering, but it's not bad for an extremely low-risk investment. It's way better than local banks' CD rates, and it's low enough that you can roll the cost of the system into a refi, and be cashflow positive immediately. The system's life will likely exceed 40 years, and it will add more than 100% of its own cost to the value of your house, should you ever need to sell it.
Gasoline motor drives electric generator which is what moves the car. This is NO different than how locomotives work today.
This arrangement is called a "series" hybrid. AC Propulsion has a proof-of-concept VW Jetta that works this way. Diesel-electric locomotives work this way, but have no onboard storage, and thus dump their braking energy as heat (think LARGE resistor packs) instead of reclaiming it.
Has anyone quantified the "recharging load" on the grid?
Sure, many people have. Why are you running off your mouth about the limitations of the grid (and getting modded insightful, no less) without having researched your own question?
If you'd read up on it at all, you'd realize that:
Millions of EVs could recharge, off-peak, with no improvements to the grid whatsoever, and
Millions of EVs will not appear at once. The transition will be gradual. The sky is not, in fact, falling.
I totally agree with you, but your sig prompted me to think: What are some of those dangerous ideas, that sound good but actually aren't? I couldn't think of any offhand.
Subsidies for ethanol and hydrogen fuels and research are a great example of terrible ideas that probably emanate from the well-intentioned. Neither exist as a natural resource, and thus they must be man-made.
Ethanol is an environmental disaster that is only just barely energy positive, even under the most optimistic evalution. This means that in many cases, creating the alcohol requires more energy than you get out of it. There's much talk of using crops other than corn, with the spotlight on Brazil and its sugar cane, which produces ethanol that is probably solidly energy-positive. Unfortunately, that won't scale to the meet the demand in the hugely-wasteful US, even if the US had the year-round growing season that benefits Brazil.
Hydrogen is in a similar situation -- making it requires either huge amounts of electricity, or huge amounts of natural gas, both of which are more-efficiently used in other ways.
anyone that [sic] thinks something that depreciates in value is an investment is a complete and total idiot. Do you invest money in a new car? or are you also one of these morons that think that diamonds and jewelery is an investment?
Diamonds and jewelry are absolutely investments; generally poor ones. A new car is also usually a poor investment, although it depends on the value one obtains from its utility, and that calculation is beyond the scope of this discussion.
Solar power is absolutely an investment, with very low risk and very low liquidity. The panels have such a long service life that, contrary to your assertion, any depreciation isn't a significant term in its ROI calculation. The ever-increasing cost of energy that one offsets with a solar power system is an order of magnitude more significant, if you want to split hairs.
No average joe can float $5000-8000 for a basic solar install that will pay back in 10 years saving few dollars here and there.
This "pay back in X years" nonsense has got to stop. Solar power systems are an investment, and the correct way to compare investments is to use the annual ROI (return on investment), and not "how quickly does it pay for itself?" Ever ask yourself how quickly your AAPL shares pay for themselves? Of course not. That would be stupid.
In California, un-subsidized solar returns in the neighborhood of 5-7% per year, and with the state subsidies it's 8-15%. (The best ROI comes when you size your system just large enough to lop off the most expensive kWh tiers, instead of trying to offset all your energy use.) If you know of any other ultra-low-risk with ROIs this high, please share. The solar ROI is generally high enough that you can roll the cost of the system into your mortgage and instantly improve your cashflow.
Slashdot Mirror
We tried out Trac and found it annoying creating separate Trac instances for each project. With bugzilla, we have some degree of knowledge sharing with everything in one place, and issues can move between products if they're miscategorized, or if they apply to more than one.
Bugzilla is too hard-coded as a software issue tracker, but Trac is even more so. Both begin to break down when used for tracking hardware problems, customer inquiries, etc. We're still searching...
Come on, no need to be so rude.
4x the average efficiency of I.C. of 20% would be 80% efficient.
First, note I said 3-4x. Sure, your I.C. engine might have a 20% theoretical efficiency, but real-world values are more like 13-15%. By the way, even your optimistic 20% is merely the combustion efficiency -- you overlook upstream inefficiencies such as gasoline distribution.
Unless you ignore the average efficiency of the actual generation plants used and assume all power comes form 45% efficient combined cycle plants.
Actually combined cycle plants would likely be considerably better than 45% efficient, and closer to 75% if used for cogeneration (generation of electrical energy and heat). I don't think it's unreasonable to use highly-efficient energy generation technology that exists today as a comparison to a marginally-improved theoretical I.C. engine that may or may not ever see production.
possible to improve the efficiency of gasoline engines by 15 percent to 20 percent, making them[...]
...a preset kill limit.
My household uses time-of-use metering from PG&E (our local energy company). This means that between noon and 6pm our energy rates are dramatically higher, but moderately lower at all other times. We have a solid-state digital electric meter that knows the time and date, and it accumulates the two periods (peak and non-peak) separately. It's programmed to adjust automatically for DST.
A few weeks ago we received a letter from PG&E explaining that they weren't planning to reprogram our meter for the new DST, and thus for the overlapping 3-week period, our peak period would be shifted by one hour, from 1pm to 7pm, because basically the meter will still think we're on standard time.
I've heard numerous explanations that the government changed the DST period to determine conclusively whether DST actually provides any net energy savings. But if energy companies can't be bothered to change their own metering schedule, then there's no incentive to shift use to the new schedule, and thus I don't think any results garnered about energy savings will be meaningful.
A smart college kid would choose a career based on what they love to do, rather than on money, or they just are not a smart kid to begin with. It makes no sense to destroy your life doing something you dont want to do, because the odds are, you will suck at it and be a failure anyway.
How, then, do you explain the existence of proctologists?
In the article, one of the founders makes a reference to a visit to San Francisco. If I were in their position, I'd be terrified to visit the USA.
With a movie sale ratio of almost 2:1 Blu-ray discs are being declared the victor over rival HD-DVD by Blu-ray supporter Sony.
Shyeah, it's a real runaway. Blu-ray has 0.00002% market share against HD-DVD's 0.00001%.
Come on, folks, his name is actually "Clippit". Why does everyone call him "Clippy"?
Quality control on the mass-produced compact flourescents is terrible. They suffer from "made in China" syndrome and the packaging is often deceptive.
I spotted some in Fry's a few weeks ago that loudly advertise "Guaranteed for 9 years!" on the package. What that "guarantee" means in english is undetermined, because, incredibly, if you read the fine print, they only offer free replacement for 2 years, and of course you have to mail in the actual bulb, along with original packaging and store receipt. How you can claim a 9-year guarantee without actually offering one is unfathomable.
Read carefully -- the cheap Chinese-made bulbs _always_ have deceptive labeling like this, the actual replacement warranty is way less valuable than you think, and the bulbs won't last long.
People like me who don't have clothes dryers find this sort of well-intentioned legislation offensive. By not using a wasteful electric clothes dryer, I save more energy than I could possibly save even with fictional 100% efficient lighting.
Don't get me wrong; I'm all for conservation, and I do have efficient lighting installed everywhere possible, but this is silly.
Personally, I live about 75% off the grid and am looking forward to be able to afford to get all the way off -- but I need to get my roof re-done before I can even think about solar panels or mounting a wind turbine up there.
I admire you for this, but I believe "the grid" is part of the solution, not the problem. The problem is the way the grid's energy is generated, not the grid itself. The load-balancing effects of the grid are a net benefit to everyone.
There are no sidewalks, no back roads that go through, no bike lanes[...]
First, I hope you were joking about the sidewalks, because riding your bicycle on the sidewalk is extraordinarily dangerous.
Bicycle lanes are advocated by people who mean well but know nothing about the science of traffic engineering. John Forester (the Effective Cycling guy) has loads of articles and scientific analyses that explain it all better than I can: www.johnforester.com/Articles/facilities.htm
Mod parent up. This is the most succinct (and correct) explanation.
The 15 years I referred to was the remaining lifetime of the underlying roof.
Your roof will last a lot longer than you think, if it's covered with solar panels.
Actually I'm being a little of a smartass there - but in the last two years I've been playing direct stocks in a portion of my retirement accounts, my returns have been in the 28% range.
Same here, actually, but it's not such a useful comparison, unless you're confident that you can keep that 28% up indefinitely. Stock market investments are phenomenally risky compared to a PV system, which will almost certainly return you 8%.
Really what's driving my 3-5 year rule of thumb is that outside of 5 years, the probability that I move becomes much higher.
If you're thinking of relocating, that's definitely a valid point. However, it appears that the PV system will likely add more than 100% of its cost to the value of your house, so personally I'd weight that towards installing the PV.
At 8% which I agree is reasonable estimate (especially at the rate electricity costs have been rising in CA) - IIRC the payback comes in 10-12 years?
I'm don't think payback times are a useful way to evaluate investments. I prefer to compare the ROI to that of whatever else I could have done with the same capital.
By the way, you may know this already, but you can get a PV return of 15% or more by sizing the system just large enough to offset the higher rate tiers from the utility company, rather than trying to offset your entire net consumption. It looks like the California rebates are going away faster than the system prices are declining, so now is definitely a good time to get in.
1 - the stuff is expensive, but the cheapest way is the grid-tied no storage setup like this
Not only cheapest, but grid-connected systems are the best for the grid and the planet. Triple bonus!
2 - It requires a lifestyle change. You cant be the typical American power pig. You have to reduce your consumption
Not true. Solar and Conservation have nothing in common other than the fact that they're both great ways to reduce your energy bill and ecological footprint.
Although it's unfortunate, energy pigs often have the most to gain from solar power when energy prices are tiered, because the best investment comes from buying just enough solar to offset your highest energy use tiers, and paying commodity prices for the rest.
If instead of buying photovoltaic cells you buy shares in your local electric company, you'll get about $120 to $240 a year in dividends (power companies often have a 2-4% yield)
Strange logic. Unsubsidized net-metered solar will generate a 3-5% annual return in most of the US today. In California, with rebates, 8-15% is typical at today's energy prices, and the return will get better as energy prices rise. Why would you trade 8% for a puny 2-4% dividend?
Real numbers: Our system (in California) cost about $12000 and saves us about $1000/year. The system will still be running 40 years from now, and requires no maintenance.
I've been waiting for the financial payback of a PV system to fall under 3-5 years and have been running the numbers unsuccessfully once a year or so.
Have you thought about what your statement means? Whether or not you realize it, you are expecting a 20-to-30 percent annual return on your investment. Do you demand that kind performance from your other investments? At 5%, solar energy begins to make sense for the motivated. At 8% (a realistic current return in California) it's a no brainer -- you can roll it into your mortgage and be cashflow-positive immediately.
You're more likely to win the lottery three days in a row than find an ultra-low risk investment that pays a 20% annual return.
One big issue is: how long will they take to pay themselves off?
No, that's the wrong question. For some reason this "payback time" nonsense always appears in discussions of solar electric power, and most of the "analyses" make some really naive assumptions about the value of money over time. Payback times are a really assinine way of comparing investments.
The proper way to evaluate an investment is to compare the annual return to that of other potential investments. With a properly-sized system in California (with current rebates), you can get about a 15% annual return on investment at today's energy prices. If energy prices rise (and almost everyone agrees that they will), your return gets even better.
The best investment comes from sizing the system just large enough to offset the most expensive energy tiers on your bill. If you size the system large enough to offset all of your annual energy consumption, you can still get a 7-9% annual return on investment.
7% isn't earth-shattering, but it's not bad for an extremely low-risk investment. It's way better than local banks' CD rates, and it's low enough that you can roll the cost of the system into a refi, and be cashflow positive immediately. The system's life will likely exceed 40 years, and it will add more than 100% of its own cost to the value of your house, should you ever need to sell it.
Gasoline motor drives electric generator which is what moves the car. This is NO different than how locomotives work today.
This arrangement is called a "series" hybrid. AC Propulsion has a proof-of-concept VW Jetta that works this way. Diesel-electric locomotives work this way, but have no onboard storage, and thus dump their braking energy as heat (think LARGE resistor packs) instead of reclaiming it.
Has anyone quantified the "recharging load" on the grid?
Sure, many people have. Why are you running off your mouth about the limitations of the grid (and getting modded insightful, no less) without having researched your own question? If you'd read up on it at all, you'd realize that:
I totally agree with you, but your sig prompted me to think: What are some of those dangerous ideas, that sound good but actually aren't? I couldn't think of any offhand.
Subsidies for ethanol and hydrogen fuels and research are a great example of terrible ideas that probably emanate from the well-intentioned. Neither exist as a natural resource, and thus they must be man-made.
Ethanol is an environmental disaster that is only just barely energy positive, even under the most optimistic evalution. This means that in many cases, creating the alcohol requires more energy than you get out of it. There's much talk of using crops other than corn, with the spotlight on Brazil and its sugar cane, which produces ethanol that is probably solidly energy-positive. Unfortunately, that won't scale to the meet the demand in the hugely-wasteful US, even if the US had the year-round growing season that benefits Brazil.
Hydrogen is in a similar situation -- making it requires either huge amounts of electricity, or huge amounts of natural gas, both of which are more-efficiently used in other ways.
anyone that [sic] thinks something that depreciates in value is an investment is a complete and total idiot. Do you invest money in a new car? or are you also one of these morons that think that diamonds and jewelery is an investment?
Diamonds and jewelry are absolutely investments; generally poor ones. A new car is also usually a poor investment, although it depends on the value one obtains from its utility, and that calculation is beyond the scope of this discussion.
Solar power is absolutely an investment, with very low risk and very low liquidity. The panels have such a long service life that, contrary to your assertion, any depreciation isn't a significant term in its ROI calculation. The ever-increasing cost of energy that one offsets with a solar power system is an order of magnitude more significant, if you want to split hairs.
No average joe can float $5000-8000 for a basic solar install that will pay back in 10 years saving few dollars here and there.
This "pay back in X years" nonsense has got to stop. Solar power systems are an investment, and the correct way to compare investments is to use the annual ROI (return on investment), and not "how quickly does it pay for itself?" Ever ask yourself how quickly your AAPL shares pay for themselves? Of course not. That would be stupid.
In California, un-subsidized solar returns in the neighborhood of 5-7% per year, and with the state subsidies it's 8-15%. (The best ROI comes when you size your system just large enough to lop off the most expensive kWh tiers, instead of trying to offset all your energy use.) If you know of any other ultra-low-risk with ROIs this high, please share. The solar ROI is generally high enough that you can roll the cost of the system into your mortgage and instantly improve your cashflow.