Posted on 05/08/2023 10:01:58 PM PDT by lowbridge
Yet there, at his life’s lowest, the remarkable happened. A contraption he’d rigged up in his driveway—a car trailer decked with solar panels and a heavy battery—got the attention of people with real money. Carpoff could scarcely have imagined it. He’d never gone to college and had no experience in green technology. His invention, he thought, was “crazy, harebrained.” But investors saw the makings of a clean-energy revolution.
For decades, there was basically one way to rush power to places without electricity: the portable diesel generator.
-snip
Carpoff’s machine—a solar generator on wheels—was a sun-fueled alternative. He called it the Solar Eclipse. The design was so simple that it was a wonder no one seemed to have thought of it before.
-snip
In March 2011, he was singing the national anthem at a local baseball game when he got a text that he’d made his first major sale: The paint company Sherwin-Williams had bought 192 of his generators, for nearly $29 million. Twenty-nine frickin’ million. It reduced him to tears.
That’s how Carpoff told the story of the day his life changed.
The millions of dollars in that first deal were like the drips before a downpour. Over the next eight years, blue-chip corporations such as U.S. Bank, Progressive Insurance, and Geico would buy thousands of Carpoff’s generators. Inc. magazine would call his company, DC Solar, a “renewable energy powerhouse” with a product “people clearly needed.” The Obama administration would make DC Solar a partner—alongside Amazon, Alphabet, and AT&T—in a national program to enlist tech in the fight against climate change.
Sales would eventually top $2.5 billion, enough for Carpoff to fly by private jet and purchase a baseball team, more than a dozen houses, and a collection of muscle cars looked after by a guy named Bubba.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
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Green scams are all over state & federal tax codes, providing funding for non productive & non essential energy production.
The scam is global, the scam artists are all over the education, media, government, non profit, and entertainment sectors of the economy.
As we move into tough economic times, these scams that can’t hedge their energy bets will crash on the rocks of economic reality.
“It’s just a matter of time.”
How much is each one, so you get thirty miles of solar power over the weekend?
Reminds me of every scam the feral gooberment has facilitated since the “energy crisis” including:
Solar hot water heaters
Wood stove tax credits
Ethanol
Coal Bed Methane
Unconventional gas
Solar power
Windmills
and of course Electric Cars and Trucks
Wait, there’s more and more to come!
Electric cars are a scam.
I look forward to Ariel Sabar’s chronicling of the Biden family syndicate. This was very well written piece that was easy to understand.
Thanks for posting that link
Tesla makes OK cars for in-town driving. Lots of cool, innovative features.
If they’d rip out the one-ton expensive battery and the electric motor, and replace them with a 20-gallon gas tank and a decent V-6, they’d have a Great car.
You’d think that articles like this would give The Atlantic and their readers some pause about green energy. Apparently not.
It takes about 1 minute of simple math to prove this will never work as advertised. Even the best solar panels in the world can only produce 15 watts per square foot. That’s with the sun shining directly on the panels, and they’re perpendicular to the sun’s rays. You’re lucky to get 10 Watts per square foot with typical used panels. At best, this power is only available for 5 hours a day, even in Phoenix, and only when angled properly. For a 10x20 foot trailer, that’s 2 Kilowatts for 5 hours a day. Buying that much power from your electric company would cost you about 20 cents. If the sun shined every day, that would cut 6 bucks a month off your electric bill.
“Wood stove tax credits”
First of all, this TAX credit(meaning you actually had to pay Federal taxes to get the credit) was only on certain high efficiency wood stoves. Models that had catalytic converters that made the stove 85% efficient.
It also applied to Pellet stoves that are also so efficient that they hardly put out any smoke at all out of the chimney.
Either of the above type of wood burners are much better than the old fashioned wood stoves that were maybe at best 70% efficient. Some old box stoves and outdoor furnaces are only 50% efficient.
They literally put out smoke like crazy. To the point that places like SLC had to ban them. I never received a tax credit when I installed my Harman pellet insert. I bought mine after the Obama tax credit expired and well before the Biden one went in.
However, giving someone who actually pays taxes a CREDIT for installing an appliance that actually reduces energy consumption is IMHO a good idea. No different than adding more insulation to your attic or replacing old single pane windows. FYI, I burned two Jutul wood stoves at both my previous houses for 22 years. When I moved to my current old house 11 years ago I installed a Harman Pellet stove insert into the masonry fireplace in the family room. This house main furnace burns #2 heating oil. I buy wood pellets from a mill right here in southern NH. Who knows where the oil comes from.
Happy you have had good success with the new stoves, I haven’t.
I have a Breckwell SPC50 that is a mis-made version of the original. It is sitting out in the barn. I can’t in good conscience sell it to anyone. It burned back into the pellet hopper and filled the house with smoke. They aren’t UL approved for a very good reason.
I also have a Hearthstone with a catalyst that plugs the catalyst regularly even using good cured oak. I leave it bypassed to enjoy the fire.
The price of all qualifying stoves went up with the tax credit.
The old Ashley I grew up with worked flawlessly for many years.
I have had the Harman insert for 9 seasons. The only thing I have replaced is the ignighter and the board. The board got fried because of a lightning strike. I didn’t have it plugged into a good surge protector. My fault.
I ran a Jutul 3 non cat wood stove at my two previous houses. It was a great cast iron stove made in Norway. The only issue was it was too small. You could only fit 3-4 pieces in at a time when I would fill it up before bed. So, it limited the burn time.
I was going to buy this stove 10 years ago:
https://www.woodstove.com/the-progress-hybrid-wood-stove
But I decided to buy this instead with the brown finish:
https://www.harmanstoves.com/products/accentra52i-tc-pellet-insert
Frankly, after running this Harman pellet stove for nine years I would never go back to a wood stove.
Want a ton of pellets? Good quality hardwood.
The Breckwell is a blow through stove. Didn’t know that and would never have another. It also bottom feeds with an auger through an elbow. Breckwell didn’t adapt the angle of the elbow as the designer learned it had to be so it jams with pellets. When it jams it shears the drive of the auger then it burns back into the hopper. Dreadful design and hazardous. Should be taken off the market, recalled and money refunded at least. Breckwell borders on fly by night and won’t address their product.
The Hearthstone soapstone stove stays warm, runs without electricity and I have lots of dead fall and stuff to cut up for wood. I would like an outside air supply. Heating for us is sometime late November to about March so not so much. I sometimes have my doubts the air sucked from the house is not a net loss in heating even though our house is newer and tight. The stove pipe has to heat up to get much draft at all and the ash cleanout is the key to getting a fire started.
The thing about a stove is more wood doesn’t necessarily last longer, it mostly just makes it hotter. Loading up before bedtime gives a very hot house that gets cold a little slower. The higher the delta T the faster the heat goes out.
I am in NH. So your pellets might be too far to travel.
I am sorry to hear about your pellet stove. I know two other people that had the exact same Harman insert that I bought. I also talked to and read a lot of reviews on Hearth.com before making the Harman purchase. It is the only brand of pellet stove I would buy in North America. There are a couple European brands that are also good, but parts are harder to get here. Plus the dealer is a few miles from my house.
The link I sent you to the Progress hybrid Woodstock Soapstone wood stove is similar to the Hearthstone. Except the catalytic converter is right under the top lid of the stove. So, it is easy to take out and clean when it gets dirty. It also has the option to load from either side depending how you want to order it. They sell direct through their website.
My in laws have an old Vermont Castings wood stove with the catalytic on the back. It is a pain in the butt to clean because you have to take the stove pipe off to get at it. Vermont Castings used to make good stoves back in the 1980s.
I have lots of firewood too. I have 12 acres. I cut two 16” DAB maples down this winter because they broke during storms. I need to cut down four more White Ash trees because they all are dead from the emerald ash bore. Now, I just stack the wood and let it dry for a couple years. Then sell it on the Facebook page of my local town. I sold about six Toyota pickup loads last fall for $150 CASH delivered.
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