I think Menton is 100% right on almost all of his analyses, but I disagree on this one. We don’t need a demonstration CITY to prove how bad the Green New Deal is, I think it can be demonstrated with a single ‘emission free’ HOUSE.
A house needs to be built in Kansas (near the geographic center of the country) that is entirely free of carbon dioxide emissions, except for the breathing if its inhabitants. The household must include electric heat pumps, water heaters, BEVs only, and never any ICE travel by its inhabitants. ALL backup power must come from energy storage on the site of the house, and must come only from carbon dioxide free on site sources, except for EV charging from commercial stations while on vacation. Sufficient power to the home must be available to do this year-round.
This will prove to be impossible in the near term at any cost, much less in a cost effective manner.
One of my homes comes close to what you ask right now. It has 15,000 watts on the house, 12000 more on the steel building garage/workshop. Two power banks of 30kw each second life LIon cells from the same group who I collaborated with for the panels. I routinely export more power per month than either of the structures use. August is one of my best export months and I keep my bedroom at 67F all day and 65 at night. It has a Mitsubishi split unit in it. The dual zone for the rest of the large home is 72/70 up down. AC is by far the largest power user but those are heat pumps so electric winter heat. We have natgas on site and propane from before they brought the gas grid to our exurban area. I have never had to use the resistance heat function even during mega freeze the Mitsubishi split unit works down to 5F in heat pump mode all be it with a COP near one. The grid was down so only the Mitsubishi was running to save power I didn’t own the power banks yet. The grid down was the reason those got added. Still don’t own them they are on lease for testing I’m also in the power industry so have a full LLC + TIN and access to wholesale. The banks are from a local solar company a former petroleum geologist coworker owns and runs. We have been torture testing them with daily cycles of 60% DOD way more than what normal over night off grid use would do to them. The whole point is push them to failure. Like Elon we test to fail and know the limits of the tech. They live in a separate cooled enclosure behind the steel building so they couldn’t burn anything down if they go up which we expect them to do so at some point. Should be spectacular when 60kwh worth of cells light off. So far they are happy as clams these cells came from two different EVs and are second life cells.
I lease a Tesla model 3 love that car it’s got FSD and 450hp of GTFO. My S60 is collecting dust in the steel building next to it. Even for road trips the FSD is just too addicting to give up. I’d rather stop once every three hours for 15 and not have to touch the steering wheel or pedals vs having to actually drive hands and feet on for five hours in the Volvo. The Volvo runs out of fuel in five hours seat time.
So my setup is really close to what you ask. The model 3 only ever sees grid power when on road trips, my home exports net energy every month including January the lowest energy use month but also the lowest sun month. I have three heat pumps and induction cooking inside the NOX of gas stoves messes with my asthma. Natgas is only outside kitchen 6 burner commercial grade dual oven, plus my dome pizza oven and tandoori oven both of those proudly made by my hands and sand plus fire bricks. Was it cheap no but having the ability to go off grid is priceless to a prepper like me. Panels were got wholesale at 15 cents per watt bulk on a pallet they are Taiwan based not chicom. Inverters were 18 cents per watt. Install I hired my own subcontractors for $15 per person per hour plus $20 for the foreman took them under a day to mount all the panels and run the wires to the box. My cousin is an electrician he did the inverter to breaker tie in to keep it legal. The power banks would be the most expensive part those are 50 cents a kwh or 30 grand capex for two banks at the rate of decline I am guessing they have 5 year left in them. But they are being used in a way few would ever use them. Off grid people have different use patterns vs grid tied. Hardly anyone is going to 60% DOD their banks every day that’s 36kwh over night when the sun’s down most homes use 30kwh or less all day. They are coming up on three years old so 8 year life span. At 60% daily DOD and 8 years till replacement that works out to 28 cents per kWh over an 8 year lifespan. That’s about average for off grid living costs. So for upper middle class it is not only possible but affordable today to go fully off grid.
I’m grid tied so I sell power at peak times and buy power in the middle of the night when wholesale wind power can be negative or close to zero. Oncor gets there distribution per kwh charge both ways the recipient pays but it’s always paid for every electron moved over their wires. This is why netmetering in Texas is never free Oncor takes a cut both ways. If you have a TIN you can sell to ERCOT not net meter but you still have to pay Oncor for transport well you don’t the entity buying the power does. With the flip of a switch I go off grid and could careless if ERCOT is messing up the grid which they are big time. Solar at the home level reduces or eliminates power use right when it’s the most stress on the grid. August in the afternoon with bright sun 100F and everyone’s AC maxed out. My home would be drawing 80 amps right now with AC loads. Instead I’m exporting 33 amps to the grid from my panels. That is why on-site solar makes so much sense in sunny Texas. I’m benefiting the grid right now not stressing it with high AC use demand. The power packs are full @80%SOC of sunshine already at the expected peak price point at 2000 tonight I’ll dump 50 amps an hour from them till they hit 20% SOC for their daily power dump cycle. Not everything is bad when it comes to renewable energy there is a use case for it.especially for those who can afford it. I’ll never have a power outage again and my Tesla is saving me $3600 per year in petrol costs. It already cheaper per month than the Volvo in payments. I’ll return it before it’s warranty runs out so it’s battery life is moot. I subcontract the car out to a neighbor kid who uber’s it a few days a week my cut of that covers the lease payments so really it’s a free car for me since it charges off my panels. I only pay the marginal cost of not selling that power to the grid.