Please Freep Mail me if you'd like on/off
Posted on 06/22/2007 6:06:55 AM PDT by Uncledave
Please Freep Mail me if you'd like on/off
bump!
NICE! Get off the middle eastern muzzie oil teat...
“NICE! Get off the middle eastern muzzie oil teat...”
It may help do that, but only indirectly.
Most of the power generation is done by something other than oil. Oil is used primarily for gasoline, and also plastics and other manufactured products.
Unless we can harness the existing coal we are using to power our cars this won’t reduce the dependence on foreign oil.
But solar is still a great idea for the long run and hopefully will prove economically viable.
First Solar hopes to offer retail energy buyers competitive power prices of 8 to 11 cents per kwh as early as 2010
They seem to be expecting pretty enormous cost savings in the next couple of years. I hope they make it, but I won’t hold my breath.
How “clean” is solar energy? I’m talking about producing the solar cells and then replacing old ones and disposing of them? How long do they last? [I know my solar-powered calculators won’t die. Those cells work for years and years.]
That would be the icing on the cake. The cake part is being able to keep the household running at some capacity in the event of a major power outage. We really want to do solar on our rural house (yet to be built) but we’ve been pondering it for our current home in NVA.
Ask how the “store” the energy.
Problem is, even in high solar radiation areas, it’s not a very “power dense” source. Also, it’s a SUPPLEMENT, not a replacement.
The costs associated with generation of solar go way beyond just the PV cells. Want to hook into your home? Better have an inverter, an isolation switch so you don’t backfeed onto the grid in case of outage, etc, etc...and you’re looking at about 25-40K for that kind of system.
Unless you’re paying over a grand a month for electricity, it’s hardly worth it.
NICE! Get off the middle eastern muzzie oil teat..
As the recent problems and discoveries have proven, the muzzie oil teat, is a far less offensive problem, than being on the Chinese food teat. Additionally, the directions taken or not taken by the US government, indicate we won’t soon be off either teat any time soon.
The blatantly stupid burning of our food supply in the vain hope that there are viable alternatives at this time, for the use of crude oil and its various cracked products, is beyond belief. The world wide rise in food prices because of this idiocy, should have been expected.
Oil is the product, drilling is the means, refining yields the products that every engine needs. Get on with reality and suspend the stupidity. The more we drill the better life will be, and might even cause the price of oil to come down, because the more there is the lower the price, per economic rules.
I live in the Rio Grande Valley Texas and have been trying to get Solar for my house for years. I call or email the places i have found and they never return my call. Don’t want my money i guess. Must have something to to with TEXAS law.
“Ask how the “store” the energy.”
Hehe. I can’t speak for everyone but my buddy has a small circuit he runs from solar. I think he uses EIGHT car batteries for storage, for that small circuit.
Man here in DFW put solar cells on roof, actually generates enough to make the meter run backwards. Light bill declined to $40 per month. However, the HOA is trying to force him to remove them as an “eyesore”, even though they’re not visible.
Seems that until we can get rid of these idiots in HOAs, govt, there will be far too many problems to make solar power viable.
When you have a problem with a public utility, you call and they fix it at no charge.
When your megabuck solar panel acts up, you call a high priced technical company to come clean the bug or bird doo, repair the frozen pipe, clean off the tree sap, or whatever.
I had a friend that tried wind generated electricity. It was
the most expensive and unreliable electricity in his life.
When in Romania back in 2004, I saw many large apartment buildings that had been heated with massive solar collectors that were mounted on the roofs during the commie era.
All of them are now just rusting scrap iron, not worth the cost of removing.
I’d never buy a property in an HOA development.
OK—how do they store the energy? [I forgot about that part.]
If memory serves me correctly I believe Israel (or maybe it’s China) mandates that new construction install solar water heaters. (I’m not for mandates, but I do think solar water heaters should be given a lot more attention.) I know both countries have put a lot of effort into making those units more efficient. I think it’s one easy (and can be inexpensive) way that we in America could be saving a lot of energy (especially in the sunny regions) since hot water heaters are one of our main residential uses of electricity.
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