Solar & Wind Power

[IslandTractor]

Umm, typical in your household, not so typical in the average home in America. There are many areas in our country that do not have the income to "convert" to energy efficient homes.

LED lightbulbs are pretty cheap or even free these days due to subsidies. They certainly make sense economically even without subsidy at today's prices. Can't buy incandescent replacement bulbs anyway. It is also hard to buy appliances that are not energy star rated so as folks do purchase replacements they will reduce energy use.

 

[westcliffe01]

What you do during a brief power outage, is, I assume, different to what you would want to do 24/7/365 ?

For getting hot water, heat recovery from coolant and exhaust from said generator is considerably more efficient than using an electric water heater. The term co-generation may not be too common, but if you live in a high lattitude and high altitude location, chances are you will have both a heat and power deficit to fulfil. In addition, a pair of solar water heaters is cheaper and considerably more effective than using non-existent electricity in a grid less situation (long term) to heat water. One has alternatives to getting heat (firewood) but you might not have woods on your property, so one becomes dependent on access to a different resource which is not a good thing.

My experience is that when the power goes out I normally run the generator no more than 3 hours a day, and probably average about 2 hours. You don't need electricity during the day, or for lights at night. Primarily the generator is used to heat a tank of water and take showers. While it's doing that, it can charge batteries and run the freezer. A small inverter will run all the LED lights in the world and keep the computer online. The days of 500 watt power supplies and CRT monitors are long gone. The typical laptop pulls a max of 65 watts. A large screen LED TV uses even less. An energy star refrigerator uses about 600 watts.

People who are retrofitting houses with generators are retrofitting antique, inefficient homes. Modern technology uses much less electricity, which is one of the reasons we don't need as much generating capacity as we used to.

 

[OldMcDonald]

Guess it was becoming dominated by a few individuals who were opposed to any type of alternative energy being used or promoted. Just my observation....

Thank you. I suppose one sensible answer is about as much as I could hope for, although I did like Egon's response too.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Why has this thread been closed?

Here we go again......

 

[OldMcDonald]

Here we go again......

I really did want to know. I have noticed it happen from time to time, and wondered why. I can understand it when a thread becomes too political and it is moved, but why close something that was obviously generating a lot of interest? Was it really as LAFarm says because of the opposition of some to alternative energy sources? Whilst I favour the use of wind, solar, tide etc. so far as reasonably practicable, I think it would be wrong to prevent those opposed to such use from having their say.

I realise that there were a limited number of people posting, and some just kept banging the same tune on their drum, making statements is if they are absolute fact, yet refusing to give sources of their information, but there was some useful info within the thread too - especially in the earlier stages.

So, can anybody answer "Who decides to close a thread, and why not give an explanation?" I do not want to start another thread running to several hundred posts that will just be a repeat of what has been closed.

 

[buickanddeere]

More expensive than what ? That is the question. If you buy land with no utilities it could cost $250k or more to run power to it. Or you could take the same amount of money and see how long you could run a high efficiency generator. If you actually do the math on running even a tiny diesel genset, it can easily run $900/month (assuming you run it for part of the night so you can have lights and charge batteries).

The bottom line is: as soon as you live in a low population density location, solar is by far the cheapest way to get your power. Nothing else is even remotely close. It is only city people and people living in places with good grid infrastructure who think that mainstream electricity is cheap. The other 90% of the world lives with other realities.

This situation should not be politicised. Doing that (taking from Sam and John to give to Paul) is going to be filled with corruption and inflationary factors (the prices charged by the "approved" installers) and it will never get us anywhere.

Talking about the 99.9 % on a large power distribution grid. Why go off on tangent trying to cloud the issue with an isolated few in cottage country?
Subsidizing green power is pricing power out of reach for the poor, elderly and industry.If green power can stand on it's own without raiding my pocket book to sooth the guilt of a greenie . Or to make a greenie feel pious, superior and proud. Then bring on all the wind and solar you want.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Here we go again......

Dont know why it was shut down, but every thread on this subject ends the same way.

 

[k0ua]

Here are my thoughts on the matter. I am all for green energy technology. But I am against subsides of green energy. Those of you bragging about your subsidies of your systems stole money out of the pockets of each and every one of us. Yes you stole it with full assistance and approval of the government, but that don't make it right. It should not have been offered. Yes I have thought about taking the money too. But that still don't make it right. Now the subsidies go away this year. How is that fair?

Why should solar and wind plants be paid more per kWh than other sources of electricity? Why?

 

[teg]

...Now the subsidies go away this year....

"...to extend tax credits for solar and wind for another five years...." actually that quote was from 2015, so it will be around until 2019.

I plan to take advantage of it... silly not to IMHO. Saving $4,500 on an Obama car seemed like a no brainer, too. Was first in line to get rid of an old car that was only worth $300.

At least the money wasn't given to some other nation....

{...and now the reason why threads get closed )

 

[IslandTractor]

Here are my thoughts on the matter. I am all for green energy technology. But I am against subsides of green energy. Those of you bragging about your subsidies of your systems stole money out of the pockets of each and every one of us. Yes you stole it with full assistance and approval of the government, but that don't make it right. It should not have been offered. Yes I have thought about taking the money too. But that still don't make it right. Now the subsidies go away this year. How is that fair?

Why should solar and wind plants be paid more per kWh than other sources of electricity? Why?

If you don't accept the idea that government tax policy can be legitimately used to favor certain "social goods" then you have a point. However you'd have to consider the mortgage deduction, section 179 accelerated depreciation expenses, big oil tax writeoffs and subsidies, agricultural subsidies, free college for military, and hoards of other financial incentives the government (Congress, not POTUS) has allowed over the years. I don't doubt that solar, wind and other renewables are social goods. That they are not currently economically competitive with fossil fuel is simply a fact and if we see the goodness of renewables as worthy of developing for the future then we need to support those industries. If we don't, China will and we won't have the capacity to compete in the future.

I think there is a near one to one correlation between, dare I say it, climate change deniers and those who are upset about renewable subsidies. Actually, I know there are exceptions (our own HoustonScott has taken advantage of the solar subsidies and I'm pretty sure he still denies man's role in climate change) but for the most part the correlation stands. For those who don't think government should foster change through financial incentives, that is simply forcing the government to rely on the stick of regulation rather than carrot of incentive to effect change. For those who simply think the government should not be a change agent, well, vote in a party that agrees with you but accept also that it is/was our representative democratic government that put these regulations into effect. There's nothing obviously unconstitutional about offering incentives so majority rules. Something like 70-80% of the US public now accepts that human behavior have affected climate change and it stands to reason that they will increasingly support efforts to minimize that change. Financial incentives on renewables are a simple shared way of doing so.