lwmuddy wrote:
I like the Solar idea because the Sun is always there, at least during the day light hours.
Problem is that when the Sun sets you have to rely on storage batteries and BIG ones too.
Solar generators will mostly be used to chop off the daily peaks in electricity demand. Legacy generators have to be designed to produce twice average power because of fluctuating demand.
There are many methods of energy storage: batteries, compressed air, molten salt, and in Costa Rica they use pumped storage (looks like a regular water tank)
The DIY TV shows show them all the time, but these people are REALLY wealthy.
For the average American this is not a financial possibility.
Around here it's middleclass people trying to save a few bucks every month. Wealthy don't care. I've seen solar powered houses in Mass. and Maine, too.
In CA there are 20,000 households that are offgrid, most of them are moderate or low income, a combination of survivalists and hippies. Many traditionally poor communities are using solar power, even if just to bake bread in a solar oven made from a used tin can, in Appalachia and Africa.
Say, they made Cells really cheap and everyone loads up their roofs and sells the balance back to the Utility Company. Great idea and it is done all the time.
Now you have to have a control center, with all the dials, gauges and batteries.
How is the average person supposed to understand all the technical information behind their newly found power source? It has to be monitored.
One cheap PC.
Would the Utility companies have direct connection to every home to be able to do the monitoring and be able to send out a trouble shooter.
Already at least two connections: internet DSL and GPS satellite.
Would the Utility Companies be in control of this entire process as they are now with your metered electricity? Would they sell and install everything just like get getting a new hot water heater and piping?
All would be arbitrated and market determined.
As it stands right, now only the really wealthy can go full out Green.
The Media gives one the feeling that "All Out Green" is just around the corner, but is isn't.
Many people are already green, and they are generally un-wealthy, in some cases poor. The rich don't care.
If we go all electric for cars that great, but what about boats, ships and semi's? Are oil tankers going to have sails?
Boats and ships, etc., are easy. Harder is airplanes. But right now Boeing has a prototype of a hydrogen powered airplane using a Ford hydrogen engine for power. The goal is to compete with the Predator and Global Hawk pilotless planes that we use for spying and spot attacks. they stay aloft for 7 days at a time. Hydrogen is produced from electricity (perhaps solar) and water.
An what of the lowly Catalytic Converter that was supposed to clean up the air and cure the Smog problem? Not to mention the "AIR System" and the Oxygen Sensors plus all the rest of the junk we pay for to improve the Air Quality.
It looks like all we improved was the WALLET Quality of a lot of companies.
Most USA cities have been saved from Smog Death by cats and other auto smog controllers. Ask anyone who was living in a major US city in 1970. They should be required on trucks/buses also.
