Romney & Bain

[bae]

(On storage) That little line deserved its own quote box. Let me know if you figure out how to do this, I'd be happy to throw in some seed money. So far its been the holy grail for a bunch of pretty sharp guys who are trying to figure the secret out.

Well, you can do *some* things sort of easily.

Every day around here somewhere, the sun evaporates ocean water. Which eventually falls, and lands on the mountain here, which we catch and store in a large reservoir that provides about half the water supply to our village. It's not big enough for Real Hydropower, and we wouldn't have overflow most of the year anyways, we fill it up during the several months of real rain, then drink it down the rest of the year.

But. It has to flow down the mountain to the village to drink. And that is a huge pressure head, about 1100 feet. So high a pressure that the system has a series of old pressure-reducing valves along the way. Which are all failing as they age and being replaced.

Replaced with microhydro generators, if we play our cards right. Which will generate enough electrical power to run our water system off of. And when water use is up, power generation will naturally be up. Yay!

Not a general solution, of course. I find the best way to store solar power in my house is with large masses that absorb the heat during the day and release it at night. My next home will be built to be very very stingy with electrical use (12v LED lighting, gravity-flow systems instead of pumps, etc.), and heavy on the passive solar.

[creaker]

That little line deserved its own quote box. Let me know if you figure out how to do this, I'd be happy to throw in some seed money. So far its been the holy grail for a bunch of pretty sharp guys who are trying to figure the secret out.

I know Gates has thrown seed money at this one - it sounds very interesting. Especially if they can scale it up as expected.

http://www.ted.com/talks/donald_sado...le_energy.html

[peggy]

Well, no, not really. I'm pretty sure its right.




Sure, you can do that. As long as you and your neighbors can come up with a few trillion dollars to build your own infrastructure you could share it with everyone. Of course you would still need someone to provide all the R&D, the raw material sourcing, the manufacturing, the engineering and design, the construction, etc. Unless, of course, you want to bring all that in house as well.





That little line deserved its own quote box. Let me know if you figure out how to do this, I'd be happy to throw in some seed money. So far its been the holy grail for a bunch of pretty sharp guys who are trying to figure the secret out.





Until you solve that pesky little storage issue you're still stuck with the fact that the sun doesn't shine at night and the wind only blows when it wants to. You can burn candles like grandma did or just go to bed when the sun goes down, I'd rather stay up a little later.





Trust me, they're not worried about that.





The simple math is that energy companies can make just as much money wholesaleing and reselling with minimal investment as they can by making massive capital investments that they have to staff and maintain for 20 - 30 years or more. And they know it.

Greg, you make it too easy for me! LOL You are making my argument for me! This is what I'm saying!
If it were EASY and EFFICIENT for me and my neighbors to install solar, then the big energy wouldn't be needed! That is exactly my point! So, big energy isn't going to work really really hard to MAKE IT EASY AND EFFICENT. Even though we both know we have the intelligence and the technology driven ability to do this, it isn't encouraged so to speak, because inexpensive efficiency ISN'T what big energy wants, except for them, but not for me.
What makes you think big energy would want to work towards obsolescence? Did buggy whip makers really cheer the obsolescence of horseless transportation, even though it was more efficient?

[Gregg]

Solar is not the panacea peggy. With current technology it is probably as dirty as coal, or worse. Several of us here have tried to get a clear picture of that, but with only limited success (so far). Regardless, we do know there are too many toxic chemicals used in the manufacturing for it to be considered benign. There are also concerns with raw material mining, packaging and shipping the finished product, etc. And if you want batteries, well, why don't you just light a few thousand dollars on fire and dump a couple hundred pounds of heavy metals on your yard. It would save time.

If you really have to feel like your screwing big energy make your house more efficient. Bae touched on it above and we've all talked about it before. Proper orientation, thermal mass, better windows, more insulation, more efficient lighting and appliances, appropriate shading, water conservation and recycling, etc. Those should be requirements in every building constructed from today on anyway. If you absolutely have to see a monster under the bed go after the 'greedy' developers who build buildings that are less than LEED Platinum. It'll have a lot bigger impact than putting a couple poison panels on your roof.

[SteveinMN]

What makes you think big energy would want to work towards obsolescence? Did buggy whip makers really cheer the obsolescence of horseless transportation, even though it was more efficient?

Smart buggy-whip manufacturers did. Smart companies do. Apple continues to cannibalize their own product lines (like their original product, desktop computers) with new products like superlight notebook computers and mobile phones. HP has completely missed the boat on mobile computing and they're paying for that now. Wells Fargo (love 'em or hate 'em) foresaw decades ago that people were not going to ship themselves and their valuables by six-passenger stagecoach forever. Some retailers (Best Buy, Sears/Kmart) are hurting because they never figured out "that Internet shopping thing" and didn't improve on the virtues of brick-and-mortar. Smart business people know it's better to take sales from your own cash cows than to watch some other company do it because they weren't asleep at the switch or too proud to change.

Thing of it is, big energy is not going to make it easy and efficient for you and your neighbors to go solar (or wind or whatever) because that's not their business. Their business is the logistics of moving vast amounts of energy from one place to another. If you think about it, that's the same business model as companies like Archer Daniels Midland or Cargill -- they sponsor the recovery the crude/raw product, refine it as necessary into saleable products, and get those products to where they can be sold so they make money. Except ADM and Cargill are doing it with minerals and commodity foodstuffs. Specialized equipment and points of sale aside, there's no reason ADM and Cargill could not be "big energy" companies themselves. Not saying they should be, but it's not an unusual business model.

Big Energy and Big Food know that one tanker full of raw product is more efficient than 100 of your neighbor's powerboats toting barrels full of crude oil. Or coal. Or wheat. There's no incentive for them to localize energy generation to that degree. And there really isn't for you, either. Gregg makes a valid point about having to foot the capital bill for your own solar array multiplied by the number of houses in your neighborhood. At least at this point in time, you and your neighbors will end up with relatively inflexible generating sources and a tremendous duplication of effort. At some point, you'll end up largely dupllicating the storage and transmission facilities of the Big Energy companies. Following this same logic, maybe every family should grow all of its own food. Why support a middleman for that? In addition, manufacturing solar cells in particular generates hazardous waste and there are more dangerous materials to deal with when the array is no longer productive.

Peggy, you know I see things your way far more than I see them other ways. I don't disagree that there could (and should) be more done to make sure energy companies do not abuse their customers or the planet. But having energy readily available is crucial to living in the developed (and developing) world. A cradle-to-grave view of alternative energy demands looking at the efficiency of recovering that energy and distributing it where and when it is needed -- and justifying why the wheel has to be reinvented when a serviceable wheel already exists. The efficient and earth-kind answer to that question is not necessarily cutting out the middlemen. Regulate? To preserve safety, yes. Urge (or, better, fund) improvements in efficiencies? Sure. But why reinvent that wheel? What purpose does that serve?

[peggy]

I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel, OR screw the big energy companies, as Gregg accuses me of. Just because solar isn't the ONLY solution doesn't mean it isn't a huge part of the solution. Tossing it aside just because it can't fulfill ALL our needs, or isn't PERFECT in every way, is kind of penny wise and pound foolish. Our energy future isn't going to be one giant solution, but rather many smaller solutions. Example, simple passive solar heat will go a long way towards NOT using fossil fuels to heat my home, or water. Solar cells on the roof of my garage can charge my electric car, which I would use to bop around town. These are the types of independence I am talking about. But we need more R&D into more efficient cells and capture, and yes, cleaner manufacturing. Gregg keeps saying Oh you can't because of the cost and efficiency and such...well, duh! That's my point!

I simply want to break free of dependence on oil, especially foreign oil. And it would be nice to have a little independence myself, for fueling my car, for instance, or heating my water, or my home, and maybe running a few lights, etc...But yes, it is too expensive right now, thus the need for R&D. No, it isn't reinventing the wheel, the wheel is already there. It's just making it rounder, and smoother, so to speak. There are people now who run their entire homes on alternative energies. I just want that available to everyone, and I don't think the big energy companies do. That's not science fiction.

[JaneV2.0]

We need to take a look at what Germany's doing. They're up to 25% of energy from renewable sources, according to reports.

[Yossarian]

We need to take a look at what Germany's doing. They're up to 25% of energy from renewable sources, according to reports.

We should look, but it isn't necessarily going to support more investment here...

Photovoltaics are threatening to become the costliest mistake in the history of German energy policy. Photovoltaic power plant operators and homeowners with solar panels on their rooftops are expected to pocket around €9 billion ($11.3 billion) this year, yet they contribute barely 4 percent of the country's power supply, and only erratically at that...

To keep the lights on, Germany ends up importing nuclear power from France and the Czech Republic. Grid operator Tennet even resorted to tapping an aging fossil fuel-fired power plant in Austria to compensate for shortages in solar power.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...-a-842595.html

I work in this industry and am a fan where it makes sense, but we are nowhere close to being able to replace traditional fuels.

[Gregg]

You're absolutely right peggy, its not science fiction. Running your house on wind, solar or most other alternatives is best suited for those who are a long way from traditional power sources because its cheaper to install than running miles of transmission lines. It also serves the need of those who see a higher potential for political unrest, natural disaster, economic collapse or other catastrophic event than I do. Aside from those situations there are better ways to go.

If you want to reduce our dependence on foreign oil today take the steps to make your house more efficient. You will have more dollars left over at the end of the month so will have more independence that way. If you want to use solar that actually makes sense install a solar hot water panel. Its cheap. For a few hundred bucks it will give you a far bigger payback than several thousand spent on PV panels. There's one in my garage that will be on the roof as soon as I get the roof built. If you want to sponsor a bill requiring one of those on every roof top built from now on I will be thrilled to back you. Otherwise, if the lights go out I have flashlights.

If you want to virtually eliminate our dependence on foreign oil, and that is something we should all get behind, make every new, non-electric vehicle sold in the US run on natural gas in, say, 5 years and stop selling gas/diesel for transportation in 15. Older cars can be retrofitted. Trucks and trains can run on it. Planes probably need to stick with liquid fuel. Anyway, the technology has been around for decades. We (the US) have all the gas we want. Its cheap. Its easy to get. The infrastructure is already in place except for the actual delivery portals, but we know how to make them. Its a one time re-tool for the manufacturers. Its efficient. Its cleaner than what we're using now. Its currently the highest, best use for our natural gas. Plus it would create tens of millions of jobs.

If you REALLY want to cut fossil fuel dependence to the core we should already be designing and planning 60 - 70 new nuclear plants. That was the D.O.E. estimate a few years back anyway. All the same design to lower costs and increase safety and security.

All that's left then is to build a smart grid to move all that power around. That should have been started 20 years ago, but better late than never. Unless its too late, that is.

[creaker]

Solar is not the panacea peggy. With current technology it is probably as dirty as coal, or worse. Several of us here have tried to get a clear picture of that, but with only limited success (so far). Regardless, we do know there are too many toxic chemicals used in the manufacturing for it to be considered benign. There are also concerns with raw material mining, packaging and shipping the finished product, etc. And if you want batteries, well, why don't you just light a few thousand dollars on fire and dump a couple hundred pounds of heavy metals on your yard. It would save time.

If you really have to feel like your screwing big energy make your house more efficient. Bae touched on it above and we've all talked about it before. Proper orientation, thermal mass, better windows, more insulation, more efficient lighting and appliances, appropriate shading, water conservation and recycling, etc. Those should be requirements in every building constructed from today on anyway. If you absolutely have to see a monster under the bed go after the 'greedy' developers who build buildings that are less than LEED Platinum. It'll have a lot bigger impact than putting a couple poison panels on your roof.

Or just turn it off. My biggest energy saver this summer has been not using the (used) air conditioner my mother insisted on giving me.