LadySkinsFan Posted February 8, 2017 Share Posted February 8, 2017 1 hour ago, LD0506 said: The big problem is that IF (and today it is still a big IF) a new battery tech evolves people might be able to genuinely go "off the grid", alone or in conjunction w/ their neighbors, pooling panel input and storage and that would kill the power companies. Somehow, I don't see that happening easily or soon. Utility companies have influenced municipalities to pass laws that outlaw neighbors from banding together to share alternative energy systems by labeling such efforts as a "utility", thus subjecting the systems to a boatload of regulations. That's one reason why it's so expensive for individuals to have their own systems instead of community sharing the costs of start-up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LD0506 Posted February 8, 2017 Share Posted February 8, 2017 1 hour ago, LadySkinsFan said: Utility companies have influenced municipalities to pass laws that outlaw neighbors from banding together to share alternative energy systems by labeling such efforts as a "utility", thus subjecting the systems to a boatload of regulations. That's one reason why it's so expensive for individuals to have their own systems instead of community sharing the costs of start-up. Exactly, but there is a fine, time-honored American tradition of people saying "**** you" when they really want to do something Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twa Posted February 8, 2017 Share Posted February 8, 2017 7 minutes ago, LD0506 said: Exactly, but there is a fine, time-honored American tradition of people saying "**** you" when they really want to do something But,but... Greater Good or something. I do like to see liberals complaining of regulations, does my heart good. Maybe they could allow the neighborhood co-ops and then still make them pay the utility company a subsidy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
China Posted February 8, 2017 Share Posted February 8, 2017 Foaming? I guess that's not regular Windex. But when I looked online, apparently Windex was originally marketed in a can: I guess I'm not old enough to remember that, and I just remember the spray bottle which apparently came out when they reformulated it in 1969. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twa Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 Quote Germany To Halt Construction Of Offshore Wind Farms ANDR Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/05/germany-to-halt-construction-of-offshore-wind-farms/#ixzz4YZZAVcdH “Germany now has electric rates for consumers that are among the highest in the world. Energy poverty has become a reality for millions of German families,” Myron Ebell, director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the free market Competitive Enterprise Institute, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “The German government, instead of changing course, is trying to get away with minor policy changes in the hope that people will put up with sky-high current electric rates if the rate of increase slows down. Note that electric rates for industry are higher than in the coal states in the U. S., but much lower than retail rates that German consumers pay. If that were not the case, German automakers would move all their production to eastern Europe, the U. S., etc.” The government plans to cap the total amount of wind energy at 40 to 45 percent of national capacity, according to a report published last month by the German newspaper Berliner Zeitung. By 2019, Germany will get rid of 6,000 megawatts of wind power capacity. Sponsored Links by Until then, Germany has been minimizing the damage of their current wind farms by paying consumers to take excess power and asking wind and solar producers to switch off when they’re not needed. Germany paid wind farms $548 million last year to switch off in order to prevent damage to the country’s electric grid. Power grids require that demand for electricity exactly match supply in order to function. This is an enormous problem for wind and solar power since their output cannot be accurately predicted in advance or easily adjusted. Wind and solar can burn out the grid if they produce too much, or not enough, electricity, leading to brownouts or blackouts. Such damage has already occurred in Germany and in other grids that rely too much on solar and wind power — as in California. Despite the cut backs to wind power, the German government estimates that it will spend more than $1.1 trillion financially supporting wind power, even though building wind turbines hasn’t achieved the government’s goal of actually reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to slow global warming. Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/05/germany-to-halt-construction-of-offshore-wind-farms/#ixzz4YZZ1tH00 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hersh Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 It's great that they are producing so much energy. The biggest next step for all technologies needs to be energy storage. Thanks for sharing another article in attempt to justify a BS position. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twa Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 Yeah brownouts and such are great.....especially when ya pay prime rate. You might think smart folk would address that energy storage thing before over building unreliable capacity. reducing the population to using wood stoves is real advances. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterMP Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 3 hours ago, twa said: Yeah brownouts and such are great.....especially when ya pay prime rate. You might think smart folk would address that energy storage thing before over building unreliable capacity. reducing the population to using wood stoves is real advances. Do you have any links that indicates they are having brownouts? I don't know many people in the US that use electricity for heat, and I do know a house where they did and they went to a pellet stoves because it was cheaper. I'm not sure of the natural gas situation in Germany and why they wouldn't use that to heat, but certainly given prices in the US and the efficiency of electric heat, I suspect a pellet stove would be cheaper than electric heat. Oh and electricity in Germany seems to be cheaper than Poland. Poland is updating their electric grid to deal with the spikes in wind generation so that they can buy electricity from Germany. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-07/german-green-power-forces-neighbors-to-bolster-blackout-d Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twa Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 5 minutes ago, PeterMP said: Do you have any links that indicates they are having brownouts? The article linked mentioned it,as have studies of the system. If you know anyone in industry there they can vouch for the issues http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/instability-in-power-grid-comes-at-high-cost-for-german-industry-a-850419.html https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601514/germany-runs-up-against-the-limits-of-renewables/ I use electric for heat at work and home...not that I need it much, running the AC today Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterMP Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 26 minutes ago, twa said: The article linked mentioned it,as have studies of the system. If you know anyone in industry there they can vouch for the issues http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/instability-in-power-grid-comes-at-high-cost-for-german-industry-a-850419.html https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601514/germany-runs-up-against-the-limits-of-renewables/ I use electric for heat at work and home...not that I need it much, running the AC today The link didn't say they were happening. Just that they could happen. Lot's of things can happen. Certainly, as stated in your links, they have issues with evening out the supply of electricity from the alternative sources, especially in the context of eliminating nuclear. (Maybe in TX that makes sense, but where it gets cold, you see very little electric heat (if you have a new home and have the options of not putting in ducts a ductless heat pump might make sense.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twa Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 Brownouts are power fluctuations which they certainly have problems with(especially industry), they have went to AI to try to reduce/predict them, but the grid will need massively redone to get much better. Heat pumps are pretty popular in German homes....which run on? NG heat use has been falling due to supply/costs issues District heating from cogeneration plants and other industry is also popular in some areas...though limited in areas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterMP Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 1 hour ago, twa said: Brownouts are power fluctuations which they certainly have problems with(especially industry), they have went to AI to try to reduce/predict them, but the grid will need massively redone to get much better. Heat pumps are pretty popular in German homes....which run on? NG heat use has been falling due to supply/costs issues District heating from cogeneration plants and other industry is also popular in some areas...though limited in areas I think most people generally think of a brown out as not enough electricity as being delivered. A power fluctuation would include going from the right amount of electricity to too much electricity (which is bad), which they have had problems with, but I don't know anybody that would consider that a brown out. Okay, I looked. Heat pumps are popular, but they aren't going down. They are going up. Their increase is relatively recent. Neither is district heating. Natural gas is most popular, but its popularity is shrinking. Wood has gone up very slightly. https://www.bmwi-energiewende.de/EWD/Redaktion/EN/Newsletter/2015/09/Meldung/infografik-heizsysteme.html From reading more, it looks like in the context of using solar heating another way to generate heat (heat pump or pellet stoves) make a lot of sense and the government is pushing for alternative energy heating, which would include heat pumps. You get a tax break by installing a new effecient heat pump system. The default for years was natural gas. People are not leaving electrical heating system (i.e. heat pumps) to go to wood. They are going to heat pumps. People have slightly gone to wood, but that looks like it is mostly at the expense of natural gas and oil and probably realistically is partly being used with other things. (And considering they have times where the cost of electricity is negative, it almost certainly makes sense to heat with electricity at some times, but that sort of kills their electricity is so expensive theme you had going.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twa Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 Never said heat pump use was down, unless you think pretty popular is down The greens are certainly pushing them as a way to modulate energy demand/supply since they can turn your heat on and off at will with a smart grid.. The costs are a bit of a hindrance w/o govt subsidies or inflating carbon energy costs though. I guess I won't complain about them buying Texas wood pellets since they insist it is green. Hey if you don't think the electric rates are high it is all good, many folk living there seem to disagree. and about those negative rates Quote http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaellynch/2016/02/19/negative-electricity-prices-are-not-a-sign-of-renewable-success/#5048c53356d1 Negative prices and the related economic losses have occurred because of success by the renewable energy industry—success in getting government support. Because the government offered prices far above market prices for renewable power, wind and solar especially have been overbuilt, leaving the system with both overcapacity and high costs due to intermittency. The intermittency problem can be solved—at great expense—with storage and grid upgrades. But the various costs involved are all imposed on Germans, whether the shareholders in utilities, taxpayers or, most of all, consumers. In Texas, problems caused by excess windpower were reduced by construction of $7 billionworth of new transmission lines, an indicator of the costs involved in 'making the grid safe for renewable power'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twa Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 Update on the great solar road idiocy. http://principia-scientific.org/americas-first-solar-roadway-total-disaster/ A prototype solar roadway in Idaho was supposed to represent a possible green energy future, but technical issues have exposed just how far off the technology is from prime time. Screenshots taken by Twitter users from the roadway’s official webcam show smoke coming out of a nearby electric box. Firefighters soon showed up to the scene, prompting the solar project’s official webcam to issue an update: “The Solar Roadways electrical system is currently undergoing maintenance. Please check back late next week.” The prototype has a long history of disastrous technical issues. Roughly 25 out of 30 panels installed on it broke within a week after developers pumped $3.9 million into it over 6.5 years of development. Despite massive internet hype, the prototype of solar “road” can’t be driven on, hasn’t generated any electricity and 75 percent of the panels were broken before they were even installed. Of the panels installed to make a “solar footpath,” 18 of the 30 were dead on arrival due to a manufacturing failure. Rain caused another four panels to fail, and only five panels were functioning shortly thereafter. The prototype appears to be plagued by drainage issues, poor manufacturing controls and fundamental design flaws. Every single promise made about the prototype seems to have fallen flat and the project appears to be a “total and epic failure,” according to an electrical engineer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hersh Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 39 minutes ago, twa said: Update on the great solar road idiocy. http://principia-scientific.org/americas-first-solar-roadway-total-disaster/ A prototype solar roadway in Idaho was supposed to represent a possible green energy future, but technical issues have exposed just how far off the technology is from prime time. Screenshots taken by Twitter users from the roadway’s official webcam show smoke coming out of a nearby electric box. Firefighters soon showed up to the scene, prompting the solar project’s official webcam to issue an update: “The Solar Roadways electrical system is currently undergoing maintenance. Please check back late next week.” The only idiocy is dismissing something because it didn't work on the very first attempt. I mean, pretty much every great invention wouldn't have occurred if people just quit trying right away. You may carry on in your anti-clean energy bubble. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twa Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 Pouring time and money into critically flawed projects is rather wasteful...and best left to those so inclined. Not against clean energy at all, but I do oppose idiocy and waste. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hersh Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 The only thing I would question is why Idaho. Beyond that, it's a prototype and it's going through a process. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skinny21 Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 I loved the idea of solar roadways, but 'critically flawed' is a reasonable judgement. With that said, Hersh makes a good point about green energy (and invention in general) - there's going to be a pretty high degree of waste in the earlier stages. I like the avenue Gates is taking - taking a look at numerous proposals and funding ones that seem the soundest. Presumably the decisions on who to fund are made, or at least influenced by experts in the field. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AsburySkinsFan Posted April 6, 2017 Share Posted April 6, 2017 If this doesn't have irony written all over it. Kentucky Coal Mining Museum converts to solar power Quote "We believe that this project will help save at least eight to ten thousand dollars, off the energy costs on this building alone, so it's a very worthy effort and it's going to save the college money in the long run," said Robinson. http://www.wymt.com/content/news/Kentucky-Coal-Mining-Museum-converts-to-solar-power-418430563.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twa Posted April 6, 2017 Share Posted April 6, 2017 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AsburySkinsFan Posted April 6, 2017 Share Posted April 6, 2017 Classic @twa reads a story where the coal museum in Kentucky adds solar panels to cut costs and he then limply adds a couple tweets about France and Germany. Can't you at least appreciate the irony ol' boy? Or are you afraid that'll constitute breaking character? Never break character!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twa Posted April 6, 2017 Share Posted April 6, 2017 cutting costs by shifting costs is not cutting costs , and they 'hope' to save money Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LadySkinsFan Posted April 6, 2017 Share Posted April 6, 2017 The reality is that energy sources are evolving away from coal and oil industry fuels, and the sooner this administration and the rest of the Republicans wake up to this fact and come up with retraining programs, you know actually help people instead of corporations, the better off the populous will be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
No Excuses Posted April 6, 2017 Share Posted April 6, 2017 Every time I see this thread bumped, I let out a little chuckle. It's twa's version of a McD5 thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AsburySkinsFan Posted April 19, 2017 Share Posted April 19, 2017 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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