Solar Energy to Save Oil

AH, I think you should have said IF better batteries become available. "Dost thou smell a conspiracy?"

The technology of electric power storage in batteries is even older than ICE technology. And we see how far that has advanced in the past hundred years

Dragon

Not if, when. The latest to hit the market is called the Firefly. It is a spin off of the lead-acid battery using carbon nano tubes. You get a power density that is slightly better than NiMh and about 3/4 of lithium at a cost of about 1.5 that of lead-acid.

The downside is that the EV market is small potatoes compared to other markets like aviation, space, etc., so getting them for automotive use means standing in line.

Also, lithium is going through some changes that address the issue of fires and caustic properties.

So, there are competing technologies that should help drive further improvements.

That's a clear GA from you, with lot of useful info.

I am shocked to read that the efficiency of my car while driving in the city is only 8-12%. Will it not be possible to use a battery of batteries on a truck instead of an engine, where compactness and looks are not as important as in a car?

I hate driving car inside my city because of heavy traffic. I take it out only once a week. So, I am conserving lot of fuel

99.99 % right! or maybe 102%?

Solar:1. Heating swimming pool water - 102% effective

2. SHW ( Solar Hot Water) for household - OK > ROI up to 5- 7 years - effective.

3. PV (photo voltaic) to produce electricity ROI now > 25 years maybe 10-20 in next visible technology in the next few years. But.... in remote location YES ROI < 5 years; for areas where grid does not deliver electricity could be very nice to have emergency power supply solar instead of engine powered generators - they need fuel and are dirty, not easy to start and operate. And not for retirees.

Living in the South of the USA many home owners appreciate Solar PV just to survive outages. Ask Californians too. Some solar PV you can see in Alaska!

What is good for Big Boys (Gen-Set owners) in not necessary for middle class home owners.

"SHW ( Solar Hot Water) for household - OK > ROI up to 5- 7 years - effective."

Effective? Yes, for the next home owner!

I have owned 4 homes and have never owned one for more than 5 years.

I wonder what the average number of years the average home owner owns their home?

Good point.

Clue? To do any of economic effectiveness calculation EVERYBODY MUST consider all factors! In the above example - Real State (RS) agent's interest. Or local variables.

Let me just to mention a California RS "rule of thumb's" factor: By Investing $10K in Solar the house increases in market value by $100K. In some other states this factor is even more than 10:1, it can reach 20:1 !!! In present USA_RS situation this could be lower of course, but not on its East coast.

"Let me just to mention a California RS "rule of thumb's" factor: By Investing $10K in Solar the house increases in market value by $100K."

Come on! Someone is blowing medical marijuana up your pipe!

As a buyer I would never pay $100,000 for what I can have done for $10,000.

Do research before you insult!

You will have to show me your data.

There has to be more to the story than that because it makes sense to save $90,000 and buy a house that doesn't have solar and have it installed for $10,000.

Second, even if your solar paid for (generated) 100% of your electrical needs and your electrical bill was $500 per month, it would take over 16 years to pay for $100,000.

They estimate it will take 25 years! However, that doesn't factor in the entropy of the system. 25 years is a long time for any system to operate without failure. So the true payback period will be somewhat longer, I expect.

I just don't see a 10X instant increase in home value by investing $10,000. If it is true, then I want to invest $10,000. How soon can I get my $100,000 profit back?

You will have to show how the people dealing in Real Estate business e.g. buying "ugly houses" or "tine sharing" could earn such huge profit.

Is it maybe a "knowledge"? The one that has many categories and levels? Some of them are not known to general public. For this reason you may find so many courses, well paid seminars and of course give live and profit to Colleges. Serious students pay for them. CR4 is very good to get a fast fix a problem which is maybe somebody well known and s/he is happy to share the solution.

How could you explain the FACTS that women are wearing these modern shoes? Are they designed with higher safety factors than men's?

Statistics are not always confirmation of engineering numbers from the design papers. Your dataum (statistics) of oil (crude or their product?) usage by transportation is not universal, I mean, do not fit each car. We know mechanic shops and chemical engineers who could made many of cars running more than 50 mpg, and electrical engineers building el_cars driving for less than $2/100 miles. If "older brothers in law" let them to spread the experience.

Sorry, You are in the wrong way even using proper calculations (your links).

Search father, because you still have not found a source of my information. By the way, I have written materials and catalogs in the subject, beside the practical expertise. I also know that there is no such thing like universal solar system to "fit all".

Your expertise from buying-selling 4 houses in 5 years or so, did not fit an old couple living for the last 30 years in the some home. They appreciate surviving a hurricane /outage days because of overpaid (in todays' prices) PV installation. So in their case 10:1 (the number is almost ridiculous for me therefore for this reason I cited it here, but it exists!) increase value of their property is completely irrelevant. For the people of decision making stage my simple remarks could help: think about SHW leave expensive investment for PV to the time when cost of one PV watt will drop below one dollar (who knows what could you buy for it in 2012?). We both extended this discussion far away from initial question, right? Marijuana smoke?

Is Space coast means East coast of he USA? There you live? Far away from California...

But the number of sunny days the same.

Very nice, but you did not substantiate one claim you made!

All I asked was to see the data. Show me the proof. It isn't my job to prove you right. I just called your claim to the mat and wanted to see how such a claim could be true.

This isn't a personal attack. You made a claim and I asked where is the proof? That means you should back your claim up, not me.

Also, you misread what I said about owning four houses. I did not buy four houses in five years. I said that the longest I had owned any one was about 5 years. I have lived in others for about four years.

I have no idea how long the average home owner keeps a house these days, but I would bet it is far less than 30 years, which is much more typical of my father's and grandfather's generation when job mobility was much less prevalent as it is today. That was my point when I mentioned owning four homes (not at the same time).

Your words: You will have to show me your data.... sound like in an order.

The ratio 10:1 is in my printed material I have collected for the last 3 years. So it is not my claim (formally) just somebody's else. It was a little shocked so I cited it.

I suspect it should be somewhere in the Web so I wrote: Search father, because you still have not found a source of my information.

If you are so eager for the source of this Real Estate's statistical (I believe) number I be glad to show you, in person, in my home. I have no reason not to believe to the business people which are in this business for at least three years mostly in California. And I am not a guy who will buy houses ( ugly?) in California then install SHW / PV systems and resell them later for profit.

People who ask me for calculations/estimations/quota before making a decision of investing in Solar reveal their intentions and goals that are so different for each case and must be analysed individually, case by case. Therefore I am warning readers before making a wrong and expensive decision. Statistics are dangerous, but some are necessary for estimations; e.g. hours of equivalent max solar energy per day in each of 12 moths in a year in the home location (geographical).

By the way many retirees invest in solar, even, cited by you formulae, estimated ROI is over 30 years! They prefer to pay for PV system and avoid spilled gasoline from alternative emergency gen-sets on their yards.

Here, in CR4 it is possible that somebody could make such decision just reading our "works". Believe me I have seen many this kind mistakes - so here is my warning about "average - statistical numbers" entered as inputs in the calculations.

This also explain why we have so many experts/consultants/lawyers despite dozens of jokes about their work. The good education let Us/you/me.her-him to recognise crooks. What do you think: is such thing as a free lunch?

I believe it comes from Einstein: "Explain the problem as simple as possible but not simpler".

No more marijuana smoke?

Well, the printed material is probably sales hype in my estimate, but if you think about it, stock investors would love a 10X return on investment. Hell, that would make the Mafia loan sharks look like a low interest student loan.

I would love to have energy independence at my home, but even with the abundant sunshine here in Florida I would still pay more than Florida Power and Light would charge for the rest of my working life. However, I can see where the appeal would be to people on a fixed income knowing inflation and rising energy costs are going to dog them indefinitely.

Well, chickens and cattle get free lunches, but we all know where they are headed!

They save electricity, not oil. Such gadgets are fine for those who live away from the electric power grid and who have lots of sunny days. Wind power is not dependable and solar power is gone at night. Hybrids of solar and fueled equipment can save fuel and the fuel is used as a backup when there is no solar power.

Windmills have been used to pump water on farms to fill water tanks for years. Nothing new there and the wind doesn't have to be constant if the tank is big enough. A Stirling solar powered pump is fine for low power pumping such as irrigation, but expensive if compared to using electricity from the grid. You will have to eat your food raw occasionally when there is not enough sunshine for your solar cooker, so have a fueled alternative.

A CFL of 70 Watt on solar energy cost aproximate Rs 45000 ( including batter & solar panel).

If we calculate payback it will be in 20 years.

Even u have to replace solar panel & batteries after 05 years

Just one joke: Our Prime Minister in a recent interview for an US newspaper said that here, in Spain we cannot have more nuclear power plants because different to France, we haven't water enough to cooling more reactors. It's seems he doesn't know we live in a peninsula and are surrounded by sea all around but the Pyrenees. Actually just one out of the 8 nuclear reactors we have is in the coast and therefore cooled by seawater. The 8 plants supply roughly 1/3 of electric needs.

Now we are in examination time in technical schools. Few days ago, one professor in an engineering school on energy matters included in the examination one problem in which asked the students to calculate the surface necessary to get solar power enough to supply the same energy as the 8 nuclear groups. The answer is half the nation surface.

No comments

There was a programme on TV the other night called visons of the future. The programme showed that the proteins in plants that convert solar energy to chemical energy can be hijacked somehow to convert solar to electrical energy. The proteins were called protein system1 or something similar

For kind information of our friends, I would like to remind them that in many farms water pumps are run by deisel engines.So it does save oil when you use wind mills or Solar Pumps. Suresh Sharma.

Show me the data. How many gallons of oil is collectively consumed daily by these farms? Next, what is the true cost of operation of these deisel engines (engine + maintenance + fuel)?

Finally, what is the cost of these alternative systems?

I'll bet you that the existing systems are probably 5 to 10 times cheaper than using alternate energy!

Sure, we could go 100% solar in the US, but nobody would be able to pay for the electricity given how much the system would cost and the cost increase per kW/Hr.

Yeah, but we would be saving oil... It would be cheaper and more effective to go back to horses and wooden pails of water than to implement solar and wind.

I think you shouldn't take the Planet Mechanics too seriously. They are having a lot of fun doing those machines and we have some fun seeing it. Of course I love the programme (how I wish I could be in their shoes) and its spirit, but alas things are not so simple.

Dear Sir,

Nowadays Solar Energy is the only source of survival for a comman citizen.

All the prices of all the commodities are rising excepting the Solar Energy, which is available free of charge to any body, provided one is able to tap it smartly.

On the contrary the Sun is throwing an open challenge to us to tap as much of its energy as we can.

In fact I witnessed a miniture solar pump in one solar energy exhibition conducted in M.S.University Campus at Baroda , Gujarat , India nearly 6 years back. I had also tried to emphasize the importance of Solar Pumps and to make such pumps familiar amongst the agriculturists for pumping and small irrigation purpose before one of the Govt. Of India's body on conventional sources of energy.

Really all these equipments operating on wind energy as well as Solar Energy will go a long way in these days of severe oil crisis.

Regards,

Ulhas Prtadhan