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GAIA Host Collective
I have seen some solar insolation maps, and if I recall correctly the Northeast had relatively low insolation compared to the rest of the country. Does anyone know if there is enough insolation there to make solar worthwhile? Are there any businesses or homeowners who have had success in use of solar?
Actually, New England/Northeast has a pretty favorable insolation, compared with our neighbors around the great lakes and the Northwest.
August (NREL Map from 1961-1990 data)
http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/old_data/nsrdb/redbook/atlas/serve.cgi
January
http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/old_data/nsrdb/redbook/atlas/serve.cgi
We're about 1/3 below the Broiling Southwest, but don't show up much worse off than Atlanta or Houston. Here on the Southern Maine coast, I think we're sunnier, but I don't have any maps that prove it. Add to that, PV yields better current in colder air, and the North gets another little shot in the arm.
Bob Fiske
I was sent a map showing Germany and U.S. side by side, but it is too small to make out details. If I can get the original source, I will post it.
Even in overcast conditions, those panels are 'makin money'.. (if your electronics are smart enought to use it).. and I fully suspect that the panels that live in cloudier towns will be up there that much longer, too.
I was in Westphalia as an exchange student, 1983, and I don't really even remember much direct sunlight. But every sunset was lovely, with the Sun as a distinct, Orange ball that looked like it was painted onto the gray sky.
"All's for the best in this Best of all possible worlds, of which I might say Westphalia is the center"
-Dr. Pangloss, Candide
..and while I have the libretto in hand.. (OT alert..!)
(Our men are brave. The war is over, but we still have six divisions of artillery ready to start another war. It's been a long and bloody war, but if men didn't fight they would never know the benefits of peace, and if they didn't know the benefits of peace they would never know the benefits of war. You see, it all works out for the best.)
Talk about the perfect being the enemy of the 'Really, very good'.. even on the equator, PV is not ever perfect, and it's not cheap. It's just a good way of getting some watts. No moving parts, long lifespan, not 'terribly' complicated. You can just connect a panel to a couple batteries with paperclips, if that's all you've got, and it will charge, assuming they are somewhat matched up.
Best to you,
Bob
'He's so contrary, if I heard he fell into the river, I'd look for the body upstream'
I have a 2.28 kw grid tie system in Southern Maine. After all the State and Federal rebates the system cost around $12,000. My theoretical payback was around 24 years. I will update the estimmate after I have a year's data. This is not a good return but I believe electricity rates are going to go up sharply making it look good in the future. And I'd rather spend my money on this than on a fancy car. The downside with a grid tie system is you don't have backup when the power goes out. To prevent islanding the systems are required to go off line in a blackout. But adding batteries and additional electronics to the system for backup really kills the economics. Plus you have to replace the batteries every 5+ years. It is expensive ($2k) and a hassle because the batteries my installer uses weigh 150 pounds each. I asked my installer about the NiMh batteries new for commercial backup. He believes these will be available for home use within 3 years and cost about $5k for a home sized bank plus a new $3k inverter / charger. Very expensive when you think about it but they would last a very long time. If the electric grid becomes as unreliable as some are predicting the cost may be worth the insurance. Hope this helps.
I think your thinking about solar is mostly clouded by a failure to inform yourself about the facts. There is no easier way to keep oneself in the dark than to believe in ones own "imachinations" rather than reading a good textbook on the subject.
:-)
It is probably a good idea to be open to all possibilities and evaluate each one on its merits.
*smaller/more fuel efficient/human powered personal transportation
*less leisure transportation
*more efficient appliances
*change of behavior towards use of appliances
*rise of mass transportation
*change in building practices (eg, superinsulation)
*change in zoning practices (eg New Urbanism, mixed use, higher density)
*Reduction and elimination of population growth
*the rise of home gardening in the suburbs
*A population shift away from hostile environments
*Business getting smart about easy convervation measures, (eg excessive lighting, 24/7 computers, 24/7 AC)
Very little of this is achievable by fiat - there has to be high energy prices pulling people towards it as well.
The death of meat as a staple food.
More efficient community-based utilities like hot water where feasable.
Thermally adaptive building and HVAC processes (eg thermal-mass incorporation, waste heat capitalization, solar water heating, windcatchers)
More local food.
This is basic 'paleo diet' stuff. Google Loren Cordain, paleo diet. Amongst the other readings, look for an article titled 'Cereal Grains: Humanity's double-edged sword.'
Any planet where people eat grains and not meat (i.e. the current one) is a planet that people were not meant to live on.
The tiger does not live in a cage, and the human being does not live on bread, at all. That is nature, and all else is a perversion.
Yes, one can live a perverted life ... but that is another question entirely.
You may justify abstention from meat on 'moral' grounds, but not on natural (evolutionary) grounds. To abstain from meat is therefore the ultimate moral choice...
Vegetables
Nuts
Takes up 3 of the 5 bars at the top of the Paleo Diet site.
I never suggested that one abstain from meat on natural grounds - I find it curious that you would read that into my post. I suggested that reducing the 'it isn't actually a meal[just a side dish!] without some form of beef, pork, or chicken' belief that pervades American culture is a key form of conservation. In an agriculture crunch, it's not going to be quite so justifiable to spend 9000 calories of highly-subsidized corn on 1000 calories of beef. Which is what we currently do with 80% of our grain harvest. Meat is a necessary part of our diet, but not in the portions consumed now - look at Eastern diets. A fat upper class Bangladeshi eats an order of magnitude less meat.
I don't do morality on the PETA level - they can't present a substantive moral framework, it's all particularly photogenic objections and slippery slopes (so was that bug I just squashed a crime? I know that baby seal being clubbed was bad, but think of the fish you just saved!). I'll eat my steaks for as long as they're affordable, my point is that they won't be.
Hey got some good photos and interview with my neighbor....
The Silicon in PV panels, how do they mine/produce it and what is the process? Also is this (in your opinion) going to be outclassed in a few years by nanosolar? Also everyone talks about stirling engines and concentrators etc, where are they and if they are so good why is nobody selling them?
matt
I am anxious to hear the details. Were you convinced?
On your questions, I just don't know. My old research advisor at Texas A&M, Mark Holtzapple, was always working on Stirling engines. I think he has tried to sell some of his prototypes, but I don't know if he has had success.
Let's restrict ourselves to Stirlings.
And the correct question is: why are they (the masses) not buying them?
Plenty of sellers are out there trying to "sell". (Wow, learned something myself tonight ... that the rhombic guys closed shop.)
Step back and imagine yourself as a drop of gasoline.
You know how you got here, from oil well through refining, trucked to the gas station, pumped into tank of a car, etc.
Now you are sitting in the fuel injector, about to get squirted into the combustion chamber of an ICE engine. All your energy is still there, the teeming chemical bonds between your carbon and hydrogen atoms being fused into the lowest energy state they could find; ... until now.
Whoosh.
You're in. Getting squished. Introduced to a new friend: oxygen atoms. They look so nice and friendly. Ignition. You break yourself up to mate with your new friend. In the frenzy of mating, all this energy is released: heat, pressure are released ... you find yourself pushing against a compliant piston.
Bang.
You're out. Still burning hot. Still full of high pressure. The piston took out only a small part (30%) of your energy as payment in kinetic form. Then the exhaust valve popped open. Now you feel different. You feel used and dirty. It all happened in a split of a second. You are now a cloud of carbon dioxide atoms, and a few more noxious compunds, spreading thin into the atomosphere, diffusing, disappearing. Your energy is entropizing itself out into the ambient.
You feel oh so "used".
It happened too fast. "They" rapidly sucked a small portion (30%) of your energy ... and then threw you out. How inefficient, but yet how super fast. Behind you was another drop, and then another. Boom. Boom. Boom.
Enormous amounts of energy were released rapidly. All so some car can go Zoom Zoom Zoom.
The owner of that car enjoyed the "rush", the surge of fast "power". That's why he bought you. He enjoyed the adrenalin rush. He "valued" it. He paid "money" for the rush.
Had you been a drop of working fluid in a Stirling, they would have kept you circling back and forth, well, almost forever. But the speed of cycling will be so agonizingly slow as heat energy has to diffuse into your body and later seep out. Your human "owner" is unhappy. No more Zoom Zoom Zoom. The energy now comes as drip, drip, drip. Efficient, but slooooooow. He does not "value" slow. How boring. So he does not buy.
So the sellers sit and wait.
One day. One day, they think. The buyers will develop a new "values" system; when the zoom zoom drug is gone.
Just between you and me, here is the straight skinny re stirling and money people
Q- Have they been around a long time with no commercialization?
A -Yes.
C- Very, Very Bad.
Q- Has somebody invested a lot of money trying to commercialize- and failed?
A- Yes.
C- Very, Very, Very Bad! Us money guys don't want none of that kind of opportunity. G'by.
My comment- Very myopic attitude. Sure, stirlings have been around for close to 200 years. So has a whole bunch of stuff been around a long time with no commercialization- think of thermoelectrics, fuel cells. What you have to answer is WHY- and are things different now than then?
The answer is obviously yes, very different, like $60/barrel rather than $ 16/barrel.
Then another one that seems to completely escape people since it is slightly technical. There are two kinds of stirling engine- crank types, that take lubrication, and free piston types that slide on a gas film and/or an aligning spring that don't take lubrication. Crank stirlings don't have long life, and free pistons do. That simple. Don't believe me? Look it up yourself. Dean Kamen knew about both, made the wrong choice, spent a lot of money, and had to quit, and now must be feeling like a fool.
It happens that right now, the only free pistons are little things used by NASA, but that is a mere accident of history. Free pistons can be made as big as anybody would want- like biomss fired tractor engines, one of my favorites.
Other near term applications that the money people ought to be excited about;
domestic cogen. Why burn gas at 85% availability and get only heat? A thermodynamic atrocity! Get your house electric power as well.
Solar! Look at that big hot spot in the south west. Stick a bunch of stirlings there- way cheaper than PV. (sad to say, the SES people are using cranks, and they crap out. How utterly predictable- and utterly stupid!)
Heat driven heat pumps. Lots of clever ways to use stirlings to do that, with excellent overall efficiency.
And many more.
OK, did my chore. Goin' back to bed.
to wimbi,
EXACTLY.
The CHP (Combined Heat and Power) industry may be one of the most under-funded, undertalked about new growth industries in the world, and soon.
It is already well underway, and is getting the "money people" to take notice.
It mixes well with the ideas fo distributed generation, energy security, flexibility, renewables, and de-regulation.
For a great starting place go to
http://www.distributedenergy.com/de.html
Look at the FREE back issues, and then register for their FREE print magazine. It is EXCELLENT, with a great open mind to wind, solar, Diesel, nat gas, propane and Stirling methods of co-gen CHP.
It was an eye opener to me how far things are already developing.
Roger Conner known to you as ThatsItImout
I am looking forward to another run of my 1kW free piston tomorrow. The first runs were ok but we found some silly tuning errors of the kind I should have caught but didn't, and got about 500 watts. Oh Boy, next run should be great!
This one is for my wood stove. My house uses about 350 watts electric, steady state.