Solar Power

[Duckshot]

Let me be a bit more blunt. I am sick of this "What's mine is mine and what's yours is ours" mentality. This is America, not the former Soviet Union.

It seems like when there is reward "We are all in this together" but when there is risk nobody wants to accept it. If the captain wants to go down with the ship fine, but he does not have the right to take everybody else down with him at gunpoint.

In a free society, you can buy your own ship. Forcing others onto your ship is the definition of slavery.

 

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[Kantuckkeean]

Please do not denigrate posters who have heard/read an alternate
reality.

"... alternate reality." LOL!! Exactly that!!

17 yrs? Will it really save you money?

As I said, that is at the high-end, and it wasn't done strictly from an economic perspective. I could have invested that money elsewhere and likely achieved a much larger ROI, if I was solely interested in money.

As for proving my statements, I already did that many times over with peer reviewed articles. I'm not too interested in doing it again. They obviously didn't read my posts and links, so why bother? Something about a horse and water comes to mind...

Kindest regards,
Kantuck

 

[Charlie P. (NY)]

Solar, wind, tidal . . . all great 'low impact" energy sources. Until you look at the Lithum mines for the needed minerals to construct the storage batteries to make such "green" power viable. Toxic effluient and heavy metal contamination in watersheds. No matter what source of energy you collect somethig must suffer and die. That's the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

• The first law, also known as Law of Conservation of Energy, states that energy cannot be created or destroyed in an isolated system.
• The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of any isolated system always increases.
• The third law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of a system approaches a constant value as the temperature approaches absolute zero.

In other words. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. Chemical pollution, heat pollution, use of resources, toxins in the environment. It ALL is harmful at some level. "Modern" humans are toxic to the earth. Deal with it. You want to help the environment then kill off all but maybe 1,000,000,000 humans (leaving 12% of the current total on earth). The planet cannot support the current level of "users". Time to downsize.

 

[releventchair]

You must have read that article a long time ago... that hasn't been true for at least a decade and the panels in operation now will produce much more electricity to payback those of the past. With the lifespan of today's panels and reductions in manufacture and waste, solar panels will create much more energy than it took to produce them.

There's enough hot air in this thread to power a city though. Even the article quoted by the OP has misinformation. The mirrors for the Ivanpah facility (3 units) are less than 1 sq. mile, not 5 sq. miles. It has been estimated to kill a bunch of birds though...

I do wonder how many of the posters on here have an interest in the fossil fuels industry. I seriously can't understand the outright hostility that some people express towards changing our lifestyle to conserve biodiversity, mitigate the effects of climate change, and make the planet cleaner place to live.

Whatever... Y'all can keep spouting misinformation and keep on hatin'. I'll keep picking up litter to keep plastic out of the oceans and my solar panels and Powerwall 2 will be installed in a couple of weeks.

Kindest regards,
Kantuck

You're covering a lot of bases/riding off in multiple directions from solar. I can follow that route(s).
Biodiversity and our/your/my footprints are a loss for biodiversity. No way around it.
Two the families could occupy a dwelling. Grass lawns could be banned. With exception of native grasses/flora.
Not how we as a society live though. Green space costs as is viewed as real estate potential.
Concrete or asphalt is our trademark. Heaven forbid we touch the earth. But I can go zoom on the freeway!

I eat wild game. And obviously study it.
Our putting roads through habitat among reduced habitat can and does take a toll. I ain't givin up my vehicles though over it.
But , I don't overdrive my headlights at night either.

Corn. Ethanol. Our answer to prior fuel stock declines. Plus hooray we can market more corn. Corn , which needs so much soil amending/fertilizer and spraying herbicide it's hardly good for the environment. We put corn or derivatives of corn in so much stuff it devalues corn for what it is as corn.
That ethanol crap frys old fuel lines and carburetors in small engines. The answer is fuel treatment/chemicals. Vs. actual gasoline. Or what passes for gasoline.
Remember white gas? 50 octane. Good stuff for gas pressure lanterns and the like too. More so compared to what is in "modern" gasoline. Warning , don't burn automotive fuel indoors. That is a far cry from early white gas. And (a disclaimer) for foreign readers , don't expect white gas to mean the same thing in your country. It means different things different places.
But...We needed greater horse power. (Ever read about the amount of horse poop in big cities pre gas engine days?)
When compression was increased in gas engines 50 octane wasn't getting it. So.... that brings us to Thomas Midgley Jr..
Who might be described as the most dangerous man in the world.
If you're not familiar with his work , it's worth a study.
As is the era and attempted monopolies.

 

[Kantuckkeean]

Let me be a bit more blunt. I am sick of this "What's mine is mine and what's yours is ours" mentality. This is America, not the former Soviet Union.

It seems like when there is reward "We are all in this together" but when there is risk nobody wants to accept it. If the captain wants to go down with the ship fine, but he does not have the right to take everybody else down with him at gunpoint.

In a free society, you can buy your own ship. Forcing others onto your ship is the definition of slavery.

Right, but that argument goes both ways. We are all in it together and nothing could make that more clear than by continuing to burn fossil fuels. By continuing to burn fossil fuels, we're all being forced onto the same ship, to use your analogy. It doesn't matter where the fossil fuels are being burned. The resulting increasing GHG concentrations in the atmosphere (which is shared by everyone on the planet) affects everyone (i.e. I'm being forced onto the ship of fossil fuel burners against my will and against the will of people living in low lying areas near coastlines).

Kindest regards,
Kantuck

 

[Duckshot]

When is the common sense in "common cents"?

If you really want to save the planet you are talking to the wrong crowd.

You need to address China. We are most certainly Not "all in this together".

 

[Kantuckkeean]

Simply prove your statements.

May I ask why the burden is always on me to prove my statements? Why don't the people who made the original statements have to prove their statements?

They made the statement. They should show us the underlying data that says that it takes more energy to produce solar panels than the panels will ever generate. It was true once, but it no longer is, and if they look into it, they'll see that. If they are able to show that their original statement is true, it would definitely make me change my mind... but it better be peer-reviewed. I don't want to see anything from the biased sources that some folks had tried to use previously...

Kindest regards,
Kantuck

 

[Fat]

I have a 2 panel inverter system with a 12v marine battery. I use it to provide safety/security lights and camera. 2cameras and 6 motion sensing lighting. It was around $500 for the electric part to start. Panels,inverter,battery, I’ve had to replace 1 panel $120 and I just had to change the marine battery $180 Prices are close as recall... Oct ‘17 till now about 40 months $800.
$20 a month to date. Im not adding the cost of money. $500 upfront and than the so far needed maint. cost it’s about a push in my budget.
My system is small and I wanted to try it myself to see. The whole thing is more about peace of mind to me than having a outlet to plug in something. If I actually wanted useable electricity, I would have to hookup to the REA.

 

[Kantuckkeean]

When is the common sense in "common cents"?

If you really want to save the planet you are talking to the wrong crowd.

You need to address China. We are most certainly Not "all in this together".

I agree that China needs to clean up their act, but we do too... as does India, Mexico, Canada, Germany, Brazil, Egypt, Thailand, Australia, and every other country. We are "all in this together." If we're not, then we're hosed. Just because country Z isn't doing as much as country M doesn't make it alright for country M to continue polluting, when it affects countries A-Z. That's like saying, "they're more wrong so that makes my wrong ok." The tragedy of the commons...

I'm not talking to the wrong crowd. There are folks from all walks of life here and people can always learn something new. Nobody's perfect (myself included). There are many things that we can all do to reduce our ecological and carbon footprints (e.g. recycling properly, reducing consumption and waste, driving less, composting, purchasing locally, etc.).

Kindest regards,
Kantuck

 

[releventchair]

Right, but that argument goes both ways. We are all in it together and nothing could make that more clear than by continuing to burn fossil fuels. By continuing to burn fossil fuels, we're all being forced onto the same ship, to use your analogy. It doesn't matter where the fossil fuels are being burned. The resulting increasing GHG concentrations in the atmosphere (which is shared by everyone on the planet) affects everyone (i.e. I'm being forced onto the ship of fossil fuel burners against my will and against the will of people living in low lying areas near coastlines).

Kindest regards,
Kantuck

Global warming does not direct my emission concerns. Yes emissions need noted.
People living in flood zones deltas mudslide unstable terrain growing brush/fuel in areas that have burned repeatedly since man was foolish enough to try to tame nature all run risks.
Time and again followed by inundation/flood,fire,hurricane ect. which is reacted to with raised hands declaring a hundred year flood risk was considered blah blah blah.
Hey , don't be stupid firstly. And secondly why rebuild? Seriously. Why was/is it a news flash that New Orleans is mostly below sea level? Nature is supposed to respect that? Or reduction of barriers she put in place we remove/modify? Crazy now people..
Why was the French quarter orientated where it was? Higher ground. Genius!
Then low ground was allowed to be built on. Nevermind nature. Catastrophe to humans resulting is simply nature doing it;s thing.


Live on the oceans shore and realize why there were no structures there prior for good reason.
The disconnect of observation and common sense of when to get in natures way is obvious. Then ignored.
Look at the Mississippi and corps of engineers. And the flooding.
Humans . The vulnerable through thier own fault.

 

[Duckshot]

That Direct Current to Alternating Current inverter is the only mistake, Fat. Inverters are just as good for cooking eggs and bacon as they are for lighting lamps. They waste power as heat. That's how come they got cooling fins all over them. The trick to conserving electrical power is to use DC appliances- I believe that Tesla got that exactly right. Alternating current was Edison's biggest blunder and it still haunts us today.

All it takes to convert AC to DC is a rectifier. Costs way less than an inverter and heat loss is minimal. Look at all the lawn care machinery and power tools powered by DC. Yet we still plug them into an AC system to charge them?

If people are running their solar panels through an inverter to run the AC charger for their cordless drill, I sure hope they are using that inverter to cook breakfast at the same time. If not they are wasting power at a ludicrous rate.

 

[Fat]

I’ve heard all about, now. I needed you 4 years ago. How about you get me all switched around and in 40 short months, I’ll give you a grand. It kinda how I feel now about it too.
Colorado mandated that oil had to pay for the wind turbines, no matter how much you think it’s saving we all still pay for it by the gallon

 

[Duckshot]

Colorado mandated that oil had to pay for the wind turbines, no matter how much you think it’s saving we all still pay for it by the gallon

Shhhh....

quiet you!

If people knew they are being taxed they might demand their money's worth!

 

[Duckshot]

Oh. I know. These birds are already cooked...

...we could use them to feed the homeless.

[QUOTE="some O.P.M addict]You want to feed the homeless, don't you? If you aren't a proponent of solar power you must be a hater. You don't hate the homeless, do you!!??[/QUOTE]



I sure like birds!

 

[Kantuckkeean]

Global warming does not direct my emission concerns. Yes emissions need noted.
People living in flood zones deltas mudslide unstable terrain growing brush/fuel in areas that have burned repeatedly since man was foolish enough to try to tame nature all run risks.
Time and again followed by inundation/flood,fire,hurricane ect. which is reacted to with raised hands declaring a hundred year flood risk was considered blah blah blah.
Hey , don't be stupid firstly. And secondly why rebuild? Seriously. Why was/is it a news flash that New Orleans is mostly below sea level? Nature is supposed to respect that? Or reduction of barriers she put in place we remove/modify? Crazy now people..
Why was the French quarter orientated where it was? Higher ground. Genius!
Then low ground was allowed to be built on. Nevermind nature. Catastrophe to humans resulting is simply nature doing it;s thing.


Live on the oceans shore and realize why there were no structures there prior for good reason.
The disconnect of observation and common sense of when to get in natures way is obvious. Then ignored.
Look at the Mississippi and corps of engineers. And the flooding.
Humans . The vulnerable through thier own fault.

Agreed. People have done, and continue to do foolish things.

The catastrophes (natural phenomena) that you mention are being greatly exacerbated by climate change though. Everyone recalls the record-breaking fires in California of 2020, which burned approximately 4.2M acres. Also widely reported were the devastating brushfires across an estimated 46M acres in western Australia that burned perhaps 20% of their woodlands and killed an estimated 1B animals. Less reported were the wildfires in Siberia during the 2019-2020 wildfire season that burned another 47M acres. The combined areas of those fires would be like burning all of Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia (and I didn't even include the fires in the Amazon, other western US states, and elsewhere).

The fires of 2016 near Gatlinburg, which were rather small in size, comparatively speaking, were unusual for the Appalachian region in that they made their way to the crowns. Typically, fires in the Appalachians rarely burn more than the litter layer. However, I fear that crown fires may become much more commonplace in the coming years and decades across the southeastern US, including Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina, as well as Tennessee.

Sea level rise is a natural phenomenon, but human actions have greatly increased the rate of sea level rise due climate change, which is now being driven from past and current human actions. Sea level rise is causing issues in areas that have been inhabited by humans for untold millennia. Fires are a natural occurrence in many ecosystems, but they're becoming much more devastating where they naturally occur and they're occurring in places where they would not naturally occur or would be extremely infrequent. We know that the burning of fossil fuels is the root cause of these phenomena. Knowing this, wouldn't it be foolish to not transition away from fossil fuels and mitigate the problems as we're able?

Kindest regards,
Kantuck

 

[Singlestack Wonder]

That Direct Current to Alternating Current inverter is the only mistake, Fat. Inverters are just as good for cooking eggs and bacon as they are for lighting lamps. They waste power as heat. That's how come they got cooling fins all over them. The trick to conserving electrical power is to use DC appliances- I believe that Tesla got that exactly right. Alternating current was Edison's biggest blunder and it still haunts us today.

All it takes to convert AC to DC is a rectifier. Costs way less than an inverter and heat loss is minimal. Look at all the lawn care machinery and power tools powered by DC. Yet we still plug them into an AC system to charge them?

If people are running their solar panels through an inverter to run the AC charger for their cordless drill, I sure hope they are using that inverter to cook breakfast at the same time. If not they are wasting power at a ludicrous rate.

Tesla invented A/C, not Edison. A/C allowed for the long distance transmission of high power using transformers to bring it down to usable voltages. DC would have required power generating stations every few miles to maintain grid voltage.

 

[Duckshot]

You are right Singlestack wonder, I got it wrong. Sometimes I mix up port and starboard and left and right. Thanks for the correction .


But starboard is always a green navigation lamp and port is always a red lamp. I can't mess that up.

Here is an article about Westinghouse, General Electric, Edison , and Tesla- https://www.energy.gov/articles/war-currents-ac-vs-dc-power

I been to the Thomas Edison lab in FL, it's a museum now. If anybody here gets the chance to visit it I recommend it.

 

[newnan man]

I enjoy hearing everyone's views on these issues. Interesting different ideas & beliefs. One thing I realize is most of us truly care for the earth and are frustrated more is not done to protect its natural resources. Many valid ideas & beliefs. My personal top of the list item I would like to see quickly addressed is pesticide & plastic pollution. I don't care if the earth warms a degree or to if we have killed off the food chain to grow GM corn. Also micro plastics are in everything everywhere. The earth has warmed and cooled dozens of times and animals and plants survived. As has been stated, man choosing to live in areas that are prone to disaster is the main issue. Florida where I live has been underwater many times for millions of years when the earth was in a warm cycle. Not a problem until Miami shows up. Co2 levels were very high, plants thrived and life was good. (Except for the several non man made global extinctions) Ol homosapiens shows up and wala we think we're the cats meow, so smart. Funny how our brains and technology have made many of the problems that used to plague mankind much more dangerous. We've gone from flint spears to atomic bombs. Progress?

 

[releventchair]

Agreed. People have done, and continue to do foolish things.

The catastrophes (natural phenomena) that you mention are being greatly exacerbated by climate change though. Everyone recalls the record-breaking fires in California of 2020, which burned approximately 4.2M acres. Also widely reported were the devastating brushfires across an estimated 46M acres in western Australia that burned perhaps 20% of their woodlands and killed an estimated 1B animals. Less reported were the wildfires in Siberia during the 2019-2020 wildfire season that burned another 47M acres. The combined areas of those fires would be like burning all of Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia (and I didn't even include the fires in the Amazon, other western US states, and elsewhere).

The fires of 2016 near Gatlinburg, which were rather small in size, comparatively speaking, were unusual for the Appalachian region in that they made their way to the crowns. Typically, fires in the Appalachians rarely burn more than the litter layer. However, I fear that crown fires may become much more commonplace in the coming years and decades across the southeastern US, including Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina, as well as Tennessee.

Sea level rise is a natural phenomenon, but human actions have greatly increased the rate of sea level rise due climate change, which is now being driven from past and current human actions. Sea level rise is causing issues in areas that have been inhabited by humans for untold millennia. Fires are a natural occurrence in many ecosystems, but they're becoming much more devastating where they naturally occur and they're occurring in places where they would not naturally occur or would be extremely infrequent. We know that the burning of fossil fuels is the root cause of these phenomena. Knowing this, wouldn't it be foolish to not transition away from fossil fuels and mitigate the problems as we're able?

Kindest regards,
Kantuck

Fire is a big topic.
Sign exists of old growth forest where natives burned of understory.
Of course following fire comes fertilization from ash. An area can be vulnerable to erosion until second growth, or what was in the soils seed bank, or seed brought in by other means to get established , but controlled burns were done in many areas to encourage fresh browse/grass/forbs.
I've considered it when ticks are abundant. L.o.l..

California fires during periods of annual wind events can be an example of humans not guarding against providing fuel.
When folks want brush to flourish , and it is a highly combustible type and is dry during dry season (coincidentally during annual wind periods) the stage is set.
We've seen controlled burns get out of hand.. That should not mean no controlled burns.

Here in the midwest fires followed logging era. All that dried slash was prime fuel.
Fire towers were erected and manned.
Fire lanes were cut. Some faintly visible today still.

Kinda circling back to solar power , but an indication of man minding his environment.
An abode structure can tolerate a clime with considerable temp swings. And combined with a tile roof , can tolerate some hot ash.
Materials sourced locally factored in the popularity , but there's more to it.
Located on a site chosen to avoid extremes or obvious hazards , and maintained with the threat of fire , it's different than living in a home constructed of materials suited to being fuel.
Asphalt shingles in an area subject to fires? Exposed wood? A yard growing fuel, with more fuel beyond?
Blame climate change , but the native species fueling the fire remain just fine.
They evolved for longer than we have records.
Though if glacial ice cores are presented as evidence , then the evidence of great temp swings over time need to be presented with them.
We don't control volcanic activity.
It affects climate. And our efforts can be feeble in comparison.

Here's an event worth noting.
Solar power might have been reduced drastically.
https://www.history.com/news/what-was-the-year-without-a-summer

 

[Singlestack Wonder]

Regardless of the politician’s claims, the earth’s weather cycle is natural. One volcanic eruption combined with bovine flatulence delivers more gases to the atmosphere than man can do in 30 years. Throughout millennia the earth has gone thru extremely hot and extremely cold periods with no contributions from man. We’re coming to the end of an 11 year solar cycle and everyone will be complaining about colder winters soon and how somehow not paying enough carbon credits caused it.

Hey california, stop taking desert land, sodding it, and stealing water from Colorado in order to attempt to maintain it. California was mostly a desert and should be left that way. Stuff happens when the earth tries to reset areas to their normal state.

As far as green energy, I’ve been involved in several solar and wind projects across the country. Not one installation would survive without government subsidies as they do not produce enough power to remain solvent vs. expenses.

One project was a solar mirror facility that used miles of mirrors to focus sunlight on tubes of liquid that when heated turned to gas and ran turnbines. After a week efficiency was down 25%. It was discovered that a light dust coating on the mirrors that accumulated in a week’s time had greatly lowered efficiency. A mirror cleaning company was then hired full time to clean the mirrors resulting in even more financial loss.

I don’t have time this morning to talk about all the issues with windmills and the constantly failing $300,00+ gearboxes.

Green energy sounds noble and rewarding till one pulls back the curtain.

Nuclear is the only path in the future. (Yes, I’ve done projects in that sector too). Unfortunately the DOE is stuck in the 1950’s with their regulations.

ORNL has developed ball reactor technology. Ceramic balls are infused with nuclear fuel in a extremely small pellet format. A number of balls are thrown in a reactor along with a single hot ball to establish reaction.

The balls have been tested by putting them in furnaces and being exposed to temperatures over 2500C for long periods of time. Tens of thousands of balls have been tested by this process and not one failed and released fuel. This technology prevents breakdowns such as what was seen at Chernobyl and Fukushima (albeit one should not build a reactor next to the ocean). If something happens to the reaction and it goes out of control and cooling fails, the balls will not breakdown and release material.

Should terrorists acquire some balls, the forces required to remove the small amount of fuel in each ball would render it ultra low grade and not capable for use in a device.

The U.S. is giving away the technology to Russia,Packistan, Europe, and others but the DOE prevents it’s use here.

Here’s an article:
https://www.wired.com/story/nuclear-power-balls-triso-fuel/

[energy rant mode off]