Solar Power For Your Home – Warnings You Need to Know

Mac Reddmond asked: With energy rates increasing more and more, people are looking for new ways to provide power to their homes. One option many are looking into is solar power. I know I looked into it myself, but I found out there’s good and bad in everything. I’ll get into that in a second — including a few really important warnings about putting solar power in your home — but first, let’s give some background so you know where I’m coming from… First, did you know that if you run your home on solar power and aren’t using all of the electricity you produce, you can actually have the energy company buy it from you to add to the power grid? You could actually get paid for electricity instead of paying the exorbitant bills you are paying today. How’s that for a switch? But now let’s get some of the basics out of the way. Solar power is power from the sun (obviously). It is a renewable resource meaning we can’t run out of it. Most of the methods in use today for providing electricity to our homes are not renewable. A major source of energy comes from coal. However there is only a certain amount of coal available and once we run out we are out. It will take millions of years for the earth to create more coal, or oil, or natural gas, or anything that comes “from the ground.” What are we to do when the resources currently used run dry? Answer: We need to find new ways to create energy and we need to do it now. As the current resources begin to disappear, energy prices are going to skyrocket. If you think it’s bad now, just wait a few years. What are you going to do when it costs like $50 just to drive to the grocery store? Bottom line: If you feel your power bill is too high now, just wait. Supply and demand dictates that energy prices are only going to continue to rise. But I haven’t told you anything you don’t already know yet. So let’s get to the good stuff. First, to create power using the sun you need to have solar panels at your home. There are two types of panels to choose from. The first type is Flat Plate Collectors. These are the simpler of the two panels. This type absorbs the sun’s heat. This heat can then be stored for future use in a well-insulated tank or it can be used immediately to heat air or water to be used in your home. By using this method alone, you can cut your bill by 1/3rd. This system costs far less than the system that actually creates power for your home, but you will still be dependent on the utility company for some or most of your electricity. The second type of system is the photovoltaic system. This system uses panels that are created using silicon. This is what most people think of when they think of solar power for their homes. Problem is, these panels are much more expensive due to the cost to produce them. Photovoltaic panels do actually produce electricity. The silicon, which is a semi-conductive substance, converts the sun’s energy into power for your home. With this type of system, you use an inverter to change the 12V power the solar panel creates into 110V power that homes use. To ensure your home ALWAYS has power, your system needs to be connected to either the utility grid, or a battery bank. If you choose a battery bank, you will be completely off the grid. The batteries store the extra energy created during sunny days to power your home at night and on cloudy days. If you go the other route and stay connected to the grid, the extra energy created can go directly into the grid to be used in other homes. You then get power from the grid at night or when conditions do not allow solar power to be created by the panels. Now this choice would be a no-brainer except for the fact that a solar panel system can cost tens of thousands of dollars. Many systems will set you back a cool $50,000 or more. Even with government incentives, the average home that uses 25KWH a day is looking to spend maybe over $100,000 on a system. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have that kind of cash just lying around. Fortunately for everyone, there IS a solution to this. In fact, it’s possible to save around 80% to 90% on the cost of solar system for your home, but you have to know WHERE and HOW to realize these savings. Down at the end of this article a few links I want you to check out. Honestly, if you don’t have $50,000 to $100,000 to spend on a solar system, you need to check these out. You’ll learn how to start getting your home up and running on solar for a few hundred bucks. No kidding. A few hundred bucks. So check those links out, okay? Now let’s get into some other tips to maximize the solar power you do get from your system… It’s wise to switch to energy efficient appliances and gas appliances when possible. If you make these changes and get your usage down to 15KWH a day, you can save some money of your system (in the silly “traditional” way, you’re still looking at around $70,000 or so for a system). That’s why I encourage you to check out the alternatives below. In my opinion, if costs could be lowered dramatically, then solar power would definitely be the way to go. The benefits are great, but unfortunately the cost of most systems makes it an option most people can’t even afford to consider. But you’re going to know something they don’t. Here’s your chance. Solar power Read more on Solar Power For Your Home – Warnings You Need to Know… Subscribe to the comments for this post? Share this on del.icio.us Digg this! Post this on Diigo Post on Google Buzz Add this to Mister Wong Share this on Mixx Share this on Reddit Stumble upon something good? Share it on StumbleUpon Share this on Technorati Tweet This!

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Solar Power For Your Home Warnings You Need to Know

Renewable Energy ‘Supergrid’ coming to Europe

UK’s energy and climate change minister, Lord Hunt shares his opinion, “We recognise that the North Sea has huge resources, we are exploiting those in the UK quite intensively at the moment. But there are projects where it might make sense to join up with other countries, so this comes at a very good Posted in: Economy , Industry , Politics

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Renewable Energy Supergrid coming to Europe

Why are Oil Prices So High?

Why are oil prices so high? This is the question being asked with increasing frequency in many countries around the world. Some would have you believe that the blame should be placed on “greedy oil companies”, “Arabs”, “speculators” or “OPEC”. While speculation is happening with investors and hedge funds looking to commodities for returns that are not being seen in the stock or property markets, there are underlying fundamental reasons which mean prices are likely to stay high. Last November the International Energy Agency released its annual World Energy Outlook report. Traditionally the agency has projected energy supply based on projected demand. The agency has projected that India and China will lead the increase in energy demand making 45% of total growth. Oil imports for these two countries combined will grow to 19.1m barrels a day by 2030 compared to 5.4m barrels a day in 2006. Demand for oil will grow to 116m barrels a day by 2030, an increase of 37% on 2006 oil usage. In this report back in November the International Energy Agency warned the price of a barrel of oil could rise to $159 by 2030 due to high growth in demand. This estimate now looks very conservative. The reality is there have been some fundamental changes. Before if the United States went into recession, this would lower demand for oil and prices fell. Now with China, India and other rapidly developing nations demanding ever increasing quantities of oil a recession in America is unlikely to lead to falling oil prices like it did in the past. Were per capita oil use in China and India to reach the same level as in the United States, this would fully deplete the world’s remaining proven oil reserves in just 15 years and prospective resources, in 26 years. The other fundamental change is that there is little excess production capacity. While Saudi Arabia would like the world to think it could increase production if it deemed it “beneficial” to the stability of the market, this is just an illusion of control. The reality of the OPEC cartel is that while sticking to production quotas may have benefited the group as a whole, individual countries have always “cheated” consistently and repeatedly exceeded their production quotas. In the past this has lead to significant downward pressure on prices. This time the signs are that the world is at or near its maximum oil production capacity. Does this mean Peak Oil has arrived? In my opinion – not yet. New production will continue to come online in the coming years which is likely to raise worldwide maximum oil production. So we haven’t reached peak production… yet. What we may be experiencing is what Robert Rapier calls Peak Oil Lite , with the early effects of Peak Oil arriving. Demand is rising faster than supply. In its July 2007 report the International Energy Agency predicts OPEC spare capacity will decline to minimal levels by 2012. The lack of spare capacity means, that price volatility increases with price spikes occurring in the event of supply disruption. So what we are likely to experience prior to Peak Oil is Peak Export. According to Eugene Linden in BusinessWeek when it comes to oil our biggest concern should be the amount of “global oil available for export”. According to the Export Land Model developed by Jeffrey Brown – exports decline faster than production declines, the rate at which exports decline accelerates over time and only a small percentage of a producing country’s production is exported following peak production. According to a report in last week’s Wall Street Journal, fresh information from the US Department of Energy shows the quantity of petroleum products shipped by the top exporting countries in 2007 fell 2.5% last, while prices increased 57%. Net exports from major producers Mexico, Norway and Venezuela have fallen in every year since 2005. With the rise in prices individual producing countries in OPEC had every incentive to “cheat” and yet exports fell. The influx of wealth into the Middle East has led to a boom in domestic demand. It seems that Middle Easterners aspire to the same gas guzzlers and energy rich lifestyles as Americans. Soaring profits from high-price crude have fuelled a boom in oil demand in Saudi Arabia and across the Middle East, leaving less oil for export. In 2007 the output of the region’s six largest oil exporters – Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Iran, Kuwait, Iraq and Qatar – fell by 544,000 barrels a day. During the same period domestic demand increased by 318,000 barrels a day, leading to a decrease in net exports of 862,000 barrels a day. A recent report from CIBC World Markets also indicates that as much as 40% of Saudi Arabia’s expected production increases will be offset by rising internal demand by 2010, and Iranian exports will decline by more than 50% for similar reasons. Indonesia recently withdrew from OPEC as it has gone from being a net exporter of oil, to a net importer of oil. The Wall Street Journal report comments that the fall in oil exports “defies traditional market logic.” Perhaps that should be blind faith that OPEC nations can turn on the taps if prices rise “too high”. It seems even oil traders are unsure what is driving prices as according to one market analyst quoted by BBC News “we really don’t know what the fundamentals are doing at any point in time.” Much of the information on fundamental factors in the oil market is not public or freely available. In simple terms demand is outstripping supply and prices are rising. This is how the market is supposed to work. Other fossil fuel prices tend to follow oil. IEA’s latest World Energy Outlook forecasts coal is set to rocket in demand, increasing by 73% from 2005 to 2030. This means coal’s share in global energy demand will rise from 3% to 28%. It is predicted by 2015 America will go from being a net coal exporter to a net coal importer. Coal is the most carbon intensive way of generating electricity and this report predicts that rather than becoming a smaller part of the energy mix, coal is predicted to play a much bigger role. With a presidential election this year in the United States and gas prices at record levels, oil and energy in general is set to be a key issue. There is the opportunity to have a serious debate about energy – a fundamental part of our lives which has been taken for granted for far too long. However the responses from the presidential candidates so far have not been encouraging. In 2002 McCain declared that ethanol is a “giveaway to special interests in corn-growing states as the expense of the rest of the country.” In 2003 he put out a press release saying “Ethanol does nothing to reduce fuel consumption, nothing to increase our energy independence, nothing to improve air quality.” He went on to describe it as “highway robbery.” Hillary Clinton signed a letter saying that there is “no sound public policy reason for mandating the use of ethanol”. McCain, Clinton and Obama all seem to have drunk the ethanol Kool Aid and seen the bright white light that has converted them to E85 . In 2008 none of these presidential candidates seems to have anything negative to say about ethanol. In 2006 Barack Obama along with four Republican and one Democrat senator introduced the Coal-To-Liquid Fuel Promotion Act. There have also been accusations made against “Big Oil”, “OPEC” (including by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown) and suggestions that a “gas tax holiday” or “windfall tax” would fix everything. It’s always easier to find a scapegoat. One bandaid being suggested from some quarters, is to open up drilling in the United States in areas which are currently off limit. This would give access to 19 billion barrels of oil enough to meet US needs for approximately two-and-a-half-years or world demand for just over 7 months at current rates of consumption. To quote the head of the International Energy Agency: “All countries must take vigorous, immediate and collective action to curb runaway energy demand. The next ten years will be crucial for all countries… We need to act now to bring about a radical shift in investment in favor of cleaner, more efficient and more secure energy technologies.” Further Reading: The Ethanol Scam in ” Gusher of Lies ” You can read more on what the energy policies of McCain, Clinton and Obama should be in this Open Letter to the Next President .

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Why are Oil Prices So High?

Is Ethanol / E85 Fuel the Solution?

I’ve recently received a number of emails calling for me to Kick the Oil Habit by supporting E85 which is a liquid fuel made up of 85% ethanol and 15% regular gasoline. Having previously had my doubts about ethanol I emailed fellow blogger the Engineer Poet seeking his opinion. A large part of this resulting post is based directly on his reply and as such the credit belongs to him. So is E85 fuel the answer to America’s (and the world’s) addiction to oil? E85 fuel is not the solution. It is not even a part of the solution, it is a part of the problem. Here’s why, in a nutshell: All US vehicles can burn 10% ethanol (E10), but the US does not even produce half as much ethanol as universal E10 would require. We make about 5 billion gallons of ethanol, but use 140 billion gallons of gas. E85 and “flex fuel” is a loophole for the automakers to sell guzzlers without having to pay CAFE penalties. It makes the problem worse. Ending the loophole probably means ending E85, because there is no other reason for it to exist. Since the best estimate is that every gallon-equivalent of ethanol takes about 4/5 of a gallon-equivalent of other fossil fuel to make it, each gallon of E85 really represents about 0.6 gallons-equivalent of various fossil fuels. Since most flex-fuel vehicles get roughly 2/3 the mileage on E85 as they do on gasoline, they burn about 90% as much fossil energy even at their best. Even if we can use “cellulosic ethanol” to reduce the inputs of fossil-derived fertilizer and whatnot, we can’t make enough no matter what we do. The efficiency of the average gasoline-powered vehicle is about 15%, and we just can’t grow enough inputs to make up for throwing 85% of our produced energy away. The most efficient use of biomass is in local combined heat and power plants, not as a feedstock for ethanol. Low corn prices and high oil prices, and a government subsidy of 51 cents per gallon have fuelled unprecedented growth of the ethanol industry. In the case of the U.S. ethanol industry, fossil fueled trucks ship the fuel halfway across the country from the population sparse corn belt to population and car dense states like California and Texas. Science magazine found only a 13% reduction in CO2 emissions for bioethanol over gasoline (and only 11% for E85 fuel). U.S. government federal records show a single ADM corn processing plant in Clinton, Iowa generated nearly 20,000 tons of pollutants including sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and volatile organic compounds in 2004. The EPA considers an ethanol plant as a “major source” of pollution if it produces more than 100 tons of any one pollutant per year. From an emissions standpoint it is far preferable to drive a fuel efficient gasoline car than a low efficiency flex fuel vehicle running on E85. E85 fuel is not a solution. It is a distraction, like hydrogen vehicles. Further, every E85 vehicle is also a gasoline-compatible vehicle. It will maintain demand for petroleum as long as it is on the road. If you want to end oil addiction you have to get rid of the things which use it. E85 ethanol fuel may make a small contribution now, but it is a dead end. If we want to really be free of fossil fuels (including imported oil), we have to re-think things as completely as changing from riding horses to driving motor cars. Ethanol has already created an addiction of its own. The farmers and agribusiness interests which got into it found it hugely profitable, and they have big investments in its continuation. Even if you developed a better way of using corn today, you’d still have a lot of money lobbying to use it for ethanol, and even force it to be used for ethanol. This is already a race between technologies which can make us independent of fossil fuel, and technologies which get subsidy money. In that race, the subsidy seems to win every time. At least 43 percent of Archer Daniels Midland’s annual profits are from products heavily subsidized or protected by the American government. For every $1 of profit earned by ADM’s ethanol operation (the largest in the U.S.), it costs taxpayers $30. If you subsidize a technology which can only replace half our gasoline (and none of our diesel, jet fuel, or anything else), you’re probably going to be stuck with it. A hobbyist wrote an article about his home-built plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV). He published this article in Mother Earth News… in 1978. We don’t need any new technology. We could be building these cars today. Heck, we could have been building them in 1995 (when the CARB ZEV mandate came in)… or maybe even 1985. They would have been crude, but they would have gotten the job done. We can do far better today, of course. People finally got fed up and started building their own PHEV’s out of Toyota Priuses. It’s time to quit the excuses, both making them and accepting them. CAFE regulations utterly failed to contain U.S. motor-fuel consumption. This is not opinion, this is historical fact. Now the E85 fuel campagin wants to do the same thing again, but “reduce” consumption with E85 instead of directly cutting gallons-per-mile. You’ll get the same result as before – if driving doesn’t cost more, people will continue to drive as much or more. There are roughly 200 million light-duty vehicles in the USA. One recent news item says that there will be all of 6 million flex-fuel vehicles by 2007. That’s a whole 3%. The average flex-fuel vehicle is a guzzling truck (because they get the biggest CAFE preference from it). If those trucks get 13 MPG on E85, and they drive the national average of 13,000 miles/year, those 6 million vehicles would consume 5.1 billion gallons of ethanol. That’s roughly the same as the total production capacity of the nation. The E85 fuel campaign is currently sponsoring a road trip to highlight the usage of E85, but also the difficulty of driving a car solely on E85 due to its lack of availability. the electric Tesla Roadster – 250 mile range, one cent a mile, 0-60 in 4 seconds, 130 mph top speed – photo from Autoblog Green However, had this trip been made in a Tesla Roadster or tZero from AC Propulsion , it could have instead highlighted how EASY it is to get electricity wherever you are… even if you never stop at a filling station! Using non-toxic lithium-ion batteries they have a 250 mile range, charging overnight from an electric outlet. E85 fuel is a distraction, a diversion, a red herring. Just as the switch to “hydrogen economy” (remember that?) was before it. Both require huge investment, new infrastructure and will not lead to a post-oil economy. The hydrogen economy was promoted principally by both automakers and oil companies as a stalling strategy to avoid having to change the way they currently do business. Oil companies were also aware in the unlikely event that the hydrogen economy did take off (with huge taxpayer subsidies) that they would be supplying hydrogen produced from natural gas which they were already profitting from. The automakers sat around lamenting the fact they couldnt start to build cars as there are hardly any hydrogen filling stations and the energy companies would not open commercial hydrogen filling stations as there is no demand for them. While appearing to want to do something, both the automakers and energy companies continued for a few more years with business as usual. The Nissan Armada promoted on the E85 fuel site – with no fuel economy figures indicated The campaign for E85 fuel is somewhat similar. The automakers are eager to produce flex fuel vehicles which require a relatively cheap modification to the highly profitable gas guzzling SUVs they already produce. By backing E85 fuel they can continue to produce the highly inefficient vehicles while appearing to be green (as seen in GM’s Live Green Go Yellow campaign ). Car and Driver magazine estimates the CAFE loophole could have saved GM more than $200 million in fines in 2005 alone. As GM admits the consumer can choose to operate on gasoline or on a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline. So, you can choose the fuel that’s best for you. That’s good to know, because E85 fuel is not yet widely available. In other words in the vast majority of cases your new flex fuel vehicle will still be running on regular gas. Charter members of the National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition (NEVC), which promotes E85 fuel, when it was set up in June 2000 include GM, DaimlerChrsyler, and Ford. Meanwhile E85 fuel is also been promoted by organisations such as the National Corn Growers Association , as well as regional and state corn growers organisations, associated agribusinesses and biofuel companies. All of which have a commercial interest in promoting E85 fuel. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, a clearinghouse on political donations, the agribusiness sector has funneled more than $190 million into federal election campaigns since the 2000 election cycle. In the NEVCs bylaws its purpose is described as to “ensure that as decisions regarding the future of Americas use of alternative forms of transportation fuels are being made, ethanol has a role in the nations alternative transportation fuel market and support the expanded use of ethanol” and to “advance legislative proposals” to this effect. This seems to be regardless of whether ethanol/ E85 fuel is the best or is even a good solution to our energy challenges. As the Engineer Poet points out in this post , burning fuel for transportation is very inefficient way of using energy. Whether you are fed up with the current use of petroleum for transportation for environmental, political or financial reasons E85 fuel is simply not the answer. What we need is a step change, as represented by moving from using gas burning vehicles to electric vehicles. To encourage this, I urge you to sign this online plug in hybrid campaign asking automakers to produce plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). Autoblog Green’s exclusive interview with Tesla Motors’ chairman Tesla Roadster Video Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) – the Largest U.S. Ethanol Producer Vinod Khosla Debunked Car and Driver Magazine on the Promise of Energy Independence through Ethanol USA Today on the Ethanol Debate Cutting Down Borneo’s Rainforests to Make BioFuels

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Is Ethanol / E85 Fuel the Solution?