And You Still Fall For It
onelongsong
Posts: 3,517
as someone who is 100% solar; i'm sick of people saying that more money needs to be spent finding alternative fuel/energy sources. we've had the technology since the 1960's. want proof? what powers satellites; rockets; and the space shuttle? how long have we had solar powered satellites? is solar power that unreliable that we'll use it on billion dollar satellites and space probes?
stop listening to what you're told and look around you. oil is here because you're willing to buy it; not because we need it.
stop listening to what you're told and look around you. oil is here because you're willing to buy it; not because we need it.
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~Ron Burgundy
Ft Worth 9-15-23
Hartford 5-13-06, 6-27-08, 10-25-13
Mansfield, MA 6-30-08, 6-28-08, 7-2-03, 7-3-03, 7-11-03, 8-29-00, 8-30-00, 9-15-98, 9-16-98
Worcester 10-15-13, 10-16-13
if you check into green communities you'll see people have been using solar power for years. my neighbor put up a couple panels and a small wind generator so when it's cloudy; there's usually wind. in fact; as you drive accross the us you will see wind farms everywhere. the power company pays the land owners to put up the turbines on his land and the power companies use the technology to sell the power back to you. my neighbor paid $500 usd for his wind generator which is less than most HDTVs. it mounts on a piece of water pipe and he installed it himself. it only requires an 8 mph wind to start generating.
if you don't have sun or wind; you usually have streams for hydro electric generators. batteries have come a long way too.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/10/new_nanotechnol.php
unless you're buying commercially - it's hard to determine what the cost is because it is primarily an upfront capital cost ... and your payback would be based on what the subsidized market rate is ...
and onelongsong - i don't disagree one bit just that the examples you use (space satellites and rockets) aren't great examples is all ...
my system paid for itself in 1 year. i use more power on this ranch so maybe a little sooner. my most expensive component was a propane generator which automatically kicks in if my batteries drop to a certain point. i need 2 full days of clouds for that to happen. i have a massive freezer to store the meat i sell and i also have a waterbed so i'm not scrimping on power usage.
at my old ranch i would lose power at least once a week. with solar i've never lost power so reliability is an important issue.
i've lived with solar power for well over a year and i'd never go back to the grid. well; except maybe to sell power back to the power company.
i used those examples because the government uses it on billion dollar equipment that can't have problems. some of the older green communities have been using solar power since the 60's but there's really no documentation publicly available. so the only example that everyone is aware of is the governments use of solar power. i suppose you can use the information boards seen along the interstates and remote cell phone towers that opperate on solar power. and a lot of railroad equipment uses solar power too. in fact; if you look for them; you'll see many examples along the highway where several companies use solar power in remote locations where in most cases; bringing the grid in is just too expensive.
living in the city doesn't give you much choice, esp when you're renting. the companies have a lock.
as to cars... you cant buy a car that is not sold. id be happy to buy a solar car if i could find one. as is, ill buy a hybrid once i get to the point where i want a new one.
we've had dual fuel cars and hybrids here for a long time. the bloke that installed my array builds units on trailers for people who rent or builders working on sites without electricity. there's always a way.
my ranch is on earth and i generate 12 kwh every day for 18 months so far.
technology is still technology whether it's on earth or not.
solar power is going to power our cars? all 200,000,000 million of them?
Solar power is used in the space program because it doesn't require the vehicle to carry additional fuel. Also, the Space Shuttle gets power on orbit from fuel cells, the Space Station does get it's power from the Sun.
-C Addison
so this is the "experiment" huh
:rolleyes:
I was thinking the same thing. It is tough to get positive posts when the OP start out by talking about "falling for it" and "sick of people who..."
That will immediately cause people to get defensive. Even when people were agreeing with him in principle he was mildly antagonistic.
So I'm not really sure what kinds of responses he hoped to illicit. I like OLS's evangelizing about alternate energy, and he has a lot of good experience, but I don't really think this was a particularly valid experiment.
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I would guess he hoped to illicit the very lack of responses he recieved so he could talk about how hypocritical lefty environmentalists are.
A guy who routinely ignores the message and bemoans the approach. But suddenly, the message is more important. Awesome.....simply awesome!
Gotta' love it!
I don't think anybody really disagreed with his points about the need to explore alternative energy sources, and he provided good info about feasability and availability of solar power, but the tone of the thread caused the "experiment" to be less than successful for him. I happen to think the tone produced the results I would have expected. If he'd come in cheerily saying he has some information he wanted to share, people would have been more open to receiving it. That's my only point. Tone/approach of the first post goes a long way toward shaping the rest of the tone of the thread. And since this thread was supposed to be a grand experiment, more thought could probably have gone into the initial post.
The Pride and Futility mo, again.
Still, he's fairly eloquent when it comes to things environmental.
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That's just OLS being OLS. He loves being a BS'r.
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i agree
Nicely said.
If one is inclined to say it nicely