Reduction in consumption of fossil fuels

[Pengwuino]

If you have a lot of cash why don't you just build a few simple wind generators yourself? Darrius mills are simple to make and kind of foolproof :) (They look awsome too :D)

Oh god, i shoudl shoudlnt i... how complicated would it be. I am no electrician :(

This would totally be a good use of my time

 

[hitssquad]

My godfather's son owns a few acres and he's doing nothing with em.

Few areas of the United States offer the wind conditions that wind power investors typically look for. ~99% of the geographical United States would be rejected for wind investment on this basis. You might want to do some reading on this here:
http://www.homepower.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Know_Nukes

 

[Pengwuino]

Yah we live in a valley and its about smack dab in the middle so there's probably nowhere near enough wind to make any power.. but sure would be fun to build something for my house :D

 

[juju]

Hi,

I heard an interview a few months back, where a Texas wind power investor was asked why this type of investment.

His answer was that he could make money on such an investment and wasn't doing it for environmental reasons.

juju

 

[Pengwuino]

haha i looked at a compilation of wind data for the US and my city is basically at the 0 level... beautiful.

 

[pattylou]

Pengwuino, dude, you're in california. Are you a homeowner? I'm telling you, Solar. The governator wants us all on solar and the "million solar roofs" (google it) is going to pass.

Rebates for homeowners to put on solar already exists. They might get better with this initiative.

You can go small, or big. I mean, you can get a do-it-yourself kit at costco for some basic energy for minor needs. Look into it! You just seem so keen on wind, but you might be better placed to go with solar.

 

[Pengwuino]

I was feeling really "build it yourself" lately so that's why i was into the wind thing. But after looking at that damn graph, wind is out of the question. If we did go solar, we'd want at least 2kwh production capabilities since we use electricity like crazy so we'd probably have something professionally installed. Hopefully a government rebate will make the cost look more like a new car instead of a new house haha.

Ooo looks like this mollion solar thingy bill got through committee 2 weeks ago. Hope these dang democrats don't get in the way of things again.

These subsidies better be good because I am calculating that it would take at least 10-20 years before the stupid thing pays itself off.

 

[pattylou]

The CostCo kits are do-it-yourself; I don't know what you can get from them... I think they are a few hundred bucks apiece so they'd only suply a small amount of energy for you.

Democrats won't oppose environmental legislation. It's the dang republicans that you have to look out for.

 

[Pengwuino]

The CostCo kits are do-it-yourself; I don't know what you can get from them... I think they are a few hundred bucks apiece so they'd only suply a small amount of energy for you.

Democrats won't oppose environmental legislation. It's the dang republicans that you have to look out for.

Democrats are full of it. They tried to put a wind farm off of... one of hte 'Santa' cities and the rich hollywood crowd complained that it would screw up their view of the sunset so it was never built. Plus there mad that arnold is taking away their money so they are continually blocking crap. We have to have a special election because of them refusing to give up their little pet programs.

I don't want to get the Costco kit if its less bang for the buck, we need 2+ kwh for it to be even worth it.

 

[hitssquad]

we need 2+ kwh for it to be even worth it.

A kilowatt-hour (kwh) is a unit of energy, Pengwuino.

 

[Pengwuino]

oops... shouldn't have put that hour in there... but i think everyone understands what i meant.

Electrical generation has been screwing me up from day one. I couldn't figure out how the hell "kw/h" made any sense for the life of me until someone told me "are you sure you don't mean kwh?"

 

[hitssquad]

Homepower as a forced-labor full-time hobby

I was feeling really "build it yourself" lately so that's why i was into the wind thing.

You can do-it-yourself with solar by purchasing individual solar cells and using them to make your own solar panels. But even if you purchase all of your supplies prefabricated instead, you will have plenty of work to do installing your system and managing it.
physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=510640&highlight=solar#post510640

--
The management category is critical for successful operation of institutional-size generating stations; it encompasses hard work and is stress-inducing. Management compensation packages reflect this by being huge. That all applies for homepower as well. If the management costs for homepower seem in given instances to be zero, it will be because the management is donating its entire compensation package back into the enterprises. This doesn't make management costs zero.
--

 

[Pengwuino]

... what does that mean? Sounds like you plopped down a page off a 'how to be a successful manager' type book.

 

[pattylou]

Democrats are full of it. They tried to put a wind farm off of... one of hte 'Santa' cities and the rich hollywood crowd complained that it would screw up their view of the sunset so it was never built. Plus there mad that arnold is taking away their money so they are continually blocking crap. We have to have a special election because of them refusing to give up their little pet programs.

Well, now you're talking about a subset of elitest democrats.

There are weirdoes in Santa Monica, Santa Barbara, etc., everywhere. But the democrats in general would love to see renewable energy.

I am very very displeased with the special election. I did not sign one single petition. It is the legislature's job to figure this cr*p out, why we need to finance a speicial election is beyond me.

The petitions I saw which will appear on the special election, were right-wing issues. Notification of parents if a student requests an abortion, for example. No doubt there are left-wing issues too - but that's not what I see at the local Albertson's petition table.

So I don't shop there anymore.

 

[Pengwuino]

I don't care how they got the election, I am just glad they did. We got arnold in there because we were in debt up to our eyeballs and no one dared cut a program. Since the dems have just been criticizing and whining instead of doing their jobs, this is what happens; you have to waste money on an election to bypass them (although I am not sure how this will help since judges and the legislature have constantly by-passed initiatives we have voted on). Everyones just afraid to lose their jobs because they need to cut programs so instead, they just delay everything and this is what we get. Its cool for me though since i work at the elections so easy money :D.

Wait no its not easy money... i was the inspector at the 2004 elections and i wanted to kill myself at the end of the day. It was a small town too! We had people coming in who said they weren't sure what they were doing... the voting box arrived at the very last second... at the end our counts were off by 1 or 2 (depending on which time we counted) everytime. Oh and i got there at around 6:30am after abouta 45 minute drive to the polling location... and it was about 20 degrees... and teh person with the key didnt arrive for another half hour... and was working until about 10pm or something... god those were bad memories yet i still want to do it.

Lets see where was i... oh yah, democrats suck, guys rule! woooo :P. But really, everyone wants to see renewable energies... democrats just don't understand what there talken about when it comes to renewable energies and republicans just... don't talk. I mean 33 million people and only 4 nuclear reactors? This wasnt the result of any republicans i can tell you that :D

 

[Everett]

I think that an important issue that is often ignored with opportunity cost is inflation, the decrease in the value of a denomination over time. Basically, it means that for a loan, you will be paying with dollars/euros that are less valuable than the ones you borrowed at the initiation of the loan.

Investing in wind power is appropriate, because it provides an alternative to commodity electricity from the grid. The rising cost of conventional energy is a major contributor to the inflation that we have, and, in my opinion, will be the main cause of the higher rates of inflation that are coming soon. Money invested in wind power is an investment that protects you and your energy-dependent lifestyle from inflation.

 

[hitssquad]

I think that an important issue that is often ignored with opportunity cost is inflation, the decrease in the value of a denomination over time. Basically, it means that for a loan, you will be paying with dollars/euros that are less valuable than the ones you borrowed at the initiation of the loan.

Interest rates are not normally lower than inflation rates.

Money invested in wind power is an investment that protects you and your energy-dependent lifestyle from inflation.

When you say wind power, are you talking about homepower?