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| Re: Going green [message #96536 is a reply to message #96512] |
Tue, 04 March 2008 07:41   |
Nei
Messages: 108
Registered: November 2006
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Senior Member |
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I'd love to get some solar-cell action going for my house -
heck, I live in the desert, so it's a no-brainer compared to
some places like Seattle, where it's cloudy 370 days a year,
but it'd be decades before my initial costs were recouped
with energy savings. I have passive solar panels to heat the
swimming pool, which do next to nothing unless it's fairly hot
out, since the water flowing through them tends to cool them
off at the same time the sun's trying to heat them up, but
on a nice warm day, it'll definitely raise the temperature
from "AAAGHH! Too cold to go in!" to: "ahhhh... nice" lol
Has anyone noticed on TV that BMW is starting to advertise the
"Hydrogen 7"? Their fuel-cell-powered 7-series vehicle?
Also, on this same subject, a company here just got a research
grant from the state to develop a system that'll extract energy
from superheated road surfaces via a system of tubes/pipes
that'll circulate water underneath the pavement, heat it up,
and then return it to a core that converts the heat to
energy. Good idea, but i just wonder if it'll take more energy
to run the pumps than can be generated from the heat
differential.
Neil
"James McCloskey" <excelsm@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>Going green. Here are some cool ideas.
>
>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21595501/
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| Re: Going green [message #96543 is a reply to message #96536] |
Tue, 04 March 2008 09:55 |
Jamie K
Messages: 1115
Registered: July 2006
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Senior Member |
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The highest savings are from insulation and efficiency. Once you get
that done then solar domestic hot water, solar hot water space heating,
solar PV and even wind can be good long term investments if your house
is well situated to take advantage of the free energy around you.
Investment in your own energy harvesting systems is also a form of
insurance against rising energy prices in the future.
In Colorado the break-even for solar PV is somewhere around 7 years if
electricity prices are fairly stable, and even faster if electricity
prices shoot up. Panels are usually warrantied for 25 years and will
likely last longer.
Colorado offers renewable energy rebates from utilities (drops the cost
about in half), along with net metering and a lot of sunshine.
One of our problems here is the high electric load of air conditioning
in the summer. Hot sunny days raise demand for electricity. Encouraging
solar panels on buildings is an appropriate solution to that problem,
and it could forestall the need for building extra generating plants.
There's also something to be said for the extra security of distributed
power generation. So I think incentives for solar are a good idea (there
have long been incentives for other forms of power).
In Texas, your legislature is considering solar incentives state-wide,
and Austin already has them.
http://www.dsireusa.org/library/includes/incentive2.cfm?Ince ntive_Code=TX11F&state=TX&CurrentPageID=1
Cheers,
-Jamie
www.JamieKrutz.com
Neil wrote:
> I'd love to get some solar-cell action going for my house -
> heck, I live in the desert, so it's a no-brainer compared to
> some places like Seattle, where it's cloudy 370 days a year,
> but it'd be decades before my initial costs were recouped
> with energy savings. I have passive solar panels to heat the
> swimming pool, which do next to nothing unless it's fairly hot
> out, since the water flowing through them tends to cool them
> off at the same time the sun's trying to heat them up, but
> on a nice warm day, it'll definitely raise the temperature
> from "AAAGHH! Too cold to go in!" to: "ahhhh... nice" lol
>
> Has anyone noticed on TV that BMW is starting to advertise the
> "Hydrogen 7"? Their fuel-cell-powered 7-series vehicle?
>
> Also, on this same subject, a company here just got a research
> grant from the state to develop a system that'll extract energy
> from superheated road surfaces via a system of tubes/pipes
> that'll circulate water underneath the pavement, heat it up,
> and then return it to a core that converts the heat to
> energy. Good idea, but i just wonder if it'll take more energy
> to run the pumps than can be generated from the heat
> differential.
>
> Neil
>
>
> "James McCloskey" <excelsm@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> Going green. Here are some cool ideas.
>>
>> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21595501/
>
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| Re: Going green [message #96544 is a reply to message #96536] |
Tue, 04 March 2008 10:34 |
Aaron Allen
Messages: 1988
Registered: May 2008
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Senior Member |
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Jamie is right about this. The expo's HVAC runs through super insulated
pipes around the complex of 240 acres, and the total maximum loss is 3% from
a central plant boiler system to the buildings. efficiency is the way to go,
and the numbers can be really good.
AA
"Neil" <OIUOI@OIU.com> wrote in message news:47cd5f86$1@linux...
>
> I'd love to get some solar-cell action going for my house -
> heck, I live in the desert, so it's a no-brainer compared to
> some places like Seattle, where it's cloudy 370 days a year,
> but it'd be decades before my initial costs were recouped
> with energy savings. I have passive solar panels to heat the
> swimming pool, which do next to nothing unless it's fairly hot
> out, since the water flowing through them tends to cool them
> off at the same time the sun's trying to heat them up, but
> on a nice warm day, it'll definitely raise the temperature
> from "AAAGHH! Too cold to go in!" to: "ahhhh... nice" lol
>
> Has anyone noticed on TV that BMW is starting to advertise the
> "Hydrogen 7"? Their fuel-cell-powered 7-series vehicle?
>
> Also, on this same subject, a company here just got a research
> grant from the state to develop a system that'll extract energy
> from superheated road surfaces via a system of tubes/pipes
> that'll circulate water underneath the pavement, heat it up,
> and then return it to a core that converts the heat to
> energy. Good idea, but i just wonder if it'll take more energy
> to run the pumps than can be generated from the heat
> differential.
>
> Neil
>
>
> "James McCloskey" <excelsm@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>Going green. Here are some cool ideas.
>>
>>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21595501/
>
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