Any Of You Here Fans Of Ac/dc?

[ttogreh]

Ok... everybody here uses electricity. I am going to give you three guesses on how I know this, and the first two don't count.

Some of you folks uses Consumer's, Some use DTE, and some of you use other utilities that I could list, but seeing as there are several thousand members from all over the earth, I would rather not. I might be bored, but I am not THAT bored.

Any ways, the point is that almost all of you pay someone else to provide you with electricity. That's fine. However, if you have the time, the skill, and the will, you can reduce your dependency on your utility, increase your geek factor, and insulate yourself from power outages and price increases.

All right, let's assume, for a moment, that you are a homeowner, have a backyard, and a fairly consistent electricity bill.

Let's say that your monthly energy consumption is 750 kilowatts. Now, 15 percent of that is lighting. That is 113 kilowatts a month, or 4 kilowatts a day. I am rounding up here, people.

A seventy five watt bulb burning for six hours comes out to 450 watt hours. That is nine seventy five watt bulbs, burning for six hours, to come out to 4 kilowatts a day. Once again, I am rounding up.

Let's replace all nine of those bulbs with Compact fluorescents. You need eighteen watts for a compact fluorescent to equal out an incandescent seventy five watt bulb.

Instead of four kilowatts a day, you have dropped it to one kilowatt a day. That reduces your electricity consumption from 750 kilowatts a month to 660 Kilowatts a month.

Yes, it is THAT easy.

Now then, it's time to talk about appliances. The big one, one that HAS to run on electricity... is the refrigerator. Now, the average total refrigerator use in 2001 consumed 1,462 kilowatts a year. I assume that most of you have refrigerators that are a few years old. 1,462 / 12 = 122 kilowatts a month.

I just went to ABC Warehouse's website. The biggest energy hog they have eats 724 kilowatts a year, or 60 watts a month. If you went with the worst refrigerator you could possibly buy, you will reduce your monthly electricity consumption to 598 kilowatts.

Let's just make that 600 for rounding reasons.

Ok, the other stuff, the vacuum cleaners, the televisions, the washer and dryer... well, you really can't cut down on cleaning your clothes or your house, and there really hasn't been that much of an improvement in electric dryers or washers.... you COULD get a natural gas dryer, but natural gas prices are going up so it's really six one way, half dozen the other.

Televisions, on the other hand... Television usage, combined with DVD set tops, TiVos... that comes out to ten percent of household energy usage. An energy star rated TV has about 30% less energy consumption than a standard model. So... 75 kilowatts a month with a standard TV (and accessories) will be 53 kilowatts a month with all Energy star rated new equipment.

That drops things down to 578 kilowatts a month. That is pretty much as far as conservation will let us go, at the present time. Let's ignore trying to cut down on computer energy usage, for now.

So, buying new lighting, a new refrigerator, and new media equipment has cut 33 per cent of your energy consumption. Not bad.

However, that still leaves 578 kilowatts a month or 19 kilowatts a day that needs to be generated from somewhere. This is where your roof or backyard come into play.

A 170 watt solar panel costs 750 dollars, and can be expected to produce on average a kilowatt of power a day. That's with six hours of peak sunlight. Yes, I realize that this is Michigan.

A kilowatt costs about 8.5 cents here. A 170 watt, 750 dollar solar panel would need to produce 8,825 kilowatts to break even. That is 24 years of sunshine, or basically the entire life span of a panel. Damn, right?

Do you honestly believe that you will be paying 8.5 cents a kilowatt hour in 2031?

Ok, so 19 panels at today's prices will cost you 14,250 dollars. With an inverter and the costs of other equipment, let's say that comes to 20,000 dollars, easy. Holy shit.

However, let's talk installment plans here. 750 dollars is 2 dollars a day for a year. An inverter costs 2,000 dollars or so, so that comes out to seven and a half dollars a day. Adding the cost of equipment, let's round that to ten dollars a day for a year. Five dollars a day for two years. If you put 750 dollars into a savings account, and added 150 dollars a month, you could probably build your fund for starting the project in considerably less time, due to interest.

Now, saving 30 kilowatts a month will only reduce your cost of living by a whole two dollars and fifty five cents a month at current utility costs. Two panels will save you five dollars and ten cents. Three panels, seven dollars and 65 cents.

Seven dollars and sixty five cents a month is 26 cents a day. That is over one tenth of the money ($2 a day) you are putting away to buy a panel, since you don't need to buy an inverter anymore.

What I am trying to get at, is that YOU, right NOW, can figure out a way to drastically reduce your day to day expenses. Well, assuming that you are a homeowner, with enough financial stability to set aside 5,000 dollars in a couple of years.

This place is all about individuality and sticking it to the man, right? If we can do it with fashion and music, we can do it with home electricity.

[Destroit]

Way ahead of you man. I even get so anal I used to unplug my alarm clock whenever I left the house just 'cause "every watt counts" kinda thinking .

So many people who talk about energy conservation (whether for personal/financial or environmental goals) are all talk and no walk it makes me wanna spit. Kay...instead of saying "so many" let's just assume the majority. Same with the people that go on messageboards and bitch about the government...from the comfort of their homes, yet...they do nothing to change it ('cause you know, governors and presidents just troll around all day on various obscure messageboards waiting to see what we say about them and are just so ready to change 'cause we asked politely, right? ).

TURN OFF the power people! You really don't need to dry your hair, check your e-mail five times, or leave your porch light on all night for your "safety" ('cause you know, something like a porch light is big and bad enough to scare away any robber, right? )

[freydis]

Here's where to get alternative energy.

[Der Nister]

[Scary Guy]

Move underground. The power saved from heating and cooling costs (because the earths temperature doesn't change much) that alone is a huge chunk out of the power (and gas for heat if you have one of those furnaces) bill.

Next, screw solar panels (great idea if one has the funds, but not worth it in the short run). Fuel cells http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell are where it's at and give you more bang for the buck. Either that or thermal power (using heat from the earth's core for power). Nuclear energy is great too (don't believe the environmental nuts, if properly maintained it's perfectly safe). Oh yeah http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy is a great article too.

[ttogreh]

Energy Storage is indeed a problem with solar panels. Now with things like net metering, which Michigan has, you can sell your excess electricity to the grid. The most electricity is used during daylight hours, by businesses. The least electricity is used by homeowners during the day, because everyone is at work.

Unless you have a big ass Air Conditioning unit that you use to keep your house cool during the day... when you aren't even there. If you are that person...

Please stop. I COULD say unkind things about you, but that is not very politic.

Any ways, I haven't really looked into net metering... my house only has seventy watts of solar panels, and I pour the electricity into batteries. Once I get that 130 watt panel I have been looking at, I might need to rethink my set up.

[Troy Spiral (13)]

If the goal is to get joe-blow to change his habits it really needs to be simplified, cheap and easy.

It requires some investigation, money and the killer: motivation. For the more gung-ho it doesn't seem like a big deal. But, to really cause a significant change the masses need to be involved, they just don't do anything if it takes any real motivation unless its something that impacts them very personally.

The cost of electricity in terms of other costs, is pretty low. (thus the $$ impact isn't that strong to trigger a mass-market involvement) The impact on the environment , for 99% of Americans is invisible. Not because the info isn't out there, but because it doesn't just come knocking right on the door and force people to pay attention to it... yet. (thus this also isnt something that will trigger mass-involvement.) So how do you make it "real" and also fairly "painless/easy" so that the masses can be mobilized.

The tech involved is also confusing as there are many conflicting choices. We really need to simplify that aspect of it as well before any grass-roots mass-shift will take place.

The cost of entry for much of the tech (but not all) is high, yet another hurdle.

They also cant be expected to do more than 5 minutes research on the subject because its an "invisible" problem right now. 5 minutes is about the max (if that) your going to get the average-joe to spend on the subject. An hour debate about the who/what/when/how just turns them off.

For the motivated, its not hard, but the motivated are in the extreme minority. Most of these people that are not motivated to make such changes aren't evil people , they are husbands / fathers / mothers that just don't have energy / environmental issues on their priorities radar.

*ponders*