Fuel Prices...

[BPSCG]

I answered you, Beeps.

I acknowledged that possibility, Mark, when I wrote:

So, let's assume I was reading too hastily and glossed over your answer, and that you did indeed answer my query about the extent of the "destruction" drilling in the ANWR would cause. Please provide a link to that response, so I may read it and digest it.

The fact that you do not like the answer...

Mark, the problem is not that I don't like your answer. It's that I can't find your answer. So this is the third time I'm asking you to link to your own answer. Is that so terribly difficult?

 

[Jocko]

Are you telling me you'd refuse a grant if offered?

Nope, just skeptical of free money for something that's supposed to save you money.

I sure as heck wouldn't Apprently MIT was offering one for Solar house projects and the people above (who live in MASS), gratefully accepted. I don't know if they took a loan out for the rest of it. I am figuring I'll see if I can get it included in the cost of building my home and just bump up my home loan from 130 to 155 or 160..etc. We'll see, I am in the early stages of planning here as my house project is likely a good 3 yrs away from breaking ground.

I wish you best of luck. I look forward to the day when these technologies are economically viable. Hopefully you'll demonstrate that the time has come.

 

[Jocko]

I answered you, Beeps. The fact that you do not like the answer doesn't mean squat. I realize that to you if someone doesn't follow your script, that means they didn't answer...but the fact is you are a liar and I did answer. I just didn't give the answer that would allow you to parrot something in response.

Although it is true that you never answered mine...

But that is typcial and I didn't expect it.

I'm still waiting to hear what infrastructure you would allow in Yosemite. Since you brought it up and all, I figured you may want to explore the issue? Or is this another called bluff I'm looking at?

 

[Jimbo07]

We'll see, I am in the early stages of planning here as my house project is likely a good 3 yrs away from breaking ground.

Serp...

Back in Oct. 2004, one of our introductory electronics labs was on solar panels. We were largely fooling around with P=IV, V=IR stuff and measurements relative to the angle of the sun, etc. A sidebar was an inspection of a house that our lab instructor had built. It was designed to be totally off the grid. It had 8 200w panels, 12 batteries, a small wind tower and a single 4 kw inverter. (I'd have to dig out my old lab book to find specs/websites/etc.) Price tag: $30-40k Cdn. (To be fair, she and her partner designed other energy efficiencies into the home). At the time, it was experimental. She also heads up our instrumentation lab next year. I intend to ask how the system has 'wintered' over the last year or two. At the time, she mentioned that she was considering scrapping the wind tower in favour of more solar.

In short: although I don't have the info at my fingertips to verify it for others, your statements smack more of the truth to me than others'. The only difference is the payoff. She estimated 20 yrs, and I think you've estimated 5 (unless you hadn't fully amortized equipment).

 

[Mark]

I acknowledged that possibility, Mark, when I wrote: Mark, the problem is not that I don't like your answer. It's that I can't find your answer. So this is the third time I'm asking you to link to your own answer. Is that so terribly difficult?

See my comments on this thread re. Yosemite.

 

[The_Serpent]

In short: although I don't have the info at my fingertips to verify it for others, your statements smack more of the truth to me than others'. The only difference is the payoff. She estimated 20 yrs, and I think you've estimated 5 (unless you hadn't fully amortized equipment).

The package estimate of between 20 and 25K American for my home did include most of the equipment except for the stuff I would be purchasing to do the internal wiring. I also specifically excluded the labor costs as that is where GE and BPsolar and the other possible providers I looked at seem to want to screw me.. They make it sound so complicated to install the system on purpose, when it really is not, especially when one is an engineer. That saves me a significant amount and brings down my time to payoff ( I estimate around 7-9 years actually when everything is included, but it's not like I'll be having a party that day).

It should also be noted that even though electric prices per kilowatt hour are twice as high here in PA as they were in NY State, it still cost me half as much to heat my place as the guy in the cube next to me here at work (he has gas) for the same sized home. I expect electric prices to continue an upward climb as with other energy prices (as demand with grow as others switch) so the value of independence can only grow with time.

 

[Jocko]

See my comments on this thread re. Yosemite.

You mean all the stuff that you said shouldn't be there, where I asked you what should be there? That part? I could add to that list:

• DisneYosemite Resort
• World's largest "Brunswick Zone" (300 lanes, no waiting!)
• Relocated nuclear waste from Yucca Mountain
• The lastest Trump Tower
• Dollywood West

So you see, I have a decent grasp of what doesn't belong there. Just want to know what you think does belong there.

 

[BPSCG]

See my comments on this thread re. Yosemite.

I never asked you about Yosemite. You originally claimed we should not drill in the ANWR, and summed up with:

We need long term solutions, not short term destruction.

To which I replied

Destruction of what?

Your "comments re. Yosemite" do not answer that question, unless you're trying to claim that drilling in the ANWR will cause destruction in Yosemite.

If that's not what you're claiming, then you have still not answered my question: What will be destroyed if we drill in the ANWR?

 

[Rob Lister]

Snipped the snark

What size panel? Made by whom? Whats the peak output of the cell?

try this link on for size. ://256.com/solar/

These people had a 16K grant to help them bring a 36K cost down to a more manageable 19K, but their power needs are also 40% greater than mine. They also paid 3,000 for install which I won't need as I am an experienced electrical engineer. I will also likely do all the wiring inside the house for on-grid myself as well.

far cry from 150,000 bucks.

Oh and actually, I was planning on building a windmill turbine also, mostly as a for-fun type of project, but we do get a lot of wind in my part of PA so it might contribute significantly to our power as well (actually there are commercial power generating windmills on a ridge I can see from my office building).

I used the general electric 100w model priced at $700

Let's approach this a different way...

Current Power cost (national average) = $0.075 kWh

Amount = $30,000
Term=5 years
Interest =6.25%
Total=$35,008
Life cycle=5481 days (15 yrs)
Daily cost = $6.39
Avg max output 3.7 kw
(very) Liberal daily total = 14.81 kWh
Cost per kWh=$0.43

To recap...

Current Power cost = $0.075 kWh
Solar Power cost = $0.43

So solar is only going to cost you 5 times as much...assuming 5481 very sunny days (and no hail storms)

 

[Mark]

I never asked you about Yosemite. You originally claimed we should not drill in the ANWR, and summed up with:

To which I replied
Your "comments re. Yosemite" do not answer that question, unless you're trying to claim that drilling in the ANWR will cause destruction in Yosemite.

If that's not what you're claiming, then you have still not answered my question: What will be destroyed if we drill in the ANWR?

OK, I'll try one more time (and this is the last time I will try) to explain it to you. Peppering a pristine, unspoiled wilderness area with oil derricks and pipelines for no better reason than a small, short term oil supply is destruction all by itself, as far as I am concerned. I do not expect you to agree (nor do I care).

God, I hate having to repeat myself over and over again.

 

[Mark]

You mean all the stuff that you said shouldn't be there, where I asked you what should be there? That part? I could add to that list:

• DisneYosemite Resort
• World's largest "Brunswick Zone" (300 lanes, no waiting!)
• Relocated nuclear waste from Yucca Mountain
• The lastest Trump Tower
• Dollywood West

So you see, I have a decent grasp of what doesn't belong there. Just want to know what you think does belong there.

I answered that, too.

 

[BPSCG]

OK, I'll try one more time (and this is the last time I will try) to explain it to you.

Since you haven't explained it yet, it's a little disingenuous of you to say you're going to "try one more time."

Peppering a pristine, unspoiled wilderness area with oil derricks and pipelines for no better reason than a small, short term oil supply is destruction all by itself, as far as I am concerned.

Wow. I didn't think it was possible to get so much wrong in such a short sentence.

• "Peppering" the wilderness: You make it sound like there will be oil derricks and pipelines scattered throughout the 19 million acres of the ANWR. In fact, they will be concentrated in a tiny (I'll explain later how tiny in concrete terms that even you, I hope, will understand) area of about 2000 acres - a little over three square miles.
• "Pristine, unspoiled": For starts, it isn't pristine and unspoiled. People have lived there for centuries. And the ones who live there favor the drilling; they understand what you don't; it will not destroy the ANWR.
• "Short term oil supply": I previously showed you that the estimates are that there is enough economically recoverable oil there to replace all the oil that we get from Saudi Arabia for ten years (low-range estimate) to thirty years (high-range estimate). If you think ten to thirty years' worth of Saudi oil is "short term," what do you consider to be long term?

You earlier suggested ("Peppering a pristine, unspoiled wilderness...") that the "destruction" of the ANWR would be widespread. As I demonstrated for you a few pages back, the actual area of development would be tiny. You either ignored that graphic or simply didn't understand its significance, so let me try to explain it to you another way:

The proposed 2000 acres of development amounts to about one ten-thousandth of the entire ANWR. Let's see what one ten-thousandth means:

• One ten-thousandth of a mile is a little over six inches.
• One ten-thousandth of the weight of your 3000 pound car is about 4.8 ounces - about the weight of the owner's manual in the glove box.
• One ten-thousandth of the population of the entire United States is a disappointing turnout at a Saturday afternoon baseball game - about 29,000 people.
• You could walk one ten-thousandth of the distance from the east coast of the U.S. to the west coast in about five minutes.
• If you have a full head of hair, you probably find one-ten thousandth of that hair in your brush each morning - about ten hairs.
• Reading this sentence takes about one ten-thousandth of an eight-hour workday.

Don't brush your hair in the morning; you're causing all kinds of destruction.

God, I hate having to repeat myself over and over again.

Yeah, well if you'd actually answered the question asked of you, instead of trying to go off onto some nonsensical sideshow about drilling in Yosemite National Park...

 

[Mark]

Since you haven't explained it yet, it's a little disingenuous of you to say you're going to "try one more time."
Wow. I didn't think it was possible to get so much wrong in such a short sentence.

• "Peppering" the wilderness: You make it sound like there will be oil derricks and pipelines scattered throughout the 19 million acres of the ANWR. In fact, they will be concentrated in a tiny (I'll explain later how tiny in concrete terms that even you, I hope, will understand) area of about 2000 acres - a little over three square miles.
• "Pristine, unspoiled": For starts, it isn't pristine and unspoiled. People have lived there for centuries. And the ones who live there favor the drilling; they understand what you don't; it will not destroy the ANWR.
• "Short term oil supply": I previously showed you that the estimates are that there is enough economically recoverable oil there to replace all the oil that we get from Saudi Arabia for ten years (low-range estimate) to thirty years (high-range estimate). If you think ten to thirty years' worth of Saudi oil is "short term," what do you consider to be long term?

You earlier suggested ("Peppering a pristine, unspoiled wilderness...") that the "destruction" of the ANWR would be widespread. As I demonstrated for you a few pages back, the actual area of development would be tiny. You either ignored that graphic or simply didn't understand its significance, so let me try to explain it to you another way:

The proposed 2000 acres of development amounts to about one ten-thousandth of the entire ANWR. Let's see what one ten-thousandth means:

• One ten-thousandth of a mile is a little over six inches.
• One ten-thousandth of the weight of your 3000 pound car is about 4.8 ounces - about the weight of the owner's manual in the glove box.
• One ten-thousandth of the population of the entire United States is a disappointing turnout at a Saturday afternoon baseball game - about 29,000 people.
• You could walk one ten-thousandth of the distance from the east coast of the U.S. to the west coast in about five minutes.
• If you have a full head of hair, you probably find one-ten thousandth of that hair in your brush each morning - about ten hairs.
• Reading this sentence takes about one ten-thousandth of an eight-hour workday.

Don't brush your hair in the morning; you're causing all kinds of destruction.
Yeah, well if you'd actually answered the question asked of you, instead of trying to go off onto some nonsensical sideshow about drilling in Yosemite National Park...

 

[Jocko]

I answered that, too.

No, you did not. You did not name any specific infrastructure that you think should remain. Your generalities were so limp as to be useless.

I know why you're not answering, by the way. I'm hoping against hope that you'll see my point in persisting in this question.

What would you keep in Yosemite, Mark? A simple list of facilities will suffice. If it's none, then say so. But quit dodging the question.

 

[Almo]

ETA: Gas here in Montreal is about $1.17/liter at the moment. Paid $52.00CDN to fill the tank on the Hyundai last night. I'd love to get one of those little Smart Cars...maybe someday when the price goes down.

I had a Smart in the UK... When my employer in Warwick died, I had to start commuting 44 miles to Cheltenham. Took 1:15 every day. Anyway, Smarts rule. Any car comfortable enough to spend almost 3 hours a day in is pretty good. It has a 22 liter tank, and goes about 250 miles on a fill. And has AC.