From the IEEE Spectrum Journal: A Skeptic Looks at Alternative Energy
It takes several lifetimes to put a new energy system into place, and wishful thinking can’t speed things along
By Vaclav Smil
In June 2004 the editor of an energy journal called to ask me to comment on a just-announced plan to build the world’s largest photovoltaic electric generating plant. Where would it be, I asked—Arizona? Spain? North Africa? No, it was to be spread among three locations in rural Bavaria, southeast of Nuremberg.
I said there must be some mistake. I grew up not far from that place, just across the border with the Czech Republic, and I will never forget those seemingly endless days of summer spent inside while it rained incessantly. Bavaria is like Seattle in the United States or Sichuan province in China. You don’t want to put a solar plant in Bavaria, but that is exactly where the Germans put it. The plant, with a peak output of 10 megawatts, went into operation in June 2005.
It happened for the best reason there is in politics: money. Welcome to the world of new renewable energies, where the subsidies rule—and consumers pay.
Without these subsidies, renewable energy plants other than hydroelectric and geothermal ones can’t yet compete with conventional generators. There are several reasons, starting with relatively low capacity factors—the most electricity a plant can actually produce divided by what it would produce if it could be run full time. The capacity factor of a typical nuclear power plant is more than 90 percent; for a coal-fired generating plant it’s about 65 to 70 percent. A photovoltaic installation can get close to 20 percent—in sunny Spain—and a wind turbine, well placed on dry land, from 25 to 30 percent. Put it offshore and it may even reach 40 percent. To convert to either of the latter two technologies, you must also figure in the need to string entirely new transmission lines to places where sun and wind abound, as well as the need to manage a more variable system load, due to the intermittent nature of the power.
All of these complications are well known, and all of them have been too lightly dismissed by alternative energy backers and the media. Most egregious of all is the boosters’ failure to recognize the time it takes to convert to any new source of energy, no matter how compelling the arguments for it may be.
An example is the 2008 plan promoted by former vice president Al Gore, which called for replacing all fossil-fueled generation in the United States in just a decade. Another is Google’s plan, announced in 2008 and abandoned in 2011, which envisaged cutting out coal generation by 2030. Trumping them all was a 2009 article in Scientific American by Mark Jacobson, a professor of civil engineering at Stanford University, and Mark Delucchi, a researcher in transportation studies at the University of California, Davis. They proposed converting the energy economy of the entire world to renewable sources by 2030.
History and a consideration of the technical requirements show that the problem is much greater than these advocates have supposed.
Read the entire article here.
h/t to WUWT reader “the1pag”
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Bale of rags. Apologies.
Thank you to those who responded on the bird/windmill question, though it would still be nice to know if there was any particular study based upon reasonable data or models showing the extent of the problem.
In terms of the N. Africa solar panel farm idea, maybe it shouldn’t be brushed off so quickly. The two main problems are political and (transmission-related) economics. Both could be addressed to at least some extent.
Right now and on into the moderate future the N. African countries are likely getting most of their power from oil. Given the right financial incentives they could easily be persuaded to switch over to solar, built and maintained by Euros, in return for which they would supply their oil more cheaply to Europe. The transmission cost problem would disappear in the process. (Although it would be replaced by the transmission cost of the oil: is that factor figured in when talking about the comparative cost of power transmission through electric lines?).
Yes, it would leave Europe vulnerable to some extent politically: what if the N. African oil nations decided at some point, “Hey, the damn thing’s built already. Why should we continue giving the Euros the free/cheap oil for it?” BUT… how is that so different than what we presently have? Those same countries could turn around and say “Hey, btw, we’re increasing our “oil tax” by 2,000% right now if they wanted to. (Heh, Obama got away with a 2,000% tax increase on tobacco for the poorer RYO smokers, so the increase would have a precedent!) Just as with the smokers though, the Euros always have and will have alternatives in the form of putting more money into nuclear, alternatives, and conservation (thereby devastating the middling long-term finances of the N. African countries). Politically it would be in the interest of the N. Africans to maintain the relationship on a good basis, particularly if the Euros maintained a technological lead that kept increasing the efficiency in the maintenance/production of those panels.
Overall it’s obviously not as helpful an approach as a massive breakthrough in conservation but the contribution to world pollution from the N. African oil-fuel use would decrease in the same way that it would decrease from a Euro installation. Meanwhile, *IF* solar is cost-effective in that part of the world without the long-range transmission costs, expenses for both the N.Africans AND the Euros would go down.
So, while there are obvious problems with it, the concept *could* conceivably have some merit.
– MJM
James Sexton made a point recently that’s well worth reading. Basically he points out that even in the unlikely scenario that the whole world agreed today to do something about co2 and decided today to adopt the renewable sources of energy we will still see a rise in co2 of over 600ppm.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/05/by-this-logic-chris-mooney-should-be-blaming-obama-for-not-seizing-the-opportunity-to-talk-about-global-cooling-last-winter/#comment-1025504
Study referenced:
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/7/1/014019/article#fnref-erl410200bib5
A lot of the responses to Vaclav Smil’s excellent post have focused on the feasibility (or lack thereof) of supporting domestic living with wind and solar power. My own experience in Australia was to install a massively subsidised 1.5kW solar system, with insanely generous feed-in tariffs, and a pay-back period of less than 3 years. It was an offer too good to refuse and I didn’t, and I’ve hardly spent a cent on power bills since – in fact in summer they send me a cheque. Of course this taxpayer-subsidised boondoggle had to be closed to new entrants for being unsustainable, and now the rest of the state’s electricity users are subsidising my lifestyle. The net result of all this stupidity is that my energy costs have gone down – but overall, the cost of electricity provision to the state has gone up – significantly.
The point I’d like to make is that while such ‘sustainable’ energy is anything but in the domestic setting, it is even more farcical in a modern industrialised country. Most heavy industry needs power 24/7/365 and uses the lion’s share of national generation. The viability of said industry is closely related to the cost of energy. Some major industries, such as aluminium smelting, can throttle back demand to reduce pressure during short peak periods of limited supply, but many, such as manufacturing, petrochemicals etc, can not, without having production gaps and workers/plant sit idle. Attempting to run a modern industrial economy using significant wind/solar power is a pipe dream in terms of reliability alone, to say nothing of cost. While Western governments persist in distorting their energy markets with subsidies which do not reduce energy costs nor improve reliability/efficiency, energy costs will rise, industries will fold and jobs and the future’s of our children will move to countries where energy and other costs are cheaper.
On an entirely unrelated matter /sarc: the Gillard Labor government in Australia introduced a carbon tax on July 1st. Oh, and two Australian aluminium smelters have recently been slated for closure – Newcastle http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-05-23/smelter-close/4027786 and Geelong http://www.theage.com.au/business/hundreds-of-smelter-jobs-at-risk-20120208-1ragj.html. The federal and state governments may put in place a rescue package to keep Geelong open http://minister.innovation.gov.au/gregcombet/MediaReleases/Pages/40millionfundingforPointHenryaluminiumsmelter.aspx. The eternal cycle – Governments: tax – spend foolishly – distort the economy – stuff things up – raise costs and lose tax revenue – spend more on subsidies/handouts to deal with the stuff ups – borrow/put up taxes to deal with lost revenue/handouts – spend even more foolishly – and so ad infinitum – until the collectors knock on the door (e.g. Greece, Ireland, Spain etc). \sarc
Note: Most smelters have long forward contracts for power supply, and so are immune to immediate cost hikes resulting from such things as carbon tax hikes. So it is probably true to say that the carbon tax did not ’cause’ these plants to close per se. But in tough global economic times and with a strong Australian dollar, the plant owners would have looked at the inexorable and rapid rises in Australian power costs over the last five years – now some of the highest in the World. Carbon taxation, which can move power costs in one direction only, was probably the straw which broke the camel’s back. In an environment of expensive electricity the future for aluminium is bleak and so the operators probably decided to shut up shop. Ironically, Australia will probably end up importing aluminium from countries to which it exports coal (carbon tax free) to generate electricity with. We really are living in the age of stupid.
Note: I am in the pay of big oil, so please discount all of the above as carbo-centric propaganda
Browse at your leisure. 😉
http://www.google.com/search?q=youtube+wind+turbine+bird&btnG=Search
michaeljmcfadden says:
July 7, 2012 at 1:01 am
I’m sure a UN comittee could mandate sandstorms to stop. /sarc
An uneonomic solution stays uneconomic no matter how you shove money around. The darn thing needs to be paid for either way. The oil exporting countries use oil for their energy BECAUSE THEY HAVE OIL. You say for using the MORE EXPENSIVE solar installation they could simply give us better prices? They would LOSE money otherwise they’d be doing it already.
In energy markets NOT destroyed by green price-fixing madness, there is COMPETITION and THAT is the ONLY reason they DIDN’t already jack up the prices by 2000%. EVERY supplier will try to MAX OUT his prices. You already pay the maximum prices that are possible.
I mean, all of this is totally trivial. Mandated energy forms are mandated BECAUSE they are money losers. Otherwise the market would promote them all by itself.
michaeljmcfadden says:
July 7, 2012 at 1:01 am
Right now and on into the moderate future the N. African countries are likely getting most of their power from oil. Given the right financial incentives they could easily be persuaded to switch over to solar, built and maintained by Euros, in return for which they would supply their oil more cheaply to Europe.
>>>>>>>>>>>
Why this makes perfect sense. North Africa winds up dependant on a power infrastructure which is only viable through massive subsidies, which of course, will be available forever. Europe in return gets the illusion of cheap oil because nobody would clue in that the subsidies being paid to support the uneconomical power infrastructure in North Africa are actually part of the cost of the oil. This way both North Africa and Europe wind up paying more than they should for power and whoever runs the scheme makes off with billions and billions in “consulting fees”.
One of history’s lessons is that schemes like this do far more damage than good, and rarely achieve their goals. But the people that run them make out like bandits at the expense of everyone else. What both Europe and North Africa NEED is democracy, the rule of law, and free market economies. The rest will take care of itself. The strongest economies in the world are those that have the least government interferance.
->RecourceGuy:
The article gives 90% as the capacity factor of a typical nuclear plant. That’s not too far off.
Palo Verde plant in Arizona has an actual capacity factor of 84% counting all three units since their initial commerical operation through the end of 2011. Individual units in particular years had capcity factors well over 95%. Since the outages in nuclear plants are infrequent long outages, you could easily say that in a typical year (the mode, not mean) the capacity factor will be over 90%.
Coal plants operated by the same company averaged a capacity factor of 86% in recent years. The two largest coal plants had capacity factors of 78% and 82% in 2011. This will drop drastically in the near future because of EPA mandated refits.
Steve P says:
July 6, 2012 at 4:46 pm
“The nuclear industry has grown on the back of direct and enormous R&D support. In the United States it received almost 54 percent of all federal research funds between 1948 and 2007.”
I find the 54% figure dubious, but immaterial regardless. If one assumes that similar funding for windmills and solar panels would make them just as viable, then one must be off one’s rocker.
The big difference is this: E = mc^2. Nuclear power is actually capable of supplying all of our energy needs within a finite time and using feasible amounts of materials. Because of their low energy density, we could not construct enough windmills and solar panels to provide anywhere near our current consumption within 100 years at current rates of production for the raw materials alone.
Try it sometime. As an exercise, just calculate the amount of various materials which would be needed to carpet a 100 mile by 100 mile area with solar panels (that’s about 280 billion square feet) and compare to current rates of production. You will generally find the timeline to stretch into centuries. Not gonna’ happen.
davidmhoffer says:
July 6, 2012 at 8:26 pm
Figures for human annual CO2 emissions that I have seen varied a little, from about 2 percent to 5 percent from all sources. It is not too hard to figure out what those human emissions are. They depend on consumption of fuel from all sources. I used 3.5 percent because that is the mean of the estimates I have seen. I don’t know what they IPCC estimates are. I ignore those anyway, because they are not even based on a complete list of all natural sources and probably are wrong with respect to human emissions as well.
Dr. Murray Salby puts his estimate of annual human CO2 emissions at 5 Gt/year and all CO2 from natural sources at 150 Gt/yer (3.33% of annual emissions). He identifies that human emissions are dependent on global population growth.
See “Global Emission of CO2: The Contribution From Natural Sources”, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrI03ts–9I&feature=youtu.be (at about 7:20)
Mike Jonas says:
July 6, 2012 at 10:03 pm
I think that I prefer to go by Dr. Murray Salby’s estimate, but I will accept that his figures are wrong if you provide a more credible estimate from a more reputable source.
In the meantime, my concern remains unanswered. How can anyone justify concerns about human CO2 emissions driving global temperatures when 96.5 percent of annual emissions are from natural sources?
It is very good to know that the chinese are into Thorium reactors. If they solve all the problems involved, and gets a safe reactor running, it would be fantastic.
>How can anyone justify concerns about human CO2 emissions driving global temperatures when 96.5 percent of annual emissions are from natural sources?
Because before bad man greedy and wasteful – Mother Earth was in perfect balance. You have pointed out one of the very large holes in the AGW theory.
And to ponder even more read the pdf CO2 The Houdini of Gases
“The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.”
Written by Sallie, Tim and me in 2002 – apparently, that just too difficult to understand.
Full article at http://www.apegga.org/Members/Publications/peggs/WEB11_02/kyoto_pt.htm
Ten years and a trillion wasted dollars later, even some of the dimmest politicians are beginning to realize that wind and solar power and corn ethanol are “wasteful, inefficient energy solutions” that “simply cannot replace fossil fuels”.
Ten years and a trillion wasted dollars later, even some of the dimmest citizens are beginning to realize that we are governed by scoundrels and imbeciles.
Michael, here are some numbers for bird/bat fatalities on Wolfe Island Ont. Brought to you by the company (TransAlta……BIG OIL?) that owns/operates the “wind farm”. I believe that Wolfe Island has the second highest death per turbine rate in north america.
http://www.transalta.com/sites/default/files/WI-PCM-Report-4_final_July2011.pdf
But I prefer this link
http://windfarmrealities.org/?p=1224
I can tell you firsthand why it is likely and from two totally different perspectives.
A Barred owl crashed right into the windshield of my motorcycle one evening, (around dusk), while riding along only about 15 to 20 mph. I didn’t see it in time to be able to avoid it; sadly it died of broken neck. I called a local zoo initially to confirm out what kind of owl it was and how it was possible. The person explained that owls have very specialized eyesight that leaves them with excellent binocular vision but poor peripheral vision especially for something appearing nearly stationary at the edge of their field of view, (I was traveling at a worst possible speed). They cannot even rotate their eyes like we can. Once they have prey in sight and begin flight toward their prey – it’s like extreme tunnel vision. They can probably count the hairs on a mouse 200 feet away but do not interpet a motorcycle coming toward an intercept point of their flight 30 to 40 degrees off that line of sight – as a potential threat. (Maybe if I had been going faster it might have noticed me and been able to evade the collision?)
Flying along at 1500 feet in a small airplane at 110 mph along the coastline I’ve encountered sea gulls that often exhibit a bizarre behavior just about when things start looking ‘dicey’ for each of us when I’ve closed to a ~couple hundred feet. They start trying to fly away in either direction left or right (which would of worked for both of us), but then will oddly and abuptly turn around to fly back in the opposite direction toward my line of flight. What I belive is happening is that their cortical processing is unable to account for something as big as an airplane about to hit them; each eye sees an airplane but their brain thinks there are two airplanes, smaller but much closer than reality and they are trying to avoid both of us. After a couple reversals I’ve already started pulling back on the yoke for three reasons, it slows me down, I can get the greatest acceleration to change my direction in that direction and .. they usually pull their wings in and drop when they go into full panic mode.
The birdie Cuisinart effect at Altamont Pass is well documented; they’ve estimated 10,000 birds a year with many of those being raptors, bats and other protected species. If Exxon owned the wind farm it would have been shut down a long time ago.
Walter H. Schneider says: July 7, 2012 at 2:56 am
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/09/apparently-ive-irritated-the-fruit-fly/
Walter – you are on the right track and so is Murry Salby. I reached the same conclusion as Murry in 2008, although Murry clearly provides more supporting evidence in his 2011 video.
_____________________________
My Summary – The “Mainstream” Catastrophic Humanmade Global Warming Debate:
Conventional climate theory, assuming zero feedback, suggests that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 would result in ~1 degree C of global warming.
Warming alarmists say there are positive feedbacks to increasing CO2 (and build this assumption aggressively into their climate models), whereas climate skeptics say there are negative feedbacks.
The skeptics easily win this mainstream debate, because there is no evidence of net positive feedbacks to increased CO2 in the climate system, and ample evidence of negative feedbacks.
Also, despite increased atmospheric CO2, there has been no net global warming in about a decade.
The probability therefore is that “climate sensitivity” to a hypothetical doubling of atmospheric CO2 is less than 1 degree C.
Furthermore, I suspect that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 is unlikely to happen due to human activity – so we can expect much less than 1 degree C of global warming.
The above ASSUMES that one accepts the premises of the mainstream debate.
BUT there is perhaps a bigger problem with the mainstream debate:
Atmospheric CO2 LAGS temperature at all measured time scales, from hundreds of years on a long cycle, to 9 months on a short cycle;
SO
the hypothesis that CO2 is a significant driver of global temperature, core to the mainstream debate, apparently assumes that the future is causing the past.
The popular counterarguments are:
a) The lag of CO2 after temperature is a “feedback effect”,
OR
b) It is clear evidence that time machines really do exist.
Both counterarguments a) and b) are supported by equal amounts of compelling evidence. 🙂
This thorny point may not be resolved in my lifetime, but I’ll just remind you of some of the assumptions that are near and dear to the hearts and “logic” of the global warming alarmists:
1. They apparently assume that the Uniformitarian Principle has been especially exempted for their particular brand of “science”.
2. The also assume that Occam’s Razor can similarly be ignored, apparently again, just for them.
The increasing desperation of the warming alarmists is evidenced by their evermore Byzantine explanations of the observed flat or cooling global temperatures in this century. What is it this week – aerosols, dust, volcanoes. the appalling scarcity of buffalo farts… the list of farfetched apologia is endless and increasingly pathetic.
Earlier, there was Mann-made global warming, the “Divergence Problem” and “Hide the Decline”. The list of global warmist chicanery is increasingly long and unprincipled.
It is notable that not one of the very-scary global warming predictions of the IPCC has materialized. The IPCC has demonstrated negative predictive skill. All its scary predictions have proven false.
__________________
If the above post is too political, try this one:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/06/a-reply-shakun-et-al-dr-munchausen-explains-science-by-proxy/#comment-948287
CO2 lags temperature at all measured time scales from ~~600-800 years in the ice core records on a long temperature-time cycle, to 9 months on a much shorter time scale.
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/CO2vsTMacRae.pdf
We really don’t know how much of the recent increase in atmospheric CO2 is natural and how much is manmade – possibilities range from entirely natural (~~600-800 years ago was the Medieval Warm Period) to entirely manmade (the “mass balance argument”). I lean towards mostly natural, but I’m not certain.
Although this questions is scientifically crucial, it is not that critical to the current “social debate” about alleged catastrophic manmade global warming (CAGW), since it is obvious to sensible people that IF CO2 truly drives temperature, it is an insignificant driver (climate sensitivity to CO2 is very low; “feedbacks” are negative) and minor increased warmth and increased atmospheric CO2 are both beneficial to humanity AND the environment.
In summary, the “climate skeptics” are trouncing the warming alarmists in the “mainstream CAGW debate”.
Back to the crucial scientific question – is the current increase in atmospheric CO2 largely natural or manmade?
Please see this 15fps AIRS data animation of global CO2 at
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003500/a003562/carbonDioxideSequence2002_2008_at15fps.mp4
It is difficult to see the impact of humanity in this impressive display of nature’s power.
All I can see is the bountiful impact of Spring, dominated by the Northern Hemisphere with its larger land mass, and some possible ocean sources and sinks.
I’m pretty sure all the data is there to figure this out, and I suspect some already have – perhaps Jan Veizer and colleagues.
If wind and solar are good at producing free energy why would they require subsidies? If free energy were produced in sufficient quantities there would be vast amounts of investment money ready and waiting with no hint of subsidies. Subsidies simply prove they are failed technologies.
The best reason to promote wind and solar is as a means to destroy wealth. For those who want to stop progress and de-industrialise it is perfect, and it works! Much of Europe’s current woes are due to wealth wasted on fighting climate, and the descent of California is well reported. Australia has just jumped on the bandwagon, but may jump off again after the next election.
It will be interesting to see if Canada succeeds in escaping these shackles, or whether the electorate votes for a return to a new dark age – in a literal sense!
Interesting, informative, and well-argued replies on both the turbines and the solar thought! That’s why I like this place!
:>
MJM
Silicon Gultch – DFW area. 33 degrees North Latitude. Original home to Texas Instruments, SouthWest Airlines etc. A point ‘further south’ than Los Angeles; Sun reaches a point nearly overhead these days (summer) owing to the tilt in our Earth’s rotational axis relative to its orbital ‘plane’ around our sun.
(Clue was left with these last characters in my post: “nc Texas”, indicating the north central Texas area which includes Dallas and Ft Worth … Amarillo of course is in the ‘Panhandle’ and we are in what had traditionally called ‘North’ Texas …)
.
I see the dreaded “libertarians” have been mentioned. So lets do some political science and compare the libertarians of today with the Conservatives of 1900. Uh. Jeeze. Hard to tell them apart. Since this is not a political blog I will go no further. But you can do your own research.
BTW I’m a Conservative – 1900 style.
Dennis Cox says:
July 6, 2012 at 6:57 pm
The context of the quote was global, or at least national. My employer is quite happy with dealing with local utilities for managing load – except for our data centers, but the newest one was sited someplace with costs in mind.
My fellow employees get annoyed when the HVAC system switches to night mode – at 1630. We’d revolt if there were rolling shutdowns of some of our server and test systems on high load days or when a power is shutdown for maintenance.
Of course individual and remote energy systems work, especially if the goal is to not write a monthly check to the utility company or to run an extension cord to geosynchronous orbit.
Hallo tonyb & davidmhoffer
I take issue mainly with the comment from Vaclav Smil regarding “incessantly raining” , which it most certainly doesn’t. Sorry if that wasnt clear.
Speaking of alternative energy, this is a good place for an Andreas Rossi and E-Cat update.
The hype/claim of the month is that Rossi has high temperature (600°C) reactors running. If they or better designs are manufacturable, there will be no reason to run a wind farm. Well, there’s no reason to run a wind farm now except for the subsidies, but that’s getting OT.
Various headlines/links/notes, take all with a large dose of salt like ThF or whatever the formula for thorium flouride is.
http://www.mydigitalpublication.com/display_article.php?id=1104768 has a guest editorial from the Journal of Petroleum Technology which shows that some of the petro industry is watching LENR in general:
The following is mostly self explanatory. Rossi calls his detractors “snakes.”
http://www.e-catworld.com/2012/06/rossi-approx-20-reactors-running-above-600c/ says in toto (except for the 272 comments):
(I hope the double blockquotes worked.)
One complaint about Rossi’s work style is his zealous guarding of his devices. Call it intellectual property, or no perceived need for what he knows works, it’s the source of a lot of flak. So far, things are still under wraps, but, he says outside folks are evaluating the high temperature reactors. http://www.e-catworld.com/2012/07/rossi-third-parties-will-validate-high-temperature-e-cats/ says in part:
SAMURAI July 6, 2012 at 6:47 pm
Roughly 80% of the cost of any power plant is not the thermal generator. It is the BOP. Now if Polywell works the BOP may be a direct conversion device lowering the BOP by 50% or more. So far all we know is that the work continues (it has gone gray – US Navy is doing the work). Even if the fuel is free thermal plants are not coming down much in price. And then you have to pay for transmission no matter what.
So cheap you don’t have to meter – at the plant – may be true. But you need to meter users to allocate fixed costs. TINSTAAFL.
“sustainable power” is only a question of scale. One home at a time works just fine. I don’t need to produce enough power to light the whole damn county. Just my own house.
Well yes. For a house. Fine. But houses only account for about 50% +/- of living space. And then there is the energy required for the industrial system. About equal to residential requirements. Now you are down to 25% of energy reqmts. if every single house had the eqpt. And then there is the cost of the sq ft needed to support the added infrastructure at the home.
BTW what is the NPV of your set up? Most folks find that it is cheaper to buy the metered stuff.