You know, marketing is sometimes ridiculous, and this one is no exception. I spotted this ad over on the Sierra Club website that was obviously targeted for “low information voters”. Why? Well if you’ve any basic 4th grade science you’ll recognize this photo used as part of the ad to suck people in to looking at some solar panel scheme:
It’s a D-cell wired up to a coil of wire to create a weak electromagnet.
Some trick.
That ad links to this page, which then goes on to tell you about another, totally unrelated, ‘brilliant trick’.
Right. What they don’t mention is that while you might save 70% on your electric bill, you’ll probably pay close to that (with some smaller savings left) to pay for the solar panels that company installed. You’ll swap one payment for another, but you surely won’t get the full 70% in savings.
‘Caveat Emptor’ – let the buyer beware.
Solar panels, my Aunt Fanny. We just had almost a week of rain, rain, and more rain, and almost NO sun, here in central Virginia. I can’t imagine how useless solar panels would be further north and up in the mountains, since they’re pretty much useless even here.
Sure, they’re useful for remote locations with no other power, and in mostly sunny areas such as Phoenix (except for summer A/C, I’ll bet), and I’ve had a solar powered calculator for years, but what about the real world of refrigeration, heating, cooking, etc.?
I’ll take good old fashioned ELECTRICITY, preferably from a coal-fired power plant. F*ck the EPA.
Got the ad in the mail today. I wondered what they were about. Even offered a free meal to listed to the sales pitch. We have a triple-wide mobile home. Can’t put solar on the roof. Guess there is no reason to go.
Solar PV is cheap enough now to mount flat on the roof. leave about 3-4″ air gap and it will help keep the place cool in summer. Get youself a set of ex-service fork-lift battery cells ( they are usually replaced since they can no longer lift 400kg but they will give years of service as battery storage ). You can pick them up for scrap metal prices.
1 m^2 of thermal with integrated tank would probably be a good choice for hot water.
I doubt the promo is worth anything and probably does not apply to your situation anyway.
@Steve Jones – balderdash. Ask any MacBook “expert” at the Apple store. Average life about 3 years. I have had three Macs in the last 8 years, no moving parts but also no fan like my 10 year old PC’s. Used to leave them on all the time but apparently Apple products don’t like that – so no – electronics don’t last indefinitely. (And no, it is not the disks that fail.) Just got my last Mac back from the repair shop. Video circuit failure. I could give you a long list of reasons why, but clearly you wouldn’t believe them anyway. I used to subscribe to the same theory based on 20 year old IT recommendations, and for some products and well conditioned power supplies, it may still be true. But most residential power supplies are not well conditioned – and yes, my computers are almost always protected – they still fail – so I do daily backups. Can you say “low voltage”?
Wayne, when you buy junk, you should expect it to fail. Don’t for a minute think that the high price you paid for the Mac or other consumer-grade computers means you bought something of quality. For example, rarely does a Sun Microsystems machine (now Oracle) fail, nor do IBM unix servers fail, even when run in a common office environment with low quality power. The problem most people have with their computers is that seek out the least expensive gear, and they are getting what they pay for.
Do most people keep their systems at 55 degrees or colder like server farms and do most system have elaborately filtered poser with refrigerator sized UPS?
Having worked for IBM in testing computers (8100’s and 3745’s) as well as operating and programming them (VM/MVS), I can assure you that even in air controlled machine rooms (Constant 55c temp/45% humidity) they do still fail. Disks usually, but power supplies too. So no matter how much stuff costs, it will fail, eventually. And don’t be fooled by the MTBF figures.
Sorry, not 55c, 55F.
“So no matter how much stuff costs, it will fail, ”
…
I guess all the extra money you pay for ECC memory, and RAID5 disk arrays, and software redundancy keeps the systems running. Heck, spend the money and do clustering, so you can smoke an entire CPU yet continue to run. Hot standby protocols etc, etc, etc…
In my time working with computers (From 1983), I’ve seen ECC memory fail. I’ve seen RAID 1, 5 and 10 enclosures fail. I’ve seen CPU clusters fail. I’ve seen multiple redundant systems fail. Yes, you can mitigate against potential failure, and most of the time they work, but sometimes they don’t. And I’ve seen some of the simplest unplanned events cause significant damage and outages. And it gets worse with virtualised server farms.
And if you are interested how the unexpected can happen with computer systems, not hardware failures, have a read here;
https://delimiter.com.au/2012/07/30/disastrous-patch-cripples-commbank/#comment-611192
I spent 6 days working, non-stop, 24hrs every day recovering from this event. And then I spent 3 months working 70hr weeks rebuilding the network after that. And It was all due to human error, actually a workmate. But it was not a “patch” as described. It was SCCM and OSD and an untested SQL “script” that triggered the whole thing. You may even be able to recognise my two posts.
So you see, hardware failures don’t always have a massive impact. This “patch” (Sorry, I have to laugh every time I hear that. And every job interview I have been on since then, I get asked the same question) rebuilt ~5000 PC’s and about ~1100 applications servers including SCCM servers deploying the OSD package.
Ah, how I howl and hoot about it now!
Actually, I heard that if you hook one of those up to your home, and then wire your electricity around the electric meter outside, you save 100% on your electric bill!
Until they catch you, of course. Then I think you have to spend some time in jail. But, they pay for the electricity in jail, so you’re still saving money. It’s win/win!
Thanks, I needed that.
Best to wear gloves made of copper chain mail when hot wiring a meter, too.
Usually recommend testing to make sure power is off using the wire under the tongue method.
Leasing a solar system will save you a little money but lock you into the lease for a long time while all your neighbors are installing the latest higher efficiency systems.
Current wholesale cost of panels is about $0.75/watt. Elon Musk thinks he can get it down to $0.55. 1kw average is 24kwh. Here in California you’d need a 4kw system, so $3k for the panels. Add $1k for hardware, cables, etc., maybe $1k for the inverter, and $1k for installation, total: $6k. Add a little more if you have a Solar Contractor install it for you. Install all LED lighting and high efficiency appliances and such and you’ll probably only need a 2kw system.
Higher efficiency remains a dream after 20 years of trying. The lease I was offered would have cost me money at this point, since the amount you paid increased by 3 percent a year. In ten years that would be 30 percent. The first year would have saved me $26. The next year would have cost me more than the electric bill. Extreme heat and cold will drop the efficiency and even with state and federal subsidies a financed 7.5K system would not have paid for itself in ten years. I don’t think the system would be operating at the same efficiency in ten years. I went for new gas-filled windows, led bulbs, and high efficiency appliances, instead.
This would be winter. Replace the snow with leaves in Autumn; pollen in the Spring.
I’m sure solar’s great in some places, but not many.
http://www.solartown.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/solar-and-snow.jpg
Notice in your picture the windows? Solar works very well as long as the windows are on the south side of the building. When the sun shines thru the windows, you get heat.
If that is typical weather for that region, the building was badly designed. Far too little roof slope.
It may of course be exceptional weather in which case the comment is irrelevant.
I find it fascinating the way so many people try to bring up solar heat when we are discussing solar electricity.
It’s as if they don’t understand that there is an actual difference between the two technologies.
I’ve measured 109 degrees (f) on my tan carpet at solar noon in Chicago in mid-winter , southern exposure of course.
The furnace hardly runs on those clear yet frigid afternoons.
Night-time is another story, so you close the blinds to hold in the heat.
And bird poop year around.
And be sure to be careful when cleaning all of those off of the panels, even a little bit of scratching will reduce your efficiency dramatically.
We got this thing called a sunbelt on the hot side of the planet. It is also the fat meaty portion of the Earths land surface, so there is still a little room when you get sick of freezing your nuts off.
If you can get used to shoveling snow from your roof, you should be able to adapt to coming home from work and diving in your 90 F pool in January with a bit of effort.
Most people do not realize it, but Florida is BIG.
Times Square to FL state line 912 miles.
Key West to Pensacola, 830 miles.
Florida is terribly hot half of the year and we have bugs like you wouldn’t believe. Snakes, spiders and poisonous fish. Don’t move down here…..
I would say very hot for 5 months, May-September. But it rains every day, cools it off. Plus, it is hot over most of the country in Summer.
Few places in Florida get above 100 very often. Because if it starts to, it starts raining. Tampa has never been 100 degrees.
http://www.weather.com/weather/monthly/l/USFL0481:1:US
Actually, in the case of Tampa, it is a sea breeze that prevents it.
Hey I’m trying to discourage the snowbirds from moving down here, we have too many people here already and when they move from the socialist states they bring their voting practices with them. They’ve taken over Dade and Broward county already
I believe I can explain it all with this 2014 article I found
Scientists in the U.S. discovered a virus that actually makes people more stupid.
It’s called ATCV-1 and was initially only known to appear in algae, but now researchers believe the virus may be transferred to humans through DNA.
James Van Etten, William Allington Distinguished Professor of Plant Pathology and a co-director of the Nebraska Center for Virology, says the green algae is ‘very common among inland bodies of fresh water such as lakes and ponds.’
This is the first documented instance of the DNA of algae traveling to another biological kingdom.
Scientists conducted a study with 92 participants. Forty tested positive for the virus and they did worse on cognitive and intelligence tests giving a 97% consensus that the disease is real. DNA from the algae could be found in throat swabs from healthy humans.
When tested on mice, the contagion broke through the barrier between blood and tissue, altering the activity of genes in their brains.
One of the genes affected the most were those that produce dopamine, which influences memory, spatial awareness, emotion and pleasure. Also effected were heavily Democratic and Green voting patterns.
Nuff said
Steve…
You mean like a greenhouse effect? Open your windows in winter but leave the doors and windows closed so the co2 accumulates and adds to the heat…Sort of, like…A greenhouse? Save on heating bills and stuff? Why don’t more people know about this? It would save on a lot of heating bills.
Wait…open windows, but leave them closed?
https://youtu.be/6zj5eyE1qUA?t=12s
🙂
I’m sure a lot of environmentalists would love this new way for heating their homes in winter. Economical and ecological. The sunlight enters the closed windows, transforming the co2 into micro molecular heating units, radiating heat around inside the house and we don’t need to worry about coal or nat gas heating. If you have a bathtub, fill it and the extra heat can be stored in the water and used at night? Maybe?
I wonder how long the infrared absorbed and emitted and reemitted would last? It should just bounce around from one co2 to another unlimited, right? Until we opened the doors and windows and let it out. Right?
Dahlquist, about that bathtub and storing heat: The extra heat would get stored there, but only at the very bottom of the tub.
..and the anthropogenic global warming scam thus continues
Whoa. Did I just read 100 some odd comments on this item??
And how many realised that this was about thermal solar water heaters and NOT about PV ??
I think I got to three. ..
I’ve always been attracted to big magnates…
Anthony, there is a thousand fold more of that perpetual motion slight-of-hand stuff on YouTube. It is counterproductive to call attention to it.
In some locations the electricity rates change during the day. If the price tends to peak when the sun is out and it gets very hot, an individual whose house has been equipped with those solar tracking panels, and keeps the panels clean and dust free, can make money by shutting off his/her AC and using a fan to get by. This allows him/her to sell electricity at the PEAK feed in tariff. My analysis shows this can return 7 % on the investment.
I guess suffering the heat beats working.
I often tease Warmists by asking them this question.
If CO2 at a concentration of 1/25th part of one percent in the atmosphere is capable of trapping enough heat to cause CAGW….why don’t we simply fill tubes full of pure CO2 (which is cheap and plentiful) and use these in a solar type array to trap massive amounts of heat which could then be used to drive turbines etc….?
(because vacuume is a better insulator and the glass-reflection of infrared doesn’t need CO2 in the first place)
Randomly couldn’t sleep, just wanted to see if anybody else knew the answer.
I’ve made similar comments when people claim it’s pressure which is the “cause” of the greater heat lower in an atmosphere . I suggest filling up scuba tanks and then getting perpetual heat from them .
But that is closer to the mark . I just failed to consider it is the cause of the increasing pressure , gravity , which is the “source” of the increasing temperature and makes the gradient stable .
You’d save more money putting that weak magnet up against the power meter to make it missread as long as you got it out of the way at inspection time.
You need the patented ‘MBP invisible magnet’ we sell them on our website, we also deliver immediately them through teleport.
Don’t complain if you don’t see your magnet, it’s invisible after all.
“You’d save more money putting that weak magnet up against the power meter to make it missread as long as you got it out of the way at inspection time.”
How do you know it will not misread on the high side?
Meanwhile in the UK the solar companies are up in arms against the government scrapping the subsidies … ‘how are we supposed to make a profit?’
Answer: Run a proper business, not one that depends on getting subsidies in order to stay afloat, imagine if every business relied on subsidies ……. … /whinge
But… what happens if you need to use the nail.. as a nail ??
I think the nail company made more than just the one nail.
Just make sure you get the right sort of nails.
If they are for a floor, do not get the ceiling nails…the have the point on the wrong end.
The latest innovation from electric utilities and their purchase of excess home- grown power from solar, wind or whatever, is a “surcharge” added to the monthly bills of owners of solar/renewable installations, claiming that the net- metered installs don’t pay their fair share for grid maintenance.
“The latest innovation from electric utilities and their purchase of excess home- grown power from solar, wind or whatever, is a “surcharge” added to the monthly bills of owners of solar/renewable installations, claiming that the net- metered installs don’t pay their fair share for grid maintenance.”
It is more than a claim…it is the truth.
I see that some people here are proud of the fact that they took government incentives and made the rest of us pay for it. I submit to you that good never comes from evil. Karma will get you in the end.
The government is a gang of thieves writ large. The human race if far worse off because of governments than if we followed the near anarchy of Ireland that lasted for at least 1,000 years and maybe 10 times that length.
https://markstoval.wordpress.com/2012/07/02/1000-years-of-irish-anarchy/
https://markstoval.wordpress.com/2012/11/18/9000-years-of-anarchy-in-ireland/
Solar energy subsidies are on their way out because they are unsustainable in the long run.
I worked on a contract regarding solar power and I can tell you this industry would not exist without the subsidies, justified by global warming.To cynically say “I will take the money from the poor suckers” is to commit a fraud and further impoverishes the poor. Oh, but you don’t give an eff, do you Doug?
I await the pitchforks or a large hailstorm.
A previous employer was developing equipment to automatically turn off solar panels when a short was detected. Apparently they have been having trouble with buildings burning down because of shorts in the high voltage wiring.
Here in the US, half the population pay no taxes on income at all…in fact they get “tax credits” just for breathing.
Poor are not paying a nickel here.
Which is wrong IMO…everyone needs to have some skin in the game.
The picture shown is a solar water heater. Those can be effective if you live far enough south.
They will only save you electricity if your water heater is electric.
CORRECT!
A neighbor who had a Gas furnace and gas hot water heater installed a Solar W Heater back in the 80’s. A few years later at a community barbecue, (and a few beers) I learned that during the summer his gas bill was only 1 to 2 dollars less than before he bought the system. He seems to have learned about the minimum payment on gas. My HW is gas and with only two of us in the house it is never above the minimum in the summer. So in essence I get FREE HW.
Around here they have a fixed charge that everyone pays, about $6/month, and you pay for all the electricity that you use. You would probably pay less under such a system, as it is, when your usage is below minimum, you are subsidizing someone else.
Unfortunately, the joke is on the American people since the joke marketers are operators of the puppet strings for this puppet Prez and the puppet agencies channeling hundreds of billions into marketing scam policy. And the meek excuses and deflections given on the back end with the exposed failures also matches marketer reactions. It’s easy to look the other way as though this money does not concern you, but then you and your community are also bombarded by the reality of failing schools, poverty, failing road systems, failed regulatory agencies, and failed trust in areas that have not even been exposed yet.