Yup…solar panels and windmills all have YEARS maybe even decades of use before you get your money back. But that doesn’t mean you abandon the technology. Solar panels are more then 100% more efficient then they were just 10 years ago at almost half the price…So things are going in the right direction.
There’s also a company that will install the solar panels on your house for FREE…and you then buy the electricity from them at a reduced rate (guaranteed to be at least 20% less then you’re paying now). So that’s another option.
I agree with you Mike. Just looking at payback is pretty short sighted. When building my last house, the contractor tried to talk me out of Super Insulating it as the so called pay back was not worth it. Well guess what. Over the last 15 years, we averaged one oil fill up per year using less than 400 gallons for heat and hot water with no wood or any other supplement.
To say that the pay back doesn’t pay for it negates future costs of oil going up compared to future costs of alternatives going down. IMO, insulation and overall conservation still takes a back seat. Numerical pay back can often be a deceptive and short sighted argument in all areas.
Extended payback is OK, but 100 years is too long, except if there are other goals being accomplished. If the same money could be spent elsewhere and save more energy more quickly, that would be a better use of public funds.
And I very much hope solar panel efficiency increases rapidly. It’s a great fit in the southwest, matching A/C loads very well, something wind power doesn’t do.
When I bought my house down here in Texas a few years ago, it was fine, but the electric bills were pretty high. Never having lived someplace quite this hot, I put it down to the A/C unit working overtime, coupled with higher than normal temps.
That winter (yes, it’s very subjective to say we actually have “winter” here, but this one actually got cold), the water lines to my kitchen sink froze. I finally got up into the attic, and found there was hardly any insulation up there. I went to the local Lowe’s for insulation and a blower. When I told them why I wanted to further insulate my house I got “It rarely gets that cold, and will most likely not do it again for 10 years”.
I felt (and still feel) that was a VERY short sighted view. As I tried to explain, if I’m losing heat in the winter, where the heck did they think all my cool was going in the summer? The builders don’t care, they won’t have to pay the bills once it’s sold, and they saved a few pennies on each house. I’d imagine the payback for my work was less than a year - probably as little as a few months.
Extended payback is OK, but 100 years is too long,
Agreed…If I was younger I’d consider buying solar panels now. My house is the PERFECT position for solar panels (full sun, hip room so I can install on multiple sides and generate power from sun rise to sun set).
But I’m late 50’s…Wife and I are planning down-sizing our house when we retire and all the kids are gone…Might even move someplace warmer. Just can’t justify the cost.
Chaissos, that Lowes guy is nuts. I’ve added insulation (I have about 10" in the attic), gone to a better hvac unit, etc, and am saving a good amount of money. Probably 10 yr payout, that’s ok with me.
I also switched to a variable-rate electricity provider, and am saving big time (33%) just from the lower $/kwh (currently about $0.08/kwh).
I agree, he IS nuts…but I get that same story from almost every one I talk to…until I ask where all my cool is going in the summer, then they’re the proverbial deer with my brights on.
It’s a small story, I’ll grant you, but it’s prolific. I’m one house in a city of over 7 million, in a country of how many? How much could we save if even just that small step of insulating our houses was actually done correctly - by the builder - from the start?
I will also admit there are good ones, who do very good work. They just don’t seem to be around here.
Insulation and double gazed windows are the most effective; my attic has 12 inches of insulation (R52) and even the basement walls have 6 inches. Even the unheated garage (attached to the house) has 6 inches of insulation, and the garage door is foamfilled R12. Even on the coldest day the temperature in the garage seldom gets lower than 28F. This means quick warmup for the cars.
If every house and building in the US was well-insulated, and had a high efficiency furnace, the country’s energy needs would be cut by at least 25%.
Agree that a tough building code with respect to insulation and heating/cooling efficiency is a must. The intial cost when building the house is very modest.
Correction; my attic now has 18" of insulation, it only cost $750 to do that upgrade.
“Extended payback is OK, but 100 years is too long…”
Prices are dropping dramatically since the mainland Chinese government got into the business of supporting their domestic solar cell manufacturers. That’s why Solyndra went out of business. And don’t expect them to be back, either. It’s very difficult to compete with the Chinese when they throw money at something they want to succeed in. But that means solar electric generation will be far less expensive for you.
My house was built with 6" insulated walls…and 10" in the attic. A couple of years after we moved in I added 9" to the attic…During the winter you could tell the top floor was warmer and the heat wasn’t turning on as much…but the during the summer…made a huge difference…The 100 degree plus heat in the attic wasn’t getting through the 15" of insulation.
chaisso, I spent some time in Texas. No need to explain. You do have freaking winters there where it can be 35 degrees in the morning with a wind chill of minus a gazillion and 90 degrees by early afternoon. If anyplace needed insulation, Texas “do”.
“Exploitation of tar sands would make it implausible to stabilize climate and avoid disastrous global climate impacts. The tar sands are estimated (e.g., see IPCC AR4 WG3 report) to contain at least 400 GtC (equivalent to about 200 ppm CO2)…. if the tar sands are thrown into the mix it is essentially game over.” – James Hansen, June 3, 2011
The sad fact is, the tar sands WILL be exploited regardless of how it gets carried to the refinery. Fighting against Keystone XL is like King Canute ordering the tide not to come in. And I say that knowing full well that tar sand extraction is an environmental nightmare. We’re all on the Titanic. Some are arguing that what we need is MORE water flowing into the bilge, some are arguing AGAINST more water flowing into the bilge, and meanwhile the laws of physics are large and in charge, just as they will be long after this ship of fools has sunk.
If anyone thinks stopping tarsands development will somehow stabilize CO2 emissions, think again. The exploding use of fossil fuels of all kinds (coal, especially) in China, India, the Persian Gulf, etc. far exceed the impact of tar sands development.
The oil sands cause only 1% of North American CO2 emissions. Coal fired plants in the USA make up nearly 50%, cars in the US about 26%. The quickest way to cut down on CO2 emissions is for Americans to drive smaller cars and for the electric utility industry to switch to gas fired, efficient boilers to generate power. Pickens was right about that, and he wants cars and trucks to run on natural gas as well, further reducing CO2 emissions.
China now produces even more CO2 than the US, and it’s still growing.
Several universities have done a “wells to wheels” study of CO2 generation and oil sands come out at 5-15 % more than light crude, such as West Texas Intermediate, the best crude available. Heavy Crude from Venezuela, and the infamous California heavy crude (you’ve heard of the Brea Tar Pits) are considerably worse.
Unfortunately, light sweet crude such as Arabian and West Texas Intermediate comprises a smaller and smaller proportion of the total.
At this time US consumption of oil is static, and may even fall with further efficiency gains.
I hope that puts things in perspective!!!
Correction: Oilsands cause only 0.2% of North American emissions.
Pipeline: I think the only real issue with this is the line would run over the huge aquifer in Oklahoma and South Dakota which would spell disaster if contaminated. A little re-routing should take care of it. I’m all for it. Minnesota gets most of its oil from Canada now so lets proceed.
Wind and Solar: As far as wind and solar goes, I think it is a ruse and will never contrubute substantially to our engergy needs. Maybe in developing countries but not here. Its only being developed because of demands made by environmental groups. Why we can’t safely expand nuclear like Europe is beyond me and I fear we will find outselve caught short again in the future.
Cheap Labor: While it is a plus to have cheap products made in China, you also need to have a citizenry that can afford to buy them. Many of the well paying manufacturing jobs have been replaced with $12 an hour jobs that will not help to grow our economy. China needs to build their own markets and products rather than just under-cutting and copying what the US has produced. And to the bright MBA’s that brought this on-shame. Further, if we ever have a national emergency and need to provide our own machine tools, computers, and 20,000 other products, woe to us. We all may end up speaking Mandarin instead of German this time.
Just in case anyone bothered watching the video posted above - it is complete BS. The ‘threat’ to the aquifer is bogus, thousands of miles of pipelines cross that area, and a leak, if it did occur, would be cleaned up before any significant damage could possibly occur. Most folks don’t realize that aquifers are not underground ‘lakes’, where any leak could spread rapidly. Rather, they’re rock (sandstone and/or limestone) with small pores through which the water slowly moves. There is ZERO potential for any leak of any pipeline to ‘poison the aquifer’. And the diluted bitumen in the pipeline is not different in any real way from crude oil piped throughout the US. Just a bunch of scare tactics.
And that posting is from the RUSSIAN news service, isn’t it? A bit of ‘new’ cold war propaganda, it seems to me.
I deleted the posts between chaissos, Mechaniker, and littlemouse, for the record. Littlemouse, it’s fine to disagree with chaissos’ choices in relying on inspection, but it’s not particularly relevant, and the condescension is certainly unnecessary. (And, lest you tell me that the rules are inconsistently applied, that is not a discussion for right now.) Mechaniker, chaissos, and everybody else: you know what to expect in these types of exchanges. Don’t go down the rabbit hole.