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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
by0123456 ( 636235 ) writes:
No.
bysneakyimp ( 1161443 ) writes:
We should be able to moderate the original article as troll.
byJoeMerchant ( 803320 ) writes:
There's another trend in modern life, toward zero land ownership.
Put the most efficient solar panel possible covering 5000 square feet at the latitude of Washington D.C. - tell me how many miles a year you can drive after you have used that solar power to heat and cool your home?
Some people need to get a grip - I mean, there are these multi-rotor hovercraft springing up all over the place, how long before we are all driving them to work on 7 layer freeways in the air?
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byArchangel Michael ( 180766 ) writes:
7 layer freeways
OSI model Freeways? I would like to subscribe to your newsletter!
byimikem ( 767509 ) writes:
Not interested. Way too many collisions.
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byHamsterdan ( 815291 ) writes:
Hate those airport hubs
byTeknoHog ( 164938 ) writes:
I listen to Las Keccak while driving, and I never get collisions.
byNefarious Wheel ( 628136 ) writes:
CSMA/CD
Car Sensing Multiple Aircraft / Collision Destruction?
bynitehawk214 ( 222219 ) writes:
7 layer freeways
OSI model Freeways? I would like to subscribe to your newsletter!
Burrito Freeways.
bysneakyimp ( 1161443 ) writes:
Yes but you forget the other trend toward telecommuting! Silly rabbit, nobody needs to *drive* in the beautiful future! The 7-layer freeways will be for the Amazon bots that are going to deliver more video games and pizza to me.
byJoeMerchant ( 803320 ) writes:
I telecommute, and strangely, I don't drive any less for my non-commute activities - perhaps just a little bit more to take the convertible out of the garage a few times a month...
Hope you like your pizza freeze-dried, rehydrated (possibly with oil) and microwaved on arrival, carrying all that weight is too taxing for the drone copters.
byStargoat ( 658863 ) writes:
how long before we are all driving them to work on 7 layer freeways in the air?
At the moment, never. The energy usage is too great for the average person to be able to afford. The mean hours between failure is atrocious, especially given the catastrophic results of failure. What you propose would require a technological seachange, one that cannot be predicted at the present time.
(If you are being sarcastic, then good job.)
byJoeMerchant ( 803320 ) writes:
Yep - until solar passes >50% incident power conversion and pairs with an efficient storage system, this guy is as high as a Jetson-mobile.
byhawguy ( 1600213 ) writes:
There's another trend in modern life, toward zero land ownership.
Put the most efficient solar panel possible covering 5000 square feet at the latitude of Washington D.C. - tell me how many miles a year you can drive after you have used that solar power to heat and cool your home?
Some people need to get a grip - I mean, there are these multi-rotor hovercraft springing up all over the place, how long before we are all driving them to work on 7 layer freeways in the air?
There's another trend in modern life, toward zero land ownership.
Put the most efficient solar panel possible covering 5000 square feet at the latitude of Washington D.C. - tell me how many miles a year you can drive after you have used that solar power to heat and cool your home?
Some people need to get a grip - I mean, there are these multi-rotor hovercraft springing up all over the place, how long before we are all driving them to work on 7 layer freeways in the air?
I don't know the average power usage of a home in Washington DC. But let's say that the home uses an average of 1000KWh/month, and that they want to charge their 24KWh car 3 times a week, for 12 charges/month, or around 300KWh, so that means they need to generate 1300KWh/month.
According to this solar calculator [findsolar.com], such a system in Washington DC would require 1100 sq ft of roof space, and cost $68,000 before incentives, or $24,000 after incentives. It would save nearly $200/month in electric bills, and is esti
byCrimsonAvenger ( 580665 ) writes:
such a system in Washington DC would require 1100 sq ft of roof space, and cost $68,000 before incentives, or $24,000 after incentives.
If everyone is doing it (as the article proposes), the incentives will evaporate. Tax incentives and government rebates/matching funds/whatever only work if the number of people taking advantage of them is small compared to the total population.
It's nice when you get your neighbors to pay 2/3 the cost of your solar array, not so nice when you have to pay 2/3 the cost of
byhawguy ( 1600213 ) writes:
such a system in Washington DC would require 1100 sq ft of roof space, and cost $68,000 before incentives, or $24,000 after incentives.
If everyone is doing it (as the article proposes), the incentives will evaporate. Tax incentives and government rebates/matching funds/whatever only work if the number of people taking advantage of them is small compared to the total population.
It's nice when you get your neighbors to pay 2/3 the cost of your solar array, not so nice when you have to pay 2/3 the cost of their solar arrays.
Other than that, I question the ability of your system to charge your car reliably if you take your car to work on a regular basis. And if you don't, why do you have it anyway?
If everyone is doing it, economies of scale and future efficiency gains will reduce prices (scarcity could reduce supply and increase prices, but solar panels aren't exactly exotic technology that only a few companies can produce using rare elements), so incentives will become less important.
Some of the incentives are paid for by power companies, ostensibly because it saves them money by reducing their need to build and operate peaker plants. But they may find that they've overused that "But peak power is *
byharuchai ( 17472 ) writes:
The Nissan Leaf is rated at 34 kWh / 100 miles. Let's raise that to 40 kWh / 100 miles to account for battery aging and lower performance in bad weather.
At 300 kWh per month that's 750 miles driven on self-generated electricity or 25 miles per day. That's perfectly reasonable for a great many people.
Because of expensive parking downtown and living in the suburbs, most of my colleagues drive 5-10 miles to a train station and drive a few additional miles once or twice during the week running errands or pickin
byjbo5112 ( 154963 ) writes:
I live in an area without brownouts, and have a house shaded by some large trees. What benefit do I get for buying you stuff? Sounds like someone trying to justify legalized theft. I hope you at least researched the manufacturer of the panels to make sure they're not dumping chemicals into the villages of developing countries. http://www.washingtonpost.com/... [washingtonpost.com]
●h your current threshold.
●r current threshold.
bybzipitidoo ( 647217 ) writes:
A home can do way better than 1000 kWh/month. Half the energy we use goes towards heating and cooling. In months when the temperature is mild and neither heating nor cooling is needed, we use only 300 kHw for a 4 bedroom home, and there is still room for improvement. It's not only possible to build a house that doesn't need much heating and cooling, it isn't even particularly hard or expensive. We had a home built in 1969 that without using the furnace could maintain 60F in the day in winter in the nort
byJoeMerchant ( 803320 ) writes:
Nice calculations - I wonder if they account for clouds or snow - certainly they are not expecting any tree shade. 1100 sq ft of roof space, DC is 39 degrees North, so the actual size of the panel is likely 1415 sq ft.
As others have pointed out, incentives are temporary, so the system costs $68K and generates $114K worth of power in 25 years, for a ROI period of roughly 15 years. During those 15 years, what's the labor cost of keeping the panels clean, connections maintained, etc? Also, what's the effici
byhawguy ( 1600213 ) writes:
Nice calculations - I wonder if they account for clouds or snow - certainly they are not expecting any tree shade. 1100 sq ft of roof space, DC is 39 degrees North, so the actual size of the panel is likely 1415 sq ft.
As others have pointed out, incentives are temporary, so the system costs $68K and generates $114K worth of power in 25 years, for a ROI period of roughly 15 years. During those 15 years, what's the labor cost of keeping the panels clean, connections maintained, etc? Also, what's the efficiency degradation of the panels throughout that 25 year lifespan? You likely need more like 2000 sq. ft of panel to continue to power your lifestyle throughout the period, especially if your personal go-fer drone(s) and other future power users will charge from your home - that pushes out to $95K for system installation, giving you more power in return, but you likely won't be able to sell it for what it costs to buy (real costs of transmission & storage, not to mention administrative overhead.)
We may actually be at the economic break-even point for solar, for people who don't have tree-shade. I've always had way too many trees shading my home to even think about a serious solar system.
The use average insolation values that include normal weather activity, but not shading (and not snow cover, but since I've seen solar panels in Wisconsin, I'm assuming that they know how to handle snow).
A solar installation needing be a static "install once and never upgrade", if you plan ahead by oversizing the inverter and other components, you can add additional panels later for little more than the cost of the panels (which will likely come down in price and increase in efficiency)
This site says that
byJoeMerchant ( 803320 ) writes:
You should talk with a solar installer in your area if you want to find the full costs including a service contract to handle all maintenance if that's what you're looking for.
I am actually bucking the less land trend, my home is on a ~1 acre lot, but there's only about 2500 sq ft that doesn't get tree shade more than 30% of the day, and I use that for a different kind of solar power collection: gardening.
By the time you include a (real) service contract that covers all maintenance and cleaning of the panels, and I've always wondered about underlying roof-leak problems and the additional labor of repairing those... I think your (no-tax-incentive) ROI period is approaching the li
● your current threshold.
byDr Max ( 1696200 ) writes:
They will only let us fly to work in these multirotor vehicles when computers are the ones doing the flying. When you cant trust some one to use an indicator, or keep out of the right hand lane when not overtaking, then your not going to be able to trust them with another dimension, and multiple spinning blades of doom (well maybe if you get them through the long process of getting a piolts licence). Also if you want a full size mutirotor aircraft electric has a lot of advantages, less wear and tear, easier
byJoeMerchant ( 803320 ) writes:
Heck, just beam the power up from the ground using microwaves - what could go wrong?
● current threshold.
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