Grid needs big improvements especially long distance power transmission.
Would you rather see Wind Turbines or solar farms?
- Thread starter ZZman
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Sounds good, let's do it.
Put the wind turbines in the wealthier neighborhoods.
Owen Lucas
$100 Site Donor 2023
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Why not both? Attach solar panels around and on top of the wind turbine towers, replace the blades with solar panels, and surround the towers with solar panels on the ground. /s
SammyChevelleTypeS3
$50 site donor 2023
Are "heat pumps" really effective? I think I read they are mostly viable in the north and not south? Is that even true?
Often wondered why the power companies can not creat giant power plants based on simple heat pumps. Guess cost
and drilling deep enough safely is the stopper?
I know the power companies were giving rebates here in the late 80s and not enought people jumped onto them
to make it continue. My HVAC expert at the time who also worked with me as a mechanic for a major chemical company
told me "DONT DO IT!" so we went with conventional with natural gas heater and filled my attic with blown insulation after
I replaced all duct work. People I know these days with total electric homes paid $300 - $400 a month heating bills when we
had an unusual cold winter. Now they are paying $300 - $500 a month for cooling their homes,. We run ours COLD and the
highest bill usually in July was $260. Soon as the intense summer weather kicks back down my light bill runs about $70 - $90
a month. Traditional 4 ton HiE Rheem condenser in the yard. This unit still has the freon and not the newer coolant. Plan to run
it till it explodes.
Often wondered why the power companies can not creat giant power plants based on simple heat pumps. Guess cost
and drilling deep enough safely is the stopper?
I know the power companies were giving rebates here in the late 80s and not enought people jumped onto them
to make it continue. My HVAC expert at the time who also worked with me as a mechanic for a major chemical company
told me "DONT DO IT!" so we went with conventional with natural gas heater and filled my attic with blown insulation after
I replaced all duct work. People I know these days with total electric homes paid $300 - $400 a month heating bills when we
had an unusual cold winter. Now they are paying $300 - $500 a month for cooling their homes,. We run ours COLD and the
highest bill usually in July was $260. Soon as the intense summer weather kicks back down my light bill runs about $70 - $90
a month. Traditional 4 ton HiE Rheem condenser in the yard. This unit still has the freon and not the newer coolant. Plan to run
it till it explodes.
Gotcha! How could I have missed that? The cows turn this beautiful scene from an electric utility advertisement, into a pastoral post card!
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- 1,575
We have other priorities
The farmers own these particular turbines... They're the ones looking at them everyday, I guess they could get rid of them if they got tired of their "ruined" view...Gotcha! How could I have missed that? The cows turn this beautiful scene from an electric utility advertisement, into a pastoral post card!
Farm tractors, steel out buildings, and wire fences aren't as pastoral as work horses, timber frame barns and wooden rail fences either, but I'm not going to complain about it... This in an ideal location on the coast on private land that's 90+% disturbed already. I'm sure the several white spinney environmentally friendly money generators give the owners a big smile everyday when the look out their windows...
Get your own land and you can be as pastoral as you want...
Or heavy industries move to the middle of these deserts. Las Vegas has a lot of new data centers with relatively cheap electricity.
Looks kind of tiny. The newer turbines look much bigger.
Oops, I was thinking this topic was about aesthetics rather than money…
! There’s an oil well on the capitol grounds in Oklahoma City, Ok that has made the state a lot of money over the past 80 plus years.….but pretty, it ain’t! Oh…I have my own land…and it is and will remain pastoral.
Heat pump is an air conditioner or fridge running in reverse, not a power generating device.
Heat pump is "more efficient" but electricity cost way more than natural gas, so you may be 2x-3x more efficient but your energy source is 4x-5x more costly, so in the net result you waste more money.
Why only in the north? Because you don't use much furnace in the south, you use AC but heat pump is really just an AC running backward so, if you insist you can buy a heat pump and run it in the winter if you want to and run it as AC in the summer, just a few more valve in theory to control which direction the refrigerant flow, not really complicated.
In some part of the US people are still using 80% furnace because they aren't used enough to justify the extra cost to go 90%+, they will never recoup their money back ever. I think I only use about $150 of natural gas per YEAR in heating, so if you only use your furnace for 20 years you only save $3k but going 90%+ can cost you way more than 3k.
The only current reliable solution
+ 
SammyChevelleTypeS3
$50 site donor 2023
I was thinking there was a system (I guess it was not the heat pump) that ran lines into the ground to draw free heat, to use like a heat exchanger type of deal? Using some free source of heat without having to "burn" a fuel. I recall some of the early solar systems for homes used to promote hooking them up to water heaters. Dont see that pushed as much anymore? I like the new tankless water heaters. When my tank goes out next time i will replace it with a natural gas system by Rheem. Almost all the new homes I see are installing those.
That's geothermal heat pump if you put the heat sink to the ground, but as all things in life, you need to pay for it and drilling loops into the ground is not cheap, and you still need to run some electricity to draw heat from the ground to the house. The ground is probably 60F and you probably need the heat source to be at least 80F to transfer heat directly into the house without any compressor / phase change.
I heard of a community using a large underground "heat sink" to store heat from the summer, harvested with roof top liquid loop like solar water heater, and pump the hot water to an underground formation, and then in the winter pump the coolant back out of the ground into the house radiator for heat at like 80-90F. The setup would still cost them like $50-60 a month in the winter in the depreciation cost of the construction.
Storing heat for half a year is not easy.
For water heater, I think the cost to run one is not that much in the summer, so the cost to install the solar loop to "preheat" water going into water heater (you very likely need 2 loops because your solar collector may not get hot enough), may not be justified. I think it can be done if you have a hot climate all seasons, but otherwise you may end up wasting a lot of cost only for heating water in the warming season. Solar for the same space may actually save you more if you can use them for AC right away, or make some ice to delay the cooling at duck curve hours, instead of storing heat.
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I like all forms of generation from hydro, solar, wind , nuke and fossil fuel. You need all them to make a reliable grid while balancing environmental concerns.
Fanboy of nuclear or solar/wind is tiring.
Fanboy of nuclear or solar/wind is tiring.
I'd rather look at nuclear power plants.
Here's some of mine:
West Valley College in Saratoga, CA (nearby) installed solar including in the parking lot in 2011. Keeps the sun off the rich kid's cars. Their cars are better than the teachers. There is also EV charging. The solar project currently saves about $1M per year, up from estimates if $860K.
West Valley College in Saratoga, CA (nearby) installed solar including in the parking lot in 2011. Keeps the sun off the rich kid's cars. Their cars are better than the teachers. There is also EV charging. The solar project currently saves about $1M per year, up from estimates if $860K.
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