[Greenbuilding] [BULK] Re: FW: Wind Generator

[Keith Winston]

Hi again,
> Yow!  Egads!  That's $400 a month at my utility rates! I was using my
> own bill as a rough guide, based on all gas appliances and furnace.  No
> wonder we have an energy crisis!?!?!
>   
I'm quite sure you're not keeping up with the Joneses. In terms of 
utility costs, remember that electricity tends to be quite expensive 
compared to an energy-equivalent cost for fossil fuels.

I've also realized there was a mistake in my methodology. I looked at 
the oil, gas, electricity data, and added average use up of all fuels. 
Ah, but not all houses use fuel oil, or gas, or... This would all have 
to be normalized to the US population. Which would take 3 minutes 
instead of the 30 seconds I gave to the task. It's curious to me I don't 
see estimates of that number more often, but I'm not going to take a 
stab at it right now. Anyway, be warned that my 6000 kWh is probably 
considerably too high.

Oops, here was the table I wanted, with the calculations done I believe: 
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/recs/recs2001/ce_pdf/enduse/ce1-1c_climate2001.pdf

It would take way too long to be sure I'm not making another mistake in 
reading that table, so I'm going to stop there...

> Yeah, $5/W is probably too cheap for a whole system, but a fair guess at
> a solar cell price.  The point was, that if you are installing energy
> generation, superconservation will save more money per dollar.  $10 a
> peak watt?  $15? Do I hear $20?  
>   
Absolutely. Particularly true as CF's have dropped from $20 each to $1-2 
each. Of course, as you get into complicated rehabs of existing housing, 
you have to apply a longer timeline to see the energy savings. When we 
finally acknowledge climate change through carbon taxes or whatever, 
many things will change, perhaps abruptly.

Oh, as for the ebay PV ad -- well, it's true that amorphous PV costs 
less/ per W than silicon, which I quoted. Current lowest US price 
(solarbuzz.com) is $3.79/W. Now, that's a commodity price: people will 
buy trainloads if it's $.05/W cheaper. These (ebay) may be factory 
seconds, or something else. No manufacturer identified... I wouldn't 
count on a warranty. But still, it does appear a good price. They are 
rated at 6% efficient, which is a low-grade amorphous: maybe they're 
just trying to clean out a warehouse (with no warranty obligations) of 
old stock (say, made in early January).

Keith