As a Texan I agree! Now, I love the idea of renewables, but not as any sort of main power source. I’d be ok if more homeowners used renewables and there were some credits for that. Our grid needs more resilience tho, less reliance on renewables.
You can cut your power bill pretty decently by building your own solar panels from broken cells (cosmetic flaws, but they still function) that are dirt cheap on ebay, and a wind turbine on the roof as backup.
You can hook it all up to your house and the power grid, and they'll pay you for the excess power you generate. Realistically you're not going to make any money off of it, but you can try to at least pay off or greatly reduce your own power bill.
You set it up so basically you're using your solar/wind primarily, but whenever it's not adequate your house just automatically uses the regular power you always had from the grid.
If I had a house and yard I'd totally be doing this. The solar panels are basically just a weekend project. Really not difficult to put together. You'll need batteries, but people are giving away old boat and car batteries all the time. Make a big bank of those on the side of your house.. like ten or twenty old batteries... they'll store enough.
Keep the regular grid, reduce the load on your own.... why doesn't every house do this? Why doesn't the government give everyone a stimulus check to pay for such things if they care about the environment so much? How about a Green New Deal where we just pay everyone to put up some solar panels in their yard or on their roof? You don't do anything ridiculous like make that the primary power source, but if everyone had a few solar panels, how much would that reduce the grid power usage? Grid is still there, just to be clear... nobody's taking that away..
You can buy complete panels for less than a dollar a watt. They are already dirt cheap.
You can invest in a diy system for about 10k for an average house and you will never have another electric bill.
They charge about 20 to install.
I priced them already.
Batteries are a different story. Life of batteries are pretty short except for “Edison” batteries and those are really expensive and heavy as shit. No “free shipping” on those
And you are correct about the wind as back up. We just went through more than a week with no power. Need a gigantic battery bank to run a house for a week without recharge.
You need a secondary backup. Always have a gas engine ready to roll out and plug in. A 3k - 5k genset is fairly inexpensive and most come with an RV plug which you can setup as an input to your house's electric system.
Someone has to pay for infrastructure. The grid tie in idea is basically trying to use the grid as a battery for free. No big if a couple parasites try it, catastrophic if solar becomes popular in an area.
Wind, solar and electric vehicles arent even useful as a bridge away from fossil fuels and towards clean renewable energy.
Mining of rare earths is as dirty a process as any on earth. When the panels and turbines and batteries reach the end of their lifetimes in 20 years or less, none of the parts are reusable or recyclable. Look for images of the massive landfills used to bury the composite components. Components that will sit there for eternity because they do not biodegrade. Electric vehicles arent carbon free as they would like you to believe, it actually makes them coal powered vehicles.
Then consider the massive outlays of land that are stripped barren for use as wind farms and the wildlife and their habitat that is destroyed.
Its all a scam to enrich them and their cronies by stealing from the taxpayer and to provide them with the means to enslave us. Renewables, as they now present themselves, are an ecological disaster.
As near as I can tell, geothermal is the only proper renewal energy source, a reliable and 24/7 base-load type facility. Until fusion power from seawater deuterium or regular old hydrogen becomes safe & viable in a commercial sense.
Wind is inconstant and as we have seen, the damn things freeze up and become useless when they are needed most.
Solar is also inconstant for similar reasons. Snow dumps and precipitation and cloud..
Hydro is no good when its more important to have drinking water rather than spending that elevated water store on power. And is still unreliable as it depends too much on precipitation.
On the other hand, the earths core heat is infinite in any sense of human consumption, at least when it comes to tapping it for the next million years. Even if you dumped all the words oceans and ice into it all at once in one place, it wouldn't really do much to deplete the energy. It doesn't go away at night, or in hurricanes, or when there is too little or too much rain or cloud. Pump water down, receive hot and high velocity steam up, run through turbines for power and vent it wherever.. pumps that handle water and standard turbines are about as simple as a power plant can get.
Who said oil & gas are not renewable? The so-called "fossil fuels" are renewable. The Russians have proven that. This whole "renewable" canard is just gaslighting by the Left.
Chubby, I am too ignorant to speak with any authority but I'm asking: "Is LFTR (Thorium) technology viable at all?" I've seen BUNCHES, pro and con, but nothing that convinces me that LFTR should not be tried. What say you?
Thorium's well and good but uranium works and we mine it domestically. A lot of people think the only way nuclear can work is if we get fusion or other exotic tech to work, but the reality is that we could simply use a modern fission cycle. All the stuff about nuclear waste, radiation leakage, and potential for disasters? MSM lies just like everything else. There are solutions to all of these problems. France has gotten the majority of its grid power from nuclear sources since the oil crisis in the 70s. Ask yourself, why have you never heard a peep about France's dominance in the nuclear power? Because it wouldn't fit the narrative.
Point well taken. MSM has become/has long served [those paying attention] more as an informer of what to avoid than what to receive. Energy independence (through any technology[s]) is the last thing the "controllers" want to happen/continue anywhere on Earth.
Abundant, inexpensive energy did MUCH to transform the S.E. US States back in the '40's, '50's and '60's. The "controllers" just can't let that continue or happen elsewhere. I would not be surprised to discover that the attempts to extend rapid and robust communications into rural areas are also being hindered by those who want to maintain control.
Anyway, THANK YOU for responding and THANK YOU for being here! MAGA!
Not an expert either. But it doesn't seem to be an efficient alternative, only a greener alternative. Most articles agree that it works, but is not practical to power a gigawatt plant without loosing money. Just my take on the technology as I understand it.
I remember reading it would take 10 years just to get the permits to build nuclear. It needs to be done safely, but it is nearly impossible to build one right now. That needs to change, it's the only reliable alternative to fossil fuels.
I'll probably get down voted to hell, but I think it's a good idea to diversify. Don't become too dependent on one type of energy. Especially with the Biden administration making us reliant on oil from the middle east again.
The left just redpilled an entire state. Keep your wind and solar but you need gas, nuclear and coal as the main source. You can't have millions of people at risk of dying for some elitist game.
I think the main problem here is the condescending overemphasis of renewable energy and political and academic bully against fossil fuel industries.
A possible solution is to neither ban renewable nor ban fossil fuel. Why not let them compete? Gently.
In the meantime, nuclear should also be considered. Especially, research should be focused more on fusion energy, which may be one of the best solutions to the ongoing energy crises haunting the human civilization.
Pretty sure it was an Austin idea. Think they forced the Electric company to have a certain percentage of renewable energyin their portfolio or else get a carbon text
Those who are responsible for this tragedy Should not only be fired but charged with Murder. How about it AG do your job and go bet these evil bastards
They figured out what they needed to do to winterize their energy production in 2011 (natural gas included, which was the biggest point of failure), but they just didn't do it.
OK, but they also need to winterize their systems too. Like has been recommended after the last time this happened, and the time before that. 50% of ERCOT power comes from natural gas.
Bullock said while much of the natural gas available has gone towards Texans' homes, the state's power plants need this fuel as well but aren't getting what they need.
Natural gas providers haven't been able to manufacture, ship or transport their product either, according to Abbott. He said people from these companies are telling his team, "It's just frozen right now. It's frozen in the pipeline. It's frozen at the rig. It's frozen at the transmission line."
To add to this, the oil wells that pump natural gas, also use electricity for power and comms. The electricity was shut off to the oil field so the power could be directed at homes. The electric companies stopped the production of natural gas by doing this, which meant the electric companies weren’t getting the natural gas they needed to run the plants. Targa was down to one facility out of five, and they were running out natural gas real quick. Had they run out of natural gas, the power plants would have shut down. Then the power plants wouldn’t have been able to send power to the oil field to pump more gas. We were almost on big trouble.
Source: My husband was out in freezing temperatures for three days to get the wells started back up.
As a Texan I agree! Now, I love the idea of renewables, but not as any sort of main power source. I’d be ok if more homeowners used renewables and there were some credits for that. Our grid needs more resilience tho, less reliance on renewables.
You can cut your power bill pretty decently by building your own solar panels from broken cells (cosmetic flaws, but they still function) that are dirt cheap on ebay, and a wind turbine on the roof as backup.
You can hook it all up to your house and the power grid, and they'll pay you for the excess power you generate. Realistically you're not going to make any money off of it, but you can try to at least pay off or greatly reduce your own power bill.
You set it up so basically you're using your solar/wind primarily, but whenever it's not adequate your house just automatically uses the regular power you always had from the grid.
If I had a house and yard I'd totally be doing this. The solar panels are basically just a weekend project. Really not difficult to put together. You'll need batteries, but people are giving away old boat and car batteries all the time. Make a big bank of those on the side of your house.. like ten or twenty old batteries... they'll store enough.
Keep the regular grid, reduce the load on your own.... why doesn't every house do this? Why doesn't the government give everyone a stimulus check to pay for such things if they care about the environment so much? How about a Green New Deal where we just pay everyone to put up some solar panels in their yard or on their roof? You don't do anything ridiculous like make that the primary power source, but if everyone had a few solar panels, how much would that reduce the grid power usage? Grid is still there, just to be clear... nobody's taking that away..
You can buy complete panels for less than a dollar a watt. They are already dirt cheap. You can invest in a diy system for about 10k for an average house and you will never have another electric bill. They charge about 20 to install.
I priced them already.
Batteries are a different story. Life of batteries are pretty short except for “Edison” batteries and those are really expensive and heavy as shit. No “free shipping” on those
And you are correct about the wind as back up. We just went through more than a week with no power. Need a gigantic battery bank to run a house for a week without recharge.
You need a secondary backup. Always have a gas engine ready to roll out and plug in. A 3k - 5k genset is fairly inexpensive and most come with an RV plug which you can setup as an input to your house's electric system.
Not every power company allows this sadly and some just straight up charge static rates
Many charge you just based on your profiled usage, not even your actual usage. This is one of the reasons for the move to smart meters.
Even that changes if you are dubbed a high user.
I know I'm dubbed a high user too which is really annoying since people are doing so much shit in their homes nowadays on my street.
No way to change that without basically cutting everything either.
Someone has to pay for infrastructure. The grid tie in idea is basically trying to use the grid as a battery for free. No big if a couple parasites try it, catastrophic if solar becomes popular in an area.
Government is giving a 26% tax credit for solar already.
I wish I could. My HOA bans solar panels.
Just looked for broken panels on ebay and couldn’t find any. Do you have a link or a good search string to use?
Broken cells actually, not panels. You need to wire them together to make a panel yourself, but it's easy.
Wind, solar and electric vehicles arent even useful as a bridge away from fossil fuels and towards clean renewable energy.
Mining of rare earths is as dirty a process as any on earth. When the panels and turbines and batteries reach the end of their lifetimes in 20 years or less, none of the parts are reusable or recyclable. Look for images of the massive landfills used to bury the composite components. Components that will sit there for eternity because they do not biodegrade. Electric vehicles arent carbon free as they would like you to believe, it actually makes them coal powered vehicles.
Then consider the massive outlays of land that are stripped barren for use as wind farms and the wildlife and their habitat that is destroyed.
Its all a scam to enrich them and their cronies by stealing from the taxpayer and to provide them with the means to enslave us. Renewables, as they now present themselves, are an ecological disaster.
Have you ever seen a wind farm and how ignorant was “stripped bare”
Reminder that nuclear power exists and is the only viable solution to energy requirements, yet that politicians are ignoring it for some reason.
As near as I can tell, geothermal is the only proper renewal energy source, a reliable and 24/7 base-load type facility. Until fusion power from seawater deuterium or regular old hydrogen becomes safe & viable in a commercial sense.
Wind is inconstant and as we have seen, the damn things freeze up and become useless when they are needed most.
Solar is also inconstant for similar reasons. Snow dumps and precipitation and cloud..
Hydro is no good when its more important to have drinking water rather than spending that elevated water store on power. And is still unreliable as it depends too much on precipitation.
On the other hand, the earths core heat is infinite in any sense of human consumption, at least when it comes to tapping it for the next million years. Even if you dumped all the words oceans and ice into it all at once in one place, it wouldn't really do much to deplete the energy. It doesn't go away at night, or in hurricanes, or when there is too little or too much rain or cloud. Pump water down, receive hot and high velocity steam up, run through turbines for power and vent it wherever.. pumps that handle water and standard turbines are about as simple as a power plant can get.
Nope, nuclear is just as good. But yeah, ocean power and geothermal are indeed great sources of power.
Do you know the source of that heat in the earth? You might be surprised that you are advocating for natural fission power.
Who said oil & gas are not renewable? The so-called "fossil fuels" are renewable. The Russians have proven that. This whole "renewable" canard is just gaslighting by the Left.
It is the duty of every Texas to remove Gov. Wheelchair and his drug cartel funded minions to be run out of the State House!
Nuclear!
Nuclear has been proposed as a solution by the author of "Apocalypse Never".
Per Forbes, if we use brine mining, we would theoretically have enough uranium to last until the sun dies.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/07/01/uranium-seawater-extraction-makes-nuclear-power-completely-renewable/?sh=68b872ca159a
Per wikipedia, the Traveling Wave Reactor design could provide power for millions of years by using depleted nuclear fuel as a source of fuel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TerraPower
Small modular reactors being built by companies like NuScale and GE are looking to make the price of nuclear competitive.
https://nuclear.gepower.com/build-a-plant/products/nuclear-power-plants-overview/bwrx-300
This is the way.
Chubby, I am too ignorant to speak with any authority but I'm asking: "Is LFTR (Thorium) technology viable at all?" I've seen BUNCHES, pro and con, but nothing that convinces me that LFTR should not be tried. What say you?
Thorium's well and good but uranium works and we mine it domestically. A lot of people think the only way nuclear can work is if we get fusion or other exotic tech to work, but the reality is that we could simply use a modern fission cycle. All the stuff about nuclear waste, radiation leakage, and potential for disasters? MSM lies just like everything else. There are solutions to all of these problems. France has gotten the majority of its grid power from nuclear sources since the oil crisis in the 70s. Ask yourself, why have you never heard a peep about France's dominance in the nuclear power? Because it wouldn't fit the narrative.
Point well taken. MSM has become/has long served [those paying attention] more as an informer of what to avoid than what to receive. Energy independence (through any technology[s]) is the last thing the "controllers" want to happen/continue anywhere on Earth.
Abundant, inexpensive energy did MUCH to transform the S.E. US States back in the '40's, '50's and '60's. The "controllers" just can't let that continue or happen elsewhere. I would not be surprised to discover that the attempts to extend rapid and robust communications into rural areas are also being hindered by those who want to maintain control.
Anyway, THANK YOU for responding and THANK YOU for being here! MAGA!
Not an expert either. But it doesn't seem to be an efficient alternative, only a greener alternative. Most articles agree that it works, but is not practical to power a gigawatt plant without loosing money. Just my take on the technology as I understand it.
Thanks for responding! And thank you for being here! MAGA!
I remember reading it would take 10 years just to get the permits to build nuclear. It needs to be done safely, but it is nearly impossible to build one right now. That needs to change, it's the only reliable alternative to fossil fuels.
I'll probably get down voted to hell, but I think it's a good idea to diversify. Don't become too dependent on one type of energy. Especially with the Biden administration making us reliant on oil from the middle east again.
Need nuclear. Texas needs to lead the way.
We have two working nuclear plants. We could easily double that IMO. It’s safe and dependable. Good jobs too.
The left just redpilled an entire state. Keep your wind and solar but you need gas, nuclear and coal as the main source. You can't have millions of people at risk of dying for some elitist game.
lol Texas of all places too.
Guarantee you it started in Austin.
I think the main problem here is the condescending overemphasis of renewable energy and political and academic bully against fossil fuel industries.
A possible solution is to neither ban renewable nor ban fossil fuel. Why not let them compete? Gently.
In the meantime, nuclear should also be considered. Especially, research should be focused more on fusion energy, which may be one of the best solutions to the ongoing energy crises haunting the human civilization.
Windmills & Solar can never replace gas,oil,& nuclear but being energy independent is not a liberal focal point..?
We Colorado citizens need to fight this tooth and nail, Polstroker gots to go!
30 grand?! You can build your own for a couple hundred bucks.
I wouldn't say never, but no way we can go green currently and reliably meet our energy needs.
Costs more to build one than it can ever generate in power value. WTH!
But but AOC - said.... she said... if green nee deal..
Fucking hell - when idiots say dumb things - it’s so easy to see stupidity when facts come out - even for idiots who can’t see it straight away.
Pretty sure it was an Austin idea. Think they forced the Electric company to have a certain percentage of renewable energyin their portfolio or else get a carbon text
THIS is where your anger should be pointed to. The PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION (PUC). They're the ones that sent orders to raise the electric prices.
Those who are responsible for this tragedy Should not only be fired but charged with Murder. How about it AG do your job and go bet these evil bastards
I got my sights on zero Point Energy
HOW IS THIS RELATED TO Q ?
IT IS NOT
Thanks Biden for redpilling our entire state, you fucking clown.
Thought Texas had it all figured out they don’t need the rest of the country
They figured out what they needed to do to winterize their energy production in 2011 (natural gas included, which was the biggest point of failure), but they just didn't do it.
Damn and hydro power.
Good for wildlife. Good for cheap power
I know that paper, they're from my county, Brazos. College Station and Bryan, TX for those who don't know.
Remember folks, all this kind of stuff is just them forcing their will onto others. And windamajigs are real ugly. Tear them all down.
Say it with me Noooo-kleeeee-arrrrr.
Edit: Nuuuuuuuu-kleeeeeeee-arrrrrrr
New kew lurr
New-clear. As in, "It's not old-clear, but new-clear".
don't talk about it........or discuss it............do it!
OK, but they also need to winterize their systems too. Like has been recommended after the last time this happened, and the time before that. 50% of ERCOT power comes from natural gas.
https://www.khou.com/mobile/article/news/local/governor-greg-abbott-ercot-texas-power-outages/287-dbd12f07-5c8e-49b2-9a77-681ee0f705fc
To add to this, the oil wells that pump natural gas, also use electricity for power and comms. The electricity was shut off to the oil field so the power could be directed at homes. The electric companies stopped the production of natural gas by doing this, which meant the electric companies weren’t getting the natural gas they needed to run the plants. Targa was down to one facility out of five, and they were running out natural gas real quick. Had they run out of natural gas, the power plants would have shut down. Then the power plants wouldn’t have been able to send power to the oil field to pump more gas. We were almost on big trouble.
Source: My husband was out in freezing temperatures for three days to get the wells started back up.
How about a standardized nuclear system like France has or a thorium option?