Okay folks, how about this as part of our energy strategy
 

Was talking to the wife last night, and she suggested making solar panels a required part of new construction. I don't know how practical this would be in places with severe weather, snow and what not, but it did not sound too bad to me. I would not add that much as a percentage of expense, and would hopefully give long term return.

My sister is looking at putting some on top of her barn for the tax gimmick and so their well will run if the power goes out and it is daytime. We do burn a lot of fossil fuel for electricity.

How about removing the legislative barriers to building new fourth generation nuclear facilities? We could be energy independent in a decade.

I think it still takes more energy to manufacture solar cells than they can return in their useful life...
Their efficiency is pretty low.

Exactly. ...and is why solar panels find good use where routing electrical (wires) or replacing batteries is costly.

From what I've read this may be changing soon. If manufacture efficiencies and expect life of solar cells can be increased, we may have something. Until then, let's use what is cheap.

We are so frigging stupid on some things. Why are we not mandating solar and wind power??? Areas that have a lot of sun should have solar water heaters at a minimum, but not in my subdivision. Its not allowed and my wonderful HOA will not even discuss it.

As soon as the prices come back up a bit I am moving out and its to a place where I can have solar and wind power.

solar water heaters can be very effective.

Actually, rather than mandate everyone install something like that, why not, in areas like Phoenix, have municipalities supply solar heated water?

The problem is that local utilities don't really care what the cost of energy is. They just pass the cost on to the consumers.

If there were a truly competitive energy market, you would see all kinds of efficient innovations.

A friend of mine built a solar heated water system, per se. It was really just a collection of black PVC pipes zig-zagging back and forth across a glass box on his roof, iirc. It seems like he used a pump to move water from the heated tubes into the rest of the plumbing, so it wasn't completely electricity-free, but it was better than paying for electricity to heat the water. I'd be interested in seeing anyone else's good ideas to improve personal energy independence. Solar cells are still pretty stinkin' expensive for us normal folk. I'd love to install some on my roof, which gets a huge amount of sunlight. It's just a lot of coin, though.

Nuclear? I'm a big fan of nuclear. I'll grant, there's problems with waste disposal, but there will always be problems with waste disposal. Right now, we're disposing of "waste coal," per se, as nasty stuff that goes up in smoke into the atmosphere. We dispose of waste gasoline byproducts out exhaust pipes at the backs of our cars. Why are we happier about disposing of waste straight into the atmosphere than we are about carefully burying it?

Dan

I'd argue that the ewer "leaded glass" disposal techniques are pretty darned safe. Nuclear energy has the best safety record of all commercial energy sources. Safer than hydroelectric!

My parents have one of those water things on their roof, a pool and a heat exchanger doo dad. They can use the hot water to heat the house, the pool or put heat into the pool or run it at night to cool the house.

Admittedly, I don't know much about solar electricity generation, but it seems like a diffuse generation system would be attractive for a lot of reasons.

We should be pursuing Nuclear(Nook-you-lear) more than we do. Rancho Seco is a nuke plant near here, similar to the TMI facility in PA that got everyone all excited. Been closed for a while, made the area into a park, with those two big Simpson's lookin' cooling towers standing there not spitting steam.

Has anyone died secondary to nuclear power generation, I mean not in Russia.

The problem with solar water heaters is that gas is still too cheap. My gas bill in the summer is $20 a month (using natural gas). A professional solar hot water heater system is about 5k installed. Even assuming $40 in savings a month, it will take a decade to pay for it. By then the system will be old and need to be replaced or need serious maintenance. This stuff also is on your roof and interferes with roof maintenance. A decade to pay it off is also too long as most people (including myself) don't see themselves in the same house for a decade. Right now I doubt a house buyer would pay extra for this feature.

George

No doubt, nuclear power generation is not only a viable answer to our own energy problems, but it is a technology that we can sell to developing nations. Our Navy has been harnessing it for decades without incident. It's way past time to look at it again.

I did something similar when I was a hippie and had a small camp in New Hampshire. I took 200 feet of black garden hose. Coiled it up in a plexiglass box and put it on the lean to roof. It was a gravity feed from a barrel and provided a HOT shower for our campsite.

A friend of mine near Squam built a fan powered cooling system for his new cabin that was ingenious. He dug a trench in the basement that was 4 feet deep. Installed concrete pipe (18 inch IIRC) in the trench and connected duct wirk to both ends. One end removed warm air from the top floor , the fan circulated it through the buried pipe and then brought it back up to the top floor. Worked rather well. I think the temp delta was about 15 / 20 degrees.

China is building 30 new "Pebble Reactors". Amazing technology. I think Wikipedia has a great article about the technology.

Funny how things change. Nuclear energy may turn out to be the "greenest" option there is.

. . as long as it's in someone else back yard; right?

Bingo. That is the best answer.

Solar and wind power is not very cost efficient in most cases, unless the government is sponsoring it with rebates and tax deductions, in that case we all have to pay extra for it.

Bravo! YAH! Well stated...and true!

No need to put them in anyone's back yard. Power lines can be run for miles.

My house is 7.5 years old now. The solar system would be 80% paid for now if it had been installed on the house when it was built. I would pay for it right now but as I said above, the frigging HOA will not allow it on my house.

Natural gas too cheap? Wait another couple of years when we have used alot more of it.

I bought a small solar system a while ago out of Craigs List. Going to play with it and get my feet wet in renewable energy. Anyone who is in the sun belt and is not doing it is behind the times IMHO.

Nuclear power plants need uranium, which isn't a renewable resource. Also, when you burn the uranium you get plutonium and that can be used for nuclear weapons. Not a huge deal, but nuclear power has it's own issues.

George