Solar and the electric car

Odium wrote:

Lord Skimper wrote:
Cost isn't much more, about $4500 Canadian. For solar shingles. They last 40+ years and the new ones have a non stick coating that repels water and snow and dirt etc.... As for having them wired in, saves you money in the form of electricity.

I'm not sure where you are getting the 4500 from. While I didn't spend much time looking, the costs I found were in the $40,000+ range for an average house, at 3000 sq ft I'm a bit over average roof size. The various quotes I got for redoing my asphalt shingles ranged from 6-10,000. Given that my roof has 6-20" of snow on it from mid October to mid April on average, and we only get 7-8 hours of daylight in the winter, I think it's safe to assume it would provide a negligible amount of power for 5 months of the year. Now in the summer we get 16-18 hrs of daylight, but that's when I use the least power. If the system lowers my power consumption to zero 7 months of the year, Id save around $22,500 over 25 years. But it would cost me over $32000 more to put it on than a conventional roof. Might make sense elsewhere, but useless waste of money up here

Your prices are crazy. Panels average $200. Shingles much less. Most of your $40,000 is profit in someone's pocket. 10,000 sqft costs about $14,000, including batteries and electrician costs. Installation is extra but if you are paying anything over $3-5,000 you need to go back to negotiator school. minus the cost of asphalt shingles and their installation twice. Added snow fall is either cleared with the aqua shield coatings, used on higher end car lights now, or with a heated roof system, the kind of system that is used to clear walkways and driveways, they auto turn on and melt snow before it collects. With your solar and a storage medium, batteries or MDI, you are set day and night.

Also solar panels run off of UV light as well clouds do not prevent panels from working, even indirect light is fine, which is why you cover your whole roof, not just the sunny side. Bright direct is better, but not mandatory.

Also remember most of your electrical costs, in Alberta, is administrative costs. Transmission and office costs. The electricity is dirt cheap here. $0.033 /KWH. In Ontario they are crazy $0.23+ /KWH. But even more crazy is their Eco Energy 20 year contracts that will buy the first 10 KWH at $0.34 / KWH. There you just feed everything you make back into the grid no batteries connected to the solar, just charge your backup batteries off the grid.

You can of course use batteries with the grid. For emergencies blackouts or brown out protection.

In the cities even street lights will power your solar panels.

http://www.warmzone.com/ is great, with radiant heat inside your house and hydration provided by fountains or humdifiers, you can build them in to make it esthetically pleasing and without forced air you cut down on dust.

You can also heat walls or ceilings where need be. (Such as a garage without pouring a new pad) or a barn etc...

Getting back to the electric car, here in SW OR USA we pay about $0.04482 cents per KWH under 1000 KWH per month. More than that the price jumps up. We used 248 KWH of juice last month for May, 2016.

Lots of folks live here in our nearly perfect mountain valley town and commute North every working day to the "Big City". About 40 miles one way on average. That was my working commute mileage years ago.

Perfect for an electric car. Especially if there were more charging ports at places of employment. Cheap electricity. Moderate range for a working electric car. Charging only at work doable and ideal for us.

Switching gears here, years ago our first small solar homestead had PV panels on the roof and old nasty nickel cadmium medium rate storage cells under the dedicated floor. PV worked only so so.

Small system. About 40 KWH monthly during the hot dry clear summers and about only 10 KWH monthly during the cold snowy cloudy winders. The cabin had cool tubes. Wood stove. A few lights.

Small gas generator for winter backup. The PV system worked but the delivered actual power was below what the equations indicated. A very large expensive PV system was sorely needed.

A PV system big enough to work the homestead AND provide enough capacity to recharge an electric car THEN was not doable. Today not much has changed. Such a system would be very expensive indeed.

Getting back to electric cars....

What is happening in California is that the governmental elite have figured out that if the general population has total electric cars then the parasites in the state capital will lose all those millions of dollars generated by the gas tax... So what do they want to do... but tax you on the milage you drive...

It would be much easier if everyone rode a horse then the over taxed population can send all the horse shit back where it belongs....

So funny, thank you.

Senior Chief wrote:Getting back to electric cars....

What is happening in California is that the governmental elite have figured out that if the general population has total electric cars then the parasites in the state capital will lose all those millions of dollars generated by the gas tax... So what do they want to do... but tax you on the milage you drive...

It would be much easier if everyone rode a horse then the over taxed population can send all the horse shit back where it belongs....

Daryl wrote:So funny, thank you.

Senior Chief wrote:Getting back to electric cars....

What is happening in California is that the governmental elite have figured out that if the general population has total electric cars then the parasites in the state capital will lose all those millions of dollars generated by the gas tax... So what do they want to do... but tax you on the milage you drive...

It would be much easier if everyone rode a horse then the over taxed population can send all the horse shit back where it belongs....

A few blocks, feet; dozens of blocks, bicycle, weather permitting; a few dozen miles, electric car; longer distances, fuel (or hybrid). The problem is the expenses of multiple methods. OTOH, feet are free, and a bicycle costs less than many car repairs.

Local circumstances need to be considered. In the 70s, I met a couple living in a city who used knapsacks and roller skates, weather permitting. They would skate to the bus stop and change to shoes - reverse procedure at the other end

You haven't bought a bike recently have you. They sell for $5,000 to $10,000 now. Crazy i know but true. Buy used and you can pick up an older Cannondale for a few hundred dollars. Spend $100 on a NYC rated Kryptonite Lock and you are good to go.

Lord Skimper wrote:You haven't bought a bike recently have you. They sell for $5,000 to $10,000 now. Crazy i know but true. Buy used and you can pick up an older Cannondale for a few hundred dollars. Spend $100 on a NYC rated Kryptonite Lock and you are good to go.

Anybody who pays those prices for simple transportation is nuts. A decent bike for transportation can be had at Walmart or Target for US$150-US$250. Tough, durable, and cheap enough to replace if it is stolen.

Weird Harold wrote:

Lord Skimper wrote:You haven't bought a bike recently have you. They sell for $5,000 to $10,000 now. Crazy i know but true. Buy used and you can pick up an older Cannondale for a few hundred dollars. Spend $100 on a NYC rated Kryptonite Lock and you are good to go.

Anybody who pays those prices for simple transportation is nuts. A decent bike for transportation can be had at Walmart or Target for US$150-US$250. Tough, durable, and cheap enough to replace if it is stolen.

Less than that even. Walmart had 18 spd 26" mountain bikes for $99 Canadian 2 months ago. I just bought one for $10 off the local facebook buy and sell group though

Fools and their money are soon parted.