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[gardenman]

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@Kachina624 wrote:

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@Spurt wrote:

The earth sheltered home looks like something a Hobbit would live in ....

All these strange ideas-----seen it before---and none never really caught on....so it looks like a case of try try again........(and the old proverb---nothing is new under the sun)

I have seen some solar panels on roofs here and our local news had stories how they really save on utility bills , but google solar companies and many have gone bankrupt (cant post links because it goes into political talk which is a topic that is not allowed on Forums)

@katiescarlett

Hey Katie maybe the Straw Style House would be perfect for you and your critters........

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@Spurt  Many houses here are built of Straw bales covered with adobe.   Anything with adobe is high maintenance. 

I had the option, as did my neighbors, of having solar panels installed free but decided against it.  I never could figure what was in it for the company.  I'm naturally suspicious.  My friend got them and is happy as a clam.  Gets her electricity free. 

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The "free" solar panels and "free" electricity are actually being paid for by the government and your fellow utility customers. Our brilliant elected officials at both the state and national level, in an effort to show that they're "doing something" about global warming created financial incentives to increase the use of solar panels. (Which ultimately achieve nothing as they have to be backed up by conventional power plants, but they ignore that.)

The companies that provide these panels typically will then bundle the leases together and sell them to one of the big power companies that are now federally mandated to use a certain percentage of renewable power of some sort. The power company then takes the financial hit of buying the leases so they can say they're generating 'x' amount of power through clean sources. They pass on the costs of those leases to their non-solar customers in the form of higher rates. The government meanwhile is handing out cash bonuses to companies that comply with this policy and sending them our tax payer dollars also. It's free like school lunches are free, food stamps are free, welfare is free, etc. It's free for those getting it, but the rest of us are all paying for it.

At some point, someone sane in government is going to take a long hard look at solar panels and realize they're just throwing money away and end the handouts. (In fact solar panels achieve nothing over the long run as they have to be backed up by spinning reserve that's ready to go at a moment's notice and that means keeping conventional power plants on line and fully operational, just as though they were generating the power to begin with.) All heck will break loose then. The solar companies that put the panels on houses will go bankrupt.

In many cases the homeowners are leasing the panels and a bankruptcy judge will likely void the lease and require the panels to be returned to be sold to offset the company's debt. The homeowners may be required to remove the panels and return them which would impose a severe financial hardship on the customer. A removal firm hired by the court may leave the roof in less than ideal shape after the removal process.

In some communities the local government officials have noticed that a lot of fairly well-to-do people are the ones benefitting from the free solar panels and they're now starting to impose new taxes on those with solar panels. I expect that trend to contnue. The homeowners are in some cases now being taxed as a power supply company and the power they're generating is being viewed as a source of income that must be reported. Missouri was the most recent state to try and tax solar, but the industry rebelled and it got shelved for the time being.

Suffice to say the "free" solar panels and "free"  electricity are anything but free. We're all paying for them, which wouldn't be so bad if they were actually achieving something, but they're not. Every watt of power they create is being backed up by a conventional power plant churning away just as if it was producing the power, so the net result is no change in CO2 emissions. We're spending billions, possibly trillions by now, and achieving absolutely nothing. Kudos to the solar industry for the game they're playing, but it's just that, a game. 

Until there's an affordable way to store solar energy in massive quantities, solar energy is a waste of money. Companies like Tesla with their Powerwall technology are taking the first baby steps towards that goal, but we're a long way from it becoming anything close to a reality.

Passive solar on the other hand actually works. It can provide much of the heat needed to heat a home and there's no spinning reserve needed for home heating. The problem is there's no real industry and lobbyists behind passive solar so it's largely ignored. If you take those same solar panels on rooftops and replace the photovoltaic cells with just black painted metal and replace the wiring with ductwork and circulate air through those panels and back into the house on sunny days, you could heat a house at nearly no cost. Excess heat can be stored in an insulated tank of water that would then slowly radiate that heat back out into the home at night using radiators. This is stuff that was being done back in the seventies and early eighties, but is largely ignored today. the only real longterm costs to heat a house in such a manner is for the small air circulator fans and the pumps to move the heated water. 

It's kind of funny that the one thing that might work to reduce CO2 emissions is the thing that no one in the government and few of the environmentalists support. Now they're talking of building giant warehouses filled with lithium ion batteries, or some new generation of batteries, to store the excess solar power generated to end spinning reserve. The costs of those warehouses is enormous however and no one truly knows if they would work. There's a much easier solution right there in front of us that's been around since the seventies, but with no industry or lobbyists pushing it, passive solar is pretty much forgotten.

[Spurt]

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@Kachina624 wrote:

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@Spurt wrote:

The earth sheltered home looks like something a Hobbit would live in ....

All these strange ideas-----seen it before---and none never really caught on....so it looks like a case of try try again........(and the old proverb---nothing is new under the sun)

I have seen some solar panels on roofs here and our local news had stories how they really save on utility bills , but google solar companies and many have gone bankrupt (cant post links because it goes into political talk which is a topic that is not allowed on Forums)

@katiescarlett

Hey Katie maybe the Straw Style House would be perfect for you and your critters........

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@Spurt  Many houses here are built of Straw bales covered with adobe.   Anything with adobe is high maintenance. 

I had the option, as did my neighbors, of having solar panels installed free but decided against it.  I never could figure what was in it for the company.  I'm naturally suspicious.  My friend got them and is happy as a clam.  Gets her electricity free. 

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@Kachina624

Well Katie lives in the country in SC and she has horses, barn cats and several dogs....she is always talking abut bailing hay and cleaning the barn so I thought the straw house would be a good option (just kidding with her, especially now knowing it would be high maintenance and she has high maintenance with all her critters)...................

Yep, I'm with you Kachina....if it sounds too good to be true there has to be a catch somewhere......one guy said that "the catch" was that one solar company he was considering said that he had to give the solar company the electric company rebate check he received and IRS tax credit too....that sounds like a scam to me.............and then considering the cost of the solar panels (even if the installation was free you had to pay something for the panels, right?) So how long before you actually see a real savings.....they said the average bill goes down by $43 a month here......but then your paying for the panels so where is the real savings???????????????  I know they are pushing solar here....they built a government building which is using solar energy, thats nice but the people of SA paid for that........... 

[Spurt]

@gardenman

Well as far as clean energy and co2 emissions---the whole thing is so hypocritical....if they were so concerned why do they still allow the manufacturing of these HUGE (and I do mean HUGE trucks) ---real GAS GUZZLERS and clean air destroyers to continue to be built....its not that people need these because they are ranchers or work in construction industry etc....or have to haul things...its more of a prestige thing here.....Also why does the Zoning Commission allow buildings and apartments to be built in areas that are already congested ....... On one main thoroughfare near where my sister lives....traffic is so backed up that when there is a green light no one can move.....yet they allowed more and more businesses to be built around there including a 300 unit apartment complex so all those tenants will be converging on an already crowded street and all this congestion and pollution from the cars/trucks contributes to "Ozone Action Days" bad air quality.... if we reach so many the city gets penalized, then taxpayers get penalized etc.....Basically the city weighs the money they make from the businesses vs air quality and guess what wins......so why bother with all this alternate energy stuff which just seems like a lot of nonsense since they arent purusing real solutions and they seem to be counter productive anyway in other decisions cities are making! 

[katiescarlett]

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@Spurt wrote:

The earth sheltered home looks like something a Hobbit would live in ....

All these strange ideas-----seen it before---and none never really caught on....so it looks like a case of try try again........(and the old proverb---nothing is new under the sun)

I have seen some solar panels on roofs here and our local news had stories how they really save on utility bills , but google solar companies and many have gone bankrupt (cant post links because it goes into political talk which is a topic that is not allowed on Forums)

@katiescarlett

Hey Katie maybe the Straw Style House would be perfect for you and your critters........

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THey would just eat it.

[Spurt]

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@katiescarlett wrote:

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@Spurt wrote:

The earth sheltered home looks like something a Hobbit would live in ....

All these strange ideas-----seen it before---and none never really caught on....so it looks like a case of try try again........(and the old proverb---nothing is new under the sun)

I have seen some solar panels on roofs here and our local news had stories how they really save on utility bills , but google solar companies and many have gone bankrupt (cant post links because it goes into political talk which is a topic that is not allowed on Forums)

@katiescarlett

Hey Katie maybe the Straw Style House would be perfect for you and your critters........

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THey would just eat it.

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@katiescarlett

LOL!!!  Well maybe that would save you time for feeding your horses since this would be more  "self-serve" for them.... 

[Kachina624]

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SPURT wrote:..

Yep, I'm with you Kachina....if it sounds too good to be true there has to be a catch somewhere......one guy said that "the catch" was that one solar company he was considering said that he had to give the solar company the electric company rebate check he received and IRS tax credit too....that sounds like a scam to me.............and then considering the cost of the solar panels (even if the installation was free you had to pay something for the panels, right?) So how long before you actually see a real savings.....they said the average bill goes down by $43 a month here......but then your paying for the panels so where is the real savings???????????????  I know they are pushing solar here....they built a government building which is using solar energy, thats nice but the people of SA paid for that........... 

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No, @Spurt  There absolutely no charge for the panel or any outlay for the customer.  The panels generate enough for 100% of my friend's use; any excess is stored I believe.  I thought maybe the company got that and made money on it but I specifically asked and he said no.  The day the panels were installed, the electric company showed up and inspected them.  No rebate or tax credit was mentioned.