Hudson Valley Pickens Supporters

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Comment by david epps on November 8, 2008 at 7:52am

To the members of this group:
No Apologies here. Todays PV are obsolete.
PV dealers, lucier included, take exception to the facts

------ Batteries are a solution for those that get charged high peak rates and low off peak rates.
------ 85% reflective window film can save as much electricity as PV's generate.
------ Insulation to R-24 walls and R-50 attic can retain as much energy as PV's generate.
------ GSHP's can save as much energy as todays PV generate.
------ Solar thermal panels collect about the same amount of energy as todays PV's generate.
------ Capturing attic space energy can be about the same amount of energy as todays PV's generate.

These facts are true anywhere in America.and todays PV are obsolete everywhere in America.
Implementing all of these will cost about 1/2 of a similar sized installation of todays PV.
A PV dealer is not the person you should get advice from regarding home energy efficiency and cost savings.

Have a professional energy auditor test all aspects of your home energy use characteristics.
Have a professional independent HVAC engineer redesign all the energy subsystems of the whole house and assist you to select energy saving strategies that work best for your home and your cash.

The key to the home energy family budget and for the regional generating and the national electrical grid is reduce consumption. The utility companies and the State regulatory bodies and the national electrical grid has been good for Americans for the last 18 years of price decreases and it will be good for the US for another 18 years if Americans would divorce themselves of the more is better mindset.

Building more electricity generating plants on your roof top is folly.

I am a hook and bullet environmentalist.
I am a Conscientious Pickens Environmentalist (CPE)
I will not stand idly by while Americas wealth is wasted on todays PV. A hoax that has been foisted on America by Whacko Marxist environmentalists. If you have a better name for this group of activists and PAC's and now PV dealers I will use it. My apologies to environmentalist in general if this label puts a burr under your saddle. If the shoe fits wear it, if it don't fit then no offense.

Here is how todays PV fad all concocted by Whacko Marxist environmentalists transpired
1. Whacko environmentalists played on the fear of global warming forcing utility companies to abandon coal and switch to natural gas generation. which did not markedly do one thing to reduce carbon or pollution.
2. Whacko environmentalists played on the hate for local utility companies raising electricity rates as a result of natural gas prices.
3. The real estate boom exacerbated this situation. Homes were built as quick and as cheap as they could during a time when energy costs were low and home energy efficiency was not given the attention that it should.
4. Drafty, 2X4 stick frame, R-11, vinyl sided, unwrapped exterior wall construction
5. Little or no attic insulation
6. Uninsulated ductwork passing through unconditioned space
7. Energy inefficient HVAC systems and domestic hot water system.
8. Electricity and energy pig homes that looked very pretty and having excellent workmanship counted in the millions and millions.
9. Whacko environmentalists PAC's pushed through a democrat congress huge unlimited 30% tax credit and incentives for todays PV used in those grossly inefficient personal residences.
10. You are made to think that you have shielded yourself from electricity rate increases by PV dealers. But this is a false.security
11. Your new electricity rates are added to your tax bill to pay for those tax credits and incentives for todays PV
12. Your new electrcity rate is payed as lump sum to purchase your electricity 20 to 40 years in the future using todays PV.
13. Todays PV is:
Hyped up - you see PV on more and more commercial buildings. Why? See next entry.
Intangible asset - LEED certification for sustainable architecture allocates dollar value to "corporate image" to offset cost of PV
High carbon footprint - The embodied energy in PV ($7 per watt) comes from fossil fuel for their manufacture in China.
subversive - The allure of FREE ENERGY ignoring the fact that harvesting the energy costs energy
imported, - 10% of PV is manufactured in the US. The US consumed 20% (2006). Same old pattern. Higher in 2008, I'm sure.
$7 per watt, - You have to put about 7000 watts on a roof top to generate an inefficient homes electricity, $49,000
30 to 40 year payback, - Dividing $49,000 by the cost of grid electricity equals the payback (varies by the amount of sunshine)
Not renewable resource - A whole high tech industrial infrastructure and $7/KW of fossil fuel to manufacture todays PV.
Not Green - It costs more to sow PV than what you reap from PV.
Not sustainable - PV requires inexpensive Hydro electricity to manufacture rather than expensive electricity derived from PV.
toxic, - Arsenic, indium, bromine, gallium and etc all the elements used in the manufacture of PV need disposal.
energy robbing, - The energy was stolen from the grid to make the PV to generate the replacement energy to put on the grid.
30 year old technology - no real progress in PV efficiencies has been made since their invention.
subsidized - nearly 75% funded by government and utility companies to put on peoples roof tops
utility company rip off - With PV generation the operation and maintenance costs are born by the PV owner.
Whacko environmentalist heart throb - A mindless belief in PV
government hope plan - Government hopes that billions of dollars spent on PV will solve the energy crisis.
hoax - at current electricity rates the payback period for PV is greater than the useful life of the PV
Job exporting - Solar thermal panels, just as efficient as PV, was a successful American cottage industry until the PV subsidies.
SUV of solar - its big, its expensive, its wasteful, it has no utility, their should be a law against PV

What about all those Americans who can't afford the PV????????
What are those Americans going to do to pay their ever increasing electrical bill?????????
What are those Americans going to do to pay their ever increasing tax bill for the PV subsidy????????

Obama is a wacko environmentalist or he is pandering to wacko environmentalist (which means he is a lier), when he says he is going to bankrupt the coal industry if they don't clean up coal (cleaner than coal is now). To clean up already clean coal more makes coal fired plant twice as expensive to build and operate , nearly all of US electricity is produced by clean fossil fuels so the price of electricity will double but the plan is to reimburse most people for their higher heating costs which does nothing for conservation thus bankrupting America. The Whacko Marxist environmentalists are intent on bankrupting America any way you care to look at it.

You aren't Whacko if you agree in 1 thorugh 13 above.
You are Marxist if you engender hate and fear in the population and don't support capitalism and are not against bankruptcy.

You are a conscientious Pickens environmentalist who believes in balanced, pragmatic approaches to decreasing the costs of energy with a goal of maintaining the current clean environment who also support The principals of the Pickens plan.

Stop importing energy
Stop exporting wealth
Promote made in the America wind mills
and the corollary
promote other made in America energy.

In acknowledgment that our neighbors to the north and south
Where electrical grids and pipelines cross those borders
Where oil and gas are obtained and refined products are shipped.
And very beneficially contribute to the energy solution
but are part of the energy problem on this regional scale
let us say
Promote made in the North America wind mills
and the corollary
promote other made in North America energy.

Become a conscientious Pickens environmentalist (CPE)

cites
http://www.iea-pvps.org/
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/FTPROOT/renewables/017406.pdf
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/page/solarphotv/table...
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/assumption/pdf/electricity.pdf#page=3

Comment by David Lucier on November 7, 2008 at 2:29pm

To the members of this group:
Please accept my apology for bothering you with this discussion involving Mr. Epps. It won't continue beyond this point.
I wasn't happy doing it, but felt it had to be done.
Thank you for your patience in this matter.

Sincerely,
David

Comment by David Lucier on November 7, 2008 at 2:23pm

David Epps,
Again, this has nothing to do with PV, and I don't know what reward you speak of. If having to deal with your constant verbal abuse and tirades is the reward, then please send it back.

You made statements on your thread that you presented as fact, not theory, that UPS's could be used as a way to mitigate peak demand charges. I called on you to substantiate your claims. You have not done so, and have abused me and the members of three discussion groups in the process.

I guess that by now, your credibility on this site is nonexistent. You, with your constant abuse and steadfast refusal to give me and the groups involved an answer, have burnt your own bridges.

I'm done with you. Go crawl back under the rock you emerged from.
David

Comment by david epps on November 7, 2008 at 5:17am

You are a PV dealer.
You have a vested interest in promoting PV so your testimony is tainted.
You have received your just rewards!

The seeds of doubt have been sown.
But they will not prosper because the allure of a government handout is way to strong.
And your snake oil sparkles from the 85% suns rays that it doesn't convert to electricity.

Comment by David Lucier on November 7, 2008 at 3:40am

Mr. Epps,
Sorry about your credibility, but it won't wash.

First misrepresentation, you didn't put forth a thesis, or theory, on that thread as you now state. You present that thread as an accomplished fact, and it's still up.

Second misrepresentation, you initially picked equipment that wouldn't work in a residential setting, as you stated this was for powering a residence. Since then you have been trying to come back with different variations of system components that you now say should work, not will work.

Third, you have not proved that any of the devices that you have picked can be configured to accomplish your aim, even though you present them as being able to do so. You state that you made a choice of battery that would draw out anyone opposed to your design. I don't care about the battery, the battery charger, or anything else. I want to see a design from you that will actually work, not some half baked conglomeration of components.

Last but not least, you now state that the thread in question was a blatant attempt to sandbag people into responding so you could tear into them. Why do you feel the need to do so? I cannot understand your need to abuse and belittle other people.

You make the statements. I'm only asking you to back them up.

David

Comment by david epps on November 6, 2008 at 7:18pm

This just blows me away! How can the generations be so different?
This is the way I see this whole exchange.

I put forth the thesis
For those that get charged peak rates and have much cheaper off peak rate, Here is a non-PV solution.
This idea goes right to the heart of why PV is being sold to Arizonians.
I believe these are typical electricity rates in Arizona
electricity on-peak (daytime) $0.12845 per kWh. electricity off-peak (nighttime) $0.04925 per kWh
That gives you a price spread $.0792 per kWh which is huge.
I blocked the discussion so as to draw out the most virulent detractors of my work.
Well that worked.
And the detractors of my work.attacked the choice of the battery, a error made on purpose
Well that worked.
And the detractors of my work.fixated on that one irrelevant error
They repeatedly.attempted to deflect from the thesis
For those that get charged peak rates and have much cheaper off peak rate, Here is a non-PV solution.
But I continued to focus on all the negative things about todays PV and on the thesis
For those that get charged peak rates and have much cheaper off peak rate, Here is a non-PV solution.
After a number of rounds of this ropa-dope
I took the sucker punch.
Everyone who has shopped for todays PV for an off-grid application knows that batteries are used to store the electrical energy during the day and are used to power the home at night.
So charging batteries during on-peak is using this power during off-peak is no different.
I presented an alternative using the batteries from on off-grid PV ($12,000) system and the inverter ($4,000)
And the detractors of my work looked and said the inverter wouldn't work. I knew that.
So then I offered a different inverter and suggested that my detractors were actually designing a PV replacement.
And then the detractors of my work went away.

What blows me away is that the detractor of my work rather than realizing he has a product that he could sale
He went back to his warm and comfortable place with the PV group. Not being able to say yeah thats right.
For those that get charged peak rates and have much cheaper off peak rate, Here is a non-PV solution.

I come from a generation where you designed hardware on bar napkins and were careful of who was within earshot.
The guys and products were coming out of the woodwork during the last energy crisis. New stuff practically everyday.
And during the early days of the PC this was more true.

Here is the way the design turned out

The battery charger, plugged into an outlet during off peak.
.

These batteries are charged during off-peak.by the above charger

The inverters run off the above batteries and are connected to each each of your homes 15 amp circuits.

Now of course this needs refinement
UL approval
Accommodating high amperage and voltage circuits
automatic switch over
battery life issues.
and a plethora of productizing details.
A great DIY project if your home not ham strung by building codes.

Cost about $4000 you save about $17,000 over todays PV.
payback about 50,000kWh or 3 years.

For those that get charged peak rates and have much cheaper off peak rate, That is the non-PV solution.

The alternative is Todays
Hyped up
Intangible asset
High carbon footprint
subversive
imported,
$7 per watt,
30 to 40 year payback,
toxic,
energy robbing,
30 year old technology,
subsidized,
utility company rip off,
environmentalist heart throb,
government hope plan,
hoax
Job exporting
PV is the SUV of solar.

Comment by David Lucier on November 6, 2008 at 5:24pm

Mr. Epps,
No answers? Just as I suspected.When you know what you are talking about get back to me.
David

Comment by david epps on November 6, 2008 at 5:09pm

You have almost designed a product. Keep at it.
Now you can take most everything off that BOM, the PV and now the inverter.
Note I mentioned a big automobile battery charger not on the off-grid BOM.
Thinking outside the box is scary but it makes you feel alive, don't it.

Comment by David Lucier on November 6, 2008 at 5:06pm

Mr. Epps,
BTW, I think you meant angst, not anxt. No fear or anxiety here, just a sincere interest in hearing answers from you that are practical, not some half baked idea expressed as fact, and if not, that you remove the offending thread.
David

Comment by Lisa Silk on November 6, 2008 at 5:05pm

I wasn't aware that 'heated' discussions were a form of alternative energy! ;-)

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