Lithium–air battery, they could make electric cars practical.

What do you do with your solar power?
Selling to the grid makes sense, you make power, whoever needs it gets it. Most utilities hate that because it eats into their monopoly
If your going to go off grid then batteries, inverters and charge controllers will cost a lot. The source of that power does not make any difference. You can go “off grid” by charging with grid power off peak, gasoline/diesel generators, mice on treadmills, the batteries, inverters and charge controllers will cost the same :frowning:
So solar/wind feeding to grid makes the most sense economically and environmentally, but corporate interests Trump human, personal or climate change interests. Until we change our minds and vote for leaders who don’t believe in taking from society to give to the rich and powerful we will have these kinds of problems.

+1

“Money doesn’t talk, it swears”

Bob Dylan

Yes see where your coming from, I came to the same conclusion that the batteries - plus replacement every few years - and the battery inverter are very prohibitively expensive - more expensive than 6kw worth of solar pv panels -, so I just got the solar panels and let my existing grid connection deal with my peak demand, and when I’m producing more than I need my excess power feeds back into the grid, which is how most people with solar panels do it here.
If the solar panels are cheap enough in the US is that not something you could do ?, if enough do it then during the day it should drastically reduces the need for energy from the power companies fossil fuel powered generating stations

For my power company (Xcel Energy) power returned to the grid is lost money. They pay almost nothing at all for it. Then charge you full rate to take it back.

They do this by installing a “double register” meter on your house. So even if you quickly give then take, it captures their profit.

The initial cost of an at-home full-house solar system is beyond the means of most people and banks don’t loan for it alone yet but will often incorporate into a large enough building or remodeling loan. And those systems have to be twice as large to handle the way people use electricity now- part of going solar is not wasting the limited energy you’ll have and people want their convenience. The only economical solar is “Grid- Inter-tie” without batteries involved. Storing your power is the largest cost and that method is still a bit pricier than grid power, plus it cones with needing to replace the battery regularly. Grid inter-tie isn’t allowed everywhere and in some places the selling price of the power you make is artificially kept down to prevent you from ‘competing’ with the power company leaving you in the red no matter what you do. Then there are maintenance and repairs which you have to do or pay for, where on the grid that’s already incorporated into your bill. Plus not every location is good for solar. I’m on a tiny heavily shaded lot but which has great afternoon sun potential. I could use a small solar system for a partial un-gridding but I heat with electricity so a full system is simply impossible here without making a lot of other changes to go with it rendering it economically stupid to try. I may do a small system someday bur as much for hobby and emergency use as for savings.

Many of the drawbacks could be overcome by government action- no not subsidies but by requiring fairness by power companies and by de-taxing solar power items. Like in-home LED lighting which took a while to become good and economical, solar isn’t quite here yet but it won’t be long before it is. Wind power is a whole other matter. For emergency and hobby systems it’s OK in some places but there are far fewer viable locations for it and much stronger objections against it. In the right settings it is good enough now but those places are very few and it still takes loads of money to begin and maintain a large system. Another aspect here is that petro-power caries more and more taxation and regulation costs as each year goes by, which helps the solar/wind/petro financial balance look better than it actually is.

Our best approach is to be more miserly with our energy, but that ain’t going to happen in a world full of gadgets eating power where you can play if you can pay and where most people will pay rather than change how they live. Eventually every earth-sourced resource will run out. We have a finite Earth and when it’s all used up we’re all dead or going back to being a planet with a few cavemen on it. Even solar requires earth-sourced resources to function so it’s only going to extend our time somewhat and it too will be discovered to have drawbacks and problems we didn’t know of or consider eventually. So there’s no “magic pill” to cure our multiple problems, only choices we can make which will as always affect our future. We, as humans, have a p-poor record of making good choices now so I don’t expect better to happen now.

Phil

I try to use as much as possible, the excess is sold to the power company, for what it’s worth 6kw of panels over the year and the power company pay you about enough to fill the tank of an SUV twice, but as you say they don’t like it.

But I was thinking if it’s that cheap for solar or wind, and just from reading on here and other places there are clearly many people passionate about burning less fossil fuels and doing something about the issues we all face, would not a simple say 6kw panel set up - forgot battery storage or battery inverters,as you said far to expensive - something many could easily afford, no corporate involvement or waiting for things to change or politicians to act and a small step many could take to make a small different, you put up your solar pv panels or wind turbine, use what you can and feed the excess power back in to the grid for others to benifit from :slight_smile:

The easy way to fix this problem is to vote for solar/wind friendly leaders.

Bullseye :+1: Our biggest problem is that the minority rich are the ones running the show for themselves and not for the majority who are not rich. It is only when the majority rule themselves that the majority can ascend to a better life. I’m not anti-capitalism but I am pro-society and what’s good for the majority wouldn’t really harm the rich, only lower their potential profit margins unless they’re investing in the people themselves. Then they would do good along with the people- a win/win.

Don’t lead me- I can think for myself and I will not follow. Don’t follow me- I may err and I don’t want to drag you down with me. Let’s just go along together helping each other do well instead.

Phil

How to convert the world to sustainable energy:

  1. Invent solar panels and good batteries. Perfection not needed yet. (done)
  2. Convince everyone that change is good (haha)
  3. Use profits to perfect the tech and competition to drive down cost really low (doing our best, but we failed at step2, so yea…)

In the end voters are the ones who choose bad leaders who give away the farm. If we want to do better its up to us to kick them out of office and hold them accountable

Interesting, thanks.

That may be the easy way, but it isn’t the right way. I don’t want a solar/wind friendly leader. I want leaders who are honest. I believe in living according to the truth. If solar and wind energy are truly better alternatives, honest leaders will be friendly to them. As for the assertion that solar/wind is cheaper than fossil fuels, I haven’t seen any proof of that. I’d be glad for somebody to show me the math. Fair warning though, I tend to be very skeptical and somewhat critical. I can only be convinced by hard facts, not marketing materials or emotional pleas to save the Earth. LED home lighting is not what I’d call good or economical, either. It could be made that way, but the stores in my area only sell junk in the range of what they call “affordable” which is still highly overpriced, even with our government subsidies! I’d love to convert my home to renewable energy, and use LEDs in all my home lighting, but I can’t afford it. Anybody willing to finance my conversion? I’ll repay you with what I’m now paying on my energy bills every month! If you really believe that this stuff is cheaper, then you should stand to make a huge profit! :smiley:

Critical thinking is a safe-guard against people parading around with the “Truth”.

Is there any longterm way to store gasoline?
I know about the litle bottle of additive you can buy to put in your gas tank.

I’m wondering whether there’s any source for gasoline canned like beans, shelf-stable-and-forgetaboutit, good for years.

Yeah, I know li-ions start to degrade right away, and have significant capacity lost after a few years.
Gasoline degrades even faster, into varnish.

You got THAT right! :wink:

You can, over here it’s sold in 1 gallon blue plastic bottles readily available in places that sell and service chainsaws, ride on mowers etc, forget what it’s called but it’s a 98 Ron unleaded gasoline, and is ment to be good for 10 years + not cheap though at $22 a gallon, but then it’s a limited/niece market so I quess they can charge what they like

It’s the ethonol in modern gasoline that causes it to have a very short shelf life, due to ethonols pertencerty to absorb water.
If you can find gasoline with no ethonol content it should have a long shelf life if stored correctly

I’d settle for neutral any day but with the money and access available to the oil lobby it isn’t. What price do you put on put on a few extra hurricanes or a dozen additional tornadoes. The power of these comes from heat energy stored in the oceans and atmosphere. Hard to measure and harder still to put a dollar cost to but without any doubt whatsoever the finger points solely and exclusively at fossil fuels. Spend some time critically thinking about that one.

+1

Then there’s the cost in lives lost in the wars fought over this resource. The taxes spent on men and munitions don’t come from the pump. What do you call that kind of subsidy? I would shout for joy at real critical thinking. “It costs too much” is a total load. It isn’t free, nothing is, least of all gas.

Well, I don’t count wars because wars have been started for really stupid reasons. At least gasoline has value, so it’s logical to fight over it. Not condoning war, just saying that stupid people do stupid things, and I wouldn’t blame gasoline for that. I don’t see anybody calling to ban diamonds, gold, or Nike Air Jordans because of people killing for them. As for warming the oceans and such, I guess some people wouldn’t be happy in a tropical world, but I personally know some people that would be glad to never see winter again. (I happen to like snow and ice) I suppose I’m just a bit cynical because I see so many of the arguments about human-caused catastrophic climate change being debunked by the next scientist that studies the weather. I admit I don’t care enough to study it for myself. But, I still want better energy production resources, and good quality but cheap LED lighting, not to save the Earth, but to save my wallet!