[Laker14]

Originally Posted by jimjamuser

Good enough for Government work (and little old - myself!

I edited that post, BTW. I think they are holding that there is a 60% chance of global warming being significantly human caused.
Which I think goes to the point that the "science" is iffy either way.

My take on it is that the data may be well agreed upon, but the conclusions are up for argument, and that it's damn hard to find a conclusion that hasn't been, if not bought and paid for, at the very least, heavily influenced by $$, on either side.

I have no problem with anyone deciding for themselves who is right and who is wrong, but I take issue with people who claim to "know the science" better than anyone else, and deny that their take on the issue isn't pre-determined by who they have decided, before hearing the evidence and the thinking, is on the take, one way or the other.

Furthermore, as I stated previously, I don't think it matters who is right and who is wrong. There is too much money being made with the status quo, and too much resistance from those living comfortable fossil fuel supplied lives to change the status quo, for there ever to be meaningful change before a catastrophic outcome is realized.

[golfing eagles]

Originally Posted by jimjamuser

Your Uncle and Cousin were good patriots, sorry! That was good about the tree-lined Paris Streets. Maybe I can get a job pruning them, but maybe in a smaller town near a nude beach, I hear they are popular. If only I were 20 years younger, maybe I could have gotten a date. Now I only get dates at Publix. (Packaged kind) Better Iraq than Iran. And I believe that the French trade extensively with Iraq.
....Real people, yes only the bottom, common people - ALL the others are gingerbread people!
....I'm going to rock down to Electric Avenue and look for Remulack.....a small town in France!

au revoir

[OrangeBlossomBaby]

Originally Posted by Win1894

The premise that solar is the savior of the planet is irritatingly ignorant. Do the physics. It's not green and it's not renewable. You've been sold a bill of goods. First, where do you think most PV cells come from - China. Second, what are you going to do for power when the sun don't shine or at night? Batteries you say - not possible. The battery capacity would have to be so massive it would shift the Earth's orbit.

So, after the 20 year lifespan of a solar panel, then what? There is no recycling capacity for solar panels, and what about all the heavy metals in the PV cells? When you need a new roof do you really want to pay for your inefficient solar array to be removed and then reinstalled over the new roof, and let's not even get into roof leaks or panels shorting out before their full lifespan. Oh, and did you know that solar panels lose between 1 to 2 percent of their efficiency every year?

So, on a sunny day you have all these panels producing electricity. What are you going to do with the excess capacity since it cannot be stored? then the sun goes down and BOOM now you have to stoke up the coal plant. Not an easy thing to do if you know anything about power generation.

There is only one solution even if you don't believe the dire predictions about global warming/climate change and that is to invest in 4th generation nuclear power run on Thorium (which we have at least a 1000 year supply in the US). It's clean, efficient, incredibly safe, virtually no waste , and non-proliferative. Additionally, its excess power can be used to purify water, and pull carbon dioxide out the the air and reduce it to hydrocarbon fuels - now that's renewable energy!

Erm - you're wrong. There's really no other way to express that.

Not only can you store solar energy, but most houses in the north that have solar energy, also have the means to store it. They're called solar batteries. They're an actual thing and they exist expressly to store energy collected from solar panels.

Those who don't have batteries, have their solar system hooked up to the utility's company grid, which produces energy for all the customers on the grid. This results in the solar customer receiving a credit from the utility company for any UNused energy, and significantly reduced cost for any energy drawn from the pool.


As for the actual topic: there already is a "green" solar community near the Villages, right in Lady Lake. It's called Green Key Village. The homes aren't just solar-panels on the roofs, they're also amazingly energy-efficient, and advertise that most homes have a net-zero energy expense. In other words, their homes produce more energy to the grid than the average home uses in a year.

The benefit to adding solar to existing homes in the Villages is negligible, since it's very expensive unless you rent, and renting means risky resale value to the home (if the new homeowners don't like it, the solar company has to remove the panels from the roof).

On the other hand, a home that is built WITH solar panels and sold as new construction that way will have a much greater value. Since the average life of solar panels is 20 years (new tech has actually increased it to 25 years), it's very likely that someone will buy a home and move in to the Villages, and remain in that home for the entire lifespan of the panels.

Compare to a roof - which has to be replaced every 10-15 years. Do you not put a roof on your house because it'll need to be replaced and whatever shall we do with all that wasted destroyed useless old roof? No of course not. We buy homes with roofs, and replace the roofs every 10-15 years. And the old roofing is discarded into landfills.

That's another downside to solar panels though - if they outlive the roof they're connected to, you have to deal with removal and replacement of the panels. Most roofing companies don't offer that service.

[Win1894]

Originally Posted by OrangeBlossomBaby

Erm - you're wrong. There's really no other way to express that.

Not only can you store solar energy, but most houses in the north that have solar energy, also have the means to store it. They're called solar batteries. They're an actual thing and they exist expressly to store energy collected from solar panels.

Those who don't have batteries, have their solar system hooked up to the utility's company grid, which produces energy for all the customers on the grid. This results in the solar customer receiving a credit from the utility company for any UNused energy, and significantly reduced cost for any energy drawn from the pool.


As for the actual topic: there already is a "green" solar community near the Villages, right in Lady Lake. It's called Green Key Village. The homes aren't just solar-panels on the roofs, they're also amazingly energy-efficient, and advertise that most homes have a net-zero energy expense. In other words, their homes produce more energy to the grid than the average home uses in a year.

The benefit to adding solar to existing homes in the Villages is negligible, since it's very expensive unless you rent, and renting means risky resale value to the home (if the new homeowners don't like it, the solar company has to remove the panels from the roof).

On the other hand, a home that is built WITH solar panels and sold as new construction that way will have a much greater value. Since the average life of solar panels is 20 years (new tech has actually increased it to 25 years), it's very likely that someone will buy a home and move in to the Villages, and remain in that home for the entire lifespan of the panels.

Compare to a roof - which has to be replaced every 10-15 years. Do you not put a roof on your house because it'll need to be replaced and whatever shall we do with all that wasted destroyed useless old roof? No of course not. We buy homes with roofs, and replace the roofs every 10-15 years. And the old roofing is discarded into landfills.

That's another downside to solar panels though - if they outlive the roof they're connected to, you have to deal with removal and replacement of the panels. Most roofing companies don't offer that service.

My point was that solar energy is a very diffuse source of energy and only works for part of the day. At all other times you need a backup source of energy - either a utility or battery system. Unfortunately, batteries are not a solution because it would require a massive amount of batteries to provide backup energy. For example, you would need a battery the size of your car to run your AC at night and on a cloudy day. A Tesla battery weighs 1200 pounds and only provides a range of ~250 miles. The same weight of gasoline takes my Audi almost 7000 miles.

Whether you buy into the climate change/global warming arguments is irrelevant. My point was to obviate all this windmill and solar nonsense by building 3+ and 4th generation nuclear power plants. Zero carbon footprint, walk-away safe, cheap energy, uses existing infrastructure, tiny manageable waste stream, non-proliferative, and a virtually unlimited supply of fuel. These power plants can produce so much energy in addition to supporting the power grid they could produce ultra pure water from seawater and can chemically reduce carbon dioxide from the air. It would also relieves us on any dependence on foreign oil sources. Other countries are doing this now (India, Russia, China).

[Bay Kid]

If global warming was such a concern shouldn't the people complaining about it, pushing it down our throats, stop flying in their big jets, riding on their motor yachts and limos? Could it be about the money for them?

[Jeffreycgrey]

I recommend it to everyone. The one big take away I got from this is . . . Although the Global warming Alarmist tend to call those of us, who question or deny the theory, "Political". In reality it is just the opposite. And the sad thing is the alarmist group whole heartedly believe it. Listen to this lecture and decide for yourselves.

[Laker14]

Originally Posted by Jeffreycgrey

I recommend it to everyone. The one big take away I got from this is . . . Although the Global warming Alarmist tend to call those of us, who question or deny the theory, "Political". In reality it is just the opposite. And the sad thing is the alarmist group whole heartedly believe it. Listen to this lecture and decide for yourselves.

I did listen to it, and did decide for myself that
A: I hope he's right, and
B: after doing a little bit of Google searching discovered that he accepts money from the fossil fuel industry, and the group he was talking to with the fancy name is a fossil fuel lobby group who refuse to disclose their contributors, and hence,
C: while knowledgable, he is not unbiased, and his conclusions should be swallowed with a grain of salt. Or two.

But he might be right. Being biased doesn't make someone wrong.

[Larchap49]

Originally Posted by JerryLBell

The Top of the World retirement community already stresses solar power and very high insulation levels in their houses. It surprised us to hear that and yet see almost no solar power in houses in The Villages. We see plenty of solar water heating for swimming pools but very few solar panels for electricity. Given that The Villages outsells Top of the World (and everybody else in the retirment community), I wonder if they made the calculation that too few people are willing to pay the initial bump in housing prices to incorporate solar power to warrant widescale inclusion.

In a world of ROI it would be far longer than our life expectancy to make it profitable. I know it might help the environment long term but I'll spend the 35k + on living a better retirement for the time I've got left. You get people should definitely look into it. Also the cost of storage batteries is not in the price so that's another 25k+

[Larchap49]

Originally Posted by Win1894

My point was that solar energy is a very diffuse source of energy and only works for part of the day. At all other times you need a backup source of energy - either a utility or battery system. Unfortunately, batteries are not a solution because it would require a massive amount of batteries to provide backup energy. For example, you would need a battery the size of your car to run your AC at night and on a cloudy day. A Tesla battery weighs 1200 pounds and only provides a range of ~250 miles. The same weight of gasoline takes my Audi almost 7000 miles.

Whether you buy into the climate change/global warming arguments is irrelevant. My point was to obviate all this windmill and solar nonsense by building 3+ and 4th generation nuclear power plants. Zero carbon footprint, walk-away safe, cheap energy, uses existing infrastructure, tiny manageable waste stream, non-proliferative, and a virtually unlimited supply of fuel. These power plants can produce so much energy in addition to supporting the power grid they could produce ultra pure water from seawater and can chemically reduce carbon dioxide from the air. It would also relieves us on any dependence on foreign oil sources. Other countries are doing this now (India, Russia, China).

BINGO been saying this for years with today's technology safe nuclear industry is a reality the fears of the past can be put to bed.

[jimjamuser]

Originally Posted by Laker14

I edited that post, BTW. I think they are holding that there is a 60% chance of global warming being significantly human caused.
Which I think goes to the point that the "science" is iffy either way.

My take on it is that the data may be well agreed upon, but the conclusions are up for argument, and that it's damn hard to find a conclusion that hasn't been, if not bought and paid for, at the very least, heavily influenced by $$, on either side.

I have no problem with anyone deciding for themselves who is right and who is wrong, but I take issue with people who claim to "know the science" better than anyone else, and deny that their take on the issue isn't pre-determined by who they have decided, before hearing the evidence and the thinking, is on the take, one way or the other.

Furthermore, as I stated previously, I don't think it matters who is right and who is wrong. There is too much money being made with the status quo, and too much resistance from those living comfortable fossil fuel supplied lives to change the status quo, for there ever to be meaningful change before a catastrophic outcome is realized.

I agree with most of that. I would add that at some point (maybe 1960) the Federal Government - to save money, gave up a lot of their basic science research and "FARMED" it out to Universities and "think tanks" (which were easy to corrupt with MONEY), LIKE YOU STATED. Also, some scientists seemed to want to make a name for themselves by making outrageous conclusions that would get themselves on TV for MONEY and also speaking tours for MONEY. So, yes we ALL NOW TODAY must shift through the sands of "facts" and separate the grains of truth from the grain of S**T !!!!!!!!!

[jimjamuser]

Originally Posted by golfing eagles

au revoir

Chow! May you always have the perfect line to the cup!

[jimjamuser]

Originally Posted by OrangeBlossomBaby

Erm - you're wrong. There's really no other way to express that.

Not only can you store solar energy, but most houses in the north that have solar energy, also have the means to store it. They're called solar batteries. They're an actual thing and they exist expressly to store energy collected from solar panels.

Those who don't have batteries, have their solar system hooked up to the utility's company grid, which produces energy for all the customers on the grid. This results in the solar customer receiving a credit from the utility company for any UNused energy, and significantly reduced cost for any energy drawn from the pool.


As for the actual topic: there already is a "green" solar community near the Villages, right in Lady Lake. It's called Green Key Village. The homes aren't just solar-panels on the roofs, they're also amazingly energy-efficient, and advertise that most homes have a net-zero energy expense. In other words, their homes produce more energy to the grid than the average home uses in a year.

The benefit to adding solar to existing homes in the Villages is negligible, since it's very expensive unless you rent, and renting means risky resale value to the home (if the new homeowners don't like it, the solar company has to remove the panels from the roof).

On the other hand, a home that is built WITH solar panels and sold as new construction that way will have a much greater value. Since the average life of solar panels is 20 years (new tech has actually increased it to 25 years), it's very likely that someone will buy a home and move in to the Villages, and remain in that home for the entire lifespan of the panels.

Compare to a roof - which has to be replaced every 10-15 years. Do you not put a roof on your house because it'll need to be replaced and whatever shall we do with all that wasted destroyed useless old roof? No of course not. We buy homes with roofs, and replace the roofs every 10-15 years. And the old roofing is discarded into landfills.

That's another downside to solar panels though - if they outlive the roof they're connected to, you have to deal with removal and replacement of the panels. Most roofing companies don't offer that service.

Very informative post. I wonder if states other than Florida, have better policies for their electric companies buying back electrical energy from the homeowner. I somehow got the impression that Florida discouraged solar energy buy-backs? I really don't know?

[jimjamuser]

Originally Posted by Win1894

My point was that solar energy is a very diffuse source of energy and only works for part of the day. At all other times you need a backup source of energy - either a utility or battery system. Unfortunately, batteries are not a solution because it would require a massive amount of batteries to provide backup energy. For example, you would need a battery the size of your car to run your AC at night and on a cloudy day. A Tesla battery weighs 1200 pounds and only provides a range of ~250 miles. The same weight of gasoline takes my Audi almost 7000 miles.

Whether you buy into the climate change/global warming arguments is irrelevant. My point was to obviate all this windmill and solar nonsense by building 3+ and 4th generation nuclear power plants. Zero carbon footprint, walk-away safe, cheap energy, uses existing infrastructure, tiny manageable waste stream, non-proliferative, and a virtually unlimited supply of fuel. These power plants can produce so much energy in addition to supporting the power grid they could produce ultra pure water from seawater and can chemically reduce carbon dioxide from the air. It would also relieves us on any dependence on foreign oil sources. Other countries are doing this now (India, Russia, China).

I agree with everything. But, the comparison about the WEIGHT and range of a Tesla battery to the WEIGHT of the gasoline for an INFERNAL combustion engine - that's BOTH irrelevant and apples and prunes (in that case)! And if one would compare the weight in an electric car by adding battery plus drive train and then comparing that weight to the gas or diesel engine plus the massive drive train - I think that the ELECTRIC vehicle would win., And be quieter, and accelerated faster. But the big advantage is the ZERO pollution at the vehicle and charging station. It is a question of whether a person LOVES their mother.......MAMA EARTH! I certainly do!

[golfing eagles]

Originally Posted by jimjamuser

Chow! May you always have the perfect line to the cup!

Well, I wasn't planning on eating, so CIAO would be more appropriate. But I'll take the perfect line to the cup and raise you an auf wiedersehen

[Win1894]

Originally Posted by jimjamuser

I agree with everything. But, the comparison about the WEIGHT and range of a Tesla battery to the WEIGHT of the gasoline for an INFERNAL combustion engine - that's BOTH irrelevant and apples and prunes (in that case)! And if one would compare the weight in an electric car by adding battery plus drive train and then comparing that weight to the gas or diesel engine plus the massive drive train - I think that the ELECTRIC vehicle would win., And be quieter, and accelerated faster. But the big advantage is the ZERO pollution at the vehicle and charging station. It is a question of whether a person LOVES their mother.......MAMA EARTH! I certainly do!

You are entitled to your opinion but I contend my point was anything but irrelevant. To restate, solar energy is a very diffuse energy source and OrangeBlossomBaby stated incorrectly that one could use batteries as one source of back-up power when the sun ain't shining. To prove it, I used a comparison using an energy balance between battery powered vehicle and a hydrocarbon fueled vehicle. Clearly, the hydrocarbon fueled vehicle has almost 30 times the energy density the best battery technology based on weight or volume, take your pick. Unless you have a garage-size battery you still need a power utility to power your home, or just do without electricity.

Additionally, your point about "zero pollution" at the electric vehicle or charging source is laughable. Yeah, the electric vehicle pollution is occurring at the coal or gas fuelled power station that's charging your EV. That's why electric cars are euphemistically referred to as 'coal burners' in the energy business.

If you "love Mother earth" you would be a proponent of 3rd or 4th gen nuclear power - zero carbon footprint. Talk about energy density, a single golfball size chunk of Thorium (one of two naturally occuring radioactive elements) contains enough energy to provide your lifetime use of energy.