[JohnN]

Jim007,
The LS Glasfiber site says they put on lightning protection on the wind turbines.
I was also curious about the hurricanes/storms

[travelstiles]

Perhaps the Developer can be encouraged to offer (as an option on new houses, add on for pre-existing homes) solar panels for water heating. Many residents have them already, and as we can't seem to get any additional state funding for credits to consumers for 2008, perhaps the developer can work with Florida on initiating a new program to encourage this in construction going forward.
I'm sure The Villages management has more influence than any one of us alone.
Do you think homeowners in TV would be interested in this?

[Mikitv]

Instead of putting up the huge wind turbines to generate that kind of power there are some more personal alternatives available. HGTV showed it on Living With Ed. He has solar power and his own wind turbine on his roof top. Looking at it on the program it didn't sit that high on his roof top. He also uses solar tubes. Just a thought.

[samhass]

I have no clue about the "lightning" affect on wind turbines. Be it wind turbines or solar, we should be able to do more here in TV to lessen our dependence on oil or other nonrenewable energy sources. Energy is not my field, but I'm not to old to learn something new. I am sure there are experts amongst us. I hate trying to reinvent the wheel. Hellooooooo out there.

[samhass]

I am finding that we are a little short in the wind department. Central Florida gets a rating of 1-2. A three seems to be a starting point for wind turbines.
There has to be some way we can make things better. We use our carts as much as possible. We are the sunshine state. Maybe solar has to be the push. I am amazed at the output of the 10 solar panels on my roof. I wish I had purchased them immediately.
Sid, you get hot water in NH for how many months with your solar rig?

[Sidney Lanier]

We are actually in the Mid-Hudson Valley of New York State. Our solar water system, installed in 1985, supplies all of our hot water needs for about six months of the year, and for the rest of the year it serves as a pre-heater. This means that the water comes up out of our well at about 42 degrees into the solar tank, and then the panels either heat the water to usable in the house on bright sunny days or warm the water to whatever extent there's sun to whatever temp (could be 60, 80, 100, whatever...), so that when it goes into the boiler, the latter doesn't have to work as hard (hence less fuel use) to bring the temp up to usable in the house. It really surprised us that more people didn't take advantage of the program that encouraged this use of solar power before it was wiped out in the mid-1980s.

Our electric bills are now lower than they were when we first moved into this house over 30 years ago, even though we've added many more things that use electricity (e.g., a stand-alone freezer, computers that are on all the time, etc.). Originally the hot water was heated electrically; we later installed a multifuel boiler ('foreign' oil/'good old American' coal) containing a hot water coil, so it's hard to be precise exactly what the benefits are in terms of winter hot water generation. There is an electric back-up element in the solar tank, but it's been shut off since we installed the new boiler some 20 years ago.

Hope all this helps; please ask any questions if anything isn't clear. Thanks!

[samhass]

Why isn't our govt giving more tax credits for proven solar improvements such as yours?
If we don't have wind in Florida, we do have sunshine and tides. I wonder if SECo and the other electric companies have seriously researched either. You would assume they have and have found both to be cost ineffective. Or, has coal/natural gas and nuclear power been so cheap that these other means haven't really been considered? Sun, wind, hydro and other such sources seem like the way to save our earth, plus you don't have to pay for them over and over like oil. Yes, you still have operating and initial startup costs , but as far as I know, no one is selling sunshine yet. (unless you consider our congress) OMGosh. I'm a Republican. Am I saying these things???

[Sidney Lanier]

That was the point I was making. Until the mid-1980s, there were significant tax credits for individuals and businesses who were willing to put themselves on the line for the rest of the costs in the hopes that we could at least to some extent relieve ourselves of our increasing dependence not just on oil but on foreign oil. I believe those credits were put into place following the energy crunch of 1979, but someone please correct me if I'm not accurate on this point. As the Pickens video points out, our use of foreign oil has increased dramatically in only a couple of decades! And even if we overlooked the 'foreign oil' issue, the use of alternative sources of energy (in this case solar), certainly for us, has resulted in significantly less use of electricity (often generated by oil) and oil itself. To us, at the time and now as well, it was and is a no-brainer; that was why I was surprised back then that others weren't willing to gamble a little while it was still affordable to do so. What a shame--because today's problems to some extent (maybe a great extent?) stem from this eliminating any focus at all on alternative energy sources, thus forcing us to continue to increase our oil dependence....

[samhass]

We should have seen this coming and our government should have really seen this coming. Maybe if we had weaned ourselves from foreign oil way back then, we wouldn't be in Iraq right now. As I said earlier, a friend just returned from the UK and said gas costs about $ 11-11.50 per gallon. Can you imagine that in this country??? We are home of the SUV. We have a big one sitting up in Pa. That's a good place for it...sitting!!

[Sidney Lanier]

We were not the home of the SUV after the gas crunch of 1979. Then a few years went by and we got complacent--and that seems to be the story of our lives. We travel to other parts of the world quite a bit, and believe me the UK is not the only place where the price of gas makes our price look like kindergarten. But Europeans have always driven little VWs and more recently Smart Cars and other economical cars. Americans so identify with their 'wheels' that it's going to take a major overhaul in our thinking to come to terms with the new reality. (That is, for those who know that there is a problem and don't see everything as 'hunky dory' and 'just fine' the way things are....)

[efrahin]

I am for conserving everything, that said, I believe we are very arrogant believing we can save the earth, we are only 350 milliion people. Some provinces in India or China have more than that amount. Yes we consume a lot of oil, but it will be consumed anyway, if the US dont buy that much the price will go down and will be available for billions of people who can not afford it now. I remember George Carlin once said: We are going to destroy the earth with a cup of styrofoam? ........(x rated). When the volcan Mount Hellen erupted in Alaska a few years back, it put more pollution in the air that all the pollution men had done in 5000 years. China today is making all the pollution manufacturing (ineffiencely) our products, so we are sending our pollution somewhere else where there is no public opinion. We are destroying forests through China too, the corrupt officials there together with the super-corrupt cleptogovernments in Africa are stealing all the hard woods to manufacture furniture in China for the American market.

[travelstiles]

efrahin,
I believe we are beginning to realize what damage China is doing to it's own citizens and the world with it's disregard of scientifically accepted pollution prevention standards.
Already several Olympic athletes have voluntarily dropped out of the Olympics because they cannot perform in such a polluted environment.
It's amazing how we look the other way on all the abuses the Chinese government is responsible for all in the support of "free trade." It also bothers me that China has executed more citizens in the last year than any other country (Iran was number 2) - yet we freely export our technology to them and still insist on a trade embargo with Cuba?
Hopefully we are not looking to China as an example of what our energy policy should be! Energy independence is good for us, regardless of what other nations do or refuse to do.

[The Great Fumar]

Has anyone stood under a wind generator??? the WHINE would drive you nuts... There is a large wind generator farm about thirty five miles west of palm springs California.........the noise is deafening, thats why the only one's you hear of are in deserts or very remote areas........someone commented that they have lightning protection on them...There's no such things as 100% lightning protection.......Anything that high in an area of low terrain (Florida) would draw lightning and we are the lightning capitol of the world..The answer is nuclear power.............. France has the cheapest electricity in the world.... But the flower children of the sixty's forced us to tear down all our nuke power plants and now they want them back , well as John Wayne says TO LATE NATHEN , TO LATE................
ps Mt. st. helen is in Washington and was just a blip next
to Krakatoa.....

fumar

[efrahin]

Travel: I know from first hand experience, I had to leave my land (Cuba) in 1960. You have to live under that political system to understand it. That is our hate for anything that has to do with liberal thoughts.

[Sidney Lanier]

Originally Posted by travel

Energy independence is good for us, regardless of what other nations do or refuse to do.

I could not agree more!!! And if it's not to be an official national thing (as it was for a few years prior to the mid-1980s...) but a grass-roots thing, then it will have to be regardless of what our nation (meaning governmentally) does or refuses to do.