The Camaro Club (UK)

112F (44.4C) today. Sick to death of this heat.
My A/C runs almost constantly so I'm dreading the power bill

It was raining non stop yesterday. We went out for lunch and got soaked (even with umbrella's!). Today it's an almighty 18c. Could you install solar panels to help with bills? The technology has come a long way and you can get 1.2kw and 2.4kw panels at reasonable prices and they aren't too big. You can also install units into the mains that feedback into the grid when the household draw is low (not for a while then lol) and some electric providers do a buy back, so when you're feeding into the grid you get paid per unit. You get paid less per unit into the grid than it costs when buying a unit, but if you had enough panels, it can pay back quite nicely.

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We looked at both solar panels and a wind turbine, but the economics didn't add up.
The only way to do it would be with a grid tie system, which the power company's hate and are doing everything in their power to stop. This includes only approving very few makes and models of panels and grid tie inverters (read, bloody expensive ones) to discourage anyone interfering with their monopoly. They won't even consider a wind turbine being connected to the grid
Until they perfect some form of battery, such as the lithium packs Musk is working on, it's impractical.

That's despicable yet not surprising that they have "approved" devices that eradicate themselves due to the high artificially inflated cost for the feedback system. They have engineered it to keep power generation in their hands so that they continue to profit from energy production. It's such a shame... we (as a human race) are at a stage where we can make serious changes to fossil fuel consumption (one of the Nordic countries a few weeks ago announced that they generated 117% of their national power consumption through renewable energy).

Unfortunately and as Donald Trump recently pointed out, there is a horrible tie between politics and companies, so policy always goes in the direction that benefits profit. If there could be a law in place that prevents previous said activity, actually encouraging people to generate their own electricity, things would certain change for the better for our planet and take the strain off of energy bills and availability of energy. I guess the motivation needs to be in the right place (for the good of the citizens of the earth vs. profit for a small elite group).

At the below link, scrolling down shows a data feed of global energy production, Hydro is in 4th place and 30% ahead of nuclear, shortly followed by wind then solar. One of the biggest losses in electricity delivery is through the miles of wires it has to travel down. If each street could generate it's own electricity and pass on what wasn't needed, that loss due to resistance is almost eradicated. But, then companies can't make random price hikes and give out dividends to their investors, so, it's going to take a few generations and some scarring of the earth before that happens.
http://inflationdata.com/inflation/infl ... _table.asp

On a lighter note, hope it's not as hot there anymore! It managed to get down to 15c here yesterday and rained for about 24 hours. Is this the reason you left for the sunbelt?

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How to post pics: When writing a message, scroll down and use the "attach file" option. Where possible, a photo sharing service can be used such as Flickr, Imgur etc. The image location (usually ending in .jpg) can be copy and pasted between the ][ brackets that appear when you click the 'Img' button (you can find this button at the top of the message box).

How to post youtube vids: Click on the 'youtubeHD' button at the top of the message box and in the middle of the ][ brackets that just appeared, copy and paste everything from the youtube web address that appears after the = sign i.e if this is the url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2cNqaPSHv0 just copy "K2cNqaPSHv0").

It seems suspicious to me that in a place like New Mexico it is impossible to get some kind of solar power to help with the AC.
What Ray said makes a lot of sense to me, the power generators do not want to see their monopoly threatened .
Also a lot of the Big Government politicians get worried when citizens get ideas about independence and any kind of Off Grid freedoms .

The utilities keep boasting about how much solar power they have added to their company, but this is to try and stop home installations.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ ... story.html

Don't forget that here in the US political positions are effectively bought. The one who has raised the most contributions (mainly from corporations who want a puppet who runs the country with their profits being given top priority) wins. This is why Trump is worrying the comfy old boy network, because he doesn't need to raise any money, he already has billions.
Such a shock to the establishment. Ask Trump a question and you will get a blunt answer, it may not be the answer you want but it will be 100% honest. Now try that with a career politician.
Just think, with the potential of 11 million job vacancies in the US, getting work visas should be a doddle if he's elected

That was a good link from the Washington Post ,spells out the problem well .
Over here there was some government help for the home installers until recently ,but as people took up the offers it became a victim of it's own popularity and now the scheme has been cut back .
I visited a large Solar Farm which is still being constructed near Aylesbury, so it seems they still have potential even in the rainy British climate . It is quite a thing to see fields of panels on such a large scale !
On the political side it seems like Trump is really shaking things up, which can only be a good thing .
His wealth means he can be a true independent and avoid being a puppet of the donors and special interest groups .
The leftists seem scared of him and are doing all they can in the media to bash him , and on the Republican side he is frightening the RINOs as well
Hope things improve in 2016 ,it's about time America had a good President because the recent Dem and Republican presidents seem to be acting like they want to destroy the country and are allowing things to decline ...