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How are you Making Power?


Wind	57 votes - 16 %
Solar	72 votes - 20 %
Hydro	6 votes - 1 %
Wind and Solar	88 votes - 25 %
Solar and Hydro	5 votes - 1 %
Hydro and Wind	5 votes - 1 %
All of the above	9 votes - 2 %
Some other Method	10 votes - 2 %
Planning a System	86 votes - 24 %
Not Planning System	8 votes - 2 %

346 Total Votes

How are you Making Power? | 23 comments

Re: (3.00 / 0) (#1)
by TomW on Tue May 20th, 2008 at 09:54:08 PM MST
(User Info)

I am also using a dilithium crystal that maintains the warp bubble that allows me to stay in this dimension for extended periods of time. It draws anti matter into the magnetic bottle in this dimension and combines it with matter thus releasing the energy necessary to maintain the gateway aperture dilation necessary to allow crossing through. I just do turbines and solar for fun.

Tom

"Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned."--Mark Twain

Re: (3.00 / 0) (#2)
by snowcrow on Wed May 21st, 2008 at 04:44:37 AM MST
(User Info)

We could all use a magic power producing crystal right about now!!!!!!!

Blessings, Snow Crow

[ Parent ]

Re: (3.00 / 0) (#3)
by wpowokal on Wed May 21st, 2008 at 05:20:42 AM MST
(User Info)

Tom the latest from down under among those of us in the know is that due to a universal distortion you MUST tweek that crystal frequenct to keep that gateway open. Disregard this at your peril, you may be trapped in a powerless dimension.

allan down under
A life lived in fear is a life half lived.
[ Parent ]

Re: (3.00 / 0) (#4)
by ghurd on Wed May 21st, 2008 at 07:39:29 AM MST
(User Info)

My dilithium crystal containment is bubble wrap.
Coincidence? Hmmm.
G-

[ Parent ]

Re: (3.00 / 0) (#5)
by Tritium on Wed May 21st, 2008 at 11:52:00 AM MST
(User Info)

Sleestac crystal driven here :)

Thurmond

[ Parent ]

Re: (3.00 / 0) (#17)
by rpcancun (hobbyshopmx@hotmail.com) on Fri Jun 6th, 2008 at 12:58:25 AM MST
(User Info)

Sleestac,...is that from "Land of the lost"??

[ Parent ]

Re: (3.00 / 0) (#18)
by Tritium on Fri Jun 6th, 2008 at 08:17:21 AM MST
(User Info)

Yes it is Land of the Lost. I thought no one would ever get it.

Thurmond

[ Parent ]

Re: (3.00 / 0) (#19)
by wooferhound (tim((NoSpamAt))wooferhound.com) on Sun Jun 8th, 2008 at 08:07:49 AM MST
(User Info) http://wooferhound.com

The Sleestack were just Frankenstien in a different costume

W o o f -={(

[ Parent ]

Re: (3.00 / 0) (#22)
by Tritium on Tue Jun 10th, 2008 at 09:40:04 AM MST
(User Info)

and a great costume it was. they were my favorite characters.

Thurmond

[ Parent ]

Reality returns... (3.00 / 0) (#16)
by TomW on Mon Jun 2nd, 2008 at 12:30:08 PM MST
(User Info)

We have had 300 watts of solar panels going on 6 years now. Had a say 300 watt Zubbly {R.I.P. my friend] conversion at 60 feet for a year and a half or so. Just put up a 10 foot dual rotor at 30 feet. About 900 AH of batteries. Got an OutBack FX2524 sine wave invert with a Mate a year or so ago.

Just pulled the trigger on the purchase of 4X 130 watt Kyocera panels. That brings the solar up to 820 watts. Will be getting another 10 footer up at 40 feet this summer and that grid use bill is going to plummet even further soon.

With an all electric home we probably cannot go totally off grid without adding gas appliances [unlikely] so I suspect we will still be on it for cooking, occasional AC when needed and the water heater.

Just keep pushing it forward.

Now we need more storage and fork lift batteries are on the list next.

Photos of the wind park are over on the IRC Gallery:

http://www.anotherpower.com/gallery/album50

Current solar array is here:

http://www.anotherpower.com/gallery/album57

Enjoy!

Tom

"Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned."--Mark Twain
[ Parent ]

Re: Reality returns...Toms windmill farm.. (3.00 / 0) (#23)
by truegrit on Tue Jun 17th, 2008 at 12:19:15 AM MST
(User Info)

What about wood stoves or Gasifier gas for stoves or heating?? Good work.

[ Parent ]

Re: (3.00 / 0) (#6)
by KurtJ (kurt) on Wed May 21st, 2008 at 02:27:06 PM MST
(User Info) kurtj

Ghurd
I had to change from bubble wrap to duct tape after linear forces from my tractor beam caused a constant "popping" in the bubble wrap containment field :O)

The biggest untapped source of energy...Congress, If we could harness all the hot air and BS they produce we would no longer be dependant on foreign oil!

Re: (3.00 / 0) (#7)
by richhagen (richhagen (a t) Juno.com) on Wed May 21st, 2008 at 02:59:08 PM MST
(User Info)

Mine was sabotaged by a 9 year old popping all of the bubbles :-)
'A Joule saved is a Joule made'
[ Parent ]

Re: (3.00 / 0) (#8)
by rossw on Thu May 22nd, 2008 at 04:12:35 AM MST
(User Info) http://house.albury.net.au/

Hey, c'mon guys, lousy choice of options.

I have wind, and solar, but neither of which is my "main" contributor.

I didn't want to say "other" as that implies neither wind or solar! We need a smarter poll interface. (checkboxes rather than radio-buttons would probably have been suitable here!)

Re: (3.00 / 0) (#10)
by wooferhound (tim((NoSpamAt))wooferhound.com) on Fri May 23rd, 2008 at 05:35:30 AM MST
(User Info) http://wooferhound.com

We have this comment section to explain your votes. I'm curious about your Other Type of power generation ?

Of course we have to live with the Poll Interface that is built into the Scoop forum software that runs this site, and it has multiple choice and not Radio Buttons. This isn't the greatest Poll question, but I have 11 more polls already written for the next months, and the rest of the questions are much more fun.

If anyone has any Poll Questions they would like to see on the Front Page, then you can leave them here as a comment or e-mail them to me.
W o o f -={(

[ Parent ]

Just a little so far. (3.00 / 0) (#9)
by Ungrounded Lightning Rod on Thu May 22nd, 2008 at 04:10:27 PM MST
(User Info)

While I've been hanging out on the board and learning (and, I hope, helping out with a little knowledge I've collected here and elsewhere), I'm not doing a lot of actual generation yet.

Main use of RE are the solar panels that keep the boat and RV batteries up when they're not in use.

The boat one was the ONLY charge for the battery in the first boat (because we didn't get around to hooking up the charge option on the auxiliary outboard before the boat was traded up). But it was hardly necessary: With only cabin and nav lights and a marine radio (internal with a masttop antenna) a weekend's outing wouldn't run the battery down - and the flexy-panel we lashed to the cabin top when in dock produced more amphours than the battery capacity in two weeks. The new boat has an aux diesel and uses a single battery as both starter and house. So even running it enough to bring it up to temperature and motor in and out of dock it more than replaces the cranking power with plenty left over for instruments and lighting.

The RV has a small panel mounted on top of the air conditioner with a couple homebrew aluminum straps, with the wire run under the AC's weatherstripping and hooked into the ceiling light power through a blocking diode. Have to turn off the propane leak alarm when it's in storage or it would get ahead of the panel. B-(

Re: Just a little so far. (3.00 / 0) (#11)
by froggie ((compact fluorescent lamp)warrior@hotmail.co.uk) on Tue May 27th, 2008 at 12:32:41 PM MST
(User Info)

My main contribution is saving energy rather than making it. I am Network Manager at a high school with about 300 computers.

A while ago, I got one of the plug-in power use monitors and started collecting power use data for our machines. The results were horrific, so I got a couple of companies to send us out a PC to look over with the intent of replacing the old ones. The machines were similar in power use, but for about 5W. The salesman didn't know what to say when I told him I was turning down his quote because the machine used too much power!

I just replaced 25 of the old machines (measured 161W at idle) with some new ultra small machines that only chew through a measured 77W at idle (sat at login screen). Plus, the TFT monitors drop down to no measurable power use when on standby! The old CRTs still used 3-5W on standby.

161W - 77W = 84W power saving per machine

As these are the most heavily used machines in the school, they're on at least 5 hours a day.

5 hours * 84 W * 25 = 10.5kWh per day saved.

I'm fairly sure there are 181 school days in the year, making that change worth:

10.5kWh * 181 days = 1900kWh or 1.9MWh a year.

I really think I'd struggle to generate that kind of energy quantity. The best thing is that these machines were due for replacement anyway, I was just careful to watch actual measured power consumption figures when picking the replacement computers.

We have 3kW peak of solar panels on the roof of the school, grid-tied, but with the weather as it is in this part of the world, it's far cheaper to save a kWh than make a fraction of a kWh.

froggie

[ Parent ]

Re: Just a little so far. (3.00 / 0) (#12)
by DamonHD (d@hd.org) on Tue May 27th, 2008 at 01:45:56 PM MST
(User Info) http://www.earth.org.uk/

Conservation first is almost always the right thing to do. Saving is almost always cheaper than generating, at least with RE.

This month at home we're almost net zero on electricity BUT ONLY because we cut down from 33kWh/day to 5.5kWh/day, in large part by replacing my rack of Web servers at home with a single laptop (but also by replacing or changing our use of various domestic gadgets/appliances too).

A power meter was my main weapon also.

Good job!

Rgds

Damon

[ Parent ]

Re: Just a little so far. (3.00 / 0) (#14)
by froggie ((compact fluorescent lamp)warrior@hotmail.co.uk) on Mon Jun 2nd, 2008 at 07:39:44 AM MST
(User Info)

After plugging my desktop computer and monitors (I had 3) into the power meter, it met it's death in favour of my laptop. It was nearly 300W for the desktop + monitors, the laptop uses 20.7W.

I've since persuaded my fiancée and most of my family to ditch their desktops in favour of laptops for power use reasons.

I seem to remember a spreadsheet I made some time ago of costs for energy efficient appliances, and for energy-producing devices like turbines and solar panels. It came out as something like 7-8x more efective to spend your money on saving energy than on producing it. That was in 2006 and I'm fairly sure the situation has swung further the same direction since then.

froggie

[ Parent ]

Re: Just a little so far. (3.00 / 0) (#15)
by DamonHD (d@hd.org) on Mon Jun 2nd, 2008 at 10:52:15 AM MST
(User Info) http://www.earth.org.uk/

I can definitely believe that number.

Actually, saving ~1kWh+/day by buying a new A+ fridge/freezer (slightly bigger because we needed more freezer space) cost us ~GBP550.

Putting in solar power to generate an average of 2kWh/day over the course of a year cost ~GBP7000 (allowing for various good discounts but poor roof aspect)...

Thus about 6x cheaper in my case to do the conservation bit, backing up your numbers, but doing both was satisfying! B^>

Rgds

Damon

[ Parent ]

Re: Just a little so far. (3.00 / 0) (#13)
by jonas302 on Tue May 27th, 2008 at 08:42:43 PM MST
(User Info)

WOW Froggie thats really something to be proud of should get a few extra machines for the money saved

[ Parent ]

Re: hydrogen power (3.00 / 0) (#20)
by richsuka on Mon Jun 9th, 2008 at 08:02:32 PM MST
(User Info)

I'm working with hydrogen motors very easy to make, More bang for the buck.
by-products water 9gal per 1lb hydro burned, Heat capured for BBQ and cooking
and power to turn my generator. Now working with new generator.

Rich
If it's free it cost too much!

Cutting back on electic needs too (3.00 / 0) (#21)
by richsuka on Mon Jun 9th, 2008 at 08:13:16 PM MST
(User Info)

I have cut back my electic needs by 50% or more. By using 14watt fbulbs and new windows, log siding, thermal mass and high dis foam. still adding vents. I live in texas hot most of the time , good wind speed also. I like trying different ways to make energy. tried heat collecting but need way to used it. I used old sat dish with mirrors and epoxy to collect heat from sun. It get hot very quickly but I don't have a project to use it.

rich
If it's free it cost too much!
[ Parent ]

How are you Making Power? | 23 comments

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