Re:How Solar Power Could Slay the Fossil Fuel Empire (2014)
by danmaz74 on Tuesday December 08, 2015 @10:59AM
(#10697121)
My point is: how expensive would it be to have alternate power generation, especially in cities? I think the grid isn't going anywhere anytime in the next 50 or 100 years at least.
Re:How Solar Power Could Slay the Fossil Fuel Empire (2014)
by maxerickson on Tuesday December 08, 2015 @11:08AM
(#10697195)
Small generators are not punitively expensive.
It's anyway going to be an awful long time before North America stops burning fuel for winter heat.
I guess something like $500 a year is not a welcome new bill, but that would be the cost for replacing a house sized generator at a pretty short interval. If the duty cycle is low and maintenance is effective I would expect the cost to be lower than that.
People tend to be dismissive about conserving energy, but I expect they would think differently if they were producing & storing their own. We use way more than we need to-- some of the biggest power hogs are air conditioning and refrigeration, neither of which is necessary in the winter.