I have heard every excuse in the book about how SOLAR is inefficient. And its all a bunch of horse-shit (pardon my French). Solar, in fact, is very efficient - because there is NO WASTE or by product. There are a number of ways of implementing it. Speaking of the French, BTW, they have been producing energy with tidal wave generators for decades.
Additionally, LED lighting is both beautiful and energy efficient and the technology exists TODAY. I just installed an off-grid solar system, by myself for a minimal investment in a kit from Costco and batteries and parts from Electronic City in Burbank. It is the beginning of a complete solution and a major step in the right direction for my house.
It is also possible to significantly reduce our demand for electricity, without diminishing what we use it for. For instance, I replace the light in my laundry barn which was 100Watts of Halogen light with and LED light strip. This light strip is much brighter than the original two 50W halogen bulbs which draw .83333 amps. The new, brighter LED strip draws .00025 amps. You do the math. You don't even need to know what an amp is to see the order of magnitude of how much LESS power the LED draws. Additionally, LEDs DON'T BURN OUT.
The LED light strip that puts out more light requires .03% of the energy that the old inefficient lights do.
Corporations that we buy our household products from are holding this technology back from us, for fear that their profits will drop, because we won't buy as much crap from them over and over again. This is at the cost of destroying our own home (planet). How selfish can we be as the human race?
There is no reason for us to rely on oil burning inefficient machinery to power our lives. Energy generation for our homes accounts for more than 40% of the excessive carbon footprint that we are leaving behind that is destroying our ability to live on this planet.
Unless you are part of the solution, you are part of the problem. We need to demand clean energy sources from corporations and government. If they are not willing to give it to us, then we need to build it ourselves.
Many countries power their electric grids primarily from solar and wind. In Spain, every house has solar panels on the roof. Japan was using solar convection water heaters in the 1960s, as was California in the early 1900s. But not today. We are so incredibly wasteful with our energy use.
An additional benefit to placing modern Photo-Voltaic (PV) panels to generate electricity on your roof, the building itself absorbs less heat because the sun is hitting the PV panel first, so the inside heat gain of the buildig is far less which in turn reduces the energy-load demand of the air conditioning unit, which means you will be consuming LESS electricity.
There is no downside to using solar and wind. There are vast segments of land in the California desert that have 14 hours + /day of intense sunlight and constantly sweeping winds caused by the venturi effect of naturally occurring mountain passes.
The mountain ranges near Palm Springs and the Tehachapi Mountains, lining the west side of the Mojave desert have wind turbines generating power. Its time to seriously invest in much more of this kind of technology and stop investing in drilling for oil and killing our environment and food chain.
Lets all tell BP, and every other oil driller out there, to stop drilling and start installing Photo-Voltaic and Wind power generation systems.
Suck it BP!
|
