Comments on: Solar home attains energy independence

New Jersey household combines solar and hydrogen power to leave utility bills behind. But is it a one-of-a-kind venture?

[Dachi]

I call BS

"Strizki and his associates stress the project is designed to be replicated and that the price tag on the prototype is a lot higher than imitators would pay. Now that first-time costs of research and design have been met, the price would be about $100,000, Strizki said."

What a load of total BS.

Quite honestly, battery technology hasn't changed much over the last 10 years. The house cost $500,000 and batteries alone were $50,000.

Even solar power is a fairly mature technology these days, the cost may drop 7% annually, but that is hardly enough to curb the $500,000 sticker shock for installing this system.

I think the statement that his $500,000 system will cost the next guy $100,000 is laughable. Even then it still does not take into consideration future maintenance fees and the added labor of running your own mini power plant for your home.

Even if it were $5,000 instead of $500,000 most Americans would remain on the grid anyway.

The people who pretend to care about the environment only do it because it's trendy.

Yes global warming is real, but so is lung cancer and cigarettes have been flying off shelves just the same as always.

I live ~2,000 feet above sea level near cold NY State. If people around here don't care enough that cigarettes might take 20 or 30 years off to quit smoking do I think they give a fack about global warming? Hello no.

People will say "wow, that global warming things sounds really bad, someone should really do something about it" and then drive away in the biggest car/truck they can possibly afford.

Why? Because we are Americans and that is what Americans do.

Even if we did stop living like we do China and other nations will be right behind us.

If Global Warming is serious as the numbers would suggest, then stopping it won't just be difficult, it will be flat out impossible.

Like quitting smoking, all you can really hope to accomplish is to prolonging the inevitable.

[jdbwar07]

Reply

It's like the computer industry, at first any project is much too expensive for an average homeowner to use. But with a large amount of research and learning how to mass-produce it better, the price could come way down. Ideally, the government should take away the multi-billion subsidies for the oil industry and instead use it for renewable energy research.

"Even if we did stop living like we do China and other nations will be right behind us."

That's not necessarily true. In fact, recently China is beginning to take this problem seriously. For example, they now have auto efficiency regulations higher than the US. This is kind of embarrassing because the usual excuse politicians use is it won't matter if we tackle global warming because China will always be much worse. In Europe an countries (such as Britain) they care much more about this, because they don't let the oil industry lobby and control their governments.

"Because we are Americans and that is what Americans do."
This is probably the first time in history where it makes sense to be ashamed to say one is an American citizen. The rest of the developed world already is way ahead of us in other areas such as broadband internet access, we need to put an end to unethical corporate control of the government and media.

[jabbotts]

uh.. China is ahead of the states for car emissions

"Even if we did stop living like we do China and other nations will be right behind us."

Even the Chinese have higher environmental standards than the US for automobile design.


"If Global Warming is serious as the numbers would suggest, then stopping it won't just be difficult, it will be flat out impossible."

Rumour has it, carbon amounts in the atmosphere (the thing causing this global warming rumour) could be reduced to below the planetary average so in effect; yes, global warming can be reversed but it will eventually become a run-away process if people continue to accept your mind-set.

[m.o.t.u.]

Run that by me again,,,,,,,,

Putting Global Warming aside as an issue for a moment, let's consider the irrefutable evidence of
the political, social, cultural and enviromental (procurement & refining} problems a complete dependency on fossil fuels has bought with it. Let alone burning the stuff. You live in a Fossil Fuel Dependant Nation, consuming 25% of the worlds production alone. Apart from negativity, is there some other response you could offer up as an American that would help arrest the growing world view {in your own words} "we are Americans and that is what we do". Good on these people for having a go if for nothing else, they show they care. To achieve that alone gives me some encouragment.

[SiXiam]

This is Neat...

I agree with the previous poster that it is pointless for most people, even the rich that don't really care about a high electric bill.

What I don't understand is why on Earth would they need batteries? Wasn't it the whole point of the hydrogen fuel cells to not use batteries, that need replaced every 5 years and cost electricity in terms of efficiency..???

I do like the idea of using hydrogen tanks & fuel cells instead of batteries, but the technology is just not ready yet...

[El Kabong]

Well, for one thing...

a fuel cell IS a battery and does have an unfortunately brief life span.
However, costs involved MAY (important word) come down eventually if the system becomes modular, allowing for replacement of parts rather than the whole fuel cell.
The price break point for installation is going to have to be well below $50,000 for this to ever become practical for Joe average. And I'm sure there are going to be ongoing costs associated with the system.
Another thing to consider is the likelyhood of falling prices for petroleum based fuels once this sytem would begin to have an effect on overall energy consumption. After all, one must keep in mind the fact that gasoline, deisel oil, and fuel oil are toxic waste byproducts of plastic and other synthetic manufacturing. If the oil companies gave away the energy side of the business, they would still be profitable. That's the ugly hidden truth about the task of eliminating fossil fuels. They will always be able to undercut the prices of any newly developed systems, which means users will have to be motivated by something other than cost- reduction. Not too likely a prospect.

[Seashell-Bob]

Fuel Cells?

How many times has the shuttle been delayed from launching because of a glitch with one of it's fuel cells? There has been fuel cell failure several time on the International Space Station. What makes anyone thing they are a practical technology today?

[Seashell-Bob]

This is fine for research.

I have been listening about solar energy for right at 48 years now and have yet to see a practical installation. By practical I mean one that the average person can afford that will supply 90 percent of his energy needs. During this same 48 years I have seen numerous articles like this one that shows how impracticable solar energy is. The article I am still waiting on is the one that shows a useful solar energy installation that can be afforded by middle class people. I am almost willing to bet that a 20 year old person will still be waiting when he retires.

[Bytrat]

Solar power has been documented

Foir the past 30 years HomePower magazine has been documenting many projects by individual user who have been using solar, wind and micro-hydro (water generators) to supply ALL of thier needs. This is real world use and technology in use now. Not by the scientific community but by normal people both on and off the grid. They are not using hydrogen fuel cells but solar panels (electricity and thermal), wind and water generators. The technology is available now - the need is for recognition and adoption.

[Bytrat]

Hydrogen is a load of BS.

There is a lot of media coverage about how hydrogen is the energy of the future. This is a load of BS - for small scale use it is fine as a storage medium where the hydrogen is easily supplied. But for wide-spread use there is no EASY, CHEAP method for obtaining hydrogen. All current methods for obtaining hydrogen utilize more energy in it's generation that could be ultilized more efficiently elsewhere. There is a lot of energy wasted as compared to using that energy directly.

[chuck_whealton]

Cost of retrofitting

This is great, no question, but I'd be curious what the cost of retrofitting a pre-existing house would be.

I mean if you're just going to put systems like this into new houses, you're loosing out on a heck of a lot of potential customers.

Charles R. Whealton
Charles Whealton @ pleasedontspam.com

[Dachi]

The only thing they proved

Why is it that if someone accomplishes something people declare it a success no matter what the cost of accomplishing it?

It is like the solar challenge car race, teams put millions to build cars with cockpits 1/3 the size of my trunk and top speeds of about ~30 mph to go across the country.

Each car had a full crew and a motorcade of support vehicles and equipment following it. They manually charged the cars from the support vehicles durring rain and plugged them in at night.

At the end of the race people were like "see, you CAN make cars that are solar powered"

Are you nuts? To me all they proved was not only is a solar powered car totally impractical, it will always be.

They call it a success because some of them managed to complete the trip, but I could almost get to California from NY on a big wheel with less effort.

This guy spends half a million dollars, has a yard for of hydrogen storage (in a residential neighborhood?!), probably still draws some power from the grid, and people act like he managed to solve some kind of a problem.

This is a solution to global warming like giving every person in the world 3 million dollars and a job as a CEO of a fortune 500 company is a solution to end world hunger.

All he managed to do was prove that it could never possibly scale.

I know it is nice to be an optimist about everything, but optimism does not solve problems.

If you want to actually do something about Global Warming there is no time to linger on solutions that obviously don't work. You have to learn from your mistakes and move on.

[cconn64]

What you don't realize

There are other options out there.
Yes, they aren't for Average Joe.

Since you brought up the solar car challenge.
Have you ever seen the tesla car?
http://www.teslamotors.com/

You can (for additional cost of course) purchase a solar system to be put on your roof, which would provide the recharging of the car.