I think that these two alternative energies represent the two best energy choices in a low energy future. Both are carbon free, meaning the release none of the earth's dwindling store of top soil, fossil fuels or even of “carbon neutral” biomass. Trees, shrubs, agricultural waste when processed to release energy (like made into ethanol, compressed into pellets for a stove are considered carbon neutral because they only release the carbon that the stored from CO2 as live plants. So there is no net gain or loss. Wind and solar have are also “carbon neutral” in the same sense. They neither store or release carbon, but rather both rely on the same energy that plants use, the sun. It is odd to think that wind too is solar energy, but it is. The sun heats areas of the earth's atmosphere at different rates and this fuels the movement of warm and cold air currents around the globe. When you build a wind generator to turn that air movement into electrical energy, you have just really stored solar energy. Of course when you look at carbon fuel sources like oil, natural gas, coal, peat, etc. you are just looking at old solar energy that was stored over millions of years. Burning a million years of carbon in just 100 years is at the bottom of almost all our problems. As that CO2 has been out of circulation for a long time, but now we have dumped it all into the atmosphere, all at once, and we are paying the price with rising global temperatures. What we didn't use for fuel we use for fertizler which allows us to increase our human herd density to 5 to 10 times what the earth can sustain on a daily energy basis without taking equity (carbon equity) from our earth bank. Oh, and as you remember half the oil and natural gas are gone and our top soil account is nearly overdrawn.

I bring this up not as a collapse rant, but rather to make the point that it is NEVER worthwhile to compare the costs of carbon fueled electricity with hydro, sun, or wind. You burn an irreplaceable substance, that there is less of every day when you flip a switch in your house. You are ending our world as you know it every time you use electricity, and then to say that solar and wind are not competitive on a cost basis? What is the cost basis of something that cannot be replaced and is running out? ONLY renewable energy sources, carbon neutral, should be compared head to head. REally it is the same a saying you have a soup that costs 1 penny per gallon, and then comparing it to other soups that 1.00 gallon. Only at the end do you tell us that every gallon of 1 penny soup reduces oxygen by 1 percent and that will all die of oxygen deprivation in a week but hey, ain't it cheap? Do you see the electricity from fossil fuels is not electricity is is just OIL burning.
Don't get me started.

If you get out of the cheap energy I don't care what happens to anyone else mode and compare only power that comes from no carbon based sources you have nuclear, hydro, solar, wind, and possibly a little bio diesel – but right now straight vegetable oil (SVO) is easily produced from rape seed which uses more fertilizer (made from natural gas, which is in the same plight as oil) than is returned in the burning of the fuel. I read 8 times the amount of natural gas energy in fertilizer than you get back in SVO. You can make a case for some small amount of wood gas energy from carbon wastes, but you're still burning future top soil which is decreasing at suicidal rates for our planet.

So lets limit ourselves tonight to nuclear, hydro, solar and wind for the moment. Geothermal should be in there but it is beyond the home preparation level so I have skipped it. Which brings us to nuclear. I think, I hope that you are not capable of building a small nuclear reactor, so that leaves us with the three energy sources that are most often discussed in magazines such as Homepower; hydro, wind, and solar.

The most dependable of the three is small hydro, and it is very suitable if you have property with a full time flow of water that has say 10 or 15 feet of drop over the length of your property. I will leave that one for Gary to write about one day. The reason I don't like it is that there are very few places that have that water and drop in my world of the western USA. More importantly the power is completely dependent on the place and not mobile. As you know I live a gypsy live style and I need my power production to move with me. That leaves me with two choices (and most of you too), wind or solar.

My bias is solar and my problem is that six months of the year I'm in Oregon. At first that would seem to be a solar negative for those six months, but as with all generalizations, most people think it rains all the time in western Oregon, when in fact it rains a lot for 7 months and almost not at all for 5 months. Or at least all that was true before the weather went nuts (global warming disturbances, El Nino?). So for me, 11 months of the year I have adequate power (but I would like a little more please.).

When the wind is blowing like mad here in the desert I always feel like I'm missing energy – there it goes – watts and watts and amp-hours flying by making dust soup. It could be charging my batteries.
Here is what stops me.
Today on ebay, this week, you can buy a 64 amp uinsolar triple junction thin film panel that is pretty good in cloudy weather as well as sun for $288 if you'll pick it up in Yuma.
One quick side note. In a capitalist society everyone has a spin on their products, even the alternative energy people. Meaning both the solar and the wind people lie about the amount of power produced. Solar people lie by giving amperage or wattage numbers based on near freezing temperatures with the sun directly overhead (meaning you live at the equator). Wind people lie in a sweet way by saying things like 10 amps at 19 mph. Take a look at wind speed maps. See any 19mph areas on average. NO.

So only by building your own system and seeing how to tend it for maximum energy yield can you be ready and able to supply your own power.
Still lets compare based on what I have learned living off the gird for eight years with solar.
I have 25 possible amps that could come from the 5 solar panels on top of my trailer. For that to happen I have to be very cold (today and yesterday are very good for solar), and on the equator. It is bad to be counting on solar in December and January because the sun is so low in the sky.
What I really get, with my batteries about 1/3 to ½ drained in the morning is 16 amps at 1 pm here in the desert, near the Mexican border in AZ, January 15th. As the sun climbs over the next few months I'll increase to a daily high of about 20 amps.
So on any given day in this month I get about 6 hours of really good sun angle at 14 amps or greater and a few amps for a few hours on each side of that. So I'm gathering about 90 amp-hours per day now. December was about 85 amp-hours.
Wind I have less experience with but a very good real wind generator which lies the least is this one (insert link) and it produces 2 amps for $1000 worth of wind generator (which does not include the tower, wire, charge controller or batteries) at 9 mph. At 19mph it produces 10 amps. Here in Q it blows like hell sometimes but I have estimated that even in a week that is considered windy here, you have less than 25 hours of wind above 15 mph. And that only occurs three or four times in the entire season down here. There is a little wind often, but not even enough to make the 2 amps. So I estimate the wind as much more consistent than it is and say there are 5 hours per week of 10amp 19mph wind, that is only 50 amp-week or 7 amp-hours per day. For $1000???
I could by 3 panels at 288 per panel and have money left over. At 5 amps per panel I expect I will really get 3 amps per panel only 6 hours per day – which would be 18 times 3 or 54 amp-hours per day, or 378 amp-hours per week.
That is why I don't have a wind generator.
But even at that, I have trouble letting go of wind. If I could salvage everything needed to build a few wind generators at no cost at all, except time, I keep thinking maybe.
I think that thing that drives me crazy about wind is that it is such a simple concept. wind spins propellers, that turn a generator or salvage car alternator and you are energy rich. The devil is in the details with wind. Here are just a few of the problems:
Tall tower. The wind generator needs to be up high.
The tall tower means long copper runs which means thick (expensive, not so easy to get a salvage) copper wire.
Wind speeds too fast are lost, wind speeds too slow are lost.
Wind comes from different directions which becomes an engineering problem with more power loss or maintanence (slip rings for instance).
Lots of moving parts to break, make noise, kill birds, irritate the neighbors.

Compare that with solar. No moving parts. The panels are warranted for 25 years but really they are almost forever technology. My 1972 panel is putting out pretty much what it did when new. It is 34 years old. I would like to see a wind generator bearing that lasted 10 years let alone 30.

So solar it is for me. Portable, quiet, doesn't announce itself to the world, durable and almost maintenance free. I hear you, I understand, there is not enough oil to make enough panels for everyone. Hell there's not enough oil to keep making food for everyone. So mayhe what I'm suggesting is that it would be a good idea if YOU, not everyone, got their panels now. Not later. Why not? Walmart has a Request for bid out to put panels on every walmart. This is megawatts of panels, hundreds of megawatts. There is not enough solar cell construction capability to supply that many cells right now. So I'm guessing it is going to get really hard to get panels if they actually go through with the plan.

Check ebay for the unisolars on sale in Yuma. Solar panels are better than gold under the bed, which is pretty damn good too.

I would love to hear from wind people if I have missed something.

mcnalan loving solar trying to justify wind.

A set of first steps, first thinking:
It is easy to become lost in the confusion of preparation. Preparation for what? When? Who knows? What to do? Of course the easy answer is wait until we see what it comes. Well shit, I'll do nothing at all then because there is nothing to do. I support you in that, but there are a few things you can do now. The first is a change of perspective. That is what I want to talk about today. Getting selfish, getting focused on you and yours, and beginning to think about your future neighbors.

Self.
We are taught in the Anglo Judeo-Christian ethic to sacrifice self. This goes directly against the instructions they give you on the airplane. In event that the oxygen masks come down, put yours on first, so that you may then assist others. Yes, that's the thing to do. Our programming of self sacrifice works only if your goal is self sacrifice, and then because of your sacrifice, others you love are not helped. So you must put it in your mind that you will first protect, save, and remove yourself from danger.

There is a line that always comes back to me from the “The Last of the Mohicans” with Daniel Day-Lewis (think I got that right), where he yells to his love who will be taken by the Huron's in just a moment, “Stay alive, no matter what, no matter what you must do, stay alive and I will find you!” You are only useful to your family, close ones, and tribe if you are alive. You do have some significant fertilizer value, but I would prefer to use all your many talents. . .
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