Image:National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO

Your Electricity Rate Can Be Locked-In For 25 Years, IF You Go Solar -- Now!

Will Fossil Fuel electricity rise or fall during next 25 years? Lock in your rate now with Solar!

Is your Electricity Cost going to go up, or is it going to go down? Will it be the same in 25 years as it is NOW?  Can you disconnect from fossil fuel power? Will cutting fossil fuel power generation help the planet? Can you disconnect from Big Carbon Inc., and let them vanish?

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Is there enough solar energy to fuel man and Weather? (And Wind and Waves and life?)

Image: Wikipedia

Don't ever let someone tell you solar energy can't replace the current means of energy production for use. The energy is abundant. It drives life on Earth.

This is perspective and scale you might appreciate: Gosh! What if we need 10 times the amount of energy we are consuming now . . ?  Where can we obtain it?

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Is there enough Solar Energy to supply Mankind's Needs?

What if you lock your electricity rate for 25 years?

You can if you go solar now in most of the U.S. There are Seven States that do not have net metering, yet. If you live in one of those, you need to get them to get their heads on straight.

Since I posted this, three more states have joined in Net Metering.  This probably has been forced at the state utility commision level, or through citizen actions initially.

You can see from this map, that 42 of the 50 states have some form of net metering for solar.

We will discuss this 25-year plan below.

But first!

Get this into your head: To save ourselves and Mother Earth we need to halt the use of fossil fuels used in power generation, in transportation; in anything that releases C from fossil sources to form CO2 and add to the blanket of CO2 in the air.

Are your utility bills mostly based on fossil fuels? Are the costs of fossil fuels; oil, coal and natural gas -- going up?

It is a good question. All your powers of clairvoyance might give you a hint -- and common sense might too. If you are a Utility Company Customer (a residential consumer) in any state of the United States are your costs going up or down?

Can you get Solar Energy to replace what you would buy from your Utility Company where you live in the US? Sure. It just takes a few more panels to do the load. In the winter the sun's angle to your roof or solar panel farm is less favorable than in the summer. But yes, it would just require a larger array of panels.

IMAGE: NREL.gov

The outside surfaces of the North Exelon Pavilion buildings in Chicago are covered in 460 BIPV modules that generate up to 16,000 kWh of electricity annually.

CAN YOU DISCONNECT FROM BIG CARBON? YET?

The answer is: Not quite, yet. But soon!

If the entire world went to active solar, Banks and their Big Carbon CO2 thermal poisoner-buddies would have to change totally. When the U.S., with Congressional and outsider help, got "out" of the sheep business and China was making the U S Navy Blue woolens, Australia's deep Merino involvement and vast sheep holding caused banks down under to re-evaluate the way they made loans to sheep ranchers. The paucity and expense of shearers also made Australia develop an injection for sheep that caused them to harmlessly but uniformly lose their wool -- It was like a sheep in a blanket it could crawl out of, and the process calls for a sock webbing baggie the sheep wears until the wool is loose enough to crawl out of. (Don't know if they have reached final status yet but because of the Chinese wool infusion to the US, Australia had to reevaluate their sheep ranch loans.)

Solar might be the way to do a real and necessary redistribution of planetary wealth, and exact a "touch" of Justice, on a planetary scale. Hmm?

The Money People and businesses still have their eye on unlimited growth. Population growth will stop as it must. Eventually everyone will have all the widgets they must have -- and new widgets won't even be desired. Food, Water, Power for more than subsistence meager living will be needed.

But the first "big thing" to accomplish is reducing the emissions of CO2. Many scientists think that we're are on the precipice -- or may be a bit over it. Kind of like those Road-Runner cartoons, where my favorite Wiley Coyote (Why-lee Ki-O-Tee) slides to a stop beyond the edge of the cliff -- and it takes him a few moment to realize he is going DOWN!

Other students of the problem see our current 100 ppmv man-made "excess" quantity of CO2 causing a 10oC rise 18o F rise or more within foreseeable time. That could be our situation -- and much more quickly than the business-friendly IPCC is forecasting. One forecast is for 2 to 6 degrees. But the excess CO2 may support a far more dire rise. (Some other ideas on equilibrium temperatures are mentioned near the end of this posting.)

In the historically recent past, without anthropogenic insults, the atmosphere ticked along with a max of 280 ppm -to- 290 ppm CO2 or so. This was where it was until about 1900. But now man has added more than 100 ppm to elevate CO2 to unprecedented levels. Like lung cancer and cigarettes, those people involved in this exploitation have all along known what they have been doing. And they deny it.

Think about this. You just can't dump an invisible thermal poison into the air, like putting out the trash, and not expect to have some consequences. Denier's and the governments that have supported both these people and their corporate organizations -- and these actions -- are morally and criminally responsible for this situation, and should be prosecuted for it. We humans need a few laws to execute a small token of justice. Think about that while you plug into the coming solar and alternative energy-world. And hope that you are "in time" to keep yourself and your loved-ones from going over the cliff edge. But it has to be plugged in on a world-wide scale just to REDUCE emissions. The challenge is to do that and remove the CO2 also.

The systems described here, and links to websites trying to move us away from fossil fuels may help you determine that "locking in" your electric power rates for 25 years is the way to start. To me it looks like a no lose situation. Even with the flat rate of the rental being fixed for a time. If you don't know about going for the whole banana, there are 1-year, 5-year, and 25-year plans. It is more than a step. It is a long stride in the right direction.

Of course, in the contract, you have escape clauses, but the real truth is the thermal layer of CO2 that has been placed into the air you breathe -- allows no escape from it's consequences.

This should be familiar, and this is the current CO2 in the atmosphere from readings at Mauna Kea.

We humans, the longer we allow this excess blanket after blanket to be built, the larger the difficulty ahead. Actually, we will have a much more "desperate" time ahead.

I ask you to "get used to the idea" that we humans will have to remove and sequester 100 ppm of the CO2 in the atmosphere. Otherwise it is likely the poison thermal blanket will outlive our species and all other land animals with which we share this planet. Most land plants will die. (Everything lives on plants.) Most large land animals will die. That is why we need to stop NOW. Once the thermal poison is in the air -- immense effort is needed remove it. We may not be able to do it. Only a few alive now may know the efforts we made helped or fell short. In the rest of this posting I try to point out what we face as a species -- and some ways to meet the challenge to our survival.

So where do you get the energy you need at night? The grid, of course, the same people you would "sell" electricity to.

If it is mainly a sunshine issue, and not much storage, then it makes sense to connect the sunny side of the earth to the dark side of the earth. To have national or "global" solar power when half the world is in darkness, we need to hard-wire a world-wide "global" sunshine power connection; a Global Power Grid; a network that ignores or demolishes government's interferences. When the connection exists between day side and night side of the planet, the options for survival increase.

As long as the power is produced by non-fossil fuel means we can run the power in a global grid. It will not happen overnight, but it could become a reality in a decade or two.

This day to night connection will be initially expensive and a long time-consuming effort but must be accomplished, especially if our species is to escape extinction "this time." At the current state of energy production and growth, especially in India and China, it will require growth of energy production devices on an industrial scale. It is not clear that we can produce solar photovoltaic devices as fast as we need to install them.

That is, with industrial scale production of solar photovoltaic devices, can we reduce the number of nuclear and geothermal or other renewable non-fossil carbon energy production systems? Of course, not easily, and not immediately. We have some myopic global influences and leadership. No, we have a 50% myopic business-government situation. If we add the financial sector, the old money bloodline institutions, we have a 90% myopic outlook. That said. No new Fossil Fuel Electrical Power production facilities can be allowed to be built without 100% CO2 emission capture.

This global network of electrical power should be modeled on the Global Vision of the late Buckminster Fuller. "Learning a living" was his vision as a guide to a more workable equitable world. An effort to make an exact copy of what he was thinking, would not be far from what is reasonable or desirable. (1)

With Solar, now, we do not have easy electrical energy storage means. It is a technology we need to develop. Numerous ideas are being worked on, such as compressed air storage and later use. Other means involving reversible electrochemical reactions are also being explored. Big Carbon Inc. and their government friends have been leading the fight against such research and development.

Small scale units would be easily spread through those completely off grid. That is, using solar to stay off by attaching storage units or devices, like compressing air.

25-year lock on electricity costs? Read on.

I know a local man who is essentially selling electricity back to the electric company, not huge amounts, but such that he has no electricity bill over the course of a year. His cost recovery ($25,000 by using tax credit rebates and power company rewards) for his complete solar system is less than 15 years. This will come down to even lower initial investment amounts as solar photovoltaics become cheaper and more efficient.

If my friend had electricity storage instead of putting the sun power back onto the grid, he would not consume any grid power unless it was night-time for a week. Storage is the next challenge even when we build the worldwide grid.

If we have a planetary grid we can use the sunshine from the other side of the world, at night -- and they on the other side of the world can do so too.

Visit SunEdison's site and explore it.

www.sunedison.com

Here are opportunities. The nation's largest solar electric PV energy producer and installer, SunEdison, has concentrating on large commercial utilities; and commercial entities, like Kohls, and mostly businesses. SunEdison began it's activities on the Residential Scale, but has now concentrated mostly doing Business and Commercial scale as well as large utility power supplying.

Below is a link to a list of SunEdison's customers and their installations:

http://www.sunedison.com/dynamic/install-table.xml

http://www.nrel.gov/learning/re_solar.html">

http://www.nrel.gov/learning/re_solar.html">http://www.nrel.gov/learning/re_solar.html

Image:NREL.GOV, learning

CITIZENRE has also done work on the top end of providing small utility scale electricity, but is now setting up the larger scale distributed networking and volume of operations to connect residential homeowner customers with solar PhotoVolataic electricity generation and selling the power back to the grid utility.

Citizenre is a company starting-up that gambles the cost of fossil fueled energy is going to rise and that by having solar panels on every roof they can make some money and make a serious contribution to saving the planet. Who else shares in the benefits of making some coin and saving the planet?

Obviously -- You and all of us benefit from reducing CO2 emissions.

You can "go Solar" for the same Kilowatt cost you pay now and keep that rate for 25 years. (Most residential KwH costs are in the $0.10/KwH or less, at present. Will your rates stay the same?) What Citizenre provides is a hedge fund for the consumer. Does this help the planet? So how does this work? Check their savings cost recovery calculator. Here is a link.

http://www.citizenre.com/web/index.php?p=contact
http://www.citizenre.com/web/index.php#

http://renu.citizenre.com

If you are a home owner, you can sign-up for solar energy, and the Citizenre Company will come out and evaluate your house and provide solar equipment for NO COST of investment from you. That's right! No Cost! When installed, there is a security deposit of $500 for the rental and damages agreement. (Another big plus is that BIG CARBON does not want you to do this!)

The arrangement provides you a "lock in" to your present usage and kWh rates for 1-year, 5-year and even 25 years. There are arrangements for selling your home and moving the system to your new home.

Let's review this a little. . .

a) There is NO upfront investment; and no need to become a financial expert to justify your investment.

b) There is NO waiting for rebates.

c) There are NO city or utility headaches. The company handles the engineering, procurement, and construction.

d) With a flat monthly rent and “Performance Guarantee” you generate your own, renewable electricity and pay for the rent with your savings. Since your rental agreement will show the amount of energy your system can generate, it is simple to calculate your savings.

e) Operation and maintenance is hassle-free; company experts do it.

f) The agreement is a hedge against future utility price increases: you can “lock in” your rates for the electricity generated from the solar system at your home for a period of up to twenty-five years, far longer than the guaranteed rates offered by other electricity providers, and will their cost stay the same? With Citizenre, it will. It will be a fixed monthly cost.

http://renu.citizenre.com

It is almost an offer you can't refuse -- unless you think you need to get a reduced energy footprint before going flat-line. There are things you have to do, but not much, if you are "young," have a home you are buying, there isn't much of a better way to reduce your over all carbon footprint. Then look at the new hybrid automobiles.

To remain qualified and participant in the solar panel rental program, you do have to have and maintain a dedicated land line telephone hookup. You must also stay hooked to the electrical grid, and keep attached to it for the duration of the "rental" agreement. An Internet hook is advantageous, but I wonder about it as a requirement, though ideally you should get immediate feedback to your computer about the overall performance of the system on your roof and the system in general.

What risk is there? Not much as far as I can see -- and if you do not like the arrangement it can be nullified. You will have to pay for any damages you cause to the equipment you are renting, but your home-owners insurance should be examined to see what accidental things they would cover, if any. But that flat monthly rate reduces any hope you might have of reducing your costs and energy footprint with new technology. It would be like the base fee for a landline phone or utility hookup.

Imagine before we get control of Big Carbon's planetary damage, you experience record-sized hailstones. Say grapefruit and basketball sized chunks of solid ice fall on your home, your rented solar panels, and 6 of them pound your hybrid automobile's roof and make it undriveable. Your homeowners insurance should cover the panels. Make sure.

What happens when it get's DARK? Well, you ARE still on the grid.

You can also get out of the agreement but you loose both the rented Solar stuff and the security deposit. But you could save a LOT of money, and save the environment. (A big strike at Big Carbon.)

If you think you will pay "less" for electricity in 10 years than you are paying now -- it still might be a good idea for you in the mean time.

Please understand, I am not advocating or participating in this plan (yet.) But it, and similar options, need to be studied. Like who gets the solar tax breaks -- both the solar company and you? Read the stuff. Tell them what you think! They will have someone come to your roof!

I did a quick computation. Probably, unlike most of you -- my operation does use a lot of electricity. So instead of $500 to offset an assumed 5Kw as a security deposit, mine would be closer to a $1500 deposit. But as I get older, I slow down. Still, I might soon give them a call.

http://renu.citizenre.com/index.php?p=svc_overview

Let's suppose you want completely off grid. Citizenre can also get you there. But it is more costly; you do not "rent" the equipment, you buy it.

If you sell your house you can sell the contract to the buyer, or you can take the system with you to your new digs under the same agreement conditions. The Citizenre Agreement provides for a first free move. So you can take it with you!

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Image:NREL
These buildings at Fort Dix, New Jersey, have been fit with a grid-connected photovoltaic system that generates 18 peak kW.

Here are a few solar companies:

http://www.thesolarco.com/

http://www.solarexpert.com/grid-tie/earthsafejob1.html

http://www.sunwize.com/

http://www.sunrunhome.com/

If your company's name is not on here it is not a slight. Just get ahold of Google Adsense and advertise with them!

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(1)

World-wide Banking Interests have resisted and fought against the ideas that Buckminster Fuller worked out nearly 50 years ago. Why would the money interests fight Fuller's ideas? The main reason old money Babylonian model Bank interests fight Fuller's ideas is that it ends the "exploitation of people" for short term singular "profit." Fuller's vision forms a model of sustainable, successful human life without the exploitive damage and destruction of Earth or the human inhabitants thereon. The biggest argument the banks and the exploiters protest is that growth in commodities or production or population IS limited.

That is, these things must reach a maximum value or quantity. There is a limit to area on Earth and there is a limit to how many of any species the Earth can support. Profit motive can also be used to produce the big die-off to make certain banks have new generations to charge interest to and skim from. Damage to each and all of us occurs if any sector save one is allowed to be exploited infinitely. That one sector is the most important one -- knowledge and information. Financial institutions can't be allowed to grown lucre infinitely either. It will take some small amount of time to correct this, and prevent them funding the die-off.

“For the first time in history it is now possible to take care of everybody at a higher standard of living than any have ever known. Only ten years ago the ‘more with less’ technology reached the point where this could be done. All humanity now has the option to become enduringly successful.”

– R. Buckminster Fuller, 1980

Some websites with pieces of Fuller and his vision:

http://www.bfi.org/our_programs/who_is_buckminster_fuller

http://www.squidoo.com/BUCKY

(From Squido.com)

"Albert Einstein once said Bucky Fuller was one person who truly understood his work."

"There is no energy crisis, There is a crisis of ignorance."

Global Energy Network Institute:
http://www.geni.org/globalenergy/library/GENI-us/index.shtml#2008

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Dr James Hansen in late 2007, at the meeting of the American Geophysical Union, made a clear statement that should have gotten a lot more press than it did. I know it was heard in the scientific community. Dr. Hansen suggested a target value for the global concentration of CO2

The IPCC and many Business Friendly American groups have suggested CO2 is going to double and it would be ok? The IPCC has been suggesting we should divide up the carbon pie so that it can reach 450 ppm Dr Hansen is suggesting a target of 350 ppm.

Image: NOAA

This graph shows that in 1989-1990 we had already placed enough fossil carbon into the air to raise the concentration to 350 ppm CO2. Most of the last few interglacials (times between Ice Ages), the total CO2 in the atmosphere was in the 280 - 300 ppm CO2 range.

This year, 2008, the atmospheric concentration of CO2 passed 385 ppm.

How do we reach 350 ppm?

If we do not remove the CO2 we have added. . . The temperature rises. . . .

For the 385 ppm we have now, the "equilibrium" temperature will likely not be reached or fully approached until 140 to 150 years have passed, perhaps a longer time than that. . .but not much longer.

If we do not remove the CO2 the temperature will possibly equilibrate at as much as 25o F. higher than now. Crops will wither. Animals will die. People will die. Billions. This temperature consequence is as inevitable as the sunrise.

This is more "your" problem to solve than mine. Only because I am much older. I can only help you to recognize the stark and imminent danger you and your families will have to confront. This is not something like Armageddon, something that looms in some Abrahamic or Christian future; this is not like the 2012 end of the Mayan Calender, where something unknown or unspoken or unwritten ends all things earthly. No. This is a physical consequence. It has been human-caused, and it will occur if we do not remove the excess CO2. Oh? We have always had our prophets of doom? This time it is different, we done this to ourselves. Do you doubt the potential effects of a global thermonuclear war because we have not had one? A few recent physical "threats" have petered into nothing. This won't. There are many possible inevitable asteroid/comet Earth-impact events in our future if we succeed in surviving the CO2 disaster -- to have a "future." Imagine physical alignments, like with the supermassive Black Hole in the Milky Way's center, the Winter solstice and the Mayan Calender. Forget that, for the 2012 date. (This alignment happens every year. And will happen this year and in 2099.) That is a nothing prediction.

CO2 is a physical presence of an invisible enemy aloft. No, this is not the "Jupiter Effect" and this is not the "invasion from space." This is not the End of Time and the "Four Horsemen, nor Gabriel's horn.

This is something we have allowed to happen, mostly through a terrible ignorance, a terrible set of poor choices, and a manipulation of the access to information in the world by those with a special interest and much to lose if you become aware of what they are doing. In some cases, Iraq for example, most of the US/Big Carbon/Halliburton/oil connection is hidden from you under the guise of "national security."

We have allowed this to be done to us, and we even see those who have done this and who gain from it continue to manipulate events that are broadly effective only for themselves.

We should all have some hand in determining the "justice" for it. Can we stop it? No; not the consequential warming, unless. . . Can we moderate it? Yes. . . well, maybe, perhaps if we act quickly.

Will it be enough, in time?

Aye, that is the question.

What are you going to do? Do you have any options?

How long will the CO2 be there? Forever?

http://www.ipcc-data.org/ddc_visualisation.html

Image:IPCC (SYR - Figure 5-2)