And the profits grow

[--Pete]

Hi,

One application of solar cells . . . was a 6 inch by 6 inch panel connected to the batteries that would slowly add charge to them . . .

Such panels are very commonly used on sailboats to recharge the batteries. Often the solar panel is attached to the hatch cover, so the batteries are charging when the boat is docked, and everything is out of the way when the boat is n use.

Solar water heaters are definitely something I'd like to see more widespread, they seem to be pretty effective.

Here in Seattle, a solar water heater would be iffy in the winter. And in Pullman (Eastern Washington) where I lived for about eleven years, you'd need a large amount of anti-freeze in that system in the winter. But in some places, it would work fine. About 100 feet (say 30 m) of black PVC pipe was our water heater for the showers in Nah Trang, Viet Nam. Except during the rainy season, we always had plenty of hot water.

I'm a fan of doing more of the little stuff like that to help out. More intelligent dwelling design.

That would require more intelligent dwellers. People want nine to twelve foot ceilings, many big windows, and complex home design in huge houses.

You can already get devices that let you feed power into the grid if you have excess, and you can pull out of the grid like normal if you need it. Some people actually get a small check from the power company each month because they generated more power than they consumed.

Co-generation can get the consumer a bit back if the local laws require the power companies to pay (or if the power company is progressive enough to pay without being forced to). Mostly, though, the return on the investment is from avoiding having to buy the power.

The initial set-up fees aren't unreasonable for stuff like that.

Initial costs are pretty well meaningless by themselves. The buzz phrase is "life cycle cost analysis". How much does it cost to install, maintain, and finally dispose of the old system when the upgrade goes in? How much power will you generate during the life of the system. That ratio gives you the number to compare to the power company's rate. You'd be surprised how seldom you can come out ahead.

Windmills on farmland, especially animal grazing land is becoming more popular as they don't take a lot of usable land up. The issues with birds and such still have to be dealt with, it's not a zero environment impact solution, but I'm a fan.

Actually, it's the windmill that's a fan;) Sorry, couldn't resist.

I'm a fan of centralize the less clean power generation sources since you can be more effective in controlling the pollutants they produce, . . .

Centralized or not, there really isn't any way to keep the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. You can't store it, and the energy required to convert it into something else is more than what you got from burning the stuff in the first place. First law: you can't win. Second: you can't even break even. So releasing that carbon is bad, even if the other pollutants are scrubbed.

. . . but the cleaner sources, like solar and wind, while there isn't a major issue with centralizing them, I don't see any major drawbacks to decentralizing them.

An often overlooked advantage is that small, local sources don't suffer from long distance transmission losses and from transformer losses.

. . . using several solutions will still like provide a better answer than just trying to back a single option.

Very true, but the total energy requirements for an industrial society are large and most of these solutions are small. Ideally, we need to stop burning fossil fuels to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions. Hydro is pretty well maxed out, and many hydro dams are becoming maintenance nightmares because of silt (not to mention the environmental effects). Of the proven technologies, only nuclear has the potential for meeting the needs. The more it is supplemented with secondary sources, the longer we can depend on it. But any non-nuclear long term solution is a pipe dream.

--Pete