Posted on 03/03/2009 10:16:48 PM PST by wastedyears
Not sure about posting rules, so I'm just putting up the link.
Cool, plug in an exercise bike in Al Gore’s hog of a mansion. He can reduce his carbon footprint and butt print in one swell foop.
Perfect for zer0bama's green shirts to make sure you're under your monthly carbon allotment, of course the enviros are going to love it.
Cost of additional wiring, permits: $8,000.
Cost of synchronous inverter: $2,500.
Exercise bike/treadmill:
Strong rider outputs 1/4 hp for an hour = 746/4 watts = 186.5 watts = .1865 kwh assuming no inefficiencies in the ex bike.
less nominal losses from friction and inverter and mileage display on ex bike: net, .150 kwh.
Assuming 20 c/kwh (VERY high) = 3 cents per hour, assume 1 hr exercise twice a day (yeah, right) = 6 cents a day. = $22/year
Payback period: $10,500. / 22 = 477.27 years.
Fate of suburban stick-built house after 477 years: landfill.
Forgone interest on 10,500 at 1% per annum: $105.
Payback period: Infinite.
Feeeeeeeelings of contributing to Al Gore’s worldview: Priceless.
Next idea.
Actually I do try to work out 2 hours/day but not to make 6 cents/day of electricity. I get my Korean drama fix that way.
Thank heaven for people that know science.
I thought you were talking about obama’s sexual preference.
LOL!
But if we pick up all these illegals and while they are waiting to get sent back across, we make them work these bikes. Well.....
.06 for 2 hours 1 bike.
6.00 for 2 hours 100 bikes.
600.00 for 2 hours 10,000 bikes.
3000.00 for 10 hours x 10,000 bikes
18,000 for 10 hours x 60,000 bikes
1,800,000 for 10 hours x 6,000,000
3,600,000 for 10 hours x 12,000,000
Soooo we could get around 3.5 million bucks every single stinking day.... thats like 1.5Billion a year, heck thats equivilant two .....1/500th of a bailout? Oh I guess it aint that much then is it.
Hmmmm. If you plugged the output into the input....
The new administration wants to tax cars getting over 40MPH,
because of lost revenue.
Imagine the new taxes when people stop using more Ele!
How many taxes are repealed for using less energy? Again?
They probably try to keep revenue at a good flow by raising certain taxes when they don’t collect enough from others. A perilous cycle
Imagine raising taxes during a recession.
I humbly submit a song called, "The Rodeo Song" during this era
of BS and loss. Seems fitting.
Something like this probably wouldn’t be installed in existing houses as much as it would in new, I’d guess.
I’m also thinking that if cost was a huge issue, those new outlets wouldn’t be in every room of the house.
If there was a cheap and easy way to sell power back to the power company, it would likely increase sales of wind / hydro / solar. Having your own power generating might come in handy if tshf.
I think this song is quite appropriate. You probably won’t like the music, but the lyrics are dead-on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmQ_7SADqgs
You've discovered pres_ent without ID bamboozle's secret energy plan!!!
“If there was a cheap and easy way to sell power back to the power company, it would likely increase sales of wind / hydro / solar. Having your own power generating might come in handy if tshf.”
I don’t disagree at all. To do that, though, you’d need a synchronous inverter [google it] which is a fair chunk more expensive than vanilla inverters. The AC power you’d feed back into the line/grid has to be properly phased with the native phase of the power line feeding your home.
There are many aspects of self-power-generation that complicated when you want to sell power back to your utility vs just keep your little “island” going. For example, you have to be able to shut off that “sell back” capability if there’s a problem with your power line, because you could fry a guy working on the power lines. Is that likely? No, but it would be made more likely by having scores of folks who were feeding power back into the grid. Point being, there has to be a facility to disconnect power from feeding back, and it has to be smart in the sense that it isn’t left to the attention or memory of a numbnut...it has to be automated. This isn’t hard to do in reality, any competent package installation would cover this.
I truly do not disparage anyone who wishes to get themselves off the grid, but it ain’t no piece of cake, nor is it cheap.
The other thing about this...it’s so banal.
IF you had a valid means of generating power and synchronizing it with the grid, there’s no reason why you couldn’t feed it back into the exact same outlet you extract it from EXCEPT at some point the “output” cable of your generating device would be “hot” with a “male” plug which is a decided no-no. Answer: leave it plugged in all the time or hard wire it into yhour home system, perform the on/off line switch with a real switch (elswhere) like we do with all our other devices.
But what’s typical about this idea from the standpoint of how well it’s been thought out, is that it’s a fifth-grade level deal. Look, for example, at the size of the wire coming out of the plug. (Yes, I know, it’s only an artist’s rendering) but it’s BS = BarackS**t.
I'm pretty sure this feature is required on all inverters. It's not a separate Frankenstein switch on the wall in the basement.
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