Posted on 03/25/2024 3:32:31 AM PDT by Sam77
That's actually one of the reasons I went solar with a portion of what I wanted in the end, to try it out for a year, I liked it, then upscaled to the full version I have now (I call the upgrade the Phase II). My Phase I panels have a 25-year warranty with a guarantee for no more than a linear decline in throughput, to still be operating at 70% in the final year. The Phase II panels have a 25-year/80% warranty. And my batteries have a 19-year/50% warranty.
Assuming the above degradation in throughput, and assuming a reasonable 3% inflation in the power rates I'm avoiding (how much money I save each year), I'm looking at the payback point being at 10 years after the upgrade. That includes paying a 2.85% interest rate on the loan I took out to pay for all of it (and some other energy improvements to the house, like adding insulation and replacing appliances with energy efficient ones).
This is NOT the kind of project to do willy nilly. You have to do lots of homework to make sure it's good for your situation. After that you have to do lots more to tweak your research to get the most goody out of it (take advantage of economies of scale) without getting too much solar equipment (fighting the law of diminishing returns). And if you incorporate an EV into it like I did, you have to do more math on your driving habits to make sure an EV is good as one of your cars, and how much charging you need based on solar radiation your area gets, etc.
There's a lot to consider before going solar. But if you're willing to analyze the details it might be good. Definitely a free market thing, though. Solar is a great example of how horrible the failures of the political class are with their one size fits all stupidness. For solar to be efficient, so many details have to be custom for each person's situation -- of the people that solar is good for anyway.
If they really must do EVs, let them do it for short intra-city trips. They really think it’s made by magic?
“Until it’s NEW BATTERY TIME, then all that pie in the sky crap goes right in the toilet.”
“The starting price for the Tesla Semi is US$150,000 for a 300-miles vehicle and $180,000 for 500 miles extended-range version.”
The average regional truck driver puts less than 300 miles per day in point to point and point to multi points typical of say PepsiCo or Frito Lay.
So the 300 mile version would allow daily out and back to central yard for a charge.
If you save $200,000 in fuel over three years you could just buy a whole new Ysla semi and pocket the $50,000 in’m fuel savings that’s giving away the asset for zero dollars secondary sale value.
PepsiCo confirms 1.7kWh to the mile for Telsa semi with full loads. Compare that to 7mpg for a typical semi. I’ll leave it to you to do the math.
I’ll help out one gal of diesel has a lower heating value of 128,488 Btu/gal, Electricity is 3412 btu to the kWh
This is a text book example of first law vs second law of thermodynamics machines.
For regional trucking the Tesla Semi looks to be a winner economically. Given that a 300 mile version can be had for $150,000 new.
Nearly half of all new trucks are day cabs only used in regional trucking under 300 miles out and back.
https://www.act-news.com/news/growth-of-regional-haul-could-present-opportunities/
Clearflame has data showing they are even cheaper than both electrics and diesel while meeting all future EPA emissions regs today.
NOx SOx,and especially PM2.5 are real pollutants that diesel will never be as clean as spot free fuels it’s a matter if physics the NOx soot trade off is a function of diesel fuel carbon chain length no amounts of particulate filters nor SCR will get it to zero zero. Cummins and clearflame both have zero,zero,zero engines certified on soot free fuels, be it natural gas , hydrogen or alcohols.
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