I just wanted to add to the mess! The green energy test house, group homes, or village would be not only a proving ground, but an education center. Linked with other test sites and local colleges and, trade schools and, and........ Still it would be a local focus so that an exchange of info and experience could spill into the surrounding communities. Might even be a hub for small businesses or a business itself, a show place for tools and techniques, a hands-on project place. Videos of projects can be made, put on line or used as training material. But the real idea is that actual green stuff is done on the people level, neighborhood level and the city level. Then we can stop the spread of west coast pictures in our Ohio green energy push and put up pictures of our own solutions and successes.

Follow the calculator, once pricey, nerdy and techie, now an accessory on every computer and cellphone and done in software. Technology has to be pushed down into common use or it's just a brief article in Popular Science.

From: http://www.greenenergyohio.org/ost/page.cfm?pageId=719

The solar tour is this weekend...

It isn't the answer to all your questions, but it is a way to connect with a group of people who are interested in starting to make those changes.

Please turn off your TVs and come out to meet some of us. The vast majority of us are fairly user friendly.

By refusing to deal honorably with others, you dishonor yourself.

  Within a five mile radius of my house---I'll check out the Fire Station on my lunch break...do you think I could get those guys to help me install solar panels on my house :)
 

Fire Station No.20
3685 Pearl Road
Cleveland, OH 44109
Fire Station
Solar Thermal, Other
Open Oct 3 '09 from 1 - 4

It's part and parcel of the whole genie gig!

Not being fully employed, having so many needs, my mobility is limited, my interest scattered too wide, but time on my hands allows me to ponder. Sometimes I see a thing and see it right off. Folks deal with things on their level. Business folk look at business, big business looks at big business. Polititian/lawyers look at polititian/lawyers. They usually think their neck of the woods is important, that is what they know. The practical idea being realized is always hampered by who gets the benefit. If dollars are to be made there is a long "bread line" of professional people all trying to get what they can, for personal gain and/or for their community. The only thing I get is the news that somewhere bread is being made, I smell it, from a distance I might even see it.

We have had solar technology since space junk, yet every time someone has a practical application, folks say the power conversion efficiency is not to where it is cost effective, I mean profitable. The cost never goes down. We market stuff with the big end in view, we deny the actual customer (the little end). This is typical trickle down economics. The big dollars get siphoned off the top and the residue is sifted on the bottom. Only my desktop calculator is solar, today.

The problem is very simple, If I have $100.00 to spend, how much solar panel can I buy and how much energy can it produce and how many lights will it power. It is the smaller scale we refuse to look at. If I can only power my computer, that is fine, my computer will costs me nothing to use. I use my computer a lot. This is green I can realize. Having the technology in my hands, I now can dream, know it's worth, wonder if I can............the answer is as simple as the problem.

In Lorain we have Dennis Flores, 2nd Ward Councilman, he is pushing for the green stuff in Lorain. I have had very brief encounters with him. He seems open to a lot of input, could use lots of support.

http://www.ecodirect.com/

If you take it all into consideration it could be a net loss? Not just money, all the energy that goes into it as is the equipment being made in a factory using coal fired electricity?

People clearing trees to get more sunshine….negative

Batteries and disposal of them as well hazardous materials, the computers are a big disposal problem already.

Building the list of the things you would need…then what is the amount of energy that went into all those things. How long will they last and then the disposal process of them at the end of that life cycle.

The point of access to the home should be a smart device, then adding equipment to the home to offset should be registered into a database that compliles the net gain or loss and based on the environments potential to generate.

Anything using power shares the components of the total value, each watt of energy is either direct or indirectly consumed. The degrees of separation may make you feel better but the net is what matters.

People are inherently competitive, what is needed is not big brother. Its supper big brother! It’s not about knowing what your neighbor is doing its knowing what you are doing.

A smaller more modular grid and fees levied on those directly using it, the offset you make is to keep the consumption down. But if you buy products being made within a different modul of the grid that is not ideal then it just a theoretical separation.

Each product has embedded energy within it, then it also can be associated with by-products that may also require energy to handle. It's not about recycling it about zeroing out the waste and increasing life cycle durations.

The capital needs to be directed into perfecting everything and making it all 100% accountable. Do not assume you figured it all out your brain is not capable of all the iterations….it all requires information processors.

Do something in any direction, it will cost you, do nothing the cost is the same. The new always comes out of the old, you have no choice but to use the tools and processes you have. But once the new tools are made you can replace the old tools and should consider upgrading the old ways too.

You can't accurately count all the cost or variables or outcomes. Once a thing gets in people's hands you no longer have full control. Some will grab the wrench and use it for a hammer. This is true no matter what the injury obcessed legislate.

I buy a small solar panel and battery to power my PC. At home I do not use my AC adapter to plug into the grid. My computer works. That is not theoretical. If enough of us do this one thing then one coal miner might get layed off, that's theoretical. If we all do this, then begin to meet all our home power needs this way, maybe they won't shut down any plants but they won't need to build new ones either. Now spend money scrubbing coal or making solar panels. Scrubbing coal is theoretical, building solar panels is not. In the long run AC adapters become unused, obsolete, extinct. But what about the materials to make solar panels? Who digs the coal, etc?

Don't buy a car, buy a bike, OK buy a bamboo bike. Gee, I need to drive 27 miles to Cleveland and back everyday.

You shouldn't mix moral obligation to purity of pursuit with the cost, the overruns will cause you to do nothing. Go live with the Amish, they have a smaller footprint. How come the Amish don't pick up after their horses the way we have to do behind our dogs? (cats are more, you know, I have 6).  If we take reasonable action toward goals we tend to make better progress. Perhaps you alone are able to hold to strict guidelines, you will sacrifice too much for the world around you to bear. You will be a kook or a genius but folks will take only as much as they can stand. Very few of the folks who didn't want kids because of the total cost are unmarried and childless.

What is reasonable action? If the same work can be done with less energy it is worth pursuing. To green energy production without greening energy use is waste. If you can not green energy production, green energy use anyway, equations tend to balance themselves. Don't ship waste to other countries, fill in the Grand Canyon instead, build mountains on the great plains for wind breaks and climate change. We should take old buildings in crowded cities, seal them off and fill them with compacted garbage, siphoning off the gas. We should encase our waste in erosion proof containers and build up every dyke and levy in America. We should not flush with drinking water. Working it out is called logistics and jobs. If we wait until everything is 100% accountable, environmentally benign and cost competitive with an alternative........I'am still waiting!!! and hoping I am amusing.

Seeing that I am just coming off of 10 months of unemployment, I think that I might have a bit of a clue...

In spite of the fact that I have been operating a "non-profit" company for the last 5 years, I will be open for the Solar Tour on Saturday, and an unemployed friend will be helping me, in the cold Cleveburg rain, that I hear is forcast.

Some of us might be considered "touched" for our beliefs that there is "another way" than to roll over to the coal based energy companies.

If I am so, so I am... ('kinda Popeye?)

At any rate - the easy path only leads to a spiral path that only leads downward into oblivion.

It is only through the taking of the difficult path that one can hope to rise above their current path.

Good for you!

A smart meter should have a plug in for a device that can be placed outside it would take a reading on solar potential and could even have an anemometer on it. Then it could feed that information into a repository. Then that linked to the market prices and relative capacity of the solar and wind devices. It could all happen through the utility provider offering you the devices installed. Paid for through your bill.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_meter

http://www.firstenergycorp.com/NewsReleases/2009-08-06%20FirstEnergy%20Utilities%20Propose%20Smarter%20Grid.pdf

http://ge.ecomagination.com/smartgrid/?c_id=googsmartmeter&gclid=CMau27HBmJ0CFRBM5Qodkkv88Q#/smart_meters

http://www.puco.ohio.gov/PUCO/Consumer/Information.cfm?id=8860

I like the smart meter idea. And maybe it will accomodate energy from both on grid and off grid sources, but I think the going green end users problem is the stuff (made for grid power) we use that is attached to the GRID and the reliance on the grid as the main power source. A device that requires 12-24 VDC to operates through an adapter interfaced with the 120 VAC grid power.

The grid is for distance distribution, the AC adapter is for straining it down, converting it to DC, then applying it to the device.  If I get my power locally (from a solar array or wind turbine), it is DC already, are there not DC devices (lights, fans, entertainments, etc.) so that I do not have to have a DC to AC inverter?

Is it possible to have lower power DC stuff inside the house for lights, fans, entertainments and other things we use everyday? If that is the case, perhaps a single AC to DC converter is more useful. Then the grid could serve as a backup source for the house. My home power and power storage system would still be attached, but sipping from the grid, not gulping from the grid.

The problem is this that the federal government is handing out funds and the only request that we should have is for a interface and that the meter would also be a rectifier, then we could plug the solar panel into it. Basically crediting your account and also decentralizing the power generation.

What you are talking about is and always has been your option, but the majority will not do that, we know this. Study alternating current and particularly the shock hazards. Then do some research on batteries particularly disposal of lead acid batteries.

The grid is and always will exist, and being able to see consumption is all currently being sought for the efficiency and the option of what they are calling green credits is not. That being a way for you to feed back into the grid.

It's about the grid becoming bi-directional, that would allow adding or generating by anyone to any extent. No need to save the electricity in a battery it just gets sent back to the grid.

People are not paying attention to what they are doing with the grid, they will not put a smart grids in Cleveland because you could connect to CPP and FirstEnergy and monitor the rates, feed  the lowest price to the higher priced and make money.

A factory could and some do already generate their own electricity when and if they are not in production they could supply the grid, if Natural Gas is cheap they could use that to generate.

It's called a smart grid for a reason, not influencing its implementation when it is being done with tax dollars is not.

If you want to buy $1,000.00 of equipment to power a 50watt computer off the gird go ahead I’m not.  I do not think there are any AC devices, maybe incandencent bulbs?  Computers are not, flat panel TV's are not only thing I have thats AC is my door bell. 

I’m actually pOd about people not taking the smart grid seriously…they can actually send the data through the electric line, it would reduce generation by not over powering the grid.  

The Smart meter should also be a rectifier and upagraded as technolgy changes, with a standard interface to recieve AC inputs.  Like plug and play but intead plug and power.

OK, I am feeling a little less rage on my end. Thanks Oengus for your revealing considerations. You mentioned decentralizing power generation to whatever extent other power generating sources are attached to the grid, including wind and solar. You said no need to locally store power in batteries, it's sent back to the grid, the grid being bi-directional via this smart meter/grid. I must say the smart meter sounds like the mysterious flux capacitor of "Back to the Future". And we should not be over come by the desire to "cut the cord".

Now this smart grid via this meter would be a benefit to those able send energy back to the grid, thus crediting their account, how could this help folks not able to do this?

I have been in many homes, come face to face with a huge flat screen TV not known for being an energy miser. If smart meters were common, do you think people would make better product choices and/or TV makers produce TVs that are more modest power consumers?

Again, this is what got me stirred up in the first place. The whole reduce your carbon footprint panic thing, put on me when I could do little if anything about that. I can't adjust what or where my energy comes from and the stuff I use that require grid power to operate, bought off the shelf, have consumption rates I can't adjust either. Also anything known to use less energy is more expensive than stuff that guzzles. How can anyone say how green any product really is?

When do free open markets and unlimited choices shoot us in the foot or tazer our wallet in this case? If the plan is to curb personal energy use, you'd think certain products would be pulled from shelves and energy wise stuff put out front. The energy crisis is worse than an unfunded mandates. We citizens are held hostage by our own consumption. Oh and I got a letter saying I can buy green electricity from a company in Florida, I live in Ohio.

This is just how I tend to look at things, regarding our energy uses, abuses, conservation, efficiency, and being a "good electric consumer".

<rant on>

Last things first - the coal based electric companies all want us to be "good electric consumers". We are a secure and stable cash flow for their business model. It is kind of like having a whole collection of rental properties.

Basically, we are all "renters" when it comes to our electric consumption. The coal based electric companies like us that way. They don't want us to behave like owners. They insist that we measure the value of our alternative energy installations by their "pay-back". Those who buy a house or a condo are never concerned about a "pay-back", they are most happy to be earning equity in their monetary investment. As an electric "renter", there is never a "pay-back". There never is a day when you have "paid yourself back" for your investment, with your electric savings...

Regarding conservation of electricity, generating your own electricity is like growing your own tomatoes. What is the "pay-back" on a home growner tomato? If you grow your own 'maters, you don't throw them out if they have a little bit of bird shit on them. Nor do you worry about a black spot or a missing section that a local critter sampled. You wash it off! You cut out the black spot. You cut out the critter nibbling areas. If you generate your own electricity, you really feel badly if you are wasting 75% of your generated power producing waste heat in an incandescent blub.

Alas my rant reservoir is running dry...

No one can "sell" you on the need to change the way you consume anything.

"They" actually hate the idea of your having a choice.

Only you can decide what you want.

Don't let them lull you into the false sense of security that being their "renter" customer is the best answer.

Think for yourself.

Become educated.

Talk to people.

Go on a solar tour some time.

Do your own research.

<rant off>

By refusing to deal honorably with others, you dishonor yourself.

Power line communication

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_line_communication   

I am pissed that there are no local engineers monitoring the use of smart grid funds. 

CPP is a joke...it's a dumb redundant grid, using dirty energy. 

Pull up a satellite image of the area how many huge roofs do you see? Those roofs could be solar arrays and plugged into a smart grid and get credit.

CPP should shut down and remove all the extra power lines and transformers. The city could apply for smart grid money and install the meters on every home. The lines consolidated the substation upgraded, in some locations it could be all buried.

Then talk about wind turbines.

I just want to be able to know that if I buy a solar panel all I have to do is plug it into the grid. That’s why I have to wonder why there are not smart meter with devices that can be set to read potential conditions? If it was really smart I could read that on a webpage and it would calculate that for me. The size and the estimated generation potential for my location.

What I do not want is these energy giants selling coal fired capacity to other states. While we add green energy and they would. 

They need to raise the energy star requirements, keep raising them and advertising the differences.  

If the entire area had all smart meters then it all feed back to repository of data, the generation and consumption compiled.  You could look at your and the regions. 

Another reason to have county districts that are functional.  Its a level to sort data by as in the percentage of local generation...its potential and in realty its production.   If you reduce by 10% then theroretically the district could.  If solar arrays are added to roof tops more reduction, if mehthane is captured and used to generate electricty then thats more reduction... 

Cluster of industry, clustering of commerce...each district independently but monitored with common systems and sorted data by each district, no overlaps and gestimation. 

How much energy does the industrial cluster use?  Does it have solar roofs?  Logic would say the waste and methane recovery would be in and industrial cluster.   

Then the main transmission line oblvioulsy should be to industrial clusters.  Local lines off that, into residential and commercial areas, I think under electric rail lines.   

Then it is all about what you earn and what you can afford, everything meeting in propensity.    

They are going to separate the grid from production, the grid need to be high tech and low maintenance. We will be paying a distribution fee, just like Natural Gas. Billing done by one side and generation done by another. The generation can be in part decentralized, anyone can generate and contribute.

It could be and will become a hobby for dad…he will really get into it. Checking the rating of appliances and then checking to see what generation can be attained on site. How high can you raise your percentage mines 20% what’s yours? It has to be mainstream or it isn’t going to matter, it has to be real or it just another wild goose chase.

It’s all about recovering green spaces and planting trees everywhere, I want to live in a forest. I want C02 offset credits for trees.

Fake the smart grid and then raise the price….that’s what they will do. If you do not demand the smart grid shame on you. The money will get wasted….First Energy is playing this all low key and only offering the smart meter to who? How much you want to bet its Hunting Valley that gets them?

COO COO CACHOO… CPP sticks up for the little guy….it’s painful.

There is a grid, there will always be a grid. The grid is not going away, therefore we must use the grid. Everything is made for the grid, must be attached to the grid. The grid is the most efficient and economical way to distribute electricity to the masses. You take from the grid and now can give back to the grid. The grid is it's own ecology. The grid can be smarter at any point to meter/measure/monitor energy flowing back and forth.

Energy, or the flow of energy becomes a commodity like oil for those who speculate it's worth by the amount of flow. If you can meter/measure/monitor it, you can charge someone to use it. That is the whole purpose even if it is under the guise of offering a service. Will the the cost of energy flowing in one direction equal the return rate of energy in the other direction? More court battles coming.

The problem is this, most of the green energy produced seems to be direct current (DC). Wind/solar energy then needs to be converted to alternating current (AC) for use by equipment, appliances, gadgets made to use AC grid power. Then the aspect that extra DC power generated will be converted to AC and returned to the AC grid. How much power is lost with this converting. It would seem that if DC power were used directly, at the source by equipment, appliances and gadgets made to use DC power, there would be no need to convert. The efficiency of useful power goes up a notch when you remove the conversion to AC. I also heard that there is a radiation thing going on with inverters, what's that all about.

Direct current may require a different home wiring to effectively be able to use it. It will require a different set of standards and safety precautions. Perhaps the real arguement is the monoculture mind-set in America where we insist everybody has the same equipment and services. The grid life is the good life, it's a regulated standard life. It's electricity for everyone.

Then someone invents an electricity producer you can hold in your hand. The clenched fist with lightening bolts is now relaxed and open so that sun light can caress the surface of a wafer. No moving parts, no gears, nothing the likes of Frankenstein's mansion. Power with no show of power, what kind of power is that? You couldn't put enough of these wafers on a building for heavy industry, therefore it is not economically feasible for anyone. Hey, wait, my house doesn't use that much energy, what about my house? No, you must be on the grid, like everyone else. We provide energy for everyone at reasonable rates and shared cost.

The promise of energy fresh and clean, grimmy faces are never seen (from a song by Sting). We are looking at the answer to this promise in the face (a clean face) and can't accept it, it can't be true. We can't handle the truth, we have to change too much.  Maybe if we ween ourselves slowly so the the ones dependent on the present energy market and supplying the energy market can transistion and..........isn't the grid good enough, we can make it smarter, you know.

Are we stuck, stupid or addicted. We hope for progress but can't accept it if it is too obvious, maybe the technology is not high enough. But, how can you abandon and trash everything that is normal and established and doing OK as it is, we can make it better. All the dollars and effort we are putting into making this thing work, to keep this thing going, making it better for everyone.

I read about the autonomous house in the 70s, now 39 years later there is still blind resistance to that idea. Maybe not so blind and the resistance is not coming from me. My realization is that the economy is not just based on fossil fuels, it's energy production and usage, every source, means and end use. It is too much power for you to hold in your own hand.

  I didn't have a whole lot of time to see the photovoltaic cells tour, but Bill Eger from the Mayor's Office of Sustainability was on hand to answer some questions.  I have a photo, which I will add later.  This is a start and the cells supplement the energy needs of the building (covering ~20% of the total building use).

The BIG pitch I made for Brooklyn Centre:

 MORE DEMONSTRATION PROJECTS PLEASE! 

Just to add some more dimemsions to the plot. I was wondering how fuel-cells were progressing. I read about a combo of micro-grids fed by a fuel-cell/solar/wind. The fuel-cell could be multi-fueled, hydrogen, natural gas, etc. There are digestors that will turn any organic waste into fuel/gas. Cities have an abundance of organic waste including human poop (flushed with drinking water). This particular article talked about not converting fuel-cell/solar/wind generated DC power to AC. The kink has always been AC lights and appliances and equipment. What if all these things were DC, the micro-grids also DC and if wide area distribution of power was necessary, then AC and conversion comes into play? With my non-engineer self, which is more efficient or more costly, DC to AC or AC to DC conversion? 

The one big monopoly business model has proved to be unresponse to practical market changes, checks and balances and regulation adjustment, global crisis, and subject to intregrity lapses. We have matched the hardware (the grid itself) to the corporate structure. That whole system is only marginally concerned with energy conservation, greeness and the like. It is not in their best and profitable interest for you to use less of their energy.

The keywords are sustainable and continuous supply and operation. How much power overhead is required to power the grid so that power is available to every home and business and industry? Imagine water/pressure in a pipe network to get a squirt at the end of every faucet. Would we benefit from smaller networks (or mini grids), distributed (decentralized) sources of energy generation?

We moved from "mom and pop" (locally owned and operated) to "franchises" (locally leased, corporate brand) to "global conglomorate" (industry monopoly/cartel).

We are talking about breaking up the energy business structure, the production, the distribution and the profit taking of the energy market. And changing the hardware on the user side.

OK Ohio, Hale Farm and Village is a wonderful step into the past, can we also step into the future? Instead of an isolated "outside of this world" experience. We should have a "world of progress possible" place. A green village. An all electric grid house, all electric off-grid house, hybrid homes, retro-fit homes and don't forget all the eco-trimmings, gardens, recycling, populated by real people, researchers and college kids, etc. You can compile real life data and experience on many levels and groom folks for this kind of world changing potential. Forget cutting edge technology, what can we do today!!!