The Peristaltic Testator

You've probably heard the nugget going around lately that using your phone to search a quick tidbit of info uses enough electricity to power two refrigerators. Okay. First things first. Every time we hear a meme like this, I feel we should be immediately skeptical. Seriously, why do we as a species spread information we have not personally checked for accuracy?! Sadly, we do, so I suspect that we are just info spreaders by evolution. Sometimes, like a garden sprinkler snick-snick-snicking needed water onto a parched lawn, we spread good information; other times we spread the greenish-brown stuff that the enormous sprinklers used to spread on the pastures near my childhood home. (NB: I grew up next to a dairy farm.)

( Let's look at what is being spread here. )

brucenstein's recent contribution regarding tariffs set on Chinese-made solar panels got me to thinking. There are not just one issue to discuss here — the more obvious and immediate being the way China's government funds industrial activity — but two. We must also consider what kind of electrical grid we have and what kind we want for the future.

To consider that, we need to also consider ( our electrical past. )

X-Posted to talk_politics.

My last LJ tilted the joust at the simplest involvement one can have with one's electrical consumption and still be considered aware: Real-time monitoring. After all, how can one cut down on one's consumption if one has really no idea how much power the gadgetry scattered about the house is drawing from the power lines? Once that task is accomplished, the question arises about what to do next. That depends upon what options the utility makes available, unfortunately. For that reason, the following two stages of distributed generation, while promising in the extreme for managing power in a resource-poor future, may not be options for all. ( Still, they are worth exploring. )

A few years ago, my sister and her hubby took some of their extra cash, bought property and built their dream house, one she designed herself. She also pressed her builder to stop with the head-scratching and provide the house with the most energy-efficient design the house size would allow; they got structural insulated panel construction with a radiant floor fueled with an oil boiler. (The oil boiler was my suggestion. Though they have a proven track record, propane tanks can fail, sometimes spectacularly. Keep that much pressurized flammable gas around and one day, you might spring a leak. Oil tanks can also leak, but since home heating oil (essentially, low-grade diesel fuel) has a high flash point one can drop a lit kitchen match or cigarette into the tank and safely watch it fizzle out. That level of redundancy in safety appealed to her.)

She called the other day with news. Since they have been in the house a few years and have smoothed many of the unforeseen design wrinkles, she felt it was time to start further improving the energy consumption profile. Her builder suggested a Thermomax solar array (like the one The Wife and I are contemplating) backed by an on-demand electric water heater. Why electric? With the crest of Peak Oil probably upon us, electric has become a cost-effective alternative to either oil or gas for home heating. The builder estimated she and her hubby would pay for the oil boiler replacement in 7-10 years.

Me? ( I had to balk. )

X-Posted to home_effinomic.