Checking in With "Going Green"

Going Green is a blog by a commodity analyst and trader from Connecticut who is trying to reduce his use of oil and natural gas. Recently, he installed a 2.5 KW photovoltaic array on his house.

For more on the story, and how things are turning out, follow the posts in this order:

What I Wanted from the Solar Panels

Solar Panels: What We Got

How Much Oil Did the Solar Panels Save?

I'm a sucker for folks who have the gumption to experiment on their own. Be sure to stop by and offer some comments on his project. And check back, as he's promising more analysis.

Technorati tags: Energy, Technology, Economics, Electricity, Solar

Comments

Anonymous said…

I went through this same drill back in the late '70s, when Carter was pushing his solar ideas and you got up to a 50% tax credit for putting one of these things in. Plus, in my state, you got another 10% on your state income taxes. I looked at them all, PV, hot water heating, space heating, the whole smash. The answer was always the same: I'd be dead before I saw any kind of real savings.

The numbers always turned out that I could buy a lot more kwhrs and BTUs from the local utility than I could ever save using these things. I just couldn't afford the economic penalty. I know a lot of people get warm and fuzzy feelings from doing these kind of things but in my case it just didn't make sense. I had college tuition to save for and young children to clothe and feed.

One thing people often overlook in the cost analysis is the time value of money. Would I be better tying up capital and interest charges on financing purchase of a solar heating system, or would I be better off buying CDs and other investment instruments that would earn me interest on my money? Kind of a no-brainer.

November 21, 2006 at 12:27 PM

Stewart Peterson said…

>>I'm a sucker for folks who have the gumption to experiment on their own.

Did you see this?

November 24, 2006 at 11:40 AM

Fluor Invests in NuScale

You know, it’s kind of sad that no one is willing to invest in nuclear energy anymore. Wait, what? NuScale Power celebrated the news of its company-saving $30 million investment from Fluor Corp. Thursday morning with a press conference in Washington, D.C. Fluor is a design, engineering and construction company involved with some 20 plants in the 70s and 80s, but it has not held interest in a nuclear energy company until now. Fluor, which has deep roots in the nuclear industry, is betting big on small-scale nuclear energy with its NuScale investment. "It's become a serious contender in the last decade or so," John Hopkins, [Fluor’s group president in charge of new ventures], said. And that brings us to NuScale, which had run into some dark days – maybe not as dark as, say, Solyndra, but dire enough : Earlier this year, the Securities Exchange Commission filed an action against NuScale's lead investor, The Michael Kenwood Group. The firm "misap

An Ohio School Board Is Working to Save Nuclear Plants

Ohio faces a decision soon about its two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse and Perry, and on Wednesday, neighbors of one of those plants issued a cry for help. The reactors’ problem is that the price of electricity they sell on the high-voltage grid is depressed, mostly because of a surplus of natural gas. And the reactors do not get any revenue for the other benefits they provide. Some of those benefits are regional – emissions-free electricity, reliability with months of fuel on-site, and diversity in case of problems or price spikes with gas or coal, state and federal payroll taxes, and national economic stimulus as the plants buy fuel, supplies and services. Some of the benefits are highly localized, including employment and property taxes. One locality is already feeling the pinch: Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, home to Davis-Besse. The town has a middle school in a building that is 106 years old, and an elementary school from the 1950s, and on May 2 was scheduled to have a referendu

Wednesday Update

From NEI’s Japan micro-site: NRC, Industry Concur on Many Post-Fukushima Actions Industry/Regulatory/Political Issues • There is a “great deal of alignment” between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry on initial steps to take at America’s nuclear energy facilities in response to the nuclear accident in Japan, Charles Pardee, the chief operating officer of Exelon Generation Co., said at an agency briefing today. The briefing gave stakeholders an opportunity to discuss staff recommendations for near-term actions the agency may take at U.S. facilities. PowerPoint slides from the meeting are on the NRC website. • The International Atomic Energy Agency board has approved a plan that calls for inspectors to evaluate reactor safety at nuclear energy facilities every three years. Governments may opt out of having their country’s facilities inspected. Also approved were plans to maintain a rapid response team of experts ready to assist facility operators recoverin

NEI Nuclear Notes

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