Quote:
Originally Posted by maddog2020
LOL, Saltheart - look at your cell phone bill closely and see how they nickle and dime you to death! I HATE VERIZON.
My Dad looked into getting solar about 30 yrs back and he was told because of our area, it was too cloudy for it to be cost effective?!  May be the technology has chanced, things are more efficient and so forth, but the Feds cut the grant $$ that USE to pay for a percentage of it AND it takes a long time to re-cooperate the upfront costs.
Even if I cut down all my trees (just ONE left on the back - all the others have died on their own or the storms have knocked them over in the past 20+ yrs), I have my neighbors trees that block the path of the sun!
If I was in a spot that was open and sunny, I would be all over solar energy OR even wind energy.  |
The cell phone thing is a very interesting story. I solved my phone bill issues a long time ago. First , I got a Magic Jack and that dropped my "land line" from about $400 a year (plus LD charges) to $19.95 a year. Then I dumped Verizon and got a prepaid yearly deal with Tracfone through HSN. That cost me $99 a year and I never did buy any more minutes so it actually was $99 a year. Now this year because I have extra minutes from last year to carry over , my yearly cell phone costs should be $59 for the whole year and that includes a new phone with big buttons for us older blurred vision types. How the heck they give me a years service for $59 is beyond me but that's what it costs and it works as well as Verizon after the first few days of 5 hour set up torture with the Indian customer service people.
The cell phone thing was one of the first cost reduction efforts I made after retiring. In hind site I should have done it 15 years ago because the savings are big , the investment is almost zero and the quality of the service is the same for what I do with it.
As far as solar goes , I get vitually no morning sun do to trees so close. I do get afternoon sun but as was pointed out , in New England the angle and the length of days do not provide a big opportunity for pay back of even the maintenance charges. Between the snow , leaves , short days and no morning sun , not much opportunity for solar for me.
Now I already drive a Nissan Altima Hybrid (great great car..I love it) but my next car will be CNG or LNG because I thing in about 4 to 5 years when I'll need one , the LNG fueling stations will have become a common thing in the USA. I traveled the world extensively when I worked and LNG is on everywhere in Korea and quite common in Mexico. I also think that when we start wholesale conversion of cars to the use of gas drilled from good old USA soil that the money we now send to the middle east much of which is used to fund terrorism, will dry up and that will become a much smaller threat.
Thank you for listening to my dissertations on energy usage frustration with my providers and my hopes for the future success of LNG technology in cars.