My Prius and my Solar Panels

I drive a german car but I wouldn't mind trading it for a hybrid. Unfortunately, Audi, BMW, and Mercedes don't seem to be interested in hybrids. My wife might replace her car with the Lexus RX 400h in a year or two, assuming that it gets at least 30 mpg.

Religion is the opposite of knowledge.

Lexus is coming out with a mystery hybrid that no one knows much about yet.

jamac. Photo?

A person after my own heart!

The hydrogen RX-8 will dust your Prius. And you can also fill it up (and run it) with gasoline as well, so if you're a long way from Tokyo, it's still not a problem finding a station. (so far, it's only street-legal in Japan, which is just as well because I don't think anywhere else has hydrogen stations.)

Otherwise, no pollution at all. Given that Hydrogen can be made from electricity and water, I can't imagine that fill-up costs will be too bad either.

But moving on, how much did those solar panels cost you, and where did you get them? Share the information. I've been interested in off-grid solar power for a while.

The overwhelming majority of electricity is generated using coal. Most studies have shown hydrogen powered cars are more polluting than hybrids when this is taken into consideration.

Behold...



TEH AIR CAR!!!1

Heh, I wouldn't be surprised if you were considered the terrorist in the Bush reality! Either you are contributing revenue to Bush-approved energy corporations or you are against him. Scared yet?

I congratulate you by the way. This is one of my dreams, but the cost of entry is too much. The Dept of Energy should have been subsidizing this sort of stuff ages ago. Heck, the $225G going into Iraq could have been used for this sort of thing, but alas no.

Not where I live.

I don't think Japan uses much coal either. I might be wrong, though. Beyond that, refining and shipping gasoline takes a lot of power and make a lot of pollution, but I'm not the expert here, so I can't say which one is better in the end. I would guess the hydrogen, but regardless, the Prius still does a lot better than most cars out there.

That's not bad. . . I have a flat roof, no tree coverage, and I live in the "Sunshine State" Sounds like it's worth an investigation.

Do oil companies pay the motor manufacturers to make hybrid cars so Fugly so people don't buy them?

Heh. The Honda Civic Hybrid, Ford Escape Hybrid, and GM trucks look very much like their non-hybrid counterparts. Hybrids will just be an additional feature in cars coming in the next few years like fuel injection was.

No, they pay motor manufacturers to make cars look exactly like one another. Because we all know if you stand out from the crowd your automatically fugly right? Hey but what do I know I drive this

Really wanted a Prius but there is currently a 2-year wait for them in our area!

That looks pretty cool IMO. But that blue thing placebo posted, no no no.

The technology is cool, but why don't they make them look like standard cars, or kinda sporty. It looks like a UK Ford Transit married to a Ford Ka rear end.

And have you reversed those photo's? Whats with having a steering wheel on the left hand side of the car?

Awesome.

How is your fuel economy for freeway travel? I have heard that hybrids don't get the posted fuel economy in real world freeway driving. All I do is freeway driving. My dream car is an Acura RSX hybrid.

As for the whole solar panel thing, that too is cool. If I could buy a house, I would want to do that. One of my good friends (a good conservative heterosexual gun bearing civil engineering Lutheran Christian) installs those in peoples houses as a side job. I have to say that I wish that we could do more of that in America but that the buy in cost is just too expensive right now. My hope is that the current nanotechnology polymer based solar cells bring home the promise to reduce solar cell prices by a factor of ten. I kid you not, the engineers will save us.

Note about myself: I may want the right to own an assault rifle and to wear it on my back, but I also want America to be energy independent and to use green energy sources. I think that we'll get green energy in bulk in about 10-20 years and the right to strap an assault rifle w/ integrated grenade launcher on your back sometime after that

Oh and Jamac, proving that the Democratic controlled state Legislature in CA cares more about taking your money than the environment, you should be aware that <sarcasm>in their desire to promote fuel efficeincy</sarcasm>, that they want to tax people by the mile, not by the gallon. The specific reason why is because people like you who buy hybrids aren't paying enough in gas tax.

link to proposed gas tax based on milage

Damn democratic idiots. As someone I know once said on a gun forum, "It is time to vote from the rooftops"

$200 billion could have developed a whole load of next generation solar panels AND put several on every house in America AND negated the need for a suicidal dependance on Middle Eastern countries oil.

Early hybrids had to look funky because the technology called for it. The cars had to be lightweight and very aerodynamic. Toyota's new Synergy Drive (IIRC) has given a great deal more power to the current year Prius but the odd shapes remain to increase miles per gallon further.

They can place hybrids in normal looking cars, but they would be much less energy efficient in the process. The technology is always advancing though. We will see hybrids in your average looking cars down the road.


I'm from the States, we drive on the right

The Scion xB is the North American version of the Japanese Toyota bB. The native version of course is right-hand drive.

Oh c'mon please bite, I wanted to use my sarcasm is priceless joke

I guess we can build utopia over here and just leave other nations in the dust. If they wanted freedom, then they would march for it because the pen really is mightier than the sword... yeah right.

Me however, I am in favor of bombing dictatorships while raising taxes and pushing to alternative energy sources. You can bomb the bad people while making solar cells.

Also, solar cells use semiconductors and so you have to play in the marketplace. If you went on a 200 billion solar cell buying binge, you would find out that there isn't enough semiconductor grade silicon to make them all, and you would probably triple the cost of... computer chips which use the same silicon.

SO the more reasonable thing to do is to develop better technology for solar energy (nanotech polymer seems to be a good candidate) while bombing the bad people and lining up the local dissenters for the firing line. Oh, that last part was a joke, that kind of stuff only happens in North Korea, and the old Iraq.

Excellent. Nice to hear that the listed milage corresponds well to what you get in the real world. My 2000 altima has a few more years left in it. After that, my dream car is an Acura rsx hybrid (hopefully they will make one).

I am glad to see toyota take the innovation lead with hybrids and I am glad to see that the marketplace has responded by rewarding them.

Does your gun rack come with a speed loader?

<rant>
TO be honest, the high oil prices we currently face are GOOD. They are good for two reasons:

They make alternative energy cheaper and so we will invest in alternative energy sources because they are more than cost competetive with oil.

They remind us that it isn't good to be dependent on alternative energy.

So I think that we will see rather quick adoption of hybrid technology by consumers because the current oil shock (moderately bad by infaltion adjusted standards) makes people think about lowering their fuel consumption.

Why oh why are so many environmentalists luddites?
</rant>

Jamac, I'm really interested in getting solar panels for my weekend house. It gets plenty of sunshine and with the amount of electricity I use up there I'm thinking I could completely obliterate my electric bill. Can you point me to some good resources for looking into this? I'd be mighty obliged.

Or you might actually be able to make a profit with it since you only use the house on weekends. You can sell back the electricity that you do not use. Of course the buy in cost is rather high, but over the duration of a decade or two, you could pay it off. If you can do this, then more power to you!

That's what I'm thinking. There should be tax incentives for this kind of stuff as well.........

I seem to recall that there were tax incentives in CA for this, but that they expired this last year due to CA's budget shortfall.

I agree that there should be tax incentives for this kind of stuff. Sadly, the current buy in cost is rather expensive. Hopefully, the cost for solar cells can be brought down.

hybird nanorod solar cells

Don't worry folks, the engineers will save the day.

Does anyone have any info on how solar cells perform in the cold?

I'd be interested in finding out if it's feasible for my house, but the "Canadian Factor" come into play. That is, there will be plenty of times when the roof is covered in snow.

I want to get a hybrid, I wish there were a few more options though, and they were a bit cheaper. But I live in Southern California, the highest gas prices in the nation, so it'd definitely be a worthy investment.

As far as solar panels and stuff. well, one day me and a couple friends hope to build an earthship that will be 100% self sustaining. So, hopefully by the time we get started(should be in a couple years) alternative fuel sources will be a little further along.

Let me take this somewhat rare opportunity to agree with Yevgeny.

The problem is the prices never stay high long enough to result in a lasting shift in energy use or production.

As far as I'm concerned gas prices are just fine as long as the roads are full of SUV with brand new plates.

Thanks for the info.

Solar looks to be the great hope. Even Wind power looks to have a set of environmental issues.

Well it solves a problem as well, keeps the ice frozen.

I'm particularly interested about Solar arrays in space. I remember reading not too long ago that it would be feasible to construct enormous array(s) in space and beam the power harvested from them back to earth via lasers or something.

Pretty interesting concept, the benefits obviously would be that the solar arrays would get 24/7 exposure to sun and would be unaffected by atmosphere changes so they'd be far more efficient.

Another form of energy that interests me is Tidal energy which in theory could deliver far more energy than conventional wind turbines, but it's also been speculated that widespread use of tidal would disrupt ecosystems something mean.

Of course, The kicker is that there is no magic bean to replace oil, oil *is* the magic bean, the only real way to ease oil consumption is with widespread adoption of as many different alternative sources as possible. put your eggs in many baskets and all that.

hydrogen car = no go

At least for now, haha, I've been doing a research paper on alternative fuels. Hydrogen, while producing no emissions besides water and heat has to be made from either separating water into its elemental states by deriving coal and natural gas into hydrogen. Separating water uses electrolysis, which requires electricity. At this point most electricity comes from crude fuel sources like coal and oil, and since you have to put more energy into separating water then the energy you get from oxygen and hydrogen reacting... You end up with: more pollution (caused by crude oil and coal) and less efficiency then just burning gasoline in a car. Now, you can argue that you can use solar or wind power, but these power sources only account for a small percentile of the what the US uses for electricity... Also, "It is the lightest element, about eight times lighter than methane. Compacting it for storage or transport is expensive and energy intensive. A recent study by two Swiss engineers concludes, "We have to accept that [hydrogen's] ... physical properties are incompatible with the requirements of the energy market. Production, packaging, storage, transfer and delivery of the gas ... are so energy consuming that alternatives should be considered."

More here: http://www.alternet.org/story/15239


As for the next step of the automobile market, I would say mild hybrid cars. Basically it's a complete gas powered vehicle 'cept a small difference, there is a batter in the trunk. As the car runs it charges up the battery, everything electrical in the car uses this battery for energy (a/c, lights, starter, etc). So when you stop at a stop light the engine can completely be turned off and instantly start up when you press the gas pedal. Gets more mpg and is more economical on a mass scale for now at least.

Done ranting

my Cougar costs about $25-27 for a fill up (13 or 14 gal tank) and i get 350 miles with that

My bikes engine cost 3 dollars to fill up and it runs 400 miles.

Anders Holier-than-Thau