Sustainable Energy 101

PEV's ( Plug-in Electric Vehicles ) qualify in the "Storable" category, especially if they re-charge during night hours when traditional utilities usually and otherwise would shut down many generators due to a lack of enough load to remain on the grid. However, PEV's or hybrids retrofitted with higher than stock capacity storage batteries will have worn out tires and batteries which will have to be dealt with as pollution bye-products. Those items appear already to be the source of a tremendous recycle industry even as we speak, so that is not an unsolved problem, after all.

Plug-in Vehicle's don't (and probably should never) generate net grid electrical energy. That would actually contribute to fossil fueled energy pollution while recharging from their engines and drive up the spiraling costs of electricity in the long run. Hybrids with extended battery capacity should be computer programed to just maintain batteries that have discharged down to 10% untill they are back up to 20% of full charge from engine charging. They should leave the100% charging capacity job to a more efficient, external plug-in net-grid charging system; usually done at night. PEV's battery ranges should be at least 60 miles, which will accommodate almost everyone's daily distance requirements. City PHEV buses and services vehicles would probabley benefit by 100 mile range battery systems. Modern battery packs are also capable of 100,000 recharges in 15 minutes. More if slow charged at night.

If one were to install photo voltaic grids on one's home or business and gained their regulated credits for creating sufficient excess energy to the net grid during daylight hours to both power their building during the day, sufficient to cover both day and night time hours, the average cost of the array and accessories in today's' money (2007) would average $45,000.00 per unit. The amortized payback would be, on average, 25 years, in order to enjoy the cost of having a plug-in ("Non-polluting," "Storeable") energy vehicle and a home powered with ("Non-polluting," "Sustainable") Photo Voltaic Array. In addition, one would also have to make an expensive conversion to an existing hybrid vehicle to a higher costing, longer lasting battery set. Extended Warrantee providers will snap up any voided warrantee threats on vehicles with retrofitted batteries and plug-in charging systems.

Utility regulations are not up to speed for the above, at first expensive but doable scenario to be in play, anywhere, at this time. Alternative Energy Vehicle manufacturers are not installing extended range battery systems or inverters for plug-in capability, either. Which is why one will have to go the extra expense of converting current hybrids to plug-in capability on their own initiative and of buying an extended warrantee from a third party insurer.

Co-operative Photo Voltaic Utilities are in their infancy at this time. (These are: "Non-polluting," "Storeable" and "Sustainable" energy resources.). PV and Solar Energy in any form is considered pollution free. Solar energy can be stored in batteries as electricity. Focused-heat generator systems can store their energy in insulated tanks as heated water. One can also store heat in earth mass or used to make other storage capable energy resources such as hydrogen through electrolysis. While there can be no solar production during the night except with heating arrays that store heat energy in large reservoir systems or when very heavily overcast, it is a regular, predictable source of energy ever day and as such is "Sustainable."

Currently, the major drawback to Photo Voltaic Electricity is its upfront expense per kilowatt hour to build and install. Payback for current PV efficiencies, can take in excess of one, two, sometimes three decades.

Government credits and grant methods for converting over to "off the grid" Photo Voltaic systems are historically always in a condition of hostile forethoughtful calculation; doomed to dry up at the precise moment legislators perceive that the public climbs onboard with its acceptance of energy alternatives. The point here is that one cannot depend on Congressional Programs or the Fed to carry through on any energy platform that would sooner or later dry up any legislators campaign contributions from the energy boys. The history of solar in the U.S. is strewn with the bodies of still-born solar energy programs and other alternative energy policies. Alternative initiatives must be grass-roots to be effective. That means you and I must make the changes and tell our elected officials to get out of our way while we do them.

Wind energy, built with revenues by utilities having their risks guaranteed by clever approval wording by legislative and state regulatory bodies, have mostly been funded by oil companies as a means to secure cheaper energy to pump out otherwise expensive, deep shale oil in the state of Texas. Wind energy is actually only cost effective in a very low percentage of Texas countys and those areas are too far for the metroplex in North Texas to benefit by them except by netgrid purchase credits from Green Utilities such as Green Mountain Energy http://www.greenmountainenergy.com/ , as an example, which adds about a penny to its wholesale purchase cost of wind energy, making it competitive but not the cheapest electricity one can buy from the netgrid. The oil pumping industry is a competitor for that cheap energy, as well.

On the horizon are marketing groups that are putting together utilities that install individual Photo Voltaic systems on a per house basis and leases back their operations such as to reap the energy credits while having their operational costs paid by the individual home owner via locked in low electrical rates. Essentially the individual electrical user pays for their electricity at whatever their current locked in rate is, but to the Photo Voltaic Utility, much like a co-operative electrical utility does. The individual home's Photo Voltaic grids are sized before installation according to the amount of energy used by the rate payer on the year before having the Photo Voltaic system installed and that rate is the lock-in electrical rate they contract for. The PV Grid is sized to produce a surplus during the day such that the homeowner can draw energy back from the net grid at night without penalty. Any additional electricity above the normal draw amount would have to be purchased from the net grid utility at their prevailing kilowatt hourly rate on a monthly pay per use basis. At this point there is no reason that individual cities could not start a city sponsored cooperative Photo Voltaic Utility at any time and anywhere in the metroplex or outside the metroplex except for the lack of the will of their voters, in their districts, to start a green utility.

Energy predictions in the crystal ball:

Some predictions place net electric utility grid kilowatt hourly rates as high as $.25 per kilowatt hour in less than two decades as the world market economies adjust to ever larger demands on an ever smaller or more costly to recover energy resource. They also forecast peak usage hours between 11 am till 6 pm at rates going as high as $.39 per kilowatt hour during summers with no insurance that there will not be rolling blackouts in spite of these prices.
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Therefore it might be advantageous for a home or business owner to convert to Plug-in or augmented Hybrid Vehicle transportation and invest in self-sufficient Photo Voltaic systems or at least join a Photo Voltaic Electrical Co-op. These two distinct solutions work synergistically, as well.

J. Warren Richardson