stonemarmot.com/rants

By Sid of Stone Marmot

This page includes some pictures of the hovercraft I built.  Some data on the hovercraft will appear in a future post on this blog.

This photo was taken part of the way through the build process. It shows the frame made of strips of fir wood. The marine grade plywood skin for the bottom and some of the sides has also been glued in place. At this point it also had some small temporary wheels on the bottom to allow me to easily roll it around during construction.

This shows the hovercraft in action on a dirt road bordering a lake. This picture was taken a couple of months after I had first gotten the hovercraft operational. It was still missing the canopy, the cowlings around the lift and thrust engines, the trim elevator above the rudders, and the radio-intercom system. It also still had a 4 bladed thrust propeller and belt drive to the prop.

This picture shows the hovercraft on its flat bed trailer. This photo was taken a couple of years later than the previous one. Note that it now has all the features mentioned as missing above except that it still has a four bladed propeller. Note also that it has now acquired a camouflage paint job to hide the paint mismatches acquired due to all the repairs and modifications.

This photo shows the hovercraft coming to a rest on top of a hill after a run on the river in the background. Note that there are three people in the hovercraft. We were all wearing headsets to a radio-intercom system I had designed and built which made it easy for us to talk to each other (through the intercom) and to people in other craft and on shore (via the radio). The headsets had noise canceling microphones which would pick up your voice but would reject most all of the background noise. Note the three cup anemometer at the front base of the windshield to measure our speed.

By Cindy of Stone Marmot

Recently I had to make a trip from here in Florida to Pennsylvania to visit my family. After comparing all my options, driving there seemed to be the cheapest alternative, but not by much anymore, due to high gas prices. I also don’t look forward to the long, boring, tiring two day, over 1100 mile, drive each way.

I used to often fly there. But airfares have gone up a lot in recent years. Plus my parents are no longer able to pick me up at the airport, so I have to figure how to get to and from the nearest airport, which is over 50 miles away from my parents fairly rural home. About the only safe option is a rental car. But rental cars costs are often comparable to, if not more than, airfare. Add to that all the extra fees, baggage restrictions, security, etc., flying has become a rather unpleasant experience.

So I looked again at the Amtrak Auto Train. I had briefly looked at it about 15 years ago, but rejected it as being at least three times as expensive as flying. But not anymore. I found I could get a round trip Amtrak ticket for less than $600 (much less for vehicles smaller than my truck). Add another $100 for my costs for driving to and from the Amtrak stations, the $700 total cost is comparable (and much cheaper for a multiweek trip) to flying and renting a car. This is still a couple hundred dollars more expensive than driving all the way, but the Auto Train is far less stressful.

For those unfamiliar with the Auto Train, this train takes you and your vehicle to its destination. You cannot travel on this train unless you have an accompanying vehicle. The result is as if you drove the whole way yourself, except Amtrak does about 800 miles of the driving for you, so it is a lot less stressful.

The train leaves 4:00 PM one day and arrives around 9:30 AM the next day, for about 17 and a half hours total travel time. There is only one scheduled stop on the way, which is about at the half way point to change some critical crew. All trains go from either Lorton, Virginia (about 30 miles south of Washington, DC.) to Sanford, Florida (about 20 miles north of Orlando), or vice versa. I heard the reason the trains don’t go any further is that this is the longest stretch of rail that can handle the height of the train’s cars.

The only real baggage restriction is only one carry-on with you while riding the train and as much otherwise as your vehicle can hold. Since you are only staying on the train one night each way, the one carry-on is not much of a problem. You have no access to your vehicle during the trip.

All the rail cars are two levels. Most of the seating is on the top level, with facilities, like bathrooms, as well as some lounges and some seats, on the bottom level. You can request a seat on the bottom level if you desire. There was a separate lounge car with a lounge that served drinks and snacks, all of which cost extra. They don’t serve drinks or food to you at your seat like the airlines do. There is free drinking water available in all cars. They also show a free movie, I think in the lounge car, though I didn’t check out the movies so I don’t know for certain where they are shown.

There are separate dining cars. A free dinner and breakfast come with each ticket. All tables seat four. Since there is limited space on these trains, the attendants assign you to a table as you enter the dining car. So, if there are less that four in your party, you will probably be seated with strangers. I, as well as all I talked to, rather enjoyed this as you got to meet so many interesting people this way.

The meals were rather good. There are usually four or five dinner entrees to choose from. Breakfast is cold cereal, rolls, bagels, and fruit, with a limited selection of each item. For most people, the meals would be filling. But, if you have a big appetite like my bandmate Sammy, you may want to bring some extra food along with you in your one carry-on.

Since your seat is on the upper level, you have a good view of everything you pass. Most of the view is rather scenic, though you do occasionally go through some rather worn neighborhoods and some industrial areas. I was expecting it to be bumpy and noisy, like in the movies. But the ride is exceptionally quiet and very smooth, with just a very occasional bump at an occasional road crossing or track switching area. If you walk around, though, you will usually notice a pronounced swaying of the cars. This swaying isn’t noticeable when seated.

I, as most people, didn’t get a sleeping cabin. I just slept in my seat. Since the seats and surrounding area are far larger than any even first class seats on an airplane, I was rather comfortable. Many I talked to complained that they never sleep well on these trains. I can sleep almost anywhere (I do a lot of camping and sleep on the ground a lot), so I had no problem. Many had tried the sleeping cabins, but found they didn’t sleep any better in the cabins as in their seats, so on subsequent trips they just opted to sleep in their seats and save the extra couple hundred dollars for a cabin.

Negatives? Just two that I can think of (three if you have a big appetite like Sammy). One is that the previous train was late getting into my station on my return from PA. This resulted in my having to wait in line in my parked car for over an hour when I got to Lorton until they offloaded the train before they could accept us. I don’t know why the train was late. I heard at breakfast that our train had to make on unscheduled stop due to a medical emergency, though this was never formally announced and we were less than 20 minutes late in arriving in Sanford, FL.

Another problem I had was my rear view mirror in my vehicle was loose when I got back to Florida. It fell off the window within a week of getting home. Someone was a little rough adjusting my mirror when moving my vehicle on or off the train.

Would I travel this way again? I’ve already booked another trip on the Auto Train, so the answer is obviously yes. Traveling on the Auto Train makes the trip a bit of an adventure rather than just a big chore.

By Bruce of Stone Marmot

The United States is often criticized for using a vastly disproportionate amount of the world’s available energy relative to its population. With less than 5 % of the world’s total population, the U. S. consumes about 40 % of the world’s total energy output. Part of the reason for this is because the U. S. also produces a disproportionate amount of the world’s goods. Many of these goods are exported to the rest of the world and many of these exports, such as food and medicines, are necessary for the survival of a good portion of the world’s population. But this only accounts for a small portion of this disproportionate energy consumption.

Many would blame the businesses in the U. S. for this disproportionate energy consumption. But businesses have a very strong incentive to conserve energy. That incentive in the bottom line: How profitable the business is or even if it can stay in business. With a booming economy, vast profits may overwhelm the costs associated with energy so that these costs may not be noticed by all but the most profit conscious firms. But in lean times, such as we have been going through, and companies trying to cut costs any way that they can, the hundreds of thousands to tens of millions of dollars spent by a company each year on energy can’t be ignored.

People will be quick to point out many examples of U. S. businesses that don’t seem to be too concerned about their energy consumption. One or more of the following four reasons will account for most of these examples:

1) The business in question is an old, established, capital intensive industrial firm. Changing to more efficient processes would be very expensive and these costs would make the business temporarily noncompetitive with its peers. Often, many of its competitive peers are foreign firms that built their facilities more recently, either due to being new in the market or having their old facilities destroyed by war or some other social upheaval. Since these foreign facilities are newer, they will usually be more efficient than their U. S. counterparts, which accounts for another part of the disparity in energy consumption by the U. S. and the rest of the world. But as energy costs increase and these facilities reach the end of their useful lives, the upgrading to more efficient processes will be forced upon these companies.

2) These are smaller or newer businesses that don’t have the knowledge to realize how they can improve their profitability by reducing their energy costs. Unless these businesses have a large market with little or no competition, they will have to learn to control these costs or they may not be in business much longer.

3) Customers demand these inefficient practices. For example: How often do you walk into a business in the summertime and find the place too cold for your comfort? The temperature comfort range of an individual differs greatly within a given population. Many customers will complain if the business is colder than average, but the cold temperature will cause few to avoid the business, whereas many will be discouraged from patronizing a business if its facility is too warm for their comfort in the summertime. This situation is further aggravated in tourist areas, where many of the tourists have just come from and are more used to a colder climate than the resident population. This is less of a problem in other countries, since most are psychologically tuned to expect less than perfect conditions in these countries. But in the U. S., with its vast technology and wealth, most people expect either perfection or excess and are less tolerant of a more natural discomfort.

4) Company employees unwittingly (or even intentionally) sabotage the business’ conservation efforts. Since these employees aren’t paying the electric bill, they simply don’t care that they are wasting energy. Examples from where I worked: Many leave their computers on all the time (24 hours a day) and many brought in their own incandescent lamps for their work areas, which use more energy than the company provided fluorescent lights and which they leave on 24 hours a day (most of the company lights automatically turn off after regular business hours).

Another reason the U. S. consumes a disproportionate amount of the world’s energy is that it is physically a much larger country than most of the other industrialized nations. Note that Canada and Australia, two other industrialized countries with large land masses, have per capita energy consumption that is more comparable with the U. S. But since these two countries have vastly smaller populations than the U. S., their percentages of the world’s total energy consumption is barely noticeable. If the U. S. were to depopulate most of its land and confine its population to an area with a population density comparable to that in Japan or central Europe, its per capita energy consumption would drop significantly.

But the main reason that the U. S. uses much more energy per capita than the rest of the world is simply because the people living here honestly don’t care about their energy consumption. Sure, if you ask them, almost any American will reply that he is very concerned about energy consumption. And most Americans do complain about gas prices and their electric bills. But few will even consider doing anything about it.

Very few Americans choose a product based on its energy consumption. Most of those who do are ridiculed as being cheapskates or treehugging extremists. Waste is glorified in this country; it is a sign that you have “made it.” Most of those who do claim to be concerned about energy consumption usually claim that it is somebody else’s fault, like the government’s or the manufacturers’. They refuse to see how they are contributing to the problem.

These manufacturers are simply giving consumers what they are asking for. And for most consumers, low cost or fancy features are far more important than energy efficiency, if energy use is even considered at all.

An obvious example is the number of big pickup trucks and vans and SUVs on the American highways today. These vehicles do have legitimate value and many people, such as farmers, ranchers, carpenters, plumbers, and delivery people are justified in buying these vehicles. But a significant number of these vehicles are purchased by people simply as a fashion statement and who use them almost entirely as commuter vehicles.

The main reason that manufacturers of U. S. products don’t appear too concerned about the energy consumption of their products is that their American customers don’t seriously care about the energy consumption of these products. Capitalism is the most democratic economic system there is, for every time you spend a dollar, or refrain from spending a dollar, you are casting a vote. And despite what you may want to believe, your pocketbook vote counts a lot more than your ballot box vote.

The average American household can cut their electric use at least in half with little or no change in their lifestyle. My own electric consumption is less than one eighth the typical American household (I use less than 2000 kW-hr/year, compared to about 17,000 kW-hr/year the Progress Energy Corporation website claims a typical house the same size, age, construction, locale, and furnishings as mine uses.). Though my lifestyle is admittedly different than most Americans, I feel it is still very comfortable with lots of “luxuries,” such as a recording studio, a decent electronics lab, and fairly complete workshop with lots of power tools, including an arc welder. I also understand that my energy consumption is more typical of a middle class household in most other developed countries in the world.

There are plenty of more efficient alternatives for the products we buy, such as refrigerators, washing machines, automobiles, etc., but people aren’t choosing them in any significant numbers. A perfect example is lighting. Compact fluorescent bulbs use one quarter the power of a comparable incandescent bulb, yet compact fluorescents are a hard sell. This is despite the fact that they are a fantastic investment. Where else can you typically get a better than 100 %/year aftertaxes return on your money (due to energy savings compared to initial cost). Most of your readers risk 3 to 5 orders of magnitude more money on investments with far poorer and riskier returns. To me, the choice is a no-brainer.

It is also amazing how many products, such as microwave ovens, regular ovens, televisions, and stereos, still are consuming power when they are assumed to be “turned off.” Many of the manufacturers of these products claim that the consumption of these “phantom loads” is negligible, but this isn’t true if this consumption is 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. For example, my microwave oven is plugged into a switched multi-outlet strip so that I can turn it on only when I want to use it. If it weren’t, I calculate that it would consume, over a year’s time, over 50 % more energy when it is “off” than when it is in use. Don’t take my word for it; measure the idle and operating currents and perform the calculations yourself for this and other appliances.

One simple, low cost way for manufacturers to help the cause of energy conservation is to simply include the power consumption of the product, both in use and when idle, on the product packaging. This would help those of us who really do care in making our product choices. Of course, the manufacturers of inefficient products would probably resist this, which in itself helps us make a choice. Another is to include a power switch on those products that have phantom loads so that those of us who don’t need the features that this idle current supports can completely turn off the product.

In summary, the lack of honest concern by the typical American consumer is the main reason for the high U. S. energy consumption. Those who claim to be concerned are waiting for others to solve the problem for them. Until these individuals seriously look at their own lives and make the appropriate changes in their own lives, this situation is not going to change much.

By Cindy of Stone Marmot

I’ve been riding a recumbent bicycle for a number of years now. It is an about 10 year old RANS V-Rex. It has a 26 inch rear wheel and a 20 inch front wheel. The pedals are in front of the front wheel. The rider sits almost on top of the rear wheel.

Consequently, the bicycle rider is sitting almost as high as on a regular bike. When I’m riding this bike, my head is higher than all cars on the road and about even with the top of most pickup trucks, vans, and SUVs. This means that I can see most all traffic well and they can see me. This is much better than most recumbents, which tend to be much lower, and an important safety feature.

This recumbent also has a turning radius comparable with most regular bicycles since its wheelbase is about the same as most bike. This is because the pedals are in front of the front wheel. Most recumbents have their pedals between the wheels, which results in a much longer wheelbase and bigger turning radius.

Recumbent bicycles subject the rider to a lot less physical stress. The back and neck are in a more natural position on a recumbent, resulting in less back and neck stress. A recumbent rider’s weight is almost entirely on her rump, which is much more natural than on two little areas between the legs and on the hands, as with regular bikes. On a regular bike, about 25 % of the rider’s weight is on her hands, which can result in numbness in the hands on long rides, like the 60 mile rides I usually do. This is especially important for me, being a guitar player.

Recumbents also seem to be more efficient than regular bikes. When I first changed from a regular 21 speed road bike to my 24 speed recumbent, I found that, for the same apparent resistance against the legs while pedaling, I was going about 2 miles per hour faster on the recumbent (17 mph on the recumbent as opposed to 15 mph on a regular bike, average speed on level ground, no wind).

It does seem to be harder to go up hills on a recumbent. This probably because you can’t stand on the pedals on a recumbent like you can on a regular bike.

A recumbent bike does feel a bit different the first time you ride one. But, if you are an experienced bicyclist, you usually can adjust to to the different feel within minutes.

Recumbents typically cost about twice as much as a comparable quality regular bike. But if it saves you possible health problems in the future due to avoiding the stresses on the body caused by a regular bike, then I feel it is worth the extra cost.

by Sid of Stone Marmot

Recently a friend asked me if he should use speakers that are rated for a lower power or a higher power than the amplifier used to drive them. Most, including myself, feel that the speakers should have a much higher power rating than the driving amplifier, especially for high fidelity applications, such as PAs and bass guitar. This reduces the chance of damaging the speakers with too much amplifier power.

But there are some that argue that it is high power distortion that actually damages speakers. When you are sending square waves, such as what you get when an amplifier is distorting severely, to speakers, the average power is equal to the peak amplifier power, which is much greater than the RMS power due to a sine wave. The RMS power of most amps is determined by the cleanest sine wave you can get out of an amp. A bigger amp is less likely to distort at a given volume level.

The reason I feel the former is better is that most PA and bass amps these days, and many hifi amps, have built in compressors that kick in during high power operation and minimize the distortion. Consequently, if you are getting square waves out of an amp, it is either broken or severely, obnoxiously, intolerably distorting, where any reasonable person would turn the amp down.

For guitar, many recommend using speakers that just barely can handle the amplifier power. The rationale is that the speakers will distort and naturally compress the guitar sound in a desirable way. I agree with this. This can be hard on speakers, though, if you play your amp at max power a lot.

I feel most speakers that fail are damaged by too much cone excursion (too extreme cone movement), which occurs when you send too much bass through them. The lower the frequency, the more a speaker cone has to move to reproduce that frequency for a given volume level. That is why many bass and PA cabinets are closed back with tuned ports, as proper tuning will significantly reduce cone movement. This is also why many say playing a bass through a guitar amp can damage it. I don’t know of any guitar amp electronics that could be damaged by bass, though many guitar speakers can be damaged by bass.

Most speakers are specified by the maximum power their voice coils can handle before burning up. But cabinets also have a power rating, which is the maximum power the speaker in them can handle before its cone movement is excessive enough to damage the speaker. This cabinet power rating is dependent upon the lowest frequency that will be sent to the speaker. Often this cabinet power rating is much lower than the rating of the speaker that is in it. Many manufacturers overlook this cabinet power rating and it is not specified or they just use the speaker voice coil rating for maximum cabinet power.

This is another reason for having speakers that can handle much more power than your amplifier, as cone excursion drops in direct proportion to the area of the cones being driven, assuming the same type of cabinets and the cabinets are appropriately tuned for those speakers. In other words, if you are driving two 15″ speakers with 200W of power, they will each typically move half as far as one 15″ speaker being driven by the same 200W of power. It doesn’t matter if the one 15″ speaker has a voice coil that can handle 1000W of power and the two 15″ speakers can handle 150W each (300W total). The one high powered speaker is more likely to be damaged by bass frequencies than the two lower powered speakers.

Incidentally, four 10″ speakers have much more cone area than one 15″ speaker, so, assuming their voice coils can handle the same power and they have similar suspensions, the 10″ speakers are less likely to be damaged by bass. That is one reason 4-10″ speaker cabinets have become popular for bass guitar.

So I recommend using speakers that are much higher power rated than the amplifier you are using.

By Sid of Stone Marmot

A hovercraft is a vehicle that floats above whatever surface it is over on a cushion of air. This surface can be land, water, ice, or anything else that can trap air. An example of a surface that doesn’t trap air is an elevated metal grate. Hovercraft are considered to be amphibious vehicles.

Hovercraft are also known as air cushion vehicles and ground effect machines (GEMs).

A hovercraft relies on air pressure to lift it off the ground, as opposed to aerodynamic lift, which lifts airplanes and helicopters off the ground, or thrust, which lifts rockets off the ground. A typical hovercraft will float at a height that is about 5 % of its length, or about 8 inches (20 cm) for a 15 foot (4.7 m) long hovercraft.

The lift mechanism for a hovercraft must supply enough air to:

1) pressurize the air under the hovercraft enough to lift the vehicle off the surface;

2) replace the air that leaks out from under the hovercraft so as to maintain the desired air pressure.

A flexible gasket, called a skirt, usually hangs around the outside bottom edge of a hovercraft to seal most of the gap between the bottom of the hovercraft and the surface it is passing over. This significantly reduces the amount of air leaking from under the hovercraft, which in turn dramatically reduces the amount of power and, hence, the size of the motor and fan needed to provide the air necessary to lift the hovercraft to the desired height. This is why a hovercraft can successfully hover with an engine and fan blades that are very significantly smaller than those needed by an equivalent sized helicopter.

A significant advantage to using a hovercraft over other vehicles is its ability to cross a wide variety of surfaces. To maintain this advantage, whatever is propelling the hovercraft across the surface shouldn’t touch the surface or in any other way be dependent upon the characteristics of the surface the hovercraft is over. Consequently, most hovercraft use propellers similar to those on an airplane or airboat to move the hovercraft across the surface.

Hovercraft cause less damage to surfaces it passes over. All the weight of a wheeled vehicle is concentrated in the small areas where the wheels touch the ground. For an 800 pound (364 kg) four wheeled vehicle with about 0.5 square foot (46 square cm) of tire contact area, this is about 1600 lb./square ft. (7900 kg/ square meter) of pressure on the ground. The weight of a hovercraft is distributed over most of the bottom surface of the craft. For a 800 pound (364 kg) hovercraft that is about 15 ft by 7 ft (4.7 m by 2.1 m), this is about 7.6 lb./square ft. (37 kg/square meter). The result is that the hovercraft doesn’t cause ruts in the surface and causes a lot less damage to the vegetation than a wheeled vehicle.

Most of the manatee and many of the dolphin in the waters around Florida have scars from being hit by boat propellers. When a hovercraft is hovering, no part of the craft is in the water and only its skirt is near the water’s surface. Getting hit by a hovercraft skirt is less traumatic than getting hit by a toy balloon, since the air pressure under a hovercraft and in its skirt is typically much less than the pressure in a balloon.

By Bruce of Stone Marmot

It is also amazing how many products, such as microwave ovens, regular ovens, televisions, and stereos, still are consuming power when they are assumed to be “turned off.” Many of the manufacturers of these products claim that the consumption of these “phantom loads” is negligible, but this isn’t true if this consumption is 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

For example, my microwave oven is plugged into a switched multi-outlet strip so that I can turn it on only when I want to use it. If it weren’t, I calculate that it would consume, over a year’s time, twice as much energy when it is “off” than when it is in use.

When was the last time you saw a television set that had an on/off switch (other than battery powered sets)? Most all TVs these days use remote controls to operate them. There has to be a receiver running in the TV at all times looking for a signal from the remote in order to turn “on or off,” which is not really “on or off,” but really “active or idle.”

Also, remember back in the 1960s when it used to take 30 to 60 seconds after you turned on a TV before you got a picture? Most TVs these days still use picture tubes, which are vacuum tubes, which need to warm up. Why do they turn on so fast today? Because their picture tube heaters are on all the time the TV is plugged into an active wall outlet.

Other examples of “off” not really being off:

The controls for your central heat and air conditioning systems, which usually run on 24 VAC in the US, are on all the time, unless you turn off the breaker or remove the fuses.

The power transformer for your doorbell is drawing about 5 to 15 W (or more correctly, Volt-Amps) all the time, whether the doorbell is pressed or not.

Most battery chargers for cell phones, pagers, battery powered tools, etc., are drawing power whenever they are plugged in, whether they are charging or not.

Many computers and their accessories, such as monitors, printers, scanners, speakers, etc., also are drawing power whenever they are plugged in, whether the computer is in use or not.

If you touch an item and it is warm somewhere, you can bet that it is drawing power. This power is heating up homes, which then, here in Florida, require us to use more air conditioning.

What can we do about this?

One simple, low cost way for manufacturers to help the cause of energy conservation is to simply include the power consumption of the product, both in use and when idle, on the product packaging. This would help those of us who really do care in making our product choices. Of course, the manufacturers of inefficient products would probably resist this, which in itself helps us make a choice. Another is to include a power switch on those products that have phantom loads so that those of us who don’t need the features that this idle current supports can completely turn off the product.

But we don’t have to wait for manufacturers to change their ways. We can just unplug items when not in use. Or, for frequently used items, we can plug them into switched multi-outlet power strips and switch these strips off when we aren’t using the items. That is what I do with my computer gear, my music electronics, and my microwave oven, as discussed earlier. That is one of many reasons that my electric bills are so low (typically less than $20/month).

By Sid of Stone Marmot

Why do the electric utilities have few solar power facilities? Why do they invest so little in solar power? Why will they probably never have major solar power facilities?

The simple answer is that they have great difficulty competing with homeowner sited solar power systems for the following reasons:

The main reason is that, for most methods presently used by power companies to generate electricity, the costs of generating electricity drop dramatically as the power generator is scaled up in size. Anyone who has an internal combustion engine powered electric generator, be it gasoline, diesel, propane, etc., fueled, will quickly realize that running costs are much more than for what they pay for utility provided electricity. Even wind turbines become much more cost effective as their diameters are increased and their towers increase in size.

This is not true for solar power, at least with the photovoltaic solar cells we presently associate with solar power. The panels the power utilities would use are the same as what the homeowner would use. The only possible savings the power utilities would have would be with volume discounts in purchasing the solar panels. This savings is canceled out by all the extra costs the power companies have, like purchasing and maintaining the land for these panels (effectively free for homeowners), the transmission and distribution costs (virtually nonexistent for homeowners), billing department (nonexistent for homeowners), making up for transmission losses (presently about 9 % of all electricity generated is lost in transmission, plus the losses in scaling inherently low voltage solar power for more efficient high voltage transmission), and others (legal, accounting, benefits, lobbying, executive salaries, stockholders’ returns, etc.). If the utilities tried to generate major solar power facilities, many of their potential customers will quickly realize that they can generate their own solar power as cheap or even cheaper than the power companies can provide it.

Private households can, and some do, generate hydroelectric power as cheap or even cheaper than the major utilities. But far less than 0.1 % of the households in the US have sites suitable for generating hydroelectric power. So these are not much of a threat to the utilities.

Another reason is that many of the utilities’ potential customers will also realize that they have more control over the reliability of the power if they do it themselves. During a major storm, usually the number of houses that lose their electric power is much greater than those that have any major damage to them. If the house doesn’t have any major damage, it would probably also still have a functioning solar power system. With your own solar power system, overloads caused by your neighbors, auto accidents, a tree falling a mile from you, terrorism, etc., won’t have any affect on your electric service.

Another reason is that many of the present methods of generating electricity used by power companies are not available to private individuals. I doubt that any individual could legally have their own nuclear power plant. A household size coal fired electric plant is rather impractical, especially if you include the antipollution devices. Also, I doubt that the government would want to try to regulate and inspect and verify millions of household coal fired plants to assure they are meeting environmental standards. It is hard enough trying to control a relative handful of utility power plants. But this is not true for solar power. A private household could install a solar electric system easier and faster with little potential environmental problems than any power company could build a reasonable size solar power facility.

Aesthetics also limit the potential use of other potential home power systems. Few people would tolerate a noisy, smelly internal combustion engine electric generator operating by them 24 hours a day except in emergency situations. Many complain about tall wind towers with their fast moving parts near their property. But solar power is silent, often part of the house, with no moving parts.

Solar electric power is ideally suited for distributed generation, that is, generation at the place it is being used. It scales very easily from very small systems, like pocket calculators, on up. Efficiency is much greater with reduced transmission distances and less voltage conversions. So solar power isn’t that well suited for centralized generation, like most of our present electrical systems.

This scares power companies. Presently, they have monopoly control over the whole electric power system. With solar power, it is much more efficient and cost effective for the power generation to be resident at the homes and businesses that use the power.

There still may be a place for the power companies in providing an interconnect between users so that they have a backup if they have to take down their own systems for some maintenance or if they need extra power for some special situation, such as a party or to accommodate extra needs due to guests. But this is a much smaller and more optional market as many would have no need for hookup to the utility grid.

The power companies could also lease solar installations to private homeowners and businesses and maintain these systems. Many would probably welcome and take advantage of this service. But other small private businesses could also provide this same service just as effectively, so the power companies would have much more competition.

Also, the utilities would probably still be needed in places with little or unreliable solar power. Their larger generating facilities may also be better suited for satisfying the needs of very electricity intensive industries, such as aluminum manufacturing.

Consequently, you will never see the major power companies make major efforts in developing or providing solar power. They would be effectively slitting their own throats, business-wise. In fact, as solar power starts to become more popular, you with probably find the utilities trying to block it or take control of it.

By Bruce of Stone Marmot

Many Americans are rather vocal about their disappointment that the U. S. hasn’t ratified the Kyoto Agreements on environmental concerns. But nothing is stopping them from individually meeting the Kyoto Agreements. How many of these concerned Americans are making any effort to adhere to the agreements themselves?

Summarized, the Kyoto Agreements state that each signatory shall try to reduce its pollution to less than the levels of pollution it generated in 1990. As individuals, it is difficult to measure the pollution we are generating. But much of the pollution we generate is approximately proportional to the energy we use. It is usually fairly easy to determine the energy we use:

1) You can approximate the amount of gasoline you use by dividing the number of miles you drive over a year’s time by the miles per gallon (or miles per liter) fuel economy of your vehicle. For example, I drove 9700 miles in my vehicle, which gets about 23 mpg, which gives 9700 miles / 23 mpg = 422 gallons. I also drove 900 miles in a rental car that got 35 mpg, for 900 / 35 = 26 gallons. This is 422 + 26 = 448 gallons total last year. This compares to about 14000 miles in a vehicle that got 27 mpg, or 14000 / 27 = 519 gallons of gas in 1990. If you haven’t been specifically recording the miles you drive over a year’s time, you may be able to find approximate data in your vehicle’s maintenance records or your vehicle registration renewal forms.

2) Most all of us have electric bills from an electric utility. You can just compare your present energy use on your electric bills to the energy use on your 1990 electric bills. If you don’t have copies of our 1990 bills, you may be able to get copies from your power company. Be sure to compare energy used in kW-hr and not cost, since the cost of electricity has probably changed dramatically since 1990. For example, I used 3270 kW-hr of electricity in 1990, compared to 1168 kW-hr last year (2006). Incidentally, the typical U. S. household uses about 10,000 kW-hr a year and the typical all-electric household uses about 17,000 kW-hr a year. For comparison, the typical household in France and the UK uses about 3400 kW-hr a year.

3) If you use another form of energy, such as natural gas, today as well as back in 1990, you can again compare your use last year with that in 1990.

4) If you use another form of energy today but not back in 1990 or vice versa, things get a bit more complicated. You now have to convert the units for that other form of energy into the same units of the energy form it replaced. For example, if you used natural gas in 1990 but are now all electric, you have to convert the units the natural gas was measured in (probably cubic feet or liters at a particular pressure), determine how much energy was in each of those units (say BTUs per cubic feet or Joules per liter), and then convert that energy to kW-hr, which is what your electricity is measured in, and add that to your 1990 electrical consumption to determine your total energy use. There are so many variations possible here that I can’t give a nice neat formula that will work in all cases.

I suspect most of those who complain about the US not ratifying the Kyoto Agreements are not meeting the agreements themselves as individuals. How can you expect someone else to meet some criteria you yourself aren’t willing or able to meet? But if all those who are complaining meet the Kyoto Agreements as individuals, it starts to become moot whether the government ratifies the agreement or not, since a significant number of us will be meeting the agreements and peer pressure will force many other to also conform with the Agreements, effective making the country as a whole come close to, if not actually, meet the Agreements.

By Cindy of Stone Marmot

Extremists are trying to force the rest of us into their molds. These extremists, be they left or right, liberal or conservative, Muslim or Christian, whatever, expect you to recite exactly what they believe without questioning. If you deviate from any of their beliefs in the least little bit, these extremists then accuse you of being the exact opposite of them and you are now their mortal enemy. You are not allowed to think for yourself, just accept every little thing they preach without question.

No matter how noble much of what these extremists preach may sound, there are also a lot of errors, bad assumptions, and self serving statements among all these extremists’ preachings. The truth or best course of action is usually somewhere between these extremes.

Most of these extremists are also hypocrites who don’t practice what they preach. They tend to pick and choose from among their preachings those things that are convenient for them and ignore the rest. But they still expect the rest of us to fully adhere to their preachings.

The trouble is that the mass media is also trying to force each of us into one of these extremist camps. The media is not comfortable with people who are somewhere in between. The reasons for this are:

1) Extremists are thought to be better news and get better ratings than those in the middle. Consequently, the media tends to give the extremists most all of the attention and ignore the rest of us.

2) The media prefers simple things that are easy to label. Therefore, the media wants to force each of us into one of these easy to recognize and label extremist categories. They find people who do not neatly fit into one of these convenient extremist categories too confusing to deal with.

We need to resist this pressure from the extremists and from the media to join one of the extremes. Think for yourself and question what you hear from all sides of an issue.