I can spin it backwards with my generator, but even with relatively low NG prices I'd lose money.
Don't the feds require your local utility buy excess power? I thought PURPA required it?

 

Again, I don't even have "grid" here. I'm on a cell modem to even have net. I'm really in the sitx.

Here in CA, I gather they let you have zero. You CAN put power back into the grid, but you will never get a check. (go figure). Deal is, it's like a battery, the meter dings you one way, but you CAN push credit back. After one year it starts over. If you size your solar too big, they win, they just take it. If you size it too small, they win, you pay. You size it just right, you get to zero.


Btw gang..I'm pretty sure that is correct, at least for CA.

As I understand our new "smart" (actually extra stupid), meters won't go backwards, BUT! I don't know the details. a "grid tie inverter" is necessary to match up the 60 Hrz signwave. Would be like a dead short otherwise. Maybe with the installation of that, the meter is changed? Idk.

 

How many years does it take to pay off assuming electricity is less than $0.20 a KWhr?
I imagine you'd need quite a few batteries as well and a fairly hefty inverter? Assuming not completely efficient inverter, you'd need quite a few panels and quite a few batteries to be able to power a house. Based on my calculations, I use an average of 6kwhrs a day, 200ish KWhrs a month, more in the winter. I'm sure my electricity usage is less than a family's.

A 130kwhr panel is just over $3k (after a quick research, I don't know if you need this panel or not, it said something like 5 hours in the sun but I don't really know how they measure power output, if 130kwhr is the avg output for 30 days for 5 hours in the sun each day and it will do double that if it's in the sun for 10hrs). Then you need batteries and an inverter. It's late and I'm tired and don't feel like calculating how many batteries you'd need to power your house for a week of rainy weather. :P
Seems like it would only take about 25 or so years to pay off solar panels/batteries/ etc now, assuming electricity doesn't get ridiculously expensive.

 

Yea..it's a tough issue. First my consumption is nothing like a "regular" house.

I selected this HP laptop because it draws about 25 watts. I use a 19 inch TV that draws about 55. I use compact florescent, rarely two on at once, 13-18 watts. Then I have a relatively pig pig of a generator I use for laundry, the larger shop stuff, (table saw, compressor ect.) Normally I only run that for a few minutes, except for the 30 minute laundry cycle. I have a solar dryer...(close-line I mean). That remote start 4000W, (1800 RPM) Onan is supper quiet. I have multiple points...shop, house, yard where I can start, stop it.

So here's the new deal for you with grid. You don't need batteries! The grid IS your battery. You instal your pannels and your grid tie inverter, and simply pump power in when you have it, draw out when you don't. Some pannels I have here I bought USED in the early 80's. (Arco asi 2000's from some test deal)(they stop testing them when the technology changes).

Laws vary from state to state. I believe in some states they DO indeed need to buy from you and send you a check. Here in CA, best you can do is break even. Yea..the math can be tough. The panels seem to last forever, and there are subsidies as well. I would guess the curb where you have paid off your investment and are really making bank would be different in the Arizona sun as opposed to...Montana.

On demand propane hot water, and extra insulation on my propane frig means I fill the 25 gal Propane every three months. I used to run a 4 horse gas pump 2 hrs every week or 10 days to fill my tank on the tower. Now I have a 12V Pump that I run about 1-1/2 hrs a day , usually while it's sunny),to provide both me and a rental (2 there), with water.

In winter I get a steady 60 watts from a micro hydro in my creek. Yea, 60 is not a big number, but 24/7 from November to June..adds up.

There is an outfit called "Real Goods" in Hopland CA that would have info. Also nearer me is Six Rivers Solar...Idk..I hear their adds on radio.

 

Back to the HHO conversion... After talking to someone who did a hefty ammount of personal research and had written a paper on the subject, and watching a few dozen Youtube videos (internet never lies :P) I myself think this is very plausible. The concept is more straitforward than it seems. I will be eventually implementing this plant into my 90' cherokee 4.0 so feel free to follow. I'll def. start a new thread.

Suprised this is the only one on the subject. Is there anyone out there that's had any success with this? Please PM cause I'd like to pick your brain.

 

I suspect those two things are related. Using electrolysis to separate H and O is still a net energy loss.
I was just reading about a different way to split water back to H and O that uses certain metals and appears to be much more efficient. Here:
https://news.uns.purdue.edu/x/2007a/...lHydrogen.html

 

2007 eh? Reading.....

 

dude...you guys have an XJ. Not a space ship!

 

OK, I ended up going fast through it. First and pretty important what?" "Hydrogen is generated spontaneously when water is added to pellets of the alloy, which is made of aluminum and a metal called gallium" Fine...what did it take to make THAT?

"Power is generated when oxygen combines with Hydrocarbon" Is Just as true.

Here's my take. Nobody could suppress it if such easy gain were available. Wait, you are razzing us! You got me Chuck !!!!!! er!!!! (I fell, lock stock and barrel!

 

That's just in your mind.

 

If you have any doubt, do a little research. The electrolysis process is powered via car battery. While running you charge and power. I think avg amperage is about 50-60. Don't must car Batts do 100+?

Its not a about detracting from jeeps look fir a"spacey" feel but cutting back on emissions.

There's more to it than the hho plant but an additional map sensor to keep from running lean, batt isolator, etc.

 

It's been quite some time since I was into this stuff but I certainly recall the gallium catalyst in Sci Am. It is super cool but with all of the other problems associated with mobile hydrogen processing (embrittlement), the fact that the alloy is consumed (the aluminum oxidizes and it's done), and battery technology always improving it never took off.

To produce any meaningful levels of hydrogen you need a LOT more power than that. Most people do not realize quite how much juice electrolysis consumes. As a result the electrolysis of water to hydrogen combustion process is a NET LOSS of energy. It only makes sense in an application where power is cheap and plentiful (say on the coast usig seawater and tidal energy) and you need to transport this hydrogen somewhere that power is not.

It makes absolutely zero sense to implement in a vehicle. For all the effort required and energy lost in the process you'd be much further ahead of the game making an electric hybrid.

 

Can you provide data to back your doubts?

 

Well first of all it violates the first and second laws of thermodynamics. Most of the energy you produce is wasted as heat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_thermodynamics

Also:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars...6846?series=19
http://www.wyff4.com/Looking-Out-4-Y...6194684#!ZJh4N
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news0...water4gas.html

Finally I've performed electrolysis at home for the purpose of making hydrogen just to have fun blowing things up. It's cumbersome and expensive.

Aside from that there are some serious mechanical implications to running hydrogen too - the valvetrain must be hardened as the hydrogen basically explodes on compression. Plus the whole fuel system will eventually succumb to hydrogen embrittling and fall apart.

 

If it worked you'd be buying that technology in new cars. It'd be a lot simpler than the hybrid systems, regenerative braking, cylinder deactivation and what not they're installing to gain a few MPG advantage.
Except they aren't building it because it's a net energy loss.