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I didn't say solar farm, I agree thats dumb. I'm talking about solar panels for homes, a lot of people already do this. After the initial investment you can create 100% of your electrical needs, or close to it. If you can afford shelling out the investment you can save a lot of money. If you pay 200 a month in electric that is 24000 in 10 years, solar panel setups can be around 10000, do the math. If you can do the same setup for 2500 or 5000 its a no brainer, just have to get costs down. You could also get an electric car then your talking free driving as well.
I have worked installing solar systems on remote houses in wilderness areas where solar is the only source of energy for the home. Power an electric car? You must be crazy. You can not use even a normal refrigerator if you do not have a huge array of panels. Air con? No way.
People on the grid usually just feed back to the grid and get a reduced energy bill. In many areas the laws and rates are stacked in a way that the utility doesn't pay you what you pay them for energy. Many places also make it expensive to get approved to do it anyway.
For homes that solely rely on solar it only makes sense if you are a certain distance from the power. Back when I was doing it in rural MN it was around a mile to make sense. You also need a battery bank to store the electricity. Try doing that and using an electric car. The amount to power the car would leave you with no power left for your house.
If you run anything heavy you will need a back up generator. You plan your laundry and running tools for when you need to run the generator.
WV as I have heard is like the 6th cloudiest state in the USA. The mountains of the southeast are almost as bad as the Pacific northwest in regards to average sun and what you can expect to generate. Driving around you are going to find that a very large percentage of places are in deep, dark valleys. So now you have a place for example that has over 50% of it's days overcast, is in a valley that gets 2 hours peak sun if that in the winter. Oh those lovely trees you have around? you had better cut those down.
I agree solar has a role play in a national discussion but not in one regarding energy in WV. As far as wind goes, Warren Buffett has installed more wind in Iowa than about anybody else on the planet. Iowa is one of the main wind farms in the nation. He said himself the only value in the wind farms for him was the tax breaks to do it. He said the policy is stupid but he has a moral obligation to his share holders to keep the tax burden as low as possible through any available legal method.
You should look at what it takes to actually do solar in a meaningful way and educate yourself on the matter. The reason solar is not a more widely spread phenomenon is that in most cases it isn't financially feasible to do it. I had to run evaluations for my customers to see if it was the best route for them and in many cases I had to say just do yourself a favor and hook to the grid.
Sorry to be off topic but had to address that post as it was so grossly misinformed.
They have failed to live up to expectations, but they have still been substantial and might well be far more substantial if the cracker facility is built a across the bridge from Moundsville. Those low prices will not last indefinitely, and they are largely caused by the Saudis and the Russians scrambling to maintain market share by dumping product on the market. Eventually, they will come to realize that in the long run that benefits nobody.
I'm not from here originally but I do follow the news and it seems like anytime anyone wants to open a new facility, people protest it. They seem to want jobs but only if those jobs somehow appear without any new businesses or anyone new moving in to town.
Saw this on Metro News today: Royalty owners in WV at risk due to cross drilling (see below)
I don't have a problem with extracting natural gas but would like to see more regulations and higher taxes on the companies. The citizens need more benefit from this. Otherwise it's just a repeat of what the coal industry did to us in the last century. People use the terms "raping our state and resources" and taking advantage of the uneducated when talking about those times.
Remember those old stories about taking illiterate people's mineral rights in exchange for a sewing machine or a new shotgun? Well, not much has changed. Many are selling their rights for a few thousand dollars. I know one person who got $30K which sounds like a lot but really isn't today. It was barely enough to buy a new truck. Most run between $28K - $55K. What is that truck going to be worth in 10 years? (Basically nothing) It will be rusted with our winters and the suspension will be shot in 5 years due to our non maintained roads.
Makes the sewing machines sound like a good investment. Some of them might still be working.
WHEELING, W.Va. — Natural gas royalty owners learned Saturday morning about a new leasing challenge enabled by ever-lengthening horizontal well laterals that may ooze its way into West Virginia.
It’s called cross-unit drilling. It’s underway in Pennsylvania and a bill to make it legal is in the works, they learned. It allows producers to drill new wells into an existing unit from and through a different unit without renegotiating lease terms.
Producers take the view, Fanning said, that they can do this without permission unless a lease expressly forbids it.
But Fanning and Pettorini both said they’ve never seen a lease address this, basically because no one ever contemplated it happening.
One of the royalty owners commented, “This bill would introduce a lot of mischief. … People’s mineral rights would basically be stolen from them.”
It will be interesting to see what Nuclear Power in WV would potentially do to both coal and natural gas. I would imagine Nuclear power wouldn't have the market swings like coal and gas energy as a positive to those who pay the bills but obviously West Virginia would take a big hit on tax revenue for the extraction of these resources if nuclear power would take over.
It will be interesting to see what Nuclear Power in WV would potentially do to both coal and natural gas. I would imagine Nuclear power wouldn't have the market swings like coal and gas energy as a positive to those who pay the bills but obviously West Virginia would take a big hit on tax revenue for the extraction of these resources if nuclear power would take over.
The question is what will the legislature do with the information once they get it. (The did this once before when they asked the state Workforce people to collaborate with MU and WVU to determine if prevailing wage rates were done right.)
There is discussion about building a nuke plant at an idled coal plant near Cabin Creek.
If a power company has diversified their plants in a way that they have coal, gas, nuke, wind, solar, and any other type of fuel, their pricing should be more stable because a change in one market wouldn't affect all of their generating plants.
I'm not from here originally but I do follow the news and it seems like anytime anyone wants to open a new facility, people protest it. They seem to want jobs but only if those jobs somehow appear without any new businesses or anyone new moving in to town.
Or, heaven forbid, no new traffic.
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