THE NEW One and Only Climate Change Whatever...

[Gary Ruben]

Re: THE NEW One and Only Climate Change Whatever...

It's an Ottawa affordable housing project from what was written so I'd assume the idea was to offset the cost with the income from the electricity generated.

We don't know the consumption and rate increases in the area so have no idea if installing the panels contributed to the increase of the bill for that unit as compared to a unit which doesn't have the panels.

Here's an interesting article.

http://www.thestar.com/business/arti...-plant-dispute

[Paul Beckwith]

Re: THE NEW One and Only Climate Change Whatever...

Clarification here.

To be clear, electricity used is on one meter and at city rates, nothing changes in the household. If the bills went up there was no connection to the solar panels.

The second meter would be dedicated to electricity that the panels produce, and would be paid to the homeowner or the building owner or whoever signed the contract.

[Gary Ruben]

Re: THE NEW One and Only Climate Change Whatever...

Then the bill goes up as the money goes to the owner? Presumably in an owner occupied situation the cost would be less after deducting the buying price from the selling price.

[Vlad Drkulec]

Re: THE NEW One and Only Climate Change Whatever...

I don't understand how the bill could go up. I thought the idea was to use the electricty from the panels and sell the excess.

The electricity from the panels gets sold to the utility for 64 cents or 80 cents per kilowatt hour depending on when the deal was inked. The homeowner pays the jacked up rates to buy from the utility for 12 cents or 14 cents per kilowatt hour or whatever it is. If you use the electricity and sell the excess then you are losing between 50 and 66 cents per kilowatt hour from the point of view of the entity receiving the money for the panels. The homeowner (EDIT typo I meant the person occupying the home) was not the one making money on the generated electricity. In all likelihood it was the actual owner of the homes.

Is this a case of the city paying for the panels and getting the money from the electricity produced? For it to cost her more it almost sounds like they put the house on electric heat and are charging for the electricity for that so the bill would vary with the amount of heating needed.

It costs more because they have to jack up the rates to pay for all these green energy boondoggles.

[Gary Ruben]

Re: THE NEW One and Only Climate Change Whatever...

Oh and her electricity bill actually went up after the panels were installed.

I don't understand how the bill could go up. I thought the idea was to use the electricty from the panels and sell the excess.

Is this a case of the city paying for the panels and getting the money from the electricity produced? For it to cost her more it almost sounds like they put the house on electric heat and are charging for the electricity for that so the bill would vary with the amount of heating needed.

[Vlad Drkulec]

Re: THE NEW One and Only Climate Change Whatever...

Oh and her electricity bill actually went up after the panels were installed.

It seemed like a good idea at the time I'm sure.

[Tom O'Donnell]

Re: THE NEW One and Only Climate Change Whatever...

A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I were walking through a development of townhouses close to where we live and happened to notice that three of them had solar panels on the roof. There was a lady sitting on the stoop out front of one of the houses and I asked her a few questions about the panels.

It turned out that these three houses were part of Ottawa's affordable housing project so the city had paid for the panels. The lady said she hated the panels. Her first complaint was that every couple of weeks or so they would lose power for a couple of hours. Her second was that in the winter snow would fall on the panels, the snow would slowly melt as it was heated up by the panels, then turn to ice during the night. Later big chunks of ice would slide off when the sun was back up landing near their front entrance.

Oh and her electricity bill actually went up after the panels were installed.

[Paul Beckwith]

Re: Another alternative energy firm bites the dust in Windsor

Perhaps you like these guys better?

http://www.weather.com/news/crickets...-utah-20120530

[Paul Beckwith]

Re: Another alternative energy firm bites the dust in Windsor

The sky is falling here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...=cIF4YY_C43Q#!

[Gary Ruben]

Re: Another alternative energy firm bites the dust in Windsor

Not a surprise. One company I follow had to put their plant in France into bankruptcy. They're trying to sell off their Ontario division.

It's starting to look like the current government will go the full term. Probably more defections or taking other posts from the opposition. It' can't be much fun sitting in opposition for people who got used to being the government.

[Vlad Drkulec]

Another alternative energy firm bites the dust in Windsor

Siliken Canada solar firm is the latest casualty

http://www.windsorstar.com/business/...108/story.html

Conservative energy critic Vic Fedeli, MPP for Nipissing, blamed the provincial government for the closure, saying “(Premier) Dalton McGuinty gave false hope to the renewable industry, especially those in the solar sector, with overly rich feed-in tariff subsidies.

“As soon as that unsustainable subsidy was reduced, sales fell and jobs disappeared,” Fedeli said. “This proves our point that these so-called green jobs are only temporary.”

Last week, after announcing 40 layoffs which left 53 people working in the plant until Friday’s closure, Caudet blamed the Ontario Power Authority and provincial Ministry of Energy for not approving solar projects in a timely manner.

“We’re waiting 16-18 months for approvals and it’s frustrating,” Caudet said. “It’s a great workforce here and if we had orders we’d be in good shape.


Read more: http://www.windsorstar.com/business/...#ixzz1uiB1lvmf

[Gary Ruben]

Re: THE NEW One and Only Climate Change Whatever...

Russia is still participating in the megatons to megawatts program where the weapons grade uranium is reduced to the point where it can be burned in the nuclear reactors. When that ends next year, I think it is, the Americans will be continuing to buy SWU's for nuclear fuel from Russia. Russia has centrifuge technology and the U.S. still has the WWII gaseous diffusion technology. The old technology is high cost.

[Gary Ruben]

Re: THE NEW One and Only Climate Change Whatever...

Gary, I have been hearing about this new technique of fracking. Is it safe?

The short answer is, I don't know if it's safe for the environment, which is what I'm guessing you mean.

These are still early days for the technique. I don't even know what chemicals they use, if any.

Putting water down wells isn't something new. A waterflood technique where water is put down one or two wells to force oil other other wells has been used for a long time. It moves the oil toward the producing wells. Enhanced recovery methods. Fracking is different.

[Zeljko Kitich]

Re: THE NEW One and Only Climate Change Whatever...

There is a method that exists to turn coal into oil. The only problem is that it is expensive. The fear is all OPEC would have to do is flood the market with their oil and drop the price enough to make such plants uneconomical and bankrupt anyone who builds them. Other than that the US has a huge amount of coal.

[Vlad Drkulec]

Re: THE NEW One and Only Climate Change Whatever...

Gary, I have been hearing about this new technique of fracking. Is it safe?
I see the Council of Canadians doesn't think so, and would like to impose a moratorium. Hmm...are their concerns legitimate, or is this just another evil tactic of the environmental movement picking on the poor oil and gas industry?

http://canadians.org/water/issues/fracking/index.html

I am sure Vlad will be happy to put my mind at ease.

Well Bob, I am not sure how safe it is but since the environmental movement doesn't like nuclear plants, coal plants, natural gas plants, oil burning plants and in fact the only thing that they seem to like is extremely uneconomical wind and solar power and sending money to Russia to buy carbon credits so that they can build nukes to threaten us with the result is that we are running out of options. I don't really care what the Council of Canadians thinks. They and their allies lost the last election so it will be at least three years before anything they say will be relevant again.