5/04/2008

More on Kilowatts

After reading all the story and the comments in the BIT on Friday about the cost of electricity here on BI, I just had to drop in with this short observation.
The last time we had a full blown "energy crisis" here in the US, back in the 70's, we, Verna and I, decided after a lot of digging and homework to put up the WECS that still stands in our yard. Over the intervening 27 years this thing, and it's previous incarnation, the Jacobs windmill, has provided this house with a few HUNDRED THOUSAND kilowatts of energy! I have managed to actually lose the book that I recorded weekly totals in for 19 of those years, so I have no written records to fall back on, but the above estimate is a pretty fair one.

Just since the new inverter with all sorts of new innovations was installed in the winter, we have produced over 1800 KW's! For the month just past the total was 501 kws! That was enough to TOTALLY cover our usage from BIPCO if it had all been directly applied to our appliances. But as we are not a "stand alone" system, some of it goes back to the power company, and some we use directly.

Now the investment 27 years ago was a lot less than it would be now, but wind energy IS NOW AND ALWAYS WILL BE, a viable adjunct to power generation and usage here on BI. I don't give a rats ass what all the EXPERTS say, it is a workable technology! I think 27 years of daily contact with the technology should lend SOME credence to that statement.

So somewhere down the line, and in the not to distant future, a lot of people are going to have to give up their tightly held views of "view sheds" in order to be able to,"view-their-sheds" in the dark of night! I thought the comment by Kay Lewis was a very telling one. They are the people who would have an unrestricted view of those proposed WECS were they to become reality. They, apparently, unlike most of us, have open minds able to assess the future and its needs, and don't let personal feelings cloud and distort those ideas.

But while waiting for those gigantic ones to appear and a cable from them to be diverted to BI, (Yeah, RIGHT!!), what to do? If I was just coming to the realization that I needed to do SOMETHING, I would get in contact with the Bergy company out in Norman Oklahoma and see what models of WECS they have for sale. Then I would "hie me hence" to the Town Council and work on them to lift the STUPID RESTRICTIONS that were put in place by a previous council! Even "they" had to know that this day was coming, and here it is! Without much doubt in this feeble mind, I believe this little imbroglio is going to last a lot longer than the last one!

So in order to relieve the burden on your pocket book, don't be waiting for some pie in the sky innovation like wave generation and BIG MILLS to appear and save us all from 'Those Arabic Devils', take some of those pennies and cover the roof of your house with the new generation of solar panels and get ANY SIZED wind generator you can afford and start doing something with some sort of reality attached to it! TIFN

42 comments:

Sam said...

That was a good post, Ev. What's the view shed problem - I thought it was about McMansions? Last I hear was that a few of those early windmills were "screamers" when it came to high winds or something, a noise issue.

I'm thinking about building a redneck solar water heater, since our electric water seems to gobble up loads of power. Then there's your solar powered clothes drier," a clothesline. I might try a windmill but the ones I want are like over $10,000.

All I can say is that while gas, diesel, and other fuels may go back down in price, your electricity will always head up higher. So you're right ... we need to do something besides make ethanol from corn or some stupid policy like that. /sam

Anonymous said...

From Bergy a basic 10 kw system ,no battery backup, is about $38,000. It would take quite along time to pay for that. Thats if you have 38k in cash. Good ideas in a perfect world but very impractical today.

Anonymous said...

Do you even know who we get our oil from ?

Everett said...

Anonymouse, Actually I do, not every drop but most of it. It comes in part from countries in Africa, some from our neighbor from the south, Mexico, a good percentage from countries in South America, even some from the folks to the north. Some comes from the countries in and around Indonesia, but by far the majority, after our own production, which is picking up now that it is at over $120 a barrel, comes from that place on the map encompassed by the Persian Gulf, The Caspian sea to the north and East to the north and west by Turkey,Iraq and the rest of those countries and a goodly chunk from Saudi Arabia, and believe it or not, even a drop or two from Iran. I think it is called the "Middle East" Does this help you out at all? Yes, yes, I even really do even know that Persians are not Arabs, but during a moment of non-lucidity while typing the post I made the unforgivable mistake of lumping them all together! God! I think I need to strangle myself for my breech of couthness!

Everett said...

To the first anonymous, When we bought out first mill, it went for about $25,000! We figured at the time that it was going to take between 9 and 10 years to pay itself off. Well in the end after only 4-5 years, it had made more than enough at the going rates of the time to come too the break even milestone. Granted, there are some maintenance and repair costs associated with owing one of these things, but the amount of electricity made completely overshadows those costs. Even at $38K today, and if the oil prices stay where they are or drop back to $80-90, it will still be a viable alternative! You HAVE to be in it for the long haul though! No instant gratification here!

Anonymous said...

To break even after 5 years, your power bill would have to have been $400 plus a month. That seems abit high even for BI. we are talking 25 years ago right? I know electric rates were much lower.

Old NFO said...

Good post Ev, but you're using common sense again, now you 'know' that isn't going to work...sigh...

Sam said...

How come we're talking about crude oil when this was all about wind power, or WECS? Most of your electrical power doesn't come from crude oil anyway, as that is mainly reserved for transportation fuel. Powerplants tend to be coal, natural gas, and a few nukes. Block Island is unusual in the respect that it diesel Number 2.

So let's get something straight right away: reducing imports of crude oil from foreign countries will NOT affect most electrical power generating stations.

True, for Block Island it would be big news if those CAT diesel engines could be turned off because we had wind power, maybe a submarine transmission line to the mainland, and other stuff like experimental wave machines. You still have the diesels for back-up power but won't need to feed them as much Diesel Number 2.

-sam wells

Everett said...

Jesus Anonychicken You get one bug up your butt and you can't let go. I suppose I could have found the same website you used to quote the import of oil and from where, but that would have given you no ammo to shoot at me. And I believe that I had most of the same countries as you only not ranked plus a few others where we DO import oil from.
Have you EVER noticed on your keyboard that little button on both sides labeled "shift"? It is used for those letters unknown too you called "Capitals". Try it out some time, it will improve the look of your sanctimonious rants and make you look like less of a Dunce!
And just where in the post did I develop this xenophobia toward Arabs? It was again,A TIC reference, which you seem to have NO ability to differentiate between those and reality. Keep trying dude. One of these times you WILL come across as something less of and unreconstructed rectum orifice than you usually appear to be!

To the other anonymous, $400 power bills are not all that uncommon for folks out here. I have a pile of them from over the last 33 years and some were from back in the 1970's.

Sam, I guess we keep getting off topic here, 'cause there isn't much "sniperage" involved with the WECS. Someday the powers that be will figure out how to safely store spent fuel rods and/or the Greenies, of which I am a partial one, will have to acknowledge that nuke power is an acceptable form of power and let a few more be built without obstructing them at every step of the way. France gets about 72% of their power from nukes and I wonder how they have solved their sent fuel rod problem. Send them to Robert Mugabee maybe? He would surely accept them for the right amount of money. Ah well, better days are coming, somewhere down the pike!! BTW, outstanding picture of Sandy Feet's sand castle!!

Anonymous said...

The arabic davils comment did not look TIC to me. Your statement of by far the majority comes from the Perisan Gulf region is just flat out incorrect. You can try all the double-talk you want, it's not flying. Sam ,the price of crude and the price of refined products [#2] is a direct factor in the cost of power on BI. The price of gas , diesel is tied directly to the cost of crude. You guys want any more education on how the world oil market works, I'd be happy to help. I'd keep it on a very basic level so you could keep up with the rest of the class.

Anonymous said...

I don't think you'd want an english composition teacher to grade your post.

Sam said...

Here's what I said, Anon:

"Most of your electrical power doesn't come from crude oil anyway, as that is mainly reserved for transportation fuel. Powerplants tend to be coal, natural gas, and a few nukes. Block Island is unusual in the respect that it [uses] diesel Number 2."

So in that regard, Block Island is tied to the crude oil market. But the bigger point is that in the US, a majority of the electricity is produced from steam boilers that use coal or natural gas. Those prices are not tied to the cost of crude, aside from any transportation costs (e.g., trains to haul coal, maybe 5% added cost).

You can't blame anybody but yourself for staying with diesel baseload generating, not the Arab states, Wall Street, the refiners, or anybody off-island. It was something of a joke because Block Island Power was supposed to have an "integrated resource plan" that diversified its power generation.

Instead, if was "integrated" only in the sense that two diesels were required for winter base load, three in the summer, with peaking power on all four during the high season weekends. And if they started exceeding their peak loads they system would "brown out" and they might have to fire up all four diesels all over again!

The Island really needs something other than just its diesel generators.
-sam

Everett said...

I found my keyboard!! It was in the bottom of the litter box!!

So in your comment Saudi Arabia being #2 doesn't count as being "a lot"! Okay I can live with that, but add in the rest of the countries in that general areas contribution to our load, and I'll bet it comes a lot closer too "BY FAR" than any other SINGLE country as you seem to imply in your answer. If you are such a GOOD TEACHER, get some numbers and put them up here. I'm not going to, because I was talking about WECS, Not oil consumption! You hauled that particular smelly fish on board so you deal with it. In the mean time I'll sit in the back of the classroom with my Dunce cap on while you expound on all the vagaries of the world oil market! BTW (by the way), if you are so damned well educated and so far above the thought process level of the people who read this blog, JUST WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE?

And what's up with, "gas space comma space diesel"? Did commas take the place of words while I wasn't looking? Come on Teach, you can do better than that?

Everett said...

I found my keyboard!! It was in the bottom of the litter box!!

So in your comment Saudi Arabia being #2 doesn't count as being "a lot"! Okay I can live with that, but add in the rest of the countries in that general areas contribution to our load, and I'll bet it comes a lot closer too "BY FAR" than any other SINGLE country as you seem to imply in your answer. If you are such a GOOD TEACHER, get some numbers and put them up here. I'm not going to, because I was talking about WECS, Not oil consumption! You hauled that particular smelly fish on board so you deal with it. In the mean time I'll sit in the back of the classroom with my Dunce cap on while you expound on all the vagaries of the world oil market! BTW (by the way), if you are so damned well educated and so far above the thought process level of the people who read this blog, JUST WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE?

And what's up with, "gas space comma space diesel"? Did commas take the place of words while I wasn't looking? Come on Teach, you can do better than that?

Anonymous said...

Seriously,
All the anonychicken/mouse/ poster wants to do is bait you guys into an argument. His or her postings are not interested in civil discourse or an exchange of ideas: it is about all about control. This person takes pleasure out of pushing "buttons" and provoking a response from you, Everett, and Sam as well. Every time you guys take the bait, this poster get some sort of pleasure from controlling your actions. Note that this anonymous poster has never advanced any discourse on this blog, he or she just wants to bog your blog down in arguments over minutiae. In the end it is all about control.

In the end, it's somewhat pathetic. Here's a person that finds some sense of pleasure and self-worth by provoking authors and pushing them to defend themselves on this blog. Note the constant claims of superiority--- this is what it takes for this person to feel "good" about him or herself?

My suggestion is to just ignore these postings and recognize them for what they are: a feeble effort at some self-worth through taunting others. Like that's a recipe for a happy life.

Anonymous. Please do yourself a favor and seek some counselling. Life is just too short and precious to waste it's possibilities and energies on these sad attempts to feel good about yourself.

Sam said...

Good comment posted there at 1:05. This is supposed to be a good discussion topic for doing good things.

So far, solar power doesn't look very promising except for a few experimental "solar concentrators" in the desert that are hot enough to melt salt (imagine that!).

Wind power has of course been around for centuries and if I'm not mistaken, at one time in BI history there was one or two.

Water power is really cool, since water is nine times more sense than air and you can really get some kilowatts out of that. It's still experimental but vertical wave machines and submerged turbines with large impellers seem to be very promising.

I hope Rhode Island gets together with it's energy plan that includes offshore energy, and read somewhere that URI and the Governor's Office is working on something big. -sam

Anonymous said...

Here you go. We import about 9.3 million barrels of crude a day from the top 15 suppliers. That accounts for 95% of our daily imports. Saudi Arabia 1.54 mil, Iraq .66 mil, Kuwait .25 mil., for a total of 2.45 million barrels a day. We get 6.85 mil. from the rest of our syppliers, Canada 1.93 mil, Mexico 1.21 mil., Nigeria 1.07 mil, Venezuela 1.04 mil,. I hope you get the Idea. This is also about our energy policies, which have been crafted by the left for past 30-40 years.

Anonymous said...

I think the emphasis on conservation and alternative means of energy generation pursued by this "More on Kilowatts" posting is an important topic to pursue.
Regardless of who supplies oil to the USA, it's always a good policy to conserve and find alternate means of energy production.

Block Island has much to gain from proper implementation of WECS and Wave generation. Why not continue to pursue these and have them supplement the energy produced by BIPCO. And as much as I'd hate to see the town pick up yet another responsibility and budget line item, I'm almost in favor of the town acquiring the power company with the hope that new management would seek implementation of alternative energy production----and---- give those private parties whose WECS feed into the power grid, better remuneration for the kilowatts supplied to the grid.

Meanwhile, I sometimes wonder about the public buildings that must remain lit at night. I'm sure this is matter of safety for first responders, but at the same time isn't there some way to reduce this lighting of empty buildings?

Anonymous said...

Sam,BTW, all petroleum products start out as crude.

Sam said...

I have to agree that sometimes I wonder why public buildings have to be lit up like lighthouses at night, as that is very expensive. All they need are security lights - there are even automated security lights such as with motion detectors.

Our new municipal building on SPI is an example, with lights so bright they could cause a traffic accident. It's a waste of energy ... those commercial lamps are not low watt fluorescent bulbs, folks. I think the town should lead the way in conservation, not be lit up like a lighthouse at night.

One interesting thing I learned was about electric water heaters. I know many of you islanders use propane or something, but electric ones can be programmed with a timer (about $59 with an electrician service call of maybe another $80). You'll save a ton of money for such a cheap investment. For example, you could program the timer to turn off between 8 at night and 5 in the morning - and turn it off if you're away from the house and don't need any hot water. Nice.

Double nice if you have a WECS or wave machine.

-sam

Anonymous said...

Having just gone to the town budget meeting, where is the money going to come from to pay for any experimental energy production, Sam if you haven't heard RI is broke. BI's budget is maxed out due to a cap property tax increases. All you dreamers need wake up and smell the coffee. Wave machines, tidal turbines, I want some of what you are smoking.

Sam said...

Aye, it is the worst time to talk about improving infrastructure because of the darn economy.

But Block Island citizens shouldn't have to pay a whole bunch because you just need to beat the price down by allowing private companies to help you. The price to beat is what, 22 cents? Or is it higher? I forget but your prices per kilowatt-hour are like some Islands off Alaska and the Bahamas, expensive as heck.

Well I can buy wind power down here through a company that is 10 to 14 cents. Wish I did it years ago.

And you won't like what I'm smoking: Camel straights with no filter. Tastes like really good sensimilla some days. LOL!!!!

Anonymous said...

Maybe if we didn't spend all that money on Iraq, we'd have some for our own infrastructure. Let's bring our troops home and take care of our own. No more American lives, limbs, or wealth should find its way there.

Anonymous said...

Sam ,just got our bill on BI $281/665 kwh = 42 cents per.

Sam said...

42 cents! That must be one heck of a base rate plus fuel surcharges and fees. That's almost in the realm of disbelief.

According to the US Department of Energy, 2006-2007 average US residential rates are 10 cents per kW-hr and 16 cents in Rhode Island.

Surely, you could get some bond or something for a submarine cable to the mainland or use that money for a wind turbine - seems like that might halve the cost of your electricity. Oh well, I know you're looking into all this and am preaching to the choir ... but 42 cents!

Anonymous said...

Wait till summer when the Power Co. Up's the surcharge rate, last summer it was $.45 per kw/hr This summer it will be more like $.55 per kw/hr. The average power bill will be about $350.00.
But who cares everyone on Block Island is rich any way, and they should not be subjected to the ugliness of a wind mill, let the common folk deal with the problem by getting another job, or moving away and living in a town with other common folk. Then they can put a WIND MILL in every yard, and leave my VIEW SHED ALONE!!!!!!!!!

---The Evil One---

Anonymous said...

is the evil one jerry zarella?

Anonymous said...

it could be dumb doc willis

Sam said...

A view shed? Is that like a small out-building where you store your old pictures and junky art? LOL!

Let's ratchet it up a notch. There is no Constitutional basis to protect your views of the scenery, aside from the except that National Parks Service is mandated to protect "scenic views" as part of the overall mission statement.

That includes whether your view is blocked by another structure or somebody build some big ugly wind turbine right in your ... ugh ... viewshed.

Apparently Block islanders haven't caught onto this fact and every spring I heard stories about trees my mysteriously "fall," seemingly natural as if the Big Man was working a chainsaw or something. All to protect their ... forgive me Lord, I just can't say that work without laughing now!

A wind turbine on every block, I say!
-sam

Everett said...

The thing that goes up my ass the MOST about all this "view shed" crap is that it is ALMOST ALWAYS brought up and screamed about by the people who build a great big assed house with a great 'view shed' and then they live in it for about two to four weeks A YEAR!!! The rest of the time they rent it out for some outrageous amount like $7-8K A WEEK!! Then in the winter, when the view is much better, no one lives in it at all! They all go where ever snow birds congregate and bitch about how some other jerk from NJ,NY, MASS, CT built a bigger house RIGHT IN MY VIEW SHED! So they sell it for twice what they built it for and leave us to stumble along paying out of sight electric bills ALL YEAR! Sigh! As FDR once said,I think, "A windmill in every yard"!! Or was he talking about chickens? Was it even him?

Anonymous said...

Sure am glad there are no jerks from BI, as all the islanders are perfect.

Sam said...

Well I'm a jerk too! But the history of the water windmill is really something, as Everett described in his FDR quote about windmills. Lots of companies sold them but one of the last survivors is a company in San Angelo, Texas (I say this from memory, not some Wikipedia thing or some Google). Cattlemen from as far as Brazil, Africa, and Israel buy many of them these days.

The principle behind a water windmill hasn't changed in a century. A push-rod basically pumps about a few inches or a foot of water in the standpipe each stroke, depending on the water depth and supply. When in the hole the that push-rod is known as a "sucker rod." To fix the pump at the bottom you had to pull several hundred feet of sucker rod out of the ground.

The well casing hole and the windmill only costs a few thousand each, as is today. Going below 800 feet to find better water costs more of course.

My point is that it would be cool if we had such cheap technology to make electricity today. That would be awesome. -sammie

Anonymous said...

NO comments on the oil import numbers. Doesn't surprise me.

Anonymous said...

Any chance that this current oil crunch is steeped in conspiracy? I'm thinking that after another month of increasing prices at the pump, the American public will be all to willing to have the Alaskan Reserve opened for pumping oil. Who's going to care about environmentalists and their political plans when gasoline nudges past $5 or $ 6 dollars a gallon and home heating fuel costs continue to climb?

Sam said...

I don't know about a conspiracy but it sure smacks of one. As and expert and they'll say that supply and demand is fairly balanced, meaning that on fundamentals, crude should be trading around 50 to 75 bucks a barrel.

It is becoming evident that the US, Saudi Arabia, OPEC, and other governments really can't control the price of crude oil. So who is bidding it up so high?

I suggest it is the global commodity markets, which sometimes appear to be run as syndicates.

When the latest recession or downturn in the economy happened, trillions of dollars left the financial markets and went into gold, agricultural products like corn and rice, and of course crude oil. These are considered "safe" investments in bad times. I'm taking many trillions of dollars here.

So as crude oil is traded on the international market, bidders started gambling that the prices would rise due to bad media news and a weakening dollar. Hot dang they made some serious money. With a single tanker load, in increase of a few pennies in the price per barrel can make you a million bucks. A spread of several dollars and you can retire forever.

Then there are gamblers who work in the futures markets that bet that a load increases or decreases in price. They don't trade in actual oil or whatever, but on the contract as to whether the price difference went up or down. I am not a stock market / commodities expert in the least but they tend to inflate the price of oil as well.

A lot of people want to blame the Big Five oil companies that serve the US, and although they're making obscene profits they really cannot control the price of crude oil. In fact, as countries such as Venezuela and Russia have nationalized their crude oil production, the Big Five have less power than ever.

Some energy economists call this the Oil Bubble. There is plenty of oil and there's more off Alaska, the Gulf of Mexico, and a giant field off Brazil. Predictions of low supplies and high demand just aren't true.

It's more like the Housing Bubble when a two-bedroom house bought for $150,000 a decade ago is now worth $750,000. And look what happened to housing! It should continue to crash in some areas for yet another year.

So it's a story all about greed, bad decisions, bad economics, and nearly complete unregulation by any governmental authority. One day some new investment fad will come along and trillions of investor money will leave the crude oil business and prices will plummet for want of cash.

Computers, houses, what's the next bubble? People just don't learn. I think water ... just simple old drinking water ... might be the next boondoggle to watch. -sam

Anonymous said...

Speculation in the futures market is definitly driving the crude price up. If it stays up here, I need to find the company that can get oil from shale/sand. I'd buy every share I could. Some of our current non OPEC sources are drying up ,like the north sea, permex is in deep trouble. They need a serious amount of cash to stay up with demand, permex has fallen well behind in keeping up its infrastructure. Just increasing the amount of crude pumped will do little to lower our fuel cost. We haven't build a new refinery in 30 years. Those old ones are costly to run. You can thank the left for that.

Sam said...

Subsea 7, a Norwegian engineering and construction group, has recently entered a new market in the Gulf with a brand new facility near Brownsville, TX at the southern coast on the Mexico border. They specialize in high pressure gathering and transmission lines for offshore oil and gas. Word on the street is that Mexico is going to open up a section of the Gulf of Mexico for contractors to help, although most will be under PEMEX oversight.

The Subsea 7 facility will cover a gap in between its Brazil facility (which is going to be extremely profitable with the largest oil find in decades) and the entire Gulf. Operations are to start in 2009. -sam

source: Valley Morning Star, May 20, 2008.

Everett said...

Just a quick update on energy production by the Littlefield Power Distribution Company. Since it was restarted with the new inverter, it has made 2137 Kwh's. At the going rate of about $.45 per kwh, that is getting damned close to $1000 if not slightly over! So I still maintain that these things are viable and worthy investments in the ongoing fight against the oil/coal generation systems. If it paid back $1K every three months, it wouldn't take all that long to gain back your $35-$36K investment. About 8 years. But I wonder where the price of oil is going to top out? The higher it goes, the faster the payoff approaches!

Anonymous said...

Does it cover your whole power bill and are you given credits for a surplus? How does that all work?

Everett said...

In reality, what we generate and actually use here in the house runs from about a third to one half of all the juice we use. And of course it varies with the season, more wind or less. There are two "ratcheted" meters on the house. When we are taking power from BIPCO the IN meter runs forward,then as the wind picks up and my machine is generating enough to cover all the present useage in the house, the In meter stops running and the Out meter starts going forward and recording all the kwh's going back into the grid! This is the "ONLY POWER COMPANY IN THE US THAT HAS THIS {DEAL}"!! The PUC in PVD gave Bipco the ability to do this although it goes directly against the PURPA law enacted back in the 70's that was designed to pay back co-generators full value for the energy supplied to the grid. Everywhere else in the US, co-generators have 'net metering". That means there is only one meter on the house and it runs freely in either direction. So when the wind blows like hell all winter, my meter should be running backwards and when it dies out, it goes forward as I begin to take power from the grid. Then at the end of the month, bi-month, semi- annually or annually, if I "OWE" I pay up. If they owe me, I can elect to either take the money, roll over the the banked Kwh's to the next period, or ASSIGN THEM TO ANYONE ELSE I DESIRE TO GIVE THEM TOO! Well, thats the way it is everywhere else but here. Out here I pay them whatever I owe each month, and they pay what they owe me every six months or a year, whatever the COO 'feels' like doing! Great system huh?

Sam said...

Sounds illegal as heck, Everett.

I worked at a place where we tested cars for emissions and they had a "dynamometer" treadmill for the cars to spin their wheels - powered by an electric motor assist. So when you got 4 vehicles going 55 MPH on these here treadmills, the outside electric meter run backwards at really fast RPM's. You could hear the cars idle down and stop ... and the meter would slowly go the other way, consuming power from the grid.

It was awesome!
-sam

Anonymous said...

For BI, I say a cable to the mainland and the national grid. Those diesel generators are in a "death spiral" . Fuel costs will make this and other energy sources more viable. This is the only long term solution for BI .