Running Your Electric Meter Backwards 526
kog777 writes to note a story in International Business Times about "net metering," or generating your own power without disconnecting from the grid. Forty states have laws allowing individuals to do this, and many of them offer subsidies and tax breaks for people who do. From the article: "When the sun shines bright on their home in New York's Hudson Valley, John and Anna Bagnall live out a homeowner's fantasy. Their electricity meter runs backward. Solar panels on their barn roof can often provide enough for all their electricity needs. Sometimes — and this is the best part — their solar setup actually pushes power back into the system."
You can do the same thing... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:You can do the same thing... (Score:0, Funny)
Re:You can do the same thing... (Score:3, Funny)
Grump
yeah, but (Score:3, Funny)
Tell that to the boy scout who tried to build a reactor [amazon.com] in his backyard.
Re:Non conventional (Score:3, Funny)
Greenhouses too (Score:4, Funny)
You can do this without solar panels. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Non conventional (Score:3, Funny)
Re:realities? (Score:5, Funny)
Have you ever lived in Southern Califorina? If there is ever a could in the sky people run off the street to take shelter in the nearest building. Don't ask what happens in a freak rain shower! Drizzle of doom...
Re:You can do the same thing... (Score:4, Funny)
Thanks god for social security.
Re:Where the icy cold beer is on the house (Score:1, Funny)
Re:What is the story? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:OT, sick day scams... (Score:1, Funny)
It's not real. I am a geek.
Re:realities? (Score:3, Funny)
Years ago, my grandfather had a steel drum painted black on the roof of the well house. They would fill it up with water in the morning and it would be nice and warm by the end of the day when they got home from the field. So that was what they used to bathe/shower. Of course, that was before they had hot water heaters so the alternative was to heat water on a stove.
One neighbor reportedly had problems with this approach. It was his wife's job to fill the drum with water. When she was pissed off about something, apparently a common occurrence, she'd wait until an hour before they were due in from the field to fill it with water.
Re:realities? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Price issues (Score:5, Funny)
So, what's the downside, then?
You can do the same thing with the natural gas co, (Score:2, Funny)
Re:realities? (Score:3, Funny)
I've never lived there, but I learned about this "drizzle of doom" phenomenon a few months ago when I stumbled across the following article on a San Diego news website:
0.02 inches of rain pummels the area [signonsandiego.com]
Re:realities? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:OT, sick day scams... (Score:5, Funny)
I think Bill Gates has one with three digits, and it's in kilometers, not miles. The car was custom built, and they explained there wasn't room for more digits. Gates, of course, said (and who doesn't see this coming) "No problem. 640k should be enough for anybody."
Digits (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Digits (Score:3, Funny)
0.002 lightyear = 3.76223988 × 1012 rods
Storm Watch! (Score:5, Funny)
Welcome to KCAL 9. We're sorry we had to cut away from this evening's high speed pursuit but we have received word that Ventura is experiencing scattered sprinkles. Johnny Mountain is down in the trenches, reporting from the eye of the storm. We'll hear from him after this break, if he's still alive!
Re:Hydro is good for this. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:You can do the same thing... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Prepay your electric bill, or buy the electric (Score:3, Funny)
No you didn't.
Re:It really does work. (Score:1, Funny)
Well open-source is a "common good" [lwn.net] and since it's digital there's no problem with Tivo using it for their purposes. [wikipedia.org]
"You're right though, it's not stealing. "Taking money/possessions from a victim under threat of violence" Sounds more like armed robbery."
Except for the difference that in armed robbery you can't leave the situation. You can leave whatever country that ask for taxes (pretty much ALL countries), and move to an island without a government.
Re:You can do the same thing... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:You can do the same thing... (Score:0, Funny)
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Re:You can do the same thing... (Score:1, Funny)
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>--- Stupid ---<
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That Joke.
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Re:What is the story? (Score:1, Funny)