Switching To Solar Power — Six Months Later 591
ThinSkin writes "Slashdot readers may remember an article regarding ExtremeTech's Loyd Case's experiences with solar power for the home after one month of usage. During that time six months ago, it sure seemed like a great deal, but the tables have turned significantly once winter approached. While it's no surprise solar power generation is expected to dwindle during the winter, Loyd compares solar power data of the last six months to determine if solar power is still worth the time and money."
Re:$400 a month? (Score:5, Funny)
You ask how he uses $400 a month in electricity? His tech is EXTREME!
Re:$400 a month? (Score:1, Funny)
Al Gore?
Re:ROI? (Score:5, Funny)
Why didn't this follow up article include a Return on Investment number?
For the same reason that you NEVER EVER add up your receipts when you are restoring a car. It is sure to make you cry.
Re:$400 a month? (Score:4, Funny)
Man, you BOTH must have either HUGE houses, electric heating systems, or stupidly high power taxation in your area.
My last electric bill, with a family of four, 6 PC's and sundry other electronics (server, smoothwall linux firewall running on an old PC, my Desktop, the wife's Desktop + two laptops + networking devices connecting all the above) only amounted to $250.00 in November. I expect December's bill to come out only slightly higher. $400.00 for Electric is INSANE.
I live in the Buffalo NY area, so Solar is out of the question for me (clouds, many trees in the region and, oh yeah, SNOW) so while an article like this is nice for people that live in desert areas, for the rest of us it's basically worthless.
Dang blast it, it's nearly 2010! If Science isn't going to give me a flying car the LEAST it could do is provide me with a "Mr. Fusion" to power my house!
Re:$400 a month? (Score:5, Funny)
Extreme Tech, and they still can't put the article in a single page.
Re:$400 a month? (Score:5, Funny)
Who the hell uses that much electric power?
His other hobby is recycling aluminum.
Re:$400 a month? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:$400 a month? (Score:3, Funny)
oprah
Not very reusable though is she?
Though I assume one could start to use the viewers instead.
Re:$400 a month? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Do you get credited for extra power? (Score:5, Funny)
I thought that only happened in Soviet Russia.
Re:$400 a month? (Score:3, Funny)
Get a shovel head attached to a swimming pool skimmer pole, that way the ice sheet can slice your head off clean when it slides off your collectors!
Page request (Score:3, Funny)
...a separate web server for each page request.
They are so extreme that they provide enough computers to server one page of HTML, then they throw it away.
Re:$400 a month? (Score:3, Funny)
Oh yeah I bought my house, had all kinds of chattels running round the yard. He wanted to take em but I said huh no way, those my chattels now. Hm, we ate real good that first two weeks.
Re:$400 a month? (Score:3, Funny)
Luckily for me I live in opposite land of wherever you live, because where I live natural gas is much cheaper than electricity, and gas dryers take half as long as electric dryers to get the clothes dry.
Of course, the drawback to living in opposite land to everyone else is that my CFL bulbs don't last as long as regular incandescents and don't seem to save any discernable amount on my electric bill.
Re:$400 a month? (Score:3, Funny)
Then we had a crackhead kick in our door and steal shit so we moved ;)
Why on earth would you purposely have someone do that?