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posted by takyon on Tuesday August 04 2015, @10:36PM   Printer-friendly
from the tune-out dept.

Soylent [food replacement] founder Rob Rhinehart shares his thoughts on extreme sustainability.

I am electrically self-reliant. My home life runs comfortably on a single 100W solar panel, which cost $150 and was available on Amazon Prime. I tracked down a few manufacturers in China who all said it costs around $40 to make. The US for some reason leverages massive tariffs on Chinese solar panels, so they ship them through Malaysian customs. Why do the politicians even bother?

For storage a $65 lead acid automobile battery does the trick. It's 12V so can be charged directly from the solar panel, and holds 420Wh, way more than I use in a day. That's $0.15 / Wh so I don't see why everyone is so excited about Tesla charging $0.43 / Wh for the Powerwall, sans inverter and installation.

He got rid of his fridge and other kitchen implements to make it work. What are the biggest energy users in your place? Could you pare things down as much as Rob?


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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by sjwt on Wednesday August 05 2015, @09:53AM

    by sjwt (2826) on Wednesday August 05 2015, @09:53AM (#218423)

    RTFA...

    "The whole retrofit cost $1450, which is steep but I will make it back in due time since I don’t pay for an ISP bundle or power."

    dude, a proper solar set up for the same price would of neted you a 2-3KW system, inverter and all.. instead you have fucked around, called your self some kinda amazing profit and run a 100watt system..
    What the hell.

    I'm using on average less than 1.5KW a day, my computer, phone, fridge, dishwasher, electric stove and hot water.. for the same price I could be putting 15 times back into the grid then you are producing..

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