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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?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2015, @12:09PM
maybe it's just a marketing gimmick, but a solar charge controller with MPPT tracker might be a good investment,
especially since it might prolong your battery life since it can help with avoiding overcharging?
i love/hate my kitchen.
I prefer to cook if i can because i live outside "town" and because the town is a tourist attraction
with high tru-put which means that though food in storage at the restaurant doesn't linger a long
time (to get nasty) it also means that cleanliness suffers.
also since the tourist just flow thru and maybe get upset stomach, nobody cares because they will be gone soon ...
half the time i get tummy ache after eating out.
my fridge is the biggest energy guzzler. it's big! it's got two doors.
one door goes to +4 deg. C the other goes to -18 deg C.
I cannot "save" with it. it needs to be on all the time else stuff gets nasty.
(However i found that stuffing it with water bottles consistently, lowers its energy consumption.
A empty fridge loses more "coldness" when opening the door?)
The second one is the Air-con. i can save here but being a caucasian i prefer sleeping "cold" :)
the 3rd monster energy hog is the hot-water heater for the shower. it will happily draw 8 kW.
I can save ... shower quickly and "very" hot. good-bye grime. :)
I got 3x280 Watt panels and 3 micro inverters (grid-tie!).
they just plug-in to any socket that can support a 280 Watt "draw" (cable size defines how much amps can be put tru before overheating) and if the sun is shining they will push-IN (synced) A/C power to the normal wall-socket.
Using electricity is not bad. it should be encouraged. the problem is how teh electricity is generated!
I think many people in hot 3rd world country would love a refrigerator to keep their food viable for a longer time!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by panachocala on Wednesday August 05 2015, @02:36PM
This is a possible solution for the fridge:
http://www.mountbest.net/chest_fridge.html [mountbest.net]
"Using vertical doors in refrigeration devices is an act against the Nature of Cold Air. Understanding and cooperating with Nature rather than acting against it leads to much better efficiency.
My chest fridge (Vestfrost freezer turned into a fridge) consumes about 0.1 kWh a day. It works only about 2 minutes per hour. At all other times it is perfectly quiet and consumes no power whatsoever. My wind/solar system batteries and power-demand-sensing inverter simply love it."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2015, @10:29PM
very good. problem I want cold beer so I dont remove 3 at a time and so ... on a roll ... it means open the dorr every 10 min :)