Interesting this comes up......I recently bought some desert property that has no electricity, water in the ground though...I have been looking into solar/wind generated power as the alternative is to use some sort of fossil fuel/gas (left over from veggie eatin dino's?). Anyway, even as a minilalist system, it is quite pricey....both systems require storage batteries and of course an inverter if you have 120v appliances. There is a lot of info out their on the net, but I am not necessarily a math wizard trying to figure out putting it all together. I think I have a handle on it though. The land I bought is more conducive to wind power which seems the less expensive route with regards to acquisition costs for the hardware. Hybrid works too, but your doubling up the power input to cover cloudy or windless days. From what I can gather a hybrid system complete would be about $40-50K. No one asks the question, technically the energy is 'free', so at $200 a month in normal
 electric bills, when would you actually start saving money? 21 Years. No escalation figured for inflation.

John

----- Original Message ----
From: Jim Felder <felder@KNOLOGY.NET>
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Sent: Sunday, August 6, 2006 9:38:54 PM
Subject: Re: Battery usage shouldn't be our style.

On Aug 6, 2006, at 8:12 PM, Sudhir Desai wrote:

>> Too bad that we can't put all of the Iraq/Afgan war $$s into solar/
>> wind/renewable energy research
>> instead.  Malcolm (Halifax)
>
> Malcolm,
> That would mean undoing at least 50 years of foreign policy.

When do we get started?

Jim

> :/
>
> Sudhir
>