Just got back to this -interesting to see perspectives on energy in general. People generally get discouraged when trying to retrofit the 20th century electric grid to where we need to go. It is as you mentioned a physics thing. The current grid is highly vulnerable (squirrels in transformers are a leading cause of outages), never mind weather or intentional attacks on it. Most of us on this board have some memory of the 1970's and the gasoline lines. I'd like to keep my lights on at a minimum and some ability to move in a car.
I understand your skepticism since 90% of the claims I've read usually fail in terms of economics or engineering. Here are a few items just as food for thought for readers of where we are now or are going:
Commuting:
My bad on the post - I had meant to say "net zero energy", not "zero energy" which means electrification of course. There are lots of luxury options like $50K Tesla hooked to power wall battery, but if you're serious about financial breakeven, the current cost structure demands a used electric car like a $12K Nissan Leaf or $16K Toyota Prius. For me, I'd be willing to pay a few thousand more for the ability to keep moving if a major supply disruption occurs, so for us that would mean spreading bets-one gas powered, one electric, just in case.
99% of all vehicle trips are less than 100 miles, according to the federal highway administration.
https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/pubs/pl08021/fig4_5.cfm
Homes:
Since I know many people who live in these homes already I was a bit surprised at the skepticism on this board. A friend built a home in chilly Vermont that uses solar for both heat and light. The heat is done by using solar hot water to heat thermal mass in the basement. They never have cold floors to walk on. They have lived in the house for 5+years, so apparently it works. Another associate lives in a much more elaborate net zero home but I'd call that a "green bling" home ($400K or so to build) which is more of a fashion statement vs. economic, but even that was only 20% higher than local construction of a regular stick built home where we are. That said, they keep warm and the lights on when the rest of town is in blackout mode. That's worth something, and no electric or heating oil bills to pay.
Here's a general article from CNBC:
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/14/hom...-future-and-california-is-inching-closer.html
De Young properties, the actual builder featured in the article currently has the following models available. 3532 sq ft, 6br, 4.5 baths big enough for you? Apparently $450K-550K for that model, for those of us trying to downsize there's a 1764 sq ft model for the mid 300Ks. Those are California prices and pretty competitive from what I've seen out there for new development.
https://deyoungproperties.com/floorplans/icon-series/
The major roadblocks to progress are systemic. Centralized power is vulnerable to outages, distributed networks are much more robust. Some more food for thought for those truly interested in a better system:
1. look at DC vs AC appliances - inverters are a weak point and a waster of a small amount of energy. This takes work to do but is useful if you intend to generate solar power-you could eliminate inverters which need replacement every 5-10 years.
2. Storage is still an issue-lead acid batteries are cheap and 100 years old, so no one is advocating them for home use. They need maintenance (water in the cells) so that will eliminate many from trying this. The best options now are still lithium ion with fancy monitoring so people don't burn their homes down.
3. Solar hot water has been a profitable payback for decades. If you're going to do one thing, this is it.
4. Geothermal (i.e. swamp cooler) heat pumps are the next most profitable. You get heat and air conditioning benefits until you hit extreme weather (below zero and above 90), then you need a backup.
To use a real world example, when we moved into our current home in 2005, we cut the electricity bill by 30% by retrofitting lighting, insulation, and harnessing the passive solar potential of the home. It is a passive solar design and we get the inside up to 78 degrees on cold sunny February days just by having a home designed to maximize solar gain. We installed a pool and the pump runs a lot in the summer so we're not suffering by any means.
If we stay in our current home we would retrofit a couple geothermal units. They would supply 80% of our heat and all of our air conditioning, but I'd still want a backup of some sort. We have a wood stove for atmosphere not heating, but would rather replace that with one or two two propane gas fireplaces as a the fanciest way to back up the heat and add another creature comfort. The fireplaces would be about $2000-2500 each.
We have gotten estimates for solar electric systems but have 2 roadblocks currently. One is the electric box will need to be switched out (about $2K expense) and the other is we'd need to use ground mounted systems for another $5-6K additional expense) due to snow loads. And the garage is shaded so the solar vehicle would need ground mounts for 50% of the panels to do it cheapest. That said, over the last 10 years the cost for installing these systems have plummeted from $35K to about $24K before any tax credits etc. So it's getting there even in our case.
Of course the older we get the better the sunbelt looks, so we are looking to move south of here, and long term investment in this house seems not the best option at this point for us.
For those still reading this long boring post (hee hee):
For additional homework, keep an eye on something called software defined electricity (SDE). It is an emerging technology that has the potential to make the flow of electricity digital versus the current analog system. If fully implemented tomorrow, it could reduce the nations electric load by 1/3 as well as radically extend the life of many electrical items. It removes all the analog noise from electric waves in real time and optimizes them. Think of the noise as heat/energy loss and reduced lifespan of electric components.
Note, this is very early technology but my electrical engineer friends say it is not pixie dust and magic, it is possible. It will need decades to roll this out if it is scalable. First uses would be places like large computer server farms for a quick payback. One company leading the charge is 3dfs:
https://3dfs.com/
Hope this helps explain my optimism. The old folks when I was a kid were skeptical about cars, telephones and electricity. I guess it's part of the life stages we are at? I still like to think I'm about 20 in spite of what the mirror tells me
