One of the great sources of information and commentary on the state of Energy and the effects of Peak Oil is The Oil Drum. The recent post "The Fake Fire Brigade Revisited #3 - The Biggest Part of Business As Usual - Electricity" contains a wealth of information about the future of electricity, and I recommend you study its conclusions.
I responded in the comments to a request for information about solar, but went somewhat afield to point out the need to reduce electricity requirements to make effective use of solar systems. My comment follows:
My experience has been to use solar power in a somewhat specialized environment. My wife and I retired in 1998 to live full-time in an RV (a fifth-wheel trailer) that we sometimes move around in response to the local weather. Sometimes we are "on the grid" in an RV park; sometimes we are "off-grid" in the desert. I have not upgraded my solar system for a couple of years, but I keep an eye on the cost and availability of solar. Costs are not dropping very fast.
Soon after getting into solar (circa 2000) I found an interesting effect. I did not have enough power off-grid to stay in the desert more than a few days before my batteries were drained; I had more power usage than power supply. Upon a detailed investigation I found that the primary culprit was the 12-volt house lighting. Over half of our electrical consumption was in the incandescent and fluorescent fixtures. I had thought the big users would be the TV and computers we are addicted to, but research showed I was mistaken.
By 2005 I decided I had to have LED lighting if my solar system was to survive, and looking around found nothing suitable. Everything looked and acted like I had put flashlights in my ceiling. My background is software and electronics in Silicon Valley, so I felt confident I could invent a new way of using LEDs that would meet my needs. I began to experiment -- I was not as good as I thought.
Luckily, at the 2006 show in Quartzsite I came across Kelly, a young man out of Intel in Mesa, who had just developed a prototype product to replace one of the 12-volt DC bulbs I used in my rig. I was pleasantly surprised when he demonstrated that it was fully compatible with my incandescent bulb and produced more light -- and much, much less heat. We sat down that evening and designed a replacement for my other primary bulb, a 12-volt glass wedge bulb.
I became his first dealer of RV bulbs the next day, and began to sell LED bulb replacements to other RVers, and to use my rig as the test bed for new designs of LED lighting.
I now live in an LED environment, and Kelly and I continue to work together in LED designs and marketing, especially on how to take the totally acceptable solutions we have found for the 12-volt DC environment of an RV into homes and workplaces. Since we are pushing against the establishment and convention that 120VAC is the only way to power a home or office, it is slow, but there is progress.
My reason for telling this tale is to point out with my experience that solar by itself is not always a good solution. We must also find ways to reduce our needs for electricity so the size and expense of a solar system is not out of sight. LEDs are an important ingredient to making solar power really useful.
Sam Penny, the Prudent RVer
Even though this world is under severe attack, we must find ways to get along, or as one pundit says, to muddle through. Get your solar system now, and if you want to help get LEDs into homes and offices, give me a call.
sam
