On Thu, 14 Mar 2002 at 19:31:48, Dexter wrote:
(ref: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>)
>
>> On Thu, 14 Mar 2002 at 17:05:48, wrote:
>> >the carpet building up the voltage. I've been trying to think of a way
>> >to charge a battery off her, a kind of homemade cat-powered UPS...
>
>Hmmm. A neighbour of mine, here in Houston, TX, has built his own unique
>(for a home-made dwelling system) power system.
>
>Three 4' x 8' solar powered steam generators (tanks with water and black
>metal panels in them to absorb solar energy and heat the water they lay
>in) with plumbing to a pump connected to a generator, which feeds through
>diodes into a power controller and storage. He does need to use a few kwh
>of electricity in winter (in TX that's two months) and generates surplus
>power in summer, even after running the air conditioning of the house.
I gather in the US spare power can be sold to the power companies.
Bill can't do that as he has no connection (8-)#
>
>It cost him about $4000 to cobble up, and will pay for itself in under 3
>years.
>
>And he always has plenty of hot water too.
Bill Cable (Nesqlug) has an even more ambitious setup.
He reads this so I won't go into too much detail.
His warning comment before I last stayed with him was 'We are not
typical Americans'
He built his own house in a Vermont forest, and all his services
(water/electricity/sewage) are his own. He has a vast solar panel array
and a wind generator, which provide power for most of the year. There
is a standby diesel generator for emergencies. He even has a shop
(workshop for us Europeans) with a vast array of high power electrical
woodworking equipment, which run off DC lead/acid batteries.
He even has fresh running spring water out of a tap in the kitchen - I
was involved in the plumbing of that last year.
>
>For on-topicness, he monitors and controls it with an Atari ST, which has
>a 68000 processor. :o)
.... and Bill runs his QLs off the storage batteries.
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