California solar fans fight back

jumper

Numerous articles, op-eds, and letters to editor argue that Californians must continue subsidizing roof top PV to eventually achieve free electric nirvana. There's one by former Governor Schwartznegger in New York Times.

Jamie Hall

Just remember... if something is subsidized, that just means the cost is being borne by somebody else, not you. It does not mean that it's free. Second, if something needs a subsidy, something is wrong with the solution being subsidized; Subsidies always distort a market, and not always in really beneficial ways.

delcrossv

@Jamie Hall Exactly. If it's so great, why the subsidy?

"Evil me" would like to see the feed from the coal plants in NV cut. See how they like their "renewable nirvana" then. 😈

Hot_water_fan

It’s much ado about nothing imo. California has already installed a ton of residential (Texas is now the number one solar installing state by annual MW), and residential is a minority of solar installed to begin with. I expect solar installation pace nationwide will be mostly unchanged. 

hot_rod

Farm subsidies went from 4 billion in 2017 to 20 billion in 2020. I grew up in farm country in the 60 and farmers were getting money for not growing certain crops. Alfalfa farmers around me use massive amounts of water and send the hay offshore for big $$ They get 70% of the water, subsidies…
Solar is a drop in the bucket for taxpayers 

wmgeorge

Ditto hot_rod, Oil and gas is subsided as well as air lines, air ports and many many more. The farmers here in Iowa want everyone forced to use Ethanol which is a loser as it costs more to produce than the outcome.
Bottom line IF the future is Electric we will need All the power we can produce from any source.

ChrisJ

wmgeorge said:

Ditto hot_rod, Oil and gas is subsided as well as air lines, air ports and many many more. The farmers here in Iowa want everyone forced to use Ethanol which is a loser as it costs more to produce than the outcome.
Bottom line IF the future is Electric we will need All the power we can produce from any source.

Once again,
Ethanol is used as an octane booster and is necessary unless other, less desirable chemicals are used in place of it.

wmgeorge

ChrisJ said:

wmgeorge said:

Ditto hot_rod, Oil and gas is subsided as well as air lines, air ports and many many more. The farmers here in Iowa want everyone forced to use Ethanol which is a loser as it costs more to produce than the outcome.
Bottom line IF the future is Electric we will need All the power we can produce from any source.

Once again,
Ethanol is used as an octane booster and is necessary unless other, less desirable chemicals are used in place of it.

Wrong. Not out here in Corn county, its 10% mix in regular gas and can be up to 85% for a Drop (not a boost) in octane over regular. Look it up, now Iowa wants to mandate, its 15% use in all motor vehicles. NO Mandates for Vaccine damn it, but for Ethanol its good for the Farmers.
Now our GOP Governor and legislature say if the ground can grow Corn, NO Solar panels!!! How is that for a Mandate. We can take farm ground and pave it over for new sub- divisions but NO Solar!!

ChrisJ

wmgeorge said:

ChrisJ said:

wmgeorge said:

Ditto hot_rod, Oil and gas is subsided as well as air lines, air ports and many many more. The farmers here in Iowa want everyone forced to use Ethanol which is a loser as it costs more to produce than the outcome.
Bottom line IF the future is Electric we will need All the power we can produce from any source.

Once again,
Ethanol is used as an octane booster and is necessary unless other, less desirable chemicals are used in place of it.

Wrong. Not out here in Corn county, its 10% mix in regular gas and can be up to 85% for a Drop (not a boost) in octane over regular. Look it up, now Iowa wants to mandate, its 15% use in all motor vehicles. NO Mandates for Vaccine damn it, but for Ethanol its good for the Farmers.
Now our GOP Governor and legislature say if the ground can grow Corn, NO Solar panels!!! How is that for a Mandate. We can take farm ground and pave it over for new sub- divisions but NO Solar!!

E85 is most certainly not a drop in octane over regular gasoline. 100% ethanol is something like 113 octane.

Most say E85 behaves similar to 100-105 octane but a cooling effect from the alcohol can make it perform like 110 octane, allegedly.

I've known guys running E85 that were able to run much higher boost than with 93 octane gasoline.

I'm no sure where you're getting that ethanol reduces octane but that's flat out wrong.

wmgeorge

When you move out here and find out for yourself get back to me. Yes racing cars tuned for Ethanol get a boost but not autos and trucks set up to burn gasoline. When you burn Ethanol your gas mileage goes down and so does the power.

Chris I have lived it, except for my short time living in Minnesota (2 years) and Michigan (4 years) the rest of the time I have been here. Try burning Ethanol in your motorcycle, boat engine and any other recreational or farm equipment.
I had to drive out of my way to get regular and premium no Ethanol gas for my boat and motorcycles...

JUGHNE

I worked with the NDEQ (Nebraska Dept of Environment Quality) for over ten years on 4 different clean up sites from leaking UST's.

I got to know the main geologist for these projects pretty well.
He said that big oil/gas was using an additive, MTBE IIRC, that started to show up in as trace amounts in ground water supplies.

The oil/gas companies voluntarily quit using MTBE and substituted Ethanol as that additive. (this was in the 90's)
(It was obviously in their best interest to avoid more superfund clean up)
Both are oxygenators to cut down on air pollution.

Google MTBE and see that many states banned it maybe 10 years after the change.

So all gas has a trace amount of Ethanol, but below the percentage of where it has to be labeled as part of the mix.

So thank all of you for unknowingly supporting corn farmers.

wmgeorge

JUGHNE said:

I worked with the NDEQ (Nebraska Dept of Environment Quality) for over ten years on 4 different clean up sites from leaking UST's.

I got to know the main geologist for these projects pretty well.
He said that big oil/gas was using an additive, MTBE IIRC, that started to show up in as trace amounts in ground water supplies.

The oil/gas companies voluntarily quit using MTBE and substituted Ethanol as that additive. (this was in the 90's)
(It was obviously in their best interest to avoid more superfund clean up)
Both are oxygenators to cut down on air pollution.

Google MTBE and see that many states banned it maybe 10 years after the change.

So all gas has a trace amount of Ethanol, but below the percentage of where it has to be labeled as part of the mix.

So thank all of you for unknowingly supporting corn farmers.

I think its more like 5% for that purpose. But it sure raises hell if the 10 or 15% stuff is left in fuel system without something like Sta Bil in the mix. I use in my cars and trucks as its short term use.

ChrisJ

wmgeorge said:

When you move out here and find out for yourself get back to me. Yes racing cars tuned for Ethanol get a boost but not autos and trucks set up to burn gasoline. When you burn Ethanol your gas mileage goes down and so does the power.

Chris I have lived it, except for my short time living in Minnesota (2 years) and Michigan (4 years) the rest of the time I have been here. Try burning Ethanol in your motorcycle, boat engine and any other recreational or farm equipment.
I had to drive out of my way to get regular and premium no Ethanol gas for my boat and motorcycles...

I ran it in two turbocharged cars for years, with friends running E85 in their tuned and modified turbocharged cars. One of which was 250HP from a 1.4 liter.

I'm a bit baffled as to why you feel me changing states will effect how things work. E10 and E85 isn't the same in every state?

I also never run any fuel additives in any of my machines. Lawnmowers, snowblowers, generators, cars etc. Nothing but straight E10.

Fuel mileage is reduced.
Octane is increased.

yesimon

All CA electric customers are already on TOU, so there's not much subsidizing happening anymore apart from federal tax credit. Solar owners on NEM 1.0 still get a killer deal but can't be touched. The fight is over NEM 3.0, which is much more draconian and basically prevents future rooftop solar from feeding back into the grid. CA utilities $PGE, $EIX, $SRE are all privatized and more rooftop solar would only further eat into their future revenue and profit potential.

JUGHNE

I did notice traveling to the southern states that Ethanol was not always available.
So the Ford V-8 (302 CID I think) would "ping" when burning the standard gas available. You buy the cheap gas when it takes 32 gallons to fill up.

I have the duty (privilege) of driving a 1932 firetruck for parades. It gets the "no ethanol" gas and also a can of Sta Bil or Sea Foam each year.
It is up to about 1200 miles on the odometer so far.
In addition to leaky tire tubes with split rim wheels, I did have to rebuild the fuel pump....leaky diaphragm....Ethanol or old age of 90 years?

ChrisJ

JUGHNE said:

I did notice traveling to the southern states that Ethanol was not always available.
So the Ford V-8 (302 CID I think) would "ping" when burning the standard gas available. You buy the cheap gas when it takes 32 gallons to fill up.

I have the duty (privilege) of driving a 1932 firetruck for parades. It gets the "no ethanol" gas and also a can of Sta Bil or Sea Foam each year.
It is up to about 1200 miles on the odometer so far.
In addition to leaky tire tubes with split rim wheels, I did have to rebuild the fuel pump....leaky diaphragm....Ethanol or old age of 90 years?

That's pretty much the only "ethanol issue" I've actually seen. Some plastics and rubbers aren't compatible.
But 90 years is also pushing it.

What kind of firetruck?

wmgeorge

Iowa farm kid, 78 years old served my time in the military in the 1960s and lived in a few other states. Until 5 years ago I changed my on oil and maintained my cars, pickups, snowmobiles, motorcycles, and yard equipment Never any Ethanol except car and pickups. I must not have cleaned those carbs and replaced those fuel filters! Just a bad dream.

My farmer friend, takes his pickup into town and fills up barrels with Non-ethanol gas for all his farm machines what does that tell you!!

Sure race cars are tuned for Ethanol, my friend who did sprint cars will show you how!!
Chris said: I ran it in two turbocharged cars for years, with friends running E85 in their tuned and modified turbocharged cars.


Otherwise less gas mileage and less power.

JUGHNE

The 1932 truck is a Chevrolet "Confederate" 1 1/2 ton with single axle of duels.
Open cab with no windshield or doors. 200 CID in line 6.
All mechanical breaking system, cables & levers. Thankfully no hydraulics to rot away. I found the maint owner book, 35 points of lubrication on the truck.
I did all of them at 900 miles.
The book states that when you reach 1000 miles the engine is broke in and you may exceed 60 MPH.....I did brave it up to 50 one time....still original tires I believe.
Always inside out of the sun. As I age with the truck 25 is now the max.

The reason of low mileage is that it had to be connected to a fire hydrant, so it never left the village.
It has a "chemical pump". That is a 60 gallon water tank with a large port to insert a perhaps 2 pints of sulfuric acid open top container into. The tank had a soda mix added to it.
The port was sealed and you then "rolled the tank" 180 degrees to dump the acid into the soda. This pressurized the tank with a foam mixture and you got, I don't know how many minutes, of pressurized foam spraying out of a 1" hose nozzle.
When the foaming action expired, you filled the tank again from the hydrant feed and isolated it from the hose system. The hose then had only hydrant pressure...30-40 PSI from a 4" water main .
You recharged the chemicals and operate valves as needed....BTW no back flow device included 90 years ago....


You may have seen old hanging fire extinguishers that were to be inverted to use.
I believe they worked on the same principle as this truck "pump".

This was a precursor to today's foam systems that are standard on many fire trucks of today.

The term "chemical hose" is often used to describe the 1" reel hose still in use for small fires.

The last person to "roll the tank" in action passed away maybe 10 years ago.

Maybe more than you wanted to hear......

wmgeorge

Very interesting story, I love it!

Seafoam or not? The one time I really saw it work... down at the lake and neighbor was clueless about Ethanol and put it in his golf cart. He knew that I could fix engines and rolled it over to my place. I really, really did not want to get roped into yet another Carb tear down and clean out plus the education about Ethanol and small engines.
So I had a new can of Seafoam in our shed and dumped a lot of it into the gas tank, told him to crank it for a while and then let it set. I will be darned it was either luck or the Seafoam but it then it started and ran!. I had him put some of my non-Ethanol gas in the gas tank and the rest of the Seafoam. Never did get paid for that can of Seafoam!

mattmia2

Higher octane fuel has a lower energy content but you can cram more of it in a cylinder without preiginition so you can get more power from it but you burn more of it to get that power. It isn't really an issue for modern computer controlled cars, but on small engines with a fixed mixture on each circuit the lower energy content results in a lean mix. If the carb has adjustable jets you can compensate for it although you still get slightly less power with higher octane fuel in a low compression engine.