[rescue] Introduction + Cray Solaris questions

[Chris Byrne]

Personally the day they make a home fuel cell that has enough capacity for
my needs at a relatively reasonable cost I'm getting it.

There's a German company that offers home fuel cells large enough for my
load but they're like 20 grand. GE is starting to produce smaller fuel cells
in the 5 grand range. When those 20 grand models get down to 5 grand, I'm
buying.

Right now my power bill is about 200 euro a month with only 1/3 of my
machines running full time, gas heat, hot water and stove, and no air
conditioning. Even including the cost of the cell itself and the cost of the
catalyst and reaction mass the fuel cell produces far cheaper power than I
can get from ESB, and it's cleaner. Plus no wires to go down in a storm, no
power spikes, no brownouts etc...

I figure if I hook up with a matrix of large storage batteries and inverters
I can go off grid entirely with fully conditioned power. Unfortunately
unlike in the states you cant sell power back to the utilities here, and
there's no energy efficiency tax credits.

If I lived in a rural area anywhere near here I'd definitely be considering
wind power. The wind blows at a minimum of 3-5 knots sustained here almost
constantly and far higher speeds aren't uncommon. During the fall and winter
it hits 30 knots sustained  very regularly and can go up to 50 without
causing much excitement. That's what you get for living on the coast with a
small mountain range immediately behind you.

Chris Byrne

> -----Original Message-----
> From: rescue-admin at sunhelp.org [mailto:rescue-admin at sunhelp.org]On
> Behalf Of sambo at avoidant.org

> Eventually I plan to get off the grid altogether. I was planning
> a natural-gas powered generator, but I'd still be paying the
> utility co for the gas (which I will anyway, for heating) to run
> it, which may not be any cheaper than just paying for the
> electricity. A friend suggested these batteries (of which he had
> 2 (he's in marine salvage)), and is on the lookout for more of
> them for me.
>
>
> ---sambo
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