Yes the batteries dealing with any renewable source is a pure PITA, however with solar they have these buy back plans where you are still on the grid, but during the day when your solar panels are generating more electricity than is needed its being bought back by the power company thus reducing your overall electricity bill.

I’m not sure exactly how this plan works, but does it still require batteries or is the solar power simply pumped through an inverter and sent on its merry way to the electric company? If we can do this with solar sitting on a house surely we could do it with a wind farm and we don’t even have to pass it through an inverter? Am I right on this?

Monday, February 26, 2007
By Corina Rivera for SNL Energy Power Daily Northeast, February 21, 2007

Cape Wind Associates LLC filed its final environmental impact report for the proposed 130-turbine offshore wind energy project on Feb. 15 with the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act Office.

The developer said the filing responds to questions about its draft environmental impact report.

“We hope this filing brings the public benefits of cleaner air, greater energy independence and new jobs closer to becoming a reality for the citizens of Massachusetts,” Cape Wind President Jim Gordon said in a statement Feb. 20.

Also Alba, if you check out the link below, it explains the meteorological issues in your area and the eastern seaboard. Much of the east the wind gets deflected by the Appalachians and does not recover well over the Piedmont, but is still viable in some areas, including yours., but I have only studied my area and a couple western states.

http://www.eere.energy.gov/windandhydro/windpoweringamerica/ne_building_resource.asp

Dale, John, what about wind energy off the Massachusetts coast? They have been trying to get something passed on this for years, but as Mr. Kennedy and clan have a lovely compound on Hyannisport, they feel it woud be unsightly, and intefere with their pleasures. (Kennedy’s logic could be different. I am merely paraphrasing my Dad’s ideas on the whole thing with Kennedy’s objections. My Dad loves to hate the Kennedys, especially Ted.) One of my friends seems to think the entire Eastern seaboard could generate enough wind power to nearly eliminate oil dependency in this region, anyway.

Alba,
Ethanol is the same alchohol that is found in every alchohlic drink, wether it be wine, beer, or whiskey, and as you noted it is made from corn or grain and/ or sugars and starches.. I like to injest it in the form of vodka or bourbon. You can buy ethanol in almost every grocery store and all drug stores, but it will say (Denatured) on it. That means they put stuff in it that will make you sick as a dog if you injest it.

Methanol is “wood grain” alchohol and is poisonous and will make you blind if you injest it, if it doesn’t ouright kill you.
Both can be used as motor fuels.

With the following we could cut our oil consumption by 40% or more almost immediately:
1. Energy efficiency, this can cut our consumption by 30% plus. More fuel efficient vehicles combined with more energy efficient homes and businesses. Flourescents are now mainstream and LEDs are coming along so lighting is good to go. New insulation and passive solar designs help reduce both cooling and heating usage. The real trick here will be retrofitting existing structures. Passive solar can be used to subsidize water heating as well.

Vehicles will have to be mandated, the industry and the consumers just won’t do it on their own. As much as I am for personal freedom the freedom for some idiot to drive a hummer on his daily commute is now impacting all of our core liberties of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. If you don’t have a true need you will be driving a 2-3 cylinder hybrid that will get 40-50+ mpg.

2. Supplement current fuel consumption with bio-fuels, nuclear, etc. These are short term stop gap measures until other alternatives come along to replace them completely. As dale stated full scale bio fuels is impossible. Cut oil consumption with these by 5% We already are on our way to producing nearly 10 billion barrels of ethanol, this would actually be over the 5% of our 150 billion barrels of gas per year consumption.

3. Active renewable sources where applicable including solar, wind, geo-thermal, and water. Cut oil consumption by 5-10%.

Alba, don’t worry about people allergic to corn, ethanol is not corn but an alcholol derived from corn (or any other sugar or via chemcial means) and when burned turns into water and CO2 just like anything else that is burned.

Now, you hit my hot button about the corn and ethanol. I don’t believe in burning ethanol, I’d rather drink it…er..I mean actually, bio diesel and ethanol are government boongoggles and they are totally loosers. You hear about them all the time now and everybody thinks we could make some gains by developing them, and some states are getting government money and subsidies to do just that, but, not so fast. If we were to grow enough biomass (corn, soy, etc, etc) to replace our foreign oil supply, there is not enough arable land in the United States to grow that much.

Even if we tried to grow 20 percent of the biomass, it would take up valuable farmland and the price of all food would go up, a lot. We would also have to start farming areas where it would screw up the ecology and do long term harm.