"Here Comes the Sun!"
I dedicate this song to any of you who know the joys of
backpacking – waking in the cold mountain air and making the huge decision to
leave your warm sleeping bag – to greet the sun of a new day!
MUST VIEW TO SET THE TONE OF THIS BLOG: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOCU0lKF6b8
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| Early Morning at 9000 ft. |
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| Dimetrodon - a highly specialized reptile! |
Modern birds have many features in common with their dinosaur ancestors. In addition, they have evolved a 4 chambered heart and a more rapid metabolism (they have to eat more to generate all that body heat). Such changed have required countless generations of slow progressive modification. Small positive differences that lead to a slightly greater chance of survival are retained, the ones without the change die off.
You and I are endotherms: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endotherm> . We have to eat a lot more to be warm blooded - but we can move easily when we get cold. And we have ways to regulate our body temperature.
Some birds still depend on the sun for part of their morning warming ritual.
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| Turkey vulture on a cool morning |
My pups love to lie in the sun and soak up the heat. No question, they are fully warm-blooded endoderms (
generate their own heat) – but hay!, a little sunlight still feels good. Bask one side then when it gets too hot turn
over and bask the other.
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| These are not my dogs - but my pups exhibit the same behavior - |
Even us humans enjoy the sun at the beach, river, lake, or
back yard. It is one of the pleasures of
summer!
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| A sunny day on a British beach |
But lately, technological man has been looking at ways
to generate usable energy besides burning carbon compounds that come from the
ground. One of the most dependable and efficient methods is the use of solar panels on the rooftop of your home. At first glance the price of such a system is off-putting – but a new installation is eligible for a number of subsidies that lower the price considerably... in addition. it
is possible to either lease rather than buy your new system for additional savings.
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| A sunny day on a California beach |
Judy and I have just gotten a system installed and every day
we generate between 35 and 40 kw-hrs of
energy. The energy is fed into the PGE
power grid and we get power credit. What we use if subtracted from our credit and in the overcast days of winter
we will use more than we produce.
Should we have surplus power at the end of the year PGE will buy it from
us (at a much lower rate then customers pay for it). So it will be to our advantage to replace gas using appliances to use electric power. Its great fun to go on line in the evening
and see how much power we produced that day, or I can go out during the day and watch
the electric meter running backward!
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| Yesterdays power production - updated every 2 hours on my computer |
Here is the website of an unnamed Sungevity customer whose
experiences were much like ours:
* Unlike a purchase that comes with a 5-10 year warranty, the
lease essentially provided a 20 year warranty.
* Sungevity offered performance guarantees.
* Sungevity offer "net monitor" - allows them (and you) to
monitor
the output of your system at
all times. ( on your computer )
* They both warranty the system for the length of the lease (20
years)
including the Inverter, which
from what I can tell, seems to have a life
of 10-15 years. So if you
purchase, although coming down in price,
inverters are about $4,500 right now.
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* There are no
additional payments for the life of the unit.”
* We would have the option to buy the unit in 20 years for
its depreciated
value.
* Rebates are available to the buyer that greatly reduce the original listed price.
* Rebates are available to the buyer that greatly reduce the original listed price.
In addition Sungevity is a leading company in the industry
and it it very probabily that they will “be around” in 20 years...
