Weather Imagery

Environmentalists would like you to believe that the energy efficient Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs (CFLs) are the next best thing to sliced bread because they use roughly 75% less electricity compared to the normal incandescent bulbs we are all familiar with. Each household using CFLs will draw less power from the electrical grid thus lessening the amount of CO2 being released into the atmosphere by coal-fired power plants. As a result, we will save the world from certain global warming apocalyptic doom. Wal-Mart, the largest retail store in the world, has embraced the CFL and has dedicated itself to selling 100,000,000 of the new CFL’s this year alone.

At first glance, one could easily jump on board thinking they too can make a difference and save our environment. But if you ask yourself a couple questions, you quickly realize that these new bulbs, although more efficient, pose a much greater risk to the environment than the energy hungry incandescent bulbs.

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Wind chill is a measure of how cold people and animals feel based on heat loss due to wind. In cold and windy weather conditions, the skin loses heat through evaporation much more quickly than if the wind were not blowing. Therefore, it feels much cooler when it’s cold outside and the wind is blowing. The faster the wind blows, the greater the chilling affect. This is called wind chill, “real feel”, or apparent temperature.

There are a couple misconceptions about wind chill. The first is humidity does not noticeably affect a wind chill reading. In fact, in the newest formula used by the National Weather Service, the humidity reading was left out. The second myth is inanimate objects such as metal, wood and plastics experience wind chill just like we humans do. This isn’t true. The only affect a cold wind has on these objects is that they cool off faster than had there been no wind, but they will not cool below the actual outside temperature. So as an example, if it’s -5°F outside with a -25°F wind chill, the metal on your car will only cool to -5°F. It will not get any colder no matter how fast the wind blows.

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Perhaps the most cost efficient means of generating your own power lies in the windmill. It’s a very simple design and doesn’t cost a whole lot, but just like solar power there are a few drawbacks one must take into consideration before purchasing a windmill thinking they will eliminate their electric bill.

The first and most important thing you need is wind and for most this is a showstopper. Most places just don’t have enough consistent wind to spin a windmill. The other problem if you do have wind is that it is totally unreliable. It will almost never provide a consistent power source for a house, so as a result it is more of a supplement to a solar powered or a grid tied system. Most of the time they are used to charge batteries in remote locations that do not have a dedicated power source provided by the power grid. But, if you think you live in an area that has a lot of consistent wind and you are interested in protecting the environment, a windmill is about as clean a power source as you can get (both in manufacturing and operating) and the start-up costs are much cheaper than solar.

The other thing you need besides wind is land. I have yet to find any descent sized windmill that is designed to operate on a lot less than 1/2 acre in size. The more land you have, the more options there are, from 3 foot diameter blades all the way up to 20 foot. As you might expect, the larger the windmill, the more power it can generate, but the more land you will need.

Every manufacturer will highly encourage you to raise the windmill off the ground at least 30 feet. This puts the windmill in a less turbulent flow of air that blows stronger and more consistently. But before you go out and purchase a 20 foot diameter windmill that sits atop a 60 foot tower, make sure you don’t have any restrictions in your home owners association, covenants or insurance company that will prevent you from installing the windmill on your property. The covenants and association memberships can make you take the windmill down if they are not allowed and if your insurance company doesn’t cover it, your policy could be void in the event of an accident.

The windmill that looks promising for home owners with the above requirements is this unit here. It has a 12 foot diameter and can produce about 1200 watts/hour. That’s not too bad if you’ve got the space.

If you’ve got the wind, the land, and you are permitted to install a windmill then you will need to buy the remaining components in order to start utilizing the power of the wind. You will need a grid-tie inverter if you want to remain connected to the utility grid. The inverter converts the DC voltage from the windmill and turns it into a pure AC sine-wave. When the windmill produces more electricity than you use, the inverter allows the electricity to be pushed back onto the power grid, at which point you start receiving credit from your electric company. However, they will not pay you. That is to say, the best case scenario is you will have a $0 balance on your electric bill. These cost anywhere from $2000 to $5000 depending on how much power your windmill(s) will generate. You will also need a DC disconnect switch, but these are pretty cheap at about $100 and would be installed at the same time as the inverter. A 1.2 KW windmill will cost about $5000. So just the parts are going to run you about $8000.

You might be able to erect the tower and windmill yourself depending on its size, but this would certainly be at least a 3-man job. However, the inverter and DC disconnect switch must be installed by a licensed professional. It would be wise to have a professional do the entire project for you to ensure everything was installed correctly. They may even offer warranties on their installations or discounts if you buy all the parts from them.

I’m all for clean ways of creating power, especially when it can be done at home. One possibility is installing a home solar power system. The problem is solar panels are not cheap, they are not efficient and only a few select locations will provide the means to recoup the cost of purchasing the system due to local climate (amount of sunlight) and electric company incentives.

There are quite a few things one must purchase and install before you can begin harvesting the power of the sun. For a very basic system, you will need solar panels, roof mounts, combiner box, DC disconnect switch, and a grid-tie inverter. The invert will take the direct current produced by the solar panels and convert it into a pure sine-wave AC signal that can be used by the electric equipment in your house. You can install this yourself, but it will require a permit from the city and approval from your electric company. Please be careful.

The above stuff will get you going with a very basic system. You can also add batteries and an electrical sub-panel, but this can greatly increase the cost of the system very quickly. Perhaps this biggest expense will be labor. You can save a lot of money by doing it yourself. Here are some estimates on the materials needed for a basic grid-tie system:

• Grid-tie Inverter = $2500
• Mounting Hardware = $600
• DC Disconnect Switch = $300
• 180-watt solar panel = $1000
• Installation Costs = $1000+

Now obviously a single 180-watt solar panel is not enough to make the system worthwhile. That won’t even power two 100-watt light bulbs let alone a TV, DVD player, refrigerator, microwave, dishwasher, lights or a vacuum cleaner. So you will need to buy about 8 or 10 of these 180-watt solar panels at an average cost of $1000 dollars for a bare minimum system. Add all this up and a very basic solar power system for your house is going to cost about $12,000 dollars. In reality, you will most likely need a 4-kilowatt system or more which will run you about $30,000 dollars. To get an idea of how many solar panels you need, take a look at your last electric bill. Somewhere you will see how much power you used and it will be measured in Kilowatt/hours (kWh). As an example, our home only averages about 650 kWh a month (no air conditioner and energy conscious). To calculate how much solar power our home would need to produce in order to break even I’ll use the following equation:

• 650 kWh divided by 30 days = 21.67 kWh a day
• Figure 9 hours of sun on a good day (Very optimistic)
• 21.67 kWh divided by 9 hours = 2.4 kWh solar system

That may not seem like a lot, but there is one major draw back to solar panels. They only generate electricity during the day when the sun is shining. When you take into consideration that we are away at work or outside doing other things during the day when very little electricity is being used, the solar panels aren’t doing us much good. Most people use a vast majority of their electricity at night. That’s where the grid-tie inverter and spinning the electric meter backwards comes into play.

This means we have to push 2x as much electricity back onto the grid to match what we use (break even). Also, electricity is cheap in our state compared to other parts of the country so it makes it even more difficult to recoup costs. However in California and Hawaii, the electric companies have a 1-to-1 ratio of spinning the meter backwards which means you recoup electricity costs quicker and electricity in both states is relatively expensive compared to other parts of the country.

To expand on the previous example, let’s say I was interested in how long it would take to recoup the costs of purchasing a home solar powered grid-tie system in Colorado. Because no one is home during the day, we use little to no electricity and all the electricity my solar panels produce would be used to spin the electric meter backwards. Let’s also assume my electric company’s half price payback on spinning the meter backwards and the 9 hours of sunlight a day (which again, is extremely optimistic but I’m doing this to prove a point):

• 2.4 kWh a day X $.05 cents per kWh X 9 hours = $1.08 a day
• $1.08 x 30 days = $32.40 a month
• $17,200 (cost of a 3-kilowatt system) divided by $32.40 = 531 months
• 531 months divided by 12 = 44 years to pay off

Most people don’t live in their house 5 years let alone 44 years! So the other thing you need to take into consideration is how long will you be living in the house you purchased the solar power system for? If the answer is less than 10 years (even in California and Hawaii), forget it. You simply won’t recoup the cost of purchasing the system in that amount of time. Even 20 years is optimistic in the most ideal locations.

The next question you need to ask yourself is, what’s your weather like? The example I’ve been working assumes every day produced 9 hours of full sunlight. This won’t happen anywhere. As a best case real-world scenario, let’s say we lived in the Arizona desert which averages about 85% of all possible sunlight. We would have to cut back on the power production derived above by about 15%, so my 44 year payoff estimate is more like 50 years (if we also assume electric rates are the same).

UPDATE: At this time, the Federal government is providing a 30% rebate on all solar and wind powered home systems with no upper end cap. That means, you can spend as much as you like, and you will receive a 30% rebate on the total cost of the system. Also, check your State and local electric company, as they too might be offering incentives. Together, you can save up to 50% the cost of system (at least in Colorado as of 2011).

Here’s another thing to think about, and this may sound counter-intuitive. If your electric company has a power outage, your solar panels will not power your home. In order to do this, you would need a battery backup system, an additional electrical sub panel, and you’d have to move any circuits you want powered by your solar panels and batteries moved to the sub panel. only the circuits on the sub=panel could be powered by the solar panels and the batteries.

Now, if you are serious about solar power, you are in a great geographic location, you don’t care about the costs, and would like to help protect the environment then you might want to make your home as efficient as possible before pricing out a solar power system. If you can replace electric range stoves with gas, use Energy Star appliances, and turn off lights when they are not in use, you can cut back on your electricity usage by about 15% which means you won’t need to spend as much money on solar panels. I’d stay away from the compact fluorescent light bulbs due to environmental disposal concerns.

So as nice as it would be to have a solar home, solar power is only cost effective in certain parts of the country where energy costs are high, the electric companies spin the meter backwards at a 1-to-1 ratio and there is plenty of sunlight. Even in these locations it can take upwards of 10 to 20 years to recoup the costs and very few people live in their house for this length of time. If this isn’t the case where you live, then I’d stay away from solar power as you will never recoup the costs of the equipment and it will be a money-pit of an investment. Wind power is another option, but it too has its own limitations.

Ball lightning is as mysterious as Big Foot and as controversial as UFO’s. No scientist has ever been able to conclusively prove its existence while at the same time no scientist has been able to prove it doesn’t exist either. All we have are a lot of sketches and eyewitness accounts which hold no weight in the scientific community, or with me. Especially when the event only lasts a few seconds, the whiteness was not prepared for what they were about to see and the subject is usually startled at the perceived event. So where does that leave us? Is ball lightning real or is it just a myth?

That may be a difficult question to answer because we have absolutely no scientific evidence to prove it exists. We do have a lot of theories that claim it could exist, but none have been able to recreate the elusive phenomenon in a scientifically controlled environment. As I said before, there are lots of sketches and eyewitness testimony, but that doesn’t hold any weight in the scientific community. So what do people think ball lightning is? Is it really lightning? Is it some subterranean energy that is created by enormous stresses in rocks? Is it a super heated plasma? Is it an after image or a sort of optical illusion? Yes. It is all of these things and more.

Some mistake welding slag, Saint Elmo’s Fire, arcing electricity and rapid oxidation as ball lightning. It’s tough for me to say what ball lightning isn’t when I don’t know what it is. But, if these things are ball lighting then they have been witnessed for years and it wouldn’t be that phenomenal to observe such an event. That being said, those who claim to have seen ball lighting describe it as having some extraordinary capabilities. It hovers or floats slowly in mid air and either rapidly disappears or sometimes explodes with a loud bang. Some even claim it has passed through solid objects only to reappear on the other side. This hardly sounds like a case of mistaken identity. However, if ball lightning does exist it could very well redefine some of the fundamental properties of electricity and magnetism.

However, until I read a scientific paper on the production of ball lightning which has been verified by other independent scientists, I will continue to hold a sort of agnostic opinion on the subject. You could chose to believe it exists, but it would be a leap of faith as I think you will have a hard time (if not impossible) finding scientific evidence to support your belief.

Other Lightning Myths

• Can Lightning Crash an Airplane?
• Do Lightning Rods Attract Lightning?
• Can Lightning Be Used As a Source of Power?
• Can Lightning Strike the Same Place Twice?
• Do Car Tires Protect Me From Lightning?
• Can Lightning Strike Me Inside My House?