Foxy Solar Fun

2U is the Word

I've been looking for a good meme to replace self-consumption... The term is non-intuitive, overly syllabic and venereal sounding. I think I found my meme. 2U is the word... It's got groove it's got meaning. You can flip it to U2 to specify production for export. Neat trick eh?

Yes On My Watch

Why not build wind turbines that sense their surroundings and pitch their blades to avoid birds and bats? I just watched a video of a big bird getting hit by a big wind blade and pirouetting to the ground broken. All happened in slow motion. Poor bird. What if the turbine pitched down when it sensed the bird in its vicinity? How hard is that? Heat seeking missile hard? Face transplant hard?

 

The argument that cats kill more birds than wind doesn't hold water... cats don't kill big birds that scoot around on thermals. The whole line of reasoning is a defensive statistical head fake. Acknowledge the issue, own it and aggressively manage the problem. Ask not what your country can do for you. The wind and solar industries need to Step up, Stop asking and Start owning.

How do you get Google to stop telling me about killings?

Mission.. I like google news but I don't like reading about murder in X and train crashes in K. I'm full fed up with bad news from the world. I love that google provides a newsfeed but it's incredibly violent and it disgusts me. So... How do I get a google news feed without headlines that talk about death counts and shit? I want a shit free news feed... Some people don't... I do.

I've asked Google many times... They do not respond... Not fucking once. As my old friend and my wife says... Fucking cocksuckers...

So Google... What's up with your no evil stance? Seems directly evil to broadcast evil... I'm asking you not to feed me evil but you continue to do so. Stop joking around and do right.

Best
Me

Seeing is Believing

This last week I've been driving up and down the west coast with my girl. We've been all over the world together and I've been a solar nerd the whole time. So... Back in the day (2008) we're on a train going from Tokyo to see the monkey bartenders in Utsunomiya. I had a notebook and I counted the roofs I saw with solar - prison scratch style. Sadly, the monkey bartenders had the day off when we arrived in Utsunomiya so we didn't get to see them. Meh... Animal rights are a bitch. 

Funnily enough this last week driving 2500 miles my wife was the scribe... She'd point out all the sites... Solar... Solar... Solar... Very little wind on the drive... One stretch in the Bay with a bank of turbines... and one other 1.5 MW straggler on a farm in Oregon. 

But wow... The I-5 in California, Oregon and Washington is diff-er-ent... Solar didn't just sneak in since the last time I drove the route... It's all in and then some. One thing I didn't see was new construction with PV. That was disappointing but hey... It'll come. 

 

Ten Times Too Tall

Sharp to Market Solar Windows

Neat idea but solar windows should cost $200 per square meter - not $2000!!! A square meter delivers 150 Watts - the math is envelope friendly. Funny... my wife just bought a solar iPhone charger that's packaged in an Altoids tin. $50 for 15 cents worth of solar cells. Meh... Her money.

Greedy Games

A Shuffle of Aluminum, but to Banks, Pure Gold