Thank God For High Priced Gasoline

With all the renewed interest in PV technology (photovoltaic) I am revisiting some thoughts I’ve had over the years about the viability of putting one of these solar panels on my roof. After some brief checking, it seems that the price of residential systems for a medium size tract home is still too high for the average family and the payoff would take something like 15-20 years even if you live in the sunbelt (as I do). But even worse, this is a system that may only deliver 50% of your electricity needs.

Some firmly believe that massive utility-based systems stationed outside of town are the answer. Living in the middle of Los Angeles, I don’t think that is necessarily the best solution, mainly due to the huge energy demands of a metropolitan area that extends for a hundred miles.

Instead, I prefer the distributed approach, kind of like PCs versus mainframes. Of course, this requires the development of cheap PV systems that pay for themselves in 3-5 years. My opinion is that the tipping point for PV installations will be when inexpensive solar roofing tiles come on the market. This is not at all unrealistic and there are several companies tackling that problem as we speak.

There are a few other things happening that will make PV installations even more attractive:

• The cost of electricity will continue to go up, probably at an accelerated rate as demand increases and production costs increase.
• The emergence of electric vehicles that you charge up at home is not too far off. This is a whole subject in itself. I predict that in many communities more and more people will buy electric golf cart type vehicles for short trips to the market.
• The steady growth of electronic gadgets in our homes will continue unabated.

All these things and more will make the ability to capture free energy from your roof increasingly attractive. At some point, it will become a critical selling point when you go to purchase a house. No PV system = no sale.

Although I continue to believe that nuclear power should be a much bigger player in our energy plan (you need to generate electricity when the sun is not shining !!!), I just don’t see it expanding much until we can economically blast all of our nuclear waste off to Venus. Of course then there will immediately materialize an environmental group lobbying to save the environment of Venus.

The other major (clean) options besides PV are wind, wave energy, hydroelectric, and geothermal. I just came back from China so coal is definitely not on my list unless we are successful in converting it to a clean burning alternative. Of these other options, the largest potential source of energy is clearly solar and thankfully there are a whole host of companies working to develop inexpensive solutions to capturing solar energy.

We can thank the price of gasoline for finally creating the incentive to work on this problem.

Journey With My Nano

Around October 2006 I had an attack of sciatica down my left leg, a common byproduct of sitting at a desk for 10-12 hours a day. For anyone unfamiliar, it’s usually caused by a pinched or inflamed nerve that can get so bad it gives you pain 24 hours a day. For whatever reason, my pain was in my left hip radiating down my thigh. Readjusting my postion sometimes helped for a while but that was working less and less. I even had pain when I was driving.

So rather than getting hooked on Vicodin or Ibuprofen, I started walking 2 miles every other morning. I live in a hilly neighborhood with quiet tree-lined streets, a really pleasant place to walk. Not only is it a nice environment with no traffic, but it is uphill all the way to the half way point which is perfect for my purposes. I get a pretty good workout if I push myself to do it in 30 minutes and I suffer no ill effects at all. So after a couple of weeks, the pain was gone and hasn’t come back and I’m sure the walking has improved my general health.

The thing that really makes it work for me is my iPod. First I timed exactly how long it took to get to the half way point and then back home. Then I selected songs that had a good tempo that would push me on the uphill portion. The trick was to select the songs so that I would arrive at the top of the hill just when a particular song was starting. On my walk it is a place where you turn the corner and are facing east just as the sun is rising; it’s a kind of spiritual point for me.

So, for that next song I chose The Prayer, sung by Cantor Alisa Pomerantz and David Propis. There is something very personl about that particular rendition of “The Prayer.” I like the ones by Celine Dion and Andrea Bocelli or Josh Groban but I guess it is the Hebrew in this one that makes me think of my daughter Amy – it makes coming to the top of the hill and walking toward the sunrise a very special moment in my day.

So get yourself an iPod, load some songs into it and set up a playlist that motivates you to get off your butt and enjoy some fresh air. Believe me, it is not only good for the body but it is like a form of meditation – it fuels the soul too.

One Armed Bandits

Maybe we should rename faucets like the one in the picture “One Armed Bandits.” Think about it. Every time you turn on the faucet to wash off your hands or rinse out a glass before putting it in the dishwasher, you are drawing hot water from your water heater half way across the house. That hot water travels ten or twenty feet or all the way to your faucet and mixes with the cold water because all such faucets are designed so that the arm normally sits in the center, mixing 50% hot and 50% cold water. People don’t even think about just swinging it to the cold water side when they do something quick like washing their hands off. They just lift it straight up.

I just did a quick unscientific test. I washed my hands in the kitchen and measured how much water I used: 2 quarts. That means everytime you wash your hands you waste the energy to heat 1 quart of water. Multiply that by however many million such faucets there are installed in kitchens or bathrooms all over the world, then by the number of times people turn on the water when they don’t need hot water. I’ll leave it to someone else who has the time to convert that to wasted BTUs but it is a whole trainload of wasted energy every day.

The solution to this does not necessarily mean going back to the old style faucet with a hot and cold valves side by side like you commonly see in bathrooms. A better solution that would be more popular is to design a faucet where the most natural way to turn it on is when it is drawing only cold water. Some newer style single hole faucets have two valves, one for the pressure and one for the temperature. Some of them are very awkward, but some are excellent.

I offer this as a whole new episode of “Living With Ed.”

Reincarnation

As you can tell, writing this blog has not been a priority for quite some time. I started it simply as a new mode of expression. It was not intended for a large audience. In fact, I was surprised that I found an audience at all. I was mainly interested in exercising my few remaining brain cells – writing is good exercise. I was also interested in the process of publishing with no particular concern as to who might read my ramblings. I suppose that is the foundation of blogging, just stepping up on a soapbox.

My previous excuse for not posting was lack of time. I felt guilty about letting the blog go untouched, and kept thinking about things to write about. But in January, my youngest daughter died in a sledding accident and my motivation just evaporated. She was 21, ready to graduate from UCLA with many hopes and dreams. She was independent, self-assured, very goal oriented, straight-A student, such a lovely person. It hurts so much to lose a child right when they are all ready to go out into the world. One second you are feeling this sense of accomplishment and pride, then it’s like you are set adrift,

It’s been six months now and the pain has subsided for the most part. It still comes to the surface in a rush occasionally, usually triggered by music. They say music has the power to soothe the savage beast, but it also has the power to evoke intensely painful memories. It’s amazing really. Just a few bars of a certain song can turn you inside out.

A few weeks ago I pulled Amy’s iPod Nano out of a drawer. We got it for her for Christmas but she hadn’t got around to putting any music in it. So I started exploring how it works, how to load music into it. I figured out how to load CDs into iTunes and then how to sync all that music into the iPod. I find iTunes to be very frustrating; slow and not very intuitive.

Although I’m sure no one is interested, I enjoy Andrei Bocelli, Bill Douglas, Sara McLachlan, Norah Jones, Enya, Loreena McKennitt, Diana Krall, R. Carlos Nakai, James Taylor, Carly Simon, Jimmy Buffett, and various country artists when they sing upbeat songs with a good beat.

That’s about it for now. If you were expecting some wry comment about some new technology that may come later. I’m not apologizing for being away for a while, but it does feel good to be writing again.

As far as the title of this post, there are experiences that change you dramatically. It's fascinating really.

TQSFOSYDN

Fool that I am, I have taken my own advice and stolen some time to write a new post to this blog. The subject today is the latest catalog from “The Quintessential Source For Overpriced Stuff You Don’t Need” store. Some call it The Sharper Image.

Every time I look through one of their catalogs, I’m struck with the amazing array of expensive products that replace simple manual devices. Many claim to do things you could easily accomplish without any gadget at all. Admittedly I love gadgets, but I also value simplicity in my life and I don’t like to get ripped off. Balance, right?

For a gadget to make it past my screening system it must be well designed, it must empower me to accomplish something I couldn’t otherwise do or save me time, and it should be priced reasonably for what it does. Since I am cursed with an engineering background, I automatically estimate in my head what the thing might cost to make. If they’re asking 25 times my estimate of the manufacturing cost, I get a bad feeling and usually move on.

In the case of the above mentioned catalog, they clearly go to extreme lengths to boost the perceived value of their gadgets through hype and hyperbole. I guess that’s just part of the whole business model: Overpriced stuff + artificially inflated perceived value = sales.

So, after perusing the catalog, I felt compelled to make a short list of items that in my opinion are either highly overpriced for what they deliver, or fundamentally unnecessary for the modern man or woman.

Panasonic Rechargeable Shaver and extra blades: $325
Mach III razor and extra blades: $20

Professional Electronic Weather Station: $250
Stick you head outside: $0

Cobalt Turbo Nose Hair Trimmer: $50
Nose Hair Scissors: $11

Sonicare Electric Toothbrush & one Refill: $142
6 pack of Oral-B toothbrushes and some floss picks: $11

Soap Genie Electric Soap Dispenser: $40
Neutrogena Liquid Soap Pump Dispenser: $2

Automatic Eyeglass Cleaner Gizmo & extra Solution: $60
Tap water, soap and a box of Kleenex: $2

Deluxe Leather Electric Watch Winder: $130
Your Own Index Finger and Thumb: $0

Total QSFOSYDN purchase: $997
The Simple Life: $46

For those who also get the catalog, you will note that I breezed right past the $500 electric picture frame and the $4000 massage chair.

My advice: Chop wood, carry water and travel light.