Coal power

[JSH]

Originally Posted by sendler

Net metering is just essentially running forward or back. This is a big loss for the utility since they are paying the customer at a rate which includes all of the line fees and taxes that they pay when the meter is running forward. But many states have forced the utility to take the loss as a means of stimulating the uptake of solar. Smart metering or two way demand metering would pay the consumer only for the excess electricity according to the spot price in effect at the time. This requires an internet connected meter which very few areas are using.

Why would a homeowner feeding back into the grid pay the utility line fees? The power isn't going back to the power plant miles away it is going maybe 100 feet to the house next door.

Smart metering and paying the spot price would make it even worse for the utility. Homeowners are feeding into the grid on peak and pulling out of it off-peak. They fill the gap when the utilities cost is highest.

[freebeard]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Currently thinking I should buy a modest house that might need some work, at a comparatively low price just to move into something. Then 2 years later, or however long it takes for the next recession, buy/build the permanent house. Rent out the modest house when we move.

I had an uncle that lived in the hills above Willamina. They wanted a new house right where the old one was sited. So he built the new house around the old one and then tore it out. In practice it was awkward.

If you found a little house that you could draw a circle around without obstruction then you could put a freestanding dome over it and just take the roof and some walls off. You could wind up with something bigger than what my folks built at the coast.



I could show you how make one stronger and less expensive than theirs.

[Piotrsko]

If you build around the existing, it would have to be a teeny house or huge dome. I don't recall the footprint to volume ratio of a dome, but I understood that was one advantage to building domes.

[freebeard]

Footprint to volume depends on the truncation. Volume to surface area is where they shine. And building bigger with the same materials.

The folks place had a gable roofed extension to the east. You can see where the 2nd owner removed the passive solar and roofed it with commercial shakes. In theory that could be a little shotgun shack.

The dome I lived in was built next to an old house and connected with a kitchen (the third one, the owners had to bring the house up to code before they could connect the two).

[redpoint5]

I like domes due to their strength and efficiency of volume to surface area.

My concerns would be:

Attenuating noise
Incorporating large windows
Efficient utilization of the space (things we put in homes are optimized for rectangular rooms, such as the TV)
Maintenance cost, especially the large roofing surface
Heating/cooling - hot air would tend to rise - need air flow to mix the air within the house
Cost

[sendler]

Originally Posted by JSH

Why would a homeowner feeding back into the grid pay the utility line fees? The power isn't going back to the power plant miles away it is going maybe 100 feet to the house next door.

Smart metering and paying the spot price would make it even worse for the utility. Homeowners are feeding into the grid on peak and pulling out of it off-peak. They fill the gap when the utilities cost is highest.

I will try to explain this to you one more time. In practical application of having a meter run backwards, the electricity company has been forced to pay the home owner for the line fees and the taxes as if the home owner owned the lines and was sending in the tax payments. This is a big loss to the electric company. They are buying electricity from the home owner for $0.12 /kwh when they could be buying it from their normal producers for $0.04. Even if the peak spot price for the electricity was generally 2x and coincided with the home owner's production peak, the company is still losing money.
.
I don't know where you are getting your demand price increase of 5x because this is not common in any major developed market outside of places like Australia which has prematurely closed some of it's production facilities and now suffers drastic afternoon/ evening cooling period shortfalls. California's normal daily peak prices ar only about 2x. NY is much less.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by JSH

Why would a homeowner feeding back into the grid pay the utility line fees? The power isn't going back to the power plant miles away it is going maybe 100 feet to the house next door.

Because the grid doesn't work without all of its parts. (Or most of them: there's of course built-in redundancy, but that's part of the cost of being reliable.) Nor can you say that the electricity you generate is just going to the house next door. It's going everywhere on the grid.

If this bothers you, buy a Powerwall or other battery system, and go off the grid entirely :-)

[sendler]

I'm not sure what my provider pays for electricity. But they bill me at $0.039- $0.041/ kwh just for the actual electricity. With the line fees and taxes, less the monthly service fee, the billing amount divided by the kWh used comes out to about $0.12/ kWh. If they are billing me at .04, it is safe to say that this is no less than the average. NY deosn't have a high percentage of non-dispatchable generation so the peak price during any day will not tend to spike.
.
The electric company is taking a big loss with any net metering that they are forced to pay out.
.
But big subsidise are needed in order to force the roll out of rebuildable energy which is imperative in the long run. Everyone will have to chip in to make it happen.
.

[gone-ot]

I would be concerned about TOO MANY SEAMS (where facets come together) being leakage prone.

[freebeard]

My concern is thread drift. If there's interest I could put a post in Saving@Home. I had hopes for Blight Authority, but they've stalled out. There might be a more receptive audience here.

Attenuating noise
Incorporating large windows
Efficient utilization of the space (things we put in homes are optimized for rectangular rooms, such as the TV)
Maintenance cost, especially the large roofing surface
Heating/cooling - hot air would tend to rise - need air flow to mix the air within the house
Cost
....
TOO MANY SEAMS

All addressable to some extent.The first trick is to use Bucky Fuller's HexaPent patent.

https://www.worldcat.org/title/speci...e/oclc/6494668

This should get around the engineering costs to get a permit, which was around $1500 in the 1980s


real pop-sci | deconcrete