365 days with solar

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One year ago today my 4928 kilowatt/hour (5 kW) solar solution went live, magically collecting light and converting it into energy. Since then, I’ve produced 7,835.38 kWh of electricity. That’s the same as 7.8 megawatts.

Thanks to Net Metering, I’ve managed to sell an average of 10% back to the utility throughout the year. This occurs any time when I’m generating more electricity than the house is consuming, so excess is returned to the grid at the same rate I’m billed for it.
The daily average over twelve months was roughly 21 kWh each day with a standard deviation of about 7.8. The best two week period was the February / March border. Between February 25, 2010 and March 10, 2010, I had seven of my top ten days and averaged 27.29 kWh. The best day on record was March 4, 2010; the system generated 34.12 kWh. Mid-March to Mid-April 2010 saw a number of clear, cool, sunny days, and I sold 25% back to the utility during this time.

All told, the data I’ve collected suggests my installation has accounted for 35% of my electricity over the past year.

filed under: green, photovoltaic, solar

coolest place on earth

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CERN's Large Hadron Collider was the coolest place on the planet (-271.3°C, to be precise) to be today when it began smashing particles traveling at 99.99% the speed of light together at 3.5 TeV, or 3.5 trillion electron volts. Collisions are expected to generate heat at 100,000 times the hottest part of our sun, but they'll be super tiny,  so we don't need to worry about any microscopic black holes, strangelets, vacuum bubbles, or magnetic monopoles.

It's expected the six experiments will soon begin to yield clues about the origins of our universe and answer nagging questions such as "where IS all that antimatter, anyway" and "are you SURE you only live in three (ok, four) dimensions?"

It's absolutely fascinating how the project has evolved from an idea in 1984 to a reality today, shattering one physics record after another as it tugs on Humanity's most primal desire to just obliterate stuff. In this case, however, and all jesting aside, the destructive forces are necessary as we look for clues about the origins of our universe and how we can explain it all.

But for me, that's a bit of a problem. My Sophomore year in college, I failed Calculus. I should have never taken it. I believed then, as I do now, it's ego-maniacal to claim we can explain it all in elegant fashion just using numbers. If you only ever knew of a hammer, you'd never benefit from a screwdriver. Ergo, it's difficult to build furniture if you have to invent the screwdriver along the way. I don't think we have all the tools, at least not yet. It's crippling to think we can manipulate numbers to prove something, then come up with complicated rules and offer exceptions when we need to craft them to fit something which just doesn't fit. Special Relativity led to General Relativity but wait, General Relativity excludes quantum physics. So off we go to find new numbers, or number theory, to explain it. I could never get my head around Calculus because I didn’t trust the numbers; I just didn’t believe them.

Sure, we'll learn a lot and LHC is going to take us tremendous distances. In fact, I'm hoping LHC will likely help us find evidence of screwdrivers (so to speak), so we can get closer to explaining it all. I just have a funny feeling the last explanation when it's all sorted won't have any numbers in it at all, or least not a number the way we know it today.

filed under: cern, large hadron collider, science

another stupid modern day alchemist

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A few days ago, I mentioned a lot would be said about Richard and Falcon Heene. I was right. I claimed Heene was a Dad who taught science by doing. Sadly, I was right on this, too. But this time, he was the experiment. The police in Colorado are going to press charges against Richard Heene because the balloon incident was a hoax. Falcon was never in danger. As the case was built, the police didn’t tip any clues to the media, who were pretty much played again. The police investigated Heene by lying to him to the way he’d lied to them. And through Scientific Method, Heene was exposed. Or at least that’s how the police are telling it now. Given the Sheriff's choice of clothes to wear for such an important press announcement, it’s hard to say who knew what what when.

Heene represented someone who explored science as an enthusiast. Whether or not he really did, whether or not he was teaching his sons the joy of experiments and results; it’s meaningless now. Heene could have had the cure for a disease, routinely fed the homeless, or invented drought resistant  veggies, but now branded a liar and a cheat, he and everything about him will soon be filed away into obscurity.

It’s unfortunate when bad Science ends up in the news. I remember hearing about Cold Fusion while in High School, and wondering how it was going to change the world. It was fake. Why do people do this? Do they really think they can get away with such nonsense?

If Richard Heene wanted attention, he could have done something far more cool with the balloon. Instead, he’s made a mockery of others who really are weather enthusiasts and interested in environmental topics. More than anything, he disappointed the few of us who thought quirkiness might be a an innovative method to helping kids learn.

filed under: science

blog action day 2009: climate change

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The world watched today as a small weather balloon floated high above Colorado with fears six year old Falcon Heene was trapped inside, or worse, that he boarded and took off,  but wasn’t inside anymore. A lot will be said about today’s story. Thankfully, Falcon wasn’t injured. He was located and was safe. Now people will ask “where were the parents, how could this happen, what kind of weirdo builds weather balloons?”

I’m eager to join this conversation!

Falcon’s Dad, Richard Keene, is a weather enthusiast. Who better to blog about on a Blog Action Day dedicated to Climate Change than a scientist/inventor/storm-chaser who includes his family as he conducts his experiments? Do six year olds always make good decisions? Of course not. Actually, go ahead and tell me at what age we start to always make good decisions. Seriously, what age?

Free thinking minds who’ve been taught to explore and investigate may not always understand the consequences. That’s how we learn. As parents we try to not let anyone get hurt on the journey to knowledge. However, let’s face it, the world is a dangerous place. I have a lot of equipment attached to my home which could easily electrocute an inquisitive child bent on fiddling with it. Am I am a bad parent because it’s not somehow out-of-reach? I love to cook and often cook with my children, encouraging them to try new foods and experiment with me. The stove controls can be reached by a child using any stool readily available in my home. Am I a bad parent?

In the United States science and math skills are declining. Richard Keene is a Dad who’s doing something about it. He has a passion and teaches by live action. My favorite anecdote buried in today’s story was how the family sometimes sleeps fully clothed ready to wake and go at a moment’s notice if they’re tracking a storm and need to be ready to chase it. Kudos to him for keeping his children interested in science and looking forward to what it holds, even through bedtime!

I was terrified at what I saw on CNN today because I watched, as a Dad, in horror knowing no one could help Falcon. But once it was known he was safe and I saw comments starting to judge the parents, I had to speak out. Falcon’s OK. Richard’s a weather enthusiast. Father and son both learned something about science safety today, and they taught us all to be more aware, didn’t they? I hope it all somehow inspires others to take action to be involved with your kids, promote math and science, and most of all, go hug your kids.  Accidents will happen no matter what we do, but how we respond defines us.

So what does this have to do, really, with climate change? That’s simple. Like I said: take action to be involved with your kids, promote math and science, and most of all, go hug your kids.  It’s their world to inherit. Think about your impact to the world around you and think if this is what you want THEIR kids to inherit.

filed under: blog, science, weather