Now I'm off to a local company armed with pictures and measurements of our house to find out about Solar panel installation costs and how much energy we could possibly generate to run our home, and charge our future electric car(s), and could we even generate enough electricity every year to sell back to the Power Grid and generate income for our family...I'll let you know what I find out when I get back !
***June 7th Update*** The place I went for advice was Northwest Mechanical, Inc. They are located at:
3024 NE 145th Street Shoreline, WA 98155 (206) 267-HEAT
I met with Jeremy Keller, Design Engineer. The first thing we would do would be to get $100 Solar Site Assessment to see if our house [roof] is even ideally oriented correctly. Ideally you want to have south-facing roof area, where you intend to put the solar-energy collector panels. Our two largest roof sections are southwest and southeast. So it may work.
Depending on what you want to do, collecting enough solar energy to power your hot water heating requirements, and/or generating enough electricity to do that and power your house, you may be able to do that. The best thing to do is get your power company bill in *.pdf [Adobe Acrobat] format and email it to Jeremy, to see if it would be feasible to generate all of your power needs.
I wanted to get back to the motorcycles now for a bit, and I wanted to start posting some of the video motorcycle reviews posted by the wonderful folks at the MVRTVCOM channel on YouTube [http://www.youtube.com/user/mvrtvcom]. These reveiws are the type that I hope to be able to create and post when I get a bit more of my equipment laid in to help me record some HD video and audio. Hopefully I can get my GoPro HD Helmet HERO Camera soon ! I have a lot of plans and ambitions for my Green blog, including lots on sustainable energy, and may need to get myself one of these BMW F800GS bikes sooner than later, so I can get out into the wilds to report on the remote installations of wave power generator stations, or the coming wind farms of the Columbia River Gorge plateaus.
Anyway, these are great videos, and the way video reviews should be done. I hope you have the patience to watch them in their entirety. They are well work your time. These videos are best viewed full screen, so please click on the outward moving four corner arrows pictogram, and this will enlarge the video to full screen.
From: Dan Davids Date: Thu, May 20, 2010 at 11:43 AM Subject: Help Plug In America turn the tide To: xxxxxxxxxx@gmail.com
Dear Fellow Clean Car Supporter,
I think I speak for all of us when I say that I am outraged at the environmental catastrophe that is occurring right now in the Gulf of Mexico. It is a horrible feeling to watch helplessly as tens of thousands of barrels of oil spew into the ocean each day, threatening species loss, habitat destruction, and economic ruin on an unimaginable scale.
There is likely little to come out of this debacle that's positive, but a silver lining might be that Americans will finally wake up to the folly of continuing our unabated dependence on oil. As you may know, over 40% of oil that Americans use is consumed by cars, trucks and SUVs. If every American car were plug-in electric and charged at night, the Department of Energy reports America would not have to build a single new power plant to fuel them. There would be no need to drill for new oil. Our future fuel is already available.
Plug In America has long promoted the benefits of plug-in electric vehicles for good of the environment, economy, and national security. With the ongoing crisis in the Gulf of Mexico, we see the opportunity to turn the tide of public opinion away from cars powered by dirty oil to those that use cleaner and more efficient electricity. We also see a chance to ensure that the debate over the climate bill in Washington results in provisions that foster the proliferation of plug-ins.
But to continue this vital work we need your help. Strike a blow against big oil by supporting Plug In America's campaign to accelerate America's adoption of plug-in electric vehicles.
Despite what you may think, I'm not trying to get you to donate to Plug In America. I just think Dan has a great site, and he provides a lot of useful information about the coming dawn of Electric transportation in America and the World. Here is a great link that shows just how many vehicles have recently launched or are about to launch:
What I'm quickly discovering is that this effort is huge ! And it is coming like a freight train, but the odd thing is that barely anyone in America knows about it yet. And the major Media outlets are virtually NOT COVERING IT... YET.
Let'se examine the several reasons that after decades of supression of the all Electric vehicle, that now, all of a sudden we're are poised at the edge of transportation revolution. Economics. People simply aren't as dumb as the Oil Industry thinks were are. When gas went over the $4 a gallon price, the oil companies sounded their own death dirge. Combined with their very public and therefore very helpful Gulf of Mexico super environmental disaster. If the oil addicts of the world don't get it, after seeing the helpless and incompetent response from BP, then we really are dumb and deserve to die in our own cesspool. But I don't believe we are. I believe America will use this to springboard back to a golden age of economic boom times, and will launch the next phase of our human advancement. I believe the people of the world are already uniting behind this effort on a massive scale. It's simple. Air polluting tranportation to a possibly non-polluting method [if we can increase our electricity generating sources to a majority of non-polluting methods: solar, wind, wave, and hydro-electric]. And we can drive the same number of miles each year for a fraction of the cost.
The large historical autombile manufacturers like GM, Ford, Chrysler, and various foreign manufacturers are coming out with PHEVs [Plugin Hybrid Electric Vehicles] and EVs [Electric Vehicles] as fast as they can, because this will help them meet the new more stringent U.S. Federal Fleet mileage mandates. It's kind of a game of cat and mouse though. The Oil companies are smart. They saw what happened when gas prices went over $4. Americans stopped buying their addiction delivery modes - the large SUV and large truck. These gas wasting vehicles are the main profit generators for the oil companies and were also huge profit generators for the American Auto Industry. However, when people had to spend $80 - $90 [based on a 20 gallon fuel tank] or more, for each fill up, America and the world said "enough". The result was that the "Big Three" automakers of America almost disappeared. So they want to stay in business, and the only way to do that is to make vehciles that get 35+ mpg, or maybe use no gasoline at all. Also, if the oil companies can somehow keep prices at the gas pump below say $3.50, then they can maybe lull the American people into a false sense of security. However, with the economy still on rocky ground at best, and the stock market down 1500 points in the last 2 weeks, things are not looking good for consumer confidence. Even if we can get a couple million people to buy electric vehicles over the next five to ten years, coupled with higher mileage gas or hybrid vehicles, this will only marginally diminish our need for gasoline.
And by all estimates, we may run out or oil complete in the next 15 - 20 years. Certainly the best thing for people to do for themselves is to buy either high mileage hybrids, or buy an all-electric vehicle as soon as they can. As we're just reinventing the power delivery system, and its support infrastructure, and not having to come up with a whole new invention, this should be a fairly fast and seemless transition. The best thing everyone can do right now is think about taking some vehicle like the Wheego Whip for a spin as soon as they can, just to get a feel for the vehicle and it capabilities: http://wheego.net/ at say a dealership like MC Electric Vehicles of Seattle: http://www.mcelectricvehicles.com/ .
Here are some great links that I thought I'd post from a NPR website [National Public Radio], that my wonderful wife sent to me this morning. As this industry moves forward rapidly, and it is, I will post more:
One of my major goals with "Greener Transportation" is to address the extent of our global addiction to oil and it's by-products: heating oil for homes, and gasoline for automobiles of every kind [trucks, cars, heavy equipment, etc.]. Oil has simply become an untenable addiction, and in many cases makes no sense at all. We're damaging peoples' abilities to participate in the economy, save for our childrens' futures, and purchase the items, trips, etc., that we need and want to. In short, the high price of oil and its byproducts and deliteriously damaging the global economy. One of the subjects that many journalistic outlets seem to avoid like the plague, is the correlation to the rise of gasoline prices to the $4.00+ threshold to the global recession/depression which started mid-2007. I'm not saying that this price rise was solely responsible for the global meltdown, but it was definitely a large contributing factor.
Let's say you're a family of five, with a couple of pre-driving age children, two parents who work, and both drive to and from work each weekday, and you have a teenager who needs a car several times a week to get to his after school part-time job, as well as school extra-curricular events. In this scenario, this family has three vehicles. Now let's say gas is $4.00 per gallon, and that each car is filled up three times per month. Car number one has a 20 gallon fuel tank, so filling it three times per month costs $240. This particular SUV/Truck getsa combined 15 mpg, and is able to drive about 900 miles on these three tanks of gas [a not uncommon case]. Next car number two has a 14 gallon fuel tank and needs Premium unleaded [a foreign luxury car - Audi, again not uncommon]. Premium unleaded costs $4.30 per gallon. This car drives 45 miles roundtrip five days a week, or 225 miles per week, plus 75 miles on the weekend, for a total of 300 miles per week or 1200 miles per month. This car gets 27 miles per gallon. So it would need 44.5 gallon of premium unleaded per month at a cost of just under $192. Car number three [ a Scion tC], uses regular unleaded, like car number one. It has a 12 gallon fuel tank. It gets 24 mpg combined. It travels 30 miles roundtrip to and from work 5 days a week, for a total of 150 miles a week or 600 miles per month. It also travels 50 miles per weekend, for a total of 800 miles per month. Its fuel costs are approximately $133 per month. So this American family pays $565 per month just to fuel their 3 vehicles. This amounts to $6,780 per year in fuel costs alone for these three family members. Then there are yearly licensing tabs, insurance, maintenance, repairs, etc.
Just as a simple comparison, at current Seattle City light rates, it would cost an owner of a NEV [Neighborhood Electric Vehicle] $330 FOR 10,000 miles !!! Let's say this car travels 800 miles per month, just like the gasoline burning car number three above, then it would need about $27 per month to drive as many miles as car numer three above, which needs to spend $133 to travel the same distance, or about 1/5 as much money. If this family had 3 NEVs instead of gasoline burning vehicles, they could save [or invest in their childrens' college funds, take a trip to Tahiti, etc.] to the tune of about $5,800 per year in fuel costs !!! It would only cost this family about $1,000 per year to drive the same amount of miles ! But better yet, this family wouldn't use about 1650 gallons of gasoline per year. If you multiply this by one million people who might switch to NEVs or freeway legal all-electric vehicles like the Nissan Leaf [http://www.nissanusa.com/leaf-electric-car/index#/leaf-electric-car/index], and we could forego using 1 billion 650 million gallons of gasoline per year !!!
Armed with a White Wheego Whip VIN [Vehicle Identification Number] graciously given to be by Ray of MC Electric Vehicles [http://www.mcelectricvehicles.com/], I have begun my search of insurance companies to see who will insure an NEV [Neighborhood Electric Vehicle].
I began with my own Insurer, Safeco. I just emailed my agent. I will keep you posted as to what they have to say on the matter, and we'll see if I get a quote, or not.
Neither State Farm, nor Farmers had the Wheego Whip listed [http://wheego.net/pdf/wheego_whip_brochure_2010.pdf. Doing some on-line searching most NEV owners said that both State Farm and Allstate will provide policies. We shall see. I've contacted State Farm, Famers, Allstate, and my own agents for Safeco.
Of course with the major Auto Company launch of the Nissan Leaf coming this Fall http://www.nissanusa.com/leaf-electric-car/index#/leaf-electric-car/index, all of the major insurance companies have to get their act together soon, or risk losing out on what I anticipate will be a quickly growing market segment.
***UPDATE***
Okay...I received my first quote a couple hours after submitting my online quote request, from State Farm Insurance, for full coverage. He is the text from the exchange:
For full coverage, it looks like that car will be $528.51
every 6 months. Thanks!
Malissa
Malissa Glade LSA-SSA
Brooks G Tish State Farm Ins Agcy http://www.brookstish.com/
State Farm Insurance & Financial Services
12504 - 116th Avenue NE
Kirkland, WA 98034
425.821.1717
800.821.8852
F 425.821.5997
-----Original Message-----
From: Internet Customer - Scott Menge
Sent: Monday, May 10, 2010 11:22 AM
To: Brooks Tish
Hello Brooks,
I'm looking to get a quote on a comprehensive auto policy quote for
the following NEV - Neighborhood Electric Vehicle, called the Wheego Whip.
The MSRP is $18,995 Lead acid battery array
VIN: 1W9WL21B1AC485166
***UPDATE***
Toward the end of that same Monday I received the following reply from my Safeco Insurance Agent:
From: ep@phillipsinsurance.net
To: scott_menge@hotmail.com
Subject: RE: Information needed for possible NEV purchase [NEV = Neighborhood Electric Vehicle]
Date: Mon, 10 May 2010 16:15:11 -0700
Hi Scott,
The $20k one would be approx $488 and the $30k one would be approx $535 every 6 months. They don’t pull info using the vin because they aren’t that common that there are insurance statistics on them, the rating is done by the value for now. That might change later on. Let me know if you have any more questions.
As there are no real [or at least tabulated statistics yet, or none the Insurance companies pay attention to] statistics yet, the Insurance companies insure by monetary value. As both of these quotes are a mere $7 apart, I would say these are fairly accurate.
One of my goals with my Blog is to provide information about Puget Sound Dealers and their stock, makes and models, and hopefully a bit of human interest about how and why they started their particular dealerships. I will also list some of the accessories they sell - helmets, jackets, complete riding suits, gloves, lubricants, tires, and anything else they sell, especially unique items they carry which may distinguish them from similar dealers.
7701 Aurora Ave. N., Seattle, WA 98103 USA phone: 206-297-3822 fax: 206-297-3828 e-mail: sales@motointernational.com
Every time I go there, I always converse with David Richardson himself [Author of Guzziology]. Here's a picture of David, taken by "Guzzista" writer Kevin Hoffberg:
Ride West BMW Motorcycles 8100 Lake City Way NE Seattle WA 98115 Phone: 206.527.5511 Fax: 206.522.5369 Toll Free Phone: 888-527-RIDE
From the moment you walk into ride west, you know you're dealing with a completely different animal, in terms of buying a motorcycle. You're dealing with "the BMW experience". One thing that is immediately different is that all the bikes come with 3 year 36,000 mile warranties, as well as 3 year 36,000 Roadside Assitance coverages:
One of the obvious observations one makes when looking around this BMW motorcycle dealership is that at least 50% of the bikes Ridewest has on display are dual-sport or trail bikes. These bikes are meant to help people explore as much of the earth as possible, and not just the parts that have paved roads !
Here are a couple examples, the F800 GS, and the R1200 GS Adventure:
A great DVD set which highlights the incredible durability and adventure capabilities of the GS bikes stars Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman:
