Working from home more is my plan if it keeps getting worse.
Six years of driving an EV
Haven’t thought about the cost of moving from A to B in 5 years, it’s a rounding error pretty much.
Hijacking this post to ask for some communities that focus on renewable energy & environment
We’ve been leasing an EV for a few years and have saved quite a bit. Even better currently. The only problem I have with it is unsolicited opinions from others about how shit EVs are, like I haven’t been driving petrol or diesel for 20 fucking years .
I like when others give their negative opinions about EVs, gives me something to laugh at.
We have the answers. It’s just getting the politicians all on board with it and shutting up the lobbyists for fossil fuels.
My electricity comes from hydro, wind, solar and nuclear. I do have a petrol engine car but luckily its a Peugeot so the engine is broken and I have no plans of fixing it. My city has excellent public transportation. I have a bicycle. Also my grocery shop is 2 minute walk away.
I’m pretty lucky.
Biking (e-bikes are great if you can afford one and greatly increase range and decrease effort in many environments)
Installing solar (I’m currently renting but my state is debating a new law which seems likely to pass modeled on the Utah law - and others which started in Europe - which allows small solar systems to be plugged directly into a home outlet to supplement energy needs with minimal cost)
Beyond the direct plug-in kind of solar. There’s now solar generators. Basically a portable battery pack that accepts solar energy and has its own outlets, no change in laws needed.
Anker Solix is having a sale this weekend.
Absolutely. They do tend to be quite a bit more expensive per watt though. From my research you can get cheap panels and just plug them into a LiPo4 battery or even lead acid batteries as well. It’s just that batteries (even though they’ve gotten a lot cheaper) are still expensive enough to nearly double the cost of the system in many cases so the plug-in option with 400 watts of panels etc gives you the best bang for the buck for sure. But it’s not legal or possible in many US states (though that is changing fast)
I’m already practically speaking living free of fossil fuels -
- For transportation, I only really bike and take transit
- The heating in my apartment is district heating
- The electricity grid in Sweden is all but entirely free of fossil fuels
So there’s not really that much more to be done.
You can always be an advocate and teacher about how you live, speak loudly and always share what you know to be true. There are many people who are completely ignorant to how successful and progressive Sweden’s electricity is.
Note to all, Harbor Freight sells solar panels. If they can make it profitable for them, I think telling yourself that it’s just too expensive isn’t exactly as valid anymore lol.
Though I know there’s more to it than that…
The panels are cheap. The interconnect isn’t too bad and the controller is another chunk, but it’s the install that keeps me from a cheap DIY. I really don’t want to mess up my roof.
I did my part already. Solar panels, small battery storage and EV.
Even in my country there is not too much sun - 1kWp produces 1MWh per year, since end of Feb, it produces more electricity than my car consume
I wish it made sense in my case:
- I’m too far north for solar to provide anywhere close to enough power for 5 months of the year, even if I have it overbuilt to x4 of what I need in the summer
- I’m in a low average wind speed area (less than 4 m/s) - making wind power about 3x more expensive than solar. Also local law effectively prevents me from settting it up (minimum distance from residential rule)
- no net metering available, net billing rules suck
- grid is at capacity, so getting new solar connected is problematic and even if you manage that it won’t accept your output through most productive months of the year
- my car is a relatively new hybrid (but not a plug-in one) - I’m not replacing it until I run it into the ground
- tl;dr; my auto consumption will be low, grid won’t accept extra power greatly extending the break even period
At least I’m using biomass for heating - wood or sunflower shell pellets.
Where do you live?
I fucking wish.
I live in the suburbs where if you need to get to the city(which you do, often) your only option is a highway with no sidewalk or bike lanes. Public Transit is a fucking joke that is also unreasonably priced.
I looked to buy an ev, but where I live EVs are still expensive and the second hand market is small, so I just couldn’t find anything even near my price range.
At some point I decided that it is fucked up to have a 1000 kg piece of metal carrying a 70kg human ,as I drive alone 99% of the time. I decided to switch to a motorcycle for the environment and convenience. The motorcycle ev market is even less developed so literally nothing that I could find.
Honestly, the whole idea that we should all own cars is fucked up and unreasonable. Public transit + short range small vehicles(scooters, ebikes, etc) should be the default.
I guess I could build that gasifier that I downloaded plans for years ago.
My family rides bicycles.
I was thinking to switch my hot water heater to run on biofuel. I’ve got quite a few annoying neighbours.
Just make sure it knows how to find and harvest fuel on it’s own, it can be so pesky when you run out of hot water!
