*related=http://videosift.com/video/The-Light-Bulb-Conspiracy

The Light Bulb Conspiracy has been added as a related post - related requested by notarobot.

"There are two kinds of light bulbs. . . "

Well, there's definitely something special about people who buy $100 light bulbs.

I use slightly less than that myself on average, but we have solar water heating (supplemented with gas), so that's a good savings (especially since it also heats the hot tub), and we replaced all our light bulbs with led bulbs when they became feasible last year. Now, we usually read between 400 and 1000 watts during the day (depending on how many lights I have on, and if the refrigerator is cycled on or not.) That's running a big screen TV, computer, and often ps4 almost all day, every day. We also have electric stove and oven...and I weld, adding somewhat to our total.

Yes, my battery bank is only useful for power outages. It's enough to keep the lights on and the fridge from thawing, but not much else. We get about 3-4 hours out of it if I don't notice the power went out, but can make it all night if we conserve. Our system is grid tied, and first powers the home, then tops off the batteries, then sells any excess to PG&E. To date, I've never drawn the batteries down to zero...but we do have a small generator to supplement it when the power's out for days. The average home would certainly need more, but a 10kwh battery should be plenty to make it through an average night without AC (we don't have AC here).

My current system could not produce that much, but close. I live in N California, one of the foggiest areas in the US. Because we have a renter, an electric hot tub, dishwasher, and electric washer and drier, we use slightly more than we generate at this point, but my system is upgradeable to 6500 watts of generation (I have less than 1/3 of that now) when panels get cheaper...and when I can find space for more.

My system is not flat to my roof, and I have 2 strings of 8 panels. With the solar water tubes, it takes up most of the south 1/2 of my roof (1200 sq ft home). I could maybe fit 4 more panels up there and still be able to walk around them to clean them, but any more and I'll need some mounting structure. I really want to add a small wind turbine to generate at night or when there's a storm...solar doesn't work in the dark.

In America, we still have some rebates for people adding solar to their homes, but they are drying up fast. 15-20 years ago, you could almost do it for free if you got every rebate available.

We used to have about 1-2 weeks of power outage where I live per year, and that was part of why we did they system. We hated having no power and losing food every year, and also hated paying the ever rising cost of electricity. Before adding our system, we had $4-500 a month electric bills, now we have <$100 in winter and sometimes a negative bill in summer...we pay our bill once a year now, lump sum at the end of 12 months.
On to your second post....
I often think...electric cars were popular and the norm in cities before Ford came along. It's still astonishing to me that it was basically dropped for a century as a technology (with minor exceptions). I'm glad someone had finally gone back to it and is trying to fix it's issues. If I could afford a Tesla, I would have one.

I also agree, people won't adopt the technology as long as they have to sacrifice lifestyle for it. I said the same thing, but I found that I don't change my lifestyle at all with my solar system, I just pay lower bills. I determined that buying a system would pay for itself in under 10 years, with the lifespan of a system being about 20 years, that's 10 years of free electricity! That all assumes electric rates didn't go up, and they certainly have gone up...but not for me. You just need to be sure you install enough panels to supply all your power, and you're there.

The battery thing is really mostly for non-grid tied systems, or emergencies. Most people don't use batteries at night, it's simpler and cheaper to just sell power to the grid during the day and buy it back at night if you can, using them as your battery. Perhaps this battery will change that, but with lead acid, it's hard to make them worth the cost.

Panels aren't that expensive, really. In many areas, with rebates, they can be near free. (some companies will even give them to you and split the power generated off your roof). It's a myth that solar is expensive...when compared to non-solar. Mine are paid for by bill savings already (8 years + in) so I'm saving money with them now, and my lifestyle has not suffered in the least. I have lights on if its dark, I watch TV all day, and use the computer all day, have tons of electric devices I use, and soon will power a pond, etc. I often think that my life is a much better example of how you can be 'green' without much change than Gore's. He really doesn't seem to walk the walk, but he can sure talk the talk.

When a lightbulb runs a DoS attack on your smart home, you have entered the realm of 21st century problems:

http://fusion.net/story/55026/this-guys-light-bulb-ddosed-his-entire-smart-house/

Changing the light bulb on a 1500' (450m) TV Tower has been added as a related post - related requested by Norsuelefantti on that post.

Changing the light bulb on a 1500' (450m) TV Tower has been added as a related post - related requested by Norsuelefantti on that post.

You mean these guys?

http://videosift.com/video/The-Light-Bulb-Conspiracy

That's true for a post industrial POV.
When machines already exist, and you just need energy to get things moving.

The energetic concerns of bygone eras were :
Whale oil, and later kerosene. For lighting. (note: back then, a day's work would only buy minutes of light)
Firewood, and later coal. For heating.
Manpower was the only energy user when it came to food production.

Early machines such as the combine were horse drawn, and did not need an energy architecture in place. (ignoring "food" as an energy)

Later machines used steam power, and hence could piggy back on the already existing wood/coal energy architecture (in turn stimulating it to grow larger).

Once the machinery industry was established, and the revenue generation was in place, it was possible to invest in improvements and alternative energies - ultimately leading up to oil burning machinery being common.

In any case, historically, industrialization drove the energy industry. (As it should, why have an industry to produce a product (energy) that isn't needed?)
And industrialization depended on a conducive society. A place where an inventor could own his invention, and could sell it, allowing things that were no more than ideas or garage trinkets to transition into products - which in turn place demand on other resources such as [forms of] energy.

In the past, there was nothing, so everything was build from the ground up. Industries grew out of nothing, they weren't established up front.
Modern times are different, where you have investment capital from entities who's entire existence revolves around investing, and you can front the establishment of an industry in the calculated hope of future demand.
(Granted, lords/aristocrats had a hand in industrial investment. Just not the kind or scale that you can see today.)

What you say applies a bit later, when industrialization was already well under way. Like when Thomas Edison used investment capital to fund power plants and an electrical network, in order to power the first [practical, but not 'first'] light bulb in New York.

-scheherazade

Well, helium is the product of fusion. However, even if we found some "cheap" or "cold" way to fuse hydrogen into helium, I dont think it would be cheap enough to produce useful amounts. Ie producing enough energy to keep a light bulb on for 300 years will produce 1 balloon full of helium. (http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/teachers/hera/spectroscopy/snr/fusion_calculation.html)

There used to be a magician at Knott's Berry Farm that demonstrated this trick pretty close to the audience and then explained that he had trained for years to create the pathway through his body for the sword to pass through.

The arm is particularly easy because of how the muscles are arranged around the bone. It passes right below the biceps. Not much going on in this particular, dare I say "easy" to pull off location of bloodless stabbiness.
I don't know if the Knott's magician is still there or not, but it was a "magic" show that explained the science behind older, more simplistic tricks like this.

Also included were lots of different types of electricity stunts (static electricity, powering light bulbs through people, etc.), which have fallen to the wayside with magicians because most people nowadays understand electricity and it's not as gut wrenching as this scar tissue build up dealio.

I upvoted for Ricky's reactions and David'd ridiculous goading, but the trick itself is le sigh.

The magician at Knott's had a fairly visible scar on both sides of his arm, as he likely performed the trick A LOT. Serious needle mark action. lol. Blaine probably rarely performs this trick and perhaps used other material, like make up, latex or some such material, glue, creams, etc.

Iss strong guy, soft wood, moving qi (chi), is not so amazink...My 3-yr-old cousin can tear phone book, so what? Grandma chew light bulb, not impressed much.

I've heard that the sounds of the inside of your head start to get to you after a while.

I wonder how the hanging light bulbs don't make any sound. I'd figure they'd have an almost inaudible electric hum.

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Minutephysics-The-Origin-of-Quantum-Mechanics

I'm surprised he didn't manage to fit in the light bulb research, although I guess that has been done.