PURPA allows for the sale of renewable energy through the distribution grid. Investor Owned Utilities usually own the distribution grid but it comes with heavy public regulation. PURPA has no subsidies but other subsidies are available. Connections are routine like with rooftop solar.
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The answer to your question IS out there Ken. We actually did used to live that way. The reasons lie in the causes of the agricultural depression of 1925. You can find some of the answers in The Creature from Jekyl Island, by Griffin.
Rindert
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Rindert, you are right, and a friend gave me The Creature from Jekyl island and it was a good read. I guess that I am hopeful that with things like the internet and AI our culture can change. My questions are mostly rhetorical, pushing for change. Every time I read your posts, I have a smile on my face remembering my time in Colorado. Kent
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Utilities wouldnât allow any alternative energy onto the grid, and we had the 1970s energy crisis. They enacted PURPA to allow people to sell their excess energy back on the grid up to like 1% of the net generation of the utility to help stimulate growth of alternative fuel sources.
Prior to that starting in the 1930-40s when they electrified the US. They didnât allow self-generation because of profit margins. The utility had to run a wire to your house and the cost is shared among all the customers and the utility. So if they were running a wire to your house, but you were running your meter backwards, it cost them money but they werenât making any. And this is especially true when rural folks had the belts and engines to do household things like laundry and such. It isnât that hard to run a motor backward. 
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Which I think means that politicians used the utilitiesâ money to purchase votes. It is also useful to note that government regulation didnât do a lot to prevent the energy crisis. PURPA âallowedâ people to sell their energy back onto the grid. The difficulty is that the government didnât own the grid which it âallowedâ people to use. A little like having the government allow your neighbor to use your driveway or lawnmower.
Yeah, thatâs a rough business model.
I donât think a Maytag engine for your washing machine bothered the utilities as much as maintaining distribution equipment and acting as a battery without being paid. It seems right to negotiate terms for grid-tied systems, but the agreements that used to favor the consumer/generator now mainly benefit the utilities. Itâs hard to determine fairness in a complicated system. Especially when you rely on the government to determine whatâs fair.
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The government wanted electric distribution across the US. They did similar with phone access, road access, etc. I donât think they are bad examples of public projects. The government subsidizes the power lines so the government helped pay for the lawnmower, and they regulate itâs use for things like uptime.
The energy crisis was happening when PURPA was public. It had to do with OPEC oil embargo. All of which was discussed by politicians on how to avoid, but couldnât get enough public support until gas prices quadrupled in like 3 months. It was really the start of all the fuel efficiency stuff like electronics on vehicles as well as to reduce oil use. The main problem for the auto industry was they also added the safety standards. Safety meant bigger tougher frames, and fuel economy means lighter vehicles. It was a disaster for the auto industry especially within the proposed timelines.
Even today people who lived through it, still donât get the need to change or the decades long timelines needed to avoid issues. Purpa wasnât going to have an immediate effect, we didnât have the cost effective technology.
The Maytag motors, did a couple of things, first is they island when the grid goes down, there is an issue with lineworkers and having voltage on the line from a generator. and they generators can create ripples or harmonics in the ac waveform due to bad bearings and such. Then also the money. And of course people were stealing it because they didnât want to pay for it, and of course similar to today where people donât disconnect the main before plugging the generator in, people donât know what they are doing and it breaks stuff for the utility.
It isnât nearly as simple as most talking heads try to make it sound.
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Thanks for the book recommendation Rindert and Kent.
One I missed reading. Iâll buy a copy.
In vein with this and other directions now being brought out Iâll add my personal beliefs of in the USA what are the root causes of excessive consumerism: the concentrated-in of resources; the the expensive in all ways, then distributing out of manufactured goods and foods and âvalue addedâ products.
Our Wars.
Our need to mass supply for these wars.
And then the war ended: with the ramp-ed up overproduction; the âneedâ to force markets for that overproduction.
For the modern era it began here USA with our four year long American Civil War.
Much mass materials and long term foods needed to be supplied. Developments in complexity not just encouraged but prize pulled forwards in GovâMint contracts.
Actually the same-same forced developments in Europe at the same time frame. Especially in the not-colonial resources sucking-in countries of Germany; Austria; Italy. Add in modernizing far east Japan.
Here the GovâMint lands granting away of lands made the transcontinental railroad happen.
The private financed and owned railroads competed furiously for beyond survival but for âmarketâ exclusivity and monopoly. Always at the expense of American family life.
American severe disruption of foods producing local down at the local level. It began with us ramping up for storable, transportable, foods supply to the European war 1914-1918. We never eased back to pre-WW I local produced; local supplied and consumed here in all things.
There you go. Oversupply of things, or populations always leads to a crash-collapse. Stop. Reset. Re-build.
Many scenes tried here 1929 to 1939. From ignore-it; and let it sort itsself out âby natural marketsâ; to massive Federal GovâMint reaching into everyoneâs lives with printed moneys stimulus infuses. Borrow from the future and then run ahead like hell, over balanced, always at the cusp of falling down.
But the truth is; it was becoming once again the manufactured materials and foods supplier to another, what became larger, nations alliances under War is what ramped up the speed of our American culture. With massive population shifts for needed of workers in expanded and new manufacturing plants. Engineering development centers.
Canât have these people spending hours away tending their own home gardens; milking their own cow or goats.
So supply them with these needs, and others. Entertainments too.
Fellows this in not out of history books, but carved in the life stories and even the bodies of the last three generations in my four family branches.
We as individuals can obviously from the DOW highlighted home-grown accomplishments do much to change for ourselves and our immediate families.
Hell . . . effectively shift change by even one degree my extended families??? Fail. Fail. Fail.
Yep. Me too. I have negotiated sold my body; my mind; my creativity too.
But for 60 years I have adamantly refused to whore myself out to materials and entertainments feed those who choose a âdowntownâ, âRackâem; Packâem; Stackâemâ Sheeple lifestyle.
Become a sheeple myself salving away at my own insect-like specialty with the expectation the tribe; the greater-good; will supply all of my actual daily needs.
Phillip all with intelligence must learn to control; harness; and direct our inteligneces to be our life tools. Not different than harnessing our sexuality. Our craving for fats and salts that are genetically wired-in to us.
To not do these things; and fail to avoid making $'s for otherâs suppling addictions; and a person will live miserably.
Steve Unruh
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Sean,
I appreciate your level-headed, common sense, informed view of reality, expressed here and other posts in the past, I have noticed. I do not trust the suspiciousâconspiracy theory mentality I see expressed so much today, often from those who feed constantly on what they like to see on the internet which Google and others help to feed to them. It is hard to know what is the truth, with so much information coming at us from all kinds of sources. Our imagination and curiosity sometimes fills in the blanks and can easily end up with wrong conclusions. But how do you know for sure???
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The legend that was handed down to me says that it was the Dutch war of independence; the Eighty Years War, that did that. Buy the time the American Civil War came around the Dutch community in New York City (formerly called New Amsterdam) knew exactly what to do.
Rindert
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Yes. Probably true.
I was trying to narrow down to the developed coal; then petroleum energy intensive modern era of Phillips topic(s).
IMHO; Tech does not; and never will solve the real roots of human unhappinesses.
The seeming needs to take made bricks and building stones and defy angle of repose dynamics. Slaving thousands to drive this needs.
The Great Wall of China . . . millions sole purpose enslaved.
The âGreat Shipsâ developed and Huge resources gobbling that have been and are being built.
The celebration wedding cake that âseemsâ to develop a life of itâs own layered up higher and higher.
Extreme body outwards changing enhancements surgeries.
We each one of us has the responsibility to not inflict our own easy-think excessives onto others.
Chemistry is easy. Making powers and electricity is easy.
Knowing yourself. Knowing others . . . now that is hard.
If you cannot understand the social and cultural aspects of all endeavors; you do not a have a prayer in hell of controlling outcomes. Outcomes that will then enslave you. Outcomes that will then evolve you to becoming the addictions driver and supplier. You, becoming the cultural whipping overseer.
Steve Unruh
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Yup. And when I was 18 I up and left that, forced upon me position, and joined the USMC, and was really free.
Rindert
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It is really easy to jump to conclusions because you missed something or donât understand the big picture, in some cases no one actually knows.
A good conspiracy theory has some truth to it. In a way it is similar to Walmart pricing schemes. The average consumer knows the prices of about 8 items they normally buy. If walmart is cheaper with all those items, the consumer will easily believe walmart has the best prices for everything, even though they dont. The more grains of truth to the conspiracy theory, the easier it is to believe.
For Energy, specifically the US, the economy tanks when oil prices shoot up. It has happened multiple times, it was a concern with the eisenhower freeway system.
Wrong or Right, decisions have been made, many times you run into circular arguments, and whataboutisms. The list is long and tangled, especially when you start realizing it is a global issue and money. Then you get to the repercussions of any change, etc. It makes your head hurt. It is simply easier not to think about it, and roll with a single talking point you are familiar with, rather then try and address the whole of the problem. In a way, we just tried to start to solve part of the problem.
Then there is taking it too far and too fast to push a completely different political agenda which is what the far left is doing.
This isnât even the -worst- issue, energy makes my head hurt, but it is a lot less complicated then say healthcare.
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Here is a condensed video of the subject, as delivered by the author:
The Creature From Jekyll Island (by G. Edward Griffin)
I did not know of this until today. 
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Very condensed. The book goes into the question âWhat is money?â And Griffin doesnât necessarily say there is a conspiracy, just that most of us donât know how our monetary system works, so we get caught in weird situations usually of our own making. But HEY, if you want turn it into a conspiracy theory who am I to say you are wrong. My advice: stay out of crazy town.
Rindert
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Ok. Another one to read then.
This is another one that explanes clearly the role of central banks.
Personally I find it very interesting what bitcoin is bringing to society and economics. No answers just questions.
The same with AI.
Sorry for blabering.
Thanks Mr Steve for the honest answers.
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I find it very interesting the similarities in bitcoin enthusiasts and woodgas enthusiasts, and yet there is very little overlap. If woodgas is DIY freedom fuel, bitcoin is DIY freedom money. But Iâll leave that topic for another time.
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You are correct. Very shortly. Because of the huge US trade deficit (really the Current Account number is the one you want), the US props up the global economy. In order to replace the money leaving the economy, the government deficit spends. They do it in two ways, the first is budget, the second is war (which bypasses the budget).
Because the US is propping up other economies, when other economies are failing, they start wars to get the US involved so we spend money, or they start jacking around with prices for commodities which in turn kills the US economy requiring us to deficit spend.
Since we are trying to balance the budget, we have to balance the trade deficit, now the whole talk about monetary systems and Global economy is on the table because it removes the cash cow of the US deficit spending. You have 50 years of economists basing their assumptions on the US deficit spending.
regardless of the motivation (or conspiracy), the easiest thing to do is to use propaganda in the US to try to get us to keep deficit spending.
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Maybe a hint to get some PURPA money AND use gasification from biomass ( wood)
Scenario based on first hand situation:
My working place have solar installed 2 megawatts/Hr. , Daily yield ( at best sunny day ) about 9 Megawatts.
9 megawatts is 18% from the installed capacity, however at night the sun donât shine, and the solar panels never get 100% for diverse reasons.
Since the solar system is grid tied and other solar plants as wellâŚ
Why not using biomass / gasifier / generators feeding in at the solar inverters ( dc voltage ) ?
Gas from landfill, gas from biogas installations, mixed with woodgas⌠talking about a green energy projectâŚ
I am running setup in very small scale, AND recycle the heat from exhaust into useable process heat.
Fuel efficiency 82%
Now awaiting governmental approval to upscale.
Biomass is considered the best way to achieve low emissions, everywhere there is coming a taxation on emissions, based on what fuel used.
Present this solution to PURPA, i think they will pay you for the energy fed in the existing solar systemsâŚ
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Meanwhile, no cheaper way ( depends each different personal lifestyle/circumstance ) than using woodâŚ
The old farmers here, get the scrap wood from their fields before getting home, use that for cookingâŚ
Yeah,⌠no need for heating here, but, when its cold, use scrap woodâŚ
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Hi Iâm open to everything so I say. I have three or four projects going on at once.
Recharge batteries with chemicals - lots of chlorine. Gasifiers make chlorine with heat and DC.
Biodigestion in boxes with wood gas feed
55 gallon drum listers. Listers arenât fragile like combustion engines.
WGS reactor with activated charcoal
Wood cooking box
Iâm open to using gasification but I get turned off from engines because they come with lots of details. You need a 100 hp engine to start and that has to charge batteries. The advice says to use good wood but I have tons of wood slag.
The message I get is to use Honda multi fuel engines at $6000 for 10HP.
Show me a 100/kw gasifier engine/ generator Ill throw some money at you
If you have a solar field look at chemical reset of lead acid batteries. I try to just do a flush but it looks like one plate of the cell has to be removed to add PbO2. That is a crew has to remove one plate per cell like 6x6â with a crane for chemical treatment. HCl cleans the plates and Acetate adds PBO2. You get PbCl2. Its worth more money than lead .
Good luck!
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