Future "Gas" Station

Pictured is Mini-E #183 “Sungas,” and 6 Sunpower 230W Solar Panels.

If we can still use the term "horsepower," we can still use the term “gas station,” although energy station would be a much better description.

I am very excited to be driving an electric car, what I am even more excited about is the potential in the future for many or most Americans to be able to generate their own “gas” at home via wind or solar.

Our future as a country is a zero emission energy source, zero emission homes and a zero emission transportation fleet, a clean energy future that is both wealth generating and less polluting than refined crude oil or natural gas.

Here’s what that future looks like.

These six Sunpower solar panels provide the energy required to drive my electric car 12,000 miles a year.

These six solar panels will replace 12,000 gallons of gas during the next 25 years of driving, and will continue producing energy beyond the 25 year warranty period.

These six panels will provide a total fixed cost of “Gas” of 50 cents a gallon for the next 25 years with no escalation in price.

These six panels cost the same as 3.5 years of purchasing gas for your car.

These six panels produce no emissions generating electricity, those 12,000 gallons of refined crude oil, generate emissions from the extraction, transport, refining and delivery of the gas.

These six panels sitting on an existing roof, silently manufacture and convey electricity to the car in the garage 50 feet away.

Those 12,000 gallons of refined crude oil, from the ground are conveyed from thousands of miles away, the pipeline to carry it to the port, to carry it to the tanker, to carry it across oceans to the refinery, to carry it to the fuel truck, to carry it to the station, to carry it to the pump, to carry it to a car. A conveyance system of several thousand miles, a conveyance system of our planet to our next generation that is more polluted, more toxic and more barren of natural resources.

After 2500 miles of driving Mini-E #183, 70% freeway, 30% city, the car is averaging 3.5 miles per kwh. My annual driving is approximately 12,000 miles which will require 3425Kwh of energy.

These six panels total a 1.38 kw solar p.v. system. This size system generates 2200 kwh of energy per year. This generation during the peak period (32cents kwh) would equal the cost for the 4400kw off peak charging (16cents kwh) greatly exceeding the annual usage of the electric car.

Solar charging provides the additional benefits of generation at peak times, thus reducing the need of costly peaker plants, and charging in the middle of the night when electricity is still being generated in existing power plants, but is wasted because it is not used or stored.

Imagine if “Sun Gas” could be the fuel of the future for our homes and cars. It can be, it is and it’s great.

Living and driving on sunshine.

Cheers

Peder