If you only had electricity for 12 hours a day

[arcadian]

But you could choose the 12 hours, which 12 hours and how would you choose? Has to be in one 12 hour block.

[PBS Poll-435]

1. 12-12

[cliffordu]

2. bwahA AHAHAHA AHAH AHAHA HA A

Nicely played....

[Fumesucker]

3. Depends on the time of year..

And whether I'm using electricity for heat..

In the Summer, about 12 noon to 12 midnight..

In the Winter about 6 pm to 6 am if I'm using electricity for heat.

[rrneck]

4. When it's dark. nt

[Curmudgeoness]

5. Why does it have to be in one block? But if I must, and since I work,

I would do 7 am to 7 pm. You would think when it is dark is a good idea, until you think about your refrigerator and heat (electric or gas since you need electricity for the fan in gas heat). Living through an 8 day electricity outage during a hurricane, this was all that really really mattered.

[notadmblnd]

6. noon to midnight

[Warpy]

7. 5 PM to 5 AM in summer

I can't sleep while I'm sweltering and this place gets sweltering around 5 PM. I leave the evaporative cooler fan on overnight and shut it off early in the AM to keep it cool most of the day. With no juice during the day, I'd probably heave my bulk out of this computer chair and get more constructive things done.

In the winter, it would be 10AM to 10 PM. At 10 PM, I'd be ready to dive beneath the quilt for a few hours of reading with a head lamp. Days would be spent with the place warm, getting things done.

12 hours a day of electricity would be little hardship if I got to choose the hours and could vary them according to the season. If not, it would be a total pain in the ass.

[Possumpoint]

11. Agreed

But I would supplement the balance of time with the four generators I have. Don't use them for heat or A/C but they handle the refrigerators, freezer and TV's.

[stray cat]

8. 7pm to 7 AM at home. I spend the rest of the day at work

[noamnety]

9. It wouldn't matter to me.

I had a 6 month spell without any electricity.

Since then, when we have short (a few days) power outages it doesn't much phase me - even more now that I'm diversified power-wise, with a gas stove and running water from the city.

[pitohui]

10. in practice you only get 2 hrs a day...but given, day and early evening

in the real world where electricity only exists x number of hours of day, i found x to be 2 hrs, not 12 hrs, and they gave you the two hours so that you can shower, etc. before dinner (and presumably also so that dinner could be cooked rather than cold)

but say you did get 12 hrs i guess it would have to be day/early evening for various practical reasons

oh wait, i just thought of this, england in the early 1980s, no heat at night in winter, but it was presumed you could just get under the covers, it was hell getting up in the frozen cold morning tho! ha ha, but it was do-able

[Laelth]

12. If you only had power 12 hours a day ...

... you'd have solar power.

If you only had power occasionally, you'd have wind power.

Neither of them work. People want power 24/7. Oh, I know it makes people feel good to advocate for these, but they are not now, nor will they ever be, enough to replace fossil fuel power. Another solution is needed.

:dem:

-Laelth

[Warpy]

13. There are prototype closed solar/fuel cell systems

that are now up and running. Solar PVC powers the house during the day, with the overage going to hydrolysis. At night, the oxygen and hydrogen pass through a fuel cell and power the house. It's an ingenious system that eliminates the weak link for solar power, the usual battery storage.

The main engineering problem here is the need for the fuel cell, about the size of a garden shed. In addition, fuel cells run most efficiently when they're both large and hot. If this system is scaled up and made practical, then homes will have solar PVCs covering their roofs and the hydrolysis setups and fuel cells will run several homes, buildings, or blocks.

No one solution is going to work for everybody 100% of the time. Lazy thinking is what makes people think that "only" solar or "only" wind will have to solve our energy needs. The truth is that it's going to be a patchwork system that harvests the energy that's all around us. That's the problem of the future, not finding a one on one replacement for fossil fuels.