Quote from: squatz1 on October 10, 2018, 02:11:28 AM

Sorry for taking some time to respond to some of the messages back, kinda miss this thread and have been away from the from the forum for a little.

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What happens if you use the free energy from the solar panels on your house? That seems to me to be more efficient than oil-powered cars and certainly cheaper (assuming you don't but a ridiculously expensive electric car that will take you a lifetime to recoup the costs of).

I mean, solar panels aren't free and shouldn't be thought of as producing 'free energy' the energy is only free once your investment (which is rather large to get these installed) is paid off. Until that is done, you should do some calculations to see how much you invested to put those up, maintain, etc.

But I do see your point, though people fall into this trap of thinking that energy is free if it's solar -- while it's not. You without a doubt reduce costs after them being paid back after 30 yrs (depending on financial situation, of course) but there's no such thing as instant free / free lunch.

We can certainly argue over the definition of free, but I would say if I plant some apple trees and they give me fruit for nothing then I would say those apples are free even if I had to purchase the seeds and look after them as saplings initially. Sometimes you need to invest a little money into something that bears fruit but after that I would say it's free. The initial cost of fitting the solar panels will soon enough pay for themselves with the money you are saving and once they're paid off I would then say that energy is free so sometimes you've got to spend money to save money.