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[salty]

The earth is flat!

God would have given us wings!

[salty]

Once again

But thanks for always trying so hard!

[salty]

[Bob F]

MSNBC covered it.

[Bob F]

I just invented a device that blocks the sun in the summer and not in the winter. I call it a deciduous tree.

[Existential Angst]

There is no debate there. The point was the tree's interference with solar panels.

If that is indeed unresolvable, then awnings -- or somesuch -- would allow the cake to be eaten with most of the frosting.

[HeyBub]

Well, yeah. His home is typical of folks who invent the Segway or the Pop-Tart. Bill Gates probably saves bags of money on air-conditioning by living inside a mountain.

[salty]

I guess you missed a few things, like the fact that part of getting off the grid involved figuring out ways to use LESS energy.

There is no single magic bullet. If you have that sort of tunnel vision, you are doomed to failure and extinction.

By using less energy, and producing more of it at the point of use, you CAN save money. You don't have to be Bill Gates to do it, either. I'm currently looking into installing geo-thermal in my primary residence. I will use photovoltaic solar to provide the electricity needed to operate the controls and pumps. So, I will be heating and cooling that house without any connection to the grid, and no fossil fuels. I'll be able to keep my house at any temp I want without worrying about how much energy I'm using to do it. I'll also be able to heat my hot tub for free, saving an additional $30-$40 a month. The initial installation will be expensive, but part of it will be offset by the boiler I won't be replacing. Since I won't be buying any oil, I'll break even in about 10 years at MOST. More likely about 7 years. After that, heat and air conditioning will be FREE other than maintenance, which is pretty minimal on these systems.

[Bob F]

What is your geo-thermo source?

[salty]

groundwater

[HeyBub]

>

Agreed. Some people, however, confuse the goals and the methods. For some, using less energy is the goal when energy usage is really the MEANS not the END. If you can accomplish the same goal using less energy, then good on you!

There are several ways to test the rationale of an hypothesis: One is to take the tactic to its extreme. If the goal is to find the cheapest on-going way to watch the Super Bowl on a 52" plasma TV, you might look at wind power or solar collectors. If the goal is to reduce energy consumption, then the extreme is the Unibomber's sharck or an Indian wigwam.

Regrettably, extremists have elevated reduced energy usage to the goal. You find this construct in slogans such as "Eliminate coal-fired power plants and we'll have cleaner air," implying that the elimination of coal-fired power plants is the goal and a subsidiary benefit is cleaner air. In my view, a better way of making a similar claim is "One way to get better air is to eliminate coal-fired power plants."

In reality, many environmental activists are closet Luddites who want us to devolve to a hunter-gatherer society. In the above example, they don't want cleaner air, they want our electricity consumption cut in half. Only then can we "get back to nature," maintain a simpler life-style, and lead lives that are short, painful, and brutish.

If you do undertake this salutary plan, it would be really neat to keep a journal of expenses and savings over time - starting at day one. After a few years, you should be able to divine a trend and the whole shebang would be excellent fodder for a magazine article or opinion piece.

I predict is will be a money pit into which you'll have to keep throwing coins called dear, but I'm willing to be persuaded otherwise by cold, hard, facts.

Let us know how the project goes.

[Existential Angst]

Yeah, not to mention that you rarely get the "real story" on these things, just the sexy news bytes. Proly this kamen guy's got a diesel generator tucked away somewhere.

And, most of this stuff is much more effectively done on new construction.

Assuming Salty is not confabulating (again), his eyeballs will likely explode once he gets all those conversion bills -- not to mention his hissy fits when the skies are cloudy for weeks.

7 year ROI??? Try 30. Minimal maintenance???? Heh, but another eyeball explosion.

Take something a simple as thermal windows. I've read summaries of studies that showed that most often these windows are at best a break even proposition, because the energy they save just about equals their replacement cost at the end of their lifetime. Unless you go the way of Anderson/Pella/Marvin, and then your breakeven point will proly be 40 years.

Take in-floor radiant heating. Great idear, right? Indeed, it is. Heh, what happens when one pops a leak?? Or if electric, a shorted element. Holy Bananas, your ROI on DAT repair bill will proly be 150 years!

Kinda like tryna beat a parking meter: It wasn't really free parking, as yer "cost" of that free park is actually the expected probability of a ticket multiplied by the value of the ticket. Over the long term, the house always wins.

In NYC, if you avoid meters or garage parking, the alternative is hauling around someone just to watch the car/truck -- which is in fact what commercial vehicles often do, as one ticket essentially pays for that person.

Iow, there is no escape from effing NYC parking costs, there is likely no escape from effing energy costs, with rare exceptions in the case of talented knowledgeable DIYers. And THEN the cost is likely boucou time/labor.

Which is likely moot, as proly few municipalities would even allow such a DIY effort -- sheeit, many places require a licensed plumber to change yer goddamm water heater -- and worse.

Not badmouthing solar/geo/Green-ness, or the nobility of such efforts, just saying that a lot has been mis-represented -- mostly via HGTV, whose often stunning presentations on this stuff omit some nitty-gritty realities, like the fact that many of these stunning installations are the playthings of wealthy architects et al, which are proly write-offs way beyond energy tax credits, ito professional displays of their work. Iow, written off as a marketing/bidniss expense, etc.

Salty does, miraculously, make a very good point, which was my point in the Solar/40 hp thread:

This stuff will only be viable if we re-think our lifestyles : endless A/C,

4 kW clothes driers, 250++ hp cars -- and our whole "disposable" zeitgeist. And the folly of running on a 2 hp treadmill -- goodgawd.....

All of which, given the momentum of our current cultural bent and the economic corners we have been painted into, will never cease -- until we wind up in work barracks -- solar powered, of course.

[salty]

That's not reality. That's unthinking drama queen hysteria on your part.