Climate Change

[SPuDS]

Good grief you are actually serious with this crap. All right then, on the same idiotic principles you are espousing to stand against nuclear, I stand against hydro-electricity. "something bad happened due to old technology and bad planning" - therefore all future development must stop forever. Good night, this is why we end up getting suckered into stupid wind power projects and blowing billions wastefully and needlessly, we let our irrational fears over-ride any sort of good sense.

 

Which part of the article wasn't factual?  There is no opinion or bias there.  To deny it is to deny reality.  Nuclear power is dangerous.

Hey did you also know that living causes death? The more you know..

[SPuDS]

Simply put, Japan made their disaster 1,000,000 x worse by not owning up to their mistakes AND being so..... Japanese in their honour code. If they would have just admitted defeat, called in the help, handled it then we wouldn't still be talking about how much radioactive crap spewed forth from their moronic attempts to keep contaminated water (and crippled reactor... Or is it reactors at is point?) at bay...

Stupid Japanese honour code... Shouldn't all of the nuclear leadership in Japan just committed seppuku and their replacements fixed then damn thing properly??

[MOBomberFan]

 

 

Thanks for the heads up. Of all of the green options we're looking into, geo-thermal is certainly one we are willing to budge on. It's pretty easy to do for people on huge lots, but with a relatively smaller city lot the upfront cost is through the roof. We are fortunate in Manitoba to have such cheap electricity, but Manitoba hydro is also pushing people to use less... not because it's 'green' but because they can turn around and sell it to the states for a lot more than they sell it to me. Hence the solar panels. Even if they only generate enough power to run my fridge and stove, they pay for themselves on a long enough timeline.

 

 

As for selling the house... geo-thermal or not... if I were to build this dream house, it's the house I plan to retire in!

 

 

Do they really?

 

 

 

with an economic life of about 25 years (http://info.cat.org.uk/questions/pv/life-expectancy-solar-PV-panels) do they really save you any money when you factor in the up front and ongoing maintenance costs?

 

In fact they do (or can/should). Barring a catastrophe involving damage to the panels or a sudden drop in average peak hours of sunlight (approx 3.5 hours/day) a 100sq ft panel system costing less than $11,000 (before rebates) will pay for itself in 15 years. If it lives to be 25 then 10 years of power is gravy. Add in all the crazy rebates (upwards of 30%) and it would pay for itself even faster with a reduced upfront cost.

 

Different households have different power consumption needs. The setup described above would eliminate my household reliance on hydro-electricity with a little energy to spare. However, this setup is nowhere near capable of heating my home. As is, I would never be able to give up natural gas. Now, give me an ICF home with a greenroof (naturally cooling in the summer, naturally insulating in the winter) and the heating costs come way down - within striking distance of being able to heat your home with electricity, or at least far less gas.

 

Someone mentioned that we are not currently paying the real cost of a solar panel, or something to that effect. The same can be said for many things. Raj Patel wrote a very interesting book called 'The Value of Nothing' where he explores the idea of including the social/environmental costs in the price-tag of many things we take for granted. Coffee would be a drink exclusively for the rich. Most of us wouldn't be able to eat exotic fruits or vegetables. Is the environmental impact of every oil spill factored in the cost of plastics or gasoline? Is the human cost of mining for cassiterite in the Congo included in the price of every cell phone or circuit board? I think not.