02-18-2004, 08:14 PM
http://www.autobahn.mb.ca/~het/energy/pv_faq.html
http://www.autobahn.mb.ca/~het/energy/energy.html
I am a bigger fan of passive heating and cooling. I think the energy consumption used in building the components of active systems (turbines, batteries and photovoltaics, motors to follow the sun) are usually not repaid within the life of the systems. The PV cells themselves will payback in about 4 years, but once you start needing to store your energy (for say after dark, or winter, or long periods of very cloudy weather) then the equations go south. For heating you can do nearly as much good by putting in some really nifty insulated southern facing windows shining on a large heat absorbing slab, or by using low energy pumps to move solar heated water in the summer into large subterranean "heat vats" for reclaimation in the winter.
http://www.autobahn.mb.ca/~het/energy/energy.html
I am a bigger fan of passive heating and cooling. I think the energy consumption used in building the components of active systems (turbines, batteries and photovoltaics, motors to follow the sun) are usually not repaid within the life of the systems. The PV cells themselves will payback in about 4 years, but once you start needing to store your energy (for say after dark, or winter, or long periods of very cloudy weather) then the equations go south. For heating you can do nearly as much good by putting in some really nifty insulated southern facing windows shining on a large heat absorbing slab, or by using low energy pumps to move solar heated water in the summer into large subterranean "heat vats" for reclaimation in the winter.
”There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." - Hamlet (1.5.167-8), Hamlet to Horatio.
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