Post your ideas for an environmentally friendly house. :-)

[obsidian]

Idea: residential solar and rainwater powered pot factory, saves people gas so they don't have to drive out to meet their dealer.

[Ryoki]

Well if I was rich, I'd have a lot of solar panels and still be hooked up to the grid so they buy the extra power that the panels generate.

They're experimenting with this in Freiburg, germany. I read something about it a while ago, they have part of the city covered in solar panels that feed directly into the grid and also 50 or so energy-plus houses, that also feed their surplus energy into the grid. Pretty nifty.

Was only able to find this shitty link though: http://www.solarregion.freiburg.de/sola ... r_city.php

I don't understand why we aren't doing this sort of thing on a massive scale everywhere, it would fix the economy and hopefully the planet if we did.

[shadd_]

whats the carbon footprint of a solar panel? does input equal output?

solar power has its place, but i'm still concerned with the toxicity of their components. super strict guidelines need to be put in place now regarding disposal/recycling.

i would hate to see what kind of mess we would create if solar panels become extremely common and are tossed into landfills.

in ontario we've been able to generate our own power and sell excess back into the grid for years. unfortunately being a large manufacturing province, solar power is kind of moot here due to massive amounts of power needed for production of goods.

imo, nuclear generation of some form is needed to power the planet.

[chopov]

Well if I was rich, I'd have a lot of solar panels and still be hooked up to the grid so they buy the extra power that the panels generate.

They're experimenting with this in Freiburg, germany. I read something about it a while ago, they have part of the city covered in solar panels that feed directly into the grid and also 50 or so energy-plus houses, that also feed their surplus energy into the grid. Pretty nifty.

Was only able to find this shitty link though: http://www.solarregion.freiburg.de/sola ... r_city.php

I don't understand why we aren't doing this sort of thing on a massive scale everywhere, it would fix the economy and hopefully the planet if we did.

In Germany if you have solar panels on your roof, you have to feed all the electricity you generate into the grid., not only the surplus. But you get paid a higher price for every kWh than you have to pay for electricity from the grid (due to subventions by our gouvernement). Even if you'd produce more than you'd need for your own home, you are not allowed to disconnect from the grid.

[...]I've also been looking into vegetable oil powered vehicles or LPG, especially after the rise in fuel costs.

The increased use of vegetable oil for gas/power generation is one of the causes for the worldwide explosion of food prices. Instead of generating food for their own people in lots of 3rd world countries more and more agricultural land is used for vegetable oil. Just because it yields more profit. That's everything else but eco-friendly...

My suggestions:
-good insulation hand in hand with just as good insulating window/door frames and panes
-a house design which proves as much shadowing as possible in hot summer esp. for the windows and at the same time as much as possible use of passive solar energy in winter (solar radiation into the house).
-use of rain water
-use of recycleable building materials
-don't tilt windows over hours/days to air your house/flat. Open windows wide for a short time instead. Changes the air inside but prevents the walls etc. from cooling down.
-never use electricity for heating purposes (worst efficiency factor ever)
-don't use dryers, use a clothesline instead
-use switchable connecting block so you can really switch off electrical devices (my PC for example uses together with monitor and printer etc. over 80 W ! In standby mode!).
-...
-..

[MKJ]

Well if I was rich, I'd have a lot of solar panels and still be hooked up to the grid so they buy the extra power that the panels generate.

They're experimenting with this in Freiburg, germany. I read something about it a while ago, they have part of the city covered in solar panels that feed directly into the grid and also 50 or so energy-plus houses, that also feed their surplus energy into the grid. Pretty nifty.

Was only able to find this shitty link though: http://www.solarregion.freiburg.de/sola ... r_city.php

I don't understand why we aren't doing this sort of thing on a massive scale everywhere, it would fix the economy and hopefully the planet if we did.

we do this in dutcheeland too sir. my mother in law has this.
oddly enough the gov decided not to finance people who do this anymore and its largely expensive.
step backward for dutcheeland

[Don Carlos]

http://www.channel4.com/4homes/on-tv/gr ... 8_p_1.html

Have a look at this and see if you can find it on Youtube or something...it is very cool

[Don Carlos]

http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet ... s&gifs=yes

Also Slow-Glass FTW

This could be the craziest thing ever invented - imagine being able to slow light down and then having a 6 foot "window" for the light to travel through. We could see what we did 6 months ago by looking at the window (as long as we did something in front of the window of course)

Crazy shit

[Tsakali]

or you could put a camera there!

so what is the marketable function of this slow-glass?

not sure exactly what it's capabilities are but I guess if it could be time controlled, you could capture daylight, and use it at night for natural light

[Doombrain]

wow

[Don Carlos]

or you could put a camera there!

so what is the marketable function of this slow-glass?

not sure exactly what it's capabilities are but I guess if it could be time controlled, you could capture daylight, and use it at night for natural light

Yeah that is exactly right.

Also cameras are so 20th centuary

[werldhed]

whats the carbon footprint of a solar panel? does input equal output?

solar power has its place, but i'm still concerned with the toxicity of their components. super strict guidelines need to be put in place now regarding disposal/recycling.

i would hate to see what kind of mess we would create if solar panels become extremely common and are tossed into landfills.

in ontario we've been able to generate our own power and sell excess back into the grid for years. unfortunately being a large manufacturing province, solar power is kind of moot here due to massive amounts of power needed for production of goods.

imo, nuclear generation of some form is needed to power the planet.

I think a better utilization of solar power is simply as passive heating, and not necessarily for electricity production. If your house is designed well you can use sunlight to control your home's temp without using electricity. Then, if possible, you can augment your actual electricity uses by other means; or use smaller solar panels than you otherwise would.

Check out the Earthships. They take this sort of approach.

They also have a lot of other good ideas, like reusing old tires as structural materials.

[shadd_]

Check out the Earthships. They take this sort of approach.

They also have a lot of other good ideas, like reusing old tires as structural materials.

haha yeah those are cool. in some ways they are a step back in time. throughout history man has used natural structures to augment dwellings. there are still a few old homes built into hillsides around thunder bay area.

air and ground source heat pumps are gaining popularity in my area(mostly the latter). people that have them seem to like them.

http://www.newfoundlandpower.com/Managi ... tions.aspx