Re: Homesteading, Living Off Grid, and Other Alternative Living
Didn't ask him about that! My dad couldn't give a stuff about the environment and that was kinda my point... 'free' renewable energy can just lead to over-consumption of said energy, which I think misses the point of 'free' renewable energy. At least for those of us who actually care about our consumption... my dad just sees that he doesn't have to pay for his electricity and he's happy.
My mum and my stepdad are the ones who run the self-sufficiency and eco-aware systems.
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This is very interesting... from the article I gather that only some manufacturers have this problem? So it would depend on who you bought from as to what the impact of this would be.
But on the flip side of that, how does it compare with the impact of current electricity providers? I've never looked into it in depth, but solar power is an alternative to traditional fossil fuel derived electricity, which has it's own negative environmental impact. Are we really just looking at the lesser of two evils here? Or the lesser of... four or five evils when you factor in other alternatives.
Of course, her in Australia most solar systems actually just feed energy back into the grid - your house isn't wired directly into the panels unless you specifically have that done (which is costly and only really viable if you build a new house designed to draw straight from the panels) - you draw energy off the traditional grid, and feed energy back in, thus negating your costs and reducing the amount of energy that the electricity companies draw from fossil fuel sources.
In Australia, some of our electricity companies are also starting to draw power from wind farms as an alternative, which you can support via who you have your account with. So it becomes a complex decision when you scratch under the surface.
Didn't ask him about that! My dad couldn't give a stuff about the environment and that was kinda my point... 'free' renewable energy can just lead to over-consumption of said energy, which I think misses the point of 'free' renewable energy. At least for those of us who actually care about our consumption... my dad just sees that he doesn't have to pay for his electricity and he's happy.
My mum and my stepdad are the ones who run the self-sufficiency and eco-aware systems.
- - - Updated - - -
Originally posted by Luce
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But on the flip side of that, how does it compare with the impact of current electricity providers? I've never looked into it in depth, but solar power is an alternative to traditional fossil fuel derived electricity, which has it's own negative environmental impact. Are we really just looking at the lesser of two evils here? Or the lesser of... four or five evils when you factor in other alternatives.
Of course, her in Australia most solar systems actually just feed energy back into the grid - your house isn't wired directly into the panels unless you specifically have that done (which is costly and only really viable if you build a new house designed to draw straight from the panels) - you draw energy off the traditional grid, and feed energy back in, thus negating your costs and reducing the amount of energy that the electricity companies draw from fossil fuel sources.
In Australia, some of our electricity companies are also starting to draw power from wind farms as an alternative, which you can support via who you have your account with. So it becomes a complex decision when you scratch under the surface.
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