Off-grid "solar" house has coal bin and propane generator.

http://www.adirondackcountryhomes.com/RE0435.htm



Why am I, um, not surprised?

It's the fossilized remains of large green plants, after all.

:crazy:

Solar housing and more -----> http://earthship.com/">Earthship Biotecture

if you get too many winter storms. There should always be backup like kerosene lanterns, LED head lamps, and solid fuel of some type for heat.

Coal is just plain nasty, though. I'd have gone with wood or pellets. Using propane for the generator isn't quite as nasty as using gasoline and I'll lay odds that is also what cooks their food and heats their water in the dead of winter.

and who is currently required to run a generator part of the time, I concur.

It would be suicide not to have back-up generation capabilities when you go off-grid. Most PV systems are grid tied which means that they use the local electrical grid as there back-up system, but if the grid goes down, the inverter shuts down so that the system is not back-feeding onto the grid risking the lives of the linemen trying to fix the down lines. Most grid-tie systems do not have a back-up battery bank because it adds up to 25% ($8,000 to $20,000) to the cost of the system. That means that most solar homes use some form of fossil fuel as a back-up.

And unless you are a trained PV installer, or an electrical engineer, if the system malfunctions, your up shits creek until someone can get to you.

Going solar is all about the reduction of your footprint. Short of spending a million plus on a geo-thermal steam generator, or building it from recycled beer bottles, a true zero-footprint home is a pipe dream. Even then, just the act of constructing one has it's own impact.

energy is to increase the use of distributed "wildcat" coal and other dangerous fossil fuels.

This sort of thing kills, according to the World Health Organization, about 1.5 million people a year.

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs292/en/index.html

"More than half of the world’s population rely on dung, wood, crop waste or coal to meet their most basic energy needs. Cooking and heating with such solid fuels on open fires or stoves without chimneys leads to indoor air pollution. This indoor smoke contains a range of health-damaging pollutants including small soot or dust particles that are able to penetrate deep into the lungs. In poorly ventilated dwellings, indoor smoke can exceed acceptable levels for small particles in outdoor air 100-fold. Exposure is particularly high among women and children, who spend the most time near the domestic hearth. Every year, indoor air pollution is responsible for the death of 1.6 million people - that's one death every 20 second"

and its showing you to be a less than truth teller.

Most of those deaths are due to indoor pollution due to piss poor indoor cooking stoves and open fires

:grr:

Where, exactly, do you think the coal is being burned, genius?

Every single anti-nuke is an apologist for dangerous fossil fuels, air pollution and death, no exceptions. The obvious part is that their apologetics consists entirely of ignorance.

QED.

Are you advocating that rural people install mini-nukes in their huts to replace the dung burning stoves?

BTW, how much fossil fuel is involved with mining and processing uranium? Are there any other environmental impacts involved with mining and processing uranium?

You seen what kind of a response I got when I pointed out that its not our coal plants killing all these people he likes to throw in our faces when in reality its the open fires and poorly designed stoves in their huts thats killing them. Whatever answer you get from there will be so twisted as to be meaningless as my earlier post and the reply I got so clearly pointed out.

To answer your question I've seen it posted here that at best from the mining of the ore to the dealing with the waste afterwards nuclear is at best a few points better than burning coal directly for producing our electrical energy. As it is now nuclear waste is only piling up and not going anywhere

paint with a broad brush much?

Let me ask you, where do you get your power from?

Solar isn't 'all about' reducing the size of your footprint, it's being independent from the grid and the monthly bill.
To say that 'most' PV systems are grid tied is not true, that $8k as a minimum for a battery bank, not true and the kicker:

"And unless you are a trained PV installer, or an electrical engineer, if the system malfunctions, your up shits creek until someone can get to you."

Really?

I have built three systems from the ground up and assisted in the design of 11 more, not one has failed, not one requires an engineer or a trained PV installer.
Thats just silly. I am a hack, self taught from the ground up, no degree, no nothing. Just a bucket full of common sense.

I read through the ad for this home and I would have done exactly the same thing only adding four more panels that the 12 he has. His system from the panels on is overbuilt by half. The back up generator is way overkill too, by a few thousand watts but if he had the money, why not? (that generator was $12k) Every appliance in the home is state of the art, from his custom Sunfrost to the propane heater.
His set up looks to be good for 4 to 6 days of no Sun and remember, even under snow, panels still put out power. I have seen 110 watts from 8 50 watt panels under 6 inches of snow.

Solar power from panels is almost never used to heat a home, converting electricity to heat is very inefficient, a passive solar home is something else entirely. My strawbale houses are passive solar but still wood heated, I cant find a solar panel heated home in teh Google, YMMV.

The owner did not set out to be green on this house, its not sited nor set up for passive solar heating. Its a traditional stick built.
I think he simply made choices based on location of the nearest power pole much as I did in Montana.
Three miles of line at $16k or a solar power set up for $7k...easy choice for me.

I know there is alot of misinfo out there and lots of overbuilt systems (the makers love to sell you stuff) that are way too expensive for most but why would any one poo poo those who are doing it another way?

(yes, I know OP has a thing for nukes...)



Tl:dr...too much misinformation out there.

Most solar activists would look at this and see someone who is making optimal use of clean energy from the sun.

I see someone who wouldn't even be there if they had to set up $16k of power poles or $XXX for a gas line - and so must depend (to some extent) on burning coal and wood, with no filtering or scrubbing, to heat their home.

Take this vacation home and multiply by 10,000. Solar makes setting up apart from the grid - and generating dirty power - more attractive.

some people spend to go alt, its nuts. Impossible to be green and spend $50k on systems like this one while ignoring the impact of the house itself.
I assisted on one project, a house that was to be strawbale,8600 square feet. I took one look at the plans, the three person family and said fuck no, way too much impact and embodied energy.
And yes, solar does allow one to intrude further into the woods or wilderness without as much expense.
And like I said, no solar arrays are set up to heat a home.
Passive solar is another thing entirely.
We use wood, just tossed a log on a minute ago, whats wrong with wood?