Now, Im probally a bit "greener" than the average person, our house is heated (when sun permits) by solar panels. All year round our water is heated by the same curved panel solar array. We're talking about installing another 8m2 array of pv panels so we can feed back into the grid to try and offset our reliance on grid electricity in winter by generating it at peak time in the summer. House runs on a well system that is pump pressurised to give us mains pressure from it (and pump is pv powered). We recycle our rubbish where we can, however this is where it comes off the rails a bit. Besides my bikes I have a old range rover v8 classic (200 quid gov'nor, and its the only thing I own that can get the trailers out my field when its rained), which of course makes me public enemy number one to every wannabe enviromentalist, Ive had no end of idiots telling me I should get rid of my planet destroying beast and replace it with a modern eco friendly car (eg a prius) even though it runs on lpg which has much lower emissions. There was a study called "from the cradle to the grave" by a very respected german university where it was found that to make a new car produces more enviromental destruction and pollution than the car will emit during its lifetime. So instead of "getting rid of that old dirty car", what we should be doing is encouraging people to keep older cars going, but that wont suit car makers profits will it?. I shared a house with a book thumping greenie who lambasted me at any point he possibly could about the rangie, until I made him sit down and do the sums. Ive had it key'd parking it in town, and one idiot graffitied it with "save the planet, destroy this car". Ive since found out that the prius is a huge environmental disaster for the amount of waste made in its fabrication vs usefull lifespan. Seems to me its just a bandwagon to go sit on to be seen to be doing something..
Another bugbear for me is the whole "green" industry is a *HUGE* rip off. I paid 500 quid a go for my curved tube solar collectors, and Ive since discovered theres about 50 quid of materials tops in there as the awkward bits (the collector insulators) are bought in from a glass factory for buttons. Even counting for the time to assemble it, its still one hell of a mark up, multiply this by 8 (we have 8 panels) and Ive been well and truly taken in the name of helping the planet.
I was in b&q looking at the wind gennys they have there, and from the specs and average wind speeds we did some calculations on how long it would take for my neighbour to recover the cost (1500 quid installed) of it. 20 years we came up with. Thats 20 years that shoddy cheap nasty plastic fan has to stay up a pole without maintenance , without the brake failing during extreme winds etc (you can pay a grand for a yaesu antenna rotator and not have this expectation of reliability). Its not going to happen. Now why is that genny 1500 quid? its a alternator, with a inverter and some control electronics with a big plastic fan. If you had the same part on a car it'd probally cost 20 quid to make. Someones making a killing arent they? Why is a geothermal heating system 20k + the price of the digger? Instead of encouraging people to buy these systems by giving them installer grants (thus stopping the benefit for people who would much rather prefer to do the job properly themselves) perhaps someone should be looking at making these systems/components on a not for profit basis?
/soapbox.
