i will have to hold off on the other subjects due to lack of experience, but these few i have seen firsthand (submitted topic first, then comment):
> I got that, but there is also something else that my American > upbringing has a hard time understanding. Many Canadians view their > government as a partner in dealing with social issues. When a problem > arises, I hear calls for government action. As an American, I have an > inbred distrust of government that is very hard to explain. So when I > read the article its tone sounded very Canadian to me. robert, i understand your position. if D.C. were to sink into the river tomorrow, and take the entire governing body with it, i couldnt be happier. governments lie-period. > I wanted to install a wood > gasifying boiler when we built our new house, but the municipality > prohibits the installation of wood burners because of pollution > concerns. What's ridiculous about this is the fact that a gasifier > produces virtually NO smoke, yet the municipality allows people to burn > their "agricultural waste" in HUGE bonfires that fill the entire valley > air shed with eye-stinging smoke. It's that kind of blindness that > irritates me! try for an exemption. city governments are odd critters, sometimes you can catch a trustee's ear and s/he will help you work out the details. it wouldnt hurt to ask, anyway. > There are incentives to upgrade furnaces, but not boilers, and the > incentives are limited to natural gas appliances. Even if I wanted a > heat pump, I'd have to foot the (significant) cost of the installation > myself. And worse, the banks are not interested in financing ANY kind > of renewable energy. Here are two examples from my own experience as a > home builder: > > 1. I wanted to install a small heliostat for supplemental solar > hot water. > > 2. I planned a battery bank / inverter system as a grid backup, > and the foundation for renewable energy collection on my property. > > When I approached the Credit Union with our building budget, they > deleted these two items from my list of expenditures, saying that there > was "no market" for this kind of technology and that installing these > things would add "no value" to my house. (I could upgrade the tile, the > laminate flooring and put in fancier fixtures, though!) If I wanted to > install these things, I had to pay for them up front. Now, how many of > us have extra money laying around when we're building a house? If I > hadn't needed the financing, I wouldn't have gone to the Credit Union in > the first place! (And trust me, the banks were WORSE! We eventually > removed our money and investments from the Royal Bank because they > treated us so badly.) heliostats and sunchasers can be made from scrap fairly easily, there are howtos and information all over the net. battery banks, although bulky and sometimes ugly, can be hidden away in a tool shed or basement. check around at heavy-lift repair shops. refurbished 36V electric hoist batteries are not exactly *cheap*-cheap, but they are not expensive either. > (Using carbon as raw material to BUILD THINGS) > >> >> Agreed. Apparently there is a world-wide shortage of carbon fibre >> now. Seems a bit surreal when we are apparently looking for ways to >> create carbon sinks. (IMHO, sequestering is not a sink, it is >> temporary storage.) > > > My eldest son was talking to me about our hybrid Camry the other day > as we were tuning my truck. He said: "Shouldn't you sell this truck and > buy a hybrid truck, too?" This gave me the opportunity to talk to him > about embodied energy. My truck was built in 1993 and has over 200 000 > km on its odometer. Every kilometer that it drives down the road > represents more value for the energy that went into its manufacture. my in-laws drove a 1939 chevrolet every day up until the fuel pump failed about six years ago (havent got it back together yet). i wonder how many times it paid for itself over sixty-two years on the road? > Our Camry is a delightful machine, and it's REALLY spoiled me, but it's > STILL made out of steel. It's as heavy as my truck, too, and while it > goes significantly farther on a liter of fuel than does my Ranger, it > will have to travel a LONG way before that improvement in fuel economy > makes up for the additional energy that went into its manufacture. > I'd like to see cars and bikes built out of carbon fiber, but in > reality, the biggest single contributor to North American energy use > from the consumer's point of view is the automobile. We need to move > away from it, and simply substituting steel for carbon and fossil fuel > for renewable fuel will not effectively address the underlying issues > that have put us into this mess! SEE! SEE! i said so, too! well, not exactly, i suggested using compressed ashes for structural materials, but it follows the same line. - banning incandescents >> in Oz, and parroted here in Ontario yesterday as being of interest, >> but I already have some reservations. I have not been able to find >> an efficient light which I can install in an oven or a clothes dryer, >> or a CF small enough to fit in my refrigerator. I have been stumped >> trying to find plug-in or screw-in replacements for some unique >> incandescents (piano lights, chandelier bulbs, jewellery display >> cases. Will such an edict also apply to automotive lighting, >> emergency lighting, exit signs, etc.? Personally, I have some older >> flashlights that don't see frequent use that I would prefer not to >> send to landfill simply because their incandescent bulb burns out and >> there is no viable efficient replacement "bulb". I do have some LED >> based flashlights now, which see more use, but the older units have >> ended up in glove compartments and tool boxes, where they have proved >> quite convenient. > > > The "one size fits all" approach doesn't fit all . . . not precisely a smart move to pitch the flashlights just yet, but there are LED conversion sets that can be bought (i dont see any reason to spend 15$ on them though, theyre easy enough to build myself for a few pennies.) > (A guest in your country) > >> Come, come Robert. Complaining is our national pastime. It's those >> radical things you do (gardening, composting, using efficient >> lighting) that make us uncomfortable. > > > Sigh . . . I could do a LOT more than I'm doing, Darryl, but I've > already done all of the inexpensive things and a significant shift in my > personal energy use will require more investment than I can afford. > When my sons begin driving, I'd like them to be driving EVs . . . Now > that I've done the computer swap in my truck electronics seem less scary > to me, yet the idea of having ANOTHER car in our driveway seems > fundamentally wrong. i suggest a small truck, Fiero, VW Bug, or Geo Metro with a 3 phase electric motor conversion. small, older cars with electric motors, charged overnight from a sunchasers battery storage- thats the ticket. (plus with a limited travel range, it wont be as hard to keep tabs on your kids on the weekends.) > > robert luis rabello > "The Edge of Justice" > "The Long Journey" > New Adventure for Your Mind > http://www.newadventure.ca > > Ranger Supercharger Project Page > http://www.members.shaw.ca/rabello/ -- No virus found in this outgoing message. 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