Renewable Energy

…and they shall renew the face of the earth…
Remember how people used to do things? Like grow much of their own food, fix their own cars, invent pedal radio – or build them after someone else had invented it, and talk to strangers far away who had done the same thing. Later on pedal radio was replaced by ham radio. Well, I think something like that might be coming back. Despite the treacherous efforts of John Howard to keep us consuming for the sake of the economy, I have a feeling that the engine of Climate Change will drive the emergence of widespread participation in renewables: energy, water, food production – that sort of thing. I can see a whole new generation of people crawling around on their rooves tinkering with connections and adjusting the tilt of solar panels and so on; sharing tips in the pub and generally renewing the face of the Earth. I recently met half a dozen such people when I did a course on Renewable Energy at ACE in Grafton. I was the only one who was a complete novice. All the others had tales of daring do – like the Argonauts who’d found the Golden Fleece and were having rip roaring adventures bringing it home. I’m looking down the barrel of imminent retirement and have been giving some thoughts to how to cut down recurrent expenses – and give myself something more to do that run five ACE courses, write another book, make websites, sing in a choir, play the piano and everything else that one needs to do to keep busy until one’s 100th year. So I’m doing appropriate courses to get myself started, and I thought I’d share something with you. If you’re going to go solar do seriously consider doing such a course if there’s one on offer in a classroom near you. It’s a much more complex undertaking than I imagined – but seriously worth the effort, I hasten to say. There are many critical issues that a supplier might not give you adequate advise on (to cut costs, i.e. increase profit margin) if you’re not aware of them. Do you remember Ohm’s Law from school physics? E = I x R. This and its variants are what you use to determine such things as the cross section of your delivery cables and much, much more. Connect to the Grid is an option worth considering for anyone who can afford it. The disadvantage of this system is that when the grid goes out you go out as well. So why would you bother, I hear you say? Because connecting to the grid means that the power your system supplies reduces your power bill. The most significant point is that you become a producer of green power. Stand Alone systems cost more – much more - because of the need for batteries. And required battery capacity will come as a shock when you hear about it – which you are about to. When you have calculated your energy requirement (not at all a straightforward process), you need to install battery capacity 5 (yes FIVE!) times that amount!! Because you can draw only 20% of your battery capacity on a daily basis. Drawing more will seriously reduce the life of your batteries. Part of the course also looked at wind power. The summary verdict is don’t bother – unless you intend to buy one of those really big industrial strength numbers. I also did a course on Climate Change and Eco-Living. It was interesting but not as informative as I had expected. Soon I will do a course on permaculture. Oh yeah, and I’m growing my hair so that I can have dreadlocks – and brushing up on my hippie lingo: peace man…. Um I mean bro – gotta keep uptdate eh…. and don’t mind the gender problem in the language – hippie blokes were never know for their feminist credentials.