That is true but the total carbon footprint of manufacturing a solar panel that is then operational over a 20 year lifespan needs to be compared to the equivalent footprint of capture, storage and refinement of fossil fuel. But it’s not about carbon footprint for me; with Russian interference in the gas supply and the infrastructure around here being well past it’s best, it’s a no brainer from a “security of supply” perspective.
The alternative is, tolerate every road for miles around being dug up for months on end to replace 90 year old water pipes and sewers, 50 year old gas mains, 40 year old telephone cables and 30 year old mains electrics... And then be locked into a power grid that is totally dependent on imported fuel.
Most of our heating is provided via multifuel stoves, with seasoned timber provided by the local forestry. Water is now coming from local reservoirs. So it’s the entire heating, water and power setup that we’re working on - local grids not national.
My friend, you said the magic words. Solar cannot heat a house in the winter.
But it’s not about carbon footprint for me; with Russian interference in the gas supply and the infrastructure around here being well past it’s best, it’s a no brainer from a “security of supply” perspective.
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I’m of exactly the same view... if I trusted all the guvmints I need to deal with, the infrastructure and the utilities we generally depend on, none of this is something to think much about it.
I’m currently designing and building an ‘off-grid’ place for the reason of ‘having total control over my own resource requirements’. The cost and supply of the utilities have become unacceptably unstable in my opinion... I can point to the proliferation of IWTs as causing about 90% of that. My project is coming along fairly well at the moment... it’s about a 2,000 square foot cabin on the lake and so it’s not my primary home, at least not yet. Once this is done in a year or so, it will be expanded a bit and become the primary place. My background does have elements of both energy and housebuilding and so this isn’t foreign territory.
My approach from the get-go has been simply this… 1. Don’t waste what you have already obtained (example is to insulate well and turn things off when they aren’t used), 2. Get the biggest bang for the buck you can out of what you use (example is to use the dishwasher waste water as a preheat for the hot water system) and 3. Examine carefully the efficiency of every watt and joule used. This leads to the other main reason for doing all this which is a very close second to the primary one of having it all under one’s control… there’s a fun factor to doing this that’s not an insignificant reason why one does the engineering and develops the techniques that make this work.