Messages

[quote author=CuriousGeorge link=topic=178.msg453#msg453 date=1449002900]
It may just be where I live, but up here solar panels on roofs are extremely common. At a guess I'd say a good 10-15% of homes have them. I think they look quite nice as well  :)
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Is your estate relatively new? I'd say in my town 5% at most have them, and that would be a push. However I've seen a disproportionate number on newly built homes.

I've heard between 20 minutes and an hour, depending on how fast it was before. This gives the national grid time to bring gas stations on grid.

I doubt this will ever happen. Building a windfarm close to an airport is already cause for planning rejection, due to radar interferences. Building one on the runway itself would never happen.

Scotland has gigawatts of potential, and it certainly is neglected. At least things are changing, and I think Scotland will be a world leader in this regard.

Yes, at the moment. Although eventually I would like to see nuclear phased out in place of completely safe renewables. For now I think the benefits outweigh the risks.

My neighbour paid £295 for his, and I assume that would be not much different unless your loft is particularly unusual.

Theoretically this could produce about 25GW, but the main issue here is Bangladesh. Building this could potentially lead to war, and one not fighting over.

Not much in the UK, we have pretty much maxed out most of our realistically developable sites. At least we have what we have though.

Only 3GW from what I've heard so that would only double it. We don't have the vast number of fjords that norway does, not the glaciers of Iceland.

[quote author=St Rhenium link=topic=199.msg497#msg497 date=1449084037]
Not quite green roofs, but I thought this forum best matched the subject. What do you make of green walls? That is, a wall covered in plant life? This is one example:

[img width=250 height=149]https://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/france-green-roofs-law-solar-panels-20150819/france_roof.jpg/image[/img]

They're nice for oxidising the air, but they're a lot more limited in their application than green roofs. Additionally, many people don't like the look of them and they can cause cracking in the underlying wall. Would you want to see more of these, or should we just stick to roofing?
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They seem a lot more practical than Green roofs, and as you can't really have solar walls, it would be better to have green on the walls, panels on the roof.

[quote author=CuriousGeorge link=topic=210.msg534#msg534 date=1449158497]
Solar roofing is 2-4 lbs per square foot or 10-20 kg per square meter, but that's including all the mounting equipment as well.
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Indeed, integrated panels in car, laptops etc wouldn't weigh as much, because they don't have all the mounting. The panels themselves are pretty lightweight.

[quote author=allegrif link=topic=202.msg505#msg505 date=1449155581]
Many energy suppliers are now offering 'smart meters', which let you see exactly how much electricity and gas you're going through. The idea is that these will make people more conscious of their energy usage and so more likely to cut down. Do you have one Do you think they really work?
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I don't see them changing behavior. It's not as if you can choose to turn the fridge off, and people already know watching the TV costs money so I can't see it reducing consumption at all.

[quote author=Jemappelle link=topic=173.msg520#msg520 date=1449157062]
Not yet, but I have an old bike I never use and an alternator. I don't think It'll be of much practical use, but I want to make one for the fun of it.
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Yeah I just want to do it for fun really, though I do wonder weather I could hook it up to batteries in some way to give me emergency power during an outage.

[quote author=allegrif link=topic=207.msg517#msg517 date=1449156786]
Poll above, let's see what we think :)
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I don't really care as long as they are not a blot on specific points of beauty. I voted neutral. interesting to see no one put 'no' yet, but we shall have to see how this pans out.

[quote author=LucidEnergy link=topic=192.msg471#msg471 date=1449081266]
I used to have a blog in 2007/2008 about renewables and environmental issues, got about 50 unique visiters per day on average.

My aunt is also the co-founder of the Oxfordshire green construction network https://www.renewableenergyhub.co.uk/Forum/general/uk-to-lose-0-5gw-of-capacity-in-the-new-year/ and is a frequent speaker on BBC Radio Oxford about environmental issues.
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Nice, what happened to the blog?

Personally I'm not an activist, but it's something I might think about in the future. I try to spread awareness where I can.