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Energy

Energy prices herald “return to the 70s”

Its time to start culling woodland,scavenging fuel from dumpsters and wearing warmer clothes

Start foraging in Granny’s closet — if forecasts by Deutsche Bank are true, we are heading for =higher energy prices very soon. The bank’s researcher estimates that prices will rise a further 25% by 2015, meaning that the average  household will be spending more than 4% of their disposable income on fuel bills, back to the levels seen following the oil shocks of the1970s.…

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December 11, 2011 No Comments

Grid can’t handle mass solar

Further evidence in favor of Micro-grids and against the so-called Smart Grid.

The runaway take-up of rooftop solar panels in Australia has undermined the electricity supply system, feeding so much power back into the network that it is causing voltage rises that could damage household devices such as computers and televisions. This means we should either rewire every home and every street, to suit the convenience of the big Utility companies, or rethink the way the nation’s energy delivery is organised. What applies to Australia is true elsewhere in the world.…

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December 3, 2011 1 Comment
Energy

Efficient fireplace inserts

They look great but that homey glow real fires produce sends heat right up the chimney as the fire sucks warm air from the rest of the house.

“Ninety-five percent of the heat is lost,” said Prof Kevin Eigel, who studies energy use in homes. “The rest of the house gets cold even while it’s warm right around the fireplace.”

Fortunately, homeowners have more options than ever to get more use and heat from the fireplace.

Options range from a simple blower system that costs less than $1,000 to wood-burning inserts that can cost more than $5,000 but can heat an entire home.…

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October 16, 2011 3 Comments
Energy

Average UK household faces fuel poverty

With average real incomes heading down and average fuel bills going up, the typical British household will be in “fuel poverty” by the  2015 if energy bills stay on their current path.

Fuel prices have almost doubled as a share of median income since 2004, and an official target to spend £200bn on new infrastructure by 2020, mainly on the so-called Smart Grid,  will intensify the price rises.

Next month, the average annual bill for a “dual fuel” (Gas and electric) customer will reach £1,293, or 6 per cent of median household income, compared with 3.3 per cent in 2004.…

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October 13, 2011 No Comments
Communities

Homesteading-book review

Homesteading, it’s a buzzword that means different things to different people, back in the day, it meant getting land for free as long as you lived on it and improved it for x number of years. It was a way to get people to move west (in the USA), back when travel was slow and painful, even dangerous.…

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August 17, 2011 2 Comments
Communities

Going fridgless

Going fridgless, to most people would be paramount to going topless, many people couldn’t imagine living their lives without having a 19+/- cubic foot energy eating, leftover storing, inefficient cold box sitting in their kitchen. Now days refrigerators do so much, in my old life, I worked for a big box electronics store, the one with the blue shirts and the little yellow price tag, they were starting to put computers in the door, not just electronics, but a real computer screen that could access the internet and help you with your shopping and let you watch TV on your fridge.…

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August 13, 2011 15 Comments
Energy

Solar Energy on Dragons Den

The  BBC’s top-rated TV show Dragons’ Den gave a cautious thumbs-up to Solar in the first show of its new series.  But the valuation they placed on the solar panel company in question was disappointing.
Chris Hopkins, owner of Ploughcroft Solar gave his sales speech to convince the panel as to the benefits ofsolar energy, and the financial rewards that can be reaped from the Government’s feed-in-tariff (Fit) scheme.Seeking £100,000 for a 10% equity share in his company, the entrepreneur received offers from all but one of the Dragons. But the eventual deal was so low as to be almost derisory. (See the pitch here)…

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July 31, 2011 1 Comment