Replies (1 - 15)

[Bambi]

Profess your love for hippies. The awesome hippies though, not the icky hippies that don't wash. Icky hippies are icky.

[roboito]

There's only one type of hippy...a dirty one!!!!

[CH!MP]

lol my mum's pretty much a hippy so i guess they're okay
Infact she's at her bushland mudbrick solar-powered house with rainwater tank now *shudder*.
personally i prefer high pressure water...and unlimited electricity...and internet.

I wont even go into all the weird life-energies and afterlife stuff she believes, though she isn't as crazy as you'd think.

...that said, I've met some crazy annoying hippies, who's bullshit drives me pretty nuts lol. So yeah, hippies can be pretty lame.

[prostitot]

Solar power is pretty good, actually.
Basically she'd be making some money off that little arrangement.
Not so hippy as much as a good business decision, if you ask me !
The general gist of it goes that companies buy back the energy from solar power. Origin buys it for 38c per kW/Hr, last I heard...
It's a pretty good thing to invest in - granted it'll set you back around 3000 to get it installed on your roof...
Its the same as having normal electricity - you're just charging others rather than they charge you.
If she was really a "hippy" then I'd think she'd go for the Green Energy option rather than the Solar Powered one. That's just silly otherwise !

Oh - and unlimited electricity/internet fall under the same category, I'd imagine =P

You failed to mention how she gets her gas.
.... I wonder .... Probably LP Gas. 65% less carbon emissions...

SHUT UP. THIS IS WHAT I DO FOR A LIVING.

This post has been edited by prostitot: Oct 6 2008, 04:18 PM

[Fedora.Pirate]

So if this is what you do for a living you can tell me how long it takes a solar panel to earn back its embodied energy?

[CH!MP]

So if this is what you do for a living you can tell me how long it takes a solar panel to earn back its embodied energy?

yeah i often wonder that. I heard it takes heaps of energy to actually make solar panels. Same with cars. I read some factoid somewhere that said a car uses 1/4 of the energy used for petrol in its entire existence, just in its manufacture. If that was the case it kinda makes hybrid cars seem a pretty lame. I guess the idea with solar panels is that they produce energy for so long that it makes up for the consumption when they're made, then it's all "green" or whatever i guess.

[insanekilla]

Solar's only going to work in a decentralised system. You can't feasibly make it work for a grid as large as Australia's. What we need is clean carbon in the short term (essentially converting 80% of the CO2 by-product into useful petrochemicalz and such), then invest in a RENEWABLE energy source.

Everyone talking nuclear is stupid stupid stupid. Nuclear only works when there are stringent checks and balances. Say a nuclear nation destablises politically and there's no-one around to enforce maintenance and safety etc? Nuclear power plant could go KABLAMMY and kill millions. If, say, a coal fired plant exploded? It'd be sad but loss of life would be relatively minimal.

In terms of what we could be looking at for renewables, it'd be a mixture of geothermal and wind power. If the Rudd government would keep its election promise and start funding the research, we could have it up and running by 2020. Same with America.

For now though, we need to get China decked out with carbon capture storage facilities for its thousands of coal-fired power plants. Man, if we reach 550 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere WE'RE FUCKED.

*rocks back and forth*

[Fridgemagnet]

I'm glad, I don't think I'd seen a strong argument against nuclear power until that one - because with our government in a good position, any nuclear power plant would have stringent checks and balances.

I have to say, I agree with pretty much all of what you've said, just want to add that research into fuel cells is going to be useful as well, because if we don't have something to keep our trucks/trains running things will go to hell when we can't transport food from our farmland.

[Bambi]

I'm going to have a commune and it shall be epic. Oh yess. And it shall have solar powers because I said so. And lots of epic people and cats.

[insanekilla]

Also, we'd be going from one finite resource to another. We're using up all our natural resources at exponentially increasing rates. Why exhaust a perfectly good uranium supply when we can easily tap into energy sources that WON'T run out. (Well, not for the foreseeable future, anyway.)

This post has been edited by insanekilla: Oct 8 2008, 05:43 AM

[Kelevra]

Dont worry, everything will be fine when someone owns the moon and can start mining helium 3 off it. i hear the countries in the running are England India China and Russia. Why Japan doesnt i dont know, quite sure they have the strongest economy in the world at the world at the moment.

[slurpee]

Everyone talking nuclear is stupid stupid stupid. Nuclear only works when there are stringent checks and balances. Say a nuclear nation destablises politically and there's no-one around to enforce maintenance and safety etc? Nuclear power plant could go KABLAMMY and kill millions. If, say, a coal fired plant exploded? It'd be sad but loss of life would be relatively minimal.

Your basically saying if anarky stirkes the nation we are doomed... if that happens we probably gonna starve to death or die from lack of water aswell.

You appoint an independent nuclear safty comission to over see maintenance and safty instead of relying on public servants.

In terms of what we could be looking at for renewables, it'd be a mixture of geothermal and wind power. If the Rudd government would keep its election promise and start funding the research, we could have it up and running by 2020. Same with America.

Both wind power and geothermal power rely entirely on enviromental factors, you cant just put them anywhere.
Geothermal power may be the bomb but im pretty sure Victoria isnt sitting on a bed of magma.

[insanekilla]

Kelevra... are you fucking kidding me? Have you not seen the news for the past week? Yesterday, Japan had TEN PERCENT of its entire market-worth just WIPED OUT. The day before that? 5%.

Japan is pretty close to having its entire economy just shut down. Poor Nikkei.

And slurpee, I'm pretty sure there's a bed of magma under EVERY position on the earth's crust. Google a picture of the layered composition of earth. :-/ You just have to drill down far enough for it. Technology that we have ready to go today.

And, no, not necessarily anarchy. Say we have a DICTATOR. And he doesn't mind forsaking Western Australia cuz let's face it it's a hole. And he just decides to not waste money on safety or maintenance. BOOM GOES DA NUKULAR PLANTTTT

[slurpee]

And slurpee, I'm pretty sure there's a bed of magma under EVERY position on the earth's crust. Google a picture of the layered composition of earth. :-/ You just have to drill down far enough for it. Technology that we have ready to go today.

There is not accesable magma beneath us, yes there is magma below the crust of the earth but it is not cost effective to dig that deep, think of the amount of emergy/fossil fuels it would take to do that, in comparision minning uranium is virtually more enviromently friendly. Geothermal is ideal for volocanic areas where the magma is kind enough to come to us.

This post has been edited by slurpee: Oct 9 2008, 12:23 AM

[CH!MP]

And, no, not necessarily anarchy. Say we have a DICTATOR. And he doesn't mind forsaking Western Australia cuz let's face it it's a hole. And he just decides to not waste money on safety or maintenance. BOOM GOES DA NUKULAR PLANTTTT

lol looks like somebody's planning a national takeover

[Kelevra]

Kelevra... are you fucking kidding me? Have you not seen the news for the past week? Yesterday, Japan had TEN PERCENT of its entire market-worth just WIPED OUT. The day before that? 5%.

Japan is pretty close to having its entire economy just shut down. Poor Nikkei.

And slurpee, I'm pretty sure there's a bed of magma under EVERY position on the earth's crust. Google a picture of the layered composition of earth. :-/ You just have to drill down far enough for it. Technology that we have ready to go today.

And, no, not necessarily anarchy. Say we have a DICTATOR. And he doesn't mind forsaking Western Australia cuz let's face it it's a hole. And he just decides to not waste money on safety or maintenance. BOOM GOES DA NUKULAR PLANTTTT

they still have a 17 trillion dollar surplus, or something like that. So they are doing better than most. Did i mention helium 3 powered fusion energy is non-radioactive? no boom boom

There is not accesable magma beneath us, yes there is magma below the crust of the earth but it is not cost effective to dig that deep, think of the amount of emergy/fossil fuels it would take to do that, in comparision minning uranium is virtually more enviromently friendly. Geothermal is ideal for volocanic areas where the magma is kind enough to come to us.

yeah yellowstone national park is shitty anyway, lets just wipe that shit down and get some potential energy out of the calderra in that bad boy.