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Re: Solar Energy



Stephen Lajoie <lajoie@eskimo.com> again overgeneralizes: 
 
>I gave solar the benefit of every doubt, and it still comes up as 
>impractical on any kind of meaningful scale. 

Solar what?

>>An active solar system is competitive with fossil fuel heating systems.
 
>GEEZE. You don't get it, do you? You have to collect that energy and put 
>it in some sort of usable form, and to do that takes equipment, and 
>equipment has a lifetime and a cost. It is *not* free, and to say so is 
>deceptive. 

Did someone say the equipment was free? I do get 40 plastic 55 gallon drums
a month free, from a local food processing plant. I could buy them elsewhere
for about $15 each. Even the metal ones should last 20 years. I just bought
a nice 560 cfm fan for $60, 36 watts, max, with a temperature rating of 149 F.
Grainger part number 4C688. They also sell $10 thermostats. Replex, GE and
Dynaglas sell long-life thin polycarbonate plastic glazing for about $1/ft^2,
and Home Depot sells automatic foundation vents for $12 each, 1 x 3s for 84
cents each and 1/4" Aspenite and 6" fiberglass insulation for 25 cents/ft^2.
It seems to me that a simple house heating system built out of things like
this can be competitive with a fossil fuel heating system.

Heating a house this way seems so simple to me, almost anywhere in the
country, that I wonder if we shouldn't change the building code to forbid
all use of fossil fuels for house heating. 

Nick