The MYADSL green thread

There's two sets of documentaries that forumites might find useful, and which can be found on the usual torrent sites.
One is a Panorama doccie about a family going seriously green for a year. Called
'Panorama - Go Green or Else (2007)'

The other, more indepth one, is a 7 part doccie about a Brit family moving into a home out in Cornwall, and rigging up their own electricity sources, veggies and animals - its called 'It's Not Easy Being Green'..

While we're at it, there's a couple of Panorama documentaries of interest-
on the growing worries over the cancer-causing properties of wi-fi 'Panorama - WiFi - A Warning Signal'
and another on TV itself - which is worth seeing if you have kids, called 'Is TV good for my kids?'

hope these help demonstrate that Green living is both (eventually) a cheaper and saner lifestyle, but a little tough at first, compared to the usual 'use up everything' approach, that SA is still operating with.

I'd also recommend Penn and Teller's Bullsh*t episode dealing with Recycling, to get a tough look at this concept..

One more news item, July 18th, dealing with something I noticed a lot in SA. Homes near industrial level power lines. This causes a variety of cancers, mostly in children - something that's been known in Europe for some time - and has now reached the point of official legal action to prevent new homes from being built near them.
See "Ban new homes near power lines, say MPs"
http://society.guardian.co.uk/health/story/0,,2128743,00.html
Note the mention that there's been a link found between childhood leukemia and powerlines. "The study found that those within 200 metres of power lines had a 70% increase in their chance of developing leukaemia, compared with children living more than 600 metres from a power line."
 
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Boodles said:
Apparently you can be 'greener' by using a dishwasher, rather than washing dishes by hand.

Go figure that one. lol


I was trying to figure out if my sig contributed towards a greener lifestyle........ maybe, kinda, sorta... naaa
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The reasoning is simple:

  • A dishwasher uses only a few litres of water (mine using 17 litres per wash)
  • A dishwasher heats its own water, meaning you don't use water from your geyser (which eats electricity like there's no tomorrow)
  • A dishwasher uses less detergent, meaning less energy is spent creating detergents and packaging
 
I'm about to import Solar Roof Tiles (going through the SABS soon to get the all clear to sell them as well) - One of the complexes we're going to be building somewhere in Jozi will be using these tiles. According to our calculations the entire complex (48 townhouse units) will be entirely independent of Escom power.

I'm also investigating the possibility of manufacturing these tiles locally.
 
BobbyMac - 17 litres is a lot water

Your sink would only use maybe, 5 litres or so

Now, with your geyser set at 55 or 60 its not a big drain on resources. You mentioned that the dishwasher heats its own water, is it more energy efficient than heating the 5 litres for your sink?

And lastly, some dishwasher packaging consists of a box, then it contains 'tablets' of which each are individually packed in plastic. whereras the plastic squeeze thing for sink washing is just plastic.
 
BobbyMac said:
I'm about to import Solar Roof Tiles (going through the SABS soon to get the all clear to sell them as well) - One of the complexes we're going to be building somewhere in Jozi will be using these tiles. According to our calculations the entire complex (48 townhouse units) will be entirely independent of Escom power.

I'm also investigating the possibility of manufacturing these tiles locally.
Click to expand...

What about those dudes in Jozi, that won some innovation award for their solar panels (1 year ago or so) which are much more energy efficeient.

Do you know anything about that?
 
Boodles said:
BobbyMac - 17 litres is a lot water
Click to expand...
Take seventeen liters of water and see how many times you fill your sink with it.
Your sink would only use maybe, 5 litres or so
Click to expand...
Mine holds 16L
Now, with your geyser set at 55 or 60 its not a big drain on resources. You mentioned that the dishwasher heats its own water, is it more energy efficient than heating the 5 litres for your sink?
Click to expand...
This is how a geyser works: It keeps the temperature of a lot of water (small geysers are 100 Literes, average geysers are around 150 Liters) at a constant temperature. Now, when you open your hot water tap, you run it until you get hot water. Then you run the hot water - say you use around 10 Liters here (I promise you use more) - that means the geyser is topped up with 10 liters of cold water, now instead of just heating up 10 Liters, it's heating up 100 or 150 Liters to get the temperature back up again. It may not seem much, but this constant keeping the temperature of your geyser at X degrees is what eats electricity.

A dishwasher, however, works differently, because in effect it only heats the water it uses - and it doesn't actually heat all of it either as it uses cold water (included in the 17 Liters in mine) for the rinse cycles

And lastly, some dishwasher packaging consists of a box, then it contains 'tablets' of which each are individually packed in plastic. whereras the plastic squeeze thing for sink washing is just plastic.
Click to expand...
I use that exact product, cardboard is recyclable, and the "plastic" wrapper it comes in is made from recycled plastic.
 
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Boodles said:
What about those dudes in Jozi, that won some innovation award for their solar panels (1 year ago or so) which are much more energy efficeient.

Do you know anything about that?
Click to expand...
I know about them. Have tried to set up meetings with them but to no avail. I'm hoping to still be able to have a chat with them. I've also been thinking of making a bursary available to some smart engineering students to do some research into it for us.
 
re solar panels, given SA's sunshine levels - there's no reason why a onetime investment in a batch of solar panels for your roof, can't result in you ending up paying nothing for electricity.
No wonder there's not a lot of info freely available in the SA Media. The last thing any corporations want, is for people to 'go off the grid' and not have to pay anything for their daily/monthly/yearly electricity.
 
LoneGunman said:
re solar panels, given SA's sunshine levels - there's no reason why a onetime investment in a batch of solar panels for your roof, can't result in you ending up paying nothing for electricity.
No wonder there's not a lot of info freely available in the SA Media. The last thing any corporations want, is for people to 'go off the grid' and not have to pay anything for their daily/monthly/yearly electricity.
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Yeah, we've been fighting with Joburg City Council to get the go ahead for the roof tiles.
 
well then if they're being cnuts (sp?) - then mebbe put the tiles in the garden or something, so one doesn't have to ask their permission? Or perhaps mounted on any walls of the house that get sun consistently all day. Worst case, divvy panels into 'morning sun collection' and 'afternoon sun collection' points?

Placed high up enough in consistent sun, it perhaps bypasses the need to ask anyone for 'permission'. One doesn't need to ask for permission for TV antennae or dishes mounted on walls, I'd guess the same is true for panels, located high up on vertical walls?
 
LoneGunman said:
well then if they're being cnuts (sp?) - then mebbe put the tiles in the garden or something, so one doesn't have to ask their permission? Or perhaps mounted on any walls of the house that get sun consistently all day. Worst case, divvy panels into 'morning sun collection' and 'afternoon sun collection' points?

Placed high up enough in consistent sun, it perhaps bypasses the need to ask anyone for 'permission'. One doesn't need to ask for permission for TV antennae or dishes mounted on walls, I'd guess the same is true for panels, located high up on vertical walls?
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If we can get the SABS approval on the product sorted then we won't have a problem it seems. But yeah, if we can't do that then we'll do other things.
 
A brief bit of info on solar (although I'm no expert, I've done a bit of reading). To calculate how many panels you need, you need to factor in 2 things:

1) The amount of power that the devices you connect to the panel will consume.

2) The insolation in your area. Simply put, insolation is the amount of energy a given geographic location receives per square metre from the sun. Most of South Africa has high annual insolation averages of 5-6 kWh/m² per day.

So, let's assume that you're going to run 4 40W light bulbs for 10 hours a day (or if you're smart, 14 11W CFL light bulbs for 10 hours :p ) off your solar system. That will use 1.6kWh of electricity per day.

The catch is that most silicon solar panels have an efficiency of about 16%, which means that they're only able to convert about 16% of the sun's energy that hits the panel into electricity. So in Joburg, where the average insolation is 5kWh/m²/day you'll capture 16% of that from a 1m² panel. This translates to 0.8kWh/day from that panel.

So to run your 4 40W bulbs for 10 hours a day in Joburg, you'd need 2m² of panels.

The average 4 person South African family uses about 1000kWh of electricity a month. To run such a household on solar alone would require about 40m² of panels. Of course, you'd be stupid not to use a basic solar water heater to heat your water, which would save you about 400kWh a month just on water heating. Using gas stoves, CFL bulbs etc. could bring your electrical requirements down even more... but you still need a lot of solar panels to run a household.
 
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re "but you still need a lot of solar panels to run a household."

It doesn't offset the truth that, with enough solar panels, bought for a onetime payment,
one can end up reaching a point of paying NOTHING for electricity.

What does the average busy household pay each month/year in total, for electricity?

Take that figure over say 5 years. It becomes an insanely high figure as time goes by.
Whereas with some online research, and judicious buying of components - you have a
few one-time payments and then gradually,
no more money disappearing on electricity.

The solar panels eventually pay for themselves.
Whereas continuing to pay for electricity, means you gain nothing in the long term.

BTW. I noticed a cute looking bag on display somewhere here in the US, with a couple of solar
panels on it, designed to recharge ones cellphone.. will see if I can find a link..

EDIT:
Look at the BAG WITH SOLAR PANELS http://www.voltaicsystems.com/
and how about SOLAR POWERED LUGGAGE: http://www.radtech.us/Products/Voltaic.aspx
and then there's JUICE BAGS, FOLDABLE PANELS ETC http://www.rewarestore.com/product.html
 
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I'll do my bit for the environment too
I hereby promise to start strangling hippies instead of shooting them :D
 
LoneGunman said:
re "but you still need a lot of solar panels to run a household."

It doesn't offset the truth that, with enough solar panels, bought for a onetime payment,
one can end up reaching a point of paying NOTHING for electricity.

What does the average busy household pay each month/year in total, for electricity?

Take that figure over say 5 years. It becomes an insanely high figure as time goes by.
Whereas with some online research, and judicious buying of components - you have a
few one-time payments and then gradually,
no more money disappearing on electricity.

The solar panels eventually pay for themselves.
Whereas continuing to pay for electricity, means you gain nothing in the long term.
Click to expand...

Noted, LG... still the cost of entry is rather prohibitive. I was quoted R700k to solar power my house. This looks like it may drastically reduce hte cost of solar though. Plastic panels....

They're only about 6% efficient atm, but the developers are hoping to get to 10% efficiency soon. Even so, their cost per kW generated is much much lower than traditional panels.
 
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