If you make your own solar panels on your home, can you go “off grid” and never have to deal with the electric company again?  Being totally independent is an attractive idea. No more costly power bills. No more hassle with the power companies for any reason. Can you make this happen for your family? Should you? The answer will very much rely upon the type of weather in your location and how much money you’re able to invest maintaining your own energy system.

You’ll Wish You Had Looked at Going Off-Grid Sooner

First of all, consider the dominant weather in your region.  Solar panels are only able to produce energy when sunlight is hitting them.  As a result, you will need batteries for storing electricity to use at night and on cloudy days.

That’s where costs begin to add up.  You’ll have to buy and maintain enough large DC (direct current) batteries to save enough electricity to last through one to three days of cloudy weather.  You’ll need plenty of storage space for all of those batteries, and you’ll have to plan for the expense of getting new ones every so often.

The Domestic Off-Grid Solution to Power

It’s also wise to keep a backup generator in the event that you have an extended period of overcast weather that depletes your battery supply.  A generator will need fuel and you’ll need to store that also. Usually generators use gas or diesel fuel.  But these types of fuels are inconsistent with a green lifestyle, so you’ll probably want to use biodiesel. So, yes, it is possible to go “off grid”, but it’s not an easy or inexpensive project.

For the majority, it makes more sense to consider “net metering”.  You can check to determine if your local utility company offers this program. With net metering you can significantly reduce your electric bill, and have all the power you need at night and during extended sunless periods.  Net metering allows you to get credits back from the power company for excess electricity that your solar panels generate during the day. Then you simply use the electricity from your local power company at night and on days when there is not enough direct sunlight. And you wouldn’t have to find somewhere to store stacks of batteries. Although you won’t be living “off grid”, you’ll save a significant amount of money on your monthly bill.  Some months you may owe nothing!

The Off-Grid Solution To The Energy Crises

So if you live in a very sunny region, with lots of extra room to store batteries, living “off grid” could be possible for you. But if you live in a subdivision, have no large storage space, and your part of world gets little sun, “net metering” will probably be your best bet.

You can now find it easier to determine the fuel economy of a used car as they have stickers to enable this and this is good news for the environmentally conscious. In November last year, a scheme was introduced which involves colour coded labels being applied to used cars with green being the best and red being the worst. This scheme has been welcomed by the many different environmentally friendly groups as it makes the decision on which car to buy much easier for the used car buyer.

 

And people are not only choosing these fuel efficient cars in order to do their bit for the environment. It is also important for people wanting to save a bit of money on fuel costs. Now the cars that use up a lot of petrol will have a red sticker. Even though the use of this scheme is only voluntary at the moment, it is expected that the majority of used car dealers will be introducing it soon. The project is being led by a collection of different interest groups including the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership.

 

Not only will the labels be colour coded, but they will also have some other relevant information on them. It will have the model and make of the car and data about carbon dioxide emissions. The sticker will also provide an estimated fuel cost for 12,000 miles. Cars from 2001 onwards will qualify for this scheme as that was the year when CO2 emission testing on all cars was introduced.

 

Fuel economy is often high on the list of things that people consider when purchasing a new car. Now the decision on which used cars to buy will be much easier thanks to the sticker scheme. Hopefully in the future all used cars will be part of the scheme and customers will be able to make fuel savings as well as helping to protect the environment.

 

If the time has come for you to be searching out used cars for sale, it’s always best to carry out a proper research ahead of time. Researching allows you to find the very best used cars for the category you are looking for. And when you finally finish your research, you could find yourself leaving the car delears with a splendid used VW polo or even a used aston martin.

What do you think about when you consider the latest high technology gadgets? It will vary from person to person. Some might think that they’re cool. Others might feel that they cost way too much. Maybe you think that they’re confusing and often difficult to operate. It very much depends on your own individual viewpoint. However, it’s probably a fair bet to say that you almost certainly don’t associate the latest “must have” electronic gadget with doing your bit for the environment – but electronic devices can, in the right circumstances, be environmentally friendly.

Digital photo frames for example have become very popular over the last two or three years. Due to competition in the market, prices have fallen dramatically and you can now pick up perfectly serviceable examples for around about the same price that you might pay for a conventional photo frame. Digital frames have a number of perceived advantages, one of which is their ability to display hundreds of different photographs using a single frame.

A lot will depend upon how many photographs you take in an average year, but if you are in the habit of getting a bit snap happy then using a digital frame to display your photo collection could have a positive environmental impact. Whether you avoid having photos printed out at a processing lab or if you just print out less on your computer printer you will wind up using fewer materials.

Another good, and very topical, example is the current trendy gadget – the e-book reader. These have actually been around for quite a while, but they really took off in 2009 and look set to make even more sales in 2010. The Kindle reader is currently the most popular by a long way and Sony have also established a good market presence.

125 million trees are cut down every year to provide the paper required to supply the U.S. book, magazine and newspaper industry sector. Huge amounts of water, energy and a whole host of chemicals are also consumed to feed the nation’s reading habit. On top of that, since books are a physical product they need to be delivered from the publisher to the book store – generally using road transport. The gas used by customers who drive to and from the retail outlet is also a factor in determining the carbon footprint of a typical book.

Of course, e-books do not consume large quantities of paper, ink etc. in their production. Also, given that there is no physical product, electronic books may be downloaded from the internet instead of using road delivery.

Of course, as both e-book readers and digital photo frames are themselves physical products, they do require both materials and energy for their production. They also require delivery to the point of sale or direct to the final customer. Nevertheless, studies have shown that, even when these materials are offset against the savings in paper, energy, ink etc. that such devices can be better for the environment (though it will depend, to a certain extent, on how many books you read or how many photos you process each year).