I'm an energy extremist, I admit it, so now that we are grid-tied I find myself daydreaming about ways to maximize the PV power we sell to the grid. So I found it annoying to turn the backup electric breaker for our solar hot water tank on and off depending on the weather. On sunny stretches, I could leave it off and the solar thermal panels would be sufficient to heat our four person household's hot water supply. But when we got more than two cloudy days in a row, the water temp just wasn't cutting it, sinking below 80 degrees sometimes, making for a really unpleasant shower.
Rainbarrels and Composting Toilet Dramatically Lower Water Consumption
Published by stephenhren on April 2nd, 2009 in Rainwater
It's been gratifying to see the drop in water use once we got our rainbarrels, greywater, and composting toilet up and running in the fall of '07. Since then we haven't had to use any additional water for landscaping purposes. For our four-person household, we've been using about 12-15 gallons per person per day of water, well below our climate and site's potential availability.
As Human Economy Slips, Ten Million Other Economies Stage Unprecedented Rally
Published by stephenhren on March 26th, 2009
Check out the article here. And Rebekah just wants to point out the article published one week LATER by Thomas Friedman that seems, hhmm, perhaps a bit "derivative"!?
Video - How to build a solar air heater!
Published by rebekahhren on March 7th, 2009 in Heating
Thanks to YIKES, the Forest Foundation, and NC School of Science of Math - what a cool video!!
Tying to the Grid
Published by stephenhren on March 1st, 2009 in Renewable Electricity
It took a while, but Rebekah finally got our PV system tied to the grid from being a stand-alone off-grid battery system. She had to get it inspected not only by the city electrical inspector but also by the recalcitrant Duke Power, not known anywhere for their progressive views (although the CEO does do a lot of greenwashing).
Why oil prices are so low, and other Peak Oil thoughts
Published by stephenhren on February 22nd, 2009
I'm been writing posts occasionally for Huffington Post. They didn't publish this one for whatever reason, which means its either significantly worse, or significantly better, than usual (or, it might have been that it's just too damn long!):
Ran Prieur Leaves Dixie
Published by stephenhren on February 6th, 2009
Had a nice visit from Ran Prieur the last few days. Although sick, he proved to be an entertaining guest. Check out his circumspect musings on the fate of industrial civilization (and follow the rest of his tour) at his blog: www.ranprieur.com.
Safe travels, Ran.
Immanentizing the eschaton
Published by rebekahhren on February 2nd, 2009
There are two books on my bedside table this week: "Reinventing Collapse" by Dmitry Orlov, and "The Long Descent" by John Michael Greer.
Hunting the low carbon sofa
Published by rebekahhren on January 20th, 2009 in Appliances and Lighting
We just hiked back in the snow from watching the inaugural address in downtown Durham. Sweet. On another, less exciting note, Stephen and I have been hunting for furniture: a couch for, oh, about two years now, and barstools for going on 9 months. We're definitely not picky in the normal color-texture-style way, most everything in our house now came as our friend Noah's (decidedly well-chosen) castoffs or from my dead grandmother. However, we do care about the “where was it made, what's it made from” business.
Rebekah's version of the holiday cruise, Or, "how I ended up on that giant floating casino/ buffet/mall"
Published by rebekahhren on January 2nd, 2009
Stephen and I spent a holiday week in Mexico with my family. We've been to Mexico before: in 1993 (pre-NAFTA, peso 3000/dollar), 1996 (post-NAFTA, peso 10/dollar), and now this trip, 2008 (postmodern NAFTA, peso 13/dollar). I thought for sure there would be visible signs of the US recession and credit crisis glazing the country.
