We’re into March and I am thrilled that the solar hot water heating tubes we had installed last summer are starting to power away again as the days become longer and even see some blue sky through the persistent rainclouds. On the 1st March our tubes took the hot water tank from 26 degrees to over 41 by 2pm. If you have space on your roof that is not overshadowed and faces roughly south I strongly recommend them. Make sure you get a good installer though – there are a number of cowboys out there already.
As I hunt out ways to try to reduce our carbon footprint I am struck by just how uninformed we are in general, and how long it takes new technologies and ideas to be come established and widely debated. When I first started researching renewable techonologies seriously around this time last year I found the situation very frustrating. At a 2 day South East Regional Renewables conference I attended last autumn it was a big issue, particularly to the DTI speakers – just where can you find good information on different technologies, costs, viabilities, scales, key points to consider and alternatives to look at etc?
I am also amazed at how anal I get about the temperature of our hot water tank, how interesting I find it (if anyone cares to listen!) and how much easier it gets to ‘manage’ your system when you really understand how it works…
An example from our household here would be the solar tubes.. they work most effectively when the tank is relatively cold and so the heat differential between the hot water tank and what they can provide is greatest. We are therefore best to use our hot water through the day (washing etc), so the tank is averagely cool during the day and has the chance to reheat from the sun when it has the opportunity, rather than use hot water later in the evenings so that we ‘use it up’ and then need to use the boiler again so we can have hot water first thing in the morning. Its the same with the water butts – you can subsitute saved water for tap increasingly the more you think about how to use it.
But to the wider issues of carbon reduction we need to find ways to a) get about using less carbon in total (I’m finding this tough living in a very rural area with two children 5 and under), and b) heat and get our electricty from more carbon positive sources.. we buy renewables sourced electricty but I have my misgivings that our particular provider is doing more than send the minimal market signal. I blogged earlier about our wood burner boiler plans, they remain…. but what I would really like to see is a big debate on wind farms in our part of the country (East/ West Sussex borders), to know how much potential turbines have around here, and whether other sources can offer good or better possibilities.. There are plans afoot in my village to instigate a ‘Transition town’ initiative – which looks like a good way for us to raise our knowledge and community understanding of these issues. Also, my eye keeps alighting on articles about anaerobic digesters and ‘anaerobic reactors’ (the names are terrifying, the technology fantastic if the current Ecologist’s articles are anything to go by).. we live in a rural area… can anyone with practical experience of these technologies tell me briefly what scale you need to look at to make such things viable..?
In 10 years time I’m sure this will all be part of our shared cultural understanding and we will have magazines for renewables or power use the equivalent of ‘what car’ – that will tell anyone interested the salient facts, costs and trade-offs of different technologies and different models.. but right now it still feels like frontier territory.. the potential to make costly mistakes huge, and the time and effort of finding out still feels harder than should be necessary.
There is a market opportunity here for someone!
Rowena Moore
