hydroelectric is pretty good, yep. wish it was implemented in more places, but Site C is a promising start. costing a shitload though, and we sell a lot our our power to the USA.
What’s frustrating is for all this cheap power, how f’ing expensive our cost of living is. filled up at $2.249/L last night. fuck off.
I’m very interested in ground source heat pumps. They are by far the most energy efficient I think? Only downside though is that you have to have somewhere to dig the pipes for the pumping…
Air source is less efficient, and takes up less space, but rather unsightly, like an air-conditioning unit.
Their upside however, is that if you can get 100% renewables electricity, it’s green heating.
Filling station near me is £1.74/L for petrol, £1.82/L for diesel.
I’ve no idea to be honest. They wont be able to go full self generating electricity and I doubt they have the cash for solar panels even though they do have the roof space. No grants for that as far as I know.
They do have room for ground source heating (I think) but that would mean digging up the driveway but my concerns would be efficiency. My parents place has a lot of water moving through the ground but I really dont know if that’s as bad as it sounds
Ground source heat pumps are really tricky - where the location is good, they are excellent, but poorly installed in a bad location their performance is poor. Air source doesn’t have the same range of performance, but in a mild climate like Wales should be quite effective.
Any further insight as to what makes a good or bad location?
Yep. This is where I’m struggling. We need to choose our preferred option here and I simply haven’t got a clue on any of the heat source options.
I’m not sure how the cost equation works with regards to grid electricity through something like ground source heat pumps versus the alternatives. At the very least the heat pumps ought to save you quite a fair bit of electricity nonetheless.
A ground source heat pump uses electricity for the pump that operates the loops, so the ‘efficiency’ can be as high as 400% in terms of energy input versus delivered thermal energy. Electrical resistance heating by contrast is close to a 1:1 or 100%.
A lot of that depends on the geology and even the soil characteristics. For a horizontal loop system, the consistency of the thermal conductivity of the soil is key (horizontal loops require more area but are cheaper), the thermal gradient matters although rather less so - you just need good year-round data to determine the required depth.
For a vertical loop system, the thermal gradient and therefore the geology become critical - how far down do you need to drill to reach the point where ground temperature is constant. That in turn defines the correct loop depth/length.
Improperly done, the ground source will not be stable enough to do the required work, and the performance will be erratic. Installation cost will vary fairly directly with the required depth for any of the loop types.
This is where I think my parents would struggle with this. The available ground is basically made ground comprising of as dug arisings including mud, rubble, quarry waste etc. A proper hodge podge of nothing of stuff that was basically thrown over the side of a hill. Then add water to it.
Down side of biomass is having to refill the thing. Not helpful to the elderly.
I would look carefully at the numbers for an air source heat pump. Seasonal efficiency will be in the 130-200% range, and likely skewing to the higher end of that. They struggle with extreme temperatures for obvious reasons (at -20 C, there just isn’t much warmth in the air to pass through the heat exchange), but they are very straightforward. In Quebec with cheap electricity, ASHPs are highly effective for the vast majority of the year.
An excellent opportunity for local rewilding.
Will it happen? Will it bollocks.
It isn’t much of an opportunity for re-wilding either. Even if you shut down all that farmland (which is a huge water draw), it doesn’t get enough water to return to an original state - and won’t until the Colorado itself is returned to something like a natural state. That won’t happen as long as there are cities like Phoenix and Las Vegas, which are some of the fastest growing parts of the US.
thankfully my friends farm near the lower Madison river is safe.
We now know where Putin is hiding. 
Didn’t know he belongs to the bovine family to pass so much gas.