Re: Generate Your Own Power...
Originally Posted by
Realist
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Now OGF, I know you're not this naïve !
The powers that be will never allow the populous to go "off grid" en-masse and provide their own energy. Not in a thousand years will they do that. Their profits come before all else so they will continue to foist expensive fossil fuels on us for a long time to come.
Just look at solar panels and how stupidly expensive they are.
You can build your own solar panel really quite easily by buying cheap individual solar cells that didn't quite come up to quality standards during manufacturing but which are nevertheless quite effective enough.
There are YouTube clips a-plenty showing how to build a panel from them, just a bit of soldering really.
But can you do it?
Nope because those same powers that be have invented all manner of laws and regulations to prevent you from doing this. Regs around having to have any such panel professionally checked and certified before you can hook it up to your house system and so on. Anything really to make it not cost effective for the average Joe Bloggs.
Meanwhile I note that farmers fields all over the country are springing up with masses of solar panels. Almost as if they are anticipating some national energy disaster and need solar as a backup.
I might be a little bit naive Realist, because as we progress through time the old ideas no longer are the saviour they once were; Ideas like the national grid and the NHS. Neither bargained for the population explosion that seems to have overtaken us (especially here in the UK)and consequently large public companies are under pressure to supply the extra demand. The worlds resources will not last forever so it is imperative that we find other ways to produce energy.
Solar Panels and Wind Turbines are not perfect, but seem to take the pressure off conventional methods of producing electricity to some degree, and whereas nobody would consider having a giant Coal or Gas driven Steam turbine, or a small nuclear reactor in their garden, they certainly would, and do, install Solar Panels and Wind Turbines. So for the first time since the use of electricity it has become possible to be self sufficient. There is still a lot of work to do, but generating your own electricity just thirty years ago would have been out of the question.....
You are always telling us to be prepared for the day when water, electricity and other services cease so I would have thought you would be the first to proclaim the virtues of producing your own power....
PS:- I don't think farmers are preparing for the big switch off by installing fields full of solar panels, I suspect that, like wind turbines and mobile phone masts, they have found a good way to turn a profit while sat at home watching re runs of 'Game of Thrones' instead of grafting on the land...