Solar, Electric or Wind for Energy Needs?

Wood would be a very cost effective renewable fuel. It take about 7 acres of properly managed woods to keep one house hold in fuel for a lifetime. You would be providing a space for wildlife and a way to reduce your carbon footprint. If you were to increase your land to 10 acres you could include land for a large garden including fruit trees. By using proper techniques you could have your fuel drying for two years to provide maximum heat value with minimum soot. You could recycle the ash (potash) in your garden and use it to replace salt for you walks and driveway at the same time you are returning the ash to the soil. You may even be able to combine your wood burner with a boiler and use the steam to produce electricity for your use (24/7) and selling the excess to the power grid. Unlike solar or wind the wood can run continuously. You could even get a trash compactor to compact into bricks you burnable waste and further reduce your carbon foot print. Your idea of using a earth home with I assume passive solar heating is also a good idea to make use of renewable energy sources. One idea that my friends and I have talked about but I don't know how it would work is to use passive solar heat. One of the problems with passive solar heat is it works great in a few rooms with the proper exposure and the rest of the house is cold. On a trip to South Korea I noticed that they use in floor heating. We talked about combining this idea with passive solar. I have been told that direct sun light can heat up to 4 inches of concrete and that heat will last for up to 4 hours. The idea we talked about is to run tubes under the floor in the house with tubes being closer in the pat of the house that receives direct solar heat. You would fill the tubes with a liquid and using a small pump keep circulating the fluid through out the house thus providing heat to the whole house even after the sun has gone down. It sound like you are being very careful in your planning. One of the problems that some people have had in the northern part of the county is snow on the solar panels and how to remove it. The panels are very sensitive and easily damaged. I have heard that they are also very expensive and the cost benefit is not there. The same applies to wind, although it may be different in western Iowa being flat with more wind. Back a few years when our construction classes were studying the different forms of energy passive solar paid but active solar and wind cost you money even with the tax benefits. Good luck and keep us posted on what your learn.

Solar energy and wind energy really aren't very cost-efficient, so I can't imagine they are going to be the energy of the future. I think that waste-to-energy is a great idea that more people need to consider. There are only 90 waste-to-energy plants in the US, while our landfills keep filling up (especially mine, everybody sends their trash to Pennsylvania wtf!).

Firstly,i think electric should be put out of this when we are considering the cost.However,our concern today is reducing global warming and enviromental pollution and i think solar energy is the most appropriate to Scientists and enviromental protection Professionals.Cooling the house,warming the house or using electronics,solar is still the most appropriate to me.......

I don't know which they will lean to, but I would see wind as being one of our biggest untapped resources.

natural sources can save the world and save humans

natural gas is the only solution that really exists man..... all the other cost extremelly and ain't able to help a bit....much money no energy.......gas on the other hand,can heat,cold,cook and give power to an ellectrical generator....

Personally I would Love to live in an area that got enough Sun for the place to be run by Solar energy for the most part. It would be a lot cheaper, and could benefit in so many ways. The only problem is if it is somewhere that would get too warm or too cold is making sure you had a way built in to be able to get warm, or cool off as well.

In many ways it will depend on what resouces you have available plus of cou4se if there are any government subsidies. The other thing to consider is what the weather and temperatures are like where you are planning to build your new eco friendly home. For example if you have high snowfalls every year or even snow for a certain amount of time that will effect your decision. We live in Australia and in one of the dry western areas of the state so we have some solar panels which provide some of our electricity. Because of the cost of the solar panels we so not get all of our power from that source but what we do get certaily reduces the bills at this time. We also have an old wood burning stove in our kitchen which is actually multi purpose use in the winter. It is only used during the winter/cooler months as it would be way too hot in the summer months. Ours has a "water jacket" which means that this is our only souce of plentiful hot water in the winter. We can also keep a kettle on it all the time, so get hot drinks whenever we need one without having to boil a jug. Plus of course we cook our meals on/in it during the winter months. When our fruit and vegetables are in plentiful supply is is also hot, i.e. summer and autumn. That means when we are making sauces, jams, preserves etc the house gets extremely hot plus of course we are really busy with everything else at that time of the year. As an example, today the temperature reached 45 degrees C just outside our kitchen door and that is sheltered from the sun. A few years ago we experimented with freezing our fruit and vegetables. In the winter, we actually made a lot of the jams etc and lost none of the taste of quality from freezing the fruit and vegetables. So now we make our jams, preserves, sauces etc in the winter and yes we use the wood stove. That is a further savings in cost as we are not using electricity or gas to make those products. Finally when the wood stove is going, it actually warms the rooms where we spend most of the time, so we save on heating costs. The wood/timber that we use has to date mostly come from our own small farmlet and without having to cut down any trees. When we bought this place there was an abundance of fallen limbs and trees plus and endless suply of our fence posts when we removed all the fences. Also there are areas near us where they do cut down trees and we can get the offcuts for nothing. Also when we see that limbs are being removed from trees to keep them away from power lines, we get those for nothing as well. For the past 7 years we have planted some trees specificall to harvest for burning at some time in the future. So far we have not needed to harvest any of them and at an estimate we still have ample wood suitable but the stove for another 3 or 4 years. That time might increase of course if we find more wood that is suitable for use even if we have to put it aside to dry for a couple of years. In the late winter and spring months, we have another old wood stove which we use to heat the glasshouses where we start our seedlings off. It has the dual purpose of keeping the glasshouse warm plus it deters the frosts from the plants and gives them a better chance. Yes we do use electricity and gas as well but with the alternative options, we can reduce our reliance of those two things. I cannot recommend any one souce of energy for you to use as our climates are so different but I suggest that it would be better to look at installing 2 different sources, in case one fails for some reason or other. I do admire you for what you want to do though and wish you all the very best of luck with it.

Corruption and greed will win in this war. There is too much money to be made in oil and as long as there are greedy people who want more money, we will not see these other safer and more useful energy sources come to life.

i do not know enough about any of them to give a truly intelligent response but i do know we have to put alternative energy sources in place to save money and energy. i personally could not convert my home to anything other than what i have now because i cannot afford to make any changes. i think all 3 ideas are great ones.

Solar energy might be the only choice left for the whole world and not just America cause its an easy source of electricity which will cost you a lot of money at first but on the long term basis its a cheap medium which will be enough to run your household appliances without having to pay an extra unit. Solar energy can be used as much as you want and it will never be out of energy. Its like a free source of electricity which the nature has given to you for use without affecting other natural resources. Everyone should use solar energy

If you can have enough sunlight in the area in which you want to built the house you can depend upon the solar energy, if you don't have enough sunlight you can not make enough energy. I mean to say just clarify which type of energy is available in the area if you have strong winds you can depend upon the wind energy. I feel that Electric energy is available every where so you can use it but even electric energy is produced from coal and disel so it's left to your choice.

there is a long list of benefits offered by solar and wind energy. modern solar water heating systems are able to provide a large portion of household hot water on demand. Another advantage is that with this type of energy you are really doing your part for the environment. there is incredible potential offered by solar and wind energy.

Well to be honest is going to be a mixture of all of the above.Due to the fact that we have to do something. The problem is there are not enough wind or solar farms out there to really tell what impact they will have on our energy needs. I think in the end Wind and Solar will dominate.That being said, Having lived in both Korea and japn it seems to me that nuclear power is going to have to be part of any discussion.

Windfarms may not be as good for producing electricity as some would force us to believe. There is some evidence (not much published) that it could have an effect on the Jet-Stream - perhaps causing the massive floods in England - June 2007. One windfarm in Lincolnshire, England is believed to have been damaged by a U.F.O.(?alien), see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lincolnshire/7817378.stm Remember that you do not get anything for nothing. There is always a downturn to all kinds of electricity, including solar, wind and biofuels.

For me I guess I am very much interested in Solar because there is plenty of it in my place and I guess that would be pretty handy when it comes to solar power plus the fact that you could easily tapped it because it is everywhere. As to wind although I find it windy in our place its not the case always. But Solar is pretty much constant in my place. i think these technology has a lot of potential especially now that fossil fuels are fast approaching its depletion.

I suggest you to integrate solar & wind because I think both are cheaper than electric. Furthermore, both are renewable, but electric depends on where will you generate it from.

Though as a Chinese, I do not know the detail in American, I think in my coutry, I prefer solar energy. For the sun is the energy of all thing life on earth, while we can only make use of 3% of it. So if we can up the rate to 1%, it will make us way from shortage of energy. While I think using the solar energy, we can place it on the top of our house and in the city, no need to find a place like wind or water.

Wind is relatively efficient. Right now solar power isn't too great with the harmful chemicals used to make the cells and the lifespan of the cels being relatively short. I don't like biofuels because they give off emmisions. I personally think Wind, and geothermal are good options.

Another thing I was thinking, it would be a great start if everyone with gas heat would move to electric heat. Even if right now electricity is not the most "green" source, it is obvious that it will be in the future, and with the way oil prices are it would just be a safe thing for homeowners to do.