Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Made down payment on one of these, expecting delivery in about a month:

http://www.zeromotorcycles.com/zero-fx/specs.php

Have put a solar roof on my house, awaiting county inspection so it can be commissioned. Once that happens, I'll be charging the electric motorcycle for free.

Solar roof is sized to produce 120% of my average annual electricity usage, so I'll be selling power to the power company instead of paying them for power.

Replacing my gasoline powered fishing boat with one of these:

http://freedomelectricmarine.com/blog/c ... n-troller/

Going to be charging that for free by means of the solar roof as well.

In design and planning stage for my aquaponics system. It will be off the grid, including totally separate from my solar roof, but powered by it's own solar cell, and it will have it's own solar water heater to keep my tilapia warm in the winter.

In the process of putting solar cells on the roof of my toy hauler travel trailer. When complete I can camp in it for extended periods of time and have all the electricity I need without having to run the on-board generator.

Getting away from gun powder for my rifle for hunting deer and other big game, by means of this:

http://www.crosman.com/rogue

With solar electricity powering the smelter pot to melt the lead to make my own bullets.

The liberal gun grabbers don't see this one coming, yet.

Sounds good, nice to look after the environment. Would be even better when the production of solar panels and their raw material would be clean as well.

Apart from that I will go with some solar panels and battery storage for the aquaponics system as well in the near future.

Cheers

Yes, it is sort of a silly game to say we are going green with solar power, when the act of the making of the cells is so polluting. But in the end It's probably less polluting to make them once, rather than to be constantly burning fossil fuel to make electricity over the estimated 25-year life of the solar panels (the time in which they still produce 75-80% of the power they produced when brand new).

And for me personally, my goals for going solar and for electric transportation are just a bit more selfish - it's the elimination of monthly power bills and weekly gasoline bills that has me going for all these changes in my lifestyle.

It's just a side benefit that my saving money is also helping to save the environment.

I've been looking in to all these things for years now. But it's just recently that they all have become economically feasible for me personally. So now I'm jumping in with both feet all at once.

Five years ago I looked at the electric motorcycle scene, for example. Costs were high and benefits (top speed available, sustained cruising speed, and range on a full charge) were relatively low. But now both of those aspects are good enough that they meet, yea exceed, my daily work commute requirements, and prices are very competitive with a gasoline model. So I've decided to go for it.

Before re-examining the electric motorcycle scene this year, I looked very carefully at all of the electric car options available to me in North America. And I decided that the benefits of those just aren't there because the costs they want for them all exceed what I would have to pay for a frugal gasoline automobile. (think Smart For Two or Fiat 500) So as far as I'm concerned, forget the electric car scene for now, even though they might save the environment over a gas model.

Selfish? Or smart frugality?