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Goodbye natural gas you dirty boy! It’s over between us! #3

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Passive solar rocks!

I waited too late to take the picture below but you can see that my south facing windows provide me with quite a big of passive solar.

Today it was in the high 40s to low 50’s but our house was toasty warm. Very early I heated the house up with our new wood burning stove but after the sun started to shine in my windows, I’ve needed no other heat source for a good 7 hours. We have used no Atmos Gas heat since the wood stove was installed.

Today I also cooked our main course, black beans and rice, in the solar oven.

And here is Ellie enjoying some passive solar.

Goodbye natural gas you dirty boy! #1

Goodbye natural gas you dirty boy! #2

 

About Sharon Wilson

Sharon Wilson is considered a leading citizen expert on the impacts of shale oil and gas extraction. She is the go-to person whether it’s top EPA officials from D.C., national and international news networks, or residents facing the shock of eminent domain and the devastating environmental effects of natural gas development in their backyards.

Comments

      • No Fracking Way says

        That is a superb bit of kit! Over here in WV, we’re a lot further north than you and we do get a lot of cloud so it probably wouldn’t be practical. We cook on the wood stove when it is running and I always have cast iron and stainless kettles on the stove when I’m not using it for cooking.

        Our 10 KW Solar Array generates all our electricity and we also have a surplus that we feed back into the grid. Our last 6 electricity bills have been $5.00.. the cost of the bi-directional meter!

        • TXsharon says

          I’ve been researching solar panels but I don’t think I can afford them. I would love to have something like that though.

          The solar oven will work on partly cloudy days but it takes a lot longer. I’m trying to set mine up everyday so it’s ready if I need it. Even if I don’t, it doesn’t cost anything.

  2. Kim Feil says

    I heat my home and hang dry my clothes by my wood burning stove. I hand wash my dishes and heat my water with Bounce Energy using 100% wind. No gas up my @$$

  3. elizabeth burns says

    I love this kind of thing because you are controlling something that you have the ability to control. There are so many things we can’t change ourselves – but there are many things we can do.

  4. Christine Ruggiero says

    The picture of Ellie is my favorite! We could learn a lot from her. It reminds me sometimes that we take the best for granted. A day just lounging in the sunshine.

    Our home was never powered by natural gas, but unfortunately we were surrounded by the means necessary to provide others with that “benefit”. The destruction of our home was “necessary” to feed the need. We were the sacrifice, however unnecessary.

    I look forward to the day that we move to a new home that also will not be powered by “natural” gas.

    When we are able to get set up in a new home, it will be powered by solar and wind as quickly as possible. We will also work to make it easier to gain permits for solar power.

    It is amazing to me that the process for obtaining a driling permit from the Texas Railroad Commission to drill for “natural” gas is far easier than obtaining a permit for solar power. A permit to use millions of gallons of water and drill thousands of feet deep into the earth is apparently easier than putting up a panel to harvest energy from the sun. Wow.

    Where “natural” gas drilling is concerned it requires hydraulic fracturing of the earth 9000+ feet deep. Solar power doesn’t require that. “Natural” gas extraction requires millions of gallons of water with chemicals injected into the earth. Solar power doesn’t require that.

    “Natural” gas extraction requires diesel trucks to come and remove the toxic waste waste water and condensate on a more than daily basis. With regard to that waste water, it is injected further into the ground (also permittedby the Texas Railroad Commission)

    Solar power doesn’t require that.

    Someone needs to explain to me why the permittting process for drilling for “natural” gas seems to be far easier than permitting for solar power.

    Please let me know what the environmental impacts of solar power are. I’d like to know if the solar industry uses millions of gallons of our most precious resource, water, to set up their facilities, and also if they inject millions of gallons of chemically laced waste water into the earth. I’d also like to know what the emissions from solar panels are? Do they contain carcinogens and nuerotoxins like “natural” gas facilities do? Do they require explosive piplelines?

    We have a lot of sunshine and wind on the “surface” of Texas. Is it greed that is causing us to waste our our most valuable resource, water, for the extraction of natural gas or is there something detrimental about solar and wind power?