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Mon 15 Jan 2007, 21:23
Malcolm,
I'm not sure about the reuse of old PCs as firewall or router because I suspect that much smaller low power devices are now available a specially to the home and small business user. This assumption relies on some sort of equation (which still eludes me) between the energy put into the original build of the old and new device the and the ongoing energy consumption over a projected functional lifetime of the device, then there is the trade off between pollution and energy which is much more unclear. A lot of the electronic waste does go straight into India's water course, but not all. It is a dilemma sometimes to reuse or scrap/recycle computers. The energy from my dedicated embedded router/firewall takes a max of 10 watts so should run at about 5watts, If I replaced it with a pentium 90 (with a hard disc!) how much power do you thing it would take? Don't get me wrong I love Linux but you have to think about the IT skills side the home users and small business and generally it is non-existent. Because our economic system is upside down ( peoples time cost more than materials) four hours or four days setting up a free Linux box is more expensive than buying a new thing :-( I think it could be possible to bottle (pressurised) methane at the sewage works but I thinks that's as close as we can get to CHP system.
Bio-fuel is plainly evil and morally wrong not to mention more carbon causing than oil. The biggest mistake the EU has ever made, encouraging counties to import bio-fuel grown from rainforest that has been slashed and burned for that sole purpose. Like lets feed cars and not people madness. I've got nothing against you using old cooking oil though to run your car.
Home wind power is another waste of money and energy, however big off-shore wind power with gravity hydro storage for peek demand is the way to go. Passive solar is well worth while and proven. Solar PV I have not made my mind up about yet. They take 25 years to get a pay back and guess what' only last 25 years, you don't see these facts on the same page much. Well there is my rant. If you want justifications just read "Heat" by George Monbiot ISBN 0-713-99923-3 he has been very thorough. You can borrow it if you like.
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