Solar Powered Lawn mower/trailer

[bcroe]

Get some goats or sheep and you will not need to mow.
Pure green power and dinner.

Right, but you need to be lots more careful where you step. What I really need is something that eats yellow
dandelion heads. Bruce

[Sunking]

What I really need is something that eats yellow dandelion heads. Bruce

Goats!

[J.P.M.]

Right, but you need to be lots more careful where you step. What I really need is something that eats yellow
dandelion heads. Bruce

Ever make dandelion wine ? Seriously (sort of).

[bcroe]

Ever make dandelion wine ? Seriously (sort of).

Not me. You are welcome to take all of mine.

[Suprasoup]

Right, but you need to be lots more careful where you step. What I really need is something that eats yellow
dandelion heads. Bruce

Get yourself a bunch of floppy ear rabbits.

[SunEagle]

Get yourself a bunch of floppy ear rabbits.

Careful with rabbits because unchecked their population can explode and then you will be wishing for coyotes to clear them out.

[bcroe]

Get yourself a bunch of floppy ear rabbits.

I have some rabbits but they aren't getting the job done. Meantime I have worked up rabbit and deer
proof fences for gardening. The bottom is buried chicken wire, the top is several electric wires.

Probably the dandelion answer is one of those big combination mower and vacuum cleaners
that collects everything for these weeks. Don't have one (yet). Bruce Roe

[Mike90250]

Last fall I got a rear bagger 40" john deere x350r It even chews up rocks, but they are tough on blades. The bigger tractor with the 5' flail mower, really pulverizes stuff wet or dry, but not very maneuverable, even with the bucket off.

Goats. Don't. Unless you have no-climb 8' high fence with electric wire. That's all that would work for us. They climb the no-climb wire (supposed to work against horses, sure doesn't work on goats) The electric top wire gets 'em . Some day, they will send 2 up to short out the wire, so the rest can get out. Then humans are in trouble.

[Suprasoup]

Careful with rabbits because unchecked their population can explode and then you will be wishing for coyotes to clear them out.

Never been a problem in a country filled with Asians. Now those British, Kiwis and Aussies...well theyre a queer lot.

[SunEagle]

Very glad to see that people are using eco-energy mowers. It's a big step for our humanity and the entire world. In this way, we protect the environment.

So I guess you drive an EV , do not purchase food from a store (because diesel trucks deliver the food) or use electricity at night.

Look I understand the need to use less fossil fuel but when someone starts to throw out the "save the world" verbiage and does not get all of their energy from renewable sources I think that they just don't really understand what it takes to save humanity and the world but are just spouting the Green rhetoric because they feel they need to.

[J.P.M.]

So I guess you drive an EV , do not purchase food from a store (because diesel trucks deliver the food) or use electricity at night.

Look I understand the need to use less fossil fuel but when someone starts to throw out the "save the world" verbiage and does not get all of their energy from renewable sources I think that they just don't really understand what it takes to save humanity and the world but are just spouting the Green rhetoric because they feel they need to.

While still living in Buffalo in the '80's, I attended a rather high powered symposium at UB that addressed some of the problems associated with storing nuclear waste at a facility called West Valley, not too far from Buffalo. Not being a big fan of nuclear power (but being pragmatic enough to see that it ain't going away any time soon), my biggest take away from that - besides meeting some very interesting folks - was that a lot of very high powered and very knowledgeable pro nuke people really want to do something productive to make the world better by improving nuclear safety. In contrast to that, on arriving and leaving, all the conference attendees had to run a gauntlet of a couple hundred protesters with cliche heavy signs/banners adding nothing to the conversation except static.
Flash forward a few years ago, 2001 I think, I attended a gathering of solar advocates in NM. It was a day event held in a field way out in the boonies with any sound /electronics powered by PV. I noticed that besides all the participants being white, geeky looking folks, they all, or mostly all showed up, two at a time BTW, driving/riding in big ass SUV's that would hold 6 people, or more likely arrive in pickups - with pristine beds making me think the truck was more of a macho thing than a job requirement. Lots of speeches full of innuendo, long on rhetoric, short on reality and generally not helpful to productive additions to the body of alternate energy information. Mostly pie in the sky B.S. run not for information purposes as claimed, but more as a sales/lead generator for solar peddlers.

So much for environmental awareness and walking the walk.

I'm a big alternate energy advocate, but I'm less than happy about all the hypocrites and self centered, non thinking twits the movement seems to attract. Such folks are not helping.

[organic farmer]

So I guess you drive an EV , do not purchase food from a store (because diesel trucks deliver the food) or use electricity at night.

I am an organic farmer. I produce around 90% of our household food, and we barter among our neighboring farms for the rest. I am fortunate that I decided to migrate to a region of the USA where off-grid organic farming is a common sub-culture.

My car recharges its drive battery from our household solar power system.

I do not have an EV tractor yet, but every year at the Ag Fairs I have been seeing EV farm tractors becoming a lot more common. I might get an electric farm tractor some time.

I am curious why you think that solar-powered homes can not use electricity at night?

[SunEagle]

I am an organic farmer. I produce around 90% of our household food, and we barter among our neighboring farms for the rest. I am fortunate that I decided to migrate to a region of the USA where off-grid organic farming is a common sub-culture.

My car recharges its drive battery from our household solar power system.

I do not have an EV tractor yet, but every year at the Ag Fairs I have been seeing EV farm tractors becoming a lot more common. I might get an electric farm tractor some time.

I am curious why you think that solar-powered homes can not use electricity at night?

I am happy some people are able to live their lives using a large % of renewable power. So congratulations to you. But most just like to blame the POCO's for causing climate change and pollution without really understanding that they are part of the problem too.

While EV vehicles will increase in use most people will not be able to afford one or will still charge them from fossil fuel power stations so how are they really staying green?

I also know that a lot of products that people use have to be made using fossil fuel so getting rid of oil is a pipe dream.

As for why solar powered homes don't use renewable energy at night, well unless you get your power from wind, water, nuclear or geothermal you are using non green power sources to run your loads. By the way batteries are not green if you look at how they are made and what they are made of.

[bcroe]

I am not satisfied with the current state of nuke power plants, I think they can be
made much cheaper and safer, my guess by going the Thorium route. The waste
products process can be much improved as is done across the pond. But even
today, the total waste produced is far less, orders of magnitude less, than the
comparable processes and problems with coal, way, way less people have been
killed or poisoned. No metal, poisons, or CO2 into the air. They probably would
even work every day in TX. And largely, they make possible renewable energy use
such as my zero carbon footprint house net metering.

We could all go back to the way it was several centuries ago, pollution was limited
by a world supporting a tiny fraction of as many people. Most people were dedicated
to the day to day and year to year process I call SURVIVING, any serious problems
and you died. Just legal and practical problems like water and sewer make that
life nearly impossible now. Fine for those who still like to grow their own food, but
I see our farmers as WAY more efficient doing it, and I have other things to pursue.

We have managed to extend the state-of-the-art to build battery powered cars with
decent range. That with reduced weight, great streamlining, gliding along on the
level on a warm day. That might extend well into medium weight delivery vehicles
that do low speeds and much start-stop use, low miles per day. But a tractor does
not glide along, it must do some pretty hard work every foot of the way. My tractor
gets way less mileage than my powerful car weighing 4 times as much. Ethanol
might be the ultimate solution, I am not holding my breath.

I do not see SERIOUS planning and potential planning to really solve the problems,
mostly I keep hearing day to day issues with things like money and job changes.
Plenty of green people latching onto todays technology, not noticing it will take
more than that to solve our problems. Bruce Roe