Solar Nerd articles about: Environment

All-electric homes are fast becoming one of the latest home trends. If you want to have cleaner indoor air, the latest technology, or save money (and who doesn’t?), an all-electric home might be right for you too. It also makes a lot of sense if you have solar panels, or you’re thinking about it. If you can generate enough electricity from rooftop solar panels, you can power all of the appliances in your home and still have a monthly electric bill that’s near zero.

One of the reasons that many homeowners add solar panels to their roof is to help contribute to a better environment. When it comes to climate change, solar panels absolutely are net positive. In 3 or 4 years they “pay back” the energy that was used to manufacture them, after which they generate clean electricity for another couple decades. Coal and gas-fired power plants, in contrast, are never clean sources of energy.

I’ll start off by saying that I’ve been a fan of a lot of Michael Moore’s work for a long time. Updated 27 Apr 2020: Added items to the 'Additional resources' section, including a different documentary worth watching. I saw Roger and Me in the theaters back in 1989, and I thought TV Nation was funny and insightful. He’s an agitator and polemicist, but on balance his progressive brand of journalism has been a great voice for many years.

97% of scientists believe that the Earth’s climate is changing and that humans are the reason. This isn’t new. The fact that carbon dioxide traps heat isn’t in scientific dispute, and the idea that humans burning massive amounts of fossil fuels could affect the climate has been around since at least 1912: Climate change story in a New Zealand newspaper. August 14, 1912. The scientific consensus is equally clear when it comes to renewable energy, including solar.

As you probably know, solar panels turn sunlight into clean electricity: they’re totally silent, and don’t release any pollution. Even though solar electricity is clean, you might wonder about the solar panels themselves. What exactly is under that sheet of glass? If you’re a homeowner who is thinking about putting solar panels on your roof, are you putting the health of your family at risk by installing dangerous or toxic materials on your home?

If you want to get the maximum performance out of solar panels, it’s important that they have full sun for as much of the day as possible. One of the most common issues that a homeowner will face when deciding whether to install solar panels is dealing with shading from nearby trees. This is a particular problem if shadows fall on any south-facing section of your roof in the middle of the day when power production is at its peak.

While growing rapidly, renewable energy still constitutes a minority of the energy usage in the United States. Because of that, people are still learning how it works and whether it’s really better than fossil fuel energy sources. It’s easy on the internet to find articles suggesting that not only are wind and solar energy not environmentally friendly, but that they’re worse for the environment than fossil fuels. For example, Donald Trump claimed that the noise from wind turbines cause cancer (it doesn’t).