Most of his ideas will work with ample sized acreage, 5 or better for
unobstructed sun. 20 or better for wood with thick hardwood growth.
Unobstructed hilltop for wind in a constant windy area, sitting on about 2
or more acres not including the house.

This leaves most city folks out of these options.

He didn't talk about water supply either which is another independent option
with hidden costs.
--
Jonny
wrote in message
oups.com...
"The reality is that its not quite the shangra-la you're portraying
regarding independent power for our homes. "

Exactly. The main reason these alternate solutions are not widely used
is simple: cost
With the price of energy today, it's still not practical for most
people to switch to these alternates. Plus, none of them
are without their own problems. Take wood for example. We already
have enough environmental issues with harvesting
trees for existing uses, let alone undertake the massive amounts of
additional forest it would take to use for a significant energy source.
And what about air pollution? There are already communities that are
limiting fire places and stoves because of wood burning
pollution.

Solar energy for electricity? Sounds good until you realize that it
costs $60K to outfit a single house. That will take a long time to
pay back
and how long will the system last? How much does maintenance cost?
Some folks here have done it becaus the govt is subsidizing
and helping to pay for the cost, but we all end up paying for the true
cost in the end.

Wind? This does work, but only really economical and practical in the
right windy locations, eg Palm Springs. And there are issues
with this too. Here in NJ there is a proposal to put up a wind farm a
couple miles offshore. There are lots of people objecting to what
it will do to the view from the beach. Same thing happening off Cape
Cod, where even environmentalist Robert Kennedy Jr. is actively
against a wind farm.

Alcohol from corn? Every study I've seen shows that gasoline would
have to be around $4 a gallon for alcohol to compete with it. Just
because
it grows doesn't mean it's cheap. And it still takes energy to make
fertilizer, plant it, harvest it, process it, etc