It's not easy being green ....

[jim mcglinchey]

Shirley the tank should be matt blacked to absorb as much radiation as possible?

[Daniel]

how does it manage that? it looks like it would reflect the light in all directions, so that only a little bit more light would hit the panels. And when the sun's at the wrong angle, wouldn't the tank shade the panels, as well?

Well what you do is if you're in the Southern Hemisphere you put the panel on a north facing roof and the panels are NEVER shaded by the tank because the sun is never directly overhead unless you live in the tropics.

Shirley the tank should be matt blacked to absorb as much radiation as possible?

The panels are black The glass merely insulates them so they don't give off all their heat back to the atmosphere.

[Kneeslider]

I think that in my previous post I might have given the impression that I am belittling the efforts of those who are trying to live a 'greener' lifestyle, far from it infact, I use a wood burner coupled into my central heating system to provide additional heat and hot water, and to reduce my fuel bills, the logs come from the garden anyway! When I had a diesel car, I used biodiesel to fill it up when I could. (incidentally, the fuel station at Snaith which used to provide biofuel has since closed down, it used to sell biodiesel at 10p/litre below the market value) Fossil fuels are a finite resource, and in an ideal world, should only be used when there isn't another practical alternative.

I was going to highlight the dubious delights of the green electricity tarriffs which are being touted around by suppliers, but I think that newsnight's eccellent Ethical Man series got there before me.

Try this link out, it's a little long winded, but worth it. I would advise that you think very carefully before contemplating using a green energy tarriff!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight...green_e_1.html