[Ford4000]

Hate to burst their bubble but propane is not "renewable".

[MplsSteve]

In Minnesota, there a some dairy farmers who use cow manure manure to power an anaerobic digestor.

They provide plenty of power for their farms and often sell power to local co-ops.

It's not a bad idea - if you can afford the upfront money to construct the digestor. It's a practical use and environmentally-friendly way of disposing of cow manure.

[tcostell]

It's slightly off topic, but my wife and I have decided not to turn on our natural gas heat at all this year. The whole house is being heated with our pellet stove burning a mixture of wood pellets and dry corn.

It's saving us thousands.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

An upscale system in a house of 2,000 square feet, for instance, costs more than $23,000 to purchase and install.

Electricity must be expensive out west. I could pay my electric bill for more than 30 years for what this cost. Hope there's no maintenance.

[chimera]

An upscale system in a house of 2,000 square feet, for instance, costs more than $23,000 to purchase and install.

I don't know, it seems kind of pricey for a feel-good kind of expenditure. Nuclear-generated electricity wholesales for around 3 cents per kwhr. Assuming an average household using about 1 kwhr at any given time, on average, $23,000 buys you a little over 87 years' worth of electricity. Unless you are planning on passing your homestead along for a couple of generations, you probably aren't going to realize much payback in an average homeowner's lifetime.

[mugs99]

I lived off the grid for ten years. I like the grid. I can still produce my own power in emergencies, but the grid requires no labor or maintenance expense on my part.