"David Hansen" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 24 Nov 2005 11:23:28 +0000 someone who may be Peter Parry
wrote this:-

No, because it is trivially insignificant. If every house in the UK
went to solar water heating tomorrow it would have a negligible
effect upon world greenhouse gas emissions.

As the old Chinese proverb says, the longest journey starts with a
single step. Saying that it is all too difficult and there is
nothing I can do is common, but not useful.

Not running a boiler all the year round is not an advantage?

No, because the solar supply is unreliable - you still need
conventional water heating available.

If the solar system is sized properly then the number of times a
boiler is run will be negligible.

If you switch off the boiler for the summer

Who said anything about doing this?

as well as making no economic sense is visually unattractive

I suspect we are getting to your real motives now.

Try not to be a prat all your life.

Excellent, personal abuse.

This man knows no better.

Usually the resort of those with no
better arguments.

That is the man.

Actually, yes, nearly all the examples shown are pretty awful. Not
all roofs are dull grey.

http://www.imaginationsolar.com/Gallery/v_panels.htm does not
involve a dull grey roof and neither does
http://www.imaginationsolar.com/Gallery/new_dev2.htm both of which
don't look in the least awful to me.

And:
http://carfaxlibdems.org.uk/pages/ecohouse.html

It is clear Mr Pot has no idea of design whatsoever.

As others have said, mass production and installation in new
buildings will even change the economics.

Possibly, but we are talking about retrofitting today

Given that Mr Prescott wants to build huge numbers of houses in
England over a relatively short period of time, over and above what
the volume builders are providing, we are talking about changing the
economics over a period of, say, five years.

Early adopters retrofitting houses will undoubtedly bring the price
down, as we see in other fields.

Yep.