Loans, Finances, Solar Energy and Inflation

[luc]

I'm considering getting a loan to remodel and make it a cozy home, but also allow for a substantial vegetable garden and nice landscaping.

Hi Revolucionar,
You have received good advice I think, and in the current environment and considering business is good it sounds like a good idea to take a loan with fixed interest rates.

I would just add that the old "granddaddy wisdom" of never spending any money you don't have still has something going for it, at least in spirit. That is to say, I would watch out for the temptation to go too far, especially where the "nice to have" things are concerned. It is a common thing among people who build/finance homes to fall into the trap of escalating the costs ("wouldn't it be nice to have this, and this too, and while we are at it, that would be nice as well...") because it is very tempting if the bank says "you can get 20k more if you like!" It can feel a bit like free money, which of course it isn't. And some people are getting into trouble because of that and get under a lot of pressure to keep earning the maximum they can handle, or worse, end up earning less and can't keep up with the payments.

Again, go for it, just be mindful of the "energy transfer" involved, make sure you can keep up with payments even with a somewhat lower income, and lean on the conservative side, OSIT. Best of luck with the project!

 

[Yupo]

Well, the fireplace I already have but it's not built for doing any actual eating so that needs to be redone. The chimney is in place already, though.
It's more of an ambience thing really, but can be used in a pinch.
My remarks about wood were based on stuff I heard and read in the past, but doing a bit of digging now has shown that I was quite wrong. Wood is a good option, especially if you have acces to free wood in sufficient quantities, but all in all, I still consider it a last resort kind of thing that I should have in place nonetheless.
Heat pumps are super efficient on the other hand. I just found one that provides 12 kW of heating power and uses only 2 kW of electricity to do it.
I'll probably go with that paired with a solar system which doesn't need to be to large to provide enough electricity to heat the house even in the winter.
With proper insulation, this investment can be recouped rather quickly.
I've been running the numbers a bit, and pretty confident that I can pull it off and that this is the right thing to do.
Now let's just hope we are given a but more time before the SHTF.


Yeah, the main problem with wood is that it greatly depends on the quality and high quality stuff is actually relatively expensive.
One log sounds like not nearly enough to heat anything larger than a small bathroom, and even then I don't see ot lasting a whole day. And oak trees take a looong long time to grow. Burning wood always seemed to me like a waste, but definitely something to have handy for an icy, snowy day.

Given a choice, I wouldn't want a house without a decent fireplace of some sort. There is nothing like the warmth and usefulness of fire when it is cold and there is no power. Maybe it isn't perfectly efficient, but you can cook there, heat water and have one warm room in which to gather your family in a crisis. Beyond this, it is just pleasant to be beside a fire for conversation. When we had fires recently, I noticed that no one was asking for Netflix, or even texting. We were just sitting around having real conversation, enjoying the warmth and company. That would be a mother in her 60s and 2 very young adults. That never happens normally.
I save my junk mail and paper shreds all year to make burn bricks.

 

[Revolucionar]

Hi Revolucionar,
You have received good advice I think, and in the current environment and considering business is good it sounds like a good idea to take a loan with fixed interest rates.

I would just add that the old "granddaddy wisdom" of never spending any money you don't have still has something going for it, at least in spirit. That is to say, I would watch out for the temptation to go too far, especially where the "nice to have" things are concerned. It is a common thing among people who build/finance homes to fall into the trap of escalating the costs ("wouldn't it be nice to have this, and this too, and while we are at it, that would be nice as well...") because it is very tempting if the bank says "you can get 20k more if you like!" It can feel a bit like free money, which of course it isn't. And some people are getting into trouble because of that and get under a lot of pressure to keep earning the maximum they can handle, or worse, end up earning less and can't keep up with the payments.

Again, go for it, just be mindful of the "energy transfer" involved, make sure you can keep up with payments even with a somewhat lower income, and lean on the conservative side, OSIT. Best of luck with the project!

Great points, Luc. I can definitely feel that temptation. I guess it's just human to have those thoughts arise, but I'm keeping on top of them and trying to look at everything from all possible angles while keeping a proper hierarchy of priorities and a general idea of how much monthly debt burden I'm willing to accept.
I'll rather take on higher interest to avoid a mortgage and get a fixed interest rate than install that pool I've been thinking about.
Solar panels, heat pump, heating installations and insulation are the priorities and some of the stuff like the pool and a terrace extension are luxuries.
I still need to get a proper project written up to figure out what the budget for each item would be and then decide on what to do now and what to leave for later.
Thanks for the encouragement.

Given a choice, I wouldn't want a house without a decent fireplace of some sort. There is nothing like the warmth and usefulness of fire when it is cold and there is no power. Maybe it isn't perfectly efficient, but you can cook there, heat water and have one warm room in which to gather your family in a crisis. Beyond this, it is just pleasant to be beside a fire for conversation. When we had fires recently, I noticed that no one was asking for Netflix, or even texting. We were just sitting around having real conversation, enjoying the warmth and company. That would be a mother in her 60s and 2 very young adults. That never happens normally.
I save my junk mail and paper shreds all year to make burn bricks.

Yeah, I really want that fireplace, too. I have a great idea for how to do it and I'm hoping I'll be able to squeeze that in. Even though we have one now, it's not very functional, so I'll have to invest a bit to make that into something useful. I'll look into revising the standing of the fireplace on my hierarchy of priorities.

 

[Mari]

Hi Revolucionar,

I‘m happy to read about your success, your plans and your efforts! I think you have a nice plan cooking and I‘d like to share some observations based on my experience.

I'm definitely not putting the house down as collateral. That would be crazy.

When doing business with banks, please read small letters. I don’t think I had a loan in Croatia where small letters didn’t say that that they are entitled to your property in case you cannot pay the debt.
So, watch out for that!

Wood is actually rather unhealthy to burn and extremely inefficient, but yeah, if that's all you can get, you better be able to use it.

My remarks about wood were based on stuff I heard and read in the past, but doing a bit of digging now has shown that I was quite wrong. Wood is a good option, especially if you have acces to free wood in sufficient quantities, but all in all, I still consider it a last resort kind of thing that I should have in place nonetheless.

I‘m glad you did your research on the wood; here I have a few points.

My father‘s job is installing central gas heating and water plumbing.
So we had at home 2 systems in one; one central heating furnace that runs on gas and one that runs on wood. Both furnaces are connected to the central system and you can choose: to heat the house with wood or with gas.
I can say right now: radiators were NEVER as warm on gas heating in comparison to wood heating. I don’t know why but for some reason wood is always better. Even if you put a smal amount of fair quality wood in the furnace it would heat up the radiators very quickly and very warm.

Second, if you have a large open space, my parents and my godparents have a smal furnace that works like you opened the gates of hell.
It warms up the space so fast and so natural, air is not dry and my godparents have it in the middle of the house and then simply open the bedroom doors to let in a bit of warmth.
Both of these furnaces look something like this Gusana peć na drva, kamin
I‘m sorry but I don’t know and cannot find the English translation of this type of furnace.

So it is a nice backup solution for heating.

Also, we were building and renovating our house and what we did was fireplace heating option.

My father installed radiators trough the house.
In the middle of the house we had a fireplace and my father connected the central system to it.
Fireplace looks something like this Kamin na drva, ugradbeni 10 kW - FERGUSS FG17 and it sits on cement blocks and is surrounded with the massive stones.
End result looks something like this Country Fireplace - Fond du Lac Natural Stone but not quite; imagine it in the middle of the room with dark gray stones…

Anyway, my father put the pipes around the fireplace before it was build in and you can turn the pump on/of if you want to heat the rest of the house.

The fireplace is very strong in heat plus when the stones get warm they also radiate the heat so we had no need in additional heathing of the lower ground.

We would only switch the pump on for heating of the first floor and our final goal was to install solar panels that would run the pump and other appliances so we would be completely off the grid.
And if we have no power from solar, we still have the whole lower part of the house that is warm from fireplace.

We also had our own water well with water pump connected to the kitchen and bathroom.

So except from electricity, we were almost completely „cut off the world“.
And isolation; we didn’t managed to do properly isolate the house, but none of that is important now since we moved away…

So, yeah, here are a few ideas, maybe some of them help you out.

I hope you find the best solution for your house and I hope to read that you succeed in your plans and that all is working well!!!

 

[cope]

I'm starting this thread as a means to get member's thoughts on some of my own near to mid term plans and I'm looking forward to your thoughts, ideas, and differing viewpoints.

Hi.
The main things in my house would be insulation and moist regulation.
A wood stove can be much smaller when everything is insulated, not thousands but hundreds of $.
You lose a lot of heat ventilating, a heat exchanger, passive or with a small heat pump/airco saves that. A compact one fits under your window, costs 20 cm of the height of the glass.
In my dreams i used a fridge, mounted outside with the back against the wall, ducting the outgoing air through the ice compartment and taking the heat in from the compressed coolant coil on the back.

The heat pump heater sounds great but works only when there is enough heat in the air. So it is a nice extra gimmick. the fan outside breaks the peace a bit. in our sea climate its useful.

Heat panels can collect a lot of energy, and are very efficient as they take IR on clouded days. You could use a spiral in a boiler, use it directly in the morning in a radiator/fan, or even cool with it in the night.
If you have space, a 1000 liter container as a buffer for floor heating would be great.
Friends use a row of water filled black containers as a North wall in the greenhouse.
Heat panels are expensive, but last long, so acquire secondhand and spend some on installing.
I'm tempted sometimes for the beautiful TI stainless used is worth more than the asking price.
Also the PV panels can be bought cheaply when someone upgrades his system, and pay off within 2 years. Then look for a written off set of Lifepo batteries, and ditch the bad ones. I value making lights 12v DC for electric peace. Computers can be easily fed from 12v via a buck/boost module.

 

[cope]

I'm starting this thread as a means to get member's thoughts on some of my own near to mid term plans and I'm looking forward to your thoughts, ideas, and differing viewpoints.

Hi.
The main things in my house would be insulation and moist regulation.
A wood stove can be much smaller when everything is insulated, not thousands but hundreds.
You lose a lot of heat ventilating, a heat exchanger, passive or with a small heat pump/airco saves that. A compact one fits under your window, costs 20 cm of the height of the glass.
In my dreams i used a fridge, mounted outside with the back against the wall, ducting the outgoing air through the ice compartment and taking the heat in from the compressed coolant coil.

The heat pump heater sounds great but works only when there is enough heat in the air. So it is a nice extra gimmick. the fan outside breaks the peace a bit. in our sea climate its useful.

Heat panels can collect a lot of energy, and are very efficient as they take IR. You could use a spiral in a boiler, use it directly in the morning in a radiator/fan, or even cool with it in the night.
If you have space, a 1000 liter container as a buffer for floor heating would be great.
Friends use a row of water filled black containers as a North wall in the greenhouse.
Heat panels are expensive, but last long, so acquire secondhand and spend some on installing.
I'm tempted sometimes for the beautiful TI stainless used is worth more than the asking price.
Also the PV panels can be bought cheaply when someone upgrades his system, and pay off within 2 years. Then look for a written off set of Lifepo batteries, and ditch the bad ones. I value making lights 12v DC for electric peace. Computers can be easily fed from 12v via a buck/boost module.

 

[Jones]

One thing I've noticed is that as solar installations increase, more wood stoves/ heaters appear on second hand pages. Seems as though as peeps migrate to solar, they're pulling out wood burning equipment.

 

[Alejo]

Again, go for it, just be mindful of the "energy transfer" involved, make sure you can keep up with payments even with a somewhat lower income, and lean on the conservative side, OSIT. Best of luck with the project!

I think you've received great feedback so far and I just wanted to echo the above,

I work in the home improvement industry and one of the most common occurrences during the process is "unexpected expenses" and most of them are due to, once you start the demo work, you will always find something that you had no idea was there, and now, since the walls are open, you must address... which thank god sometimes, but also, it's expenses.

The other thing that has been impacting home improvement lately, not sure where you live, but at least in the US, it's the supply chain issue, since most everyone imports everything from everywhere, oil costs, and material and container shortages have made things, not only super expensive but lead times are really long.

So, I would factor all of that in as well, as that can represent an extra investment too.

As a rule of thumb, measure twice cut once, so I would double and triple check the scope of work, lead times and costs, budget and as part of that budget, try to include some of unforeseen expenses, which always show up, almost without fail.

Good luck!

 

[Ruth]

That's the thing, if things go sideways in terms of energy availability, I would be in a much better position with some debt but having my own power plant, than being debt free with no power at all.
As energy prices go up, the time to recover the investment goes down and it's already at less than 10 years at the moment.

I am told that the most expensive part of 'having your own power plant' (i.e. solar energy), is the battery needed to store power once it's generated. Many people have solar panels with no batteries (because they are so expensive) and this means they put the excess electricity generated back into the grid. But, to become more self sufficient - or even when the grid goes down - a household will need a battery. Some places (I think in America and also Australia) have had to install remote cut off devices because too much power generation that is being put into the grid and not being used at the source destabalizes the grid.

The majority of power will be collected between the times of 11.00 am and 4.00 pm when the sun is at it's peak. Unless you work from home, or have your energy consuming appliances on a timer, the people without batteries will not be consuming what they generate at the time it's generated. This is why manufacturing companies which consume most of their energy during the day find having their own power generation plants (on the roof) very ecconomical because they use all their power during the times it's generated.

Different countries and different power companies have many and various schemes to incentivise and even to take advantage of the solar generation market.

Power companies are a bit like banks, they will take your excess power off you and pay you minimal for it, but when you need it (usually when it's not being generated (early morning or at night), they will ask you to pay a premium price!

It's also dependent on your location and how many "Peak Sun Hours" you have during the day. It is necessary to know this for your location, because it determins how many modules you get in order to supply your energy needs. And you will have to do an 'audit' - but you can use your electricity bills for that! Easy!

The definition of a "Peak Sun Hours" are the amount of hours in a day during which solar irradiance is consistently @ 1000 watts/meter squared. Here is the average "Peak Sun Hours" for places around Australia. As you can see, the best place for a solar generation plant would be Central Australia.

Average Peak Sun Hours (Australia) - Climatebiz

You can use the average peak sun hours for Australia to build the correct solar system size for your home or off-grid cabin.

climatebiz.com

Oh, and I would thoroughly recommend growing a garden and maybe getting some chickens. Oh and what about water and sewage supply? I'm sure there must be some "sustainable living" shows/conferences/groups around if you wanted to make a family project out of it....

 

[Revolucionar]

Hi.
The main things in my house would be insulation and moist regulation.
A wood stove can be much smaller when everything is insulated, not thousands but hundreds of $.
You lose a lot of heat ventilating, a heat exchanger, passive or with a small heat pump/airco saves that. A compact one fits under your window, costs 20 cm of the height of the glass.
In my dreams i used a fridge, mounted outside with the back against the wall, ducting the outgoing air through the ice compartment and taking the heat in from the compressed coolant coil on the back.

The heat pump heater sounds great but works only when there is enough heat in the air. So it is a nice extra gimmick. the fan outside breaks the peace a bit. in our sea climate its useful.

Heat panels can collect a lot of energy, and are very efficient as they take IR on clouded days. You could use a spiral in a boiler, use it directly in the morning in a radiator/fan, or even cool with it in the night.
If you have space, a 1000 liter container as a buffer for floor heating would be great.
Friends use a row of water filled black containers as a North wall in the greenhouse.
Heat panels are expensive, but last long, so acquire secondhand and spend some on installing.
I'm tempted sometimes for the beautiful TI stainless used is worth more than the asking price.
Also the PV panels can be bought cheaply when someone upgrades his system, and pay off within 2 years. Then look for a written off set of Lifepo batteries, and ditch the bad ones. I value making lights 12v DC for electric peace. Computers can be easily fed from 12v via a buck/boost module.

I'm not really looking to do much improvising because I simply don't have time for that. I’ve always been a tinkerer but now I'm spending my time with family and working 10 hour days. Maybe when I retire.
Some interesting ideas there, nonetheless.

About heat pumps, proper ones can actually provide useful heat all the way down to -30 C or even less, outside ambient temperatures. I've read that air at -20 C contains about 85% of the heat energy of air at 20 C. That was kind of surprising to me.

I think you've received great feedback so far and I just wanted to echo the above,

I work in the home improvement industry and one of the most common occurrences during the process is "unexpected expenses" and most of them are due to, once you start the demo work, you will always find something that you had no idea was there, and now, since the walls are open, you must address... which thank god sometimes, but also, it's expenses.

The other thing that has been impacting home improvement lately, not sure where you live, but at least in the US, it's the supply chain issue, since most everyone imports everything from everywhere, oil costs, and material and container shortages have made things, not only super expensive but lead times are really long.

So, I would factor all of that in as well, as that can represent an extra investment too.

As a rule of thumb, measure twice cut once, so I would double and triple check the scope of work, lead times and costs, budget and as part of that budget, try to include some of unforeseen expenses, which always show up, almost without fail.

Good luck!

I do have plenty of experience with unforseen costs in construction so I'm trying to account for that in my calculations. I'm also looking at hiring a company that can project manage the whole thing effectively and provide a good estimate upfront.

Here in Croatia things have gotten more expensive as well, but everything seems to be still in stock and that's one of the main reasons I'm thinking that it's high time to do something like this before it becomes a lot more difficult to accomplish.

I am told that the most expensive part of 'having your own power plant' (i.e. solar energy), is the battery needed to store power once it's generated. Many people have solar panels with no batteries (because they are so expensive) and this means they put the excess electricity generated back into the grid. But, to become more self sufficient - or even when the grid goes down - a household will need a battery. Some places (I think in America and also Australia) have had to install remote cut off devices because too much power generation that is being put into the grid and not being used at the source destabalizes the grid.

The majority of power will be collected between the times of 11.00 am and 4.00 pm when the sun is at it's peak. Unless you work from home, or have your energy consuming appliances on a timer, the people without batteries will not be consuming what they generate at the time it's generated. This is why manufacturing companies which consume most of their energy during the day find having their own power generation plants (on the roof) very ecconomical because they use all their power during the times it's generated.

Different countries and different power companies have many and various schemes to incentivise and even to take advantage of the solar generation market.

Power companies are a bit like banks, they will take your excess power off you and pay you minimal for it, but when you need it (usually when it's not being generated (early morning or at night), they will ask you to pay a premium price!

It's also dependent on your location and how many "Peak Sun Hours" you have during the day. It is necessary to know this for your location, because it determins how many modules you get in order to supply your energy needs. And you will have to do an 'audit' - but you can use your electricity bills for that! Easy!

The definition of a "Peak Sun Hours" are the amount of hours in a day during which solar irradiance is consistently @ 1000 watts/meter squared. Here is the average "Peak Sun Hours" for places around Australia. As you can see, the best place for a solar generation plant would be Central Australia.

Average Peak Sun Hours (Australia) - Climatebiz

You can use the average peak sun hours for Australia to build the correct solar system size for your home or off-grid cabin.

climatebiz.com

Oh, and I would thoroughly recommend growing a garden and maybe getting some chickens. Oh and what about water and sewage supply? I'm sure there must be some "sustainable living" shows/conferences/groups around if you wanted to make a family project out of it....

I've looked into this and batteries are a big luxury that doesn't provide much at the moment. You need to pay some 7000 Euros for a battery that will not even get you through the day in the winter.

Selling back to the provider is actually pretty good over here. They pay 90% of the average price of kWh. That's if you sell less than you buy. If you sell more than you buy, then you multiply that by the ratio of how much you buy towards how much you sell. This means that if you, for example, sold twice as much as you bought (highly unlikely), the price average price of kWh would be multiplied by 0.9*0.5.
And you're basically using the grid as a battery for free instead of paying 7000 Euros for a few hours of power.
I've also read that battery prices are set to halve in the next few years, so might be something to consider in a few years' time.

Both myself and my wife work from home, so that's actually perfect for us, thanks for pointing that out.

 

[Revolucionar]

Oh, and I would thoroughly recommend growing a garden and maybe getting some chickens. Oh and what about water and sewage supply? I'm sure there must be some "sustainable living" shows/conferences/groups around if you wanted to make a family project out of it....

Absolutely! Garden is an integral part of the plan and I know some people who are into this sort of thing and can help out.
Water is important and I'm still looking at what it would cost to build a well and use it for drinking water plus as a thermal source for the heat pump.
Other alternative is rainwater. I need to get some estimates first.

 

[Miracle]

Yeah, the main problem with wood is that it greatly depends on the quality and high quality stuff is actually relatively expensive.
One log sounds like not nearly enough to heat anything larger than a small bathroom, and even then I don't see ot lasting a whole day. And oak trees take a looong long time to grow. Burning wood always seemed to me like a waste, but definitely something to have handy for an icy, snowy day.

I'd mostly disagree with this sentiment, short of wood being expensive. That can vary a great deal depending on where you live. A high quality masonry stove can burn at 97% efficiency. Here in Virginia, heating one's home with wood can be cheaper than natural gas or electricity.

Welcome to Tulikivi

Experience the comfort of the radiant heat of Tulikivi's masonry heaters, bakeovens and wood stoves made from original Finnish soapstone. Tulikivi also offers in some countries a modern line of ceramic fireplaces, interior stones and sauna heaters.

www.tulikivi.com

Furthermore, due to a masonry stove's high thermal mass, it slowly emits heat throughout the day and only needs to be light once or twice to keep a home warm depending on the weather and the home's thermal efficiency.

Like what Yupo said, a nice fireplace adds exceptional value to quality time in one's home.

If I owned a home and had a few grand to spend, I'd 100% go for wood heat over solar knowing well that solar will likely not fair well during the coming earth changes.

 

[Alejo]

I'd mostly disagree with this sentiment, short of wood being expensive. That can vary a great deal depending on where you live. A high quality masonry stove can burn at 97% efficiency. Here in Virginia, heating one's home with wood can be cheaper than natural gas or electricity.

Good point, but I do know that wood prices in Europe are different than in the US and it's like you said, geographical availability and demand. For instance, I was surprised to learn a few years ago that Oak was more expensive in Europe than other woods, while in the US, it's relatively inexpensive.

The other thing about fireplaces, even if you do end up opting for Solar, they just look so cool and cozy.

And the other thing that I would say favor solar is that heating isn't the only factor to be considered, things like refrigeration and connectivity that require electricity give a form of generating electric, and heat, the edge. In my humble opinion that is, I haven't deeply looked into it to be educated.

 

[Revolucionar]

When doing business with banks, please read small letters. I don’t think I had a loan in Croatia where small letters didn’t say that that they are entitled to your property in case you cannot pay the debt.
So, watch out for that!

Yeah, I'll be sure to only go forward with after taking everything into consideration.

So it is a nice backup solution for heating.

That's how I view wood and I'm planning to include it in some shape or form.

If I owned a home and had a few grand to spend, I'd 100% go for wood heat over solar knowing well that solar will likely not fair well during the coming earth changes.

That's actually a common misconception.
Solar panels need light to work, not heat. They actually start losing efficiency quickly as temps go above 25 C.
They work more efficiently at lower temps and there doesn't appear to be a lower temp limit.
My hnderstanding of a mini ice age is that temps will et lower while also reducing precipitation and with that probably less cloud cover as well, but maybe not. I can't really fjnd any references to what would be the expected effect of an ice age on the insolation (amount of sun radiation).
Does anyone know more about this?

And the other thing that I would say favor solar is that heating isn't the only factor to be considered, things like refrigeration and connectivity that require electricity give a form of generating electric, and heat, the edge. In my humble opinion that is, I haven't deeply looked into it to be educated.

Exactly. I'm looking to cover both heat and electricity with the same solution and use wood as a backup

I'm in the process of getting quotes for loans at the moment, IOW, finding out what terms banks are willing to give me.
My situation is a bit special because most of my income comes from my firm's profits instead of the minimum pay I am required to pay out to myself.
Some banks take the profit of the firm into account, others don't. I'm in touch with a company that specialises in helping people like myself in getting loans approved by banks, so we'll see what I can get.

So far I'm thinking about doing insulation, solar panels without batteries, heat pump with heating and cooling with floor heating which is the most comfortable and healthy option, supplemented by a nice fireplace in the living room and possibly bedroom. Also, repurposing one room that's being used as storage at the moment into a controlled enviroment for food storage and sprouting with several freezers.

 

[Mari]

Solar panels need light to work, not heat. They actually start losing efficiency quickly as temps go above 25 C.
They work more efficiently at lower temps and there doesn't appear to be a lower temp limit.
My hnderstanding of a mini ice age is that temps will et lower while also reducing precipitation and with that probably less cloud cover as well, but maybe not. I can't really fjnd any references to what would be the expected effect of an ice age on the insolation (amount of sun radiation).
Does anyone know more about this?

Well the problem is that in case of an ice age, there probably won’t be enough light; i.e. (first articles that came to my mind):

536 AD, the year the sky went dark -- Sott.net

You wake up to a dark, dreary, glum-feeling, Monday-type of morning. For the 547th consecutive day. Just 18 months prior, you were a hard-working farmer gearing up for another bountiful crop season. But then the skies went dark. From early 536 to...

www.sott.net

Of Flash Frozen Mammoths and Cosmic Catastrophes

For years I've been fascinated by what could be considered as one of the greatest mysteries of our planet: the demise of the woolly mammoths. Try to imagine the barely imaginable: millions of giant mammoths inexplicably flash-frozen overnight....

www.sott.net

Volcanoes, Earthquakes And The 3,600 Year Comet Cycle

In two previous articles, I proposed explanations for the events that triggered the Younger Dryas. In the article titled Did Earth Steal Martian Waters, I described how, ca.12,500 BP, an electric discharge may have transferred part of the Martian...

www.sott.net

(Also available to read on hr.sott)

Here is also a nice picture (from 31. chapter of ECHCC)


Quote from the first attached article (536 AD):

Using historical dating techniques such as tree ring analysis and stable carbon isotope records, the researchers presented a model to depict just how brutal life was for people alive at that time.

The dust veil, they say, reduced normal levels of solar radiation and thus ruined years of crop harvests, and "contributed to remarkably simultaneous outbreaks of famine," leaving humans with a long-term lack of vitamin D, which diminished health and quality of life in those years of darkness.

So it might just happen that the solar panels would be useless…