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Ask Slashdot: Minimizing Oil and Gas Dependency In a Central European City?
An anonymous reader writes I live in a big city in central Europe. As most of you know from recent news, most of Europe's (and quite a bit of China's) gas supply comes from Russia and is very likely to be cut off several times during the next few winters (China's time will come in later years). What many might not know is that not just our natural gas supply, but also our petrol ('gas' for the Americans in the audience) often comes partly from Russia and some of our electricity comes from gas powered stations. Most of our leaders, at least in Germany and Hungary, are in bed with the Russians and likely won't do anything about fuel security. I live in an building with a south-facing roof and I own the roof space but I don't have enough land here to put a wind turbine or something similar on. Can anyone make good suggestions for ways to cut down my dependence on unreliable power supplies? Extra points for environmentalism, but I am even willing to pay more to be sure the heating is there in winter and my server keeps running.
that's what the USA does. most of our oil is from right here and canada
You said you own the roof space. Do you own the whole dwelling? Can you insulate the walls, attic, and air seal bypasses? Can you run a heat pump? It still requires electricity but not that much. If you can purchase petrol when it's available and run a generator (or photovoltaics) when it's not, that might be the ticket. Of course the more more energy efficient your home and appliances are, the easier it will be to function off the grid, - even if it's just sporadically.
Do you really need to run your own server or can you have it hosted somewhere else?