Green, Eco Friendly Class A Monoblocks

Carl,
I was going to suggest both the battery and the ralphmasphere route. However, almost by definition, there is nothing which is going to make Class A amps efficient enough to be eco-friendly. Running Class A monoblocks to drive Magneplanars is equivalent to running a pair of large hairdryers (or electric clothes dryers) all the time - i.e. a SERIOUS power suck. The easiest way to be 'ecologically friendly' with Class A amps is to get super efficient speakers - probably horn-loaded in some way.

Solar's cost/kWh sweetspot (in terms of capacity or goals) changes all the time, and in the northeast (making an assumption here), solar is a tough way to live sometimes. I am convinced that if you are in the northeast and you want a decent-sized house, the ideal is to build with some active solar, a fair bit of passive solar, lots of insulation, and lots of geothermal; and if you are aggressive, count on being 'net zero' rather than 'completely off-grid.' Why more people don't use geothermal for heating/cooling is beyond me. It pays for itself very quickly (as do passive solar design, insulation, and argon-filled windows, etc), especially if building from scratch in a place where you can dig deep cheaply. thinking about it on an after-tax basis, it makes even more sense. If you live in an area where hotsprings can be drilled to without a huge cost, the whole equation changes because depending on temperature and flow, you can generate electricity from that more easily (though if you do tap hotsprings, I urge you to recycle the waste water back into the system - hotsprings do 'dry up' if not replenished).

T_bone - I've been studying ground source heat pumps lately. They are very efficient, and a form of geothermal. They require either buried shallow loops of tubing in the ground or wells.

You are wasting your time trying to be efficient with your stereo. The average system I've seen around here costs maybe $20 per month. Try to get the whole house off the grid and you will do some justice.

Solar thermal heating with massive concrete mass in the building is a good way to go, given a heavily insulated building. We have solar PV as well and have a five day battery backup, however it requires about 1 hour of maintenance per month, as do our composting toilets.

If you are of the mindset that you take care of yourself, a republican mindset, than the investment will fulfill your principles.

If you are concerned about the planet, the sun can be harvested better today than ever before. Go for it!

Email if you think I can help.

B

Peter_s,
Apologies to CW in advance on going slightly OT... do the heatpumps generate electricity or only generate air/water-heating capacity? I have yet to find a heatpump which can generate electricity well without having the input significantly above ground temperature. Also, from what I have read over the past few years, in colder climes, boring deep and sinking "U tubes" gives better energy efficiency than digging horizontal trenches with a backhoe (which is obviously a lot cheaper); that said, it is obviously not a bad idea in the desert (or in places where the bedrock is very shallow).

Back on topic...
If you just want a system to generate electricity to cover the audio, using efficient speakers and matched 'small' amps will go a LONG way to making it possible, but the first 100 watts of solar installation is the most expensive (per kWh).　If you have a large property in windy area, using mini windmills plus a bank of batteries can be a way to generate smallish amounts of electricity. If you want to use "green" power to cover 2kW of usage, then you are probably talking upwards of $10k of kit plus further installation costs. If you want 2kW for the audio and another several kW for the rest of the house, it is a fair bit more.

Hi T_bone,

You're right, they just generate heat, not electricity. If you are going closed loop, I'm not sure of the trenching depth that gets you pretty well far away from the seasonal and diurnal temperature fluctuations at the surface - a borehole definitely does that. Even more efficient (and costly) is an open loop system using two wells, where groundwater is extracted, heat exchanged, and reinjected. It gets you up to an efficiency factor of 4 rather than the low 3's with a closed loop system (for those wondering, efficiency factor means for every 1 watt of energy you put into the system you get 4 watts of heat out of the system).