Perspective

Stay away from my wallet

How many plumbers, and how many $, does it take to replace a leaky valve?

1st estimate: “It’s not safe, it’s not Code, it’s blowing water out the bottom, I don’t believe that little circulator can push 100,000 BTU through that heat exchanger, but I didn’t look at it too closely. $10,000 to replace.” Licensed and Professional. BTW Code officials had no problem with it.

2nd estimate: Speechless, except for, $11,000. Licensed and Professional.

3rd estimate: No price, but “it may not last more than two years, and is no longer supported, so no more replacement parts.” Licensed and Professional.

Reality check: I had a $300 replacement valve overnighted from Supplyhouse, and using a Phillips and a flat blade screwdriver, and a pair of channel locks replaced it in about one hour. No leaks. Not Licensed nor Professional. Well, not the former to be sure, but maybe more the latter than those other vultures.

This is real life. Turn a blind eye, and you may as well hand over your wallet, and maybe your checkbook as well.

I should probably leave well enough alone, but _ I _ just _ can’t _ let _ it _ go.

I mention inconvenient facts, in the hope that some will wake up.

Getting off fossil fuels is a pipe dream, at best. Try turning off your main breaker, and count the minutes of how long you last without electric.

Wait, wait, we have alternatives, you say. In your dreams maybe, but in real life _ no _ we _ don’t. So please turn the power back on . . .

The time needed to produce those (reliable) alternatives will be decades, but this estimate is, at best, a naive and hopeful shot in the dark. Electric by solar is a daytime only phenomenon, and by wind only happens when it blows.

Most people are awake in the daytime, and while this may be a rash conclusion, that’s when most electric is needed. Shown are patterns of electric usage, early, and then late, last century. Note the lowest point is not zero, but around 30% in the early snap, and 50% in the late snap. That is, there is nighttime and 24/7 usage, most of us don’t keep foremost in mind. We’ll call that the Base Load, requiring continuous generation.

Power usage, 1920. Notice a lunch break.

Power usage 1990. Notice no lunch break. Notice higher “base Load.”

The travesty of “progress” from 1920 to 1990 is that lunch has vanished. Can’t very well stop an assembly line for a lunch break, now can you? Additionally, the base load, that amount of energy that needs to be supported 24 hours a day has increased, partly because of phantom power usage such as night lights, security systems, area lighting, etc. We just can’t get enough. In my mind’s eye we’ve not progressed but retrograded.

Enter Supply (Capacity) and Demand

Notice in the real-time graph below the Capacity has to always be higher than the Demand, to prevent unstable operation, or a system collapse. The graphic was a record of usage and prediction frozen at 20 (2000 or 8 PM) on June 14, 2021. Anything beyond 8 PM was an educated guess based on past experience. Power utilities go a long way to ensure they always have enough capacity to meet demand. Consider that Texas rarely has a freeze-over. However, in early 2021 Texas experienced frigid conditions where the Capacity dropped below the Demand (“green” energy was part of the problem) and a system collapse ensued that lasted for days in some areas. People were scrambling, and those that knew how, to keep pipes from freezing.

Power usage ERCOT TX Demand & Capacity curves 20210614

Wanting to go off-grid, or green only (no fossil fuels (coal, oil, or gas), nor nuclear) quickly diminishes the options.

If you choose solar only, be content with daytime electric only. But most of us have gotten so used to 24/7 electric availability that we could not tolerate daytime electric only.

If you choose wind only, it’ll be available IF the wind is blowing. But most of us have gotten so used to 24/7 electric availability that we could not tolerate intermittent electric only. AND wind farm operators may not produce power unless they see the bid price high enough to feed into the grid. Greed? No. Business survival tactics to recoup investment.

So you hook up solar panels, And a wind turbine to your chalet in the countryside. So you have electric in the daytime, if it’s not cloudy, and / or when the wind blows.

But you need steady power to use your computer. It runs on battery. And it needs to be charged . . .

If you want steady power from unsteady producers, you need to add storage. A typical average residence in N America uses 7 Amps at 240V 24/7. That’s 1,680 Watts / 1.68 kW (7 x 240) of continuous consumption. If you want to have storage to last you a few hours, say two, that would be 3.36 kWH (1 kWH (kilowatthour) = 1000 watts x 1 hour). As an example, I recently bought a 12V battery for a simple UPS sized 2”x4”x6” and rated 7 AH. If I wanted to use that for electric storage (not to mention the need for an inverter), for two hours’ supply I’d need 480 of them, or roughly 3’x4’x1’. Increase your demand, or the length of backup, and size matters, quickly and bigly ©. Depending on your needs, or size of your chalet, may mean a bank of batteries the size of a small car or a tractor-trailer, with proper heating and ventilation and regulation, just for the batteries. Got time or space or funds to build an extra garage for battery storage? Can you imagine everyone having a bank of batteries in their basement (prone to flooding) or the attic (prone to overheating), or the back room of the living spaces? Who does the maintenance? I trust you begin to see the technical details very strongly suggest we are NOT up to the task for the transition _ in _ our _ lifetime.

But if instead you wish to feed only essential loads, the demand drops off significantly, and becomes a manageable system for most individuals.

With a single solar panel, and / or a small wind turbine (both intermittent supplies), and limited storage, you can provide minimal essential backup in case of grid outage. The power source feeds a voltage regulator, which in turn feeds a battery (power storage) and a load in case the supply is much more than than the battery’s and load’s combined need. The battery in turn feeds a 12V distribution system for lighting, and an inverter for essential 120V loads. This may consist of a ventilator, and if you have a heat source, then the ventilator can provide whole-house heat. For cooling, a small window AC unit can also be fed by this scheme. The input power source can even be a battery charger connected to the grid, although that gives you only a one-time limited backup. The grand idea is that redundant intermittent, unregulated and unstable supplies (continuously if possible) feed a regulated supply and storage, which in turn is used intermittently, even if at high current. With proper consideration for supplies, storage, and loads, ensuring the supply is always greater than the demand, you can produce a mini power system worth its weight in gold. Call it a UPS if you must.

Conceptual Oversimplification

Then you talk about carbon footprint. Going “green” supposedly lowers power generation’s carbon footprint. Buy an electric car, subsidized by your tax money and mine. You’re welcome. That introduces a rapid electric Demand on the grid, which needs to be supported by increasing Capacity. Can the unstable and unpredictable Capacity sources of “green” energy immediately support a higher Demand? Most unlikely. So all this green drive for electric vehicles means an immediate increase in usage of fossil fuels, not to mention overbuilding the grid further to support greater capacity for the increased demand. The fact aside that you can buy carbon offset credits (political juggling), so you don’t have to lower your production, there are other facts that enter the picture.

Global Warming morphed to Climate Change, because the former was found unfounded, but with the latter’s similar implication that we are causing it. But climate has always changed, well before we appeared on the scene. Climate change occurs in cycles, beyond the well-known yearly cycles, heavily influenced by solar activity, over _ which _ we _ have _ NO _ control.

NASA: Solar minimum prediction

Note above the cyclic nature of solar activity. Note that during solar minima (follow the bold black line), the Earth’s climate was greatly cooled, and during maxima substantially warmed, well before (and despite) any blooming industrial revolution. Note the general recent trend of reduced solar activity, and a closeup of the last several decades below. The trend is cooling, no matter how much fossil fuel we consume, or how much CO2 we produce, and no matter what idiot(s) may say otherwise. Face it, facts are facts, and no matter how hard you click your heels, you’re not going to magically end up in GreeNirvana ©. Following the popularized “green” trend is a fool’s errand, and unfortunately there’s enough fools on this ship that take what they’re told as truth without question. Yeah, on the surface our future doesn’t look too promising.

Recent Sunspot numbers

Take Nuclear power. Please. Common social wisdom would imply it’s not older than about 80 years, but nothing is more profound than finding several nuclear plants having gone the way of the dodo long before we even thought of the idea, and with a trail for us to follow, as highlighted by the Oklo natural fission reactors. The decay products from Oklo remained locked in position and stable in the soil for millennia, before we ever thought of a nuclear chain reaction, or proper disposal of radioactive waste (some of the fission decay products have very long half-lives). If radioactive decay has been constant over millennia, then the decay products’ trail indicates the Earth’s age is more than 6000 years, and we have been shown by natural processes that it can be done right.

But support and promote the idea of CO2 sequestration (sinking it deep into the soil), when plants need it to produce Oxygen, which we must have to survive, and you are promoting our (and your) own demise. Maybe you’d best step aside and let those who can, do, rather than pull the rug out from underneath.

We are not wasting our time, if we chase real environmental threats, as we should. Revealing the real problem(s) is still possible today. With simple meters and measurements or a little research and observation we (you included) can understand what is really going on. Have the birds or bees migrated away for more than a normal time frame, but the word on the street is that it’s just a fluke and they’ll be back? Is the weather yearly cycle turning “strange,” even from our limited short perspective? Who would you believe, your eyes, or what you are told?

Rather than postulate hypotheticals, and turning blue in the face because we can’t get others to agree on our convictions of possible future events, we need to ruminate on the immediate facts facing us today, and what we can tangibly do with those facts to ease the burden of those around us, and improve our chances of survival, even if it’s only for you.

The uncontrollable climate variations coming upon us will change food production, dramatically, within our lifetime. Starvation will be occurring globally and may be reported (or not, depending on the media’s agenda). When that happens, I will be in my neck of the woods burning dead trees (and maybe planting new ones) to keep warm, and will not feel sorry for those that gave up their fossil burning devices (and chilling) for elusive alternatives. If you have a yard, change part of it into a garden, and learn to grow and preserve your own food. But don’t just rely on a freezer to preserve your food, as that brings on power implications as noted above. If you don’t have a yard, invest in a co-op farm, where for a share of the labor you get a share of the produce. You may wish to get a move on, before this ship of fools starts sinking, and you go down with their lot.

Cheers

Sal La Duca

www.emfrelief.com

Content above is not intended to be fully documented and cross-referenced, as that would be billable work. But do a little research, and everything I’ve noted will be validated.