Author Topic: Before it's all over.....  (Read 8640 times)

ajaffa1

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Re: Before it's all over.....
« Reply #30 on: December 31, 2018, 12:01:17 AM »
I agree with you and admire your small contribution to the solution.

The trouble is that nearly every government on earth has racked up huge debt, the only way to service these debts is by increasing population and per capita consumption/expenditure.

Here in Australia the government has actually posted a budget surplus for the first time in decades. Their primary income comes from the mining and export of fossil fuels and metal ores. Can`t see the politicians voting to kill off that golden goose any time soon.

When fire, flood and famine become the norm they may start to pay attention.

Bob

BruceM

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Re: Before it's all over.....
« Reply #31 on: December 31, 2018, 01:13:31 AM »
The US military is planning on global breakdown of society as people starve from climate change.  You think lower middle class Americans are angry and irrational now from being squeezed dry, just wait.

The concern raised by serous scientists is that as Johdoh suggests, food and water supplies will be threatened and we can't move a billion people, and people get pretty angry and irrational when starving.  In the US we have been growing food and low value crops like short staple cotton on 2000 year old ground water tables that will be depleted soon enough.  The hominid primate is not capable of controlling his own population- and few realists think our present population is sustainable.

The climate scientists are concerned about unknown environmental tipping points that speed up the process.  Glacier ice melt rates are going much faster than predicted and thus they are calling for immediate action. 

The Petro corps. have spent a lot of money on disinformation campaigns to continue to maximize their profits per their charters, and they may have cost our great grandkids dearly. 

Somehow we have to find a way to stop with the wars, and turn our "democracies" into more than corporate funded puppets. I sure don't have a clue how that might happen.  Money seems to always find a way around.  I don't know how public funded elections have worked out elsewhere, but that might be a start.


guest23837

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Re: Before it's all over.....
« Reply #32 on: December 31, 2018, 09:18:27 AM »
There is a really bad television show in the UK called the Jeremy Kyle show, women seem to watch it as people humiliate themselves with lie detector tests and DNA tests etc. My wife was talking about one show where a white married couple were on and the wife had given birth to a brown baby. The wife was insisting that the husband was the father saying he looked like the child and she wasn't cheating. Of course science in the form of a DNA test proved she wasn't being truthful, the husband was  in denial saying he was the father.
My point? The evidence was in front of the husband but he didn't want to believe his eyes and chose to believe the denials of reality from the wife. The family member that was saying "stop, this isn't right" was scorned and derided.
As a climate change analogy it's not great but that's what's happening. I'm betting that husband continued to be "daddy" continued to believe the wife continued to deny what he could see.
I know my last post was a bit doom and gloom but I do have hope for the future. I been reading about people in Ireland objecting to solar farms in Ireland one objection being there's no way to store the electricity. Why not treat solar power the way we are treating the planet and just use it as it's generated and wind down the power plants during periods when solar is generating even on a micro level it would help I believe. I rent this house the landlord has looked into solar panels for heating water but he's not interested in jumping through planning department hoops.. I can't legally install a wind turbine larger than a bicycle wheel without planning permission, permission I'm not likely to get. I am sure there is switching technology available that would make the power switching seamless. I also want a hydrogen powered car!

Happy new year gentlemen

oldgoat

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Re: Before it's all over.....
« Reply #33 on: December 31, 2018, 11:06:58 AM »
I've done my bit for overpopulation had my vasectomy forty years ago.

LowGear

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Re: Before it's all over.....
« Reply #34 on: December 31, 2018, 04:44:50 PM »
So many more believers than there was ten years ago.  No significant ice on the fish pond in forty years woke me up about 20 years ago.  I can remember watching my 200 pound father skating on it in 1951.

I think few people don't realize that sustainable power generation is the future.  Why does anyone continue to support unsustainable anything?  What part of unsustainable don't they get? 

When you reduce usable land by 10% and increase population by 10% how much have you really changed opportunities?  This century is going to be a wild and crazy ride.  Is Bangladesh the future of human existence?  Ocean front is now a property liability.  Countries already have two land mass measurements - Tide In vs Tide Out.

Just how crazy is it?  glort just left a positive hopeful post.  Yikes!  Yup, continental flooding is just around the corner.



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mikenash

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Re: Before it's all over.....
« Reply #35 on: December 31, 2018, 07:14:47 PM »
Yeah, well, living on some small islands in the middle of a big ocean is always thought-provoking . . .

All the best for 2019, guys  :)

BruceM

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Re: Before it's all over.....
« Reply #36 on: December 31, 2018, 07:26:12 PM »
The weather extremes affect on farming and food prices is the big "oh shit", I suspect.  Food is right after air and water for essentials.

I'm interested in a year round passive solar greenhouse, but the summer months here require evaporative cooling, which isn't easy if you're EMF sensitive and need 26 feet from a 1/2 hp motor and small lift pump. Off grid adds to the cost and complexity as well.  A friend with a good passive solar design now growing in dirt (aquaponics for many years ) is only "storing" vegetables now- we've had too many dark cold days and the plants go dormant with soil temps go to low.  The combination of windy 100F+ single digit humidity spring and summer, and colder, darker winters we are now having is a real challenge for low energy greenhouse design.

Passive solar alone falls flat if your number of consecutive dark days gets bigger than your thermal mass and losses.  Well above freezing, growth stops and plants become susceptible to diseases. 

Most of what I've been able to find on greenhouse design is some pretty pathetic, non-engineered work with little or no real performance data.  Not much funding for real innovation, so far.



basewindow

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Re: Before it's all over.....
« Reply #37 on: December 31, 2018, 10:39:16 PM »
I've still got hope for the future, and I think we'll get there, we're a very adaptable species. It's more like we're in a transition phase at the moment, change comes slow, but inevitably comes. Just look at the price of a Solar panel now, 8 years ago I paid $400 for my first 120w panel, now the same thing, in fact I think its 140w, i can get for $70 delivered. Battery tech is coming along in leaps and bounds,  electric cars and becoming affordable and practical. Would be helpful if some bright spark could perfect cheap room temp fusion tho.
The youngr generation is pretty in touch with this stuff,  its what they worry about and I think they'll drive the change. We worried about nuclear war, and i think and hope we've overcome and put that behind us,  but Im still a little concerned about the Zombie Apocalypse lol.
Happy New year to all.
Maybe we should change the title of this thread, are we all miss interpreting it as the end of the world!
1953 CS Lister 3.5hp, 1938? Bamford SD1 3.5hp, 1962 Fordson Super Dexta, 1969 International 434.

BruceM

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Re: Before it's all over.....
« Reply #38 on: January 01, 2019, 07:21:47 AM »
I'll bet there's plenty of rural land in Australia with no limits whatsoever on how much PV you can put on your property. Light up the outback, Glort.  Pulling the plug on the power co. where you are might also be an option.  Or getting involved in putting citizens on the power regulatory boards who aren't in the pocket of the power co.

In AZ, the biggest power co., APS, have insured themselves a good deal by openly buying campaigns for two APS puppet corporation commissioners.  They now credit at 12 cents a KWH (for the next 10 years), but bill you about double that for 3PM to 8PM.  A lot of ice storage cooling systems will be added in the next few years, to allow late day A/C running without the stiff price.  There's no limit on the grid tie wattage, yet. 


 







old seagull man

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Re: Before it's all over.....
« Reply #39 on: January 01, 2019, 07:53:33 AM »
I too am a victim of the 5k rule, and i get a miserly 11 cents for what i give back. If it is not a air-con day, i use about 17kwh a day. 35kwh if its hot, and every air-con is on but on a good summer day i can make 20kwh by midday and 12 in the afternoon, I live in a suburb with street trees, so one side of the house is shaded in the afternoon. But i could send 15kwh back on a good day, and its no like i dont get a bill, shore the kwh charges are tiny, but the supply charge and the metering charge and all the other crap charges, are way more than the power ever is.

So my inverter went bang. and a new one was provided but it more modern and more powerful than the old unit. (Read the model i have is no longer compliant with the current standard so even though i can buy one for $199, i cant, use it, but its exactly the same as the dead one. IT HAS TO BE COMPLIANT AT TIME OF INSTALLATION).

So have given up on the guys from Origin, my most useful and helpful energy supplier, the company that  In fact when the inverter was first setup there  installer screwed up and i was exporting all my excess power.
Not my fault, but i did get a bill for the excess, and a charge for exceeding the aloud grid export amount.

So if your like me consume it all your self, we had the booster for  hot water heater, connected to the inverter, they charge me 13 cent for the off peak electricity that i use , but give me 11 cents.

So the local sparkie dropped in today to leave his fathers seagull outboard for me to fix. and i was having a winge about it all. And told me he had done a job earlier this year and he guy had a bunch of panels he had bought of gumbay or Etree and and a second hand 5kw inverter, just plugged into a power point in the garage. DIY solar, Some homes in QLD have smart meters installed, but there not configured, for implementation later. mine wnt in 10 years ago.  So i wonder how many of these setups there are around the country, and how much power they are producing and sending to the grid? And what chaos and mayhem they are creating.



ajaffa1

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Re: Before it's all over.....
« Reply #40 on: January 01, 2019, 09:22:24 AM »
Hi Guys, I think I have a cunning plan. I intend to export all of my solar power to the grid, I will set up a second solar array with an off grid inverter. this will run my home with the Lister CS as backup. I will be independent but still grid connected if I ever need to sell my house, hopefully I can work out how to export excess power generated at night by the CS burning WVO. There is just a chance that the electric company will end up having to pay me rather than the other way around.

Bob

BruceM

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Re: Before it's all over.....
« Reply #41 on: January 01, 2019, 04:48:18 PM »
I notice the GTI's are often reported to have a limited service life- especially the newer non-transformer types. 

IceEnergy.com and others with that stored energy A/C approach will be selling a lot of systems.  That will allow you to put your cooling power on PV.  Expensive now but will be less so as volume increases.

I notice that the biggest AZ power co., APS now has a super off peak rate of 3 cents a KWH.
This applies from Nov. to April, 10AM to 3 PM.  This rate is so low that all the higher elevation locations in the state with the need for heating might consider some sort of melted phase change material heat storage system.    This is likely an attempt to increase the winter baseline load for APS's  Palo Verde nuclear plant. 

All this also points out that super insulation is the way to go for the future, as it cuts the heating/cooling need by roughly 75%.

With APS rates varying from 3 cents to 24 cents/kwh already, the market for home battery storage and energy management systems will grow. 






LowGear

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Re: Before it's all over.....
« Reply #42 on: January 01, 2019, 08:56:07 PM »
My keyboard just ate the best posting I would have ever made.

Happy New Year to you all.
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BruceM

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Re: Before it's all over.....
« Reply #43 on: January 02, 2019, 12:40:07 AM »
Not being able to touch it is't bad- your temperature must be just below 160F if you can touch it for 10 seconds.  If you touch it with a wet finger and it sizzles, that's getting hot.

We can imagine how much pressure the designers are to make these things small and cheap. Buyers only look at cost, rated watts capacity and ''efficiency''- as if the latter was somehow important.  Toroidal transformers for 5000w capacity would be quite heavy and large, and not cheap. 

I had a hell of a day.  My new linear pv charge controller has been working flawlessly, but it's a new rework of an old design so I didn't build a backup yet. Today at 11 the sun was out and my battery bank voltage was still 126v so I trudged out with a broom to sweep the snow off the panels.  We got 6-8 inches last night.  When I came back in, battery voltage was now 161!. When I opened the door to the battery bank I could smell fried electronics.  The PV controller was fried- current sense resistors cooked and exploded, oddly, transistors not, stuck ON so full charge current being applied.  I disconnected the large array, and covered part of the small array to get a small rate of charge the battery regulators alone could handle.  Then when getting ready to order parts, I found my computer was out,  which ended up being a cheap POS 12v, 1.5A wall wort (after a fair amount of pulling things apart and trouble shooting).  I had another I could pirate, so got it going, only to find that my custom rear projection focus wasn't working.  That ended up being the tiny gear motor that had failed.  So, after a long day, now I can work on my parts order.

I do have the old PV regulator, which I can modify to be compatible, but I'll have to stick to just my 875 watt array until I can rebuild the new board.  I had spare boards and some parts, but not enough.  An important lesson.

I'll think about adding some max current limiting on the new design.  It seems I've found the worst case-  full sun and fresh snow on upright panels, and 20F temperature, high noon.  The first time for my new additional 1500 watt array in addition too my old 875W.  Too much voltage drop. 
I may have to disconnect one of the panels in the 1500W string for cold weather.


BruceM

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Re: Before it's all over.....
« Reply #44 on: January 02, 2019, 01:34:10 PM »
I found the problem with my linear PV regulator.  The NPN darlington transistors I originally used had been discontinued so I found a similar part but didn't check the linear safe operating area chart close enough. They just can't take much current at high voltage drop that I'm getting in cold weather (<20F) with a snow sun reflector.

It's alarming that there are almost no large NPN power darlingtons being made any more.  MOSFETs are now being rated for linear operation, and could go into my design, but I liked the robustness of the NPN transitors.  The only application is automotive ignition switching- where that robustness is desired, and they are thus tweaking them for better switching performance and not for linear.