Hi Tanman

A couple of thoughts for you:

Firstly, you know what it's like using electricity across a 24-hour period:  During the day maybe only the fridge is running; then the kids come home from school and every damn appliance in the place fires up; then you go off to bed later and it's back to the fridge and a couple of night-lights

If you have, say, a 6 or 8HP "Lister" diesel with, maybe, a 5kW generator head making power - it won't like that.  The diesel likes to work, not to idle - and it won't reward you with clean running if it idles lots.  But it's a pain in the ass starting it, running it for a half hour and turning it off - that's no the answer either.

So - a lot of folks have a battery bank + inverter with, normally, a solar array keeping it charged . . .

Then - if you have, say, your Lister with a 110VAC generator head and, maybe a 24VDC alternator both attached to it, you can run it under DC load to charge the battery bank when you are using lots of electricity or if the sun hasn't been shining - good steady loading and it will like that.  Plus, if you want a big AC load that your inverter won't enjoy (maybe you want to use the welder, or the big 9" angle grinder) then you can fire up the Lister and use the 110VAC off it - and it'll probably put a bit of DC into the batteries at the same time, maybe

I'm just generalising here, but you get the idea:

If you have, say, a 6kVA Honda inverter/generator with a little 12HP Honda engine (one of those "silent" thingies) it will run all day and all night - within limits - and it won't care if it's loaded or idling

If you have a "Lister" or a "clone" - it won't like that duty

(most folks here will have a $500 Honda or Chinese Honda clone generator for convenience + backup anyway, I would think)

FWIW I reckon you ought to check out a guy on here called "Starfire".  He's an old dude, an electrical engineer type, who has a solar-plus-Lister setup and has been off grid for decades.  he has already made, and learned from, every mistake you or I will ever make on our journey to "off grid"

Just search for posts from "Starfire" and you will see all sorts of insightful comments around his topics from the other knowledgeable folks on here

Just my $0.02

Cheers, Mike

Congrats Stef

That's a lot what I bought recently in lots of ways:

Off grid . . .

An acre of flat with an old barn on it and 11 acres of hill with a spring up the top

 . . . just on the other side of the world lol

Well done

FWIW when i bought a Lister that I was told "had been running when it was put in the shed . . . " it turned out the cam idler gear had been removed at some point and the cam was 90 degrees out.  Yours might be a tooth or two out - just a thought.  Good luck

Democracy at it's best is reactive in nature, which makes long term planning a serious problem. Then when you add in mega-corporate manipulation of democracy it gets severely warped.  It may be the best system of government we can come up with, but it may also lead to extinction.  As world population is at 7.6 billion and increasing by 1.13% per year US population is still being fed messages of how we must have growth of our economy.

Bruce, I often admire your insights . . .

I would add to that that, in China the rulers don't have to answer to anyone but themselves.  Thus they can get things done in a way that we, shackled by the 3,4,or 5-year electoral cycle and by politicians who are short-sighted at best and completely captured by interest groups/industry at worst, are crippled by the need to get re-elected . . .

Of course the Chinese - since they don't have to answer to an electorate - can do whatever they like in terms of human rights abuses, political meddling etc etc

I often think some sort of benign dictatorship - if we could find such a thing - would be a good middle-ground

Cheers

Quote from: buickanddeere on April 29, 2018, 03:44:07 PM

Quote from: glort on April 29, 2018, 07:55:12 AM

What is this very expensive shift to Electric and it's drawbacks supposed to achieve ?

I guess it depends on how you look at it.

Firstly, for government it is revenue-neutral and tax-neutral

Secondly, for users, there is a saving to be made if you adopt an EV at some point in the future.  There is no cost at all if you continue to drive your current vehicle.  There may be extra cost if you buy a new vehicle

For those New Zealanders who voted for the Labour/Green government I would guess that it reduces New Zealand's contribution to the greenhouse gas burden of the planet - but does so in a way that does not make us, as a country, less competitive than we were previously with those of our trading partners who do not adopt such measures - as we might become if we did other unilateral things like adding carbon taxes etc

That's just a layman's understanding, though

(and, of course you are right Mr B&D lol)

Cheers, Mike

And, yes, we have geothermal.  Cheaper than wind but more expensive than hydro - but probably coming down in price over time as the tech matures

I wonder how much of how we feel about the potential for an electric "future" is to do with infrastructure - certainly much of the conversation so far has been around that

Down here at the bottom of the world 85% of our electricity is from the two renewable source of hydro and wind; and, lots of the time our wind turbines are turned off because there is adequate water in the hydro dams and that is a cheaper generation system

We have recently elected a more left/green-leaning government and they are talking about taking two important steps to grow an electric fleet:  having government & local bodies buy electric cars (which will put them into the national pool when they are rolled over) and adding a levy to the importation of new cars to subsidise/promote the importation of EVs (mostly used Leafs ex-Japan ATM I guess)

These are small steps, but, when added to the increasing uptake of grid-tied solar (not a particularly rewarding deal $$-wise, but a beginning), I think they represent the beginnings of a change of viewpoint around energy

Our is a small country, with a great many commuters for whom an EV is potentially a very good option, and - although it has been a failure the first time around - we have considerable experience with electrification of rail networks

I suspect that the "feeling" of the coming generation is that we have lots of green electricity, can easily produce more if we need it, and that the current model of individual ownership of several large fossil-fuel-burning vehicles is a relic of my generation, not theirs

Just to be clear - I personally own several 2-litre size vehicles, drive a Hilux ute something like 50,000 Ks a year, have owned dozens of "play" motorcycles and have just sold my personal "toy" 6-tonne Hino truck.  I'm not talking about my generation - I'm looking forward towards my grandchildren's future

Just my $0.02

See this one?

A bunch of old English folk have restored this old sleeve-valve straight-eight (probably from the 1920s?)

And it looks as if they have some sort of similar clear-coating thing happening, too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULFwUaOdtdw

There's a dozen or so youtube clips detailing the rebuild story

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmupE_9J8VE