Some fantastic discussions in this thread. It’s a great reminder of why I come here.
Re Mots’ book, do you all think it is worthwhile for someone whose peak electrical achievement is changing out a few light fixtures? We already have a small, grid-tied PV system but I paid to have it installed as the thought of DIY was intimidating.
Mark_BC – You’ve nailed it. No, we can’t run the same society on horse-power, but there are a thousand years or more of precedent for running a somewhat different society that way. Living near Amish communities as I do makes it seem a little more realistic than it might be for someone in a large city. Self replicating, self fueling in most parts of the world, no spare parts supply chain necessary, and (perhaps the most overlooked) no actual roads are necessary. That’s where I put my money over a decade ago – farming and road transport with horses. Not without its downsides for sure, but all in all I think it’s about the best we can hope for. As an added bonus, those who make the change will discover something entirely new and wonderful – the feeling of love and gratitude towards your “transportation” after a long drive or difficult farming task. I’ve never really felt that for a car or tractor – and never had them reciprocate. Sail transport has a bright future as well, imho.
A few corrections in regards to micro-hydro power. Micro hydro does not disrupt fish, the environment, the water way in any way. It really is micro. A small pipe carrying water. You put in a small intake that is filtered, no harm to fish, it is small and in the stream, like a screened box. Inside that is the pipe inlet. the pipe leaves the stream and goes as far as needed, less for steep slope, longer for less sloped, then powers the small turbine, exits in a pipe and back to the stream.
I am also thinking more about using straight DC power when I can and decentralizing my power here at home. So, I am going to run my new well pump on direct DC, so it will pump when the sun is out, which is fine as I have water tanks. I have been living for months now, since the fire, with no pressure pump ( from tank to house) so on just gravity and it is not as much pressure as I would like but is doable. You certainly can barely brush teeth upstairs, but downstairs can take a low pressure shower, takes ALOT longer to run the washing machine, since it takes so long to fill, but it is doable. I am putting in a new pressure pump, and it is AC, but I know I can live without it and can just turn off the breaker when I need to conserve power. I had practiced turning it off before, but the last 5 months have been an eye opener. I will have slightly more pressure since the new tanks going in are 2 feet taller ( 10ft). They make 12ft tall tanks, but I was making the well installers unhappy by trying to push it, and I can’t do it myself, so I will have the 10ftx10ft tanks.
I am also considering a DC refrigerator, they are expensive. I may try the experiment of running it direct DC and see how badly it performs during days of storms, it might surprise me but more likely I will give it back up power. The Dc refrigerator I ma thinking of can run on 12 or 24V, and my solar system is 48V. There might be a way to connect and reduce, but I will more likely just give it its own panels, I picked up a couple used panels that would do the trick, 2 150W 12V panels for $30/each.
I have a solar PV system, I have had it for 22 years. The idea is that if I take the most critical loads off of that old system, well I will keep using it for lights, the pressure pump, communications, etc…
One of the power outages last month, we have them a lot, it was sunny days so batteries were recharging every day, so I played with a portable induction burner I had picked up at a garage sale. It is 1500watts. It worked great. ran it no problem off the battery back up. Heats things really fast, boils water faster than my electric kettle.
My house is all electric, grid intertie solar with batteries, put in 22 years ago. But only a bit over 2kW of panels and only 3 2.2kW batteries. I cannot run the electric range or electric water heater off of my solar setup. I can run water pumps, refrigerator, appliances, lights… I had solar thermal hot water and it is mildly broken right now ( it is also very old) so I will need to fix that this summer. Used to be that I would only get power outages during winter storms, so when it was cold, and I use my wood stove to heat with when it is cold, so I can do basic cooking and heat a pot of water on the wood stove. Now we also get power outages when it is windy and not cold.
I find this place, living energy farms inspirational about decentralized, direct DC usage of solar electric. A good place to get a different perspective. They do not have the best aesthetics, but you can see the possibilities. This first link should get you to videos showing their systems https://livingenergylights.com/learn-about-dc-microgrids/ , this one is a more general one for projects they are working on http://livingenergyfarm.org
One crisp winter morning in Sweden, a cute little girl named Greta woke up to a perfect world, one where there were no petroleum products ruining the earth. She tossed aside her cotton sheet and wool blanket and stepped out onto a dirt floor covered with willow bark that had been pulverized with rocks. “What’s this?” she asked. “Pulverized willow bark,” replied her fairy godmother. “What happened to the carpet?” she asked. “The carpet was nylon, which is made from butadiene and hydrogen cyanide, both made from petroleum,” came the response. Greta smiled, acknowledging that adjustments are necessary to save the planet, and moved to the sink to brush her teeth where instead of a toothbrush, she found a willow, mangled on one end to expose wood fibre bristles. “Your old toothbrush?” noted her godmother, “Also nylon.” “Where’s the water?” asked Greta. “Down the road in the canal,” replied her godmother, ‘Just make sure you avoid water with cholera in it” “Why’s there no running water?” Greta asked, becoming a little peevish. “Well,” said her godmother, who happened to teach engineering at MIT, “Where do we begin?” There followed a long monologue about how sink valves need elastomer seats and how copper pipes contain copper, which has to be mined and how it’s impossible to make all-electric earth-moving equipment with no gear lubrication or tires and how ore has to be smelted to a make metal, and that’s tough to do with only electricity as a source of heat, and even if you use only electricity, the wires need insulation, which is petroleum-based, and though most of Sweden’s energy is produced in an environmentally friendly way because of hydro and nuclear, if you do a mass and energy balance around the whole system, you still need lots of petroleum products like lubricants and nylon and rubber for tires and asphalt for filling potholes and wax and iPhone plastic and elastic to hold your underwear up while operating a copper smelting furnace and . . . “What’s for breakfast?” interjected Greta, whose head was hurting. “Fresh, range-fed chicken eggs,” replied her godmother. “Raw.” “How so, raw?” inquired Greta. “Well, . . .” And once again, Greta was told about the need for petroleum products like transformer oil and scores of petroleum products essential for producing metals for frying pans and in the end was educated about how you can’t have a petroleum-free world and then cook eggs. Unless you rip your front fence up and start a fire and carefully cook your egg in an orange peel like you do in Boy Scouts. Not that you can find oranges in Sweden anymore. “But I want poached eggs like my Aunt Tilda makes,” lamented Greta. “Tilda died this morning,” the godmother explained. “Bacterial pneumonia.” “What?!” interjected Greta. “No one dies of bacterial pneumonia! We have penicillin.” “Not anymore,” explained godmother “The production of penicillin requires chemical extraction using isobutyl acetate, which, if you know your organic chemistry, is petroleum-based. Lots of people are dying, which is problematic because there’s not any easy way of disposing of the bodies since backhoes need hydraulic oil and crematoriums can’t really burn many bodies using as fuel Swedish fences and furniture, which are rapidly disappearing – being used on the black market for roasting eggs and staying warm.” This represents only a fraction of Greta’s day, a day without microphones to exclaim into and a day without much food, and a day without carbon-fibre boats to sail in, but a day that will save the planet. Tune in tomorrow when Greta needs a root canal and learns how Novocain is synthesized.https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/climate/gretas-nightmare/
A++++
the amish certainly are to be admired for a good many reasons.
it might be good to remember though they live on the periphery of industrial society.
any bit of iron or steel they use is mined and processed in factories. their clothing is made in textile mills. rubber? glass? ditto pencils? paper? etc. etc. etc.
i imagine there are a handful of people on the planet still living in the stone age, but the vast majority are living with the fruits of industrial civilization thanks to fossil fuels. the only choice is to what degree.
amory lovins came and spoke at our library. the library is leed certified. he looked around and said he could improve it in a number of ways. then he spoke about the potential for alternative energy in the area. he said a little solar less wind some hydro. then he said “you have lots of biomass”. at that point i looked out the window and imagined 1/2 the trees being gone in 50 years. with a 2 county population of 1/2 million with everyone cutting trees for heat, it wouldn’t take to long for the biomass to disappear.
i remember a long time ago the discussions used to include time, scale, and cost. those parameters are largely gone now. (as is the crash course for the most part). if one is in a room with 8 people it is a fun exercise to think that w/o fossil fuels 7 of them wouldn’t be there. which ones would you wish to see gone?
at one end of the scale are those with computers and internet and at the other are those wearing animal skins and using stone implements.
You are doing a great job and keep this good work. I’m inspired and will try to follow the footsteps.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THrZ9HU073s good food for thought
Hello Everyone - would anyone have any experience with Portable Solar Generators. I live in a small upstairs condo in Florida. During the hurricane season the loss of energy is quite real. Over the last several years I have been reading about Portable Solar Generators. There are many brands, sizes, etc on the market. What I want the solar generator to do is keep the refrigerator going, some light during the night and a portable fan as it becomes quite hot, stuffy, etc. without air conditioning. There is a Goal Zero Yeti 1400 that has a 1500 Watt output & right now on Amazon it is not available. There is the Yeti 6000X , 3000X and 1500X which are more powerful. We get a lot of sunshine in Florida. Any thoughts, guidance on purchasing & using a portable solar generator would be really appreciated. Thank you. Elizabeth - A Peak Prosperity Fan for over 10-Years.
One of the (many) lessons I learned in my early solar years is that voltage drop from continuous current drains from your battery bank (from motors) is bad for the motors (guess how I know); you need a lot more battery storage than theoretically necessary if you are running a fridge or pump or you burn out the motor. The other thing of note you have to be able to hunt the current leaks (every inverter, most electronics draw power even when off). Solar systems work really well for lights, not so well for large amperage draws from motors (for me anyway).
The devices being touted as portable solar generators are, in my opinion, of dubious value.
They are advertised as being the answer to power outages, with the implication that they will keep your household running if the utility power fails. However, a look at the specifications reveals that this is misleading at best.
For example, the Goal Zero Yeti 3000, which sells for around $3,500, essentially consists of a ‘power pack’ an AC wall charger and a 200 watt solar panel.
https://www.earthtechproducts.com/yeti-3000x-solar-generator-kit.html
The ‘power pack’ includes a 3032 Wh Li-ion battery and an inverter to convert the 10.8 volt battery power to 120 volt AC (household) power plus several ports for charging phones etc.
The manufacturer claims that this will power many appliances including a microwave oven (1000 watt) for 3 hours, a full size refrigerator (55watt) for 55 hr., and a 42” LED TV (100w) for 31 hours. Let’s look at these claims:
First off, the run time is based on dividing 100% of the rated battery capacity by the power consumption of the device, which is not realistic for two major reasons:
- The battery should never be completely discharged as this will drastically shorten its life. The manufacturer claims “500 cycles to 80% capacity”. So the 'fridge run time will realistically be 80% of 55 hr. = 44 hr.
- The rated times are for that appliance alone using all of the battery capacity. So if you want to burn your pellet stove, keep a few lights on, run a refrigerator, a TV, a microwave and a computer while you are charging your phone, the battery will be discharged much more rapidly. I estimate 24 hours maximum.
I would suggest building your own solar generator. The components are still available and it’s not that hard to do. Here is a link to the one I built:
https://peakprosperity.com/forum-topic/what-do-you-use-for-backup-power/
Cheers,
Jim
I have to agree with Boomer41. You have to manage expectations. They take forever to charge with solar and they run very little.
They are good for charging phones and radios. I have a few small, lower powered appliances I have purchased just in case I need to run stuff off the battery. I figure it is another tool in the toolbox, but it is certainly not like a backup generator.
Looking forward to more electric cars and renewable energies in the near future. We are electricians Parker CO and already see an increase in interest for EV chargers for example
Thanks for the interesting information. My company wants to move to renewable energy because I want to keep up with the times. It seems to me that I need a program like https://fluix.io/industry-renewable-energy to optimize all workflows. Have you heard something about similar programs? It works?
Hybrid autos have some advantages. A small battery for short range and efficient constant-speed biofuel combustion generators (possibly in trailers) for long range. These could also buffer the local grid. With enough solar panels and crop oils a community would not have to be very large to support an adequate fleet and grid.
However for individual transportation a bi- or tri- cycle is the most efficient. When calories are taken into account they easily beat even walking or peddling.
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