One more reason I'm glad I can live off grid.

waynefromnscanada
waynefromnscanada Solar Expert Posts: 3,009 ✭✭✭✭
I know we don't live in Japan, but seriously, all things considered, can we in North America afford to feel smug? I don't think so. Not for one second!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-18113785

In the meantime, the anti-wind, anti-anything in my back yard folks are alive and loud. May I suggest that those so against renewable energy, have their energy supply limited. Methinks they'd soon change their minds when reality hits them where they live.

Comments

  • solarvic
    solarvic Solar Expert Posts: 1,071 ✭✭✭✭
    Re: One more reason I'm glad I can live off grid.

    Wayne. I agree with you that the (anti everything that has to do with making energy people) should get thier power shutoff for awhile. People protested till they are shutting down coal fired power plants. Wind power haters are trying to keep them from building wind turbines. They want them to tear down hydro power dams and they have already done a couple. People don,t want nucular power either. They don,t want solar either, ugly and doesnt perform very well. Now there is a natural gas boom starting in western pa and eastern ohio. At meetings I have been at they stated we have 3 times more oil in western pa than saudia arabia has. Yet they have antifrackers that are trying to stop that. It could be a good shot in the arm that our country needs to get out of our finincial delema. First they thought we were going to have a natural gas shortage so they set up 9 ports to import lng shipped here in big tankers. Instead we can export ng and bring money into our country. Next we could stop importing oil because we do have all we need here now. We can sell ng to canada to use to get the oil out of the oil sands. Canada also has some of the utica shale gas we have here in pa. That would be good for canada and usa which trades a lot with each other. So where is our energy suposed to come from? Natural gas, solar and wind really make good complimates to each other making our power requirements. The ng can fill in when solar and wind is offline. solarvic
  • Photowhit
    Photowhit Solar Expert Posts: 6,002 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Re: One more reason I'm glad I can live off grid.

    The "not in my back yard" people really bother me.

    I had FPIRG (Florida Public Interest Research Group) come by my house, when I lived in Tallahassee. They were petitioning against offshore oil drilling, driving a car. I, a 300lb guy who road my bike 5 miles to work and didn't own a car, mentioned that I'd really like to have them in sight of the beachs so every one knew where the oil was coming from that helped support their life style. Then I asked them to kindly "drive on"
    Home system 4000 watt (Evergreen) array standing, with 2 Midnite Classic Lites,  Midnite E-panel, Magnum MS4024, Prosine 1800(now backup) and Exeltech 1100(former backup...lol), 660 ah 24v Forklift battery(now 10 years old). Off grid for 20 years (if I include 8 months on a bicycle).
    - Assorted other systems, pieces and to many panels in the closet to not do more projects.
  • solar_dave
    solar_dave Solar Expert Posts: 2,397 ✭✭✭✭
    Re: One more reason I'm glad I can live off grid.

    Well Japan is a study in over reaction. The really dumb location of placing that set of reactors in an area that might be tsunami prone is unforgivable. I suspect they will fire up some of those reactors again once they figure out it still costs lots of money having them idle yet producing no power. Even idle they have pretty much the same risks.
  • Cariboocoot
    Cariboocoot Banned Posts: 17,615 ✭✭✭
    Re: One more reason I'm glad I can live off grid.

    People who wholly condemn the petroleum industry also do not realize we get more than gas and oil from it. Sure, plastic is annoying when it comes in the form of those miserable clam-shell packages. But it also comes in the form of a lot of other things that make our lives better than they were in the centuries before, and in so many cases actually save lives.

    Before anyone flat-out declares "we must not have any [fill in the blank]" they'd better research the topic fully so they know what they're talking about. Everything comes with an environmental price, even "clean" energy.

    I'll leave out the snide remark I was going to make about a certain country and their apparent desire to revert to an energy form derived from aquatic mammals. You're all smart enough to figure it out yourselves. :roll:
  • Ralph Day
    Ralph Day Solar Expert Posts: 1,019 ✭✭✭✭
    Re: One more reason I'm glad I can live off grid.

    That's why they've been doing "research" harvesting for so many years...but I love their cars!

    As far as living off grid, I did so for 7 years, then the microFIT and utility load service. I don't feel nearly as guilty as I thought I would using utility power for battery charging. It's still tough to eq charge, the better half has the most sensitive nose and can smell acid vapour at the most minute concentrations.

    Ralph
  • bill von novak
    bill von novak Solar Expert Posts: 891 ✭✭✭✭
    Re: One more reason I'm glad I can live off grid.

    >The really dumb location of placing that set of reactors in an area that might be tsunami prone is unforgivable.

    It's quite common. Reactors need cooling, and having a large lake, river or sea nearby makes the design a lot more straightforward.

    Everything looks dumb in retrospect when there's a problem. "They put San Onofre near a fault? They put Three Mile Island near a major population center? They put Hanford near a major river? Idiots!" But you do have to put them somewhere; the best you can do is make reasonable tradeoffs between risk, costs, effectiveness, efficiency, pollution etc.
  • solar_dave
    solar_dave Solar Expert Posts: 2,397 ✭✭✭✭
    Re: One more reason I'm glad I can live off grid.
    >The really dumb location of placing that set of reactors in an area that might be tsunami prone is unforgivable.

    It's quite common. Reactors need cooling, and having a large lake, river or sea nearby makes the design a lot more straightforward.

    Everything looks dumb in retrospect when there's a problem. "They put San Onofre near a fault? They put Three Mile Island near a major population center? They put Hanford near a major river? Idiots!" But you do have to put them somewhere; the best you can 50do is make reasonable tradeoffs between risk, costs, effectiveness, efficiency, pollution etc.


    True but you then are bound to design for the worst case scenario, like all known tsunamis and over build by 150%. This then factors into cost and perhaps improves the chances for a better location. Build 100 ft high sea wall or build the reactor 100ft above sea level? Pretty easy to see the cost effective decision. That is what makes if unforgivable.
  • bill von novak
    bill von novak Solar Expert Posts: 891 ✭✭✭✭
    Re: One more reason I'm glad I can live off grid.
    solar_dave wrote: »
    True but you then are bound to design for the worst case scenario, like all known tsunamis and over build by 150%.

    Agreed - which is what Japan did. They had never seen a tsunami even half the size of the one that hit them.
    This then factors into cost and perhaps improves the chances for a better location. Build 100 ft high sea wall or build the reactor 100ft above sea level? Pretty easy to see the cost effective decision. That is what makes if unforgivable.

    Remember that the waves that hit were, in places, 120 feet high. Does that 100 foot wall sound like a "cost effective decision" now?

    But let's say they decide to build up a 150 foot embankment and move the reactor to the top of it. Then there's a mudslide due to an earthquake, the embankment shifts and a part of the transformer building is damaged. Now they can't move cooling water - and because it's 150 feet in the air they can't easily just pump water up to cool the reactor. Someone would then post "it's unforgivable that they put that reactor on a hill just because they were afraid of a tsunami!"

    Every form of power - even solar and wind - carries risk. Managing that risk is critical. But even when well managed, that risk is never zero.
  • solar_dave
    solar_dave Solar Expert Posts: 2,397 ✭✭✭✭
    Re: One more reason I'm glad I can live off grid.
    Agreed - which is what Japan did. They had never seen a tsunami even half the size of the one that hit them.



    Remember that the waves that hit were, in places, 120 feet high. Does that 100 foot wall sound like a "cost effective decision" now?

    But let's say they decide to build up a 150 foot embankment and move the reactor to the top of it. Then there's a mudslide due to an earthquake, the embankment shifts and a part of the transformer building is damaged. Now they can't move cooling water - and because it's 150 feet in the air they can't easily just pump water up to cool the reactor. Someone would then post "it's unforgivable that they put that reactor on a hill just because they were afraid of a tsunami!"

    Every form of power - even solar and wind - carries risk. Managing that risk is critical. But even when well managed, that risk is never zero.

    I believe the sea wall was only 30 foot high. I was saying tsunamis anywhere for scale comparison. And a location above sea level makes perfect sense, no sea wall required. Yes they should also consider all possible natural conditions, landslide zone is just silly. You don't need sea water to cool a reactor a great example of that is Palo Verde in AZ. You just need a source of cooling water, in the AZ case it is city waste water.

    Smart engineering isn't free but to turn a blind eye at a certainly highly possible situation is criminal.
  • BB.
    BB. Super Moderators, Administrators Posts: 33,431 admin
    Re: One more reason I'm glad I can live off grid.

    Actually, there was a lot of historical information that Japan had been hit by such a tsunami centuries ago (and further back in geological times).

    So, do we design for 500 year events? How about 600 year events:
    Inscriptions on up to 600 years old stone marker located near the coastal city of Kesennuma warn descendants:

    "Always be prepared for unexpected tsunamis. Choose life over your possessions and valuables."
    "If an earthquake comes, beware of tsunamis."
    "High dwellings are the peace and harmony of our descendants, remember the calamity of the great tsunamis. Do not build any homes below this point."

    The last tsunami came just about to the foot of that marker.

    And for over a decade, researchers have been trying to get the government/industry to realize that these events happen with some regularity:
    The size of the earthquake and tsunami shocked seismologists. The Indonesian quake had ruptured a thousand miles of fault, the Tohoku quake only 280 miles—and yet the latter produced a magnitude 9 quake. Most geologists didn't think the Japan Trench could do that, even with a longer rupture. The oceanic crust there is old, cold, and dense, and scientists reasoned it would sink beneath Japan too readily and with too little friction to generate such a big quake.

    Yet there was evidence that such a quake was possible. More than a decade ago scientists from Tohoku University, in Sendai, dug into the black mud around their coastal city and discovered three separate layers of sand that extended almost three miles inland. Abundant marine plankton in the sand layers showed they had been deposited by giant tsunamis at intervals of 800 to 1,100 years over the previous 3,000 years. The researchers' paper was published in 2001 in the Japanese Journal of Natural Disaster Science. It concluded with a warning: Because the last tsunami had struck Sendai more than 1,100 years earlier, the risk of another soon was very high. But to Japanese policymakers the uncertainty in that forecast seemed high too. When the tsunami came last March, it deposited another layer of sand at least two and a half miles inland.

    -Bill
    Near San Francisco California: 3.5kWatt Grid Tied Solar power system+small backup genset
  • solar_dave
    solar_dave Solar Expert Posts: 2,397 ✭✭✭✭
    Re: One more reason I'm glad I can live off grid.

    Bill hits the nail on the head. Thanks. It is these repeatable events that have to be planned for.
  • niel
    niel Solar Expert Posts: 10,300 ✭✭✭✭
    Re: One more reason I'm glad I can live off grid.

    actually the tsunami does not have to originate near the affected power plant or whatever else has in the line of fire. it can come from alaska or south america and even antarctica. how about a large iceberg hitting the ocean? earthquakes are one thing one may need to address if they are in that area, but tsunamis can happen along any ocean coast line and their frequency of occurrence is much higher than many think.
  • SolaRevolution
    SolaRevolution Solar Expert Posts: 410 ✭✭
    Re: One more reason I'm glad I can live off grid.

    Neuclear power plants are built to be 100% safe.
    Just like airplanes and space shuttles.

    Alex Aragon
  • waynefromnscanada
    waynefromnscanada Solar Expert Posts: 3,009 ✭✭✭✭
    Re: One more reason I'm glad I can live off grid.
    Neuclear power plants are built to be 100% safe.
    Just like airplanes and space shuttles.

    Alex Aragon

    True, at least to the best of our ability I would hope. Unfortunately everything in life has risks, even with our next breath, we could inhale some killer fungi, bacteria or virus. And don't even mention crossing the street - - - - life as we know it, cannot exist without risks. All we can do is the best we can and hope it ends up OK
    .
  • niel
    niel Solar Expert Posts: 10,300 ✭✭✭✭
    Re: One more reason I'm glad I can live off grid.
    Neuclear power plants are built to be 100% safe.
    Just like airplanes and space shuttles.

    Alex Aragon

    i'm thinking this to be a tad of sarcasm because of the number of accidents that have already occurred with death in the case of the shuttle.

    no nuclear plant is 100% safe and no argument on this is to be given as we covered this ground in the past.
  • ggunn
    ggunn Solar Expert Posts: 1,973 ✭✭✭
    Re: One more reason I'm glad I can live off grid.
    Neuclear power plants are built to be 100% safe.
    Just like airplanes and space shuttles.
    Nothing is 100% safe, of course. You can build something that is 90% safe, or you can build it 99% safe, but that's going to cost you. Or you can build it 99.9% safe... How many nines do you want to buy?

    Obviously the risk tolerance in a space shuttle is dramatically higher for a space shuttle than it is for a commercial airline, else we would never have been able to afford to build it.
  • techntrek
    techntrek Solar Expert Posts: 1,372 ✭✭✭
    Re: One more reason I'm glad I can live off grid.

    Without a doubt it was sarcasm/humor. :p
    4.5 kw APC UPS powered by a Prius, 12 kw Generac, Honda EU3000is
  • SolaRevolution
    SolaRevolution Solar Expert Posts: 410 ✭✭
    Re: One more reason I'm glad I can live off grid.

    Yea, sorry. It was a touch of sarcasm. :-)

    I think it was the Three Mile Island incident that got me interested in "green" energy technology in the first place. I was nine at the time and it was one of the first news stories that really hit me. That was about the same time the story came out in my 4th grade Weekly Reader about "Gasoline prices may soon hit $1.00/gallon". I wonder how all of this news about energy supply and nuclear disaster will affect the psyche of kids growing up today.

    Form my blue collar perspective, it's a plain and simple issue of risk/benefit assesment. With airplanes and space shuttles it seems worth the risk. No one can make you ride in them, and the statistical hazard to people on the ground is fairly minimal.

    What is the meantime between failures?
    What is the likelihood and what would be the costs associated with failure compared to the benefit of use?

    The statistical "MTBF" of nuclear energy based on history has now changed. The analysis of the risk has new conclusions.

    "Probability of contamination from severe nuclear reactor accidents is higher than expected: study"
    http://phys.org/news/2012-05-probability-contamination-severe-nuclear-reactor.html

    "According to the results of the study, a nuclear meltdown in one of the reactors in operation worldwide is likely to occur once in 10 to 20 years. Currently, there are 440 nuclear reactors in operation, and 60 more are planned."

    "A major nuclear accident there (southern Asia) would affect around 34 million people, while in the eastern USA and in East Asia this would be 14 to 21 million people."



    This truely is one more reason "I'm glad I can live off grid." I really don't want to encourage the use of nuclear power. It just seems too dangerous to me.

    I wonder what could be possible if we could make the most efficient use of our cleanest, safest power sources. What if the grid were used as an "off-grid power system" which has been tapped for maximum efficiency. The "generator" would only be fired up sparingly, when needed and for system maintenance. Any ability to store energy would be precious and well minded. We would run our "heavy loads" on "sunny days" after the batteries are charged. We would set up ways of making the best use of our diversion loads.

    I know, it's a pipe dream. :roll:
    A good one.

    Alex Aragon
  • stephendv
    stephendv Solar Expert Posts: 1,571 ✭✭
    Re: One more reason I'm glad I can live off grid.

    The other important reaction against nuclear was Germany: they shut down 8 nuclear reactors immediately after fukushima and plan to shut down the rest by 2022. In other news, the combined output of their solar installs reached a record high last week: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/05/26/us-climate-germany-solar-idUKBRE84P0FI20120526
    22 GW at peak, or roughly a third of their power requirements during that time.