Reality Thread 2.0

JRHill

I thought about posting to that two year old thread but its better to start afresh. In recent times I see this big push to beat up ICE power. GM to phase out ICE cars by such-n-such, Tesla, and etc. That is great for the city person with mass transportation or living in their 'Sustainable Community.' Compared to the city populations those that rely on ICE power for whatever reason are going to be the minority. Fuel stations will change. Prices will change upward and on and on. At the same time the people in the population centers rely on the things than come from those that really need ICE power.

Recently we learned that a neighbor is working on a 20 year lease of state forest land. I chuckled at the thought of what things will be like before that lease terminates. Both of us are off grid as there is no electrical distribution in this area. Both of us rely on generators for some part of the year and solar for the rest. We need our rigs for supplies, fuel for working equipment, power to be connected, etc. I recently had someone say that if I can't handle minor issues like this I should just move. Really, it was an astounding statement.

So have you thought 20 years down the road?

Photowhit

While I rely on ICE (internal combustion engine) for transportation, I've never used one for a backup energy source.  Might consider a larger array to help kick the ICE habit.

I even have used my gas chain saws so infrequently I need to soak them to get them to run. I can reach most/all of my 1 1/2 acre wood lot with my electric chainsaws.

I don't plan on going to an electric car any time soon. The trip to town usually runs 100 miles or more with shopping around. The cars I could afford, used usually be at the max of their range, if that much and I could reliably recharge the next day incase of needing an emergency trip the next day.

JRHill

Photowhit said:

I can reach most/all of my 1 1/2 acre wood lot with my electric chainsaws.

Sigh. This isn't what I am posing.

If you own a tract many of acres of forest how do you maintain it if fuel becomes a problem? I'll await others on this subject.

Estragon

I've worked and run businesses in some pretty fast changing areas, but on a more macro level what surprises me is how little things change over a 20 year period, not how much.  Yeah, there will be some surprises along the way, but the world 20 years from now will very likely resemble the world today.  The edge cases (get hit by asteroid, perfect cold fusion, etc) may be high impact, but they're low probability.

It took ~20 years to get rid of lead in gasoline.  IMHO, the odds of getting rid of gasoline entirely 20 years from now approach zero, though the odds of it being a lot more expensive are pretty good.  We'll just have to deal with the more expensive part.  We have before, and we will again.

Dave Angelini

I am not concerned as it is a long way out for this to even begin to happen.

I tell some of my older clients that these panels have a 25 year product warranty. They say, I only need 15 years.....I think it will take more than 25 years. Even here they are not saying you can't keep existing ICE. They think it will work out fine just like our power grid does here in California.

 Just a Fire engine going electric would not be hard to do as long as the water tanks were for batteries. You call CAL FIRE, a wildfire is starting out near Pilot Peak. They tell you sorry, we are charging now and should be done in an hour. It will take a completely new battery technology made out of Nano Styrofoam to do these things.

I really like my electric chain saw also because it saves my carpal wrist from the old sailboat Photowhit. I can run #12 just about anywhere. It is quiet and from my Dad's house back in the 1980's. A Craftsmen 18" that says 5 HP on it.....Talk about reality? 5 HP on a 120 v 15 A circuit?

mike95490

Electric cars in big citys .  what a joke.   half the car owners are forced to park on the street - where do they charge their EV ?
 an apartment building with 100 EV's that pull in at 6pm and want to charge - how many Mwh will that consume, and where does the electric service come from ?  The magic unicorn dust?   Add a few hundred apt buildings with EV's  going to be some brownouts for sure, till they triple the Grid for all the chargers.

Estragon

The infrastructure behind EVs could definitely become a problem, but also an opportunity (load shedding, grid stabilization, etc.).  I wouldn't be at all surprised to see them evolve at least partially to a subscription model (as opposed to outright ownership).  It sort of is already, with most vehicles being financed/leased.  My guess is the GMs of the world are looking pretty hard at such a model.  It has a lot of advantages in terms of smoothing demand cycles, brand stickiness, etc.

Large apartment/condo buildings etc. might offer EVs as a building amenity, outsourced to a specialist third party.  The specialist would handle the infrastructure needed to support the EV service.  I gave this a fair bit of thought, mostly as a way to reduce the need and demand for parking back in my condo development days.  To work well, it would have to be tied in with good mass transit and active transportation systems.  Unfortunately, those pieces aren't where they need to be in most N.A. cities though.

Dave - I wonder if the "5hp" electric chainsaw is sort of like some of the electric logsplitters I was looking at a while back.  Especially the kinetic ones seem to be some sort of "feels like" BS (roughly analogous to temperature with humidity or wind chill)?  Low rpm torque or some such "equivalency".

JRHill

Estragon said:

Dave - I wonder if the "5hp" electric chainsaw is sort of like some of the electric logsplitters I was looking at a while back.  Especially the kinetic ones seem to be some sort of "feels like" BS (roughly analogous to temperature with humidity or wind chill)?  Low rpm torque or some such "equivalency".

I've chuckled about this for a long time. Theoretically one can get 3hp from a 120vac dedicated 20a circuit that can deliver that without voltage drop and if one assumes 100% efficiency in everything. I understand how these games are played with the consumer. 5hp on a loonnngg extension cord or two. Hmph.

When I spoke of the city and sustainable communities I wasn't including the extreme case of huge city folks, er, folks in a huge city (wink) who can't even find parking spaces. To me that circumstance is excluded. 

Mr. Dave, your mention of a fire vehicle that had to have its water tank swapped for a battery back is insightful. In my area some essential RFD support rigs are excess military units. Oh, boy, can't we see the decommissioning of those due to fuel access. I have asked and no one will answer if that monster runs dyed fuel or not.

Photowhit

JRHill said:

Photowhit said:

I can reach most/all of my 1 1/2 acre wood lot with my electric chainsaws.

Sigh. This isn't what I am posing.

If you own a tract many of acres of forest how do you maintain it if fuel becomes a problem? I'll await others on this subject.

Sorry to not conform to your opinion. FWIW - I have sized my solar electric systems and haven't run a generator for 20 years, living off grid 18+ of those... 
...so there is that.

Good luck to you!

JRHill

Photowhit said:

JRHill said:

Photowhit said:

I can reach most/all of my 1 1/2 acre wood lot with my electric chainsaws.

Sigh. This isn't what I am posing.

If you own a tract many of acres of forest how do you maintain it if fuel becomes a problem? I'll await others on this subject.

Sorry to not conform to your opinion. FWIW - I have sized my solar electric systems and haven't run a generator for 20 years, living off grid 18+ of those... 
...so there is that.

Good luck to you!

But Mr Photowhit, every implementation is different. Our input (summer/winter), our use therein and on and on is probably much different that yours. I'm really happy for you. Congratulations for you of your your 1 1/2 acre.

clockmanfran

JRHill,

Your asking the wrong people on the wrong forum the wrong question.

We here in Rural France try to walk softly on the planets recourses, but we are definitely NOT  Rose tinted glasses nor are we fluffy bunnies about life, nor do we live in holes in the ground mentality, we just want a Planet for our children's, children.

Yes the ICE power is still and going to be the most efficient form of producing energy for the space it occupies.

No ICE, 

 Here in France most cars and most vehicles are Diesel, European governments want to phase diesel out.  True it pollutes but its the old huge engines that are bad news, not the latest car diesels engine which are now incredibly clean and efficient, 
So grab a acre of land and grow oil seed rape, crush it, vitrification process it. and use it, yea might need to alter the engines burning abilities.  But i know old Mercedes engines that have been running years on vegetable oil. 

UK government after 2030 wont allow new cars to be sold in the UK if they are Petrol or diesel.  Electric only.     Now that is the biggest joke yet, very very badly informed advice.     
Lets think, every household in the UK has a car, each night they charge it up lets say about 60kW, everyone else does the same.       Holy crap, the present electrical infrastructure is struggling to cope.!!!!                             And i certainly can not see governments spending vast sums in doubling up all those transmission cables and loads of New Power stations. 
 Perhaps going backwards might be a solution where each community has its own generation PV , Wind, etc plants, see Barcelona in Spain and in Germany, and the power is generated for its community at cost but still interlinked with the whole Country's Grid..   

Here i might revert to a decent horse and plough, or keep my old diesel rotavator tractor going, and keep my PV and Turbines going.  We planned forward 30 years, and some stuff we do was always way ahead. 
Even today the French Government are giving 100% grants for house insulation, they phone me with offers, and i just say,  "All our buildings are to Passive House standards" and they all say, "what is Passive House"  and these folk are supposed to know.  derrrr.

JRHill, there is no single magic bullet, but hundreds of small magic bullets all of which add up.

We here have been thinking, planning and doing things for 35 years. Our project here started 21 years ago and i am still at it NOW.  But its a realistic project with realistic red brick and oak timber framed buildings and modern appliances and modern accommodation and facilities, where everything is thought about and obtained and sourced locally.  And we barter stuff and use our skills and hard work to flourish and advance slowly. 

No, don't have pots of money and do not have lots of land, but we think, we plan, we ask, and importantly we follow 3 mantras.   MAKE IT SIMPLE,  MAKE IT ROBUST, and very importantly, MAKE IT COST EFFECTIVE.

Best get out now, i can see its daylight and finish Passive house insulation, (non inflammable scrap/recycled  mineral wool) on the last of our 160 year old Oak framed Sheep barn buildings. Barn is 20ft by 30ft and internally 20ft high.  The sheep when lambing will be in the building next door this large area will become a lecture theatre. 

For further info please see.   ...........  Leslie Bryan Microengineering (bryanhorology.com)

and ......      Solar Trackers ....  Leslie Bryan Microengineering (bryanhorology.com)        and    OzInverter ....... Leslie Bryan Microengineering (bryanhorology.com)     .......   Wind Turbines ..... Leslie Bryan Microengineering (bryanhorology.com)       ......      PV Installations and Info ......   Leslie Bryan Microengineering (bryanhorology.com)       .......    Off Grid and Your Own MINI Grid  info ......    Leslie Bryan Microengineering (bryanhorology.com)

I trust this helps.?

mcgivor

When the first automobiles arrived I would bet there was initial skepticism as to their viability over the horse, much like what is being discussed here and it has to be remembered that was only ~120 years ago.

Whatever technology supercedes the ICE would need infrastructure to support distribution of the fuel source, be it electrical, hydrogen or whatever. Such an undertaking would require commitment from government and private industry, unfortunately in some cases governments are supported by industry lobby groups, which dictate decisions made on policy. Deregulation of state owned infrastructure puts profit ahead of progress to satisfy share holders, which further impedes the progress, what's needed is a unified vision, unfortunately this is often not the case. Countries without such systems, along with having a vision for the future may be better positioned for the transition to the inevitable decline of fossil fuel use, by building the infrastructure in preparation, rather than reacting at the last minute.

My personal thoughts are the proposed transition to EV is too ambitious, given the decisions are largely made by unqualified politicians, who make statements without consideration  for where the added demand, on the marginal current infrastructure, will come from. However going back to the opening paragraph,  ~120 years ago we made the transition from horses to the  ICE, technology evolves significantly faster now, so it could be done given the right circumstances, but I'm afraid the politics will delay the progress in most cases. Fossil fuels will probably play a declining part in the transition, but won't go away in the foreseeable future.

Given my limited time of existence on this messed up planet we call home, I would think it highly unlikely the solution, whatever it is, wouldn't make much difference, because, in my opinion, we have already passed the point of no return, mother earth will determine humanities fate, whatever that may be, sounds pessimistic perhaps, but it more realistic.

OutsourcedGuru

JRHill said:

If you own a tract many of acres of forest how do you maintain it if fuel becomes a problem? I'll await others on this subject.

Actually, you should look into gasification. You can convert biomass into fuel. (Personally, I ran a biodiesel rig down in Peru for three months which converted used cooking oil into biodiesel and the truck ran off 100% biodiesel and did just fine.) Another area of research is pyrolysis in which you're recycling plastics into fuel. You can convert gasoline into natural gas and it's an easy-enough process.

I seem to recall that FEMA produced a how-to manual on this. http://www.build-a-gasifier.com/PDF/FEMA_emergency_gasifier.pdf

JRHill

Gasification. Yup, it can work. Or maybe not. I have enough on my plate without that technology. When and if the genset shuts down I get enough grief from the DW as it is now. And FEMA produced a manual... I can't bring myself to look at it. 

Another thought... In a recent issue of Nat Geo History, the Maya civilization collapsed because of a draught. A climate change. AD 100-200. These patterns have been happening over and over. South America. What happened to the middle east that has all that oil on huge amounts of wind blown sand? It's everywhere over the many years.

I have no way to legitimize our current state of affairs in terms of weather but it could be a minor or major factor. 

What is a huge factor is the instability in Ukraine. This is a huge risk and I am sure you know what I'm talking about.

NANOcontrol

A lot of chasing headlines.  I remember back in the mid 70's an IEEE award for best new microprocessor use went to microprocessor toilets.  Everyone laughed.  It took 40 years, but now everyone is surprised when they have to use a lever. Adaption is slow and far to fast for many who can't deal with change. The only true way society advances is when those stuck in the past die off.

OutsourcedGuru

JRHill said:

Another thought... In a recent issue of Nat Geo History, the Maya civilization collapsed because of a draught. A climate change. AD 100-200. These patterns have been happening over and over. South America. What happened to the middle east that has all that oil on huge amounts of wind blown sand? It's everywhere over the many years.

I have no way to legitimize our current state of affairs in terms of weather but it could be a minor or major factor. 

What is a huge factor is the instability in Ukraine. This is a huge risk and I am sure you know what I'm talking about.

Speaking of Mayans, their calendar's b'ak'tun is 396-1/4 years and marks when our system's second sun is in perigee behind ours. That sun's biggest planet is Nibiru and it sweeps through our inner solar system every approximately 400 years. Occasionally this pass-by is so close that it causes weather/tectonic problems here on Earth and sometimes even three-hour long solar eclipses.

The last b'ak'tun event was something like December 21st, 2012 and freaked out the elite of our planet since many seem to be clueless about the fact that it's Nibiru we need to watch out for. Sometimes this planet leads its sun and sometimes it lags behind it. This time it was about nine years lagging behind the b'ak'tun event and crossed by us twice in 2021. You probably didn't see it because of all the chemtrailing they did to keep you from losing your cool.

All this "climate change" warnings was all about the weather changes expected from Nibiru's fly-by which didn't really pan out. So, the significant event has passed, the world didn't end, we didn't get wiped out by another recurring apocalypse or biblical flood this time.

From what I understand, the fake/scripted WWIII event is part of a bigger alien disclosure operation that's in progress. Once we're past all this, we get to do exo-commerce at a grand scale selling products off-planet to about a thousand destinations in our arm of the galaxy. I'd suggest stockpiling things like gasoline. Once they start selling Jeeps to other planets they'll have to sell our gas/diesel, right? 

JRHill

OutsourcedGuru said:

JRHill said:

Another thought... 

From what I understand, 

I apologise but I never thought it would go to this point. Let's talk about solar panels.