Alternative Energy?

Fine Figure of a Man

Well-known member
Is this chart to scale? Curious...
Here is another one, pressure is not listed but typically these charts are for 50 to 60 psi.

1614482008933.png
 

theotherwaldo

Well-known member
Just got another 100 watt panel, charge controller, mounts, switches and plug stations.
Waiting for the 100ah battery, fuses and wiring, then I'll have a stand-alone power unit for my room and the man cave... .

One room at a time for now. I'll link them and reconfigure later.
 
Water as a viable home power source didn't look so good one you realize how much you have to move on "free" solar power in order to obtain any amount of usable power for any length of time after dark. Unless you're intending to simply fill and maintain a large reservoir of water to be used only for emergencies.

Even so...how much do you have in resources to build and maintain that much of a reservoir?

To get a usable static water pressure, you'd need to elevate the water at least 100 feet. That's about 43 pounds of water pressure at that elevation.

If you were to maintain a reservoir elevated to 100 feet with a 1 acre-foot capacity (325,851 gallons, or 40,731 cubic feet), you would have a theoretical energy capacity of just over 100 kWh. Less, because the efficiency of energy conversion is going to be significantly less than 100% based on the mechanics of your water turbine construct and the electrical efficiency of your generator. Call it a "maybe" 30%. So about 30 kWh.

The average house in 2019 used 877 kWh per month, or just a smidgen under 30 kWh per day.
 

M5-Shogun

Member
Finally getting my financial situation slowly straight. I wanna buy a plot of mountain land in NC or WV and have a cabin, grow my own food etc.

Alternative energy is one thing I'm definitely not shying away from when the time comes.
 

theotherwaldo

Well-known member
I've been enjoying watching Elon Musk's various projects progressing.

His Solar Roof/Power Wall/Virtual Power Plant/Mega Battery system is starting to take off.

His Tesla GigaFactories that are completed are already profitable, with Giga Texas in pre=production and Giga Berlin still bogged down by astroturfed Greenies that are probably funded by VW and Daimler.

SpaceX is making it possible to have satellite-based communications anywhere on earth while driving NASA nuts by launching space craft cheaply and reliably.

Meanwhile, his Boring Company is dramatically changing city-core and airport shuttle systems.

Not to mention the possibilities inherent in the research coming out of Neuralink.

It's rather telling that Joe Biden's puppeteers are trying to block Elon as much as they can, using the various alphabet agencies to "investigate" Tesla accidents and fires, whether or not SpaceX launch towers are too tall and other, similar nonsense.

It's especially amusing that the most successful American-based electric car company is not supposed to share in the federal funds being handed out to the various electric (and hybrid) car companies... .
 

wiscoaster

Well-known member
...

It's rather telling that Joe Biden's puppeteers are trying to block Elon as much as they can...
Yes, it's genius entrepreneurs like Elon Musk and Thomas Edison that are as much interested in making money as they are in discovery and technological advance that are making / have made the real contributions to modern life, not some hide-bound government beauracracies that are mostly interested in increasing their budgets and their spheres of authority and control. NASA was an exception ... for a while ... but they succumbed to beauracratitis (to invent a word, maybe?) as they all do eventually.
 

theotherwaldo

Well-known member
Yep.
Bureaucrats are only really dedicated to strengthening and preserving their bureaucracy - and graduating to much larger paychecks when they retire and move on... .
Meanwhile, Ford is investing eleven billion in electric vehicle factories on the deep south, far from the solid union rust belt.
It's a pity that Ford (and all of the other legacy auto makers) are already so deep in debt... and hoping to get bailed out again.
After all, they're too big to fail.
 

Selena

Active member
Let me see, my grandfather told me that the homestead run off of a "delco plant" until the late 50's. So even the guys that held a grudge against FDR finally ended up seeing that homebrewed electricity was more trouble than it was worth. :devilish: When my late uncle "converted" the house I live in now (it was a granary originally) he included gaslights for when the electricity went out. Oddly enough, analysis shows the gaslight was cheaper than electric until we switched over to LED lights.

My uncle also design a "manure digester" large enough to handle the offal from the 80 head of milk cows we keep. While the unit gives off a good amount of "biogas" it's main advantage is the quality of the fertilizer is better than untreated manure. A certain unnamed idiot that shall remain my brother uses the gas for shop heat on the homestead. He also uses the shop boiler to connect to the semi tractor cooling system and acts a "block heater" which makes the machine easier to start in sub-zero temps and the heater works immediately.

At one time I had a "windmill" unit to mix homemade black powder but a certain unnamed idiot that shall remain my brother decided the unit worked far better tumbling brass and polishing rocks. In his defense though, when I had the unit the "fan" was 4 foot in diameter and the "tower" only 12 feet high. The "mill" was a direct drive and I had to stop the fan and climb the tower to change out the units. My brother has a 35 tower with an 8 foot diameter fan and the mill is operated by a hydraulic pump in the mill and a motor on the ground.
 

roscoe

Well-known member
Yes, it's genius entrepreneurs like Elon Musk and Thomas Edison that are as much interested in making money as they are in discovery and technological advance that are making / have made the real contributions to modern life, not some hide-bound government beauracracies that are mostly interested in increasing their budgets and their spheres of authority and control. NASA was an exception ... for a while ... but they succumbed to beauracratitis (to invent a word, maybe?) as they all do eventually.
I don't want to be 'that guy', but some collaborative science and engineering examples that are not related to profit are relevant here:

Manhattan Project
Human Genome Project
NASA (including Apollo, Gemini, Space Shuttle, Hubble)
Watson-Crick-Franklin
Polio vaccine (and other vaccines)
US Hurricane Forecast Center
Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin
Development of the X-ray machine
Golden Gate Bridge
Hoover Dam
etc. etc.

My estimation is that these things had some reasonably important benefits for society. More than, say, Elon Musk's contributions so far. Edison is a mixed bag, since he was mostly good at marketing. He was, in particular, not above stealing ideas wholesale or trying to horn in on the profits of others. If you really want a lone genius, try Tesla. But Tesla wasn't driven by money.

By the advent of the 20th century, the 'lone genius' could no longer compete with collaborative efforts. The world is too complicated nowadays.

I know you all love your Ayn Rand, but seriously . . .
 
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theotherwaldo

Well-known member
Putting in another bank of six 100-watt solar panels and a portable lithium power storage unit.
Just in time for hurricane season and the planned rolling blackouts.
 

theotherwaldo

Well-known member
-By the way, China is trying to come up with a weapon to take out all of those SpaceX satellites that keep beaming unauthorized information to the common people of China... .
 

wiscoaster

Well-known member
They can do that already with an EMP, but they're a signatory to the treaty that bans use of nuclear weapons in outer space, so I suppose they'd have to come up with some other method that doesn't violate that treaty and make it an act of war.
 

theotherwaldo

Well-known member
They'd have to come up with a lot of those weapons because SpaceX is putting up 40 to 60 satellites with each launch... .
 

wiscoaster

Well-known member
I suppose maybe a ground-based laser could take out a satellite - if it's powerful enough? I think both China and Russia claim they can do that already, though it's probably just hot air (or maybe smoke and reflections of visible incoherent wide-spectrum EM waves).
 
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