JHK’s Three-Act Play
Clusterfuck Nation
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This summer’s weather is perfect now in the Hudson Valley: warm, sunny days for primping the garden and cool nights that invite deep sleep. Zucchini and cukes are coming on, along with currants, gooseberries, blueberries. Unseen underground, the potatoes swell. The chickens range happily over their daily smorgasbord of bugs. At midnight, fireflies blink in the orchard. On the human side, though — commerce, culture, and politics — nothing works. At least not here in America. Sigh….
The solar electric I installed on the house nine years ago is down. It’s supposed to feed that monster called the grid. Since April, I noticed that the electric bill is creeping up way beyond the usual seventeen bucks that the electric company charges home solar producers for the privilege of feeding their system — which, let’s face it, has a downside for them because the intermittency of so-called alt-energy disorders their operations.
It’s counter-intuitive. Many people, I’m sure, assume that the more solar units feeding the grid, the better. Strangely, not so. Electric companies work much better when the production and flow of current is absolutely predictable and under their control — like, when they decide to fire up the natgas on generator number three or tune down the hydro turbines. It’s much harder to run the system with little dribs and drabs of electricity trickling in from hither and yon. But alt-energy is good PR for the government, so they do whatever they can to promote or even compel its use.
I got a whopping folio of tax breaks and subsidies from the state and federal government when I decided to put solar electric on my house in 2013, though it finally still cost a lot: $35-K. I had intimations of living through a chaotic period of history, and the decision was consistent with my general theory of history, which is that things happen because they seem like a good idea at the time. Getting a home solar electric rig seemed like a good idea.
So, last week, after considerable hassle with my solar company setting up an appointment for a techie to visit and evaluate the problem here, the guy came up (at $150-an-hour) and informed me that my charge controller was shot. The charge controller processes all those chaotic watts coming from the solar panels on the roof into an orderly parade of electrons. He also told me that my back-up batteries — for running critical loads like the well-pump during grid outages — were at the end of their design life. Subtext: you have to get new batteries.
There are four big ones in a cabinet under the blown charge controller and the inverter (for turning direct current into alternating current that is the standard for running things). The techie had some bad news, though. New building codes forbid his company from replacing the kind of batteries I have, which are standard “sealed cell” lead-acid batteries. Some bullshit about off-gassing flammable fumes. Now the government requires lithium batteries, which would cost me sixteen-thousand dollars ($16-K) more to replace than new lead-acid batteries.
Now, it’s theoretically possible for me to replace the less-expensive lead-acid batteries — they’re still manufactured and sold — but the catch is: I’m on my own getting them and installing them. I’m in the middle of that learning-curve right now. These particular batteries cost about $850-each for the four of them, plus a hefty charge for “drop-shipping” about three hundred pounds of lead and plastic. I will almost certainly go that way, though. A new charge controller will run about $2-K. All together, replacing these components represents a big chunk of change.
At the risk of sounding like some kind of pussy, I confess that this whole business of repairing my solar electric system has put me into a welter of anxiety and fury. I am trapped in the cage of sunk costs, a.k.a. the psychology of previous investment. Not only do I have $35-K (in higher-value 2013 dollars!) tied up in all this equipment — the solar panels themselves, the wall of electronic devices, the conduit, control panels, and digital read-outs — but now I have to dump thousands more into it after only nine years. It pisses me off because I should have known better. I walked with eyes wide shut into the pit of techno-narcissism.
The hyper-complexity of a home solar-electric system is extreme. There are hundreds of little integrated components that can blow, all of it adding up to a case of guaranteed fragility. There are no easy fixes or duct-tape work-arounds for any of it. I can’t make any replacement parts in my garage. They come from faraway factories via supply lines that get sketchier every day on trucks that don’t operate profitably at $6.50-a-gallon diesel fuel.
In a low-grade epiphany while going through this ordeal last week, I realized that back in 2013, instead of getting the solar electric system, I could have bought the Rolls Royce of home generators and buried a 500-gallon fuel tank outside the garage, and had a manual water pump piggy-backed onto the well, and maybe even purchased a fine, wood-fired cookstove — and had enough money left over for a two-week vacation in the South-of-France. Silly me.
Of course, these travails with my home solar electric system are a metaphor for the complexity and fragility that is, all of a sudden this year, causing the operations of Western Civ to fly to pieces. My investment in solar was as dumb as what the entire nation of Germany did in attempting to run itself on “green energy.” (Not to mention their more recent dumb-ass decision to forego imports of Russian natgas in order to please the geniuses at Tony Blinken’s State Department, the dumb bunnies.)
Of course, even when I get the solar electric back up-and-running again, something else is sure to go wrong. And in another ten years, the solar panels will be at least half-dead. So, if you’re reading this personal lamentation, consider bending toward simplicity. Wish I had.
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Note to Readers: I’ll be giving my first in-person talk in over two years at 6:30p.m. Weds, July 20, at the Metropolitan Republican Club; 122 East 83rd Street, New York, NY 10028. For info and tickets to the event: Click here.
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I had the same problem with my solar panels as you! When I got solar, I figured that the payback period (to get even on the outlay) would be 15 years even after the tax credits. But, before I hit that mark, parts went bad and good luck finding someone to fix it.
Honestly, I put in solar largely inspired by your work! I sure don’t blame you but sure can empathize! Looking back – and on any future property – I would not bother with solar panels, except for a portable generator type unit for charging small items occasionally.
And, can you imagine the problems if the primary source for electricity was a solar powered plant? I guess that Germany and a few others are learning that green has it issues.
Amidst all our regrets, we have to remember who is making a killing manufacturing all this equipment. They are the same people who are allowed by the green treaties to go full steam ahead with the use of coal.
It’s the same people who front run everything. It’s why I call them thinkers. They knew damn well solar was a pipe dream.
But, the Hunter type of lifestyle of unbridled hedonism and freedom from the law is too intoxicating.
And that is why these “thinkers” appear “ahead of the curve” but are actually “short-sighted.”
That is, they will spend eternity burning in Hell.
We should also remember who it was who got America out of that fraudulent Climate Accord, and who told the Germans explicitly what was going to happen if they did not change course, only to have the ignorant punks laugh in his face.
Oh and he wanted to top off the strategic reserve while it was cheap.
One of the main reasons I voted for Trump was because he was going to put an end to the climate fraud, and he did.
One is reminded of the Green Horse of the Apocalypse, bringing sickness and death. Truly a horse with no name but a color.
If it had a name it might be Jacinda.
Bingo! Her speeches delivered at Harvard and the UN were mere ceremonies to cement her international woke creds. Her behind the scenes visit to Black Rock headquarters was the real purpose of her trip.
I’m surprised that the fact that they are going for all 4 of the Horseman of the Apocalypse this time doesn’t get more Alt-Press.
Famine. Check
Disease. Check
War. Check
Death. Check
Nobody with any credibility wants to reference the Bible. (Not that I agree by the way, just an observation.)
Didja see the mag cover with Beyonce atop a horse, all in red?
““Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord”
Another hit.
As in all of it man-made? Check, check check, and well, check.
Here in ultra-sunny AZ, we put in a
roof solar array about the same time, but got a huge subsidy from the power company and a large tax credit out of it, making our cost basis quite small..The inverter went, but was replaced under warranty..No battery setup..The system produces power even in the winter, so it has provided a solid ROI, given all the above…But it’s 80% subsidized, which JHK’s apparently wasn’t…
“In a low-grade epiphany while going through this ordeal last week, I realized that back in 2013, instead of getting the solar electric system, I could have bought the Rolls Royce of home generators and buried a 500-gallon fuel tank outside the garage, and had a manual water pump piggy-backed onto the well, and maybe even purchased a fine, wood-fired cookstove”
this is what we actually did about 12 years ago. the cost of maintenance has been ~$30 for oil changes on the generator.
i built my genset of components – a 15hp diesel and 7.5KW genhead. not long after buying the 2 components from a supplier on the west coast, the epa outlawed all diesels without advanced tech emissions controls – like def particulate processing.
the guys who sold me the stuff started selling ‘repair kits’ – one of them had the engine bottom end, the other sold the heads. not much work and you can make a complete diesel engine, but this is beyond many if not most people.
they have wanted us helpless and dependent for a while. i am always willing to share what i know of making. soon, many will be interested i suspect.
Jag, who makes those diesel repair kits? I’m sure others want to know. I just experimented with a free generator, 5kw with a 10 horse Briggs. Loud as hell. In the process of making the motor work I removed the generator head, damaging it. I see one like it for sale at an auction next week. Maybe I’ll use the free one for parts. But do tell us about those diesel engine parts, sounds interesting.
best bet for reliability is to get a system that operates at 1800rpm – most gasoline gensets run at 3600. the diesel is great for this because the torque / power curve is near 1800. i’ll reach out and see if the gents are still in business. it was george ure and joel sawyer – they are both based in wa state. george has a website called urbansurvival.com. both were solid individuals to work with.
crudge – sent out some emails to track this down. no reply yet. i did miss on the names thought. george ure was one of my early go-to info sites, but the guys who sold me the diesel and genhead were different.
I looked at diesel but the back-end bolt-ons were off-putting. A neighbor had a diesel zero turn mower transmission crap out on her and got as much as she’s paid for it 20 years ago (in inflated dollars, of course) basically for the engine. The Supreme Courts evisceration of the Regulatory State is long overdue.
Anybody got any experience of dual Gas/Propane fuel generators?
We have solar with Tesla batteries (2018) and an LP Cummins generator (1/2 yrs ago) back up. Our generator starts up every Tuesday for a test. We also put in a 1000 gallon lp tank. Knock on wood, so far so good. Our cost per our electric company is $37. The reason we put the system in, was because of our power outages were multiple and the idea of being in the middle of the woods and off grid was pretty cool.
We have solar with Tesla batteries (2018) and an LP Cummins generator (1/2 yrs ago) back up. Our generator starts up every Tuesday for a test. We also put in a 1000 gallon lp tank. Knock on wood, so far so good. Our cost per our electric company is $37.
Some general rules of thumb for solar:
1. If you live above the 40th latitude solar is not cost effective because of the angle of the sun during the winter. Yes, they are subsidized but we are tired of paying for your greed.
2. Never, ever put LiOn batteries inside your house or garage your EV. These things are time bombs which can spontaneously combust.
3. Do NOT install solar on your roof. The fire dept will just stand there and watch your house burn. So don’t tell the insurance company either. Plus you can’t clean them off. See #5.
4. Keep an inventory of backup parts – like invertors, batteries, etc.
They may not be available when you need them.
5. Solar panels lose about 5% efficiency per year, they can lose another 5% per year on top of that if you don’t clean them.
Good luck – buy a diesel genset instead.
This was a great and wonderful post today by our host and I appreciate the information and education about the economics of the system he chose to have installed.
From November 1982, I have paid a total of $43,472.44 in total electric bills from JCP&L and have had zero repair costs, so I am gratified to hear that I did not miss out on a “good deal” with solar. Yes, I am a strange fellow, keeping a spreadsheet on the costs since I bought this place. Besides, I live on the side of a mountain in a hardwood forest so there is no way I could have such a system installed. I have a Miller 6000 welder/generator that provides electricity during power outages, but frankly, I if electricity ever becomes a thing of the past, I will do what has to be done to survive. After all, mankind did just fine before the damn stuff was invented, perhaps even better.
A World Made By Hand does not frighten me. I read series of books about that possibility and things sounded just fine IMHO.
Thank you, Jim, thank you.
I agree with this post. And am sorry to just miss the lecture. I’ll be in NYC Sunday and Monday but headed Tuesday to the Poconos to visit my MIL.
rd – in nyfc its tough, but as always, stay-away-from-crowds. jus’ saying.
I considered solar many years ago, but when I put a pencil to it, it appeared that what I would actually be doing is paying in advance for ten years of electricity. In other words, I would break even after ten years. This calculation was based on then-current costs of electricity, but, still, costs per kilowatt hour would have had to rise far more than they actually did to reduce the ten-year break-even point by much. The calculation was also based on the assumption that I would not need to repair or replace any part of the solar setup.
Also, the expected lifespan of a solar installation is about ten years. So just about the time I broke even, it would be time to replace the whole system. Any savings would have been minimal to non-existent.
Now, I COULD see setting up one or two circuits so they could be switched over to solar during a power outage. At that time, my household water supply depended on an electric pump, so when the power was out we had no running water. It would be nice to be able to flip a switch so that the pump’s power supply could be temporarily drawn from storage batteries. I suppose this could also be a good setup for running a freezer or refrigerator or furnace during power outages. (At the time, we had propane fireplaces and a wood stove, so heat wasn’t an issue.) For cooking during power outages, probably your best bet is a Coleman stove with a couple of burners.
There was a solar company that had a compelling argument, though I never took them up on it. They would install solar panels on my roof for free and charge me something like $.14 a kWh for the electricity. Given that each kWh costs a minimum of $.24 (recently adjusted to $.28 and probably headed over $.30 soon), I’d have saved $.10 for every kWh the panels generated, for no upfront costs. The damage to the roof would be “guaranteed” and the system would be maintained by them.
My wife did not believe the guarantee. I thought we might use our garage,not our house, but we did not do so. I had two thoughts: what if the cost of power dropped and I was required to buy it at a higher price? What would happen to the system after 20 years, when the agreement ended? Would I have to pay to have it removed?
Got my new 14kw Generac in the yard waiting to be connected. Runs on 500 gallon propane tank and automatically switches on when the power goes out.
About $10k total. And NOT connected to municipal natural gas that someone can turn off. FULL tank is MY GAS.
Anthea, what you are suggesting is basically the setup I have. Four solar panels feed a 24V battery bank. I have two chest freezers, one as a freezer, one modified to operate as a backup refrigerator, that run off the batteries and/or power from the panels. Test runs show it will run with any weather pattern short of a nuclear winter. Total cost, including the freezers was a little over $1,500.
My water system backup is a dual fuel generator hooked to my well. The solar system would have needed to be significantly larger to run the 220v pump. Plus, the well only needs to run occasionally to refill drinking water containers. Rain barrels will supply my toilet tanks (on a gravity septic system).
I think it would have been feasible to run my household water pump on solar, as it was only 110V–and of course it did not run continually but cycled on and off to maintain pressure in the lines. I always had water during power outages, as I had a cistern, so there was always the option of pulling up water from the cistern with a bucket. It’s do-able, but it’s quite chore in a household of four people. That’s a lot of toilet flushes!
You wouldn’t be able to have hot water, as I think your normal water heaters are all 220V. I have a demand water heater at my present house, but I don’t know is it’s 110V or 220V. Maybe you could run a demand water heater on solar.
It would also be great to be able to run the refrigerator and freezer during a power outage. They do take a lot of juice, though.
I got a solar system 10 years ago and you can count me as a dummy also. I guess the narrative about solar, climate change, sea level rise etc got to me subconsciously.
Someone who is not a dummy is Obama. He doesn’t worry about sea level rise at his waterfront mansion on Martha’s Vineyard. He just had a 2500 gallon propane tank installed and has a high end generator. The narrative doesn’t apply to the elites.
Yeah, that new battery thing is a hoot. Electric mowers are great and easy to use. BUT – the new lithium batteries for the things cost as much as the mower. I have read that it is $20,000 to replace the batteries in an electric vehicle too. There ain’t no free lunch.
All those electric tools are nothing more than inkjet printers where you swap out the ink cartridges for the batteries.
Had a battery powered trimmer. 40v battery died. New battery, weeks on backorder costs more than the entire trimmer combined.
They are nothing more than disposable junk. At least a gas powered one can be repaired.
Yep.
I have stayed away from battery powered tools. All of my tools except for two of them are either corded or gas powered….Mostly just due to my extreme, old school conservatism when it comes to tools.
But also due to my experiences with battery powered tools at work. At work we can replace expensive tools every few years using grant money.
I ain’t got (and have never had) no grant money!
Same here.
Smaller yard but corded is the way to go if you can do it. My mower, weed wacker and power tools all plug in.
Yeah when the power goes out it sucks.. but some have been with me nearing 20, cost little to maintain. And honestly…when the power goes out I’m not too worried about the lawn. Lol
I was gonna say…
If my grass gets too long I suppose I can hack a path through it with a machete.
We used to have one of those old stick things that look sort of like a golf club, maybe that’s a scythe? I don’t know where it went.
I have a manual mower too, but sharpening the thing is problematic.
Smaller yard but corded is the way to go – Druuge
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Once you get to a certain age you will not want to do your own yardwork. I hire Mexicans who are not afraid of hard work and they’re not too expensive.
I put all my yard equipment (lawnmower, weed whacker, etc out by the curb and it disappeared over night.
My current Mexican lawn service company goes by the unlikely name Richard and Sons.
Do you at least go out for walks?
“We used to have one of those old stick things that look sort of like a golf club, maybe that’s a scythe? I don’t know where it went.”
If you find it Beryl, I’ll buy it from you. Can’t find anything like that at the hardware stores around here. Just crap with short handles and big-ass dull blades.
The golf club-looking thing: you’ll burn a lot of calories before you learn to use it (a good thing for most of us), but once you get into the groove, it’s more of a lawn-care ballet.
It’s a sling blade or grass whip, but the ones I’ve seen are too hard to sharpen. The real sling blades must have been different in olden days.
I thought you called it a “Kaiser blade”, Jars.
I’ve got one of those old scythes, BB.
Made right in town here about 120 years ago, looks like the one the Grim Reaper has.
Eh, for light-duty home use battery tools are stupid simple compared to gas.
No more farting around wasting time with mixing fuel and oil, no checking and changing fouled plugs, no more changing bad coils, and best of all no more cleaning or replacing fouled carbs.
Not to mention instant torque off idle (meaning most trimming can be done at low RPM with tiny intermittent squeezes of the trigger) and a fraction of the noise. I tried a gas trimmer once a few years ago, ended up giving it away to my neighbor who does yards for a living. A genuine POS. Same for the blower. Corded is the only way to go. Haven’t tried a corded mower. That would probably be a bridge too far, what with the danger of mowing the cord. But the battery crap? No way, Jose! Pure junk. Even my small rechargeable drill for minor home repairs is a temperamental little bitch for anything larger.
“Haven’t tried a corded mower. That would probably be a bridge too far, what with the danger of mowing the cord.”
I’ve been using them since 1985. I cut the cord once, no great damage. Just added new plug & outlet. That taught me a lesson, and I am now always aware of the cord’s location. My cord was grounded and the circuit was protected by GFCI which did trip.
My first electric mower was good for 20 years until the metal motor housing broke in have. I bought a new mower about 5 years. Its receptacle fell to pieces. I added some power cord and a new outlet on the mower end.
Was in Freddy Myers the other day and for some reason they were selling the 600 hundred page or so, hard cover manual on how to be a lineman for the county.
Truly skilled and necessary labor.
Corded mowers!
I had one and my father-in-law liked to mow the grass, so he destroyed five of my power cords before I realized what he was doing and picked up a used gas powered mower.
The electric mower was literally all plastic but the motor windings and blade.
After a couple of years of use it started to disintegrate.
Battery-powered drill – obvious, because when you need it, a few minutes/seconds at a time, you are nowhere near an electrical outlet.
Battery-powered circular saw – nope, because you’ll be rooftop, cutting through plywood, when the battery quits. Someone important to you (assistant, foreman, mommy) will be hit in the head by the damned temperamental piece of plastic when you throw it off the roof in a rage.
Battery-powered weed-whacker – maybe, depends on the job. Used to jump out of choppers over the Everglades with a gas-powered weed-whacker (with a circular saw blade) and a 5-gallon gas can. Four to six hours later the chopper would return to extract me from the LZ. Electric weed-whacker? I’m gator bait.
You really need to actually try some of these tools. The pro level stuff is as good as most of the corded or gas options of the past.
Nothing cheap or problematic about the Stihl AP system. I worked with some serious gas-powered gear in landscaping, and for most tools, I would not hesitate to go battery.
My product reviews are based on personal experience Owl. That said, it was a long time ago that I tried a cordless circular saw – way back when Makita (my favorite maker of circular saws) first came out with them. Things may have improved since then. I’ve cut a cord on a circular saw, on a rooftop, funny for everybody else, a bit shocking for me. So, yeah, cordless would be cool.
My mom had a battery-powered push mower. Between the gas-powered riding mower, and the battery-powered weed-whacker, it rarely got used. So rarely that I can’t find the battery.
Which will we lose access to first – electricity or gasoline? I used to think we’d go back to hand tools, now I’m not so sure we are going to be afforded that luxury.
A few years ago, I would have said the same. Give some of the new stuff a try.
All those BATTERY-POWERED tools are nothing more than inkjet printers where you swap out the ink cartridges for the batteries. – fixed it for you
Yeah, I didn’t realize that, ATM. I consider it fraudulent and have no problem buying a new version of the tool from Home Depot and then returning the new tool with the old battery. If the battery lasts five years, OK. I’ve had them go in under 1 year.
One of my old neighbors taught me that trick. When you buy a fan or electric heater that craps out after a few months, you go buy a new one, save the receipt, put the old one in the box and return it for a full refund.
After trying a European style scythe all kinds of lawn mowers and string trimmers seem stupid. It doesn’t take long to learn how to use it effectively. No noise, no fumes, simple. Since you slice each stem once near the ground the grass makes a better mulch.
Good exercise too, I’ll bet. Probably take some practice, though.
I have never met a European who uses a scythe to cut their lawn. Can’t imagine it, really.
Most mowers here are electric, though I went gas. Sometimes you see people with very small plots of land using those old-school push mowers with the barrel-shaped rotating blades; those work ok, but I would never call them a replacement for a proper mower.
Grew up with one of those rotary push mowers. We (siblings and I) all got our turn at mowing the lawn. All that energy stored in young people put to use around the house…
Right. I have one but could not imagine using it for normal yard work. It does come in real handy though when I have let the property out back go a bit to long and know the weed-wacker just won’t be enough.
They work great. They are high tech compared to centuries past. Ditto the bicycle.
Bicycle-powered washing machine. If I expected to live that long, I’d buy/build one.
No, you are the rickshaw driver in Oh Calcutta, no that Bombay movie “City of Joy”. You keep yelling, Hey Babu to drum up business. Good ol’ Beebee.
In my university days, I spent summers doing groundskeeping at various golf courses, including what is now Trump National in VA.
Was driving fairway mowers when I left. I am not convinced a scythe could really do a pro job on a lawn (or even near it), but my mind is never closed.
It does sound kinda fun.
A scythe isn’t for lawn mowing, it is for cutting down those little clumps of grass that persist in popping up in the garden that used to be a lawn. No lawn for me (in an ideal world…) just vegetables and violets where the veggies won’t grow.
That was my point Blackbird. I could not really imagine one doing the lawn with a scythe. Some garden maintenance, sure.
@JarJar:
A ricksha driver? Did you hit your head on the ceiling of your crawlspace again?
Like looking for meaning in a bowl of Alpha-Bits…
“Pro job” —LOL!
Back in Scotland, when real people— real men—were playing what became “golf,” there weren’t no stinkin’ mowers and manicured lawns and golf courses.
Honestly . . ..
“Golf originated from a game played on the eastern coast of Scotland, in an area close to the royal capital of Edinburgh. In those early days players would attempt to hit a pebble over sand dunes and around tracks using a bent stick or club.”
Or, the game of colf originated in the Low Lands:
“In the 1261 Middle Dutch manuscript of the Flemish poet Jacob van Maerlant’s Boeck Merlijn mention is made of a ball game “mit ener coluen” (with a colf/kolf [club]). This is the earliest known mention in the Dutch language of the game of colf/kolf as played in the Low Countries.[5][6]”
“https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_golf
Islander, I can assure you that “real men” are involved in the incredible amount of knowledge and hard work that go into keeping a course up.
I used to come back to school looking like I left the Corps.
In then Czechoslovakia, in 1992, I don’t think I saw a single mower.
The roadsides were cut with scythes. This was in Moravia, north of Olomouc. A rural area.
I’ve used a scythe–briefly. That is some HARD work!
Probably you were working too hard. It is very much a technique thing and takes some practice. When you are in the groove it is a thing of beauty.
They also have to be suited for your body size–or so I was told. I tried out using a scythe when I was staying at The Possibilities Alliance, an intentional community in northern Missouri, near LaPlata. My daughter and I stayed for a couple of days. At the time, it was a start-up community, and the young couple who were setting it up were the only ones living there, except for their small daughter and one young girl resident. The couple did all their yard maintenance with scythes, and they had his-and-hers versions. I was using his because hers needed to be sharpened at the time.
Once the IC got up-and-running, they cut all their firewood with a two-man saw. Those people were hard-core.
The batteries also degrade over time, then reach a critical point where they collapse. Regular Car batteries in Arizona last 11/2 to 2 years. Period. Battery checks are worthless, a battery can check good a day before it collapses. You just replace when 11/2 years are up.
I wonder how many solar systems would sell if the truth on their lifetimes would be told. Like the vaxx, solar systems back then had little or no consumer info on reliability. Just tech avarice. I will bet though that the reliability bathtub curve was well understood and figured into future financial plans.
Yep.
Peeps who live here in the NE don’t realize that it’s the summer HEAT that destroys car batteries, not the winter cold. In the wintertime, when people’s cars won’t start, they are only finding out about the damage that the summertime heat has done to the battery.
I remember how they didn’t want to include us in the airbag recalls, because they were exploding in areas that got hot.
For some reason people do no understand what seasons are.
I live in the NE. I’ve learned to replace my car batteries at age 3. The few car batteries that have died on me were always older than that. Since I started that policy, I’ve had no car batteries fail on me.
Remarkable that a 3-year old could even lift an automotive battery.
You must be a monster.
Remarkable that a 3-year old could even lift an automotive battery. – izzy
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I was going to write something similar until I spotted your comment. I was going to ask “was it you or the car batteries that were age three?”
I helped a 4 year-old charge/replace the battery in his electric car (top speed: <1 mph). Never too young to learn.
I agree. Car batteries have a shorter life here in florida.
I guess what that tells you (summer heat destroys car batteries) is you should try to park your car in the shade. Maybe a person could lay some kind of reflective covering over the hood when the car is parked at home? (Sounds like a big bother, though.)
” I have read that it is $20,000 to replace the batteries in an electric vehicle too.” A similar sum was mentioned years ago when the Prius first was available. I know it’s not all-electric, but it needs some expensive batteries, and they must be replaced at some point. I have not come across the expected belly-aching in various forums about the unexpectedly high costs of battery service in these vehicles. Prius still seemsh to be popular.
I bought a 2006 Honda Civic hybrid several years ago, for under $4K. Soon after purchase, the original hybrid battery needed replacing. (100K miles). It cost about $3500. It’s hit or miss – I’ve read of some of these cars going 200,000 miles on the original battery – although it’s not typical.
Greetings,
I have just enough solar to charge up my electric tools like my lawnmower, chainsaws, rototiller, etc. It is a simple patchwork with lots of replacement parts I keep on hand. As a guy that works with electricity, I never fell for the “solar home” scam because that is what it is – a scam.
I’ll harvest rain water and depend on my wood stove and hand tools.
Am I recalling correctly a post during the past week or so mentioned some place which required a license to harvest rain water?
Here’s a primer
worldwaterreserve.com/is-it-illegal-to-collect-rainwater/
So, not a big issue in the US – yet. That is a hill I am willing to die on. Can’t collect the rain that falls on my roof? “Fuck you and the MRAP you rode in on!”
No point in getting upset about a false story.
letting the subconscious mind do its job on the water license issue, I came up with Colorado.
look up the
dwr.
colorado.gov then add /services/water-administration
then /rainwater-storm-water-graywater
lots of rules, 110 gallon barrels, can’t have more than 2, probably need a well permit
can’t make this shit up
unconscious mind: look up Ericksonian hypnosis
With no intention of a deep dive, I’ve hospital-based training in this as an alternative treatment for something like 350 disorders, AMA & APA for whatever such endorsements are worth.
It is not stage hypnosis, is learning to let the unconscious/subconscious mind work on a problem until it solves it. ie: with everything else I did today, with a few moments of quiet just now, ‘Colorado’ came along.
I’ll now go quiet regarding this. Possibly another CFNer has something to add.
@ Not_GeorgeT:
I learned long ago to “let the subconscious do its job.” When a problem has you stumped–or you’re becoming frustrated with a project–take a break from the job or sleep on the problem and re-think it the next day. Often the solution is ridiculously simple, but you couldn’t think of it because you were upset and your mind was churning.
This is why God invented cigarettes.
Paula, I like venting my rage in advance. That way when the time to really flip out comes, I can do it with calm serenity.
LOL, blackbird, good plan
I’m the same about my dogs.
Remember when they pushed the bullshit about ”Your dogs can give you covid”?
I was like “This is the hill I will die on. No, wait, this is the hill they will die on and I will have dog food.”
I never fell for the “solar home” scam – Nickel
============
I never gave more than a moments thought to a decision re use of solar because my home is surrounded by 5 huge oak trees so not much sunlight gets through for 6-8 months of the year.
My wife and I have decided that we’re not going to worry about survival, beyond a few simple preps. Both oi us in our sixties, with increasing health problems…we’re just not going to make it through any long-term crisis. The Gods know my days of being combat-effective are gone. My wife is tethered to a BIPAP and oxygen. Why pretend?
Gets lots of ammo and when they come to steal all your stuff, do society a favor and keep shooting.
During the hippie era, that sort of brazen theft was known as “liberating” the loot.
Speedy,
Hunh….During the hippy era, when we caught them committing theft, it was known as “busting heads”….
Yup, you’re gonna die anyway – take a few of the bastards with you.
I’ve come to a similar conclusion, generally. Though I have an insatiable desire to see it coming so I can flip it off – last great act of defiance style. The Ticker-Guy (Karl Denninger) says if you can’t run a mile you’re boned. I’m boned.
The dilemma is, should I spend all my money now?
Buying things while you can now, with money that is still sort of agreed upon might be a good gamble. Who will take your dollars after the economy collapses?
#FJB
I don’t think I ever could run a mile. Back in the day, I could walk twenty miles, but run one?
Maybe if you’re talking jogging.
@BofO: same here. Even as a kid growing up in the 60’s, thin and in good shape from always being outside playing, I could never run far. Walk, yes. I could probably still walk 5 miles or so if I had to. But run? Nope.
Run a mile. . . not sure that is necessary.
Can you walk five miles?
Women—yeah, them!!!—are specialized for long-term stamina, not bursts of energy output.
That is what we have been thinking about, too.
Just investing in whatever we need or want right now. If things play out as the controllers would like, you are going to lose most of your savings anyways.
“Who will take your dollars after the economy collapses?” Who will take your credit cards when the grid and the internet collapse?
What can you do (for the future) with money?
Buy land? You won’t be able to pay the property tax with your dirty cash. Land confiscated.
Buy food? Sure, but wouldn’t you have felt better if you’d grown it yourself?
Buy ammo? It’s gonna be a damned short gunfight – and you will be the loser.
Enjoy life (what time you have left anyway)? Sure, but make sure you have enough land, food, and ammo!
Celebrate the good times!
You lived in the Golden Age when you were young, and no one- no one, no power on earth- can ever take that from you.
Rod-
I’m a bit younger, but I’ve come to a similar conclusion.
I based this on the realization that the first petrochemical-derived substance was discovered in 1835.
I feel my thought is confirmed by serious preppers stating people prepared to live at a late 1700s/early 1800s level might make it.
I’m nowhere close to that level of prepping, so why worry?
I too have come to that realization. The government obviously has no intention of feeding us (unless it is with bug burgers). I’ve got a few supplies, but I figure they will either be ccnfiscated or we’ll be killed for them. I’ve had my three score and ten. I can’t say I was cheated. My mother, whom I care for, is ninety, blind, frail, and more demented than Joe Biden (she thought I was her mother the other day). I’ve made my peace with the fact that we won’t survive the coming catastrophe.
I can say I was cheated – but why bother?
When the time comes for addressing grievances, my Mossberg will do the speaking.
Get your home/life in order for the Great Short Sale.
Rodulf,
I’m with you on this issue. I take an IV medication at the hospital every two months. Every week, I have a two hour pump session at home with a different medication. Any long-term disruption to big pharma and it will not end well for me.
Fifty years ago, I would have been long dead, so I am grateful for all the extra time I’ve had.
The manufacturers and marketers of machines like BIPAP do little to publicize alternative ways of keeping them going without grid power. IIRC, they need comparatively little power to keep going. Truckers needing CPAP & BIPAP on the road tend to have their own power source in their trucks.
I heard they run on 12 volts. Maybe you need some kind of converter?
I’ve been to fancy truck stops where they sold all kinds of small appliances (even small refrigerators) and lights that would run on direct current–so no inverter needed. I wonder if you could save money on solar by setting up some or all circuits to run on direct current? Seems like it would be more energy efficient.
Maybe even top up battery with a stationery bike?
They did this in NYC after that hurricane, can’t recall name, to help people charge up their phones so that they could call relatives, etc. That is, young, idealistic (!!) people peddled bikes to charge up batteries where people could then plug in their phone charger.
I’m 73, and I think more in terms of what I could contribute to my kids’ household. At this point in time, I can still be fairly useful at things like cooking and canning, planting and harvesting and weeding a garden. Right now it’s time to harvest the peaches, so I’ll help with that, and with the canning. I like to think I can learn to shoot–though anyone younger would probably always be better at it. Traditionally, the old people do a lot of babysitting.
You and your wife could make it through within an extended family–bearing in mind that neither you nor I have a lot of years left on us.
No need to learn to shoot. Get a shotgun (shortest barrel you can get) to even the score. Your first – and last – gunfight will take place at point-blank range (driveway, front porch, kitchen, living room).
I have never tried using a shotgun, but my daughter tells me the kick is so bad that it will bruise your shoulder. It would probably knock me on my ass.
I’m starting to think I may need a shotgun to hunt rabbits, though. I’ve been trying to shoot them with a .22, and it turns out that I’m a poor shot. I can hit the bullseye on a target pretty reliably, but I can’t seem to hit a rabbit. The good news is, they seem to be staying away. I guess the bullets flying everywhere scared them off.
Kill da wabbit
Kill da wabbit…
Ant, whaddya wanna kill rabbits for? They’re so cute and fluffy! Ever watch one eating a dandelion? Are they eating your garden? Put some chicken wire around that bottom of your fence, that’ll keep ’em out. No fence? Well, what did you expect?
But if I haven’t talked you out of your bloodlust, ya gotta learn to lead (rhymes with heed) the little buggers.
<Poor little bunny…
Poor little bunny!
Yes, sell your life dearly.
I have also made some simple preps. If crisis occurs that we see a slow winding down of our current way of life(like now) , you will probably survive until your normal expiration date. If things take a more drastic turn, I’m saving a bullet for myself. Sometimes its not worth it.
We (me, my daughter, and my son-in-law) could probably be food self-sufficient, what with the chickens, the goats, and the big garden–which looks to be producing a bumper crop of everything this year–plus the fruit trees. There’s even a pecan tree that was loaded last year.
The biggest problem with the garden right now is that we seem to be in a prolonged drought; no real rain in over a month and none in the forecast for the next month. My daughter watered most of the garden this morning. I ordered two 50-foot soaker hoses this evening, after deciding that watering a garden that size is beyond my strength–and coming to the realization that something had to be done. I think I can manage to move soaker hoses around as needed.
The second biggest problem: Now that my daughter has gone back to work full-time, it’s going to be hard to keep up with canning and freezing the harvest.
My other preps are trying to stockpile meat, including a lot of canned meats. Vegetables are probably not going to be a problem. I should also lay in a good supply of ammo.
Thank you all for the replies! Yes, I do plan on selling my life dearly. I am Odinist. I need to impress the Ancestors.
If you let yourself down, and need a last-minute blood eagle, gimme a call.
I understand. I am approaching 61, and work 2 full time jobs in our trauma hospital, ( I am not the only one), my neighbors are all in mid 80’s with health problems, or single moms working 6o plus hours as well. The inner burb I live in was once Italian/German neighborhood and it was a rural country to grow up in. The western New York city lost all their factories to China, Regan and the Republicans said service economy like Walmart is best. I see the decay at work ,the city, my inner burb corruption, decay and the gangs in the city ( groups of youth), Mayor and the Democrats say no gangs exist, but our size city high in nation in physical crimes. Gangs out gun the cops, so I prep but overall collapse we are sitting ducks as well. Oh, Captain Kirk lied to me about the future.
Roccofire…Concur about Cpt Kirk. The number of people I see that still believe the Star Trek future myth is frightening. No connection to reality.
The book Life and Death of Planet Earth says humanity will never leave the solar system
The diminishing returns of technology…
Eyes-wide-open into the maw.
8 billion people = 16 billion I s.
Malthuss – I’m blind in one eye – so less one.
Well, in 2013 Peak Oil was a huge concern, if I remember correctly, and solar electricity seemed like a wonderful alternative. So don’t feel bad! You made what seemed to be a good choice with the information you had.
Jim is a great writer,love his style–but many years ago he was barking all the time about “peak oil”–i am a oil guy–been in the extraction of it for nearly 50 years–one of my sons now the same–even 45 years ago the old timers i knew were saying there is unlimited oil but limits on cheap oil…just make more money,get more people to donate to your cause,sell some ass,rob banks,etc. and you won’t worry about the price or availability–i don’t,–i used to write jim and give him hell about “peak oil”..he can get quite cranky at times—but i was right,he is wrong,but still a great writer…
From my memory, Jim never said we’d run out of oil, only that we have run out of cheap oil, and forward-going extraction costs would make EROEI untenable – so seems he’s been right all along.
Yes, running out of cheap, easily extractable, oil is basically the same as “running out of oil”. But if you want to believe in happy-motoring forever, go ahead. No need for fantasy thinking in the future.
i used to write jim and give him hell about “peak oil”… he can get quite cranky at times – happi
============
Yeah, tell me about it. He has been cranky with me many times but for entirely different reasons (spelling, grammar and usage).
Country 404.
But I’ll admit I do appreciate your grammatical pedantry – helps (ok, helped) me be a better writer.
I think a hidden issue is that as the Third World tries to raise its level of living the remaining oil will have so much competition for exploitation it will cause resource wars to increase. Third World country “A” discovers oil potential>big countries move in and either destroy the government or overwhelm the society, destroying the people and culture, exporting transexualism and cut-throat corporate rule, all to gain the resource.
This is the irony of “renewable energy sources” — they’re machines that break, have to be replaced, have to be maintained and age out just like your car, even if you take good care of it. But we have been sold the promise that if we put them on the roof, all our energy problems are solved — forever! The only thing that kept me from installing them was poverty b/c they sounded like a good idea.
The only things that are truly renewable are produced by nature itself. Chickens lay eggs, pecan trees make little pecan trees, cows have calves, and on and on.
Anyone notice that Gates bought up even more land in North Dakota? He is now the largest landowner in America, Bezos is second.
“Anyone notice that Gates bought up even more land in North Dakota? He is now the largest landowner in America, Bezos is second.” Has anyone else noticed that the land they claim to own is taxable. Those taxes are set partly by the citizens of the state and partly by their legislatures. They don’t really own that land, they just rent it from the local governments. And that rent can change, nearly always in an upward direction.
Gates supposedly has the most farmland owned by any individual. There are others with vastly more land than Gates.
You’re right — it is farmland.
“Having already amassed nearly 270,000 acres of farmland across the country, Gates, who is one of the richest men in the world, is the largest private owner of farmland in America.
On June 30, Gates won the approval of the North Dakota Attorney General to buy the farmland for $13.5 million from potato growers Campbell Farms in the northeast of the state.
The state’s Republican Attorney General Drew Wrigley said that the takeover complies with a Depression-era law meant to protect family farms because the land was being leased back to farmers.”
There’s a bint who had a food channel show whose husbands family has 300,000 acres.
“…the takeover complies with a Depression-era law meant to protect family farms because the land was being leased back to farmers.”
Hey Billy, make me an offer!
Another of those hills…
“… that rent can change…” @tresho, my friend, it’s not very hard for a billionaire to buy the support he needs in a state legislature or governor’s mansion to keep his taxes “reasonable”.
And @SW writes that this concentration of real property is fully legal, using a bizarro law that ostensibly helps “protect family farms”.
America is a legalistic society, not necessarily a moralistic one. “It may not be right (that means it’s wrong) but it’s fully legal”.
When America was younger and more people shared the same general concepts of right and wrong and there were fewer laws, legalistic worked better. Now, it’s just one more “enabler”.
So what if they own farmland? They are not going to work it themselves. They may think they will lease it. However a lease assumes there are laws, courts, and enforcement. In the collapse to come, possession will be nine parts of the law.
I can’t predict exactly what the motivation is to own the most farmland in America, but the Gates Foundation does not inspire trust in me. They recently invested $600 million in Picnic, an online grocery store delivery system in Europe, and Gates has repeatedly expressed his belief that —
“I do think all rich countries should move to 100% synthetic beef.
“Eventually, that green premium is modest enough that you can sort of change the [behavior of] people or use regulation to totally shift the demand.”
If this direct quote doesn’t give you pause, what will? There’s a reason they’re buying up farmland and it isn’t to start organic orchards.
“Picnic”? But isn’t the word “picnic” racist? Brandeis University says so.
I be grillin’ all week. (Grillin’ ain’t racist – ask George Foreman.) Bring Governor Whitless with you – she unfriended me so I can’t send invites.
Life cycle costs! When I look at most solar energy systems it looks like more energy goes into their manufacture and maintenance than is produced by the things over their lifetime.
Thanks for the update on your garden JHK, we are dealing with an infestation of Colorado Potato Beetles
Beetlemania.
When asked what his studies had taught him about God. J.B Haldane replied, A predeliciton for beetles.
I think it was ”an inordinate fondness for beetles”.
Did you cheat by looking it up?
Yes, because I wanted to be accurate.
But I remembered correctly.
You have to admit that his version was better.
“The hyper-complexity of a home solar-electric system is extreme.”
Hmm… do you remember when you could do most service work on your car or truck yourself…timer, sparkplugs, belts, oil change, even replacing a headgasket or install new pistons or piston rings……and now you only can buy a car that has more electronics incorporated than your average laptop and is unserviceable by the owner, not even thinking repairs.
Same story.
Technology is not there to make life easier for the owner of that crap, it is there to make more bucks for the manufacturer because repairs are too costly, so you got to buy new.
As an installer and designer of heating system (water and air) I visited a seminar on heat pump heating systems. Again, same story. 40K to install, lifetime of the heat pump itself, at 10K, about 10 years. If one is lucky.
After the seminar all of the 20 or so contractors agreed that the crap was not worth the trouble. And those who still were doing maintenance of the systems quit doing so within a year.
No idea what really works to go off grid, but like solar, wind is similar in complexity because of the variation in current and raw voltage produced by the generator.
Maybe back to candles and firewood…
We’re paying for all this convenience and touch screen this and that with more and more dependence on a technician to keep it going. And the ranks of the technicians are dwindling too from what I can see.
I wanted to get an old-fashioned land line installed in my house and couldn’t find the outlets even though the house is 50 years old. Talking to a friend, she said the phone company won’t install them anymore. If you’ve got one already, keep it. We’re almost completely reliant on cell phones for communication now.
I recently had my landline turned back on. My cell service provider, AT&T, has gotten terrible in my rural valley. They “are transitioning” our towers from 3g to 5g…currently offer LTE, and for the last few months, everyone’s calls are constantly dropping, failing to go through, etc. Has caused a big defection to T-Mobile, and AT&T could care less. They have made no attempt to work with or inform customers. Worst service I have had in 20 years of being an AT&T customer. I’m enjoying my landline.
I liked having a phone that worked when the power was off. You could also hear better on them.
We somehow lost that magical ’60’s technology that took us to the Moon. Obviously we need more black, female, custodians in the upper ranks of technology companies…
Since my cellphone “provider” eliminated 3G service – forcing me back onto a “smart” phone – it is almost impossible to make or receive a phone call from my house.
Meanwhile, my satellite internet connection gets worse and worse (“Dial-up speed at broadband prices!”). Must be due to continental drift, plate techtonics, that sorta thing…
AT&T suck. Their service is horrible and they don’t care (as you say). Thinking about getting a land line too.
“Talking to a friend, she said the phone company won’t install them anymore.” Talk to your phone company for yourself. I haven’t had a land line for years, but I do have a souped-up DSL line for internet. AT&T sent a tech out to install an up to date service interface and line from the utility pole on the street when DSL was installed. I had a 8 foot copper clad ground rod just waiting for me to pound it into the ground, and I had the AT&T tech to do instead of me for no extra charge. One of these days I will link my home’s service panel to this ground rod.
“Maybe back to candles and firewood…” Long before those advanced technologies, people could drink muddy water & sleep in hollow logs.
“do you remember when you could do most service work on your car or truck yourself” I have been doing just that since 1969. I have solved many problems with many of my cars without taking them to a service shop. The internet has a vast number of information sources and videos (quality varies, but some is top notch) to help DIY repairmen.
I must admit that it does take time to do the research to unearth information necessary to fix systems as complex as modern cars. It also helps to have a nearby junkyard, which charges $1 a visit to look at and mess with the junked vehicles there. Before I start tearing down my car, I first tear into a similar model at the junkyard. Think of what a surgeon learned from dissecting cadavers before he is allow to work on the living.
My 2012 Elantra has developed an intermittent problem, its starter sometimes won’t crank when I turn the key. I very quickly learned the starter was just fine. I used 4 inches of wire to jump the contacts in the fuse box, these make the starter spin. Once it spins this way (has never failed) the engine will start in a second. This jumper saved me a lot of wasted time & effort fussing with examining the starter, which Hyundai made nearly inaccessible to a mechanic.
While I was looking at the fuse box I noticed several empty peanut shells and mouse droppings. Critters have been having peanut parties in my engine compartment, right below the fuse box and computer. Examining the vast quantity of wires there is something I don’t want to do. Even a skilled mechanic could get lost. But I have a workaround, and my backup plan is to add a circuit to the starter relay so that I can cause the motor to crank when I wish, bypassing the old wiring and the car’s computer.
I do enjoy doing this. The money I’ve saved is considerable. I’ve never had to replace the computer in any car I’ve owned.
My great great grandpa back in 1892 built himself a big 5 bedroom victorian style house with fancy workwork. It was in the south so the first floor had 12 foot ceilings to keep more of the hot air above you instead of beside you. Above some of the doors was a panel you could open, I think they were called “transoms”, these could also provide more airflow to the room. The house had three chimneys and nearly every room featured a small coal burning fireplace. The kitchen had its own special chimney for the wood burning cookstove. Outside and close by in the backyard woods was another fully functional wood burning cookstove that was operated mostly by the matriarch of the place. In this area, long periods of day after day in high humidity 90 degree heat turns a woman’s indoor kitchen into a hellhole. She’s in there baking bread or pies or beans and taters – or canning using a wood fired cookstove and the room is no longer just in the 90’s – she’s doin’ close to a hundred in there in stagnant humidity. No electric fans. The other outdoor stove had a stone and masonry outer section, and enclosed except for the cooktop was a well made cast iron/steel affair featuring an oven. It had various dampers on it to control the air flow and thus the heat on it. Pretty high tech for its day. So my grandmas moved their cooking operations outside on top of a small hill in the back yard, where there’s shade and the possibility of a breeze. Great view from this outdoor kitchen. On one side is seen the high peaks of the southern Appalachians, on the other side a view across the entire Tennessee River Valley. I’m guessing that my great great grandma was quite happy about the usefullness of the men about her, and she didn’t have to produce the stove wood, just the food. Her guy made her pre-electrified existence as enjoyable as they could, and she was happy with it. She didn’t yet understand the horrors of not having electricity.
Yup, solar and wind are only baby steps (short, intermittent, and expensive ones) to lead you back to a World Made by Hand.
A solar project well under the radar is ‘Parabolic solar cooker’. It doesn’t take much to build one (or buy it) and it really does get dangerously hot right now.
You can start by siting your house so that the “front of the house, with windows, faces south, and the back of the house, with the pantry, firewood stacking area, etc., faces north.
They were smart enough to figure out passive solar in 17th century New England.
Sorry to hear about your Green travails, Jim. After nineteen years together my partner has finally decided that becoming more resilient is a good idea – not that she exactly believes that the US is in the throws of imperial collapse.
Having had this long to contemplate an array of strategies, I am trying to prepare for a variety of scenarios from mild to dire. We have proactively replaced our refrigerator and roof before they really needed to be, because that may no longer be possible in another year.
Next in order will be a hand pump for a long-unused well in the back yard and a wood stove for the kitchen fireplace.
Beyond that, some sort of solar rig would be good, but I figure it needs to be a stealth system. If any scavengers passing through our neighborhood were to see a big array on our roof, we’d become a prime target – especially if the city is dark but light can be seen through our windows.
I’m looking at a portable rig that can be set out – unseen from the street – during the day and brought in any time it isn’t charging a couple of deep cycle golf cart batteries. The system would not be expected to do more than keep small devices charged and provide light at night in a room blacked-out from the rest of the world.
For a few hundred bucks that would help us be less miserable than most folks – at least for a few years, before it craps out and is irreplaceable.
That is exactly my setup. No way I would go for grid-tied. I have my inverter/charge and a battery mounted on a small sturdy cargo dolly that I can move to where needed including out of sight. I hook up the panel and charge the battery for later emergency use (a few lights, a load in the washing machine). Extra battery and 1 extra panel. If no sunlight I can always charge battery from grid if it it up.
Panels were about $250 each, batteries $150 each. Inverter/charger, $300. Might buy another inverter as a backup while I can.
“I’m looking at a portable rig that can be set out – unseen from the street” Unfortunately, they need to be operated outside, and their noise will be heard from a pretty good distance.
tresho
Not a generator – a solar rig.
When we had a derecho the electricity went out for miles around.
It was actually nice to drive home from work at night and see the stars because all the neon lights in the locked businesses were off for once. I see no reason to keep lights on 24/7 when no one needs them on, but that is how we do in America. And the squeals of anguish when the authorities say “Conserve” shows us that it will not change until they power it down.
Anyway, the guy across the street ran a generator all night to power his “security light”.
Are you frigging kidding me? The only light for miles was pretty much advertising that he had a generator, like the old floodlights the car lots used to draw customers. Luckily no thieves were inspired.
The gas pumps didn’t work anyway while the electricity was off. There was no way to refuel.
“The gas pumps didn’t work anyway while the electricity was off. There was no way to refuel.”
Gas stations are apparently incapable of installing gas power generators.
“Gas stations are apparently incapable of installing gas power generators.”
And so is every other business, apparently.
Well, I worked in a hospital so we had back-up generators.
Obviously we were limited in what electrical systems worked.
“back-up batteries — for running critical loads like the well-pump during grid outages”
You can’t even run your solar system to re-charge the batteries if the grid is down because it is not allowed to feed the grid if it’s down for safety reasons while the linemen are repairing it. So I have been told.
So it might be better to stay off grid.
I actually looked into this with my solar installer, Bill. I’m sure the laws vary from state to state and system to system. I currently have a grid-connected solar system with 2x Tesla PowerWall battery backup.
Here in my northeastern state, in the event of an extended power outage, my batteries will recharge automatically from solar gain if they go below 80%. If they did not have this capability (due to a variant of this type of law), I would not have opted to purchase. Either that or just go completely off-grid (which may well be a future endeavor of mine).
I’m glad I don’t have the kind of money it takes to consider ‘green alternatives’. All I could afford was a 5000 watt generator, a Waterford Stanley cook stove, a hand pump for our stone well, and 24 acres of New Hampshire woods. If the power goes out, I’m… very comfortable, thanks.
I feel bad for Jim and have to admit that if we’d been in a position to do so, we would have done exactly what he did. One of the few times in my life that being poor has been an advantage. Having lived in a few rental houses with new heating systems – complicated, driven by chips, supposedly “green” whatever that means – we learned to steer clear of such things. The furnace turned off whenever it felt like it (I particularly recall no heat on Christmas in New England) and we must have called for service literally every week. Every time they said “this won’t be covered by the warranty” I thanked my lucky stars that the thing didn’t belong to us.
A well-kept dirty little secret of the green energy folks is that a major component of “renewables” is wood. Trees are cut down, converted into pellets (all by gas or diesel powered machinery) and burnt to provide heat for power plant turbines. That’s considered “green”.
You mean biomass.
The Michael Moore produced film Planet of the Humans does a great job exposing the horror of that industry which is shredding our forests and incinerating them in real time.
Moore’s typical biases don’t show up in the film except at one or two brief instances.
Moore’s movie was assailed by the climate changers. Pick, pick, pick. As usual, they pick away at small points and ignore the big picture.
Another part of the movie that I have seen personally are the solar generators around Barstow, California. I saw the first on a trip about 20 years ago. It works with mirrors concentrating heat and steam to drive generators. The problem is dirt, maintenance, drive motor reliability, and breakage. I noticed that in the movie the one I observed and a second one had been junked and a third was operating. Ten year lifetimes. Terrible. And the debris was still there.
@johnaz,
In that movie they showed that huge tower, 850 yards of concrete. All pumped straight up. That stupid thing was built in place.
It’s like having a bulldozer and making a mess, when all you need is a shovel.
Too much power, for the limited intelligence, all you need is a shovel..way less damage.
The film was written and directed by Jeff something who was also the on-screen talent and narrator. .
It was demonized as being a Moore film adn Moore was demonized for having supposedly changed his politics and now being a Trumper.
Uttlerly bizarre and dishonest. .
Green PTB didn’t like the message, and the fact that people by Al Gore and Bill McKibbon came across like total dorks and opportunists, if not outright liars.
Yes, who even remembers Julia Butterfly now? Kill the trees! “Biomass”.
The peeps can be made to believe anything. Anything.
“In a low-grade epiphany while going through this ordeal last week, I realized that back in 2013, instead of getting the solar electric system, I could have bought the Rolls Royce of home generators and buried a 500-gallon fuel tank outside the garage, and had a manual water pump piggy-backed onto the well, and maybe even purchased a fine, wood-fired cookstove — and had enough money left over for a two-week vacation in the South-of-France. Silly me.”
I agree sometimes old ways are the best ways. Possible nix the generator and get a low grade solar system for about 4-800 watts to run the misc. stuff- phone, laptop, small frig, etc. Longer term the stove and hand pump might be all that lasts. By that time hopefully we will have relearned a few things.
I just got some bids to install solar panels. All I want is to backup the freezer and well in case the Fit hits the Sham. I’m not trying to run the space shuttle, or solve global warming. I got bids coming in at $35,000 or more and they can’t get to it til maybe the end of the year. You gotta get the new Lithium Ferrous Phosphate (LFP) batteries and the whole thing is such a pain in the ass, I’m probably going to ditch it. The tax rebates that Jim got in 2013 seem to be gone now. I will look for other solutions. Need to build a good root cellar for one thing while we still have diesel fuel.
We just rep!aced our roof. Next thing, we have solar power person show up. I am fuzzy on the total cost but essentially what you save on the power bills goes to pay for the solar system. After umpteenth years, I guess you own it until it has to be dismantled to put a new roof on. Since we only have about twenty years life expectancy, we just said “no”. I also refused to get into a fight with the HOA, although the solar guy said the HOA can’t stop you. Like I said, I don’t need a fight.
That is the sales pitch here in Euroland, too. TBH, if you use power responsibly, I can’t see how you’d pay the system off in 20 years.
The only value I see in such a system is that you have power in emergencies, which these days, is quite valuable. But the idea of getting the purchase and install costs back seems laughable to me.
40-50k buys a lot of electricity.
That’s the problem. I just wanted to back up a freezer and a well in case of blackouts. They’re telling me this should cost ~$40,000 or more. In my mind, it should cost one tenth that amount. I don’t see how solar and wind are going to save us moving forward. Nobody can afford it for one thing!
Tax: for something like this, look up the Jackery Solar Generator 1000. Very decent battery (will handle up to 1 kW continuous load) and solar panels which WILL charge the battery during discharge (a big plus). I purchased one for instances like you recommend, and have been very please. More than an order of magnitude less cost than the whole shebang which you are describing.
Read fugeguys post just above.
Tax Donkey: I just looked up the amps drawn from our freezer (its 20 CF capacity); it draws 6 amps; the super large freezers draw about 15 amps.
That means to run one medium size upright freezer you would only need the following: a couple of 150watt solar panels (you can glue them to your roof they’re so light), two gel lead acid batteries at 100aH each, a 20 amp controller (20 aH for surges), and a 2000 watt inverter, along with the cords and disconnects/fuses). Buying from Amazon, that will cost you about $500 for the panels, $500 for 2 100aH batteries, $100 max for the controller, $500 max for the inverter, and, say $200 max for misc cords and disconnects and fuses. That’s $1800.00 and I am sure of this as I’ve bought these very same things, from Amazon, over the past year as backups. And, once you get the language down, watts, wire gauging, volts amps, etc, solar engineering is not rocket science at the small off grid level. When our power goes out, I run our freezer with less than 1/4th of my system; an remember, the cooling unit doesn’t run continuously, it runs on a thermostat that kicks it off below a certain level; i.e. our appears to run only about 3-4 hours per day and keeps everything hard frozen. Good luck and don’t get ripped off by the many many psychopaths in the solar sales field.
I meant, ‘kicks in ON below a certain level.’
Thanks doc, that’s helpful.
Whew! Thanks, James, I have a perfect setup for solar and the pressure to get it here in Central CA is pretty intense. I really appreciate your update on reality.
So, if it causes such problems for the grid operators, why is it being pushed as a grid tie-in?
Solar and wind only make sense as single-site application, not grid.
$
$ for companies “managed” thru proxies, owned by politicians.
“Buy our stuff!”, they legislate, with a hearty cry.
If everyone became self sufficient with solar or wind, there would be no need for electric companies, right?
Between power being fed back into the grid and more and more homes and businesses going off grid, the companies are hard pressed to make profits. Rates go up, fees are charged to solar owners to allow the companies to continue working for everyone else.
Not a good deal.
“Solar and wind only make sense as single-site application, not grid.”
Exactly. Solar/wind is just an intermediate step to ween yourself off electricity. Reduce your need for electricity. Generate electricity onsite, with battery storage – no stupid grid-connection. Learn to do things manually, it’s how things will get done, in the future..
Alzeabo, right.
I said this years ago.
The point of renewable energy sources is that although they are diffuse, they are pretty much everyone in one form or another.
That seems to me to be the point of distributed generation. Generate where you plan to use it.
This of course is true freedom!
No “smart” appliances telling the grid surveillance every time you, er, make a piece of toast.
That’s how I see it, but maybe I don’t understand the basics!
P.S.
Feeding electricity into the grid so that it then travels long distances to the user point wastes a lot of the energy, I believe.
Greatly appreciate the commiseration, James. My main system has been down for some 6 months. Took me a month to figure out it was down, 3 months wasted trying to get the original installer to look at it (they never called me back at all). Got a local electrician who, between him and google, was able to figure out the inverter was shot. More hoops to get a new inverter, electrician hooked it up, and now more hoops to get it “activated”. Still not there. It’s only money…they print lots everyday.
I will bet solar is manned by a lot of fly by nights.
A solar powered printer for bills – that might be worth having.
Jim, I’m surprised the world made by hand author doesn’t have a wood burning kitchen stove as a backup in his contingency plans. Thank you for enlightening us in how much a system cost and I’m for a combo of a fuel generator and some solar and battery backup. I am now thinking of a steam driven generator…Wood is the future! Like plastic whispered in the Graduate. It is a renewable energy source
you do not need wood–pain in the ass–half the usa,all of europe used to use coal as a heat source—there is billions of tons of it-
I can walk into the woods behind my house and cut all the firewood I need to fuel a wood stove through the winter. Coal? I lack the mining expertise, as well as a locally available source.
I realize not everyone has the same options. Their lack of planning will undoubtedly contribute to my emergency.
LOL
Over here in Germany, they are sold out of them almost everywhere.
Interestingly enough, the WEF-owned Greens and SPD were trying to push legislation to ban them a few years back.
Just another coincidence, I am sure.
A solar heating seems to work better than solar voltaic. I used a solar oven in the NorthEast and southwest. In the NorthEast, if the day was reasonably sunny I could cook one meal. Home built solar cookers don’t cost much. In the southwest, where it is usually sunny you can cook several meals per day and you have to be careful not to burn the food. My family in Florida seem very happy with their solar hot water heaters but their devices seem more complicated and have electric circulation pumps.
Here in ROK it seems like most new construction includes solar panels but if I recall correctly only 5% of energy use is renewable, 26% is Nuclear. These energy use percentages include factories, they still make things here.
ROK? Republic of Korea?
You can fry eggs on cars in the West, especially the Southwest. Why not an outdoors afternoon breakfast joint? No overhead.
And nothing over head either……
A bird might shit in your food.
We ate a yellow honey dew melon the other day and I told my wife that I was going to take half of it and get a can of white spray paint and paint a two foot egg white out on the blacktop and put the melon half right in the middle of it. She didnt see any humour in my idea, but I have it in the freezer awaiting an opportunity.
And the stains from frying eggs on your car’s hood could be used as your “Frequent Fryer “ticket – buy 10 get 1 free.
Nice to drive by and see the lights on at your place once in awhile.
Hey,
How about a middle of the road approach?
Get Ni-Fe batteries. You’d have about the same capacity as the Lead Acids but for 2x-3x the price your battery lifespan will likely outlive you from what I’ve read. It’s still cheaper and longer lasting than Lithium too.
If you are looking for true renewable lighting and minimal sunk costs.. may I also suggest a top bar beehive? You’ll get your lighting (beeswax), and a small supply of sugars (honey) for brewing
Top Bars are tricky for the beginner. Maybe start with an 8- or 10-frame Langstroth?
Jims predictions of almost 20 years ago were a little premature.
Makes no difference. When TSHTF with oil becoming unprofitable and the supply contracts, the world will change drastically.
Instead of arguing about everything right now, we need to be finding alternatives, like reliable nuclear stations,
Now!!! Oil will decline.
AZ: I’ve read in the solar literature that Arizona on average has 7, SEVEN, hours of sunlight per day. That’s one of the highest, if not the highest in the nation and makes AZ a mecca for solar powering. Here in the Southeast midwest, we average about 3-4 hours per day due to many cloudy raining days, hence the need for backup generators .
You should see the solar fields around Las Vegas, or the wind farms around Palm Springs. The area required for any renewable is enormous. Remember algae farms to create diesel fuel? Someone figures out that to produce enough to make any difference it would take three or more states of acreage to build the facilities.
I do not know if JHK literature was where I read it but small regional nuclear plants built in safe locations are a good idea. His idea of using dams for generation is good in areas with rain. However, warming may be drying out areas of the US and causing power problems, like Lake Powell and Lake Mead.
Living in Phoenix, I am trying hard to get a true picture of what is happening here before the real estate bubble pops. Lots of new development going on, but where is the water going to come from? Aquifers? Not the Colorado River, 14% cutback into the CAP canal next year. I do not feel as bad as the folks in SoCal, their cutbacks are going to be bad news for that overpopulated area.
I lived off the grid in Brookings OR. for years. No solar, just a propane generator. I found a small creek about 3000 feet from the house w/ about 150 ft elevation. All I could afford was 1 1/4 in. poly pipe. So I ran that, bought me a 150 dollar permanent magnet wild ac gen, a charge controller for 150 bucks, 2 inverters, 1 pure sinewave for the computers and 1 more modified sinewave for everything else. About 3 hundred bucks. 8 interstate 6v U16 batteries (1400 bucks, ouch). Put it all together myself watching utube, learned a lot. Anyway, 340 watts continuous, plenty to run a 2 bedroom cabin. Once a battery looses 27% of its charge is considered a cycle. The batts I bought were good for 500 cycles. Once they were charged, they stayed charged, no cycles, just maintenance, adding water and equalizing every other month or so, been 20 years and the batteries are still brand new. Only thing Ive replaced is some polypipe from bears chewing through it. Thinking about using magnets to turn a driveshaft to spin that generator, I’ll see how that works, still in the process of collecting magnets.
Ha, jim thanx for the personal story. I learned my lessons from boating and RVing. Same principles, thankfully much smaller lost costs.
Now and then I’ll stumble by one of the interest vlogs and post some succinct, cryptic note suggesting “get a diesel generator”.
One of my neighbors is an executive at a utilco. He said none of the older generators are being removed since they need them to even out the grid from heavily subsidized alt inputs.
The whole alt thing is a massive con. You’ll know mankind is serious when the nukes get (re)commissioned.
There is plenty of nuclear knowledge to mine.
Just look at the US Navy’s track record.
Heck, the Germans managed to run a commercial 300 MW thorium reactor for over a year in the 80s.
Here, here to the RV con job!
Back quite a number of years ago, the salesmen for the alternative power companies were out in full force, getting people to sign up to have solar panels installed on their roofs.
You did not buy the panels.
I happened to read somewhere that solar batteries wore out. I was not considering solar myself, but I started mentioning to other people this fact that I didn’t know about solar, and I found out that they did not know this either.
Maybe that wouldn’t make a difference to homeowners, I don’t know, but it is a rather large chunk of information to be unaware of.
Kind of like the infernal vaxx. From the first moment Warp Speed was mentioned. I read about these damn mRNA injections, and found out that they weren’t really a vaccine at all, but an experimental gene therapy.
Over a year later, I would go online and see people expressing shock that the vaxxes would not work like a vaccine.
This is not to try to blame people who got the solar panels on their roofs, but some (most) of the people yammering about green the loudest, have huge gaps in their knowledge of what that actually entails.
Pt barnum
Sheep and thinkers
It’s all a con
Always has been
A lot of people got very rich doing solar installations, because of the government subsidies. They probably still are getting rich(er).
If that happened to be your area of expertise, you won the lottery.
Generators only last until you run out of fuel. Then they are worthless.
Without electricity, our rural well pump cannot run. There are no sources of water within any reasonable walking distance. We could not live here through an extended power outage.
To solve this problem, we had an additional well drilled. Then we got an old style manual well pump installed. The pump can be used all year around, even in the frozen winter. Total cost was about $10k.
Now we have limitless clean water that only requires a little effort to acquire. The peace of mind is priceless.
The big surprise was that we use it every day, to water the bunnies and garden plants.
It is difficult to ignore sunk costs like we should. Businesses often want to get as much use as they can from their capital investments and use equipment when it makes more economic sense to upgrade. We should just look at expected future cash flows when making repair/replace/buy/lease decisions. The rule of thumb is that sunk costs are irrelevant except for their effect on future cash flow. Maybe our host should revist his decision to go photovoltaic, update the expected costs and returns for his alternatives and see what makes the most sense in terms of total life cycle cost.
I have a 110 year old electric fan. It has run continuously for an estimated fifty years. It was made to last and it has. Nothing I see around me today will last as long except the monumental ignorance of people. I smile when I walk into the shop and hear my fan humming.
I have some older fans, but nowhere near that old. Maybe from the nineties. I’m told they are past the average life. They run fine, but what happens is some plastic part breaks that make it oscillate or keeps it aimed where you want it.
I notice the new fans available are very cheaply made.
Mine has cast iron housing, bronze bushings, oil fill holes and an ingenious system where excess oil goes into a small reservoir and a spring loaded wick takes it back to the shaft. I also have a Wilcoxx and Gibbs sewing machine close to a hundred that is as finely made and runs smoothly. That we can no longer discern quality in our machines or politicians bodes ill.
That’s what I noticed in new fans. I looked for where you put the oil in, and could not find it.
Are you taking cod liver oil for your joints? Or do expect to get enough from the french fries?
The oil from Fast Food joints could run a small nation – or an Army!
That oil has poor quality and not fit to eat.
I have refrigerator that’s been in continuous operation since about 1962. I have to defrost the freezer on occasion. I always wonder whether it will start back up when i plug it back in. Mainly beer in it.
I have a 110 year old electric fan. – redrock
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I started a new job in Oct 1978. Sitting on my assigned desk was an Adler 121PD adding machine. I retired in Feb 2006, stuffed this adding machine in my shoulder bag, and took it home. It sits 15 inches from my right arm. It has never failed. That would be 44 years.
Don’t forget to discount expected future cash flows, “A dollar today is worth a lot more than the promise of a dollar in the future- especially in chaotic times like these.
Agree. Now is a good time to be converting any extra fiat into hard assets like tools and trade goods because those things will be worth more than gold in the future.
Right.
Another scam recently intensified is the “Traditional IRA – to Roth Conversion”. You pay the government all the future taxes upfront today for the government’s promise that they won’t tax your Roth IRA in the future.
Why do we let them abuse us?
A couple of points you need to research:
1) Taxes obey the commutative property of multiplication. The entire premise of tax deferred investments was a set up. 20% on the principle now is the same as 20% on the principle and gains later.
2) Tax-exempt investments do not have a limit on withdrawals. Any move for them would have to be retroactive. Either would cause a revolt.
You have to let it sit for five years for full withdrawal. It is another form to fill out on your taxes.
It is a good deal if you think that taxes are going up in the future.
“A dollar today is worth a lot more than the promise of a dollar in the future” I made ~6% just in the last few days by buying 100 Forever stamps on Friday.
A dollar today will be worth ten cents, shortly.
The one place where solar makes obvious sense is for domestic hot water supplies. It’s just a matter of moving low-grade unconcentrated heat over to cold water that needs that low-grade unconcentrated heat. Easy, right? So why did (last I checked) a solar hot water system cost 8x that of an electric? Beautiful microprocessor-controlled designs with many pumps and holding tanks to squeeze out that last 0.5% of efficiency, but simple and maintainable they are not. How about a butt-simple system that gets the first 80% done? Until we get basic hot water systems right, simply and at scale, we need to take a big step back from the far more complex grid-tied solar electrics.
Anyway, sorry to hear about your solar woes Jim. Yes, DIY-install of new lead-acid batteries is probably your best course now. Be sure to wear safety glasses. Bonus: lead-acid batteries are easily recycled into shiny new components.
“Bonus: lead-acid batteries are easily recycled into shiny new components.”
,,Such as lead bullets…for your model 28’s…to keep your neighbors from stealing your Juniper berries….
>>>,,Such as lead bullets…for your model 28’s…
Well, there is that. Multi-use at its finest.
“How about a butt-simple system that gets the first 80% done?”
Get some 2″ IPS SDR11 PE4710 Black Hdpe Pipe 500′ Coil and put it on your roof with cold water in one end and the other to your hot water heater with a bypass valve because [ at least around here ] you can avoid the hot water heater several months a year. If you go below freezing outside just bypass the coil.
Thanks, Jim.
We were going to put a solar system in over here in Germany, but this post has caused me to have a few more second thoughts.
As you know, the less expensive option is to go without the batteries, but that partially defeats the point of the system. Our neighbors went that route and seem happy though. I think they put everything in for around 7k.
“There are four big ones in a cabinet under the blown charge controller”
That might have been your problem right there. Off gassing from battery’s is nasty stuff, very corrosive. If you do manage to piece it back together I’d keep the batteries isolated from the electronics.
There are solar panels that require no batteries and never need maintenence. They’re called plants.
Coincidentally, they also were responsible for putting hydrocarbons in the Earth. The hydrocarbons we’re on-pace to burn through in a matter of centuries.
Hope everyone’s enjoying their hydrocarbon play-time. See you back in the rainforests when it’s all over.
The Choler. The bitterness! But a good fast ball down the middle all the same.
Thanks for the laugh. I do enjoy well done satire.
Maybe you could add a para on how the evil oil companies got all the rainforests and dinosaurs up to Titan and the Horsehead Nebula.
Or was it just bottled Unicorn farts?
I first heard that in the sixties, we have more now than we knew existed back then. Saying some over and over, doesn’t make it true.
I assume you mean we’ve found more oil and fossil reserves. This changes nothing long-term. extending the fossil-game for a century or what-have-you does only that, delays the endgame a bit. So, what is the point you are making?
The question is the same: what will replace oil? The answer… the correct long-term answer… is still nothing (full reliance on nuclear is just further delay of the inevitable).
I can’t respect people who do not think long-term.
Cheer up Clusterfuck Nation: At 5PM, Monday July11th 2022, Bedpan Biden is going to show us the first photos from the 10-billion-dollar James Webb Space Telescope. I truly hope these pictures of places that we’ll never visit will help you light your dining room and provide all the joy that your central air bill for the month of August will steal away.
Meanwhile we will have to content ourselves with looking at the photos 4chan hacked from Hunter’s iCloud account.
Why does he call his father Pedo Peter?
I have a 20KW Generac natgas fired automatic backup generator which I purchased with an automatic transfer switch 10 years ago for $5K. A friend and I installed it 10 years ago. It has functioned flawlessly with one starter battery replacement through many Central Virginia power outages as long as 5 days. probably aggregating 20-25 days operation.
If I’d had a contractor supply and install it, it would have been $10-12K.
It runs all my lights, well pump, water heater, and central AC. I also have a small aircooled portable diesel generator of 6.5KW as a hedge against disruption of the natgas supply. I keep a 500 gallon tank of diesel which I’ve kept filled with home heating oil (dyed off-road diesel is the same distillate as on road diesel) so I can fuel 2 older diesel cars and cheat the state out of motor fuel tax. I consider this to be way better than the fragile solar installations that some of my cuck neighbors have spent $40K+ on and that’s without battery backup so all they get in a power outage is a single 15 amp 120 outlet which they can plug an extension cord into. When a major winter storm kills the power as it did for 3 days this January, they all have to flee to motels. When you have well water, you’re just camping once the terlets have been flushed one time.
“I have a 20KW Generac natgas fired automatic backup generator which I purchased with an automatic transfer switch 10 years ago for $5K. A friend and I installed it 10 years ago. …
If I’d had a contractor supply and install it, it would have been $10-12K.
A relative had a very similar installation at her home near Denver, done 2 years. Contracted with Lowe’s. Her cost was $22,000. She contributed by closely watching the installation process. She found wire nuts so carelessly installed they fell apart when jiggled slightly. She watched a contractor pressure test the new gas line to the genny, heard a loud “clunk” and hissing from many of her gas appliances. The pressure used was vastly in excess of that prescribed in the installation instructions. She called her gas company, and they ordered her gas shut off until all her gas appliances and her gas line could be inspected for damage. Her gas oven was a total loss, at that point she converted to an electric range. The contractor had to pay for all the damage he caused. Eventually her system was up and running. It kicks in when the power goes out and they can scarcely hear the difference.
I built a pedal powered generator. And a small wood stove. But that’s just me. I’m a happy camper knowing how much money I saved. And we lose power quite a bit in western Washington because of the trees. The upside is, there’s always firewood, laying right there in the road. Bring an ax, or chainsaw.
Thanks for writing about this.
Last month, my neighbor spent 65k installing all the lithium batteries, solar panels, and this giant controller in the wall of his garage. He told me it was a stand alone system- capable of driving every item in his house. In the desert southwest, where our reservoirs are around 25% full- this ability to be completely self sufficient is appealing.
Instead I have a 7500 watt generator and a 2200 watt inverter- dual fuel . I have a bazillion power cords mainly bcuz I can’t get anyone here to install a transfer switch or a generlink. The generlink is easy, makes the most sense, attaches to the power meter where you simply plug in- but I can’t find anyone who has ever installed one.
At any rate, that’s the route I chose. With my remaining 18 years or so, I simply could not make 65k pencil into an avg 90 bucks a month worth of electricity. My neighbor might have 30 years left- but it still won’t pencil. Of the 60 homes in my sub- I’ll bet half have solar panels.
Brian
Thanks for sharing the trials and tribulations of your solar experiment, Jim. As the author of Too Much Magic, I’m sure a few of your detractors will point out the irony of it all. But it’s a real world example of trying to “right size the appropriate technology”, and that ain’t always easy.
As the Long Emergency continues to unfold, many similar decisions will be made on what technologies to maintain, invest in, abandon, modify and so on. Many of those decisions will be made by very smart people with good data. Many of those decisions will still be wrong.
Lives will be lost.
As the Long Emergency continues to unfold, many similar decisions will be made on what technologies to maintain, invest in, abandon, modify and so on – drhooves
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I have completely avoided all these decisions about producing backup electric and such. I’m at an age where I am counting on being dead in the not-too-distant future.
I, for one, will miss you. I have more to say, but am afraid I will mispunctuate. Is that a legit word?
“I can’t get anyone here to install a transfer switch or a generlink” Reminds of my move to New Mexico in 1975. When I turned in my Uhaul truck, the counterman at the UHaul store turned out to be illiterate. I had to read the Uhaul contract to him. He seemed to understand.
Then there was the Bicentennial 4th in Gallup NM. The local firemen were going to set the works off at the high school football field. They made a mistake and set everything off at the same time, mostly on the ground. None in the stands was injured. A nearby ambulance hauled one of the workers away. We dispersed in silence.
‘Of the 60 homes in my sub- I’ll bet half have solar panels.’
Of the 30 or so homes in our sub, I think only two have any solar at all, mine and one more. About five years ago, I was getting ready to install a couple of hard solar panels (40lbs each). I placed them against my backyard fence with a southern exposure to test their capacity and left them there for a couple of weeks. Toward the end of the first week, I got a letter from the city saying that a neighbor had complained that I was storing junked broken glass on my backyard fence and I must remove it!!!! The known neighborhood karen had struck another family. Just for kicks, I had my attorney threaten a lawsuit against the karen (everyone knows who she is and the mower men informed me for certain) and the city for harassment due to solar use. After the city rescinded their complaint and apologized, I put the panels in place on the roof, and had a 10 foot wooden gate built to preclude anyone seeing my back yard. You seem to have better neighbors than I do.
Oh gosh, I forgot my most salient point.
I bought a 200 amp battery charger. Manual one. I take old worn out batteries, pop the caps, add distilled water, and then I cycle the batteries on the 200 amp charger 5 times.
15 minutes on 200 amp, 45 minutes to cool. Repeat it five times. This has been restoring my old worn out batteries. My truck batteries are 10 years old- and restored. There are a few you tube vids on this- also I bought my 200 amp manual Schumacher at Wallyworld for only 110- sure they’ve gone up some.
Brian
This is all very informative, and in a way a refreshing break from events that are coming at us too hot and heavy to process.
I was going to buy one of those wired-in generators, not for prepping so much as because the power company has gotten lackadaisical about getting the power back on.
I happen to live in an area where the power goes out and stays out more frequently than surrounding areas. We don’t have different weather than the streets right around me, so hat tells me there is something about the infrastructure that needs to be addressed.
The utility company has everyone persuaded that it is “fair” to leave this small area without power for so long, because larger areas have more people in them who need power.
That does not seem fair to me, what would be fair would be to send a smaller number of workers to the smaller area or something of that nature, or maybe FIX whatever it is that is causing the unique problems to my area, but I digress.
I tied to get a generator before the expected price increase, but was too late, and even then, the one I wanted lacked a chip that was necessary if I wanted to be able to use the telephone.
They would install the chip free of charge when they were available again.
Lead acid do vent hydrogen that’s why on airplanes ,you vent the box, I would look at Edison batterys they are more robust than lead acid ,the lithium banks are just 18650 cells welded together
Solar city etc are scams it’s easy to build systems for a 3rd of the price.
Jim, I installed a 22 KW whole-house generator, fed by 500 gallon buried LP tank, and an automatic transfer switch, November 2019. $9500.
My design also has a manual transfer switch, accommodating a future energy source tie-in. That future off-grid energy source will be a combination of solar-wind-hydrogen fuel cell, supplying the batteries via the charge controller, and ultimately the inverters. This design allows for maximum distributed energy source flexibility.
The LP tank also supplies a 40,000 btu gas log, stove, and outdoor grill.
Gird. Maneuver. Adapt.
GODSPEED!
Carpe Diem!
Sola Vertus Invicta!
“I installed a 22 KW whole-house generator, fed by 500 gallon buried LP tank, and an automatic transfer switch, November 2019. $9500.” Your expense makes me think you did all the work. Hiring licensed contractors, getting permits, and documenting that your installation was a safe one (the insurer for your house would be very interested in that documentation should your house burn) would probably cost $22,000 if you could find the parts and the contractors.
Yes.
I drafted the design and purchased the materials.
I am an engineer and an electrician/builder.
However, I hired the crew to set the generator and wire it, bury the LP tank, and install the buried LP line to the tank.
Do you have homeowner’s insurance?
JHK’s problems with his solar installation sound like what is or will be happening to many EV auto buyers. EVs are expensive to buy, the heavy weight requires special costly tires that wear out quickly. The very expensive batteries wear out prematurely and can be hazardous. Service is often hard to obtain. The technology seems not ready for mass-use prime time, despite the hype and fad-support. Eric Peters, on the web at EricPetersAutos, has some useful analyses.
I suspect that simpler and more reliable nuclear energy will eventually come on line, perhaps in the form of regional mini-nukes. Even with it, EV cars will require many more years to cure, or at least reduce, their many serious weaknesses. The grid will need tremendous expansion to support not only EVs but electric home heating — which “progressives” are also urging.
In these uncertain times, perhaps it’s best to have and master a diversity of energy, heating, food, and transportation resources. The internet can be a wonderful resource for learning new things and repairing the old for little or no cost.
Until the power goes out.
One comment on EVs.
Plug in hybrids give a good solution to many of the problems of the EV only cars. Half and half. My Rav4 prime gets 42 miles on a charge. We find that enough to get around for errands with little gas usage. Fear of battery depletion is one reason folks go back to gasoline. Not an issue, it just switches to hybrid and off you go. The amount of battery space is much less, so replacement should be cheaper, the warranty is 100000 miles. I fill up the 14 gallon tank about every 2 months. Road trips are another story, another reason to enjoy the hybrid part. Mileage on hybrid mode is about 45 MPG, less than the 55 I got on the Prius. Probably because it is heavier. Range is about 500 miles, with no need to stop and charge up.
Big problem is availability, I got one of 17 shipped into AZ about 8 months ago. Very few since.
A lady wrote in to say she traded her all EV in for a gas car because on road trips she spent more time charging than sleeping. Not an issue.
Toyota Is doing the plug in hybrid, hybrid, hydrogen and EV currently. All are available. You tube has info on them all.
35k was the number for us too 12 years ago. Ours is a 3000 watt array feeding the controller and now two battery banks. Being off grid there’s no grid tied device. There is a backup 7kw propane generator driven by a 1000 gal tank.
The biggest liability is a lack of qualified techs to work on the system. I’m no engineer so if something comes up, I’m forced to rely on help to fix it.
Only three things have been needed since the install. First an additional battery bank that got us through the construction of the log cabin. During that time only a frig in the barn and a single tool like a saw would be run. After ele, plumbing etc was installed in cabin we found we couldn’t turn on kitchen lights and brew coffee at the same time.
The fix was more batteries. Our system is setup to run on blocks of 48 volts of batteries. We needed another 48 volts worth. Question was how are they installed without an explosion or some such? Luckily the contractor who installed it walked me through it via text.
Just last week the backup Generac generator would crank but not start. Very luckily we have a neighbor who knows a lot. He diagnosed the problem: a failed ignition coil. I got the part mailed to me and installed it.
About a year in the generator cranked but wouldn’t start. A mud dauber bug had plugged the air intake. Mud was removed then replaced with coarse steel wool.
I appreciate having the system. As it was I couldn’t get a quote for conventional power. Our drive is about 1500 ft long. We would have had to knock down a bunch of trees and run poles over adjoining neighbor properties.
I also appreciate issues like what Jim is having. The alternative is having conventional power? No thx. Same for water, we have a well.
Right now the gen came on because the batteries are drawn down a bit. We’ve been using the mini splits sparingly but it’s been a hot one in texas this summer. It will run awhile then I can manually turn it off and rely on the midday sun to fully charge for the evening and night cabin in some coolness.
Cheers
I almost forgot to mention, yes, the summer days have been beautiful beyond description in northern New York.
Same here in NW Ct. Cloudless sky, low humidity, gentle breezes, temp around 75°F. IOW no sign of a Climate Emergency protesters in DC are shutting down the interstates over. And at the coast, about 35 miles south of here, if there is Sea Level Rise it is undetectable — beaches look pretty much as they always have.
Nordstream – with flows to Europe already dialed back to 60% – shuts down today for a 10-day scheduled annual maintenance.
A little blip in the very near term – wonder if Putin will find out that “repairs” are necessary and how long it will take to get the replacement parts for said repairs.
Raw Materials + Energy Inputs = Finished Goods, simple as that.
Europe is Fucked with a capital F, hard to understand why they pretend they can’t see that – the people are starting to get wise – and this coming winter – cold.
German thermostats set to 62 degrees max inside – guess extra sweaters will work for now.
Biden, Blinken, and their merry band of European halfwits, still playing tough guy. LOL
….the Western European intel-geeks are slow to awaken to the fact they are on the Sino-Russian menu.
Civilizations-at-large modernity projects do not function without energy and food.
It is a bright summer ahead of a dark winter for the many incapable of maneuvering.
BREAKING NEWS:
Benevolent Vlad Putin is fast-tracking Russian citizenship for all of Europe, starting with Ukraine.
…..”do not bite the hand that feeds you and provides energy to warm your home.”
Conscription 101.
The replacement valve is in Canada for repair, and Canada has refused to send it back for over a month because…..”sanctions”.
Sanctions are part of the ”rules-based order” the US is always yapping about, where they make the rules and bully everyone else into following them.
Russia insists that international law, with treaties worked out and agreed to by everyone, is better than the ”rules-based order” instituted by one dominant country. How’s that working out for them?
Apparently Canada and Germany have finally worked out a work-around and Canada will send the part back to repair the gas line.
But yeah, just in time for the yearly maintenance shutdown.
How convenient.
Vlad and Castro each have their unique WEF-mandated role to play.
The Four Horseman are saddlin’ up.
Vlad isn’t part of it.
Right.
He is a nationalist, like Xi and Trump.
Not so sure of that. Russia will be on the winning side when China becomes the new hegemon. It may take awhile for the Russians to be reduced to the serfdom (and population levels) mandated by the WEF. By then, Putin will be remembered as a nationalist hero, rather than the guy who groomed Russia to be China’s sidekick.
I’d like to be wrong. It would be nice to think that there are some good guys out there playing for our side. But I’ve been Berned often enough to doubt every presented savior.
Blackbird
Alternative scenario.
Siberia becomes arable. Russia will be looking for serfs to till the land. Not enough Russians, wonder where they can find about a billion and a half folks to farm the land.
Eurasia is the future on the planet.
India too.
Wonder how long it will take Europe to tell the USA to F off and align with Russia?
I am pretty sure of it, Blackbird.
He’s stated openly that he is against globalism and that Western leaders are destroying their countries. His last two speeches were quite good.
At the same time, he is doing what he has to do to ensure that Russia remains a hegemon.
BRICs is a good counterweight to the Anglo-American establishment, and we need balance. If the West goes down, the world is one step closer to tyranny — ditto if the East goes down.
A unipolar world is not a safe world.
Russia is pushing the vaxxes and their health authorities must be as aware as anyone else who’s paying attention that covid (in the unvaxxed) is the most treatable respiratory disease around. It just happens that the people largely don’t trust their leaders, so only 20% were vaxxed last time I heard. And I understand that they are going full steam ahead with digital ID and social credit.
Also, Mark Crispin Miller includes Russians in his weekly ‘Died Suddenly’ listings from the press around the world (just the tip of the tip of the tip of the iceberg as most of us don’t make the news). Russians are dropping dead for no apparent reason too. Not as much as in Italy, where the carnage is off the scale (or the reporting is better, probably) because the vaxx rate is lower.
So Putin may be a nationalist but there’s something going on there too. I don’t pretend to have any clue what it is.
GA, yes OffGuardian has a lot of coverage of the Russian vax op.
I don’t know what to think, but anything is possible. I initially assumed (based on some circumstantial evidence) that Sputnik was rolled out to ensure that the Russkies could continue to travel and do what they needed to do if the pass system rolled out globally.
There is clearly more to the story, but it is hard to sort fact from fiction.
Thanks, Night Owl. I went over to Offguardian and ended up on Edward Slavsquat’s Substack on ‘Covid Russia’, from late Novermber:
edwardslavsquat.substack.com/p/i-believe-we-are-facing-an-evil-that
Very detailed – and Putin doesn’t seem to be clean.
I am concerned about the vax issue also.
Putin is always talking about the importance of children and families and taking care of the next generation. I believe he is sincere about that.
So why kill them off?
The only thing I can think of is that Putin knows that the US is working on bioweapons directed at Russians and he knows that SARS 2 is a bioweapon, so maybe he overreacted.
Maybe his corrupt neoliberal health director convinced him that their vaccines were safe.
But he should know better now.
The US is still working on bioweapons and they are not just directed at Russians.
“New variants” my ass. They are releasing new bioweapons and they aren’t even bothering to do it during cold and flu season anymore, because they have found that people are so easily brainwashed they will fall for “New more deadly variant spreading in July!!!!!” without ever thinking that July has never been when respiratory viruses spread.
JAZ,
Even with global warming (who knows what’s causing it, how warm it will get, or how long it will last?) it will take time – and the use of a lot of fossil fuels to turn the taiga into farmland.
Conifers can grow in some lousy soil – and then they taint it making it difficult for other plant species to colonize.
Gonna need to truck in a lot of topsoil from elsewhere, or amend and process the sandy/gravelly/high acid soil in situ, or dump a lot of fertilizer on your natural hydroponic system.
I expect the population of this planet to fall far below carrying capacity long before we tame the taiga.
Putin.
I think he’s the best leader Russia has had since… well, Russia has had a rough history in that regard. I see him as working in the best interests of the Russian people, rather than using the Russian people to further his interests – a rarity among Russian rulers.
Russian interests (in my opinion) lie in Eurasian integration, and that means cozying up to China, and peeling as much of Europe away from U$ as possible. Kneecapping U$ will be necessary also. I see that as being in-line with the globalist plan: Chinese hegemony, Western evisceration, and worldwide population reduction.
Russia will suffer less during the transition as they are not living as “high on the hog” as the west. When Russia’s existential enemy (U$) lies crying on the couch, stuffed with Xanax and cheesedoodles, because their Pornhub was shut off, Russians will sleep easier. If it takes eating borscht twice as often to bring Babylon down, it’s a sacrifice I’m sure those tough Ruskies will not hesitate to make.
As Herr Klaussenschwabber so eloquently makes clear for us in his seminal work Covid 19: The Great Reset, the Plandemic is the perfect problem for the very solution they have waiting on the shelf: population reduction. In my opinion, “Covid” was designed by U$ and cooked up here as well as in China’s kitchen – a joint project. Russia’s population will be gradually reduced – as will China’s – but I expect their economy will improve. Russia plays along as the long-term effects are to their benefit.
[So Putin may be a nationalist but there’s something going on there too. I don’t pretend to have any clue what it is.] – GreenAlba
Putin’s actions can easily be reconciled by viewing his world from two perspectives.
He is jockeying for pecking order position in the not too distant future where Xi and China will rule the world.
And from the sphere of only Russia, there is the opposition that is trying to knock him off his pedestal, as well as the flock that is jockeying for pecking order position. My bet is that he has come to realize the power one wields that gets to
control a digital ID and currency; as well as the power to thwart the opposition, and influence the domestic pecking order, by the one in charge of covid type mandates and associated nonsense.
OG – glad to see you’ve escaped – now I don’t have to pay your ransom. On Putin, I have to agree with Night Owl – Putin is a nationalist, as opposed to a WEF-owned globalist.
To JAZ’s list, I’d add, certainly Viktor Orban and the “Trump of the Tropics”, Jair Bolsonaro. Nationalist leaders believe in sovereignty, the genuine well-being of their people, and their cultural preservation.
A shame we don’t have any nationalists in the current administration – only abject traitors, whose only intent is to undermine American sovereignty and destroy our culture.
Shinzo Abe, also a nationalist – refusing to commit national economic suicide like the US/EU, via sanctions against Russia – taken out by the globalists.
First BoJo, then Shinzo, maybe JoBozo will be next – if we could only be so lucky.
Don’t be ridiculous.
All solar roads lead to China. Great commentary today Mr. K. My husband is an electrical engineer and he set up our small solar array at our off grid farm in upstate South Carolina. That being said the whole concept of solar is a total boondoggle.
Our original lead batteries lasted almost 5 years but we aren’t there every day. Also these batteries have to be conditioned every so often by super charging. In comes the generator. For a small scale system like ours it is useful for refrigeration, tv,, computers, lighting and fans. We have to use a separate marine battery with high cranking amps to fire up the well pump so we usually use the generator.
Even with abundant sunshine in the south several days of cloudy weather will deplete your energy stores in no time flat. The best thing I can say about using solar is that it makes you cognizant of where your energy is being used and how you can get by with so much less.
I could go on but it would bore you like it does me when my husband explains watts and kilowatts.
Noticed your reply as my mother was from SC and went to med school at MUSC: I knew many people from Greenville and Spartenburg areas. I agree that you have to rotate and replace solar components more often than most would like. But, in a grid down scenario, I would rather have a solar power system than not, to at least have lights and fans and chargers for electronics that still exist.
NOTE: using a de-sulphating trickle charger will make lead acid batteries last 2-3x as long. Also, lithium batteries last far longer than lead acid, and weight far far less, but they are expensive as JHK mentioned. I have four 100ah Li++ batteries in my system and each costs about $800, as compated to $200 for 100 aH lead acids.
@neurodoc we are in the far northeast corner between Lake Keowee and Lake Hartwell. Beautiful area and we are far enough from the tourists in an agricultural area.
Greenville is a beautiful city but alas it’s becoming like Asheville. Lots of wokesters. My son lives in a suburb of Greenville and it is growing like crazy. Lots of big companies between Anderson and GSP.
Husband has decided to go the lithium battery route. What else are you going to do with your money?
Buy food (if you can’t grown what you need), gold and silver. The latter in small denominations for barter. Also ammo. When, not if, the monetary system fails (actually happening now), the grid and transport system will eventually fail, thus needing all of the above. Having a farm of any size in a rural area is the best possible prep.
🙂
BTW: Li+ batteries are far better on an aging lumbar spine than lead acids. They can be moved around with ease. I’ll probably eventually convert my whole system to Li+.
Yeah I could never really see the efficacy of solar panels when my electricity bill is ~$25. The possibility of a more unreliable grid gnaws in the back of my head, maybe I’ll have to get a generator. I’ve got the best kind of Solar anyways, A south facing home on a steep hill. If we just built all of our houses south facing it would probably do more than all the solar panels. I’ve also got a hectare of woods to heat my house with… don’t even have to cut down a tree, branches always die and calve off.
Over here on the west of the us-of-a, at a similar latitude to Mr K, it is hard to get some contentment from the garden. We had late freezes, No plums, peaches, apricots this year, half the cherries dropped off soon after setting. Then we had no sun. Everything is a month behind, I am just starting now to eat the gooseberries. If we get the typical late summer forest fire smoke-out, it will be a disaster. It is wetter than usual and maybe there isn’t as much left to burn, so hopefully I won’t have to choose between industrial food and starvation…
Ha.
The year before St Helens I had a bumper crop of corn in the back yard in Colorado Springs. It was knee high before July. The following year, after St. Helens it was 3 inches tall at July 4. Never even silked out. I planted blue grass that fall. Seasonal change was pronounced with that volcano. The ash made it to our house, etched the paint on my Weber grill. We had no summer that following year. Colorado could use a little more warmth.
JHK: I took a different route to solar power than you. I decided against a system that hooks into the local power company (for reasons too many to list here). Instead I start with my greenhouse (about 20 x 30 ft); I set up a simple system with, at that time, 2, 100watt panels, with a 20A controller, a 2000 watt inverter and various fuses and disconnects. Slowly, over 4-5 yrs, I learned more about solar and increased the system to the point where now I can use the system, with limits, for my home and the greenhouse, and have 5 sets of 4 100amphr batteries (2000 amphrs), a 40 amp controller, a 4000 watt inverter and 15, 150watt thin (5lbs each) mono-crystalline panels. Most importantly, I have bought backups x2 and sometimes x3 for all components, as they do wear out as you noted (& almost ALL solar stuff is made in china). IF needed (I keep the home components off line until power goes out), I can run most anything in our home, EXCEPT central heat/air (we have two wood burning stoves if needed) and the kitchen ovens (we also have nat gas stored). In other words, I’ve built a system, with extensive backup components mainly for a grid down situation, in addition to my greenhouse. Unfortunately, I pay a hell of a power bill each month (which should be lower if I were connected in to the power company), but its convenient WHILE IT LASTS. I think the key is to have backups for every single component, for when china totally refuses the USD$, as its’ starting to do now, without question.
Mr. Kunstler. Make that 500 gal fuel tank propane. Gas and diesel have a shelf life. Propane does not.
Agree, but one can extend the shelf life to a year or so with Sta-Bil. I’ve used it for years and it really works; if I keep the cans in shaded areas I’ve had it last 2 years with a second sta bil dose at end of year 1. Propane is definitely better but propane generators seem to be much more expensive watt for watt, and finicky IMO.
When the multitudes have no power, the silence broken by a functioning generator of any type will attract ne’er-do-wells like flies to shit.
You’re very correct; that was seen in New Orleans during Karina. Worrying about that issue, I recently bought a new generator, gas or propane run, and sounds about like a small fan at 10 feet away. They’re labeled as ‘ultra-quiet.’ A little more expensive but worth it vs. the costs of ammunition in a SHTF situation. 🙂
Katrina.
The other issue, similar to what you’ve mentioned, is having light when others don’t. That’s another dead giveaway that you have stuff they want (i.e. food, fuel). Large black trash bags can be taped over windows and they definitely block out light or 99% of it.
Block IN light 😉
It is Good to see that you are thinking. Far too many people prep without thoughts of security.
Who wants to live that way? Hiding from inevitable attacks?
Not me.
Yup!
If the SHTF, the crime wave in the cities will spill out rapidly. The “boys” emerging are better suited to the climate of collapse too.
i’ve had 250gal of diesel/kero 50/50 for 12 years – just keep adding diesel preservative, which is a biocide.
gasoline will break down way faster than diesel, with both treated.
propane is the best long term, but requires a much larger tank for equivalent energy density.
most propane engines run at 3600rpm for electricity generation, most diesels at 1800rpm, which is far easier to muffle and tolerate.
If I’m not mistaken I think diesel pretty much lasts forever.
as long as there is no water at the bottom of the tank. add water, and stuff starts to grow. thus, diesel preservative = biocide
NDoc,
The only difference between gas and Propane is a bolt-on adapter system for the Propane…and not very expensive.
Propane, having 3 Carbons, burns hotter than Methane.
Hey Doc,
You will not need any of this in Ajijic!
My stepson is a building contractor, when he finishes a job sometimes I’ll go along and help him clean up. A few weeks ago we were at a site — condos — and I noticed a generator sitting in the courtyard, abandoned. He told me the plumbers left it behind.
“What’s wrong with it.”
“They said it doesn’t work.”
“Can we take it? At the very least it has some scrap value.”
So we threw it on the truck, 10hp Briggs & Stratton engine, 5600 Watt output. When I got it home I cleaned it up; thing looked pretty good, just some surface rust from bring left outdoors for a winter, a spring, and part of a summer. The engine had spark when I pulled it over, so I figured the carb was the problem. I took it apart and sure enough it was all gummed up with a varnish like substance. Cleaned it with gasoline, ran thru half a bottle of sea foam — thing started right up, pumps out juice like a champ.
You are a handy guy to have around, brh. All this and excellent cocktails too!
Yeah, I’m a man for all seasons GA, but my wife, who doesn’t appreciate machinery, said “Get that junk out of the garage.”
nicely done brh. my wife was like that with my “treasures”, but once she got red pilled, she saw the value of preparedness and redundancy.
Yeah, my stuff is good stuff , my wife’s stuff is crapola.
BRH,
Be sure to change the oil and air filter…oh yeah, and grind the serial numbers of the damn thing….
Nah, it’s legit, E. If we didn’t take it out the General Contractor, an outfit from NYC, would have just tossed it in the dump.
$35K invested in Apple 9 years ago would be about $400K today, dividends inlcuded.
omg..it was $1-5 dollars post 9-11.
“The chickens range happily over their daily smorgasbord of bugs.”
And one day soon, We the People will be tussling with those same chickens for OUR daily allotment of tasty bug calories. And if I were a chicken about that time… I’d be a bit concerned about my own future. And stay away from grill pits and pots.
“The solar electric I installed on the house nine years ago is down.”
Didn’t you hear? The Dark Elitists with Delusions of godhood have taken title to the Sun. Yes, they own the damn thing now. And They can turn it on and off as They please.
So it would not matter if your solar electric system was functional or not. ‘They’ now fully control the Sun and its daily output and They would charge you for your use of Their New Asset. You will now ‘rent’ sunlight from Them at rates that They decide. And you can imagine just how reasonable those rates will be.
“I walked with eyes wide shut into the pit of techno-narcissism.”
And that is the declaration of being a good American. Good for you. We love our (drumroll please)… ‘Technology!’. And we love being narcissistic. And when you combine the two together you get… A Proud American! And really, being a good World Citizen since it is not better or more enlightened anywhere else.
“… these travails… are a metaphor for the complexity and fragility that is, all of a sudden this year, causing the operations of Western Civ to fly to pieces.”
None of this is happening in a vacuum. Everything going on is calculated and deliberate.
These things are not the result of some random Act of God like a meteor strike or other unforeseen calamity. All of this has been strategized and plotted by creatures who appear to be human but are nothing of the kind on a big game board somewhere in the dark shadows to devise the quickest and greatest effects of devastation and destruction. All while wearing a knowing smirk on their faces.
Western Civ was always far from perfect but it also was a masterful creation of peoples and things and ideas never seen before in all of history. And it’s sad to see it all going down right before us.
Just another thing that began with such promise that ends with a sigh and a whimper on the ash-heap of civilizations.
Whether it’s a solar energy system or the prospects for Our World under its current management… the results are the same.
Lights Out.
That’s what Don Juan said to Carlos Castaneda: Just become someone looks human, you assume that they are? Big mistake. Look more carefully. if you won’t look, you can’t See, and if you don’t See, you don’t know.
There is nothing human about Bill Gates.
The vast majority of humanity will burn in Hell for all of eternity. Justly.
And if we know that, what is the probability that they don’t know that?
Who did Russell Targ work for?
+1 for the ref to “a separate peace”
Don’t you mean, A Separate Reality?
There’s a woman in Ireland who has a YouTube channel and a blog called “Bealtaine Cottage”. She bought a derelict Irish stone cottage on 3 acres of crappy land about 15 years ago. She bought an Irish made, wood fired cookstove that is plumbed into a hot water heating system in the cottage. It also heats her washing water. She has a spring on her land for water, and a rain barrel for times of drought. She also has a very small woodstove in the living room. She does very well with this system, which is robust in its simplicity. She does have mains electricity, which is powered by several windmills on a mountain nearby. But she is not dependent on it for her water or heat. She uses wood from her own land, prunings and blowdown, etc. She has a small, electric table saw in the shed to cut them into stove lengths.
I wish I could do what she did.
EIRE is finished.
they legalized abortion = less whites and had the gay brown leader [PM?] and opened the border.
I saw a pic of ‘the new irish’ black irish indeed.
Also its the only land other than XUSA to have the anchor baby rule.
I have facts so try fooling me.
hers is a fantasy that makes no sense
what if non whites are banned and whites encouraged to carry pregnancies to term. they hers is a sustainable life style.
ask the rhodesians.
You could get cheap land out in Nevada – wasteland without water. Read Rancho Costa Nada. The guy built a house made out of boxes and a bit of wood. Batteries for small appliances. He had to get his water from the nearest town with his car. His neighbors thought he was weird. You’re supposed to live in trailers out there, not boxes.
Jarek
You Tube Rio Verde in AZ. Bad news and a preview of what is coming here. Summary ,upscale neighborhood set up for well water and what is happening on Jan. 1 2023.
there was or is some clips on utube, a woman who builds a house
in Arkansas, called herself ‘T’. I cant find her channel now.
try—
Population of One: Living Alone in an Abandoned Ghost Town – YouTube
Man Quit His Job To Go Live Off Grid In An Arizona High Desert Homestead – YouTube.
Wow, over 35k for home solar. Geez.
I wonder what 9 years of output came to?
I’ve been considering building a geo thermal system if I build a new home up here. But, I don’t know. Wood furnaces put out some real nice heat and they’ve gotten pretty efficient so
I had a geo-thermal system once. It came with the house that we bought in 1998. Complete piece of unserviceable shit! I spent I forget how many thousands to have it hauled away and replaced with natural gas furnace and water-heater.
As my elderly father-in-law (RIP) was fond of saying, “There are lots of heats in wood.”
Cutting, transporting, stacking, transporting, burning. Lots of “heats.”
I love wood heat! I miss it after burning a wood-stove circa 1998-2015.
Oh boy
That sucks. Yeah it’s just been an idea I had, but we will see.
yes, they say here in Spain, ‘la leña te calienta dos veces’ “firewood heats you twice”
But you are right, it’s more than that, but I get some bloke to bring me trailers full so only the putting it away. I say only, but it’s six tonnes in a couple of days, so it’s a real workout for my old body.
But makes me feel better having all that olive wood stacked away by the time the weather gets cold.
I only buy olive wood from the annual pruning. I have been paying 65€ per tonne, for dumped on my landing.
It would be more if I wanted them to put it away.
Might be more this year, because there’s plenty of fossil fuels involved in their part of the deal, from the army of chainsaws and the 4X4 to drag me the trailer full. I haven’t heard from him this year, but I am pretty sure he wants to do it again.
spent the am chainsawing the next hanging blowover in our woods. my 16yo son has begun his chainsaw education. 80 degrees out there, and he is getting one of his heats, hauling blocks up to the splitter with a wheelbarrow, and will be splitting and stacking this afternoon.
brought in about 1/2 cord in the last week, he and i working together for about 5 hours total.
I spend $2000 a year for an all electric house, even with the car and A/C. No maintenance, no hassles.
$20000 for ten years.
Pete, what if we converted Everyman to biomass, wood.
Easter Island. with particulate smog. Remember the pictures of England when heating was done with wood and coal, not a pretty picture.
Pittsburgh too.
Wow electric everything huh. 2 grand a year isn’t bad at all considering.
Yeah good points about biomass.
Apparently one of Bill Gates’ projects is a new type of nuclear power plant. Generally I think the guy is a malevolent creep, so I’m surprised by that move. We’ll have to see what develops there.
Bill Gates’… Generally I think the guy is a malevolent creep – Pete Atomic
============
My biggest beef with Bill Gates is his hair. Why can’t he find someone who can make his hair more presentable? I have a theory that his wife, Melinda, divorced him because of his hair.
so you don’t think she was worried about the child rape?
“Illuminating” post, and not one mention of COVID. Thanks.
July. The calm before the storm.
NYC is ramping up again. Masks. Social distancing.
In the day-time
In the night-time
Ain’t we got fun?
Macao locked down due to “Covid” “resurgence”. It will be back – maybe with Honkeypox in tow – just in time for the US selections.
I just read that Jo Jo Magoo is putting out a new mask order on Friday. We shall see.
Yeah. Come back on Saturday and apologise.
I said we shall see. Why would I apologize, you dumbshit?
NYC is the epitome of Leftist insanity.
bug farm. eat up.
Hunter Biden dam has truly broken via 4CHAN.
Hunter’s niece called him Pedo Pete. Hunter sent videos of some of his conquests to Joe Joe, and much more.
That pic I posted of Ashley licking Hunter’s private part appears to be just the very tip of the schlong.
Could be why the NYT gave the alert that Jo Jo Magoo might be on the way out.
Some think he’ll be assassinated and the rightwinger extremists blamed.
I will bet the Secret Service is under high alert after Abe was killed.
Did you see the video, the guy walked right up behind him and plugged him the back with two shots?
I saw A video but the part where he got shot was not clear and the camera moved around too much.
Maybe 10 – 15 feet away.
Wow. I can’t imagine anyone being able to get that close to POTATUS.
Abe gave Japan Ivermectin is why.
The Cabal Mafia protects its turf.
Hunter Biden = Sonny Corleone? RIP James Caan.
I certainly would not fancy being the repository of so much dirt on so many powerful, ruthless people. Ask Jeffrey Epstein. Or for that matter Ghislaine’s own dad.
Or to go back a bit Johnny Roselli, who assumed he’d exited an aura of personal danger. “What would they want to hurt an old man like me for?” They found him cut in half and stuffed in an oil drum floating in the Atlantic, off Florida.
That pic of a naked Hunter leading a frightened 8-year old girl in makeup and sexy lingerie towards bed is the one that got me.
Hotel managers used to have a class explaing how to deal with angry Saudi customers who expected 2 or 3 10 year-olds to be waiting in their bedroom as part of the service.
Hi Jim
How about getting the grid connection repaired but ditching the batteries in favour of a dual fuel generator (gas/propane) and a good stash of propane which is stable indefinitely. My 2000W inverter unit is light, will run both freezers at once, grind coffee, make toast or boil water.
I plumbed a hand pump into the suction side of my shallow well and as the pump etc. is in my basement, when power went out this winter I just opened the valve and gravity did the work!
tech will ride again. we just need some new science, and new theories.
but it wont be this old tech. based on electron flow over hard metallic surfaces. ptui.
we love tech, tech is white bling.
Someone better start coming up with new ideas pretty quick, we are running out of time.
I’m sorry for your loss Jim.
Some alternative energy does make sense to me, and it’s the stuff that has no moving parts and requires no energy inputs. Examples are solar energy for heat, where there is huge thermal mass that collects heat from sunlight during the day and then releases it at night.
Masonry heaters, aka Russian stoves and other names, which circulate exhaust gases through the stove’s huge thermal mass, and can heat an upstate New York home in the coldest winter with one quick burning morning fire and another in the evening.
Systems of this nature are built into the structure of the house and are best when designed into the blueprints, but a professional and talented remodel contractor can retrofit them.
There are other systems that do work for us without requiring lots of moving parts or energy inputs to make them work. Bees help us make candles.
A few years back I was invited to a 50-year reunion of Vietnamese students in the Bay Area. We visited one stylish house on a hilltop near Berkeley and, taking our shoes off at the door, I suddenly experienced something I’d read about but never seen in practice: the “ondol”.
“Ondol or gudeul in Korean traditional architecture, is underfloor heating that uses direct heat transfer from wood smoke to heat the underside of a thick masonry floor.”
What a fantastic notion. Take all that waste heat (from any sort of fire) and sink it into the floor.
A question.
Say everyone gets solar or wind. The electric companies can no longer make a profit and the grid slows down or stops. During the night who is going to make the black out electricity, or the energy when the wind doesn’t blow. The electric companies needs customers to buy their juice, or at least a minimum crowd to stay profitable.
A big question for the climate doomers.
If the substitutes all come into play, what happens to the oil and gas companies along with the electric generating companies? It is an important question because Biden, Kerry and the boys want to take us to a FF free state. The biggest con job in history and the Left has totally suckered into it.
They destroy FF they destroy us.
Of course, they are 6uiding 6ack 6etter in concert. They are rolling out a future that includes far, far less people than breathe today.
Although they are evil and disgusting, if open-minded, one is forced to admit that reducing the “useless eaters” to 500,000,000 will be Good for the environment.
OG
This world could not run itself with half a billion people. Extinction would be very possible.
Who would be the boss, where would the people locate to. Remember that, for example, to build a car, it takes thousands of people, not just the folks building the final assembly. Same with anything else.
One thing about the fools and clowns coming up with this crap is that the more academia and money people have got, the stupider they become with no common sense. Just look at our government right now.
If extinction comes, who will care.
To God, will we have become a failure? I wonder if He made any agreements with the Dinos before He wiped them out?
Also, will He allow the evil in Mankind to destroy itself or intervene?
He intervenes. It is published. God wins. Amen.
“This world could not run itself with half a billion people.”
What??? The world ran itself with less than 500 million people for something like half a MILLION years… until 500 years ago!!
That’s 1,000 TIMES more human history with less than 500k humans than with more.
Jesus Christ.
with less than 500m
“Fewer” Gus, not “less”.
You’re welcome.
(Sincerely, the Grammar Nazi)
ACHTUNG
Jesus Christ has nothing to do with the fact that the skills that enabled a smaller population do not exist today.
Add on the fact that the idiots that are trying to facilitate all this are eggheads that do not know s&*t.
Jesus Christ would probably say, “Simple solution here. Relearn the skills enabling lower population.”
“Fewer,” thanks Speed B.
You have normalcy bias, JAZ.
Keep in mind that 500,000,000 people is WAY more than today’s population of the entire USA.
And … things will be far, far from “normal.”
It will be a neo-feudal system where there are already WAY more cars than the few thousands permitted to drive.
“They destroy FF they destroy us.”
They destroy a way of life that is unecessary for the most part, and questionable. At various times in my life, I’ve lived comfortably without:
clothes dryers – I use an outdoor line or a rack indoors set near my wood heater for quick drying. Also have a clothes line in a hot attic.
washing machines – I’ve done just fine washing clothing in bathtubs by hand, using detergents formulated for cold water if hot water is inconvenient or unavailable.
water heaters – bathing in cold water works just as well as warm, and is much healthier for you. Stimulates circulation, one of the best things you can do. If I can’t hack cold bathing in winter time, I have a woodstove with a cooktop where I can place up to five gallons of water or so in large pots. In 1/2 hour or so, I’ve got all the hot water I need for bathing, shaving, whatever.
garbage disposals or dishwashers – compost your kitchen refuse and wash dishes the old fashioned way.
no tv set – complete waste of time and unecessary
no central heat and air – I heat with wood in winter, cut and split in my backyard woodlot – fans in summer. Window ac only turned on when heat gets unbearable. Upper 80’s or low to mid 90’s? No problem! I don’t use ac until it approaches 100.
electric or gas stove? – For a couple months last winter my electric stove had failed and was waiting for replacement, and so I simply prepared food on my wood heater cooktop. No problem. For canning food in a pressure canner, you’ll need electric or gas stoves to regulate the heat precisely. For water bath canning an old fashioned wood burning cookstove will work fine.
indoor plumbing and running water – A few years back my water line failed and I went a couple months with the type of running water you run and get. I loaded my vehicle up with 5 gallon jugs of water obtained from a spring maybe 1/4 mile away. It was winter and I pooped in a five gallon bucket lined with a tall kitchen trash bag. Then I just wrap it up in a neat tidy package and toss it into the woodheater – what could be simpler and more sanitary – burn it instead of burying it. Most people will say ewwwwwwww! For pee just use a chamber pot like humanity has done for most of its existence.
I could add more to this list but it’s already long enough.
Unfortunately I’ve got a shop for repairing stuff like rototillers, mowers, tractors etc. My welders, air compressors, and other vital stuff all run on electric. Haven’t yet figured a way out of that other than buying an expensive electric generator I can hook up to the tractor’s PTO. Takes a lot of watts to run a shop. For the time being, I’m using the grid for that.
The FIRST person to come up with a well built Thorium Salt Micro Reactor will ring the bell and be the richest person on earth.
Or… Musk should just design and build the thing. He won’t be able to get it licensed unless there’s an “R” POTUS in the WH
Elon “Midas” Musk
Why is the genius and foresight of this man not being used to better our future?
Easy, he makes the PTB look stupid in comparison! They cannot stand the competition.
Why are people under the delusion that Musk is a good man?
Simply stunning.
“Stunning” indeed. Hahahaha!
What Alzaebo said.
“A ‘cunning stunt’, that’s what he is”.
Ha! You just reminded me of Black Adder & his cunning plans.
Private Baldrick : I have a plan, sir.
Captain Blackadder : Really, Baldrick? A cunning and subtle one?
Private Baldrick : Yes, sir.
Captain Blackadder : As cunning as a fox who’s just been appointed Professor of Cunning at Oxford University?
Private Baldrick : Yes, sir.
Captain Blackadder : Well, I’m afraid it’ll have to wait. Whatever it was, I’m sure it was better than my plan to get out of this by pretending to be mad. I mean, who would have noticed another madman round here?
Captain Blackadder : [whistle blows] Good luck, everyone.
Gawd, I love Blackadder.
Hi Jim,
Some further thoughts in relation to your predicament:
> I could have bought the Rolls Royce of home generators
You didn’t specify whether you’d use diesel or petrol (gas in the US) to fuel the machine. These sorts of petrol machines have to be run for about 5 minutes every 2 months – at a minimum. There is a diaphragm in the carburettor which dries out and fails otherwise – then you can’t get the machine started.I don’t have enough experience with diesel engines, but I presume that if not used regularly, bearings will seize, starter batteries go flat, etc. There are 99 problems involved with these machines, and often the problems come to light in a worst case scenario.
> 500-gallon fuel tank outside the garage
Fuel goes off nowadays. Petrol (gas in the US) has a shelf life of about two to three months. You can add fuel stabilisers but the cost for 500 gallons would be bonkers. Those chemicals extends fuel life out to a maximum of about two years. And the older the stuff is, the harder it becomes to start engines. I don’t have enough experience with diesel fuel to know whether the same applies, but I don’t see why not. And it does, there you go.
> had a manual water pump piggy-backed onto the well
A good idea as a back up, but depends upon how deep the water is in the well. Hand pumps can only lift water so far. And the device has to be regularly used so that the diaphragm doesn’t dry and crack.
Dunno about your part of the world, but above ground water storage tanks collecting rainfall off the roof are the simplest arrangement.
> a fine, wood-fired cookstove
Another good idea, but if improperly treated (i.e. burning softwoods and/or damp timber i.e. moisture content > 15%) the steel might delaminate after five years. Even still, you have to have spare baffles ready to hand as the consumable components get err, consumed and perhaps the longest lifespan will be twenty years at most. I’ve heard good things about cast iron wood stoves, but try and find one.
Good luck!
Cheers
Chris
diesel engines can sit for years. if the oil is clean and dry, no problem. diesel fuel can last for years, again, if dry. if not, biocide preservative to keep the moisture from allowing bio growth.
we dry our wood and burn in cast iron / soapstone. heats the whole house all winter in northern new england – temps go to -30f at least a few days every winter.
Hi justanotherguy,
Thanks for the diesel tip as I don’t have much experience with that fuel, and stick to either petrol or two stroke. Tell ya what though, petrol is going off faster nowadays. Good for the farm machine repair dudes, I guess.
Whoa! Mate, I haven’t seen a soapstone Wood Burning Stove before. They might not even have them down here. Mine uses 12mm plate steel with a stainless steel 30kW water jacket. Seems OK enough. Dunno how long the thing will last, I’ll tell you when it dies, but just replaced the baffles and it seems in good nick after five years.
Out of curiosity, do you have to replace the soap stones? Like do they crack?
Cheers
Chris
look up hearthstone stoves. the stones are like masonry, last as long as the stove, hold and release heat for that fire twice a day convenience.
Thanks for the excellent post, Jim.
I’m in the process of building a small 22 ft self-sufficient coach for moving around a very sunny part of the world.
Experienced friends say “go with a 3kv Honda silent generator” for running inverter kitchen and necessary a/c when the engine is off. A designer recommended solar : double battery pack which will provide-theoretically- 24 hours power. There is also a single phase power cable to attach where and when possible.
My biggest concern is the reliable availability of diesel. We’ll run out of diesel for sale before we run out of sunlight.
And I’ll be in some remote off road places much of the time.
Any suggestions, please?
You can run the electrical component of the coach with solar with investment.
The question is can you motor down the road somehow electrically and become independent of FF.
Can solar or wind generate enough power to move your coach? Right now, I doubt it. The car manufacturers are generating 1500 type trucks right now in EV mode. The 28 ft. RV I used to own required 3500 type Ford engine and it had problems on hills. So the question to ask, how can I generate the power of a 3500 with EV. Or conversely, can I get a trailer that is towable with a 1500. Can a solar outfit charge such a vehicle?
“And I’ll be in some remote off road places much of the time.
Any suggestions, please”
eatabanker,
Buy a gun.
Re-watch Deliverance and Road Warrior.
Learn to sleep with one eye open….
Thanks for the interesting info on your solar panel installation, Jim.
I wish I could be there for your talk on July 20th, since that pleasure would only be enhanced by my visiting 83rd street, the street on which I grew up many years ago, down further East towards the river where the less affluent lived.
Enjoy all the good NYC has to offer, but ‘I beg of you, watch yourself, be on guard, this place is full of vultures, vultures everywhere’.
Soon, an identical suite of problems will begin to afflict electric automobiles… fasten your seatbelts!
If you can see this on Telegram – it’s kinda hilarious:
https://t.me/leaklive/8139
I like seeing the people so happy taking over the private gym & using the equipment.
And another, Chinese who got their digital money cut off in April for ‘planning to protest.’
That’s our future, folks. If paper money disappears.
https://t.me/leaklive/8148
Mary, how do you get those links posted? Every time I try the comment goes into moderation — then disappears.
I’ve no idea why I can post URLs. It’s truly a mystery.
“Stunning.”
Shutup, OG
SHUT UP
SHUT UP
SHUT UP
SHUT UP
SHUT UP
SHUT THE FUCKING FUCK UP
YOU DERANGED BROKEN LUNATIC
Wow!
That is some serious reaction to a 1-word posting.
God bless you, Alzaebo.
Please keep in mind that deranged broken lunatics are entitled to Free Speech too.
Also, in a pot-kettle sitch, you’re coming off kinda ragey yourself.
Chillax, Dude.
Thanks, Alzaebo.
Wait, what?
You’re not going to stalk him and attack him verbally in retaliation?
You also gave Crusher a break.
Looking more and more as if you only like beating up on women.
I guess I was right, yet again.
Actually, I have said, more than once, that Crusher owes me an explanation or an apology.
Actually, I told Alzaebo to chillax.
Actually, I have a problem with you because you are a Prideful asshole that owes me either an explanation or an apology. I do not have a problem with you simply because you are a woman.
Actually, I get along fine with many women – Just not ones that are assholes. It is the same with men. That’s equality, Mary.
Actually, you are not the be-all and end-all of all womanhood. I can both love women AND despise you. And, in fact, I do.
—–
If I have trouble with 1 black man, am I a racist? Must I demur to all black men lest I be decried a racist? What if 1 black man Wrongs me and is an asshole? What then?
Oh … and … Alzaebo:
Don’t read me if you don’t want to. Scroll on by.
Sorry, O.G.
You lie like a rug.
If you didn’t like me just because I was an asshole, then you should REALLY hate Alzaebo, because nothing I said came close to that.
And when you did attack me, you used 100% misogynist language. You have called me every anti-woman slur in the book. You have attacked me for my age, my looks, being female. I don’t see you attacking men any of these things.
You’re a liar, a hypocrite, a misogynist, and one fucked up human being.
God doesn’t love women-haters. Sorry.
God loves all of us, Mary. Even you.
Good bless you.
God doesn’t love civilization breaking feminists, male or female. kween…
here’s a mirror kween:
feminism = misandry seeking entitlements and supremacy to be imposed by force
no wonder there is such a backlash.
Justanotherguy = misogynist POS
And coward, and wimp.
Maybe a sock of O.G. or Jarek.
If one doesn’t have a scold’s bridle or a ball gag, I suppose a sock would do.
do something useful and make us a sammich, misandrope
hating feminism /= hating women. nice strawwoman, fool
I have used the analogy before–but when playing dodgeball, you don’t move until the ball is thrown. So I have been happy with my minimal collapse preparations–so far. As a dentist-now retired-I have my skills, a standard sufficient 401-k, a good social milieu, and I used to have a sister with a 38 acre farm(recently sold), which would serve as the redoubt in case of wild and crazy times. Now that I’m older, I’m only worried about the long term for my kids. I can eat out of the pantry for 6 months and camp in my paid for house.
I too have looked into solar preps, but self sufficiency always seemed a LOT of work and expense. So I appreciate the many live and learn stories here. Personally I just want the jokers who are screwing us with their tawdry plans to pay instead of all of us innocents. I spent many years telling patients they didn’t need dental insurance they needed a dentist. Pay me $50 a month and I’ll fix what ails you. No one seemed to get it. So we need personal, community, independent money that is NOT managed by the elite system for its own purposes. That system is leading to digital bank deposits. Slavery. Or what would better be called the permission society. Mother may I for adults……
But abandoning the dollar before it tanks is too scary for most of us. I have used personal scrip to pay for things but not enough people have agency to accept it.
For JohnAZ:
Look at who the ‘gimmes’ actually are:
h t t p :// w w w.youtube.com/watch?=wOI8RuhW7q0&t=16s
When the Master said ” the poor will always be with us” i believe he was looking straight at me. not a sin to be born poor but perhaps it is a sin to die rich
anyway concerning Mr. K’s dilemna, one of my favorites
” I wouldn’t have seen it if I hadn’t believed it.”
Marshall McLuhan
if you are of faith strengthen your charity, a test lay before us
and remember a gallon of gasoline can equal between 400 and 600 hours of human labor – if you are fit. for the pre-diabetic fat ass that is outside my ability to calculate
Like I said… the Bidung “administration” wants to start up the virus again to affect elections no doubt:
HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra Says There’s a “Strong Chance We’ll See a Resurgence of the Virus” This Fall – Just In Time For the Midterm Elections (VIDEO)
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/07/hhs-secretary-xavier-becerra-says-strong-chance-see-resurgence-virus-fall-just-time-midterm-elections-video/
monkey pox.
a rumor is the new one will have polio mixed in.
What I learned by studying was that polio seems to have been mostly environmental. They cleaned it up, it was gone, they then credited it to the vax; similar for smallpox or whatever they called smallpox.
Because I have watched this plandemic, I know that AIDS was a hoax (it was also the cure that killed people), I don’t believe anything exists but bioweapons.
And they are def releasing those on the public.
@ MaryQueen:
I grew up in a small Missouri town before city water and sewer systems. Up until about 1950, every house in town had an outhouse and its own well. Some people had electric pumps for the household water supply, some had a hand pump in the back yard, and some had a hand pump in the kitchen. The town was known for its high water table; you didn’t have to drill down very far at all to hit water.
Starting around 1950, people began to put in flush toilets. The trouble was, many or most of them did not put in a septic system. They just dug a ditch out to ditch by the side of the road, or to the nearest creek or open field. I don’t think they even bothered with a French drain, if to an open field. So basically you had a small town with open sewers. Every roadside ditch was an open sewer. (My parents blew a fuse once when I wanted to play in the deep puddles in the ditches after a rain.)
The combination of a high water table and polluted surface water was a Bad Idea. Interestingly, outhouses were not a problem. They are fine as long as the household water pump is a reasonable distance away from them. I think it’s 50 feet, but I’m going from memory.
I think the polio epidemics of the 50s were mostly a result of people switching from outhouses to toilets that flushed into open sewers. (Also a recipe for cholera.)
One of my old friends who also grew up in that era told me that he noticed one day that the water in one of the ditches was running bright red. When he told his mother about it, she said, “Oh, they must have another body down at the funeral home.”
Most Missouri towns put in city water in the late 50s or early 60s, followed by city sewer some time in the 60s.
City water and sewer systems have an expected lifespan of about 50 years. Hence, little towns everywhere are floating bond issues to replace their water and sewer systems.
The smaller the place, the less power it needs. Yet, I don’t see much effort to eliminate/reduce 20th century standards for square foot requirements.
No, people want bigger houses than ever. Same with vehicles. It’s stupid.
Sounds mighty painful Jim. I wonder though if you’ve done the math to see how much your PV electricity has cost you net (after counting energy you sold back into the grid) so far, per kWh. Since they are not really freebies (the gov still needs that money and gets it by other taxes anyway), I’d rather not account for the tax breaks you got, but I guess I’d count those anyway to make you feel better. Now, if you do this, and also prognosticate costs ahead to your panels’ end-of-life, you may yet find that this system will not have been such a bad idea. Maybe, and not so bad. Just tryin’ to see if I can soothe your pain a bit.
I wonder what the deniers of the One World Order think when they see this?
https://theduran.locals.com/post/2372689/https-www-bitchute-com-video-onad3f4iqmgy-pure-cringe-nato-leaders-admire-worship-some-kind-o
I would be embarrassed to be standing among this group. When it ends some unseen person says please put your masks (pronounced mosques) on and proceed to room one.
Mary, One world order is dead. Russia’s destroying the WEF in w Europe as we speak. Nothing anyone can do or say about it. This indispensable, unique and nation for western Europe has the last word.
(sorry, typo)
I truly hope so, Amman.
One end point scenario is a split/breakup between the US and western Europe. Then a general split between the New World and the rest of the world (Classical World) . WEF agenda has no future in either.
I wonder what might happen if all the people who are preppers and preparing for the awful shit the PTB are doing to us instead put their energy in refusing to allow them to do it in the first place?
Aren’t there millions or billions more of us?
Attn Great-Reset opponents: the WEF is not the only thing wrong with the world… their removal will not effect chronic global fossil-fuel dependency and an energy-supply crunch. Is it too much to ask you folks to have a bit of perspective beyond “the elites are evil”? Mary, are you with those who think these elites are the ONLY problem going?
Careful, Gus. A disagreement with Proud Mary is woman-hating. You can either agree with Proud Mary and everything that she spews or you are a misogynist. A or B.
Take the middle view – she’s CFN’s one and only Mary.
Plus, I never called anyone a misogynist for disagreeing with me.
Only for using slur words for women.
O.G. doesn’t know the difference.
Typical.
No. You call me anti-woman for being pro-male. You see life as a zero sum game and you intend for your “nation” (women – a nation without borders) to win.
The more attention men and their problems get, the less women get – and the less funding. So men must get as little as possible.
The one and only Mary. I wish. Anthea is no better.
Gus serves up another straw man.
You have the self-awareness of a poundcake.
The way you use it (zero perspective or nuance, all context thrown out or sent straight down into the conspiracy funnel-cake)..
there has never been a larger, fatter, hayeyer, more poundcakey, fluff-brained strawman than (your version of) the Great Reset.
“Strawman” (in my opinion) is most often a (currently) fashionable term lazy people use, because in many cases it simply means, “your priorities are different from mine, and I don’t like that, but I don’t actually want to confront the nature of that difference in priorities. I’d much rather just toss some cheap shade at the difference and see if it simply backs off.” Cue “strawman.”
Disagree.
Strawman is a legitimate method of opening discussion by giving a starting point that all sides can stick needles into. It is the scientific method in action providing hypotheses that can be tested, experimented with, proven with all sides committed to getting real answers. It also can sort out haywire ideas before they get traction.
Night can only see the world in terms of Big Corporations. Yet he joined the Greens, who were supposedly against this world view? Then he found out that they were corrupt and not against his worldview!
That takes the poundcake!
Jarek,
When I was in the Green Party, it was still quite pure. I never voted Green though, as I had lost faith in the system quite some time ago. Remained a member for a while, however.
Last guy I voted for was Nader.
Gus every post from you gets sillier.
You created a straw man, which happens to indeed be a method used by the intellectually lazy.
And now you project. Just add in a bit of virtue signaling and you can join the modern progs in their push to help the corporations bring us a greener and more-inclusive world.
Let the hate flow through you.
Your myopia is tractor-trailer sized.
It ain’t hate. It’s passion. You’re passionate too, which I like.
Your debate, discussion habits are awful, worse than anything you accuse me of, and your intellectual perspective is just cramped, limited. Your ego’s expansive though, there’s that.
Everything’s “silly” to you that isn’t right up the alley of your simplistic dogmas, so… no surprise my posts seem silly to ya.
Once again, I welcome you to post evidence for your claims.
You simply cannot, so now you hate.
I have seen this behavior so often, that I already know that if we continue down this line as we are presently, you will be screaming that I am nothing more than a tinfoiler.
I see you have already dipped a toe in.
Ball’s in your court, professor.
FWIW, I enjoy both gustafson’s and N.O.’s posts, and both bring valid arguments and points.
The one and only thing that will set the things into motion that are required to start FF reduction programs is to let the price float. Europe has had high FF costs for decades and they do not have pick up trucks, or monster SUVs like here. Political ceilings on the price not allowing it to float at its set point will distort things at a point that the distortion will cause disruption in the future.
Saw an article saying that the sales of RVs, the biggest FF waster in history, are down 30%, sale prices are showing up and their production is being reduced.
Hell no.
I didn’t think so, but I’m crusading against idea that approaching energy-supply-issues are simply pure fictions manufactured at Willy Wonka’s WEF headquarters to manipulate the public with, implying that if the WEF is stopped, suddenly all energy issues and structural issues shall return to their correct assessment of 100% peachy.
So, I was just checking.
I have just as much concern about what our intel agencies and military ‘leaders’ are doing to this country and others, outside of the WEF bullshit. And that is the tip of the iceberg.
You are thinking – “Are these my people? Such soft and willing sheep to the guillotine?”
Kinda, yeah. I have more of a warrior spirit, even if sometimes I truly do want to just throw in the towel, so I get it.
Mary
No, there are not millions or billions more of us.
1% of the population has half the capital. Money talks, not population.
Our country has developed the government sponsored gimme mentality to keep the vote bought off and power in place. The Deep State is the author of things so no Dem Vs GOP solutions.
We threw out the only person that was sorta headed the other direction.
Did you see what just happened in Sri Lanka at the president’s residence?
No, what happened?
Sri Lanka citizens storm streets, presidential palace in anger over economy
Looks like their Parliament might have a Jan. 6th event on their hands.
“To ensure the continuation of the Government including the safety of all citizens I accept the best recommendation of the Party Leaders today, to make way for an All-Party Government,” Wickremesinghe wrote on Twitter.
“To facilitate this I will resign as Prime Minister.”
If only it was this easy to get Bedpan Biden to resign.
Loved the picture of protesters swimming in the pool in the presidential house in Sri Lanka.
The people took over the presidential residence, swam in the pool, ate in the kitchen, worked out in the massive personal gym.
The reason people don’t do that here in the US is because our military would mow us down.
Since Sri Lanka’s navy was on hand to spirit the president out of the country, Sri Lanka clearly has some kind of a military. I guess they decided to stand down.
If Sri Lanka has an inadequate or disaffected military, it makes you wonder why the president didn’t take steps to remedy that situation ahead of time. You know…. Like fire all the ranking military that was not loyal to him and replace them with his pals. He could also have hired mercenaries.
Sorry you are going through that misfortune Mr. K. It sounds complex and very scary and intimidating so you shouldn’t feel bad expressing your angst. Honestly im not sure what a lot of it means. My main question would be are the lights gonna turn on or what lol. I hope everything is sorted out for you soon and as worry free as possible. Part of the struggle too it seems is that as much as you seek simplicity then complexity tries to find you more ruthlessly than before. It seems like that is some sort of cosmic law too.
While I feel for Mr K’s predicament, I am Rightly impressed by the way that he “mans up” and takes responsibility and ownership for his role and decisions on arriving here.
Far too often people today immediately finger-point and scape-goat. Mr K is from the last generation that valued personal integrity more than Bart Simpson, “I didn’t do it!” get-out-of-jail-free cards.
Bending towards simple does not mean you sideline or forgo cosmic intelligence or imagination. That would be foolish of a person to do.
The KISS principle gets violated with the solar and wind solutions as both are more complex than a million homes plugging into the wall or turning on the gas or electricity for HVAC. As stated over and over, complexity increases the impact of error, AKA, too big to fail.
After learning of Jim’s “mis-adventure”, I’ve decided not to buy one. I’m guessin’ this migth be the fate of not a few Solar systems…
Hi James, really enjoy your blog and love how you can distil things down so clearly. I have recently been listening with enjoyment to podcasts of yours with wonderful guests from 2018, which are incredibly prophetic and relevant.
In terms of your predicament, don’t be too hard on yourself. Everything has a lifecycle. For example its normal on these systems for the inverter to pack-in after about 10 years. The panels degrade at a rate of about 1% of their capacity per year. You need to consider what costs you have avoided from minimising/(avoiding?) c/Kwh charges from grid electricity sold to you by your retailer. Over a 9-year period I think this could be significant.
I don’t think a diesel system would be advisable economically. That is probably the most expensive way to generate power, and right now I think you would be contending with massive increases in your fuel costs and wondering if you even had secure supplies.
You’re right solar generation causes a problem on power systems. Although its reasonably predictable (better than wind anyway) it does not time-match with demand (we tend to cook our food and switch on lights at night). I could go on all day about the implications!
A comment.
Part of JHK frustration is the lack of a viable alternative to the use of FF. That is the main problem of the next thirty or so years. If we started building infrastructure now, it will never catch up. Solar and wind will never replace FF, they do not produce enough energy as they only provide real time solar or wind, also solar energy, not stored energy.
Most folks agree that nuclear is the replacement, the only alternative that generates enough energy to be economically sound. Right now, we are still tearing them down.
This is a huge deficit to our form of government. It is reactionary, it responds to problems instead of acting proactively. Congress will never respond to projected reduced supply of oil until it is too late.
That is why it is super important not to put a ceiling on the cost of oil and gas, politically. Without the market force putting political pressure on the Deep State, necessary programs will never happen until it is too late.
Inviting in the WEF board of experts will be a disaster and that is what I think the Deep State wants to do, invite them in to save the day.
Like they have in Europe.
Hahahahahahahaha!
liquid fluoride thorium reactor
check it:
youtube.com/watch?v=D3rL08J7fDA
“WEF – has revealed plans to buy up farm land from Dutch farmers who are bankrupted by climate change policies.
This was never about climate change only societal change. Eyes wide open!”
https://twitter.com/BernieSpofforth/status/1546616836372021253
Stuff like this is coming out every day now.
And some good news in relation:
“BREAKING: A Bill Gates Foundation supermarket in the Netherlands that focuses on new-age foods like plant protein meat has spontaneously caught fire in the middle of the night. http://DutchUprising.com”
https://twitter.com/TheRealKeean/status/1546284131729829888?cxt=HHwWgMCjmbXOwPUqAAAA
Worth noting is that this org. got a big boost during the Corona Hoax lockdowns. Home delivery is key to the WEF business model, for reasons previously explained.
Home delivery will also provide the opportunity for individualised poisoning of the outspoken, it occurs to me. There is no end to the advantages of the model.
The obvious one is that you won’t be able to order food online anyway unless your health ‘paperwork’ is up to date.
score 1 for us, 10000 for them.
Yes. This was covered in some of their white papers, where they talk about replacing restaurants with pop-up kitchens that are part of their network and only do orders/delivery over an app.
No pass, no food.
So, is “Uber Eats” now a tentacle of the WEF Plot?
For Rednut Liberal
– At least 21 U.S. states, along with the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, have rolled out digital vaccine passports, and four more states plan to release them soon
– One of the most prominent names in the digital vaccine passport space is SMART Health Card, a verifiable vaccine passport developed by the Vaccination Credential Initiative (VCI)
– SMART Health Cards, which can be paper or digital, can be obtained from pharmacies, doctors’ offices, state immunization registries and any other organization that has your shot records and other health information
– Disguised as a tool for convenience and safety, digitized ids such as mobile driver’s licenses and vaccine passports will be embedded into everyday life, eroding your privacy and acting as a tool to control everything from food and sustainability to travel and mobility
Yes, Rednut. Uber is directly connected to WEF.
RE: Uber.
Just to rub it in the Redworm’s latest gaping wound.
“ITALY – The UBER corruption files showed ordinary citizens how tied to the globalist agenda their government is. Sacrificing small businesses for global corporate monsters. Regardless of the cost.
Taxi drivers say no in their thousands ?”
https://twitter.com/BernieSpofforth/status/1547207815487528961?cxt=HHwWgoC9vfHT5PgqAAAA
This is the way Redneck ends
This is the way Redneck ends
This is the way Redneck ends
Not with a bang but with a whimper.
This is nuts, GA.
Neither you nor I will be here by the time it’s implemented – don’t worry, RL. We both took the clot shot, so they won’t need to poison our bug burgers.
Perhaps you are also going to tell us that there have been no countries in the world where people were prevented from doing basic shopping because they declined to be jabbed with a product that observably makes the recipient more likely to contract the disease it was supposed to prevent, more likely to get cancer and more likely to get a heart attack.
Aren’t they talking about jab no. 5 in Australia?
No, I’m not going to ‘tell you’ anything. But perhaps you could provide actual reliable information that such a thing is ‘a thing’?
I continue to have a great deal of respect for your intelligence, but I’ve come to question the sources of the information to which you apply it.
You’ve been given endless reliable information that you refuse to read or listen to. You’re not going to waste any more of my time.
Here, Redneck…
”The death by starvation of Etwariya Devi, a 67-year-old widow from the rural Indian state of Jharkhand, might have passed without notice had it not been part of a more widespread trend.
Like 1.3 billion of her fellow Indians, Devi had been pushed to enroll in a biometric digital ID system called Aadhaar in order to access public services, including her monthly allotment of 25kg of rice. When her fingerprint failed to register with the shoddy system, Devi was denied her food ration. Throughout the course of the following three months in 2017, she was repeatedly refused food until she succumbed to hunger, alone in her home.
Premani Kumar, a 64-year-old woman also from Jharkhand, met the same demise as Devi, dying of hunger and exhaustion the same year after the Aadhaar system transferred her pension payments to another person without her permission, while cutting off her monthly food rations. ”
I”ll try a link, but it’s iffy on this website program.
thegrayzone dot com/2021/10/19 /health-wealth-digital-passports-surveillance-capitalism/
I see further down thread that you’ve now been infected with the ‘5G Conspiracy Virus’. Are you for real? Do you not see how fecking stupid all your ‘information’ actually IS?
One other question regarding the wealth of ‘reliable evidence’ so widely distributed here: has the Night Howler convinced you that the 2020 election was stolen, GA? Is that the next shoe to drop?
Thanks, Paula.
That is the exact story I was going to post, but I couldn’t find it.
Of course, this never happens. Digital systems never glitch up. So we don’t have to worry about our illustrious techno-feudal future.
Thanks, Paula.
That is the exact story I was going to post, but I couldn’t find it.
Of course, this never happens. Digital systems never glitch up. So we don’t have to worry about our illustrious techno-feudal future.
Indeed, Mary.
When they rolled out a drug machine at work I was the only one who refused to give my fingerprints to the corporation.
They sold it as ”easy access” to the machine, but I decided to type my name and password in each time instead.
Oh, look at that! Other nurses would come in, put their finger up to the camera, didn’t work, wiped off their finger, didn’t work, cursed, used alcohol on their finger, didn’t work, typed in their name and password.
How convenient.
I note that Redneck has completely ignored the evidence provided to him, preferring to continue to hurl insults instead.
Tell us everything you know about 5G, Redneck. Don’t forget to include its effects on aviation. But anything really – what it can do at different frequencies, etc. would be interesting. All the safety testing you know about.
Bottom line – you took the clot shot and you psychologically can’t deal with the possibility that you did something really stupid. That’s where you and I differ. I did something really stupid too, but, psychologically, I’ve licked it. Meantime, my triple-jabbed friends and their triple-jabbed families are dropping dead of heart attacks at an alarming rate, but they remain determinedly psychotic, like yourself. That’s why I don’t hold out much hope for you, because I’m seeing how it works.
Good to see Gates getting a dose of his own medicine.
I wouldn’t mind seeing another pie hit him in the pie-hole.
That video is the best. He visibly shakes and then squeals after taking the hit.
The existence of the WEF has been suspected for a long time. Why?
DAVOs
The coordination of all thing global has been to well tuned to be coincidence.
The conversion of the nation wide political situation to a Deep State vast majority. Examples are the conversion of Blue city DA offices to extreme liberal racism identities with their elections funded by Soros and the funding of massive riots by Soros funding including the secession of downtown Seattle.
The almost perfect cancellation of Donald Trump by Deep State agencies.
Acceptance of the existence of the politically active WEF associated with the Mob aspects of the Deep State answers a load of questions.
Slightly off, John.
It was the existence of the Bilderberg Group that was suspected and called a conspiracy theory by the McMedia.
Schwab headed Bilderberg.
WEF has been around since the 70s, and was the brainchild of Kissinger. It is the public face of the Bilderberg Group.
Bilderberg just met in DC a few weeks back, at the Mandarin. Only a handful of indie journalists covered it. Totally ignored by the McMedia.
Dutch PM and criminal Mark Rutte was seen outside.
Tom Tugenhat, who is also standing for the Tory Party leadership, is an actual Bilderberger. He was in DC this year.
Sorry, ‘Tugendhat’.
goes back further than that, to pre ww1 era, with the british “round table” for the facilitation of the ‘great game’ of oil politics and empire.
“DAVOs”.
JohnAZ, I often wonder just what you think this is. I trust you know it’s the name of a very swanky little Swiss village.
He knows it’s where all the most powerful people on the planet meet.
Davos isn’t swanky. It’s simply where WEF holds its meetings.
I, being the multi-lingual expat Redneck wants to be, know this, as I have been there many times.
Redneck sits in his hut in NZ waiting for his daily dose of McNews.
Boo hoo, I feel so bad for poor little Billy Gates. Gotta wonder, either this is retribution for the land use policies being forced on the farmers, or maybe the electric vehicle batteries spontaneously combusted?
Buying up the land; buying up the houses that go under the hammer. Buying up whole schemes of new houses.
You will own nothing and we will be happy.
Redneck has gone rather quiet.
Aren’t they having a referendum on property rights in Ireland? Ireland seems to fall hook, line and sinker for everything first.
Flattery works so well in making people buy nonsense – part of Dunning-Kruger, I suppose.
The ‘intellectual class’ flatters itself that if things were not as they seem, they’d have noticed first.
The Irish are flattered by seeing themselves as plucky free thinkers who escaped the clutches of the RC church, so have jumped into the clutches of another cabal while still patting themselves on the back.
That is an interesting assessment. I was wondering how things got so bad in Ireland.
Underneath all the heroes and songs of the Irish Revolution were the Marxists. They played the long game and played it well. Now they rule and are determined to replace the Irish people even as all of humanity is being replaced. Miserable blighters to a man. The Bankers funded Marxism. If you rise high enough, you come to know this. Very few of them have the integrity to walk away from it at that point.
none of them have the ability to walk away. once part of the family, always part of the family.
satan is harsh with defectors.
SO disappointed in Ireland. I was working on my dual citizenship. I just tossed it all in the trash.
I’m not gonna go live somewhere more ‘woke’ than the US!
He got loud again.
He never learns.
None of this would be happening if Joe Biden was still alive.
now that is damn funny.
lol
LMAO!
Gotta love it. I’m sure those farmers see right through the bogus “Green New Deal” and see it as the rotten deal it is.
It is 100% about societal change.
Cocaine in the Ukraine, starring Hunter B
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZzJX5vJU2k
Safe to click, incest, dick shots, and general nastiness not included here.
Conspiracy check:
“Here is a letter from the #WorldEconomicForum President Børge Brende to Rishi Sunak discussing the implementation of the #GreatReset. Rishi Sunak signed up to the #WEF roadmap, supports #Agenda2030 #NetZero.”
https://twitter.com/p_beejal/status/1545765714266554368
LOL.
I’m beginning to think Sunak’s a shoo-in. Several early canditates have dropped out and are backing him.
Mike and David from UKC have a thing going (quite agressively!) – David thinks it will be Rishi and Mike thinks it will be the Truss moron, for her empty-vessel qualities. I expect that when Bill Gates flew in (they don’t even try to hide it) they were told who it should be. It used to be the whole membership of the Party that voted for a new leader, but it might, on this occasion, just be the Parliamentary Party – shouldn’t be too hard for the whips to get into action and tell them how they are to vote.
Young, insightful Rishi:
mirror.co.uk/news/politics/young-rishi-sunak-says-no-27443695
“In the BBC clip, he says: “I mix and match and then I go to see kids from an inner city state school and tell them to apply for Oxford and talk to them about people like me.
“And then I shock them at the end of chatting to them for half an hour and tell them that I was at Winchester and one of my best friends is from Eton and whatever. And they are like ‘oh, okay’.”
Ugh. An empty vessel that knows about money.
I agree. Sunak also has the look.
As part of that math, is it not the case that you saved about $12,000 on your electric bill during the nine years you have had solar panels?
Great writing, as usual.
Enjoyed the piece, as is also usual.
I was hoping to get some pointers here, but so far have gotten not much.
Here’s my experience:
For those hating battery powered tools. I can’t disagree enough. I have some Ryobi drills for over twenty years with weekly use and they still work fine. The Nic cad batteries wear out after about 3years. You can’t by them now, but the Lithium ion ones while very expensive at HD are available on the net. The forty volt Ryobi chain saws and weed wackers are just the bomb, the batteries run out of charge after I do. The chain saw is so easy to use I’d never buy a gas one again.
I tend to agree. Over the past few years I picked up a Bosch pro-line drill/screwdriver combo and it is a very impressive tool.
Also got a Stihl hedge cutter and it is as good as any gas model I ever used back when I was doing greenskeeping in college. Battery life is also excellent with the AP series batteries.
Was browsing the Stihl battery lawn mowers, and they look pretty pro to me. Once the Honda dies, I may have to go for one.
The convenience is hard to beat, and the performance is impressive.
There should have been second Bosch item in that first sentence: a battery powered shop vac. Also tops.
Ok, on the home electricity front. I have a built in generator with 120 gallon propane tank. The key is to get a generator just big enough for your needs but not bigger. I wanted to get a bigger tank, but they are very expensive and I can always double up with another one. Right now, I figure I can go about four days of continual use with air cond. Cost 8k.
My question is what about long term outages? I could turn the generator on and off and stretch things but that’s only a few weeks at best.
I was thinking of a solar powered freezer, since frozen food would be really nice to have long term. I was wondering if anyone has experience with them. I live in the south, so I don’t have to bury tanks and have got plenty of sun.
Also buy used propane tanks. Much cheaper.
To extend battery life don’t leave the batteries out in extreme low or high temperatures especially true with Lithium ion. When I worked up North I used Nic Cad for that reason, they handle low temps much better. Don’t have that problem now in south NC but still keep the batteries in Air cond.
Re those long-term outages: Your home will certainly attract much unwanted attention if you’re the only home with lights on
Indeed. He will be the most popular guy for miles and miles.
Preppers often do not go “whole hog.” They gather and store for a half-assed collapse with a normalcy bias that does not include starving millions Mad Maxxing everywhere.
Most preppers will simply be a soon-empty Food Bank.
Sad but True.
On those cold and overcast days when solar is of little value, be comforted in the fact that your electric rates are about one third the rates charged by Pacific Gas & Electric in Northern California, where I live. My gas furnace does not work when the electric power is down. Unfortunately, PG&E has been saddled with every hair brained scheme approved by the California Public Utilities Commission and the related costs have been passed on to customers. Fortunately, I have been living in my house since before Jarvis-Gann property tax protections went into effect in 1978 and the mortgage was paid off long ago. in January 2019, PG&E filed for bankruptcy protection for the second time in two decades. The company’s common stock trades at a lower price than it did in the late 1960’s and no longer pays a dividend. A lose-lose situation all the way around.
I hate to be a bother with everything going on but i would really like to know what the deal is with not being able to post links. How come some people can and not others? What do you have to do to be able to post links around here lol?
I post bad links but I can still post links. So it’s not personal. It’s not coming from Mr Kunstler or Clusterfuck. It’s on your end. Maybe try another browser.
Can you post links on other sites?
I don’t believe that Mr. K would do that to me. But. Everything is personal.
I have tried different browsers but no luck yet. I can post links elsewhere so not really sure what is going on. I guess i am just making a lot out of this and it isn’t a big deal but it just seems so central and fundamental to me right now.
And honestly i am thankful Mr. K allows us a forum here. He doesn’t actually have to do that at all so i recognize what is given can just as easily be taken away. I’m appreciative and didn’t mean any harm – in case you are peeking in Mr. K 🙂
If it makes you feel better, I can post links but I have to log in 3 times before I get in.
You have log-in problems too Night Owl? I thought only my computer was being so retarded. Occasionally I try three times and then it locks me out for 30 minutes before I can try again. I know I’m using the right name and password because I double check it and carefully type each time. Once I actually had to reset my password thinking that my account was hacked.
Really wonder what is going on here. Is there some kind of game afoot trying to block certain individuals that some techno powers have it out against? It all seems rather suspicious.
I think so. It has been going on for well over a year now.
WordPress definitely censors. After I posted Thales docs on the digital ID infrastructure, I could no longer post to CJ Hopkins’s WP site.
I can post to his Substack however and have interacted with him via email a few times, so the censorship is through WP.
Thank you. Yes, it does make me feel better to know you are having issues too.
So Bedpan Biden finally showed us the first photos from the 10-billion-dollar James Webb Space Telescope.
In his press briefing he bizarrely questioned “I wonder what the press is like in these distant worlds?” No doubt, his approval rating would likely be just as bad.
Deep down he is probably also wondering whether we could sell oil to them from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Also, whether Hunter would be able to work business deals with these other worlds for major profits. Are there good drugs out there we don’t know about? What about potential prostitution possibilities?
So much to wonder about these distant worlds. Thanks James Webb Telescope!
One earth resources satellite, one communication satellite and one weather satellites all do better than a 10-billion-dollar space probe whose pictures only prove that again, the emperor has no clothes .
Also, Jill Biden compared the complexity of the entire Latino population to that of a breakfast taco.
The Biden clan is so totally clueless. Opposing interests definitely need to use this to their advantage for the Latino vote come November.
And for all his brilliance, he still doesn’t know when to “walk away”.
~toktomi~
Upstream, somebody brought up the subject of ‘Scythes’, reminding me I had an ancient scythe out in the shed. I dug it out from underneath a ton of junk. Here it is, with an 18″ steel blade, a curved oaken post, and two handles. Like I mentioned before it looks like a tool the grim reaper would use to harvest souls. On the blade is stamped ‘Winchester Manufacturing Company, Winsted, Connecticut’. A little snooping reveals that this company began making plows and scythes in 1792; not sure when they closed but the redbrick plant still exists along the Mad River, looking a little worse for wear. This tool doesn’t appear to be in too bad shape. (One thing I’ve learned, store tools out of the rain they’ll last forever) This scythe came out of a barn at the house I grew up in, which was built in 1832. I tightened the screws and bolts up, replacing a few of them, sharpened the blade, and out back in a stand of tall weeds, gave it a go. My impression is this: you have to be in good shape and have some prodigious upper body strength to use one of these things for any length of time Oh, cuts nicely, specially once you get a technique down, but I was pretty tuckered out after about 15 minutes. Back in the day farmers would be out in the field threshing wheat and hay for 10 solid hours with one of those things.
Yeppers, I’ve got a couple old scythes up in the garage rafters too. Give the blades a good sharpening on the old stone grinding wheel and they would probably cut like new. Likely picked them up for a few bucks at a farm auction years ago.
It pays to keep things simple and stick with the old technology that actually works.
Back Row Heckler=The Connecticut Grim Reaper
One thing I rarely see mentioned is the fact that, though 1% have the money, every single thing we count on in order to live a comfortable and pleasant life is made to work and keep working by people who are decidedly not among the 1%. Water comes from the spigot, the lights turn on, the a/c works, the mechanic fixes your car, the roads are resurfaced and driveable, the food comes to the door, etc. None of these things can be made or caused to continue working by the 1%, who are the most helpless people ever to afflict the planet (as are their lackeys). They are entirely dependent on better and more able people than themselves. When these people, who vastly outnumber them, stop doing their jobs or begin undoing them, their comfortable world comes to an end.
Paradoxically, the best way for the people to defeat the WEF is to ignore them more or less… and instead, to correctly analyze and deal with the actual economic issues, energy issues, structural issues the global polity face together… To not be the helpless, hapless, confused group Great Resetters need us to be to push their plans, but to be an informed, active polity taking responsibility and control of their own destiny and real problems.
Namely, our energy future.
No the way to stop it is to shop local, protest loudly (ala the farmers in NL, and the truckers in CN), and participate in local politics.
Ignoring it allows them to keep pushing the agenda.
If you knew what it took to stop it, you’d have seen it coming 2-3 years ago.
But you didn’t see any of it coming.
So far, the “it” is nothing more than the covid and vax program, neither of which fooled me for a second. DAVOS is predictable, and also easy to put into perspective, when you start from a perspective of coming energy-supply issues.
When your entire perspective is DAVIS-centered, you’re blind to anything else. That’s where you sit.
The opposition you describe will be chasing its own tail and ultimately playing into DAVOS’ hands, without an accurate concept of the energy future.
Sorry. You’re the one whose perspective needs broadening.
The energy supply issues that are currently being experienced are manufactured.
You are free to make an argument, just as you have been for the last 6-7 posts.
Unfortunately, ad homs, fallacies, and fearmongering don’t fulfill the criteria.
I’m not even talking about CURRENT energy-supply issues (manufactured, sure, but relatively insignificant), and never am.
I’m talking about peak oil, and the energy and economic landscapes coming in the next 50 years.
A broader perspective…
And you aren’t going to solve whatever long-term issues there are until you can (1) identify them and (more importantly) (2) stop the imminent threat that affects all of us right now, which hides behind the ideas you believe in.
So again, provide proof (hard numbers and associated concrete future scenarios) on what nat. gas, oil, timber, water and other resources we need to balance right now in order to avert the crisis. Then give us hard dates on when this crisis is going to peak.
Furthermore, provide us with a detailed description on exactly what we need to do to cut the population, and how you are going to do so ethically. No murder accepted, and no infringements on personal freedom. You are for personal freedom and the right to bodily integrity, no?
No theoretical computer modeling accepted for any of the above. Give us the hard data and what you know is going to happen.
And finally, inform us as to how we are to proceed with regard to your coming resource and population crisis when we are on the precipice of being plunged into a centralized system of control, the perpetrators of which rely on popular acceptance of the same ideas you would appear to push.
Lots of blank space is available for you to just provide us with your detailed explanation.
Have at it, brains.
“So far, the “it” is nothing more than the covid and vax program”
You missed the digital ID. How do you stop that by ignoring it? If you can’t participate in society or even go to the grocery store without a green tick on your app, how do you ignore that? What happens when it’s mandatory to carry the app, and being found outside your home without a phone and an up-to-date QR code puts you in jail for 10 years with your property confiscated?
Easy (initially) if you live at the back of beyond and have your own infrastructure – most of us don’t. No visits to the grocery store and we’re dead within a fortnight. And then there are those 5G masts – you can try ignoring those too, I suppose.
Anarchy.
A response to NO:
————–
“…provide proof (regarding)…what natural gas, oil, timber, water and other resources we need to balance right now in order to avert the crisis.”
—————
A central idea to a limits-to-growth perspective is that developing crises of peaking resource availability and usage CANNOT be averted, aside from drastic changes to current social patterns.
Oil and hydrocarbons are central because their Energy Returned On Energy Invested is high. Every currently available alternative energy source’s EROEI is much lower, at least half if not much less, sometimes even less than 1:1. Except for nuclear, which is roughly equivalent to oil and hydrocarbons.
EROEI often tends to be overestimated, too. Cost-analyses of current infrastructure and oil-inputs necessary to energy-“production” are often underestimated.
The big picture is this: Hydrocarbons are finite. Hydrocarbon reserves are mostly discovered at this point. Much more has been discovered than can possibly still exist in the ground undiscovered. And what has been discovered has been used rapidly, to the point that production-growth shows imminent signs of stagnation, which, statistically (based on data from individual wells, extraction sites) precedes a production-decline mirroring the preceding production-rise.
There is no pinning down these declines to exhaustion exactly. There are only: the certainty that the declines will come, and some general estimate of a time-frame. Essential exhaustion of hydrocarbon supplies within centuries. One to two for oil. Four or five for coal. Two or three for natural gas. Or so. But these values are skewed towards projections of current usage.
A final certainty: the ride down from the hydrocarbon peak will be bumpier than the ride up to it.
The other potent energy source, nuclear… how long could nuclear replace hydrocarbons before nuclear accidents and maintenance-requirements overwhelmed the social capacity to continue the project? More centuries? A couple millennia, absolute tops? Eventually, something would do nuclear in.
The big picture: this complex-high-output-energy game currently played in contemporary society is irrevocably short-lived. There is no “averting” the “crisis” of its collapse within a matter of centuries, or possibly a millennium or so…TOPS. And, perhaps much less time will be required.
Meanwhile, the high energy-consumption drives population-growth. The “population-slowdown” in first-world economies is a suspect idea. That population-growth reduction may be driven not by high consumption-levels or “development,” but by the crowding of current overpopulation itself, and other complex social-factors rooted in the entire social-picture. In any case, there’s no realistic expectation of creating a first-world-consumption-level life for everyone on Earth in the face of hydrocarbon decline, so that’s not even a possible tool for future population-growth-curbing.
—————
“Furthermore, provide us with a detailed description of exactly what we need to do to cut the population… ethically.”
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How to cut population without throwing ethics out the window (sort-of): A two-step program. Step 1: CONVINCE people of the necessity of reducing population intellectually and honestly (finite number of people on a finite surface-area… not too complex a concept). Step 2: LET THEM WORK IT OUT FOR THEMSELVES. Wars, suicides, voluntary birth-control, violence, retaliation to violence… let the people find their tools of choice and collectively solve the problem in the light of their own reason.
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“And finally, inform us as to how we are to proceed with regard to … coming resource and population crisis when we are on the precipice of being plunged into a centralized system of control, the perpetrators of which rely on popular acceptance of (truth of said coming resource and population crisis for their authority)…”
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Attack not the Great-Reset claims of coming population and resource crises (since their particular claims are not wholly untrue), but attack any exaggerations, inaccuracies and flaws in their 1) timeframes for the crises 2) claims to evidence of the crises (if faked or manipulated) 3)strategies to combat the crises.
Combat their response-plan to coming hydrocarbon exhaustion and population pressures by countering with your own response plan… One which is based in encouragement of availability of accurate information and data on resource and population realities to every person on Earth, and encouragement of their free responses to the information. An education-based response and a libertarian response—as opposed to a misinformative, totalitarian, economic-elitist-skewed response.
In short, accurate analysis of the true situation is the best weapon against misinformation and manipulation… and against elitist power-plays.
Encourage debate.
@GA
I didn’t mean “ignore” the WEF rollouts and programs… resist them 100%, but what I meant was, spend even more energy positively coming up with your own paths to a better future in response to the energy and population issues they address, rather than simply negatively being in reactive-mode to their programs, or denial-mode about real energy and population issues.
Wow, Gus, you are certainly optimistic.
In my opinion we have already hit peak oil and we are already living through the disruption the downside causes.
I suppose you could try to educate the population, but this is no longer the 70s, when adults could be reached with facts and logic.
We are living among adults with the emotional maturity of toddlers, throwing tantrums so that Big Daddy will give them the ice cream (or oil) they are sure he has hidden somewhere.
Even if we had ”centuries” more of fossil fuels we don’t have centuries more of clean water, forests, topsoil, minerals, etc.
When I was a kid we still said “There’s plenty of fish in the sea” but that is long gone, while people are pissed off when their fish n chips are disrupted. Come on, Big Daddy, get me more fish!!!
I just saw that there are only 7 dolphins of a particular strain left on the planet and the fishermen are busily killing them because they eat the fish that the fishermen want to catch and sell.
But sure, try to persuade people to voluntarily cooperate to live within our planetary means.
That’ll work.
@Paula
Yeah, part of my lil dream is… people who want to rein things in use violence against those who are not acting compatibly, but at a local level… not top-down filtered through government.
And, yes, peak oil is now, or soon. Maybe a twenty-year process we’re in center of, or just started, or about to start. Something like that. The hundred or two hundred years for oil etc. up there were timeframes for approximate exhaustions, not peaks.
Paula, spot on. The immature ones you talk about are like Rednut Liberal below, castigating people for not being hip to the J6 kabuki theater.
YOU MUST WATCH IT OMG OMG THERE WAS AN INSURRECTION!
(without weapons, or leaders, etc. and ushered in by capitol police).
He falls for every dog ‘n’ pony show they put out there.
Yeah there’s really not much hope considering people like that are the norm.
You didn’t answer any of my questions, Gus.
Yeah, yeah. Your incredible point is, there’s no absolute proof possible for things like this. It’s educated conjecture concerning the future.
Stop making claims that near-future population and energy-issues are manufactured falsehoods without doctoral thesis level, peer-reviewed, data driven, blue-checkmarked proof then. You have less than no proof. Plenty of evidence the other way to demand agnosticism at minimum. You want to be a limits-to-growth agnostic, and focus on current events and opposing DAVOS, fine. I’d never object to that.
But if your anti-DAVOS strategy is to fight flimsy misinformation with even flimsier misinformation… no.
“Yeah, yeah […]”
Finally an admission that you have no clue about any of this stuff.
Ah… big win for the corporate stooge and his conspiracy hobby.
Still no evidence?
Aw.
Gustafson
Looking for ways to help oneself and feed oneself is the direction.
Not easy but what is? Just become the right size and reduce or increase the scale.
Big is bad and small is best. Small groups, small but efficient systems.
There is ways, look around and get out of the urban as best you can…
Thats what I am doing and preparing the only way I know how.
I got potatoes in as they are easy and no work, all other produce is difficult. A few chickens and a little land.. the dream
I agree. I live by rural water, which i like for fish and travel. But, I believe the world NEEDS this population debate. We probably need civil wars too. But, people need to organize themselves with intelligence. Fighting “evil elites” without a positive alternative vision you seek to replace “the enemy” with… you become your own worst enemy when you lack substance just like the enemy you fight.
robotics. the guidestones wanted for half billion.
with robotics it can be the zillionaires and a small peasant class. Chinese possibly as they are subservient. the other races are less docile.
That is a very comforting thought.
“every single thing we count on in order to live a comfortable and pleasant life is made to work and keep working by people who are decidedly not among the 1%. Water comes from the spigot, the lights turn on, the a/c works, the mechanic fixes your car, the roads are resurfaced and driveable, the food comes to the door, etc”
I’ve asked this question over and over and never get an answer, just silence. And I use the same story to illustrate it. My great grandparents lived an upper middle class lifestyle in this little hillbilly town here. In 1892 great great grandpa had built a small furniture factory, powered by a steam engine, and he did well. He built himself a 5 room Victorian style mansion with fancy workwork both inside and out. A painter’s nightmare on the outside, and lots of stuff to polish and dust inside. He and great grandma raised 4 children there, and thought they had it made. They felt comfortable, pleasant, and pleased. Yet they did not have any electric appliances at all, none. No phone either. Why is it they had a nice and comfortable life that they never complained about, and yet everyone today says that such things are impossible and one cannot be happy without electricity, piped in nat gas, running water, etc. Is it because people today are weak, pathetic, and addicted to soft living?
Once when I had a class of high school kids, we read a story that featured a fancy 19th Century home: fancy woodwork, Persian carpets, crystal chandeliers–the works.
I told the kids that such a home would have had no electricity and no ind0or plumbing. Yet it represented the lap of luxury at the time. A couple of the kdis said they’d commit suicide rather than live like that.
You have to remember, though, that the very FIRST thing people did, as soon as they achieved even a modest level of affluence was to send out the wash. Washing and ironing was a household’s biggest and most backbreaking task: wash all day Monday and iron all day Tuesday–rain or shine, and even if it was 95° outside–without even a fan.
In “My Antonia” (by Willa Cather), all the young women from the surrounding Nebraska farms worked at the laundry in town.
The absence of electricity, running water (and running hot water), and modern appliances meant that you hired as much domestic help as you could afford. Before the Civil War, people who lived in cities and towns relied heavily on slaves for domestic help, at least in the slave states.
Made a mistake up there in my post, the old Victorian style house of my forebears had 5 bedrooms upstairs, not a total of just five rooms as I had written. Just curious about this blog forum, but is there no way to edit a post after it is up? And how to tell if you have any responses, other than doing a lot of scrolling to find it?
One thing that ancient house did have was flush toilets and water in the bathrooms – at a time when running running water wasn’t available commercially or by electric pump. In the attic, directly above the two bathrooms on the lower 2 floors, was a large galvinized water tank in a sort of tower. The tank had enough elevation to supply water under pressure lower down. But what I’ve never figured out is how the water got pumped up to that tank in the first place. Some kind of mechanism was pumping water from a 16 foot deep cistern up to a tank up there. Once electricity and running water arrived in the 20’s and 30’s, that setup was obsolete and forgotten about.
Widening of the war has occurred with NATO countries providing Ukraine with weapons, training, and now plans for a new one million man army equipped with the latest Western weapons to retake Donbass and Crimea.
The question before us is whether the Kremlin will again give way to hesitation, holding on to false hopes of negotiations, until Russia again creates a more difficult task for herself by waiting. Or has the Kremlin finally learned that hesitation does not pay?
www(dot)paulcraigroberts(dot)org/2022/07/12/ukraine-update-11/
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Wars and rumours of wars.
1,000,000 NATO soldiers in Ukraine fighting Russians? What could possibly go Wrong?
Where in the world is NATO going to come up with a 1M man trained army? Even if they somehow came up with the bodies, they don’t have the training, commitment, and battle-hardened competence to pull it off. Not to mention the fact that there will be hypersonic missile salvos falling on Euro capitals long before that point. Ukraine is just a show war for NATO at this point. Which naturally prompts the question: what’s the real agenda behind all this foolishness?
PCR’s become a little hysterical for my tastes of late.
They will probably use those robot dogs and cyborgs we so often see trotted out in the news of future military upgrades. I am sure there is some top secret testing going on deep in a mountain lair in the Alps.
Right. 1,000,000 soldiers is a tall order.
From the Q angle, the Black Hats will stop at nothing to keep The Truth of their Ukrainian mischief from seeing the light of day.
Wars tend to get nastier the longer they go on. In the Civil War the gloves came off in 1864, with the hanging of irregular troops in Virginia & Missouri and No Quarters Given battles like the Wilderness, Spotsylvania CH & Cold Harbor. In 1918 the fighting along the Hindenburg Line exceeded anything that came before in pure savagery. On the Eastern Front, in the final 4 months of combat, the casualties in 1945 were more than any other year. The same thing may happen in Ukraine. This could get real bad. And the war could spread like a virus — it wouldn’t take much, a misunderstanding, a few provocations — suddenly a nuclear tipped hypersonic missile is flying toward Brussels at 17000 mph, arriving in 6 seconds.
If I was Russian I would already be getting pissed off.
The Ukies killed 3 children in Donetsk last week by using their newly gifted missiles to shell the civilians in the city.
And they killed 2 Russian teenagers a couple of weeks ago in Russia by shelling a border town.
You know how much Putin values children.
He might be ready to start blowing up the NATO handlers pushing the Ukies into continued escalation.
Imagine the propaganda blitz we’ll get then.
I expect the Ukraine War to become the newest Forever War. (I know, quite a change from my prediction, at the start of the war, of a lightning encirclement by Russia, of Ukrainian forces preparing to invade the Donbass. Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis. Nothing wrong with being wrong once in awhile – I think that’s what used to be called a “learning experience”.)
Even if Russia forces a peace treaty on Zelenskyy – or a puppet of Russia’s choosing – we will keep dumping premium gasoline on the fires of insurgency. Even if the majority of the UN accepts the treaty – and the new lines on the map – we will double down on psycho.
Fits in with the neo-con/neo-lib plan to chew away at Russia from the edges. Fits in with the GloboCap plan to bankrupt and isolate U$ and western Zooropa.
And all you wannabe mercs out there planning to join the Azov Brigade so you’ll be popular with the Ukie babes – they’ve already been shipped off to brothels in the U$ and middle east.
Blue-Eyed Syria.
The US dumped fuel on the fire in Ukraine after WW2.
The Germans quit fighting but the Banderists kept on because the US paid and armed them.
I think it took until 1954 or so for the Soviets to finally stop them.
Then the US kept on secretly arming them through Operation Gladio, and had them ready to go after the 2014 coup. (Well some they had stashed in the US and they shipped them over to Ukraine after the coup.)
I’m sure it was unpleasant for the people of western Ukraine to have well-armed terrorists in their midst, and it will be unpleasant in the future, but I think that Russia mainly wants them out of the government and preferably unarmed.
Unarmed Nazis without political power are fairly harmless.
We know that from all those we brought here through the Ratline.
Civil wars are particularly nasty because they are more like “family fights” – the worst type of fight to get involved in. The cops dread showing up on the scene of family fights because the people involved are likely to be extremely dangerous and irrational. As for nuke wars, that will take us back to the Middle Ages – a world made by hand, horses, and oxen.
What is the agenda? We were talking peak oil upthread. There are people who think the Earth has a creamy oil center of fossil fuel deliciousness that will never run out, but our owners are not that deluded.
The US ruling class wants Russia’s resources and land.
They just don’t want the people.
Marxism also believes in endless resources. It’s just State Capitalism. You spent your life advocating for that crap too.
Good new for our Host Mr. K, his dead solar panels may soon be worth more than he paid for just as scrap. Here is the text of the article:
As the devastating effects of climate change become ever more present, the world has been forced to take a collective step back and reevaluate the best ways to combat them. A big part of the global commitment to fighting back against climate change is the goal of transitioning to more renewable energy sources. Solar energy has been among the more common renewable energy sources to be widely adopted. As a result, in the coming years, solar panels in disrepair will suddenly become worth a lot more money.
The reason why solar panels are suddenly predicted to skyrocket in value has to do largely because of two distinct factors. For starters, on a global level, solar power usage is expected to increase to 40% by 2030. Second, the uptick in usage is projected to make solar panel parts harder to come by. These two factors will inherently lead to dead solar panel parts becoming more valuable. Rystad Energy predicts that in less than 10 years recycled solar panel parts will go from being a $170 million industry to a $2.7 billion industry. To put it into perspective, that equates to a 1,488.2% increase. Based on those projections, this means that defunct solar panels are poised to define an exceedingly profitable emerging market.
Moreover, there are a lot of advantages to recycling parts from dead solar panels to make new ones. At present, most non-working solar panels have ended up stockpiling in landfills. Recycling them will mean less will end up in landfills that are already brimming with waste. That amounts to a win for the solar panel industry, a win for the landfills, and a double win for the environment. Additionally, like many things comprised of raw materials, there exists a toxic mining culture overseas where many human rights violations frequently take place. Reducing the need to rely on newly mined raw materials, could serve to somewhat alleviate the brutalities that exist in other parts of the world. Lastly, recycling non-working solar panels to make new ones is just a more sustainable model overall. And honestly, one that if properly exercised will serve to prevent renewable energy efforts from being inherently redundant.
While solar panels and their recycled counterparts will likely represent a significant portion of the push toward renewable energy, the world is also moving to include other environment-saving initiatives, too. Carbon capture has come to the forefront as a promising solution to aid in reducing the overall emissions being pumped into the air. Although still in its early stages, carbon capture technology would theoretically allow excess carbon dioxide to be vacuumed out of the air and then stored underground in airtight containers where it could no longer negatively impact the Earth’s atmosphere. Massive corporations like Google and Apple are investing significant amounts of capital to make the process of carbon capture a reality. That being said, the technology that supports the concept of carbon capture is still very much in its infancy and there remain a lot of roadblocks to navigate in order to effectively materialize a solution like carbon capture.
Wokeness is collapsing Western military forces just as Washington gins up war with Russia and China. In the US white heterosexual males are imposed upon in the military. This backbone of the fighting force is forced to take “sensitivity training,” from which they learn that they must accept the unmerited promotion of blacks, homosexuals, and women in front of them and that they cannot possibly discipline such privileged people without being accused of being a racist or misogynist or homophobic. The consequence is to destroy military discipline.
In Canada, the Woke military has become a public joke as this news item reveals:
Will Canada’s Soldiers Be Able to Fight when Their Hairdos and Long Fingernails Are at Risk?
Canadian military to allow skirts and hair coloring for soldiers.
Changes to the dress code were long overdue, the military authorities say.
www(dot)paulcraigroberts(dot)org/2022/07/12/the-frame-up-of-bo-jo/
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Who won World War I? Who won World War II? Did white, straight males play a role in these victories?
Today, does Russia have Woke Battalions? Does China?
Check out the pictures at the bottom of the article. Not exactly General Patton’s Army.
“Know your enemy.”
Russian military leaders must be licking their lips in anticipation of fighting such retards to the death. China too.