Vintage work crew photos

[Frank S]

If

If it were to be done over again distributed generation of electricity and storage of electricity would be the go to method. Mandating that every house have solar panels on their roofs and localized batteries of either electrochemical or other means is a way to make this kind of idea work.

Here's one I think is brilliant:

https://eteq.com/worlds-first-carbon...pens-in-italy/

They are doing a megawatt scale plant now to. Nothing in this system is cutting edge. Only it's assemblage. Engineering like this is a way to bridge the gap in Solar and in Wind. And scaled down to a few house lots maybe 6 in size (guessing here) you have 24/7 electricity. And many more people to have jobs in maintenance. Remember maintenance? Almost a four letter word now.

I remember correctly Texas has one of the whimpiest transmission line systems in the USA. No argument there. Texas is basically on it's own grid system and shares very little with other states the exception being the neighboring states. Ercop dropped the ball last winter due to the high reliance on wind and solar, for each megawatt of wind or solar there is supposed to be an equally sized Natural gas generator as back up or standby. Natural gas generators are the only thing that can be powered up and brought online on demand. due to the nationwide scamdemic many natural gas intensifying stations were left short staffed or in many cases taken off line completely, the high demand for gas to heat homes and run other things reduced the quanity and pressures required to run the generators,many of the generators were not even maintained to be brought online at all so there was power outages. This summer we are in an 11 to 12 year heat cycle causing much higher than normal electrical power requirements. so once again many areas are experiencing some outages, Nothing like California sees frequently but when it the temps. are in the triple digits any your power goes out you get uncomfortable really fast. Most of the outages seem to happen in the larger cities where their grid system is even more over stressed.

Mandating that every house have solar panels on their roofs and localized batteries of either electrochemical or other means is a way to make this kind of idea work. Would be one good way however the word MANDATE would have to be changed to offering an equitable incentive otherwise once I had enough solar/ wind and storage to meet 125% of my needs I'd take an ax to the grid lines and they know I would not be alone in doing so.

[mwmkravchenko]

Would be one good way however the word MANDATE would have to be changed to offering an equitable incentive otherwise once I had enough solar/ wind and storage to meet 125% of my needs I'd take an ax to the grid lines and they know I would not be alone in doing so.

Yeah. Only poor word use is my fault really, and people getting all riled up over being told what to do. The simple facts of life are that we are all told what to do. And it's generally for our good, and other peoples good. Freedom of choice stops where our freedoms impinge on other peoples freedoms. And the deeper we analyze that simple principle the less "freedom" we really have. The one part of freedom that amuses me the most is our freedom to accept the consequences of poor choices. I agree that incentives are required for any large group of people to make significant changes. That would be a given fact in regards to the initial cost of this kind of idea. For me the interesting thing is that pretty much only government has the ability to fund something like this as there is to little payback for pretty much any company. And it would effectively put the nails in the coffins of most if not all major utility providers. Residential neighborhoods would be self sufficient. Only industrial users of electricity would need to have peaker plants to keep up with demand. Or much better renewable and storage of some truly large scale capacity.

We can dream. But I think there's to much money and profit tied up in the present system worldwide to change without there being a truly ground shifting thing like what should be done.

[Toolmaker51]

I'll let this state what freedom is . . .



Subjective, in every sense of the word

[schuylergrace]

I'll let this state what freedom is . . .



Subjective, in every sense of the word

Just a quick reminder: The government is us. We elected people to make those laws and regulations in order to live in a more ordered and civilized society. So, blaming "The Government" is simply blaming yourself and everyone else who lives here. You may not agree with the way the government is working, and we have remedies for that via your vote and your voice. Personally, I don't want to go back to the days when you could just take whatever land you wanted or build a house with faulty wiring and sell it to some unsuspecting person or have just anyone behind the wheel of a Mack truck.

[schuylergrace]

Ercop dropped the ball last winter due to the high reliance on wind and solar, for each megawatt of wind or solar there is supposed to be an equally sized Natural gas generator as back up or standby. Natural gas generators are the only thing that can be powered up and brought online on demand. due to the nationwide scamdemic many natural gas intensifying stations were left short staffed or in many cases taken off line completely, the high demand for gas to heat homes and run other things reduced the quanity and pressures required to run the generators,many of the generators were not even maintained to be brought online at all so there was power outages.

In fact, a study done by the state showed that wind and solar played a large part in propping up the grid. The problems were twofold: 1.) The natural gas production facilities supplying the generating stations were never properly winterized, so they were going offline as they froze up, and 2.) After ERCOT ordered all the utilities to start cutting power to keep the grid from completely going down and suffering major damage, some cut power to the natural gas suppliers and distributors, which made the problem even worse. However, even though folks early on blamed renewable energy producers as the problem, they were online with all their normal production facilities and actually saved the day (along with nuclear and coal, to be fair). Interestingly enough, the Texas legislature took relatively quick action to "ensure" this doesn't happen, again, but with one major shortcoming--they didn't require the gas producers to take steps to properly winterize their facilities, which was the cause of all this mess.

But I do agree that distributed generation is going to be the wave of the future, if the big utilities don't get their way. In nearly every state, they are trying to push through laws that will restrict implementation of independent home/business solar systems and stop states from forcing them to purchase excess power that's generated. It only makes sense to take the physical grid out of the equation in large part, both to cut electrical losses, as well as reduce construction and maintenance costs. Of course, you'd still need the grid to dump excess power onto, to support homes and businesses that don't have solar (or wind or water), and to provide power when the local source is down for whatever reason. But it wouldn't need to be nearly the grid we have today, especially the huge, long distance transmission lines.