Posted on 06/15/2021 7:43:32 AM PDT by blam
If it’s less, there should be fewer. We’ll see how many we get.
I’m just fairly convinced that a lot of “wildfires” are due to policies that restrict clearing to reducec the risks of genuine, naturally-occuring (lightning, for example) grassland and forest fires.
Then there are other causes that are not so natural: homeless camps, careless recreationists,..., and my hunch of some firebug on some government payroll.
Fires in Oregon during the summer last year were appearing within hundreds of yards of the same stretch of highway, for example. Too many to spontaneously occur. Human agency causng mayhem during the “protests” is my guess.
Need nukes to cover the base load and some combination of other power sources along with battery storage to cover the peaks and troughs. Just need someone to break through the gridlock of bureaucratic red tape and legal liabilities holding it all back. Build 400 new nuclear power plants and all our energy needs are covered for a century.
When I lived there I always had a jacket and a blanket in my trunk.
The only thing keeping me from being 100% off the grid is long term storage. That's largely in the winter when we can go a couple of weeks of rain -- no sunshine -- no new solar power. IMHO, a home electrolyzer unit can be powered during the spring and fall when we use little power (because we don't run the A/C or heat much) with the excess solar power, that generates hydrogen gas that can be stored in a tank. Later when I need power because my batteries are drained (say only 20% full) I can pull from the hydrogen (powering a fuel cell) to power the house and bring my batteries back up to a comfortable level (say 30% full). An Australian company has made a hydrogen electrolyzer fuel cell for homes and it's pricey. But if it's like solar and batteries and everything else used to be, soon the price will come down and I'll be off the grid.
Mark Twain is said to have remarked that the coldest winter he ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.
My grandson is a professional wildland firefighter. Two years ago he was fretting about the wet Spring saying that all the brush and grass growing were going to cause lots of problems when it got dry. I mocked him in a light hearted way and he got upset with me. And of course it turned out to be a bad fire season as he had predicted. He hasn’t let me forget it since.
It used to be called “summer”.
A) Not everyone can afford solar power. In fact, most can’t.
B) Storing hydrogen gas in a tank at your house? I can’t imagine anything that can go wrong there. Maybe I just need a ride on a blimp to consider what could possibly go wrong.
C) Solar doesn’t solve the base load issue, nor does it solve for people with lots of tree cover or who live further from the equator or for plenty of other scenarios like not enough roof cover.
Solar is - and always will be - a partial solution for part of the population. There will always be a need for base load centralized power. The safest and most reliable power on Earth is nuclear power. Even the original Greenpeace founders eventually figured that one out.
I was thinking of storing the hydrogen outside the house like a propane tank. If there's a leak it floats harmlessly up because it's least dense gas. Though the one in Australia stores hydrogen as a solid.
If I were ever even considering storing something like hydrogen on site, it’d be in an underground tank. Last thing you want is a risk that something ignites it and you have an explosion with tank shrapnel sailing through the yard. Battery storage is safer (not perfectly safe, but safer) and works great in the event of a power outage if you’re in an area with unreliable service. If not, there’s no need for storage. The grid itself becomes a form of storage.
That hydrogen will need a generator burning it and a system to feed it. Between that and the hydrolizer, there’s a lot of expensive and complicated components that can break. And I’m not sure what that’s really buying you. For the grid at large, nuclear power for base load makes the most sense and enables us to use whatever power we actually need rather than having to turn off every light bulb that isn’t absolutely necessary.
Out where I live in a fairly rural suburb there are many people 10 miles from me living in houses fueled by large propane tanks sitting out in their yard. So large that when they need more fuel it's delivered in a large truck (and pumped into the tank). Nothing every happens with them. It's very rare I've heard of an explosion or fire with propane tanks in my lifetime. And that's with propane not being light enough to rise up harmlessly away from everybody if there's a leak like hydrogen does.
Just like solar, that won't work for everybody. But for many of us libertarian minded folks who move way out of the cities to get away from control-freak libs, it's an option I'm researching. Especially with the control-freak libs using global warming as excuse to take over more and more control of our energy consumption.
I hope it works out for you. Be safe and take care.
It’s not gonna get that hot.
Wait ‘til August/September, then start looking for a cool place and a place to plug your EV in for a recharge.
The more EVs , the less power will be available for cooling.
California is perfecting the “How to destroy a state and its residents’, one kilowatt at a time.
The State Legislature needs a Total Recall, not just Gub. Gastric Nuisance.
Fires popping up as metallic balloons get caught up in power lines.
They had a balloon induced fire in South San Jose and you can see the remnants still on the lines. Sadly, the hills and roadsides are parched&primed and ready to blow up into infernos easily spread by winds.
It is graduation time and all.. so look for more to come.
Fires popping up as metallic balloons get caught up in power lines.
They had a balloon induced fire in South San Jose and you can see the remnants still on the lines. Sadly, the hills and roadsides are parched&primed and ready to blow up into infernos easily spread by winds.
It is graduation time and all.. so look for more to come.
It’s good to have the voice of experience to set me straight. I hope things go as you expect and prove my trepedations unfounded!
In the late 60's when I lived in San Jose, they said that Valentine's Day was the worst 'power-out' day because the aluminum 'sweetheart baloons' would float up and short out the power lines.
“I thought California was supposed to have great weather. Guess that’s just the coast.”
Great in most of Northern California from Monterey and north if you are within 55-60 miles in the coast in most areas.
Going east past these great temps even 10-20 miles east can go from nice with no AC to miserable.
That extreme heat can extend from the Oregone border to the Mexican border.
https://i.ibb.co/wdRT29d/caltemps.jpg
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