Cohabitation?

[MemeFan]

I was talking about off-grid batteries, not control-mechanism power sources.... LOL...

In general, batteries are advancing slowly. If advance was faster with some better tech, this tech would already be showeled into datacenters and laptops.

 

[Joleneakamama]

Personally I would prefer a single large kitchen with two cook tops, two ovens and two refrigerators.

I have a commercial 3 door fridge and that is a big enough pain in the neck. You have to be orderly or you end up looking EVERYWHERE for what you just put away last night! I don't want 2 ovens to clean really...so *shrugs*.

Plus backup if one oven or one clothes dryer is on the fritz.

Having another home one mile away has been nice for electric instead of wood stove cooking in the summer....and the back up washing machine so laundry doesn't get backed up if one breaks down.

I am not sure what I would prefer, I guess it depends on how one gets along with the other. It could actually be more comforting to be together with the other woman. I am not sure if I would want someone else to be present when I get mounted. That could be awkward.

I really appreciate time spent together. Walks, projects, chores. Another wife in the family changes everything....but I feel like she's kind of missing now when it's just hubby and I. We don't mind taking turns holding down the home fort with the children while the other runs errands with the man....but I really appreciate the compatibility and togetherness too.
Two houses would never be my wish. I'd rather change whatever I needed to to live in harmony under one roof.

 

[Mark C]

So there's no environmental case either, usually, if you consider a full lifecycle analysis.

Correct. and furthermore, much of the "green BS" is economic idiocy.

Such is the case for "ethanol," which uses about the same amount of real fuel (diesel) to plant, fertilize, harvest, ship, and make into alcohol as the 'fuel' delivers!!! (It's a LOSER.) And would NOT even be used, except by farmers who don't have gasoline (see: Prohibition) because it's not economically sustainable.

Likewise, almost all "wind farms," which are down more than they're up, and don't actually produce as much energy over their usable LIFETIME as it takes to mine, transports, smelt, wind, ship, erect, and maintain them. Again, Stupidity Thy Name is Government Mandate (and Subsidy.)

 

[Joleneakamama]

I thought one (sound proof or off to the side) master bedroom where the wives can visit the husband. Each wife can then also have her own bedroom, but they can be side be side no need to worry about "sound."

I'm kind of laughing here ...because this becomes an issue just with children growing up in the house. Acoustic insulation is a mighty nice idea....but I assure you life (including new babies) can happen without it!

 

[Mark C]

In general, batteries are advancing slowly. If advance was faster with some better tech, this tech would already be showeled into datacenters and laptops.

But "in general" is bad real economics.

Batteries are designed for a PURPOSE. "light, compact," are the drivers for mobile things: phones, laptops, and 'cars' (unless they cave in a parking garage roof...)

US off-grid users could care LESS about that -- we want low maintenance (I HATE Lead-Acid!) and good lifetime. Low cost is vital. Good cycle depth is important, too. Mandates and subsidies are Big Brother in action: they want CONTROL (ie, small, light, even injectable!) and don't care about giving people the option to move OUT of their Cesspool Control Cities.

And you STILL can't buy a good US-made NiFe battery. (and they DON'T need CCP-owned rare earth minerals.)

Caveat: There's one I'm watching. Others have failed before, and what I see is outrageously expensive.

 

[Maia]

I think you may have been listening to some odd sources.

As a homesteading and self sufficiency nerd among other brands of nerd, I can tell you that some of the most overt non-liberal/leftist/woke types are huge on solar. You should see my youtube feed. Solar is tough to avoid. For that matter one of the guys in my friend group who is a crusty as can be old former Army Delta guy runs his home, large shop and entire farm on a solar and wind combo. He is practically focused as one can be and it worked for his situation properly in the cost benefit analysis.

There are legitimate criticisms of solar but I suspect what you are seeing is people without a lot of nuance reacting and pushing back on the grift of green energy and climate change.

Well it is not as if they knock on the door to tell you your solar panels suck, but online there is often negativity. Not as bad as with electric cars. It is usually the Bros in diesel trucks who give you the middle finger, and it has become more of a problem that people unplug electric cars, nope not children generally older people.

the fake science of anthropogenic climate change and carbon etc

In re solar, it is certainly getting better but it is only comparatively recently that the systems were efficient enough to start being practical. It is getting Loads of adaptation currently in what I see in Texas at least.

I do not view it has fake. CO2 levels have been rising since industrialization, an in this case I would say the is causation since we know CO2 can absorb infrared photons, and readmit them whereas oxygen and nitrogen does not.

What one needs more than anything else is high levels of tolerance for.... nothing accomplished.

My tolerance for that is very low

Long term, we're going to be damming our river and installing hydro.

Brace yourself. My parents looked into it and gave up. Unlike solar and hydro there was no small scale regulatory process. Basically you have the same rules as Hoover Dam. This might depend on jurisdiction however.

Terraces definitely provide a challenge but they're integral to keeping water on our property. Eventually, the entire property will be full of terraces, swales, ponds, and reservoirs. I have a decent chunk of land so I'm thinking in decades not years. My children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren are going to have an amazing place to live though.

And the problem comes if when the grid goes down. Almost every 'hybrid' system I am aware of is DESIGNED to go down with it. ("Safety," is the mantra.)

Some it is possible to disconnect and use (but, as noted, without sufficient storage, essentially only during sunshine.) Others are literally so tightly integrated that unless you know enough about the design to "fool them," you are simply powerless.

Yes, we have to disconnect from the grid physically with a switch for the system to work during an outage. For good reasons, utility crews will not work on downed lines if someone is back feeding power into them

Context.

Solar power for individual homes & businesses is great. Whenever you are making an off-grid or grid-tied system, you are designing it to fit with your actual demands, and including batteries as necessary to make it work. You end up with a functional and economically viable system. But - and this is very important when making an off-grid system - you do this by reducing power consumption also: Gas or woodfired space heating & cooking & water heating, buying new efficient refrigerators, LED lighting. It is that careful attention to usage also, and the daily pattern of usage, that makes the solar power system economically viable.

However, massive solar farms to supply the grid are foolhardy. Because at a national grid scale, usage is not tailored to solar. The greatest demand is in the evening, after solar generation ceases, and people start cooking & heating their homes and put their electric car on to charge overnight. So, however many solar panels you put in, they cannot supply peak load. As soon as the sun goes down all the coal and nuclear and hydro power stations have to increase their output to cover the peak. So you still need enough conventional generation to supply the peak load - and if you have that anyway, you might as well just run it through the day also to run the off-peak load. So there is almost no economic gain in installing solar farms, they don't take the place of a single conventional power station, they just add to the cost of the grid for minimal return.

They may also increase the overall CO2 emissions from the grid (if you're concerned about that), because you have to account for all the emissions of making and installing all those solar panels, on top of the emissions of installing the conventional power stations that you need to keep anyway, so it's a large increase only slightly offset by a small reduction in daytime coal consumption. Then you have to consider the negative environmental consequences of covering acres of land in solar panels also. So there's no environmental case either, usually, if you consider a full lifecycle analysis.

I agree that massive solar farms are wasteful, they waste land, and they are ugly as well. I also do not see the need with so much unused roof surfaces.
I would say it can work on grid level however. Germany is at over 50% renewable, in part they they use excess solar power to pump water into Reservoirs in Scandinavia. There is a physical limit here though, since damming up more valleys is not really something that should be done.

Besides Photovoltaics one can also use solar towers to concentrate sunlight enough to melt salt, to store heat, this can be release during the night. So far they have not really caught on though.

 

[paterfamilias]

"I do not view it has fake. CO2 levels have been rising since industrialization, an in this case I would say the is causation since we know CO2 can absorb infrared photons, and readmit them whereas oxygen and nitrogen does not."

I am not sure that gives one the conclusion that you think it does.
Are you familiar with the hickey stick graph which is the predicate for all of the panic around CO2?

 

[MemeFan]

But "in general" is bad real economics.

Batteries are designed for a PURPOSE. "light, compact," are the drivers for mobile things: phones, laptops, and 'cars' (unless they cave in a parking garage roof...)

US off-grid users could care LESS about that -- we want low maintenance (I HATE Lead-Acid!) and good lifetime. Low cost is vital. Good cycle depth is important, too. Mandates and subsidies are Big Brother in action: they want CONTROL (ie, small, light, even injectable!) and don't care about giving people the option to move OUT of their Cesspool Control Cities.

And you STILL can't buy a good US-made NiFe battery. (and they DON'T need CCP-owned rare earth minerals.)

Caveat: There's one I'm watching. Others have failed before, and what I see is outrageously expensive.

Capacity always matter for batteries.

 

[MemeFan]

I do not view it has fake. CO2 levels have been rising since industrialization, an in this case I would say the is causation since we know CO2 can absorb infrared photons, and readmit them whereas oxygen and nitrogen does not.

And if you take longer view CO2 levels have been falling like forever.

More CO2 = more "plant food" = more plants = bigger herbivores = bigger meateaters.

So biggest meateaters are dead like 65M years. And incoming generations are getting smaller. So CO2 is whole time getting smaller.

Me thinks real issue is lack of fossil fuel burning. We need to these C02 levels. We are risking extinction with these falling levels.

@Maia, ooo sweet summer child, it seems like you have fallen for every BS spread by power hungry politicians.

 

[Maia]

I am not sure that gives one the conclusion that you think it does.
Are you familiar with the hickey stick graph which is the predicate for all of the panic around CO2?

Hockey Stick graphs? There are several. One can debate things like average vs. median etc. however in the end I doubt any change will will alter the outcome. For me things like absorption rate of forest would be more to ascertain.

Capacity always matter for batteries.

Or efficiency. The Lucid Air has half the battery of a Silverado EV, but twice the efficiency.

 

[Maia]

And if you take longer view CO2 levels have been falling like forever.

More CO2 = more "plant food" = more plants = bigger herbivores = bigger meateaters.

Plant reaction is the most difficult to asses. However more plant food itself is not an argument, otherwise dumping nitrogen into the water etc. would not be an issue. Also it does not help if more CO2 leads to a larger forest since if the forest burns, as they do every ~25 years, the CO2 gets released again.

@Maia, ooo sweet summer child, it seems like you have fallen for every BS spread by power hungry politicians.

Nope, care less about the politicians, but my parents have taught me the wisdom of peer reviewed work, and that on any given topic there are only about ~ 100, 200 people who are really an authority in their field. It can be difficult to assess who they are.

 

[Maia]

Both my parents have doctorates (in different fields) and I know how difficult it can be for something like Scientific American to publish your work.

 

[Maia]

I'm currently building a house with a center courtyard though it will only be enclosed on three sides. The fourth side is 200' of elevation drop that is being terraced into solar panels, garden, vineyard, and orchard. It's currently a beautiful view from the center of the house facing the hill.

Do you have a architectural plan or something you would wish to share? Do not wish to impede, but that sounds interesting.

 

[paterfamilias]

Hockey Stick graphs? There are several. One can debate things like average vs. median etc. however in the end I doubt any change will will alter the outcome. For me things like absorption rate of forest would be more to ascertain.

The original, by Dr Michael Mann

 

[Maia]

Dr Michael Mann

https://www.meteo.psu.edu/holocene/public_html/shared/articles/mbh98.pdf

This one?

Based on the following report:

Climate myths: The 'hockey stick' graph has been proven wrong

Despite repeated claims that the famous temperature reconstruction is at best seriously flawed and at worst a fraud, all the evidence supports it

www.newscientist.com

They challenged some of the data, but later updated the article to state the even with this in mind, the conclusion does not change.

It was originally posted in Nature magazine, they are very hardcore.

 

[FollowingHim]

PS> Battery technology, in general, STILL sucks!!!! (The best option, far and away, IMHO, was developed by Thomas Edison well over a century ago. Some of his original NiFe batteries are STILL IN SERVICE! But you can't buy one, except from the CCP. And they are exactly what you'd expect.)

I have a bank of them, imported direct from China. Mine are good (I've got a couple of poor performing cells at present, after some years of service, but overall they're really good, and I'm hopeful my poor cells will come back to life when I find time to change their electrolyte). However, I have a friend who imported some from China, different brand, and his are absolute crap. So it depends which factory makes them. There seem to be two main factories as far as I can tell, or at least two patterns of battery are produced, and one is crap, but they are visibly very different so you can tell them apart.

Mine are manufactured by Zhuhai CIYI, and used to be sold with different stickers as the Iron Edison brand in the USA. Their factory equipment is of German origin. The manufacturer claims to supply the Chinese military, which I took as a good recommendation, militaries don't buy crap. They have their own downsides, and I do not know if the quality is as good as Edison's original, but I'm fairly happy with them myself.

 

[FollowingHim]

Nope, care less about the politicians, but my parents have taught me the wisdom of peer reviewed work, and that on any given topic there are only about ~ 100, 200 people who are really an authority in their field. It can be difficult to assess who they are.

Both my parents have doctorates (in different fields) and I know how difficult it can be for something like Scientific American to publish your work.

I have a scientific doctorate also, and have worked as a researcher in agriculture for years, including doing research into the effects of climate on agriculture. I don't normally talk about my qualifications but I know it will be meaningful for you in this case. So I am very familiar with the peer review process and climate science.

CO2 and temperature have risen over the past 200 years, but CO2 tends to rise AFTER temperature. It cannot be causing the temperature rise, because it lags behind it.

CO2 does absorb radiation from the sun, but once you reach a certain threshold essentially all the radiation in that band is being absorbed, and however much more CO2 you add to the atmosphere, very little additional radiation is absorbed. We are at that level. You could now double CO2 levels and the effect on temperature would be minimal. Same goes for methane. This is basic atmospheric physics.

The reason most peer-reviewed papers in scientific journals still bang the climate change drum is because there's a lot of research funding for doing work into climate change, and every scientific organisation has to do whatever work there is funding for, and not endanger next year's funding. So in general, the only things that are allowed to be published are things that agree with the current narrative. I know very well how this works. Nothing leaves a scientific organisation before first being approved by all funders and top level bureaucrats at the organisation. The process is rigged and broken.

The climate is driven by the sun.

CO2 is the most limiting nutrient for plant growth in many circumstances. The more CO2 in the atmosphere, the greener and lusher the planet will become. In the fossil record we find massive plants and animals - and CO2 levels were far higher than today at that time. CO2 is the gas of life. The more the better, it is GOOD for the environment (if life is the environment). The whole push to limit CO2 is just one facet of the general anti-life agenda of modern society.

 

[Maia]

CO2 and temperature have risen over the past 200 years, but CO2 tends to rise AFTER temperature. It cannot be causing the temperature rise, because it lags behind it.

Which could be related to CO2 interactions with rocks, water etc. and has happened historically, however we are now adding to this interaction via fossil fuels.

CO2 does absorb radiation from the sun,

It is my understanding that it does not. Wrong wavelength. The infrared photons being reflected off the earth have the correct wavelength to be absorbed by CO2, preventing the radiation from escaping to space.

The reason most peer-reviewed papers in scientific journals still bang the climate change drum is because there's a lot of research funding for doing work into climate change, and every scientific organisation has to do whatever work there is funding for, and not endanger next year's funding. So in general, the only things that are allowed to be published are things that agree with the current narrative. I know very well how this works. Nothing leaves a scientific organisation before first being approved by all funders and top level bureaucrats at the organisation. The process is rigged and broken.

The was also research done by fossil fuel companies like Exxon Mobile which concluded decades ago that fossil fuels do play a role. Exxon Mobile prevented the information from being published.

The climate is driven by the sun.

No disagreement there.

CO2 is the most limiting nutrient for plant growth in many circumstances. The more CO2 in the atmosphere, the greener and lusher the planet will become. In the fossil record we find massive plants and animals - and CO2 levels were far higher than today at that time. CO2 is the gas of life. The more the better, it is GOOD for the environment (if life is the environment). The whole push to limit CO2 is just one facet of the general anti-life agenda of modern society.

I am aware of how photosynthesis works, and the difference between C3 and C4 plants.

In the end the point is likely mute. If one believes the increase in temperature is natural then there is likely not mich that can be done. If it is man made then it is likely to late to do much about it. Perhaps prevent things from becoming worse. In the end preparations need to be made. I hate when people say "let us pray" when a hurricane hits Florida. Put away the bible and grab a shovel instead and build levees, canals etc. There was a picture of an entire village in Florida destroyed by winds. An entire village? No, one house remained that was built to withstand 155mph winds. THAT needs to be done. Yet people in Florida are still building to flimsy, even if standards are being increased. There Lord will not help one, if one does not prepare.

 

[frederick]

It won't matter what you all do about climate because, ultimately, God is in control, and He does whatever He pleases (Ps. 115:3). We are told, in Col. 1:16-17, For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.

Saying, in Him all things consist, tells us He is holding it all together and preventing His creation from coming apart. Trust in the God who created the heaven and the earth and not in "science" for the outcome of climate change. It won't matter one carbon molecule how much tax you pay to change the climate (or try to stop it changing). Shalom

 

[Maia]

It won't matter what you all do about climate because, ultimately, God is in control, and He does whatever He pleases (Ps. 115:3). We are told, in Col. 1:16-17, For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.

Saying, in Him all things consist, tells us He is holding it all together and preventing His creation from coming apart. Trust in the God who created the heaven and the earth and not in "science" for the outcome of climate change. It won't matter one carbon molecule how much tax you pay to change the climate (or try to stop it changing). Shalom

If parents see a child not taking care of a toy they might not intervene but instead let the toy be destroyed, it could be that God is taking the stance let them destroy it.

One also has to ask if God has abandoned his little experiment. Humans often view Humanity as Gods masterpiece, which I have always found arrogant. Genocide, murder, rapes, poverty, starvation; Would a creator not be embarrassed by such foul creatures?

Our little planet is not the center of the universe as religious scholars once thought. It is irrelevant in the vastness of space. A quasar emits more energy in a few seconds, then our sun does in billions of years, obliterating everything its burst touches. If the earth gets destroyed that sucks for us, but the universe will not care. Will God care? Debatable.