Sunday domestics

My usual day, laundry, make sure Da has his meds set up for the week, finish up any little nigglin’ stuff I started Friday eve that can’t wait, 

My usuals.   

Y’all may have noted that I have been trying to keep my positivity up and my negativity at heel.   Its a struggle.   Down season at work, slow, lack of  pay due to lack of hours (I CAN NOT milk the clock like most of my co-workers do.   It’s just not in my nature.) doesn’t help my attitude any either.   

As noted the other day with “sanctuary”, my writing block is cracked and failing.  Thats a goodness thing.    My writing efforts have been for naught the last 6 months, even with my (most times) daily posting here.   Seems I can write some things most days, but not other things everyday, like I NEED to do if I want to make a living at writing.  

May be that is the problem: Maybe I am trying to force something that needs trained.  Yeah, Duh, right?    LOL.  

and then there is a part of me that we all have that tells me “you’re not good enough at that’.    That voice gets beat on a lot in my world, but even with daily beatings and withholding food, that voice never dies.  EVER.    I hatez it, but its always there, and most days, its all I can do to drown it out or beat it into submission.   

Another issue I am having, and its usual for me this time of year:  Most days I feel like I am adrift without a rudder or sail.   A lot of that has to do with having so much time on my hands, and not enough daylight to make it productive.   And on many days, that daylight is used to provide services for others, and I don’t get near enough for my things.    Living off-grid, I have to watch battery levels and this time of year (yesterday being a great example) cleaning solar panels to grab the few hours of decent light we have, becomes a major chore. (I have a project in the works to move my panels.   The roof is NOT where you want your generation points located.). That energy Scrooge part of me is not being miserly, its protecting my equipment from faliure.   So, Lights go out early, battery power for things like lappies or phones until they are too tired to support me, then its BED, and kittehs be damned, “I ain’tagettin’outfromthesecovers, youlittlesocialistrats”.   

Rainy day, and thats washing all the snow accumulation away, but that also means no sunlight.  My panels right now are sitting about 50% of capacity: Trickle charge levels on my batttery bank,   *sigh*,   Not a lot of wind either, at least nothing consistent.    Seriously considering a re-do of the wind genny for a VAWT set up with a drive shaft so I can keep the gen-set down where I can get at it; not 40’ in the air.   Would make experimenting with coils and gearing a ton easier, and a VAWT doesn’t care about what direction the wind comes from.

Speaking of alternate energy:   There was an article in the local fish-wrapper about a “Closed loop Hydro-electric storage system” being built in the local area.   Now, Me being me, and seeing what sounds too good to be true, I had to look into what the heck it really was.    

Let me first state that I am NOT an engineer by trade, but I do have experience in alternative energy and HOW IT ALL COMES TOGETHER, and I do have training in Power Generation and how to “Synch” AC power etc etc etc.    This is not Rocket Science, but there are ‘Laws” that you can’t break.   One of those Laws is the Law of Entropy.   Obviously, you will need power to pump that water into the upper reservoir, and that power is supposedly coming from alternative sources (the power is part of the grid, how do you claim its from alternatives when its all part of the same grid? First Ding in the Hype).  Then you have efficient variables.   It takes more power to charge a battery than the battery will provide, simple chemical inefficiencies.   It takes more power to push water uphill than you will ever get allowing it to flow downhill: thats simple mechanical inefficiency.   With that in mind, the reservoir is essentially a battery for when (like yesterday, my alternatives were crippled). things aren’t shining or blowing like we wish they would.    What you have is a large patch of ground (almost as big as the Solar farm/wind farm that supposedly provides the power to pump that water uphill, that can not be used for anything else (its a closed loop, you can’t use it as a public aquifer) So you have essentially taken three times the acrage to generate power,,,    Another set of inefficiencies: Ding number two.   Looking at the numbers, the way the grid is set up, I don’t see this as a viable solution, but an accountants game of numbers to sell more bullshit to the masses.   Yes, thats my opinion, just like my opinion of alternative energy should only be applied at point of need, not sourced provision like in the grid.    My storage batteries are far more efficient than some closed loop hydro thingy and even that solution (batteries) is 100 years out of date.  We need better batteries with closer to 0% loss to make alternatives completely viable, but there are only a handful of people worldwide working on that part of the system.  Musk is one of them and I feel he would concur with my early assessment of where this shit is “off”. (and for those that think we could set up some battery storage cell, using current tech, it would be safer, IMO, to just set up a Nuke facility.  Batteries can and do explode and a bank that size would bring along a ton of environmental issues when it went boom.  Similar problems with the Nuke set up, but the gains would far outweigh the drawbacks.  And we would have something to put all those ICBM’s out of business and into something productive,,,,   Jest-sayin’.)

Honestly, if you are considering going off-grid, find yourself a place with flowing water 24/7/365 and go micro-hydro.   Its the best option and the storage you would need is minscule to what I need (you would only need enough to cover when you have to shut down for maintenance or glitches).  And Microhydro can be cool as shit in appearance, not the eyesore of huge dam. It can even be so hidden that no one would know it was there.  All of the large scale alternatives don’t pass my smell test and seem more like grifters selling snake oil over solutions.   

Ok, I’ll step of that soapbox and get back to work on things that do matter, like clean clothes for the week upcoming.    NO, I am not an environmentalist green-weenie nut: what I am is a practical thinker and see that we could do better for the world, but what is being proposed is crap that won’t hold up when the rubber meets the road:  Just go ask the peeps of Houston how that worked out in 2020won.

If you really want to know more about it, there are resources abound, or you could support me in a small way and buy my book about it.  and I do answer questions via Email (in the sidebar)

(interesting,,,,,   I just looked at that Zon page for my book and there is a link to “2 new from,,,”.    Seems that someone is selling my $6.99 book for $12.96.    That seems shady to me.  They buy my book, I get the royalty for it, then they sell my book at nearly double and tney make 5 times what my royalty would be,,,,       I’ll leave it at that, since I am all about free-market.  But that takes it into creepy ethics zone IMO)