Hopefully not too much, usually politicians don’t like to get their hands dirty.
It is 40 here today, and it is supposed to be 50 tomorrow. No flannel needed. I am kind of wondering if I should try to short crop some peas.
2 Likes
Hi Wayne K hope the new ag guy will add wood or any biomass fuel. too the menu with out adding any new expences, being it burns cleaner than gas or diesel, and could be helping keep are dependance on forein oil much lower than at the present time?
4 Likes
Amen to that, if government would put in any assistance and development to this outstanding global community of experimenters, so much could be done. Aside from that, biomass is such a gigantic potential green resource, smart people have always used significant resources to best advantage.
3 Likes
I started writing about the economy 9 years ago. Man proposes, nature disposes. I can write about economics and pretty much skip politics. Here is a comprehensive assessment on the entire picture of oil.
Solar and wind are great but, they won’t move any trucks down the road. Hydrogen doesn’t work. The empty weight on a tank truck for hydrogen or helium is 78,500 It is such a small atom that it needs very dense, heavy steel. Not good for transport by pipe or truck. 1500 lbs tare. It takes 7 times as much energy to move a ton of freight on rubber tires as it takes on steel wheels. BUT, our rail system just isn’t up to it.
Geothermal has the highest potential considering that the Earth is an 8,000 mile thick ball of molten / semi-molten rock. Woodgas is good personal insurance.
3 Likes
Converting available energy into something YOU can use or store. That is the thing. Be it wood, sun, difference in water level, seasonal storage, thermal changes, whatever you’ve got at hand. 
2 Likes
Hi everybody! Long time no see! Hope things are getting better on your part of the hemisphere. We have had a very strange climate here in the Venezuelan Andies. Temperatures down to -4C !! Look at the pictures. Our political and geographical climates are tough these days. I´ll keep in touch. A big embrace to all the members of DOW.
Abner
10 Likes
Why not electric trucks are not that far out of the picture it is just a question of batteries. But honestly the best method for freight is to build a modern high speed rail system. The magnetic levitation trains work by putting the motor side on the track anyway so solar or wind make since you can spread out the power generation along the track and each section of track provides power for the train as it passes. Again it is all about storage of power along the system so you can use it when you want it.
1 Like
With credit to a post made by Stephen Sabbadess over at Woodgas Yahoo Group, this has some great history.
https://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2017/01/22/from-gasoline-to-gasification-or-why-we-dont-power-cars-with-wood-today/?refer=news
6 Likes
Thanks Abner for showing me what your part of the world looks like
1 Like
That is great the pictures along are amazing. I love those old cars they had real style.
Nikola motors is trying to use hydrogen for a semi with an electric drive, but they were also talking about natural gas too. I’m not a big fan of the tech, but I know where they are coming from. Im not sure with the higher density batteries coming out whether hydrogen will be viable by the time the tractor is done.
With driverless semi’s already being tested, I am kind of guessing charge times actually aren’t going to matter. The tech Proterra is using for buses charges -fast-, provided you can get the current there.
1 Like
I actually think what we will see in the near future is the end of the tractor trailer. It will be cheaper to move the automatic driving computer into the trailer and to put the battery pack and electric motors on a simple flat bed drive train which you place your cargo or shipping container on. I think there is a simple version of this in some ports already. At that point you get all the weight of the current tractor to use as electric motors and batteries. That would allow weight for alot of Tesla batteries. The article I read said converting a tractor trailer to driverless will pay for itself in the first year in the drivers income alone. Add into that the savings in mantance and downtime with electric motors and there is alot of money to put into power storage.
Yes, very true. and that will allow the drivers to collect welfare which we who are still working will pay for, while the shipping company makes that extra profit for their share holders.
Sounds like a win/win to me.
4 Likes
Andy displacing labor force jobs with technology is nothing new. It goes all the way back to the dawn of the industrial revolution. The issue is the concentration of wealth into the hands of just a few people. The issue with your comment is the statement that big business will keep charging the higher prices they currently charge to cover the drivers income in shipping goods.
Until recently the removal of labor has resulted in lower costs of goods for everyone and new opportunities in different fields. I am not saying changing employment fields is at all easy I have done it several times myself. But automation and technology isn’t the issue greed and the fact that the 8 richest people have more wealth then the combined wealth of the poorest half of all people on earth is the problem. Just think about that 8 people have more wealth or value then half of all humanity combined. There is something very wrong with that concept.
As long as we have this concept that unlimited wealth for a very few people is acceptable we will have an increasing number of poor people who can’t survive on what is leftover.
This is why I think off grid power and home grown food is a good thing it gives wealth back to everyone. One thing we can do everyday to take back wealth and power from the rich is find ways to not buy the goods and services they are trying to sell us. That has alot to do with my intrest in solar power and wood power. Every gallon of gas I don’t buy is money I keep and profit the oil companies loose. If we all go off grid and off oil there is billions of dollars going away from big business and back to all of us.
4 Likes
There is a truck driver shortage. Even automated long haulers aren’t going to displace all truck drivers at least in the near future. In fact, even if they do go with some sort of EV network, you aren’t even going to see all diesel trucks off the road either. It is merely picking off the lower hanging fruit.
1 Like
This is a rough reminder of what energy self sufficiency can mean, and how precarious it can be to rely wholly on the “system”.
Originally the power utility said they had the problem in hand, and would have power generally restored in 3 days. That hasn’t been the case for a lot of unfortunate folks, obviously the utility was overwhelmed, in labour and repair supplies. I can just imagine there will be rural areas where people may not have power for weeks.
3 Likes
a few years back we got hit with an ice storm and some people were out of power for like 3 weeks. Come to find out, most of the outages could have been prevented had the trees been taken care of. The utility had cut the tree trimming budget to get the new ng power plant, as it was overbudget, then to add to it people had refused to allow them to cut their trees because they trim them -way- back, but then never took care of it themselves. they just don’t have the equipment or know-how. and it is hard cutting crap in town so it is expensive and they don’t want to pay for it.
3 Likes
I feel for these people. Ice storms are very dangerous because those down lines are risky to be around and work on. We see this around here alot you can guess that every couple of years someone in NH will be hit with an ice storm and a town will be without power for days.
To me this is the big problem with the grid it is big and experience and mantance is often put off. We have seen it with tree trimming here. Then the power companies complain they just have too much to trim.
This is one of the reasons I think roof top solar and off grid storage or some other point of use power generation is needed out here in the sticks. Let the cities have the grid where they need more power then they can generate on site. But if my power is on my roof and in my basement it will be much safer in ice storms.
2 Likes
The last time we had a power outage for a longer period of time was l think in 2014. Cold wind and lots of rain produced freezing rain and over the night the country was saled with about 10cm of ice. Forests were looking like from a post apocalipse movie, well so was everything. There were no more generators to buy in the whole country, the neighburing county lended us some.
But the worst thing was, there is a sinkhole in the grownd in the Slovenian south lowlands that the rivers flow in and to a system of undergrownd caves and rivers. This sinkhole hot plugged with ice and debris, and since the ground was frozen, two waleys become giant lakes in a matter of hours. Thousants of people needed to evacuate.
1 Like
I am sure it happens. When the tree trimming guys went through a neighborhood, where they had vehemently complained about the outages, (they formed a group, and were trying to get another power company in), It looked like major storm had hit. They took out dead and hollowed trees, 18" overgrown branches. I doubt they will have any issue for 20 years. But it was like 5 cords of wood on the curb per block.