Forum: Odds of Longterm Power Grid Failure II

Continued from here

Hillbilly Bill – at 16:10

David Butcher - the PPPM Guy – at 15:36
Please excuse my poor choice of words. SOME of the pedal power generators being sold, especially those that make use of a retrofit of a friction wheel exercise bicycle, are not very efficient.

In any scenario, manually operated generating devices require quite an expenditure of energy to recoup a small amount of power when you factor in losses in storage and conversion to house current. This may not be a good trade-off in a pandemic situation.

The problem I have with “all” pedal or crank power for pandemics is that if you are sick you are out of power right when you need it most. I also have some crank lights and such but I also have solar panels, a generator,5 W of hydro ….. The idea is (like the stock market) not to put all your eggs in one basket (my attempt at BF humor).

Just to give an idea of the number of electrical generating facilities in North America;

My entire state is green (CT) yet we loose power frequently. The Eastcoast outage a few years back showed to me cloud and clear how vulnerable we are on a larger/regional basis as well. I think it started in Ohio - how many miles away is that from CT? Seemingly a lot but in a system that is completely interdependent, only one can bring it all down. It’s not a pretty picture….

Will,

It appears you work in the power industry. Can you share what you do?

Im in a northern area, if we lose power for even a week were in deep doo doo furnaces dont work without electricity. We have lost power in the winter, in the cities they got it back up within a few days. But even then they had to open shelters people would have frozen to death otherwise. Shelters in a pandemic dont sound like such a good idea for several reasons lack of staff transmission of disease ect. So unless TPTB want the majority of the population in northern climates to die not only from AF but hypothermia they better have a real good plan on how to keep the electric on.

Someone asked about Mennonites cooking without electricity. The Mennonites have electricity, its the Amish who shun those wonders. They cook on wood cookstoves or propane stoves, using mostly cast iron. Light is from kerosene lanterns, which stink real bad. Dont even ask about toliet facilites, use your imagination.

We have got 2 genny’s. In my neighborhood we can run afoul of the electricity gods without pandemics.No juice = no well, not a good thing. Deep cell batteries are next on the list along with an inverter thingy. Thats a techincal term BTW. Any recomendations on s good inverter that wont require me to start holding up banks to afford?

inverters are ok supposing you are willing to buy a few dozen or more batteries and charge them then run the dc power through the inverter. ,,,, remember, each battery will only hold so many amp hours and depending on the load you put on them will run down the batteries just as fast as you can charge them depending on what your trying to run and how your charging them. it’s all the same ,,,,,,, power cant be destroyed only changed in form. and you cant get what you dont first put in even if you change it’s form. thats the rub of power supplies. now water wheels and wind power are free assuming you have the hardware to collect it. ,,,, assuming you have a stream and or a windy day. solar too. but sooner or later you will have to charge a bank of batteries. because it dont rain every day,, the sun dont come out every day, and the wind dont blow every day, and unless you can collect all three ways sooner or later you are going to have to store power. then again dont use it up faster than you can replenish it. physics,,,,, arent they a bitch.

JJF: I haven’t worked for a commercial power provider, though I have worked on DoD systems. My first degree was Electro-mechanical engineering with a concentration in Power Systems. I have friends in the commercial business, though.

Janet: How much current does your well draw normally (not counting startup)? Or if you don’t know that, what is the horsepower rating? Or if you don’t know that, how deep is your well? And is the pump rated 120V or 240V?

Closed to maintain Forum speed.