Technology Backfire?

[haklesup]

The EPA was gutted when they moved to Kansas. Another hardball tactic from the admin to science actual science.

They stay on so they can move out of the way when a chicken crosses the road. I read in a recent survey 60% of new car owners arwe turning off those warnings because they feel nannied.

PV power is still a too political issue, you need to suppress it if you support big Oil for example. In AZ, for example, it is still unequitable to put in PV at home due to the crappy deal the utility gives micro generating customers as enabled by political rule setting.

[Lenp]

Sunshine, like water and air can all be free, but often there are big costs in getting, and using it!

[dacflyer]

haklesup >>> it's the same way here in my town with solar.. my power co. is a municipality.
it has gotten to the point that i can't use my solar any more for grid tie use. they pay so little that had had to pay them to take the power,, so i was forced to shut down..
wouldn't have that problem if the power company was a co-op.

[haklesup]

Tell your politicians to support the IEEE smart grid regardless of their views on global warming. One does not need global warming to see the logic in having an efficient and fair electrical grid or the jobs it can create.

https://smartgrid.ieee.org/domains

To be fair, in the generation market, The Utilities still need to build generating facilities and maintain wires but Micro generating solar homes not only reduce income for those projects by reducing demand but also may force utilities to pay out further reducing capital. They have convinced local politicians that if they don't let them stop paying these customers, they might not be able to meet demand later. A longer view would be to prop up solar and invest in maintenance but in smaller states and rural areas with fewer resources, this doesn't seem to work.

[dacflyer]

i wouldn't care if i was just offsetting my bill some..
if i still wanted to, i could run a isolated system, but then i'd have to invest in a different inverter and charger..
not sure it's worth it..

[Lenp]

Even the solar/led walkway and garden lights, as cheap as they are, provide more convenience than utility. Solar charging on a car roof would offer cord free battery charging, but its cost is likely more than the value of all the energy it produces.

Years ago I was involved in a large solar project for a firehouse. Years ago when the space program was at a low point NASA went into the energy business to keep busy and this was one of several joint projects with the municipality. It used roof top water panels and a huge storage tank. It ran in collection/storage mode for days until a critical tank tempersture was reached then it went into the use mode. Poof, less than a day and it was back into collection and storage. There was also a costly amount of antifreeze lost due to outgassing from the rooftop vents. At a meeting I offered a suggestion to improve efficiency. Place a water jacket around the electric meter to capture any heat from its constant spinning. That was not well received!

NASA engineers made frequent visits, with loads of high tech gear to monitor and evaluate tbe system performance.
We would get a letter thanking us for our hospitality and assistance and at the end they said....
"The system was functioning as designed"
I like that cop-out! The system has long been abandoned and serves now as a very costly bird perch.

At the end, there's really is no free lunch!
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Side note to my original post....
Our over designed Honda still starts

[haklesup]

Can't beat the market share of Photosynthesis. Collect Energy, make fruit, release when eaten. Even longer collection times and shorter usage, must have been NASA's benchmark

I haven't seen much in the way of efficiency gains in PV in the last 5 years since the venture Capital hype died down. Too bad. Perhaps after 2020, we will see new policies which make these markets take off.

Did you hear Tesla just lost a suit by Walmart for installing defective PV and storage systems. It set my local Walmart on fire last year. I think their storage systems are still good but way too expensive for residential usage.

Entropy forbids a free lunch.

[dacflyer]

Lenp >> and just how much power is being used to collect heat from a electric meter ?...HA HA!

[Lenp]

Well, I figured there was all of the big solar collector pumps running almost 24/7 along with the tank circulation pumps, the automatic feeder for the ethylene glycol pumping frantically and the distribution pumps, even though they only ran briefly. Add to that everyone going into the equipment rooms,and leaving the lights on, to gawk at this wonder machine, with its control panel's "Collection" indicators on all the time, that it was likely more energy being wasted than the collector system was recovering. We should have been able to get something back for the lost investment but, as said, it was not warmly received nor taken seriously.

There was another solar 'test site' that was built but this one was monitored remotely by NASA. One winter day we got a call that the core temperature had dropped in the building, and indeed it had. I called NASA to see if they could help and they reported 70 degrees in all monitored areas! After resetting several safety thermostats that tripped because of outside air infiltration, the units were restarted and NASA had no indication of the failure.
Just for kicks, I unplugged the modem that linked the system to NASA. A week later same scene and NASA again reported 70's temps. Nobody knew what they were monitoring but it sure wasn't that site. I left the modem unplugged and never heard a complaint from them.
Just another day...

[haklesup]

3rd party solutions provider was never really NASAs thing anyway. Even the bulk of launching other peoples satellites is going to new private companies. NASA is great at creating new technologies and spinning them off to private companies but we rarely hear of all the failures they crossed off the list. Good thing nobody expects them to be profitable. (feeling bad for ISRO this week, lost their mission at 2km above the surface)

[Lenp]

At this point it looks like Honda fixed the issue with the software patch. Our CRV was intentionally parked for 14 days and it started without hesitation.

[Lenp]

Regarding a stuck A.C relay...
Years ago the A/C relay contacts stuck, the temp control and high pressure switch could not shut the compressor off since the contacts were weleded. It kept on pumping until the AC blew the pressure relief. It's a good thing that happened, we could have all been cryo preserved.
At the end, a new relay and a recharge made it good for thousands of miles.

[dacflyer]

i had a AC system explode one time on my Home made AC , it was installed in a 69 Ford.. it cooled very very well, some humid days, it blew out fog.
the hoses were made by a hydraulic hose shop. i was riding down the road, all was well, then BOOM Psssssshhhh..
i pulled over, i thought a radiator hose blew. i opened the hood and oil was sprayed everywhere. i got to looking more and i saw the HI Pressure hose had failed,, a defective crimp on a coupling.. i took it back to the shop,, they said they would replace the hose, but not pay for the recharge.. i called the manager from another store,, he made them recharge the system..because the connection they did failed. they had used the wrong size diameter connector to crimp.
anyway a few hours later i was back to chilling. even tho the shop hated that they had to eat crow.