Sidebar Political Question: Where to Discuss Energy Tech.

[Tuur]

Title says it all. Was thinking about energy storage on small systems. My father remembered hearing a doctor in the community run Delco (tm) generators to charge batteries that powered his house and practice. These would have been lead acid and the doctor likely used a DC system, but the point is that he had energy storage and didn't have to run his generators constantly. Was thinking about that for standby generators and that led to noticing a story that Toyota has developed a new lithium battery that sounds like it would be safer and have higher energy density. It also led to lithium batteries having a lifespan from 6 to 10 years depending on the type, and that solar panels tend to drop in efficiently by 0.5% per year.

Strictly speaking, this isn't politics, and since it's tech, it's based on science but is more the application of science. The question then is where to discuss this.

Anyone know?

 

[Paulos23]

Physical Life Sciences is a good place.

Physical & Life Sciences

The Physical & Life Sciences forum is a discussion and debate area on physics, biology, chemistry and other physical sciences.

www.christianforums.com

 

[Hazelelponi]

Title says it all. Was thinking about energy storage on small systems. My father remembered hearing a doctor in the community run Delco (tm) generators to charge batteries that powered his house and practice. These would have been lead acid and the doctor likely used a DC system, but the point is that he had energy storage and didn't have to run his generators constantly. Was thinking about that for standby generators and that led to noticing a story that Toyota has developed a new lithium battery that sounds like it would be safer and have higher energy density. It also led to lithium batteries having a lifespan from 6 to 10 years depending on the type, and that solar panels tend to drop in efficiently by 0.5% per year.

Strictly speaking, this isn't politics, and since it's tech, it's based on science but is more the application of science. The question then is where to discuss this.

Anyone know?

Either politics or the kitchen sink I would imagine

I have been waiting for the release of the new lithium batteries, a very exciting development and one I have been looking forward to for a couple years now.

I'm not sure the batteries are doable for what your wanting though. Those battery packs are exceedingly expensive.

If you want to consider it with numbers you might like to talk to the people over at Lion Wholesale, I have found them trustworthy.

 

[Fantine]

With solar power, you can buy your own storage or "sell" the excess back to your electric company and draw back when you need it. (Of course the exchange rate has just become more unfavorable.)

I believe in solar, but it doesn't improve the value of your house, and being a senior citizen, we might decide to sell and move to a more right-sized home at some point before the solar is paid for.

I bought a new car in the spring, but when I thought about my priorities (once again as a senior citizen) I prioritized the kinds of safety features that we might need as we age. Adaptive cruise control. Headlights that stay on bright and dim when there are oncoming cars. Warning lights in mirrors and on dash. Automatic braking if an obstacle gets too close (interesting but don't expect to use it.) These things were more important to me than EV or hybrid (which would have added to the price.) An SUV (I got an Equinox) is more car than I wanted, but the extra safety features don't seem to come in sedans.

I think we all have to decide what's most important to us at the stage of life we're in. I had budgeted a little over $30K for a new car, and safety was my top priority.

Most of my senior friends have investigated solar and decided that by the time the break even period arrived they would either have moved or perhaps even died (when you're 70, a 25 year break even is probably not in the cards for you.)

 

[Tuur]

Either politics or the kitchen sink I would imagine

I have been waiting for the release of the new lithium batteries, a very exciting development and one I have been looking forward to for a couple years now.

I'm not sure the batteries are doable for what your wanting though. Those battery packs are exceedingly expensive.

If you want to consider it with numbers you might like to talk to the people over at Lion Wholesale, I have found them trustworthy.

They start at expensive and go up. Even banks of lead acid batteries are expensive, but at least in a fixed location weight isn't a big problem. But lead acid batteries have to be changed out about as regularly as you change out a car battery, and this application calls for deep discharge batteries, like marine batteries.

Battery storage is expensive enough that standby generators tend not to use them. They come on and burn fuel as long as grid power is out. But if you size it for peak demand, then on the low demand end it uses more fuel than perhaps is needed. The result is that, after a natural disaster, you can run up an eye popping fuel bill pretty quickly.

Example: A propane powered standby generator sized for a residence can use 2 to 4 US gallons of propane per hour, depending on the load. Let's call it 2.75 and assume most of the time it's not peak demand. Power is out for a week. That's 168 hours. 168 x 2.75 = 462 gallons. At $3 a gallon, that's $1,386. But something fun: Fuel companies only fill propane tanks from 80% to 85% capacity to allow for gas expansion. Once saw a over-filled tobacco barn propane tank overpressure valve vent, so it does happen. So a 500 gallon tank only holds 400 gallons. Oops. So we're talking less than a week of power unless the propane company can make a delivery, which is iffy in a natural disaster. A 1,000 gallon tank would be good for about 290 hours at 2.75 gallons per hour, and that's 12 days. Post-Helene, it was 16 days before we got all the lines back on, though most had power restored in a week. If someone had run a backup generator the entire time, that's 1,056 gallons of propane and a $3,168 bill for the propane alone.

This gets into how often a Helene scale event happens and how long you're willing to be without power. Have seen ice storms knock out power for days, so it isn't always a hurricane. Bottom line is that if you have to replace batteries several times on the average before a long duration event, it might be cheaper to pay through the nose for fuel.

That's assuming you're allowed to have fuel in the first place. That's straight-up politics, but can see that happening.

 

[Tuur]

Physical Life Sciences is a good place.

Physical & Life Sciences

The Physical & Life Sciences forum is a discussion and debate area on physics, biology, chemistry and other physical sciences.

www.christianforums.com

For new development, sure. For application? Don't know.

 

[Hazelelponi]

They start at expensive and go up. Even banks of lead acid batteries are expensive, but at least in a fixed location weight isn't a big problem. But lead acid batteries have to be changed out about as regularly as you change out a car battery, and this application calls for deep discharge batteries, like marine batteries.

Battery storage is expensive enough that standby generators tend not to use them. They come on and burn fuel as long as grid power is out. But if you size it for peak demand, then on the low demand end it uses more fuel than perhaps is needed. The result is that, after a natural disaster, you can run up an eye popping fuel bill pretty quickly.

Example: A propane powered standby generator sized for a residence can use 2 to 4 US gallons of propane per hour, depending on the load. Let's call it 2.75 and assume most of the time it's not peak demand. Power is out for a week. That's 168 hours. 168 x 2.75 = 462 gallons. At $3 a gallon, that's $1,386. But something fun: Fuel companies only fill propane tanks from 80% to 85% capacity to allow for gas expansion. Once saw a over-filled tobacco barn propane tank overpressure valve vent, so it does happen. So a 500 gallon tank only holds 400 gallons. Oops. So we're talking less than a week of power unless the propane company can make a delivery, which is iffy in a natural disaster. A 1,000 gallon tank would be good for about 290 hours at 2.75 gallons per hour, and that's 12 days. Post-Helene, it was 16 days before we got all the lines back on, though most had power restored in a week. If someone had run a backup generator the entire time, that's 1,056 gallons of propane and a $3,168 bill for the propane alone.

This gets into how often a Helene scale event happens and how long you're willing to be without power. Have seen ice storms knock out power for days, so it isn't always a hurricane. Bottom line is that if you have to replace batteries several times on the average before a long duration event, it might be cheaper to pay through the nose for fuel.

That's assuming you're allowed to have fuel in the first place. That's straight-up politics, but can see that happening.

I lost power in an ice storm once for an entire month, that was the worst outage I was ever in.

There's benefits to losing power in winter, one is that you don't lose all the food you just freeze it outside, instead of inside. (Yes, that's the sound of me dragging the deepfreeze outside in an ice storm... Lol)

It's the water pipes that are a problem in winter, but there's more than one way to skin a cat. (This is a reference to skinning catfish, not kittens, it's actually difficult to remove the skin from the fish and there's many techniques, everyone has their own ideas for the best way)

If you are somewhere where a wood burning stove is an option for the home, you can use a wood stove as backup heat in a winter power outage.

That will heat the home beautifully and no pipes will freeze. You can sell the wood stash periodically and replace with fresher as needed, so it's not an expense beyond the store and the wood.

What electric is needed for in a winter situation with wood heat backup is then greatly reduced, and so is any need for generator fuel, since your essentially just wanting to keep the refrigerator running and the kitchen stove and coffee pot accessible, and the laptop charged for a little movie entertainment.

For light we use kerosene lanterns in power outages, I have them for every room.

This is far less costly than trying to run an entire house on backup generator power in the winter.

I think where you live, where and when the outages are most likely to be and how often they might hit are all things to factor in, and for every individual in each location the answers and the needs are potentially very different.

 

[Tuur]

Have worked ice storms where the temperature happened to remain below freezing while the power was out and had people worry about their food thawing out. Have politely pointed out that it was freezing outside, so putting the food in a safe place outdoors while it was below freezing was an alternative. Freezing pipes are worse, though in a pinch cut off the water, open the lowest spigot, and let it drain. Alternate heat varies. House I grew up in was designed for a wood heater, and that was replaced with a whole-house propane space heater after my father's mother left the door to the wood stove open after she checked it during the night. The blower doesn't work when the power is off, but it still heats. They kept it for emergency back-up after going to central heating and cooling. Houses constructed from 1970s on tend not to be rigged for alternate heat unless they have a chimney. That's the situation I'm in. Rural water pumps is also an issue, and is why my family also kept a traditional well available to draw water from.

Kerosene lamps put out a lot of heat, which in the winter is a feature, not a bug. In the summer, though, when it's already sweltering, is another issue. It's why I used battery lights post Helene instead of some kerosene lamps we have.