And now the fuse is lit...

Karmacat wrote: »

I have a few little solar bits and gadgets, but no big system, which is ridiculous of me

Why is that ridiculous? Solar of whichever flavour is not for all situations and not for all people. It has to be a case by case basis every time. Where it isn't and where it's done for the purposes of virtue signalling, we end up with the train wreck that is South Australia. Even the whole country of Australia is barrelling on into the wreckage with brake failure. Maybe they'll get lucky this summer, but Turnbull has got to be looking down the barrel of unemployment, as a lot of Australians are if they can't get reliable power.

Karmacat wrote: »

and I'd not even heard the term "thermosolar collector"

You must have seen those solar showers before surely? The fact I'm on oil makes it more worthwhile than if I were on mains gas. Which it should do. If a system which has the economy of scale of the gas network can't compete with a householder's system, then there is something (probably a lot of things) very sadly wrong.

Karmacat wrote: »

When these next building works are done, but before the replastering, I'll find out

But do the maths. This is your money remember, and *everyone* who howls about the greenness is howling with other people's money.

Karmacat wrote: »

He's wonderful! I love that guy

Although he's a clown (in the literal sense like Harold Lloyd and others) he's very knowledgable. His stock in trade is to take electrical item and make them dance with higher and higher voltages. I like this thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90ffg6QUDwM

Karmacat wrote: »

The UK is full of ingenious people like this. I'll definitely be giving some thought to this, I have backup for cooking in the event of a powercut (camping stoves!) but not much else.

It depends what you have now, and what you want in the event of a power cut. Don't make assumptions about what will be available. Would you have water in a prolonged power cut for example?

Remember, he did the calculations for solar and it was not for him.

Karmacat wrote: »

Yep, we can only do so much. OTOH, I'd have expected you to invent a machine that could stretch a minute to become an hour, so that you could do what you needed to do

It would just mean I'd sleep a month instead of a day alas...

Karmacat wrote: »

I guess I feel ridiculous because I can't keep the tech details in my head long enough to make a decision about what to do

I've tried to avoid keeping anything in my head since the invention of paper. Draw diagrams and label them in such a way that anyone who happens along can see the problem and the very obvious solution that drops out of the description of the problem.

Karmacat wrote: »

I want a solar system,

Why?

Karmacat wrote: »

but I've got a block of some kind about the techie stuff. Sigh ...

List the issues and then the mitigations, and then your assumptions. Don't try to eat all the elephant at once.

Karmacat wrote: »

Not sure what you mean about South Australia? I checked out some solar headlines for that, and I can see that a similar site to the one planned has had problems (leakage of molten salt, yikes!) but I don't fink thats what you might mean ...

In September 2016, the State of South Australia went dark. It's about the size of the British Isles, but only 1.5 million people live there. The whole area lost power apart from a couple of resilient places.

Now *if* you know what actually happened, running a search on the event is very illuminating as to how people lie and misdirect. There was a storm on at the time a "Once in 50 year event" (just like me!) - the storm damaged some pylons. Would you at this point be blaming the storm for damaging the electricity infrastructure and that caused the outage?

What about if I told you it damaged the pylons *after* the power went off - what would you think now? What would you be thinking if I accidentally-on-purpose omitted telling you that? Like so many have.

Now since then, SA have had a number of "load shedding" incidents (which have been unable to be blamed on storms - of whatever vintage). "Load Shedding" is the euphemism for when people lose power deliberately so other people don't have to.

I always think that should such a thing be required in the UK, we should load-shed Brighton. They have a Green MP, so undoubtedly would just love to be the first to "take one for the team".

In response to the instability in SA, Elon Musk has been given a hard-to-find (i.e. I can't find out how much) amount of money for a battery which will keep things going for a whole 8 minutes. I don't know how much, but it's the world's biggest lithium ion battery, and another battery of less than half the capacity cost 100 million USD.

They've also bought in open cycle gas turbines to generate power. Think of an aircraft engine taken from a wing with an alternator bolted to it. Now feed it with diesel and produce electricity.

Also there is going to be an expanded pumped storage scheme "Snowy River" IIRC which should be ready sometime in the 2020's.

There are other things, but this is why I consider it to be a train crash.

As far as the UK goes, we made the same decisions but are a couple of years behind. We already have the diesel though - https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/dec/06/diesel-farms-national-grid-tax-breaks

Karmacat wrote: »

Your advice to do my own maths for my own house is spot on! I'm awful at that (see above) - certainly won't be doing it in the next 6 months, so I have time. I have some precautions around water, but nothing lasts forever ...

"Stock rotation..."

beanielou wrote: »

I would love solar panals.

Which does prompt the question: Why?

beanielou wrote: »

Way to expensive for me though.

Depends how much power you want and what type they are.

Polycrystaline are the cheapest and best for low light conditions - like Scotland...