The Fragility of the Electrical Grid

As I write this, a large number of people in California are coping without what we've come to take for granted, a working electrical grid. As I wrote a California friend yesterday, I am sorry, but not surprised to hear about the outages.

I've never considered myself a "prepper", I tend to be too optimistic to believe that doom is just around the corner, but I do like to know how things work, how they break and how to fix them. In that spirit, I recently read Gretche Bakke's fascinating book THE GRID. It's a wonderfully conversational look at our electrical grid, packed with both interesting facts and some truly frightening anecdotes. Our current (no pun intended!) electrical grid is antiquated, under-maintained, and fragile.

I didn't just send my friend a "gee, that sucks" note, I also sent him a 10 Watt Solar Panel and a small lithium power bank. It's not much, but it's enough to keep his phone charged. Now I can't promise that every node of the cell network will stay up, but being modular and somewhat more modern, the phone system is better able to route around local problems.

Many of the residential solar systems in California are tied into the grid and have no local, on-site storage. When the grid goes down, many people with solar panels on their roofs are finding they still don't have a way to keep the lights on at night. Perhaps this latest round of outages will make more people understand that storage has to be a big part of any truly robust energy solution.

2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

The 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to John B. Goodenough, M. Stanley Whittingham, and Akira Yosino for their work in the development of lithium-ion batteries. Science Focus has a good summary of the story here:

https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/lithium-ion-battery-pioneers-awarded-2019-nobel-prize-for-chemistry/

Lithium-ion batteries have become an integral part of our modern day to day lives, powering our cell-phones, laptops and other devices. For myself, the combination of solar plus lithium storage means that since last spring I have been able to keep my phone, tablet, computer and ebike fully charged without ever having to plug into the wall.

Doing Something

While certain problems, like Global Climate Change, can seem overwhelmingly complex and impossible to solve, it is vital to not give in to despair. This article:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/19/greta-thunberg-we-are-ignoring-natural-climate-solutions

contains this wonderful quote:

“There is a magic machine that sucks carbon out of the air, costs very little, and builds itself. It’s called a tree.”

These folks are doing something worthwhile:

https://www.savetheredwoods.org/press-releases/save-the-redwoods-league-to-protect-crown-jewel-of-the-remaining-giant-sequoia-forests/

Ever since I've heard the now familiar phrase "think globally, act locally" I've tried to put that principle into practice. Like thousands of others around the globe, I will be out in the streets of my town for the global climate strike. (Actually I'm not sure if it counts as striking if you put in a vacation request with your boss and draft a coverage plan to deal with your absence, but that's what I did!) But, I think more importantly, on Saturday and more Saturdays to come I will be volunteering with our local chapter of Friends of Trees.


https://friendsoftrees.org/eugene/

I've also decided, in the interest of "putting my money where my mouth is" to donate 2% of all sales from Solar Nomadics to the Friends of Trees. This is 2% of sales, not 2% of profits because to be honest, I have no clue if there will ever be profits! But Sunshine and I have sold a few solar panels and we hope to keep this venture going. As long as there is a Solar Nomadics, 2% of the sales will go to the trees.

Bill McKibben Makes a Good Point

Bill McKibben, who writes good books, also writes good opinion pieces. Here's his latest from The Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/18/climate-crisis-oil-war-iraq-saudi-attack-green-energy

Dyrt Ranger Review: Renogy E.FLEX10 Portable Solar Panel

I found this nice little video review of the E.FLEX 10 solar panel on YouTube.

 

The Renogy E.FLEX 10 is what I've been using for the past few months for charging my phone and Kindle. Actually, as I explain in my Talking On Sunshine paper, I use the panel to charge a power bank and I use the power bank to charge my devices.

As noted in the video, the E.FLEX 10, clips nicely to a backpack.

In the Solar Nomadics Store we have the E.FLEX10 Solar Panel for $40 along with a couple of choices of power banks. If you already have a USB power bank, the E.FLEX 10 is all you need to get into the world of solar power. However, if you need a power bank, either the 38.5 WattHour or 74 WattHour banks are good choices.

We also sell a $50 version of the E.FLEX10 that includes a little 18.5 WattHour power bank.

While I'd initially been skeptical of such a tiny power bank, I've actually found it works really well as my daily phone charger and it's the one I carry with me and use most often.

Kent Peterson
Solar Nomadics
Eugene, Oregon USA

Mechanics Who Hate Cars

Interesting dude Austin Kleon has a fun blog post about Mechanics Who Hate Cars. You can read it here:

https://austinkleon.com/2019/09/05/mechanics-who-hate-cars/

My kids will tell you that I was a long time faithful Car Talk listener, even though we gave up owning cars decades ago. "Why do you listen, Dad?" "Well," I'd answer, "it's funny. And every damn week it reminds me of all the problems I don't have because I don't have a car."

Solar Water Harvesting

This article, from Science Magazine, shows some very promising technology:

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/09/crystalline-nets-harvest-water-desert-air-turn-carbon-dioxide-liquid-fuel

The Air Conditioning Paradox

This article in the Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/29/the-air-conditioning-trap-how-cold-air-is-heating-the-world

does a good job of describing the problem and paradox of air conditioning, that basically as the planet gets warmer, we use more air conditioning and that energy use, in turn, contributes to the warming of the planet.

Decades ago Christine and I had one of the few serious disagreements we've ever had. We were newly married and I bought a new car. (This will tell you how long ago it was, we haven't owned cars or driven for more than three decades now!) The car I bought didn't have air conditioning. Christine was appalled. I grew up in Minnesota and viewed air conditioning as an unneccessary luxury. Christine grew up in the south and viewed air conditioning as close to essential. That summer, when she was pregnant with Peter, our first born, and we sat snarled in hot summer traffic on our commute from Bethlehem. Connecticut to White Plains, NY along I-684, I realized that I had been very, very wrong. That, of course, meant that Christine was very, very right.

Our ultimate solution was to ditch both the car and the commute and eventually move to the more temperate Pacific Northwest. Issaquah, Washington proved to be a pretty good place to raise our kids and they seemed to have turned out fine despite being raised in a car and air conditioning free household.

Now we live several hundred miles further south, in Eugene, Oregon. While Eugene is a very cool town in many ways (for example, it has the highest bakery & bookstore score of any place I've ever lived) but in terms of average weather, it's a bit warmer and Eugene tends to have higher high temperatures. Clicking below will give you the details:

Average Weather in Issaquah

Average Weather in Eugene

Christine, Inkling and I have been doing fine in Eugene with strategically opening and closing our blinds and windows and using a few fans to keep cool. Inkling, being a black furred solar cat, has become expert at finding the coolest, shadiest places to be in the summer and the sunniest warmest spots in the winter.

I have one more bit of cooling technology, one that both Christine and my friend Michael have declared to be "dorky". It's a USB rechargeable neck fan. It looks like this:

I charge mine using either an Ultralight 6 Watt Solar Panel or the 10 Watt Renogy E.FLEX Solar Panel. The fan sucks air in the front and blows it straight out the top. When worn around the neck it provides a cooling breeze right across the major blood vessels in your neck and I find it makes a big difference in my personal comfort. But, I have to admit that I look like a dork when I wear it.

A comfortable dork.

Keep Cool!

Kent Peterson
Eugene, OR USA

Why just putting solar panels on cars is not a great idea

This piece from Forbes is pretty good:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2019/08/26/hyundai-put-a-solar-panel-on-an-electric-car-but-its-false-green/#1a1b57a91537

Solar bike trailers, on the other hand, there might be something there!

Kent Peterson
Solar Nomadics

Solar Nomadics' Director of Marketing In Action

Today Christine and I rode our bikes over to the River Road Community Resilience Festival. We got to chat with a bunch of folks about the wonders of solar energy. Christine now has the official title of "Director of Marketing" and she looked fabulous in her sun costume.

Talking on Sunshine

I've written a small paper describing how you can charge a phone or other USB gadget from the sun. You can read it here:

http://bit.ly/TalkingOnSunshine

What the heck is Solar Nomadics?

Solar Nomadics is a very small business devoted to teaching people about solar energy and providing them with portable solar products. I'm Kent Peterson and I started Solar Nomadics after reading the book Cooler Smarter and thinking about how I could not only lower my carbon footprint but maybe help others do so as well. I've never been a businessman, and at sixty years old it's maybe late to be starting. My goal with this business is not to get rich, but I would like to keep things going and not go broke.

As of today, I still have a day job as the Ebike Service Mechanic at Bike Friday, which is already a pretty eco-friendly and cool way of making a living. My Ebike runs entirely on my power and the solar energy I harvest from my tiny solar shed. While I'm the main instigator at Solar Nomadics, my lovely wife Christine is our "Director of Marketing" because she has agreed to wear a bright yellow sun costume when we are out in the street preaching the gospel of solar power. The final member of our management team is Inkling, who directly harvests solar energy every chance he gets.

On this blog I intend to talk about various aspects of solar energy and the ups and downs of running a very small business. I don't know where this is going, but this is the start.

Kent Peterson

Eugene, Oregon USA