hmmm...my tin foil hat's power failed

Griff · 09-30-2003, 07:29 AM

North America Thurs Aug, 14
London Friday Aug, 29
Denmark-Sweden Tues Sept, 23
Italy Sunday Sept, 28

Driving home from class last night, a radio ranter planted the conspiracy seed... I guess I was sleepy, it made more sense then.

Undertoad · 09-30-2003, 07:48 AM

A friend of mine is in a Peco (i.e. Philly-area electricity) family - his dad was a Peco dispatcher from way, way back. He grew up with these guys. We talked a little bit about the outages, and he said, you know, back in the day, nobody would SLEEP if ONE rate-payer was without power. They were so dedicated to getting people back on line.

Now nobody cares. The other day I put in a new T1 to my house to replace an aging one -- long story, but it's not hard, it's the equivalent of putting in two regular phone lines. You just have to trace them back to the street and make sure you have two good pairs. I was never trained how to do it, but I see what they do, and it's really no big deal. It takes two $5 tools and half a brain.

Well, it took six visits from Verizon to get this done. Along the way they messed up our dial tone service over a 3 day weekend.

They will never recover the costs of having 6 visits to do an install. Especially since on one of those visits the guy sat in the truck doing nothing for a few hours. The profit on this line is probably about $100 a month so the guy probably sat out there for two-three months worth of profit. One smart installer instead of six dumb ones would have saved the company this money.

But nobody cares...

SteveDallas · 09-30-2003, 08:31 AM

You're right... I have the pleasure

of being responsible for telephone systems in addition to computers... I won't even start to get myself lathered up by relating all the stories of incompetence in this area. And it's not just Verizon.

Griff · 09-30-2003, 09:59 AM

I wonder what is necessary for folks to take pride in their work? Here in hillbilly country we belong to an consumer owned electric coop. The service we get is remarkable considering the low population. We elect the folks who run the thing... they seem to have a pretty good culture for a quasi-governmental. Electric delivery monopolies are going to be problematic, so how do we minimize abuse? *still contemplating home generated power*

Torrere · 09-30-2003, 03:24 PM

In my High School Physics class, the teacher tried to give us an understanding of what we paid for heating and electricity; so we went home and gathered some information to bring back to the class.

It amounted to a lot of money.

One person in the class, however, was part of a family which had been off the grid, generating their own power for the past twenty years. I can't even remember the figures, but they were amazing. They had spent way less money, the initial investment had been recovered loong ago. And the initial investment for them, twenty years ago, was vastly more than it is now.

tw · 09-30-2003, 05:53 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Torrere
One person in the class, however, was part of a family which had been off the grid, generating their own power for the past twenty years. ... They had spent way less money, the initial investment had been recovered loong ago. And the initial investment for them, twenty years ago, was vastly more than it is now.

If that were true, then local power generation would be standard everywhere. Even a limited, small electric backup system (for but a few appliances) costs more than cost of electricity for everything in the house.

How does local generation get so cheap? You only have limited electricity. You get used to the noise and odors. Many things we take for granted become rationed.

Try running a 6000 watt generator all day on gasoline. Gasoline alone costs more than daily utility power. Then there is the time and messy effort to get gas and to refill the generator. Even telco switching facilities that have full on-site backup power instead use utility power - because utility is so much cheaper. Even though they have fully paid for their building wide electric generation systems, the utility power is still cheaper.

No numbers and facts that fly in direct contradiction to existing systems is why I quickly doubt. I would have to see their numbers. His numbers could easily be distorted to confuse school kids. If his numbers were correct, then telco and railroads would all generate their own power.

wolf · 09-30-2003, 07:13 PM

To get slightly back on track ...

I have a backup solar array for my tinfoil hat, didn't lose coverage for even a millisecond.

I've been waving the conspiracy flag since the FIRST outage, and say ... ah-HAH ... see? I'm RIGHT, i'm tellin' yah on each succeeding one.

(my additional conspiracy theory includes the thought that other actions from the Al-Quaeda playbook have been occuring, but are not being reported as such. This is more further-fetched, of course, but not entirely unlikely. Cover-ups are for the good of the children, after all)

xoxoxoBruce · 09-30-2003, 07:32 PM

Boeing installed 3 large gas turbine driven generators to provide back up power. Boeing made a deal with PECO that allows them to curtail some but not all power to Boeing, with a couple hours notice, if there's a shortage. In return Boeing saves $1 million every year on the electric bill whether there's a shortage or not. If it was cheaper, Boeing would run those suckers all the time.

Griff · 09-30-2003, 07:41 PM

I've harnessed a trained beaver and a woodchuck to a Sterling engine, unfortunately they've unionized so its back to the drawing board for me.

xoxoxoBruce · 09-30-2003, 08:23 PM

C'mon Griff, beavers are untrainable. They can only be bribed.

zippyt · 09-30-2003, 08:33 PM

I have more than one customer who put in there own gas turbine generators . Most have the same story , shitty responce from the power companys for big customers . The utility companys HAVE to buy the surplus power from these guys , and it BURNS THEIR ASS to have to pay a lost customer for power .

I checked in to wind power once . For about $30k you could buy the equipment ( then there is wire , big ass battery system , switching gear , etc... ) I don't rember the power out put but i did some calucalutions and with the proper planning you could run your entire house and sell the surplus to the power company .

Oh and Wolf i have been saying all along that the black outs were probley terriost related . Hell i am betting that this west nile virous thing is allong the same lines . I meen think about it , give most of the population an innocuas virus , then come up with some bug that turns it into anthrax or some such . Read the white plague by niven and pournel , it will scare the bageezes out of you !!!!!!!!

Torrere · 09-30-2003, 08:36 PM

I don't have the numbers with me. So you won't get them. Sorry.

I'd bet that you are right, tw; they did not use as much electricity as the rest of the people in the class. They lived through the same winters, but they probably made sure to turn off the lights.

They nonetheless did quite well for themselves.

Undertoad · 09-30-2003, 09:27 PM

I'm thinking about putting in a generator here... Costco used to have a 6000 watt deal for about $500. They seem to be, uh, OUT of them right NOW.

If we had a VA-like outage here, I would be out of business. So would the Cellar. Right now power looks like the weak link in the whole chain.

zippyt · 09-30-2003, 10:29 PM

UT go here and look at the goodies , they cost a bit more than you were talking about BUT they might suit your needs better than just some ole cheap ass generator you got a bargen on ,
http://www.bigfrogmountain.com/index.cfm

I meen hell we gots to protect this big ole sucurity blanket we all call the cellar

tw · 10-01-2003, 01:34 PM

Generating your own power has tremendous advantages, but major technological obstacles. For example, the traditional fossil fuel generator is only 20 to 30% efficient - at best. But if using the generated heat to heat homes, then efficiency increases. Do it using small, highly efficient gas turbines, and the efficiencies increase radically.

Another idea was to transmit electric power using superconductors AND cool those wires by sending hydrogen to the same customer. Customer could use both electrical and hydrogen, or even sell energy back to the utility after burning the hydrogen. Power from or to customer varies with consumerneeds

All good ideas, except that we don't even have the technology to distribute electricity from numerous, small generators. Providing electricity from many smnall providers rather than a main power generator is a massively complex problem. And then there is the technology required to make electricity locally - both being complex control problems.

Honda makes a superb small (portable) generator. That is $500. Serious gnerators for the building are on the order of many $thousands - which is why I don't understand how Costco can sell so much power generation so cheaply. Diversified power is the future. But we are so far away technologically as I never expect to see it in my lifetime.

09-30-2003, 07:29 AM	#1
Griff still says videotape Join Date: Feb 2001 Posts: 26,813	hmmm...my tin foil hat's power failed North America Thurs Aug, 14 London Friday Aug, 29 Denmark-Sweden Tues Sept, 23 Italy Sunday Sept, 28 Driving home from class last night, a radio ranter planted the conspiracy seed... I guess I was sleepy, it made more sense then. __________________ If you would only recognize that life is hard, things would be so much easier for you. - Louis D. Brandeis

09-30-2003, 08:31 AM	#3
SteveDallas Your Bartender Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Philly Burbs, PA Posts: 7,651	You're right... I have the pleasure of being responsible for telephone systems in addition to computers... I won't even start to get myself lathered up by relating all the stories of incompetence in this area. And it's not just Verizon. Last edited by SteveDallas; 09-30-2003 at 08:34 AM.

09-30-2003, 09:59 AM	#4
Griff still says videotape Join Date: Feb 2001 Posts: 26,813	I wonder what is necessary for folks to take pride in their work? Here in hillbilly country we belong to an consumer owned electric coop. The service we get is remarkable considering the low population. We elect the folks who run the thing... they seem to have a pretty good culture for a quasi-governmental. Electric delivery monopolies are going to be problematic, so how do we minimize abuse? still contemplating home generated power __________________ If you would only recognize that life is hard, things would be so much easier for you. - Louis D. Brandeis

09-30-2003, 07:13 PM	#7
wolf lobber of scimitars Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Phila Burbs Posts: 20,774	To get slightly back on track ... I have a backup solar array for my tinfoil hat, didn't lose coverage for even a millisecond. I've been waving the conspiracy flag since the FIRST outage, and say ... ah-HAH ... see? I'm RIGHT, i'm tellin' yah on each succeeding one. (my additional conspiracy theory includes the thought that other actions from the Al-Quaeda playbook have been occuring, but are not being reported as such. This is more further-fetched, of course, but not entirely unlikely. Cover-ups are for the good of the children, after all) __________________ wolf eht htiw og "Conspiracies are the norm, not the exception." --G. Edward Griffin The Creature from Jekyll Island High Priestess of the Church of the Whale Penis

09-30-2003, 07:32 PM	#8
xoxoxoBruce The future is unwritten Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 71,105	Boeing installed 3 large gas turbine driven generators to provide back up power. Boeing made a deal with PECO that allows them to curtail some but not all power to Boeing, with a couple hours notice, if there's a shortage. In return Boeing saves $1 million every year on the electric bill whether there's a shortage or not. If it was cheaper, Boeing would run those suckers all the time. __________________ The descent of man ~ Nixon, Friedman, Reagan, Trump.

09-30-2003, 07:48 AM	#2
Undertoad Radical Centrist Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Cottage of Prussia Posts: 31,423	A friend of mine is in a Peco (i.e. Philly-area electricity) family - his dad was a Peco dispatcher from way, way back. He grew up with these guys. We talked a little bit about the outages, and he said, you know, back in the day, nobody would SLEEP if ONE rate-payer was without power. They were so dedicated to getting people back on line. Now nobody cares. The other day I put in a new T1 to my house to replace an aging one -- long story, but it's not hard, it's the equivalent of putting in two regular phone lines. You just have to trace them back to the street and make sure you have two good pairs. I was never trained how to do it, but I see what they do, and it's really no big deal. It takes two $5 tools and half a brain. Well, it took six visits from Verizon to get this done. Along the way they messed up our dial tone service over a 3 day weekend. They will never recover the costs of having 6 visits to do an install. Especially since on one of those visits the guy sat in the truck doing nothing for a few hours. The profit on this line is probably about $100 a month so the guy probably sat out there for two-three months worth of profit. One smart installer instead of six dumb ones would have saved the company this money. But nobody cares...

09-30-2003, 03:24 PM	#5
Torrere a real smartass Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Kirkland, WA Posts: 1,121	In my High School Physics class, the teacher tried to give us an understanding of what we paid for heating and electricity; so we went home and gathered some information to bring back to the class. It amounted to a lot of money. One person in the class, however, was part of a family which had been off the grid, generating their own power for the past twenty years. I can't even remember the figures, but they were amazing. They had spent way less money, the initial investment had been recovered loong ago. And the initial investment for them, twenty years ago, was vastly more than it is now.

09-30-2003, 07:41 PM	#9
Griff still says videotape Join Date: Feb 2001 Posts: 26,813	I've harnessed a trained beaver and a woodchuck to a Sterling engine, unfortunately they've unionized so its back to the drawing board for me. __________________ If you would only recognize that life is hard, things would be so much easier for you. - Louis D. Brandeis

09-30-2003, 08:23 PM	#10
xoxoxoBruce The future is unwritten Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 71,105	C'mon Griff, beavers are untrainable. They can only be bribed. __________________ The descent of man ~ Nixon, Friedman, Reagan, Trump.

09-30-2003, 08:33 PM	#11
zippyt LONG LIVE KING ZIPPY! per Feetz Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Arkansas Posts: 7,661	I have more than one customer who put in there own gas turbine generators . Most have the same story , shitty responce from the power companys for big customers . The utility companys HAVE to buy the surplus power from these guys , and it BURNS THEIR ASS to have to pay a lost customer for power . I checked in to wind power once . For about $30k you could buy the equipment ( then there is wire , big ass battery system , switching gear , etc... ) I don't rember the power out put but i did some calucalutions and with the proper planning you could run your entire house and sell the surplus to the power company . Oh and Wolf i have been saying all along that the black outs were probley terriost related . Hell i am betting that this west nile virous thing is allong the same lines . I meen think about it , give most of the population an innocuas virus , then come up with some bug that turns it into anthrax or some such . Read the white plague by niven and pournel , it will scare the bageezes out of you !!!!!!!! __________________ "Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get. " Brother Dave Gardner

09-30-2003, 08:36 PM	#12
Torrere a real smartass Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Kirkland, WA Posts: 1,121	I don't have the numbers with me. So you won't get them. Sorry. I'd bet that you are right, tw; they did not use as much electricity as the rest of the people in the class. They lived through the same winters, but they probably made sure to turn off the lights. They nonetheless did quite well for themselves.

09-30-2003, 09:27 PM	#13
Undertoad Radical Centrist Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Cottage of Prussia Posts: 31,423	I'm thinking about putting in a generator here... Costco used to have a 6000 watt deal for about $500. They seem to be, uh, OUT of them right NOW. If we had a VA-like outage here, I would be out of business. So would the Cellar. Right now power looks like the weak link in the whole chain.

09-30-2003, 10:29 PM	#14
zippyt LONG LIVE KING ZIPPY! per Feetz Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Arkansas Posts: 7,661	UT go here and look at the goodies , they cost a bit more than you were talking about BUT they might suit your needs better than just some ole cheap ass generator you got a bargen on , http://www.bigfrogmountain.com/index.cfm I meen hell we gots to protect this big ole sucurity blanket we all call the cellar __________________ "Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get. " Brother Dave Gardner

10-01-2003, 01:34 PM	#15
tw Read? I only know how to write. Join Date: Jan 2001 Posts: 11,933	Generating your own power has tremendous advantages, but major technological obstacles. For example, the traditional fossil fuel generator is only 20 to 30% efficient - at best. But if using the generated heat to heat homes, then efficiency increases. Do it using small, highly efficient gas turbines, and the efficiencies increase radically. Another idea was to transmit electric power using superconductors AND cool those wires by sending hydrogen to the same customer. Customer could use both electrical and hydrogen, or even sell energy back to the utility after burning the hydrogen. Power from or to customer varies with consumerneeds All good ideas, except that we don't even have the technology to distribute electricity from numerous, small generators. Providing electricity from many smnall providers rather than a main power generator is a massively complex problem. And then there is the technology required to make electricity locally - both being complex control problems. Honda makes a superb small (portable) generator. That is $500. Serious gnerators for the building are on the order of many $thousands - which is why I don't understand how Costco can sell so much power generation so cheaply. Diversified power is the future. But we are so far away technologically as I never expect to see it in my lifetime.

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