Inch by Inch, Room by Room

Thanks to n2kaja for this one. I've often said that solarizing a single room in one's home is a good way for an otherwise conventionally powered home to make an incremental and affordable step towards self-reliance. Also could make for an excellent storm or disaster support room for those times with the centralized grid power goes out. Had I went with a south facing apartment on a second floor, I would have given this a try.

Go Solar, Room by Room - Ecotality Life

"One Uni-Solar 32-watt amorphous-silicon PV module, 12 volts: $180.00
One Morningstar 6-amp charge controller, 12 volts: $40.00
Two Deka 92 amp-hour sealed batteries, 12 volts: ($130.00 each) $260.00 (get the sealed ones so you don’t have to build a vented housing unit for them)
One Aims 800-watt modified sine wave inverter, 12 volts: $65.00

This is a total of under $600. You can spend extra on wiring, etc or extra batteries. You can never go wrong by having more batteries. Now, I bet you think you’ll only be able to run one compact fluorescent for about 15 minutes, right?

Wrong!

I was quite surprised to find out that with this set up, a stereo system can run or about 100 hours. (not that you’d want to), a laptop for about 40 hours, (ok, that I CAN probably do in about 3 days), and the ubiquitous compact fluorescent bulb for 80 continuous hours! Frankly, I think that is pretty good!"

Inch by Inch, Room by Room

Thanks to n2kaja for this one. I've often said that solarizing a single room in one's home is a good way for an otherwise conventionally powered home to make an incremental and affordable step towards self-reliance. Also could make for an excellent storm or disaster support room for those times with the centralized grid power goes out. Had I went with a south facing apartment on a second floor, I would have given this a try.

Go Solar, Room by Room - Ecotality Life

"One Uni-Solar 32-watt amorphous-silicon PV module, 12 volts: $180.00
One Morningstar 6-amp charge controller, 12 volts: $40.00
Two Deka 92 amp-hour sealed batteries, 12 volts: ($130.00 each) $260.00 (get the sealed ones so you don’t have to build a vented housing unit for them)
One Aims 800-watt modified sine wave inverter, 12 volts: $65.00

This is a total of under $600. You can spend extra on wiring, etc or extra batteries. You can never go wrong by having more batteries. Now, I bet you think you’ll only be able to run one compact fluorescent for about 15 minutes, right?

Wrong!

I was quite surprised to find out that with this set up, a stereo system can run or about 100 hours. (not that you’d want to), a laptop for about 40 hours, (ok, that I CAN probably do in about 3 days), and the ubiquitous compact fluorescent bulb for 80 continuous hours! Frankly, I think that is pretty good!"

Siemens Turbine Fatal Failure Analysis

Curiouser and curiouser. 

Reminds me of the non-fatal failure of one of the old Boeing MOD-2 turbines out in Washington State (as I recall).  They had a hydraulic valve failure after someone thought it would be a cool thing to drop the load from the turbine and watch it go through an auto-shutdown mode. 

The valve failed to move (someone put the wrong micron size filter in the plumbing) and so the 200 foot diameter steel bladed turbine went into overspeed.  Finally the windings in the rotor of the generator flew out into the stator generating a big bang and which, evidently, jarred the valve into action thus safely shutting the now totaled wind system. 

All thanks to some government bureaucrats wanting to see "their" machines in action.  That an having the bridge building section of Boeing allowed to build wind turbines under large government contracts.  (Don't get me started!)

The good news in either case was that an area the size of Pennsylvania was not made uninhabitable.

Siemens Looks at Excessive Blade Speed in Tower Fall - The Oregonian

"Collapse - Preliminary findings seem to move suspicion away from a structural problem"

"Siemens declined to provide further details about how the blades might have begun turning at excessive speeds or whether inspection procedures may have stressed the system enough to collapse the steel tower. If the preliminary findings hold, they would move attention away from possible flaws in the tower itself."

Siemens AG: Structural Design Not Cause Of Turbine Collapse - CNNMoney.com

"Jim Johnson, a mechanical engineer with the federal National Renewable Energy Lab's wind technology center, discounted the possibility of a structurally deficient tower.  "It's not impossible, but it's extremely unlikely for a tower to be at fault on its own and to buckle and fall," he said.

But Johnson also found it difficult to come up with a scenario under which the blades turned quickly enough and the braking systems came on suddenly enough to torque or vibrate and buckle the tower.  "There are so many redundancies to keep things like this from happening, it would have to be overridden or something very unusual would have had to have happened," he said."

Siemens Turbine Fatal Failure Analysis

Curiouser and curiouser. 

Reminds me of the non-fatal failure of one of the old Boeing MOD-2 turbines out in Washington State (as I recall).  They had a hydraulic valve failure after someone thought it would be a cool thing to drop the load from the turbine and watch it go through an auto-shutdown mode. 

The valve failed to move (someone put the wrong micron size filter in the plumbing) and so the 200 foot diameter steel bladed turbine went into overspeed.  Finally the windings in the rotor of the generator flew out into the stator generating a big bang and which, evidently, jarred the valve into action thus safely shutting the now totaled wind system. 

All thanks to some government bureaucrats wanting to see "their" machines in action.  That an having the bridge building section of Boeing allowed to build wind turbines under large government contracts.  (Don't get me started!)

The good news in either case was that an area the size of Pennsylvania was not made uninhabitable.

Siemens Looks at Excessive Blade Speed in Tower Fall - The Oregonian

"Collapse - Preliminary findings seem to move suspicion away from a structural problem"

"Siemens declined to provide further details about how the blades might have begun turning at excessive speeds or whether inspection procedures may have stressed the system enough to collapse the steel tower. If the preliminary findings hold, they would move attention away from possible flaws in the tower itself."

Siemens AG: Structural Design Not Cause Of Turbine Collapse - CNNMoney.com

"Jim Johnson, a mechanical engineer with the federal National Renewable Energy Lab's wind technology center, discounted the possibility of a structurally deficient tower.  "It's not impossible, but it's extremely unlikely for a tower to be at fault on its own and to buckle and fall," he said.

But Johnson also found it difficult to come up with a scenario under which the blades turned quickly enough and the braking systems came on suddenly enough to torque or vibrate and buckle the tower.  "There are so many redundancies to keep things like this from happening, it would have to be overridden or something very unusual would have had to have happened," he said."