Biden administration takes first step toward light bulb efficiency standard

[Hoodat]

So I CAN do the turbines. maybe I have to catch rainwater instead of using that wonderful spring water... Or put in a big cistern and only feed it in the summer with a shallow line I have to blow out in the fall.

One way or another, it is all doable - I am just flopping around on the how.

Can you double or triple your solar output and use the excess to pump water from a lower pond to an upper one during the day, and letting it flow downward through a turbine at night?  Just thinking outside the box here.  It may be easier to create a connect a couple of man-made ponds close by rather than running pipe a further distance.

[roamer_1]

100 Watt electric heater that screws into a standard Edison Light Bulb socket.  Other sizes available.

https://www.processheating.com/products/air-load-bank/cone-heaters/

Other styles are available.

Thank you... But I will keep to incandescent bulbs while I can... Dual purpose... See when I have to get under there, they give me light too. 

[roamer_1]

Can you double or triple your solar output and use the excess to pump water from a lower pond to an upper one during the day, and letting it flow downward through a turbine at night?  Just thinking outside the box here.  It may be easier to create a connect a couple of man-made ponds close by rather than running pipe a further distance.

The cabin will be sitting on a puddle lake - it is a rock bowl over 8 feet deep and covering, I don't know, maybe 3-5 acres... Technically I own half of that, though the other half is inaccessible to anyone but me. But I fret pullin out of there for beaver fever. It has a current in it, but I am just adverse to pulling out of still water.

I could pull out of the upper pool in the creek, above the falls, and put a cistern somewhere around where the barn is going to go... The soil is deeper down in there, so I could probably bury water lines deep enough to get to the cabin and barn from there, though the shop would have to be dry, at least in the winter...

But that would be seasonal - I would have to blow the feed line in the fall and live off the cistern through the winter, and then, the cistern would have to be in an earth cellar of some kind, to keep it from freezing, or I have to heat it enough with wood to keep it all winter. It is a bother. If I cannot bury the feed line 4' deep it will freeze, and that is the conundrum.

I CAN collect rain - If I keep all the rain off the barn and cabin and shop, that will fill the cistern too. But I would very much like not having a cistern at all, for the wont of having to put it in an earthen cellar or mound to keep it from freezing, which is the butt-ton of work in that.

SO a butt-ton of work building an above ground soddy for the cistern, or a butt-ton of work chiseling the main water down 4' and not having the cistern... There's the devil's choice.

[roamer_1]

Can you double or triple your solar output and use the excess to pump water from a lower pond to an upper one during the day, and letting it flow downward through a turbine at night?  Just thinking outside the box here.  It may be easier to create a connect a couple of man-made ponds close by rather than running pipe a further distance.

Sorry, I missed your point... Obviously, two stand pipes by the waterfall would be the most efficient way to do the turbines, or as an alt, take from the upper pool, and use the drop to the lower pool at the bottom of the falls some other way along that hillside. But that puts the power maybe 250-300 ft away from the homestead... I CAN get cable in the ground to deliver that. So I reckon that is what I will do. Digging a trench for the cabling is way better than constructing ponds - and by the by, you still need to think of the winter. Them ponds have to be deeper than 4 feet or they will freeze too, and the pump and lines... it is still about the freeze.

[Smokin Joe]

Nice idea, but no. Closest that would work is down in Hot Springs. They've got that (geothermal) going on in a big way over in Spokane, WA... but up in here we are in shale... with hot springs few and far between.

Besides, I have  around 20 ft of waterfall, and enough flow to fill a couple 8-10" pipes and not really bother the creek at all. That's what turns me on... All that is really in the way is getting it to the cabin, shop, and barn...

Correction - That ain't the problem. It is really trying to pull water from there... Being in the shield, getting down 4 ft is laughable. But no doubt I could get 16/18" which is plenty to bury a cable or two.... My thinking goes to the water depth, because then the cables are incidental.

So I CAN do the turbines. maybe I have to catch rainwater instead of using that wonderful spring water... Or put in a big cistern and only feed it in the summer with a shallow line I have to blow out in the fall.

One way or another, it is all doable - I am just flopping around on the how.

Since you are thinking on piping the water in anyway, why not just run the turbine off the piped in water, and shorten your cable run. Any additional vertical drop will only contribute to the pressure at the downstream end.

The problem with solar here, is that the panels have to be supported in a near vertical position to get the right incidence angle, and with the wind here (a calm day is 10-20 MPH,  and in the past year we've had gusts to 95 (not a typo, 95)) that would be real hard to keep together.

Any structure that pivots in that will have wind load work the bejeebers out of any backlash in the system and eventually destroy it, so it would have to be fixed, too (and how!) to keep it in place. Other than using it for siding, I really can't see how that would work, and the batteries have to be kept from freezing at 20 or more below zero, too. (For me, it would be an outbuilding powered with the setup, so siding it with the panels would not be the problem, the batteries would).

I have considered vertical axis wind power; multidirectional, so it would not have to pivot to keep oriented into the wind, and to have a smaller footprint as well, because the one constant here is the wind, but sure as all get-out, if I put one of those up, it's quit (and then half the people around would fall over, not knowing which way to lean). 

[Smokin Joe]

Can you double or triple your solar output and use the excess to pump water from a lower pond to an upper one during the day, and letting it flow downward through a turbine at night?  Just thinking outside the box here.  It may be easier to create a connect a couple of man-made ponds close by rather than running pipe a further distance.

Same thing on a much larger scale. I did archaeology work in the lower valley while it was being constructed. https://www.dominionenergy.com/projects-and-facilities/hydroelectric-power-facilities-and-projects/bath-county-pumped-storage-station

[roamer_1]

Since you are thinking on piping the water in anyway, why not just run the turbine off the piped in water, and shorten your cable run. Any additional vertical drop will only contribute to the pressure at the downstream end.

Nonstarter. I can't get a 1" pipe down 4'... Trying to get something big enough to drive a turbine down that far would be way worse.

The problem with solar here, is that the panels have to be supported in a near vertical position to get the right incidence angle, and with the wind here (a calm day is 10-20 MPH,  and in the past year we've had gusts to 95 (not a typo, 95)) that would be real hard to keep together.

Yeah, I get it. I have been looking at a flower petal arrangement for the panels, that can automatically be retracted into the 'leaf' when the wind becomes a problem...

The problem here in the woods is not the wind itself... In the words of Ron White, "It's not THAT the wind is blowin, it's WHAT the wind is blowin..."

I don't think I will ever see more than 80 mph up in here - the mountains don't allow it. But 80's enough if it is blowing chunks of trees around.

The idea is a hell for stout vertical casing, the panels on collars, spread around as 'petals', and a place for them to store that is hell for stout when they are retracted (the 'leaf). It'd be a win for snow too. Just retract it till the storm is over, and let it unfurl again when it is nice outside.

Any structure that pivots in that will have wind load work the bejeebers out of any backlash in the system and eventually destroy it, so it would have to be fixed, too (and how!) to keep it in place. Other than using it for siding, I really can't see how that would work, and the batteries have to be kept from freezing at 20 or more below zero, too. (For me, it would be an outbuilding powered with the setup, so siding it with the panels would not be the problem, the batteries would).

Sounds to me like you should leave it on the ground, on the lee side of the house, or build a cinder block wall upwind to take the weight of it. I dunno.

I have considered vertical axis wind power; multidirectional, so it would not have to pivot to keep oriented into the wind, and to have a smaller footprint as well, because the one constant here is the wind, but sure as all get-out, if I put one of those up, it's quit (and then half the people around would fall over, not knowing which way to lean). 

LOL! wind is an 'almost' around here. Not enough for more than supplement, most times. I have a plan on a bar napkin around here somewheres, for a large diameter (1.5') cylinder around 10 ft high with variable flutes running the length, that can open some, or close all the way down to impervious-ville... Thought one could have something like that wide open on a low to moderate wind day, and it would spin, just by the virtue of the surface area in the wind - and reduce the surface by closing the flutes the harder the wind was blowing... trying for something that would work in everything from low to high-moderate wind and be able to maintain a predictable speed... Jenny and etc to follow...

Never did build one. 

[Smokin Joe]

Nonstarter. I can't get a 1" pipe down 4'... Trying to get something big enough to drive a turbine down that far would be way worse.

How about running the pipe down the creek bed?

Yeah, I get it. I have been looking at a flower petal arrangement for the panels, that can automatically be retracted into the 'leaf' when the wind becomes a problem...

The problem here in the woods is not the wind itself... In the words of Ron White, "It's not THAT the wind is blowin, it's WHAT the wind is blowin..."

I don't think I will ever see more than 80 mph up in here - the mountains don't allow it. But 80's enough if it is blowing chunks of trees around.

The idea is a hell for stout vertical casing, the panels on collars, spread around as 'petals', and a place for them to store that is hell for stout when they are retracted (the 'leaf). It'd be a win for snow too. Just retract it till the storm is over, and let it unfurl again when it is nice outside.

That'd be tough to keep in one piece, here. It isn't a question of whether there will be wind, just how much and which way it is coming from. I would imagine your wind directions are more channeled by the ridges, there.

Sounds to me like you should leave it on the ground, on the lee side of the house, or build a cinder block wall upwind to take the weight of it. I dunno.

I figured I'd just put arrays on the south facing wall, with the base kicked out from the wall. Winter angle is 68.5 degrees (from horizontal) at optimum for here, and that's purt'near vertical. Spring, Fall, and summer would have a higher output. If I was building from scratch, I'd throw in a ground loop heat pump and heat the slab, and use the solar to run it.

LOL! wind is an 'almost' around here. Not enough for more than supplement, most times. I have a plan on a bar napkin around here somewheres, for a large diameter (1.5') cylinder around 10 ft high with variable flutes running the length, that can open some, or close all the way down to impervious-ville... Thought one could have something like that wide open on a low to moderate wind day, and it would spin, just by the virtue of the surface area in the wind - and reduce the surface by closing the flutes the harder the wind was blowing... trying for something that would work in everything from low to high-moderate wind and be able to maintain a predictable speed... Jenny and etc to follow...

Never did build one. 

That sounds a lot like what I had in mind.

[Hoodat]

Piasola Wind Turbines for Home

[roamer_1]

How about running the pipe down the creek bed?

Nope. You'd dig this place... Only one way in, and where you cross the creek is on a rock ledge just below the falls... That ledge is around 80, maybe 100 ft, with only 20 ft of it where a truck will go. after all that, it drops off fast, white water, into the ravine that surrounds two sides of the place.

The further down the creek, the further DOWN the creek. 

Above the falls there is about a 50 acre pasture, protected on two sides by cliffs, with the creek boiling up out of the ground dang near in the middle of it... The hill going up to it is awful right by the falls, dang near straight up, though as it goes along into the property, it gets to where it is gentle enough to drive up it, way up against the forest.

The cabin will be in the bottom of that hanging valley, with the ravine on two sides, where a little pothole lake flows off the edge into the ravine. The cabin is going by that lake, or that is the plan for now. That bottom is around 20 acres and that is what I own. The top is another hundred or so, that I control the access to.

That'd be tough to keep in one piece, here. It isn't a question of whether there will be wind, just how much and which way it is coming from. I would imagine your wind directions are more channeled by the ridges, there.  I figured I'd just put arrays on the south facing wall, with the base kicked out from the wall. Winter angle is 68.5 degrees (from horizontal) at optimum for here, and that's purt'near vertical. Spring, Fall, and summer would have a higher output. If I was building from scratch, I'd throw in a ground loop heat pump and heat the slab, and use the solar to run it.

That'd be tough up in here. snow load would bury those panels right up against the house. The cabin is going to be on piers 4 ft off the ground, with porches and walks around it at the deck level, with the roof going over all of it just to get the snow off and out of the way... And in the winter, I won;t need the stairs.

I ain't committed to the flower petal thing for the solar, but I am thinking hard about it... that flower can all be on a rotor that tips and spins to follow the sun and sun angle... pretty efficient. But for now, the panels are just going on a frame, south facing, with the upper posts having camper jacks so I can lift the angle for the winter.

That sounds a lot like what I had in mind.

GMTA 

[Hoodat]

Above the falls there is about a 50 acre pasture, protected on two sides by cliffs, with the creek boiling up out of the ground dang near in the middle of it... The hill going up to it is awful right by the falls, dang near straight up, though as it goes along into the property, it gets to where it is gentle enough to drive up it, way up against the forest.

Just curious.  Do the legs on your cows tend to be longer on one side than the other?

[roamer_1]

Just curious.  Do the legs on your cows tend to be longer on one side than the other?

Nope. Just our wimmins. 

[Smokin Joe]

Piasola Wind Turbines for Home

Interesting, thanks!

[BassWrangler]

Nope. Just our wimmins. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sl03NlOZYnQ

[roamer_1]

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