We had a big storm roll through Monday just after noon. No tornadoes but wind speeds equal to one. Severe lightning, torrential rains and all that come with a bad storm.
I happened to be home when it hit, having taken the morning off for a doctor's appointment and returned home to have lunch. Watching the wind and rain outside reminded me of hurricanes when I still lived in Florida.
The good part was it left as fast as it came in and within two hours the sky was clear. Although it left broken trees, power poles and over 100,000 without power.
My power came back on yesterday, which surprised me as I live in a very small community several miles upriver from the city and thought I would be one of the last to get it back.
The news reported this morning that there is still around 60,000 without power.
https://qctimes.com/news/local/windy-storm-leaves-111-546-ho...
Comments
It's tough living alone
All the little things we shared, all the good and bad times we shared. Weathering the howling winds, driving rains, the fierce lighting is easier to cope with when sharing with those we love. What is the song,"One is the Lonelyist Number". Yours hit in the afternoon and then lose power and the dark comes. Maybe living in caves wasn't that bad after all? Except for earthquakes and monsters wanting in the front door.
Hugs Sweety, happy to hear you made it through alright. I looked at a lot of that on the news and it was bad.
Next time, call me and we'll talk about fishing, fashion, fun things until the storm passes.
Barb
Life is a gift, treasure it.
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
Wasn't too bad...
At least from my perspective. When the kids were growing up I used to have one night a week that we used no lights, TV, etc. We would cook our meal on the grill outside then play board games or musical instruments by candlelight inside.
So with no power, I sat at outside on the porch with my old Kay Hummingbird plucking at the strings and making some noises with it until it began to get dark.
My laptop has one of those extended life batteries that gives me around 7 and a half hours of use between charging. So I was able to work a bit on one story until bedtime.
Yesterday I went to work a bit early, only to find there was no power there and everyone that did come in got sent home, so back home again and writing. When the power came on my laptop still showed that it had over 4 hours left on the battery, so other than no internet and using battery powered lanterns for lights, nothing was that different for me.
We the willing, led by the unsure. Have been doing so much with so little for so long,
We are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
I had a generator installed.......
About eight years ago after spending the better part of two days without power one winter. It’s plumbed into the natural gas lines, and it kicks on automatically whenever the power goes out. I think we have had a use for it maybe three or four times, for a few hours each time, since it was installed - but just knowing it’s there provides a lot of peace of mind.
We still have a portable, gas powered unit that puts out enough power to light up most of the house, run the refrigerator, our freezer, the furnace and hot water heaters (which although gas have to have some power to work), and still has enough left over to run various other things. It gets fired up every few weeks just to make sure it still runs - and the natural gas unit runs once each week automatically as well.
I will say, it is strange to see your house all lit up in a totally dark city........
Looks like the apocalypse, lol.
D. Eden
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
It pays to 'be prepared'
I'm looking at some battery storage units to be added to my home. We had a thunderstorm this afternoon and the power went out for about 30 mins. Thankfully, my Internet connection has its own Battery Backup system.
A battery to run the house would be a lot more expensive but it is logical next step.
Samantha
A lifetime battery?
Samantha, I'm not sure about the Edison Battery or nickle iron battery. I read a whole lot of data on them and besides being exorbitantly expensive it seems getting any scientific research and other information other than opinion is impossible. I wonder if the nay sayers ever had one? When the telephone company closed their local office here they had a basement full of them things. Sadly, I wasn't interested at the time. I didn't even know what a nickle iron battery was. Obviously something telephones needed to work and mine worked fine without it. Ignorance is bliss. We don't know what we don't know.
hugs Sam
Barb
Life is meant to be lived not worn until it's worn out.
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
NiFe batteries are good if you know how to care for them...
Wiki says that Edison said that it is like a horse - you want it to live and work - you have to provide proper care.
In "home" application NiFe battery means H2 concentration sensors, automatic emergency ventilation to evacuate H2 rich air out of the battery room, about daily checks of electrolyte level and concentration. (there is a stipulation that NiFe technology is more useful as a quite efficient H2 generator than as a battery.)
Another problem is a very high self discharge. There are mentions of the new versions with lower self discharge but no mentions of commercial product. Not to mention that while NiFe battery is rated to -40C... you will get very little energy out of it at the lower temperatures.
On the other hand, those batteries could give you 50+ years of service life with proper care. They will not die on you suddenly after deep discharge or overcharge. In one of the episodes of Jay Leno's Garage there was a feature about electric car from the early 1900-th that still runs and it looks like it is still with it's original batteries... (but I am not sure as it was not discussed in that episode...)
BTW, there is a nice site about batteries and there is a picture of Edison with the car that looks like cabrio version of the car form JLG... https://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/nickel_based_bat...
Anyway... Batteries are a deal breaker for any attempt on saving by going off-grid. No. You will not save any money in your lifetime... Maybe your grand-kids... but not likely as they will have to repair charger and replace wiring at some point...
If you are ready to spend money on batteries to provide for the emergencies... Diesel or gasoline generator is still your best bet. If you have enough fuel you will have about 10 days of constant power before you will need to do the oil change. And there is about no dependency on is it high summer or coldest day of winter outside.
And... There are relatively new LiFePO4 batteries. They promise comparable price, lifetime and cycle number but without catastrophic self discharge or need for any kind of service. But those are relatively new so any claims to the cycle number or lifetime should be considered as a goal and not a warranty.
One option is...
(for the future) is to run your home off the battery in your car. My car has a 90Kwh battery. 84kWh is usable. I could run my home for several weeks even in winter off one full charge provided I didn't want to drive anywhere.
Samantha
Assuming we have finite oil and gas?
Despite my total dislike of elec vehicles and the hidden cost everyone is NOT disclosing, the enormous cost of building such monstrosities, human civilization is headed toward Armageddon if an alternative energy isn't found. Fossil fuel is finite and once it is gone it is gone. Period. Solar power is not the answer with our present technology. Wind is on again, off again depending on the weather. If it wasn't subsidized by taxpayers it would be a losing game.
Gas, liquid or natural, does not magically appear out of thin air for all of us to use at our leisure. As ManiacRacer mentioned one of the by products of the NiFe battery is hydrogen. Similar to a Browns Gas Generator. I've had two of those in my vehicles at one time. I achieved close to thirty five MPG in the diesel PU. Sadly none of my friends achieved any improvement in MPG in their gas vehicles and abandoned the idea. It seems the idea is truly a hit and miss situation. More miss than hit. I still needed diesel for the PU to run. Back to square A finite fuel.
Bottom line, gas nor elec is the answer. If a better energy source can't be found, the future looks bleak for following generations, provided we don't kill each other first. Those who are left are going to be walking or ridding again and living underground. We are using up finite resources at a horrendous rate and the public isn't being informed. Remember the line about growing mushrooms? "Keep them in the dark and feed them shit." The everything is fine lies everyone is being spoon fed is great unless you look behind the curtain. Like the Wizard of Oz. I won't live to see it, I don't believe but my kids might and grandchildren certainly will. The succeeding generations will pay for our folly.
hugs people
Barb
Life is a gift, treasure it.
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
Unlimited fuel
From my readings (books such as The Deep Hot Biosphere), "fossil fuel" (a misnomer if there ever was one!) is unlimited, at least for tens of thousands of years. Methane and other gases are products of the universe, NOT of decay of dinosaurs/plants/whatever. The earth keeps recharging empty deep wells, as the Russians have discovered. We have the greenest energy in these gases.
ROFL
To some extent, you are right but... the rate at which we are extracting Dino Juice far, far, far outstrips the rate at which it is being replenished.
Burning the stuff is a once only event. Then there are all the nasty by products. eg Uranium, Mercury from buring coal to consider.
Far better to leave it in the ground for another 40+ million years.
That's why my home is powered by 100% renewable fuel. Wind and Solar for leccy and bio-gas and forrestry offcuts for heating.
When an organic body dies and decays, part of what gets released is methane. I can remember seeing an experiment when I was at university that demnstrated this in a closed system. It is this decay that is used to create bio-gas.
Samantha
Did you ever...?
Light your farts as a youngster? That's a methane/hydrogen mix.
Samantha
Not saying he is wrong
Remember the World is Flat and all the stars and solar system revolves around earth? Along with thousands of other misconceptions they are truth until disproved. All are assumptions like the pediatrician who knows all there is to know about the psychology of transsexuals and they are misinformed. They need to accept their birth designation.
No doubt Thomas Gold was a learned man and intelligent. But are we going to rely on an astrologer to inform us about what's in the ground, how much there is, and it's infinite? I hate to bust your bubble, his theories are wrong as any rough neck can tell you. Gas and oil wells do not keep filling back up. Gas and oil is in layers in the ground just like lakes. Whether it's an oil well or a lake, pump it out and it will empty. And just like a lake the oil doesn't flow to the well if it misses. A thousand feet from a producer may be a dry well. When a well starts running out they call it a stripper. And when that becomes uneconomical they pull the casing and close it off.
Now days they drill down and turn horizontal to put as much casing in the pay zone as practical. Because oil or gas doesn't move toward a vertical hole that quickly. It's a con game. The oil drillers put in the well, it's a high producer and they sell it to stock holders who wish to invest in oil or gas wells. Three years later that high producer has turned into a trickle because it is the nature of the beast of horizontal drilling.
Maybe our friend Thomas should have spent forty or fifty years in the middle of all those who live and eat oil and gas? Shall I mention one of my best friends is an oil and gas engineer. He logs those puppies, estimates the reserves, and the life of wells. If I was asking for an expert it would be him hands down, twice over. His reputation is well known among all the oil field companies.
I'll pass on the Koolaid all is well in endless oil and gas.
Barb
Life is a test. Do we pass?
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
It was same storm that hit NE Illinois (USA)
Estimate is I will be without power til Saturday afternoon. All else works except oven is electronic controls, and I have to use a 'long nose' butane lighter to start stove burners. Still have hot & cold water, and car. I am plying 'vampire' just outside library on their power & 'net.
I've recharged my phone, laptop, three little wall plug-in flashlights.
So. i'm "car camping" in my own home!
Sigh, refrigerator and freezer stuff is now compost ...
It can always be worse... :) :)
Maybe 300,000 without power in Chicago-land.
My power back on. :)
My power was restored about 3 PM, 3 days early(!). Only two days no power, so some refrigerator/freezer stuff may be OK, but will have to review item by item. I did follow Rule 1: Do >not< open doors to check!
Power loss caught with a loaf bread in final rise, baked it anyway. Quite porous, and a sourdough taste (it did have 2 days, not just 2-4 hours to rise).
On the whole, I think I'm coming through pretty OK.
---
Addendum: Had a zip bag of ice cubes in freezer, and while it 'slagged down' and refroze in a solid mass, some ice-cube shapes were visible on the top. This indicates freezer temperature did not get above 32 F/0 C, so food should all be still good.
Good news is, I'm vegan, and plant foods do not seem to 'go bad' as quickly as flesh, diary, and things with eggs. (Think mayonnaise at a picnic. The un-refrigerated safe time is a few hours, tops.)
Funny thing is, having no power was far more a test of my (rudimentary) 'coping skills', than has been the COVID-19 lock-down/isolation precautions ...