We just saw what happens when fossil fuels go offline in Texas.
This is so true of any power source. That that is made and not used is wasted. That's why the gov and power suppliers have pushed us towards energy star appliances and energy efficient tech like LED. That's why so many green tech houses have battery arrays to keep the power they've made. Batteries have come a very long way in a short time too recently, and it's only getting better. It's a fascinating thing to follow.
Agreed, there is definitely work to be done across the board. But the variability of natural gas is the exception. Variability of wind and solar is not. So I don't see how they can be more than a feel good thing- at least until the super-batteries are ready. Otherwise, the more you rely on them, the more conventional capacity you need too. Doeant seem very efficient.
I understand what you're saying and agree with you. My point is, if we ditched wind and solar now, they'll stop working on that battery tech. Every battery company is looking to cash in with a valuable patent. Without the incentive to make a pile of protected money, there's no sense spending the r&d money.
My Grandparents had a wind charger!
And nothing has changes in the last 90 years. And nothing will change in the next 100 years.
If you disagree get a hone wind charger and get off the electric grid.
Live with out hot water, central heat and air, refrigerator, lights, computers, internet, cell phone & Etc.
When it came to electrification, West Texas lagged behind the rest of the country. It was not cost effective to put up poles and string wire through the sparsely settled country west of the Colorado River. Eastern cities were electrified before the turn of the 20th Century, but many rural West Texans squinted in dim candlelight for another 50 years.
Meanwhile some clever West Texans decided to generate their own electricity by harnessing the wind. A homemade wind charger used a wooden airplane-type propeller. When the wind blew, the propeller turned a generator pulled from an old car. The generator produced electricity and charged car batteries, wired in parallel, to be used when the wind was quiet.
The early wind chargers powered all kinds of equipment and gadgets including water pumps and electric lights.
But wind chargers were little more than curiosities until vacuum tube radios hit the market in the 1920s. The radio brought music and laughter to a hushed world, and anyone who heard it was hooked. Every family wanted a radio and made plans to get one.
The problem for rural listeners was that early radios had rechargeable batteries. When the battery went down, the owner had to take it to the gas station in town for a recharge.
Of course families with wind chargers didn't have that problem. For rural West Texans, the radio and the wind charger were made for each other.
As demand for radios soared, companies hoping to sell radios to rural customers began manufacturing wind chargers to power them. Perhaps the most popular commercial wind charger was the Wizard sold by Western Auto Stores. Zenith also made wind chargers.
An ad from The Paris (Texas) News, February 20, 1938.
Some companies sold radios and wind chargers as a set. Crosley Radio Corporation manufactured and sold a wind charger and a battery set for $20. For another $30, the company threw in a radio. Once you purchased the radio, the wind charger and the battery, the only cost was adding distilled water to the battery and oiling the generator. A year's worth of distilled water cost 50 cents.
By 1930 the wind charger business was booming. It even grew during the Great Depression. By 1935 one million American homes produced their own electrical power.
For the first time farm and ranch families had access to daily news, market and weather reports and nightly entertainment. Each evening isolated areas of rural West Texas came alive with sparkling lights and the sound of music.
Young and old crowded around the radio to hear "Fibber McGee and Molly" and "Jack Armstrong, The All-American Boy." They listened to orchestral music and boxing matches.
I knew a man who thought the most exciting sound he ever heard was a thud. It was the sound of the latest Joe Louis opponent hitting the canvas. In deeply segregated America my white friend didn't know, or care, that Joe Louis, his hero, was Black.
Of course the wind wasn't a consistent power source. If the fickle wind blew, the lights came on and the radio played. If the wind didn't blow, everyone went to bed early.
And no one thought it sacrilegious to pray for a stiff wind on Saturday night so the family could listen to "The Lone Ranger" or the "Grand Ole Opry" in Nashville, Tennessee.
The demise of wind chargers began in 1935 when New Dealers in Washington created the Rural Electrification Administration. The REA provided West Texas with cheap reliable electricity - whether the wind blew or not.
By the end of World War II, most of rural Texas was wired for electricity. Wind chargers were no longer in demand.
Now wind chargers are making a comeback.
© Michael Barr
"Hindsights" February 15 , 2017 Column
Sources:
Amarillo Globe-News, July 10, 2006, "Wind Chargers more than just a power source," p3B.
Farm Collector, "Charged by the Wind," June 2004.
Related Topics:
Windmills in Texas
My Grandparents had a wind charger!
And nothing has changes in the last 90 years. And nothing will change in the next 100 years.
If you disagree get a hone wind charger and get off the electric grid.
Live with out hot water, central heat and air, refrigerator, lights, computers, internet, cell phone & Etc.
When it came to electrification, West Texas lagged behind the rest of the country. It was not cost effective to put up poles and string wire through the sparsely settled country west of the Colorado River. Eastern cities were electrified before the turn of the 20th Century, but many rural West Texans squinted in dim candlelight for another 50 years.
Meanwhile some clever West Texans decided to generate their own electricity by harnessing the wind. A homemade wind charger used a wooden airplane-type propeller. When the wind blew, the propeller turned a generator pulled from an old car. The generator produced electricity and charged car batteries, wired in parallel, to be used when the wind was quiet.
The early wind chargers powered all kinds of equipment and gadgets including water pumps and electric lights.
But wind chargers were little more than curiosities until vacuum tube radios hit the market in the 1920s. The radio brought music and laughter to a hushed world, and anyone who heard it was hooked. Every family wanted a radio and made plans to get one.
The problem for rural listeners was that early radios had rechargeable batteries. When the battery went down, the owner had to take it to the gas station in town for a recharge.
Of course families with wind chargers didn't have that problem. For rural West Texans, the radio and the wind charger were made for each other.
As demand for radios soared, companies hoping to sell radios to rural customers began manufacturing wind chargers to power them. Perhaps the most popular commercial wind charger was the Wizard sold by Western Auto Stores. Zenith also made wind chargers.
An ad from The Paris (Texas) News, February 20, 1938.
Some companies sold radios and wind chargers as a set. Crosley Radio Corporation manufactured and sold a wind charger and a battery set for $20. For another $30, the company threw in a radio. Once you purchased the radio, the wind charger and the battery, the only cost was adding distilled water to the battery and oiling the generator. A year's worth of distilled water cost 50 cents.
By 1930 the wind charger business was booming. It even grew during the Great Depression. By 1935 one million American homes produced their own electrical power.
For the first time farm and ranch families had access to daily news, market and weather reports and nightly entertainment. Each evening isolated areas of rural West Texas came alive with sparkling lights and the sound of music.
Young and old crowded around the radio to hear "Fibber McGee and Molly" and "Jack Armstrong, The All-American Boy." They listened to orchestral music and boxing matches.
I knew a man who thought the most exciting sound he ever heard was a thud. It was the sound of the latest Joe Louis opponent hitting the canvas. In deeply segregated America my white friend didn't know, or care, that Joe Louis, his hero, was Black.
Of course the wind wasn't a consistent power source. If the fickle wind blew, the lights came on and the radio played. If the wind didn't blow, everyone went to bed early.
And no one thought it sacrilegious to pray for a stiff wind on Saturday night so the family could listen to "The Lone Ranger" or the "Grand Ole Opry" in Nashville, Tennessee.
The demise of wind chargers began in 1935 when New Dealers in Washington created the Rural Electrification Administration. The REA provided West Texas with cheap reliable electricity - whether the wind blew or not.
By the end of World War II, most of rural Texas was wired for electricity. Wind chargers were no longer in demand.
Now wind chargers are making a comeback.
© Michael Barr
"Hindsights" February 15 , 2017 Column
Sources:
Amarillo Globe-News, July 10, 2006, "Wind Chargers more than just a power source," p3B.
Farm Collector, "Charged by the Wind," June 2004.
Related Topics:
Windmills in Texas
Fantastic story dude. Those old timers really lived the hard life. I'm not gonna argue with you. We just see the topic from two different outlooks on life.
That's a valid point and about the only justification to be made IMO. I'm also of the opinion that wind and solar have been wayyyyyy over implemented. @trekrok is correct. For every megawatt of a renewable capacity you HAVE TO HAVE a megawatt of conventional capacity to take over. I strongly suspect that they've surpassed the excess or overcapacity which historically was used in high demand scenarios and have now grown to rely on the renewable capacity.
What happened in Texas was a failure of weatherization implementation. That costs money and they've spent it on renewables instead since these events are so rare there. It has officially yanked down their drawers and bit them in the ass. Their ass is now showing but they are trying to say it isn't.
There was an old farmer at our church years ago that said when they first got a radio, he'd bring the tractor battery inside to power it.
The tractor had a hand crank (and probably a magneto), so they weren't worried about starting it the next morning.
We take so much for granted these days.
The tractor had a hand crank (and probably a magneto), so they weren't worried about starting it the next morning.
We take so much for granted these days.
Just like voting machines with electronics made in China!!
hence why strategic importance of NOT allowing CCP access to our electrical grid.
those HUGE transformers are already installed with embedded electronics.
my guess is CCP needed access to activate remote control to those transformers.
which Biden granted CCP access to America's grid in his EO on his first day.
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