Mods are AWOL. Is this collapse?

Post your observations here.

Start your comment with “Location: [insert location]” or the bot will get angry - any nonsense location will do.

  • RealAccountNameHere@beehaw.orgEnglish
    0·
    9 months ago

    Location: Colorado

    I feel so much dread.

    I hike a lot around the Front Range, and the woods are so silent compared to when I moved here in 2002. I used to always see chickadees, nuthatches, woodpeckers, magpies, juncos…it was gorgeous. Now I’m lucky to see a couple of birds within a two-hour hike.

    It’s a weird, different, quiet world. I miss the birds.

  • eleitl@lemmy.mlMEnglish
    0·
    9 months ago

    Location: Southern Germany. Anomalous heat season broken, first night frost. Firewood even more expensive this year, now up to 160 EUR/m^3 . Natural gas and electricity will jump higher sooner than expected due to tax breaks ending, probably by end of the year. Economy is in recession, particularly any energy intensive industry. Lots of migrants, which are taxing municipalities’ finances. Worst: absolutely no improvement in sight.

    On the positive side, 400 Wp photovoltaics modules are down to 100 EUR, kWh scale storage batteries also much cheaper and inverters also somewhat. 80+% autarky for off-grid is no longer prohibitively expensive.

      • eleitl@lemmy.mlMEnglish
        0·
        9 months ago

        Wind power doesn’t scale for domestic size installations. My solar PV is at 2 kWp at the moment, and I’m planning to add some 10 kWh battery storage in a year or two. Grid-tied but insular capable, it would flatten the PV production peak and be an insurance against potential load shedding events.

          • eleitl@lemmy.mlMEnglish
            0·
            8 months ago

            I’m using microinverters which are grid-tied, they stop prodicing AC power when the grid goes down, for safety reasons. I will move these to the AC branch of the battery backed Victron modular system (building that in 1-2 years) which is island-capable, so that part requires no modification.

            The problem with residential wind is that it never EROIs due to physics scaling. You need MW scale facilities in suitable locations to EROI.

            There is some small use case from DIY wind systems made from recycled components in coastal areas, since these are complementary to PV and can improve the duty cycle of backup diesel in insular installations. No point in that for grid-tied setups.