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Hope is something you do, not something you have. I think we diners do a pretty good job of that. Build the new world one garden at time. One solar installation at a time. One bike truck at a time. One new friend at a time. It's all we can do in my view, and it is all we need to do
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Money: The ROOT of all EVILCan't leave this one alone, RE.
RE
Money: The ROOT of all EVILCan't leave this one alone, RE.
RE
3. Do not use more energy over the course of a year than can be collected during the year.
Not to be interpreted too strictly; for example, if you have a four-year coppice wood rotation, then you only collect 4-year-old stems, never dip into the 3-year-old ones.
Sadly though, I get few comments either here on the forum or on the blog on the HISC novel.Aw jeez, RE, did you have to go and say that?
RE
I have friends, fellow diner lurkers, with whom this is now a favorite topic of conversation.Well, maybe you should be privy to some of that conversation, especially the parts that may help explain the apparent lack of interest (which unfortunately are critical in nature).
The only thing that stands a chance of working is a community size project where you have all the main crafts being done, blacksmithing, tanning leather, spinning & weaving cloth, pottery, basket weaving, shoemaking etc etc etc. That's the nature of the SUN☼Project.Had to sign in just to give this one a hearty Amen!
The only way you can do this is with a community of minimum I would say 100 people, and then each of them has to bone up on a couple of different areas of craftsmanship starting yesterday. Most of these crafts take years to get really good at.
You're only as strong as the weakest link in the chain. Once you realize that the collapse of industrial civilization means that all those products you buy at Home Depot, Walmart etc won't be available, you have to be able to produce a facsimile of them yourself. It's not just about growing food, and most people including farmers couldn't do that if they couldn't buy commercial seed every year.
Individual Doomsteading is basically a fantasy insofar as being sustainable for any great length of time. At best, it will keep you alive a few more years than the population at large. That's better than than nothing, but I think we can do better than that. Only by working together though.
RE
Bill (Mollison) asserts that if just 10%of the people of the world undertook this form of self-sufficiency, we could feed the world.No.
My first question here for this thread is whether this is really true? Could 10% of the population feed everyone else, all 7.3B people currently walking the earth?
Here's a Trebuchet launching a Car, a Piano and an Incendiary Drum.That's not a piano, it's a pump organ.
RE
...car alternators work both ways. One way they crank the engine, the other way the engine cranks them and they recharge the battery.au contraire, mon frère!
RE
One of the marvelous things about electric motors is they work both ways. If you put electricity in, the motor turns. The other way, if you turn the motor, electricity comes out.Yes, it is generally true that 'motors generate and generators motor'. Not 100% always, though; depends on the design of the device. But neither of them does a very good job when used this way unless they were designed to do so; efficiency goes down. Ever tried to make an automotive alternator work as a motor, or a starter motor serve as a generator? You might get some action, but not worth a shit in the long run.
You must not have read the stuff I posted about the low flow turbines I was looking at. They sit at water level and use a drop pipe. It's a completely different design from a typical microhydro turbine. No Pelton wheel. This renders most of Gregs' last comment moot, I think.You are correct, I hadn't caught that.
I am ready to be hammered with the usual Diner Negative Waves on this. --REBrace yourself, RE, here it comes: You make a lot of really valid points.
Good points.
I expect the water diversion issue will be a non issue at some point, we'll have a seriously dry late summer and fall that will dry the creek to a trickle that won't interfere much.
I think it's better to build a dam that's low and strong and bulletproof that it is to get fancy and install a gate, which really won't do much in full flood anyway. It isn't unusual to have full size live trees get washed out of the banks of my creek and swept away in a flood. I've seen it. No gate will hold up to that.
The dams I've seen that last are just long, low, straight check-dams.
Except that... Don't you need a formed concrete flow channel thru the dam in which to install your turbine system? That channel, if its depth extends to the bottom of the creek's flow line (presumably you want to utilize the flow at the lowest possible elevation in order to maximize head pressure), can serve as the 'drain-the-whole-reservoir' outlet if needed for maintenance or restoration work. It needs a gate of some sort so that you could close off flow in case of trouble with the turbines. All it takes is a pair of vertical grooves formed into the concrete (better if lined with iron because its very straight and provides a better seal surface than concrete) into which you can drop a flat panel like a sheet of plywood to close off the flow. Irrigation headgates are done this way, usually with a permanent operating mechanism (not necessary in your case?) that allows the gate to be held at a precise level to meter the flow through it. I use these on my ditches (slots formed in concrete that I can shove a board into).
I wish I could estimate the flow through there right now. I'd like to know, but the turbine people talk about filling up buckets, which is not going to work. When you don't have a lot of head, flow becomes crucially important for power generation.
A few points.
1- A long, low dam will not provide enough pressure to efficiently run turbines. You need either decent depth or fast flow rate, or both. A long low check dam is not going to do this job.
Unless some portion of the dam is a well constructed reinforced concrete channel that extends to the bottom of the flow line, and is gated on the upstream side to control flow through it (any excess flow goes over the spillway). That flow channel houses the turbine system, and serves as a full-release valve for draining the reservoir. The rest of the dam can be the long, low, massive earthen check dam variety, which if properly constructed could withstand the once-in-a-blue-moon overtopping event. Of course, a section of this needs to be a spillway that can withstand constant overflow. The overall height of the dam cannot exceed that of the surrounding terrain or you'll invite all kinds of trouble in a high water situation.
2- The main purpose of the gate is not to release a lot of water at times of high water, that is the job of the spillway. The job of the gate is to release water at times of low water/drought, so it makes its way downstream. So it doesn't need to be very big. If you are building the dam out of concrete, you just set the gate in at the lowest point under the dam. It's not vulnerable to trees or other debris floating down in a flood, because it is at the bottom of the dam.
Easier alternative to this is just to run a pipe under the dam with a valve you can open and close, but it will need to be kept clear of sediment at both ends so it doesn't block up. You would want to use a fairly large diameter sewer pipe for this purpose. 6-12" or so I would estimate.
Definitely not a big fan here, as these can have a problem with clogging from sedimentation unless they are regularly flushed. Also they are a construction hassle, requiring special care to prevent them from becoming a leakage pathway. Eddie's dam is too shallow to bother with such.
3- I have another Rube Goldberg solution I am working on, but it will take a day or two to get some schematics done and research the type of hardware to use. I won't let on to what this is until I have it reasonably bulletproof and can't get hammered from the first post. LOL.
Bring it, Rube.
RE
Another shot of Gene's Hole.Nice puddle!
Very muddy Mangalitsas.Happy as pigs in slop!
That's exactly what I had in mind. It will leak a little, but if properly constructed it would be minimal. Our irrigation supply canals use them to open into feeder ditches or laterals, like my own. There is very little leakage through my head gate when it's closed, and it's a many decades old piece of junk. The static hydraulic pressure against the flat gate panel effectively presses it against the frame for a good seal.In consideration of that maintenance issue, you probably should incorporate the means to open it up to full flow during the dry season in case you need it. Another problem to consider.I already suggested installing a sliding vertical gate.
--Greg
RE
David is right, of course.Eddie you will cause minor environmental changes. A deeper body of water will maintain a lower temperature which might impact the ecosystem of the creek. Next comes by slowing the water down you will cause the sediment load to deposit that will also cause minor changes to the food supply down stream. Then there is the increase of the surface layer due to the reservoir which allows for more local evaporation you get a slightly higher humidity micro climate by leaving less water downstream. I dont think it matters in the grand scheme of things but not totally benign either. We cannot touch a creek here but as you say water law is very different.
Best regards, David Baillie
If you saw what people do to creeks here, you'd understand why I think my plan is pretty benign. I understand that there would be effects, I just consider them extremely negligible. It's a matter of scale.
***SG question, did I use that semicolon correctly?No. Should have been a colon.
It's already fuckin' nutzo out there in the Matrix. People are crazy, the shit they believe astounds me, and there they all are...shopping for groceries and whatever else tickles their fancy.Boy, ain't that the truth!
