sodamo
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- Big Island, HI
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Don, is there an app to get your Tempest wx on your watch?
Good morning!!!!
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Alien
Elite Member
When I emigrated to Australia from NZ in 1976 I flew to Norfolk Island in a Fokker Friendship and after a couple of weeks there, flew to Brisbane in a King Air. It was a long but enjoyable flight. Toilet was behind a pull-back curtain in the back of the cabin. No-one was game to use it.
txdon
Super Star Member
The wild pigs loved the creosote of the electric poles on the farm and would dig a hole around the post about a foot deep and 2 feet wide. The after a rain it filled with water.
txdon
Super Star Member
Good question. I think my watch alerts for rain and lightning however looking at all the apps on the Apple Watch I do not see a tempest app on my watch. a goggle search says this so I might have to look around.
"Tempest integrates with the Apple ecosystem in a number of ways. Besides the Tempest app, which runs on any iPhone or iPad running iOS 9.0 or newer, there are also Tempest apps for Apple Watch and Apple TV. Tempest also works with Siri, so you can check the weather using voice commands. Last updated: May 25, 2020 14:21"
txdon
Super Star Member
RS is the only way to go all green is to be all electric. Because all electric heat uses 4 times as much energy in deep cold (below 35˚F) as the unit uses to air-condition the house. Is your house all electric?
Popgadget
Elite Member
My open loop geothermal heat pump is at least 4 times the efficiency of straight resistance heat, regardless of outside temp. Many modern air to air heat pumps can make efficient heat at temps well below 35.
Having said that, if I had natural gas available to me I would definitely heat with gas. It is simpler, more reliable, cheaper to install and usually a lower cost per BTU.
But regardless of fuel source, there is a lot of savings that come from insulating and sealing the building envelope to reduce the energy required to heat or cool it.
Having said that, if I had natural gas available to me I would definitely heat with gas. It is simpler, more reliable, cheaper to install and usually a lower cost per BTU.
But regardless of fuel source, there is a lot of savings that come from insulating and sealing the building envelope to reduce the energy required to heat or cool it.
Popgadget
Elite Member
I’m interested in learning about the Tempest as well, I just started a thread in rural living titled “weather stations”.
Looking4new
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There is an Alberta Clipper coming this way and it should be here tomorrow morning early and I gotta get to North Bay tomorrow afternoon. About 6" +/- coming.
buckeyefarmer
Epic Contributor
Left work at 55°
According to 10 day forecast, only 1 night below freezing in next 10 days. Winter is over, now it will be muddy spring
My work project is winding down. Starting to get slow until another project ramps up. I hate how cyclical this work is.
According to 10 day forecast, only 1 night below freezing in next 10 days. Winter is over, now it will be muddy spring
My work project is winding down. Starting to get slow until another project ramps up. I hate how cyclical this work is.
RedNeckGeek
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Interesting conversation regarding green energy. I can say first hand that I will probably never reach break even with the solar assisted system that was installed here. That's because there are three levels of redundancy: the solar panels, the battery bank, the propane fired generator, and then the power grid. The weakest link in the system is the power grid, as the local utility has told us that it will take at least five years, and probably longer, before they can stop turning off the electricity in the summer to avoid starting wildfires with their under maintained equipment. The solar panels are offsetting nearly 100% of my electricity use, much more than that on sunny days, but the panels only make power during the day, and their output falls drastically when it's cloudy out (that includes smoke clouds, which can last here for weeks during the summer). Batteries are in place to provide power at night, and when the solar cells can't keep up with the loads. When battery capacity is exhausted, the generator starts, picking up the loads and also charging the batteries until they are full, then it automatically shuts off. I'm very certain this level of redundancy is not eco friendly at all, especially if you take into account the energy and materials used to manufacture the equipment, and the use of propane, which is after all a fossil fuel. But it's necessary to provide a level of reliability comparable to a responsibly managed utility grid, something that we all took for granted in the past. Recent events in Texas and the continuing utility problems in California have shown that grid reliability isn't something to be taken for granted any longer.
Solar panel systems that don't incorporate battery or generator backup won't provide any power when the grid goes down, so they're pretty much useless during an emergency. Almost all of the roof top solar power systems installed in the US today are this type of grid tied system. Even in normal times, they only offset electricity use during the day when they're generating electricity, and the power grid still has to supply electricity from late afternoon to mid morning. Some of that time is very low use, but morning and evening times are when people are going and coming back from work, so the grid still has to support all those energy intensive activities.
Wind does work at night, but the areas of the country with a good wind resource aren't very wide spread, and the wind isn't exactly a reliable, continuous energy source. The equipment isn't the most reliable, either, not just as shown by the Texas experience, but by the high maintenance costs being seen in the commercial wind farms. We had a fairly large one just east of where I used to work in the SF Bay Area, and it was rare to see even a majority of the turbines turning even on a windy day.
Nobody likes to talk about hydroelectric power, but it is a simple and very reliable source that has been exploited for a very long time. Unfortunately it is no longer considered ecologically friendly because of its impact on the watersheds and fish populations. And there's no where near the potential future capacity enough to offset what's now being generated from coal and natural gas, even if the environmentalists could somehow be placated so that new dams could be built.
I agree that we need to move toward more sustainable energy systems, but we need to do it in a way where all the costs of replacement technologies are included in the analysis. Some fossil fuel use can be offset by electric motors and batteries, but the fuels used in the manufacture of those replacements needs to be taken into account before any real savings can be claimed. And we need to recognize that we need to make more efficient use of our fossil fuels, since they are after all finite resources. We've seen a recent surge in US production of oil and gas, but the current administration seems set on abandoning fracking and restricting access to drilling on federal land to the extent that we'll once again be importing foreign energy to meet our needs.
Finally, we need to move toward sustainable systems in such a way that we maintain our quality of life, including our cost of living. That's not going to happen in a few years without risking the destruction of our quality of life and bankrupting the nation. :2cents:
Solar panel systems that don't incorporate battery or generator backup won't provide any power when the grid goes down, so they're pretty much useless during an emergency. Almost all of the roof top solar power systems installed in the US today are this type of grid tied system. Even in normal times, they only offset electricity use during the day when they're generating electricity, and the power grid still has to supply electricity from late afternoon to mid morning. Some of that time is very low use, but morning and evening times are when people are going and coming back from work, so the grid still has to support all those energy intensive activities.
Wind does work at night, but the areas of the country with a good wind resource aren't very wide spread, and the wind isn't exactly a reliable, continuous energy source. The equipment isn't the most reliable, either, not just as shown by the Texas experience, but by the high maintenance costs being seen in the commercial wind farms. We had a fairly large one just east of where I used to work in the SF Bay Area, and it was rare to see even a majority of the turbines turning even on a windy day.
Nobody likes to talk about hydroelectric power, but it is a simple and very reliable source that has been exploited for a very long time. Unfortunately it is no longer considered ecologically friendly because of its impact on the watersheds and fish populations. And there's no where near the potential future capacity enough to offset what's now being generated from coal and natural gas, even if the environmentalists could somehow be placated so that new dams could be built.
I agree that we need to move toward more sustainable energy systems, but we need to do it in a way where all the costs of replacement technologies are included in the analysis. Some fossil fuel use can be offset by electric motors and batteries, but the fuels used in the manufacture of those replacements needs to be taken into account before any real savings can be claimed. And we need to recognize that we need to make more efficient use of our fossil fuels, since they are after all finite resources. We've seen a recent surge in US production of oil and gas, but the current administration seems set on abandoning fracking and restricting access to drilling on federal land to the extent that we'll once again be importing foreign energy to meet our needs.
Finally, we need to move toward sustainable systems in such a way that we maintain our quality of life, including our cost of living. That's not going to happen in a few years without risking the destruction of our quality of life and bankrupting the nation. :2cents: