Hurricane Harvey fallout - Gas queues in Dallas - Where is my EV?

[BioSehnsucht]

Cruz is, as usual, full of it : Cruz: Two-thirds of Sandy relief money was unrelated pork (Politifact)

 

[omgwtfbyobbq]

It gets down to 0F here many nights of the year, so 2-3kw of batteries would not nearly cut it. Even with a gas furnace it's pulling 1500 watts when heating so I would need a minimum of 7-8kw of batteries just to get through the night running nothing else.

If I am doing brand new construction I would definitely have a bigger hand in the design of the property and realistically I would have both electrical battery storage and some kind of fossil fuel generator for flexibility during a sustained power outage.

I would love to have a completely off the grid place that still had fast internet speeds, but haven't won the powerball yet so that's not going to happen anytime soon.

Tesla's big contribution to solar really is the power wall since the battery packs are very high end and require little (zero?) maintenance. I know someone who has marine batteries for night time power generation in a mountain cabin, it's a huge PITA because the batteries have to be serviced and periodically replaced. When you put it in and it's all shiny and new and your lights work 24/7 it's pretty awesome, then 15 years later after replacing thousands of dollars of batteries and dealing with the occasional battery that leaked while you were away for a couple of months... not a lot of fun.

That's a lot of power for a gas furnace, but if it's 0F outside, it's a compelling use case. At times I would leave the heat off when the lows dropped into the 20s. That was cold, but doable, and I verified my house had an overall R value of 20+. I wouldn't want to do that at 0F.

Still, I think you could use a lot less energy if the temperature was set at something like 50F. It's not the best standard of living, but I imagine you could get by. In your situation, combined heat and power would be great too. If you're using something like a small 2000W generator, the efficiency is only ~10%, which means you're probably tossing more heat out of the generator exhaust than your gas furnace is delivering given the same amount of initial energy, and you're paying for both the electricity and

I also wouldn't characterize going partially or fully off-grid as needing a winning powerball number. It's definitely not inexpensive if you're paying someone for everything and aren't willing to flexibly use energy, but my hunch is an owner-builder who is handy and flexible would spend less overall on a well designed off-grid system than they would connecting to the grid, assuming they had to pay for a grid connection. As PV panel prices continue to drop, that may also be true for someone who is willing to do the work themselves and is already connected to the grid.

 

[ohmman]

That's what they said. As usual, not true: Was 2013 Hurricane Sandy Relief Package ‘Full of Pork’?

Or, go ahead and read it yourself. I just did while you guys were using the much easier way.

https://www.congress.gov/113/plaws/publ2/PLAW-113publ2.pdf

 

[DR61]

I seem to recall they voted against the pork added to bill that had absolutely nothing to do with helping the people impacted by Sandy.

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz Statement on the Disaster Relief Act of 2013 | Ted Cruz | U.S. Senator for Texas

This statement is mostly false according to several fact checking organizations:
Cruz: Two-thirds of Sandy relief money was unrelated pork

 

[SpiceWare]

That's what they said. As usual, not true: Was 2013 Hurricane Sandy Relief Package ‘Full of Pork’?

Thanks, not surprised.

 

[Xenoilphobe]

This statement is mostly false according to several fact checking organizations:
Cruz: Two-thirds of Sandy relief money was unrelated pork

Thanks - I love when the Sheeple get the facts... Ohmman - I searched the whole document for the word Pork and it didnt have any..