A Chicken Farmer Explains 15 Minute Cities

[AnalogPackrat]

There is plenty of city space to be used for solar panels. Rooftops, facades, parking lots etc.

I have no problem with that.

Also, a lot of rural space can be found in many countries that is uninhabited rocks and desert.

Uninhabited by humans does not mean it isn't a viable ecosystem and home to other life. I thought this was all about saving the earth from destructive humans?

Solar power has become the cheapest form of energy availible.

Only when the marginal costs of its manufacture and its operational side-effects are ignored. Clear cutting forests or replacing farmland to install solar is idiocy. It's happening here.

Plenty of low hanging fruit to harvest. Could be a great way to earn money or at least ease the costs of living with a little longer term thinking for rural dwellers.

I have no interest in destroying my nice, natural carbon sink with all of it's native flora and fauna just so some city dweller can charge their electric car or whatever. No. I've added insulation and radiant barrier film to part of my home. I will continue that when my attic cools down late fall. I also replaced two 15+ year old heat pumps with new much more efficient units. Upgraded windows are also in the works. I'm evaluating a modest rooftop solar setup, too.

A lot of things around energy are patently absurd, unfortunately.

Yes, like ignoring nuclear and building more efficient structures (or improving existing ones). And pretending corn-based ethanol ever made any sense at all.

Even in places where renewables are a no brainer. For instance, the island of Lanzarote is mostly desert, the sun is shining and lot's of wind is blowing almost every day all year round. A comparably small investment would be necessary to get all energy from renewables, permanently.

First, that desert is likely not "empty." Second, nothing humans make is permanent. After you bulldoze what you don't appreciate you will have to add miles of ugly transmission lines to further degrade the natural environment. Add infrastructure for maintenance and access. Just more ugly.

I've seen the now-abandoned first gen wind farms at Tehachapi Pass and Altamont Pass in California. They were ugly when they worked, more so after being abandoned some 40 years later.

Instead, every day oil vessels land on the island, because the overwhelming portion of energy is produced from burning fossible fuels. And despite all the sunshine tap water is created from brine with that energy derived from burning oil...

I'm not familiar with the place, but I'm guessing the port and existing energy infrastructure is not visible from everywhere within 50 miles.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Only when the marginal costs of its manufacture and its operational side-effects are ignored. Clear cutting forests or replacing farmland to install solar is idiocy. It's happening here.

there is lots of funny math being spread like fertilizer

I have no interest in destroying my nice, natural carbon sink with all of it's native flora and fauna just so some city dweller can charge their electric car or whatever.

not sure that is the exact transaction

No. I've added insulation and radiant barrier film to part of my home. I will continue that when my attic cools down late fall.

I could use more

I also replaced two 15+ year old heat pumps with new much more efficient units.

+1 I replaced in wall resistance heat with a modern mitsubishi and love the results (I like saving money).

Upgraded windows are also in the works. I'm evaluating a modest rooftop solar setup, too.

I made what I call "redneck" storm windows. I built wood frames to fit snugly inside my normal windows. Then I wrapped those frames with clear film resulting in two layers with air trapped in between. The improvement is noticeable. Before I did my redneck storm windows, mold would grow on the moisture from condensation on windows in the winter. Now no more condensation and no more mold on windows.

Yes, like ignoring nuclear and building more efficient structures (or improving existing ones). And pretending corn-based ethanol ever made any sense at all.

politics.... its no accident that early primaries are in big corn states.

First, that desert is likely not "empty." Second, nothing humans make is permanent. After you bulldoze what you don't appreciate you will have to add miles of ugly transmission lines to further degrade the natural environment. Add infrastructure for maintenance and access. Just more ugly.

better to waste less, when that is an option.

I've seen the now-abandoned first gen wind farms at Tehachapi Pass and Altamont Pass in California. They were ugly when they worked, more so after being abandoned some 40 years later.

they replaced the 550+ old wind turbines with 25 or so modern (500') turbines.

I'm not familiar with the place, but I'm guessing the port and existing energy infrastructure is not visible from everywhere within 50 miles.

Fossil fuel is a practical energy solution for many.

JR

 

[living sounds]

Good idea about that rooftop solar setup.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Good idea about that rooftop solar setup.

It is pretty inexpensive to collect solar hot water, routinely used to heat swimming pools and the like. Since solar panels are not that high electrical efficiency I suspect water cooling the solar panels could capture a little more energy.

I have thought about small scale DIY projects. One idea I considered was circulating hot air from my attic and pumping it down into my crawl space during the winter months. In the summer heat I could pull cool air from the crawls space and pump it up into my attic. My money and effort would probably be better spent on just increasing the insulation in my attic.

JR

PS; An old rant of mine... If I was king, I'd make everybody paint their roof white for the summer, and black again every winter. If the right paint was used it would help shingles last forever. Luckily I am not king.

 

[living sounds]

PS; An old rant of mine... If I was king, I'd make everybody paint their roof white for the summer, and black again every winter. If the right paint was used it would help shingles last forever. Luckily I am not king.

There is paint that changes colour with temperature. Maybe one could be developed that is light at summer temperatures and dark in the winter...

 

[JohnRoberts]

There is paint that changes colour with temperature. Maybe one could be developed that is light at summer temperatures and dark in the winter...

I recall work developing ceiling tiles that absorbed heat above 68'F and then released that captured heat back into the room when temps dropped below that. I never heard about commercial products using that technology.

They probably couldn't get men and women to agree on what the target temperature should be.

JR

 

[living sounds]

They probably couldn't get men and women to agree on what the target temperature should be.

Indeed, women always want it way too warm in the house...

 

[Gold]

Putting solar panels on rooftops seems like a no brainer to me. The utilities don’t like loosing that revenue and lobby against it.

Clearing massive amounts of land for solar farms is idiocy but that’s the way the utilities can say they are going green.

 

[sahib]

I think he was simply referring to the implications of re-imagining cities (to be pedestrian friendly or whatever some "authority" decides is best for "everyone").

Apols to John.

Here in Glasgow we have the bicycle fetish. Cycle lanes left, right, centre, whether it is appropriate or not. The entire city is messed up. We now have traffic jams on roads where there used to be none even in rush hour. And there are crackers. See below picture. This is a back alley of about, say 30m. The lane you see on the left where the truck is parked is a cycle lane. It is an effin back alley with bins.
We live opposite a park and a couple of years ago they put up a cycle lane at a gradient of about 45 degrees if not more. You would have a heart attack if you attempted to walk it, let alone cycling. Ants change direction when they hit the bottom. Shortly after building it, guess what happened. The gate is locked up and it is closed to use due to health and safety. It is insane.

 

[living sounds]

Apols to John.

Here in Glasgow we have the bicycle fetish. Cycle lanes left, right, centre, whether it is appropriate or not. The entire city is messed up. We now have traffic jams on roads where there used to be none even in rush hour. And there are crackers. See below picture. This is a back alley of about, say 30m. The lane you see on the left where the truck is parked is a cycle lane. It is an effin back alley with bins.
We live opposite a park and a couple of years ago they put up a cycle lane at a gradient of about 45 degrees if not more. You would have a heart attack if you attempted to walk it, let alone cycling. Ants change direction when they hit the bottom. Shortly after building it, guess what happened. The gate is locked up and it is closed to use due to health and safety. It is insane.

View attachment 109743

Yes, and I don't understand why they go to the trouble of fencing off bike lanes like this. I saw this type of cycle lane for the first time this year in Washington DC and didn't even realize what it was for until drivers shouted at me from their cars to ****ing use it... In Germany they convert more car space to bike space on roads everyday, but it's all done by painting on the road only...

Looks like this:

 

[JohnRoberts]

Good idea about that rooftop solar setup.

The cost that nobody counts in the analysis of roof top solar using utility mains networks for storage /back up, is the utility infrastructure. My brother lives out there in la-la land and uses his solar panels to charge his wife's tesla (so she can ride in the HOV lane, alone). Of course he has benefited from multiple state and federal tax benefits. My brother does not have roof top solar, but a serious setup in his back yard. He is worried about property values, especially now the closer he gets to escaping.

If everybody was pushing excess solar energy back onto the grid and getting paid full rate for it, the utilities would not cover their infrastructure costs. I expect before too long we will have old used car batteries piling up in junk yards. These can get repurposed for home solar/utility backup. Of course these will each require electronic boxes to up/down convert the voltages.

JR

 

[AnalogPackrat]

Good idea about that rooftop solar setup.

Is it? What's the install cost for non-Chinesium equipment? What is my typical seasonal energy use pattern? What would my typical seasonal generation pattern look like? What will maintenance cost? What is the expected lifetime of currently manufactured panels? How will panels and brackets affect roof leak repair? What is my expected payback timeframe relative to how long I expect to live here?

 

[AnalogPackrat]

Apols to John.

Here in Glasgow we have the bicycle fetish. Cycle lanes left, right, centre, whether it is appropriate or not. The entire city is messed up. We now have traffic jams on roads where there used to be none even in rush hour. And there are crackers. See below picture. This is a back alley of about, say 30m. The lane you see on the left where the truck is parked is a cycle lane. It is an effin back alley with bins.
We live opposite a park and a couple of years ago they put up a cycle lane at a gradient of about 45 degrees if not more. You would have a heart attack if you attempted to walk it, let alone cycling. Ants change direction when they hit the bottom. Shortly after building it, guess what happened. The gate is locked up and it is closed to use due to health and safety. It is insane.

View attachment 109743

Silicon Valley went nuts like that about 15 years ago. In an area of San Jose I used to commute through (and shop, participate in weekly pub trivia, etc.) a large ~40 acre farm parcel was developed. It was adjacent to a freeway and a busy 6-lane expressway and surrounded by strip malls and medium density housing (2-4 story condos/apartments). The city extended a former cul-de-sac into a 4 lane road passing under the freeway and into the parcel where it met another small road that was widened to four lanes.

The road project took over a year to build as the new shopping area was being built. It was all four lanes and could get busy at commute times. One week I took my usual shortcut over to pub trivia via these "new" roads to find that the city (San Jose) had added bike lanes, converted one of the streets to one lane each way, and crosshatched the rest of the nearly new asphalt as a no-go area. Great job! So glad the taxpaying citizens footed the bill for the approved 4-lane road then got shafted by some do-good morons. I never once saw a bicyclist using the bike lanes.

In another example of stupidity, El Camino Real through Sunnyvale (and possibly other towns) had all of it's parallel parking (curb-side in both directions) re-striped as bike lanes. It halved parking for some sections of the road with small businesses. Again, under-utilized and screw everyone else.

 

[AnalogPackrat]

I can't do this with you. If we are in the same place and you want to have a beer over it sometime, I'm game. But it's taxing to my mental health to sit on here and take unnecessary little snarky comments.

If the snark here is taxing, you might have a tough time out in the real world.

But I would like to recommend to you the Red Menace podcast. It's on spotify and here:
https://redmenace.libsyn.com/

Useful to know the enemy and their plans, nothing else.

 

[sahib]

Yes, and I don't understand why they go to the trouble of fencing off bike lanes like this........

My point was, why would you waste public funds on putting up a cycle lane in a back alley, or in a park at a gradient that it is physically impossible to cycle on? Utter insanity.

 

[living sounds]

My point was, why would you waste public funds on putting up a cycle lane in a back alley, or in a park at a gradient that it is physically impossible to cycle on? Utter insanity.

No disagreement from me.

 

[living sounds]

The cost that nobody counts in the analysis of roof top solar using utility mains networks for storage /back up, is the utility infrastructure. My brother lives out there in la-la land and uses his solar panels to charge his wife's tesla (so she can ride in the HOV lane, alone). Of course he has benefited from multiple state and federal tax benefits. My brother does not have roof top solar, but a serious setup in his back yard. He is worried about property values, especially now the closer he gets to escaping.

If everybody was pushing excess solar energy back onto the grid and getting paid full rate for it, the utilities would not cover their infrastructure costs. I expect before too long we will have old used car batteries piling up in junk yards. These can get repurposed for home solar/utility backup. Of course these will each require electronic boxes to up/down convert the voltages.

JR

Repurposing old electric car batteries into stationary buffers has long been proposed as part of the solution for the storage problem.

Regarding the storage question, I do like the Energy Vault idea, because it is simple and scaleable:

https://www.energyvault.com/

 

[volker]

Paris is a 15 minute city?

Yes, working towards that goal.

https://www.dw.com/en/15-minute-cities-what-are-they-and-how-do-they-work/a-64907776

 

[Gold]

The cost that nobody counts in the analysis of roof top solar using utility mains networks for storage /back up, is the utility infrastructure.

I don’t count that cost because I don’t think that’s the best way to do it. I think solar should go with local batteries. Set up so the primary source is from batteries and secondary source is from the grid.

 

[Tubetec]

My issue is the attitude of cyclists and electric scooterists in pedestrianised areas of the city , they think their within their rights to do 25kph and people should move out of their way because there on a mission from god to save the planet .
I was walking down one of the main pedestrianised streets in the city the other day , I see this guy about 50 yards away , on a bike coming right towards me , he has no hands on the bars ,instead he sending a text on his phone , he looks up , spots me and continues coming towards me , I shouted out ,'I'M NOT MOVING ' and I wasnt , last second he grabs the bars and swerves around me , then he shouts abuse at me after hes gone past .

Many cycle paths here are on the same level as the pavement , the markings have worn off , you get these pumped up lyrca clad warriors doing 30+ kph passing within inches of pedestrians , it will take someone with a visual dissabillity getting knocked down and seriously injured before city council is forced to take action .

You do see the real pro delivery guys out there now too , with the big wheeled electric bikes out in the car lanes , well able to keep up with the traffic , respect to them .