As I said, Keystone pipeline has been around for a while. The new (proposed - in green) on the map is (was) for a shortcut through tribal lands and water shed areas. Yes, it was also larger, and therefore more likely to cause havoc if/when it failed.
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A friend in Texas has lots of panels, a few batteries, and an automatic disconnect from the grid. And he’s already had enough short black-outs to verify it does indeed work. Says it is so quick they seldom notice when they go off-grid and power themselves completely.
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Trains carrying oil aren’t great either.
A timeline of recent oil train crashes in the US and Canada | AP News
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You’re obviously kidding! This is utterly ridiculous. The amount of environmental damage done by oil exploration/etc just in Nigeria alone is more than all the environmental damage of all lithium mines worldwide, and likely more than all the lithium mining for the next 50 years.
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I think you are not correct. When you get a Tesla Powerwall or any of the similar battery systems you can get it setup to automatically disconnect your home from the grid and run off of your battery and solar.
Yes, for the safety of utility workers, when the grid goes down your solar inverter has to disconnect from your breaker box because the solar panels could feed back into the grid.
Mike
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There may be other ways to “mine” lithium.
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Interesting… There are other salty sources many in the deserts of NV. where we used to go play on our dirt bikes, or watch as folks tried to set new land speed records or the bigger one at Salt Lake City… Not sure of their current conditions, due to the drought out here, but if there are Lithium salts, maybe newfound riches await some bright developers…
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But corroded equipment and clogged pipes from the superhot brine are plaguing the extraction operation, according to the three sources with direct knowledge. “I think Berkshire has an unsolvable problem,” said one source, who described the facility struggling to get even the most basic processing equipment to work due to the extreme heat of the geothermal brines.
DB2
Oh wow… I would love to know more about an automatic disconnect from the grid.
Does your friend have a series inverter? Or does he have micro inverters, as we are getting… (one micro inverter behind each panel)?
If your friend can share any hardware advice, we have not yet installed our system, so if we have missed something important, we would appreciate any info that you and your friend may share!
:^)
jan
Mike,
We are not getting a powerwall at this time.
But if you know of the hardware that might allow a disconnect, other than pulling the meter… (joking).
Please share. Would love to be able to do what you suggest is possible.
We have not gotten our system installed yet.
Would love to learn what you know.
:^)
jan
iirc, automatic disconnects are required by the electrical code. Otherwise, your genny could light up a utility company worker who is trying to repair the lines.
Steve
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I’ve seen how an oil field can be returned to nature, and a very good job has been made of it. I don’t think that Nigeria is a good example. Any mess left there is due to bribery, corruption and a lack of political will by the Nigerian government.
The Nottingham oil field now:
A very nice area that I have visited - it can be done.
Try restoring this:
You should visit Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela where they have been drilling for oil for decades
The Captain
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Hi captainccs
The point that I’m making is that oil fields can be restored if people want them to be - I’ve given an example of this. I appreciate that in a lot of areas this is not done but it’s not because they can’t, just a case of they don’t want to:
Dukes Wood is an example of co-operation between the oil industry and the Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust. It combines an area of ancient and secondary woodland with what was the site of the UK’s first oil field. Some of the ‘nodding donkey’ pumps have been restored and can be seen on the trail. On the nature trial you’ll find the bronze statue of The Oil Patch Warrior, commemorating the American ‘Roughnecks of Sherwood Forest’.
https://www.communityarchives.org.uk/content/organisation/dukes-wood-oil-museum
I don’t see any way you can restore a lithium pit which must be visible from space!
While I don’t have an example at hand I have seen open pit mines designed to be restored after the ore is extracted. In oil and in mining it’s a question of willingness to preserve nature.
The Sudbury nickel mines created a horrible moonscape and lots of acid rain as they burned the ore in the open to drive out the sulphur.
Decades later they have been recovering the landscape.
No need to demonize lithium mining.
The Captain
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I forgot the before - after pictures
The Captain
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Ok, looks really nice doesn’t it?
Andy
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I don’t know the specific details of any brands or anything.
A google search found this
Mike
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It’s called a transfer switch. They can be automatic or manual. If you were to get a Powerwall (or similar) some kind of a transfer switch would be part of the set up.
–Peter
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I don’t know for sure how this works.
Let’s say you were to get a manual transfer switch and then the grid goes down you would then switch to supply your breaker box from your solar instead of the grid. Sounds simple enough.
But, the way my solar is setup there is a switch already between the inverter and a breaker in my panel. This switch opens when the grid goes down, I guess via snooping on input from the grid because it also has to sync to the 60Hz grid frequency. You would need another switch that disconnects the grid from the main breaker panel but keeps the inverter to panel switch closed. Sort of complicated.
The simpler way I’ve seen some backup systems work is that they install a new sub panel with your critical loads on it and only this is powered from your solar/generator/battery/whatever and your main panel is unpowered when the grid goes down. So there is just one switch between your main panel and sub panel that disconnects from the grid but keeps power going to the sub panel.
Mike