Science and Nature

We finally had a deviation from the unusually damp and cool spring here, and I made good use of it. I’ve been dodging the showers as best I can, getting the garden plot ready for planting. Yesterday morning, I finished that task; and in the afternoon, the snolfs and I finally got the garden planted!

My, my, my. The bad news has been mounting fast for all the healthocrats protecting the USSA flock. Crows might become an endangered species soon. It could happen ... if all the nanny-ninnies were intellectually honest enough to admit that they’ve been wrong for decades.

I’ve been kinda-sorta following developments in wind and solar energy, but not very diligently; I don’t expect to have a need for that kind of tech anytime soon. A Reuters article from yesterday sure caught my attention, though: Pioneers show Americans how to live “off-grid” claims that prices have dropped enough that both technologies are increasingly feasible for home use. And of course, the increasing costs of energy have upped the appeal. An excerpt from the article:

[Author Nick] Rosen estimates that there are as many as 350,000 U.S. households meet their own energy needs, and growing at 30 percent a year.

"As people are losing their homes, or finding the rent or mortgage too much to pay, they are choosing the off-grid alternative because it is so much cheaper," Rosen said

While installation costs for the solar panels, wind turbines, converters and batteries needed to power up an off-grid home were prohibitively expensive a few years back, improved technology and ramped up production has driven down costs significantly.

Popular solar-powered systems are made by Sharp Corp, Kyocera Corp and silicon Valley-based Nanosolar, among others, and according to the website Low Impact Living (click on www.lowimpactliving.com/), installation costs have fallen by more than 80 percent over 20 years.

"The cost is falling all the time as there is more and more manufacturing plant coming onstream. In fact, there may even be a glut in solar panels next year which would be very good news for the consumers," said Rosen. ....

Power utilities such as Arizona Public Service, the principal subsidiary of Pinnacle West Capital Corp, is among utilities in several U.S. states that offer subsidies to consumers planning to meet their own power needs, so as to ease demand for a growing on-grid customer base.

"Not only is it getting cheaper to generate non-grid electricity, but it's getting cheap and comfortable to set up your off-grid home, and there are even bonuses from your local utility company for doing so," Rosen said. ....

The cost of building such a home is little different from that of building any other home, and with a range of energy sipping appliances such as refrigerators, hi-fis and even hairdryers now available, the forced austerity associated with off-grid living is also changing.

"You can have hot showers and a cold beer," said [off-grid developer Lonnie] Gamble. "You have no water bill, no sewer bill, no power bill and you can harvest something fresh from the greenhouse ... why would you ever do anything else?"

Two things stick out from the article—only one of which is in the bit quoted. If one is completely off the grid, why would one be in contact with “your local utility company”? Seems to me the privacy gained from them not coming on to the property, reading meters and the like, would itself be worth going off-grid. Second, “trend analyst” author Rosen is quoted as saying that he doesn’t think as many as half of all American homes will ever be off-grid, which strikes me as an amazingly short-sided attitude, particularly for one in the trend analysis biz. If that stupid OPEC lawsuit legislation continues, and if the greenies keep the USSA’s reserves out of bounds, the resulting price pinch could be enough to tip a lot more people that way. And it is possible that the grid could fail or be taken out for a large part of the country, and in some way that would require routing around that in order to regain some of the niceties of modernity. Doesn’t take much imagination to come up with such scenarios at all.

Anyway, it’s good to see such a major leg in the self-sufficiency puzzle getting more interest.

Not that the greenies have a monopoly on hubris—many humans seem to have the idea that what they have created, or what they value, must be preserved as is for all time. But environmentalists showcase the concept so very well, not only in their actions but in the fact that their most formidable opponent is often nature itself.

Isn’t amazing how a person can dance all around a common theme without seeing it? It seems to me I’ve been doing that in my recent posts—both implicitly attack the authority inherent in many current systems. Yet I was clueless as to that until just now.

I don’t recall where I saw the link to the Harper’s article, The revolution will not be pasteurized: Inside the raw-milk underground, but I’m glad it came to my attention. The article is quite long, but very interesting, and mostly excellent. Oddly enough, it isn’t the subject of raw milk that leads me to write about the article.

A while back, Pint of Stout invited individuals to consider a question, and to share an answer to it. As his question was a neat bull’s-eye for me—something I have thought long and hard, and variously about for decades—I hereby accept his invitation and offer my ramblings to accompany his.

The least I can do is be considerate and put it behind the curtain so y’all aren’t unwittingly exposed to my nutty ravings.

Wow. I was out of town for a few days, and when I returned, the landscape had been transformed. Many waterfowl and songbirds had returned, and the snow had largely melted away. I thought that was a good thing—until I ventured into the basement.

... that leads to our door is covered with snow and ice.

Yep, you can peer into your genetic code, without a medical monopolist’s permission slip required, for just under $1,000 USSA. The company offering this deal is deCODE, in Iceland.

Over at The Boondocks, someone posted a recent ABC News story, Mercury-Containing Vaccine Vindicated. Since the toxicity of mercury is well established, I wondered what was behind that headline. Do I need to say that I was not impressed by what I found?

That’s life in a neat, tidy package, isn’t it? It seems to be for me, anyway: at any point in my life, I’m making progress in some areas, some more than others; in other areas I seem to be moving backwards; and in a few others I have either deliberately or accidentally routed around what I originally thought was the best course. Step into my cozy kitchen for an update, if you dare (more like if you’re in need of a soporific). But first, for anyone wondering which eddress to use to contact me, my primary one at this domain is the best bet at the moment. More on that over a cup of coffee or tea ...

Our sucky satlink is barely capable of handling one browser tab, so please forgive me for not being able to verify some of the statements I’m about to make.

Thanks to everyone who kindly let me know about the site being down yesterday. Dunno what the problem was (other than it being some kind of server glitch), but I hope it’s behind us for good. Anyway, that unpleasant discovery wasn’t the worst part of the day ...