Category Archives: solar energy

A Look Back at 2022.

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Here is a quick look at my 2022 activities:

Because the corona precautions have been relaxed, I did go to a few larger arrangements:

I went to the Fedcon in Bonn and enjoyed a good time with friends, old and new.

I went to the local Fantasticon again.

I went to the “Book Forum”, a national book fair. I had planned for spending all 3 days there, as Straczynski had been announced as a guest. He had to cancel, so I chose to go there for just one day.

Watching TV (series):

Seasons 4 and 5 of the Karate Kid spin-off Cobra Kai. Both great fun.

A rewatch of all seasons of the Fringe TV series. It holds up very well.

I finished The Expanse TV series. It is very good, I want more of the books adapted to TV.

A rewatch of one of my favourites: Sense8. Not the last time. I still wish I could get it on physical media.

Batwoman, season 5

Season 1 of The Man in the High Castle

House of the Dragon, season 1, I liked this one.

The Rings of Power (Prime) – it was OK for me.

The Flash, season 7

“1899” (Netflix) I liked this one very well all through the series. The conclusion was somewhat unexpected, but did make sense, given all the stuff throughout the series.

The Umbrella Academy, season 3

The first season of The Sandman (Netflix) was spectacular. 10 episodes in the series proper, and a bonus episode (11).

Season 3 of His Dark Materials is a very good conclusion to the story

Watching Movies:

The Netflix original scifi: Don’t Look Up!, a political satire around a comet hitting Earth.

A drama-documentary about Einstein and Eddington.

Audio Books:

I did a re-listen of the book series of The Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey:

Main series story line:

  1. Dragonflight
  2. Dragonquest
  3. The White Dragon
  4. Renegases of Pern
  5. All the Weyrs of Pern
  6. Skies of Pern

Side stories:

  1. Moreta, Dragonlady of Pern.
  2. The Masterharper of Pern.
  3. Dragon’s Kin
  4. Dragon’s Fire

Most of the audio book listening has been done while driving

Books:

I started reading Leviathan Wakes, the first book of The Expanse saga. I may transition to doing it in audio book form, as it can be done while walking, resting or other non-focus requiring activities.

Other activities:

In other activities I started making arrangements for transitioning to solar power for parts of my house activities. More on that later.

In late spring my gas boiler stopped working. As I need some heating in the house I got a heat pump (air-to-air) mounted on the house, and it has lowered my (electric) power consumption compared to last year. Even as I had the gas boiler on, there were a bit of assistance from small electric radiators. I am actually surprised that it works as well as it does.

Yes, I have reduced the use of some electric/electronic equipment when the solar power got too low, and only the most necessary (wanted) equipment is in use now.

I did purchase a “toy car” (yes it is an EV) Why “Toy car” you might ask. Well it runs on batteries, and they are rechargeable. Some people referred to the EV with this term, and I found it good fun to use the expression myself. I got it in the beginning of November, so I have not driven long distances yet. I do see that in the winter the battery life is a bit low, but most of my driving will be in the summer half of the year, so I will do fine. Who knows, with my limited driving requirements I might be able to drive mostly on solar for 9 months of the year.

Yes, this requires a much larger solar power system, and this may take a while to build. We shall see how it goes.

Now it is time to make some plans for the activities in 2023. I have some ideas, some of them concerning generating more solar power. We shall see what I will do.

Some Activity in August.

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Here is a bit about my activity in August.

I finished watching season 1 of “The Man in the High Castle”

This did not catch on strongly with me, but I may still do some more, but it is not high priority.

Rating 6/10.

On the recommendation from a participant of the Fantasticon this year, and another friend I watched season 1 (until now) of “Station Eleven”

While it was interesting enough to finish the season, it did not catch me as much as I have the impression from the recommendations. There was a lot of time jumping (not time travel), and it took some time to get used to.

Rating 7/10

Having liked “Game of Thrones” very well, I started watching the spin-off “House of Dragons”. The first two episodes aired in August, and I like it enough to continue watching. A rating will have to wait until the season is done.

 

Then there is “The Sandman” (season 1) on Netflix. This is an adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s comic/graphic novel of the same name.

I have not read the source material, but I have read some Neil Gaiman stuff (and liked it), and seen some TV with him involved in the writing, and I always liked it.

First of all, from the very beginning this feels very much like Neil’s writing. I love the acting and cinematography of this. Episode 6 is a solid highlight of the season.

I am definitely hoping for a continuation, but hopes are moderate, given the tendency of Netflix to cancel shows after a season or two.

Having said that, this first season stands very well on its own.

Rating 10/10

I finished re-listening to the audio book “Moreta, Dragon Lady of Pern” by Anne McCaffrey. I enjoyed it very well as late evening listening, as well as listening to it while driving.

Rating 8/10.

The progress in reading The Expanse novels is slow, as there are some other summer activities going on.

Non scifi activities:

Due to the heat wave I have not done a massive lot, but now it seems to cool down, and I should continue building my system for partial coverage of my electricity needs with solar power. More about this in another post.

RIP Mars Phoenix Lander.

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NASA has finished listening for the Phoenix Mars Lander, reports Spaceflight Now in *this article*.

It comes due to the Martian Winter fast approaching, the solar panels are unable to keep the batteries charge…. and it is a little tricky to send someone to run a generator or change the batteries. 😉

In a sense it is sad to lose a spacecraft, but Phoenix had done what it was supposed to do, and was operational for 2 months longer than its original 3 months mission. Not bad at all. The Odyssey orbiter appears to continue functioning, so not all is over yet, even if we are unlikely to hear it for some time while Mars passes behind the Sun (from our perspective).

Some Thoughts on Solar Energy

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In the light of the previous post : “Breakthrough in Solar Energy ?” I would like to express some thought about generating and using energy.

I have, for some time, been thinking of how we could make better, more efficient use of the energy we have, one point being that distribution of energy over large distances is rather inefficient, and the energy should be harnessed more locally. For example, combine the energy generation for every house with regionally a generated reserve.

First of all, building the infrastructure, power lines, gas pipes, is expensive and energy consuming in itself.

Further, reliability. Local energy generation would make society less vulnerable to failures of the energy infrastructure (for any reason whatsoever).

Personally I would like to be at least partly self-sufficient when it comes to generating energy. and solar is the only viable energy form in that respect.

OK, we have to look into the energy efficiency of using solar cells, since the production of those use up a lot of energy.

I would think that a combination of solar cells and wind turbines would be the best for local energy generation.

More about this later ….

Breakthrough in Solar Energy ?

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It looks like we have come one step closer to harnessing solar energy more efficiently. The article :

‘Major discovery’ from MIT primed to unleash solar revolution

caught my attention today. It concerns a new catalytic material making the electrolysis of water into hydrogen and oxygen in a very efficient way, storing the solar energy collected during the day, for use at night.

The process mimics photosynthesis, the way plants store energy from the sunlight.

According to the article the technology is so simple that it could be implemented within 10 years, imagine every house generating solar electric power during the day and using the stored surplus energy duing the night.