Nuclear myths and truths

[CrealCritter]

Google is down right creepy...

Yesterday, while sitting on the front porch, two of my son-in-laws and I had a really good conversation about solar energy. Today nothing but solar ads, of course my cell phone was sitting on the table for google to creep on me the whole time.

 

[moxies_chickennuggets]

I love history, architecture and culture. We can learn alot from the past.

I lived down in Gulfport MS, 6 blocks from the ocean. In a singlewide mobile home with NO a/c. It got HOT too. I was there with my young children, living on base, so we were limited with what we could even do.

I ended up pushing the evening meal to 9 PM in those hot summer months. I would fill up a kiddie pool on the concrete pad outside the front door, and let the kids splash and play till they cooled off. Then, I would fix something cool and edible for a meal.

Needles to say, when I had the 3rd baby the next spring, I found a used central ac unit to install.

 

[TwoCrows]

I do not know a thing about nuclear power plants. But I do know that people do fear what they don't know. The news loves to hype up many things just for the sake of news. Not that nuclear power should be taken lightly, but it would do us all good to research things before we come to any conclusions.

 

[CrealCritter]

Do you have any super powers after all the radiation exposure? Telepathy? Strength? Agility? Anything?

Nope... just cancers and death. No Spidey sense for you.

 

[Hinotori]

I grew up just down river from Hanford and their stupid ass common practice of releasing waste water into the Columbia River for decades.

Cancers rates are higher in that area.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

Agreed. Solar and wind have pretty much a zero environmental impact. I don't know why there is not a push to put a turbine and solar panels on every residential property. Think of the cost savings. Come to think of it, the cynic in me does know why it's not done: it would make the home owner that much more independent of government interference/taxation.

I'd love to add solar and wind turbine DIY to my bucket list. Hubby retires at end of this year. We may have more time to research and implement a DIY.

 

[Marianne]

There are real and tangible negative impacts of solar and wind farms to the environment. From limiting acreage use, habitat destruction, mining of raw materials,and manufacturing of equipment, disruption of wildlife habitats.

The discussion must be had on the overall cost/benefit of the solution. Solar and wind are not the default best solution by a long shot. Ymmv

The wind farms that I have seen around here are in open pastures, no limiting acreage use, no habitat destruction. Yes, mining of raw materials, manufacturing, etc but you have that with virtually every single thing that's in your home at this moment. As far as I'm concerned, solar and wind are the best things for our area.

 

[wyoDreamer]

In Wyoming, we had neighbors who were living in their dream home - off-grid.
The homeowner was an electrical engineer and worked with a solar company that was just starting up. He went with them because he was getting a super deal on the battery bank. A couple of years later, the company was gone - turns out the installer wasn't charging enough for the batteries and went bankrupt.

Anyway, they installed both solar panels and wind turbine. In Wyoming, that should have covered all their electrical needs. Usually, it did. She had to check the battery levels before vacuuming, but it worked for them. Until we had a 2 1/2 week period of cloudy, snowing and no wind. They had wood stoves in the house for heat, so she knew she wouldn't freeze but the battery bank went down below 15%. No TV, No water wasting (shower/bath was too much, melted snow for fluching), no laundry - basically don't use the electric at all if possible as they needed it to keep the refrigerator running. All this time, he was working out of state and she was at the house alone.

 

[CrealCritter]

One thing I'll not give up unless forced to do is my AC. If I get overheated, I get physically ill. We've not yet brought the AC up from basement, but... I do have a big fan today. Our AC use is cut back by making sensible adjustments: We open windows up and use fans to direct fresh air into the house when ever the outside temp is lower than the inside temp. When the temps reverse, or even before that, I close up windows, and pull shades if sun shines in. However, we built our house with roof line/overhang and house orientation adjusted to limit summer sun while taking advantage of winter sun.

You can look into Geo thermal also. Its basically a large diameter pipe buried deep in the ground where the temperature remains constant in the 50' or 60'. Your house air is ran through the loop of pipe. For heat you use a heat exchanger and for air conditioning it just circulates the air. Doesn't help with humidity but there are some systems out now that address humidity as well. Geothermal also works if you have a deep pond, same principle... submerge coils of pipe in the bottom of the pond where the temperature remains fairly consistent.

I have a friend here in southern IL who has Geo thermal. He loves it and it doubles as a storm shelter during tornadoes. They just crawl inside the pipe and wait out the storm.

 

[CrealCritter]

I was watching a show on public television that was analyzing the old mansions of the south and how they were built for those hot summer days. The reason for hte large porches was to provide overhangs so the sun couldn't shine directly into the house and heat it up. The windows were large so they could open them up and get alot of air flow, and they had the windows on the roofs that could be opened to let the heat out.
But I bet they still had problems sleeping on those hot, steamy nights.

Our house in North Carolina built in 1899 had hooks overtop of the large windows. Not for blinds but to hang damp pieces of burlap to cool the room. Talking about a swamp cooler - . I left all the hooks when I remodeled, just because they were cool