Day 784 (Daily Post)

Day 784.

I am feeling rather accomplished after launching my Patreon page yesterday. I could say that the 'stars aligned' to make it possible but really it was just one star shining on my solar panels and that combined with the intense cold had my solar rig really cranking out the amps. All too often when I need to do stuff on my netbook I feel like I have to be hyper-efficient with my usage and critically conscious about whether what I am doing is actually 'worth' the electricity that I am using. It was nice that yesterday I could just take my time and really focus on what I was doing without the nagging worry that I would run out of electricity before I could finish the task at hand.

When every watt of electricity matters and being without electricity for extended periods of time is a reality (especially during the winter) it is difficult to not treat it as something to conserve at all costs and make the most of it's usage. It is sort of like having drinking water (but not as vital to survival) and knowing that you only have a gallon of water with no option to get more for perhaps a few days...you make that gallon last as long as possible and treat every drop as something special and you make damn sure not to waste any of it.

I think that there is a lot of wasted electricity in the world and I don't just mean that light bulb that folks forget to turn off when it is not in use. Somewhere between eighteen and twenty percent of grid manufactured electricity is wasted in transmission alone. What is even more staggering is that hardly any of the electricity being generated on a grid is actually stored. This is because there is not good methods of storing electricity aside from the 'pumped water' method which let's face it does not add to the 'bottom line' (profits) of coal and oil fired power plants nor the fossil fuel industry as a whole. Consumption equals profit and conservation equals not-so-much profit. Emerging technologies are great and all but really how can such technologies topple the fossil fuel institutions that have a stranglehold on the planet and by and large most of the planet is dependent upon. If you don't think you yourself are dependent upon it then flip the breakers in your house off, quit using internal combustion fossil fuel engines, abstain from using anything that uses anything made from oil...and when you are broke, penniless, cold, hungry, can't travel...then let's have a conversation about dependency. Don't worry I am not all spitfire angry and raging on the petroleum based paradigm that is wrecking the planet here...I am simply pointing out that the game is crooked but like the saying goes 'it is the only game in town' so folks play it one way or another.

I am not so much into blaming the companies anymore because alas they are a symptom of the consumers that demand their products with (or without) any real understanding of what the actual cost is. I did a thought experiment a while back that if the coal ash created each year by a household's electricity was dumped on their front lawn at the end of each year then folks would rapidly change how much electricity they consume and eventually shift away from using coal fired electricity as their energy source because not only would their lawn die, their pets get ill, their water become tainted, themselves and their children become ill but it could no longer be a case of 'out of sight and out of mind'. Just think about it.

I don't recommend that folks make such radical shifts in lifestyle that I have made because seriously most folks would buckle under the strain and I also am not so arrogant (nor hypocritical) to think that mowing my grass with a gas powered lawn mower, cooking and heating with propane keeps me with a clean conscience about my life choices but I do recommend that folks take a hard look at their role in the planetary destiny, what they are contributing to it and what they can do to alter the current course. Even the smallest action is greater than no action at all.

On a different note. It is once again super sunny here today and also bitterly cold so I am getting a good charge on my batteries before the foul weather moves back in over the next few days and blots out the sun for who who knows how long. Yal be well and I will assuredly do the same.

Oh yeah Please, Please, Please consider becoming a patron on my Paetron page!!! I have one so far which really warms my cookies! https://www.patreon.com/jacobpeacock

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