putting the home backup battery to use (power out)!
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putting the home backup battery to use (power out)! got my EV plugged into the furnace so we have heat for a good while, probably days
(this exact scenario--winter outage, low solar--is why hubby reconfigured the furnace to run off my Ioniq6 V2L)
@susankayequinn Hello fellow Ioniq 6 owner!
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"The impact of this new warming surge will be especially profound because this El Niño will probably provide the final proof that global warming is actually accelerating sickeningly from its previously merely alarming pace."
https://jimehansen.substack.com/p/another-el-nino-already-what-can
"One way of summing up this moment is to say that the endangerment finding, and the politics of climate, are puny in the face of physics. We’re going to see that physics in action again in the next 24 months, and it will drive many changes. "
*Sue tries to write faster*
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@susankayequinn Hello fellow Ioniq 6 owner!
Ioniq6 car is best car! LOL
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"If you want a sense of how close we’re dancing to the brink, check out this new study from some of the heavy hitters in climate research, documenting the approach (or in too many cases the passing) of various tipping points in the earth’s climate system."
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/feb/11/point-of-no-return-hothouse-earth-global-heating-climate-tipping-points@susankayequinn yikes!
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"One way of summing up this moment is to say that the endangerment finding, and the politics of climate, are puny in the face of physics. We’re going to see that physics in action again in the next 24 months, and it will drive many changes. "
*Sue tries to write faster*
at some point, we will decide to stop pushing the "kill everything" button
people will come to understand we can stop the slow violence of capitalism
and that life will be a lot better, even as the climate disasters that are the legacy of capitalism continue on (in fact, surviving those disasters will be more likely in a world where capitalism and necropoliticians aren't killing everyone)
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Last year's 4 day outage was in May, which was lucky — power needs were low, sun was plentiful. (Spring/Fall are when we're sending lots of solar power back to the grid).
During the outage we literally had more power than we could use, so I put out an extension cord and taught the neighborhood a little bit about community/mutual aid. The reaction was WILD — people thought it was incredible that I would do this. SIGH.
@susankayequinn @weezmgk @czds less than a month after we moved into our new home, we had a four day ice storm in 2021 February, and a four day power outage as the ice pulled down power lines faster than the local PUD could repair them. That’s when we made modular, expandable #BESS a priority, with the EV part of the strategy. Took time: buy a little, save, buy more. Now we also have a small solar photovoltaic (8x410W panels) and vertical axis wind turbines generators (5x500W)
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@susankayequinn @weezmgk @czds less than a month after we moved into our new home, we had a four day ice storm in 2021 February, and a four day power outage as the ice pulled down power lines faster than the local PUD could repair them. That’s when we made modular, expandable #BESS a priority, with the EV part of the strategy. Took time: buy a little, save, buy more. Now we also have a small solar photovoltaic (8x410W panels) and vertical axis wind turbines generators (5x500W)
@jadp oh, I want to get wind turbines! What model to you have and how do you find them? Are they noisy?
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@PaulWermer @kim_harding
What seems to get missed A LOT is that my EV with extended range parked in my garage is a distributed power source that can be tapped by the grid to stabilize it and reduce the surge gas burning needed to meet peak demand.This is already happening LOTS of places. Solar too, but the EVs-in-garages are already being tapped as extended storage.
The hate is just misplaced. Spend it on the fossil fuel corps.
@susankayequinn @kim_harding
I spent several years working with Global Footprint Network, and the takeaway from those years is the we are imposing excessive demands on resources - to accommodate current consumption patterns of the relatively wealthy.So a question we should be asking is - if everyone did "X", is it sustainable? Looking at the full range of impacts to ecosystems & to human quality of life.
And I've changed my consumption patterns a lot .
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@susankayequinn @kim_harding
I spent several years working with Global Footprint Network, and the takeaway from those years is the we are imposing excessive demands on resources - to accommodate current consumption patterns of the relatively wealthy.So a question we should be asking is - if everyone did "X", is it sustainable? Looking at the full range of impacts to ecosystems & to human quality of life.
And I've changed my consumption patterns a lot .
@susankayequinn @kim_harding
And when it comes to energy resilience and security of supply, everyone having their own back up system is very likely the most costly and least resource efficient strategy.From an equity perspective, there are many who cannot afford it, so the expectation that this is a universal solution is misplaced.
That said, I fully understand and respect the fact that for many people, your solution is appropriate, and may be the only viable option.
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@susankayequinn @weezmgk @czds we can’t recommend these yet. Too new. Generic, through Amazon (couldn’t find anything like them elsewhere). They were advertised as 500W but labeled as 100W. The label also said 4 blades, but they have the expected three. We’ll post more this summer, when we have more data. They are about as noisy as a newer dishwasher.
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@susankayequinn @weezmgk @czds we can’t recommend these yet. Too new. Generic, through Amazon (couldn’t find anything like them elsewhere). They were advertised as 500W but labeled as 100W. The label also said 4 blades, but they have the expected three. We’ll post more this summer, when we have more data. They are about as noisy as a newer dishwasher.
@susankayequinn @weezmgk @czds the distributor gave a nice discount because of the discrepancy, as an incentive not to return them.
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@susankayequinn @weezmgk @czds the distributor gave a nice discount because of the discrepancy, as an incentive not to return them.
@susankayequinn @weezmgk @czds we would love these
https://www.flowerturbines.com/
But a two year wait, and we wanted to install before the tax credits went away
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@susankayequinn @weezmgk @czds we would love these
https://www.flowerturbines.com/
But a two year wait, and we wanted to install before the tax credits went away
@susankayequinn @weezmgk @czds we really wanted these, but they aren’t for the consumer yet, just businesses
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@susankayequinn @kim_harding
And when it comes to energy resilience and security of supply, everyone having their own back up system is very likely the most costly and least resource efficient strategy.From an equity perspective, there are many who cannot afford it, so the expectation that this is a universal solution is misplaced.
That said, I fully understand and respect the fact that for many people, your solution is appropriate, and may be the only viable option.
I very much understand that there are no universal solutions — I say that a lot and I mean it. However, there are also no *permanent* solutions until we get to something that looks sustainable and we do NOT know what that is right now (we cannot), and so moving toward more sustainable solutions (even if they're temporary) is super important.
First, get the gas cars off the road and transform the transport sector—that means EVs and public transit (and bikes/ebikes!)...
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I very much understand that there are no universal solutions — I say that a lot and I mean it. However, there are also no *permanent* solutions until we get to something that looks sustainable and we do NOT know what that is right now (we cannot), and so moving toward more sustainable solutions (even if they're temporary) is super important.
First, get the gas cars off the road and transform the transport sector—that means EVs and public transit (and bikes/ebikes!)...
@PaulWermer @kim_harding
...at the same time, work on densification so public transit will work better.Also decarbonize & change our food systems, production systems, fast fashion, fishing, etc. Work for justice.
Everything has to move in the right direction all at once. A sustainable world (that I spend full time imagining/writing) looks nothing like today but we can't get there in one step.
I can't say everything in a Masto post... this is why I write books.
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@susankayequinn @weezmgk @czds we would love these
https://www.flowerturbines.com/
But a two year wait, and we wanted to install before the tax credits went away
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@gatesvp it is also crazy how regulations can be *so far behind* on this, but that's generally not by accident — utilities really do invest all kinds of $ in preventing conversion to solar. Solar (and the battery backups) are radical decentralization of power, and they do not want that. It'll be a fight the whole way.
@susankayequinn in this case I live in BC, Canada. The energy system is managed by Crown Corporation (government non-profit), known as BC Hydro.
So in my case, it's actually a different, but weirder confluence of issues. The V2L thing is actually specific to my region, but they're just behind, if I lived 2 miles over, it would all be fine. But the bigger issue at the provincial level is really one of mandates and priorities.
BC Hydro was basically designed to take energy from hydroelectric dams and feed that energy to downstream consumers. They have a grander mission around providing "clean electricity" to everyone at low cost. But in the current context of "we operate a bunch of dams", I think that vision is different from what a solarpunk enthusiast would expect.
To their credit, they launched a plan in 2025 to start upgrading things. But it's a 20-year plan and it's literally in discussion phases right now.
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@susankayequinn @weezmgk @czds From what I’ve read, Flower Turbines are among the best. I also like how they customize the electronics for your situation, and the bouquet arrangement to allow symbiotic interactions among a group of turbines. A bouquet of Flower Turbines as a “wall” of a solar pavilion would be neat.
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@susankayequinn in this case I live in BC, Canada. The energy system is managed by Crown Corporation (government non-profit), known as BC Hydro.
So in my case, it's actually a different, but weirder confluence of issues. The V2L thing is actually specific to my region, but they're just behind, if I lived 2 miles over, it would all be fine. But the bigger issue at the provincial level is really one of mandates and priorities.
BC Hydro was basically designed to take energy from hydroelectric dams and feed that energy to downstream consumers. They have a grander mission around providing "clean electricity" to everyone at low cost. But in the current context of "we operate a bunch of dams", I think that vision is different from what a solarpunk enthusiast would expect.
To their credit, they launched a plan in 2025 to start upgrading things. But it's a 20-year plan and it's literally in discussion phases right now.
@gatesvp in general, I think Canada is very far ahead on the US, but there will always be hiccups on the way to a better future. I have tolerance for that! (I also think depending on hydro in a warming world has a lot of updates in thinking that need to be done)
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@gatesvp in general, I think Canada is very far ahead on the US, but there will always be hiccups on the way to a better future. I have tolerance for that! (I also think depending on hydro in a warming world has a lot of updates in thinking that need to be done)
@susankayequinn and actually, that's already a reality they've been facing. They have had some years where they inputted hydrocarbons from elsewhere because the snowpack was simply too low.
And if you follow through some of the documents, you also getting things like a solar association specifically asking for support. BC has a ton of islands and remote communities.
In a lot of those places, the best way to deliver resilience is to provide local generation and storage. I think it's part of why this 20-year plan is a big deal. Because it's not an easy plan to make, and it definitely involves a hydro company moving outside of their specific expertise.
