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There are all kinds of crazy things about this whole process. Why were the investors allowed to spend $474 million on the plant if the "regulatory" process wasn't kosher? Surely permits had to be issued and EIS prepared, so why was the monkey wrench not thrown into the works until all that money had been spent? I do remember the neighbors, whom it should be noted had bought homes next to a well known and fully zoned industrial site, putting up the usual NIMBY resistance to the project. I'm enough of a cynic to assume that some of the "right people" are getting a big payout from this. The best I can say about the project in question is that it will use locally produced fuel, but only if they use electric vehicles to grow, harvest, and haul it. How likely is that, lol?
Meanwhile the guys are coming tomorrow to wire my house for the transfer switch and backup generator. I'll give a full report on that here soon. There is a shortage of generators in Hilo retail establishments, so we will be ordering one from America. Fortunately we have a 3500 watt unit that can keep the bare essentials running until the bigger one arrives.
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Didn't a company offer to build a garbage incineration electricity producing plant on the BI that would solve two problems at once?
So instead of burning garbage for electricity we are burning trees?
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05-25-2021, 05:08 AM
(This post was last modified: 05-25-2021, 05:41 AM by MarkP.)
Trees burn cleaner than garbage and the ash has less chemical flavor. Fewer plastics and old batteries in it. For the record I think that those problems can be dealt with but for sure somebody would complain and other somebodies would cut corners on the process.
I shouldn't say would cut corners. Could cut corners.
Two things for full disclosure. I think that a wood fired power plant could be an OK thing, and at one point I was in the running to operate and maintain their continuous emissions monitoring system.
Realistically we (modern society as a whole and each of us individually) use far to much energy to be so squeemish about where it comes from. I am not against nuclear power if done right. As far as pollution goes a portable generator is pretty horrible.
I plan to bulk up on solar panels and lithium batteries for my own selfish purposes in prepping for the forthcoming apocalypse/collapse of society that is perpetually being predicted. Such an option is now economically within my reach. I am aware though that some view the manufacturing side of these technologies as being dirty. Is solar cheaper in the long run than biomass if manufacturing creates industrial waste? Dunno, depends on how much.
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We used ACE Electric to install our transfer switch. The schedule was thrown off half a day by complications at their preceding job, but we were informed of the reason for the delay in a prompt and apologetic manner. The cost, which included a three way switch box, heavy duty wiring in and out of the switch box, reconnecting the breaker panel, an input socket for the generator, and a custom made heavy duty connecting cable came to $947, which was about $75 over their estimate. (Labor cost was an honest four hours with a two man crew at $120 per hour.) The reason for the overage was due to parts increases since the last time they did a job like that. They had the man from the parts place phone and go over the materials costs with me. Having read a lot recently about the rise in cost of building materials, the increase was acceptable to me. They cleaned up after themselves and tested the system using our current generator before they left. I would have them back in the future if needed.
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Sounds like a good deal to me.
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We thought so, terracore. Thanks for confirming our opinion. We have an 8000W generator on order, but the guys from ACE showed us how to arrange circuits so we can get by with our 3500W unit in the meantime if the need arises.
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Which generatorator did you settle on? I'm considering going the same route and liked the Westinghouse 7500, but Home Depot web site says it's unavailable here.
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05-29-2021, 03:09 AM
(This post was last modified: 05-29-2021, 03:44 AM by MarkP.)
Get one that's quiet like one of the Honda inverter units. Honda makes others that are quiet that are not inverter based, the inverter allows the generator to slow down and save fuel, but I know that the inverter units are quiet. Some of the contractor grade units are really loud and I can't imagine living with that for hours on end.
The Westinghouse 7500 specs list noise "as low as" 72 dB whereas the Honda EM5000S claims 63 to 66 dB and the Honda EU7000iS claims 52 to 58 dB. I never have developed an intuitive feel for noise but I know that dB is not linear so 52 is WAY quieter than 72.
Course the Westinghouse 7500 is about $1000, the EM5000S about $2800 and the EU7000iS about $5000. Just saying that you or your neighbors might come to regret not having sprung for the quieter generator, to the point that it might even become a life safety/sanity issue.
CO from generators kills several people after each major storm. The EU7000iS has a catalytic converter on it, greatly reducing that risk. Probably had to put that on because the noise was no longer making the user locate the generator so far away.
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05-29-2021, 04:14 AM
(This post was last modified: 05-29-2021, 04:22 AM by terracore.)
One of the reasons we added solar was because we needed a break from the sound of the generator during the days after Iselle.
Pre-Iselle, when my truck battery needed to be replaced I decided to get a costco marine battery for it instead of an auto battery thinking longer-term like future backup power. After the storm, I used the battery sans truck with a cheap 2,500 watt inverter to power the refrigeration when the generator wasn't running, and when the generator was running I recharged the battery. It gave us several hours during the day of quiet time. Our generator advertises that it's "quiet" but in a house with no insulation it's loud AF. That single 12v marine battery and 2,500 watt inverter supplied enough electricity to power the Keurig so that I could get up in the morning and have coffee without waking up the rest of the house with a roaring generator (or starting a fire?), and also quietly re-start the refrigerator from it's night of no power.
The strange thing about running the generator is that for some reason chickens wanted to get on top of it and lay eggs. Over and over again. Because the generator was pumping heat out all over, whatever chicken was up there would get heat stress and hold it's wings out and pant. I would shoo them away but I kept finding eggs on the gas tank that is the top of the unit. Normally loud things scare them off, but running a generator is a Siren song not only for thieves but chickens too. Go figure...
The point of this post is, decibels matter.
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Now I can't find anything listing a catalytic converter. Could have sworn I read it in the manual. You would think that feature would be heavily advertised if it had one. Oh well, it is still a super quiet generator.
