PowerSwitch

I want to be eco and green ... but I simply REFUSE to give up high tech ... it's so NICE and COMFORTABLE!

Sadly almost everyone else I know thinks the same: baker, butcher & candle stick maker.

So ... nobody will give up their comforts ... BUT .. they will HAVE to.

In fact I am SPECIAL ... I want to plan & computer model our optimal eco futures, so I need a PC & a warm office. A car would allow me to be even more efficient.

My neigbour is a priority case too: he is a police inspector .. he will need a warm office, a secretary, a car .., and sometimes a helicopter.

The guy across the street is also clearly vital. He fixes blocked drains - a key profession. Public health will suffer if he can't run a van and a towed generator.

You get the drift ... society will fracture very unpleasantly as resource restrictions arrive.

Are you ready? Will you fall through the cracks?

Or will you get to have the warm office and nice car?

Good post. I like you more and more. You are closing in on The Real Deal.

I'll be vital too- I'll need to be operating my x-ray machines on poor unfortunate people who have broken their legs. And I'll need my nice warm car to get there in the middle of the night just in case there's an emergency when I'm on call.

I dare say that there'll be a lot of people claiming that they are very important recipients-to-be of petrol etc. As long as my bike works though, I'll be okay

I think you'll actually be using a good old fashioned pencil and paper in a cold office with an extra jumper on.

Inspector Plod with his friends in high places will probably be doing quite nicely in his cold office with his secretary and small car, even he wont be able to get a helicopter though.
Obviously Plod could do his job perfectly well with a bike instead of a car.

Drain man will be as pointless as he is now.
He's yet another example of the laziness which is prevalent in society, i remember when if you had a blocked drain you got out your drain rods and unblocked it yourself, i remember helping my dad do this many times.
Why bother doing it yourself when you can just pay someone else to do it? that should be the motto of todays society.

I will be living in the cracks, away from the gaze of the government and mafia, doing as much as i have to do to survive and nothing more.
I'll eek out a living fixing things and growing a bit of food here and there and possibly teaching.
Anyone with warm offices and fancy cars will be like a flame to the moths of criminal gangs and government bureaucrats.

Vortex wrote:I want to be eco and green ... but I simply REFUSE to give up high tech ... it's so NICE and COMFORTABLE!

Me too but I don?t see how in today?s society. For that to happen we would need a society that support that model

Last night I was talking with some friends who recently went to South Africa - a place that has big electricity problems.
Most days they couldn't even make a cup of tea.
What will become of us?

Do they fancy writing something about the experience? I'd be very interested to know what it's like living day to day with insufficient electricity supply - as that is surely our fate within a decade.

My main work computer is a 1 y.o laptop that I got cheap. The laptop I take out the house for presentations/workshops is a 4 y.o machine (that I bought for 20 quid with a broken power connector and fixed). Most of the other computers in the house are a mixture of 5 to 7 y.o Pentium-II's/III's that are for the most part recycled from skips/donations to projects that I have run, as are most of the printers, network hubs, cables, etc. My oldest machine (in regular use... I still have my old ZX Spectrum and a Vax VMS workstation) is a 120MHz Pentium-I that I use as a file server and network/DNS manager.

How can all this stuff work? I don't use Microsoft, I use Linux!

Just as with resource consumption, modern technology requires that you junk perfectly good equipment. That's why Microsoft keeps upgrading it's systems and makes sure that they are not backwardsly compatible with each other -- it makes you upgrade,

Linux is the complete opposite. The programs on the Pentium-I are compatible with those on the new(ih) laptop. The office programs that I run on the new laptop can be used (albeit rather more slowly) on the Pentium-IIs. As Gnu/Linux systems can "evolve" rather than be "produced" there is no need to make the operation of different systems/programs mutually exclusive.

Modern technology is made up of two parts -- hardware and software. The hardware is tough and long-lasting, if you look after it. The software is what creates the problem because the mainstream technology industry keeps revising it to make the hardware obsolete. If you ditch proprietary software and use open source systems you don't have that problem.


P.


PS. D'ya want to know something else really freaky? I compared the power consumption of my main work laptop with Microsoft XP on it (when I first got it) and with Linux on it, and the Linux installation uses about 20% less power, and I get about 30% more running time out of the battery!!

Mr Vernon
I will email all the SA's I know and ask for comments.
I lived in Bahrain for 3 years - and we had rolling blackouts, not enough electricity to work all the AC's in the summer. It is over 50 degree C there and a bit hot.
We never knew when it would happen and it would be about 2 - 4pm. Off it would go.
A laptop helps, as then your PC doesn't suddenly go dead. The heat rises fast and even in the houses the walls are hot to the touch. no radio, tv or fans to help pass the time. you can only hope to have a nap.
hospitals have generators to cope with it, I can't imagine what the ill or elderly or very young would do.
As it wasn't for prolonged periods it didnt really affect meals etc.
I know lenanon has had power go on and off all the time, and water - for years. People just cope and have things as back ups. Wind up stuff I should think.

Traffic lights are a problem!
Tracy

Tracy Pepler wrote: Traffic lights are a problem!
Tracy

Long Live the Roundabout - another reason peak oil won't get us as bad as the US

Hi Mike,

Id just like to say : The thing about linux is the eternal waiting. It eats the days of your life. As I type this Im waiting waiting waiting for a gentoo kernel to build so I can do some work for a private customer. Its always the same. Endless waiting. And time is money.

However I agree with you about the legacy behaviour and the power consumption. Ive run it on a Panasonic CF41 (100MHz 486, 32MB). But it took a long time to get it working.

Linux is not ready for the person in the street, but that didnt stop Windows getting out there.

I think the operating system folks have really let us all down (except for AIX and Solaris which are both rock solid).

Sorry to vent my frustration. The hours just keep ticking byand Id rather be outside in the sun.......

Pete M

Well, I have had one reply from the SA group- Craig is a pastor in a large church (St James) which is referred to in his email. Here it is:

Craig Writes:

It seems the power cuts are due to a lack of strategic planning from the authorities. That?s the impression that we get from what we hear and read. The economy has grown and with it demand for power but no plans have been made to build new generation facilities. Now there is a sudden rush to catch up. Apparently it was known 10 years ago that these problems would come if nothing was done (reports had been submitted to the authorities with future projections) and yet nothing was done. The head of Eskom has been paid huge performance bonuses despite the performance of the supplier being bad. I think we have massive incompetence on our hands and that seems to be the bottom line. Now we have a situation where every megawatt from our generators is just about needed and when one generator goes down we have cuts.



When power goes Kerry and I rely on gas cylinders ? Cadac LPG. 1 with a light and 1 with a cooker. Eskom has given out free energy saver light bulbs and covered geysers with special energy saving blankets ? also for free. This sort of action has helped the demand drop somewhat. They have subsidized gas cookers and heaters where people exchanged their electric ones for a new gas appliance at very new cost. Some friends have gone that route. St James had a generator installed in the office to keep computers and switchboard going in a power cut. This was unfortunately stolen a few months ago ? it was quite a task to steal and, as is usual in SA these days, it grew legs. Many companies have bought generators. A good friend of mine works for a small trading company (stocks and shares) and they have a generator that they pull on to the balcony of their offices if the need arises. They have to put up with a bit of noise and exhaust smoke but they need to keep their systems running to be able to trade.



People in the townships do by and large have access to electricity but a lot of it is illegal ? there are wires running all over the place that are obviously illegal. Some are tapped off the main supply (people have been electrocuted setting these up) and some are run from house to house or shack to shack via extension leads. Every time I have been into the townships I have driven over household; extension leads running over normal roads. I think people sell to their neighbours and allow them to plug in. Its so dangerous ? but the authorities don?t seem to do anything about it. To my mind, if I drive along and see these things every time I go then the authorities should be able to do the same and deal with the problem. I don?t get the impression they take it seriously.



Those who don?t have access to power will use primus stoves (paraffin) which provides light and cooking energy. Sadly these are often knocked over and huge fires then run through the congested townships.



So, there are lots of problems in this regard but I feel the main problem is a lack of dedicated, strong, service delivery orientated leadership. We have so much corruption and political jostling that it seems too high a proportion of our leaders are not coming up with pragmatic solutions.

Here is another reply, this one if from Tony - he is a brain surgeon type!

Tony writes in reply to my question: What happens when the power goes?

Yeah, we had a rough time last year for a couple of weeks - all because
of some missing bolt at Koeberg. We had rolling blackouts for a while -
scheduled regional interruptions for load-shedding, nominally according
to a timetable. It had a particularly devastating impact on businesses,
especially the small ones and those trading in disposable items. The
city took quite an economic knock. Sales of everything gas-related
skyrocketed though. At the hospitals we had to rely on emergency
generators for all our urgent surgical cases - non-urgent and elective
cases were put off. And of course, traffic light failures made rush
hour
mayhem. After everything had settled down, many promises were made
that
this would never happen again.

A couple of weeks ago, however there was another scare - just for a day
really, but it was enough to get everyone up in arms. Things have been
pretty stable since, but scaremongers are highlighting the coming 2010
World Cup - Eskom is not inspiring much faith in the nation.

People in the townships do by and large have access to electricity but a lot of it is illegal ? there are wires running all over the place that are obviously illegal. Some are tapped off the main supply (people have been electrocuted setting these up) and some are run from house to house or shack to shack via extension leads. Every time I have been into the townships I have driven over household; extension leads running over normal roads. I think people sell to their neighbours and allow them to plug in. Its so dangerous ? but the authorities don?t seem to do anything about it. To my mind, if I drive along and see these things every time I go then the authorities should be able to do the same and deal with the problem. I don?t get the impression they take it seriously.

This sounds very "Olduvai". If I recall correctly (without having to go back and re-read it), doesn't the Olduvai theory predict that as electricity prices rise people will increasingly tap into grids illegally? This would lead to electricity companies having reduced revenues and increased maintenance costs, all leading inevitably to increased transportation charges, even higher overall prices to the customers and therefore even more electricity theft, until it all spirals out of control and the blackouts become permanent...

Another reply from South africa - this one is a mum, and accountant or something!

I love the picture of not being able to get out of the house because of the electric gates. And all this chaos happens with just a few power cuts.....

Cathrine write:

I am also interested in these issues and deforestation and other environmental issues. We had the worst lot of power cuts about a year ago, when the Koeberg nuclear station was out for a few weeks and we had to get power from up country. The demand exceeded supply and there was a system of rolling blackouts (euphemistically termed "load shedding" - lots of politics involved). This meant that we were without power for two to four hours every couple of days, although in some areas it was much worse. There was a huge drive to decrease usage especially during peak hours and Eskom provided free geyser blankets and special long lasting, low usage lightbulbs. People did become much more aware for a while and were generally more concerned about electricity wastage, but forgot quite soon again (the same thing happened when we had stringent water restrictions about two years ago). A lot of businesses installed generators as it was devastating for businesses, especially those reliant on computer systems. Food manufacturers also suffered a lot. It really had a bad effect on business.Domestically it was really just a hassle - luckily it was summer so heating wasn't needed and it stayed light late. What made the whole situation worse was they couldn't let you know what areas were going to be out when for some reason. It seems to be temporarily okay, although it did highlight that there is going to be a problem with undersupply of this country in the near future. People do seem to be looking into alternative forms of energy - solar in particular. Gas stoves and appliances, which have been relatively unknown in SA, are now becoming much more popular. As always, it was scary to see how much one relies on electricity! Being SA, it was even difficult to get out the house with all the electric gates and doors not working! It is a recurrent topic in the media - headlines again today, although I haven't read the article (look at the Cape Times website if interested).