[sunweb]

A small fan in my solar electric system died. It kept a major part of the system from overheating and is necessary for continuous operation. To manufacture that small fan a massive industrial infrastructure is necessary to provide the components.
See: http://sunweber.blogspot.com/2013/10/a-small-fan.html

A small fan in my solar electric system died. It kept a major part of the system from overheating and is necessary for continuous operation. To manufacture that small fan a massive industrial infrastructure is necessary to provide the components.

The fan motor is wound with copper wire that comes from newly mined copper because of the need for purity. “Wire supply is produced predominantly from newly refined copper . . .”
http://recycling.about.com/od/Recycling ... ycling.htm
k Joseph, Günter, 1999, “Copper: Its Trade, Manufacture, Use, and Environmental Status”, edited by Kundig, Konrad J.A., ASM International Vol. 2.03, Electrical Conductors


Copper mining is done in huge pits using massive machines. The refining of the ore is a series of processes, chemicals and along with the mining, intensive energy use. You can see a DVD of this process on “Modern Marvels: Copper”. You can also see a diagram and pictures of the equipment and process at:
http://www.mine-engineer.com/mining/copperm.htm


A fascinating recent documentary on PBS – “Raw to Ready” - showed the development of the massive Komatsu 930-E:
“to extract precious metals found beneath the earth requires a massive 232-ton, two-story-tall dump truck with a load capacity of 320 tons — a giant earth-mover like the Komatsu 930E. This amazing engineering achievement is made possible by five essential raw ingredients: coal, chromium, mineral oil, latex rubber and sulphuric acid, an electron superhighway that generates massive power.”
http://video.pbs.org/video/2365097595/
http://www.wgte.org/wgte/item.asp?item_id=15847

The manufacture of my solar electric system, in its use of copper, is tied into an international infrastructure of machines, equipment and energy. Aluminum, rare metals, coal, plastics, glass, rubber, multiple chemicals and many other material components are also a necessary additional part of this global material complex.

Furthermore, it is dependent on this far ranging system for replacement parts.

Where are the motors in your world? – water pump, air conditioner, windshield wiper, and on and on and on.

Being aware of where things come from and what is involved in obtaining them is a major step in being responsible.

There are many who will in private admit we are trashing the earth.

Mindlessly!
For the process of mining and refining copper see:
See: http://sunweber.blogspot.com/2013/10/a-small-fan.html

[Scrub Puller]

Yair . . .

To manufacture that small fan a massive industrial infrastructure is necessary to provide the components.

Well no sunweb not really.

An electric motor is a fairly simple piece of kit and given a bit of scrap and some copper wire a competent trades man could build one on a lathe.

Cheers.

[Keith_McClary]

Is it like one of these?

[Loki]

A small fan in my solar electric system died. It kept a major part of the system from overheating and is necessary for continuous operation. To manufacture that small fan a massive industrial infrastructure is necessary to provide the components.

Yep. That's the reality of it.

For resilient off-grid power, you need back ups. And preferably back ups for back ups. And a modular system, where if one key component goes down you can reconfigure to make at least part of the system work.

Solar electric is, by definition, high tech. I'm aware of that, but it hasn't stopped me from investing in a small system, which I hope to expand in the next couple years.

And the link fishing is getting old dude, try conversing and discussing without concern for your unique hit numbers.

[rollin]

Of course the whole thing depends on a mining base, industrial base, transportation base, distribution facilities, governments and banking. Everything we do depends on these things, it's a giant system that is fairly fragile and gets it's resilience from redundancy and unfound resources. Producing and using electricity is high technology, no way around it - yet.

If the mining, transport or industrial sources are cut off, it's only a matter of time before much of the technology becomes useless.
Next the batteries fail, so no way to store the electricity. On it goes.

Without the whole system, now global, not much technology will continue forward. Technology is becoming more complex by the day, thus rendering it's replacement or repair a difficult and expensive task.

[sunweb]

Yair . . .

An electric motor is a fairly simple piece of kit and given a bit of scrap and some copper wire a competent trades man could build one on a lathe.

Cheers.

One of those fancy pedal lathes? Where does this copper wire come from?
You miss the point totally. And that is my fear for the future.

[KaiserJeep]

Thanks for reminding me to go check the air filter on the solar inverter - I would not want the cooling fan to fail.

[davep]

Yair . . .

An electric motor is a fairly simple piece of kit and given a bit of scrap and some copper wire a competent trades man could build one on a lathe.

Cheers.

One of those fancy pedal lathes? Where does this copper wire come from?
You miss the point totally. And that is my fear for the future.

David Gingery has a series of books called "Build Your Own Metalworking Shop from Scrap". It's excellent and has apparently been used successfully in places such as the Philippines.

http://www.amazon.com/Build-Your-Metalworking-Shop-Scrap/dp/0960433082

[Scrub Puller]

Yair . . . sunweb. Oh dear mate, don't stress out . . . you are the one missing the point. I can run my workshop lathe anytime the sun shines . . . probably for the next forty years if I were to live that long.

I have solar panels that have had shattered glass since they were removed from navigation buoys in 1980 . . . they still put out close to name plate numbers.

While I don't completely understand how they work solar panels will be around for a long time. Producing electricity is not rocket science.

If so inclined I could can take any one of the millions of ICE engines laying around and have it running on wood-gas within a month.

As for copper wire its everywhere, thousands of miles of it beside every highway and underneath the streets. In your fanciful scenario that would all become a recourse available for mining.

Cheers

[SeaGypsy]

20 years ago a friend built a wood- metal lathe and drill multi tool big enough to re-hone brake drums with a clutch from a go- gart and a 4000 kg flywheel 4 ft by about 20 inches- with pedal power and micro hydro mechanical drive through a 21 speed bike gear set. Once spent 4 hours pedaling to 'wind up' yielding 20 minutes of useful machine work. He didn't have the measuring tech to work out the efficiencies- but it worked and was 100% common recyclable interchangeable gear. Micro hydro- electric such as Ibon has- is the ultimate for those blessed with the climate- being very doable with common recycled parts.

[sunweb]

Scrub Puller - you are exactly right. We can mine the landfills of civilization for the materials built from fossil fuels - copper, plastics, rubber, steel. And we can burn (fill in the blank) to melt and mold these treasures of the fossil fuel era.
Your lathe runs off your solar panels with no controller for the motor? No battery buffer? Making those diodes are you and transistors are you?
Shouldn't take more than (fill in the blank) time to get it done.
I lived off the grid for 30 years before moving to my new place which has a 3kWh grid-tie system. During those thirty years, I was never truly disconnected from the fossil fuel supply system.
I cut my first cord of wood (cook and heated with wood) with an axe and six foot saw. No, I didn't smelt the metal for the axe and saw. I got them from the fossil fuel supply system as I did my wood cook stove.
But we can agree to disagree.

[Pops]

<I'll go out to the shop and whip one up...>

Nice to know if the world breaks no one will notice, nothing to it.

lol

[kublikhan]

Copper occurs naturally as native copper and was known to some of the oldest civilizations on record. It has a history of use that is at least 10,000 years old, and estimates of its discovery place it at 9000 BC in the Middle East; a copper pendant was found in northern Iraq that dates to 8700 BC. The history of copper metallurgy is thought to have followed the following sequence: 1) cold working of native copper, 2) annealing, 3) smelting, and 4) the lost wax method. In southeastern Anatolia, all four of these metallurgical techniques appears more or less simultaneously at the beginning of the Neolithic c. 7500 BC. Ötzi the Iceman, a male dated from 3300–3200 BC, was found with an axe with a copper head 99.7% pure; high levels of arsenic in his hair suggest his involvement in copper smelting.

Copper Age

If Otzi the Iceman can mine 99.7% pure copper in 3300 BC, I think modern man can do it post fossil fuels.

[sunweb]

20 years ago a friend built a wood- metal lathe and drill multi tool big enough to re-hone brake drums with a clutch from a go- gart and a 4000 kg flywheel 4 ft by about 20 inches- with pedal power and micro hydro mechanical drive through a 21 speed bike gear set. Once spent 4 hours pedaling to 'wind up' yielding 20 minutes of useful machine work. He didn't have the measuring tech to work out the efficiencies- but it worked and was 100% common recyclable interchangeable gear. Micro hydro- electric such as Ibon has- is the ultimate for those blessed with the climate- being very doable with common recycled parts.

SeaGypsy - I can see a whole room full of pedallers, 4 hours on, 20 minutes off - wage slaves or simply slaves.
This is how we will power and supply the globe since in is a global issue?
Human, animal, mechanical wind, mechanical water.
See: http://sunweber.blogspot.com/2011/05/ne ... -ages.html

[sunweb]

Is it like one of these?

We already replaced it Keith. The inverter was heavy but once off the wall my partner (62 years old) and I (70) easily replaced it.

[sunweb]

Copper occurs naturally as native copper and was known to some of the oldest civilizations on record. It has a history of use that is at least 10,000 years old, and estimates of its discovery place it at 9000 BC in the Middle East; a copper pendant was found in northern Iraq that dates to 8700 BC. The history of copper metallurgy is thought to have followed the following sequence: 1) cold working of native copper, 2) annealing, 3) smelting, and 4) the lost wax method. In southeastern Anatolia, all four of these metallurgical techniques appears more or less simultaneously at the beginning of the Neolithic c. 7500 BC. Ötzi the Iceman, a male dated from 3300–3200 BC, was found with an axe with a copper head 99.7% pure; high levels of arsenic in his hair suggest his involvement in copper smelting.

Copper Age

If Otzi the Iceman can mine 99.7% pure copper in 3300 BC, I think modern man can do it post fossil fuels.

Kublikhan - will you be the first down into the mine? A little arsenic goes a long way.
There is no question that we can get copper and have for millenniums. The surface stuff and even the purer below surface stuff is no longer as pure as it use to be. See: http://aheadoftheherd.com/Newsletter/20 ... Stress.htm
And that is only one of the many products necessary for a life style that we live high on the energy hog.
I have found that there are those who will go kicking and screaming into the changing world and will simply believe what they want. My reason for even posting this is not to sing to the choir of which there are many, but to just maybe have one person ask serious questions about the system we are perpetrating.
Quoting my self - "We will do anything and everything to maintain our present personal level of energy use and the comfort it affords us. We will do anything and everything to the earth, to other people and even to ourselves to continue on this path. And if we don’t have the energy level we see others have, we will do anything and everything to the earth, to other people and even to ourselves to attain that level. The proof of this assertion is simple; we are doing it."
From: The Curmudgeon Report
http://sunweber.blogspot.com/2011/02/cu ... eport.html

[kublikhan]

I am a bit more optimistic than you sunweb. Between 2007-2012, the US's energy use has fallen around 7%. Further, nearly 2/3rds of that energy is wasted:
Energy Infrastructure Progress Report

There is much opportunity for belt tightening there without greatly lowering standard of living. And as prices for energy rise, we will see more of such belt tightening going forward. Yes, lifestyles might have to change, but so what? That is a good think IMHO. How much energy did you use when you lived off grid? How does that compare to what the average US household uses? Do you think all of that extra energy consumed is really necessary? Or perhaps could we live a healthy and comfortable life on a small fraction of our current energy use?

And about your other point that "no man is an island", this topic pops up here from time to time. There is nothing wrong with people being interconnected and interdependent. One man should not have to mine the ore, smelt it into metal, manufacture it into an axe blade, chop the lumber for than handle, work the wood into a handle, etc. As societies become more advanced higher degrees of division of labor is inevitable. This is a good thing. A specialist can become more proficient and productive if he masters one trade than if he had to divide his time into a dozen.

Division of labor is the specialization of cooperative labour in specific, circumscribed tasks and like roles. Historically an increasingly complex division of labour is closely associated with the growth of total output and trade, the rise of capitalism, and of the complexity of industrialization processes.

"Just as the various trades are most highly developed in large cities, in the same way food at the palace is prepared in a far superior manner. In small towns the same man makes couches, doors, plows and tables, and often he even builds houses, and still he is thankful if only he can find enough work to support himself. And it is impossible for a man of many trades to do all of them well. In large cities, however, because many make demands on each trade, one alone is enough to support a man, and often less than one: for instance one man makes shoes for men, another for women, there are places even where one man earns a living just by mending shoes, another by cutting them out, another just by sewing the uppers together, while there is another who performs none of these operations but assembles the parts, Of necessity, he who pursues a very specialised task will do it best."
- Xenophon 4th Century BC Cyropaedia

"The power of the individual human being is not sufficient for him to obtain (the food) he needs, and does not provide him with as much as he requires to live. Even if we assume an absolute minimum of food...that amount of food could be obtained only after much preparation...Thus, he cannot do without a combination of many powers from among his fellow beings, if he is to obtain food for himself and for them. Through cooperation, the needs of a number of persons, many times greater than their own number, can be satisfied."
- Ibn Khaldun 14th-century

"But if one will wholly apply himself to the making of Bows and Arrows, whilst another provides Food, a third builds Huts, a fourth makes Garments, and a fifth Utensils, they not only become useful to one another, but the Callings and Employments themselves will in the same Number of Years receive much greater Improvements, than if all had been promiscuously followed by every one of the Five."
- Bernard de Mandeville (1705)

Division of labor*

[sunweb]

I am a bit more optimistic than you sunweb. Between 2007-2012, the US's energy use has fallen around 7%. Further, nearly 2/3rds of that energy is wasted:

Kublikhan - perhaps you are more optimistic than I. As a 70 year old eleven year survivor of lung cancer, with 5 stents, one installed 3 weeks ago, I was just out checking on the 126 blueberry plants I put in this summer. That adds up to about 400 plants we have put in the last three years. Plus 30 hazelnut trees, 30 some apples. We are also growing specialty potatoes - blues, reds, fingerlings - for sale. Yearly I work on building the soil. We have a functioning root cellar, a house I rehabbed and a greenhouse. Our water system is designed to be off grid and even manual if necessary.
See: http://sunweber.blogspot.com/2011/11/on ... own-1.html
http://sunweber.blogspot.com/2012/11/ho ... _2431.html
http://sunweber.blogspot.com/2010/10/su ... -2010.html

Will I see the fruition of these fruits. Hmmmmmm.
I have already order next years potato crop and how we will sell them in August.
We all must think in system, web of life, and globally.

[Scrub Puller]

Yair . . . sunweb, pops and others.

The point I was trying to make was that in a worst case scenario I believe the detritus of this present way of life will be recycled and utilised for many generations.

I have lived off grid for most of my life and can remember the "battery man" coming out from town and putting new plates and separators in the two volt cells at the homestead . . . things don't need to be that complicated.

Cheers.

[lper100km]

It brings to mind that old rhyme -

"For want of a nail ...
... the Kingdom was lost"