This week's blog doesn't find me very much further along in my healing Journey than last week's did. Still feeling pretty awful and still haven't been back to work. But let's focus on more of a thought piece instead of my screaming shoulder.
There is a group of people in Regina who like to protest for the sake of protest. Or at least it seems that way. They usually set up shop on the corner of Albert Street and Victoria Avenue. There's signs about contrails and technology. I like to call them the "climate scientists". Never really sure what they're protesting about but they sure are pissed and sure love neon paper.
Which makes it a little uncomfortable to talk sometimes about what it would be like if maybe we walked back technology a little bit.
In a recent video by YouTuber Alec Steele where he went to an ancient Italian blacksmith that was powered by water. The hammer, the Bellows for the forge, even the welder were all run off of the energy from some falling water. Yes are running like it still operates today. It wasn't even a large or fast flowing amount of water. It was mostly just a stored pond above the blacksmith.
It got me wondering how we could still in the modern-day directly power some of our machinery and technology without having to go through a power grid that strips efficiency from our energy production.
A prime example here in Saskatchewan would be grinding wheat using wind power. It's actually incredibly ancient technology using windmills to grind wheat and other grains. Why couldn't we be doing that here today? Why are we paying a power company to burn coal hundreds of miles away to run grinders for wheat all over the province. A few windmills and we could be grinding wheat a lot closer to where it's produced into flower. It's not like flower needs to be run 24/7 all the time. Anyway, you make flour while the wind blows and I think we'd be able to supply a lot without burning coal or otherwise using a power grid. And I'm talking direct drive technology here. Not electric windmills powering electric motors for the grinders. Like just attach a belt from the windmill to the grinder and get to work. It's all circular motion.
I think we could also use it on our infrastructure, particularly in place of pumps. We could we could use wind powered pumps to put water into stored energy and stored water areas like reservoirs and water towers.
In some ways we see this being done now already. I see plenty of street signs and construction signs that are powered by solar power. Not to mention parking meters like those seen in Saskatoon.
I actually think modern design and engineering has got 90% of the way there lately with USB charging. It's this consistent 5 Volt supply. The biggest problem is that they've designed everything with integrated batteries. If they had made it so that we can replace those 5 volt rechargeable batteries then we could leave a set of batteries at home on a solar charger everyday and switch them out every night for a fresh one leaving our dead one to charge the next day. You could have a few spares for cloudy days or charge it off the grid if it's really bad. It would be great. And if you were on the road and you needed to charge up you can still plug into the wall and charge up like normal.
But I mean at the same time they can power steel mills with solar energy. So I think people are just making excuses at this point.
It was something I noticed when I was buying a lot of tools for my garage. When I was trying to get into woodworking. It was very clear that everything was just a spinning motor with a different attachment on it. The table saw the chop. Saw the drill, the sander. They were all just spinning motors with something different attached to them. I just wanted to buy one spinning motor and change the attachments. I think we could be doing that with wind energy quite a bit. Just switch out what is on the other end of the belt from the windmill. Instead of converting it into electricity and sending it into a grid.
What are some ways of using old technology or even rethinking how we will you solar and batteries to produce our energy the you can think of? I think we get so caught up in the fact that renewables can't replace everything that we don't consider how how renewables could replace a lot of things, leaving more fossil fuels for the future and less pollution in the air.
1 comment:
In solidarity with you, I will attempt to leave this comment using voice to text. All this stuff is very similar to. I looked into getting like a downspout generator or something like that but like a little tiny wind one just to charge my phone with but like it’s just a old good girl couple good boy Capone go hi Sadie how’s it going but like the power that they generate isn’t enough you gotta do a large skill for that stuff. I mean, we should just drill the ground and use all that steam stuff down at the bottom, the heat, and then the hotness and then you generate stuff that would be the best.
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