embracing the snow

One of the amazing miracles of living in the mountains is the blue skies spread out on a white forest blanket.  The last two days were rough… coming back from  wonderful networking days in the city to two days of blizzards and close to a foot of snow – ahhh another winter season approaching. And then I woke up to a sparkling, blinding scenery of white, blue and trees dressed in winter whites…

For the past few years I made the comment ‘the older I get the less I like the white stuff (snow)’, and ‘I never want to have silverware sticking to my fingers’ (referring to what frozen utensils do when winter camping).  Well – I’ve changed my mind and transitioning to the enjoyment of the ‘white stuff’.  What put me back over on the friendly side of snow, was the realization that someday there will be less snow here and eventually – none.   ?

It wouldn't be so hard to transition into winter - but going from 80F to 40F for a hi-temp in one day!?  com'on already... this global weirding is just everywhere!


We all know that climate change is accelerating – and what we are slowly learning is that extreme weather patterns is its current manifestation. 

The more snow that falls in the Sierra, the more water storage and river flows will be available in the summer – and this is crucial to keep this California paradise resilient.  So – let it snow, let it snow, let it snow – just not more than 2-3 feet at a time here – please

Seems like the same pattern of the last two years is returning – clouds for 4-6 days, 1-2 days of sunshine, 4-6 cloudy days and on + on…  This winter pattern is a pain for a solar PV system – barely gets the batteries charged with only 8 hours of daylight.  Hopefully this year won’t be like 2 years ago with 3-5 feet of snow in several storms… that was the 150year record!

WinSol3 update

Each year the winters get easier to handle:  as I observe, learn and take actions.  This year it is warmer inside as there are:

1.  heavy insulating curtains in the 2^nd story windows. 
2.  firestove has its first solid masonry chimney
3. not one microscopic smoke leakage,
4. tight (triple layered) waterproofing/flashing.
5. There’s more oak firewood than any previous year.
6. Height of finished living roof makes it easy to clear snow off PV panels

The road out is still a bit of an issue, but with no early morning meetings, and x-country ski fun – I have no problem in waiting for the snow to recede – or just park out by the plowed road.

.....

Today, i made some of my own laundry detergent for the first time – it’s easy and costs less than $1 per gallon!  and it WORKS!  damn... another corporate/media 'wool over the eyes' bites the dust...

Batteries and temperatures

On a side note, for the second year in a row I am experiencing the extreme reduction of my battery output due to cold temperatures.  Not only is the bank of L16’s (Trojan deep cycle battery)  ten years old – they’ve gone through some pretty deep discharging over the last couple years and I think they are past the knee of the depreciation curve (where one replaces them)…. And so there will be another winter with minimal juice.

I have two solutions in mind:

1.  

  Buy and install an additional 100watt solar panel (will increase my current 180 watt total PV supply by 60%!) 

     or...

Split the battery bank (6vdc units) into 2 separate 12vdc banks and hook up the wind generator to one of the banks.  It gives me more flexibility and solves an electrical drainage problem:  the solar controllers cannot handle the wind genset’s integrated controller (after 12 months of frustrations in not getting a proper answer from the manufacturer or the web forums).   It is obvious to me that there is an impedance mismatch and when I hook up the wind genset in parallel with the solar bank and controller, I lose at least 0.2vdc immediately and it drains the battery bank overnite when there is no wind generation (can u tell I used to be a EE?)