Future: DC yes, AC no?

Quote: Face

I know it's probably far too complex to ask, but with both kenarman and petro here, and of course the internet incarnate known as Paco, I figured I'd give it a shot.

I never said I knew anything about electricity, I just said I'd worked with a lot of it. If I knew anything about it, I probably would have stayed further away?

We used to joke about that scene in Caddyshack maybe where Bill Murray blows up the golf course and he has a line, "electricity is our friend". What a riot.

It's funny stuff. You can't see it, but you can prove it's there. It's eerie being "in the field" sometimes, setting air on fire, and the ozone smell after the arc goes out. That was my end of it.

I think you would enjoy doing linework. It has some intense moments that everyone looks forward to, getting paid for adrenaline. Maybe if you don't go pro hockey?

I have never ever seen as much demand as there is for someone with that skill set? Now Paco wants to rewire the whole thing DC, great. I got in on the first build out working the NW intertie. Now I just want the light to come on when I flip the switch and the ac to keep working, like everyone else. : )

Quote: petroglyph

Now I just want the light to come on when I flip the switch and the ac to keep working, like everyone else. : )

Have a new gen on the porch, only had
to use it once so far. Had one for 10 years
and never had a need to use it. Being
able to make your own power has a
good feeling that comes with it. Same
feeling you get knowing you can make
a fire from scratch if you have to.

Quote: Evenbob

Have a new gen on the porch, only had
to use it once so far. Had one for 10 years
and never had a need to use it. Being
able to make your own power has a
good feeling that comes with it. Same
feeling you get knowing you can make
a fire from scratch if you have to.

I read a short news clip, many Californians are to expect 14 days without power this summer, rolling brown/black outs.

It doesn't take a big generator to make a giant difference during outages. I was flabbergasted a few years ago when Soldotna Ak lost power for a week with sub zero temps, and many people relied solely on electricity to power their home heating system. In Alaska for chrisakes.

Lots of burst pipes, not even propane heaters for back up or wood heat like all the bush dwellers?

Computers have made these proportional maps much easier to draw, but here is one from 1921 showing the states distorted by the number of people who had electricity. At the time, only 57.3 percent of the United States had electricity (~62 million out of ~108 million).

Massachusetts, 97,8%
California, 86.5%
Illinois, had 79.8%
New York had 78.7%
Pennsylvania, had 68.8%
Ohio, 66.1%

Quote: Evenbob

Being able to make your own power has a good feeling that comes with it.

With 46 million people without electric service, making your own electricity at least for lighting was fairly common.

One subtle influence on this is the LAW.
Most states have requirements about water and electrical connections for a HOME, but a building permit for an OFFICE BUILDING can be obtained even if there is NO water or electrical connections.
This makes some California land very valuable since there can be a moratorium on building permits under various growth statutes but no such moratorium on OFFICE permits.
So its buy land and build an off grid building right away or else buy the same piece of land and build a home sometime in the next five or ten years depending upon permits, moratoria, impact fees and the like.

So locally generated DC can be an economic factor in land valuation.

In California a building permit does not confer a Right that is frozen in time.... changes in the law are a RISK.
In Washington a building permit freezes the applicable law to the date of the permit being granted.

So California has land owners who might face a five year period of risk for building a home but no risk for building an off grid office building. Therefore an expensive DC system is really a Risk Avoidance Technique. Spend extra money and save five years of risk? Who would object to that? No telling what those California tree hugging hippies might vote during those five years.

Quote: Pacomartin

With 46 million people without electric service, making your own electricity at least for lighting was fairly common.

Even in states that did have electricity many industrial firms had their own powerhouses because the quality and reliability of electrical service was inadequate for investment purposes. One did not build a factory full of machines and rely on the local utility to provide power that it could not necessarily provide with consistent reliability and quality.

RFD Rural Free Delivery and REA Rural Electrification Agency were FDR's way of buying the votes of farmers and small town dwellers. REA surveyors are supposed to have become very rich for the decisions they made in deciding which towns would be electrified.

Quote: petroglyph

I think you would enjoy doing linework. It has some intense moments that everyone looks forward to, getting paid for adrenaline. Maybe if you don't go pro hockey?

Think twice, Face, one the top ten in dangerous jobs

Quote: link

Utility line work is in the top 10 of the most dangerous jobs in America. Around 30 to 50 workers in every 100, 000 are killed on the job every year. Many others suffer non-fatal loss of limbs from electrical burns and mechanical trauma. That's more than twice the fatality rate of police officers and firemen.

A program I watched once indicated for North America, over two decades, about 600 deaths IIRC. If I don't remember right, it was well into the several hundreds for sure. That's a lot!

http://tdworld.com/transmission/utility-line-workers-one-top-10-most-dangerous-professions

Quote: odiousgambit

Think twice, Face, one the top ten in dangerous jobs

That is the part that will attract him.

In the early part of the last century on a large line job, the death rate was as high as 50%.

It's gotten so easy now, almost anyone can do it. lol

Quote: Pacomartin

At the time, only 57.3 percent of the United States had electricity (~62 million out of ~108 million).

The house I have now didn't get it till 1940.
Up north on my wife's family farm it was 1950.
Her grandma was born in 1907 and had no
electric till she was 43 years old. They did
have battery operated 'farm radios' which
Philco and Zenith made for decades. They
had natural gas lights and a gas stove and
an icebox, so it probably wasn't all that bad.

Quote: petroglyph

That is the part that will attract him.

In the early part of the last century on a large line job, the death rate was as high as 50%.

It's gotten so easy now, almost anyone can do it. lol

For real =)

I make my living on the road. As far as "dangerous jobs" go, sitting defenseless and invisible to most of the pop has gotta be right up there. And the pay's gotta be a damn sight better. And no Xmas rush? Where do I sign?!

I could hold a chopper steady, I'm sure. OK, not sure, but willing to try! =D