Just had an interesting conversation with a climate change activist who at first scoffed at the idea of "they are coming to take your gas stove, etc." No, they are not coming to take your stove in the sense of breaking into your house and taking it, they will just not make it possible for you to replace it. I said, isn't that pretty much the same end result? We talked a lot about income inequality and housing issues--particularly regarding mobile home parks, and I think some lightbulbs went off in her head. Such as, what good does it do to subsidize retrofitting, solar/wind, heat pumps, new appliances, etc. for people who rent or live in mobile home parks, when the big issue right now is that many people are being squeezed out of their homes by predatory park owners and those that aren't currently in that situation (like myself) could very well find themselves in that situation with no other place to go? I don't think she had thought of things like that. Why should I accept funds to upgrade my mobile home when at any time I could find myself having to walk away from it--it doesn't make sense. Same thing with an EV. I said the big problem from the standpoint of the "little person" is that a lot of these climate change "solutions" sound an awful lot like "Let them eat cake." I also pointed out that it is a lot more efficient climate-wise and environment-wise to put 100 families in an apartment complex than it is to let them all buy lots in a subdivision--should we pass zoning laws to phase out single-family housing? She said to me, horrified, "That sounds like Soviet Russia!" Exactly. When you are busy running around passing laws to restrict this and ban that in the name of the greater good--and especially without offering practical, workable alternatives, that is exactly what you are doing. And that is exactly what many of her "allies" ARE doing and ARE proposing. I think I may have opened her eyes somewhat.
Mine is when they start coming for our fireplaces. We are installing a wood burning fireplace insert so we can be more independent of the grid. We have tons of wood and the power goes out a lot where we live. If they go after the fireplaces and gas furnaces it will force everyone into electric which they can control with a flip of a switch anytime they want now that everyone has smart meters.
We had hybrid solar (with x2 batteries) installed at our previous rural (101 yr-old) property. No, it did not have smart meter! The power went out a lot there, too. Not after we got our system, though, ha ha, and it was independent of the overhead power system, so we had power all the time and no-one could stop us using it!
There are lots of ways to be more independent power-wise. Hybrid solar is great, but probably will have issues after 20-odd years. Fireplaces are good, too (we had one of them as well) but they can also need replacing after many years. I guess there is not one perfect system to use - but a good rule of thumb is try to find what works for you and run with that?!
Our current (rental) place has a smart meter, and I do not like that idea. But I was also just reading that all new house builds must have a smart meter! This concerns me greatly because we're building a new house on our 5-acre property! I do wonder if there's a way to make sure you can still use your hybrid solar system + batteries (we're having another system done) even WITH a smart meter? Because if they can turn off the power and we have NO access to our solar/batteries, then there's no point in installing it! :-( Do you know anything about how that works?
Very interesting article! Very scary stuff going on.
Looks like I am going to have to subscribe to Kent's Substack ;)
Just had an interesting conversation with a climate change activist who at first scoffed at the idea of "they are coming to take your gas stove, etc." No, they are not coming to take your stove in the sense of breaking into your house and taking it, they will just not make it possible for you to replace it. I said, isn't that pretty much the same end result? We talked a lot about income inequality and housing issues--particularly regarding mobile home parks, and I think some lightbulbs went off in her head. Such as, what good does it do to subsidize retrofitting, solar/wind, heat pumps, new appliances, etc. for people who rent or live in mobile home parks, when the big issue right now is that many people are being squeezed out of their homes by predatory park owners and those that aren't currently in that situation (like myself) could very well find themselves in that situation with no other place to go? I don't think she had thought of things like that. Why should I accept funds to upgrade my mobile home when at any time I could find myself having to walk away from it--it doesn't make sense. Same thing with an EV. I said the big problem from the standpoint of the "little person" is that a lot of these climate change "solutions" sound an awful lot like "Let them eat cake." I also pointed out that it is a lot more efficient climate-wise and environment-wise to put 100 families in an apartment complex than it is to let them all buy lots in a subdivision--should we pass zoning laws to phase out single-family housing? She said to me, horrified, "That sounds like Soviet Russia!" Exactly. When you are busy running around passing laws to restrict this and ban that in the name of the greater good--and especially without offering practical, workable alternatives, that is exactly what you are doing. And that is exactly what many of her "allies" ARE doing and ARE proposing. I think I may have opened her eyes somewhat.
Mine is when they start coming for our fireplaces. We are installing a wood burning fireplace insert so we can be more independent of the grid. We have tons of wood and the power goes out a lot where we live. If they go after the fireplaces and gas furnaces it will force everyone into electric which they can control with a flip of a switch anytime they want now that everyone has smart meters.
We had hybrid solar (with x2 batteries) installed at our previous rural (101 yr-old) property. No, it did not have smart meter! The power went out a lot there, too. Not after we got our system, though, ha ha, and it was independent of the overhead power system, so we had power all the time and no-one could stop us using it!
There are lots of ways to be more independent power-wise. Hybrid solar is great, but probably will have issues after 20-odd years. Fireplaces are good, too (we had one of them as well) but they can also need replacing after many years. I guess there is not one perfect system to use - but a good rule of thumb is try to find what works for you and run with that?!
Our current (rental) place has a smart meter, and I do not like that idea. But I was also just reading that all new house builds must have a smart meter! This concerns me greatly because we're building a new house on our 5-acre property! I do wonder if there's a way to make sure you can still use your hybrid solar system + batteries (we're having another system done) even WITH a smart meter? Because if they can turn off the power and we have NO access to our solar/batteries, then there's no point in installing it! :-( Do you know anything about how that works?