It’s summer complaining season around here these days. Mostly from the locusts.
It’s hot!
Is it?
This is what North Texas looks like in the summer. It’s not even that remarkable. Not as hot and dry as it’s been in the past, and certainly not as mild as it’s been the last few years. I’d call it straight up average. Doesn’t stop the complaining.
Hopefully it’ll have some transplants rethinking their life choices. I’ve known nearly a dozen that this kind of climate ended them, and back they went to the left coast. I just got a warning on Alexa about the national weather service putting out a heat advisory for today.
Wut?
It was supposed to be 103 today. It isn’t. It’s not even 90. WTF, Over. It’s actually quite pleasant.
But right on queue, guess who’s in ass covering mode?
ERCOT, that’s who. The same fools that screwed things up when it got cold, is now crowing that it’s too hot. These imbeciles are paid to maintain the grid, and keep it in shape and scaling it with the projected growth around here.
Apparently, they aren’t up to the task. Although, we’ve had no blackouts. Yet.
I’m sure the solartards are out there making hay during this. I’ve sized that up, being an engineering type and all, and found it way too low ROI for me, not caring one bit about fossils fuels as I don’t.
Kunstler had a piece about this the other day.
He’s into solar for $35K or so. My calculation was at $15K for me. That’s years of electric bills before a prayer of a payoff. And that’s if nothing goes wrong, which it did in his case. He’s looking at $18K, maybe $3K if he replaces the batteries himself.
He introduced me to a new term. One I’d heard but never applied – Sunk Costs. As in, his crap is ailing and he’s already in it for $35K. Ditch the system, it’s a loss. Fix it may be wasting money.
There’s more to the picture than just installing panels and glomming ‘Free’ electricity. It ain’t free. Ain’t nothin’ in this world free.
I paid under $400 for a 6000 watt dual fuel generator. It’ll run this house, except for the AC.
For $3K-$6K, I could have a diesel generator hooked up to the panel that would run everything here. I’m about to have my electrician buddy configure the panel to manual switch to my current generator.
Not that I mean to bag on solar. It has it’s place. I’d buy (and still may) solar attic fans. I’m thinking of installing a low voltage system that charges a couple car batteries that can deliver 12V/5V distributed around the house that can charge mobile devices, radios, batteries, and maybe run low voltage lighting. I can get a panel for a few hundred bucks to do that.
But back to the weather.
It’s not that hot.
It’s not humid at all.
My gardens, while suffering, are still green as is my lawn.
I’ve seen it worse.
Inspected By Pat 