The sunrise the past two mornings has been crimson filtered by the smoky haze east of town. Smoke from fires hundreds of miles away? On the east side of the Cascades perhaps where the B&B fire is still burning. The smell of woodsmoke is faint but tangible. With the continuing hot weather, the atmosphere recalls some other place and climate. Or perhas earlier times. I know that there was a vast fire on the slopes of Mt. Hood in the late 19th Century. Of course there were also those years when mountains erupted- Shasta and St. Helens.
On the radio commentators are discussing the recent failure in the power grid back east. I find it very odd that there was also failure in the English power grid near London not too much later. Seems the chance of that would be slim-and my feeling is exacerbated by the uncertainty experts are expressing in explaining what happened. The radio commentary includes a discussion of 'shoring up the power grid'. I find myself daydreaming of a different point of view. What if the grid were very limited, but the generating sources were more widespread? What if, instead of spending billions on better wires and failsafe devices, we spent it on developing effective fuel cells and other sources of energy. After all, one big disadvantage of transmission on a grid is that much electricity is lost- simply radiated off into the atmosphere as heat...the less transmission, the more efficient the use of the resource. Am I crazy? A representative of the Electrical Power Generating Utilities was quoted saying the idea of having a generation resource in every backyard was crazy. Funny, but I don't think so. I think we're not asking the right questions.
The sky turns the color of peach ice cream when the sun goes down and there is so much ash in the air. A cool reference on a hot night...
On the radio commentators are discussing the recent failure in the power grid back east. I find it very odd that there was also failure in the English power grid near London not too much later. Seems the chance of that would be slim-and my feeling is exacerbated by the uncertainty experts are expressing in explaining what happened. The radio commentary includes a discussion of 'shoring up the power grid'. I find myself daydreaming of a different point of view. What if the grid were very limited, but the generating sources were more widespread? What if, instead of spending billions on better wires and failsafe devices, we spent it on developing effective fuel cells and other sources of energy. After all, one big disadvantage of transmission on a grid is that much electricity is lost- simply radiated off into the atmosphere as heat...the less transmission, the more efficient the use of the resource. Am I crazy? A representative of the Electrical Power Generating Utilities was quoted saying the idea of having a generation resource in every backyard was crazy. Funny, but I don't think so. I think we're not asking the right questions.
The sky turns the color of peach ice cream when the sun goes down and there is so much ash in the air. A cool reference on a hot night...
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