Cop Car's Beat

Wayback to 6/19/1992

My photo scanning efforts keep taking me back into the past. One of the sets of photos that I scanned, this morning, reminded me of an event on 6/19/1992: a huge hailstorm. The following entry is from Wikipedia.

19 June 1992

Wichita, Kansas, USA

Two batches of severe thunderstorms, occurring within 6 hours of each other, dumped hailstones up to 4.5 in (11 cm) in diameter across Sedgwick, including the city of Wichita, and surrounding counties in south-central Kansas. Over 10,000 homes were damaged. The hail left wheat fields in a near total loss. Estimated property damage totaled $500 million with crop damage at $100 million. The thunderstorm episode ranks as one of the worst ever to hit Kansas.[7]

Back Story

In early 1990, our son-in-law, WichiDude, contacted me to let me know that Cessna Aircraft (for whom I had worked 1975-1981) was hiring engineers. At the time, although Hunky Husband and I had remarried in 1988, I was still living in Albuquerque, NM (working in the San Francisco Bay Area, CA) while HH was in his 32nd year with Boeing. By late March, I was making the long drive from San Francisco to Albuquerque, pausing a bit in Albuquerque to process out of my job there, and making the long drive from Albuquerque to Derby, KS. I put in my (2nd) first day of work at Cessna on 4/9/1990. Well and good. HH and I were once again stuffed together into the house in the that we had had built in 1968 - which he still owned and had continuously occupied since that time.

Life is not that simple. Came May, 1991, Boeing sent HH to work in Philadelphia, PA. Fine lot of good it had done me, moving back to Kansas! The hailstorm hit while HH was working in Philadelphia.

Although I normally worked on the west side of Wichita, on the day of the storm I was working on the east side. Thus, my brand new 1992 Ford Taurus SHO car did not take the brunt of the hailstorm as did tens of thousands of cars that day. [The SHO required only the replacement of a small strip of weather stripping on one window - a $100 charge.] For years following the hailstorm, cars drove around our area of the country looking as though they had been systematically beaten with a ball pean hammer.

When I drove home from work a few hours after the storm it was a different matter. The streets, sidewalks, and yards of Derby looked as though they had received a few inches of green snow. The hail had shredded and beaten the leaves to a pulp, mixing them in with the ice of the hail. Some of the streets had been plowed and most of the ice had melted by the time I drove home. Below are more photos of our yard from that day.

In the photo, below, my tire tracks were made after the kind, younger couple who lived across the street (their house is shown in the photo) helped me clear the tangle of limbs that had blocked the drive.  (That kind gesture rather injured my feelings since I was a mere 54 years old at the time and felt perfectly capable of clearing the mess, myself. Rest assured, however, that I accepted their help graciously. Now, 29 years later, I would jump for joy at their help.)

The grass was surely green, but the photo (below) does not show it. The green on the ground in the photo is shredded leaves from our big, old trees. Note that our creek, running between our green yard and the house in the background, is high enough for the water to be seen. I take it that the lawn mower belonged to, and was in the yard of, our nextdoor neighbor. Our mower was in our shed.

Many of the trees along the banks of the creek lost limbs. The creek was overflowing, not only from the amount of water that resulted from hail melt, but also from the clogging of the waterway produced by downed limbs and trees and other debris from the storm.

I'll wind up the post by embedding a video shot during one of the storms that day. The video runs about five minutes, but only gets informative at about 50 seconds in. It appears to me that the videographer was fortunate in missing the brunt of the storm. (Street/highway signs make it easier to follow his path - if one is familiar with Wichita.)

"This video is part of the Tornadoes Kick Media stock video collection from Tony Laubach. To license this footage, please contact Tony Laubach at the email below or through YouTube or Facebook."

 

NOTES:

1. At the beginning of the day, all of the trees around our neighborhood were fully leafed out. It was the stripping action of the hail that bared the trees behind our house in the top photo.
2. In the same photo, to the right of the driveway and above the sidewalk one may see a patch of bare dirt. That is where I had a large maple tree removed just a few weeks before the hailstorm. It had suffered major damage in a windstorm.

Kansas has its own experience of earth, wind, & fire

Yesterday was something else in Kansas! It looked like the dust bowl as the howling winds lifted the dirt from eastern Colorado and western Kansas into the air, mixing it with smoke from numerous range fires, and slamming the particulates across Kansas and on into Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, and beyond. We here in Derby were at the southern tip of the narrow band of storms that were basically aligned north-to-south, moving east at speeds faster than the highest legal land-based vehicle speed limit of 75mph. 

The tiny bit of rain that we received (0.14") was mostly dilute mud. Our windows are now grime streaked. (Some of the grimy streaks show in the photo, above - IF one clicks on it to enlarge the above image.) But, hey, we got off really, really easy. Some of the state is still dealing with prairie fires left over from yesterday - mostly caused by downed power lines. Some small power companies turned off the juice for a couple of hours to prevent more fires' being set.

Fires Remain a Concern Across Kansas After Strong Wind Storm

Firefighters and emergency responders are battling fires spreading across parts of central and western Kansas after a powerful storm blew through the state.

By Associated Press Dec. 16, 2021, at 9:17 p.m.

 

A calf grazes in a pasture along [sic] near a fire that burned 365,850 acres and stretched across Ellis, Russell, Osborne and Rooks counties

Thursday, Dec. 16, 2021, near Natoma, Kan. The fire was stoked by a storm that passed through the area Wednesday with high winds and gusts up to 90 mph.

(AP Photo/Charlie Riedel) THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

By MARGARET STAFFORD, Associated Press

Fires that erupted across Kansas continued to burn Thursday as the state responded to a wind-whipped storm that also churned up dust and reduced visibility for drivers, causing three fatalities.

Fires in 11 counties from Russell County west burned just under 400,000 acres, with about 365,850 acres in a fire that stretched across Ellis, Russell, Osborne and Rooks counties, said Shawna Hartman, spokeswoman for the Kansas Forest Service. Smaller fires were also burning in those counties and other areas.

The storm system on Wednesday carried winds that reached up to 90 mph in some areas. The winds combined with low humidity and dry vegetation and grasses to fuel fires in parts of western and central Kansas.

The dust reduced visibility on roads across the state, causing three fatalities, 20 injury accidents and 51 non-injury accidents, the Kansas Highway Patrol said.

While not at all comparable to the spate of tornados experienced by Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Illinois last Friday with the attendant deaths and destruction, this assault hit some of the farmers, hard. After evacuating to evade being trapped in the fires, themselves, some came home to dead and dying animals and destroyed buildings and equipment.

Most of Kansas is in drought conditions. According to my records from our own rain gauge, we received only 0.5" of rain in the first 12 days of November, and nothing after that until the 0.14" last evening.

BTW: The above Associated Press article says that winds reach 90mph. According to the weather service reports, there were spot reports of winds' reaching over 100 mph. I believe that the highest report was 107mph. The 250 miles of I-70 from Salina KS to the Colorado border was closed in both directions for some time to get high profile vehicles off of the Interstate. Too many semis were being blown over.

A little Fall color

Today, the sun has been elusive. One minute we've experienced overcast skies and five minutes later, not a cloud in the sky. Thus, some of the photos that I thought would be sunny, were cloudy, and when the sun reappeared, some of the flora that I wished to photograph were in the deep shade of Fred's house. Oh, well.

The first photo shows the entirety of the rose garden that I had planted for Hunky Husband in March 2019, and re-configured in 2020. Obvious in the photo are the Midas Touch bush in the front and one blossom on the Oklahoma! bush that appears just below the garage window. Other blossoms don't show up in the photo.

In front of the house are three bushes of Mini Lavendar Lace that were planted in April 2009. Those little bushes have been overgrown by the sedum groundcover and overshadowed, in most years, by the Leather Leaf Viburnum that towers over them.

Although some people are sensitive to the sap of any sumac, I have never been; thus, I plant them. When we landscaped our yard, after building this house, I had a Staghorn Sumac planted at the far back of the "good grass" of the back lawn. Eventually, the redbud tree that was in that corner of the yard overshadowed the sumac. It withered and all but died, after which I removed it with my trusty axe. Three years ago, I bought four plants of Staghorn Sumac, planting one just outside our dining room windows and the other three in the planting strip between our driveway and Fred's yard. Each location should help me defeat the sumac bushes/trees in their efforts to populate the world. They were planted for their fall color and, this year, are proving their mettle.

The first two sumac photos show the "tree" outside the dining room windows.

 

 

 

Below are the three sumacs, and their offspring, between our driveway and Fred's yard. The nearest sumac, with the flower cones stuck out to nearly the driveway, is the only female in the bunch.

On November 15, the JoJac tree team (minus the guy who has always led the team when they've come to my house, because he now works in their landscaping department) are to come. Sadly, one of the things I'll be discussing is possible removal of the grand Cottonwood Tree that graced this property for many years before we bought the land. Below is a (possibly) farewell photo of the cottonwood. I love that tree; but, I don't love the fire hazard it now presents to our house, nor do I love the extra work engendered by its bad habit of shedding branches and twigs most months of the year, shedding cotton to blow in the wind like heavy snowfall during a couple of weeks each year, and the growth habit of its roots that brings roots to the surface causing large bumps over which to mow. I spend a lot of time cleaning up after my love.

The Low Boy Pyracantha bush that was gifted to me by co-workers upon my retirement in 2004 required a lot of cleanup trimming & pulling of vines & other plants that had grown up through it, this year; but, it rewards me with its pretty berries. Just in front of the bush are several sprigs of redbud seedlings that I've allowed to grow in the spot from which the clump of redbuds were removed last year.

Lest I forget, here (below) is a photo of an ill-placed mum that was planted in about 2012 as one of several that I planted to give fall color. Unfortunately, the crepe myrtle bushes, while lovely (and of nearly the same pinkish-purple hue), have overgrown this survivor mum.

Below is a photo of a bare spot left by the army worm attack of several weeks ago. If you strain your eyeballs, you may be able to discern the pattern of vertical, green, hair-like sprouts of new grass - planted on 10/16/2021. Except for yesterday, when we were blessed with 0.36" of rain, we have run the sprinkler system for a few minutes, thrice daily. These are the first sprouts I've seen; although, the sprouts were not confined to this one bare spot.

Lastly, is a beauty shot of the way in which I prepared our sprinkler system's backflow prevention valve assembly to withstand moderately freezing weather. As I wrote, recently, two or three times, we've had to have the valve assembly repaired or replaced when the outside air temperatures dipped into the high teens or low twenties for too many hours. I had purchased (and used) electrically-heated tapes in past years; but, the newest installation is a configuration that makes use of such tapes impossible. Over the assembly I arranged: a slight bit of fiberglass insulation strip, a flannel bedsheet, heavy plastic sheet, inverted plastic wastebasket, rubber-backed window drapery (from circa 1968), plastic sheeting, and 8 bags of cedar bark mulch. (Oh! And I had brought the ground level, to mate with the inverted wastebasket, with two bags of top soil.) If, in spite of my efforts, the assembly freezes, I shall probably drown trying to get down to the valve in order to turn off the water, manually, instead of merely freezing in the spraying water.

The meter that is visible to the left of the piled bags of mulch is our smart natural gas meter. The valve assembly is too close to that meter (and to the house and to the downspout for the roof guttering) for it to be easy to work with.

The seeds are sown

BEFORE Seeding

TenderCare's lawn service team was scheduled to core-aerate and slit seed on Monday, 10/11/2021. Unfortunately for that scheduling, we received 2.61" of rain that day, starting at Midnight and ending at about dinner time. TenderCare rescheduled us for Friday, 10/15/2021. Now, understand that there are a couple of things driving us to have wanted to have the seeding done two weeks ago: 1) I had originally scheduled our sprinkler system to be winterized on the 20th, and the grass seed would need thrice daily watering for at least two weeks following sowing, taking us out to having the system winterized no earlier than 11/3/2021 - by which time we will surely have had temperatures that will risk freezing the backflow prevention valve assembly* and 2) Kansas State U Extension Service recommends sowing fescue seed no later than October 15, to provide the new grass the opportunity to mature to a stage less likely to be killed by fluctuations in winter temperatures.

The photo, below, is a paste-up of two photos that I finally thought to take Wednesday, 10/13/2021, showing the bare patches in the back yard that were left by the voracious army worms - after I had completed pulling out the Bermuda grass that was prominent in those areas. BTW: We received an additional 0.53" of rain on Wednesday.

The next photo was taken merely to show our daily invasion by "our" flock of turkeys. They came up from the creek bank just as I had come inside from taking the above photos and was closing the patio door.

Came Thursday, the 14th, I ran an errand, returning home to Hunky Husband's news that he had called TenderCare. He did not recall how he received the word (phone? text? email?) from TenderCare that they had scheduled winterization of our sprinkler system for the following day, regardless of the fact that I had asked them to change our scheduled date from the 20th to sometime the week of the 27th, after which I will need to water the seed/new grass by hand. They told him that they would not turn off the sprinkler system before seeding. That is good. However, HH's memory of what transpired is not always accurate these days, so I wondered what would happen on our re-scheduled seeding day of Friday.

Came Friday, the 15th, at 3:30pm, we had still not seen anyone from TenderCare. I called the office to inquire and was told, "You are on the schedule." We waited. No one showed. Now the office was closed and I had no idea what was happening. I decided that, if their team showed up, today (Saturday - usually a non-working day for TenderCare), I would let them seed. If they hadn't shown up by Monday morning, I would tell them not to seed - we'll do that next spring. Spring isn't the ideal time to seed a cool season grass, here; but, then, neither is it ideal after the 15th.

Thankfully, today, one of the TenderCare lawn service guys showed up, bright and early, to do our lawn. He had missed work, yesterday, and the remaining members of the lawn service team had been overbooked and could not possibly get the scheduled jobs all done. Since we are friends of the owner, I suspect that he chooses to take care of less sure customers, first, and that we were scheduled last. The guy who showed up had help, his bride of 19 years who is a member of TenderCare's landscaping team. As they were dragging two trailers behind the Tendercare pickup truck and one was filled with balled-and-burlaped bushes, I suspect that he would be her helper at their next job.

AFTER seeding

The photo, below, shows most of the bare areas in the back lawn, after core aeration and seeding. I immediately took up all of the flags that we had put out to mark locations of sprinkler heads and other obstructions that the workers should not hit with their equipment, and programmed the sprinkler system to do the thrice daily chore. Keeping my fingers crossed that our weather cooperates for the next three weeks, at least.

________________________________________________________

*To the best of my remembrance, we have had to pay to have the backflow prevention valve assembly repaired or replaced three times in the past 21 years. However, that's not the worst that happens. The worst that happens is that I get soaked with 32 degree F water, getting to the assembly to turn off the water, once the ice in the assembly melts and the water starts gushing forth. I have packed the assembly for resistance to low temperatures (we were at 35 degrees when I went for my walk, this morning, with frost on our roof and on the grass along my route.) Unfortunately, the last time the assembly was replaced, the new assembly's configuration makes it impossible for me to apply electrically heated tape to it. Grrrr....

Summary of the week - July 23

SATURDAY, July 17

Edging of street curb

I finished manually edging the street curb, this morning. The photos show the edged curb and the last load of sod that I removed in the edging process.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SUNDAY, July 18

Flowers for free

On the 11th, Bogie posted More Rain!, including photos of a few flowers that were blooming without her having planted them. She reminded me of a mystery plant that came up under a small mulberry tree that I had saved when having the trees surrounding it removed. I finally thought to take a photo, today. If you can identify the flower, please do so in a comment. I'm calling it a "wild tiger lily" because I don't know what else to call it. For the past three years, I've watched us (carelessly) mow down a couple of irises that I had laid at the base of the tree; thus, I've no idea how long this lily has been there. It has an interesting leaf habit that climbs the blossom stem. The third photo, below, shows what remains of the iris plants for comparison of the leaf configuration to that of the lily. The iris hasn't bloomed for having been mowed down so many times and I no longer recall what sort of iris it is - if I ever knew. I may have picked it up out of my trash heap of irises that were discarded when we sodded along what is now our neighbor's fence line.

 

 

Milkweed

While showing Hunky Husband the free lilies, I took him by my miniature meadow in order to check out the milkweed plants. They are doing well. There was a caterpillar on one of the plants (and a nibbled leaf edge); but, as I read online, "That ain't no Monarch!"

 

 

Addition of 7/19/2021: No caterpillar, no cocoon, no chrysalis, no further nibbling of leaves. Perhaps a bluebird ate the caterpillar.

 

MONDAY, July 19

 

Tomato harvest

After giving our four Ninebark bushes a haircut this morning, I harvested tomatoes. The bowl on the left contains tomatoes from a couple of volunteer vines that came up between the garage and the crepe myrtle bushes, this spring, while the bowl on the right contains tomatoes off of a Jet Star vine that I bought and planted. Because of the wonky weather that we had in March-May, our purchased vines had no ripe tomatoes for July 4th - which is the rule of thumb for gauging success of growing tomatoes, around here. The Jet Star and one of the larger tomato varieties ripened up one or two fruits - one week later.

 

For a while, the volunteer tomato plants out-produced our purchased plants. There is still one purchased plant that hasn't set on fruit but has abundant blossoms. (I picked some of the tomatoes a bit under-ripe so as not to give our expected high temperatures this afternoon, and the critters, a chance to spoil them. The temperatures are to crescendo to about 106 degrees Fahrenheit within the next two weeks, making our temperatures more in keeping with expectations for July.)

 

 

Update of 7/24/2021: The one vine that I wrote had not yet set fruit is the Bella Roma and closer inspection, this morning, showed  one walnut-sized and two marble-sized green fruit have actually set on.

 

Tuesday, July 20

 

By 7:15am, I had taken my walk and bought groceries. By 8am, a batch of chocolate chip/pecan cookies had been baked - made necessary by HH's having finished off the sandwich cookies that he likes and by the little WalMart's not having any for sale, this morning.

 

Thursday, July 22

 

Fortunately, I accomplished all necessary outdoor activities before 9am, today - my walk, some yard work, and a quick trip to the little WalMart to purchase more wide-mouth jar flats (for jars of chili that I had ready to put up in jars for Elder Brother). The trip to WalMart was a bust. They had nothing but jars left for sale in the canning supplies area. It seems that canning supplies are in short supply due to COVID-19 shutdowns.

 

I had to re-use some of the flats that I had on hand. I've historically re-used flats when the food is for Hunky Husband and me; because, except for the rare jar of jam, I keep such canned goods in the downstairs refrigerator or freezer. I like to use new flats when someone else is getting the canned goods - even when, as for the chili, the person will similarly store the jars in the cold. EB may choose not to take the chili if that is his preference; but, with careful packing, he should be able to get them to his home at a low enough temperature. I did assure that each jar actually sealed. *ping*

 

The photo, below, shows a loose set of wide-mouth flat and ring, one pint of the chili, and one unopened box of standard-mouth flats. The standard-mouth flats will probably still be in the cabinet when I die. I pretty much have used the wide-mouth jars since an epiphany many years ago in which I realized it is easier for one with tremors to hit a larger target. (My circular error probable, CEP, isn't that small.)

 

 

The reason I was glad to get outdoor activities accomplished early was that the authorities started issuing air quality advisories (stay indoors) at about 10am. The smoke from the wildfires in Northern California wasn't pea soup thick; but, it has been hazy out there.

 

A piece about canning jar flat shortage, Where have all the canning lids gone?, was posted last August. I hadn't noticed, before, because I had plenty of the flats on hand until now. (I've used at least three dozen new flats since August.)

 

Milkweed

While showing Hunky Husband the free lilies, I took him by my miniature meadow in order to check out the milkweed plants. They are doing well. There was a caterpillar on one of the plants (and a nibbled leaf edge); but, as I read online, "That ain't no Monarch!"

 

 

Addition of 7/19/2021: No caterpillar, no cocoon, no chrysalis, no further nibbling of leaves. Perhaps a bluebird ate the caterpillar.

 

MONDAY, July 19

 

Tomato harvest

After giving our four Ninebark bushes a haircut this morning, I harvested tomatoes. The bowl on the left contains tomatoes from a couple of volunteer vines that came up between the garage and the crepe myrtle bushes, this spring, while the bowl on the right contains tomatoes off of a Jet Star vine that I bought and planted. Because of the wonky weather that we had in March-May, our purchased vines had no ripe tomatoes for July 4th - which is the rule of thumb for gauging success of growing tomatoes, around here. The Jet Star and one of the larger tomato varieties ripened up one or two fruits - one week later.

 

For a while, the volunteer tomato plants out-produced our purchased plants. There is still one purchased plant that hasn't set on fruit but has abundant blossoms. (I picked some of the tomatoes a bit under-ripe so as not to give our expected high temperatures this afternoon, and the critters, a chance to spoil them. The temperatures are to crescendo to about 106 degrees Fahrenheit within the next two weeks, making our temperatures more in keeping with expectations for July.)

 

 

Update of 7/24/2021: The one vine that I wrote had not yet set fruit is the Bella Roma and closer inspection, this morning, showed  one walnut-sized and two marble-sized green fruit have actually set on.

 

Tuesday, July 20

 

By 7:15am, I had taken my walk and bought groceries. By 8am, a batch of chocolate chip/pecan cookies had been baked - made necessary by HH's having finished off the sandwich cookies that he likes and by the little WalMart's not having any for sale, this morning.

 

Thursday, July 22

 

Fortunately, I accomplished all necessary outdoor activities before 9am, today - my walk, some yard work, and a quick trip to the little WalMart to purchase more wide-mouth jar flats (for jars of chili that I had ready to put up in jars for Elder Brother). The trip to WalMart was a bust. They had nothing but jars left for sale in the canning supplies area. It seems that canning supplies are in short supply due to COVID-19 shutdowns.

 

I had to re-use some of the flats that I had on hand. I've historically re-used flats when the food is for Hunky Husband and me; because, except for the rare jar of jam, I keep such canned goods in the downstairs refrigerator or freezer. I like to use new flats when someone else is getting the canned goods - even when, as for the chili, the person will similarly store the jars in the cold. EB may choose not to take the chili if that is his preference; but, with careful packing, he should be able to get them to his home at a low enough temperature. I did assure that each jar actually sealed. *ping*

 

The photo, below, shows a loose set of wide-mouth flat and ring, one pint of the chili, and one unopened box of standard-mouth flats. The standard-mouth flats will probably still be in the cabinet when I die. I pretty much have used the wide-mouth jars since an epiphany many years ago in which I realized it is easier for one with tremors to hit a larger target. (My circular error probable, CEP, isn't that small.)

 

 

The reason I was glad to get outdoor activities accomplished early was that the authorities started issuing air quality advisories (stay indoors) at about 10am. The smoke from the wildfires in Northern California wasn't pea soup thick; but, it has been hazy out there.

 

A piece about canning jar flat shortage, Where have all the canning lids gone?, was posted last August. I hadn't noticed, before, because I had plenty of the flats on hand until now. (I've used at least three dozen new flats since August.)

Residential electrical service entrance

Earlier this month, a comment string on the posting, More from News for Nerds - Heat pumps, led to another posting, Determining electrical service requirements - for the non-professional, with an abundance of comments. I do not intend to extend (I like that phrase; ) the discussion in this posting, but merely wish to provide a place to document some of the information and sources that I ran across during the earlier exchange. In no particular order, I include the following items.

City of Derby, Kansas, Underground Wiring in Residential Subdivisions 

I've made previous mention of utility supply lines of various sorts' being delivered to our homes by underground installations, and below is an excerpt pertaining to electrical and telephone service supply from our city's Subdivision Regulation, Article 7 Installation of Required Improvements (Download Article 7__201304041240165680).

Overhead Power Line Service

If the electrical service is delivered via overhead power lines, as has been the case in about half of the homes in which I've lived, the electrical service entrance is through the roof or through an exterior wall - above grade. 

The graphics, below, are from a simplified presentation at Electrical Academia, and illustrate some of the routing and terminology having to do with conducting overhead power line electrical service into a residential dwelling. The graphic on the left shows a "mast service drop"; on the right, a "clevis service drop".

 

 

 

 

 

Dealing with restoration of electrical service following damage due to a disaster

It is a sticky wicket, figuring out whom to call when disaster strikes a home, damaging the electrical service entrance. During my volunteer disaster relief work, in coordinating with governmental agencies, I have been party to several conversations concerning what various levels of government can/cannot do, what utility companies can/cannot do, and the responsibility of the home owner (who may engage a qualified electrician) in restoring electrical service following a disaster. It got very frustrating for the stressed home owners.

The following table of responsibility is from Basics of Residential Electric Service Drops (thespruce.com). 

How [sic - should be Who] Is Responsible For Fixing the Service Drop?
	Power Company	Qualified Electrician
Overhead wires running from pole to house	X
Service bracket attaching service wires to house	X
Electric meter	X
Weather head that attaches to service cable		X
Service cable from weather head to meter box, then to service panel (circuit breakers)		X
Meter socket		X

More from News for Nerds - Auto emissions, Bit Coin cost, & USA Fossil fuel use

Volkswagen, BMW Fined $1 Billion For Colluding To Make Dirtier Cars (theverge.com)123

Posted by msmash on Thursday July 08, 2021 @02:02PM from the closer-look dept.

Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz parent company Daimler spent years illegally colluding to slow the deployment of cleaner emissions technology, says the European Union, which is dishing out fines as a result. From a report: The EU's executive branch hit the Volkswagen Group (which owns Audi and Porsche) and BMW with a collective $1 billion fine on Thursday for their role in the scheme. Volkswagen Group must pay $595 million, while BMW will pay $442 million. Daimler, however, evaded a $861 million fine of its own because the automaker revealed the collusion to the regulators.

The scheme described by EU authorities is separate from the Volkswagen Group's massive Dieselgate scandal, in which the company installed software on its diesel vehicles that helped fool environmental regulators into believing they were compliant, when in reality, they were polluting far more than the legal limit. Dieselgate ultimately led to nearly $40 billion in fines, buybacks, and legal fees for the Volkswagen Group. Daimler also installed software on some of its diesel vehicles to cheat emissions tests and has paid billions of dollars in fines. BMW was careful to point out Thursday that, unlike the other companies it was caught colluding with, it had not cheated emissions testing.

 

Bitcoin Power Plant Is Turning a 12,000-Year-Old Glacial Lake Into a Hot Tub (arstechnica.com)69

Posted by BeauHD on Tuesday July 06, 2021 @11:30PM from the hot-tub-time-machine dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The fossil fuel power plant that a private equity firm revived to mine bitcoin is at it again. Not content to just pollute the atmosphere in pursuit of a volatile crypto asset with little real-world utility, this experiment in free marketeering is also dumping tens of millions of gallons of hot water into glacial Seneca Lake in upstate New York. "The lake is so warm you feel like you're in a hot tub," Abi Buddington, who lives near the Greenidge power plant, told NBC News. In the past, nearby residents weren't necessarily enamored with the idea of a pollution-spewing power plant warming their deep, cold water lake, but at least the electricity produced by the plant was powering their homes. Today, they're lucky if a small fraction does. Most of the time, the turbines are burning natural gas solely to mint profits for the private equity firm Atlas Holdings by mining bitcoin.

Atlas, the firm that bought Greenidge has been ramping up its bitcoin mining aspirations over the last year and a half, installing thousands of mining rigs that have produced over 1,100 bitcoin as of February 2021. The company has plans to install thousands more rigs, ultimately using 85 MW of the station's total 108 MW capacity. [...] The 12,000-year-old Seneca Lake is a sparkling specimen of the Finger Lakes region. It still boasts high water quality, clean enough to drink with just limited treatment. Its waters are home to a sizable lake trout population that's large enough to maintain the National Lake Trout Derby for 57 years running. The prized fish spawn in the rivers that feed the lake, and it's into one of those rivers -- the Keuka Lake Outlet, known to locals for its rainbow trout fishing -- that Greenidge dumps its heated water. Rainbow trout are highly sensitive to fluctuations in water temperature, with the fish happiest in the mid-50s. Because cold water holds more oxygen, as temps rise, fish become stressed. Above 70 F, rainbow trout stop growing and stressed individuals start dying. Experienced anglers don't bother fishing when water temps get to that point.

Greenidge has a permit to dump 135 million gallons of water per day into the Keuka Lake Outlet as hot as 108 F in the summer and 86 F in the winter. New York's Department of Environmental Conservation reports that over the last four years, the plant's daily maximum discharge temperatures have averaged 98 in summer and 70 in winter. That water eventually makes its way to Seneca Lake, where it can result in tropical surface temps and harmful algal blooms. Residents say lake temperatures are already up, though a full study won't be completed until 2023.

 

America Used Fewer Fossil Fuels In 2020 Than It Has In Three Decades (theverge.com)76

Posted by BeauHD on Tuesday July 06, 2021 @10:02PM from the pandemic-side-effects dept.

Americans gobbled up fewer fossil fuels in 2020 than they have in three decades, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). The Verge reports: Consumption of petroleum, natural gas, and coal dropped by 9 percent last year compared to 2019, the biggest annual decrease since the EIA started keeping track in 1949. The COVID-19 pandemic was responsible for much of the fall as people stayed home to curb the spread of the virus and used less gas. In April 2020, oil prices nosedived below zero because there was so little demand. The U.S. transportation sector alone used up 15 percent less energy in 2020 compared to the year before. Higher temperatures last winter also helped to cut energy demand for heating, according to the EIA. As a result, greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels plummeted to a near 40-year low.

That downward trend will have to continue in order to stave off the climate crisis. Upon rejoining the Paris climate agreement, President Joe Biden committed the U.S. to slash its planet-heating pollution in half this decade from near-peak levels it reached in 2005. That's part of a global effort to keep global warming from surpassing a point that life on Earth would struggle to adapt to, a global average temperature that's roughly 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. To hit that goal, there should be no further investments in new fossil fuel projects, according to a recent landmark report from the International Energy Agency. The oil and gas industries are already feeling the crunch from lawsuits and activist investors forcing them to move faster toward more sustainable forms of energy.

More from News for Nerds - Heat pumps

Seven years ago, having been plagued for several years with minor leakage from the air conditioner coolant line that is embedded pretty much inaccessibly within the house structure, we had our Heating/Ventilation/Air Conditioning (HVAC) system replaced with a high efficiency system. It was pricey, but worth the change. The new system is much quieter, provides much more consistent temperatures, and (yay!) uses a heat pump, the natural gas furnace being on standby for really cold episodes. Unfortunately, instead of acting as auxiliary heater for the first winter, the furnace provided primary heat. This escaped my notice because I don't spend much time in the part of the house in which the status display is mounted (I probably wouldn't have noticed, anyway) and, as it turned out, Hunky Husband wasn't paying any attention to the readouts or to the utility bills. Fortunately, the technician who did our twice-yearly checkup of the HVAC system caught it. The wrong chip had been installed in the heat pump unit controller, outside. The reverse heat-flow mode had never been activated.

BTW: You may be interested in Bogie's posting about installation of her new "mini split" ductless HVAC system.

The item, below, is from the News for Nerds website.

Can Heat Pumps Change Demand for Air Conditioners Into a Climate-Change Win? (nytimes.com)266

Posted by EditorDavid on Sunday July 04, 2021 @05:34PM from the forget-the-furnace dept.

The New York Times reports:As global warming fuels deadly heat waves across the country, more Americans in places like the Pacific Northwest are rushing out to buy air-conditioners for the first time. One common concern is that a surge in air-conditioning could make the planet even hotter, by increasing the need for electricity from power plants running on coal or gas, which produce emissions that drive global warming.

But some energy experts, as well as cities like Denver and Berkeley, California, have recently started exploring a counterintuitive strategy: Soaring demand for air-conditioning might actually be a prime opportunity to reduce fossil fuel emissions and fight climate change. The idea is simple: If Americans are going to buy air-conditioners anyway, either for the first time or to replace older units, why not convince them to buy electric heat pumps instead? Although the name can be confusing, an electric heat pump is essentially an air-conditioner that is slightly modified so that it can run in two directions, cooling the home in the summer and providing heat in the winter. That extra heating function is the key to helping tackle climate change. During the cooler months, heat pumps could warm homes far more efficiently than the furnaces that run on fossil fuels or electric resistance heaters that most households currently use, which would cut down on carbon dioxide emissions. Existing furnaces would only need to be used as backup on the coldest days of the year, since many heat pumps work less efficiently in subzero temperatures.

Most manufacturers already offer heat pump versions of the air-conditioners they sell, but they're typically about $200 to $500 more expensive to make. So, the idea goes, policymakers would have to step in with subsidies or regulations to make adoption universal. But if done right, proponents say, households would see utility bills either drop or stay largely unchanged, and they would even enjoy a more comfortable heating experience.
The Times spoke to Nate Adams, a home performance consultant who proposed the idea in a recent paper written with experts at Harvard University CLASP, a nonprofit formerly known as the Collaborative Labeling and Appliance Standards Program advising governments on energy efficiency. "Working with energy modelers, Mr. Adams and his co-authors estimated that, if two-way heat pumps become the standard option when people installed new central air-conditioning, they would be in 44% of American homes by 2032, up from just 11% today. On average, those homes could cut their fossil fuel use during the colder months by at least one-third. And, as states move to clean up their electricity grids by adding more wind and solar power, the climate benefits from those electric heat pumps would increase..."

"Homes and offices account for 13 percent of the nation's annual greenhouse gas emissions, with much of that from oil or natural gas burned in furnaces, hot water heaters, ovens, stoves and dryers. While the United States has made major strides in reducing pollution from power plants, building emissions have barely budged since 2005."

Summary of the week

The ears have it - 6/14/2021

Hunky Husband had an appointment with the audiologist. The upshot of the appointment was that he chose to have Dr Combs set his hearing aids on "fully automatic". Trying to make adjustments was not working out for him. No more than HH currently wears the hearing aids, it isn't that big a deal. I must say, though, that I'm enjoying that HH is now (mostly) wearing his hearing aids when he watches TV in the evening. (Not so, during the day; but, one thing at a time!)

At times, HH's TV has been set to such a loud volume that, even though my den door is closed, I cannot hear my own TV over his. Note that, in the photo above, the charger sits on a note that I had written HH a couple of weeks ago to remind him to keep the lid open while charging his hearing aid batteries. Dr Combs recommended this as a means to check that everything is proceeding normally with the charging - by observing the blinking green light on each unit, during charging, or a steady green light when fully charged.

Note to Bogie: I showed your dad the hearing aid controls information in the format that you suggested (which reorganized the information and added the bit of info about the beeping that I had previously omitted) the other day. He didn't recognize the difference. He kept saying that it was the same information as on the previous table. It was mooted by his going to the "fully automatic" mode, anyway; but, I appreciated your input. Thanks for taking the time and making the effort.

Outlook and my teeth - 6/16/2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was not too pleased upon learning that, seemingly, a recent update to Outlook has changed how it operates a bit. Just how, I've not determined. The effect is that I missed my dental appointment on the 15th and had to re-schedule for the 16th.

My usual practice is to set up important appointments in the Outlook Calendar with first notification occurring 18 hours prior to the appointment so that I am reminded the evening before the appointment. The first notification that I received of the dental appointment on the 15th was when I came in (hot & grimy) from doing yard work and was notified that my appointment was past due. Picking up my phone to call the dental office, I noted that they had left me a voicemail about my not being there.

In setting up my appointment for the 16th, I was doubly positive to set first notification for 18 hours prior to the appointment. However, as had occurred on the previous entry, the default of 15 minutes was actually set on the appointment. Of course, with the kerfuffle, I did make it to the appointment on the 16th. I saw the dental hygienist (Lacey, who cleaned my pearly whites), the owner of the practice (Dr Carol Ysidro, who said she just wanted to see me because it had been at least a year since we last spoke), and Dr Omar (Dr Omar Barakeh who adjusted a few of my teeth to improve my bite). My teeth have been shifting a bit since Dr Omar installed the permanent bridge.

The lawn and my "miniature meadow" (mm) - 6/18/2021

Edward, of TenderCare Lawn and Landscape, came by this afternoon to check out our irrigation system. This is a mid-season service that the company offers. Having spent time weeding in the side yard, this morning, I decided to check out my mm that sits between our back lawn and the far back grounds, to see how the milkweed plants are doing. The above photo shows the mm's status.

The lacy-looking white flowers are Annual Daisy fleabanes, I think. I didn't plant them, but neither did I pull them when I saw them growing. The daisy-like yellow/brown flowers at mid-height are Brown-eyed Susans that I seeded a few years ago.

The multi-hued little flowers lurking in the shade of the towering Brown-eyed Susans and Wild asters are Blanket flowers that I planted from pots in 2019. At the left of the photo, one can see that the milkweed plants have grown little since I stopped babying them. Perhaps they are thirsty. The mm is just out of reach of the irrigation system unless the wind is from the north.

As an afterthought: The yellowish long leaves sticking up at the edge of the bare dirt, toward the right edge of the photo, is what's left of one of the Narcissi that surround the mm and a few of the trees that I've had planted in the edge of the woods. The Narcissi have shriveled, fallen, and been mowed down for the season.

Weather notes for the week

It has been hot, hot, hot - and it isn't even summer, yet. The NPR station was announcing that their studio thermometers (in Downtown Wichita) were showing 103 degrees Fahrenheit. The hottest I saw, myself, was 103 on my car (but it changed to 100 when I turned down-sun) and 100 on our front porch. It is supposed to be hotter, today. It is 96 on our front porch. On my drive home from visits to the gym, this week, I've been swabbing down my carotid arterial areas, etc, with the wet wipes that I have been carrying in the car for COVID-19 precautions for the past 15 months. When one cannot perspire, it really helps cool one down.

Bogie, how's it doing up there in New Hampshire? You've been having really hot weather for an area that is supposedly "cool". You were hotter than were we, by about 20 degrees during May, I think.

More from News for Nerds - New Normal (climate-wise)

I added the yellow high-lighting. CC

NOAA Unveils a Warmer Climate 'Normal' For the US32

Posted by BeauHD on Tuesday May 04, 2021 @11:30PM from the warmer-than-ever dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Axios:The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration revealed new standards on Tuesday for what an average or "normal" U.S. climate looks like, showing average temperatures in the U.S. rising significantly. Updating these standards is important for helping shape government policies and what your local weather forecaster says the "average" high temperature is on a given date.

NOAA releases climate averages for the preceding 30-year period every 10 years. The "climate normals" released Tuesday cover 1991-2020 and indicate that the U.S. climate has warmed, and also become wetter over time. NOAA noted that parts of the U.S. may also get drier, due to climate change. "The influence of long-term global warming is obvious," per a press release. The new normals may shift how the climate is described for particular parts of the U.S. With the changes, Fairbanks, Alaska is no longer considered a sub-Arctic climate, but is now termed a "warm summer continental" climate.