Community Power

[Skean Dhude]

I wonder what the requirement would be for community power after an event.

It is unlikely we would have any significant power use. Refrigeration, lights and security would be the most we would want for home use. Power would be required when we got into manufacturing as our society returned.

So what would be the issues with wiring a distributed wide area with 12V lines? Would it be worth changing the power up for transmission or would be be OK for this basic use?

[Skvez]

I've (yet another unfinished) article coming on power transmission. Transmission around a properly suffers tolerable losses at 12V but transmission around a community (unless it's a very close one) would experience sufficient losses that you'd want to think of transmitting at a higher Voltage.
This is ofcourse a huge simplification as it depends on distance, current and thickness of wire used but as a general rule 12V is not enough once you go to a different building.

[grumpy old man]

just heard about a wood burning fire that can make electicity?
will keep you posted when i know more

[Skean Dhude]

Sounds interesting. Thinking about it that must work in a similar way to coal and gas power stations, burn something, heat water and convert to electricity. Even nuclearpower stations heat water and convert so it makes sense that we could boil water via wood and make some.

We await your discovery.

[Skvez]

There are typically two ways to generate electricity from heat:

1] Using the heat to drive motion in an engine to turn an alternator
2] Using thermocouples to convert the heat directly to electricity
Engines tend to be better for 'large' amounts of electricity and thermocouples are better for 'small' amounts.