Whither The Oil???

[KeyWestPirate]

The details on the Albanisa sanctions are still unknown.

My understanding was, Nicaragua is getting 40% of its oil from the US now. I assumed, but don't know,, that it was coming through Albanisa.

If no Venezuelan oil comes into the US, there will be plenty to spare, but Venezuela HAS to sell it somewhere for hard money. The numbers Venezuela owes to China and Russia are staggering,, but dwarfed by the oil they have in the ground.

Nicaragua will be out of dollars shortly.

This gets more interesting by the day.

Driving to Honduras to fill the tank?
That used to happen at the US Mexico border, back when Mexican gas was really cheap.

Oxcarts plying the streets of Managua??

[Little Corn Tom]

The details on the Albanisa sanctions are still unknown.


Oxcarts plying the streets of Managua??

Ten -fifteen years ago there were plenty of oxcarts in Managua. I am sure they still exist in someones barn.

Frankly, I am imagining Little Corn without power. At least solar is getting cheaper.

[Jonh]

We still have CITGO stations here. Last I checked, CITGO was a subsidiary of PDVSA, the commie gas company.

[bill_bly_ca]

Frankly, I am imagining Little Corn without power. At least solar is getting cheaper.

You can get 4.5KW set up with LiFePO4 bats all set for under 5K now. 48V @ 100A and they hardly break a sweat - Can discharge to 0 and recharge at 100A and they don't give a damn. Many off gridders in the middle US and the southwest get to float level by 10AM and can dump to a water heater or AC after that. Almost no reason to connect to the grid any longer. I will send a bank of 3.2V LiFePO4's in a box as a test early in 2020 to see if they get in with no duties.

[KeyWestPirate]

Ten -fifteen years ago there were plenty of oxcarts in Managua. I am sure they still exist in someones barn.

Frankly, I am imagining Little Corn without power. At least solar is getting cheaper.

Yes,, Solar is getting really affordable. I'm living well, I just had to get off my butt and cut my connection to Disnorte.
We struggle a bit when we have a full day of welding or using the air compressor,, but normal domestic use rarely brings me below 80% SOC overnight.
When the sun shines,, I'm back up to full charge by 10AM.

I got six years out of my last batteries,, and they were poorly treated. I'm hoping for double that from the new ones,, and by then,, lithium ion should be affordable

I want to bring down another 20 panels from my scratch and dent guy in Gilbert, Arizona.


https://www.ebay.com/sch/santansolar...p2047675.l2562

There's a lot to it,, getting it to where you don't think about it,, it just works,, and my learning curve was long,, but if anyone decides to go that route,, I would feel honored to help.
As with all things, the devil is in the details.

[KeyWestPirate]

You can get 4.5KW set up with LiFePO4 bats all set for under 5K now. 48V @ 100A and they hardly break a sweat - Can discharge to 0 and recharge at 100A and they don't give a damn. Many off gridders in the middle US and the southwest get to float level by 10AM and can dump to a water heater or AC after that. Almost no reason to connect to the grid any longer. I will send a bank of 3.2V LiFePO4's in a box as a test early in 2020 to see if they get in with no duties.

Where are you finding your lithium batteries? I'd like to start looking in that direction.
I'm happy now,, but the future is around the corner.

A big part of my investment (and probably the smartest part) is my MPPT charge controllers,, and I know that they won't work with lithium. I start charging at 7AM,, not much but,, still,, and my batteries hardly use any water. The controllers bring the battery charge up to 58.5,, hold it there, and then drop to the maintenance charge value. The batteries used to boil with the Xantrex PWM controllers, and use a lot of water.

[Little Corn Tom]

"You can get 4.5KW set up with LiFePO4 bats all set for under 5K now. 48V @ 100A and they hardly break a sweat - Can discharge to 0 and recharge at 100A and they don't give a damn. Many off gridders in the middle US and the southwest get to float level by 10AM and can dump to a water heater or AC after that. Almost no reason to connect to the grid any longer. I will send a bank of 3.2V LiFePO4's in a box as a test early in 2020 to see if they get in with no duties."


I am amazed at how much the price of solar cells, inverters, and batteries have come down.

Where do you get the hardware / software / logic / controller to do the "dump" to the heater or AC? Easy to say or conceive but not so easy to build.

E-Bay batteries.... https://www.ebay.com/itm/LiFePO4-bat...4CQ:rk:21:pf:0

[Jonh]

$5k would take about 29 months to break even on our 1st world grid, but I doubt our A/C would run on solar. Maybe we can keep a/c and water heater on the grid and solar everything else. I think they force us to sell them our excess, not sure. They’re like the electron mafia, “use our power or we break-a you face.”

[KeyWestPirate]

"You can get 4.5KW set up with LiFePO4 bats all set for under 5K now. 48V @ 100A and they hardly break a sweat - Can discharge to 0 and recharge at 100A and they don't give a damn. Many off gridders in the middle US and the southwest get to float level by 10AM and can dump to a water heater or AC after that. Almost no reason to connect to the grid any longer. I will send a bank of 3.2V LiFePO4's in a box as a test early in 2020 to see if they get in with no duties."


I am amazed at how much the price of solar cells, inverters, and batteries have come down.

Where do you get the hardware / software / logic / controller to do the "dump" to the heater or AC? Easy to say or conceive but not so easy to build.

E-Bay batteries.... https://www.ebay.com/itm/LiFePO4-bat...4CQ:rk:21:pf:0

The better controllers will provide a signal,, a relay if you will, based on time of day,, SOC, voltage showing, etc.

It's not enough to switch what might be 70 or 80 amps of DC power.

The relay has to be buffered, and switching that amount of DC needs beefy relay contacts.

AC is easy to switch.

The pic shows a box I built. The solid state relay on the heatsink will switch 40 amps of ac,, but not DC at all. It accepts a signal from the controller, and energizes the small ac relay next to it. This relay then provides the power to energize the two fork lift, 48vdc relays, which both switch the power from the batteries to my 40 gal water heater, but also put my two 9 x 3 strings of panels in series to provide about 200 v and better match the resistance of the WH elemwnts.

This is necessary as the input of the controller is limited to 140v, and my panels have an open circuit voltage of 37.xx

Normally thev two strings are paralled. As you can see, the box is not wired up yet. I've been incredibly busy,, we have a gas water heater anyway, so it's a lower priority than several other projects

As the sun moves to the north, it will be more directly overhead, for a longer part of the day, and the excess power will be too tempting. Come May June, we will have optimum conditions for generating power, but it will start to rain.

[Daddy-YO]

It’s not that I don’t admire the Robinson-Crusoe-spirit of bringing Chinese technology with NAm-know-how to the 3rd world. But, first, it reminds me too much of the futility expressed in ‘Mosquito Coast’ where the ‘hero’ shows the natives ice for the first time in their lives, while his family melts around him. Is it the faith in the unquestionable superiority of Northern technology? Not that I don’t understand that ex-pats, in the real Nicaragua, want, indeed demand, their lifetime-accustomed comforts, hot-water showers, A/C, hot-fudge sundaes, &c. But why migrate to this tropical, rather foreign geography without trying full immersion? The full Monty, boys. Sure, the danger of taking on foreign language, culture & habits and a strange eco-environment are evident: a full mental reset, a self-examination beyond Freud and peer-group-success measures. Unless it’s a CIA assignment, better try living on Mars. It’s saner to take it in small doses

But still, even with China-cheap, who can afford solar? There’s this whole hurtle of DC-vs-AC, Edison vs Westinghouse, that got settled more than a century ago, and resulted in all our household gizmos being plug-in AC. Solar makes DC. Conversion costs, upfront & efficiency-wise. Panels make juice while the sun shines, so storage, batteries, are a key expense. Here we read of new, super rechargeable LiFePO4 batteries from China (basic patent appears to be Taiwanese) that sell for $580@ for 12v, 100Ah units (6 min order) from Alibaba.com. Looks cheap over 2000 days of recycling, but it’s the complete upfront costs of ‘going solar’ - that I’ve never seen a full, public accounting of - compared to current and projected energy prices, that’s what should be discussed. I paid 4.5 cords (14 cents) per kWh to Disnorte for e-’s used last month (should have been C$7.3/kWh, but I got the pobrecito subsidy from DOS. (Thanx)) How many years until breakeven? Or would I be fleeing for the border before then? Sure, I realize there are places in the boonies where service is poor or zero. What do poor Nicas living there do? Labor during the day, watch the stars at night, and make babies. What do they know?

[Little Corn Tom]

Ahhhhh....Mosquito Coast.......one great movie....one mans dream and his families nightmare. "Ohhh sure I blew up the house but we're all here together now....right?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eC2eC_pN7ZE

OK then...Nothing wrong with "full immersion" if you want. Also nothing wrong with re- creating a NA environment and nothing wrong with something in between.

My issue with complex systems proposed by KWP and BBC is this....only THEY understand it and only THEY can maintain it. I am a EE and I do not want to go down that road. My (yet to be implemented) decision was to forget about solar and wind generation of electricity due to the complexity of construction and maintenance on a remote island coupled with a lack of personnel other than myself to maintain it. Island power is only available 12 hours per day but that is enough to charge batteries and power appliances. Heavy loads like air conditioning and water pumps can be wired directly to the available city electricity. This keeps the battery bank small and the inverters small as well. Batteries to run led lights, fans, refrigeration, computer, and frig. Cooking is propane.

The only problem is island power going from 12 hours per day to zero due to lack of diesel (for political reasons), and that threat seems to be increasing daily. Solution is a standby generator (gasoline).

So the theory is...when the island power is off, the house is partially powered by batteries and when the power is on, the house is powered fully.....no relays or logic involved and the batteries are being re-charged. Forgot to mention that most inverters will switch over to island power automatically when it is available.

The changing costs of batteries and solar panels may drive me to re-think all this, but for now it seems reasonable for this location.

BTW these LED lights throw off and incredible amount of light for very little power and last a long long time:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/2-Pack-4ft-...72.m2749.l2649

[Jonh]

Seems to me that real Nicaraguans would install solar in a heartbeat to be free of the politics of power, both the electrical and governmental kind (both are one in the same in Nicaragua). When the first world switched from human, animal, whale oil, and wood fire power to a centralized grid run by quasi-governmental agencies, the concept of self sufficiency began to vanish from Western Civilization. When we willingly allow a giant mega entity to light our homes, we give them power over us.

[KeyWestPirate]

Ahhhhh....Mosquito Coast.......one great movie....one mans dream and his families nightmare. "Ohhh sure I blew up the house but we're all here together now....right?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eC2eC_pN7ZE

OK then...Nothing wrong with "full immersion" if you want. Also nothing wrong with re- creating a NA environment and nothing wrong with something in between.

My issue with complex systems proposed by KWP and BBC is this....only THEY understand it and only THEY can maintain it. I am a EE and I do not want to go down that road. My (yet to be implemented) decision was to forget about solar and wind generation of electricity due to the complexity of construction and maintenance on a remote island coupled with a lack of personnel other than myself to maintain it. Island power is only available 12 hours per day but that is enough to charge batteries and power appliances. Heavy loads like air conditioning and water pumps can be wired directly to the available city electricity. This keeps the battery bank small and the inverters small as well. Batteries to run led lights, fans, refrigeration, computer, and frig. Cooking is propane.

The only problem is island power going from 12 hours per day to zero due to lack of diesel (for political reasons), and that threat seems to be increasing daily. Solution is a standby generator (gasoline).

So the theory is...when the island power is off, the house is partially powered by batteries and when the power is on, the house is powered fully.....no relays or logic involved and the batteries are being re-charged. Forgot to mention that most inverters will switch over to island power automatically when it is available.

The changing costs of batteries and solar panels may drive me to re-think all this, but for now it seems reasonable for this location.

Ths ultimate design frees you of having to think about your system, much like power from the grid.

Will I ever get there? The system runs flawlessly when I'm not here because the power consumption is much less.

This morning it rained and we had a lot of welding to do
For the heavy stuff, welding, painting, power saws, planer, I use my monster, split phase, 110 -220 , 11Kw peak output. Beautiful sine wave, it should, the low frequency transformer weighs half of what I weigh

It also sucks 240 watts/hour just for being on. Housekeeping,, it's called.

My Chinese sine wave inverter' s waveform is I little ragged, but still a sine wave, and it takes 25 watts an hour.

We started the morning well off, but with the rain and the welding, I had to start a small gasoline generator. It ran about two hours until the sun came out. It charges the batteries through a small 20 amp charger . Remember, this is a 48v system, the charger meter shows 55v, so that's not a small amount. I have to use the generator rarely.

It's Friday and everyone but me works five days so we have two to really catch up, slam a good charge into the batteries.

I enjoy the challenge, especially a design that actually works,, and with Krisnia gone I don't have much of a life anyway.

[el duende grande]

Comrade Fyl tried full immersion. Look where it got him!

Once you realize you are not a hippie or surfer, you want as little immersion as possible.

[bill_bly_ca]

Where do you get the

hardware / software / logic / controller to do the "dump" to the heater or AC? Easy to say or conceive but not so easy to build.

Look for the term "with Built in Dump Load" Here is one on Amazon Canada @ 3KW - Amazon.ca

I was thinking manually with a switch throw, but automatic would work too.

Myself I will be going this route for the following reasons.
1) Bad 3.2V cells can be swapped
2) You can measure every call individually, either with a cheap Chinese LED meter for $2each, or with a hand held meter. (12, LED meters would look really cool and you can see which cell is underperforming under load because of failure or interconnect)
3) You can service the 3.2V interconnects. For you in the salt air this will be the thing to be most diligent on because of the high current.
4) Full 100A out.

As KWP mentioned you could do a wrecked Tesla or Leaf battery but they look so sexy it is a boondoggle to tax - These will pack stealthily in a shipping boxes - You can get them off of Alibaba for $100 for each cell. I may buy one and test ship one in a box - Just to be sure it slides through.

[bill_bly_ca]

$5k would take about 29 months to break even on our 1st world grid, but I doubt our A/C would run on solar. Maybe we can keep a/c and water heater on the grid and solar everything else. I think they force us to sell them our excess, not sure. They’re like the electron mafia, “use our power or we break-a you face.”

There was a Tesla fanboy that did the "Power wall" in 2017 - Went into intimate detail of the install, the controllers, the pannels yadda yadda - I forget the dollar cost exactly (it was over 20K) but I do recall the payback at 10 yrs.

Funny thing he found was that the Tesla battery must connect to the Tesla server. If the internet goes down, so does your power wall - Absolutely maddening.

Also Tesla data mines your usage to minute detail but only offers user reports that were hourly or the like.

I'll see if I can find it again..

===== Found it - This is part 3 - =================

[bill_bly_ca]

A big part of my investment (and probably the smartest part) is my MPPT charge controllers,, and I know that they won't work with lithium. I start charging at 7AM,, not much but,, still,, and my batteries hardly use any water. The controllers bring the battery charge up to 58.5,, hold it there, and then drop to the maintenance charge value. The batteries used to boil with the Xantrex PWM controllers, and use a lot of water.

THis is the great thing with LiFePO4's their charge profile are really really close to Lead Acid - Save you do not need to start feathering between 20 to 50% charge.

Just draw 'er down. Also since these batteries suck up charge like a sponge your panels can pump everything your panels can throw at them.

The only real drawback is you have to keep them above 0C - So if I build up by the moose and beavers I would need to actually heat the battery box first before I could draw any charge.

It all sounds too good - I am looking for someone to slag them for something but I have yet to find it - Hence my plan to test up to a set up here first. I do not want to troubleshoot there...

[Daddy-YO]

The upfront costs are about equal to the cost of a modest house here in Leon, jodido. I have, in a sense, fully immersed in this rather civilized Nicaraguan city, having bought the complete ticket: married to a Nica with our kid & her kids; with in-laws, primos & suegra nearby. We rent, $200/mo, 2br, 1bath, with patio/laundry, all secure & central. Electricity was included up until 2 years ago. Safe, potable water (no charge). No hot water showers (totally unnecessary). No A/C, which costs me a sweaty month acclimating - Leon is oft 90F hot at noon & just after. There are A/C’d restaurants and coffee shops with good eats & wifi, natural refuge spots. Otherwise total immobility with a good read under a shade tree works - I got a hammock. (I’m on a one man campaign to reinstate siestas here.) Evenings are nice. We eat out often. Immersed. I would say, Living like a Nica,” except I don’t work, just loaf creatively.

As for energy costs here in this tropical country, gasoline is expensive. Combine your solar house with juice enough to recharge an electric vehicle, make it all affordable to middle class grunts, and you’ll get my attention. Considering the super slow Chinese motorcycles, moto-taxis and Soviet tractors on Nicaraguan highways, it probably would not take much doing to manufacture a souped-up ‘golf cart’ car for the rural crowd. For us, living in center city, taxis are enough - it’s less than a buck to haul groceries home from the ‘super’, otherwise we walk - slowly - most everywhere.

[Jonh]

I curbed my snark when I realized creative loafing IS living like a Nica. I don’t know your income source, so only you know how your method of earning income compares. We know Fyl’s income plan wasn’t Nica-like.

[bill_bly_ca]

I would be more intermittent immersion.

Sitting waiting for water I can do, sitting waiting for power I can do, sitting waiting for a ride I can do, but only for a short time (I would say the first 2 or 3 weeks) before the realization sets in that "something can be done" (storage tank, back up or alternative power, my own transport etc). So I can be immersed in "the moment" I will not be immersed in their (mostly self-imposed) circumstance.

In our place, I will watch Hockey or Baseball when I want - Brew my beer when I want - Weld/cut/drill/sand when I want - Listen to Crazy Canadian music when I want (Well until Chilo says I can't but that is another story :-) )

While $5K is not a small amount, the believed write-down of 7 to 12 yrs is only a buck or two a day in the end and it would be cool to manage it day after day.

[KeyWestPirate]

One problem with going hi tech in Nicaragua is keeping it all running. My gas hot water heater that served us so faithfully went on the fritz. It's just a simple micro switch,, I may find it in Managua.

It's a simple system: when the tap is opened, the presdure drop is sensed
A plunger opens the gas valve and also de-acuates a micro switch. The NC contact passes power to the controller which ignites the gas.

The problem is really because the system operates on two D cells, 3V and is not tolerant of ANY contact resistance.

I can get it to work for a hot shower by lightly massaging the actuator, which apparently moves the contacts a bit, finding a sweet spot. Flame lights, pico electric ignition, and I'm good to go.

This switch thing took me a full day to figure out, the switch isn't THAT bad. It's the 3V. The Geyser Calentadora is manufactured in CR and sold by Sinsa. No documentation, of course. I don't even know if I could ship it to CR from Nicaragua . From Tucson to CR, sure, and even get it back in some reasonable time frame. Or just get a bag of ten of the micro switch from EBAY or Amazon for $5. It's times like these you realize,, that,
"Yes, Virginia,, this is a 3rd world country"

I'm going to Managua next week anyway,,

My point,, if you want your luxuries, be prepared to be your own repair tech,, or find a handy friend.

[Daddy-YO]

Near 13 years ago now I drove down here with bunches of rechargeable batteries, and lamps, radios, clocks, &c. that ran on ‘em. We had frequent power outages then and following soon after no city water. We’d switch to a holding tank for washing, but had to buy bottled water to drink. Then DOS and his crew came back into power. Soon they threw Union Fenosa out. The CPCs cracked down, I suspect, on neighbors climbing poles to splice into power lines. Year by year utilities improved to the point now where we rarely lose power (once, for an hour, in the last two months) - when it happens, like one block blowing a transformer, a few blocks over all’s OK, so we just go there. And the Disnorte guys are on the scene, replacing it within hours. We all drink city water - have for at least the last 6-8 years. (No ill effects - if you don’t count reading TRN.) The tank got torn down 5 years ago.

Repairs! It astounds me what Nicas are capable of. My neighbors tear out and rebuild engines on the sidewalk. There’s little they don’t do, like alignments, adjusting camber & castor with measuring sticks. Ask anyone driving an older taxi in Managua - most have clocked over 400,000 km, and the motors purr, interiors reupholstered, roof relined. Ditto with auto body repairs, for fender benders few involve the police, insurance; repairs are cheap. Techs repaired the small flat screen TV in the kids’ room. I brought a burnt out fan to one guy and he tore apart the wound stator in the electric motor before my disbelieving eyes while I waited, found the short, repaired, rewound, and reassembled it, working fine, charging me just 100 cords. Computer repairs equally dazzling and downright cheap. Pirated software, CDs & DVDs abound. Since the ‘crisis’ our cable TV is flawless (112 channels of colored, dancing, talking poo-dolls). I pay and share with the in-laws and neighbors, my unethical goodwill gesture.

Yeah, I’m immersed, but I suffer not. Babies are everywhere and death walks the streets. Life is raw. People are content with their lot, though they’ve got damn near nothing. They smile & laugh easily. I continually wonder how is it they are so foreign to me?

[bill_bly_ca]

This trip water was odd - After 4 or 5 years of little-flawed power and water, BIL had loss of water by our plot for the entire 3 weeks - Only from 7PM to 6 or 7 AM - There is a spat with the well company and ENECAL - Well company thinks ENECAL is tapping the lines and drawing water they should not. We also plan to pressurize our water so a tank is needed in any case. Power was more reliable, but still off for over 4 days in total over the 3 weeks. If I am chilling unpasteurized beer it gotta stay cool.

I can keep all the bits going myself.

Also being a believer in backup, and that the crows are coming to roost for a good 5 yrs as all of this debt and possible default perks through the economy.

One of the unattended tasks my BIL is doing before our next visit is to put a 4" PVC between our plot and his where cable TV , internet, a 110V line and Water will be run - More for helping the build rather than the actual live in conditions - But they may stay for a bit :-)


Many of the flat screen TVs have capacitor burn out - The supplies were built with 85C caps for the tube for the fluro lighting - THe caps get too hot and fail - Replacing them with 105C $0.05 Chinese caps gets them back working for years after.

[Daddy-YO]

Many of the flat screen TVs have capacitor burn out

That's exactly what was replaced. We paid more than a nickel, however.

The 4"PVC pipe is temporary protection, right? Otherwise water & 110V in the same tube doesn't make sense.

[bill_bly_ca]

That's exactly what was replaced. We paid more than a nickel, however.

The 4"PVC pipe is temporary protection, right? Otherwise water & 110V in the same tube doesn't make sense.

Oh water with a seperate line - Truncated my typing too much.

You can get the caps by the bag for a buck including post.