Glibertarians.com 2019 Archive

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  • Rich Dead Uncle I Didn’t Know I Had

    In my younger years, before the lottery was a thing, the only way to really win large sums of unearned money was from a dead relative.  As most of us liked our relatives, we did not want them to die.  Or at least, that was my experience.  Now that I’m a bit older my brother has a few cousins and such that when they pass I’m not flying home for the funeral if you get my drift.  Anyway, I used to use the formula, a rich dead uncle I didn’t know I had providing an inheritance.  Life is stranger than fiction, so it is little surprise to me last year that I found myself in almost that exact situation.

    My wife’s dad was Chinese.  His parents were part of the Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalist government and apparently were in the diplomacy game going back several generations at least.  The family, in general, has a colorful history.  Allegedly, the grandparents were around when Anastasia screamed in pain, to steal from the Stones.  As there is jewelry that’s been spread around amongst the cousins, supposedly traded by some Russian Princesses for Chinese Visas to escape the whole March Revolution thing.  The wife’s ring has been authenticated as being made by the jeweler who worked primarily for the Russian royal/noble families.

    There’s also the family tale that after WWII when the family was escaping the ancestral homelands and the Chi-Com’s, my wife’s grandmother almost had to smother my wife’s dad to death.  The family was hiding in a ditch, and dad-in-law who was an infant drew in a breath and was about to start crying so his mother had to cover his mouth and keep him from doing so, because if the family were found, they’d have at best been executed on the spot, at worst been put in some sort of camp.  Tough decision for a mother to have to make, but I guess you can always make another kid.

    After they escaped, part of the family stayed in Taiwan, and part of it spread out into Hong Kong, Canada, the US, and South Africa.  There’s a cousin who dated minor European nobility and then simply disappeared one day like 30-35 years ago and has never been heard from since.  There’s speculation that he was some sort of espionage agent, that he was kidnapped for ransom and then killed because the nobility wouldn’t pay up, or that he got sick of the Euro-trash bullshit and faked his death while financing it with money he scammed.  He’s sort of a family DB Cooper figure.

    It’s a different cousin that this is about though.  My wife didn’t even remember he existed.  He was an ‘Uncle’ that visited once when she and her brother were young, and then went back to his residence in Hong Kong and Vancouver, BC, Canada.  Basically, everyone forgot about him because he didn’t stay in contact.

    Turns out this was because he was a no-shit hearing voices psychotic who despite that had made enormous amounts of money.  He died intestate last year and we were notified because my wife, her brother, and two cousins of theirs are the only living relatives of his and thus they were in line to receive the money.  Like an 8 figures estate worth of money.  However, they were warned that they might not get all of it.  As my wife put it originally, “This could be anywhere from a nice dinner out to quit our jobs.” I was more bemused than greedy.  It’s a true windfall.

    Of course, even free money comes with strings and we found out what those strings were.  A woman named Vivian* was the strings and hoooo-boy was there some strings.

    Auntie Viv, as I began to sarcastically refer to her, was a piece of work.  Good old Uncle Kevin** [Sidebar: my wife’s father’s generation of kids all hated the commies so much that most of them who moved to America quit speaking Mandarin and named all their kids Anglo names for their first name.  My wife despite being fully half Chinese knows less than I do.  And most of them won’t travel to China because they may still be on lists somewhere and wouldn’t be able to come home] had gotten himself a younger lady.  She had moved in with him, and become his common-law wife.  Or so she claimed when it turned out Uncle Kev was dead.  It was a bit more complicated than that and thus ensued a year’s worth of haggling.

    See, when Uncle Kev passed away like Elvis (on the toilet) the health care agency guys he had hired to come in on a regular basis had found him.  They were there daily to make sure he took his meds and help him deal with a physical health issue he had as well.  The same 3 guys had worked for him for several years and they’d never so much as seen Auntie Viv.

    Because she had moved out several years before, which according to Canuckistani law meant she was no longer his common-law wife for purposes of divvying up the loot and taking his stuff.  So she tried to insist that she’d been living there just in a different part of the house from where the health workers had been.

    Our law-talking dude then discovered that when she filed her taxes, she’d listed a different address altogether.  So for her to pursue it in court, would mean admitting to tax fraud multiple times.

    So her story was then, well, Uncle Kev would sometimes not take his meds and would get violent.  Not directly toward her, but in general and so she left because she didn’t feel safe.  The other residence was her place to run to when Uncle Kev was hearing the voices telling him to do crazy shit and him destroying things to keep from obeying them.  She even cited a police report to explain it.

    Only, when the lawyer dug further, turned out, there was a previous police report where she’d gotten violent with Uncle Kev when she found out he had gotten himself fixed and thus all her attempts at not taking birth control to secure him a child were for naught.  See, Uncle Kev was crazy, but he knew it, and didn’t want to make a little psycho Kev with a woman he suspected may have had motives besides how gooshy he made her loins.  He’d ridden that rodeo before apparently.

    Eventually, she claimed that what she wanted was to establish a mental health charity with the money and that’s why she was fighting for.  And also to keep the house which she could use to run the charity out of it.

    So we made her a proposal; 1/3rd of the estate to her, 1/3rd to the charity, and 1/3rd to us.  She balked at first until her lawyer said, “Look, lady, this is the best offer and if you go to court you’re getting jack shit besides maybe a jail term for the tax fraud. They are being generous so you’re lucky none of them were close to him.  Take the fucking deal.”

    And that is how a Rich Dead Uncle*** I Didn’t Know I Had helped my wife and me pay off our house and set us up to retire much earlier than planned.

     

    *Not her real name

    **Not his either

    ***Not really an Uncle as described was more of a cousin who was old enough he seemed more like an uncle.

  • Morning Links, Friday

    Caption

    Greetings.

    Link to somewhat amusing story.

    Link to Daily Fail. Not thicc, or weird tabloid story.

    Link to a story about another foreign mess.

    Link from a city newspaper. Very local.

    Music link.

    Have a good day.

  • Afternoon Links of No Distinction

    Glibs sponsored debate?

    We aren’t sure, but it seems either a meth addled giant python or the county sheriff has Brett. So, you get me doing some rather hasty links. I am going to leave the music links to all of you.

    • I ran out out of syrup of ipecac, so I used this instead, to induce vomiting.
    • I seldom use profanity in place of better descriptors…but the only thing that I can think of reading this is “shitshow”.
    • Wanna see the wages of communism? Human trafficking, for reals.

    I hope all of your NCAA brackets are surviving.

  • A Bit of Peat: Some Basic Islay Malts

    Booze reviews are a strange art. Well done, they can give the reader a fine impression of the liquid at hand. More often, the sound like pretentious nonsense. I usually avoid doing them, be it for wine or whiskey. When I give my opinion, I stick to what is clear. Be it tannin or acidity or peat or smoke or dryness. If I can sense some basic aromas I say so. But I limit myself to that because most aromas sensed in a tasting are quite personal. Two top sommeliers may not sense the same thing in the same glass. An Asian may feel other aromas than a European. So while it may be fun to see what others sense, when you go beyond a few things it is getting somewhat ridiculous and you are mostly making shit up. Especially due to fads that affect the tasters. There was a time in which almost every wine blogger in Romania had to smell lychee in white wines, while I had no idea what lychee smelled like.

    I usually simply avoid giving my personal interpretation of faint aromas in alcohols. But for you, fair readers, I will do a proper review and I will stick my nose in the glass and taste the thing until, damn it, I find at least five different flavors.

    Today I will be reviewing a few basic expressions of Islay malts. Islay is an island in Scotland which I will not describe at length. It has the usual Scottish things, bad weather, sheep, funny accents, the standard package. Where it is unique is in the number of distilleries and the quantity of malt produced on less than 250 square miles. And it is a special malt indeed, so much that it is considered a distinct, officially recognized region, one of five such regions in Scotland.

    The whisky is known for peat smoke – the malted barley is dried using peat fires – and its salty briny taste due to being so close to the sea. Unfortunately, peaty whisky has grown in popularity in the last 10-15 years, as such the prices have increased while the quality not always. I blame market forces myself and probably hipsters. Also the Germans.

    While for some it does not matter, I am going to be a snob about it and, besides aromas, positively view whiskeys that are non-chill filtered and natural colored. Because they are just better. I don’t see the point of putting caramel coloring in whiskey just because people associate that color with the drink. And while chill filtration removes cloudiness, cloudiness can be fun, start with a cask strength malt that is clear and get cloudy as you add some water. Also, it may or may not remove flavor.

    I mentioned water because I generally favor higher ABV malts, and I like to drink a little and then add a bit of water for a small change in flavor and booziness. I generally drink my whiskey in a Glencairn glass and do not add ice or anything else. If you are the type to add mixers to whiskey, you disgust me and should be ashamed of yourself you goddamn lowlife.

    Now to get to it, in no particular order. I will judge smell, taste, aftertaste and will include a from the internet section from more tastery tasters than my very own self.

    Ardbeg 10

    Bottled at 46%. aged 10 years in mostly bourbon casks, natural color unchill filtered

    Nose: Peat some smoke – not that overwhelming – something herbal, something of the sea maybe brine maybe some seaweed. Maybe apple.

    Taste: intense, something spice, some vanilla, peat, maybe apple or pear, some sweetness, something savory

    Aftertaste:  long with slight and pleasant bitterness, peat smoke and spice linger.

    From the net : apple pear melon citrus bacon smoked mackerel almonds dark chocolate campfire cigar “bonfire on the beach in autumn” tobacco coffee ginger thyme and rosemary, gentian, juniper, kumquats, clams and sea spray and much much more.

    Verdict: for me this edges Lagavulin by a hair, slightly rougher and less complex but bolder in the flavors it has.

    Laphroaig 10

    40% I really prefer more

    Nose: lots of smoke iodine leather seawater charcoal peat citrus
    Taste: salty and peaty and iodine and something medicinal, a little sweetness, a little salty, a touch of spice and a savory note
    Aftertaste: dry with iodine and a savory note, fairly long. again something slightly bitter
    the iodine is what differentiates it
    From the internet: Match sticks, sulfur, hay, and smoked salt blend together with the ripe sugar elements that define the spirit. mint pine needles camphor ginger vanilla tea sultana

    Verdict: while I like it and will keep buying it for the price, it is bellow Ardbeg and Lagavulin for me. Could use higher ABV

     

    Lagavulin 16

    43%, with coloring and chill filtration

    Nose: as always peat and some smoke more subtle then Ardbeg or Laphroaig. Actually sort of smells like black tea. Complex. Some leather and tobacco. Something else nice I just can’t place. Damp wood is there.
    Taste: Peat and oak some vanilla. smooth an complex with all flavors well integrated, less dominated by one or other. some sweetness salt and pepper. Unlike some that get sharper in the mouth this mellows towards the finish,
    Aftertaste: Long some peat some dried fruit or other
    From the internet:  Orange pineapple brine Lapsang Souchong tea and pipe tobacco, fish boxes and kippers,  laurel and light cereal,  creosote, with hints of kelp and a little touch of iodine, Dried fruit, caramel, vanilla, bbq, sherried biscuits,  savory, roasted almonds, baked apples,

    Verdict: probably the most refined of the bunch, but pricier and lower ABV than ideal. I like it, but the Ardbeg slightly edges it.

     

    Kilchoman Sanaig

    Bottled at 46% unchill filtered natural color, partly Oloroso partly bourbon cask  3-5 years old

    Kilchoman is different from the rest and I am not sure it even has a standard expression. I chose Sanaig after carefully analyzing the different bottlings that exist and deciding to pick this particular one as it was the only one they had at the store.  The distillery is as close as you get to boutique, it only began production in June 2005, and was the first to be built on the island of Islay in 124 years and it does the hipster things like using very traditional methods.

    Color: natural

    Nose: Little peat, a bit of smoke, dried fruit and vanilla.

    Palate: Peat smoke and citrus with slightly spicy slightly sweet. Slight roughness to it but I like that

    Finish: peat smoke and you can feel the sherry cask

    From the internet: Pineapple chunks and white grapes. Hints of fresh coffee carry the earthy, subtly spicy peat. Toffee cubes. More light fruits (this time of the peach variety), with dark chocolate raisins and a whisper of red berries. Peat grows and grows, with a little black pepper too. juicy fresh rubber, fire charcoal, burnt branches juicy fresh rubber, fire charcoal, burnt branches

    Verdict: This is, as the more astute glib would guess, rather pricey, especially given the young age. I am not sure whether I should recommend this or not. It is good malt but rather pricey for such a young thing. Basically, it is if you are willing to pay some extra for the small new distillery on the block. But I do not feel cheated while drinking it.

     

    Bowmore left, Caol Ila right

    Caol Ila 12 bottled at 43%

    Color: quite light and pleasant, but not natural. Chill filtration was involved.

    Nose: herbal, grass, peaty, maybe a tad medicinal

    Taste: some smoke, some peat, vaguely salty, slightly acidic, alcohol has a slight roughness to it.

    Aftertaste: medium slightly spicy, faint peat, some vanilla

    From the internet: Vanilla pair brine tar toffee smoke ash Rubbed peppermint leaves,  damp grass, smoky. Oily, cigar leaves, smoked ham, hickory. Lemon peels at the harbor.Beautiful gentle salt spray on the coast, a smoldering fire. Beautiful honey sweetness, finest lemon sweet notes, a beautiful glow like a still burning out campfire, but without ashes, brown sugar, some thyme, of course, light salt, a little bit of white grapes,

     

    Bowmore 10 dark intense

    Bottled at 40%, chill filtered and a bunch of coloring added

    Color – dark, too dark for a 10-year-old. Dark and intense… dark due to all the coloring pour in, intense in the most meh of ways.

    Nose – starts faint but picks up fast, but for me not exactly pleasant. Some smoke but slightly disagreeable, some dry fruit

    Taste – caramel, faint peat, some sweetness

    Aftertaste – not overly complex

    From the internet: I can’t be arsed

    Verdict: Overall unimpressive for the price. I mean from this list this is the only one I would not recommend at all. it is OK and you can drink it, but at the price point, you can do a lot better. This is the kind I drink as the last drink of the night, when I want a bit of scotch, but I find drinking the good stuff is wasteful as I do not enjoy it fully.

     

    Islay Mist Delux

    This is basically a cheap blend of undetermined Islay malts of undetermined age, somewhat peaty Scotch with an overall good flavor.

    Nose: Vague smoke, herbal peat very discreet, barely there, some brine, something sweet

    Taste: Peat is there and some sweetness, but not overwhelming, smooth enough though there is a slight alcohol burn, vanilla maybe? neah.

    Aftertaste Surprisingly there is some there but no peat in it so kinda meh

    Verdict: if you want something drinkable with some peat and for a hair under 20$ Americanese Moneys it is not bad…

    Ranking:

    Ardbeg

    Lagavulin

    Kilchoman

    Laphroaig

    Caol Ila

    Islay Mist Delux

    …

    Bowmore 10 dark intense

  • ¿Los huevos con chorizo en Jueves por desayuno? ¡Enlaces Mexicanos!

    Estoy escribiendo los enlaces por la mañana, ayer. ¿Por qué? Porque tengo el tiempo de ayer.
    So let’s get to the links from down south!
    In what sound like something out of the plot to an awesome 80’s TV show….a convoy in Brazil carrying nuclear fuel was attacked.
    Gunmen have attacked a convoy of trucks carrying uranium fuel to a nuclear power plant near the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, police say. The convoy came under attack as it drove past a community controlled by drug traffickers in Angra dos Reis, a tourist city 145km (90 miles) from Rio. Police escorting the convoy responded and a shootout followed. No-one was injured or detained.

    But speaking of Brazil.  Earlier this week Trump and Brazilian Trump met in the oval office.

    Nicknamed the ‘Trump of the Tropics,’ Bolsonaro rose to power praising the U.S.-backed military government that ran Brazil for two decades before a return to democracy in 1985.

    He moved quickly to ally Brazil closer to the United States, a shift in diplomatic priorities after over a decade of leftist party rule that had seen Brazil forging closer ties with regional allies.

    At Tuesday’s news conference, the two presidents repeatedly rejected socialism, celebrating their joint efforts to oust Venezuela’s left-wing leader, Nicolas Maduro.

     

    Illegal border crossings are on the rise….from Canada.

    More than 960 people crossed into the U.S. illegally from the northern border with Canada last year, according to data released from Customs and Border Protection.

    While that number is a tiny fraction compared to the migration across the border with Mexico, it represented a 91 percent increase from the prior fiscal year, the data showed.

    The Trump administration’s rhetoric on border security has largely homed in on the southern border, which has seen an influx of thousands of families with children from Central America seeking asylum in the United States.
    Mis condolencias

    12 Die in a plane crash…in Columbia.

    The flight was traveling between San Jose del Guaviare and Villavicencio, the Civil Defense said. The plane called in the emergency at 10:40 a.m., according to Colombia’s Civil Aviation Authority. The plane was found in La Bendición, near Villavicencio. Authorities are working to identify the passengers. There is no publicly known cause for the crash at this time. Colombia’s Civil Aviation Aviation released a statement of condolence for those who died in the crash.
    Silly Venezuelan refugees.  The only way to get into Europe is by being a Jihadist.  Am I right?
    ….
    ….
    What?  C’mon.  At least one of you laughed.
    From 2015 to 2018, the number of Venezuelans registered in Spain rose 54 percent to more than 255,000, according to Spain’s National Statistics Institute. But the total Venezuelan-born population is likely higher if undocumented immigrants are taken into account.

    Some arrive from Venezuela with Spanish citizenship obtained through grandparents who escaped Spain’s civil war in the 1930s.

    Others, such as Quintero, come on a three-month tourist visa and apply for asylum. Venezuelans were the largest group of asylum-seekers in Spain last year with 19,000 applications, more than a third of the annual total, according to the nonprofit Spanish Commission for Refugees.

    “Spain is the European country that most often rejects asylum requests,” says Oriol Amorós, secretary of migration for the government of Catalonia. “They’re denying around 70 percent of all asylum-seekers. And for Venezuelans, it’s almost 100 percent.” The commission for refugees said about 24 percent of all claims were accepted in 2018.

     

    That’s it.  Here’s something to make you mildly uncomfortable.

  • The Hat and The Hair-Animated Episode 15: A La Carte

    Patreon Shill

    Merch Shill

    Twitter Shill

    Youtube Shill

  • Wednesday Afternoon Links

    Narrator Voice: Well, the Hat and Hair are off on their own… tune in again whenever SF has time to find out whether they ever find Ford’s Gold. Or if the Hat will stop to molest a dead rat.

    Its good to know that in Italy, DUIs and child molestation charges won’t stop you from driving a commercial vehicle. Good on the Carabineri for getting in there and grabbing those kids.

    And another good cop story, this one from Iowa. Is it dusty in here? It always get dusty when little kids get saved from a fire.

    Ohio man discovers that abducting and having sexual relations with a 15 year old also illegal in Florida. I can see how he might have thought that was a legal thing here.

    I am interested to see how close the Morgan Stanley guys get to their $75/bbl Brent oil prediction. That’s a 12% increase, and optimistic. I don’t think OPEC can afford to cut production enough to make up the difference.

     

    How about some modern blues?

  • The Hat and The Hair: Episode 114

     

     

    “Why are we doing this?” the hair asked.

    “Because Donald asked us to,” the hat replied.

    They were in the massive sprawl of tunnels President Kennedy had the Army Corps of Engineers build to connect the White House with various hotels and love nests around the city. In grand pharaonic tradition, the engineers had been killed afterward in order to keep the secrets built into the tunnels, their bodies thrown into the Potomac and families paid off with Cold War black budgets. The hat and the hair zipped along on a small electric scooter that had controls scaled down for the hair’s manipulatory tendrils.

    “Poonhound,” the hat said. “Total poonhound.”

    “I don’t know how Kennedy told people these were Cold War evacuation routes,” the hair said. “There is erotic art on almost every wall.” Close-ups of vulvas stretched as far as they could see in the dim light.

    “He died of syphilis, you know,” the hat said.

    “Who?”

    “Kennedy. JFK,” the hat replied.

    “He was shot. In Dallas. In the head. There is film of it,” the hair said dryly.

    “All fake. Fake news. The ultimate fake news. Someone was shot that day, someone’s brains were all over Jackie, but it wasn’t John F. Kennedy. He was already in an asylum in Europe.”

    “No, he wasn’t!”

    “His nose had fallen off, so they had to have the double take over the public appearances,” the hat said. “JFK smelled like rot and death and crazy. Jackie hadn’t touched him since Junior was conceived.”

    “What about Dallas, then?” the hair asked. He swerved to avoid a rat carcass.

    “Hey, watch it!” the hat said.

    “Just hold on!” the hair told.

    “With what?” the hat screamed and went tumbling off the scooter, rolling in the filth on the tunnel floor.

    “Are you OK?” the hair asked.

    “No!’ the hat screeched back at him. “The floor is all sticky.”

    “Sticky?”

    “Oh, God. It’s jizz. There’s jizz all over the floor!”

    “Ew!”

    “There’s jizz all over ME! Old jizz! Old president jizz!”

    “Not the first time, I’m sure,” the hair muttered.

    “I heard that!” the hat spat. He inched himself back to the scooter and the hair helped him on board.

    “You were telling me about Dallas?” the hair prompted.

    “I hate it down here,” the hat said, ignoring him. “I bet there isn’t even anything down here.”

    “Donald said he heard it from a reliable source,” the hair said, setting the scooter trundling down the dark jizz tunnel.

    “The Lost Gold of Gerald Ford? Since when did Gerald Ford have any gold?”

    “Donald says it’s enough to build The Wall,” the hair said.

    “God only knows what he’s tweeting while we’re down here,” the hat said darkly.

     

    The two of them reached another dead-end, a cave-in, rubble and re-bar everywhere.

    “Well, shit,” the hat said. “I guess we should go back to the last intersection.”

    “Why isn’t there a map?” the hair asked again.

    “There’s nothing down here. We’re going to get lost. We’re going to get lost and die down here.”

    “If I die first,” the hair said, “I give you permission to eat my body.”

    “Thank you. That’s very kind of you.”

    “And?” the hair asked.

    “And if I die first, keep your fucking hands off my body,” the hat said.

    They rode along in silence until they reached the last intersection.

    “Left or straight ahead?” the hair asked.

    “Left.”

    The hair drove straight ahead.

    “Asshole,” the hat said.

     

    The tunnel they were in was decorated with thousands of nipple pictures: big, pink, dark, inverted, bumpy, puffy, erect and flat, all the nipples of the human color wheel.

    “What would Donald do if we died down here?” the hair finally asked.

    “What he’s doing now, I imagine,” the hat said. “Wear a regular man wig and take advice from USA hat.”

    “Oh, Jesus. America would be doomed.”

    “Toby Keith would be the poet laureate,” the hat said.

    “Air Force One would be a tractor.”

    “Iowa would matter.”

    “No,” the hair said, horror in his voice. “That would be terrible. There’s already too much Iowa now.”

    “All Iowa,” the hat said tonelessly. “Wall-to-wall Iowa.”

    “SCOTUS would be called on to settle The Great Ford-Chevy Truck debate,” the hair said, his hollow laugh echoing.

    “I hate USA hat,” the hat said. “He dilutes my brand.”

     

    Tune in next week for PART 2 of THE LEGEND OF GERALD FORD’S GOLD

  • Wednesday Morning Links of Me

    Celebrating me!

     

    No flippin’ way am I going to bring it like Spud did yesterday…or SP does … or SugarFree…or OMWC, or, well, anyone else. So I have decided the Links this morning will be ME. ME linking to my hobbyhorses and such. Probably not great links, but they are MINE!!!! First things first… Need to make sure the Links Control Room is secure. OK boys, line ’em up!

    “Ein, zwei. Ein Zwei!”

     

    There, now on to the Links!

    Hobbyhorse? No, it is a War Horse!
    • Trial of the Century Update – “Stop Resisting!” Needless to say the turmoil in Catalonia has had some negative consequences. Looks like it is time to fight, or roll over, Catalans.
    • This is shocking! Only in that I thought they would be higher.
    • And also from the foreign correspondence desk – This would signal the end for Algerian dictator. Insert Borat Joke Here.

    OK, this time you get a music link….right in line with today’s theme. Me.

     

    How Now, Swiss Brown Cow?

  • In Defense of Photovoltaic Power Systems

    Show us on the doll where the PV system touched you.

    A few weeks ago Suthenboy expressed a strong opinion on the effectiveness of photovoltaic (PV) power systems, or solar electricity[1]. Reading between the lines I surmise he had a bad experience with one once.

    I cannot deny Suthenboy’s lived experience but I can present an alternative experience. I’ve been living in my off the grid[2] PV-powered cabin for over 20 years.

    I’ve designed four off the grid PV power systems: two for cabins and two for recreational vehicles. The largest is a one kilowatt PV array for a neighbor’s camp. All four systems work perfectly except for my neighbor’s because he doesn’t maintain his battery bank. He’s probably going to install utility power this summer which doesn’t bother me because he’ll certainly make me a good offer for his big PV array.

    How It Works

    If you were promised there would be no math then you can skip the next paragraph.

    A PV array is composed of several photovoltaic panels. A PV panel is composed of several photovoltaic cells. When illuminated by bright sunlight each PV cell produces about 0.5 volts[3] of electromotive force with an amperage[4] proportional to the cell’s area. My cabin’s ancient PV array consists of eight panels. Each panel has 33 cells. The cells are connected in series so the voltage adds up to (33 cells) * (0.5 volts) = 16.5 volts. Each cell puts out about 2 amps of current to a single panel provides (16.5 volts) * (2 amps) = 33 watts[5] of power. With eight panels my PV array puts out (8 panels) * (33 watts) = 264 watts. My cabin’s PV array is tiny by modern standards. These days you can get a single PV panel with more power than my entire array.

    But you can ignore the details and think of a PV array simply as a free source of battery bank charging power because a PV system of the type I’m describing is more accurately called a battery bank system. The battery bank extends power into the nighttime. The battery bank expands the consciousness of one’s energy usage. The battery bank is vital to the PV system.

    The battery bank is composed of one or more deep cycle batteries. My battery bank has two that look like car starter batteries but are designed to be charged and discharged (cycled) many times. Car starter batteries aren’t designed to be cycled and won’t last long in a battery bank application.

    In a modern PV system the battery bank powers a single device: the inverter. The inverter converts low-voltage DC[6] power from the battery bank into high-voltage AC[7] power like the kind that comes out of a wall socket. A modern inverter can be plumbed into a home with standard AC wiring without having to make any wiring changes.

    How It Works II: The Diagram

    This diagram can be used as an actual schematic for a PV system because all the parts and connections are shown. Power flows from right to left. Blue lines are AC power. Black and red lines are DC power, black is negative (minus) and red is positive (plus). The equipment to the right of the battery bank is the “charge” section from which power comes. The equipment to the left of the battery bank is the “load” section to which power goes. The independent charge and load sections mean half the system still works while the other half is down for whatever reason.

    At the upper right corner is a PV array consisting of two PV panels wired in parallel. Simple PV systems use 12-volt deep cycle lead-acid batteries and PV panels sized to charge such batteries. More panels can be added to the array as long as they’re wired in parallel, plus-to-plus and minus-to-minus.

    The PV array is connected to a PV Charge Controller which ensures that the PV array doesn’t overcharge the battery bank.

    The PV array is usually not the only battery bank charging source. Nearly all PV systems have a backup generator for long stretches of cloudy weather. A gasoline generator and a battery charger are shown in the lower right corner. My backup generator is a 1KW Honda.

    If the site has sufficient wind then a windmill is an excellent additional charging source. Windmills come in AC and DC varieties; the one on the diagram is DC. A windmill needs its own charge controller.

    The plus outputs and minus outputs of the battery charger and charge controller(s) are connected together to make a single positive/negative wire pair. The positive wire is connected to a fuse (or breaker) that prevents the battery bank from exploding in case of a short in the charge section. The negative wire is connected to a current shunt that is used by the “Charge Meter” to calculate the amperage coming from the charge section.

    A modern DC electric meter shows voltage, amperage, wattage, and cumulative watt-hours. This PV system design has two meters, one for the electricity coming in from the charge section and one for the electricity going out to the load section.

    The other sides of the charging section’s fuse (plus) and current shunt (minus) are connected to the battery bank.

    In the middle of the diagram is a battery bank consisting of two lead-acid batteries wired in parallel. Like the PV array, additional batteries can be added as long as they’re connected in parallel, plus-to-plus and minus-to-minus. The battery bank includes a desulfator which is a clever circuit that puts a high-frequency pulse over the battery bank leads. The pulse encourages any sulfur crystals that may be forming on the batteries’ lead plates to dissolve back into the acid. A desulfator increases a battery bank’s life many times.

    The load section is a mirror-image of the charge section. A fuse and a current shunt are connected to the battery bank. The other sides of the fuse and current shunt are connected to the inverter which in this design is the only DC-powered device. The inverter turns low-voltage DC power into high-voltage AC power. The AC output of the inverter is wired into the household AC distribution box.

    If the house has utility power then a special synchronizing inverter is required. A synchronizing inverter synchronizes its AC output with the AC output of the utility. A synchronizing inverter will also turn itself off if the utility power is out. This is a safety measure so that linemen working on the utility wires outside won’t be electrocuted by unexpected sources of battery power.

    Modern PV systems often don’t have a battery bank and dump excess power on the grid. This runs the electric meter backwards, effectively using the grid as a battery bank, storing power during the day and drawing it back again at night.

    Maintenance

    A PV system is remarkably stable. There’s little that can go wrong.

    If a PV panel is well-built and the cells protected from the elements then the panel will last a long time.[8] I bought my panels used in 1990 and they were about five years old at the time. They still work fine.[9] The only maintenance is sweeping snow off of them in the winter.

    A well-maintained battery bank can last a long time too. Thanks to the desulfator my first set of batteries lasted 20 years before they simply refused to take a charge. My batteries have always been the sealed maintenance-free type.

    One time my generator battery charger stopped working so I replaced it.

    My neighbor’s camp is at the top of a hill in a clearing and he has had instances of his charge controller and inverter getting fried by nearby lightning ground strikes. Lightning protectors work by shunting the power into the ground. I don’t know of a way to protect equipment when the lightning surge is coming up from the ground.

    Footnotes

    [1] Electricity is really hard to describe. An approachable, but bad, conceptual model is “Electricity is the movement of electrons through a conductor (wire).”

    [2] The “grid” is the telephone and electric companies’ wiring and infrastructure. A location enjoying these services is “on the grid”.

    [3] Voltage (volts) is a measure of force. Electrons are compelled to move along a conductor when they’re subject to a voltage differential. The higher the voltage the faster electrons move.

    [4] Amperage (amperes or amps) is a measure of flow. From an amperage, one can calculate the number of electrons per second passing a point on a conductor.

    [5] Power (watts) is calculated by multiplying voltage and amperage. High power applications are measured in thousands of watts (kilowatts) or millions of watts (megawatts).

    [6] Direct Current (DC) electricity is produced by a battery, PV array, or the power supply/charger of most common electronic devices. There’s a positive wire and a negative wire. DC electricity is generally low voltage most commonly 24 volts or less.

    [7] Alternating Current (AC) electricity is produced by generators large (nuclear plant) and small (gasoline backup) and inverters. AC electricity is distributed on the grid and comes out of your home’s wall socket. AC electricity alternates positive/negative voltage on the two wires quickly, 60 times a second in the U.S. AC electricity is generally high voltage with 120 volts and 240 volts being most common in the U.S.

    [8] This article from 2010 is about testing a 30-year-old PV panel of the same model I have in my PV array. My PV panels are a few years newer than the one in the article and not in such good shape:

    https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/article/testing-a-thirty-year-old-photovoltaic-module

    [9] I recently measured 234 watts coming from my PV array in a high-power use situation. My record is 262 watts in a high-power use situation in 2009. I’ve never done a maximum-power test on my PV array.