Ammo-maker says TikTok's datacenter site could deprive it of electricity Here's a conspiracy theory for you to consider: the war in Ukraine has shown that the West can't produce ammunition fast enough to sustain even that limited conflict. China noticed, and therefore had TikTok plan three energy-hungry datacenters close to an ammunition factory, threatening its electricity supply. You'd be …
You're talking about Vitali Klitschko right?
Well, what a surprise he is on TV "every time something is going on in Kiev"...
...since he is the mayor of Kyiv?
Send Liz Truss and Boris Johnson over for repeat photo opportunities. This time in a war zone.
Truss atop a Challenger, and Boris in one of the Polish Migs (are they 2 seaters? If not, just hook him up to one of the pylons and drop him over the Russians, along with his official photographer
He has prior experience of being wire guided
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/16/stuck-zip-wire-boris-johnson-london-2012-olympics
If Gerald Bull were alive today...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_HARP
Though Boris wouldn't fit into a 16inch naval gun
It would also be a colder world for some people, that one planned data center around Hamar is capable of consuming 1% of annually generated power in Norway. This type of development combined with the effects of connecting the Norwegian power market with the European mainland one through some big new cables the last years, ensures our power prices are equalising with those in Europe, meaning they also double, triple etc. Lucky for us it's usually light and warm over here, thanks to all the cat dancing videos.
Pray, dear reader, that Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin have not started to map the locations of breweries, or facilities wherein fine meats are smoked.
Not necessary. We've put them all on google maps and marked them prominently for our tour-of-the-breweries with smoked meat appetisers and professional beverage t{a,e}sting purposes.
the war in Ukraine has shown that the West can't produce ammunition fast enough to sustain even that limited conflict.
"That limited conflict" is the Russian army throwing fifty years worth of the Soviet Union stockpiling weapons for WW3 at trying to take Ukraine. It's the largest war since WW2.
And that we can't produce ammunition fast enough is not really the issue that you might think, and i'll try and explain why.
The Ukrainian army was part of the Soviet army, and shares the same philosophy as the Russian army, which is to stand off and destroy the enemy via artillery, and then close afterwards to mop up the remains. Our armies by contrast have vastly superior direct combat capabilities (eg tanks with a much better armour and range than the Russian ones) and therefore by virtue of having direct fire tank guns that outrange the Russian ones we have proportionately less artillery, and also rely upon air support by guided bombs from aircraft and attack helicopters for longer range support. If you look at the Gulf or Iraq wars, you'll see that a western military will seek to close the range and tear the opposition to shreds in a brief intensely destructive engagement; both the Gulf war and Iraq wars lasted around a month from the first shots to the opposition surrendering.
Initially, pre-war the Ukrainian's had the same army structure and equipment as the Russians, having started as part of the Russian army. They benefited from NATO level troop training meaning that Russian infantry couldn't just run over the Ukrainian infantry. Russian tanks however could, hence the gift of prodigious quantities of shoulder launched anti tank, and anti air missiles to prevent this.
This left the Russians getting mauled every time they got in range, so they stood off and tried to shell them flat. This resulted in a stand off artillery duel and Ukraine running out of Soviet artillery ammunition. Hence the introduction of NATO standard artillery and it's prodigious use.
The Ukrainians are only now getting NATO tanks (and in numbers that you can practically count on your fingers at that) and they aren't being given cruise missiles, attack helicopters and many other things that western forces take for granted. The result is that in a year long war they are using a huge number of artillery shells instead of mixed numbers of everything. The number of shells and amount of production was presumably geared around the predicted needs of NATO armies based on what we'd needed in the past; if you change everything to "win an artillery duel with the worlds largest artillery producer" then unsurprisingly you need much, much more artillery ammunition than anybody conceived of needing.
China and Russia will not seek to destroy NATO countries via direct military action; they both know that it won't work; in an age of every serious power having nuclear weapons victory through marching your troops through the oppositions capital is impossible.
That leaves trying to gain victory through causing the internal collapse of the opposition; the Soviet Union funded terrorism to reduce trust and ferment internal troubles in western democracies during the cold war with this intent in mind, and much more attention needs to be paid to what their successors are doing with the advent of the internet, because I strongly doubt that the answer is "nothing".
Good summary.
I'd add that NATO forces place more value on the expensive precision weaponry which normally generates claims of 'gold plating', but which in practice seems to enable a more-for-less effect, whereby targets can be destroyed more effectively with much less ammunition than using cheaper, 'dumber' ammunition fired off en-masse. This seems to make the artillery more effective at the same time as requiring a much lighter logistics tail for the artillery units involved. That leads to another point that has come out of the current war - Russian Army logistics is atrocious. the concept of palletised loads and HIAB type self-loading equipment which has been standard practice in NATO forces for 50 years or so (if not longer) still seems to be absent in the Russian army.
That leads to another point that has come out of the current war - Russian Army logistics is atrocious. the concept of palletised loads and HIAB type self-loading equipment which has been standard practice in NATO forces for 50 years or so (if not longer) still seems to be absent in the Russian army.
I think that a lot of that is down to a cultural thing, the Russians have heavy logistics requirements met by train and have lots of cheap peasants as labour to move things; we do things via road and labour is expensive so we tend to worry more about automation, and so our militaries have benefited from western civilian logistics improvements in shifting containers and pallets around in the most cost effective way possible.
Also; one suspects that the overall Russian result would probably be better if the Ukrainians hadn't picked up on the NATO practice of striking the Russian army logistics hubs.
Mind you, i'm not quite sure how it's possible to fight a war where Ukraine probably knows better where the Russian forces are than their command, courtesy of every satellite in orbit being pointed at Ukraine; if people are giving military equipment then they'll near certainly be giving satellite photos.
Our armies by contrast have vastly superior direct combat capabilities (eg tanks with a much better armour and range than the Russian ones) and therefore by virtue of having direct fire tank guns that outrange the Russian ones we have proportionately less artillery, and also rely upon air support by guided bombs from aircraft and attack helicopters for longer range support. If you look at the Gulf or Iraq wars, you'll see that a western military will seek to close the range and tear the opposition to shreds in a brief intensely destructive engagement; both the Gulf war and Iraq wars lasted around a month from the first shots to the opposition surrendering.
Problem with that is this is a very different conflict, and our opponents learned lessons from watching that, and other Western-backed or initiated conflicts. We've just had the anniversary of the Balkans conflict, which resulted in the destruction of Yugoslavia. That relied heavily on air power and gaining air superiority, much as GW1 & 2 did. Do the 'shock and awe' thing, destroy your opponents GBAD, energy and logistics infrastructure, and bomb your opponent to the negotiating table. That didn't work quite as well in Afghanistan, and isn't working out very well for the Saudis in Yemen, and certainly hasn't been working out for any of the parties in the Ukraine conflict.
So Russia kinda noticed we rely a lot on air power. So it developed ways to counter air superiority and came up with very effective layered GBAD that can detect, engage and destroy aircraft and incoming missiles at long ranges. It also appears to be gaining air supremacy as it looks like Russia's using more FAB-500 and heavier guided bombs (KAB-500x). Russia used those pretty extensively against terrorists in Syria. Obviously a 500kg bomb will have more impact compared to the 7-8kg of explosives in a typical 155mm round, especially against the heavily fortified defensive lines Ukraine had been building since 2014.
Then there's tanks. As the Bbc spins it-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65095126
Eighteen cutting-edge main battle tanks were delivered after Ukrainian crews were trained to use them.
That's 18 Leopards for a 1,000km contact line. Sure, we're also sending 4 Challenger 2s and some other assorted AFVs. Meanwhile, our media is poking fun at Russia dusting off T-55s, which it has a lot of. Sure, a modern NATO tank might have better armour, optics, stabilisation etc but as someone famously said, quantity has a quality of it's own. Russia's T-55's have undergone various phases of modernisation and upgrades, but they'll probably get used as assault guns. There, an armoured vehicle with a 10km+ range is still very effective in a layered defence. Any Ukrainian offensive would have to advance to contact through air, artillery, field/assault gun and ATGM range. MBTs that lose their combined arms support don't tend to last long, and modern MBTs are still vulnerable to mobility or mission kills, if tracks or sensors are damaged. Then it's hauling them all the way back to Poland where they can be repaired.
And then there's drones, both as surveillance and more direct threats. These have probably been the biggest game changer of this conflict because they're cheap, easy to produce and have proven highly effecitive in multiple roles.
And then there's the boring logistics. Russia claims to be producing 1-1,500 new tanks every year. The UK can produce a grand total of.. Zero Challenger 2's annually. Russia's also been busily churning out ammunition, missiles and bombs far faster than NATO can. We expected the 'shock and awe' sanctions to bring Russia to it's knees, but that's backfired spectacularly. War consumes vast quantities of steel. We have been de-industrialising. It requires a lot of energy. We've been making that scarce, unreliable and expensive. It needs lots of chemicals, and we've been de-industrialising there as well, with disastrous consequences.. So the Dutch and their War on Nitrogen. Nitrogen compounds are essential for explosives and fertilisers, and gas is often used as a feedstock. We're banning that, and have sanctioned imports from Russia, who're sitting on a shedload of strategic resources.
the Soviet Union funded terrorism to reduce trust and ferment internal troubles in western democracies during the cold war with this intent in mind,
We've been busily doing that as well. See Belarus and Georgia as examples. Again this policy of 'regime change' and 'color revolutions' is backfiring, and more nations are starting to pivot towards BRICS.
Please understand that by 'defeat', I mean 'kill every single one of them.'
Therein lies the problem when the 'enemy' is an ideology. Sure, you could kill every follower, but alternatively you use soft power and do the hearts and minds thing. This is perhaps harder, and a lot less profitable. But if you manage to convince your enemy that your way of life is better, then the enemy loses support and you eventually win.
Between the Russians and the Americans, they spent 40+ years failing to do so.
But part of the problem was those were another proxy conflict. So while Russia was the occupier, we assisted their opponents with weapons, training etc. Then when Russia withdrew, we also got bored and moved on, creating the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the process. We did much the same in Iraq with the Kurds.. Rise up and overthrow your oppressors. So they did, got slaughtered and then abandoned. It's much the same with Ukraine where we interfered in what's essentially an ethnic conflict between Galacian-inspired nationalists and other ethnic/cultural groups like Russians, Romanians, Hungarians, Poles etc who ended up on the 'wrong' side of a line when borders were re-drawn following WW2 and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Rather than creating a vibrant, multi-cultural society that reflected a shared history, the post-2014 government decided to de-Russify Ukraine, burn books, ban culture and are in the process of creating a schism between various branches of the Orthodox Church.
That kind of policy has never worked out well, not even in Cambodia.
Rather than creating a vibrant, multi-cultural society that reflected a shared history, the post-2014 government decided to de-Russify Ukraine, burn books, ban culture and are in the process of creating a schism between various branches of the Orthodox Church.
Either you know f*ck all about Russian and Soviet politics, or you're a Kremlin troll. Since Tsarist times, the policy of Russian leaders has been to deny the ethnic identity of minorities in their empires and then destroy those minorities culture, language, etc. Putin is just another in a long line of Russian chauvinists, seeking to aggrandise himself by assimilating other Slavic groups, Transcaucasians and others. Putin genuinely believes that Ukrainians, Byelorussians, Finno-Ugrians and Balts are "corrupted" Russians who need to be taught their mistakes by the oh so kind "Great" Russians. Amongst Russian nationalists many of those people are called "Little" Russians, which is a gross misrepresentation of the history and culture of those peoples. One long established way of weakening the identity of minorities has been to deport them to the Siberia (often a death sentence for many of them) and replacing them with ethnic Russians. This was even enouraged by Stalin, who despite being a Georgian was interested in achieving hegemony at any cost. The result can be seen in the Donbas and Crimea, although ironically most of the inhabitants preferred closer ties with the EU regardless of ethnicity - even the ethnic Russians could see what an authoritarian basket case Russia is under Putin.
Either you know f*ck all about Russian and Soviet politics, or you're a Kremlin troll.
Of course I am. So.. can you go borrow books or videos written in Ukrainian from Russian libraries? You can't do the reverse in Ukraine, because they've been removed and burned. Evicting the monks from a monastery in Kiev has been in the news recently. Well, some news. I'm fairly sure freedom of religion and expression are core concepts of our 'western values' though.
However, this is changing, ie we're busy pulling down statues, renaming buildings and roads in the name of 'de-colonisation'. Or, back to the subject of TikTok.. we're working on bannning that because Chinese. Or maybe it just demonstrates some of the things that are wrong with the West-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_TikTok
In March 2023, the UK government announced that TikTok would be banned on electronic devices used by ministers and other employees, amid security concerns relating to the app's handling of user data.
We're IT types, so might be wondering why TikTok or other social media apps were ever allowed on official devices in the first place. Or, perhaps more worrying is the good/bad news from the US-
In 2023, the United States Government is trying to pass the DATA and RESTRICT act. The DATA Act was introduced by Michael McCaul, if passed the bill the DATA Act would ban selling non-public personal data to third party buyers.
The DATA Act is arguably a good thing, about time and arguably doesn't go far enough. Like it should also ban harvesting of non-public personal data by first parties. Naturally 'Big Tech' is opposed to this proposal. The 'RESTRICT Act' is far, far worse-
This will let the government investigate and possibly ban any site they deem a threat to national security. A violation of the ban by a US national would be punishable by a fine of up to $1,000,000 and/or up to 20 years in prison. While RESTRICT act doesn't call TikTok by name, it has been heavily implied as this bill is being written at the same time elected officials are calling for the ban of TikTok..
It doesn't mention TikTok by name intentionally because the scope is much wider. Any app, company or individual deemed a threat to 'national security', for example by commenting on 'vid, challenging narratives about this conflict, or maybe questioning politicians business dealings could be thrown in jail for 20 years. It doesn't go quite so far as to shoot the messenger, but could be used to close down or control 'free' speech on Twitter, FaceBook etc etc.
Of course I am. So.. can you go borrow books or videos written in Ukrainian from Russian libraries?
Based on the fact that in Russia people have been thrown in prison for wearing blue and yellow because that's the colours in Ukraine's flag, I somehow doubt that you can borrow books or videos in Ukrainian from Russian libraries.
If you can, it'll just be a nice easy way to target people who aren't onboard with the whole genocide thing.
So Russia kinda noticed we rely a lot on air power. So it developed ways to counter air superiority and came up with very effective layered GBAD that can detect, engage and destroy aircraft and incoming missiles at long ranges.
Yes, Iraq had lots of those. It worked well, didn't it?
Go on, mention that those were "export versions" and the Russian versions are much better. That was said about the tanks, and they have lost just shy of 2000 of those where we have photos or videos of them being destroyed, which is going to be well short of the totals so that clearly wasn't actually true.
And then there's the boring logistics. Russia claims to be producing 1-1,500 new tanks every year.
Yes. We've seen the 1000 - 1500 T14's produced victoriously rolling across Ukraine.
Alternately it might be a standing joke that Russia's T14 stands for "Total of 14 Built" and they might be dusting off T54's (having run out of T90's, T80's, T72's, T64's and T62's) because they don't have anything else left.
Sure, we're also sending 4 Challenger 2s and some other assorted AFVs.
28, actually. And this weeks threat of nuclear war over them being provided with standard anti tank shells suggests Mr Putin has extreme confidence in the ability of his super powered new 1000-1500 tanks to deal with those 28.
Yes, Iraq had lots of those. It worked well, didn't it?
That was 1991 and a very different environment. And yes, there are also differences in export versions of both Russian and NATO/Western weapon systems.
Alternately it might be a standing joke that Russia's T14 stands for "Total of 14 Built" and they might be dusting off T54's (having run out of T90's, T80's, T72's, T64's and T62's) because they don't have anything else left.
Why would Russia need (or want) to risk it's T-14's in a conflict against a few dozen tanks designed in the 1970s to counter those 'antique' Russian tanks? There have been some videos of T-14s operating in Ukraine, but there have also been Tik Tok and other videos showing 'new' MBTs, AFVs and IFVs being transported into Ukraine. Again it's a simple logistics thing. According to our trusted media, Russia ran out of missiles, tanks and ammunition early last year, yet the conflict shows no sign of stopping. We've been steadily de-industrialising and crippling our economies, Russia.. Hasn't. Russia can produce exponentially more MBTs than the UK currently can, and restarting tank production will take years. Or maybe the EU can create a EuroTank, which would probably take decades to agree a design(s) and start production.
And this weeks threat of nuclear war over them being provided with standard anti tank shells suggests Mr Putin has extreme confidence in the ability of his super powered new 1000-1500 tanks to deal with those 28.
Uranium is a toxic heavy metal that is environmentally persistent. Not exactly the kind of mineral powder you'd want fertilising Ukraine's rich, agricultural lands. Especially if you're hoping to export that produce to the EU any time in the next few centuries. And why would you assume Russia needs tanks? Most of the AFV destroyed on both sides of this conflict have been destroyed by missiles or artillery. Russia seems to have more of that and more production capacity than we do.
"Why would Russia need (or want) to risk it's T-14's in a conflict against a few dozen tanks designed in the 1970s to counter those 'antique' Russian tanks?"
Possibly because for much of the war, particularly at the start, Russian tanks were being destroyed in large numbers by NLAW and Javelin, plus older soviet-era ATGMs. The weapon systems that T-14 was specifically supposed to be well protected against.
It's not entirely sensible to boast you have a tank that is less vulnerable to these weapons, but then deploy older vehicles that are very vulnerable to those weapons, with subsequent loss of vehicle and trained crew.
The weapon systems that T-14 was specifically supposed to be well protected against.
You answered your own question. M1s and Leopards have been destroyed or disabled by older generation ATGMs, or in the case of Iraq, an RPG made a neat hole widthways through an M1. But again, why risk the intelligence loss of a T-14 when you can just use artillery or missiles to destroy or disable tanks you know you can defeat, before they even get into range?
..but then deploy older vehicles that are very vulnerable to those weapons, with subsequent loss of vehicle and trained crew.
Both sides face exactly the same problem given the attrition rates. One one side, there's a limited number of Ukrainians being trained on NATO tanks, but a larger pool of reservists who're familiar with Ukrainian/Russian kit. On the other, a similarly smaller pool of Russians trained on T-14s, but familiar with the older models.
Again it's down to logistics and manpower. Or policy. Why are modern economys like Norway and FInland struggling to get enough electricity to power their industries?
The use of layered Ground Based air Defence and in fact integrated air defence (including aircraft as well) is not a response to western ways of war since 1990, it was integral in the Soviet (1970's and 1980's) system too. The Egyptians deployed that approach in 1973 effectively (initially) against the Israelis, until the Israelis worked out how to deal with it.
It is probably more accurate to state that the 'Western Way of War', deploying air power at the start, is the response to layered GBAD.
Certainly, much western technology was designed specifically because of the Soviet systems of layered air defence - the design work on the Brimstone missile system started since the option of directly overflying a Soviet tank column to attack it with BL755 cluster munitions was deemed to be increasingly unfeasible, for example.
Yup, the Russians are reported to making increased use of glide munitions based on air dropped bombs - though the reports I've seen to date suggest that these are being used as part of their 'strategic' campaign to attack cities rather than military units.
Tank delivers - Apart for the US M1's , which seem to be scheduled now for late Summer / early autumn (an improvement of possible next year which was the original date), the modern western tank deliveries seem to be mostly scheduled for, well, about now, and over the next few weeks. The total western pledges amount to fourteen (not four) Challenger II, plus around seventy Leopard 2 (in various marks). There are also thirty PT-91 pledged by Poland (not quite up to the same standard, but better than much of what the Russians are using).
Then there are the thirty (sorry, 31) M1's promised by the US. Also promised are ~100 Leopard 1's: not as good as the modern kit, but better than the T62's the Russians have already been using, and the T54's that have been reportedly seen being deployed. Delivery on the Leo-1's is probably going to be a while though, since they need to come from store.
So that's around 100 to 150 modern tanks (excluding the Leo-1s) delivered or due within the next few weeks (measured against the Ukrainian requested for 300 modern tanks).
And they are supported by a plethora of APC's, IFVs, SP artillery, recovery vehicles, combat engineer vehicles, logistics vehicles, oh yes, and a layered ground based air defense system that includes long range SAM systems like Patriot, down to heavy machineguns with thermal sights for close in anti-drone defense.
"There, an armoured vehicle with a 10km+ range is still very effective in a layered defence" ?
The longest tank-vs-tank kill on record is, I think, 5300m by a Chally 1 vs an Iraqi T55 in 1991. Anything beyond 3km is optimist for a western tank; for the Russian vehicles, (particularly with the training standards they seem to have) a hit at 2km is probably pushing it.
"Russia claims to be producing 1-1,500 new tanks every year"
Russia claims lots of things. They claimed to have destroyed more than twice as many Bayraktar drones than have been made for all users. What the Russians claim is not necessarily true.
I suspect (based on a varied of sources, including the likes of the weekly videos by Peron, which are well worth watching), Russia will struggle to produce a tenth of that figure as genuinely new tanks.
"We expected the 'shock and awe' sanctions to bring Russia to it's knees"
Speak for yourself.
Sanctions applied to South Africa lasted a couple of decades I think. They contributed to the SA government's decision to end apartheid, but didn't destroy the country.
The British blockade of Germany in WW1 started almost on day 1 of the war. It had a significant impact (the Hunger winter / turnip winter), and contributed to the military/industrial/political collapse of Germany that ended the war, but didn't achieve the end of the war on it's own.
I'm quite certain that the people that planned the sanctions hoped that they would have a faster impact on Russian than they have had, and possibly even expected them to be a bit more effective, but I doubt that they expected that Russia was going to collapse within a few months or a few hours of their application, whatever you've seen in >media outlet of your choice<.
It's the largest war since WW2.
I can only assume you mean, "in Europe".
How does one determine the "scale" of a war? The death toll is one criterion (certainly a lot more people are involved or affected than dead). The Korean War, the Vietnam Was, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan all had a much higher death toll than the Russia-Ukraine war, all happened after WW2, and all are very well known indeed. But even at the same time with the Russia-Ukraine war the Ethiopia-Tigray(-Eritrea) conflict has killed a lot more people (and more again if you count the Ethiopia-Eritrea war ~20-25 years ago - that alone probably caused more deaths than the War in Ukraine so far). It just doesn't dominate our news cycles. I have no idea whether Norwegian ammo is involved, either - for all I know the weaponry may be primarily Russian/Chinese.
The war in Ukraine is horrible, don''t get me wrong. The point is that it still fails to give one quite the full picture of the horrors of either the past or even of today.
Western governments stop being so feeble.
I notice, from the Grauniad, an article containing the following:
A draft plan to force data centres to publish their environmental impact was obtained by Politico last year. Authorities “should not be put in the position of having to choose between attracting … data centres on the one hand and ensuring that businesses and households can access electricity on the other hand,” the plan said.
Excuse me, what? It is an extraordinary statement --- whose job is it? Oh no, we're powerless to stop a foreign companies building datacentres with massive loads to create local or national energy scarcity in our country, whatever shall we do?
I would suggest that we decommission any form of reliable power generation such as coal and nuclear, don't deploy any replacements and bet the continued ability to keep the lights on on the promises in the marketing brochures for wind turbines (which overstate production by at least 100% and understate how frequently the wind doesn't blow), stop production of gas in our countries and rely on importing all of the gas required to keep the lights and heating on from Russia. I would also suggest dismissing concerns from people who suggest that Russia might decide to use energy as a weapon; Russia says that they are our fraternal comrades who would never do anything bad, and obviously anybody doubting their word is xenophobic.
</sarcasm>
The real question is not "have these policies reduced people to poverty" and "have these policies killed people", but "how many people have been reduced to poverty by these policies" and "how many people have these policies killed".
We had similar issue in northern British Columbia, Canada where local mining, oil & gas and other industrial operations were SQUEEZING BC Hydro's energy supplies and our Northern BC Data centre was in danger of being cut off from BC Hydro! We then went for a few years over to a propane fuel gas turbine system for the multi-gigawatts we needed.
At one time we were the largest single user of Propane in Western Canada! The system worked GREAT until bulk propane went past 50 cents CDN per litre so we then went a custom-designed and built Methanol Fuel Cell which is ultra quiet and outputs only warm water, powdered carbon and no NOx gasses! We create the methanol ourselves from ocean seawater using an iron oxide catalysis and cyano-bacteria sludge process. We use Gigawatts of power for the data centre and have enough on-site Methanol reserves to power the system for at least 3 months at a time.
Sooooooo, it means there are AT LEAST THREE OPTIONS to power an industrial production plant efficiently and relatively inexpensively! Hydro Electricity (i.e. using local small-form factor Run-of-the-River dams), Natural Gas turbine generators, propane-nased power generators and liquid Methanol or Hydrogen gas Proton-Proton Exchange Membrane-based Fuel Cells! Our power costs are now about 15 to 17 cents per kilowatt hour which is pretty good for a fully off-grid self-sustaining power production system. Even though BC Hydro is 10 to 13 cents per kilowatt hour (i.e. is cheaper), the fully independent off-grid capability we gained by going to fuel cells more than made up for not using BC Hydro!
So the lesson here is to RESEARCH your power supply options and if necessary even buying massive BULK quantities (one million litres and more!) of Diesel sent to ultra efficient generators, MAY BE PREFERABLE to hooking up to your local state or federal-level energy supplier! In our case, we went with Methanol Fuel Cells. It's not the right choice for everyone BUT there ARE lots of power production options available! ALSO do check out Caterpillar Gas turbine generators at tthe FINNING website! You get industrial scales of power generation at relatively decent prices!
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