Real Estate Crash thread

[Skidog]

In any power critical environment you have three sources of power: utility, battery, and backup with a transfer switch in between.

Even the grid has battery backup.

https://www.pge.com/en/about/newsroo..._420_megawatts

And likely a row of diesel gens

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[MontuckyFried]

Sorry, poor choice of words. I should have said "you can pretty easily erase the eastern/western domestic usage discrepancy with the stroke of a pen."

Ah. Fair point. I concede your revised statement, then.

[Toadman]

The definitive question of whether or not we are in a housing bubble has been answered. Now prepare for the bubble to burst....

https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/27/econo...own/index.html

Preventing a boom-bust scenario
The good news is there are signs the housing market is self-correcting as a result of these heady price gains.

New home sales unexpectedly declined in June to the weakest pace since April 2020, according to data released Monday, marking the third straight month of declines. Existing home sales declined for four months in a row before inching higher in June.

Across the U.S., house prices are skyrocketing, bidding wars are the norm and supply is scarcer than ever. Now the market is too hot even for homebuilders.
The housing market is on fire. The Fed keeps adding gasoline
“Some buyers are simply being priced out,” said Yun.

Instead of paying what they view as unreasonable prices, some prospective home buyers are deciding to wait on the sidelines and rent.

“This may be a blessing in disguise,” said Markowska of Jefferies, pointing out that home prices may be able to cool off as inventories rise. “It elongates the housing cycle and prevents a boom-bust dynamic.”

[liv2ski]

I guarantee you not a single solar installer in California will install that system.

You're wrong. These are selling like hotcakes at the Firehouse breakfast. Enphase IQ8 microinverters.

https://www.renvu.com/Learn/Enphase-...Quick-Overview

[dan_pdx]

The definitive question of whether or not we are in a housing bubble has been answered. Now prepare for the bubble to burst....

I'd like to arrange for it to burst after we sell, but before we buy, can we work on that?

[4matic]

You're wrong. These are selling like hotcakes at the Firehouse breakfast. Enphase IQ8 microinverters.

Emphases iQ 8 has not been released for sale in USA and it won’t function like you said in a regulated utility.

[liv2ski]

Emphases iQ 8 has not been released for sale in USA and it won’t function like you said in a regulated utility.

It will be released in the 4th quarter and is CA rule 21 compliant, so we will see. Based on what I read, it will perform as I said.

[4matic]

It will be released in the 4th quarter and is CA rule 21 compliant, so we will see. Based on what I read, it will perform as I said.

So you agree that under current regulation there are no approved inverters that switch direct from grid to power without battery in the middle and anyone doing so is in violation of current regulation?

It also can be Rule 21 compliant when not run in the configuration you suggest which is the case now.

[Benny Profane]

Meanwhile in the rental market-

Attachment 380663

The listing was up for two hours before it was rented. Owner said he had 8 people in line behind the person he rented it to.

I did a preliminary dive into possible travel scenarios for this winter, and, man, Even AirB&B in a place like Summit County, not my favorite place, and useless on weekends, is just, wtf? Furgetabout Big Sky. At the same time, Europe just looks so much affordable. Great meals included. Getting to be a no brainer. Advantage, East Coast, JFK down the road.

[skaredshtles]

<snip> Europe just looks so much affordable. Great meals included. Getting to be a no brainer. Advantage, East Coast, JFK down the road.

Yup. Yurp is definitely going to get more American tourist $$, I'd wager, this winter.

[Toadman]

I'd like to arrange for it to burst after we sell, but before we buy, can we work on that?

https://clip.cafe/big-trouble-in-lit...erjack-timing/

[AdironRider]

I guarantee you not a single solar installer in California will install that system. It’s dangerous and a liability. Every time a cloud goes by you’d drop power eventually blowing out your devices.

“Therefore, utility rules mandate that in the event of a power outage, solar arrays must automatically shut down. Solar systems have detectors that sense whether power is coming across the grid, and whenever grid power is down, they automatically shut down too, to protect utility workers.”

The only way the E5 would be legal to operate without battery is an off grid system. Further, even if you could run that system in a grid powered location you would have to specify a single circuit, like refrigerator, with a known max current requirement. It’s not like you just transfer the whole house without power conditioning.

The appeal of solar to me is to be off-grid and not deal with power company bullshit like you outline above. The environment stuff is all pixie dust after they mine all the materials and what have you but that independence would be great.

[liv2ski]

I did a preliminary dive into possible travel scenarios for this winter, and, man, Even AirB&B in a place like Summit County, not my favorite place, and useless on weekends, is just, wtf? Furgetabout Big Sky. At the same time, Europe just looks so much affordable. Great meals included. Getting to be a no brainer. Advantage, East Coast, JFK down the road.

I have been looking at business class fares to Yurp and they recently doubled in cost. I just didn't have faith to pull the trigger on the Sept direct flight from San Diego to London a few weeks ago, as I am worried Delta will fuck everything up again in a few months. Hope I am wrong. And lodging at Mammoth for 30 days is now out in left field. Glad I pulled the trigger on that a few weeks ago. Bottom line, everything is as expensive as I have ever seen it.

[Bunion 2020]

Opinion: Iron-air batteries: Huge green-energy breakthrough, or just a lot of hype?

The most important news story of 1903 received modest coverage, and it wasn’t very accurate.

Two brothers from Dayton, Ohio, conducted four machine-powered, heavier-than-air flights under human control on a single day in December. The Virginian-Pilot newspaper in Norfolk, not far from the Kitty Hawk, N.C., testing ground, ran an exaggerated account of the Wright Brothers’ triumph — but in Dayton, a hometown paper, refused to mention it. “Man will never fly,” a local editor harrumphed (perhaps apocryphally). “And if he does, he won’t be from Dayton.”

Another possible milestone of technology passed quietly not long ago. It might be the beginning of the end for fossil fuels and the key to reaching the goal of a green power grid. If so, it will certainly be among the most important stories of the year — bigger than space tourism, bigger than the Arizona election audit, bigger than the discovery that the amazing Simone Biles is human, not a god.
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One caveat: Very few engineering breakthroughs change the world. Most end up being less than meets the eye. That said, let’s have a look.

A Boston-area company, Form Energy, announced recently that it has created a battery prototype that stores large amounts of power and releases it not over hours, but over more than four days. And that isn’t the best part. The battery’s main ingredients are iron and oxygen, both incredibly plentiful here on God’s green Earth — and therefore reliably cheap.

Put the two facts together, and you arrive at a sort of tipping point for green energy: reliable power from renewable sources at less than $20 per kilowatt-hour.

Some readers of this column will be experts in battery technology, and for them it may be useful to note that the history of battery engineering is littered with duds that were heavy on hype and big on disappointment — including earlier iron-air cells.
Advertisement

Other readers (and this columnist) are not experts. For them, it may be helpful to explain why the right storage battery could be so crucial to a climate-friendly energy future — whether it is this battery or a better one down the road.

Use of renewable energy sources, especially wind and solar, has grown dramatically over the past generation, but renewables still comprise a small slice of the total U.S. energy budget. Storage is holding them back. People need electricity all the time, not just when the sun shines or the wind blows.

The cost of storage is critical. Utilities will change sources if the price is right. Coal used to be king in the power sector, but cheap natural gas has cut coal’s share of the energy diet in half since 2005. Renewables will never meet their potential until battery storage for green power is cost-competitive.
Advertisement

Say, $20 or less.

Form Energy is no seat-of-the-pants outfit. Its founders include Mateo Jaramillo, former head of battery development for Tesla, and MIT professor Yet-Ming Chiang, among the world’s foremost battery scientists. Investors include Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Amazon founder and Post owner Jeff Bezos, the iron and steel colossus ArcelorMittal, and MIT’s The Engine, a strategic fund aimed at long-term solutions to big problems.

At Tesla, Jaramillo understood that electric vehicles are a limited solution to greenhouse emissions as long as batteries are charged by burning fossil fuels. His new venture looked at past disappointments in battery technology to find the most promising for a new approach.

Small pellets of iron — among the five most plentiful elements in the Earth’s crust — release energy when exposed to oxygen. By reversing the process of oxidation (commonly known as rusting), the battery stores energy. Repeatedly rusting and unrusting the iron allows the cell to charge and discharge electricity.
Advertisement

According to its announcement, Form Energy has the process working well under lab conditions. The next step is to build a warehouse-size battery plant to support an electric utility in Minnesota. If successful, a one-megawatt battery will be able to power the entire utility for nearly a week between charges by 2024.

Then we’ll begin to know just how important this is.

And wait — as the old TV ads liked to say — there’s more. This battery might be worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize, too. The best rechargeable batteries currently rely on lithium as their vital ingredient, a rare earth mineral roughly 2,000 times less plentiful than iron. Global security experts have talked about a coming “war” for lithium as the scarce element powers the future.

If iron can take over large-scale storage from lithium, it will cool the flame under that kettle. The United States can aim for self-sufficiency in storage batteries. And this truly will be a blockbuster story of 2021.

Sounds promising

[abraham]

The discussion at hand is about domestic consumption in the east versus the west. I'm quite confident that I know far more about water use in the west than you do. I've written extensively about agricultural vs. domestic water use previously (see the California's Dry thread).

Forgot to add this earlier. This article seems like it would be interesting to you given your work. If I remember it correctly.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-soi...ange-20210727/

[sirbumpsalot]

Fair price?

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1...9304349_zpid/?

[Core Shot]

Fair price?

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1...9304349_zpid/?

$2,141 Per square foot. Sure. Why not


I know. It’s an acre and a half zoned commercial. But wtf do you do with land at that price? I bought 18,000 square feet commercial on a acre and a half for $1.1. It’s a big part of my retirement. But Fuck me. A tear down 900 foot shanty?

[sirbumpsalot]

$2,141 Per square foot. Sure. Why not


I know. It’s an acre and a half zoned commercial. But wtf do you do with land at that price? I bought 18,000 square feet commercial on a acre and a half for $1.1. It’s a big part of my retirement. But Fuck me. A tear down 900 foot shanty?

Acre and a half??? It lists as 7666 sqft lot!

[Toadman]

Fair price?

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1...9304349_zpid/?

That's an expensive tear down.

[Core Shot]

Acre and a half??? It lists as 7666 sqft lot!

Fuck. I messed up that quick math.
I was thinking feet in a mile vs feet in an acre. Durrrrr

0.18 acres. Tiny lot. Tiny home.

Holy jeebus that’s fucked.

[altasnob]

Oprah bought a house on Orcas Island, WA for $8 mil in 2018. Just sold it for $14 mil, the most expensive sale ever on the island.

https://www.redfin.com/WA/Eastsound/...home/104479560

https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/...nd-estate.html

[dan_pdx]

Oprah bought a house on Orcas Island, WA for $8 mil in 2018. Just sold it for $14 mil, the most expensive sale ever on the island.

https://www.redfin.com/WA/Eastsound/...home/104479560

https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/...nd-estate.html

I guess something modest and small like that would be OK if you really just wanted a little something for a few quick weekend trips a year. Definitely not a place you could live in longterm, of course

[dunfree]

What’s the ceiling structure thing?

[dan_pdx]

What’s the ceiling structure thing?

Ugly sculpture?

Kinetic sculpture?

[neufox47]

I guess something modest and small like that would be OK if you really just wanted a little something for a few quick weekend trips a year. Definitely not a place you could live in longterm, of course

It’s a nice Cottage