Demographic Winter in Japan . . . And Beyond

[HerCrazierHalf]

Let me offer another scenario: if anyone has been watching the fires in California lately along with the accompanying power blackouts, the long term effect is that this will stoke the demand for technologies that reduce our reliance on aging electrical grids and you can be certain these technologies will be exported from here.

And this is where legislation and policy comes into play. To some extent the state and utilities crate a barrier. Going “off the grid” isn’t allowed but at the same time the electric company has to approve your solar installation (whichis against their interest) among other things stalling what is technically feasible.

 

[Maximus1]

It reminds me that we experience renewal of young families via our southern border and should not be placing immigration restrictions of means testing. Young families always draw more tax dollars as their kids are educated etc. But in a generation society gets a return.

 

[Zzyzx_Road]

Think to remember about current solar panel installations: in spite of what some people think, solar panel installations mostly do not permit one to continue getting power from the panels when the utility power is out. So there is currently no benefit at all to that; the only benefit one gets today is the potential cost savings in electrical power during high usage times of the year in very hot regions or in cold regions that rely solely on electricity to provide heating.

The reason for this on the surface is that solar panels aren’t designed to feed power to the house, they’re designed to feed power to the grid for which the consumers get reimbursed via credits to their electric bills. So when there is an outage, the panel circuit is designed to switch itself off so it doesn’t feed power to the grid while the grid power is out. This would be a safety hazard to linemen potentially working on a problem so the utility has to insure that there is no live power coming in.

When I found that out, solar became a lot less attractive to me. What’s the point if I can’t have any power at all during outages? This appears to be a resistance point on the part of utilities not wanting to lose business, but if the utilities are cutting off power as is happening in California, then there is going to be definite demand for solar panels (and/or battery systems) designed to feed power to the house during an outage. I think the technology is there to rewire these systems with some sort of switching capability that would allow the house to be fed by panels (or batteries) during outages, yet not feed power to the grid if it doesn’t detect an active grid.

 

[drcube]

I was surprised that the percentage of women in places of economic and political power was 12%. I haven’t been there is over a decade, but it was much lower than that in the aughts.

 

[HerCrazierHalf]

Think to remember about current solar panel installations: in spite of what some people think, solar panel installations mostly do not permit one to continue getting power from the panels when the utility power is out.

That is true for most systems for the safety reasons you mentioned. Practically speaking, a battery system would be required to make an “off grid” system With the proper disconnect from the grid viable. However, current regulations take away that value because one can’t disconnect from the grid.

 

[HumbleIOughtToBe]

This is a 7 sentence summary made by the following URL https://smmry.com/https://stream.org/demographic-winter-in-japan-and-beyond/#&SM_LENGTH=7

"Demographic Winter in Japan … and Beyond

For a nation’s population to maintain itself the fertility rate needs to be 2.1 children per woman of child bearing age.

Japan’s lowest rate was in 2005 with a rate of 1.26.

Unsurprisingly, in Japan there are fewer weddings and more virgins.

In 2018, the marriage rate stood at 4.7 per 1,000 members of the population, compared to over 10 in the 1970s In 2015, the proportion of those who had never married at age 50 reached 23% for men and 14% for women, the highest levels ever.

How many families do you know with only two children? If a couple have only two children they are below the population replacement level.

Many would say they can’t afford more children.

Demographic decline will only be reversed when children are seen to be a benefit instead of a liability."