Solar's on Fire in San Diego, um, um, literally....

[NNadir]

A small house fire caused by a solar panel in San Diego last week exposed a potentially dangerous flaw in the building codes of many cities across California, which is pushing for tens of thousands of homeowners to install the generating systems on their rooftops.

Experts say that in most cities, installers are not required to place a switch on the roof to cut power from panels in an emergency ---- leaving firefighters unable to put out certain fires and helpless to stop dangerous amounts of electricity from flowing along wires as long as the sun is shining. Temecula, which requires a separate shut-off, appears to be the sole local exception.

Amy Pavis had a solar-powered electrical fire on her Lake Murray-area home on Wednesday, and it wouldn't go out.

Fed by electricity from her rooftop solar panels, the fire smoldered for hours despite repeated applications of a household fire extinguisher and the efforts of the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department. Only after an electrician arrived to cut the wires leading from the panels were the flames put down for good.

Pavis was home with her two children Wednesday when a painter she'd hired came in reporting "a funny smell." Soon he returned to report smoke coming out of the inverter box, the unit that converts DC power from the solar panels to AC current for the house.

Pavis flipped the cutoff switch to disconnect the power and began calling electricians. After five declined to help, she reached Mark Snyder, a Poway-based master electrician and solar installer.

"While on the phone with Mark, the converter box caught fire," Pavis said...

...The challenge is, until we had enough systems out there, if we had an incident it was so actuarially insignificant," she said. "There was no generic problem."

In the meantime, Pavis said she isn't sure if she wants to continue being a solar guinea pig.

"I had them cut all the wires to both of the panels right now until we find out what the heck is going on," she said. She said it had been a stressful day. "It wasn't fun."

Solar guinea pig?

I think we're all solar guinea pigs being pigged by the coal/oil/gas funded anti-nuke industry, since the purpose of the solar industry is to create complacency around the coal/oil/gas industry. It's not like the solar PV industry has been able to produce significant energy anywhere

http://www.nctimes.com/business/article_8a32fb03-9e3f-58ca-b860-9c7fe1e28c7e.html">Solar's on fire in San Diego.

[jpak]

1. Here's a story about the Brown's Ferry nuclear plant fire in 1975

have a nice tritiated aquifer NJ nuclear guinea pig day...

http://www.ccnr.org/browns_ferry.html#ca

How a Candle Caused a Nuclear Emergency

At noon on March 22, 1975, both Units 1 and 2 at the Brown's Ferry plant in Alabama were operating at full power, delivering 2200 megawatts of electricity to the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Just below the plant's control room, two electricians were trying to seal air leaks in the cable spreading room, where the electrical cables that control the two reactors are separated and routed through different tunnels to the reactor buildings. They were using strips of spongy foam rubber to seal the leaks. They were also using candles to determine whether or not the leaks had been successfully plugged -- by observing how the flame was affected by escaping air.

The electrical engineer put the candle too close to the foam rubber, and it burst into flame.

The resulting fire, which disabled a large number of engineered safety systems at the plant, including the entire emergency core cooling system (ECCS) on Unit 1, and almost resulted in a boiloff/meltdown accident, demonstrates the vulnerability of nuclear plants to "single failure" events and human fallibility.

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:nuke:

[Kolesar]

2. "the purpose of the solar industry is to create complacency around the coal/oil/gas industry"

Do you recall having struck your head on something recently?

[Javaman]

3. He does that from time to time...

he just refuses to learn.

go figure.

[Go2Peace]

4. "I am extremely arrogant, extremely conceited, dismissive, insulting, fierce and rude. "

From his blog.

Then he goes on to say:

" Other than those small drawbacks, I think I'm a nice guy."

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: