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Power Electronics Help to Control Electrical Grids
An anonymous reader writes: "IEEE Spectrum magazine has a timely article about how power electronics are proving necessary for the widespread connection of wind turbines to the electric power grid. It explains many issues that currently make it difficult to utilize wind power. Older articles discuss other issues affecting the nation's power grid."
It's much easier to regulate DC with power electronics. AC was needed back when the only way to change voltage was using a transformer. Now it is obsolete.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
Bullshit, we can blame ourselves for overconsumption and the NIMBY's (Not In My BackYard) more than the environmentalists. I hate that knee-jerk response to everything - "It's the environmentalists fault".
So often it is. Look at catalytic converters on cars if you don't believe me - they eat about 20% of your gas mileage by making the engine pump exhaust out against a restriction. Acid rain wasn't caused by cars until the tree-huggers pestered the EPA and got them on all cars. Before we had a little unburnt gasoline and a little NOx leaving tailpipes. Both are unpleasant, but nature copes with them because they're both inherently unstable in the atmosphere. Now, we have 20% more CO2 than is necessary from each vehicle, and the added bonus of sulphur hydroxide formed in the catalytic!
Or consider all the enviro-wacko laws on industry. Fine. Between enviromentalists and trade unions pushing up the cost of doing business, I don't blame them for moving to third-world hell-holes. And that's better? Love Canal is happening in China, and protesters demanding reasonable safety from industrial waste aren't being quietly placated, but they're being shot. Not only that, but now we have to waste energy shipping raw materials and finished product greater distances!
Environmentalism is too often about stupid band-aid solutions and silly platitudes espoused by people with arts degrees and toe rings. Real environmental solutions are about doing unpleasant things. Forget the crappy low-flow toilet that makes dimwits feel oh-so-good but takes 6 flushes to get rid of the Dark Matter. Use a regular toilet which takes 1 flush. Better still if you can, use the waste water from your washing machine or shower to flush it.
Even with all the technology that we've created to make lower power devices we just find a way to get more devices. I saw how they were working on LED's as a better, more efficient lightsource that can do task lighting for about 1 watt of power. I mention this at work and some jackass comes up behind me and says how cool it would be to be able to have a wall full of them and be able to change the color of his walls with his mood - POWER SAVINGS - what power savings?
Well, assuming he wants a comfortable quantity of light in his room, then he will only be able to stand to use so much power in his LEDs, right? If the guy wants to supplant his ordinary room lighting with this, isn't that fine, or do we no longer have a society based on personal freedom? The net energy consumption would be less than ordinary room lighting... woah, wait a minute. Have we considered the energy and environmental cost involved in processing all those little silion wafers being made into LEDs? When you consider the energy going into the whole system, incandescents aren't so bad.
It's a balancing act. First we have a grid that's just too old and extremely expensive to update. There's a mix of powerplants that are aging, there's poor planning, no incentive to change energy usage habbits, poor city design that promotes heat which in turn increases energy consumption due to airconditioners, extra showers, fans, and refridgerators. Then you have people who don't want a soot belching powerplant in their backyard, or off their favorite camping spot, nor do they want to pay extra for a more expensive cleaner burning plant, or pay extra tax dollars to have research into alternative plans like more efficient solar/wind/water/et al.
I agree with everything you've said there.
My feeling is that we need a decentralized system where power is created in much smaller "nodes" and distributed from those points. Nodes could be created in house basements or in larger buildings and be connected to more evenly distribute power over shorter distances reducing the waste that happens when power has to be transmitted over miles and miles of cable to a destination.
No. Not a good idea.
Power plants operate on a couple of principles, one of them being economy of scale. This economy of scale suggests,
Fire and Meat. Yummy.