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Largest Sodium Sulfur Battery Powers a Texas Town
separsons writes "The largest sodium sulfur battery in America, nicknamed 'BOB,' can provide enough electricity to power all of Presidio, Texas. Until now, the small town relied on a single 60-year-old transmission line to connect it to the grid, so the community frequently experienced power outages. BOB, which stands for 'Big-Old Battery,' began charging earlier this week. The house-sized battery can deliver four megawatts of power for up to eight hours. Utilities are looking into similar batteries to store power from solar and wind so that renewables can come online before the country implements a smart grid system."
How dare they...
Never say never. Ah!! I did it again!
Talk about shooting the rope that's tied to a balloon that hits the hamster cage, that turns the treadmill, that throws the basketball onto the lightswitch to turn on the light!!!
In Dwarf Fortress, you turn the switch, that opens the door, that lets the goblin in, who steps in the pressure plate, that connects the windmill, that pumps the magma, that runs under the water, that evaporates, passes through the grates, incinerates the goblin, who releases the pressure plate, closes the door and resets the trap.
Or that's what the engineer described before flooding half the fortress and turning the other half into a convoluted basalt sculpture.
But they all agreed on Purple Monkey Dishwasher.
"You saved 1968." - Ms. Valerie Pringle to the crew of Apollo 8
They all agree the battery costs $25mill, 2/3 agree that the 2nd transmission line will be built in 2012, and none of them agree on the price of the 2nd line.
You don't work in IT do you? If you did you'd realise that sounds like any typical project plan.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Look in any computer shop and you'll see NaS storage systems!
Flywheels could also have been used. I'll expect those to pop up next to gas stations as electric cars will replace gas-guzzlers. Easy to store energy slowly over long time and rapid dischagre for rush hours.
Now they have to open supply line and contract another energy supplier (diesel is just another way of transporting energy). They already have the power line in place and are all ready contracting with the power supplied. Keeping this Battery charged will actually reduce their per kw cost, as the over all volume will go up. As for environmental, building a pipe line, or trucking in Diesel would have it's own environmental impact. Never mind that you would have to store an explosive material.
More power to them.
Call me old-fashioned, but I'd go 100% eco with a gerbil in a wheel or a hand crank if the demand doesn't exceed 4mW.
Wet being the other
Just go static, stick two metal rods in a lemon.
What a depressingly stupid machine.
Nah, they just used the Vista file copy dialog to calculate the price.
You mean a BOL - Big Old Lemon.
No good, A Hogshead is already defined as 54 imperial gallons
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogshead
You don't work in IT do you? If you did you'd realise that sounds like any typical project plan.
No it doesn't. They all agreed on the delivery date.
That's nice, and when the oil runs out to power the machinery and civilization that can build windmills, batteries and solar panels, then what? You think you can build a wind turbine with wind power?
It's the BIG OL' BAT'RY. You bunch of citified nerds. Have some respect for the Good-Old Boys.
I'm confident the technology exists to keep something dry, in 2010.
I, for one, am quite happy with my "roof", as it's called.
I am not a crackpot.
Yes... I think I can build a wind turbine with electricity.
I'm confident the technology exists to keep something dry, in 2010.
I, for one, am quite happy with my "roof", as it's called.
Actually I've just been granted a patent on the 'roof' and so...
Oh. Wrong kind of Texas story. Sorry.
You'll need some bio oils for lubrification, plastics and rubber, but everything quite on the realm of the possible.
I know where we can get the bio oils! From the WHALES!!!! Come to think of it, we can just power the lamps directly from the whale oil! No electricity needed!