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Giving Up Alternating Current
An anonymous reader writes: Yesterday we discussed Soylent, the artificial food substitute created by Rob Rhinehart and his team. As it turns out, this isn't Rhinehart's only unusual sustainability project. In a new post, he explains how he gave up on alternating current — a tough proposition for anyone living in the U.S. and still interested in using all sorts of modern technology. Rhinehart says, "Most power in the US is generated by burning coal, immediately squandering 67% of its energy, then run through a steam turbine, losing another 50%, then sent across transmission lines, losing another 5%, then to charge a DC device like a cell phone another 50% is lost in conversion. This means for 100 watts of coal or oil burned my phone gets a mere 16."
The biggest hindrance was the kitchen. As you might expect for the creator of Soylent, he doesn't cook, and was able to get rid of almost all kitchen appliances because of that. He uses a butane stove for hot beverages. He powers a small computer off batteries, which get their energy from solar panels. For intensive tasks, he remotes to more powerful machines. He re-wired his apartment's LED lighting to run off direct current. Have any of you made similar changes? How much of an effect does this really have?
The biggest hindrance was the kitchen. As you might expect for the creator of Soylent, he doesn't cook, and was able to get rid of almost all kitchen appliances because of that. He uses a butane stove for hot beverages. He powers a small computer off batteries, which get their energy from solar panels. For intensive tasks, he remotes to more powerful machines. He re-wired his apartment's LED lighting to run off direct current. Have any of you made similar changes? How much of an effect does this really have?
It's the new outdoor trend anyway. All the lighting is obviously LED, so no problem there, the gadgets all transform their AC to DC anyway, so no problem there as well, you just need a decent lab trafo.
Washers and dryers that use solar heated water are no problem either, they mix warm and cold as they need it.
Even the small 12 Volt Camping washing machines work very well nowadays.
You cook by gas and use a gas refrigeration unit as well.
There's a German project the 'direct current house' (in German obviously)
http://www.dasgleichstromhaus....
They have solved many problems.
Shouldn't it be powered by his sense of self importance? Or at least by PEOPLE!!
it didn't get me out of the AC section of my final in circuit analysis
Of course not. I'm not a loony.
He's still living on the electrical grid, he's just not using it at home.
Also, WTF? "I enjoy doing laundry about as much as doing dishes. I get my clothing custom made in China for prices you would not believe and have new ones regularly shipped to me."
"For intensive tasks, he remotes to more powerful machines".
So he can't survive without it....
Hey! Make sure to put in my smartest-8th-grader-in-the-room "Did you know that Tesla was a genius!?!?!?!?" rant here!
in DC
So he gave up refrigeration?
an ac synchronous motor is much more efficient than DC alternatives.
Why doesn’t he just use a gas stove?
At that point why heat drinks at all? It’s wastefull.
His low power computer? He’s just using AC remotely.
Why not just move to a mud hut in east Africa?
this experiment is fine if you're doing little LED lights and laptops, but if you're running something like air conditioning or a washing machine you're building a fire hazard and a mortality risk
the decision to use AC over DC was not random nor taken lightly, there are many factors involved (heck, it was a major engineering, corporate, and PR war between Edison and Westinghouse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ), but the right decision was made
for our modern world where some people only care about their laptop and smartphone, it does indeed seem silly and wasteful to convert to AC then back to DC, especially if you've ever tried charging electronics in a car. but there are of course many other uses for electricity, and the navel gazing small electronics crowd is but a minor topic
but i do see a time in the future as more people use local solar and other renewables, that a small DC subsystem is made available in the house for electronics like computers
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I respect the man for having ideals and trying to live up to them.
Of course he has fresh water. That comes from his pipes. Some requires transport from the Colorado River and that uses fuel. Some requires desalination from the Pacific Ocean and that uses fuel. With a water bill comes a related sewer bill. Sewer and effluent treatment require chemicals and fuel.
Of course he has batteries. That's how his solar cell provides his DC power. Both solar cells and batteries cost exotic chemicals/components, and take fuel to produce. Solar cells don't degrade as much over time but the typical deep-cycle battery requires replacement every 24-36 months [depending on the charge, cycle, use, etc.]. This also applies to the TMO cellphone battery he uses to power his TMO Internet.
Of course he buys his clothes from China - has them shipped - and throws away old clothes. This way instead of using water and detergent and some electricity (or some 25 coins and a laundramatt) he uses a lot of jet fuel, some delivery truck fuel, throws away cardboard boxes and plastic wrappers (think hydrocarbons which could be used as fuel, and fuel itself). He feels better because he donates his old clothes. I'm not sure that he thought about this much because ***ALL THE OLD CLOTHES HE DONATES ARE WASHED BY GOODWILL*** or whomever prior to putting on the shelf. So he costs the environment more, not less.
Lastly... that TMO Internet again... he is one of the people who encourages TMO to have towers. Towers have little generators on them so they don't lose power in storms, power outages, etc. Those use fuel which goes bad after a year and must be replaced. That means once a year cellphone tower generator fuel tanks are purged and dumped and new fuel is acquired and put in the tank. [Yes, some carriers have a 2yr schedule and some don't discuss their schedule, but if we're talking ideal... here you go.]
It's good to have ideals. It's nice try and live by them.
Ehud Gavron
Tucson, AZ, where 4 months out of the year the temperature is above 100F and the humidity above 40% so if you don't have an air-conditioner using direct-expansion gas (not a "swamp-cooler" or "mister") you will bake. They don't make any that run on DC. Even if they did, that would be a LOT of solar cells!
No birthday cakes, no cherry pies, no fresh baked bread, no roast pork with caramelized potatoes, no steaks, no cauliflower broccoli cheese casserole, not even any homemade French onion soup? I shudder to think what Julia Child would say to that.
He doesn't cook, and was able to get rid of almost all kitchen appliances because of that. He uses a butane stove for hot beverages. He powers a small computer off batteries, which get their energy from solar panels. For intensive tasks, he remotes to more powerful machines. He re-wired his apartment's LED lighting to run off direct current. Have any of you made similar changes?
No. I have a wife.
saying "Excellent".
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Sounds like he's badly confusing something. I think he's badly misunderstanding how a rectifier works. Some waste of course happens, but not nearly that much.
He has decided upon a very specific, and limiting, style of living. Bravo. Now try applying his philosophy to a household with children. Or a household frequented by guests. Try this in less sunny locales.
I think it is admirable to try to be different, and to advocate alternative. I am completely turned off by his holier than thou attitude and his dismissiveness towards that which does not fit his chosen lifestyle.
queue up the Thomas Edison/Tesla fanbois out there the current wars have returned.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Okay, sure so DC for gadgets and lighting that consume about 1% of household energy. When he has a realistic solution for replacing central heating, cooling, refrigeration, normal kitchen usage, well pumps, water heating and other meaningful uses of electricity then it might be worth listening to.
Meanwhile, Nicola Tesla is doing a giant facepalm.
On an aside - this is the last time I check /. The site has become nothing more than clickbait. Even the Yahoo tech section is better.
Meanwhile, Nikola Tesla is spinning in his grave (probably at about 120hz).
42% of electrical production is used by residential AND COMMERCIAL
10-20% of that is turned back into DC
We should ditch A/C because TFA is worried about conversion losses on a bunch of 10W wall warts?
TFA should do some math on the DC transmission loss to run a 5kW dryer!
Ditching AC is great if you can go off the grid, nearly everything can be converted if you have the knowhow.. the only things that run off AC directly anymore are electric motors, so if you can find a comparable model DC motor and swap it out your fine.. If it dont have a motor simply replace the AC/DC power supply with a nice voltage regulator w/fuse outputting whatever the original did.
The money you'd spend for a really nice inverter can be used to convert or buy appliances that run directly off DC and you wont suffer nearly as much loss so less solar goes further.. now batteries on the other hand, well those will cost you more than using the grid as a storage device.
I am restoring a 1975 Volkswagen Westfallia and not bothering with an AC inverter or circuit.. when you plug the vehicle into mains it simply powers a 60A battery charger/power supply.. every accessory within is 12vDC or LP Gas (Fans/Fridge/Heating/Lights/Radio/Device Chargers).. I am swapping a modern TDI motor in it, and the engine will work well as a diesel DC generator, sipping on fuel to charge dual batteries and not generating any heat at idle.
"No" and "Who gives a shit" respectively. Show us that the conversions needed to do this provide enough financial benefit to make any sort of sense. I don't think it will pencil out.
That is all.
This guy is not washing his cloths. He is wearing them till they are dirty. Then he donates them unwashed somewhere. (I assume he tosses his underwear, or wears diapers)
I have a detached structure that runs entirely off solar/batteries. (There being no legal way to run power to it -- long story.) For the one or two things that actually require A/C I have an industrial inverter, but I try to use it for as few things as possible. To that end, all the lights are 12 volt DC.
I didn't have to rewire anything -- you can get 12 volt bulbs (even CFLs) that screw into standard sockets at any RV supply store.
The plugs in the wall of the structure are car-type cigarette-lighter round plugs. (Except for 2 standard AC which go to the inverter.) I use car adapters for electronics like laptops and music and phones. The lighter-type wall plugs use the same size and shape wall opening as a standard 110 plug.
The point is, most of this stuff already exists, and will retrofit easily into an existing home. You don't have to replace the light fixtures, and replacing the wall plugs is dead simple.
I have natural gas for cooking and heating and hot water. The gas stove and central heat are backed up with a wood stove, so I could even lose the gas and not be inconvenienced too much. Wood instead of propane, because I can go out and chop down a tree myself, whereas I can't refine propane by myself.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Most of his personal savings just offload the burden of destruction to someone else, like taking uber (fossil fuels) and donating dirty clothes (water use, and being a scumbag donating dirty things) such that I was not entirely sure this was not satire.
Many EU cities now specify LED street lights and this does usually include whole streets being converted to DC.
I've heard of some 40% efficiency gains by avoiding the usual transformers per lamppost.
On a private scale you could start by buying electronics that run on a specific DC voltage and making a home circuit run off a solar charged battery.
This last one is a specific requirement to have an efficient system, although a large single rectifier is better than many small ones you're still better off without any rectifiers.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
I've read this guy's blog post & came to the conclusion that he's an idiot. He champions his lifestyle as a way to reduce energy usage, but does so by doing things like having new shirts shipped from China instead of doing laundry. Or that he's saving energy by eating out when he doesn't want to eat his nutritional paste, and somehow that's better than cooking for yourself mainly because he doesn't like going to the grocery store. Nothing this guy has done is scalable beyond just himself.
This guys whole blog post reads almost like someone saying it's better to have a 3d printer because you can print Lego bricks for free.
...actually recapture lost Gas Turbine work. So running through a steam turbine is actually very, very good for the overall efficiency of the cycle.
Praying for the end of your wide-awake nightmare.
Rhinehart is not substantially reducing his reliance on AC, all he is doing is passing it on to others in the service industries.
I gagged at the sentence in the conclusion "To me the real upside is the pleasure in being electrically self reliant." - I guess he could live off the land as long as there were supermarkets around.
I don't believe that going to a restaurant and letting them provide meals, lighting, heat/AC actually constitutes reducing the amount of AC consumed.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Many parts of the 3rd world are off the grid, yet aspire to a modern lifestyle. His experiences could very well lead to products targeting this emerging market.
Anyone with an actual degree in engineering is calling bullshit.
There's nothing magical about AC-DC conversion, and NEWS FLASH, it's much more efficient to transmit AC over long distances than DC. That's HALF THE REASON we use AC. The other half is that it's extremely easy to convert to other forms of AC and DC.
This guy is a moron. You want more efficient power? Go Nuke and enjoy ZERO CO2 EMISSIONS you tree hugging hippy. At that point, you know what happens when you "lose energy from steam turbines"? Nothing. Not a damn thing. The world is exactly the same, except for some resistance heating. Now, efficiency becomes a purely cost measure and isn't connected to pollution at all.
But that's too much of a leap for this moron.
"I get my clothing custom made in China for prices you would not believe and have new ones regularly shipped to me. Shipping is a problem. I wish container ships had nuclear engines but it’s still much more efficient and convenient than retail. Thanks to synthetic fabrics it takes less water to make my clothes than it would to wash them, and I donate my used garments."
Why are we listening to this man?
I was expecting an article like yesterday's on the Air Conditioning compressor running off of DC from solar panels not some guy who thinks he reduces his AC consumption by eating in restaurants.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
A wizard says: Hex-E-Poo-Hex-On-You!
Getting rid of AC for off grid applications makes sense. I'm all for it and look forward to the new DC appliances we're seeing come on market.
however, this article is not going to have people following suit.
I'm not giving up my quality of life. I don't have to and I don't want to and its the 21st century so anyone that disagrees can eat a rail gun round to the face.
I do believe in sustainable living. However, more in the way of breaking free from crumbling infrustructure and gaining a certain amount of logistical indepedence.
I'm a big believer in the backyard green house. I think solar panels and wind mills are a good idea AT YOUR HOUSE. And I am looking forward to economical energy storage systems that work at a personal level.
Am I dumping my refrigerator and cooking food on a camping stove? No.
Really none of this sustainable stuff works in an urban environment. Its sort of odd that so many people that like the idea live in the one place where it isn't possible. Logistically you're going to be depending on a very energy and resource intensive infrastructure and there's just no way around that in a city. That "IS" the city. The city is all the things the sustainable people say they don't like. Live in the suburbs and you have a CHOICE. You have enough property that you can do something. Live rural and you can go completely off grid for everything... food, water, power, whatever... live like the Amish or something. Yabba dabba doo. But in a city you're on the grid. I don't care if you shut off the breakers in your apartment or drink your own pee. You're on the grid because everyone around you is on the grid and you depend on them whether you're drinking your own pee or not.
Here is my suggestion for the urbanites. Support nuclear power. Worship the fucking atom.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
The Facebook servers were changed to DC to reduce power and heat issues.
https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/inside-the-open-compute-project-server/10150144796738920
JJ
...your adapter is a piece of shit. A good one will give you 80% to 90%. I'll assume his other figures have similar accuracy.
As many sailors know, a couple hundred watts of solar or wind power can be plenty. Keeping the fridge going is usually the biggest draw, followed by marine radios and computers. Sailing forums are full of threads about which laptops draw the least power, etc. The latest crop have gotten really good, but tablets are even better -- especially when charged directly from 12V, vs. 120V w/ inverter .
12V adapters are available for most small devices, including rechargeable power tools. An inverter can handle the occasional hair dryer or blender (though I'm sure there are 12V blenders). Toasters and microwaves are still a problem.
Lithium batteries are great too, with much higher charging efficiency than lead-acid or NiMH.
If you want to be sustainable then focus on how you can stop burning coal and natural gas to generate electricity.
quote: "Most power in the US is generated by burning coal..."
Coal dropped below 50% several years ago and is falling rapidly. Alpha Natural Resources -- one of the giants of the American coal industry -- has filed for bankruptcy. They're sitting on $3 billion in debt while coal prices have plummeted as a result of utilities switching over to natural gas.
As for the whole DC power thing... If you have rooftop solar, and you are generating your own DC power, then converting it to AC and then back to DC again (which most appliances actually use) is not efficient. As rooftop solar continues to spread, I suspect we'll see more appliances designed to bypass the AC grid.
I have a single 140 W panel + 140 AH of battery storage. It does not power AC devices, but I use this, along with USB/car lighter outlets to recharge anything that charges or can be powered directly by USB - (a lot of stuff). The 12v->5v conversion is 95+% efficient using modern switching regulators. The one panel produces more power than the battery can hold (in summer - in winter, not so much). I want to install an automatic switch to feed into the AC power after the batteries reach full charge.
In terms of home electricity use, it makes just about 0 difference in my electric bill. Heater, hot water, refrig, air con, range/oven, dishwasher, washer/dryer, microwave and other 'normal' appliances are the big energy users, and not easy (or cheap) to replace with DC. If you are wealthy and have time to spare, it could work.
I use all LED lights, but even those can use a lot of power, all AC for now.
I'm afraid to ask how his bathroom works.
PSUs are around 90% efficient. You're telling me a phone charger is only 50% efficient?
DC arcs are strongly self-sustaining once ignited, as there's nothing to halt the continuous generation of ions which provide an easy conductive path. In contrast, AC arcs tend to self-extinguish twice a cycle when the voltage drops to zero, and so the AC arc has to re-ignite each cycle once the voltage rises high enough. Even if it does manage to re-ignite, the arc is not usually conducting the full cycle.
This reduced arcing makes AC a significantly lower fire hazard than DC, and the same effect happens to make AC switch contacts last much longer since breaking a circuit rarely arcs for more than a half cycle so contacts don't usually heat up and little metal is carried away from their surfaces.
but but but...
If you use DEADLY ALTERNATING CURRENT you run the risk that your pets might get electrocuted!
no, I am not a looney either...
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Riddle me this, what voltage does your widget run off of? 1.5V? 3.3V? 5V? 12V? 48V?
AC to the house is 120V single phase of 240V 2-phase which covers all appliances from a few watts to many kW. There is also 3-phase 208V which is a lot less common to residential.
DC is the latest hipster fantasy plan pushed by those who mostly have no clue. It sounds all sexy to be anti-establishment, but in general DC is an awful choice for power distribution. It still need to be run at a pretty hefty voltage to keep the wire gauge reasonable, and you end up having to make a bunch of DC-DC converters (really DC-AC-DC) for each required supply voltage anyway.
120V 60Hz may be an old tired standard, but usually that is better than no standard at all.
What a douchenozzle. His self important ramblings ignores that massive carbon footprint he leaves behind. Toss in a bunch of suspect "facts" to justify his crap decision.
Unless he's running a battery at a high voltage like 120v his house cabling is too small. Invert your DC loads to AC for a real system, a small inverter costs very little and is way safer and easier. Only solar newbs try to DC everything
I'm on a diet you insensitive clod!
So he gave up refrigeration? an ac synchronous motor is much more efficient than DC alternatives.
You can go with a gas or propane powered refrigerator. My family has one at a cottage which is too remote for electricity. Works pretty well though I can't vouch for it being particularly efficient. Uses ammonia as the coolant. I understand they are often used in RVs too.
We will never run out of either coal or oil. The price will increase to the point where they are no longer economical but there will still be a lot of both in the ground.
Came here looking for that, was not disappointed.
"I'm still dead" - Julia Child
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
The problem with Rob's assessment is that his efficiency numbers, expect for power transmission, are way off the mark. It is MUCH better than he purports! DC to AC conversion is roughly 90% or more efficient these days so you are not saving much by using DC at home rather than AC. It is simply not worth it to limit yourself so much by having only DC appliances.
And nice in practice, but if you want to save the earth just start by eradicating the humans that live on it.
The guy lives in an apartment. Not a penthouse, not a condo, not an independent house.
Does he think his neighbors also don't use heating and cooling? And that maybe, just maybe, his neighbors are unwittingly providing the heat and cooling that he lives with? Cooling their mutual walls? Heating their shared floors/ceilings? The stairwells and the hallway? Passing off his electrical bills onto theirs?
Yeah. Call me when you live in your own house.
Oh, and don't get me started on how to convert ANY DC VOLTAGE to any other DC voltage doesn't involve alternating current (hint - it does. Every DC-DC convertor is a switcher (or miserably inefficient, as he claims. Switchers are much better than 50% - more like 90%)).
AC
PS - For those whining about air conditioning, people did indeed live there for many years without it. They learned, among other things, to take a siesta. Now would be a good time to quit bitching about that being laziness and how it's energy efficient. AC
The line losses are a NIMBY problem, people don't want power plants near their houses.
That's not really true. Coal-fired power plants need to be located near a large, reliable water source for cooling and the closer they are to their fuel source the less energy is used to transport the coal. They also have to be of a certain size in order to operate efficiently. Hence even if everyone was willing to tolerate a coal fired power station in their neighbourhood most locations would be unsuitable for their construction, rural communities would be too small to warrant a power station even if suitable and even then there would be an increase in the energy to ship the coal the larger distances required. This means that only small reductions in transmission losses would be possible and since this is already one of the most efficient steps in the power consumption process you'd lose a lot more than you would gain.
This same general topic was discussed last week: Sharp Announces Sales of DC Powered Air Conditioner, Other Products To Follow
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
" then to charge a DC device like a cell phone another 50% is lost in conversion."
actually anyone that's taken an electronics or class in electricity knows it's about 10-20% loss at the most.
Not sure where the math came from in the OP but...
100W * 0.33 * 0.50 * 0.95 * 0.50 = 7.8
This clearly is lower that 16W
Might have to look more clearly at the article and see where the discrepancy arises.
Also the OP forgets that the quoted 67% includes electrical generation. ie the turbine.
And a typical phone charger (a Switch Mode PSU) will have an efficiency > 75%. So our calculation becomes:
100W * 0.33 * 0.95 * 0.75 = 23.5
I was waiting to read about how AC kills and see some good ole electric chair demonstrations.. *sigh*
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Mr. Edison is that you? I thought you died decades ago!
Look, first off the efficiency argument is garbage when you are comparing apples to oranges. If you want to say 100 Watts of power from burning coal, then start to compare how much power your cell phone uses, you have pretty much stepped off the reservation engineering wise. You are talking HEAT in BTU and then electrical power out? Two different types of fruit.
To convert BTU heat into electricity requires a heat engine that takes heat and turns it into mechanical rotation. Thermodynamics demands that even an ideal heat engine has losses, so if you want electricity, that's a price you pay. Our power plants that use heat all pay the same price, and for the most part they are all darned near ideal, even though losses might approach 30% of BTU in to BTU out if you look at it that way, but remember, you still want/need electricity.
Now this author is correct in saying that if all you want is HEAT, then using electricity as a way to transfer energy from a stack of coal over a long distance to your electric stove, vast improvements are possible by burning the fuel locally. However, if you want electricity for running that cell phone or that TV or even that heat pump (air conditioning unit) then burning coal locally doesn't help you at all.
BTW, the electric grid is amazingly efficient given what it does and how much power it transfers around every instant. It's far from perfect, but it's not a huge energy waster. Complaining about this inefficiency is like complaining about a leaky roof getting your furniture wet when it rains while your home is flooded up to the rafters by the river next door.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
no, he goes to a restaurant where someone with talent makes all of that.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
then to charge a DC device like a cell phone another 50% is lost in conversion.
If whoever designed your phone charger can't design a small wall wart that's better than 50% efficient, you might want to get a new charger. Whoever designed the one you have is clueless enough that it's probably not properly isolated. Frankly, it's liable to set itself on fire at some point. Or if you're talking about product of charger efficiency and battery efficiency, you're just deflating numbers in order to lie, because you lose the battery efficiency NO MATTER WHAT, it's not an indictment of coal or any other power source.
After page-downing to a few random spots and instantly being punched in the face with stupid... Not sure if serious or elaborate, long-winded troll post. If it IS a troll, he's succeeded because I really, really want to give this douche an all-five-fingers open-palm slap across the face.
I think Robert Rhinehart is just trolling us. Who could possibly hate kitchens as much as he does? Check out his blog and tell me he's not either a troll or has some serious static in the attic. The section on kitchens is particularly illuminating.
http://robrhinehart.com/?p=133...
Wait a kitchen is a "torture chamber"? Slow your roll there, big boy.
I mean, if he wants to make his life "simpler, lighter and cleaner" he could just tear out his bathroom and use catheter. It'd be about as much fun as living on Soylent 2.0.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Build thorium reactors and build solar power satellites.
Then, energy costs will be extremely low and energy supply extremely reliable, as well as having a very low environmental impact.
Calling living like 21st century 'Flintstones' a "solution" to energy sustainability and related environmental issues is like calling shooting sick people a "solution" for rising medical costs and availability.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
The guy is an idiot.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
The walls are buzzing. I know this because I have a magnet implanted in my hand and whenever I reach near an outlet I can feel them.
I enjoy doing laundry about as much as doing dishes. I get my clothing custom made in China for prices you would not believe and have new ones regularly shipped to me. Thanks to synthetic fabrics it takes less water to make my clothes than it would to wash them, and I donate my used garments.
How I Gave Up Alternating Current
555 posters at Ars Technica spent a glorious summer's day ripping Rhinehart to shreds. Op-ed: How I gave up alternating current
"I'm an idiot who doesn't understand the energy footprint of Soylent Green and shipping cotton to china for cheap underwear, then shipping those underwear to my house on a weekly basis. I am so far up the ass of my OCD neurosis that I am living a contrafactual life and pretending it's not destroying the world."
http://genius.it/robrhinehart.com?p=1331 has a discussion of it.
That said, all the comments saying "guy's an idiot" have pretty much nailed it.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
We have been off the grid for 35 years . We started with one solar panel and a car battery. We have 12v lighting throughout the house. I am replacing the fluoro tubes will LEDs as the price falls. The fridge is 12v and my mac is charged by 12v but we still need inverters for some appliances.
And this is the real winner. This is finally becoming feasible.
Not practical, but at least feasible.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
By moving back in with his parents, than by what he is doing right now.
the "article" reads like the guy is a complete Pretentious asshole who is simply tryinf to sound smart without knowing what the hell he is really talking about.
the article is incorrect about US power sources = BS Natural gas, nuclear power, and hydropower make up more than Coal generated power; and coal generated power is on the way out. good god help us all.
In 2014, the United States generated about 4,093 billion kilowatthours of electricity.1 About 67% of the electricity generated was from fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, and petroleum).
Major energy sources and percent share of total U.S. electricity generation in 2014:
Coal = 39%
Natural gas = 27%
Nuclear = 19%
Hydropower = 6%
Other renewables = 7%
Biomass = 1.7%
Geothermal = 0.4%
Solar = 0.4%
Wind = 4.4%
Petroleum = 1%
Other gases 1%
this is one source. google it.
I can't say much about your specific situation, but in general if you're far enough from the equator for snow, the ideal solar panel will have a fair bit of tilt to it. At which point you have some options for snow-clearing. One of the popular ones is to use a relatively small amount of electrical heating once the snow stops to make the panel 'too slick' for the snow, at which point it simply slides off. Then the panels make up that energy through the day. Keep in mind that they're considerably 'slicker' that way than an asphalt roof.
Also, if your roof is only worth 1/3rd your electrical use, that may be something that you want to examine, because you could save considerable money for cheaper than installing solar panels fixing whatever is taking so much.
I say this because I can satisfy my electrical needs using about 2/3rds of my south-facing roof, and I'm in Fairbanks, Alaska. Disclaimer: Annual average; I'd have to sell electricity in the summer and buy in the winter.
I don't read AC A human right
Giving up cooking, washing machines, and dryers to go DC was totally worth it. I mean the money I saved on electric was enough to buy me a weeks worth of food in restaurants
The whole reason we use AC is twofold:
1) electric motors with rotating magnetic fields use AC.
2) distribution at HV (to reduce losses) is much easier with AC. Sure, you can build a DC/DC voltage changer, but guess what, it has a AC transformer in it. at small scales (10 kW sort of range) you can make a fairly efficient converter, but it's a lot more expensive than iron and copper or aluminum. And when you get to 10s of kW or MW scales, it's really expensive. When you get to GW scale, then it changes again: 4000 Amps at 1MV is sent from the pacific northwest to the LA area with DC. But part of the advantage is easier control of power flow: multi thousand km long wires have all sorts of issues with transients and AC.
In general, low voltage DC (as in 50V) is really inefficient (IR losses in the copper from the high currents.. you're not going to be running your refrigerator off 12VDC with any efficiency).
DC is a bear to handle for switches because of the "drawn arc" problem. AC goes through zero voltage (and zero current) twice a cycle, so the arc created when you open a switch under load tends to self quench. Take a look at the size of a 50 Amp 100V DC circuit breaker vs a 50 Amp 120V AC circuit breaker. Compare the cost.
Sure, you can use electronic zero crossing switching, etc., but that's sort of a long term evolution.
What he actually says is that he cut down his power consumption so drastically that he is self-reliant with a small solar panel and some batteries. Using only low voltage devices and consuming a small power, indeed there is no need to convert to AC.
However, his biggest achievement is being self-reliant (insofar this is true...) and has nothing to do with AC/DC conversion. AC is being used, mainly because it is easy (and highly efficient!) to change its voltage using transformers. There are some other advantages related to shutting down arcs, and disadvantages related to skin effect, but using transformers is the main one.
For any realistic electrical power consumption the currents at low voltage would be so ridiculously high that very thick conductors would be needed to limit the losses (and fire risk), self-reliant or not. The reasonable thing in that case would be to use an invertor to go to 120/230V AC. The losses would easily be offset by the lower demands on the cabling. It is no coincidence that the power grid and, to a lesser extent, homes operate at high voltage.
Unless you're out camping, or have a large roof area in a place where the sun is shining most days, you're going to need a power grid to take power from other areas, or deposit your excess power. Therefore you're going to need a power distribution system, and this is where AC comes in.
So, in summary for the software engineers: You need low current and therefore high voltage, ( P= V x I ) for transmission, because power loss is proportional to the square of the current (P= I^2xR).
The most efficient method of converting voltages is by step up/ step down transformers, which work by magnetic induction. For this to work, you need a constantly changing current; a sinusoid waveform is best due to the L.di/dt relation resulting in merely a phase shift, not wild voltage excursions that e.g. a square wave would give. A sinusoid is also easy to produce with a rotating machine such as an alternator.
In short: AC rules, and will and should continue to, and it's nothing to do with coal or green.
"then to charge a DC device like a cell phone another 50% is lost in conversion"
Assuming what? a Cheap wireless charger? Linear Regulators?
switching DC/DC > 90%
You can have my AC when you pry it from my cold dead *BZZZZZT* *THUNK*
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Switched mode PSUs, which is what basically every electronic device uses, have gotten real efficient. No surprise, there has been a big efficiency push as of late. Just how efficient does vary, of course, but it can be as high as the mid 90s (like 95%) for the real good ones, and is pretty much about 80% in all cases. It just isn't that expensive to design a reasonably efficient PSU these days.
If you look at a wall wart or line lump type adapter, they generally have a roman numeral in a circle, which is an efficiency metric. These days the US and Canada are requiring IV, the EU requires V. The exact efficiency level that needs varies with wattage, but above 50 watts it is 85% or higher.
So sure, you could save some energy going all DC in you converted the AC with a large, high voltage, SMPS as they are more efficient, but not near as much as he indicated.
I just went to fibre optic, which has the problem of no power means no phone and no internet. There's a power outage 1 or 2 times a year, so emergency power is desirable. I was thinking of a UPS but using a battery to AC converter to run ultra-low DC appliances was stupid, plus a UPS won't provide the 5-day supply I want. So it's 12v charger - car battery - 12v power board - 9v down-converter - spliced to the cable from the AC plug-pack (I had spare plug-packs to mutilate).
Now I'm thinking of how to replace the 12v charger with solar panels and put a 12v outlet (and fuse) in most rooms.
Most "use heat to cool" systems (including the RV refrigerators) use absorption cycle (ammonia and water as the working fluids, although Lithium Bromide is also used), which is also what's used at industrial scale.
So you can skip the solar cells and directly heat the hot side of the refrigeration system.
In the southwest, if you're over, say, 10 tons, it's probably economically worthwhile to use gas fired absorption refrigeration rather than freon/compressor/expansion systems. natural gas is really, really cheap, and it does lend itself to replacement with solar heat.
there's not much market, but there's been a lot of contemplation of a system using lithium bromide/water and solar power, because it's a convenient way to "store" the heat (e.g. you use the heat to change the state of the working fluids, whether ammonia/water or LiBr/water) and you can store them in their changed state, and then recombine at your leisure to get cold when you need it.
AC just gets transformed. Look at your store bought computer, it has two switches. One is for 110V AC or 220V AC. The other is for AC or DC. The internal circuits all run 6V or 12V DC. If you bypass the transformer, you can run direct DC, provided it's at 6V DC or 12V DC.
Even the plug for your iPhone works that way. It's why it's so big.
In the event of a major quake that takes down your electric grid power, you just have to turn all your key appliances to DC, add up the resistance, make sure the physical wires don't connect to anything AC, and plug your solar panels into the circuit. Hook up some batteries, or use the DC input for your electric car, to balance the load and you can run without a grid. It's not that difficult. We used to wire S100 bus computers from direct DC, we only added AC later.
The major problem with DC is sending it long distances. That doesn't work so well.
(yes, this is overly simplified, but let's not get into that)
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Sure, if you have a fixed load, you can get 90+% efficiency, but what about at 50% or 20% full load. Most of those "high efficiency" converters have essentially a fixed load of about 10% of the full load. at full load, they're 10% loss, 90% efficiency. At 10% load they're 50% efficient, and so forth.
Designing a DC/DC converter that has good efficiency over a wide range is decidedly non-trivial and not going to be some little cheap wall wart. As a data point (it's hard to figure out whether there's a subsidy in effect), a second 10kW charger for a Tesla is $2k.
They just co-exist. He's wrong about efficiency of AC/DC conversion. Even inefficient devices are usually 80% or better these days and the good stuff s 95% or more. So it gets converted back and forth as needed.
There are HVDC distribution lines in the US power grid (and of course other grids). They just get converted back to AC. Often they are converted from AC as well, since most generators are AC. There is some loss, but not a ton, and everything has loss, that's just life.
Likewise there are data centers that are DC powered. No magic, they just have big AC/DC power supplies (generally the bigger you go the more efficient they are) and then run DC power to the servers, often with DC-DC voltage conversion at various points.
So no current wars, we'll just have both, and they can be interconnected as needed. The tech isn't a big deal these days, and isn't all that expensive.
AC is one of those things where a custom solution is often better than just trying to throw more solar panels and batteries at it.
First, you start by designing the house for the region, not forcing it by 'simply' tossing a X ton AC system at it. This can dramatically reduce the heat load. Much better done when building the house, of course, rather than as a refit.
Second, consider your total cooling requirements, at the reduced level. Consider what resources you have. Options include adsorption, absorption, air & ground source heat pump, evaporative, etc... Let's say we're sticking with that our cooling energy MUST come from solar power. We can use solar photovoltiac or solar thermal. Thermal pulls more energy from the sun per square meter and be cheaper, but processes after it are less efficient.
Today you can buy high efficiency heat pumps that work directly off of DC.
Third - get creative with storage. Batteries are not the only option! Thermal mass is an option - you cool down some media - water, bricks, dirt, doesn't really matter. Then use that to keep blowing cool air through the night. In the case of a thermal system, you can dump heat into storage and keep using it to run the absorption chiller overnight. In the case of an Adsorption chiller, you can size the media to last through the night and regenerate it during the day.
I don't read AC A human right
Alternating current solves a major problem in distribution. Very high voltages to transfer energy over long distances with lower current are the way to go.
If you are producing your own energy, say with photo voltaic cells to store in batteries, AC is an unnecessary conversion step.
This is news for nerds???
Greed is the root of all evil.
Actually, he specifically still drinks wine.
I plan on running DC power to every room (USB and car cigarette lighter outlets) when I build my house, and using all LED or electroluminescent lighting. I'd also like to install car stereos in every room, with 4 car speakers in the ceiling. Not sure what the most efficient way to do voltage conversion is, probably just run 12v (13.8v) everywhere and convert to 5v for USB. I'm thinking car and RV electronics for most purposes. But, I intend to install AC power everywhere too, and probably propane as well (for stove, at least), and make provisions for solar, wood or pellet heat, because I think multifueling keeps your options open. I kinda like refrigerators, microwaves, and hot showers -- don't think I could live on just what could be stored in a single car battery. I'm open to suggestions on how to run flat-panel displays off 12v without coverting to AC and back to DC inside the display. One would think there would be DC televisions available, but I'm fairly certain there aren't any large DC displays on the market.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Just develop a little liposuction power-spike for that phone and burn some fat to power it.
A bigger unit could be built into a chair or sofa and power a television set.
So, he eats all his food out at restaurants instead of cooking and buys new clothes instead of doing laundry, and this is supposed to be impressive?
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Using batteries to store power from panels? Using electron flow to reverse a chemical reaction causing the conversion of one chemical state to another, and in the process creating heat??? Wasteful! Why oh why is he not using super capacitors to store the electrical charge directly!?!? Just sayin'.
Listen to me, Anonymous Coward, you've gotta tell them! Soylent Green... is people!
Seriously though, how the hell did someone imagine that naming a food-product after one made out of recycled (mostly OLD, probably diseased on top of everything else!) dead human meat, would make folks want to eat it? I mean, why not, while you're at it, open a new restaurant called something like, "Rat Burger," and give all the burgers and sides cutesy names implying they're made from something else unsavory that no one would want to eat! What a great idea! Standing near their drive-through window, you might overhear a conversation like this:
"Hi, welcome to Rat Burger, home of the Rat Burger, may I take your order?"
"Yeah, can I get a New York Rat Burger, some Turd-tots, and a bucket of hot horse-piss, to go?"
"What kind of sauce would you like with those turd-tots?"
"Um... what do you have?"
"We have the classic menstrual-blood ketchup, hickory-smoke-flavored Dijon diarrhea, and for a limited time only, you can try our Syphilitic-Semen sauce, or any combination of them."
"MMmmmm... the semen sounds good, can I get a squirt or two of that? Like, on the Rat Burger, and then some on the side for the tots?"
"Certainly sir? Would you like anyone with a communicable respiratory infection to cough and sneeze all over your food before we serve it? No extra charge!"
"Sounds great, please do."
"That will be $8.99, at the next window, please pull forward!"
this dude is a wacko nut job.
This discussion is over a140 years old. DC does not transfer long distances. You're thinking small minded, city dweller which accounts for less than 1/4 of the homes in the U.S.
To change to DC transmission would be so costly no country can do it as the 'roll out' would prove impossible.
As for your home, good luck with the dish washer, refrig. furnace, AC, washer and dryer, and if you were actually a real man, using power tools that require more than a battery and a Lego set to use.
We're not using linear power bricks any more. And coal efficiency is ~33%, not half that; that takes the steam turbine into account already. Transmission and distribution is about 6%, and current chargers should be at least 80% efficient. So, actually you get 24% coal-to-phone efficiency, not 16%.
What this guy has done is outsource or hide his power use. He eats processed "food" with the power baked right in, or goes out to restaurants where they have big refrigerators and other power users. He uses a butane stove to avoid having to count the power use for boiling water. He uses Uber and the bus to get around; both these use more energy per passenger mile than a high-efficiency automobile. He uses his clothes until they are too dirty and outsources the energy of the washing to the next owner (and fails to account for the energy of the making).
We should hook him up to an alternator and generate free energy powered by Rob Rhinehart's bullshit.
Tesla chose 60Hz because electric motors turn at the speed of the current they get and the mechanical bearing technology of the time could effectively handle rotating at 60Hz.
The real numbers:
If you figure out what the "just enough" solar panel count would be for your max power needs during the shortest day of the year in full sunlight at whatever angle(s) you'll be able to manage, you'll need five to seven times that many to make sure that on non-sunny days you're good to go.
This is because solar panels produce between 15% and 20% of rated capacity on non-sunny days. Non-sunny days are not "dark", they are only "dim." It is a very rare day indeed where it is so dark as to drive a solar panel below 15% output (major snowstorm which has the atmosphere nearly opaque, that kind of thing.) But dim days can come in very long strings, so that's the target to aim at.
For a reliable system that will never let you down, you do tend to need considerably more space than you would initially think. But it is possible, given that you have the space (lots) and the budget (also lots) required. Panel-wise, it's a quantity issue.
But there's a wolverine in the woodpile: Batteries. To be blunt, they suck, as in, expensive to replace and very short lifetimes compared to the rest of the system.
Until or unless ultracaps reach a point where they are on par with batteries for the service you need, reasonable full-on solar installations remain quite expensive.
Installations that use batteries are regarded highly by their owners only until the first battery replacement. Then their wallets straighten them right out.
I have a lowish-power setup, with an unfortunate number of ultracaps (because capacity is very low, about 1/10th that of a battery right now) as the energy storage medium. I did it both to give my ham gear a constant supply, and to explore what would actually work. It took a custom controller design -- ultracaps don't act even remotely like batteries -- and it took me quite some time to put it all together and make it work like I wanted it to. There are way more panels than you'd expect because of that 15% number (my panels are cheap ones), and there are way more ultracaps than I wanted to expend room for, but I did have the room, so I kept at it. It works great, and it isn't going to need service for decades unless there is an actual component failure or a severe weather event (large hail, for instance.)
Trying to do this for a full house load? A typical US house? Not yet, I'm afraid. There will be tons of compromises to make in appliances, lights, and lifestyle, and in the end, you're not likely to have the same lifestyle you had prior to your switchover.
The battery problem will probably be solved. One way or another. Eventually. I have no idea if solar panel efficiency will get up into a range where the costs and space will fall within the range needed to go truly off grid. That's a physics question in an area where I have nowhere near enough knowledge. But right now? No.
Which brings us to on-grid, grid power use mitigation. Now that is an interesting area, and we can leave batteries right out of it, as peak power also comes during peak power use (right now... electric cars may change that.) But it involves all kinds of compromises for the utilities if it is adopted in any kind of mass manner. They will need power storage, as I understand it at the moment.
Full-on solar is a great, great thing with huge potential (ha, a pun, hooray), but it's not a panacea by any means except in very rare sets of circumstances that involve very large amounts of money and large areas of space for the panels.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I studied a bit of thermodynamics in college some too many years ago and even then the total efficiency of an old eastern europe '80s coal burning design was better than that. If you factor in that during winter the same plant is also providing heating for the adjacent city you get even better numbers. Also switching power supplies (virtually all cell phone chargers made in the last 10 years) are much better than 50% with many (mostly?) over 80%.
I work my ass off to be comfortable, and I'm not even going to consider changing my comfortable life style so long as there are thousands of shit-kickers driving their V-8 and V-10 pickups or huge SUVs 50 miles each direction to work because they want to live in the sticks on the other side of town because they hate city living and lifestyle but that's where the jobs are.
I'm not going to make myself uncomfortable while the shit-kickers with a bunch of little shits running around enjoy the comforts of modern living. They want to help their children, let them, I don't give a fuck. Let them figure out that they need to take care of the environment for their little shits, I'm not going to do it for them.
starting with 100W losing 67% leaves 33, 50% of that is 16.5, lose another 5% is down to 15.675 and then 20% more is 12.54, this is only half of what the original article says
in the header here, the last factor is even misquoted as 50% which would mean a final total of less than 8
I did exactly this many years ago at a hunting cabin way out in the Adirondack mountains where power was in short supply. I just treated the entire place like a car or RV. Even the radio came from a car.
"squandering 67% of its energy" means only 33% is used, not 67%.
0,33×0,5×0,95×0,5 = 0,078375
-Ignacio Agulló
Typical US-centric thinking, but it applies above certain northern latitudes and (less often) below certain southern latitudes.
Don't live where it snows / gets too cold.
Don't burn massive amounts of resources trying to live life in a t-shirt where the basic temperature is so low that you'll die without heating your massive house.
Ergo, the shuddering.
This snow clearing suggestion probably works, except for heavy snowfalls. Upstate New York, e.g., or the Chugach. I'm from Valdez and the concept is hilarious. Plus heating up snow is an energy-intensive operation, and any time you've had snow it must necessarily have been overcast, and in Alaska that means that you're probably dealing with less than six hours of daylight. I'd say the method of clearing the panels with the best ROI would be to say, "Fuck it" and drink until springtime, but that's how I approach most issues with winter in that State. It's a very popular strategy as I'm sure you've noticed.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
... burn COAL. why coal? because it was FREE. i found a lump of it in my Christmas stocking.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
There's no way I'd want 120V DC in my house. With AC you just get thrown, with DC your muscles contract and you become attached to the hazard.
I'm not saying that people have bare wires hanging around the house, and neither do I, but crap happens.
If you get shocked with DC and it's because you grabbed something that's energized, you are dead, kaput. With AC you have a fighting chance. I used to be an electric motor mechanic. DC scares the crap out of me. AC scares me too, especially 270/460 but HVDC? jesus... I've been hit by 120VAC. You don't walk away from HVDC. I'd be dead if that had been DC.
Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
People living on boats have been doing this for years.
This one is just too stupid for words.
I installed a "subnet" of direct current lines, which were powered by batteries which were charged with solar panels. During the very often during summer occuring power cuts we used this current to supply DC lights and fans. Worked quite ok. But I never got the idea to check how much energy saving this meant. It was just out of necessity that I did that.
He's referring to AC as a proxy for centrally generated electrical grid and DC as a proxy for locally generated alternative energy.
It's a stupid proxy particularly in the historical context of AC vs. DC power in EE.
AC current is more efficient to TRANSPORT over distances. DC current fades fast on transmission. It is still cheaper to send (power) via AC current and have the endpoint convert to the DC if needed.
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
No one's said a word (yet) about the difference in resistance losses between AC and DC when you try to transmit it over any significant distance at all.
http://www.diffen.com/differen...
If you want to give up almost all of your electrical uses in your home or business, feel free: switch to DC. Otherwise, I wouldn't suggest it. If you think those AC losses are significant, they don't hold a candle (heh) to DC.
This guy seems a bit extreme. There is no need to go totally solar or totally off of distributed power.
If you can seriously reduce your demand, it will have almost as much benifit for the planet. And there is no reason that solar can't be sent from other timezones via the distribution lines.
The "big new thing" is the LED lights, DC motor controls and Electronic Voltage converters that are -much- more efficient than in the past. That means that solar usage is much more practical. Any amount that you can do will help.
Not that don't appreciate the joke, but shouldn't it be RPM? If we put a magnet in the coffin with him can we make an alternator?
Obligatory SBMC Comic
How big is your yard?
Very, very small...
Those not interested in history, are bound to repeat its mistakes.
Maybe before starting a war against AC, some people (and there seem to be plenty fighting on the DC front nowadays) would better try to find out why they moved from DC to AC in the first place. Afger all, the first electrical grids in the 1800s were DC.
Hint: being able to use transformers to easily step up and down voltage was *not* the only reason.
Think DC current plus moisture (including air moisture) = electrolysis, anodes slowly corroding and dissolving, etc..
In theory that will happen with AC too, but at 50 Hz, what's taken away from the anode is going back there when the polarity is reversed 10 msec later.
I don't call myself an expert on power distribution, but I do remember one of my teachers explaining the above to me about 40 years ago.
Tesla is rolling in his grave. This guy seems to be mixing up efficiency and transmission losses of all sorts under the absurdly wrongheaded vilification of AC. One reason AC was adopted for the grid is because you can transmit it over long distances through very simple transformers upping the voltage to extremely high levels, cutting down on resistance - reducing losses. There's nothing inefficient about AC per se. Most people on solar power use an inverter to run their lights and appliances on AC. Very very cleanly. Sure if you were operating purely on solar and battery you might be better off with an all DC household system, and when that gets more common I imagine the light and appliance selection will start to grow. But also realize that AC motors are generally smaller and more efficient than DC - most electric cars and other vehicles have brushless inverters and AC motors! Also most rotational generators (wind, hydro, steam turbine, diesel, gas, car alternators . . .) are be AC as well for similar reasons. Even battery powered RC cars and planes and power drills of higher quality have "brushless" motors - that's AC!
About the only time DC is better is with solar and battery powered lights and electronics, just because it's more direct. That's kind of small potatoes. Of course even then any long run of 12V wiring can have huge resistance losses due to the low voltage. But running that solar battery system through an inverter doesn't really loose you that much. Maybe 10%. Which you will probably gain back in using a more efficient AC powered fridge (motor) and AC compressor motor etc.
Nuclear plants still have the requirement of access to an uninterruptible source of water for cooling. They also have security concerns which is not the same thing as safety. I would have no worries about living near a nuclear plant but I would have a lot of concerns about every neighbourhood having their own. Depleted uranium is easy to obtain and all it takes to convert it into plutonium is a strong source of low energy neutrons like a reactor.
My brother's (recently departed) father-in-law, (apologies if he posted already) designed and built a house in Vermont that was not only entirely DC, but also solar powered. Yes, solar naysayers, in northern Vermont. All his electric came from solar, but he did have a small backup generator for just in case (well really, he was in his 70s when he built the place). I got to visit there once (the wedding) and was blown away. Little tiny pump to pump water to the solar hot water heater and then gravity back down to the shower and kitchen. He hadn't finished and the "switches" were just wires sticking out of the wall that you could twist together by hand. The frig was from a boat, as was the stove I think.
So, it is possible, sounds like fun, enough that I have hopes to build one similar but really small on our property in the blue ridge, up on top of a ridge. No wires, no wires...
Subversion of spatial scale luxury decoration ideas.