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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?
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!
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.
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.
Exactly my thought. That is cheating. That's like not owning a car, and then riding in taxis the exact amount you'd have driven.
Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
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.
the biggest issue was there was no electricity for the well pump and water had to be trucked in so we passed on the house.
You can get a solar well pump too, meaning DC and either 12 or 24V. But presumably, you'd have needed to expand the solar system for that purpose. It also works best when you have a water storage tank sufficiently elevated above the point of use to produce useful pressure, because then you can make hay (or pump water, anyway) while the sun shines, and you don't need a bunch of battery — or, potentially, any.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
And as far as this soylent stuff is concerned wasn't it proven that supplements aren't very good and you need actual food to be healthy? Absorption rates of supplements aren't good from what I read and they should be used to supplement an actual healthy diet.
Why do you think he's making such questionable choices regarding dirty fuel burning ways?
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
The line losses are a NIMBY problem, people don't want power plants near their houses.
The fuel-source problem is people not being willing to pay for more expensive renewables, or in electing politicians that oppose them while continuing to subsidize fossil-fuels.
Those things can be fixed only if people as groups are willing to accept these differences and their costs, or if someone decides to put solar panels, at increasing personal expense given the utility companies' objections, on their property.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Exactly. He "cut his consumption" down by externalizing it all. Basically pushing it off somewhere else and hiding it.
That's like every other company out there - they pollute because the cost of pollution is basically free - the cost is externalized (well, it was until Obama introduced those regulations). When people complain about the "cost of complyihg" it means they're no longer externalizing the cost (free) and now having to pay for it.
Basically this idiot is making himself feel better by making society worse. He doesn't do laundry - but the charity he donates clothes is forced to do it. He's basically pushed the environmental impact, energy and cost of laundry onto some other 3rd party. Or if they deem it too dirty, they'll just toss it in the garbage. To him, he's "in the clear" still because he didn't throw it away directly.
Basically, the stuff this guy did was offload onto someone else - you can conceptualize this by asking - what happens if EVERYOHE did it? If it's truly for the environment, then if everyone did it, we'd be better off. If not, then no, it's not as good.
For an example - say check your tire pressure - most people will probably be on the slightly low side. But if everyone then pumped their tires to the right pressure, society benefits from the reduced fuel consumption, cleaner air (less fuel, less pollutants, etc). That's a real net plus.
Using less energy - that's a good thing too - or more renewables. But if you're claiming your coal-powered server in a datacenter isn't your concern if you remote into it, well...
What this guy did would be like RMS asking someone to open Microsoft Word for him because he needs to do something, while claiming to be only using free software. (Yes, I know RMS doesn't do this, but it's an example).
Plus, I'm sure he's got the income to support this kind of lifestyle - enough to make a point, but really, I think I'd give it to the climate change deniers. For they can poke enough holes in his "living arrangements" to basically say "if we agree to cut back, look at how we'll live - and look ,he's not even green if he needs all that stuff!".
I'd say he's among the worst kind of "environmentalist" around - a green-washer.
Yes. AND EVEN MORE! I have machines dedicated to running a single task each and I remote to them.
If I had to run all of those tasks on one computer which was also my daily use computer I would run far fewer tasks.
he just outsourced them to others
How is that different than what we're doing to ourselves as a matter of policy? Every time we tighten the screws on some industrial chemical or fossil fuel we simply chase another industry to Asia or damn up another Canadian river. He's just following this pattern on an individual level.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
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.
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.
The line losses are a NIMBY problem, people don't want power plants near their houses.
The fuel-source problem is people not being willing to pay for more expensive renewables, or in electing politicians that oppose them while continuing to subsidize fossil-fuels.
Those things can be fixed only if people as groups are willing to accept these differences and their costs, or if someone decides to put solar panels, at increasing personal expense given the utility companies' objections, on their property.
No a NIMBY problem is one which is stupid, like people not wanting nuclear plants anywhere near them "just in case". Living near an actual coal power plant is actually dangerous for your health in all sorts of ways including radiation.
No, careful here. Outsourcing CAN actually improve the environmental aspects of what you do.
For example, centralised servers have far more chance of being run by renewables than your home computer. Google for example, is tending to do stuff like build their servers near hydroelectric plants or where there's wind farms or solar available.
So outsourcing your needs CAN actually be a good thing; and if everyone did it, it's a net positive.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"I can tell you are not from the Pacific NorthWest. One or two days in winter won't keep the battery charged.
Seattle has an average of 152 non rainy days per year. They claim 58 sunny days a year. Pacific Northwest is not a great place for solar.
A whole lot of people on this site aren't from the north in any respect... they clearly have a world view that doesn't know what 5 feet of snow looks like. Shame, because Boston and the North East got all that coverage recently for the massive snow storms, what good would solar have done in all that? Wind wouldn't work there either in those conditions.
This is why, at the end of the day, nuclear is what we really need.
But, sadly, the environmentalists are against that too.