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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
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.
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.
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.