Since Pacific Gas and Electric is actually subsidizing the batteries in the pilot program, which is for solar users, it would seem to demonstrate that the power companies aren't lying when they say grid feed-in is a problem.
I'm talking about states like Arizona, which has enacted a $50/month fee if you want to feed solar electricity back into the grid. If you install a solar panel and a battery system that has absolutely no interaction with the grid, you can they justify charging a fee for your system. They might as well charge you for installing high efficiency appliances, bulbs, or for simply using less energy.
Actually, I think one of the biggest results of this will be to allow homes with solar energy to store ALL the energy they capture with their panels, instead of feeding that energy back into the grid. This will effectively neuter the arguments of power companies who say that grid feed-in is making the grid unstable, thus reducing the impetus for putting punitive fees on houses with solar panels.
I suspect the movie's real "sin" was to make bank a banker like "old man Potter" the greedy villain. Today, the greedy banker/financier is the hero, acting valiantly in the "public interest".
Frank Capra's classic "It's a Wonderful Life" was largely forgotten in its time. In 1974, possibly due to an error, its copyright lapsed. TV networks, eager for low cost holiday fare, basically had this film running on a loop during certain times of the year. Then, Paramount managed to pull the movie back into copyright. And low and behold, the showings of this great movie slowed to a trickle once again. Public interest indeed. These media industry slime-balls are evil. Literally evil.
Is there a reason the rocket has to land upright unassisted? What about some sort of bungee-mesh around the edges to catch it if it topples?
Parachutes are too heavy for a nine engine rocket, and would either land in corrosive seawater or on land with a hard damaging landing. To be truthful, they have already accomplished the most difficult part, namely bringing a rocket from 140km altitude to a tiny location in the middle of the ocean. They have also already demonstrated the landing part severaltimes. If you notice, those landings come down at pretty much the exact location they began at.
I believe global warming and ocean acidification is a serious threat. I also believe that solar energy has great potential as an energy source. However, I think the question being framed here creates a false dichotomy. Is it not possible that we might have a world where we have renewable, nuclear, and fossil fuels? Just because we reduce the use of something doesn't mean we have to eliminate it. The fact is that modern civilization needs plastics, mechanical lubrication, and other fossil fuel bi-products. Even if we reduce fossil fuel use by 80%, we can still have these things.
It might be the worst drought since the area became a state (though there were others that were close if not worse) but it is far from the worst drought ever in the region. On at least 5 occasions over the past 1000 years there have been droughts that make this one seem mild in comparison.
Exhibit A: A freshly minted climate denier talking point. It was likely created by a "PR" company and focus group tested. It sounds like it comes from an expert...someone who has studied the climate history of California. However, no references are given. It merely relies on the confident tone to reach its target audience...the sector of society that has little scientific expertise and that doesn't want to believe that the truck in their garage is likely to make the lives of their grandchildren quite difficult.
Really, this all reminds me of Grima Wormtongue in Lord of the Rings. Seriously, watch Petropolis, and tell me you can't see Mordor in the Canadian tar sands.
I really don't understand this hostility towards hydrogen.
It is hostility based on its physics, based on the simple fact that it will be a dead end. No technological breakthrough, no engineering project, no amount of effort or creative thought will change the fundamental lack of efficiency in this method of energy storage. It is wasteful of energy and will lengthen the time for our society to move to electric transportation. Governments will dump large amounts of money into it. Corporations will use it as their way of satisfying governmental requirements for green technology. But you will still in the end be left with a choice. If you want to move your electric car, do you want to lose 20% of input energy by using grid electricity to charge a battery or 70+% of your energy by using hydrogen. It is simple, unchangeable physics.
I think that Toyota hydrogen fuel cell is far more practical and cleaner (because electric batteries are charged with coal fire plant electricity made 500+ miles away from where it is used).
Really? Hydrogen? Ok. First off, hydrogen is an energy carrier, not a source. Most hydrogen for transportation these days comes as a bi-product of fossil fuels. So that's not really so clean.
So what if we make the hydrogen from H2O using electrolysis...that means we split 2 H2O molecules into 1 O2 and 2 H2 molecules. There is going always going to be some heat generated in this process, which is by definition waste.
The real and fundamental flaw in this process comes next. In order to transport and use the hydrogen, you have to compress it. This takes energy. Extra energy. And when you compress a gas, it gets warmer. This is a fundamental law of physics. So we have compressed hot gas. What happens to that heat energy? It will certainly not be used to power the car. It will likely be wasted.
Next, you have to transport the compressed hydrogen gas. This also takes energy. Energy that will be lost.
Another large problem with hydrogen gas is that the molecules are small. Why is that a problem? Because it will be difficult to contain the gas. It will tend to escape. The gas will be lost in compression, in transport, and in storage. It is likely that if you fuel your hydrogen car up and park it, you will lose most of your fuel to the air in several days.
Finally, we have to change the energy in the hydrogen back into electrical energy to power the electric motors. The efficiency of fuel cells is an engineering problem, but I suspect there is some intractable physics in there that will cap the efficiency. Let's assume a best case scenario of perhaps 50% efficiency for the cells. That is still a lot of waste. However if you factor in the losses from electrolysis, compression, storage as well, you will have an overall efficiency less than 50%. Probably quite a bit less. So let's say for the sake of argument that the entire process is 30% efficient, which I suspect is generous.
It is well known that the electricity transmission system is highly efficient. Some easy research should tell you that the transmission system is more than 90% efficient. When we charge a battery, there are come losses. But they aren't that high. Let's assume the charging system is 80% efficient. Overall then, that process would be 72% efficient (I think it is higher than that actually).
So, if you have 100J of energy that you wish to use to drive the electric motors in a car, you can use hydrogen, and get less than 30J to the motors, or you can use the electrical grid, and get 70J to the motors. Honestly, why would you use hydrogen? Especially since the fuel cells would be complicated, expensive, and of unknown reliability. Hydrogen as a fuel is flawed at the level of fundamental physics. These problems cannot be engineered away.
range anxiety, ability to recharge cross-country, cold weather conditions
Here is a blog about someone's trip in a Tesla across the US in winter. I think that pretty much takes care of all of your points. But you might also be interested in the fact that Norway is one of Tesla's best customers. Here is a video of a Tesla P85D beating a snowmobile in a drag race on ice. And for your convenience, here is a google search with the query "Tesla cross country road trips".
I'm not sure why you have been marked "interesting" when your post is counter-factual or at least deceptive.
Electric cars (the ones you can get right now) are terrible when it is really cold or really hot.
Really? Were you aware that Norway is one of Tesla's best customers. I think Norway is a cold country? Here is blog about someone's trip across the US in winter. Here is a video of a Tesla P85D passing pulled over SUV's after a bad snowstorm. I don't see any blankets.
Oh, and Californians buy many Tesla cars. California is kind of hot, isn't it?
I agree. I felt so sorry for Natalie Portman in Episode III. "Oh Ani! YOU'RE BREAKING MY HEART!" Seriously. I cringe. That is no one but the director.
Watch Natalie Portman in Black Swan. She is utterly brilliant.
Not that I hate Star Wars. Far from it. The broad story arcs echo many ancient myths and stories. George Lucas has said that he read Joseph Campbell's "Hero with a Thousand Faces" which surveys many ancient myths for commonality. The idea of a young boy escaping his mundane life to find his "hero's journey" is primal, as is the story of a son of facing the sins of his father. In my mind these things elevate Star Wars into the pantheon of cinema, in spite of the horrific dialog.
Couldn't that be said by BOTH sides of this issue? Wouldn't it be injustice to force a private citizen to enter a private business contract/engagement with another private citizen against their will and against their beliefs?
NO! In a democratic society, we should NEVER tolerate intolerance.
But you know what? Every article, every boycott and every protest is pushing them back. Similar bills are stalling or failing. The outrage at actions like these are causing more and more Americans to leave their religion in disgust. The more we drag this bullshit into the light, the more the theocrats feel the heat.
Fair enough, but what scares me is how many extremists are already in power, in Congress and in the Senate. And on the road to the White House. We as a society really do need to take a close look at what is known as the "christian dominionist movement". This movement seeks to establish an American theocracy with the rule of law given by the bible. We should think about what these people are actually proposing: the death penalty for abortion, both for doctor and mother. The death penalty for homosexuality. Here is an article to give you an idea of what I am talking about. A very good read on this subject is American Fascists.
It is easy to dismiss these people as being a crazy fringe. Indeed every society has its own lunatics. What is concerning is how this extreme form of christianity has infiltrated the main stream of christianity and what we commonly know as the christian right. What is extremely concerning is how many mainstream politicians share similar modes of thought to this movement. When I hear about laws such as what Tim Cook is writing about, I hear the clicking of a ratchet, bringing us a small step towards an American version of the taliban government.
Those of us with a sense of what is actually going on must work towards steering our society away from this cliff. Above all, we should promote the idea that although we live in a tolerant nation, we should never tolerate intolerance. The bastards who bring in laws like this should be run out of town.
Chris Christy scares the bejesus out of me. His personality is scary. He is the kind of guy who in my opinion you don't want to give too much power. The way he shouts down people who are weaker than him particularly concerns me. This article is a good summary of him.
She can follow up on her work at HP and merge the Democrat and Republican parties together. That should make things much more efficient, increase shareholder value and offer synergies to enhance international competition.
Or she can sell off the US government's core technological assets and turn America into a hollow corporate brand name that creates almost nothing. Just like she did with HP when she sold off HP's advanced technology division as Agilent, and changed HP from a technological powerhouse into a brand-name for shitty computers and components.
I remember how Bill Gates never thought that the Internet would ever take off. Also Edison thought we'd all live in pour-in-place concrete....
Yeah well, I don't think that Bill Gates is a genius. According to this interesting perspective,
What really made him rich was having been in the right place at the right time in 1981 when IBM needed an operating system for its new PC. Gates (with Allen) borrowed heavily, to put it gently, from an existing operating system, Digital Research’s CP/M. (For DR’s version of this history—“Microsoft paid Seattle Software Works for an unauthorized clone of CP/M, and Microsoft licensed this clone to IBM”—see here. A less biased, though still damning, look is here.) In other words, another instance of adopting someone else’s work and taking credit for it—this time with the innovation of litigating aggressively and manipulating markets to defend a monopoly position. Because once it secured that monopoly, Microsoft did everything it could to crush competition.
And Edison was rather similar. Edison used brute force discovery to solve the light-bulb filament problem, and used some, shall we say agressive business tactics to protect his business. In order to make people afraid of his competition (alternating current, Westinghouse), he used AC to electrocute animals such as elephants. He successfully campaigned to have AC used to execute death row prisoners (the electric chair). He was, IMHO not a genius.
Elon Musk is, in my opinion, a bona fide genius. With a bachelors degree in physics, he taught himself rocket science, and was the chief designer of an entire rocket, the Falcon I. This rocket managed to put two objects in orbit before being superceded by the Falcon 9. The amount of information he must have learned is astounding. Fluid dynamics, combustion, orbital dynamics and trajectory control, metallurgy, each in and of itself an entire field of study. He also has a solid background in computer science.
So, I will give what Musk says on the future of transport quite a bit of weight. He has earned it.
cars might be able to park too close to open doors, meaning more cars could park in a given area
Also, cars could park directly head-to-tail. Then when a car three deep is summoned, it could signal the other two cars to move. The lanes through the lot could also be made much narrower. The capacity of parking lots could easily be doubled, and possibly tripled.
In some European cities, it is customary to leave your car parked in neutral and with no parking brake on (obviously on the flat). When someone wishes to park parallel park in a tight spot, they just nudge the cars in front or behind, causing them to roll, widening the spot. This allows cars to be parked "nose to tail".
I am really curious as to the talking points the climate deniers will come up with to defend a government banning the use of particular words. Has it really come to this?
What I notice in this photo (hi-res version) around the area of the shadow are the apparent shapes of the ice "boulders" that came together to form the comet in the first place. It reminds me of looking at chondrules in meteorites, that show the siliceous "hailstones" that formed as the planetary disc that would go on the form the planets cooled.
Slashdot Mirror
Since Pacific Gas and Electric is actually subsidizing the batteries in the pilot program, which is for solar users, it would seem to demonstrate that the power companies aren't lying when they say grid feed-in is a problem.
I'm talking about states like Arizona, which has enacted a $50/month fee if you want to feed solar electricity back into the grid. If you install a solar panel and a battery system that has absolutely no interaction with the grid, you can they justify charging a fee for your system. They might as well charge you for installing high efficiency appliances, bulbs, or for simply using less energy.
Actually, I think one of the biggest results of this will be to allow homes with solar energy to store ALL the energy they capture with their panels, instead of feeding that energy back into the grid. This will effectively neuter the arguments of power companies who say that grid feed-in is making the grid unstable, thus reducing the impetus for putting punitive fees on houses with solar panels.
I suspect the movie's real "sin" was to make bank a banker like "old man Potter" the greedy villain. Today, the greedy banker/financier is the hero, acting valiantly in the "public interest".
Frank Capra's classic "It's a Wonderful Life" was largely forgotten in its time. In 1974, possibly due to an error, its copyright lapsed. TV networks, eager for low cost holiday fare, basically had this film running on a loop during certain times of the year. Then, Paramount managed to pull the movie back into copyright. And low and behold, the showings of this great movie slowed to a trickle once again. Public interest indeed. These media industry slime-balls are evil. Literally evil.
Best post I've seen here and its score is zero. It gives actual arguments. The moderators are being rather jingoistic I think.
Is there a reason the rocket has to land upright unassisted? What about some sort of bungee-mesh around the edges to catch it if it topples?
Parachutes are too heavy for a nine engine rocket, and would either land in corrosive seawater or on land with a hard damaging landing. To be truthful, they have already accomplished the most difficult part, namely bringing a rocket from 140km altitude to a tiny location in the middle of the ocean. They have also already demonstrated the landing part several times. If you notice, those landings come down at pretty much the exact location they began at.
I believe global warming and ocean acidification is a serious threat. I also believe that solar energy has great potential as an energy source. However, I think the question being framed here creates a false dichotomy. Is it not possible that we might have a world where we have renewable, nuclear, and fossil fuels? Just because we reduce the use of something doesn't mean we have to eliminate it. The fact is that modern civilization needs plastics, mechanical lubrication, and other fossil fuel bi-products. Even if we reduce fossil fuel use by 80%, we can still have these things.
"worst ever drought"
It might be the worst drought since the area became a state (though there were others that were close if not worse) but it is far from the worst drought ever in the region. On at least 5 occasions over the past 1000 years there have been droughts that make this one seem mild in comparison.
Exhibit A: A freshly minted climate denier talking point. It was likely created by a "PR" company and focus group tested. It sounds like it comes from an expert...someone who has studied the climate history of California. However, no references are given. It merely relies on the confident tone to reach its target audience...the sector of society that has little scientific expertise and that doesn't want to believe that the truck in their garage is likely to make the lives of their grandchildren quite difficult.
Really, this all reminds me of Grima Wormtongue in Lord of the Rings. Seriously, watch Petropolis, and tell me you can't see Mordor in the Canadian tar sands.
The car is almost always plugged it at night. It has a computer. It is trivial to program it to warm up before leaving.
I really don't understand this hostility towards hydrogen.
It is hostility based on its physics, based on the simple fact that it will be a dead end. No technological breakthrough, no engineering project, no amount of effort or creative thought will change the fundamental lack of efficiency in this method of energy storage. It is wasteful of energy and will lengthen the time for our society to move to electric transportation. Governments will dump large amounts of money into it. Corporations will use it as their way of satisfying governmental requirements for green technology. But you will still in the end be left with a choice. If you want to move your electric car, do you want to lose 20% of input energy by using grid electricity to charge a battery or 70+% of your energy by using hydrogen. It is simple, unchangeable physics.
I think that Toyota hydrogen fuel cell is far more practical and cleaner (because electric batteries are charged with coal fire plant electricity made 500+ miles away from where it is used).
Really? Hydrogen? Ok. First off, hydrogen is an energy carrier, not a source. Most hydrogen for transportation these days comes as a bi-product of fossil fuels. So that's not really so clean.
So what if we make the hydrogen from H2O using electrolysis...that means we split 2 H2O molecules into 1 O2 and 2 H2 molecules. There is going always going to be some heat generated in this process, which is by definition waste.
The real and fundamental flaw in this process comes next. In order to transport and use the hydrogen, you have to compress it. This takes energy. Extra energy. And when you compress a gas, it gets warmer. This is a fundamental law of physics. So we have compressed hot gas. What happens to that heat energy? It will certainly not be used to power the car. It will likely be wasted.
Next, you have to transport the compressed hydrogen gas. This also takes energy. Energy that will be lost.
Another large problem with hydrogen gas is that the molecules are small. Why is that a problem? Because it will be difficult to contain the gas. It will tend to escape. The gas will be lost in compression, in transport, and in storage. It is likely that if you fuel your hydrogen car up and park it, you will lose most of your fuel to the air in several days.
Finally, we have to change the energy in the hydrogen back into electrical energy to power the electric motors. The efficiency of fuel cells is an engineering problem, but I suspect there is some intractable physics in there that will cap the efficiency. Let's assume a best case scenario of perhaps 50% efficiency for the cells. That is still a lot of waste. However if you factor in the losses from electrolysis, compression, storage as well, you will have an overall efficiency less than 50%. Probably quite a bit less. So let's say for the sake of argument that the entire process is 30% efficient, which I suspect is generous.
It is well known that the electricity transmission system is highly efficient. Some easy research should tell you that the transmission system is more than 90% efficient. When we charge a battery, there are come losses. But they aren't that high. Let's assume the charging system is 80% efficient. Overall then, that process would be 72% efficient (I think it is higher than that actually).
So, if you have 100J of energy that you wish to use to drive the electric motors in a car, you can use hydrogen, and get less than 30J to the motors, or you can use the electrical grid, and get 70J to the motors. Honestly, why would you use hydrogen? Especially since the fuel cells would be complicated, expensive, and of unknown reliability. Hydrogen as a fuel is flawed at the level of fundamental physics. These problems cannot be engineered away.
range anxiety, ability to recharge cross-country, cold weather conditions
Here is a blog about someone's trip in a Tesla across the US in winter. I think that pretty much takes care of all of your points. But you might also be interested in the fact that Norway is one of Tesla's best customers. Here is a video of a Tesla P85D beating a snowmobile in a drag race on ice. And for your convenience, here is a google search with the query "Tesla cross country road trips".
I'm not sure why you have been marked "interesting" when your post is counter-factual or at least deceptive.
Electric cars (the ones you can get right now) are terrible when it is really cold or really hot.
Really? Were you aware that Norway is one of Tesla's best customers. I think Norway is a cold country? Here is blog about someone's trip across the US in winter. Here is a video of a Tesla P85D passing pulled over SUV's after a bad snowstorm. I don't see any blankets.
Oh, and Californians buy many Tesla cars. California is kind of hot, isn't it?
To my mind, the difference is clear. It's Lucas.
I agree. I felt so sorry for Natalie Portman in Episode III. "Oh Ani! YOU'RE BREAKING MY HEART!" Seriously. I cringe. That is no one but the director.
Watch Natalie Portman in Black Swan. She is utterly brilliant.
Not that I hate Star Wars. Far from it. The broad story arcs echo many ancient myths and stories. George Lucas has said that he read Joseph Campbell's "Hero with a Thousand Faces" which surveys many ancient myths for commonality. The idea of a young boy escaping his mundane life to find his "hero's journey" is primal, as is the story of a son of facing the sins of his father. In my mind these things elevate Star Wars into the pantheon of cinema, in spite of the horrific dialog.
Couldn't that be said by BOTH sides of this issue? Wouldn't it be injustice to force a private citizen to enter a private business contract/engagement with another private citizen against their will and against their beliefs?
NO! In a democratic society, we should NEVER tolerate intolerance.
But you know what? Every article, every boycott and every protest is pushing them back. Similar bills are stalling or failing. The outrage at actions like these are causing more and more Americans to leave their religion in disgust. The more we drag this bullshit into the light, the more the theocrats feel the heat.
Fair enough, but what scares me is how many extremists are already in power, in Congress and in the Senate. And on the road to the White House. We as a society really do need to take a close look at what is known as the "christian dominionist movement". This movement seeks to establish an American theocracy with the rule of law given by the bible. We should think about what these people are actually proposing: the death penalty for abortion, both for doctor and mother. The death penalty for homosexuality. Here is an article to give you an idea of what I am talking about. A very good read on this subject is American Fascists.
It is easy to dismiss these people as being a crazy fringe. Indeed every society has its own lunatics. What is concerning is how this extreme form of christianity has infiltrated the main stream of christianity and what we commonly know as the christian right. What is extremely concerning is how many mainstream politicians share similar modes of thought to this movement. When I hear about laws such as what Tim Cook is writing about, I hear the clicking of a ratchet, bringing us a small step towards an American version of the taliban government.
Those of us with a sense of what is actually going on must work towards steering our society away from this cliff. Above all, we should promote the idea that although we live in a tolerant nation, we should never tolerate intolerance. The bastards who bring in laws like this should be run out of town.
Chris Christy scares the bejesus out of me. His personality is scary. He is the kind of guy who in my opinion you don't want to give too much power. The way he shouts down people who are weaker than him particularly concerns me. This article is a good summary of him.
She can follow up on her work at HP and merge the Democrat and Republican parties together. That should make things much more efficient, increase shareholder value and offer synergies to enhance international competition.
Or she can sell off the US government's core technological assets and turn America into a hollow corporate brand name that creates almost nothing. Just like she did with HP when she sold off HP's advanced technology division as Agilent, and changed HP from a technological powerhouse into a brand-name for shitty computers and components.
I often wonder what percentage of responses on slashdot climate stories are made by paid trolls.
I remember how Bill Gates never thought that the Internet would ever take off. Also Edison thought we'd all live in pour-in-place concrete....
Yeah well, I don't think that Bill Gates is a genius. According to this interesting perspective,
What really made him rich was having been in the right place at the right time in 1981 when IBM needed an operating system for its new PC. Gates (with Allen) borrowed heavily, to put it gently, from an existing operating system, Digital Research’s CP/M. (For DR’s version of this history—“Microsoft paid Seattle Software Works for an unauthorized clone of CP/M, and Microsoft licensed this clone to IBM”—see here. A less biased, though still damning, look is here.) In other words, another instance of adopting someone else’s work and taking credit for it—this time with the innovation of litigating aggressively and manipulating markets to defend a monopoly position. Because once it secured that monopoly, Microsoft did everything it could to crush competition.
And Edison was rather similar. Edison used brute force discovery to solve the light-bulb filament problem, and used some, shall we say agressive business tactics to protect his business. In order to make people afraid of his competition (alternating current, Westinghouse), he used AC to electrocute animals such as elephants. He successfully campaigned to have AC used to execute death row prisoners (the electric chair). He was, IMHO not a genius.
Elon Musk is, in my opinion, a bona fide genius. With a bachelors degree in physics, he taught himself rocket science, and was the chief designer of an entire rocket, the Falcon I. This rocket managed to put two objects in orbit before being superceded by the Falcon 9. The amount of information he must have learned is astounding. Fluid dynamics, combustion, orbital dynamics and trajectory control, metallurgy, each in and of itself an entire field of study. He also has a solid background in computer science.
So, I will give what Musk says on the future of transport quite a bit of weight. He has earned it.
cars might be able to park too close to open doors, meaning more cars could park in a given area
Also, cars could park directly head-to-tail. Then when a car three deep is summoned, it could signal the other two cars to move. The lanes through the lot could also be made much narrower. The capacity of parking lots could easily be doubled, and possibly tripled.
In some European cities, it is customary to leave your car parked in neutral and with no parking brake on (obviously on the flat). When someone wishes to park parallel park in a tight spot, they just nudge the cars in front or behind, causing them to roll, widening the spot. This allows cars to be parked "nose to tail".
I am really curious as to the talking points the climate deniers will come up with to defend a government banning the use of particular words. Has it really come to this?
What I notice in this photo (hi-res version) around the area of the shadow are the apparent shapes of the ice "boulders" that came together to form the comet in the first place. It reminds me of looking at chondrules in meteorites, that show the siliceous "hailstones" that formed as the planetary disc that would go on the form the planets cooled.
Don't forget his underrated first leading man big-screen role as Kid Monk Baroni, 1952...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
"Leonard Nimoy is "Kid" Monk Baroni, the leader of a street gang who becomes a professional boxer to escape his life in "Little Italy" New York."
Hard to believe it's the same guy.
And his photography.
RIP. Sad sad sad.
...Fool me twice, shame on...uhhhh...we won't get fooled again.