Also id add that if you aren't buying an exact replacement, the battery vendor is not obliged to take your used battery at all. The most common time to replace is around 5-7 years at which time exactly jack squat % of people have their receipt. Responsible people who tried to keep the receipt are likely to recycle properly even if lost whereas the fuck it crowd is around 100% likely to dump it in a pond or trash can because driving 15 miles to dump it properly and free wouldn't be saying fuck it.
In the US, all places that sell car batteries actually give money for the old dead batteries. It is called the "core charge" and is because there is serious money in recycling the lead acid car batteries to be used on the next generation of batteries.
Apparently, according to this site, it is mandated by state, but I would expect it to occur in most states as there is good money in the recycling.
Lololololol. They CHARGE you the core charge up front. It's not like they pay for defunct batteries. Unless you plan on buying a new battery the old ones can only be turned in for free at a few select government run locations. People are often faced with paying to dispose of them properly or simply crating a mini environmental disaster. Guess which many choose?
I didn't mean to imply nife batteries are the answer. Merely that burnt out lithium packs pose many problems and even if initially cheap are unlikely to be cost effective in the long run. And yes those packs were only intended to run 8 years it's not just that they likely have sub 70% initial capacity - they are far more likely to fail internally and have much higher internal resistance. Lithium packs not only go bad with age but discharge cycles - they will be cycled once a day in this case making things worse. In fact lithium batteries aren't likely the best solution in general.
I think you just explained why lithium batteries aren't very good for backup, doubly so nearly dead ev packs. The metric to minimize is cost per kWh/year. Including maintaining them. So swapping out failing ev batteries every 1-3 years gets expensive fast compared to a bullet proof long term low maintenance battery. There is a reason so few backup power systems use lithium.
They're going to be constantly replacing LiOn packs on any appreciable sized system.
And why would they be doing that?
Let's say it all together now: "Li-ion != Cell phone batteries". Li-ion is a whole broad range of chemistries that follow a basic mechanism of action involving the intercalation of lithium ions on either side of a membrane. There are an incredibly wide range of anodes, cathodes, electrolytes, and membranes, and these offer widely varying performance in terms of power density, energy density, cost, cycle life, and shelf life. Cell phone and laptop batteries are li-ion batteries specifically engineered with design life deemphasized in favor of high energy density in order to keep their products small and light. They're not climate controlled and they're generally run at high depths of discharge. This is not what you do with all li-ion battery types. Where longevity is of concern, you more carefully control temperature, control charging more carefully, you have many cells in parallel that can allow for individual cell failures, you use a lower DoD, and you use a chemistry that sacrifices some energy density for greatly improved cycle life.
The exact same rules apply to NiMh. You can get NiMH with high energy density by sacrificing cycle life. A typical NiMh hybrid battery pack only achieves its lifespan by running at a tiny 20-40% DoD range.
Yes but there is a reason few if any large power backups use lithium technologies of any type. Typically it is lead acids. Using a radically different lithium battery from the tesla wont reduce the cost of tesla packs much and further consumers wont like paying more money up front for less reliable and more expensive solutions just to improve Musks bottom line. Pretty much all lithium batteries are a pain in the ass to work with their main selling point is the power and energy density, both of which are useless for backup.
There is more than just a "green" reason to build local microgrids.
Energy Security and Grid Reliability are two.
The American electrical grid, built decades ago and in need of major upgrades, is acknowledged to be a problem moving forward with renewable energy. Utilities complain that they can't handle the load. As utilities whine about what solar and wind will do to their grids(while simultaneously poopooing renewables and how much power they can generate) SolarCity will build microgrids that will allow localized power generation and distribution, so the tender and fragile utilities-of-old won't have to be bothered by pesky solar derived electricity.
The American megagrids serve a purpose, and they should be upgraded, however we should be simultaneously building infrastructure than is localized and more robust.
Someone should not lost power because a tree fell on a line hundreds of miles away.
That's all well and good but what if you are producing power from your solar and your batteries are full? I just am not getting the no grid tie in.
Lead batteries are 100% recyclable. So what is your point? You just toss money into a dump?
All batteries are recyclable in theory. The problem with distributed consumer batteries (less for commercial installations) is bad practices. Few if any places pay for lead acid batteries, in the USA - most are required to take the same type for free to stop polluting. For example i have a rental property bordering on a small lake/pond. I went to clean up after buying the place and found the remains of three car batteries and one SUV/truck battery. Two of them were so badly decomposed the plates would fall apart in your hands just trying to pick them up. Not to mention the lead dissolved in the acid that went into the water directly. I tried to clean up the best i could but i imagine 10-15 pounds of lead flakes/powder remain. I'm not sure what possesses people to throw hazardous waste down a hill and into water as if it magically dissapears, but it is a huge problem.
Don't forget the charge cycles. Pseudo caps and eldc caps tend to have infinite charge cycle lifetimes, in addition to longer lives than batteries (if kept cool).
Except most ev owners don't save up and don't want to foot the 3-10k bill for a new battery. So they run them into the ground, well past slightly used. Additionally these packs to bad with age and 8-10 years useful life on an ev is already pushing it. I'm not convinced that these near death packs would make for a cheap and reliable backup supply (for example switching out half dead packs every few years vs a 20 year solution, reliability, etc) compared to other technologies. Do you have a source?
Lithium is actually about the least toxic battery technology, compared to older tech like lead acid, nimh and nicad it's practically green. True it causes pollution to produce but after that disposal is much less of a concern.
Why are they using lithium batteries? For solar you want the cheapest long lasting low cost electronics overhead solution per kWh, performance to weight or size is almost irrelevant. Lithium batteries are only the best tech for moderate to expensive portable/mobile tech and not power back up installations.
I think more solar with better tech is the future and worth investing in under many circumstances. But due to no grid tie in and the batteries i can't help but think it smacks of a crappy bundling package like you get from comcast when you just want internet and not the added junk.
There really isn't an edge to the universe. We live inside a bubble due to the finite and fixed speed of light. So roughly 15 billion light years away, light took 15 billion years to reach us and therefore is comming from the early stages of the universe. The universe was too hot and dense for the first 350k years or so, the microwave background is left over from this time when the universe cooled enough to become transparent. Neutrinos can pass through matter easily, even an entire planet. It's possible in theory to build a telescope to see back 350k more light years to within 1 second of the Big Bang. But there is a hard limit, we cannot use particles to see any further because none existed before that time. you can think of our universe being defined by paths of light, after all that's what you would 'see' and they trace space like a pen on paper. They ride the curvature of space caused by gravity. Let's day hypothetically there was no more matter after a point (and no particles either). In this case gravity would cause that space to bend back on itself. In such a case you essentially cannot escape as you would curve back into the existing universe. Similar principles hold if the matter is too dense or to sparse, the universe essentially becomes a closed off bubble. Within our physical laws only a very specific and exact value of density will allow for space to extend forever. There simply isn't an outer boundary that can ever be reached, in any case of our physics, just one that can be seen - the initial forming of our space time itself. there are internal boundaries, such as black hole horizons. We are understanding more and more about them. While we don't have the means to actually test at those energies (maybe the large hadron collider will spit out some miniature ones we will see) there has been a great deal of debate about exactly what particles, entanglement, forces and energies infalling matter experiences.
taking a wage is not embezzlement. they can take in wage and try to look for investors when on said wage and it's all nice and legit.
of course it would be nice to have more money, so you offer a chance to get on the 100 list for more money.
That's why i separated 2/3. But no self respecting CEO just takes a wage. They spend millions on shit like bad deals, which on closer inspection are you rub my back ill rub yours methods of fleecing investors - completely legal and extremely difficult to prove its fraud. Or millions on expenses where they benefit directly, but it's of little or no value to the shareholders.
The technology to move humans interplanetary distances does not exist and people are not even seriously working on it.
NASA and SpaceX are seriously working on it, but right now it's all still in early stages and planning to piggy-back on other technologies that are closer to being realized (Orion/SLS, Dragon/Falcon Heavy).
References? Because NASA is not seriously working on it. They have this but no real funding at the moment. They are half assed working on it. Plus they won't consider it for 20 years, so I call bullshit on mars one doing it 10 years out in anything resembling a safe manner.
I read the article. The nasa engineer has a point, you need to be able to land gear on the surface first. 40 tons may be more than you need (possibly) but you will need a hell of a lot more than a moon mission lasting hours. For permenant settlement you will need many redundant systems and replacement parts as any resupply based on need is 8 months to a year away minimum. Companies like spaceX worked for 10 years before they could achieve low earth orbit. Plus they leveraged and copied existing technology. The technology to move humans interplanetary distances does not exist and people are not even seriously working on it. The whole thing is a scam, or best case just idiocy.
If they actually did manage to land humans alive on the surface they would likely die in weeks with the planning and support i see so far.
Well I can think of three reasons.
1) you want to popularize reality snuff tv shows 2)You want to embezzle the funds and flee to a country with no extradition laws 3)You want to blow investor money on pseudo legal expenses like corporate bentleys and 'business trips' where the per diem includes hooker and blow expenses.
Learning computer programming teaches students to think logically and systematically, and you can't fake it, because your program either works or it doesn't.
Hmmm. I distinctly remember a TA in my C+ class looking at my code and frowning, all the while I was saying "yea but it world dosent it?"
Slashdot Mirror
Also id add that if you aren't buying an exact replacement, the battery vendor is not obliged to take your used battery at all. The most common time to replace is around 5-7 years at which time exactly jack squat % of people have their receipt. Responsible people who tried to keep the receipt are likely to recycle properly even if lost whereas the fuck it crowd is around 100% likely to dump it in a pond or trash can because driving 15 miles to dump it properly and free wouldn't be saying fuck it.
In the US, all places that sell car batteries actually give money for the old dead batteries. It is called the "core charge" and is because there is serious money in recycling the lead acid car batteries to be used on the next generation of batteries.
http://shop.advanceautoparts.c...
Apparently, according to this site, it is mandated by state, but I would expect it to occur in most states as there is good money in the recycling.
Lololololol. They CHARGE you the core charge up front. It's not like they pay for defunct batteries. Unless you plan on buying a new battery the old ones can only be turned in for free at a few select government run locations. People are often faced with paying to dispose of them properly or simply crating a mini environmental disaster. Guess which many choose?
I didn't mean to imply nife batteries are the answer. Merely that burnt out lithium packs pose many problems and even if initially cheap are unlikely to be cost effective in the long run. And yes those packs were only intended to run 8 years it's not just that they likely have sub 70% initial capacity - they are far more likely to fail internally and have much higher internal resistance. Lithium packs not only go bad with age but discharge cycles - they will be cycled once a day in this case making things worse. In fact lithium batteries aren't likely the best solution in general.
I think you just explained why lithium batteries aren't very good for backup, doubly so nearly dead ev packs. The metric to minimize is cost per kWh/year. Including maintaining them. So swapping out failing ev batteries every 1-3 years gets expensive fast compared to a bullet proof long term low maintenance battery. There is a reason so few backup power systems use lithium.
Exactly, tesla batteries are not suitable for economical backup. Hence the bundling comment.
And why would they be doing that?
Let's say it all together now: "Li-ion != Cell phone batteries". Li-ion is a whole broad range of chemistries that follow a basic mechanism of action involving the intercalation of lithium ions on either side of a membrane. There are an incredibly wide range of anodes, cathodes, electrolytes, and membranes, and these offer widely varying performance in terms of power density, energy density, cost, cycle life, and shelf life. Cell phone and laptop batteries are li-ion batteries specifically engineered with design life deemphasized in favor of high energy density in order to keep their products small and light. They're not climate controlled and they're generally run at high depths of discharge. This is not what you do with all li-ion battery types. Where longevity is of concern, you more carefully control temperature, control charging more carefully, you have many cells in parallel that can allow for individual cell failures, you use a lower DoD, and you use a chemistry that sacrifices some energy density for greatly improved cycle life.
The exact same rules apply to NiMh. You can get NiMH with high energy density by sacrificing cycle life. A typical NiMh hybrid battery pack only achieves its lifespan by running at a tiny 20-40% DoD range.
Yes but there is a reason few if any large power backups use lithium technologies of any type. Typically it is lead acids. Using a radically different lithium battery from the tesla wont reduce the cost of tesla packs much and further consumers wont like paying more money up front for less reliable and more expensive solutions just to improve Musks bottom line. Pretty much all lithium batteries are a pain in the ass to work with their main selling point is the power and energy density, both of which are useless for backup.
There is more than just a "green" reason to build local microgrids. Energy Security and Grid Reliability are two. The American electrical grid, built decades ago and in need of major upgrades, is acknowledged to be a problem moving forward with renewable energy. Utilities complain that they can't handle the load. As utilities whine about what solar and wind will do to their grids(while simultaneously poopooing renewables and how much power they can generate) SolarCity will build microgrids that will allow localized power generation and distribution, so the tender and fragile utilities-of-old won't have to be bothered by pesky solar derived electricity. The American megagrids serve a purpose, and they should be upgraded, however we should be simultaneously building infrastructure than is localized and more robust. Someone should not lost power because a tree fell on a line hundreds of miles away.
That's all well and good but what if you are producing power from your solar and your batteries are full? I just am not getting the no grid tie in.
Lead batteries are 100% recyclable. So what is your point? You just toss money into a dump?
All batteries are recyclable in theory. The problem with distributed consumer batteries (less for commercial installations) is bad practices. Few if any places pay for lead acid batteries, in the USA - most are required to take the same type for free to stop polluting.
For example i have a rental property bordering on a small lake/pond. I went to clean up after buying the place and found the remains of three car batteries and one SUV/truck battery. Two of them were so badly decomposed the plates would fall apart in your hands just trying to pick them up. Not to mention the lead dissolved in the acid that went into the water directly. I tried to clean up the best i could but i imagine 10-15 pounds of lead flakes/powder remain. I'm not sure what possesses people to throw hazardous waste down a hill and into water as if it magically dissapears, but it is a huge problem.
Don't forget the charge cycles. Pseudo caps and eldc caps tend to have infinite charge cycle lifetimes, in addition to longer lives than batteries (if kept cool).
Except most ev owners don't save up and don't want to foot the 3-10k bill for a new battery. So they run them into the ground, well past slightly used. Additionally these packs to bad with age and 8-10 years useful life on an ev is already pushing it. I'm not convinced that these near death packs would make for a cheap and reliable backup supply (for example switching out half dead packs every few years vs a 20 year solution, reliability, etc) compared to other technologies. Do you have a source?
Personally I'm suprised no one has trained mice to ferry in USB drives to a secured area and plug them in somewhere.
Lithium is actually about the least toxic battery technology, compared to older tech like lead acid, nimh and nicad it's practically green. True it causes pollution to produce but after that disposal is much less of a concern.
Why are they using lithium batteries? For solar you want the cheapest long lasting low cost electronics overhead solution per kWh, performance to weight or size is almost irrelevant. Lithium batteries are only the best tech for moderate to expensive portable/mobile tech and not power back up installations.
I think more solar with better tech is the future and worth investing in under many circumstances. But due to no grid tie in and the batteries i can't help but think it smacks of a crappy bundling package like you get from comcast when you just want internet and not the added junk.
There really isn't an edge to the universe. We live inside a bubble due to the finite and fixed speed of light. So roughly 15 billion light years away, light took 15 billion years to reach us and therefore is comming from the early stages of the universe. The universe was too hot and dense for the first 350k years or so, the microwave background is left over from this time when the universe cooled enough to become transparent. Neutrinos can pass through matter easily, even an entire planet. It's possible in theory to build a telescope to see back 350k more light years to within 1 second of the Big Bang. But there is a hard limit, we cannot use particles to see any further because none existed before that time.
you can think of our universe being defined by paths of light, after all that's what you would 'see' and they trace space like a pen on paper. They ride the curvature of space caused by gravity. Let's day hypothetically there was no more matter after a point (and no particles either). In this case gravity would cause that space to bend back on itself. In such a case you essentially cannot escape as you would curve back into the existing universe. Similar principles hold if the matter is too dense or to sparse, the universe essentially becomes a closed off bubble. Within our physical laws only a very specific and exact value of density will allow for space to extend forever. There simply isn't an outer boundary that can ever be reached, in any case of our physics, just one that can be seen - the initial forming of our space time itself.
there are internal boundaries, such as black hole horizons. We are understanding more and more about them. While we don't have the means to actually test at those energies (maybe the large hadron collider will spit out some miniature ones we will see) there has been a great deal of debate about exactly what particles, entanglement, forces and energies infalling matter experiences.
taking a wage is not embezzlement. they can take in wage and try to look for investors when on said wage and it's all nice and legit.
of course it would be nice to have more money, so you offer a chance to get on the 100 list for more money.
That's why i separated 2/3. But no self respecting CEO just takes a wage. They spend millions on shit like bad deals, which on closer inspection are you rub my back ill rub yours methods of fleecing investors - completely legal and extremely difficult to prove its fraud. Or millions on expenses where they benefit directly, but it's of little or no value to the shareholders.
NASA and SpaceX are seriously working on it, but right now it's all still in early stages and planning to piggy-back on other technologies that are closer to being realized (Orion/SLS, Dragon/Falcon Heavy).
References? Because NASA is not seriously working on it. They have this but no real funding at the moment. They are half assed working on it. Plus they won't consider it for 20 years, so I call bullshit on mars one doing it 10 years out in anything resembling a safe manner.
I read the article. The nasa engineer has a point, you need to be able to land gear on the surface first. 40 tons may be more than you need (possibly) but you will need a hell of a lot more than a moon mission lasting hours. For permenant settlement you will need many redundant systems and replacement parts as any resupply based on need is 8 months to a year away minimum. Companies like spaceX worked for 10 years before they could achieve low earth orbit. Plus they leveraged and copied existing technology. The technology to move humans interplanetary distances does not exist and people are not even seriously working on it. The whole thing is a scam, or best case just idiocy.
If they actually did manage to land humans alive on the surface they would likely die in weeks with the planning and support i see so far.
Only a fool would dump money on this adventure.
ahh so its a perfectly viable business plan with a wide consumer base. I was worried there for a minute.
Well I can think of three reasons.
1) you want to popularize reality snuff tv shows
2)You want to embezzle the funds and flee to a country with no extradition laws
3)You want to blow investor money on pseudo legal expenses like corporate bentleys and 'business trips' where the per diem includes hooker and blow expenses.
The potential for scamming is out of this world!
although it would make for a great survivor sequel, albeit a single episode.
Exactly lols. At least my code had fewer spelling mistakes than my post.
Slashdotters see a new summary. Gonna fess up here i made it about half way through, got bored and posted.
Learning computer programming teaches students to think logically and systematically, and you can't fake it, because your program either works or it doesn't.
Hmmm. I distinctly remember a TA in my C+ class looking at my code and frowning, all the while I was saying "yea but it world dosent it?"
Ahh yes traditional slashdotting. My bad.
Into this. I'm glad they offer computer science classes. I would have taken one in high school if it was offered.