It's true, the Democrats were the haven for racists, and were the slave owners before the civil war. They still consider the former slaves to be their property, and want them under their control. And they still have a horror of armed citizens, of any race. I know, I grew up in South Carolina in the 1960's.
The trains, that go from the New York / Washington area to Florida, have cars that can transport people's automobiles. Or at least they did a few years back, I have not been there for a while.
A lot of people fly now, but with the airports getting so bad some are switching back to trains. And there has always been passengers, for some lines.
The last few years, they have added passenger lines from western Virginia, where I live, back to Washington. It is going great, they added more cities to the line this year.
And if you think electric can't pull large weights, check out the drives the train engines use these days! 8-)
The practical way to store hydrogen is to bond it with an intermediate atom. That way it is denser and does not need pressure or cold to stay in the tank.
I've heard that carbon atoms seem to work well. 8-}
The grid going down is a different situation. Even the big generating plants have to disconnect when it goes down. And it is a pain to get everything up again.
Um... you would still need the power plant, That is not what this would replace. This replaces Gas-turbine generators, which are small and badly in-efficient.
The power that they are looking to provide is the last one or two percent that is currently provided by gas-turbine generators. Which a re horribly in-efficient and expensive. They only need to be better than that, to succeed.
This is me being naiive, but if it's a stationary, land-based installation, do you really care if you need flywheels that are 20x as massive as comparable Li batteries? A slug of iron's gotta be a lot cheaper than a mountain of lithium, right?
You have a point. Real stuff does not have to be "the best", it just needs to be practical. And finding ways to make stuff practical is part of the work.
No empty cars here, loaded up and loaded down. No unloading at all. Probably same load material all the time. Hevier the better. Gain is from power price difference.
Um, it's the same cars. Two trains,one coasts down making power to run the other(s) up. Then the empty one loads, the loaded one empties and they switch.
Actually it was lots of trains. The only time they bought power was when a train came through that did not run off the wires. Net power from the coal starting high and ending low. Worked for decades.
The OP is about a somewhat different arraingement. One train, fixed load. Goes up when power is cheap, goes down when power is expensive. As in: every day and night. Not far-fetched at all. Assuming the maintanance is not too expensive.
,,, You get really rich by being an asshole, or winning the lottery with blind luck. Those are the only TWO ways of doing it. Nobody ever got rich by working hard and saving money.
Don't be silly, of course they have. It just is not as easy...
And, there are no questions that have only two answers. Thats an instinctive reaction of people that have only two hands. 8-)
I liked the wheel bolt pattern example I read somewhere here. If an automaker was allowed to declare that pattern protected IP then it would be illegal for aftermarket wheel companies to make custom wheels to fit without a negotiated license deal from the OEM.
I think Joe average would get that and be outraged by the idea.
In actual fact there is no such thing as a right to "intellectual property". The very idea is relativly new, less than a thousand years old. Before that there was no such idea.
The copyright and patent laws came about as a "fix" for ideas and tech being lost when people died. As in: Disclose your trade secrets and we will protect you from loosing your business. So, many ideas were documented and shared and tech took a really big surge in development that is still going on.
We have the laws because they work and make everyone better, but that does not mean it is an inherent right. Actually ideas are like breath, once you breath out it is gone and you have no more claim to it.
Imagine a place where everyone is carefully polite. Where if you need help, many people will help and are trained as volunteer firemen and paramedics and some carry guns, where people don't always lock their cars or even their houses. Where if you pull your car off of the highway, some times the person behind you will also pull off to see if you need help.
Of course the whole U.S. is not like that, the big cities where there is crowding and they banned guns are much more dangerous. But small rural towns can be like where I live. Very quiet. 8-)
Fortunately for us, we do have proper gun control, thank the $Deity....
Perhaps that is why the habit, of being casually rude, has developed there.
Be aware that some of the people that you are talking to might be armed. In some countries, legally. In other countries, perhaps not legally. Be cautious.;-)
... I'm Romanian, here you really need to work on people to offend them....
Does no one, where you live, carry guns?
There is an old saying, "An armed society is a polite society." Sometimes it seems to be true, but maybe not always. The U.S. started as an armed society, although many have become a bit complacent about it. Some states still have laws on the books about "fighting words" and stuff.
About two hundred years ago, my several-times-great grandfather killed a man on main street in Charleston, South Carolina. For snapping his fingers in my grandfather's face (which at that time was a serious insult). And it was ruled by the court to be justifiable homicide.
P.S., keep in mind that the internet is not really anonymous...
Over-protected children tend to think that nothing and no-one can harm them. So they think they are invulnerable, and free to harm others without risk. And they think the internet is anonymous, which of course it is not.
So they embark on journeys of destruction, until something catches up with them. With luck, they survive it. But they never are the same again...
Businesses can run second and third shift, it just is not common in programming. What's hard is -changing- your times, not really what times you work. Allow one day to change your time schedule one hour, thats what the navy does. Changing faster can cause accidents, both physical and "bugs" in code.
And don't try staying awake both shifts to make your family or friends happy, they will not like the results.
Sometimes the last people to get something, get the newest version! And the ones that got it first are left with the oldest version. Seen it before with ATMs.
Slashdot Mirror
It's true, the Democrats were the haven for racists, and were the slave owners before the civil war. They still consider the former slaves to be their property, and want them under their control. And they still have a horror of armed citizens, of any race. I know, I grew up in South Carolina in the 1960's.
The trains, that go from the New York / Washington area to Florida, have cars that can transport people's automobiles. Or at least they did a few years back, I have not been there for a while.
A lot of people fly now, but with the airports getting so bad some are switching back to trains. And there has always been passengers, for some lines.
The last few years, they have added passenger lines from western Virginia, where I live, back to Washington. It is going great, they added more cities to the line this year.
And if you think electric can't pull large weights, check out the drives the train engines use these days! 8-)
The practical way to store hydrogen is to bond it with an intermediate atom. That way it is denser and does not need pressure or cold to stay in the tank.
I've heard that carbon atoms seem to work well. 8-}
The grid going down is a different situation. Even the big generating plants have to disconnect when it goes down. And it is a pain to get everything up again.
Anyone who predicts things with "curves" that are straight lines, is not to be trusted! 8-(
... The giant office complex covered in solar panels ,,,
Already done. See "Urbmon Monad". 8-)
Water does not flow efficiently in pipes. See Boundry Layer Drag.
Um ... you would still need the power plant, That is not what this would replace. This replaces Gas-turbine generators, which are small and badly in-efficient.
Water has much more energy loss flowing through pipes. That's why we still have railroads, today.
The power that they are looking to provide is the last one or two percent that is currently provided by gas-turbine generators. Which a re horribly in-efficient and expensive. They only need to be better than that, to succeed.
This is me being naiive, but if it's a stationary, land-based installation, do you really care if you need flywheels that are 20x as massive as comparable Li batteries? A slug of iron's gotta be a lot cheaper than a mountain of lithium, right?
You have a point. Real stuff does not have to be "the best", it just needs to be practical. And finding ways to make stuff practical is part of the work.
The cooler power is not wasted, in the winter, the warmth from the outer cooller coils warms the room.
No empty cars here, loaded up and loaded down. No unloading at all. Probably same load material all the time. Hevier the better.
Gain is from power price difference.
I think that would slow down transport too much.
But with some really powerful scheduling computers, it might be practical.
net energy consumption was pretty negligible
As long as you have infinite empty cars uphill :)
Um, it's the same cars. Two trains,one coasts down making power to run the other(s) up. Then the empty one loads, the loaded one empties and they switch.
Actually it was lots of trains. The only time they bought power was when a train came through that did not run off the wires. Net power from the coal starting high and ending low. Worked for decades.
The OP is about a somewhat different arraingement. One train, fixed load. Goes up when power is cheap, goes down when power is expensive. As in: every day and night. Not far-fetched at all. Assuming the maintanance is not too expensive.
,,, You get really rich by being an asshole, or winning the lottery with blind luck. Those are the only TWO ways of doing it. Nobody ever got rich by working hard and saving money.
Don't be silly, of course they have. It just is not as easy...
And, there are no questions that have only two answers. Thats an instinctive reaction of people that have only two hands. 8-)
I liked the wheel bolt pattern example I read somewhere here. If an automaker was allowed to declare that pattern protected IP then it would be illegal for aftermarket wheel companies to make custom wheels to fit without a negotiated license deal from the OEM.
I think Joe average would get that and be outraged by the idea.
Good one, I'm going to copy that! 8-)
In actual fact there is no such thing as a right to "intellectual property". The very idea is relativly new, less than a thousand years old. Before that there was no such idea.
The copyright and patent laws came about as a "fix" for ideas and tech being lost when people died. As in: Disclose your trade secrets and we will protect you from loosing your business. So, many ideas were documented and shared and tech took a really big surge in development that is still going on.
We have the laws because they work and make everyone better, but that does not mean it is an inherent right. Actually ideas are like breath, once you breath out it is gone and you have no more claim to it.
Perhaps so.
But perhaps it is the other way around?
Imagine a place where everyone is carefully polite. Where if you need help, many people will help and are trained as volunteer firemen and paramedics and some carry guns, where people don't always lock their cars or even their houses. Where if you pull your car off of the highway, some times the person behind you will also pull off to see if you need help.
Of course the whole U.S. is not like that, the big cities where there is crowding and they banned guns are much more dangerous. But small rural towns can be like where I live. Very quiet. 8-)
Fortunately for us, we do have proper gun control, thank the $Deity. ...
Perhaps that is why the habit, of being casually rude, has developed there.
Be aware that some of the people that you are talking to might be armed. In some countries, legally. In other countries, perhaps not legally. Be cautious. ;-)
... I'm Romanian, here you really need to work on people to offend them. ...
Does no one, where you live, carry guns?
There is an old saying, "An armed society is a polite society." Sometimes it seems to be true, but maybe not always. The U.S. started as an armed society, although many have become a bit complacent about it. Some states still have laws on the books about "fighting words" and stuff.
About two hundred years ago, my several-times-great grandfather killed a man on main street in Charleston, South Carolina. For snapping his fingers in my grandfather's face (which at that time was a serious insult). And it was ruled by the court to be justifiable homicide.
P.S., keep in mind that the internet is not really anonymous...
Over-protected children tend to think that nothing and no-one can harm them. So they think they are invulnerable, and free to harm others without risk. And they think the internet is anonymous, which of course it is not.
So they embark on journeys of destruction, until something catches up with them. With luck, they survive it. But they never are the same again...
P.S., Please don't feed the trolls.
Businesses can run second and third shift, it just is not common in programming. What's hard is -changing- your times, not really what times you work. Allow one day to change your time schedule one hour, thats what the navy does. Changing faster can cause accidents, both physical and "bugs" in code.
And don't try staying awake both shifts to make your family or friends happy, they will not like the results.
I think the word "Migrate" is the operable one here...
Sometimes the last people to get something, get the newest version! And the ones that got it first are left with the oldest version. Seen it before with ATMs.