the sad thing is that most electronics have a septate power supply built into them already, and will accept a wide range of voltages. for the longest time I had my 7.5V rated ADSL modem plugged into an 18V brick. if everyone could just settle on one single connector at 12 volts, all our wall wart problems would be solved. it doesn't even have to be built into the walls. if it were one big brick that plugged in with a PC's cord, with about 12 sockets for barrel connector extension cords, that would be just great.
it's true, batteries are still very expensive, but I believe economies of scale would/will bring down the price. the only battery lifetime numbers that I have come across are for the Toyota RAV4 EV, which says the battery should last at least 300,000 miles.
I think electric cars actually get more range in city driving than on the highway, as the mean velocity is lower. wind resistance rises with the square of velocity. in any case, the discrepancy is much less than an equivalent gas powered car.
I admit my circumstances make me biased. electricity here (British Columbia) is really cheap, about $0.06/kWh (about $0.05US), and gasoline has been $1.00 to $1.10 CAD per liter over the last couple of weeks, which is about $3.50 to $3.80 USD per gallon. the speed limits are lower here, max is around 90km/h, or about 56mph, and the nearest neighbouring cities are about 50 miles away. I might go farther than that maybe once a year.
I agree that the government "helping" can do more harm than good. I'm not sure about ethanol in general, but ethanol from corn is terrible. I read that it only produces about 25% more energy than it took to produce it. the Hydrogen economy is terrifying. hydrogen alone is bad enough, but even to get the same energy per volume of Lithium Ion batteries, it has to be compressed to over 500psi. not to mention it attacks any metal container you put it in. I think this says it all.
It does. [Wikipedia] According to the US CIA World Factbook in 2006, the International System of Units is the official system of measurement for all nations except for Myanmar, Liberia, and the United States. [/Wikipedia]
issue a press release: "yes, there is a possibility that your iPod will burst into flames. that possibility is 10,000 times less likely than being stuck by lightning."
considering Krytrons are basically four wires stuck in a gas filled glass bulb, I always wondered what the big deal was over them. heck, if you studied up on glass blowing you could probably go into production with less than $1000 worth of equipment.
I don't think biologists suddenly deciding that birds should be grouped with mammals would have anything to do with the laws of physics. The Norse colonized North America 450 years before Christopher Columbus was born, and Native Americans have been living there for a minimum of 11,000 years before that. Ancient Greece knew that the world was flat 6,000 years ago, and even took a good stab at determining it's circumference in about 250BC.
why not use real OTP? something like a narrow strip of paper perforated every 1/4 inch, with a different password printed on each strip. every time you log in, tear off a strip and throw it away. if you used thin paper, you could probably fold about 1000 into the volume of a credit card.
The California Energy Crisis was due to retarded deregulation and traders (read Enron) willing to illegally take advantage of it. it's all here. I especially like "During the winter of 2000, electricity loads were drastically lower than summer due to, among other things, the lack of need for air conditioning. The capacity for energy production in California was nearly four times what was actually used. Still, the rolling blackouts continued."
Also just because as with anything 'green' is this actually going to reduce strain on the grid?
Yes. say 6 people each need 1MW for 4 hours a day. if they can agree to only connect their loads one at a time, you only need a 1MW power plant. if they all decide to connect at the same time, you need a 6MW power plant that is sitting idle for 20 hours a day. This is an extreme example, but it's the same idea.
using the "smarts" in a smart appliance is entirely optional. the government can't control how much energy you use, when you use it or what you use it for without your permission. and if they suddenly decide that they can, we have much bigger problems to worry about. many places have implemented this in a different way, air conditioning can be put on a separate meter which is charged less per kWh. the catch is that the power company can turn it off if necessary. necessary means if they can't turn off your A/C, they have to start rolling blackouts.
I am fortunate in that where I live, we have excellent electrical infrastructure (mostly hydro electric). I have never experienced a rolling blackout. (blackouts due to downed lines on the other hand...)
NiMH cells have a round trip efficiency of about 66%. Li-ion cells have an efficiency of about 90%. assuming your charger/grid feed has a round trip efficiency of about 90%, that corresponds to 1.7kWh per 1kWh and 1.2kWh per 1kWh. off peak energy costs around half of on peak energy, so energy from your battery would be about 85 or 60% of the cost of from the grid. it's up to you to calculate how much the degradation of your battery by a charge/discharge cycle costs.
your night shifters' argument is bogus. charging your EV during on peak hours is still cheaper than gas. assuming a generous 8L/100km city driving (29.4mpg for you) and $0.50/L ($1.89/gallon), one kilometer costs $0.04. The EV1 (which is over 10 years old now) gets 260km from 26.4kWh. Assuming $0.20 per kWh, one kilometer costs $0.02 per km.
if your family lives one hour away, and you drive at an average of 100km/h (60mph), the EV1 will get you there and back with 50km to spare. Cars that use Li-ion batteries can be expected to get even greater mileage.
If you have to make a 1600 mile trip every month, there's a simple solution: don't get an electric car. but just because it doesn't work for you doesn't mean it won't work for anyone else.
A ballpark figure for a EV's battery is 50kWh. the average US home uses about 30kWh per day, so if you have a blackout, your fully charged EV can power your house for a day and a half.
I don't see why artists don't just become their own record companies. If I could buy DRM free music at a reasonable price, that wasn't going to the MAFIAA, I would. Just run a big server and throw some checkout software on it. even if they sold their music for $0.05 per track, they'd still be making more than the 3.5% or whatever they get from record companies.
A small FM transmitter could be done for $5. google for FM transmitter/microphone/bug for schematic. Stick some nails in a wooden board a few cm square to solder components to. Use trimmer capacitors with cardboard knobs glued on instead of large tuning capacitors. If you are in the US, Jameco is a good supplier: microphone is about $1, trimmer cap about $0.50, everything else probably less than $0.50. Get batteries wherever you normally get them. Cheap generic 9V batteries are about $1.50. Crystal radios are great, put the problem is the piezo earphones, I don't think I've ever seen them for less than $5, but if you can find them for less, a crystal radio is a great project.
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Am I the only one who thinks this is utterly retarded?
the sad thing is that most electronics have a septate power supply built into them already, and will accept a wide range of voltages. for the longest time I had my 7.5V rated ADSL modem plugged into an 18V brick. if everyone could just settle on one single connector at 12 volts, all our wall wart problems would be solved. it doesn't even have to be built into the walls. if it were one big brick that plugged in with a PC's cord, with about 12 sockets for barrel connector extension cords, that would be just great.
it's true, batteries are still very expensive, but I believe economies of scale would/will bring down the price. the only battery lifetime numbers that I have come across are for the Toyota RAV4 EV, which says the battery should last at least 300,000 miles.
I think electric cars actually get more range in city driving than on the highway, as the mean velocity is lower. wind resistance rises with the square of velocity. in any case, the discrepancy is much less than an equivalent gas powered car.
I admit my circumstances make me biased. electricity here (British Columbia) is really cheap, about $0.06/kWh (about $0.05US), and gasoline has been $1.00 to $1.10 CAD per liter over the last couple of weeks, which is about $3.50 to $3.80 USD per gallon. the speed limits are lower here, max is around 90km/h, or about 56mph, and the nearest neighbouring cities are about 50 miles away. I might go farther than that maybe once a year.
I agree that the government "helping" can do more harm than good. I'm not sure about ethanol in general, but ethanol from corn is terrible. I read that it only produces about 25% more energy than it took to produce it. the Hydrogen economy is terrifying. hydrogen alone is bad enough, but even to get the same energy per volume of Lithium Ion batteries, it has to be compressed to over 500psi. not to mention it attacks any metal container you put it in. I think this says it all.
or replace one incandescent light in your house with a CFL, and save orders of magnitude more electricity. seriously, transformers are nothing.
It does. [Wikipedia] According to the US CIA World Factbook in 2006, the International System of Units is the official system of measurement for all nations except for Myanmar, Liberia, and the United States. [/Wikipedia]
seconded. an EV powered by coal is still cleaner than a gas car.
aprox 18% IIRC
I think you mean blue LEDs. Green LEDs are very cheap and have been around for ages.
issue a press release: "yes, there is a possibility that your iPod will burst into flames. that possibility is 10,000 times less likely than being stuck by lightning."
odds of being struck by lightning in your lifetime is about 1 in 5000
considering Krytrons are basically four wires stuck in a gas filled glass bulb, I always wondered what the big deal was over them. heck, if you studied up on glass blowing you could probably go into production with less than $1000 worth of equipment.
It's Sodium sulphide only when completely discharged. At full charge, it's liquid sodium.
I don't think biologists suddenly deciding that birds should be grouped with mammals would have anything to do with the laws of physics. The Norse colonized North America 450 years before Christopher Columbus was born, and Native Americans have been living there for a minimum of 11,000 years before that. Ancient Greece knew that the world was flat 6,000 years ago, and even took a good stab at determining it's circumference in about 250BC.
why not use real OTP? something like a narrow strip of paper perforated every 1/4 inch, with a different password printed on each strip. every time you log in, tear off a strip and throw it away. if you used thin paper, you could probably fold about 1000 into the volume of a credit card.
The California Energy Crisis was due to retarded deregulation and traders (read Enron) willing to illegally take advantage of it. it's all here. I especially like "During the winter of 2000, electricity loads were drastically lower than summer due to, among other things, the lack of need for air conditioning. The capacity for energy production in California was nearly four times what was actually used. Still, the rolling blackouts continued."
Also just because as with anything 'green' is this actually going to reduce strain on the grid?
Yes. say 6 people each need 1MW for 4 hours a day. if they can agree to only connect their loads one at a time, you only need a 1MW power plant. if they all decide to connect at the same time, you need a 6MW power plant that is sitting idle for 20 hours a day. This is an extreme example, but it's the same idea.
using the "smarts" in a smart appliance is entirely optional. the government can't control how much energy you use, when you use it or what you use it for without your permission. and if they suddenly decide that they can, we have much bigger problems to worry about. many places have implemented this in a different way, air conditioning can be put on a separate meter which is charged less per kWh. the catch is that the power company can turn it off if necessary. necessary means if they can't turn off your A/C, they have to start rolling blackouts.
I am fortunate in that where I live, we have excellent electrical infrastructure (mostly hydro electric). I have never experienced a rolling blackout. (blackouts due to downed lines on the other hand...)
Same here in BC. so much of our energy comes from dams that the power company is actually called BC Hydro.
NiMH cells have a round trip efficiency of about 66%. Li-ion cells have an efficiency of about 90%. assuming your charger/grid feed has a round trip efficiency of about 90%, that corresponds to 1.7kWh per 1kWh and 1.2kWh per 1kWh. off peak energy costs around half of on peak energy, so energy from your battery would be about 85 or 60% of the cost of from the grid. it's up to you to calculate how much the degradation of your battery by a charge/discharge cycle costs.
your night shifters' argument is bogus. charging your EV during on peak hours is still cheaper than gas. assuming a generous 8L/100km city driving (29.4mpg for you) and $0.50/L ($1.89/gallon), one kilometer costs $0.04. The EV1 (which is over 10 years old now) gets 260km from 26.4kWh. Assuming $0.20 per kWh, one kilometer costs $0.02 per km.
if your family lives one hour away, and you drive at an average of 100km/h (60mph), the EV1 will get you there and back with 50km to spare. Cars that use Li-ion batteries can be expected to get even greater mileage.
If you have to make a 1600 mile trip every month, there's a simple solution: don't get an electric car. but just because it doesn't work for you doesn't mean it won't work for anyone else.
A ballpark figure for a EV's battery is 50kWh. the average US home uses about 30kWh per day, so if you have a blackout, your fully charged EV can power your house for a day and a half.
unless you live more than 100km* from your office, you don't need to plug in while you're there. and that's with >10 year old battery tech.
*aprox. 60 miles for those of you who live in one of the three countries that haven't converted yet.
dump it in the ocean. the fresh water you extracted is going to make it's way back there eventually, so the net salinity stays the same.
I don't see why artists don't just become their own record companies. If I could buy DRM free music at a reasonable price, that wasn't going to the MAFIAA, I would. Just run a big server and throw some checkout software on it. even if they sold their music for $0.05 per track, they'd still be making more than the 3.5% or whatever they get from record companies.
launching you own legitimate sat. TV service requires launching your own legitimate sat. $1/4 million is totally not going to cover that.
seconded, because I'm less a day old and don't know how to give you a +1 whatever is apropriate.
A small FM transmitter could be done for $5. google for FM transmitter/microphone/bug for schematic. Stick some nails in a wooden board a few cm square to solder components to. Use trimmer capacitors with cardboard knobs glued on instead of large tuning capacitors. If you are in the US, Jameco is a good supplier: microphone is about $1, trimmer cap about $0.50, everything else probably less than $0.50. Get batteries wherever you normally get them. Cheap generic 9V batteries are about $1.50. Crystal radios are great, put the problem is the piezo earphones, I don't think I've ever seen them for less than $5, but if you can find them for less, a crystal radio is a great project.