This has nothing to do with Samsung, it has everything to do with tech process problems which spread well beyond the mobile. Case to point: desktop GPUs.
But poor are the one who built those systems, so it's more like payback time. Rich have been leeching off the system way too long. Time they kicked in a bit.
Holy crap, this argument works for absolutely everything, including proletariat revolutions!
1. In part, yes. Laws of physics dictate how far each wave length will carry the signal before it gets garbled. That's why your phone can talk to base station a kilometer away, your WiFi will not carry over about 100m and bluetooth peripherals barely have 10m range. You obviously need power as well, but with sending out a signal, you also need for it to be able to carry the message for entire distance as well. 2. Meters long? AM receivers? What? Are you telling me that this old walkman I have in my hand which is only about 10cm long and has a built in AM/FM receiver doesn't actually have AM functionality? 3. Correct. Because GPS sends on wave length that is relatively clear from other signals and that is able to carry the weak signal over the necessary distance. Of course GPS, like FM is single-directional transmission and not packet data that requires two-directional transmission like actual 2g/3g/4g mobile phone communications are.
I can state with great confidence that it was not in fact considered. It was most likely stated by grid operators at the table where decisions were made and was ignored.
This is because there are countries who already ran into specific grid related problems after aggressively implementing pro-green policies (Germany, Denmark, Australia) who genuinely do not know what to do at this juncture and are embroiled in various forms of political in-fighting over the problems.
I inferred as much from your "I have this *great* idea on subject I know nothing about and someone else will figure out how the details should actually work" opener.
First of all, you should really look up at magnitudes we're talking about. Automotive battery discharge is but a trickle in comparison to the kind of throughput you need. That is why the large batteries they do test on the grid are typically something among the line of high temperature sodium stuff which runs at around 300 degrees celcius and has a tendency to explode, drenching everything in highly corrosive acid when not carefully maintained.
Which are still insufficient in their throughput.
Second problem here is cost. If you could install battery in every household, on national level, do you have any idea how much that would cost? Or where do you plan to get enough lithium for those tesla-style lithium ion batteries?
Current grid exists in current form because it's by far the most cost-efficient form of power generation and distribution to everyone in range that we have. There are many extremely expensive solutions, such as micro-generation with battery backup, but these are simply uncompetitive on large scale because of costs involved (and in some cases like one you suggest, because raw materials to produce that which you would require simply do not exist).
Reminder: we've been looking for technology that could do what you suggest in an economic fashion for over hundred years at this point. We have nothing that is anywhere near being functional.
Don't let me stand in your way of disconnecting from the grid. Most utilities would welcome people doing that for a very simple reason - once they actually realise how hard it is to maintain stable and clean AC output from the socket 24/7, they will drop their idiocy and come back running.
Because no one likes having power like in developed countries. Expensive, random outages and unstable to the point of breaking electric appliances.
Which countries would those be? Germany, Australia and Denmark would die to know, because they don't know what to do with this particular issue and they would love to send consultants to learn how those hypothetical countries have solved them.
Because the current solutions employed in these countries are just straight up awful. Germany and Australia are forced to use old coal plants as spinning reserve, while Denmark is cripplingly dependent on Swedish hydro to act as their spinning reserve.
This has the same problem as #2, to an even greater extent because not only such batteries are extremely expensive, they are also a significant risk source for fires and require routine replacement.
The entire concept behind solar's current rise is that it's cheap. This is achieved by making local grid function as effective load balancer and source of income when you produce too much. Without this factor, solar instability problem would indeed be solved - but solar would no longer be viable economically for microgeneration.
This has nothing to do with "bleeding edge". Centrifuges as technology are old. The problem of electric power storage has been looked into for at least a hundred years now, because if you could actually reliably store it, you would be able to jumpstart the current economy and have a boom like we haven't seen ever before.
This is because you would be able to both remove the need for spinning reserve on the grid in developed countries as well as actually be able to deliver stable and clean AC power in developed countries effectively the moment you get such solution to work. Lion's share of the cost of current electrical delivery and main reason why most developing countries don't have reliable AC power today is because of just how hard and expensive it is to keep the grid load balanced across the entire grid.
So yes, billions upon billions have already been thrown at this problem for over a century with no solution in sight. Best we could come with was gravitational potential storage using water as medium, and that is severely inefficient, geographically limited and difficult to get to work on large scale for actual load balancing. Only predictable cycle overnight storage is functional right now as far as technology goes.
Unmitigated disaster for consumer typically comes after the company that was reliably delivering his electricity is no longer able to do so. Your statement is essentially "who cares if me slamming down the accelerator towards the cliff is dangerous, it makes my travel more efficient so far!"
In case of electric grid, you will have a grid collapse very quickly because balancing job is live and ongoing in your scenario. If you even for a second imagine otherwise, you should study just how much effort is spent on keeping the grid delivering that stable AC to your wall socket.
A good point of comparison is developing countries that are unable to do this. Which means that power is extremely unstable (can break hardware on your end) and unreliable (outages are common).
It handles it like crap in fact. Extremely expensive chemical storage that can barely contain a few tens of kilowatts and is utterly unable to store or discharge it at meaningfully quick levels for any kind of grid level storage.
Slashdot Mirror
They have vested interest in mobile now because it's much more effective to monetize through their own dominant OS.
This has nothing to do with Samsung, it has everything to do with tech process problems which spread well beyond the mobile. Case to point: desktop GPUs.
And once you comprehend that having stable power has actual value, you comprehend why your suggestion is ludicrous.
Something tells me that you need to live in a developing country for a while to understand what "poorly maintained grid" actually means.
Right now, you're raging because that delicious cake that was delivered to you had a slightly stale cherry on top.
The ignorant bullshit spewing of angelosphere continues.
But poor are the one who built those systems, so it's more like payback time. Rich have been leeching off the system way too long. Time they kicked in a bit.
Holy crap, this argument works for absolutely everything, including proletariat revolutions!
1. In part, yes. Laws of physics dictate how far each wave length will carry the signal before it gets garbled. That's why your phone can talk to base station a kilometer away, your WiFi will not carry over about 100m and bluetooth peripherals barely have 10m range.
You obviously need power as well, but with sending out a signal, you also need for it to be able to carry the message for entire distance as well.
2. Meters long? AM receivers? What? Are you telling me that this old walkman I have in my hand which is only about 10cm long and has a built in AM/FM receiver doesn't actually have AM functionality?
3. Correct. Because GPS sends on wave length that is relatively clear from other signals and that is able to carry the weak signal over the necessary distance. Of course GPS, like FM is single-directional transmission and not packet data that requires two-directional transmission like actual 2g/3g/4g mobile phone communications are.
I can state with great confidence that it was not in fact considered. It was most likely stated by grid operators at the table where decisions were made and was ignored.
This is because there are countries who already ran into specific grid related problems after aggressively implementing pro-green policies (Germany, Denmark, Australia) who genuinely do not know what to do at this juncture and are embroiled in various forms of political in-fighting over the problems.
I inferred as much from your "I have this *great* idea on subject I know nothing about and someone else will figure out how the details should actually work" opener.
First of all, you should really look up at magnitudes we're talking about. Automotive battery discharge is but a trickle in comparison to the kind of throughput you need. That is why the large batteries they do test on the grid are typically something among the line of high temperature sodium stuff which runs at around 300 degrees celcius and has a tendency to explode, drenching everything in highly corrosive acid when not carefully maintained.
Which are still insufficient in their throughput.
Second problem here is cost. If you could install battery in every household, on national level, do you have any idea how much that would cost? Or where do you plan to get enough lithium for those tesla-style lithium ion batteries?
Current grid exists in current form because it's by far the most cost-efficient form of power generation and distribution to everyone in range that we have. There are many extremely expensive solutions, such as micro-generation with battery backup, but these are simply uncompetitive on large scale because of costs involved (and in some cases like one you suggest, because raw materials to produce that which you would require simply do not exist).
Using space unicorns? Magical portals? UFOs?
Reminder: we've been looking for technology that could do what you suggest in an economic fashion for over hundred years at this point. We have nothing that is anywhere near being functional.
Ah yes, the "fusion reactor in 20 years" idiocy.
Don't let me stand in your way of disconnecting from the grid. Most utilities would welcome people doing that for a very simple reason - once they actually realise how hard it is to maintain stable and clean AC output from the socket 24/7, they will drop their idiocy and come back running.
Because no one likes having power like in developed countries. Expensive, random outages and unstable to the point of breaking electric appliances.
Which countries would those be? Germany, Australia and Denmark would die to know, because they don't know what to do with this particular issue and they would love to send consultants to learn how those hypothetical countries have solved them.
Because the current solutions employed in these countries are just straight up awful. Germany and Australia are forced to use old coal plants as spinning reserve, while Denmark is cripplingly dependent on Swedish hydro to act as their spinning reserve.
This has the same problem as #2, to an even greater extent because not only such batteries are extremely expensive, they are also a significant risk source for fires and require routine replacement.
The entire concept behind solar's current rise is that it's cheap. This is achieved by making local grid function as effective load balancer and source of income when you produce too much. Without this factor, solar instability problem would indeed be solved - but solar would no longer be viable economically for microgeneration.
Ah yes, angelosphere. The opinionated moron who spends time trolling every single renewable energy article with nonsense.
This has nothing to do with "bleeding edge". Centrifuges as technology are old. The problem of electric power storage has been looked into for at least a hundred years now, because if you could actually reliably store it, you would be able to jumpstart the current economy and have a boom like we haven't seen ever before.
This is because you would be able to both remove the need for spinning reserve on the grid in developed countries as well as actually be able to deliver stable and clean AC power in developed countries effectively the moment you get such solution to work. Lion's share of the cost of current electrical delivery and main reason why most developing countries don't have reliable AC power today is because of just how hard and expensive it is to keep the grid load balanced across the entire grid.
So yes, billions upon billions have already been thrown at this problem for over a century with no solution in sight. Best we could come with was gravitational potential storage using water as medium, and that is severely inefficient, geographically limited and difficult to get to work on large scale for actual load balancing. Only predictable cycle overnight storage is functional right now as far as technology goes.
We know how that ends up. Owners jack up the price, poor get weapons, mob up and murder them down as death of thirst starts to threaten them.
It happened in the past. Many times.
Unmitigated disaster for consumer typically comes after the company that was reliably delivering his electricity is no longer able to do so. Your statement is essentially "who cares if me slamming down the accelerator towards the cliff is dangerous, it makes my travel more efficient so far!"
In case of electric grid, you will have a grid collapse very quickly because balancing job is live and ongoing in your scenario. If you even for a second imagine otherwise, you should study just how much effort is spent on keeping the grid delivering that stable AC to your wall socket.
A good point of comparison is developing countries that are unable to do this. Which means that power is extremely unstable (can break hardware on your end) and unreliable (outages are common).
Kilowatthours obviously.
It handles it like crap in fact. Extremely expensive chemical storage that can barely contain a few tens of kilowatts and is utterly unable to store or discharge it at meaningfully quick levels for any kind of grid level storage.
Imagine a world where utility trusts the end user and his gear.
Ah yes. The world of routine power outages, where relatively cheap and unreliable consumer grade gear is allowed to destroy grid stability.
Of course they exist on large plants. That's where power is generated in massive amounts in centralized fashion.
Did you notice that the article talks about microgeneration and not macrogeneration?
I did. It does not address the issues I asked you about.
What other options are there that are reliable enough to replace centralized grid?