Take note of who is in favor of "net neutrality".... big companies with big internet bills.
The only people who are not in favor of net neutrality are large ISPs who have the ability to effectively tax all internet traffic. Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, etc stand to make a huge amount of money at the expense of almost everyone else.
I am strongly in favor of net neutrality and I'm certainly not a big company with a big internet bill.
Clueless assholes are the ones keeping this "net neutrality" issue alive. Let it die, asshole.
Not my definition. It's the definition used by the US government. If you think it is a poor definition your argument is with them, not me.
Also monopolistic behavior is what is regulated (in theory) in the US.
For it to be monopolistic behavior by definition the company has to be a monopoly first.
You would say Standard was not a monopoly because there were other producers.
Strawman. Stop your pathetic attempt to put words in my mouth. I said nothing of the sort nor did I even imply it.
Amazon is definitely big enough to do things as Standard Oil did.
That is irrelevant. They would have to DO the sorts of things that Standard Oil did. Merely being large does not equal being a monopoly. And whether a company is a monopoly depends strongly on how you define the market they supposedly monopolize.
Google is big enough to do such things and HAS with the help of government institutions. Under the guise of a great central library, Google basically obtained complete immunity from copyright laws in order for them to copy anything ever published.
And that was what I was basing my comment on, but failed to clearly state. And as long as that's true, they're still a better investment.
Better is subjective and depends on the person doing the buying and what they hope to accomplish. If money isn't the obstacle then the better investment could easily be a higher performing Li-Ion system. They aren't better if the potential buyer opts out completely because it's too much hassle or too much expense. Right now that is the case no matter what battery technology you are talking about. It's both too expensive and too much bother for any type of battery for most people. The good news is that both problems are being resolved. I expect we will see a lot of companies making something similar to the Tesla Power Wall with a huge boost in ease of use and maintenance. Solar and wind systems are getting easier to manage and cheaper all the time. It's going to take a few decades but I like where things seem to be headed.
Then they're not ready to live off the grid.
People who live off the grid are fringe individuals who think it is an interesting lifestyle choice. Not being judgemental - I think it's cool - but it's an unusual perspective on life. That describes a fraction of a fraction of the people who might buy a battery system for their home even among those who have the technical chops. But frankly most of the benefits of being off grid can be realized without actually going off grid completely. It doesn't have to be an all or nothing proposition. Putting a battery bank in your typical suburban home with some solar panel can achieve a lot of the same benefits. It will be really interesting if/when it gets to the point where a large fraction of homes are generating much of their own power.
You seem to think that being energy-independent is a carefree, easy way to life. It's not. Well, not unless you have piles of money to throw at doing that.
Never said anything about it being easy. But there is no technical reason that it cannot be made so. The main obstacle really is price and that is being worked on by a lot of very serious companies, Tesla not the least among them. Early adopters always have to pay a lot more.
I'd be more than happy to install a solar roof, have a battery pack, and an EV. I already have a well, and could run my heating off of propane if I needed to. I've already done some of that myself (some solar and battery) with more to come. I think every roof should have solar panels on it and every house should have a battery system but I recognize this will take time and a lot of technology development to realize. I don't really see a need to go completely off grid but I think it makes a ton of sense to be able to generate most of my own power without needing the grid 24/7.
The Mozilla Foundation has called for the regulation of tech giants like Google, Amazon, and Facebook.
If they want to have this happen they have to show how CONSUMERS are being harmed in some tangible (mostly financial) way. The mere fact that those companies have simply out competed their rivals is not sufficient and it's clear those companies have provided a lot of value whatever their flaws might be. None of those companies are monopolies or if they are they are extremely narrow ones. Amazon may be the big gorilla in ecommerce but they aren't a monopoly. Facebook may dominate social media but proving that harms consumers is going to be a tough argument.
Plus is it really realistic to call for regulation when the party that breaks out in hives whenever they hear the word controls both congress and the presidency? Never going to happen. This is the same party that seems to think net neutrality is some communist plot to reduce profits of big business. This is the same party that hasn't issued a single enforcement action out of the CFPB in over a year. Regulate? Not bloody likely.
Do you really care how much the "power plant" of your home weighs?
A little but mostly I care how much space it takes up and bigger usually correlates strongly with heavier. A lot of people don't have huge homes and even those that do probably have better uses for the space than needlessly large and heavy mechanicals and power systems. I'd prefer a compact Li-Ion battery bank to a bulky and heavy lead acid version even if the performance was otherwise identical.
I'm not certain why some think that Marine or deep discharge batteries are not lead-acid batteries, but their main drawback is that they are so darn heavy. But they are inexpensive, and dead easy to recycle.
Their weight is among their smaller disadvantages though for mobile applications that is a killer problem. Compared to Li-Ion they have fewer charge cycles, worse charging and draw characteristics, more temperature sensitivity, are less efficient, have worse power and energy density, etc. Lithium batteries can be recycled just fine too. From a performance standpoint Li-Ion wins in most use cases if you ignore price. There are some corner cases where lead acid comes out on top but most of the time it's really no contest.
Lead acid batteries (marine or otherwise) have two primary advantages. They are cheap and they are readily available. And both of those advantages are rapidly disappearing because the price of Li-Ion is falling fast and as they capture market share the cost of lead acid will at some point start to rise or at least bottom out. I would expect cost parity within the next 10-15 years at which point the only reason to use lead acid batteries is for certain corner cases where Li-Ion might be problematic.
That's what a friend who lived off-grid used. Shed full of marine batteries. Cheap, durable, and easy to replace.
I'm sure it worked just fine and was reasonably economical at the time. But times are changing and so is battery technology.
About every 3 months he'd test all the batteries, replace any that were wearing out, close the door, and maintenance was done.
Which is clear evidence that they are not suitable for use by the General Public. I cannot imagine most people checking a shed of batteries on a routine basis even if they wanted to. They want something they can install and more or less forget about and which self monitors. Your friend is obviously a diligent person and technically inclined but what he did would be utterly incomprehensible to your canonical technologically impaired grandparent.
Compared to a power wall, that was far cheaper, stored vastly more energy, and provided higher power draw. The only thing it didn't have was looks.
Cheaper I would believe. "Stored vastly more energy"? Maybe per dollar but that is entirely a function of how many batteries you have. They definitely do NOT store more energy per battery than Li-Ion. And of course he would have to replace the lead acid batteries more frequently. Your comment about power draw is equally nonsensical. Li-Ion is demonstrably better for most high draw applications.
There is nothing about marine lead acid batteries that provide more energy storage or greater power draw. I have no idea where you drew those conclusions but that isn't what the evidence shows. Lead acid batteries (marine or otherwise) are substantially less efficient, have fewer charge cycles, are much bulkier and heavier per unit of power, etc. The ONLY big advantage that lead acid batteries have is price. That's an important advantage but it's one that will go away in the near future.
The average USA house hold only uses 30KWH per day. Most of the marketed electric cars could completely run a house for 2-3 days
While true as a general proposition (one has to be careful talking about averages), it's not clear that using your EV to power your house is a good idea as a routine matter. A lot of the residual value of the car will reside in the number of charge cycles the battery pack experiences. I could see doing that from time to time to help with emergencies or to smooth usage during the occasional peak time. But I think it would be a bad idea to routinely use your EV battery to power your home. It's not really designed for that purpose even if it might work acceptably well. I think something like Tesla's power wall makes a lot more sense for that purpose AND it does not require your car to be present in the home.
Most of the warranties are for a full battery cycle every day for 10 years, and even then the battery will still be around 80% capacity.
I can almost guarantee you those warranties do not cover powering your house. I'd be surprised in fact if they didn't specifically exclude it. That said, Elon is crazy enough to possibly do it anyway.
The cost to produce a li-ion battery has gone down 25% between 2016 and 2017. They're getting cheap.
They are getting cheapER. They aren't cheap. Not yet anyway. Good cause for optimism however.
Regardless, I'm not keen on the idea, and since in home use, weight is not a factor, so the lead acid family of batteries would function very well for home storage
The only big advantage of lead acid batteries over Li-Ion in most use cases is their price tag which is quite a lot lower than Li-Ion. But lead acid batteries are worse on energy density, can require more maintenance, usually have fewer fewer cycles, are more temperature sensitive, worse capacity vs discharge rate, are less environmentally friendly, etc. There are plenty of use cases where lead acid is a fine choice but Li-Ion is the clear performance winner in most use cases. Provided of course the cost meets your budget.
There is only one way to power your cellphone, with a rechargeable battery. You certainly won't put any kind of fuel cell into it, you won't power it with gas or an ICE.
Actually you might power your cell phone with gas, just not directly. The gas is turned into electricity at the power station instead of in the device. That is the advantage of batteries. You can use the most practical fuel source available. It becomes like using money instead of bartering. The fuel source gets abstracted from the device.
A house or even car is kinda different in that aspect.
A car is no different than a cell phone regarding power versus weight. It's bigger but there still is a power vs weight vs space budget to deal with. Any mobile device regardless of size does not escape this reality.
Homes don't have to care so much about weight obviously so that's a bit different. There still can be a space budget but since the device is static you don't have to worry about weight so much.
Right now, energy driven cars seem to be the future, but we don't even know what kind of energy storage is the best.
Best is what works and has the best combination of economic utility and environmental friendliness. It seems pretty clear that battery powered EVs are the most credible option moving forward. Lots of advantages not the least of which is that the fuel source is abstracted from the vehicle and that there is existing infrastructure for refueling. You can power a battery powered EV with gasoline or coal or nuclear or wind or solar or anything else you can make into electricity. The value of that abstraction of power sources almost cannot be overstated. Plus the fact that you don't have to build the entire fueling infrastructure from scratch is equally huge in value. Even better you can have hybrids which allow use of both electric and petrol fueling infrastructures.
Other potential options like hydrogen fuel cells have too many obstacles to really be likely to make headway in the market. It would take a miraculous technology breakthrough for anything other than battery powered EVs/hybrids to really have any chance at success.
When it comes to energy density, the ICE and petrol are still superior to other forms on a pure power-per-kg level.
Not once you include the weight of the engine and power train and consider efficiency. You're comparing apples to oranges. If it were that simple electric vehicles like the Tesla would lose every drag race they entered. You have to consider the weight of all components involved in turning that fuel source into power and how efficiently it does that task. On that measure ICE doesn't look nearly so pretty.
We should first of all figure out how to replace this, and what to replace that with, before we start planning a whole house around it only to discover that eventually we'll start over from scratch.
No. Absolutely not. The only way to figure out what works is to try things in the market. It's going to be a little messy but that's not a bad thing. The good thing about battery powered EVs is that it doesn't actually matter what type of battery is in the vehicle. You can upgrade those as technology permits because it doesn't require any adjustments to the refueling infrastructure. If we get a battery tomorrow with double the energy density the only effect is that cars can go farther. Same with batteries to power a house.
We're still far away from batteries reaching their peak performance.
Probably true though I think we're pretty close to the limit for Li-Ion batteries. The question is how soon can the next battery technology get to market.
We develop more powerful batteries (ok, dear nitpickers, accumulators) that can store more power per kilogram of battery at a rather fast pace,
Define "fast pace". Energy density of batteries has been increasing at something like 5-8% per year. Nice but that means it takes 10-15 years to double. Not exactly Moore's law though with a long term perspective I suppose that's pretty decent progress. I don't know that I'd call it fast paced but it's good enough to be optimistic about the future of batteries for powering homes and transportation.
Let's first of all finish inventing the storage before we ponder spending the energy.
Classic engineer thinking of trying to get everything perfect before first use. I think we are all guilty of that now and then. While I respect the intent that isn't really practical in the real world. Don't make perfect the enemy of good. One needs to ponder use cases along side development pathways.
The Powerwall costs extra money, but you will already have your car battery, so there is no additional capital cost other than an inverter.
Not quite. You also have to factor in the cost of the additional cycles on the battery pack, the additional warranty and maintenance costs that may result, the depreciation on the vehicle from this additional use, and perhaps a few others I'm not thinking of before I've had my morning caffeine. Doesn't make using the car battery a bad idea but one should have a full accounting of all the costs. I think depreciation likely would be the biggest cost since inverters probably wouldn't be super expensive once they are produced at scale. I could easily see the added depreciation being a few thousand dollars though you obviously wouldn't be hit with that until you sell the vehicle.
Personally I see car batteries as more of an emergency standby solution than a routine use. Not much use for powering the home if you have to take the car to work. Could be a nice little extra layer of security for power outages or to manage energy costs and usage though.
You mean except for currency manipulation, import/export restrictions, forex controls, foreign ownership restrictions, government subsidies, government ownership of businesses, and a fistful of other shady practices?
While I wouldn't claim the US is pure as snow either let's not pretend that China the nation state doesn't act on behalf of Chinese companies.
Actually trade is not done between nations, but between companies.
A) Governments purchase goods too and a lot of them, both foreign and domestic. B) Nation states are HEAVILY involved in international trade. If you think otherwise you don't understand the topic adequately.
The only way to know that is with a properly conducted clinical study. Preferably of the double blind variety if possible. Which makes the whole argument about rushing the drug to market before we know if/when/why/how it works idiotic. We do studies the way we do them for very good reasons which we learned the hard way. It's a tragedy that anyone has to suffer or die but those deaths become wasteful if we do not learn anything from them. The greater tragedy is to have more people die because we lacked the patience and fortitude to see the studies through and look for the evidence.
My mother just died from ALS. Horrible way to die. There are some experimental treatments but she understood that the odds were against her so she enrolled in some studies to help other people. She didn't want to die or suffer but the only way we will ever cure a horrible disease like ALS is if some people willingly sacrifice themselves for the greater good.
One can be too cautious or not cautious enough. The FDA is far too cautious, to the extent that current estimates are that the FDA regulations have resulted in as many avoidable deaths as two Nazi Holocausts:
What a bunch of bullshit. The FDA has saved orders of magnitude more people than have died and I think your equating their actions to the holocaust is entirely inappropriate and false. Here is the cold hard fact. Clinical trials only work because some people are sacrificed to save more people in the long run. Yes people will die who theoretically might have been saved but doing so actually costs MORE lives in the long run. There is absolutely no way around this. This process usually takes lots of time and money to do correctly and it is inevitable that some people will suffer and die during the process. While tragic it would be a far greater tragedy to short cut the process to save a few at the expense of many.
Not every disease can be neatly solved and not every precaution is warranted.
Quackery is a real thing. Drug companies can/will/have sold snake oil in a heartbeat if it means more profit. While there are ways to improve speed to market for drugs we cut corners at our peril.
What you should do is put all the responsibility for making a mistake on the bureaucrats responsible for safety protocols, and all the costs associated with those safety protocols should be borne by the drug manufacturers.
If you make individuals responsible for mistakes then nobody would be willing to do that job. That's why corporations exist and why governments are usually shielded from liability except in extreme circumstances. Would you take full liability for the actions of your employer even for actions you do not control? Everybody makes mistakes sometimes. Don't make perfect the enemy of good. The system cannot work if individuals have unlimited personal liability.
As for the costs, most of the costs of the studies are borne by the drug manufacturers but we don't actually want them to bear all the costs. You don't want the drug manufacturers paying for the salaries of the regulators because then the regulators become beholden to the drug companies. We have enough problems with regulatory capture as it is.
The catch is that if you are trying to get approval for a novel medication that saves lives of the critically ill, how do you justify the delay needed to do all the safety and effectiveness studies?
We need to understand the effects of a range of dosages and what sort of patients are helped and which are not. Yes some patients will be harmed while we take the time to study safety and effectiveness but MORE patients will be harmed if we don't take the time to study safety and effectiveness. Merely knowing that a drug can help some patients isn't sufficient. We need to know what the range of safe and effective dosages are, what patient populations are helped, what the range of expected outcomes are, and why the treatment is effective. The goal of clinical trials isn't to save any specific patient though we'll do that if we can. The goal is to save the most possible patients.
It's a cold hard truth about medicine that we learn how to save some people's lives by sacrificing others. There is no way around this. Some people are being sacrificed for the greater good. You might be one of them someday.
That is a load of shit. There are plenty functioning democracies in the world that haven't devolved into a 2 party system, both beheld by corporate interests, and both forcing through unpopular legislation by riding on critical bills of supply.
"Devolved"? The US has been a two party system almost since its inception. It's a natural outcome of first past the post voting systems and it's resulted in a stable government for 150 years and the wealthiest country in the world. It's not clear that having more than two parties results in better outcomes either. Our two party system has it's flaws to be sure but parliamentary systems with numerous parties are flawed as well. Pick the poison that works for you but understand that every system has its flaws.
You talk about those legislative tactics as if they are something new. You talk about it as if money and corporate interests were something new. EVERY non-totalitarian country has to deal with similar legislative tactics and the corrupting influence of money. That will never change.
You're right the title of democracy doesn't prevent something being bad, but the way the USA is passing bills and the way the election process works are two things that are really stretching the definition.
Only to those who are predisposed to believe such circular reasoning. If you want to argue that Gerrymandering is a threat or that the electoral college system doesn't represent the will of the voters I can get with you on that. But arguing that the US isn't a democracy is just plainly and clearly not true.
It doesn't make the phone the size of a brick. It just means a removable back and things held in place with screws instead of glue, and a logical tear down to reach parts.
I'm exaggerating for effect obviously but it isn't really a debate that it would substantially increase the size of the device and almost certainly the cost as well. There are a lot of other technical issues as well. For example do you know how hard it is to make a device that is both waterproof and user serviceable? It's damn near impossible even with experienced technicians doing the servicing.
I personally could live with it being a bit larger but the economics of trying to sell the device seem unlikely to work. It worked for desktop PCs because they had the space budget to be designed to be modular. You'll notice that laptops for the most part are not user serviceable or modular and they have a bigger space budget than phones do. For better or worse very few people actually care about it being user serviceable and designs that make service easy almost invariably cost more. I'm not convinced very many people would be willing to pay a substantial premium for serviceability even if we ignore all the other engineering trade offs that would be inevitably required. Cheaper and simpler to just replace the device and pay for some insurance.
Please understand that I'm not trying to apologize for Apple and others designing a phone that is intentionally hard to service. I'm right with you on disliking that. But I understand why they do it and it really comes down to a cost benefit analysis on their end. I don't like it but I think I get it.
And that's why the USA has fucked-up laws and cannot be called a democracy.
Every country has some fucked up laws. It's merely a question of degree.
If the US is not a democracy then no country is a democracy. (And a republic is just a form of representative democracy so spare us that meme) There is nothing about being a democracy that prevents bad decision or poorly designed legislative procedures.
A modular phone is a niche. It's not something that people generally want because it results in bulky, more complex, more expensive devices.
Quite so.
Now, if Motorola produced a repairable or upgradable phone than that might be another matter entirely.
Your previous argument still holds and for the same reasons. Few people would buy it. Making a phone like that would make it cost more. Repairable? Cheaper to just get a new phone and/or offer insurance. Upgradeable? Not even sure how this would be possible given how tightly packaged the electronics are in smartphones. Again, cheaper to buy new than to design in features that very few people will ever actually utilize. You could do something with a battery case that has features but the handset makers have zero incentive to design a repairable/upgradable phone.
Just a phone that is easily serviceable without special skill - replaceable covers, batteries, screen, main module, antenna, camera.
And you end up with something the size of a brick, that isn't water sealed, that costs a lot more and probably works worse. I think it would sell very poorly.
Slashdot Mirror
Take note of who is in favor of "net neutrality".... big companies with big internet bills.
The only people who are not in favor of net neutrality are large ISPs who have the ability to effectively tax all internet traffic. Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, etc stand to make a huge amount of money at the expense of almost everyone else.
I am strongly in favor of net neutrality and I'm certainly not a big company with a big internet bill.
Clueless assholes are the ones keeping this "net neutrality" issue alive. Let it die, asshole.
Fuck off troll.
Your definition of a monopoly is poor.
Not my definition. It's the definition used by the US government. If you think it is a poor definition your argument is with them, not me.
Also monopolistic behavior is what is regulated (in theory) in the US.
For it to be monopolistic behavior by definition the company has to be a monopoly first.
You would say Standard was not a monopoly because there were other producers.
Strawman. Stop your pathetic attempt to put words in my mouth. I said nothing of the sort nor did I even imply it.
Amazon is definitely big enough to do things as Standard Oil did.
That is irrelevant. They would have to DO the sorts of things that Standard Oil did. Merely being large does not equal being a monopoly. And whether a company is a monopoly depends strongly on how you define the market they supposedly monopolize.
Google is big enough to do such things and HAS with the help of government institutions. Under the guise of a great central library, Google basically obtained complete immunity from copyright laws in order for them to copy anything ever published.
Except almost none of that is actually true.
And that was what I was basing my comment on, but failed to clearly state. And as long as that's true, they're still a better investment.
Better is subjective and depends on the person doing the buying and what they hope to accomplish. If money isn't the obstacle then the better investment could easily be a higher performing Li-Ion system. They aren't better if the potential buyer opts out completely because it's too much hassle or too much expense. Right now that is the case no matter what battery technology you are talking about. It's both too expensive and too much bother for any type of battery for most people. The good news is that both problems are being resolved. I expect we will see a lot of companies making something similar to the Tesla Power Wall with a huge boost in ease of use and maintenance. Solar and wind systems are getting easier to manage and cheaper all the time. It's going to take a few decades but I like where things seem to be headed.
Then they're not ready to live off the grid.
People who live off the grid are fringe individuals who think it is an interesting lifestyle choice. Not being judgemental - I think it's cool - but it's an unusual perspective on life. That describes a fraction of a fraction of the people who might buy a battery system for their home even among those who have the technical chops. But frankly most of the benefits of being off grid can be realized without actually going off grid completely. It doesn't have to be an all or nothing proposition. Putting a battery bank in your typical suburban home with some solar panel can achieve a lot of the same benefits. It will be really interesting if/when it gets to the point where a large fraction of homes are generating much of their own power.
You seem to think that being energy-independent is a carefree, easy way to life. It's not. Well, not unless you have piles of money to throw at doing that.
Never said anything about it being easy. But there is no technical reason that it cannot be made so. The main obstacle really is price and that is being worked on by a lot of very serious companies, Tesla not the least among them. Early adopters always have to pay a lot more.
I'd be more than happy to install a solar roof, have a battery pack, and an EV. I already have a well, and could run my heating off of propane if I needed to. I've already done some of that myself (some solar and battery) with more to come. I think every roof should have solar panels on it and every house should have a battery system but I recognize this will take time and a lot of technology development to realize. I don't really see a need to go completely off grid but I think it makes a ton of sense to be able to generate most of my own power without needing the grid 24/7.
The Mozilla Foundation has called for the regulation of tech giants like Google, Amazon, and Facebook.
If they want to have this happen they have to show how CONSUMERS are being harmed in some tangible (mostly financial) way. The mere fact that those companies have simply out competed their rivals is not sufficient and it's clear those companies have provided a lot of value whatever their flaws might be. None of those companies are monopolies or if they are they are extremely narrow ones. Amazon may be the big gorilla in ecommerce but they aren't a monopoly. Facebook may dominate social media but proving that harms consumers is going to be a tough argument.
Plus is it really realistic to call for regulation when the party that breaks out in hives whenever they hear the word controls both congress and the presidency? Never going to happen. This is the same party that seems to think net neutrality is some communist plot to reduce profits of big business. This is the same party that hasn't issued a single enforcement action out of the CFPB in over a year. Regulate? Not bloody likely.
Do you really care how much the "power plant" of your home weighs?
A little but mostly I care how much space it takes up and bigger usually correlates strongly with heavier. A lot of people don't have huge homes and even those that do probably have better uses for the space than needlessly large and heavy mechanicals and power systems. I'd prefer a compact Li-Ion battery bank to a bulky and heavy lead acid version even if the performance was otherwise identical.
I'm not certain why some think that Marine or deep discharge batteries are not lead-acid batteries, but their main drawback is that they are so darn heavy. But they are inexpensive, and dead easy to recycle.
Their weight is among their smaller disadvantages though for mobile applications that is a killer problem. Compared to Li-Ion they have fewer charge cycles, worse charging and draw characteristics, more temperature sensitivity, are less efficient, have worse power and energy density, etc. Lithium batteries can be recycled just fine too. From a performance standpoint Li-Ion wins in most use cases if you ignore price. There are some corner cases where lead acid comes out on top but most of the time it's really no contest.
Lead acid batteries (marine or otherwise) have two primary advantages. They are cheap and they are readily available. And both of those advantages are rapidly disappearing because the price of Li-Ion is falling fast and as they capture market share the cost of lead acid will at some point start to rise or at least bottom out. I would expect cost parity within the next 10-15 years at which point the only reason to use lead acid batteries is for certain corner cases where Li-Ion might be problematic.
That's what a friend who lived off-grid used. Shed full of marine batteries. Cheap, durable, and easy to replace.
I'm sure it worked just fine and was reasonably economical at the time. But times are changing and so is battery technology.
About every 3 months he'd test all the batteries, replace any that were wearing out, close the door, and maintenance was done.
Which is clear evidence that they are not suitable for use by the General Public. I cannot imagine most people checking a shed of batteries on a routine basis even if they wanted to. They want something they can install and more or less forget about and which self monitors. Your friend is obviously a diligent person and technically inclined but what he did would be utterly incomprehensible to your canonical technologically impaired grandparent.
Compared to a power wall, that was far cheaper, stored vastly more energy, and provided higher power draw. The only thing it didn't have was looks.
Cheaper I would believe. "Stored vastly more energy"? Maybe per dollar but that is entirely a function of how many batteries you have. They definitely do NOT store more energy per battery than Li-Ion. And of course he would have to replace the lead acid batteries more frequently. Your comment about power draw is equally nonsensical. Li-Ion is demonstrably better for most high draw applications.
There is nothing about marine lead acid batteries that provide more energy storage or greater power draw. I have no idea where you drew those conclusions but that isn't what the evidence shows. Lead acid batteries (marine or otherwise) are substantially less efficient, have fewer charge cycles, are much bulkier and heavier per unit of power, etc. The ONLY big advantage that lead acid batteries have is price. That's an important advantage but it's one that will go away in the near future.
The average USA house hold only uses 30KWH per day. Most of the marketed electric cars could completely run a house for 2-3 days
While true as a general proposition (one has to be careful talking about averages), it's not clear that using your EV to power your house is a good idea as a routine matter. A lot of the residual value of the car will reside in the number of charge cycles the battery pack experiences. I could see doing that from time to time to help with emergencies or to smooth usage during the occasional peak time. But I think it would be a bad idea to routinely use your EV battery to power your home. It's not really designed for that purpose even if it might work acceptably well. I think something like Tesla's power wall makes a lot more sense for that purpose AND it does not require your car to be present in the home.
Most of the warranties are for a full battery cycle every day for 10 years, and even then the battery will still be around 80% capacity.
I can almost guarantee you those warranties do not cover powering your house. I'd be surprised in fact if they didn't specifically exclude it. That said, Elon is crazy enough to possibly do it anyway.
The cost to produce a li-ion battery has gone down 25% between 2016 and 2017. They're getting cheap.
They are getting cheapER. They aren't cheap. Not yet anyway. Good cause for optimism however.
Used correctly, lead acid batteries have far longer lifetimes, and can do far more cycles than lithium ion.
No they do not. Quite the opposite actually. It's not even close.
Regardless, I'm not keen on the idea, and since in home use, weight is not a factor, so the lead acid family of batteries would function very well for home storage
The only big advantage of lead acid batteries over Li-Ion in most use cases is their price tag which is quite a lot lower than Li-Ion. But lead acid batteries are worse on energy density, can require more maintenance, usually have fewer fewer cycles, are more temperature sensitive, worse capacity vs discharge rate, are less environmentally friendly, etc. There are plenty of use cases where lead acid is a fine choice but Li-Ion is the clear performance winner in most use cases. Provided of course the cost meets your budget.
There is only one way to power your cellphone, with a rechargeable battery. You certainly won't put any kind of fuel cell into it, you won't power it with gas or an ICE.
Actually you might power your cell phone with gas, just not directly. The gas is turned into electricity at the power station instead of in the device. That is the advantage of batteries. You can use the most practical fuel source available. It becomes like using money instead of bartering. The fuel source gets abstracted from the device.
A house or even car is kinda different in that aspect.
A car is no different than a cell phone regarding power versus weight. It's bigger but there still is a power vs weight vs space budget to deal with. Any mobile device regardless of size does not escape this reality.
Homes don't have to care so much about weight obviously so that's a bit different. There still can be a space budget but since the device is static you don't have to worry about weight so much.
Right now, energy driven cars seem to be the future, but we don't even know what kind of energy storage is the best.
Best is what works and has the best combination of economic utility and environmental friendliness. It seems pretty clear that battery powered EVs are the most credible option moving forward. Lots of advantages not the least of which is that the fuel source is abstracted from the vehicle and that there is existing infrastructure for refueling. You can power a battery powered EV with gasoline or coal or nuclear or wind or solar or anything else you can make into electricity. The value of that abstraction of power sources almost cannot be overstated. Plus the fact that you don't have to build the entire fueling infrastructure from scratch is equally huge in value. Even better you can have hybrids which allow use of both electric and petrol fueling infrastructures.
Other potential options like hydrogen fuel cells have too many obstacles to really be likely to make headway in the market. It would take a miraculous technology breakthrough for anything other than battery powered EVs/hybrids to really have any chance at success.
When it comes to energy density, the ICE and petrol are still superior to other forms on a pure power-per-kg level.
Not once you include the weight of the engine and power train and consider efficiency. You're comparing apples to oranges. If it were that simple electric vehicles like the Tesla would lose every drag race they entered. You have to consider the weight of all components involved in turning that fuel source into power and how efficiently it does that task. On that measure ICE doesn't look nearly so pretty.
We should first of all figure out how to replace this, and what to replace that with, before we start planning a whole house around it only to discover that eventually we'll start over from scratch.
No. Absolutely not. The only way to figure out what works is to try things in the market. It's going to be a little messy but that's not a bad thing. The good thing about battery powered EVs is that it doesn't actually matter what type of battery is in the vehicle. You can upgrade those as technology permits because it doesn't require any adjustments to the refueling infrastructure. If we get a battery tomorrow with double the energy density the only effect is that cars can go farther. Same with batteries to power a house.
We're still far away from batteries reaching their peak performance.
Probably true though I think we're pretty close to the limit for Li-Ion batteries. The question is how soon can the next battery technology get to market.
We develop more powerful batteries (ok, dear nitpickers, accumulators) that can store more power per kilogram of battery at a rather fast pace,
Define "fast pace". Energy density of batteries has been increasing at something like 5-8% per year. Nice but that means it takes 10-15 years to double. Not exactly Moore's law though with a long term perspective I suppose that's pretty decent progress. I don't know that I'd call it fast paced but it's good enough to be optimistic about the future of batteries for powering homes and transportation.
Let's first of all finish inventing the storage before we ponder spending the energy.
Classic engineer thinking of trying to get everything perfect before first use. I think we are all guilty of that now and then. While I respect the intent that isn't really practical in the real world. Don't make perfect the enemy of good. One needs to ponder use cases along side development pathways.
The Powerwall costs extra money, but you will already have your car battery, so there is no additional capital cost other than an inverter.
Not quite. You also have to factor in the cost of the additional cycles on the battery pack, the additional warranty and maintenance costs that may result, the depreciation on the vehicle from this additional use, and perhaps a few others I'm not thinking of before I've had my morning caffeine. Doesn't make using the car battery a bad idea but one should have a full accounting of all the costs. I think depreciation likely would be the biggest cost since inverters probably wouldn't be super expensive once they are produced at scale. I could easily see the added depreciation being a few thousand dollars though you obviously wouldn't be hit with that until you sell the vehicle.
Personally I see car batteries as more of an emergency standby solution than a routine use. Not much use for powering the home if you have to take the car to work. Could be a nice little extra layer of security for power outages or to manage energy costs and usage though.
China has no unfair trade practices.
You mean except for currency manipulation, import/export restrictions, forex controls, foreign ownership restrictions, government subsidies, government ownership of businesses, and a fistful of other shady practices?
While I wouldn't claim the US is pure as snow either let's not pretend that China the nation state doesn't act on behalf of Chinese companies.
Actually trade is not done between nations, but between companies.
A) Governments purchase goods too and a lot of them, both foreign and domestic. B) Nation states are HEAVILY involved in international trade. If you think otherwise you don't understand the topic adequately.
The key question is: would they have died anyway?
The only way to know that is with a properly conducted clinical study. Preferably of the double blind variety if possible. Which makes the whole argument about rushing the drug to market before we know if/when/why/how it works idiotic. We do studies the way we do them for very good reasons which we learned the hard way. It's a tragedy that anyone has to suffer or die but those deaths become wasteful if we do not learn anything from them. The greater tragedy is to have more people die because we lacked the patience and fortitude to see the studies through and look for the evidence.
My mother just died from ALS. Horrible way to die. There are some experimental treatments but she understood that the odds were against her so she enrolled in some studies to help other people. She didn't want to die or suffer but the only way we will ever cure a horrible disease like ALS is if some people willingly sacrifice themselves for the greater good.
One can be too cautious or not cautious enough. The FDA is far too cautious, to the extent that current estimates are that the FDA regulations have resulted in as many avoidable deaths as two Nazi Holocausts:
What a bunch of bullshit. The FDA has saved orders of magnitude more people than have died and I think your equating their actions to the holocaust is entirely inappropriate and false. Here is the cold hard fact. Clinical trials only work because some people are sacrificed to save more people in the long run. Yes people will die who theoretically might have been saved but doing so actually costs MORE lives in the long run. There is absolutely no way around this. This process usually takes lots of time and money to do correctly and it is inevitable that some people will suffer and die during the process. While tragic it would be a far greater tragedy to short cut the process to save a few at the expense of many.
Not every disease can be neatly solved and not every precaution is warranted.
Quackery is a real thing. Drug companies can/will/have sold snake oil in a heartbeat if it means more profit. While there are ways to improve speed to market for drugs we cut corners at our peril.
What you should do is put all the responsibility for making a mistake on the bureaucrats responsible for safety protocols, and all the costs associated with those safety protocols should be borne by the drug manufacturers.
If you make individuals responsible for mistakes then nobody would be willing to do that job. That's why corporations exist and why governments are usually shielded from liability except in extreme circumstances. Would you take full liability for the actions of your employer even for actions you do not control? Everybody makes mistakes sometimes. Don't make perfect the enemy of good. The system cannot work if individuals have unlimited personal liability.
As for the costs, most of the costs of the studies are borne by the drug manufacturers but we don't actually want them to bear all the costs. You don't want the drug manufacturers paying for the salaries of the regulators because then the regulators become beholden to the drug companies. We have enough problems with regulatory capture as it is.
The catch is that if you are trying to get approval for a novel medication that saves lives of the critically ill, how do you justify the delay needed to do all the safety and effectiveness studies?
We need to understand the effects of a range of dosages and what sort of patients are helped and which are not. Yes some patients will be harmed while we take the time to study safety and effectiveness but MORE patients will be harmed if we don't take the time to study safety and effectiveness. Merely knowing that a drug can help some patients isn't sufficient. We need to know what the range of safe and effective dosages are, what patient populations are helped, what the range of expected outcomes are, and why the treatment is effective. The goal of clinical trials isn't to save any specific patient though we'll do that if we can. The goal is to save the most possible patients.
It's a cold hard truth about medicine that we learn how to save some people's lives by sacrificing others. There is no way around this. Some people are being sacrificed for the greater good. You might be one of them someday.
That is a load of shit. There are plenty functioning democracies in the world that haven't devolved into a 2 party system, both beheld by corporate interests, and both forcing through unpopular legislation by riding on critical bills of supply.
"Devolved"? The US has been a two party system almost since its inception. It's a natural outcome of first past the post voting systems and it's resulted in a stable government for 150 years and the wealthiest country in the world. It's not clear that having more than two parties results in better outcomes either. Our two party system has it's flaws to be sure but parliamentary systems with numerous parties are flawed as well. Pick the poison that works for you but understand that every system has its flaws.
You talk about those legislative tactics as if they are something new. You talk about it as if money and corporate interests were something new. EVERY non-totalitarian country has to deal with similar legislative tactics and the corrupting influence of money. That will never change.
You're right the title of democracy doesn't prevent something being bad, but the way the USA is passing bills and the way the election process works are two things that are really stretching the definition.
Only to those who are predisposed to believe such circular reasoning. If you want to argue that Gerrymandering is a threat or that the electoral college system doesn't represent the will of the voters I can get with you on that. But arguing that the US isn't a democracy is just plainly and clearly not true.
It doesn't make the phone the size of a brick. It just means a removable back and things held in place with screws instead of glue, and a logical tear down to reach parts.
I'm exaggerating for effect obviously but it isn't really a debate that it would substantially increase the size of the device and almost certainly the cost as well. There are a lot of other technical issues as well. For example do you know how hard it is to make a device that is both waterproof and user serviceable? It's damn near impossible even with experienced technicians doing the servicing.
I personally could live with it being a bit larger but the economics of trying to sell the device seem unlikely to work. It worked for desktop PCs because they had the space budget to be designed to be modular. You'll notice that laptops for the most part are not user serviceable or modular and they have a bigger space budget than phones do. For better or worse very few people actually care about it being user serviceable and designs that make service easy almost invariably cost more. I'm not convinced very many people would be willing to pay a substantial premium for serviceability even if we ignore all the other engineering trade offs that would be inevitably required. Cheaper and simpler to just replace the device and pay for some insurance.
Please understand that I'm not trying to apologize for Apple and others designing a phone that is intentionally hard to service. I'm right with you on disliking that. But I understand why they do it and it really comes down to a cost benefit analysis on their end. I don't like it but I think I get it.
My vote this November is going to whoever promises to repeal this, regardless of the D/R/I after their name.
Really? Nothing else is of consequence to you?
And that's why the USA has fucked-up laws and cannot be called a democracy.
Every country has some fucked up laws. It's merely a question of degree.
If the US is not a democracy then no country is a democracy. (And a republic is just a form of representative democracy so spare us that meme) There is nothing about being a democracy that prevents bad decision or poorly designed legislative procedures.
Is this another invasive anti-privacy act, or does this one have all the correct and proper controls to protect the American people?
If you have to ask the question you probably can guess the answer.
A modular phone is a niche. It's not something that people generally want because it results in bulky, more complex, more expensive devices.
Quite so.
Now, if Motorola produced a repairable or upgradable phone than that might be another matter entirely.
Your previous argument still holds and for the same reasons. Few people would buy it. Making a phone like that would make it cost more. Repairable? Cheaper to just get a new phone and/or offer insurance. Upgradeable? Not even sure how this would be possible given how tightly packaged the electronics are in smartphones. Again, cheaper to buy new than to design in features that very few people will ever actually utilize. You could do something with a battery case that has features but the handset makers have zero incentive to design a repairable/upgradable phone.
Just a phone that is easily serviceable without special skill - replaceable covers, batteries, screen, main module, antenna, camera.
And you end up with something the size of a brick, that isn't water sealed, that costs a lot more and probably works worse. I think it would sell very poorly.