Having spent a considerable amount of time in Canada, long transmission lines don't seem at all unusual. Quebec alone has tens of thousands of kilometres of AC long lines at outrageously high voltages and sells power to US states even though the hydro stations are a long way from the province's major cities as well as the US customer base. Their claimed transmission losses are 4-8%. In the course of fact-checking, I've come across something I'd not heard of before - HVDC light. Seems to be an interesting compromise but I haven't had time to dig beneath the hype.
Transmission loss numbers that I can find for the US are 6.7% in 1997 and 6.5% in 2007. HVDC is becoming increasing popular for new projects, which is a good thing, and it may be worth it to retrofit existing links, which, of course, will take decades but, at least those jobs can't be outsourced.
It's not as if it was invented yesterday and is only being used for trivial projects. Here a Wikipedia list of HVDC projects, presumably in this space-time continuum, dating back over a hundred years.
Nobody supports 100,000 users alone. Besides there are ways to help even such a large number such as videos and quick tips. I have considerable experience in tech support and there are some things I simply won't tolerate and at the top of the list is abject helplessness from lazy people. Sometimes I've been successful; sometimes not but even after 15 years in IT, I still won't knuckle under that abysmal attitude.
Oh, and I showed Granny how to install and use a PDF virtual printer - granted, it took quite a bit of explanation but the old girl got the hang of it and has updated it by herself at least once.
I deal with all kinds of people at all levels and have for years - my IT career started in Internet Helpdesk for home users. The problem is not how smart or technical people are but how spoonfeeding they get. While it's easy to dismiss things as being too technical for some, please remember not all these folks are complete morons. Technical or not, you're talking about people who may be multi-lingual, have 1 or more university degrees, learned to drive stick-shift, trucks, boats, airplanes or are mechanics, draftmen, nurses, musicians, or can knit, do shorthand, build houses, yadda-yadda.
I say pretty much all of those skills are more advanced than learning to double-click an EXE and clicking, NEXT, ACCEPT, NEXT, FINISH.
Among my close friends are a family of very non-technical people including a single mom with only a high-school education, her elderly parents who are a home-maker and a retired pharmacist and they've all become competent PC users. I've taught them how to install / uninstall programs, the benefits of the right-click context menu and keeping their virus-scanner updated and how to use the Windows web service to find a program to open an unsupported filetype.
Your clients may have very good reasons to not stray from a small number of supported apps, but the lack of brainpower shouldn't be one of them unless they are very, very retarded.
So? There will always be outliers. And we still have FTP, HTTP, and other file transfer methods. If torrent file distribution starts catching on as a mainstream method, router software will be written to adapt. Some clever default rules for QoS will go a long way to alleviating the impact of torrents on ADSL links.
As I said earlier, Opera has had torrent support built in for 5 years and Firefox has at least one decent addon.
Never say never. As my grandmother used to say, those who don't learn easy will learn hard. Perhaps we will invent the ultimate clean power source but after 40 years of promises, it's still just around the corner. If that doesn't happen, then the power spendthrifts will be forced to tighten their belts. A friend of mine is a student of Conflict Theory and believes that change will only come as a result of catastrophe. I certainly hope he's wrong.
Why the hell would it have to be in all the major browsers, when the ability to open files with external apps has been around for a decade, if not longer. Just so you know, there have been Firefox addons for torrents for several years and Opera baked in right into the browser over 5 years ago.
Or you buy an EV with a swappable battery, which is the business model behind Better Place, who are presently building battery swap stations in various locations, Israel, Denmark, Australia, Japan, Hawaii, California and Ontario.
Sodium-sulfur batteries (NGK Japan) would be a hell of a lot better in all respects than lead-acid. I'm guessing that Vanadium Redox, Zinc Bromide could do the job. Even NiMH and NiCd would win out over lead-acid due to the impact of deep-discharging on battery life.
I heard Shai Agassi speak at the Commonwealth Club in SF, and met some of his people afterward when everyone went over to 111 Minna (a club). They talk big, but they have very little actually deployed. They talk about growing by a factor of 10 each year, and deployment all over the world. All they have are three (3) taxicabs in Tokyo, and one automated battery change station for them.
The Israeli rollout is (presumably) months away but I think the acid test for Better Place will be Australia
Their next deployment will be seven (7) cars at the Sheraton Waikiki Resort, plus and a few charging spots. That is a Government-funded project.
Half the money comes gov't, the rest is from Hawaiian Eletric, which is not a gov't corporation
Better Place's basic assumptions are that 1) fast charging technology won't work, so battery changing will be necessary 2) leasing battery packs is a viable business, 3) enough cars can be designed around the standard battery packs to make this work, and 4) they can standardize the infrastructure around their standards. All four are iffy.
Too much fast-charging is detrimental to battery life - if you owned the battery, that could get expensive very quickly. Battery leasing has been done in the distant past of the auto-industry, before petrol became the dominant fuel. Better Place is taking a "build it, they'll come" approach - that takes the pressure off manufacturers but the fly in the ointment is what might happen if some competitor makes a vastly superior battery - I suppose they could switch but what would that cost them with the contracts they have signed? The standards thing is a question mark but if they're first and fastest, then they become the standard.
A female environmentalist friend who heard Agassi speak commented that he's really good looking, and too much of his credibility comes from that.
I doubt that was a factor in convincing Shimon Peres and Ehud Olmert. although Shai is Israeli, but is only being a good-looking Jew enough to convince Carlos Ghosn, a French Roman-Catholic of Lebanese descent to commit a billion dollars in switchable-battery EVs? I'm sure the fact that Agassi seems to have done his homework on his business plan, and likely would have been the next-CEO of a small outfit known as SAP played a larger role in getting $500 million in venture-cap than his boyish charm.
According to some reports from the Rocky Mountain Institute, a number of countries and companies have achieved steady and spectacular improvements in energy efficiency while saving or making money, without legislation forcing them to change, just dollars and sense. So, how can we make that work for the end-user? Do electricity rates in North America typically reflect the true cost(s) of power? The interesting thing about the electric bill I get is that there are other cost that don't usually get reported but since most are tied to consumption, then the less energy I use the more I save, which wouldn't necessarily be the case with fixed costs.
I've also heard that another problem with nuclear reactors is that insurance companies don't like them - I guess that may be an image problem but I would have thought that the sober types that make up the actuarial discipline wouldn't be swayed.
I would love to see someone invent the Shipstone tomorrow but I'm also mindful of the fact that 40 years ago, fusion was supposed to be only 10 years away. Mandate isn't necessarily a bad thing as it can cause a rapid shift. It would be dreadfully ironic if China ends up ahead of the West in energy efficiency and renewable resources simply because they can do things by mandate. I'm not sure why you resist people changing habits if they are bad ones. But, that aside, it doesn't have to be one or the other. We're told to eat better, exercise more, etc but doctors and researchers haven't stopped looking for cures.
As for nuclear, the cost has now become exorbitant and it takes such a long time to get from breaking ground to generating power. And what about the waste? I'm not dead-set against it but the design, the amount of waste produced and the sticker (shock!) price are why I'm hesitant to support although I don't activele oppose it.
The fact that they use violence doesn't mean they'll succeed. Those who lack vision, which is most of humanity, fear change. That doesn't mean we must kowtow to them simply because they may turn violent and have superior numbers. Techno solutions play a part but are NOT and will NEVER be the only answer. We've used tech solutions on our biggest problems and there is always a significant drawback which takes years or generations to overcome. The use of petroleum vastly improved the human condition, but the side effects of burning vast amounts as fuel has given us a challenge that may fundamentally alter the planet. Where our energy usage is concerned, I've seen numerous studies and articles that demonstrate that the single most effective way to get a 40% reduction in household energy use is through a change in habits. To think that we can invent our way out of every problem without altering the way we live is frankly, idiotic.
Slashdot Mirror
Brilliant. And now you've created a life-long welfare recipient. Doesn't the UK have enough people on the dole already?
More info at http://turtledove.wikia.com/wiki/The_Last_Article
Geim lives in the UK. Libel is a pretty big deal by UK laws. If you don't have money and good lawyers, you don't want to be sued for libel
Having spent a considerable amount of time in Canada, long transmission lines don't seem at all unusual. Quebec alone has tens of thousands of kilometres of AC long lines at outrageously high voltages and sells power to US states even though the hydro stations are a long way from the province's major cities as well as the US customer base.
Their claimed transmission losses are 4-8%. In the course of fact-checking, I've come across something I'd not heard of before - HVDC light. Seems to be an interesting compromise but I haven't had time to dig beneath the hype.
Transmission loss numbers that I can find for the US are 6.7% in 1997 and 6.5% in 2007.
HVDC is becoming increasing popular for new projects, which is a good thing, and it may be worth it to retrofit existing links, which, of course, will take decades but, at least those jobs can't be outsourced.
It's not as if it was invented yesterday and is only being used for trivial projects.
Here a Wikipedia list of HVDC projects, presumably in this space-time continuum, dating back over a hundred years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HVDC_projects
Nobody supports 100,000 users alone. Besides there are ways to help even such a large number such as videos and quick tips.
I have considerable experience in tech support and there are some things I simply won't tolerate and at the top of the list is abject helplessness from lazy people.
Sometimes I've been successful; sometimes not but even after 15 years in IT, I still won't knuckle under that abysmal attitude.
If you're using HVDC - and you'd be crazy not to over long distances - typical transmission losses over 1000 KM are 3-5%.
Oh, and I showed Granny how to install and use a PDF virtual printer - granted, it took quite a bit of explanation but the old girl got the hang of it
and has updated it by herself at least once.
Stop the spoonfeeding and teach them to fish.
I deal with all kinds of people at all levels and have for years - my IT career started in Internet Helpdesk for home users.
The problem is not how smart or technical people are but how spoonfeeding they get. While it's easy to dismiss things as being too technical for some, please remember not all these folks are complete morons. Technical or not, you're talking about people who may be multi-lingual, have 1 or more university degrees, learned to drive stick-shift, trucks, boats, airplanes or are mechanics, draftmen, nurses, musicians, or can knit, do shorthand, build houses, yadda-yadda.
I say pretty much all of those skills are more advanced than learning to double-click an EXE and clicking, NEXT, ACCEPT, NEXT, FINISH.
Among my close friends are a family of very non-technical people including a single mom with only a high-school education, her elderly parents who are a home-maker and a retired pharmacist and they've all become competent PC users.
I've taught them how to install / uninstall programs, the benefits of the right-click context menu and keeping their virus-scanner updated and how to use the Windows web service to find a program to open an unsupported filetype.
Your clients may have very good reasons to not stray from a small number of supported apps, but the lack of brainpower shouldn't be one of them unless they are very, very retarded.
So? There will always be outliers. And we still have FTP, HTTP, and other file transfer methods.
If torrent file distribution starts catching on as a mainstream method, router software will be written to adapt. Some clever default rules for QoS will go a long way to alleviating the impact of torrents on ADSL links.
As I said earlier, Opera has had torrent support built in for 5 years and Firefox has at least one decent addon.
Never say never. As my grandmother used to say, those who don't learn easy will learn hard.
Perhaps we will invent the ultimate clean power source but after 40 years of promises, it's still just around the corner.
If that doesn't happen, then the power spendthrifts will be forced to tighten their belts.
A friend of mine is a student of Conflict Theory and believes that change will only come as a result of catastrophe.
I certainly hope he's wrong.
Perhaps you'd like to give this a try?
http://www.fireaddons.com/downloads/
Thank you, Sir Lewk. An Insightful mod to you.
Why the hell would it have to be in all the major browsers, when the ability to open files with external apps has been around for a decade, if not longer.
Just so you know, there have been Firefox addons for torrents for several years and Opera baked in right into the browser over 5 years ago.
Or you buy an EV with a swappable battery, which is the business model behind Better Place, who are presently building
battery swap stations in various locations, Israel, Denmark, Australia, Japan, Hawaii, California and Ontario.
Sodium-sulfur batteries (NGK Japan) would be a hell of a lot better in all respects than lead-acid. I'm guessing that Vanadium Redox, Zinc Bromide could do the job.
Even NiMH and NiCd would win out over lead-acid due to the impact of deep-discharging
on battery life.
How about Better Place [betterplace.com]?
I heard Shai Agassi speak at the Commonwealth Club in SF, and met some of his people afterward when everyone went over to 111 Minna (a club). They talk big, but they have very little actually deployed. They talk about growing by a factor of 10 each year, and deployment all over the world. All they have are three (3) taxicabs in Tokyo, and one automated battery change station for them.
The Israeli rollout is (presumably) months away but I think the acid test for Better Place will be Australia
Their next deployment will be seven (7) cars at the Sheraton Waikiki Resort, plus and a few charging spots. That is a Government-funded project.
Half the money comes gov't, the rest is from Hawaiian Eletric, which is not a gov't corporation
Better Place's basic assumptions are that 1) fast charging technology won't work, so battery changing will be necessary 2) leasing battery packs is a viable business, 3) enough cars can be designed around the standard battery packs to make this work, and 4) they can standardize the infrastructure around their standards. All four are iffy.
Too much fast-charging is detrimental to battery life - if you owned the battery, that could get expensive very quickly.
Battery leasing has been done in the distant past of the auto-industry, before petrol became the dominant fuel.
Better Place is taking a "build it, they'll come" approach - that takes the pressure off manufacturers but the fly in the ointment is what might happen if some competitor makes a vastly superior battery - I suppose they could switch but what would that cost them with the contracts they have signed? The standards thing is a question mark but if they're first and fastest, then they become the standard.
A female environmentalist friend who heard Agassi speak commented that he's really good looking, and too much of his credibility comes from that.
I doubt that was a factor in convincing Shimon Peres and Ehud Olmert. although Shai is Israeli, but is only being a good-looking Jew enough to convince Carlos Ghosn, a French Roman-Catholic of Lebanese descent to commit a billion dollars in switchable-battery EVs? I'm sure the fact that Agassi seems to have done his homework on his business plan, and likely would have been the next-CEO of a small outfit known as SAP played a larger role in getting $500 million in venture-cap than his boyish charm.
According to some reports from the Rocky Mountain Institute, a number of countries and companies have achieved steady and spectacular improvements in energy efficiency while saving or making money, without legislation forcing them to change, just dollars and sense.
So, how can we make that work for the end-user? Do electricity rates in North America typically reflect the true cost(s) of power? The interesting thing about the electric bill I get is that there are other cost that don't usually get reported but since most are tied to consumption, then the less energy I use the more I save, which wouldn't necessarily be the case with fixed costs.
I've also heard that another problem with nuclear reactors is that insurance companies don't like them - I guess that may be an image problem but I would have thought that the sober types that make up the actuarial discipline wouldn't be swayed.
Since ranting on Slashdot was one of only several things I was doing online, I consider multitasking an efficient use of energy.
According to my power meter, the 4yr old laptop I'm ranting on is using 25 watts while running my usual programs.
I would love to see someone invent the Shipstone tomorrow but I'm also mindful of the fact that 40 years ago, fusion was supposed to be only 10 years away. Mandate isn't necessarily a bad thing as it can cause a rapid shift. It would be dreadfully ironic if China ends up ahead of the West in energy efficiency and renewable resources simply because they can do things by mandate.
I'm not sure why you resist people changing habits if they are bad ones. But, that aside, it doesn't have to be one or the other. We're told to eat better, exercise more, etc but doctors and researchers haven't stopped looking for cures.
As for nuclear, the cost has now become exorbitant and it takes such a long time to get from breaking ground to generating power. And what about the waste?
I'm not dead-set against it but the design, the amount of waste produced and the sticker (shock!) price are why I'm hesitant to support although I don't activele oppose it.
The fact that they use violence doesn't mean they'll succeed. Those who lack vision, which is most of humanity, fear change. That doesn't mean we must kowtow to them simply because they may turn violent and have superior numbers.
Techno solutions play a part but are NOT and will NEVER be the only answer. We've used tech solutions on our biggest problems and there is always a significant drawback which takes years or generations to overcome.
The use of petroleum vastly improved the human condition, but the side effects of burning vast amounts as fuel has given us a challenge that may fundamentally alter the planet. Where our energy usage is concerned, I've seen numerous studies and articles that demonstrate that the single most effective way to get a 40% reduction in household energy use is through a change in habits. To think that we can invent our way out of every problem without altering the way we live is frankly, idiotic.
I'd mod you up to 11, if I could
Which we partly by reforestation using Mother Nature's own trees instead of the Monsanto Ents.