okay, unlike processors, it's already known that flash only has so many write cycles before it's worn out. Thus far, the reports I've read say that smaller process flash, especially MLC flash, wears out quicker. HOWEVER, shrinking the process so you fit 4X the cells into a given area doesn't give you cells with 1/4 the lifespan; maybe 2/3rds, maybe 1/2. That part isn't clear. Thus, a theoretical 1TB flash chip might only have 10TB worth of 'writes' to it, that 10TB is still better than a 1GB chip that has 100GB worth of writes. Wear leveling takes care of the rest.
More likely, if a small quake is going to put enough pressure on another area to make it fire off "the big one", then the large quake from an unrelieved fault is going to impact a lot of "another areas" and fire off a lot of "the big ones" in rapid succession.
Which is probably why earthquakes often start off somewhat small, then get big, then you have a lot of aftershocks.
I think the situation is such that artificially stimulating earthquakes will, on average, reduce tension between the plates and reduce individual earthquakes - and as tremors below certain energy thresholds don't really cause damage, while moving up in energy level causes rapid increases in damage. Thus, four 3's probably do less damage than a single 4.
Still, there are individual cases to worry about - before you go artificially tripping a fault, you're probably going to want to model stuff so that you DON'T trip the 'big one' when you're not ready.
I'm a computer guys as well. For the data - that's why I specified scientists and supercomputers. I KNOW the task isn't an easy one, that's why it's for the future.
I somehow dropped the 'eventually' I was intending to put before 'deliberately'. Basically the idea is that maybe, in the future, we'll be able to detect high-stress points and deliberately inject water there to trigger lighter earthquakes to prevent bigger ones, using techniques developed for fracking, as opposed to fracking for natural gas and hoping it prevents an earthquake. Even then we'll likely be a long ways of telling what day the earthquake would happen, such that vulnerable structures could be reinforced(perhaps temporarily*), people could put all their stuff on the floor and go camping, etc...
*One idea I first thought of was filling the structure with foam to provide extra support and prevent collapse, though removal would be a technical issue. Then I thought some sort of airbag would be easier - google shows that a Japanese company has already thought of it.:)
This was the same thought I had - better to have the fault slip now when it's a barely feelable ~3.0 than to have it work it's way up to a 6.
Then again, maybe the little slips put more pressure on different areas, and might make the 'big one' more likely.
It'd be something for scientists to work out on supercomputers. Maybe we'll deliberately inject wastewater to trigger that 6.0 before it builds up to that 8-9.
In this case, despite the 'normal' affair, what I think needs to be done is that the contract supervisor(a facility worker) needs to be fired, and either the guard functions brought in house(not hiring most of the mid-high management), or contracted to a different party with tightened stipulations for meeting the security requirements. The old contract SHOULD(but is not guaranteed) have stipulations that allow pull-back of substantial funds for failure to perform duties.
"Deadly Force Authorized" Signs don't mean you'll automatically be shot though. They're generally saved for installations where the federal government has determined that there is property worth killing to prevent somebody from damaging/stealing. Otherwise you have to demonstrate some danger against HUMAN life to get shot. I've worked within such areas many times.
Basically, guards have a very consistent record of NOT shooting violent people even in those areas. It's 'mostly' a scare tactic. The response might of been quite different if they'd actually had tools to get inside the building, if they'd been armed with explosives or firearms, etc...
Was it outfitted with their own stuff? Maybe they occasionally used it as a sales area(or thought to do so)? Heck, for all we know they got a discount from the contracting party through some sort of back-scratch deal.
Well, these guys got as far as jumping the perimeter fence. There's a little more to accomplish before the joyride can begin.
Not to mention that 99% of 'these guys' fail to get past said perimeter fence. The pros KNOW they can beat the perimeter fence. It's the last 20 feet, and getting away, that concerns them.
While perhaps not brave, staying in the vehicle to inform supervision is smart. What if he got ambushed while outside the vehicle BEFORE raising the alarm? It's a bit like first aid - first you call for help(get the ambulances rolling), then you administer first aid/stop the intruders.
I know that I wouldn't want to arrest 3 people, even if they're old, when they're armed with potential HtH weapons(hammers and such), with me being the only person. The vast majority of nuclear intruders aren't violent, but you do get exceptions.
As for firing the higher ups, it might take a while, but I figure some will lose their jobs.
Why not fire any private company who is not doing their job and find one that can/will?
The problem you get is that there is a seriously limited selection of 'private' companies that are qualified for guarding a nuclear plant. There's a semi-limited number of people capable of it as well, given that they have to be willing to work for decent(but not high) pay, while being able to get a security clearance(and handle automatic weapons) and meet the physical requirements(shooting accuracy, fitness, etc...). You're pretty much restricted to ex-military.
Having some knowledge of government type contracting, it's been my experience that you can have the contractor change, but the people in the contract seats stay the same - with the loss of the contract, the original contractor no longer needs the people, thus lays them off(excess). The NEW contractor needs people to fulfill the contract, and wait - there's people XYZ with years of experience in the role, in the local area, has the necessary clearance($$$), etc... Hired!
The contracted employees themselves have to brush off their resume and re-interview for their job, but it's normally a formality. They might get ~2-3 weeks of 'vacation' where they get unemployment, and a day or two of orientation on how their new employer(the actual contractor).
After all that, I have to say that I'd rather keep the function in house. Reasons: 1. It's not a wide field, more of a specialist position with only a couple hundred plants in the states. 2. It's a continuous stable requirement. Contracts are for temporary things(like renovating a building, upgrading a network, etc...)
Emergency shower: Intended to be used once a blue moon; fast access preferred over privacy; heck, privacy isn't really desired as the responding EMTs/safety crew might want to help scrub to make sure you're clean(if you're lucky they might only observe). Temperature: OMG THAT'S COLD.
Non-Emergency: Daily use, probably multiple times a day. Privace preferred over fast access; primary concerns are plenty of hot(or at least warm) water, some niches to stick your supplies(shampoo, soap, body wash), a hook outside to hang the towel, etc...
Maybe it was due to legacy grandfathering, or just the fact that since I work for the federal government they can occasionally be 'building permits? What are those?', but our break room was very much 'home grade'.
I can see requiring upgraded fire/ventilation, but you shouldn't need the sort of ventilation that's necessary for a grill that operates 16 hours a day.
Different areas have different rules, but a quick google search shows that as long as you're using domestic appliances for domestic use(IE not commercial or professional) you're generally okay following domestic rules - I'd recommend a hood anyways, but it can be a cheaper domestic type. Though I'd install a semi-professional one that's designed to work with ducting; especially if the break room can't be located on an outside wall to vent through. I'm not especially happy with the one over my stove in my house right now.
By 'full' Kitchen I mean - All appliances - Fridge, Freezer(I'd go seperate and full size on these), 2 microwaves, stove&oven(home model is okay), and dishwasher. Plenty of countertop and cabinets. Full double or even triple sink.
Have enough seating and table/counter space(seperate from the kitchen part) for everybody to be able to sit down and eat.
As a person who was moved from a building with storage space to one without, I'm going to have to agree with this. Don't forget a Janitor's closet. I was appointed the building custodian, and I'm forced to keep the spare lights(standard 4' flourescents) down in the basement entry hallway as the 'most out of sight' spot. We're also in a snow area, there's really no good place to keep the snow shovels during the summer now that the safety guy banned keeping them in the mechanical rooms.
UPS / UPS and more ups - everything upsed - main routers, servers, switches and telephone systems [ though if you are using IP telephony up the number of sockets at each desk]
CNC machines, industrial area? I'd look into putting a power conditioner before the UPS. Determine your uptime requirements - how long will the servers take to shut down and such, and look into a 'room UPS'. Now, as an industrial company I doubt you'll 'need' to be up if you're without power for an extended period of time(I doubt the CNC machines will be running in that case), but it's something to think about.
While a food service contract might be overkill, and I'm sure there are lawyer firms(as opposed to industrial) that have catering every day, as long as we're getting away from IT recommendations, I'd say that a good breakroom with a 'full' kitchen isn't 'that' expensive and can be really nice. Add a grill outside and you can have company events.
Oh yeah, and you'll probably have it because it's an industrial company, but non-emergency showers/lockerroom.
Back on IT - given the size I'd want the 'comm closet' to be big enough for both wires and a server rack. At 40 employees, 1 rack for wiring and 1 rack for servers and other equipment should be fine. Go with seperate ducting, along with provisions for extra filtering/positive pressure(to keep the machining stuff OUT). Ductless is an option, but I'm not sure how good the filtering on those can be, plus it can be tough to do positive pressure. In the rest of the building - CONDUIT!!! Oversized is best. I'd go with metallic for the shielding. Not knowing the dimensions I don't know if you can reach all the machines with 1 comm closet without going to fiber, but that's an option, though it's my understanding that desktop fiber NICS are getting pricy and hard to find.
Given that they only have 40 employees, 1 would technically be 'overkill', so yeah, I'd backstop with some contracted rate support. Having one dedicated can be worth the expense due to experience with them, even if he's not fully utilized. Plus, if he does support/programming for the CNC machines, he may have some serious specialty knowledge.
Maybe not even 66 blocks for the phone lines; at work we're transitioning to VOIP phones for everything. I've seen a few spots where the 'phone lines' are terminated just like the network drops, they use a patches to mess with the phone lines.
GM never sold a single EV-1. They refused to make them available for sale. They only leased them.
Semantics. They sold leases. Income was still generated, insufficient amounts of income to pay for the production costs, much less R&D.
I don't need a goddamn tinfoil hat. I couldn't be bothered to check who it was. Yes, Chevron. Thanks for nothing for the snide correction after you verified the basis of what I said.
At least I checked, right? To continue to be snide - I Didn't say tinfoil. Said Aluminum.(/pedantic) Yes, you mentioned California in your post, but I must of missed it, and I consider the 'flavor' of our usage to be different - you seemed to imply that they were going to produce the vehicle anyways, and 'yeah, it fits here', vs my 'the ONLY reason they produced X vehicle was due to the requirement'.
As for Envia - one of my points is that there's hundreds of companies out there. Patents aside, it's tough and expensive to squash EVERYONE.
as long as the R&D could have been amortized over a larger production run.
You have a point, however the question remains of how much more of a market would they have had? It's my understanding that while those interested(even knowing the pricetag) exceeded the number of units sold, it wasn't anything like like the OOM or two it would have taken to be profitable.
And again, reading comprehension fails. Until the last decade? PBS documentary. Beginning of the automobile. Back when it was called the horseless carriage.
And again, reading comprehension fails. Snerk. My intent wasn't to say that electric vehicles didn't exist until the last decade(or so). It was to say that after quickly being crushed as a normal option* back in the early 1900's, oil companies and the producers of gasoline vehicles didn't have anything to worry about from electric cars.
My China comment was made with the idea that if China manages to start producing batteries practical enough for EVs, it'll ultimately end up with the USA either buying them(perhaps after pressure from congress). We'd also be seeing substantial amounts of video footage, tests, etc...
I'd love for there to be a practical EV battery. I'm just a pessimist in that I think that such is going to be extremely difficult to develop/have to wait until gasoline is substantially more expensive.
*They hung around for use in areas where dirty IC engines were dangerous/impractical/unpleasant - inside warehouses, on golf courses, etc...
You made references as if I was in Europe. I'm not. Read the first two letters of my name, or my sig for a better hint of where I am.
Heh, talk about coincidence- I'm in Fairbanks. In any case, I didn't want to make any allegations. As far as I knew you had an unhealthy obsession with Harry Potter, or 'AK' were your initials. I normally pay no real attention to sigs.
After that, let me let you in on a little secret. I'd bet there are more PV panels per capita in Alaska than Nevada.
I know of 2 installs here in Fairbanks. I'm willing to bet there's a lot more down in Nevada, even per capita, though the remoteness and low population density which makes our electricity bloody expensive makes PV attractive here, at least in the summer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_consumption The EU has more population and lower oil consumption. Thus savings measures will have a greater effect in the USA than Europe. Thus, EVs *should* be adopted in the US before Europe.
You live in Alaska and you don't know that there are more uses for oil than simply burning it in automobiles? I use approximately equal measures in my truck and house! If I had a family and the house was occupied more I'd be seriously looking at wood.
In any case: Fewer cars? False. Though if you include 'all' 4+ wheel vehicles, we take the lead again(though it's still around 75% as many vehicles per capita). Fewer miles? 14k km(9k miles), vs ~15k miles, though latest DOT is closer to 13k. So about 50% more. Your earlier assumption of 8k km was therefore only slightly above HALF of what the statistics actually say about average driving over in Europe, and is still less than if you misstated and meant miles. Plus Americans are driving less as well. Better Economy: True, but I never disagreed with you there. On average, US vehicles use 32% more fuel. Still, Europe averaged €1.59/liter vs USA's $3.85. A US gallon is 3.79L, And 1 Euro =$1.28. Making European gas $7.71/gallon. Adjusting for the average superior mileage of European vehicles, they're still falling behind at $5.84/gallon equivalent. Raise prices that much and Americans drive less.
Again: My statement was merely trying to state that EV adoption should be quicker over in Europe.
1, The battery is the single thing that drives the cost of an EV higher than a traditional gasoline vehicle. 2. An EV driven less doesn't need as large of a battery. 3. A denser average population also means that potential charge points are also more common. 4. The cost of fuel is far higher in Europe
Conclusion: Small EVs should be quite popular over there(if they were 'almost' economical in the USA), but they're not, so they're not really that close yet.
Most of the land in Alaska has no access to any utilities at all.
True; though if you want water it's more 'dig a well' or 'drive into town once a week/month to fill up a big tank in the back of your truck' and most of our population IS collected around population centers where utilities(at least electricity) is available.
Have you not heard about the fate of the EV-1? It was profitable, so by definition it was already economical, at least in the twisted economics of pure capitalism, so why wasn't it mass-produced a decade ago?
Define profitable. It's my understanding that GM only produced it to placate California, and lost it's proverbial shorts on every sale, even with the rebates.
The reason is GM may be a car company, but it does things for irrational reasons, because it is run by people. And people do stuff that makes no sense.
It's not just GM though. You'd think that one of the hundreds of car companies out there would be making a killing producing EVs if it was possible to do so profitably.
Because the patents for nickel-metal hydride batteries were owned by Standard Oil, and they sued. And won.
A 'quick googling' suggests you need to adjust your aluminum foil hat and go back and reread the stuff again. Standard Oil hasn't been around for a while, it was Chevron. Still, this was part of the impetuous to move towards LiIon. Reading also suggested that Toyota produced the EV Rav4 in response to California's requirements as well, producing less than 2k vehicles overall. 2k vehicles is a loss item short of ultra-premier cars like Rolls-Royce.
They have spent 80 years killing every electric vehicle, by any means necessary
Until the last decade, it wasn't necessary.
They will avoid manufacturing them in laptop form factors for as long as possible, and that's a lot of years, solely to prevent Tesla from getting their hands on improved cells.
It's going to take a lot of work to keep China from producing them though, if that was the case. Remember, world market - they have to shut up the stuff all over the world. Right now an economical battery would be a high-profit battery - they know oil is going to go away, sooner or later. If they don't come up with one now, or sit on it, they'll lose the profit their patent can create(patents do expire, after all).
When I've looked, I've generally seen l/100k. And the increased economy of the lower average engine size is not dependent on the units.
My point is that while there are some ultra-economy models over there that aren't available in the states, their average fuel economy isn't correspondingly better - it's better than the states, but not by 'that much'. Yes, l/100k is the standard measurement over there, but YOU mentioned '60+ mpg'. Which are generally for ultra-economy diesels and using imperial gallons in the MPG calculation. It's closer to 50mpg if you correct for that. Then there's the differences in the measuring standards. Europe tends to be 'nicer' in that they tend to rate vehicles as more efficient than the states.
The problem is that they don't rely on cars as much. Why? Because of the high prices.
'As much', but the USA has a population of ~300M, Europe has one of 738M. Translation: Even if you have half the cars per capita, you still have more cars than the USA.
They solved the problem before there were electric cars, so electric cars aren't a solution for a problem they have.
Electric cars have been around since the early 1800's. There's no 'before', unless you go back before IC vehicles as well.
An EV eliminating that would save three times as much as in Europe where the cost is twice as much.
Exactly.
They drive smaller cars less, and trading a family car using less than 5l/100km for a equivelent sized car thats EV will save (8000km/yr*5l/100km=400l*2$/l=) $800 per year.
Is a 47mpg equivalent car & 8k km/year really any sort of 'family car' or 'average' over there? I recognize the US figures. Still, the lower miles driven and smaller vehicles actually allows for a lower ranged, cheaper EV to be used. While US consumers will, by and large, sneer at a 'mere' 100 mile range, over in Europe I see a lot more being accepting of a 100km range. Shrink the battery and you reduce the cost of the major component driving the price of an EV higher than gasoline vehicles(an electric motor runs about the same price as a gasoline engine of equivalent power).
Europe has already "optimized" for lower prices with lower distances in smaller cars. The US has much further to go, and so *should* logically see greater improvement with EVs than Europe, as every EV in the US is replacing a less efficient car traveling longer distances.
'Every EV'? You get people who drive a lot in Europe, and people who don't drive at all here in the States. Logically speaking, you get a gradual adoption as EV technology improves and the economics make more sense. Early on you have people buying an EV because they want an EV - economics don't really enter it. Later you get 'edge cases' - like a company that buys EVs for their warehouse/factory area because they can drive them inside without worrying about air quality/monoxide(same reason you see a lot of electric forklifts in warehouses). That transitions to people who have driving styles 'perfectly' suited for them, and it spreads.
I wasn't trying to say that 'every' car in Europe would be an EV, just that, like solar panels being installed in Nevada before Alaska, it's a 'better situation' over in Europe for EVs. If they were close to being economical- you'd see them gaining considerable ground over in Europe. Think SUVs over here in the states - they're 'everywhere' in the sense that you don't generally have to wait long to see one along a busy road, but they're still much less than half the market.
I think that there's more to it than just Arpa-E and the feds preventing burial, I think that it's also that there's too much non-car interest and research in battery tech - cell phones, laptops, etc...
Plus, conspiracies aside, you have to remember GM is a car company - it wants to sell cars. It's not an oil company looking to sell fuel it pulled out of the ground. If it can sell an EV for a profit, it'll do so. If it's the only one who can produce economical EVs, it stands to make a killing.
For that matter, most of the 'oil' companies have been busily diversifying themselves into 'energy' companies - investing in solar, wind, and other renewables so they're positioned to make the transition from oil when it becomes logical.
Per this, the lithium compound is indeed the single most expensive part, but not quite half of the materials alone. If we're forced to separate seawater for it, LiIon cell prices would double.
Slashdot Mirror
okay, unlike processors, it's already known that flash only has so many write cycles before it's worn out. Thus far, the reports I've read say that smaller process flash, especially MLC flash, wears out quicker. HOWEVER, shrinking the process so you fit 4X the cells into a given area doesn't give you cells with 1/4 the lifespan; maybe 2/3rds, maybe 1/2. That part isn't clear. Thus, a theoretical 1TB flash chip might only have 10TB worth of 'writes' to it, that 10TB is still better than a 1GB chip that has 100GB worth of writes. Wear leveling takes care of the rest.
More likely, if a small quake is going to put enough pressure on another area to make it fire off "the big one", then the large quake from an unrelieved fault is going to impact a lot of "another areas" and fire off a lot of "the big ones" in rapid succession.
Which is probably why earthquakes often start off somewhat small, then get big, then you have a lot of aftershocks.
I think the situation is such that artificially stimulating earthquakes will, on average, reduce tension between the plates and reduce individual earthquakes - and as tremors below certain energy thresholds don't really cause damage, while moving up in energy level causes rapid increases in damage. Thus, four 3's probably do less damage than a single 4.
Still, there are individual cases to worry about - before you go artificially tripping a fault, you're probably going to want to model stuff so that you DON'T trip the 'big one' when you're not ready.
I'm a computer guys as well. For the data - that's why I specified scientists and supercomputers. I KNOW the task isn't an easy one, that's why it's for the future.
I somehow dropped the 'eventually' I was intending to put before 'deliberately'. Basically the idea is that maybe, in the future, we'll be able to detect high-stress points and deliberately inject water there to trigger lighter earthquakes to prevent bigger ones, using techniques developed for fracking, as opposed to fracking for natural gas and hoping it prevents an earthquake. Even then we'll likely be a long ways of telling what day the earthquake would happen, such that vulnerable structures could be reinforced(perhaps temporarily*), people could put all their stuff on the floor and go camping, etc...
*One idea I first thought of was filling the structure with foam to provide extra support and prevent collapse, though removal would be a technical issue. Then I thought some sort of airbag would be easier - google shows that a Japanese company has already thought of it. :)
This was the same thought I had - better to have the fault slip now when it's a barely feelable ~3.0 than to have it work it's way up to a 6.
Then again, maybe the little slips put more pressure on different areas, and might make the 'big one' more likely.
It'd be something for scientists to work out on supercomputers. Maybe we'll deliberately inject wastewater to trigger that 6.0 before it builds up to that 8-9.
In this case, despite the 'normal' affair, what I think needs to be done is that the contract supervisor(a facility worker) needs to be fired, and either the guard functions brought in house(not hiring most of the mid-high management), or contracted to a different party with tightened stipulations for meeting the security requirements. The old contract SHOULD(but is not guaranteed) have stipulations that allow pull-back of substantial funds for failure to perform duties.
"Deadly Force Authorized" Signs don't mean you'll automatically be shot though. They're generally saved for installations where the federal government has determined that there is property worth killing to prevent somebody from damaging/stealing. Otherwise you have to demonstrate some danger against HUMAN life to get shot. I've worked within such areas many times.
Basically, guards have a very consistent record of NOT shooting violent people even in those areas. It's 'mostly' a scare tactic. The response might of been quite different if they'd actually had tools to get inside the building, if they'd been armed with explosives or firearms, etc...
Was it outfitted with their own stuff? Maybe they occasionally used it as a sales area(or thought to do so)? Heck, for all we know they got a discount from the contracting party through some sort of back-scratch deal.
Well, these guys got as far as jumping the perimeter fence. There's a little more to accomplish before the joyride can begin.
Not to mention that 99% of 'these guys' fail to get past said perimeter fence. The pros KNOW they can beat the perimeter fence. It's the last 20 feet, and getting away, that concerns them.
Or a gangster. Or from the south in generall...
While perhaps not brave, staying in the vehicle to inform supervision is smart. What if he got ambushed while outside the vehicle BEFORE raising the alarm? It's a bit like first aid - first you call for help(get the ambulances rolling), then you administer first aid/stop the intruders.
I know that I wouldn't want to arrest 3 people, even if they're old, when they're armed with potential HtH weapons(hammers and such), with me being the only person. The vast majority of nuclear intruders aren't violent, but you do get exceptions.
As for firing the higher ups, it might take a while, but I figure some will lose their jobs.
Why not fire any private company who is not doing their job and find one that can/will?
The problem you get is that there is a seriously limited selection of 'private' companies that are qualified for guarding a nuclear plant. There's a semi-limited number of people capable of it as well, given that they have to be willing to work for decent(but not high) pay, while being able to get a security clearance(and handle automatic weapons) and meet the physical requirements(shooting accuracy, fitness, etc...). You're pretty much restricted to ex-military.
Having some knowledge of government type contracting, it's been my experience that you can have the contractor change, but the people in the contract seats stay the same - with the loss of the contract, the original contractor no longer needs the people, thus lays them off(excess). The NEW contractor needs people to fulfill the contract, and wait - there's people XYZ with years of experience in the role, in the local area, has the necessary clearance($$$), etc... Hired!
The contracted employees themselves have to brush off their resume and re-interview for their job, but it's normally a formality. They might get ~2-3 weeks of 'vacation' where they get unemployment, and a day or two of orientation on how their new employer(the actual contractor).
After all that, I have to say that I'd rather keep the function in house. Reasons:
1. It's not a wide field, more of a specialist position with only a couple hundred plants in the states.
2. It's a continuous stable requirement. Contracts are for temporary things(like renovating a building, upgrading a network, etc...)
Emergency shower: Intended to be used once a blue moon; fast access preferred over privacy; heck, privacy isn't really desired as the responding EMTs/safety crew might want to help scrub to make sure you're clean(if you're lucky they might only observe). Temperature: OMG THAT'S COLD.
Non-Emergency: Daily use, probably multiple times a day. Privace preferred over fast access; primary concerns are plenty of hot(or at least warm) water, some niches to stick your supplies(shampoo, soap, body wash), a hook outside to hang the towel, etc...
Maybe it was due to legacy grandfathering, or just the fact that since I work for the federal government they can occasionally be 'building permits? What are those?', but our break room was very much 'home grade'.
I can see requiring upgraded fire/ventilation, but you shouldn't need the sort of ventilation that's necessary for a grill that operates 16 hours a day.
Different areas have different rules, but a quick google search shows that as long as you're using domestic appliances for domestic use(IE not commercial or professional) you're generally okay following domestic rules - I'd recommend a hood anyways, but it can be a cheaper domestic type. Though I'd install a semi-professional one that's designed to work with ducting; especially if the break room can't be located on an outside wall to vent through. I'm not especially happy with the one over my stove in my house right now.
By 'full' Kitchen I mean -
All appliances - Fridge, Freezer(I'd go seperate and full size on these), 2 microwaves, stove&oven(home model is okay), and dishwasher.
Plenty of countertop and cabinets. Full double or even triple sink.
Have enough seating and table/counter space(seperate from the kitchen part) for everybody to be able to sit down and eat.
As a person who was moved from a building with storage space to one without, I'm going to have to agree with this. Don't forget a Janitor's closet. I was appointed the building custodian, and I'm forced to keep the spare lights(standard 4' flourescents) down in the basement entry hallway as the 'most out of sight' spot. We're also in a snow area, there's really no good place to keep the snow shovels during the summer now that the safety guy banned keeping them in the mechanical rooms.
UPS / UPS and more ups - everything upsed - main routers, servers, switches and telephone systems [ though if you are using IP telephony up the number of sockets at each desk]
CNC machines, industrial area? I'd look into putting a power conditioner before the UPS. Determine your uptime requirements - how long will the servers take to shut down and such, and look into a 'room UPS'. Now, as an industrial company I doubt you'll 'need' to be up if you're without power for an extended period of time(I doubt the CNC machines will be running in that case), but it's something to think about.
While a food service contract might be overkill, and I'm sure there are lawyer firms(as opposed to industrial) that have catering every day, as long as we're getting away from IT recommendations, I'd say that a good breakroom with a 'full' kitchen isn't 'that' expensive and can be really nice. Add a grill outside and you can have company events.
Oh yeah, and you'll probably have it because it's an industrial company, but non-emergency showers/lockerroom.
Back on IT - given the size I'd want the 'comm closet' to be big enough for both wires and a server rack. At 40 employees, 1 rack for wiring and 1 rack for servers and other equipment should be fine. Go with seperate ducting, along with provisions for extra filtering/positive pressure(to keep the machining stuff OUT). Ductless is an option, but I'm not sure how good the filtering on those can be, plus it can be tough to do positive pressure.
In the rest of the building - CONDUIT!!! Oversized is best. I'd go with metallic for the shielding. Not knowing the dimensions I don't know if you can reach all the machines with 1 comm closet without going to fiber, but that's an option, though it's my understanding that desktop fiber NICS are getting pricy and hard to find.
Given that they only have 40 employees, 1 would technically be 'overkill', so yeah, I'd backstop with some contracted rate support. Having one dedicated can be worth the expense due to experience with them, even if he's not fully utilized. Plus, if he does support/programming for the CNC machines, he may have some serious specialty knowledge.
Maybe not even 66 blocks for the phone lines; at work we're transitioning to VOIP phones for everything. I've seen a few spots where the 'phone lines' are terminated just like the network drops, they use a patches to mess with the phone lines.
GM never sold a single EV-1. They refused to make them available for sale. They only leased them.
Semantics. They sold leases. Income was still generated, insufficient amounts of income to pay for the production costs, much less R&D.
I don't need a goddamn tinfoil hat. I couldn't be bothered to check who it was. Yes, Chevron. Thanks for nothing for the snide correction after you verified the basis of what I said.
At least I checked, right? To continue to be snide - I Didn't say tinfoil. Said Aluminum.(/pedantic) Yes, you mentioned California in your post, but I must of missed it, and I consider the 'flavor' of our usage to be different - you seemed to imply that they were going to produce the vehicle anyways, and 'yeah, it fits here', vs my 'the ONLY reason they produced X vehicle was due to the requirement'.
As for Envia - one of my points is that there's hundreds of companies out there. Patents aside, it's tough and expensive to squash EVERYONE.
as long as the R&D could have been amortized over a larger production run.
You have a point, however the question remains of how much more of a market would they have had? It's my understanding that while those interested(even knowing the pricetag) exceeded the number of units sold, it wasn't anything like like the OOM or two it would have taken to be profitable.
And again, reading comprehension fails. Until the last decade? PBS documentary. Beginning of the automobile. Back when it was called the horseless carriage.
And again, reading comprehension fails. Snerk. My intent wasn't to say that electric vehicles didn't exist until the last decade(or so). It was to say that after quickly being crushed as a normal option* back in the early 1900's, oil companies and the producers of gasoline vehicles didn't have anything to worry about from electric cars.
My China comment was made with the idea that if China manages to start producing batteries practical enough for EVs, it'll ultimately end up with the USA either buying them(perhaps after pressure from congress). We'd also be seeing substantial amounts of video footage, tests, etc...
I'd love for there to be a practical EV battery. I'm just a pessimist in that I think that such is going to be extremely difficult to develop/have to wait until gasoline is substantially more expensive.
*They hung around for use in areas where dirty IC engines were dangerous/impractical/unpleasant - inside warehouses, on golf courses, etc...
You made references as if I was in Europe. I'm not. Read the first two letters of my name, or my sig for a better hint of where I am.
Heh, talk about coincidence- I'm in Fairbanks. In any case, I didn't want to make any allegations. As far as I knew you had an unhealthy obsession with Harry Potter, or 'AK' were your initials. I normally pay no real attention to sigs.
After that, let me let you in on a little secret. I'd bet there are more PV panels per capita in Alaska than Nevada.
I know of 2 installs here in Fairbanks. I'm willing to bet there's a lot more down in Nevada, even per capita, though the remoteness and low population density which makes our electricity bloody expensive makes PV attractive here, at least in the summer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_consumption The EU has more population and lower oil consumption. Thus savings measures will have a greater effect in the USA than Europe. Thus, EVs *should* be adopted in the US before Europe.
You live in Alaska and you don't know that there are more uses for oil than simply burning it in automobiles? I use approximately equal measures in my truck and house! If I had a family and the house was occupied more I'd be seriously looking at wood.
In any case:
Fewer cars? False. Though if you include 'all' 4+ wheel vehicles, we take the lead again(though it's still around 75% as many vehicles per capita).
Fewer miles? 14k km(9k miles), vs ~15k miles, though latest DOT is closer to 13k. So about 50% more. Your earlier assumption of 8k km was therefore only slightly above HALF of what the statistics actually say about average driving over in Europe, and is still less than if you misstated and meant miles. Plus Americans are driving less as well.
Better Economy: True, but I never disagreed with you there. On average, US vehicles use 32% more fuel. Still, Europe averaged €1.59/liter vs USA's $3.85. A US gallon is 3.79L, And 1 Euro =$1.28. Making European gas $7.71/gallon. Adjusting for the average superior mileage of European vehicles, they're still falling behind at $5.84/gallon equivalent. Raise prices that much and Americans drive less.
Again: My statement was merely trying to state that EV adoption should be quicker over in Europe.
1, The battery is the single thing that drives the cost of an EV higher than a traditional gasoline vehicle.
2. An EV driven less doesn't need as large of a battery.
3. A denser average population also means that potential charge points are also more common.
4. The cost of fuel is far higher in Europe
Conclusion: Small EVs should be quite popular over there(if they were 'almost' economical in the USA), but they're not, so they're not really that close yet.
Most of the land in Alaska has no access to any utilities at all.
True; though if you want water it's more 'dig a well' or 'drive into town once a week/month to fill up a big tank in the back of your truck' and most of our population IS collected around population centers where utilities(at least electricity) is available.
Still, just to fact check: .1 MWp. 723k people, .00014 MWp/person. Only 10 registered installs?.
Alaska:
Have you not heard about the fate of the EV-1? It was profitable, so by definition it was already economical, at least in the twisted economics of pure capitalism, so why wasn't it mass-produced a decade ago?
Define profitable. It's my understanding that GM only produced it to placate California, and lost it's proverbial shorts on every sale, even with the rebates.
The reason is GM may be a car company, but it does things for irrational reasons, because it is run by people. And people do stuff that makes no sense.
It's not just GM though. You'd think that one of the hundreds of car companies out there would be making a killing producing EVs if it was possible to do so profitably.
Because the patents for nickel-metal hydride batteries were owned by Standard Oil, and they sued. And won.
A 'quick googling' suggests you need to adjust your aluminum foil hat and go back and reread the stuff again. Standard Oil hasn't been around for a while, it was Chevron. Still, this was part of the impetuous to move towards LiIon. Reading also suggested that Toyota produced the EV Rav4 in response to California's requirements as well, producing less than 2k vehicles overall. 2k vehicles is a loss item short of ultra-premier cars like Rolls-Royce.
They have spent 80 years killing every electric vehicle, by any means necessary
Until the last decade, it wasn't necessary.
They will avoid manufacturing them in laptop form factors for as long as possible, and that's a lot of years, solely to prevent Tesla from getting their hands on improved cells.
It's going to take a lot of work to keep China from producing them though, if that was the case. Remember, world market - they have to shut up the stuff all over the world. Right now an economical battery would be a high-profit battery - they know oil is going to go away, sooner or later. If they don't come up with one now, or sit on it, they'll lose the profit their patent can create(patents do expire, after all).
When I've looked, I've generally seen l/100k. And the increased economy of the lower average engine size is not dependent on the units.
My point is that while there are some ultra-economy models over there that aren't available in the states, their average fuel economy isn't correspondingly better - it's better than the states, but not by 'that much'. Yes, l/100k is the standard measurement over there, but YOU mentioned '60+ mpg'. Which are generally for ultra-economy diesels and using imperial gallons in the MPG calculation. It's closer to 50mpg if you correct for that. Then there's the differences in the measuring standards. Europe tends to be 'nicer' in that they tend to rate vehicles as more efficient than the states.
The problem is that they don't rely on cars as much. Why? Because of the high prices.
'As much', but the USA has a population of ~300M, Europe has one of 738M. Translation: Even if you have half the cars per capita, you still have more cars than the USA.
They solved the problem before there were electric cars, so electric cars aren't a solution for a problem they have.
Electric cars have been around since the early 1800's. There's no 'before', unless you go back before IC vehicles as well.
An EV eliminating that would save three times as much as in Europe where the cost is twice as much.
Exactly.
They drive smaller cars less, and trading a family car using less than 5l/100km for a equivelent sized car thats EV will save (8000km/yr*5l/100km=400l*2$/l=) $800 per year.
Is a 47mpg equivalent car & 8k km/year really any sort of 'family car' or 'average' over there? I recognize the US figures. Still, the lower miles driven and smaller vehicles actually allows for a lower ranged, cheaper EV to be used. While US consumers will, by and large, sneer at a 'mere' 100 mile range, over in Europe I see a lot more being accepting of a 100km range. Shrink the battery and you reduce the cost of the major component driving the price of an EV higher than gasoline vehicles(an electric motor runs about the same price as a gasoline engine of equivalent power).
Europe has already "optimized" for lower prices with lower distances in smaller cars. The US has much further to go, and so *should* logically see greater improvement with EVs than Europe, as every EV in the US is replacing a less efficient car traveling longer distances.
'Every EV'? You get people who drive a lot in Europe, and people who don't drive at all here in the States. Logically speaking, you get a gradual adoption as EV technology improves and the economics make more sense. Early on you have people buying an EV because they want an EV - economics don't really enter it. Later you get 'edge cases' - like a company that buys EVs for their warehouse/factory area because they can drive them inside without worrying about air quality/monoxide(same reason you see a lot of electric forklifts in warehouses). That transitions to people who have driving styles 'perfectly' suited for them, and it spreads.
I wasn't trying to say that 'every' car in Europe would be an EV, just that, like solar panels being installed in Nevada before Alaska, it's a 'better situation' over in Europe for EVs. If they were close to being economical- you'd see them gaining considerable ground over in Europe. Think SUVs over here in the states - they're 'everywhere' in the sense that you don't generally have to wait long to see one along a busy road, but they're still much less than half the market.
I think that there's more to it than just Arpa-E and the feds preventing burial, I think that it's also that there's too much non-car interest and research in battery tech - cell phones, laptops, etc...
Plus, conspiracies aside, you have to remember GM is a car company - it wants to sell cars. It's not an oil company looking to sell fuel it pulled out of the ground. If it can sell an EV for a profit, it'll do so. If it's the only one who can produce economical EVs, it stands to make a killing.
For that matter, most of the 'oil' companies have been busily diversifying themselves into 'energy' companies - investing in solar, wind, and other renewables so they're positioned to make the transition from oil when it becomes logical.
Found a source:
From page 34:
Materials
LiCoO2 0.62
Separator 0.14
Electrolyte 0.30
Anode 0.24
Materials subtotal 1.28
Overhead 0.15-0.25
Direct labor 0.18-0.24
Total manufacturing cost ~1.70
Per this, the lithium compound is indeed the single most expensive part, but not quite half of the materials alone. If we're forced to separate seawater for it, LiIon cell prices would double.