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  1. Re:The failure mode is transformer core saturation on The Truth About Solar Storms · · Score: 1

    I first heard about use of series capacitors in an electric power systems class, 1H 1975, so they have been around for quite a while. It would seem to me that the caps should be able to withstand the DC potential set up by a Carrington event.

  2. Re:The failure mode is transformer core saturation on The Truth About Solar Storms · · Score: 1

    Any component for a high voltage transmission line is going to be gigantic. Google term "power transmission line series capacitors" should get you started.

  3. Re:The failure mode is transformer core saturation on The Truth About Solar Storms · · Score: 1

    An alternative way of minimizing the effects of a severe solar storm on the grid would be placing series capacitors on the long AC transmission lines. This is done already to increase power transfer capacity of some lines.

    Since the solar flare is visible many hours before CME hits, the utilities should have time to configure the grid for the storm. The oerative word here is "should".

  4. Re:Is that a lot? on One Trillion Bq Released By Nuclear Debris Removal At Fukushima So Far · · Score: 2, Informative

    Not that much. A typical Tc99m scan involves injection a bit over a billion (10E9) bq per person, albeit half life is only 6 hours. Reminds me of a "warning sticker" for a CB radio - "Danger 5,000 milliwatts".

  5. Re:Wow. on Rocket Scientist Designs "Flare" Pot That Cooks Food 40% Faster · · Score: 1

    I agree wholeheartedly that the pot is more similar to the Jetboil in principle than different. There is a difference in details in that the Jetboil is designed for lighter weight and better heat transfer efficiency than the pot at the expense of a more fragile design.

  6. I don't there is anyone in the US who was born in 1897 or earlier.

  7. Mid 1960's Army research on New Chemical Process Could Make Ammonia a Practical Car Fuel · · Score: 1

    There was an article or two in the likes of Mechanix Illustrated or related magazine about the US Army experimenting with ammonia fueled engines. Reports indiacted that engines would function, but had not been developed to the point of practicality. Shudder to think what kind of NOx levels are present in the exhaust.

  8. Newton's ???? inverse cube law on Scientists Measure Magnetic Interaction Between Two Bound Electrons · · Score: 1

    I remember Newton's inverse square law, but magnetic dipoles were more than two centuries after his time.

  9. Re:Cyclotron Radiation? on Astronomers Solve Puzzle of Mysterious Streaks In Radio Images of the Sky · · Score: 1

    That sounds like a reasonable guess as to what is going on. The hot plasma is conductive and the Johnson noise may produce enough current to emit detectable radiation. My recollection was that the sky noise temp at 50 MHz was on the order of 3,000K, and the plasma from the meteor trail is likely to be considerably hotter than that.

  10. Error in first example on The Major Theoretical Blunders That Held Back Progress In Modern Astronomy · · Score: 3, Informative

    TFA had the 200 inch Hale telescope on a fictional geogrphical location, Mt. Palomar. The real name is Palomar Mountain. A minor detail, and very common error, but it is the same kind of error the author was complaining about.

  11. Re:Fuel economy? on New Semiconductor Could Improve Vehicle Fuel Economy By 10 Percent · · Score: 1

    The benefits in the modest increase in efficiency are not so much from reduced energy usage, but the higher efficiency reduces the amount of waste heat that has to be removed from the PCU. The higher junction temperatures allowable with SiC makes the cooling task even easier. What has Toyota excited is that the PCU with SiC is much smaller than the PCU with standard silicon power devices.

  12. Re:Stupid on The World's Worst Planes: Aircraft Designs That Failed · · Score: 1

    Except that Boeing, Convair, Douglas and Lockheed figured out how to put windows on pressurized airliners before the Comet flew.

  13. Re:Efficiency? on Toyota Describes Combustion Engine That Generates Electricity Directly · · Score: 5, Informative

    The transmissions on current GE and EMD diesel electric locomotives are about 94% efficient from the output of the prime mover to the driving wheels. I would expect electric car motors to be on the order of 90 to 95% efficient, so this should compare favorably with a mechanical tranny.

    Speaking of locomotives, the free piston gasifier was being heavily researched in the 1950's as a more efficient realization of a gas turbine and something that could compete with diesel engines as prime movers.

  14. Re:Holdren isn't as literate as one might think on The Problem With Congress's Scientific Illiterates · · Score: 1

    Back in the 1970's, Holdren was also going around saying that clean coal was safer and better for the environment than nuclear. His "analysis" showed that the largest number of deaths would come from grade crossing accidents with coal trains. After hearing that, I never took him seriously as he is more of activist pretending to be a scientist.

  15. Informative parent post on Utilities Fight Back Against Solar Energy · · Score: 1

    Parent post makes a great deal of sense. With PV generation reaching 100% of minimum circuit load for some circuits, HECO is justifiably concerned about how to safely handle the generation.

  16. Safety issues with grid tie-ins on Utilities Fight Back Against Solar Energy · · Score: 1

    One huge difference between attaching something to the phone network and direct back-feed connections to the grid is that the back feed can be deadly if there's an issue with the local distribution network. This is usually taken care of by the anti-islanding circuitry in an inverter designed for grid tie use, and the utility has both the right and duty to make sure that circuitry is present and working in any grid tied installation.

  17. Peak demand time on Utilities Fight Back Against Solar Energy · · Score: 2

    FWIW, the peak demand in California typically occurs about 6PM, well after most PV installations fall off the grid (peak production from solar occurs at 12noon and solar output is largely gone after 3PM). This data is from the California ISO website. This implies that grid tied PV solar without some sort of power storage is NOT an effective source of peak shaving.

  18. No account for company size? on Should the US Copy Switzerland and Consider a 'Maximum Wage' Ratio? · · Score: 1

    Seems to me that a cap on CEO to average pay take company size into account, the ratio should be smaller for a company with 100 employees than it would be for a company with 100,000 employees.

  19. Re:Hope they speed up developing real batteries on Arizona Approves Grid-Connection Fees For Solar Rooftops · · Score: 1

    The first thing the rural utility co-ops did was to tell prospective customers that they had to render their windchargers permanently in-operable. In a similar vein, many cable companies required new subdivisions to have CC&R's that prohibited external antennas so that the residents were forced to buy cable services.

  20. Re:Look up those words before you use them on Arizona Approves Grid-Connection Fees For Solar Rooftops · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Obviously you have never taken a look at the California ISO website during the summer, which gives real information on demand and production. as opposed to rants of solar fanboys writing for Wikipedia. Peak production from solar occurs at 12 noon, peak demand occurs at 6PM. Solar does help with energy production during the hottest part of the days but is no help when demand is highest and thus does nothing to reduce the need for spinning reserves.

  21. Re:Will they teach Economics? on Tech Titans Oracle, Red Hat and Google To Help Fix Healthcare.gov · · Score: 1

    Hard to do when the guy in charge places ideology ahead of knowledge and experience. The website would have worked much better if the shopping for plans was done before the qualifications for subsidies was determined.

  22. Re:Exciting prospect on A Look at the Koch Brothers Dark-Money Network · · Score: 1

    FWIW, some of the strongest stories about problems in firing teachers were published by the LA Times while it was part of the same organization that owned the Chicago Tribune. One recent case was the teacher who was giving his students cookies laced with his semen. The two propositions that were mentioned in TFA were sponsored by the Cal Teachers Union.

  23. Re:Exciting prospect on A Look at the Koch Brothers Dark-Money Network · · Score: 1, Troll

    Especially considering the the California Teachers Union outspent everyone of contributions for California elections. These are the same people that make getting rids of child molesters from schools such a difficult task (see news reports about the difficulty in getting rid of truly bad teachers).

  24. Re:Typical Obamabot revisionist history on The Cost of the US Government Shutdown To Science · · Score: 1

    It will be interesting to see if the above post gets modded up or down, Reid is at least as much of the problem as the "Tea Party".

  25. Re:Really? on Massive New CT Scanner Assesses Car Crash Data · · Score: 1

    That won't work the way you think it would. What you're describing is a line scan, which gives a 2-D image of the container/truck, which has been deployed. A CT scan gives a 3-D image, necessitating some way of moving the x-ray source and detector around the container while the container is moved through.

    There are a couple of reasons why the object being scanned is rotated on a turntable rather than the source and detector rotating around the object. First is the high energy X-ray source is friggin' heavy. The second is that having a stationary X-ray beam allows for concentrating the shielding in a relatively small volume and we're talking some pretty serious shielding.