Elon Musk announced that he will be selling home storage batteries in 2015. Solar PV system installers already have plans to phase in storage batteries as part of the standard package.
Grid use charges currently are based upon your consumption of electricity coming in through the grid. If you use more, the grid charges are figured in automatically. If you use less, you pay less for the grid. This seems very fair. Now, if I reduce my grid electricity consumption for whatever reason, the utility company gets less money for both grid and electricity. I may have improved my insulation. I may have shut off appliances or they are now more efficient. Or I may be generating my own electricity via solar PV. Its none of their business, and I shouldn't have to pay them money just because I use less of their product.
You may be able to make the case that they shouldn't have to buy my excess power. No problem, I'll just size my PV array such that it meets my typical needs and not have any significant excess.
The city of Austin already stated that Google got no special considerations or incentives to offer the service. I hope everyone leaves AT&T and Time Warner in droves. Unfortunately the installation extends only to the city limits, I live just outside. Would snap it up in a flash.
Sorry but the proposed pipeline would not reduce gasoline prices in any way, it would carry tar sand sludge to Texas refineries on the Gulf coast which will then produce fuels that go on the open international market. Yes I said sludge, it isn't even oil, it is a bitumen hydrocarbon 'product' called dilbit. A bizarre highly corrosive and sticky pipeline fluid that sinks in water. Want that pipeline pumping the stuff through your state at 1400 PSI?
.I read recently that each panel made results in 4x it's weight in toxic waste and greenhouse gasses produced as a side effect
You might want to produce an actual cite. Obviously there won't be any greenhouse gases resulting from manufacturing the panels if they do it with solar power. Panel manufacturing in the US is highly regulated so I can't see how all this toxic waste comes about. Unless you mean in China, but apparently everything is made in the dirtiest cheapest way there.
I did some looking around at this about a year ago and it turns out that the compressed air expands and therefore cools so much that unless you preheat it everything will ice up. In fact the recovery unit is typically a NG turbine. Exhaust heat from the turbine preheats the compressed air which is then mixed with NG and fed into the turbine to get boosted combustion. Much more efficient than compressed air alone.
Do you really think there is anyone behind bars that's in agreement with their sentence?
Putting innocent people in jail is a crime against humanity. Its a criminal act committed by our society and we all are made guilty by it. There was a recent case locally where a man's family was murdered, he was wrongly convicted of the crime and spent 25 years in jail. That's horrible. We should do everything possble to make sure things like this don't happen.
... written by some guy named John who doesn't cite the sources for his assertions. They are merely his personal opinions.
Here is a better rundown of the subsidies. And John, they aren't "subsidies", they are *subsidies*.
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxtopics/2011-Budget-Fossil-Fuels.cfm
He made great airplanes, no doubt about that. Innovative, outside the box, advanced the field, nobody can dispute that and I admire his contributions to aviation.
But at the same time Rutan is a rabid anthropogenic global warming denialist and for that my respect for him is reset to zero.
http://dlcinci.blogspot.com/2009/10/burt-rutan-is-full-of-hot-air.html
That is excellent advice. Everyone should have an account with an online broker, its easy to set up, its cheap, and its convenient. You can deposit money into the account and be able to write checks on it. If you want to invest some of your money it is a snap to log on and buy a money market fund such as Vanguard Money Market Reserves (VMMXX), it currently pays more than 5% interest with negligible risk. If you need to withdraw your money you can sell the shares and have it tomorrow with no penalty.
I think you are right about floating ice displacing its melted water equivalent, but there is an awful lot of glacial ice sitting on top of Greenland. I read that there are measurable changes taking place there which indicate the ice sheet is melting. It could destabilize enough for vast sections to slide off into the ocean and melt.
There are plenty of ways to verify the integrity of a piece of software and to repair it if its damaged. One brute force technique, for example, would be to simply have multiple instances of the software in storage and a separate thread of execution for each instance. Then get them to vote on what actions to take. A broken program instance would be "voted off the island" and reinitialized.
Microwaves, fuel cells, even a strong light
on
Nanotechnology
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I've seen articles that suggest microwave radio transmission as one way to get power to lots of small-scale machines. Actually, simply illuminating them with any kind of electromagnetic radiation that would generate electricity via something like solar cells might be a simple way to convey power, that way you can juice them as much as neccessary. In fact, you could just put them in a field of alternating magnetic force and have their onboard motors be driven directly.
Another way might be for them to have small fuel cells onboard. You put them in a pressurized atmosphere of hydrogen and oxygen to allow them to tank up.
I work for a company that pays us a few peanuts for patentable ideas and recently scored a few. I was surprised at the complexity of the documents and the process in general, it is not friendly to amateurs. You should probably hire a patent agent if you are serious.
Do your best to make sure the idea isn't already taken. One site that helps a lot is Delphion (http://www.delphion.com/), they specialize in searches but you have to pay for the complete service. One thing to remember is that a search won't show anything about patents which have been applied for but not granted yet (may take several years) but a prior application will trump yours if there is a substantial similarity. Its a gamble.
Slashdot Mirror
Elon Musk announced that he will be selling home storage batteries in 2015. Solar PV system installers already have plans to phase in storage batteries as part of the standard package.
Grid use charges currently are based upon your consumption of electricity coming in through the grid. If you use more, the grid charges are figured in automatically. If you use less, you pay less for the grid. This seems very fair. Now, if I reduce my grid electricity consumption for whatever reason, the utility company gets less money for both grid and electricity. I may have improved my insulation. I may have shut off appliances or they are now more efficient. Or I may be generating my own electricity via solar PV. Its none of their business, and I shouldn't have to pay them money just because I use less of their product. You may be able to make the case that they shouldn't have to buy my excess power. No problem, I'll just size my PV array such that it meets my typical needs and not have any significant excess.
The city of Austin already stated that Google got no special considerations or incentives to offer the service. I hope everyone leaves AT&T and Time Warner in droves. Unfortunately the installation extends only to the city limits, I live just outside. Would snap it up in a flash.
Totally agree with you there, Oracle did not have anyone's interests in mind but their own and reached far beyond what they deserved.
Sorry but the proposed pipeline would not reduce gasoline prices in any way, it would carry tar sand sludge to Texas refineries on the Gulf coast which will then produce fuels that go on the open international market. Yes I said sludge, it isn't even oil, it is a bitumen hydrocarbon 'product' called dilbit. A bizarre highly corrosive and sticky pipeline fluid that sinks in water. Want that pipeline pumping the stuff through your state at 1400 PSI?
.I read recently that each panel made results in 4x it's weight in toxic waste and greenhouse gasses produced as a side effect
You might want to produce an actual cite. Obviously there won't be any greenhouse gases resulting from manufacturing the panels if they do it with solar power. Panel manufacturing in the US is highly regulated so I can't see how all this toxic waste comes about. Unless you mean in China, but apparently everything is made in the dirtiest cheapest way there.
I did some looking around at this about a year ago and it turns out that the compressed air expands and therefore cools so much that unless you preheat it everything will ice up. In fact the recovery unit is typically a NG turbine. Exhaust heat from the turbine preheats the compressed air which is then mixed with NG and fed into the turbine to get boosted combustion. Much more efficient than compressed air alone.
Do you really think there is anyone behind bars that's in agreement with their sentence? Putting innocent people in jail is a crime against humanity. Its a criminal act committed by our society and we all are made guilty by it. There was a recent case locally where a man's family was murdered, he was wrongly convicted of the crime and spent 25 years in jail. That's horrible. We should do everything possble to make sure things like this don't happen.
... written by some guy named John who doesn't cite the sources for his assertions. They are merely his personal opinions. Here is a better rundown of the subsidies. And John, they aren't "subsidies", they are *subsidies*. http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxtopics/2011-Budget-Fossil-Fuels.cfm
He made great airplanes, no doubt about that. Innovative, outside the box, advanced the field, nobody can dispute that and I admire his contributions to aviation. But at the same time Rutan is a rabid anthropogenic global warming denialist and for that my respect for him is reset to zero. http://dlcinci.blogspot.com/2009/10/burt-rutan-is-full-of-hot-air.html
That is excellent advice. Everyone should have an account with an online broker, its easy to set up, its cheap, and its convenient. You can deposit money into the account and be able to write checks on it. If you want to invest some of your money it is a snap to log on and buy a money market fund such as Vanguard Money Market Reserves (VMMXX), it currently pays more than 5% interest with negligible risk. If you need to withdraw your money you can sell the shares and have it tomorrow with no penalty.
I think you are right about floating ice displacing its melted water equivalent, but there is an awful lot of glacial ice sitting on top of Greenland. I read that there are measurable changes taking place there which indicate the ice sheet is melting. It could destabilize enough for vast sections to slide off into the ocean and melt.
There are plenty of ways to verify the integrity of a piece of software and to repair it if its damaged. One brute force technique, for example, would be to simply have multiple instances of the software in storage and a separate thread of execution for each instance. Then get them to vote on what actions to take. A broken program instance would be "voted off the island" and reinitialized.
I've seen articles that suggest microwave radio transmission as one way to get power to lots of small-scale machines. Actually, simply illuminating them with any kind of electromagnetic radiation that would generate electricity via something like solar cells might be a simple way to convey power, that way you can juice them as much as neccessary. In fact, you could just put them in a field of alternating magnetic force and have their onboard motors be driven directly. Another way might be for them to have small fuel cells onboard. You put them in a pressurized atmosphere of hydrogen and oxygen to allow them to tank up.
I work for a company that pays us a few peanuts for patentable ideas and recently scored a few. I was surprised at the complexity of the documents and the process in general, it is not friendly to amateurs. You should probably hire a patent agent if you are serious. Do your best to make sure the idea isn't already taken. One site that helps a lot is Delphion (http://www.delphion.com/), they specialize in searches but you have to pay for the complete service. One thing to remember is that a search won't show anything about patents which have been applied for but not granted yet (may take several years) but a prior application will trump yours if there is a substantial similarity. Its a gamble.