A lot of people ALWAYS scream into mobile phones. I _know_ that I can whisper into the microphone and it will be picked up just fine, but lots of people seem to think that you have to speak LOUDLY.
So, from your own data, coal replaced almost half of the disappeared nuclear baseload. And since not all of the baseload has been replaced, Germany started having grid problems. And as for "planned long time ago" - Germany still has plans for new nuclear power plants, though they are unlikely to be built. Get a fucking clue.
Anyway, why isn't Germany replacing all those old coal powerplants with oh-so-good renewables? WHY?
Any source from Greenshit is suspicious. It doesn't answer a simple question - if renewables are so good then why are 23 new plants are being built? It's a simple question, really.
Yes, sorry. It's N-2 of course (ability to withstand two linkages going down without causing overload somewhere else). It is a guideline in the sense that it's not codified in the EU laws, but so is a lot of engineering practices. And it certainly applies to Germany's grid, in fact, it can be applied to a grid of ANY size, including your local power distribution network (though it doesn't make a lot of sense at this scale).
As for Chernobyl, I worked on decommissioning the other nuclear reactors there.
And as for renewable folks - let them show that they can build something that can work just as well as the current power distribution network. Right now that green cretins go and cry for government handouts constantly.
Well, I worked at power generation industry. I personally worked at nuclear power plants (including Chernobyl, btw) and then I was employed at a green energy investment company and personally inspected quite a few solar and wind generation facilities. Right now Germany's power grid is in the constant state of emergency - they are literally working at the limits of their capacity to balance the loads. Transient violations of the N+2 rule are becoming commonplace. Right now everything doesn't fail constantly because Germany can buy reliable baseload from France and still has a pretty good nuclear baseload. And also abuses Poland and Czech networks to transmit power from southern to northern Germany.
Situation with France is particularly funny - France exports quite a lot of power to Switzerland but it flows through the German grid, greatly improving grid stability along the flow paths. And we're talking about quite a lot of power, more than 4% of Germany's usage. Oh, and Germany right now mostly exports the green power surplus to Netherlands and other countries.
So you can say whatever you want about green energy and smart grids, but everyone in the actual power production industry knows that it's a complete load of bullshit. Current grids can't work without a reliable baseload. And bullshit about "only to replace old coal powerplants" is only suitable for Greenpeace (it's well known that brain amputation is required to join them). Most of the new powerplants have been approved AFTER the nuclear pullout plans. And only _3_ coal powerplants are being dismantled completely, lots of others are going to be "retrofitted".
Amazon has AWS Import where you can send them your hard drive and they upload it to Amazon S3. They also operate in Europe. It's pretty pricey, though.
I worked at alternative fuels investment company... Yes, even hydrogen cell researchers know that automotive hydrogen fuel cells are not going to be viable. They might be great for portable power or for backup power.
As for the post you've mentioned - why not imagine cheap and reliable nuclear fusion? Or maybe batteries with 10x capacity over the current ones? Both look more realistic. So far, research hasn't yielded any decent hydrogen storage that can rival in density even the compressed hydrogen storage.
Everyone in the industry knows that hydrogen fuel cells are just a gimmick. Let's enumerate some of the problems with them:
1) Hydrogen can't be piped through pipelines of any non-trivial length. Well, technically you can make hydrogen leak-proof pipeline but then you can burn dollar bills for heating.
2) Hydrogen is difficult to transport in the liquid form. It has to be cooled by liquid helium or you have to vent the hydrogen vapor. Which is explosive in a wide range of concentrations.
3) Compressed hydrogen storage has very low volumetric density. You can _just_ squeeze enough of tank space in your average car and get a usable mileage, but using it for tanker trucks? Forget about it.
4) Oh, and fueling stations must also be pretty high-tech. You have to store liquid hydrogen and fuel tank adapters are awesomely complex. And the number of hydrogen stations in the US is smaller than the number of Supercharger stations.
5) Hydrogen fires are SCARY. Hydrogen does NOT just "drift up and burn away" - it burns at a temperatures high enough to _melt_ _steel_ and give you third-degree burns from thermal radiation while you are several meters away from the ignition source.
6) It's actually cheaper and easier to burn methane (natural gas) in regular combustion engines than to use it for hydrogen production with all the associated transportation headaches.
7) Fuel cells themselves are now much cheaper than 10 years ago, but they are still FAR more expensive than batteries.
Actually, not. Road _building_ is subsidized on all levels (local, state, federal). Maintenance is fairly cheap and usually can be paid for by gas tax. Occasionally, clinical cretins like Chris Christie use funds set aside for building infrastructure (like a new tunnel under Hudson river) to fix crumbling roads.
And what's worse, there are simply not enough similar jobs for redundant workers. The similar story had been happening since 1800-s but all the time there had always been that another new-fangled industry for workers to move once their jobs were obsoleted.
But no more. Right now they can only hope for some low-paying job in the service industry.
Simple - they aren't. Frequency doubling materials can make near infrared visible, but they can't really fit into contact lenses.
Most probably, these lenses are simple polarizing filters and the invisible paint is an optically-active liquid. Alternatively, it can be a highly-refractive liquid - it'll be visible because it polarizes light a little bit differently than the reflection from the card's surface (different Brewster angles). Bonus points: it'll be visible only at a certain range of angles.
Well, I thought that it was quite a coup. Now Obama will be associated with decent medical care (ACA is going to work vastly better than the current mess) for a looong time. The current Tea Partiers are generally beyond help, but future generations might remember that their healthcare was the result of government program fiercely opposed by Republicans.
There's no "EV mode" on Volt, because it's always in the "EV mode". And it has the same performance in pure electric mode and in range-extended mode (i.e. when the gasoline engine is active). I tried to measure acceleration using CAN bus and there's no significant difference in acceleration curves below or above 50mph.
That's a wrong comparison. First, you have to consider the efficiency of an ICE engine - it's about 30%, so your effective density immediately falls to about 15MJ/kg. That's already comparable to Li-air, but then there's also the issue of engine weight - an ICE and its drivetrain weights quite a lot. So Li-Air batteries would actually win the competition if you could replace the gasoline engine with an additional Li-Air battery.
Wrong! Volt can get up to 100mph on electric engine alone - I know because I did exactly this (not on a public road, mind you). And for the record, right now my Volt has an unbroken streak of 1230 purely electric miles.
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Tesla Model S (or Model X) would fit the bill. But yeah, it's waaaay too expensive right now.
Doesn't matter. There's no sidetalk (i.e. you can't hear yourself) on the mobile phone, so lots of people scream even with earphones.
A lot of people ALWAYS scream into mobile phones. I _know_ that I can whisper into the microphone and it will be picked up just fine, but lots of people seem to think that you have to speak LOUDLY.
So, from your own data, coal replaced almost half of the disappeared nuclear baseload. And since not all of the baseload has been replaced, Germany started having grid problems. And as for "planned long time ago" - Germany still has plans for new nuclear power plants, though they are unlikely to be built. Get a fucking clue.
Anyway, why isn't Germany replacing all those old coal powerplants with oh-so-good renewables? WHY?
It doesn't have recent enough data. The situation steadily got worse since then.
Any source from Greenshit is suspicious. It doesn't answer a simple question - if renewables are so good then why are 23 new plants are being built? It's a simple question, really.
Yes, sorry. It's N-2 of course (ability to withstand two linkages going down without causing overload somewhere else). It is a guideline in the sense that it's not codified in the EU laws, but so is a lot of engineering practices. And it certainly applies to Germany's grid, in fact, it can be applied to a grid of ANY size, including your local power distribution network (though it doesn't make a lot of sense at this scale).
As for Chernobyl, I worked on decommissioning the other nuclear reactors there.
And as for renewable folks - let them show that they can build something that can work just as well as the current power distribution network. Right now that green cretins go and cry for government handouts constantly.
Well, I worked at power generation industry. I personally worked at nuclear power plants (including Chernobyl, btw) and then I was employed at a green energy investment company and personally inspected quite a few solar and wind generation facilities. Right now Germany's power grid is in the constant state of emergency - they are literally working at the limits of their capacity to balance the loads. Transient violations of the N+2 rule are becoming commonplace. Right now everything doesn't fail constantly because Germany can buy reliable baseload from France and still has a pretty good nuclear baseload. And also abuses Poland and Czech networks to transmit power from southern to northern Germany.
Situation with France is particularly funny - France exports quite a lot of power to Switzerland but it flows through the German grid, greatly improving grid stability along the flow paths. And we're talking about quite a lot of power, more than 4% of Germany's usage. Oh, and Germany right now mostly exports the green power surplus to Netherlands and other countries.
So you can say whatever you want about green energy and smart grids, but everyone in the actual power production industry knows that it's a complete load of bullshit. Current grids can't work without a reliable baseload. And bullshit about "only to replace old coal powerplants" is only suitable for Greenpeace (it's well known that brain amputation is required to join them). Most of the new powerplants have been approved AFTER the nuclear pullout plans. And only _3_ coal powerplants are being dismantled completely, lots of others are going to be "retrofitted".
And finally, energy intensive industries in Germany are most definitely NOT exempt from rising prices. And it already affects the industry: http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/merkel-s-switch-to-renewables-rising-energy-prices-endanger-german-industry-a-816669.html
Incorrect on all points. Germany STILL depends on its nuclear reactors, they are NOT yet shutdown. But they already have a dangerous amount of grid instability that already causes very real problems for consumers: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/instability-in-power-grid-comes-at-high-cost-for-german-industry-a-850419.html
And to combat this, they're building 25 new coal-burning power plants. Some of them just came online: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/23/germany-to-open-six-more-coal-power-stations-in-2013/ (sorry for a link to Wattsup, but it has a really nice table).
Oh, and electricity prices in Germany already cause energy-intensive production to move elsewhere.
Germany can't do it as well. They are building 23 new coal power plants by 2020 to replace nuclear powerplants (which are NOT yet shutdown, btw).
Amazon has AWS Import where you can send them your hard drive and they upload it to Amazon S3. They also operate in Europe. It's pretty pricey, though.
And even forgetting about speed limits, fatigued driving is a clear danger to everybody. I hope he gets some jail time and thinks about it.
I worked at alternative fuels investment company... Yes, even hydrogen cell researchers know that automotive hydrogen fuel cells are not going to be viable. They might be great for portable power or for backup power.
As for the post you've mentioned - why not imagine cheap and reliable nuclear fusion? Or maybe batteries with 10x capacity over the current ones? Both look more realistic. So far, research hasn't yielded any decent hydrogen storage that can rival in density even the compressed hydrogen storage.
Everyone in the industry knows that hydrogen fuel cells are just a gimmick. Let's enumerate some of the problems with them:
1) Hydrogen can't be piped through pipelines of any non-trivial length. Well, technically you can make hydrogen leak-proof pipeline but then you can burn dollar bills for heating.
2) Hydrogen is difficult to transport in the liquid form. It has to be cooled by liquid helium or you have to vent the hydrogen vapor. Which is explosive in a wide range of concentrations.
3) Compressed hydrogen storage has very low volumetric density. You can _just_ squeeze enough of tank space in your average car and get a usable mileage, but using it for tanker trucks? Forget about it.
4) Oh, and fueling stations must also be pretty high-tech. You have to store liquid hydrogen and fuel tank adapters are awesomely complex. And the number of hydrogen stations in the US is smaller than the number of Supercharger stations.
5) Hydrogen fires are SCARY. Hydrogen does NOT just "drift up and burn away" - it burns at a temperatures high enough to _melt_ _steel_ and give you third-degree burns from thermal radiation while you are several meters away from the ignition source.
6) It's actually cheaper and easier to burn methane (natural gas) in regular combustion engines than to use it for hydrogen production with all the associated transportation headaches.
7) Fuel cells themselves are now much cheaper than 10 years ago, but they are still FAR more expensive than batteries.
Actually, not. Road _building_ is subsidized on all levels (local, state, federal). Maintenance is fairly cheap and usually can be paid for by gas tax. Occasionally, clinical cretins like Chris Christie use funds set aside for building infrastructure (like a new tunnel under Hudson river) to fix crumbling roads.
Sure. It'd be nice if someone crowd-sources road building. That way I can enjoy all the goodies without paying a cent!
And what's worse, there are simply not enough similar jobs for redundant workers. The similar story had been happening since 1800-s but all the time there had always been that another new-fangled industry for workers to move once their jobs were obsoleted.
But no more. Right now they can only hope for some low-paying job in the service industry.
Simple - they aren't. Frequency doubling materials can make near infrared visible, but they can't really fit into contact lenses.
Most probably, these lenses are simple polarizing filters and the invisible paint is an optically-active liquid. Alternatively, it can be a highly-refractive liquid - it'll be visible because it polarizes light a little bit differently than the reflection from the card's surface (different Brewster angles). Bonus points: it'll be visible only at a certain range of angles.
Well, I thought that it was quite a coup. Now Obama will be associated with decent medical care (ACA is going to work vastly better than the current mess) for a looong time. The current Tea Partiers are generally beyond help, but future generations might remember that their healthcare was the result of government program fiercely opposed by Republicans.
Actually, the name "Obamacare" was invented by Republicans and was used as a derisive name for ACA at first.
Nope. In a few years you'll see Tea Party demonstrations with placards like "Don't let government get its hands into my Obamacare!".
No.
There's no "EV mode" on Volt, because it's always in the "EV mode". And it has the same performance in pure electric mode and in range-extended mode (i.e. when the gasoline engine is active). I tried to measure acceleration using CAN bus and there's no significant difference in acceleration curves below or above 50mph.
That's a wrong comparison. First, you have to consider the efficiency of an ICE engine - it's about 30%, so your effective density immediately falls to about 15MJ/kg. That's already comparable to Li-air, but then there's also the issue of engine weight - an ICE and its drivetrain weights quite a lot. So Li-Air batteries would actually win the competition if you could replace the gasoline engine with an additional Li-Air battery.
Wrong! Volt can get up to 100mph on electric engine alone - I know because I did exactly this (not on a public road, mind you). And for the record, right now my Volt has an unbroken streak of 1230 purely electric miles.
The fastest way to charge Tesla is a battery swap which takes about 30 seconds.