The main issue I see with this is how to make sure that while you're away someone doesn't unplug the charger, plug it into their own car, charge for a few minutes, and drive off. I haven't seen the spec, but including the ability (if not making it mandatory) that when unplugging the charger the transaction ceases sounds like a good idea. That opens its own problems to pranking, but I'd think most people would prefer not having a fully-charged car to having a fully-charged car and also paying for someone else's fully-charge car.
Merely changing battery packs has big issues. What if you get a bad set that was electrically abused and won't hold a charge for very long?
Change it again?
Predicted next question: what about if the next one is just as bad?
Answer: The EV infrastructure company has some SLA with the customer. If they need to swap battery more than X times over Y period, their account gets a credit. (I think with Better Place it is 52 times a year - I'm not sure how they handle specific use cases, such as someone who travels over 150km a day every day.). The point is that there is a financial incentive to get rid of poor performing batteries and keep the "fleet" fresh.
I'm going to be a pure cynic here, but when we start seeing tons of cables sticking out at parking lots, we will start seeing vandals either cutting them (which was common with pay phone connectors), or making some device to short out leads just so they can see the arcs fly.
The way Better Place handles it is that you swipe your card over the terminal to reveal the socket, you provide the lead, while charging it locks in place and you need to swipe your card again to unlock it.
The problem is that this doesn't work with social networking sites. I like Diaspora and Identi.ca, but that doesn't make a bit of difference when I only know a dozen or so people on each as opposed to a few hundred on facebook.
Perhaps I'm lucky then. I live in Tasmania (population 500,000), and 100% of its energy since the early 1900s has been renewable (almost exclusively hydro, a couple of wind farms popped up since 1990, and it is now connected to the rest of the Australian grid so technically isn't 100% renewable - depending on if it importing or exporting).
My point being that a grid of only wind, solar and hydro is certainly practical and feasible. The turbines or solar panels don't need to be running at 100% of the time - build enough infrastructure to over-supply the predicted load, and when there is more supply than demand, use the power to pump water from the lower to the upper reservoir of a hydro dam.
The problem with "baseload" is that it is constructed with generators which can't easily adjust their supply (like coal, etc.) in mind. That's why many retailers offer discounted off-peak rates - because they can't lower the coal power station output below a certain amount, and certainly can't change it at a very quick rate. Hydro's "instant on/off" ability is a huge benefit here!
Er.. no. For an American trying to get the hang of rhyming slang (though admittedly she's just copying, not really "learning it".. but still) check this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QItPPfvhxE - from Aussie show "Adam Hills In Gordon Street Tonight".
I used to work in Tasmanian Government schools. Every primary classroom had minimum 2-3 computers, and obviously high schools had a lot more with dedicated IT labs, etc. This was 10 years ago, obviously things have changed since then. Anyway, my experiences 10 years ago don't really matter when the article itself gives the number as 40000 desktops.
Some other stats on employee numbers (from Wikipedia):
How many other organisations in Australia have 40000 workstations or more? Probably the other state education departments (assuming they purchase centrally), a handful of large corporates... maybe a few more, but not a huge amount.
Or.... We could just use battery switch technology, such the already up-and-working switch stations built by Better Place in Japan... 2 mins from driving in to the station, to driving out with a new battery. It saves having the entire argument in the first place.
The way Better Place plans to do it - if you need to swap batteries more than 50 times a year (ie. More often than once a week, similar to refilling a petrol car) they will credit your account. So that gives them an incentive to take the "old" crappy batteries out of rotation.
We have footlongs, pints and quarter pounders in (metric) Australia as well. But they are just the names of things. They don't actually measure the subs to see if they are 30.48cm, or weigh the burgers to ensure they are 113 grams.
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The main issue I see with this is how to make sure that while you're away someone doesn't unplug the charger, plug it into their own car, charge for a few minutes, and drive off. I haven't seen the spec, but including the ability (if not making it mandatory) that when unplugging the charger the transaction ceases sounds like a good idea. That opens its own problems to pranking, but I'd think most people would prefer not having a fully-charged car to having a fully-charged car and also paying for someone else's fully-charge car.
Like this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUICgOM6_gw&sns=em
Merely changing battery packs has big issues. What if you get a bad set that was electrically abused and won't hold a charge for very long?
Change it again?
Predicted next question: what about if the next one is just as bad?
Answer: The EV infrastructure company has some SLA with the customer. If they need to swap battery more than X times over Y period, their account gets a credit. (I think with Better Place it is 52 times a year - I'm not sure how they handle specific use cases, such as someone who travels over 150km a day every day.). The point is that there is a financial incentive to get rid of poor performing batteries and keep the "fleet" fresh.
I'm going to be a pure cynic here, but when we start seeing tons of cables sticking out at parking lots, we will start seeing vandals either cutting them (which was common with pay phone connectors), or making some device to short out leads just so they can see the arcs fly.
The way Better Place handles it is that you swipe your card over the terminal to reveal the socket, you provide the lead, while charging it locks in place and you need to swipe your card again to unlock it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUICgOM6_gw&sns=em
I agree, except replace Maine/USA with Tasmania/Australia!
You are aware that sometimes the clock moves AWAY from midnight?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Doomsday_Clock_graph.svg
The problem is that this doesn't work with social networking sites. I like Diaspora and Identi.ca, but that doesn't make a bit of difference when I only know a dozen or so people on each as opposed to a few hundred on facebook.
Perhaps I'm lucky then. I live in Tasmania (population 500,000), and 100% of its energy since the early 1900s has been renewable (almost exclusively hydro, a couple of wind farms popped up since 1990, and it is now connected to the rest of the Australian grid so technically isn't 100% renewable - depending on if it importing or exporting).
My point being that a grid of only wind, solar and hydro is certainly practical and feasible. The turbines or solar panels don't need to be running at 100% of the time - build enough infrastructure to over-supply the predicted load, and when there is more supply than demand, use the power to pump water from the lower to the upper reservoir of a hydro dam.
The problem with "baseload" is that it is constructed with generators which can't easily adjust their supply (like coal, etc.) in mind. That's why many retailers offer discounted off-peak rates - because they can't lower the coal power station output below a certain amount, and certainly can't change it at a very quick rate. Hydro's "instant on/off" ability is a huge benefit here!
any of the base load options (nuclear, gas, coal, oil)
hydro, geothermal, tidal...
Also note that hydro has the benefit of being able to quickly increase generation to allow for peaks in demand, and also to story energy cheaply.
Because of the huge privacy concerns?
"Using Facebook to test this theory seems kind of dumb."
"But, of course, I have never met the Ecumenical Patriarch, so you can't really consider that much of a connection."
If people used Facebook properly - such as only adding friends if they are actually friends - it wouldn't seem so dumb.
The ultimate long-term troll!
Er.. no.
For an American trying to get the hang of rhyming slang (though admittedly she's just copying, not really "learning it".. but still) check this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QItPPfvhxE - from Aussie show "Adam Hills In Gordon Street Tonight".
The sad thing is some people *are* arranging their finances on such a decision...
http://www.npr.org/2011/05/07/136053462/is-the-end-nigh-well-know-soon-enough (Search for "Martinez", about 1/2 way down)
RTFA. 40000 desktops, 1000 servers. See my other posts in this thread.
I don't get the obsession with people running to point that "No, look, it's Tasmania! It can't be right.. because its Tasmania".
I used to work in Tasmanian Government schools. Every primary classroom had minimum 2-3 computers, and obviously high schools had a lot more with dedicated IT labs, etc. This was 10 years ago, obviously things have changed since then. Anyway, my experiences 10 years ago don't really matter when the article itself gives the number as 40000 desktops.
Some other stats on employee numbers (from Wikipedia):
Federal Government departments - The largest federal government agency is Centrelink with 27,312 employees, followed by the Australian Taxation Office (24,070) and the Department of Defence (21,458). http://www.apsc.gov.au/stateoftheservice/0910/statistics/bulletin.pdf
Banks - NAB 39k, Westpac ~40k, CBA ~44k, ANZ ~40k
Can't be bothered with any more at the moment, but if you want to make the claims, back them up!
State Education departments typically have large IT fleets due to all the computers in every classroom in every school. RTFA.
How many other organisations in Australia have 40000 workstations or more? Probably the other state education departments (assuming they purchase centrally), a handful of large corporates... maybe a few more, but not a huge amount.
But if you used the same battery pack for a decade, then swapped your "old moldy" one for a new one, that would be ok, right?
Or.... We could just use battery switch technology, such the already up-and-working switch stations built by Better Place in Japan... 2 mins from driving in to the station, to driving out with a new battery. It saves having the entire argument in the first place.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKA4GhVn0a4
The way Better Place plans to do it - if you need to swap batteries more than 50 times a year (ie. More often than once a week, similar to refilling a petrol car) they will credit your account. So that gives them an incentive to take the "old" crappy batteries out of rotation.
We have footlongs, pints and quarter pounders in (metric) Australia as well. But they are just the names of things. They don't actually measure the subs to see if they are 30.48cm, or weigh the burgers to ensure they are 113 grams.
In other words, it's not a problem with Centigrade itself, it's just that you aren't used to it.
I don't think you've said anything there that didn't apply to any of the other countries which have successfully converted to metric.
Without knowing Hungary at all i found a major omission in about 2 minutes ..
http://tools.geofabrik.de/mc/?mt0=mapnik&mt1=googlemap&lon=19.3174&lat=47.55&zoom=13
I don't see a single spelling error in that quotation. Tested at http://spellcheck.net/