I had a similar experience when I used to play a MUD called Medievia. In certain areas (called CPK areas), if you were killed you would lose half your experience points towards the next level (which could be a substantial amount of time) and also have your equipment looted off your corpse. You are also sitting there watching this happen for about a minute. The sickening feeling when this first happened to me and the real emotional toll it took was undeniable.
As others have mentioned before power plants are more efficient at producing energy than engines are (with engines being around 20-30% from memory and power plants being 40-60% for combined cycle plants according to google). Transmission and charging losses are probably quite similar to the energy used for the transportation and distribution of the petrol (smaller tankers etc.) so in the end you come out positive.
The best thing about an electric car though is its ability to brake regeneratively, in theory meaning the net energy consumption of the journey is equal to the losses from bearing friction/electrical resistance in the motors/air resistance of the vehicle etc. The energy dumped into the brakes every time you slow down (1/2 a megajoule for a 1 tonne car stopping from 100km/h) is stored in some form of high power density short term storage (supercapacitors perhaps).
It's not several orders of magnitude, but it's a start... It makes it easier to switch to other methods of energy generation such as nuclear as they are deemed appropriate (I'd take nuclear over coal any time).
I agree entirely. When the primary deciding factor on whether to read a comment or not is its score, wouldn't it make sense to place the score as close to the start of the text as possible? It would make it faster to skim down them.
Of course on the other hand maybe once I'm used to it, the alignment on then right hand side of the screen will make it quicker to look down a line of scores.
In some cases electricity companies already do this with pumped hydro storage... It works out really well when you have the situation of something like a nuclear power plant which is easiest to run at a fixed generation capacity filling the upper storage lake during the off peak hours and then draining into the lower lake during peak hours.
The problem with storage systems of this kind though is that its very hard to get a nice combination of low cost per kJ stored and low volume per kJ stored. Hydro knocks out a large area of land and does bad things to waterways, whereas most other storage methods (namely batteries/inertia storage etc.) are too expensive...
And with a payback time of 4 years I would be asking how long the batteries last, because having just been through and replaced a couple of hundred amp-hours worth of 12v batteries in a UPS setup, I know it can get a little spendy.
If you're talking about modified sine output then thats a pretty standard thing for any UPS that only has to drive computer equipment, after all it all gets rectified to DC inside the power supply anyway... Much cheaper than a pure sine output aswell...
Slashdot Mirror
I had a similar experience when I used to play a MUD called Medievia. In certain areas (called CPK areas), if you were killed you would lose half your experience points towards the next level (which could be a substantial amount of time) and also have your equipment looted off your corpse. You are also sitting there watching this happen for about a minute. The sickening feeling when this first happened to me and the real emotional toll it took was undeniable.
As others have mentioned before power plants are more efficient at producing energy than engines are (with engines being around 20-30% from memory and power plants being 40-60% for combined cycle plants according to google). Transmission and charging losses are probably quite similar to the energy used for the transportation and distribution of the petrol (smaller tankers etc.) so in the end you come out positive.
The best thing about an electric car though is its ability to brake regeneratively, in theory meaning the net energy consumption of the journey is equal to the losses from bearing friction/electrical resistance in the motors/air resistance of the vehicle etc. The energy dumped into the brakes every time you slow down (1/2 a megajoule for a 1 tonne car stopping from 100km/h) is stored in some form of high power density short term storage (supercapacitors perhaps).
It's not several orders of magnitude, but it's a start... It makes it easier to switch to other methods of energy generation such as nuclear as they are deemed appropriate (I'd take nuclear over coal any time).
Salt in the wounds?
A large part of why it's so special is probably due to the NSA and US Government's stance on exported crypto in the 90s.
10. -- Well judging by most of the posts I've read so far, yes.
I agree entirely. When the primary deciding factor on whether to read a comment or not is its score, wouldn't it make sense to place the score as close to the start of the text as possible? It would make it faster to skim down them.
Of course on the other hand maybe once I'm used to it, the alignment on then right hand side of the screen will make it quicker to look down a line of scores.
The problem with storage systems of this kind though is that its very hard to get a nice combination of low cost per kJ stored and low volume per kJ stored. Hydro knocks out a large area of land and does bad things to waterways, whereas most other storage methods (namely batteries/inertia storage etc.) are too expensive...
And with a payback time of 4 years I would be asking how long the batteries last, because having just been through and replaced a couple of hundred amp-hours worth of 12v batteries in a UPS setup, I know it can get a little spendy.
If you're talking about modified sine output then thats a pretty standard thing for any UPS that only has to drive computer equipment, after all it all gets rectified to DC inside the power supply anyway... Much cheaper than a pure sine output aswell...