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People would freak out if the Government actually built powerplants and probably raise a huge stink. Also the Republicans would do everything to torpedo it. The plan, not the barges themselves.
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Oct 24, 2014 16:14
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Phanatic posted:Naval reactors aren't exactly designed to produce economical electricity. For one thing, they require metallic uranium that's enriched to a considerably higher degree than civilian plants (the stuff in US naval reactors is basically bomb-grade, if you got your hands on some you could build a gun-type bomb without much difficulty), because they want to extend the duration between refueling. And they almost certainly don't meet the regulatory requirements for civilian plants. No, but they'd hate the idea of the government building something a business should be instead, which is what it's about. I know plenty of people here who would howl bloody murder at the idea of the government building power plants. Doesn't matter what runs them.
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Oct 24, 2014 16:26
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Jeffrey posted:Are you theory-politicking on behalf of the Bad Guys or do you have evidence here? Energy is highly regulated in most states, it's often provided by a government-sponsored monopoly and has strict price controls. The states in which it is the most deregulated tend to be ones that vote democrat, for what it's worth. (Not claiming any causation there.) I'm just claiming based on my chatting with other Texans about the issue when it's come up. A lot of people are vehemently against any sort of government built or run power plant. It may be just local to people in the state, but it falls in line with the larger populace.
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Oct 25, 2014 00:09
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OwlFancier posted:Well not tearing them down but when you build new ones possibly try building them in less hot areas, or with better natural ventilation? How do people manage in places that don't have aircon but where it does get very hot? No amount of fancy building is going to remove the need for climate control in large buildings, nor will it do much for hot humid areas that happen to be major metropolitan areas. It's not dry arid places that are the problem for a lot of the US, it's hot and wet port cities. Also it'd take a poo poo ton of energy, most of it from burning fossil fuels, to rebuild all the houses in the southern US. On the other hand, a programmable thermostat removes most of the cooling needs during the middle of the day anyways when it comes to homes. I'm not really sure you'll ever see an office building that doesn't need large amounts of climate control.
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Apr 30, 2015 01:54
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Kalman posted:I once worked in a large office building that did low energy climate control through an evaporative cooling system. Yeah. You can absolutely build a more efficient office building, but you're not going to ever get rid of the need for climate control. Humans and their machines generate too much heat. When you reach a certain point it doesn't matter how cold it is outside, you'll be running the AC full blast. (Like at a stadium, or the Mall of America.)
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Apr 30, 2015 02:01
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Hawaii is an interesting case with the issues coming up from the back flow. The engineer in me abhors decentralized power generation, but it seems like it's going to happen no matter what. I suppose a smart grid to combat a lot of the issues is going to happen sooner or later, and that's job security.
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Apr 30, 2015 16:37
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I can't wait for Tesla to start a house fire like their cars. Stop cutting costs with lots of small cells!
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May 1, 2015 12:45
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Lurking Haro posted:I'm pretty sure all cases of burning Teslas either have nothing to do with the batteries but chargers, low-voltage fuse boxes or even external fires, or the batteries have been damaged, but no spontanous combustion. Probably not, but using a lot of small lithium cells to make a big battery is just bad engineering. Lithium Ion's already have a pretty low tolerance for over charging and heat, packing a bunch of them in parallel is just asking for trouble. Sure, it's cheaper, but there's a reason why every other manufacturer isn't going with using lots of small cells. All it takes is one bad cell and then you're looking at a risk as it starts to heat up. Also, just because these things can happen to regular cars doesn't mean that Tesla isn't loving up something else besides their battery bricks, given how many fires there are for the small number of cars produced.
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May 1, 2015 15:03
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Lurking Haro posted:The last fire incident I can find is the one in Toronto more than a year ago which didn't even touch the batteries. Like I said, I don't think any of them were from Thermal runaway. Two road debris, a fire that originated from the wall, and I want to say something else, but it's been a year since I ever talked shop about the cars. I still don't think it's sound engineering. You're just giving yourself hundreds of failure points. I also think the issue will become more pronounced as the bricks age, due to each individual cell taking on slightly different resistances as time goes on. I don't think it's a viable solution, and it's pretty much a case example of the things they tell you not to do. Also, reducing the energy per cell isn't accomplishing what you think it is. You short out one cell and you've just got a small cell taking in the power from all the others it's hooked into, which means it's less robust, not more. On the other hand, I don't know the numbers on heat transfer within the cell and across it's neighbors, so I couldn't say for sure what it'd look like as the entire system ages. My gut, on the back of the napkin feeling is that the differences between the thermal transfer between lots of battery casings would be a problem compared to 6 large cells sitting next to each other. Then you've got problems of what to do with an electronically isolated string. You can't really replace it, because then you've got fresh batteries mixed with older ones and you've got the problem all over again. Sure, you can just use some fancy footwork to keep that string isolated, but then you're not delivering the same amps and you've permanently lost power that you need. All of that aside, it does look like Tesla actual doesn't have as many incidents per car as I originally believed. I still think that I wouldn't want one of their thousand cell packs sitting in my apartment compared to other options based on what I know from class. So maybe Tesla won't ever cause a fire with their cost cutting measure. They should still stop doing it because it's a bad solution to a problem for the sake of cutting a little bit off the price point.
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May 1, 2015 16:03
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Yes, because obviously Tesla's EE's are smarter than those other EE's like me. Elon can do no wrong, the basics of circuit design are taught wrong at universities around the world, and they're the only ones in the entire world, out of dozens of companies looking at the same problem to know the right and proper solution. I'm sure there's no trade offs involved at all, because then we couldn't all slobber on Elon's cock.
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May 1, 2015 16:17
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Lurking Haro posted:Don't they use the same cell packs for SpaceX's Dragon capsules, which dock to the ISS? Either NASA doesn't care or they greenlit the use. Good question. I've spent all morning googling various things, and to be honest I maaaay have to eat a little crow on this. I still object to things on the sort of if all cells regardless of size were the same and we were looking at it from a mathematical standpoint I'd want the least number of cells needed, but the 18650 is reliable, it's the cheapest you'll get, and looking at the patents Tesla has they've put a lot of work into solving issues with the heat side of things. I also can't find what actual cell the 787 uses, but it looks like it may be a custom cell, in which case, yeah, I'll take the salt with my crow. This might just end up being a wait and see thing. I do think there's a lot of other non li-ion options for storage in homes, where the weight of the system isn't as important as it is in a car. edit: http://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/pdf/DragonLabFactSheet.pdf Looks like they use a lithium polymer big battery. That'd make sense, since going with the lowest cost option isn't always best. Not in terms of safety, but in terms of weight and mass. Lots of little round cells have a lot of empty space in between them, after all. Killer-of-Lawyers fucked around with this message at 17:08 on May 1, 2015 |
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May 1, 2015 17:05
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:Pretty sure SpaceX eventually wants to start reusing the capsules. Yep, they do. I still hate Elon due to politics and paypal, but the Dragon's a good ship.
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May 1, 2015 17:09
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http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20100086844 There's the patent on one of their systems for dealing with Thermal Runaway in their packs. It's an interesting read, and a nifty idea for cooling down the cells. hobbesmaster posted:Because circuitry to protect individuals cells would be impossible right. No, but you'd want to use software as well. Which they do. Doing each individual cell would be a bit of an issue, yes, but to be honest they're a bunch of strings of cells that are themselves in parallel, so you can't just cut out individual cells anyways. Doesn't mean that you can't have an argument over if you should have a simple system that requires less monitoring or a complex system that takes more work but is cheaper, which is what a lot of the debate is over. CombatInformatiker posted:I'm going out on a limp here, but I assume that you were not involved in the design of Tesla's car or home batteries, therefore you're not intimately familiar with the problems and tradeoffs encounted during their development. From an outside perspective, you first see the drawbacks of a product, not the reasons that necessitated those drawbacks – even if you're a professional of the same discipline. [1] Yeah. That's why I've eaten crow over this. I was wrong, and I wasn't keeping up with what had happened over the past few years. I think we all know that cost was a major factor, but that doesn't always mean it was the right choice. The cost of larger cells have gone down, so you have to look at the cost in the future as well, and a lot of other factors. My post was mostly about it not being a complete open and shut case, but everyone knows that nothing ever is. edit: I should clarify, my post about Tesla vs the rest of the industry was. My first post about Tesla packs burning down homes is just me doing the whole assumptions based off of one thing and not looking at the big picture. Last time I thought about Tesla the investigation wasn't even started, so that's what I get for not keeping up on things and then deciding to make a dumb comment about it! Killer-of-Lawyers fucked around with this message at 17:28 on May 1, 2015 |
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May 1, 2015 17:15
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It wouldn't be the first time I was wrong, it won't be the last. Sorry about this time though. On the upside I learned a lot of neat stuff. If the price of 18650's drops when Musk's factory comes online then they'll probably remain significantly cheaper than the bigger automotive cells even as they come down in cost. I still hope someone else besides Musk comes along in the market though!
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May 1, 2015 18:50
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Yes, Musk, your goddamn battery packs with solar panels are going to get power to people that don't have it, because the free market and cars and it's no big deal. Urgh. This is why I can't stand the man. Here's a 10k solution, it'll help poor rural people in remote areas. None of this is going to work with out massive government investment, and yet everyone is going to be slobbering all over it like he's goddamn solar Jesus. Did he even give the dimensions for the power pack? I want to know how much space 900 million of the things would take, even if you excluded the cost of fans and everything else. What's the life span on his power pack? I mean, I'm not going to argue with the economics of scale, mass producing a solution is going to be needed no matter how we solve our energy problems, but Jesus, its so much hype. Batteries are terrible! Ok, sure. How are your batteries different, Musk? You're using a mature battery and solving the issues it has, which is great, but it's not like you're walking on water. http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2015/05/01/why-teslas-powerwall-is-just-another-toy-for-rich-green-people/ I think this sums it up nicely, it doesn't make economic sense for most people, how's this going to help with out it being massively subsidized? Hell, I'm going to echo the article, give me the numbers on the power pack. That's where we should be looking at storage problems for the grid, not this house by house solution. edit: Here's the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKORsrlN-2k edit2: I mean, he points out that you'd only need a pixel of land for batteries, but that pixel of land is like, the size of Ft. Worth or larger. C'mon! Killer-of-Lawyers fucked around with this message at 20:06 on May 1, 2015 |
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May 1, 2015 20:03
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amanasleep posted:I think it follows the plan of: make world saving innovation economical and cool for rich people first, get them to lobby for government subsidies, make tons of money off that, then roll that into mass-produced low-cost versions for everybody. That's a terrible plan. I mean, it's a fantastic business plan for him, but there are other solutions out there that would probably cost society less at this point. Its also not a world saving innovation. There's some nifty ideas like we discussed last page on dealing with the downsides of using a ton of laptop li-ion cells in every possible application, but it's not some massive deal. He just put a shiny coat of marketing and charisma on it and now people think he's loving Jesus.
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May 1, 2015 20:16
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Nice reading comprehension. I said the power pack, not the loving power wall. edit: Did you seriously even read or watch the video, or were you too busy jumping at an opportunity to slobber all over his throbbing Galtesq cock?
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May 1, 2015 20:39
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Pander posted:Dude, I'm not a fan of this glorified UPS, but you really need to chill the gently caress out. You sound like a crazy person with a paranoid hatred toward Musk. To be fair, I'm more mad at the idiot poster who has the reading comprehension of a 5 year old than I am at Musk. I mean, seriously. I'll take my licks when they're due, but at least put some modicum of effort into reading a post if you're going to discuss an issue, otherwise what's the point?
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May 1, 2015 20:44
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That's fantastic. He showed me a box in the video. I'll just calculate it's dimensions based on Elon's shoe size and my protractor.
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May 1, 2015 20:50
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So what's the point of this entire circle then? The article I linked asked the question about the power pack, I asked the same question, and you started babbling about the wall. I'm sure we'll know it eventually, but if you're going to show some info graphics in a video it's usually a good idea to provide the viewing public with your numbers.
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May 1, 2015 20:54
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I'm pretty sure I tried to equate his mars plans with Galt's Gulch too.http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/11/28/no-death-no-taxes posted:Musk added, “I’m somewhat libertarian, but Peter’s extremely libertarian.” There, from the horses mouth. There's also a good quote from the man about taxes being theft, dudes super libertarian nutty. Killer-of-Lawyers fucked around with this message at 05:50 on May 2, 2015 |
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May 2, 2015 05:37
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I'd probably hate a commie just as much, tbh
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May 2, 2015 06:03
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Can't find much. Westinghouses executive seems pretty standard and talks a lot about working with embassies and governments. Googling nuclear power executives and libertarianism gives a lot of hits about the inherent statism of nuclear power. None of the ones I've seen interviews on set off my randar, and libertarians are idiots that scream their ideology all the time.
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May 3, 2015 21:53
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QuarkJets posted:I tend to assume that executives have a strong conservative bent no matter what industry they're in. More often than not, it's true. Definitely, but there's a big difference between a pro business republican and randroids.
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May 4, 2015 01:06
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QuarkJets posted:I don't think that anyone here really gives a poo poo about the political leanings of the executives that push various energy-related products (with the exception of one poster) If musk has a good product then people should buy it. Doesn't stop me from actually disliking the man, or wishing someone else would compete with him and win, or wishing he'd stop showing up on the news with dumb ideas like pneumatic tube rail. Being a billionaire businessman doesn't mean you're immune to people disliking your idiot politics.
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May 4, 2015 18:22
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I agree, utility side power storage makes more sense. There's nothing wrong with home storage, but people usually forget the 2k inverter that'd you need to factor into the cost of the system. Of course, if you have solar panels you already have that, but for just buying power when it's cheep it's a cost you need to add into your calculations. This is why I'd want the dimensions of the power pack instead of the wall. I mean, he showed the thing off. I really don't like market speak. Don't tell me batteries are bad, show me the numbers. Like, real numbers, not pixels on a map. Either way, anything that reduces our need for peak plants is good. I don't care if it's from battery stored wind, solar, hamsters, or nuclear, they're all better choices than peakers. Got to admit I never thought about the situation in countries with out the ability to sell solar power to the grid during the day, though. I tend to usually focus on the US situation. edit: Another nice thing about the more grid based solutions is that the power wall is kinda limp when it comes to continuous output, so you'd need multiple walls installed for that reason alone. A big grid based solution would have less of a problem with that. Killer-of-Lawyers fucked around with this message at 19:14 on May 4, 2015 |
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May 4, 2015 19:07
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I think you guys are thinking about two different thing. There's a difference in the economics of power storage for myself personally, and for Encor or whatever power company.
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May 4, 2015 19:32
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No, the walls are designed for end users. The packs are the big box things that he never gave any stats on besides the amount of power one could hold and that they were made to be modular. The walls aren't really that good, but they'd still be alright for people with solar panels. Going off the grid with them, or completely buying only cheep power is going to suck, since you'd need a few of the things to make sure you can boil and egg and use the toaster at the same time.
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May 4, 2015 19:51
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Dahn posted:Cool looks like there might be some places that could get some real benefit from the batteries. ERCOT is http://www.ercot.com/news/press_releases/show/26611 If you browse their site you can even get excell spreadsheets on the hourly output and everything. Also Ercot has a solid nuclear power baseline as well. http://www.ercot.com/content/news/presentations/2015/ERCOT_Quick_Facts_12715.pdf There is also a report on the various future scenarios for wind/solar/natural gas, and water impact analysis you can find as well if you want to look into the charts. Long story short, it all relies on the price of gas, wind is already viable in Texas with the right conditions, solar will probably be by 2022. edit: And of course, you can search and see if anyone does any indexed rates in your area. A lot of plans tend to have a fixed rate. It was pretty popular when gas prices were declining and companies probably made bank on it. Still, there are options. edit2: Boten Anna posted:making maximum use of dirty power sources that output at a constant rate (coal, nuclear) You are a bad person and you should feel bad about yourself. Killer-of-Lawyers fucked around with this message at 23:40 on May 4, 2015 |
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May 4, 2015 23:29
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QuarkJets posted:Wasn't Arizona about to significantly reduce the price of power provided by consumer solar panels? Hawaii electric companies were trying to do the same thing until the state stepped in last year. I imagine a battery pack would be very useful in a situation where the power company is paying pennies on the dollar to consumers with solar systems It would. A battery system makes sense if you're going to have panels on your home. If it makes sense to go with TESLA or stick with the more traditional batteries is really for the consumer to figure out on their own. One of the biggest problems a lot of high solar states are running into is backflow, so I can see why power companies would want to stop paying much money during the middle of the day. They don't need the power then, it's causing them issues back at the plant they get so much in Hawaii. Grid based storage could help a lot too. Spin down the power plants during the midday, charge up the local batteries, then discharge them instead of having spinning reserve during peak times. Of course, we'd need to change the rules for spinning reserves to do that.
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May 5, 2015 00:16
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Hollismason posted:Is there a way to calculate what the cost and effeciency of Tesla's product will be in 3 years? Also does this qualify for Federal Subsidy similar to Solar Panel, and Green fitting your home? There's a lot of factors in play. Will the Gigafactory actually reduce the cost of lithium cells, or is the cell already so popular that it's near it's price floor? How effective are the packs going to be in the 5-10 year term? The last question is easy. If you have the batteries installed as part of a home solar system then the feds will give you 30%. Some states have their own rebates ontop of that, but this is only if you're doing it in tandem with solar cells. Hollismason posted:Also, what's to prevent the electric company from just stealing electricity from the battery and your solar panels ? Meaning any home that did convert would basically just be a mini station for the Electric Company? What, you mean like how people steal cable? I don't think the power company is going to come over to your home and try and steal power from you. You kind of have to set things up with them to put power out onto the grid anyways, and if you're worried you can just pull the knife switch outside your home.
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May 5, 2015 00:24
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They'd have a hell of a market stealing the solar panels back from us after they sell them. I think it could work. The solar oruburos.
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May 5, 2015 00:29
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Hollismason posted:There's already huge lobby groups against the Electrical Companies buying back electricity, they kind of won in this area. I specficially meant whats to stop the company from drawing power from your home and that in turn draws power from the battery. You can just isolate your home completely from the grid based on how full the batteries are. You'd need enough batteries to cover your household peak, or some other fancy stuff, but yeah, it's doable.
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May 5, 2015 00:33
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Boten Anna posted:Interesting, though I imagine there are inefficiencies to ramping up/down/turning off power plants, and there's an optimal level of output that is the most efficient, much like how the Volt works, and similar to the Volt, if there were battery arrays everywhere that could store excess generation so that the power plant runs at constant peak efficiency it would be a boon. Also it makes sense that for a coal plant you could just not burn as much coal, but this isn't the case for nuclear energy and it seems like that would be where pumping water uphill to burn off excess generation, etc. would be more common. You can burn less uranium if need be, but it's less important since fuel is such a small part of the cost and impact of a nuclear power plant. Probably the best environmental use of batteries is going to be as a way to replace spinning reserves with juice stored up from a strong wind or solar farms. Then we can get rid of burning fuel and not getting any actual power out of it. edit: Also for most systems the most efficient generation level is going to be as close to max all the time you can manage. Of course this never happens, but sine the cost and pollution of the plants construction is factored in over the lifetime of the plant, it's best to keep 'em running. This is one of the reasons why peakers are expensive. Killer-of-Lawyers fucked around with this message at 18:07 on May 5, 2015 |
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May 5, 2015 18:05
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Yeah, there's a lot of issues with liquid thorium reactors. I don't really think we'll ever see them for a while. There's too much inertia behind solid fuel systems in the industry. Which is fine, a solid fuel thorium reactor would still be nice.Pander posted:Yup. Usually you control power output through water flow rate. Increase flow rate, decrease temperature, increase water density, increase reaction rate, increase power. Yeah, nukes are fantastic base load, but being able to throttle up and down is becoming more and more important for them as renewable sources like wind come online. They're nice though because fuel is such a small insignificant part of their operating costs, so they still make fantastic baseload sources. Capacity factors can be a bit weird. A lot of factors come to play in it, and the capacity factor for nuclear in the US has shot up dramatically over the last 20 years or so. We've probably gotten better at being efficient about refueling, and there's probably been more and more work put into keeping them running at max capacity. The fact that Natural gas is popular might have a lot to do with it. It's really easy to turn down those during the night, and just let the nuclear backbone run at near max capacity 24/7. There's also a lot of economic incentive to run at 100% all the time, as the cost of the plant is factored over the amount of power it produces in its lifetime, and the cost of building the plant in the first place is where the real cost of nuclear is.
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May 5, 2015 20:39
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Of which there are a lot, because the lifespan of a reactor is looooooong.
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May 5, 2015 23:12
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Reprocessing is one of those things that makes absolute sense from an engineering standpoint, and none politically. The waste from once through is relatively small, just like the fuel use. Just store the waste for the future, maybe then it can be politically feasible. It sucks, but I'd rather not have proliferation fears leading to coal being used a minute longer then it needs to be.
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Nov 19, 2015 18:09
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Infinite Karma posted:Reprocessing is much more complicated than that. Sorry, but I don't see any evidence that reprocessing would get any different of a reaction from the public over the current reaction various waste disposal plans get. People are afraid of atomic energy, and any moving of waste around to reprocessing facilities would run into the same stupid opposition that we see from green party types.
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Nov 20, 2015 02:24
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Trabisnikof posted:Reprocessing involves a more serious proliferation risk, that's a fact. That fact is the connection to nuclear weapons in the public eye that nuclear power proponents try desperately to avoid. "Don't worry, this fuel cannot be used to make a weapon, the physics won't work" is an important PR phrase. Why are you arguing with me. That's what I said from the get go. Don't waste political capital fighting for reprocessing.
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Nov 20, 2015 06:45
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I find it highly amusing that people think that dams are ecologically sound things to build. It's not like anything actually lives in those rivers, after all.
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Nov 29, 2015 15:33
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