The all things Political topic -In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie

[Malcador]

12 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

They look great but where it the power going? Their output is DC power.  Which means the end-user must to be located very close by. Meters away not kilometers.  Additionally a mass storage and mass inverter assembly must be located very nearby. this does not absolutely have to be the case. If the end-user wants DC power the inverters are not necessary. If power is not required except when the sun is up and the batteries are not necessary. But if the power is meant to serve as a supplement to a C utility power than you need both.
 

The problem with DC power is ohms law. As resistance increases current decreases. The longer the transmission line the less usable it becomes. The lower the voltage dropped over the length of the run makes it less usable because inverters require a certain power level to work. And at peak efficiency thy are only 70.7% efficient.

Take my own home system as an example. The solar panels used to be 120 feet from my house. 35M give or take. I cleared some trees and moved them to just 12’ about 3.9 M. I’m still using the same 6 AWG stranded cable but my battery charge rate increased by + 25%. That after a change of just 30m. It makes that big a difference.

Can use HVDC, no ? 

 

[Guard Dog]

1 hour ago, Malcador said:

Can use HVDC, no ? 

 

Problematic. In a straight Ohmic circuit as long as R stays constant current increases proportionately to voltage to infinity. But, based on the type, size, length, material, load demand, and other variables all circuits becomes non-ohmic at some point. That means resistance becomes variable. 
 

when R becomes variable you go from this:

to this

 

there are good reasons why Westinghouse won the current war and not Edison.

Edited April 28, 2021 by Guard Dog

[BruceVC]

wrong thread 

Edited April 28, 2021 by BruceVC

[Elerond]

2 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

They look great but where it the power going? Their output is DC power.  Which means the end-user must to be located very close by. Meters away not kilometers.  Additionally a mass storage and mass inverter assembly must be located very nearby. this does not absolutely have to be the case. If the end-user wants DC power the inverters are not necessary. If power is not required except when the sun is up and the batteries are not necessary. But if the power is meant to serve as a supplement to a C utility power than you need both.
 

The problem with DC power is ohms law. As resistance increases current decreases. The longer the transmission line the less usable it becomes. The lower the voltage dropped over the length of the run makes it less usable because inverters require a certain power level to work. And at peak efficiency thy are only 70.7% efficient.

Take my own home system as an example. The solar panels used to be 120 feet from my house. 35M give or take. I cleared some trees and moved them to just 12’ about 3.9 M. I’m still using the same 6 AWG stranded cable but my battery charge rate increased by + 25%. That after a change of just 30m. It makes that big a difference.

Best explanation how they have connected those solar fields is following

 11.1 Transmission and distribution Most solar power systems in Germany are connected to the decentralized low-voltage grid (Figure 21) and generate solar power consumption. As a result, solar power is mainly fed in decentrally and hardly demands to expand the German national transmission grid. High PV system density in a low voltage grid section may cause the electricity production to exceed the power consumption in this section on sunny days¸ due to the high simultaneity factor. Transformers then feed power back into the medium-voltage grid. At very high plant densities, the transformer station can reach its power limit. An even distribution of PV installations over the network sections reduces the need for expansion.

PV power plants are decentralized and well distributed thereby accommodating the feedin and distribution of the existing electricity grid. Large PV power plants or a local accumulation of smaller plants in sparsely populated regions require that the distribution network and the transformer stations are reinforced at certain sites. The further expansion of PV should be geographically even more consumption-friendly, in order to simplify the distribution of solar electricity. For example, Brandenburg or Mecklenburg-Vorpommern have installed 3 to 4 times more PV power per inhabitant than the Saarland, NRW, Saxony or Hesse [AEE2].

 

https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/en/documents/publications/studies/recent-facts-about-photovoltaics-in-germany.pdf

Page 31.

Edited April 28, 2021 by Elerond

[Skarpen]

7 hours ago, Gorth said:

That's based on the assumption that those sources are going to be your only sources of energy. Even Denmark, despite getting so much electricity from alternative sources now, doesn't put all the eggs in one basket. Diversification (sp?) is important. If it makes you feel more comfortable, you could always add a few nuclear power plants to pick up the slack on rainy day and use the renewable energy when it's there (and scale the storage as needed,if  possible). Not sure what the better alternatives would be? Not trying to be snarky, genuinely curious (with the caveat I don't believe oil and coal is the future for humanity).

Diversification is great. Nuclear power is great. Green energy is ok as an addition. But going all green is not possible. 

3 hours ago, rjshae said:

Let me shine a (flash)light on your perspective...

OK. Please do. As of right now you are just proving you don't know what you are talking about. Start with learning the difference between AC and DC. 

[Malcador]

2 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

there are good reasons why Westinghouse won the current war and not Edison.

True but I guess they couldn't step up DC until the 60's or so.  Was surprising when I found out HVDC was a thing, knew I should have taken EE.

7 minutes ago, Skarpen said:

OK. Please do. As of right now you are just proving you don't know what you are talking about. Start with learning the difference between AC and DC. 

It's a joke on batteries.

[Skarpen]

23 minutes ago, Malcador said:

It's a joke on batteries.

I know. That's why I said he doesn't know what he's talking about. It's rather hard to discuss differentials with someone who don't even know multiplication table. 

[Malcador]

Not sure the joke is proof of anything in any direction, but as you do.

Edited April 28, 2021 by Malcador

[InsaneCommander]

 

14 hours ago, Elerond said:

You store energy which can be used to produce electricity

Potential energy storages like artificial lakes have been used from beginning of hydropower

Batteries are also quite old invention.

Using electrolysis to split water to hydrogen and oxygen is also couple hundred years old invention

Geothermal storages are bit newer invention

Compressed air/steam/liquid can also be used store energy

NASA has experimented with FES/Flywheel energy storages in which energy is stored as rotational energy

By lifting solid masses to high can also used as potential energy storages

And there are quite lot other ways to store energy.

So storing energy/electricity isn't the problem. Problems are scale and poor efficiency, especially when form of energy transformed multiple times. 

This will help a lot:

On 3/27/2021 at 9:16 PM, InsaneCommander said:

The Battery That Will Finally Unlock Massless Energy Storage.

[rjshae]

2 hours ago, Skarpen said:

Diversification is great. Nuclear power is great. Green energy is ok as an addition. But going all green is not possible. 

OK. Please do. As of right now you are just proving you don't know what you are talking about. Start with learning the difference between AC and DC. 

Ever heard of a power inverter? Yeah, they exist. I'm not sure you know what you're talking about.

[Guard Dog]

2 hours ago, Malcador said:

knew I should have taken EE.

 

Trust me you made the right decision. I know from reading your comments there’s a lot of tedium in what you do. But EE is a seriously under appreciated discipline. Computer/Software engineering  is the best field for now. EE is yesterday’s big thing. If I could do it over again I would’ve chosen civil engineering. Those jobs don’t pay a lot of money but there are a hell of a lot of them. And it’s far easier to parlay those skills into other opportunities. With EE and a specialization in RF networks I was the definition of a one trick pony. 

[Guard Dog]

1 minute ago, rjshae said:

Ever heard of a power inverter? Yeah, they exist. I'm not sure you know what you're talking about.

Heck all he has to do is read the last two pages of this very forum. We’ve been talking about that exact thing!

[Guard Dog]

4 hours ago, Elerond said:

Best explanation how they have connected those solar fields is following

 11.1 Transmission and distribution Most solar power systems in Germany are connected to the decentralized low-voltage grid (Figure 21) and generate solar power consumption. As a result, solar power is mainly fed in decentrally and hardly demands to expand the German national transmission grid. High PV system density in a low voltage grid section may cause the electricity production to exceed the power consumption in this section on sunny days¸ due to the high simultaneity factor. Transformers then feed power back into the medium-voltage grid. At very high plant densities, the transformer station can reach its power limit. An even distribution of PV installations over the network sections reduces the need for expansion.

PV power plants are decentralized and well distributed thereby accommodating the feedin and distribution of the existing electricity grid. Large PV power plants or a local accumulation of smaller plants in sparsely populated regions require that the distribution network and the transformer stations are reinforced at certain sites. The further expansion of PV should be geographically even more consumption-friendly, in order to simplify the distribution of solar electricity. For example, Brandenburg or Mecklenburg-Vorpommern have installed 3 to 4 times more PV power per inhabitant than the Saarland, NRW, Saxony or Hesse [AEE2].

 

https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/en/documents/publications/studies/recent-facts-about-photovoltaics-in-germany.pdf

Page 31.

This is interesting stuff. I want to read more into this before replying 

[Malcador]

2 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

Trust me you made the right decision. I know from reading your comments there’s a lot of tedium in what you do. But EE is a seriously under appreciated discipline. Computer/Software engineering  is the best field for now. EE is yesterday’s big thing. If I could do it over again I would’ve chosen civil engineering. Those jobs don’t pay a lot of money but there are a hell of a lot of them. And it’s far easier to parlay those skills into other opportunities. With EE and a specialization in RF networks I was the definition of a one trick pony. 

Yah, EE was below Computer Engineering in prestige at my Uni which I always laughed at as they had to do real math and the whole discipline actually engineered real things rather than just the VLSI crew .  I am not sure EE's dead or anything, still need people to maintain and design things for grids, etc. (one thing, I guess it's a bit more outsource resistant than software in some roles).  

[Zoraptor]

10 hours ago, Gorth said:

Bad news for arms exporters and oil investors... Iran and Saudi Arabia caught in the act of having secret peace talks

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/4/28/mbs-us-and-riyadh-strategic-partners-with-few-differences

"Saudi Arabia’s crown prince has struck a conciliatory tone towards the kingdom’s arch-nemesis, Iran, saying he sought “good” relations after reports the rivals held secret talks recently in Baghdad."

Saudi's climb down is nearly complete. I still remember well all the Saudis in 2016 saying they wouldn't talk to Iran under any circumstances because they weren't arab and simply weren't worthy. Guess all it takes is Trump leaving, a couple of refineries being blown up and spending almost all the piggy bank in Yemen. Losing to shoeless Houthis whacked out on Qat and watching them blow up Abrams after Abrams with fricking 1960s era Malyutka all filmed on a 1960s era Nokia is bad enough, but losing and running out of money when you're the world's biggest oil supplier? That takes some sort of special ability.

2 hours ago, Malcador said:

True but I guess they couldn't step up DC until the 60's or so.  Was surprising when I found out HVDC was a thing, knew I should have taken EE.

GD is being a bit too negative on the DC, our far and away most important transmission cable is indeed HVDC (and the 2nd most important one nearly was and got rejected for 'political' rather than practical reasons) and there are a lot of HVDC lines around- there are just a lot lot more AC ones. Not disputing the general observation about the practicalities of AC over DC though.

[Skarpen]

38 minutes ago, rjshae said:

Ever heard of a power inverter? Yeah, they exist. I'm not sure you know what you're talking about.

LOL. So your brilliant idea of a powergrid of the future is to make AC from unreliable and flicker sources like wind and solar, then transform it to DC for storage and then use that storage to convert to AC to back up the original sources? Sounds like a solid plan for someone who has no idea how conversions work. A little hint it's not 1:1.

 

38 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

Heck all he has to do is read the last two pages of this very forum. We’ve been talking about that exact thing!

I did read those, have you?

[Guard Dog]

51 minutes ago, Skarpen said:

LOL. So your brilliant idea of a powergrid of the future is to make AC from unreliable and flicker sources like wind and solar, then transform it to DC for storage and then use that storage to convert to AC to back up the original sources? Sounds like a solid plan for someone who has no idea how conversions work. A little hint it's not 1:1.

 

I did read those, have you?

Ok, just FYI. Wind turbines produce AC. Solar produces DC. Wind power is a supplementary source. The turbines must reach a certain RPM before their output reaches a useable level. Whatever that is in the system you are looking at. In most wind farms you will have 20-30 turbines with their output in parallel with respect to each other. This is because of Kirchoffs Law for voltage. All drops in a closed loop circuit equal zero. No matter how many loads. Voltage on all parallel paths will be the same. The paths will have a monitor circuit that will switch the circuit “on” once the turbines are up to speed and the loads are likely on the primary side of a series of step up transformers. The secondary side will take the higher induced voltage and connect it to a distant load (municipal power utility most likely) and the electrons will do their stuff. The utility connects the wind farm output in parallel with their utility output (because our old buddy Kirchhoff) the municipality will draw on both sources. This lowers the demand on the utility that is presumably burning fossil fuels to create power. 
 

Solar produces DC. Those panels will be multiple circuits in series configuration because most produce a very small amount of power. In series circuit voltage is additive. To get to 1000 VDC you will likely need 500 panels in series at peak efficiency. Now you are right that solar power is inconstant. That is why , most of the time, solar power charges a battery network that in turn feeds an inverter. As I have been pontificating on at length in the past two pages inverters are not terribly efficient. The reason why if anyone is curious as their output is not a sine wave. It is a square wave. So filtering and wave shaping is going to be a major part of the system. Guard Dogs law of circuits clearly states “the more s—t you have in the circuit the more losses you incur.” Anyway that 70.7 is not some number I pulled out of my butt. Anyway the theory is the batteries supply the power under constant charge from the solar network. Of course the battery voltage is going to drop. So at some point a low-voltage disconnect circuit will trigger and it will shut down the output of the battery plant until it is charged back up again. Neither of these so-called green options are capable of running all the time and neither is capable of being a primary power source. That’s why I said they are both supplemental sources.

[Guard Dog]

Never mind. That was a long ramble about nothing.

Edited April 28, 2021 by Guard Dog

[ComradeYellow]

7 hours ago, Skarpen said:

Diversification is great. Nuclear power is great. Green energy is ok as an addition. But going all green is not possible. 

Am in agreement with this to a certain degree.

Get rid of coal and carbon completely, and form a solid synthesis between safe as Hell nuclear energy and "windmill" energy.

However again I'll stress that extensive resources are needed to make nuclear energy at least 95% safe and should be an utmost priority.

Dismantling nuclear weapons into such efforts should also be a long term goal.

[Gorth]

2 hours ago, ComradeYellow said:

Am in agreement with this to a certain degree.

Get rid of coal and carbon completely, and form a solid synthesis between safe as Hell nuclear energy and "windmill" energy.

However again I'll stress that extensive resources are needed to make nuclear energy at least 95% safe and should be an utmost priority.

Dismantling nuclear weapons into such efforts should also be a long term goal.

That would probably be my biggest concern with a widespread use of nuclear energy. Sure, a lot of countries can handle it responsibly (sort of, except Russia, The US, Japan etc.), but there are also a number of countries I would feel uneasy about having nuclear facilities and stockpiles of nuclear material.

[Skarpen]

5 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

Neither of these so-called green options are capable of running all the time and neither is capable of being a primary power source. That’s why I said they are both supplemental sources.

Exactly. Then why are you attacking me when I say the same thing and you agree with a guy who says the opposite?

[ComradeYellow]

24 minutes ago, Gorth said:

. Sure, a lot of countries can handle it responsibly (sort of, except Russia,

I think I've stated REPEATEDLY that Russia is one of the foremost powers on the planet that's trying to  dedicate resources into handling mature and responsible energy consumption, especially on nuclear energy. 

However, white judeo-Christian prejudice remains the pre-dominant ideology of the west so no matter what other powers do, it's gonna be construed as an adversarial challenge to the white supremacist orthodoxy of the West.

Reality sucks but that's the reality when push comes to shove.

 

[Gorth]

1 minute ago, ComradeYellow said:

However, white judeo-Christian prejudice remains the pre-dominant ideology of the west so no matter what other powers do, it's gonna be construed as an adversarial challenge to the white supremacist orthodoxy of the West.

That's the weirdest description I've ever seen for accidents on powerplants with release of nuclear material into the environment

(as for Russia, I'm not talking about Chernobyl, that was an Ukrainian powerplant, I'm talking about the Mayak incident in 1957, the worlds third most disastrous nuclear accent after Chernobyl and Fukushima, beating Three Mile Island by miles)

[Gorth]

Australia is not happy with Facebook... (not that I personally care, never posted a single thing there, but apparently a lot of Aussies do use Facebook)

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56920992

 

Facebook approved adverts targeting teenage children interested in gambling, smoking and extreme weight loss, a report says.

Research by the lobby group Reset Australia created a Facebook page under the name Ozzie News Network to explore the advertising options.
And it was able to create targeted ads, based on profiling by the technology giant, for as little as A$3 (£2.16).

Facebook told BBC News it reviewed each ad before and after publication.

Facebook approved all three Ads!

"Facebook appears to use teenagers' data in the same way as adults," Reset Australia executive director Chris Cooper told the Guardian.

"This opens a can of worms about just how Facebook profits from under-age data, and exactly what protection they have against inappropriate targeting."

"Should a 13-year-old who lists their single status be getting targeted ads for a sugar-daddy dating service?

"Should a 15-year-old profiled as interested in alcohol see ads that suggest ****tail recipes based on their parent's alcohol cabinet?

"Do we want 16-year-olds to have ads about gambling or political extremism targeted at them?"

 

I might be a relic from the past, but I think Facebook is something the world doesn't really need. But also that it may be a symptom of some underlying issues with today's society rather than the cause.

[Azdeus]

Just EU doing EU things with the internet again...

 

Quote

 

27/April/2021

 

 

 

After the European Parliament’s Home Affairs Committee (LIBE) agreed to a new EU regulation to prevent the dissemination of terrorist content online (TERREG) by 52:14 votes last week, the regulation has now been  deemed approved by the plenary without a vote. The regulation will allow national authorities to have Internet content removed, even if hosted in another Member State, within one hour, without requiring a court order. The proposal has been criticized by numerous NGOs as well as UN Special Rapporteurs, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) and the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ).

https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/controversial-eu-anti-terror-internet-regulation-terreg-adopted/

 

This regulation is very well thought through as usual, I especially like that other EU member states can decide for themselves what terrorism is. And since terror isn't really a thing, but a feeling, I will be submitting a demand that all of Facebook be banned, because nothing terrifies me more than the stupification of people that use it and the exploitation of minors and adults data.

Edited April 29, 2021 by Azdeus