Giving Up Alternating Current 466
An anonymous reader writes: Yesterday we discussed Soylent, the artificial food substitute created by Rob Rhinehart and his team. As it turns out, this isn't Rhinehart's only unusual sustainability project. In a new post, he explains how he gave up on alternating current — a tough proposition for anyone living in the U.S. and still interested in using all sorts of modern technology. Rhinehart says, "Most power in the US is generated by burning coal, immediately squandering 67% of its energy, then run through a steam turbine, losing another 50%, then sent across transmission lines, losing another 5%, then to charge a DC device like a cell phone another 50% is lost in conversion. This means for 100 watts of coal or oil burned my phone gets a mere 16."
The biggest hindrance was the kitchen. As you might expect for the creator of Soylent, he doesn't cook, and was able to get rid of almost all kitchen appliances because of that. He uses a butane stove for hot beverages. He powers a small computer off batteries, which get their energy from solar panels. For intensive tasks, he remotes to more powerful machines. He re-wired his apartment's LED lighting to run off direct current. Have any of you made similar changes? How much of an effect does this really have?
The biggest hindrance was the kitchen. As you might expect for the creator of Soylent, he doesn't cook, and was able to get rid of almost all kitchen appliances because of that. He uses a butane stove for hot beverages. He powers a small computer off batteries, which get their energy from solar panels. For intensive tasks, he remotes to more powerful machines. He re-wired his apartment's LED lighting to run off direct current. Have any of you made similar changes? How much of an effect does this really have?
Outdoor (Score:5, Informative)
It's the new outdoor trend anyway. All the lighting is obviously LED, so no problem there, the gadgets all transform their AC to DC anyway, so no problem there as well, you just need a decent lab trafo.
Washers and dryers that use solar heated water are no problem either, they mix warm and cold as they need it.
Even the small 12 Volt Camping washing machines work very well nowadays.
You cook by gas and use a gas refrigeration unit as well.
There's a German project the 'direct current house' (in German obviously)
http://www.dasgleichstromhaus.... [dasgleichstromhaus.de]
They have solved many problems.
Re:Outdoor (Score:5, Interesting)
Due to the very poor selection of DC appliances and often their RV bloated price tags, I have opted to keep AC, but generate it locally. Instead of buying a DC to DC supply for a laptop to get 19V for about $100, I bought a 1KW inverter instead for about the same price. If I don't want all my lights to be Fluorescent Cool White in color, I can use the 9W 3K bulbs instead in a warm white with high Color Rendering Index >94%. Try it. Try to find 12V RV bulbs that are not Amber, Red, or Cool White 6K. Most of the outlets in my RV are running off the inverter. Only the kitchen and bath loop are still on traditional shore power or generator along with the AC. This limits the generator runtime where shore power is not handy.
I have not trimmed my home use enough yet to cut loose from the grid. Heat pumps and long wet winters on solar just is not a match yet. They haven't fixed the solar when the sun doesn't shine problem yet.
I don't have to mess around with trying to adapt everything to 12 or 24V. With a good size deep cycle battery, even normal microwave oven, blow dryer, other short duration high amperage loads are possible that is simply not an option on DC.
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Due to the very poor selection of DC appliances and often their RV bloated price tags,
Smaller market means lower production numbers means higher cost per unit. Then, there is the wealthy segment of the RV market who is willing to pay higher prices. At present, big margins on less sales brings a better return than increased sales with low margins.
Re:Outdoor (Score:5, Informative)
As someone who works in the RV industry, you're right to some extent. But also, appliances in houses do not get shaken, bumped, subjected to temps from well below freezing to 120*F, so the testing and quality is far more stringent.
Lastly, we use a lot of appliances common to boats, and durability and repairability are also important. You can't go to Walmart when you're on a boat; you fix, patch, or do without.
Our customers who installed dorm fridges because RV fridges are too expensive have found that the dorm fridges don't last too long.
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I'm pretty sure that's called a battery.
And when the sun doesn't shine for a month?
Twice in the past 6 years, we've had a month of cloudy skies and rain. In 2007, we had 45 straight days of rain, set a record.
Re:Outdoor (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Outdoor (Score:5, Informative)
they still work but at a much reduced capacity so if you had double the panels you usually require, you should be ok-ish.
Oh ye of great faith and frail engineering ability...
What are you going to do? Buy twice as many solar panels so you can charge your battery to hold you though the night? And as the original poster said, you planning to live without electricity for 6 days when the sun is behind the clouds for a week?
There are ways to make this work, but you have to understand that you will have to pay for capacity you don't usually need in both your batteries and solar panels and then still accept that there will be times you will run out of power. Plus you will REALLY drive up your cost per watt. I'm thinking you will likely pay about 4x what it costs for just a daytime system that carries your needs when the sun shines. You will need more than double the panels and add batteries to carry your load for a specific number of days.
If you want a week of "standby" for that rainy week, then you will need 7 days of battery capacity (ouch) plus enough additional collection capacity to charge these batteries. Say you want to recharge in 3 days, then you will need to have 2.5 times the panels it takes to carry your load for a day (plus the original panels that carry you a day). So for a system with 7 day backup and 3 day recovery, you will require 3.5 times the original collection capacity and enough batteries to hold 7 days of use.
Solar is not competitive economically when you are not talking about charging batteries. Going totally off grid requires significant investment in capacity BEYOND just your daily needs, unless you don't mind being in the dark pretty often and then the costs multiply, making an already bad ROI much worse.
AND I would like to mention that MOST batteries have losses when you charge and discharge them, some being as high as 30% losses... Just think about how many more solar panels you will need to buy for this scheme.... It's going to be nearly 4 or 5 times as many.... Good luck making that pay..
Re:Outdoor (Score:5, Interesting)
Only 1/3rd the power needs for the roof? (Score:5, Informative)
I can't say much about your specific situation, but in general if you're far enough from the equator for snow, the ideal solar panel will have a fair bit of tilt to it. At which point you have some options for snow-clearing. One of the popular ones is to use a relatively small amount of electrical heating once the snow stops to make the panel 'too slick' for the snow, at which point it simply slides off. Then the panels make up that energy through the day. Keep in mind that they're considerably 'slicker' that way than an asphalt roof.
Also, if your roof is only worth 1/3rd your electrical use, that may be something that you want to examine, because you could save considerable money for cheaper than installing solar panels fixing whatever is taking so much.
I say this because I can satisfy my electrical needs using about 2/3rds of my south-facing roof, and I'm in Fairbanks, Alaska. Disclaimer: Annual average; I'd have to sell electricity in the summer and buy in the winter.
Not our problem (Score:5, Insightful)
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Nah, we'll have caused civilisation to crash due to global warming long before we get uneconomical fossil fuels due to lack of availability.
But actually at the moment, it's looking like a combination of wind and solar will replace the bulk, and possibly all, of our fossil fuel use; these renewables are becoming cheap and easy enough that people won't build new fossil plants very much, so as the old ones wear out they'll just get shut down.
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What will happen when you run out of coal or oil? It the same problem. You ration and prioritise.
First, we aren't going to run out of either in our lifetimes. There is so much oil and coal in the world, we're swimming on top of it. Trillions and trillions and trillions of barrels of it.
Second, that is what nuclear is for. Yea, yea, "oh my god the nuclears!", but either we get over that or we keep burning oil and coal. That is reality and it is a shame that so-called environmentalists keep holding us back.
Re:Outdoor (Score:4, Insightful)
I can tell you are not from the Pacific NorthWest. One or two days in winter won't keep the battery charged.
Seattle has an average of 152 non rainy days per year. They claim 58 sunny days a year. Pacific Northwest is not a great place for solar.
A whole lot of people on this site aren't from the north in any respect... they clearly have a world view that doesn't know what 5 feet of snow looks like. Shame, because Boston and the North East got all that coverage recently for the massive snow storms, what good would solar have done in all that? Wind wouldn't work there either in those conditions.
This is why, at the end of the day, nuclear is what we really need.
But, sadly, the environmentalists are against that too.
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A whole lot of people on this site aren't from the north in any respect... they clearly have a world view that doesn't know what 5 feet of snow looks like. Shame, because Boston and the North East got all that coverage recently for the massive snow storms, what good would solar have done in all that?
Duh, you simply use your solar panels to run heaters to keep the snow off the panels!
Oh wait...
Re:Outdoor (Score:5, Informative)
I had a solar powered and wind powered home in the Michigan Upper peninsula. where we average 30 FEET of snow in the winter.
It is absolutely doable. You cant be a bran dead sloth like the typical american though. you have to do some maintenance. About 20 hours a years worth.
Its made from People! (Score:5, Funny)
Anti-Tesla Rhetoric! (Score:5, Funny)
I was waiting to read about how AC kills and see some good ole electric chair demonstrations.. *sigh*
Re:Anti-Tesla Rhetoric! (Score:4, Informative)
What I find most annoying about all this is less the could of smug, and more the fact that household electricity use is such a small slice of the pie of overall US energy use. From wind power to this DC nonsense, it's obsessing on feelgood measures of little importance to the big picture.
This biggest slice of the pie is industrial energy use where electricity isn't part of the picture: "Primary energy use" by heavy industry for blast furnaces and the like. Industrial electricity use is the next biggest slice, followed by IIRC industrial transportation.
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Ars tore that goof a new one.
Only HERE would his silly drivel be taken seriously.
I think he has been chugging too much soy.
Nonsense (Score:5, Interesting)
He's still living on the electrical grid, he's just not using it at home.
Also, WTF? "I enjoy doing laundry about as much as doing dishes. I get my clothing custom made in China for prices you would not believe and have new ones regularly shipped to me."
Re: Nonsense (Score:5, Interesting)
Wow I didn't even make it that far. This guy is clearly an idiot. He didn't get rid of his dirty fuel burning ways, he just outsourced them to others. Ordering new clothes is way worse than washing some. And as far as this soylent stuff is concerned wasn't it proven that supplements aren't very good and you need actual food to be healthy? Absorption rates of supplements aren't good from what I read and they should be used to supplement an actual healthy diet.
Re: Nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
And as far as this soylent stuff is concerned wasn't it proven that supplements aren't very good and you need actual food to be healthy? Absorption rates of supplements aren't good from what I read and they should be used to supplement an actual healthy diet.
Why do you think he's making such questionable choices regarding dirty fuel burning ways?
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It appears that DC razors only do one side of the face properly.
See the bits at the sides (well, one of them) that normally make it into a Fu Manchu/Charles Bronson jobbie [washingtonpost.com]
His looks an unfastened padlock, the twat.
Re: Nonsense (Score:4, Insightful)
The fuel-source problem is people not being willing to pay for more expensive renewables, or in electing politicians that oppose them while continuing to subsidize fossil-fuels.
Those things can be fixed only if people as groups are willing to accept these differences and their costs, or if someone decides to put solar panels, at increasing personal expense given the utility companies' objections, on their property.
Not NIMBY: other factors (Score:5, Insightful)
The line losses are a NIMBY problem, people don't want power plants near their houses.
That's not really true. Coal-fired power plants need to be located near a large, reliable water source for cooling and the closer they are to their fuel source the less energy is used to transport the coal. They also have to be of a certain size in order to operate efficiently. Hence even if everyone was willing to tolerate a coal fired power station in their neighbourhood most locations would be unsuitable for their construction, rural communities would be too small to warrant a power station even if suitable and even then there would be an increase in the energy to ship the coal the larger distances required. This means that only small reductions in transmission losses would be possible and since this is already one of the most efficient steps in the power consumption process you'd lose a lot more than you would gain.
Re: Nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. He "cut his consumption" down by externalizing it all. Basically pushing it off somewhere else and hiding it.
That's like every other company out there - they pollute because the cost of pollution is basically free - the cost is externalized (well, it was until Obama introduced those regulations). When people complain about the "cost of complyihg" it means they're no longer externalizing the cost (free) and now having to pay for it.
Basically this idiot is making himself feel better by making society worse. He doesn't do laundry - but the charity he donates clothes is forced to do it. He's basically pushed the environmental impact, energy and cost of laundry onto some other 3rd party. Or if they deem it too dirty, they'll just toss it in the garbage. To him, he's "in the clear" still because he didn't throw it away directly.
Basically, the stuff this guy did was offload onto someone else - you can conceptualize this by asking - what happens if EVERYOHE did it? If it's truly for the environment, then if everyone did it, we'd be better off. If not, then no, it's not as good.
For an example - say check your tire pressure - most people will probably be on the slightly low side. But if everyone then pumped their tires to the right pressure, society benefits from the reduced fuel consumption, cleaner air (less fuel, less pollutants, etc). That's a real net plus.
Using less energy - that's a good thing too - or more renewables. But if you're claiming your coal-powered server in a datacenter isn't your concern if you remote into it, well...
What this guy did would be like RMS asking someone to open Microsoft Word for him because he needs to do something, while claiming to be only using free software. (Yes, I know RMS doesn't do this, but it's an example).
Plus, I'm sure he's got the income to support this kind of lifestyle - enough to make a point, but really, I think I'd give it to the climate change deniers. For they can poke enough holes in his "living arrangements" to basically say "if we agree to cut back, look at how we'll live - and look ,he's not even green if he needs all that stuff!".
I'd say he's among the worst kind of "environmentalist" around - a green-washer.
Re: Nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
No, careful here. Outsourcing CAN actually improve the environmental aspects of what you do.
For example, centralised servers have far more chance of being run by renewables than your home computer. Google for example, is tending to do stuff like build their servers near hydroelectric plants or where there's wind farms or solar available.
So outsourcing your needs CAN actually be a good thing; and if everyone did it, it's a net positive.
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Exactly.
Worrying about the amount of waste in the conversion is ridiculous when you compare it to the amount of waste you incur when you try to buy off brand DC items.
I pay the electric company 8% extra to get the power from renewable sources/burning trash. Problem solved, no off brand anything.
Re: Nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
he just outsourced them to others
How is that different than what we're doing to ourselves as a matter of policy? Every time we tighten the screws on some industrial chemical or fossil fuel we simply chase another industry to Asia or damn up another Canadian river. He's just following this pattern on an individual level.
Re:Nonsense (Score:5, Funny)
He wasn't able to give it up. (Score:5, Informative)
"For intensive tasks, he remotes to more powerful machines".
So he can't survive without it....
Re:He wasn't able to give it up. (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly my thought. That is cheating. That's like not owning a car, and then riding in taxis the exact amount you'd have driven.
Re:He wasn't able to give it up. (Score:4, Interesting)
If you had to remote to another machine for every intensive task, do you think you'd maintain the same volume of intensive tasks?
In summary, he reduced a bunch of things to zero, and another heap got reduced greatly, and then some smart aleck comes along and says he did nothing because this thing over here didn't get reduced much. Someone's missing the point.
Re:He wasn't able to give it up. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes. AND EVEN MORE! I have machines dedicated to running a single task each and I remote to them.
If I had to run all of those tasks on one computer which was also my daily use computer I would run far fewer tasks.
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Exactly my thought. That is cheating. That's like not owning a car, and then riding in taxis the exact amount you'd have driven.
Which he does. Well, he uses Uber instead of taxis, but the idea is the same.
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DC is better for transmission lines. Google "HVDC"
AC is easier to manage. It's easier to switch and convert. To switch high voltage DC mechanically you need physically large switches, since any arcs generated will be sustained by the DC current flow. With AC is gets stopped at the end of the cycle.
Re:He wasn't able to give it up. (Score:5, Interesting)
AC by virtue of alternating, passes though zero current flow and zero voltage 120 times a second in this country. When you have an arc, you are passing an electric current though a plasma and that requires that you keep it hot and ionized. It is the current that keeps the plasma hot and ionized.
As a switch contact opens, initially the distance between the contacts is under the flash over voltage and an arc of plasma is formed. This arc requires current to keep flowing though it to be maintained and as the contacts separate further the resistance of the plasma path increases, lowering the current. Eventually in AC circuits, the voltage needed to maintain the plasma path starts to cycle under this minimum value for longer and longer times and current starts to fall off on average. This falling current, makes the arc plasma start to fade and will eventually extinguish the arc during the times when the current and voltage cross the zero level.
DC has no regular fall off in the plasma because it is always there, full on, full current. This means that switching similar voltages and currents in DC requires additional distance over AC. DC starts the arc and builds the plasma without stopping and only the resistance of the plasma as the distance increases is what will cause the current to get lower and lower until the arc extinguishes. There are no "off" times like there is in AC so the arc exists over a larger distance.
ALSO, on very high voltage AC circuits, it is possible to disconnect the circuit during a zero crossing. In that case, assuming you can get the contacts far enough apart to avoid flashing over, there never will be an arc to start with. Even though it's mechanically difficult to move things that fast, they sometimes do this kind of thing to suppress the arc in AC. This doesn't work in DC because there is never a zero crossing.
Re:He wasn't able to give it up. (Score:4, Interesting)
HVAC uses 3-phase AC power which is actually pretty efficient for motors, especially if you want motors that are going to last a long time. Pretty much all brushless motors are driven by AC (even computer fans have a controller inside to generate AC). 3-phase is great for motors that run at a single RPM, such as what is used in compressors and pumps for HVAC.
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Maybe so, but big data centers are starting to have big solar installations and a bunch of Google and Facebook ones are notionally self-sufficient if still grid tied.
So plus a few base-load nuclear power plants and they automatically become coal-free, which becomes more practical with reduced residential electrical demand.
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Stone Age... (Score:2, Interesting)
So he gave up refrigeration?
an ac synchronous motor is much more efficient than DC alternatives.
Why doesn’t he just use a gas stove?
At that point why heat drinks at all? It’s wastefull.
His low power computer? He’s just using AC remotely.
Why not just move to a mud hut in east Africa?
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I don't think the OP even thought this through this far and is an obviously trash post, but for the sake of discussion I looked at a solar panel house and there are dc washing machines and refrigerators that work off of propane instead of electricity. It's actually pretty interesting... the biggest issue was there was no electricity for the well pump and water had to be trucked in so we passed on the house.
Re:Stone Age... (Score:4, Insightful)
the biggest issue was there was no electricity for the well pump and water had to be trucked in so we passed on the house.
You can get a solar well pump too, meaning DC and either 12 or 24V. But presumably, you'd have needed to expand the solar system for that purpose. It also works best when you have a water storage tank sufficiently elevated above the point of use to produce useful pressure, because then you can make hay (or pump water, anyway) while the sun shines, and you don't need a bunch of battery — or, potentially, any.
Re: (Score:2)
I think the one they had installed was 120v and replacing the pump was several thousand bucks... don't remember the details. (10+ years ago) Also running a 12v line with the amps to handle the load 50 or so yrds would have been costly. I guess there was some bad planning on the part of whoever built the house and solar was not nearly as advanced a decade ago.
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AC simplifies wiring, allows you to buy standard, mass produced appliances rather than specialty products that come with a whole host of problems. Who do you call when your semi custom dishwashe
Re:Stone Age... (Score:4, Informative)
I've looked at an off grid cabin for weekend vacations. A few portable propane cylinders would cover the fridge (assuming a pound/liter of LP gas a day), and it would also cover a water heater.
Solar wouldn't be cheap, but for a few thousand, I could place a number of solar panels, have them feed in via 1-2 decent MPPT controllers into a set of AGM batteries (so watering the batteries isn't an issue), then have a decent PSW inverter coming off for use. Because lead-acid batteries destroy themselves if they go under 50% SoC, take the expected ampere-hours you plan to use, and double it, at the least. This would easily handle almost anything but heating/cooling and the well pump (which can use 1500-2000 watts each.)
The trick with the well pump and an off-grid cabin, would be to run a generator so the pump can move water into an above ground storage tank 250-2500 gallons, then from there, a much smaller pump that runs from 12 volts can pump water from the tank into the cabin.
Of course, come Texas summers, that is what a generator is for on a weekend basis. I can get 8-20 hours of use from three gallons of gasoline in a 3000 watt Yamaha inverter generator, and for a small cabin, a 10k BTU A/C is more than enough to cool it down, assuming some semblance of insulation [1]. As an added bonus, with a converter (rectifier), it is a way to help keep the batteries topped off if the panels can't keep up with use.
Disclaimer: This is a vacation cabin. For a real house, it would cost over $40,000 for a solar panel setup that can handle the amp draw of the well pump and the A/C.
Of course, there are other items like waste water (I like using a cassette toilet and having cartridges on hand, since those can be dumped down the commode safely and legally once back home, and gray water can be filtered and recycled in a settling tank so it doesn't destroy the ground around it.)
[1]: Ironic thing is that if solar panels are mounted with air space between them and the rest of the roof, they function as shade, doing a decent job at keeping the place cooler, even though the panels are likely at around 150 degrees (66 degrees C) on a hot day.
DC is more dangerous (Score:5, Insightful)
this experiment is fine if you're doing little LED lights and laptops, but if you're running something like air conditioning or a washing machine you're building a fire hazard and a mortality risk
the decision to use AC over DC was not random nor taken lightly, there are many factors involved (heck, it was a major engineering, corporate, and PR war between Edison and Westinghouse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] ), but the right decision was made
for our modern world where some people only care about their laptop and smartphone, it does indeed seem silly and wasteful to convert to AC then back to DC, especially if you've ever tried charging electronics in a car. but there are of course many other uses for electricity, and the navel gazing small electronics crowd is but a minor topic
but i do see a time in the future as more people use local solar and other renewables, that a small DC subsystem is made available in the house for electronics like computers
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this experiment is fine if you're doing little LED lights and laptops, but if you're running something like air conditioning or a washing machine you're building a fire hazard and a mortality risk
AC and DC are both dangerous. We chose AC because it was cheaper at the time. These days you can do low-current MPPT for a song, so you can convert between DC voltages relatively efficiently. But just generating AC from DC was expensive at the time when we had to choose between them.
for our modern world where some people only care about their laptop and smartphone, it does indeed seem silly and wasteful to convert to AC then back to DC, especially if you've ever tried charging electronics in a car.
Well, they do make converters specifically for that purpose, and they are not so inefficient as using the cheapest possible inverter which fits in your soda can hole coupled with your laptop's normal power supply. Also, cars rea
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AC has one significant advantage in that it generates much less heat on the wire, and the higher voltages, within reason, allow for smaller wires to do the same work, as wire size need is a function of amps.
Except now that it's cost-effective to regulate DC to relatively arbitrary voltages, we can use HVDC... or just relatively high voltages. For example, some automobiles are beginning to move to 48V because they can use much smaller wiring, saving weight.
The prohibitive cost and lack of efficiency in DC to DC conversion really was the sole reason AC won. It was practical. Today, we are using more and more DC in our long-haul links. But the same technology that makes it feasible to use DC also makes AC cheaper
Re:DC is more dangerous (Score:3)
HVDC only makes sense on very long haul links. Line losses are lower, but the conversion stations arte much, much, MUCH more expensive, than a few turns of copper wrapped around a chunk of iron and immersed in oil. Also, AC ssystems behave as an infinite bus bar more or less and you can put in and extract energy equally easily at any point. That's much harder with HVDC.
The cost and difficulties assosciated with HVDC aren't going to displace AC in the small to medium haul any time soon.
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thank you, dc genuinely has greater fire hazard implications than ac
as for health, it is a bit more nuanced and complex than i said:
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actually, high voltage DC is far more efficient for long distances, so countries like India are going to that
Why DC is a greater fire risk (Score:5, Informative)
DC arcs are strongly self-sustaining once ignited, as there's nothing to halt the continuous generation of ions which provide an easy conductive path. In contrast, AC arcs tend to self-extinguish twice a cycle when the voltage drops to zero, and so the AC arc has to re-ignite each cycle once the voltage rises high enough. Even if it does manage to re-ignite, the arc is not usually conducting the full cycle.
This reduced arcing makes AC a significantly lower fire hazard than DC, and the same effect happens to make AC switch contacts last much longer since breaking a circuit rarely arcs for more than a half cycle so contacts don't usually heat up and little metal is carried away from their surfaces.
It's nice to have ideals (Score:5, Insightful)
I respect the man for having ideals and trying to live up to them.
Of course he has fresh water. That comes from his pipes. Some requires transport from the Colorado River and that uses fuel. Some requires desalination from the Pacific Ocean and that uses fuel. With a water bill comes a related sewer bill. Sewer and effluent treatment require chemicals and fuel.
Of course he has batteries. That's how his solar cell provides his DC power. Both solar cells and batteries cost exotic chemicals/components, and take fuel to produce. Solar cells don't degrade as much over time but the typical deep-cycle battery requires replacement every 24-36 months [depending on the charge, cycle, use, etc.]. This also applies to the TMO cellphone battery he uses to power his TMO Internet.
Of course he buys his clothes from China - has them shipped - and throws away old clothes. This way instead of using water and detergent and some electricity (or some 25 coins and a laundramatt) he uses a lot of jet fuel, some delivery truck fuel, throws away cardboard boxes and plastic wrappers (think hydrocarbons which could be used as fuel, and fuel itself). He feels better because he donates his old clothes. I'm not sure that he thought about this much because ***ALL THE OLD CLOTHES HE DONATES ARE WASHED BY GOODWILL*** or whomever prior to putting on the shelf. So he costs the environment more, not less.
Lastly... that TMO Internet again... he is one of the people who encourages TMO to have towers. Towers have little generators on them so they don't lose power in storms, power outages, etc. Those use fuel which goes bad after a year and must be replaced. That means once a year cellphone tower generator fuel tanks are purged and dumped and new fuel is acquired and put in the tank. [Yes, some carriers have a 2yr schedule and some don't discuss their schedule, but if we're talking ideal... here you go.]
It's good to have ideals. It's nice try and live by them.
Ehud Gavron
Tucson, AZ, where 4 months out of the year the temperature is above 100F and the humidity above 40% so if you don't have an air-conditioner using direct-expansion gas (not a "swamp-cooler" or "mister") you will bake. They don't make any that run on DC. Even if they did, that would be a LOT of solar cells!
Re:It's nice to have ideals (Score:4, Informative)
Re:It's nice to have ideals (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's nice to have ideals (Score:5, Informative)
Tucson, AZ, where 4 months out of the year the temperature is above 100F and the humidity above 40% so if you don't have an air-conditioner using direct-expansion gas (not a "swamp-cooler" or "mister") you will bake. They don't make any that run on DC. Even if they did, that would be a LOT of solar cells!
Actually they do make one with an AC/DC dual voltage motor. Lennox sells one. It's ridiculously expensive without even including the panels, but it was an option that we looked into a couple of years ago when we had to relace a 2.5 ton unit that had failed. The replacement alternating current model has a 30A circuit breaker on a 240VAC circuit, so it can draw a max of 7200 Watts. This 8000W system would be enough to power that air conditioner and have some to spare. [anapode.com]
I have enough roof space for probably 40,000W of panels. The thing causing me to hold back is the electric utility. I want grid-tie with intentional islanding and battery storage if the grid loses power, and I don't want to get hammered with utility company fees like they're trying to get out of us if we go that route. I'd also like to get reimbursed a fair rate for the power I'd supply back to the grid during peak usage, but they're not interested in doing that either. I'm hoping that Solar City wins their lawsuit against the utility so that I can feel comfortable proceeding at some point down the road with this.
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I have enough roof space for probably 40,000W of panels.
You have a big roof! Wish I had that much room!
The thing causing me to hold back is the electric utility. I want grid-tie with intentional islanding and battery storage if the grid loses power, and I don't want to get hammered with utility company fees like they're trying to get out of us if we go that route. I'd also like to get reimbursed a fair rate for the power I'd supply back to the grid during peak usage, but they're not interested in doing that either.
In fairness, the electric utility isn't completely wrong in wanting a fair shake.
For example, are you asking for net-metering where they pay you retail for your power, or are you asking for wholesale rates when you sell them back your power? The former is not reasonable, the latter is totally reasonable.
Generally grid-tie systems need to shut down automatically when the power goes out, this is for the safety of the linemen working on the downed lines.
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Except it's not a DC motor, requires 200V and a motor controller.
Re:It's nice to have ideals (Score:5, Informative)
No, the Prius air conditioner compressor is AC. The Prius inverter electronics converts the HVDC to the correct AC frequency to run the motor. So you'd need both the compressor and inverter assembly, which also includes the inverters for the motor-generators that move the car. And a 200V DC power supply. And all the right computers to get the inverter assembly to do something useful.
You'd wind up with a whole bunch of a Prius just to get a silly air conditioner.
From Special Issue: Inside the Toyota Prius: Part 5 - Inverter/converter is Prius' power broker [eetimes.com]:
Might as well be dead! No! More butter, more wine! (Score:5, Funny)
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"I'm still dead" - Julia Child
These changes... (Score:5, Insightful)
He doesn't cook, and was able to get rid of almost all kitchen appliances because of that. He uses a butane stove for hot beverages. He powers a small computer off batteries, which get their energy from solar panels. For intensive tasks, he remotes to more powerful machines. He re-wired his apartment's LED lighting to run off direct current. Have any of you made similar changes?
No. I have a wife.
Re:These changes... (Score:4, Funny)
No. I have a wife.
Gah. That's *exactly* what I was thinking. Also that he has a very reduced chance of transmitting his DNA to the next generation...
Somewhere Thomas Edison is Tenting his Fingers and (Score:4, Funny)
saying "Excellent".
Re:Somewhere Thomas Edison is Tenting his Fingers (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry I should have RTFA first... (Score:2)
I was expecting an article like yesterday's on the Air Conditioning compressor running off of DC from solar panels not some guy who thinks he reduces his AC consumption by eating in restaurants.
50% is lost in AC to DC conversion? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like he's badly confusing something. I think he's badly misunderstanding how a rectifier works. Some waste of course happens, but not nearly that much.
Re:50% is lost in AC to DC conversion? (Score:4, Informative)
No where near 50% is lost these days in modern AC/DC or DC/AC conversion devices.
Solar panel DC/AC inverters run at 95% to 98% conversion efficiency.
Likewise modern AC/DC converters can easily achieve 90 to 95% conversion efficiency.
Unless he uses very bulky low voltage, high current cables, he could easily be losing 3-5% of transmitted DC power in those.
He would be better off keeping his residence on AC and covering his roof with as many solar panels as he can fit.
Re:50% is lost in AC to DC conversion? (Score:5, Informative)
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http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=107&t=3
This shows that for 2013, the average heat efficiency of a US coal-fired plant is 32.62%, while that of a natural gas plant is 42.92%.
The fact that nuclear, coal, and oil are all similar implies that the actual steam conversion cycle is the primary limit here (as opposed to the summary which claims that the steam cycle
Re: (Score:2)
I don't understand what the 67% loss in combustion is...
When we burn fuel, we are only able to convert a fraction of the potential chemical energy into work (pushing something like a piston). Then we convert the kinetic energy into electricity and again we are only able to convert so much. Some fuels are more efficient than others, and the performance of generators also differs greatly.
What the author is refering too is the fact that from the total potential chemical energy in fossil fuels, we are only able to collect less than half in the form of usable el
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Utter bollocks. A 50% efficient charger for a smart phone would be illegal to sell in the EU and the USA. It would also be frigging difficult to make, even a bog standard old fashioned transformer and linear regulator will be better than 50%, but even a cheap as chips charger would be switched mode and in excess of 80% efficiency.
Think about the children! (Score:5, Interesting)
He has decided upon a very specific, and limiting, style of living. Bravo. Now try applying his philosophy to a household with children. Or a household frequented by guests. Try this in less sunny locales.
I think it is admirable to try to be different, and to advocate alternative. I am completely turned off by his holier than thou attitude and his dismissiveness towards that which does not fit his chosen lifestyle.
The past reaches out and grabs the future (Score:3)
queue up the Thomas Edison/Tesla fanbois out there the current wars [youtube.com] have returned.
Small potatoes (Score:3)
Okay, sure so DC for gadgets and lighting that consume about 1% of household energy. When he has a realistic solution for replacing central heating, cooling, refrigeration, normal kitchen usage, well pumps, water heating and other meaningful uses of electricity then it might be worth listening to.
Answers to questions posted in the summary... (Score:3)
"No" and "Who gives a shit" respectively. Show us that the conversions needed to do this provide enough financial benefit to make any sort of sense. I don't think it will pencil out.
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Speaking of giving a shit; the story mentions he drinks more red wine and so uses the restroom less but I'm surprise he didn't regale the reader with a story of the composting toilet he installed in his apartment.
Gross (Score:3)
check out recreational vehicle stores (Score:2)
I have a detached structure that runs entirely off solar/batteries. (There being no legal way to run power to it -- long story.) For the one or two things that actually require A/C I have an industrial inverter, but I try to use it for as few things as possible. To that end, all the lights are 12 volt DC.
I didn't have to rewire anything -- you can get 12 volt bulbs (even CFLs) that screw into standard sockets at any RV supply store.
The plugs in the wall of the structure are car-type cigarette-lighter rou
Hard to take serious. (Score:5, Insightful)
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well to be fair the donation chains wash what is put into the drop boxes regardless
the guy is still a douche for other reasons, adopting his ways for anyone with wife and kids would be quick divorce court path
There are far larger DC projects (Score:2)
I've heard of some 40% efficiency gains by avoiding the usual transformers per lamppost.
On a private scale you could start by buying electronics that run on a specific DC voltage and making a home circuit run off a solar charged battery.
This last one is a specific requirement to have an efficient system, although a large single rectifier is better than many small ones you're still better off wit
This guy is an idiot (Score:3)
This guys whole blog post reads almost like someone saying it's better to have a 3d printer because you can print Lego bricks for free.
Steam Turbines... (Score:2)
...actually recapture lost Gas Turbine work. So running through a steam turbine is actually very, very good for the overall efficiency of the cycle.
Smug and NOT reducing his reliance on AC (Score:2)
Rhinehart is not substantially reducing his reliance on AC, all he is doing is passing it on to others in the service industries.
I gagged at the sentence in the conclusion "To me the real upside is the pleasure in being electrically self reliant." - I guess he could live off the land as long as there were supermarkets around.
I don't believe that going to a restaurant and letting them provide meals, lighting, heat/AC actually constitutes reducing the amount of AC consumed.
There could be a market for this (Score:2)
Many parts of the 3rd world are off the grid, yet aspire to a modern lifestyle. His experiences could very well lead to products targeting this emerging market.
Calling actual engineers... (Score:2)
There's nothing magical about AC-DC conversion, and NEWS FLASH, it's much more efficient to transmit AC over long distances than DC. That's HALF THE REASON we use AC. The other half is that it's extremely easy to convert to other forms of AC and DC.
This guy is a moron. You want more efficient power? Go Nuke and enjoy ZERO CO2 EMISSIONS you tree hugging hippy. At that point, you know what happens when you "lose energy from steam turbines"? N
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There's nothing magical about AC-DC conversion, and NEWS FLASH, it's much more efficient to transmit AC over long distances than DC. That's HALF THE REASON we use AC. The other half is that it's extremely easy to convert to other forms of AC and DC.
I'm afraid my degree is in physics, though I've done more engineering than pure research oriented work. In my understanding, long distance transmission efficiency is mainly about high voltage, not AC per se. It's true that you need some AC stages for voltage conversion, so the conversion part is more efficient if you only use AC. However, AC will bleed energy via induction in some cases such as undersea cables, making DC more efficient overall even after conversion losses. In addition, phase matching is an
not practical (Score:5, Interesting)
Getting rid of AC for off grid applications makes sense. I'm all for it and look forward to the new DC appliances we're seeing come on market.
however, this article is not going to have people following suit.
I'm not giving up my quality of life. I don't have to and I don't want to and its the 21st century so anyone that disagrees can eat a rail gun round to the face.
I do believe in sustainable living. However, more in the way of breaking free from crumbling infrustructure and gaining a certain amount of logistical indepedence.
I'm a big believer in the backyard green house. I think solar panels and wind mills are a good idea AT YOUR HOUSE. And I am looking forward to economical energy storage systems that work at a personal level.
Am I dumping my refrigerator and cooking food on a camping stove? No.
Really none of this sustainable stuff works in an urban environment. Its sort of odd that so many people that like the idea live in the one place where it isn't possible. Logistically you're going to be depending on a very energy and resource intensive infrastructure and there's just no way around that in a city. That "IS" the city. The city is all the things the sustainable people say they don't like. Live in the suburbs and you have a CHOICE. You have enough property that you can do something. Live rural and you can go completely off grid for everything... food, water, power, whatever... live like the Amish or something. Yabba dabba doo. But in a city you're on the grid. I don't care if you shut off the breakers in your apartment or drink your own pee. You're on the grid because everyone around you is on the grid and you depend on them whether you're drinking your own pee or not.
Here is my suggestion for the urbanites. Support nuclear power. Worship the fucking atom.
If you're getting 50% efficiency... (Score:2)
...your adapter is a piece of shit. A good one will give you 80% to 90%. I'll assume his other figures have similar accuracy.
Wrong focus (Score:2)
If you want to be sustainable then focus on how you can stop burning coal and natural gas to generate electricity.
Coal is losing the War On Coal (Score:2)
quote: "Most power in the US is generated by burning coal..."
Coal dropped below 50% several years ago and is falling rapidly. Alpha Natural Resources -- one of the giants of the American coal industry -- has filed for bankruptcy. They're sitting on $3 billion in debt while coal prices have plummeted as a result of utilities switching over to natural gas.
As for the whole DC power thing... If you have rooftop solar, and you are generating your own DC power, then converting it to AC and then back to DC aga
DC conversion efficiency (Score:3, Interesting)