Atheist knowledge

[pmccarthy]

But domestic is a small part of Australia's electricity usage.

 

 

[turboplanner]

AGL launches world’s largest solar virtual power plant battery demonstration to benefit customers | AGLAGL adds two new, larger battery systems to energy storage suite - One Step Off The Grid

 

Energy disruption: Solar plus storage to be cheaper than grid in 2017

 

Energy storage systems signal arrival of ‘baseload’ renewables

 

But wait, there's more:

 

Australian company buys 50% stake in “game-changing” graphene battery storage technology

None of them quite there with a product yet, but some good thinking.

 

This reminds me of fuel cell cars; someone came up with a theory, several manufacturers designed cars, Mercedes Benz put some fuel cell demonstration buses into Perth MTT with exceptional customer satisfaction, Honda ran a lease programme in California for fuel cell Civics - charged at home each night, able to operate all day, yet 20 years later the concept hase been overtaken by the older battery>electric cars, and even there we still don't have a winner against the internal combustion engine.

 

 

[onetrack]

Nearly every coal power station, and even many nuclear power stations, are running at massive losses at present - and the big reason is dirt-cheap natural gas.

 

The cheap power generation is coming from NG power stations at present.

 

You will see coal and nuke stations all abandoned within a few years as first, NG makes them uneconomic, then solar power with big battery storage starts to hit them as well.

 

The amount of world-wide financial investment in renewable energy sources is quite staggering at present.

 

One of the reasons being that low interest rates means return on capital is currently poor if invested in interest-bearing deposits, and the stock market isn't providing too many shining lights, either.

 

However, the financial returns from a good, consistently-reliable, renewable-energy-source system, look pretty good, if you're looking to the long term.

 

I mean to say, I'd really enjoy knowing money was flowing into my coffers, every time the sun came out from behind a cloud!

 

SLIDESHOW: An Alarming Trend Affecting U.S. Baseload Power

 

 

[onetrack]

Mercedes Benz put some fuel cell demonstration buses into Perth MTT with exceptional customer satisfaction

Turboplanner, that was a world-wide project to try and prove up the hydrogen fuel cell technology, using 19 cities worldwide.Yes, it all worked just fine. The problem was, it was nowhere near economic. It cost a million dollars a year to run each of the 3 hydrogen buses in Perth.

 

Then there's the bugbear of finding a consistently cheap source of hydrogen. Yes, it can be extracted from Natural Gas - but why not just use NG as it comes out of the ground?

 

That's exactly what is happening, virtually all the Perth buses today are simply regular diesel-powered buses, converted to run on NG.

 

Transperth did a massive study on the hydrogen fuel buses and most of the conclusions are still online.

 

The technology is simply nowhere near a viable alternative, despite the Greenies loving just the steam issuing from the exhaust.

 

EcoBus

 

 

[Bikky]

Nikola Tesla was able to replicate this in an experiment where he was able to power up lights 18 miles away.

Could you please provide a link or other reference? I would seriously like to know more!

 

 

[onetrack]

Tesla is debunked very clearly and concisely in the website below. The kindest word best applied to Tesla is "blowhard".

 

BS-artist is what most Aussies would call him today. Tesla's actual contributions to electrical knowledge are really quite small.

 

There are many other relatively-unknown scientists and researchers, who made major contributions to the expansion of electrical knowledge that benefits us all today, who rate greater recognition than Tesla.

 

Tesla Debunked

 

 

[Litespeed]

Unless you are talking about the few genuine alpine towns we have in Australia, this would need spectacular break throughs in turbine design and physics; are there any links to this process?

You do not need a huge head level for it to work. And don't forget that the vast majority of Australia's population lives on the coast of the eastern seaboard which is adjacent to the Great Divide or they live within 100kms of this mountain range which runs the length of the all that population.

 

I was wrong about the UNSW link for the Prof. he has been at ANU for a long time now.

 

Professor Andrew Blakers - Engineering & Computer Science - ANU

 

https://eng.anu.edu.au/research/energy

 

And here is a good podcast

 

Pumped hydro for the cloudy windless days and nights

 

For mass industrial needs as a transition you can use gas cogeneration plants which make industrial heat, steam and power. Their are quite a few smaller scale ones at mines that will be closing in the near future and will be up for grabs cheap.

 

We now have some major industrial users around the world decoupling from the grid with solar cells on the roof of their plants and battery.

 

Keep in mind that the biggest users are aluminium refining which is incredibly energy hungry and use a substantial amount of the nations power- they are expected to either close completely or will be retrofitted with much newer and cheaper to run systems.

 

We already have some remote farmers that have changed to pure solar and batteries as it was cheaper to do than the cost of just diesel for their generators over only 4 years. Then they are having free power- minus minimal maintenance.

 

The future will be renewables not if but when. If only the politicians would stop listening to the coal and gas lobby to hobble all new technologies.

 

AS a aside- the solar homes scheme has not really cost anything on power bills that is all manufactured balance sheet fraud. Until recently the power companies did not even have to pay for any power put back into the grid- they got it free and the government paid for it. But the used the so called subsidy as a excuse to push up bills.

 

 

[Litespeed]

Tesla is debunked very clearly and concisely in the website below. The kindest word best applied to Tesla is "blowhard".BS-artist is what most Aussies would call him today. Tesla's actual contributions to electrical knowledge are really quite small.

 

There are many other relatively-unknown scientists and researchers, who made major contributions to the expansion of electrical knowledge that benefits us all today, who rate greater recognition than Tesla.

 

Tesla Debunked

I would be very careful taking anything from that website with any credence- I have no real view on Tesla. That is a website by Edison Tech. Who unsurprisingly is from the people who gave us Thomas Edison - the very bloke that used fraud to try and put down Tesla to gain advantage in American power. Who was a specialist in buying up patents and borrowing(kind word) of everyones developments and claim them as his own. He is celebrated in the US as the inventor of the modern electric age- that is more homespun revisionist history and team america bull than anything.

 

America is full of so called non profits that really are just lobby machines for their sponsor in this case General Electric.

 

A bit like believing the bible

 

 

[turboplanner]

Could you please provide a link or other reference? I would seriously like to know more!

"Dr Nikola Tesla" by W.H. Eccles is a good place to start, but there is plenty of information in libraries and a few museums.

 

 

[turboplanner]

Tesla is debunked very clearly and concisely in the website below. The kindest word best applied to Tesla is "blowhard".BS-artist is what most Aussies would call him today. Tesla's actual contributions to electrical knowledge are really quite small.

 

There are many other relatively-unknown scientists and researchers, who made major contributions to the expansion of electrical knowledge that benefits us all today, who rate greater recognition than Tesla.

 

Tesla Debunked

Really? I'd suggest some detailed study.

 

In the link there are several references to alleged claims by Tesla that I've never seen before; easy to assert a claim then "debunk" it.

 

Let's not forget that in his time Direct Current had just been developed, with limited success; he was the Bill Gates of the era, who succeeded in mass distribution of power using Alernating Current, so of course he was mixing with socialites and living in a luxury hotel.

 

His big mistake was not managing his finances himself, but living on an allowance paid by J.P. Morgan.

 

The good thing about Tesla was that he was so open, and frequently supplied full design details of his experiments including the exact bill of materials.

 

His many patents are also accessible for anyone to analyse.

 

That allows is to judge him on his merits.

 

 

[onetrack]

Tesla was a BS-artist, his patents prove nothing. The Americans have been expert at copying and patenting others inventions for more than 200 years - and when the original inventors claimed an American patent was an infringement or copy of their ideas or patents, the Americans would just go to court and engage high-powered lawyers, "working" the American law system, to ensure the American patent stayed. In many cases, the original inventors didn't even have enough money to fight the American patent on their idea or ideas or design.

 

Tesla's Wardenclyffe Tower was a monumental failure due to Tesla's failure to provide proper proof that it worked. Tesla was good at producing massive plasma displays, which dazzled everyone in an age when even a little electric spark was magic.

 

His "technology" was nothing more than the equivalent of me holding a fluoro tube up to the EMF of a HT powerline, and getting it to light up, and me saying "Woo-woo! I've invented a magic power source from nothing!"

 

 

[bexrbetter]

Could you please provide a link or other reference? I would seriously like to know more!

Get yourself to Peswiki for all the alternate nonsense.

 

Tesla was a BS-artist, his patents prove nothing.

He was actually responsible to some degree for a handful of the greatest electrical inventions ever, AC current and radio for example, just the many of the others were ideas he pursued that proved fruitless and are impractical or impossible still to this day.

 

yet 20 years later the concept hase been overtaken by the older battery>electric cars, and even there we still don't have a winner against the internal combustion engine.

6 months ago I made jokes like "Hear about the electric car entering LeMans 24 hour race? Runs for a half hour, on charge for 23 hours, then finishes the race!"

 

6 months later after owning a Telsa, I would dismiss my own and your position absolutely. It isn't better, but is the absolute equal of an internal combustion engine, just a different set of parameters involved. 14000kms without spending one cent, it's bizzare driving past petrol stations.

 

For city/surburban driving, a clear winner over the IC, and vice versa.

 

Any city based transport company or other company running 1 to 3 tonne vehicles that doesn't look at the soon coming electric trucks, has rocks in their heads.

 

If you're going to buy a new car and you are predominately city based, seriously look at an electric car. In traffic there is no noise of vibration especially when at a stop and superior "get that gap" acceleration due to massive and instant torque from electric engines.

 

A modern house, withe computers, lights, phone chargers, and air conditioning running through the night?

No, but enough to boil the lentils.

 

 

[turboplanner]

6 months later after owning a Telsa, I would dismiss my own and your position absolutely. It isn't better, but is the absolute equal of an internal combustion engine, just a different set of parameters involved. 14000kms without spending one cent, it's bizzare driving past petrol stations. For city/surburban driving, a clear winner over the IC, and vice versa.

 

Any city based transport company or other company running 1 to 3 tonne vehicles that doesn't look at the soon coming electric trucks, has rocks in their heads.

 

If you're going to buy a new car and you are predominately city based, seriously look at an electric car. In traffic there is no noise of vibration especially when at a stop and superior "get that gap" acceleration due to massive and instant torque from electric engines.

I've already posted on here that I drove several electric trucks (2 tonners) at the Tokyo Motor Show in the early 1990's.

 

They accelerated like a 300 ci V8, I would have had one in a minute for the acceleration, but then I noticed the trucks being pulled off the circuit with overheated motors after about 45 minutes.

 

The heat problem seems to have been solved, perhaps with a slight wind back in power.

 

However the main components of the Tesla car are still much the same as the ones I used when I was designing Towmotor Fork Lift trucks 40 years ago.

 

We still need the big breakthrough in batteries.

 

Chadstone Shopping Centre sells Tesla Cars from an internal shop, and services them down near the car park.

 

In terms of their suitability for City use, I'd suggest that should be qualified for Melbourne to read inner city commuting, and I thing they would be great for that.

 

However, the demographic with the money to buy them follows the latte trail - a couple of times a month up to the Yarra Valley for Brunch, skiing at the weekends, down to Portsea and across to Queenscliffe etc.

 

The key difference between and electric vehicle and an internal combustion unit is you can't hitch a ride and buy a jerry can of electricity; it's call up a two truck when you run out of charge. You might be watching your instruments Bex, but sadly I have to report that the latte set have the same reluctance to plan a trip within range as some people have to calculate for a flight plan.

 

 

[turboplanner]

Tesla was a BS-artist, his patents prove nothing. The Americans have been expert at copying and patenting others inventions for more than 200 years - and when the original inventors claimed an American patent was an infringement or copy of their ideas or patents, the Americans would just go to court and engage high-powered lawyers, "working" the American law system, to ensure the American patent stayed. In many cases, the original inventors didn't even have enough money to fight the American patent on their idea or ideas or design.Tesla's Wardenclyffe Tower was a monumental failure due to Tesla's failure to provide proper proof that it worked. Tesla was good at producing massive plasma displays, which dazzled everyone in an age when even a little electric spark was magic.

 

His "technology" was nothing more than the equivalent of me holding a fluoro tube up to the EMF of a HT powerline, and getting it to light up, and me saying "Woo-woo! I've invented a magic power source from nothing!"

When I said some study, I wasn't thinking of a few minutes.

 

 

[nomadpete]

Regarding power generation:

 

So called "gold plating" of grid is a political phurphy. It translated in real terms to 'forward planning' and has resulted in our excellent continuity of supply that we all expect. Would you rather have cheaper distribution at the expense of blackouts?

 

"Old power stations"

 

Queensland has mostly got rather new power stations - cheaper to run and less polluting than the old ones. Also, numerous gas ones and has decommissioned many old coal burners.

 

Grid costs:

 

I believe this represents less than 40 percent of our electricity bill.

 

Privatisation

 

Those states which have privatised power assets have the highest electricity costs to consumers. By a large margin.

 

Pump storage

 

The (old technology) pumped storage generator at Wivenhoe Dam (Qld) runs on 60mtrs head and can supply up to 600Mw online within seconds of need. Interesting possibilities for our growing number of old coal mines and other big holes.

 

Rooftop solar

 

If Tasmania had encouraged more rooftop solar there might not have been an energy crisis when Basslink cable recently cut us off from the mainland. Tassie already has Australia's biggest stored energy supply (not pumped though) and solar could have extended this storage to last twice as long - obviating the need to use dirty mainland electrons. All we needed was political will. A rare commodity these days

 

 

[octave]

I've already posted on here that I drove several electric trucks (2 tonners) at the Tokyo Motor Show in the early 1990's.They accelerated like a 300 ci V8, I would have had one in a minute for the acceleration, but then I noticed the trucks being pulled off the circuit with overheated motors after about 45 minutes.

 

The heat problem seems to have been solved, perhaps with a slight wind back in power.

 

However the main components of the Tesla car are still much the same as the ones I used when I was designing Towmotor Fork Lift trucks 40 years ago.

 

We still need the big breakthrough in batteries.

 

Chadstone Shopping Centre sells Tesla Cars from an internal shop, and services them down near the car park.

 

In terms of their suitability for City use, I'd suggest that should be qualified for Melbourne to read inner city commuting, and I thing they would be great for that.

 

However, the demographic with the money to buy them follows the latte trail - a couple of times a month up to the Yarra Valley for Brunch, skiing at the weekends, down to Portsea and across to Queenscliffe etc.

 

The key difference between and electric vehicle and an internal combustion unit is you can't hitch a ride and buy a jerry can of electricity; it's call up a two truck when you run out of charge. You might be watching your instruments Bex, but sadly I have to report that the latte set have the same reluctance to plan a trip within range as some people have to calculate for a flight plan.

My son recently hired a top of the line Tesla whilst in Los Angeles, his comment when I asked him about it's acceleration was "ow, my internal organs"

 

In terms of usability, my son has ordered a Tesla which wont be delivered until 2018 so in the meantime he is buying a Leaf Nissan LEAF | 100% Electric Car, Zero Petrol He has a BMW which is incredably heavy on fuel. The electric will more than suffice for the daily commute and the BMW for the longer trips. Plug the car in every night, much more than the required range for the daily commute. Many families own 2 cars anyway.

 

With increased production and advances in battery technology, seems like it is only a matter of time before it is the most efficient and economical option.

 

 

[facthunter]

The grid cost is about 1/2 of the bill. The actual electricity is less than 5 cents. It used to be just over 3. in the country where vast distances are covered there's a transformer quite frequently to correct the voltage drop. In those circumstances the cost of the grid must be a very high %. Diesel generators are around 65 cents per.Kw/hr minimum. Decentralising will save a lot of money. Shoving electricity around for small increments of cost variability is unconvincing. All grids should be a circle and then be failure proofed, but that's not happening. efficiency is not everything when the solar for instance is "unlimited" in some dry areas but the efficiency went up by a 50% increase a while ago with a wider spectrum of the light used. nev

 

 

[onetrack]

(Tesla) was the Bill Gates of the era, who succeeded in mass distribution of power using Alternating Current

Tesla did nothing of the kind. It was the big electric companies with multiple electrical engineers on the payroll who succeeded in the mass distribution of AC power.Tesla produced a supposedly "new" AC induction motor in 1887. There was nothing new about it, Ferraris had invented it 2 years previously.

 

Tesla was noted for his astounding photographic memory, and he could remember every thing he read, in detail. There's little doubt Tesla knew of Ferraris' invention and/or the details of its design.

 

The first alternating-current commutatorless induction motors were independently invented by Galileo Ferraris and Nikola Tesla, a working motor model having been demonstrated by the former in 1885, and by the latter in 1887

As regards the Tesla Turbine, Tesla claimed it was his lifes premier invention, and it operated at 95% efficiency. More Tesla BS. He even convinced Allis-Chalmers to build his turbines, but the A-C engineers were still completely unconvinced the Tesla Turbine was as super-efficient as he claimed. Modern-day testing has found the Tesla Turbine cannot operate at any more than 40% efficiency. Because engines in Tesla's day operated at 25-28% efficiency, he could BS that his somewhat more efficient Turbine was 95% efficient. He constantly failed to prove up the reliability and claimed output of his design. Even today, people are still trying to make it work and make it a commercial success. No-one has succeeded yet, although many have tried.

 

Tesla and the lone inventor myth

 

 

[nomadpete]

Turbs, you mention that wholesale generation cost of our electricity is around .05c per KWh but I have seen it varying between .03 and .05 with odd spikes into the hundreds (or more) of dollars when something big goes wrong. However you look at it, our retail price is still about 2 and a half times cheaper than the diesel example you gave. Are you supporting grid supply as the cheapest way to supply electricity in spite of whatever the distribution cost component?

 

I suspect it is. It also provides best continuity of supply through redundancy. Ring topology that you mentioned doesn't work for our East Coast strip of consumers, so we have a sort of squashed ring.also note that the CSG industry (maybe 10 percent of our Qld use) had the option of burning their own gas to supply their pumps, but found it cheaper to fund substantial grid extensions and new substations to get their power.

 

 

[pmccarthy]

Here in Victoria the government has banned drilling for gas. They have not said why. They (labor) also oppose brown coal and uranium. Instead of sound planning, we get political games. That is the real challenge, not the technology.

 

 

[nomadpete]

Unfortunately human nature is working against humanity.

 

We collectively offload our personal responsibility for our individual well being, onto governments and their bureaucrats. Our water, sewerage, garbage disposal, food sources, etc, are all 'looked after' by others. OK, some of us leave that all to Goddo. But even then, instead of taking control back when it doesn't work out to our advantage, we bitch about it on social media. (Sort of thing I'd never do!).

 

Aorta do summtin abart et!

 

 

[bexrbetter]

I I noticed the trucks being pulled off the circuit with overheated motors after about 45 minutes.

I came down the freeway the other night sitting on about 190 to 200 for about 15 minutes and when I got to the toll booth the fans were all screaming away.

 

The Telsa is incredibly quiet until that point which sounds like about 6 old Craig-Davis thermos coming in!

 

However the main components of the Tesla car are still much the same as the ones I used when I was designing Towmotor Fork Lift trucks 40 years ago.

 

We still need the big breakthrough in batteries.

Not sure what you mean there, they are doing a job and have a large front and rear boot (liftback), way more storage than a normal car. Weight and to a lesser degree, range is an issue if that's what you mean.

 

You might be watching your instruments Bex, but sadly I have to report that the latte set have the same reluctance to plan a trip within range as some people have to calculate for a flight plan.

I watched one night with a bit of a worry, got home with 3kms left!

 

Fuel's only as far away as the closest power point with the emergency charger, albeit will be a few hours before underway again that will give you with say 100kms to get yourself to a real charger. 40 mins from a supercharger, 4 hours wall charger will get you 420kms, 500 for a full charge only recommended for long trips.

 

[ATTACH]47980._xfImport[/ATTACH]

 

My son recently hired a top of the line Tesla whilst in Los Angeles, his comment when I asked him about it's acceleration was "ow, my internal organs"

.

Many people aren't aware they are one of the fastest accelerating cars in the world in some segments of speed range, including against Ferraris, Lamborghinis etc.

 

Tall gearing makes them a bit slow off the line (relative to a Supercar), but the acceleration from 60 to 160 is mind boggling. What is amazing is the incredible and instantaneous punch when you hit the throttle, nothing has that torque so readily available.

 

[Litespeed]

Damn you Bex,

 

You are obviously enjoying your time in China way too much

 

 

[turboplanner]

Many people aren't aware they are one of the fastest accelerating cars in the world in some segments of speed range, including against Ferraris, Lamborghinis etc.

That will be one of the features which weans us off internal combustion; remember slot cars? and if you haven't seen them take a look an an electric RC aircraft race - they are MISSILES.

 

 

[pmccarthy]

Back to coal for a moment, the following was released by Greg Evans today (my bolding):

 

Only the green movement and their mouthpieces such as the Australia Institute (TAI) would be able to contend shutting down Australia’s second largest export industry would have limited economic impact. Annual coal exports at $38 billion in 2014/15 are almost twice those of beef, wheat, wool and wine combined so under their logic eliminating those great industries would also have negligible consequences.

 

This is a nonsense, as the contribution to national income from coal exports improves the living standards of all Australians and the taxes and royalties contributed by the coal sector assist in the provision of vital economic and social infrastructure. There are also 44,000 direct jobs in the coal sector and including related jobs the number is around 150,000 and the majority of those are in regional areas. The TAI should travel to the Hunter Valley and Bowen basin coal towns and promote their economic thesis that the coal industry doesn’t matter.