tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62521322024-03-23T14:07:19.261-04:00The ErgosphereTalk largely about energy and work, but also politics and other random thoughtsEngineer-Poethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06420685176098522332noreply@blogger.comBlogger354125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6252132.post-74747780312185926362022-02-10T16:32:00.002-05:002022-02-10T16:32:09.816-05:00Why batteries cannot address the intermittency issues of "renewables"US electric generation from all sources in pre-COVID 2019: 4178 TWh (average 477.0 GW).Total EV battery capacity sold in 2021: 286.2 GWh.This world-wide total could store enough energy to run the USA's average electric load for a whole 36 minutes.(h/t: Green Car Congress)Engineer-Poethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06420685176098522332noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6252132.post-56764283088215705892022-01-18T23:02:00.001-05:002022-01-18T23:02:53.265-05:00Dumbest spammer ever?This just appeared in my Spam folder:
Hi,
Top of the day to you, prior to this email I did send you an email
with notice of an existing Bonded Account in my Bank ( CAPITAL ONE U.K
) with the same surname as yours.. With no response from you yet... I
was wondering if you received the email? And so I had to send you this
again.
The said BONDED ACCOUNT in the Bank here where I work has a huge
Engineer-Poethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06420685176098522332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6252132.post-86612409054284097622021-07-17T14:31:00.001-04:002021-07-17T18:41:00.918-04:00The speed of electric currentsPeople think that electricity moves at the speed of light. Well, the influence of electric fields moves at the speed of light. The surprising truth is that actual electrons carrying current in wires move slowly in DC systems, and scarcely move at all in AC systems.
Consider a 0 gauge aluminum wire carrying 100 amperes DC. Aluminum has an atomic weight of 26.98 and a density of Engineer-Poethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06420685176098522332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6252132.post-67819292905066652822021-05-15T21:33:00.008-04:002021-05-26T10:26:54.679-04:00GodDAMMIT, YouTube! (updated 5/26/21)If someone's actions show you in no uncertain terms that they are NOT in the market for vacation rentals, or new tires, or cell phones, or working for Uber Eats, or an e-book with no description whatsoever to create interest.... STOP SHOWING THEM ADS FOR THOSE THINGS.I am NEVER going to patronize vrbo or Uber or Belle Tire because of the obnoxiousness of your ad presentation. I don't Engineer-Poethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06420685176098522332noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6252132.post-26593713884632326292021-04-10T17:08:00.006-04:002021-04-13T19:54:21.011-04:00A feasible, zero-carbon petroleum replacement scheme for the USA? (updated 04/13/21)Update 2 is below.
Update 1 is below.
I may have good news on the feasibility front. It's got something to offend everyone, so it's probably decent on the merits.
I've been through the energy numbers for energy-assisted (carbon lossless) conversion of biomass to fuels, and they are surprisingly achieveable. I don't have the numbers for energy losses as sensible heat (I did a very Engineer-Poethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06420685176098522332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6252132.post-48191649596860258922021-03-09T08:25:00.005-05:002021-03-09T08:25:47.828-05:00Can anyone in the USA be as straight with the truth as Lubach? Two videos from the show "Zondag mit Lubach" (Dutch broadcaster VPRO):Green Energy (is fake):https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xW-VLPyxqAMNuclear Energy (is great, but taboo):}https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjFWiMJdotMWhy don't we have anyone in OUR media willing to gore those sacred cows?Engineer-Poethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06420685176098522332noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6252132.post-78123229061549489282020-12-30T21:00:00.003-05:002020-12-30T21:00:25.076-05:00Evolution/abiogenesis and entropyEveryone in the west has heard of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, but very few can quote it accurately and even fewer actually understand it. Mathematically, it’s very simple to state:
ΔS = ΔH/Tabs
In words, the change in entropy equals the change in enthalpy (another hard-to-grasp subject, but it’s got the units of energy) over the absolute temperature. This, incidentally, is why Engineer-Poethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06420685176098522332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6252132.post-66890913965718889642020-06-16T20:24:00.002-04:002021-01-07T19:11:39.019-05:00The collapse of the Energiewende, and the bookkeeping fraud behind "Renewable Energy Certificates"
It was obvious from the outset that the premises behind the Energiewende were false (and possibly fraudulent). While building out huge amounts of wind and PV generation, Germany has thus far propped up the house of cards with massive subsidies. Now those subsidies are expiring, and wonder of wonders, look what is happening:
https://www.thegwpf.com/Engineer-Poethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06420685176098522332noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6252132.post-31112180696825649762020-06-09T19:01:00.002-04:002021-01-07T19:11:55.508-05:00Why "renewables" aren't the solution to our climate problemOne of the glaring flaws (far more than a mere foible) of "renewables" (wind and PV) is that they are unreliable. SO unreliable, as a matter of fact, that they force the adoption of much dirtier fossil-fired generators to accommodate their output swings.
Naive greenies think that "RE" can just be thrown onto the grid, but in fact an RE-heavy grid requires different generating technologies Engineer-Poethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06420685176098522332noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6252132.post-55702175704132008302020-03-14T20:55:00.001-04:002020-03-14T20:55:15.354-04:00One for Pi Day: an analysis of hypedrogen from its proponents claimsHypedrogen has been the holy grail of the renewablistas since the 1970's, when it was also one of the magic bullets that was going to solve air pollution from cars. Here we are 50 years later and we're still burning gasoline (and the oilcos have laughed all the way to the bank). The talk seems to be getting more serious recently. But is it realistic?
Power Engineering magazine Engineer-Poethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06420685176098522332noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6252132.post-81624608734752763812020-03-08T20:45:00.000-04:002020-03-08T20:45:54.918-04:00A question of basic honestyFirst, Michael O'Boyle of "Energy Innovation" posting at Forbes:
Once commonly considered a “bridge fuel,” electric utilities now must face the mathematical reality that fast-falling clean energy costs mean the bridge only leads to climate breakdown and the destruction of shareholder value.Natural gas is being used as the backup fuel for balancing the unreliable supplies from wind and solar. Engineer-Poethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06420685176098522332noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6252132.post-32239998681524613742019-11-09T21:49:00.000-05:002019-11-09T21:49:29.338-05:00Direct atmospheric remediationWord out of MIT is that researchers have produced a reversible electrochemical CO2 capture system which consumes 40-90 kJ/mol depending on conditions (h/t David B. Benson at BNC forum). This is a range from about 0.91 GJ/ton to slightly over 2 GJ/ton. The lowest concentration mentioned is 6000 ppm, which is certainly the highest energy consumption due to reduction in entropy during Engineer-Poethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06420685176098522332noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6252132.post-60995439563368950962019-10-13T10:10:00.001-04:002019-10-13T13:19:59.591-04:00Over at Atomic Insights, Rod Adams points us to a newly-issued US patent for an alleged "fusion device". There are heaps of problems with it (gigawatt outputs? coming mostly as hot neutrons? holy neutron activation and radiation poisoning, Batman!) but a few examples will suffice.
These jerks made the PDF as difficult as possible to process, starting with saving it as a series of page Engineer-Poethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06420685176098522332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6252132.post-58882437514763712472019-06-25T14:25:00.002-04:002019-06-25T15:41:06.528-04:00Deconstructing HBO's "Chernobyl"Thunderf00t does a bang-up job:
Edit: Thunderf00t is a good storyteller but weak on the nuclear stuff. Here are my notes, addressed as an open letter to him:
First, you missed a completely obvious way to debunk the "5 megaton" garbage. It only took 10 megatons to completely erase the island of Elugelab in the Ivy Mike test. 5 MT would have scoured Pripyat off the Engineer-Poethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06420685176098522332noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6252132.post-3180643556761024182019-06-25T09:39:00.000-04:002019-06-25T17:35:49.119-04:00Taiwan steel mishap confirms radiation hormesisThis paper should be shaking the world. It should have turned our radiation-exposure standards upside-down. It should have established that regular low-dose radiation exposure is our best prophylactic against both cancer and birth defects. Yet nothing of the sort has happened.
Well, what happened? FTP:
Abstract — The conventional approach for radiation protection is Engineer-Poethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06420685176098522332noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6252132.post-54244582065251195192019-06-25T09:11:00.001-04:002019-06-25T09:46:34.448-04:00More dangerous than Three Mile IslandThree Mile Island. The name still elicits fear, forty years later. Yet the whole accident had zero casualties; there were no deaths and no injuries.
The list of energy-related accidents with greater tolls is long. Natural gas pipeline explosions have killed quite a few in just the USA alone. Oil wiped out the center of Lac Megantic in 2013, killing 47. And Engineer-Poethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06420685176098522332noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6252132.post-16624737419540385882019-03-09T12:39:00.002-05:002019-03-09T14:04:40.729-05:00Electric alcoholThe re-appearance of the ORNL direct electrocatalytic conversion of CO2 to ethanol and other products in news about ReactWell piqued my curiousity about this process. The paper describes the yields in terms of "Faradaic efficiencies" which is an unfamiliar term, but appears to relate to Coulombic efficiencies by a direct conversion factor; one Faraday is a mole (6.023*1023) of electrons, Engineer-Poethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06420685176098522332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6252132.post-36432446824656786562019-01-08T11:27:00.001-05:002019-03-09T12:40:46.670-05:00Challenge to Owen Benjamin (updated 3/9/2019)UPDATE 3/9/2019: Not a peep. Looks like he's not interested in discussing things, his mind is made up.
UPDATE 1/20/2019: Not even a reply yet. I mailed "whydidnttheylaugh@gmail.com". If anyone knows that this is/is not the correct e-mail address or has gone into disuse, let me know.
Comedian Owen Benjamin has decided that the USA never put men on the moon. (Engineer-Poethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06420685176098522332noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6252132.post-58998929978639404542018-12-31T22:06:00.000-05:002018-12-31T22:12:02.113-05:00Dear Dell Computer Dear Dell Computer,
We used to have a good relationship. I've purchased Dell laptops several times, as well as one well-loved monitor which met an ugly end in a moving accident. My main machine 2 computers ago was a Dell laptop on which I installed some flavor of Linux I've long since forgotten. It installed from an ISO I downloaded and ran like a dream for years until itEngineer-Poethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06420685176098522332noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6252132.post-69372999456606421912018-10-09T12:19:00.000-04:002018-10-09T12:19:26.759-04:00If power-to-gas (P2G) is the answer, what was the question?Over at Green Car Congress, "Scottish Scientist" gushes about P2G:
Power to Gas (P2G) is best for (solar, wind etc.) farm-scale energy storage for most farms where there is no possibility of farm-scale pumped hydro.
P2G is excellent for mopping up all the surplus farm power because any energy which P2G can store is an efficiency gain compared to the 100% loss of all curtailed generation.
Grid Engineer-Poethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06420685176098522332noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6252132.post-66334880229893614942018-06-23T10:20:00.002-04:002018-06-23T10:20:29.506-04:00Energy Central just killed The Energy CollectiveManagement will no longer allow anyone who is not an "energy professional".
That's it for everything TEC was. Gone. Finito. And it looks like the archives will never be back on-line either. Fortunately, The Wayback Machine has a good snapshot of the site just before it went dark.
RIP.
Engineer-Poethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06420685176098522332noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6252132.post-4319651704315759882018-06-17T21:11:00.003-04:002018-06-17T21:11:26.263-04:00Quote without comment
"Our case is based on science, while the opposition is based on political philosophy. When a nation whose welfare is highly dependent on technology makes vital technological decisions on the basis of political philosophy rather than on the basis of science, it is in mortal danger."
— Bernard L. Cohen
Engineer-Poethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06420685176098522332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6252132.post-8846321546205281102018-06-16T13:02:00.000-04:002018-06-18T21:43:15.720-04:00Shredding misconceptions about electricity and motor fuelAnd there are one hell of a lot of them out there; few things are so ubiquitous yet opaque to the layman. Reposting some blog comments in case they are of more general interest:
Ominous Cowherd:
Using Pierre's numbers, 1 gallon of diesel equals 10kWh, so the overnight charge would be 7kWh equals about three quarts.The EIA says a gallon of diesel is 137452 BTU, or just over 40 kWH(th). Engineer-Poethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06420685176098522332noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6252132.post-14120035128290305332018-06-16T10:06:00.002-04:002018-06-16T10:08:17.282-04:00Another owner tries to kill The Energy CollectiveIt was announced some time ago that The Energy Collective was being taken over by the Power Industry Network (energycentral.com).
Perhaps associated with this, the site had some major slowdowns and technical problems for a week or two. Then all of a sudden it just went dark, with a message that maintenance was going on. Now all blog entry links redirect to a page about re-hosting.&Engineer-Poethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06420685176098522332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6252132.post-31038449931097748972018-05-25T17:16:00.000-04:002018-05-27T08:26:55.181-04:00When physics is on the line, face-palm editionVia a correspondent who asked to remain anonymous and unquoted, I received some screenshots of panels from a brand-new comic called Alt*Hero. Story authorship is "Vox Day", the pen-name of one Theodore Beale. He claims to have a 150-ish IQ and refers to Aristotle regularly.
I'm passingly familiar with this guy; he comes up with clever expressions. He used to get held up as an Engineer-Poethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06420685176098522332noreply@blogger.com0