5 ms·

A general note: in a world of super cheap solar or wind, energy efficiency doesn't matter as much. It's cheap because In many instances, the end product is the

A general note: in a world of super cheap solar or wind, energy efficiency doesn't matter as much. It's cheap because In many instances, the end product is the "battery". A desalination plant can be run when the sun is out and the end product (clean water) can be stored and used. In this instance, the hardening step stores energy in the final product. Just run that step at the right time.

zdragnar 5y ago
This kind of thinking is why cryptocurrency miners are setting up shop at substations. They get severely discounted electricity from the utilities, in exchange for ramping up and down their servers to keep the grid load balanced. Except, of course, cryptocurrency isn't nearly as useful as, say, desalinated water.
- orasis 5y ago
  “Except, of course, cryptocurrency isn't nearly as useful as, say, desalinated water.” Heresy!!
- vkou 5y ago
  > Except, of course, cryptocurrency isn't nearly as useful as, say, desalinated water. I'd like to expand on this a bit. The major problem with cryptocurrency is that the value of a typical coin seems to be ~ the cost of electricity needed to mine one. This means that a crypto miner turns $1 of energy into ~$1 of wealth. As far as business plans go, this is an absolutely horrific use of energy. Nearly no other business produces so little wealth, for such a high energy input. The economy in general, by the way, turns $1 of energy into ~$17 of wealth. [1] [1] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=36754#:~:text=Expressed%20as%20a%20percent%20of,lowest%20since%20at%20least%201970 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=36754#:~:tex....
  - zdragnar 5y ago
    That's why they are pursuing deals with electric companies. In exchange for helping with loaf balancing, they get electricity well below market rates. They are making a killing. Everyone who buys the coins are just helping to remove the pandemic stimulus from the economy, which I suppose is its own sort of good.
gnramires 5y ago
That's a common misconception; energy will matter anyhow. It's useful to think of industry as a three factor limitation of energy, materials and intelligence[1] -- you are sort of always limited by one of them. If energy was of literal no concern, we could promptly utilize very inefficient carbon capture or even synthesize elements. Solar energy still has significant costs in labor (what I call intelligence) and materials, both of which are finite. We will always as a civilization be managing those factors, even with a seemingly unlimited source like a feasible fusion reactor (which would require an advanced highly costly and finite reactor to produce energy) to solar panels (which outsource the fusion to some 150 million km away producer :) ) A quick googling gives me about 24 MJ/kg for steel production. A compression cycle with, for example, 1cm of displacement would need to exert 2.4 GN or about 24 million tons of kg-force over a 1kg sample to use equivalent energy, which I believe is far above any press in existence. [1] Indeed we know the first two are equivalent via E=mc^2 , however this conversion constant is essentially prohibitive outside of stellar nucleus. We also know the third one, intelligence, can be built from raw materials and energy, so there's also a conversion factor there.

zdragnar 5y ago

This kind of thinking is why cryptocurrency miners are setting up shop at substations. They get severely discounted electricity from the utilities, in exchange for ramping up and down their servers to keep the grid load balanced. Except, of course, cryptocurrency isn't nearly as useful as, say, desalinated water.

orasis 5y ago
“Except, of course, cryptocurrency isn't nearly as useful as, say, desalinated water.” Heresy!!
vkou 5y ago
> Except, of course, cryptocurrency isn't nearly as useful as, say, desalinated water. I'd like to expand on this a bit. The major problem with cryptocurrency is that the value of a typical coin seems to be ~ the cost of electricity needed to mine one. This means that a crypto miner turns $1 of energy into ~$1 of wealth. As far as business plans go, this is an absolutely horrific use of energy. Nearly no other business produces so little wealth, for such a high energy input. The economy in general, by the way, turns $1 of energy into ~$17 of wealth. [1] [1] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=36754#:~:text=Expressed%20as%20a%20percent%20of,lowest%20since%20at%20least%201970 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=36754#:~:tex....
- zdragnar 5y ago
  That's why they are pursuing deals with electric companies. In exchange for helping with loaf balancing, they get electricity well below market rates. They are making a killing. Everyone who buys the coins are just helping to remove the pandemic stimulus from the economy, which I suppose is its own sort of good.

gnramires 5y ago

That's a common misconception; energy will matter anyhow. It's useful to think of industry as a three factor limitation of energy, materials and intelligence[1] -- you are sort of always limited by one of them. If energy was of literal no concern, we could promptly utilize very inefficient carbon capture or even synthesize elements. Solar energy still has significant costs in labor (what I call intelligence) and materials, both of which are finite. We will always as a civilization be managing those factors, even with a seemingly unlimited source like a feasible fusion reactor (which would require an advanced highly costly and finite reactor to produce energy) to solar panels (which outsource the fusion to some 150 million km away producer :) ) A quick googling gives me about 24 MJ/kg for steel production. A compression cycle with, for example, 1cm of displacement would need to exert 2.4 GN or about 24 million tons of kg-force over a 1kg sample to use equivalent energy, which I believe is far above any press in existence. [1] Indeed we know the first two are equivalent via E=mc^2 , however this conversion constant is essentially prohibitive outside of stellar nucleus. We also know the third one, intelligence, can be built from raw materials and energy, so there's also a conversion factor there.