ephbit

48 ms·

391.
by ephbit 5y ago
> Everywhere is suffering inflation right now, including plenty of countries that didn’t do any QE or stimulus. It’s true the inflation is the US is higher overall, but looking at inflation trends historically that’s not unusual either.
392.
by ephbit 5y ago
> Perhaps some here would propose that these activities come at no cost or are otherwise a free lunch. Many people don't want to believe that the whole money system is a zero sum game. But it is. Just because people can't obser
393.
by ephbit 5y ago
> I understand where you are right now, but the fact is central banks aren’t knowingly creating inequality ... Phew ... what else is happening when most (if not all) of this money is brought into the economy at the level of financial ass
394.
by ephbit 5y ago
Let's chat about "proof-of-waste" again when in a few years central banks will have created so much inflation and enabled so much unsound government budgeting (simulaneously making inequality explode) that "proof-of-wast
395.
by ephbit 5y ago
Their website mentions the Fediverse. lemmy is a federated network that is completely separate from the mastodon/diaspora/... network, right? Since I already have an account on a mastodon instance I first thought I can just connec
396.
by ephbit 5y ago
> But per weight it has a much lower energy density than hydrogen. It matters more than you'd think.. I highly doubt that energy density in respect to weight is in the top five of issues that stand in the way of widespread adoption
397.
by ephbit 5y ago
In times when many (if not most) human deeds are far from being carbon neutral and humanity is in dire need to reduce its footprint, maybe a recession (or more positively coined "degrowth") wouldn't be such a bad thing.
398.
by ephbit 5y ago
> ... dispatchable demand. For example, if hydrogen is to be used in steelmaking or ammonia synthesis, that demand can also be added when renewables would otherwise be curtailed, and the hydrogen stored for later use. Isn't the prob
399.
by ephbit 5y ago
> ... concern is that such a complex and interconnected system is likely to be fragile in unexpected ways. I second that. The robustness of the current global energy supply system based largely upon solid, liquid and gaseous fuels stems
400.
by ephbit 5y ago
Methanol operated fuel cells appear to be more promising for applications like vehicles.
401.
by ephbit 5y ago
Methanol powered fuel cell electric vehicles FCEV appear very promising to me. Filling up methanol is much more convenient than hydrogen or charging a BEV. The hurdles are of course that fuel cells are more complex and apparently not yet re
402.
by ephbit 5y ago
> It's all about the energy density. Which is why I'd bet on methanol rather than hydrogen.
403.
by ephbit 5y ago
> UK grid is currently 50.9% fossil, 23.7% renewable Parent poster was likely not referring to the electric grid but overall energy use of which the electrical energy is only a portion.
404.
by ephbit 5y ago
Hydrogen car ... not likely at all to become relevant. FCEV Methanol car ... much more likely to become relevant. The simple evidence that leads me to this conclusion is: battery powered electric trucks ... as far as I know these are highly
405.
by ephbit 5y ago
> Wind and solar over production can be stored in superconducting loops ... Superconducting loops are definitely not the storage technology that will economically scale far enough to store weeks worth of energy usage of the attached elec
406.
by ephbit 5y ago
> .. but the capex of your electrolysis plant isn't, and a giant pile of platinum electrodes that only get used once a day isn't a great deal. Maybe there needs to be a shift of paradigm for the electrical grid? From: we need t
407.
by ephbit 5y ago
> ... storing hydrogen will always be difficult. Yes. Which is why synthesis of liquid fuels from renewable electricity might become the better alternative to hydrogen. Methanol as an example ... eMeOH ... Economics & carbon dioxide
408.
by ephbit 5y ago
Now if this isn't going to be a huge disservice to the cause of Mastodon (which I support, as you might guess).
409.
by ephbit 5y ago
There really ought to be more single board platforms making use of ECC RAM.
410.
by ephbit 5y ago
Agree. The biggest issue with plastic recycling is probably that products like packaging are optimized according to marketing criteria (colourful/shiny/coated) and adding a little bit of convenience for consumers (glue to reseal a
411.
by ephbit 5y ago
Instead of putting so much effort into keeping the internal combustion engine for cars they should push the fuel cell even more. The ICE for cars will in the long-term be abolished (mostly), I'm convinced. And they should shift their f
412.
by ephbit 5y ago
Well, is it really all that absurd to use an existing vessel with a working engine (which uses whatever kind of fuel, not really relevant) to transport some random kind of cargo? In my opinion it's not absurd at all. Would you advocate
413.
by ephbit 5y ago
Sequestering/fixing carbon can be done by constructing buildings from wood instead of concrete. Imagine wooden buildings with wall thicknesses of 30 cm or more.
414.
by ephbit 5y ago
> For poor people, who are spending most of their money on necessities, it won't mean much (unless their employers don't match incomes with inflation, which IS a problem). But for rich people, it offers a powerful incentive to
415.
by ephbit 5y ago
> Even the European Union, which has been subjected to quantitative easing policies from around a whole decade and thus has been seeing their central banks print money like crazy, at most only complains about low inflation and mild econo
416.
by ephbit 5y ago
Forgot the 'theory' in the last paragraph. It should've read 'modern monetary theory '.
417.
by ephbit 5y ago
> EDIT: It's important to note that mild inflation is a good thing. It spurs people to buy now rather than later. If inflation was zero for a hypothetical country, why buy a house today if you know the house would be the same price
418.
by ephbit 5y ago
Low volumetric energy density of hydrogen is the reason why liquid fuels will likely be the energy carriers of the future in combination with fuel cells. Such as methanol.
419.
by ephbit 5y ago
Scott just dismisses the cost/money reason. I am certain though, that money and availability/pervasiveness of modern building techniques/materials (non-availability of old techniques/materials) are the key reasons, why s
420.
by ephbit 5y ago
The way I interpret your claim is: that not only is it feasible in regard to the technology being available, but also that it is economically feasible _and_ the currently existing infrastructure does not need to be redone differently from s

More ›