lotsofmangos

12 ms·

61.
by lotsofmangos 11y ago
If Elon launches a space vessel named 'Grey Area', I either want to be on it, or in a bunker.
62.
by lotsofmangos 11y ago
Did you know the Dragon capsule was named after the song "Puff The Magic Dragon"? edit - and a wheel of Le Brouère cheese was on the first Dragon flight in honour of the Monty Python Cheese Shop sketch.
63.
by lotsofmangos 11y ago
Not continuously for hours, that takes about 14 or 15. But it isn't dazzling.
64.
by lotsofmangos 11y ago
The trouble with wars against humour, is they tend to be really funny.
65.
by lotsofmangos 11y ago
Just Read The Instructions Of Course I Still Love You
66.
by lotsofmangos 11y ago
"You honestly think mega manufacturers like Panasonic don't have the proper scale for lithium-ion?" What is the proper scale? The scale of this factory is the same size as all the other lithium battery plants in the world c
67.
by lotsofmangos 11y ago
I may be being overly cynical, but given the blog is dedicated to showing how high technology solutions cannot work and has articles about PV generation leading with the claim that solar can be often worse than coal, before you drill down a
68.
by lotsofmangos 11y ago
Those AGM batteries have at best around a tenth of the life expectancy in equivalent charging cycles.
69.
by lotsofmangos 11y ago
I remember showing one manager an article on 'extreme programming'. His view was that it was just a way for programmers to cheat him out of money and only do half the amount of work, given only one person types at a time.
70.
by lotsofmangos 11y ago
"We don’t need to have developers in our software company, we can outsource the function and keep only a product owner who would know the history of the project. Only the relationship with the paying clients is necessary the rest are
71.
by lotsofmangos 11y ago
I thought that and then checked the numbers. Shipping is negligible and when compared by energy per tonne per km, can be up to almost 100x better than road, so going 200km by road can compare to going nearly 20000km by sea in some cases. Pu
72.
by lotsofmangos 11y ago
When the reservoir is full, Cruachan Power Station in Scotland can operate for 22 hours before it is emptied. Also, it is required to leave 12 hours water in the lake at all times to provide emergency cold start backup on the grid. If it wa
73.
by lotsofmangos 11y ago
Net positive below a certain scale (especially for the whales), negative above it. The contentious bit is where the tipping point is. For coal, the first time it was restricted in London due to pollution killing the populace, was 1306.
74.
by lotsofmangos 11y ago
I had a dig around, you are right that transport of lithium is relatively negligible in the energy budget (back of an envelope calculations suggest around 0.5 kwh for a 1 kwh capacity battery), transport of other material such as nickel is
75.
by lotsofmangos 11y ago
I think he may be underestimating the future efficiency gains. There is already 30% efficient directly illuminated multi-junction PV on the market ( http://www.emcore.com/wp-content/uploads/ZTJ-Cell.pdf ), they ar
76.
by lotsofmangos 11y ago
New game. Let's see if we can find one number in the article that is actually correct.
77.
by lotsofmangos 11y ago
At 100% discharge, lithium batteries die.
78.
by lotsofmangos 11y ago
It isn't magical technology, it is simple logistics. South America to China to California vs Nevada to Nevada to Nevada.
79.
by lotsofmangos 11y ago
So currently for batteries used by Tesla, that is getting the lithium from Chile and Argentina, then transporting it to battery factories in China, then shipping them to their car factory in California, as opposed to getting lithium from Ne
80.
by lotsofmangos 11y ago
"the manufacture of 1 kWh of lithium-ion battery storage requires 400 kWh of energy, the factory would require 20,000 GWh of electricity per year to manufacture all these batteries." The 20,000 GWh figure is clearly bollocks, on
81.
by lotsofmangos 11y ago
Welding filter shade 5 lets through more light than that.
82.
by lotsofmangos 11y ago
Here in the UK, you can get free solar panels installed in return for cheaper electricity bills, with most of the funding coming from pension companies.
83.
by lotsofmangos 11y ago
Refrigeration and water pumping would seem to be examples of systems where it is very easy to design for intermittent power. For the former you need a storage tank after the compressor and for the latter you need a water tower. For lighting
84.
by lotsofmangos 11y ago
" I’ll say it another way: unless your solar-powered home is entirely disconnected from the grid, or your solar system is big enough to provide for all your electricity needs, an expensive battery backup system like Powerwall does not
85.
by lotsofmangos 11y ago
You are also not going to run your aluminum smelting plant for 18 hours out of the day on battery power! Give it time. In 2003, Alaska built the world's largest battery at 4.7MWh. In 2012, China built the world's largest battery
86.
by lotsofmangos 11y ago
Thanks for the reply. I have been keeping a close eye on Lightsail and am hugely looking forward to the day when I can install one of your systems. My power bill this winter has been atrocious.
87.
by lotsofmangos 11y ago
If you have a good location for a hydroelectric reservoir, apart from it being remote from population areas and existing generation capacity, you might well stick a smelter and some solar next to it.
88.
by lotsofmangos 11y ago
No, but if you post a dictionary definition of a word and someone's next reply contains an aside that they learned the definition of a new word today, from context it usually means they learned it there and then. As for the article, wi
89.
by lotsofmangos 11y ago
Hang on. You have admitted that you didn't even know the meaning of the sentence that you have been defending until I posted the meaning of the word 'benighted', while criticizing those who were upset by it for holding faith
90.
by lotsofmangos 11y ago
Rhetoric is a two way street. It can be just as damaging as it can be beneficial. Also, the observation that almost anyone other than a creationist would be able to get past a line that specifically insults creationists, is not that surpris

More ›