rgmerk

30 ms·

481.
by rgmerk 3y ago
-20 - at which point the COP of the heat pump I linked to is still well above 1 - is equal to the coldest temperature on record in the locations I mentioned. Not the coldest daily maximum. The coldest temperature ever recorded, and the h
482.
by rgmerk 4y ago
Yes, but the vast majority of the population of New York State lives in places where air source heat pumps work just fine. Air source heat pumps can be built to work down to at least -20 Fahrenheit[1]. That's equal to the coldest tem
483.
by rgmerk 4y ago
While there is nothing inherently wrong with the language itself, nobody in their right minds would develop anything new in it. The dev environment and GUI builder are really nice for building desktop windows apps, 2002-style. But the worl
484.
by rgmerk 4y ago
We live in a world where a country with massive productive capacity is rapidly expanding its military capabilities, and the most likely focus of combat is less than 100 miles from territory they currently control. Land-based anti-shipping m
485.
by rgmerk 4y ago
Sure. Compare the price of 101 anti-ship missiles with the cost of a ship and 100 anti-anti-ship missiles.
486.
by rgmerk 4y ago
My 2c: if there is ever a shooting war between two modern navies (eg US and China) surface combatants are all going to end up under water very very quickly, or too far from the action to offer anything useful. We haven’t had a real naval ba
487.
by rgmerk 4y ago
“Here” in two American cities, and as I understand it (correct me if I’m wrong) only in low-traffic conditions, and by a company that has almost limitless financial backing and is prepared to lose whatever is necessary. How much is it going
488.
by rgmerk 4y ago
If - big if - autonomous vehicles can be made to work everywhere, it’s almost as big a leap as the car itself. But boy it’s taken a lot of time and money to get from “mostly there” to “a bit more mostly there”.
489.
by rgmerk 4y ago
No matter how safe this thing actually is, the regulatory environment isn’t set up to have nuclear reactors showing up to disaster zones on trucks. Social licence to operate is likely to be an even bigger problem.
490.
by rgmerk 4y ago
This is true. It’s a big engineering project, but, guess what, airports are very big engineering projects.
491.
by rgmerk 4y ago
Not every flight is transatlantic. These batteries, if they deliver on the advertised specs and aren’t too expensive should make short-range electric aviation possible. The electric air taxis that Joby and others are working on suddenly hav
492.
CATL announces new battery with 500Wh/kg cell density; production in 2023(electrek.co)
4 points by rgmerk 4y ago|1 comments
493.
by rgmerk 4y ago
This. Live in the Bay Area on 300k, pay off your mortgage, save a little bit on top of that and you’ve got enough to retire early and live like royalty somewhere cheaper.
494.
by rgmerk 4y ago
Germany is part of the broader European grid, and solar/wind is backed by interconnections to hydro etc etc. I was just listening to a podcast on battery storage and apparently continental Europe is behind on grid-scale battery install
495.
by rgmerk 4y ago
Sure, but it’s the most blatant piece of vendor lock-in since Apple.
496.
by rgmerk 4y ago
Husqvarna makes a backpack battery. They charge about 1300 USD for it (or the equivalent thereof in my home country [1]). They don’t recommend it (and I’m not sure it’s compatible with) their electric chainsaws, only their brush cutters,
497.
by rgmerk 4y ago
OK, that's very cool. The holy grail would of course be composing an example showing them being used together, but the expert mode answer was very, very useful and way better than existing search tools were able to do.
498.
by rgmerk 4y ago
I gave it a try by asking it a question relating to my own work, essentially "how can I do mock patching in Delphi". A basic correct answer is that "not easily, as the mocking frameworks available for the language don't
499.
by rgmerk 4y ago
This is complete nonsense. 1) Carbon accounting is extremely challenging even for teams of experts who dedicate a lot of time and effort to it, and even then the results are often contested. 2) If we're not at net negative carbon emiss
500.
by rgmerk 4y ago
Back in the day, Dad ran a photocopier dealership. He had a team of highly-paid salesmen (and they were pretty much all men) driving around the countryside convincing school principals and the like that they needed new photocopiers. The pro
501.
by rgmerk 4y ago
This is old data but comprehensive and illustrative: The key point is that only roughly 20% of the capital cost of a coal plant is related to coal handling and pollution control. https://esmap.org/sites/default/fil
502.
by rgmerk 4y ago
Not all coal costs that much. There are places where there is abundant brown coal, which cannot be economically transported long distances and is therefore basically loaded on a conveyer belt directly into power stations. New-build brown co
503.
by rgmerk 4y ago
Natural gas power plants are gas turbines, not steam turbines. Some have a secondary steam turbine as an exhaust energy recovery system but as I understand it that’s becoming uncommon on new builds because new gas turbines are expected to b
504.
by rgmerk 4y ago
The only place where new coal plants are being constructed is Asia. This article from DW explains it doesn’t make economic sense there either: https://www.dw.com/en/why-build-600-new-unprofitable-coal-pl...
505.
by rgmerk 4y ago
If the plan for energy conversion is a steam turbine, it’s never going to be economically competitive. New-build coal isn’t economically competitive anywhere, even where you get the coal essentially for free.
506.
by rgmerk 4y ago
Yes, we are hypocrites, but the export trade in thermal coal is doomed regardless.
507.
by rgmerk 4y ago
I live in Victoria. Fed my usage data to the Victorian government’s comparison site. [1] Switched to the cheapest offer, which was GloBird Energy. Went to their website, discovered a small further discount on my gas was available so switch
508.
by rgmerk 4y ago
True, but even taking the supply charge into account you still get nowhere near 26 US cents a kilowatt unless you’re getting 90% of your energy from solar. (Note to Americans - we pay maybe a quarter as much as you do for rooftop solar, no
509.
by rgmerk 4y ago
I wouldn’t take the figures quoted in this article seriously. I pay the equivalent of 13c/KWh in Australia, and that’s after recent price rises (thanks Vlad).
510.
by rgmerk 4y ago
The power density of gas turbine engines is way better than internal combustion. But we haven’t bothered with gas turbine cars and trucks because internal combustion has good enough power density and other relevant advantages (better energy

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