patrick.net

HeadSet says

Ah, but here is an opportunity to use that engineer's mind. How about something like using excess power to lift weights on a cable, which on the way back down turn a generator through a high ratio escapement.

THOUGHT of it, lot of people have. I'm certainly not the first. There's not a lot of energy in potential energy. You can do this with a MASSIVE water storage system, and it's not efficient, like 50% at best, and that's doing tricks.

Gold is only like 19 denser than water. You could save 19 times the energy with GOLD than you can with water. How rich are you?

HeadSet says

That is, a very heavy weight geared to spin the generator a 1,000 times for every foot of travel.

You'd need something massive which is where material science comes in. You'd have to have something that weighs, TONS, and whatever it is suspended from has to be massively strong, and there's loss because whatever that is (cable, chain, wire), degrades and stretches, and is effected by heat.

HeadSet says

Compress air to drive a piston motor?

NUPE!

Carnot cycle. When you compress a gas, you heat it, and when you try to recover the energy, the gas has cooled so it's at a lower pressure and all the heat, is lost. Terrible efficiency.

I used to love all this green energy shit when I was a kid, so I went into the wonderful world of engineering, to only find out all my ideas were infeasible. The crime isn't I didn't know, I never teacher that could fucking tell me "this won't work", and it took to college to figure out why. We have terrible teachers.

I think if you wanted to store energy, didn't want to use a battery, some system of electrolysis with water with a fuel cell - and it wouldn't be cheap and the reason it's not cheap is that it takes a TON of energy to make. You can get about 60% efficiency with electrolysis combined with a sterling engine to recover heat loss and with a fuel cell at least 50% efficiency turning it back into electric. No surprise we have battery cars instead of hydrogen fuel/cell cars. There's also again the matter of compression, because you need to compress the hydrogen, and that's takes energy, it heats up, Carnot cycle, blah blah blah.

Me electrical engineer now!

HeadSet says

How about something like using excess power to lift weights on a cable, which on the way back down turn a generator through a high ratio escapement. That is, a very heavy weight geared to spin the generator a 1,000 times for every foot of travel. Maybe pump water into a tower that can be used to drive a turbine later.

Sounds similar to this idea:

https://heindl-energy.com/

Gravity Storage is a concept with which unprecedentedly large quantities of power can be stored for a long time of 6-14 hours, and can be made available again. The fundamental principle is based on the hydraulic lifting of a large rock mass. Using electrical pumps, as already used today in pumped storage power plants, water is pumped beneath a movable rock piston, thereby lifting the rock mass. During times of insufficient generation of renewable power, the water which is under high pressure from the rock mass, is routed to a turbine, as in conventional hydroelectric plants, and generates electricity using a generator.

Patrick says

Sounds similar to this idea:

https://heindl-energy.com/

Is that referring to this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIhCuzxNvv0

Thunderf00t ripped it to shreds. There are so many scams in green energy. I worked in the field BRIEFLY, until too many of my questions were either not answered, or were brutally answered. The whole point of electric cars isn't about energy efficiency, it's so you can charge your car at home and at work, and your car will always be warm and toasty and ready to use because even in winter, the batteries are being warmed as well as the cabin. They key point is you'll never have to go to a gas station again!!!!

They are luxury cars, not cars. They don't give a shit about energy efficiency or reducing pollutants when you get past the engineers.

I do think we can get there, but it requires a complete change in our lifestyle, a return to what were more like in 1800 in SOME ways. We'd still have cell phones, internet, television, central heating, stoves, etc.

You'll no longer be staying up to midnight to watch television, you'll get up at the break of dawn, your shower will be lukewarm if that. It would be a more natural life, but to control crime, there might need to be night-time curfews. It would be a lot different. You wouldn't be driving around in a 2000 pound car either, more like 250 lb vehicle of some sort.

It doesn't have to be a nightmare, but you'd have to start accommodating your living to, you know, nature. I don't know if it would necessarily be a bad thing but it would be a radical change. Try not using your lights for a month. You can get through it, but it's different.

richwicks says

Gold is only like 19 denser than water. You could save 19 times the energy with GOLD than you can with water. How rich are you?

Well, if gold is out, we can use even heavier platinum. -joking-

Even if the compressed air or lifted weight measures are not efficient, they are for use when no other power is available. If enough kinks are worked out, being 10% efficient is better than nothing. During the day you use full energy from the solar panels and store the excess. At night you cut use to accommodate the 90% loss.

About an hour ago this article was published stating that McCarthy and Biden have come to an agreement on the debt ceiling. Looks like Biden also agreed on work requirements for welfare in addition to other Republican requests like at least 3% increase in defense and veterans spending.

"The deal would raise the debt limit for two years while capping spending over that time, claw back unused COVID funds, speed up the permitting process for some energy projects and includes some extra work requirements for food aid programs for poor Americans."

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-debt-ceiling-negotiations-push-towards-critical-default-deadline-2023-05-27/

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clambo says

Medicare "premium" for me is $329/month and will rise I am sure.

I've always wondered what that will cost. I think one cannot collect until 65? I've got a long long way to go. I'm sure by then it'll all change but that seems affordable right now vs. what I pay between jobs when I get laid off. Like half that.

WookieMan says

So 15 dudes getting paid 4 months (usually) UE when they "really" don't need it.

In the 50s and 60s (probably every since then) illegal aliens would pick peaches and prunes then get welfare the rest of the year to sit on their asses in NorCal. I had family members who worked alongside them but had school and other jobs the rest of the year.

just_passing_through says

In the 50s and 60s (probably every since then) illegal aliens would pick peaches and prunes then get welfare the rest of the year to sit on their asses in NorCal.

Something similar still happens with seasonal IRS employees in Pittsburgh. They only work Oct to May and collect unemployment in the off months. They do not have to be seeking work to qualify since they already have a hire date for the next season. Another good reason for a young person to get a government job. These jobs also went to work from home.