Re: Beacon
Have to be a pretty low data rate to allow for any other communications, but yes.
5143 publicly visible posts • joined 19 May 2008
"if the beacon survived the event that caused the wreck"
The beacon should be external to the pressure vessel, therefore having a gradual increase in pressure anyway.
There is still a chance that the shockwave from the implosion could cause significant damage, but there is no reason for everything to be inside the (de)pressurised volume
I wonder if the limit isn't oxygen but carbon dioxide - don't know how much scrubbing they have available :(
At this point they're either on the surface somewhere without power, they're dead or about to be.
Oceanic depths are in many ways more challenging than space - at least in space you only need to deal with one atmosphere of pressure.
"2. All racks are in locked rooms, using card and touchpad access. And with security cameras inside the rooms and outside, pointing at the doors. Only authorized people are allowed inside. And the cameras would spot some taking a drive."
Really? If the cameras are pointing at the doors then presumably I can remove a drive from a server and have it in a pocket as I leave.
Now it should still be possible to say "this was when the drive disappeared, and there were only three people who accessed the room then", but drives are no longer large enough to need any skill to hide them.
Just realised I should clarify it's what National Highways spend *every year* on maintaining those roads.
But looking at roads - The UK drives 297 billion vehicle miles annually.
And since 2010 UK electricity demand has dropped 19% (83TWh).
Even at a relatively poor 3.5m/kWh that's ~300 billion car miles.
Yes HGVs use more energy per mile, but the fact that the two numbers line up so well was sufficiently surprising that I thought it worthy of a comment.
E10 meters used to have a night rate output, but I've never come across an E7 that did.
And my last E7 meter was out by more than thirty minutes, that's not a fudge factor, and it doesn't feel radio synchronised either.
But what I said was that those tariffs are able to be managed by a half hourly meter - which they are, you can even have different timings across the country, depending on local power production and local demand. An additional relay for an E10 style output could turn that on at slightly different times without any affect on the consumer.
Possibly better to move towards having smart loads - the most obvious are heat batteries (storage heaters or water tanks) powered by resistive heaters or heat pumps, but electrical batteries (in the house or the car) also significantly help to match the timing of demand and supply.
This year only 8% of the electrical energy we've used as a household was imported from the grid at "peak" hours - and 20% of *that* was due to perverse incentives from the national grid (specifically the in day adjustment).
This PDF report suggests that domestic use is a little over a third of the UK demand for electrons.
If we can manipulate that third well, then we can significantly improve the mix of the grid.
"With more solar we could get to a point where midday, especially at weekends, is when there is a major excess. This is also the time when your car is likely away (work, shopping, other daytime not being at home activity) so being able to charge a static battery bank would be a smart idea.
The infrastructure for V2G is just too immense to consider..."
This is why destination chargers are important... when your car is not on the road it could/should be plugged in. EVs should all have at least a 3kW (but preferably 7kW) grid sync inverters such that the inverter and intelligence are in the same place (and fundamentally under the control of the owner), that also simplifies the charge points substantially.
The physical infrastructure for V2G is trivial... it's just a case of hooking up AC power to car parks (and a load measurement clamp to protect the incoming feed)
The challenge is much more in the software - do you want to ask local vehicles for power - or do cars talk to whoever's supply they are hooked up to (generally you'd only need to tell the car about probably two common parking spots).
How do you meter the power? Companies could reasonable use their car parks via their meter and have a sensible policy with their employees, less obvious at a supermarket.
Reverse power flow in a substation is a possibility with large fleets of EVs in a relatively small location (like an office complex), but it's certainly not insurmountable to limit the reverse power through a substation... it does require decent communications though.
The smart meter can't tell all cars when to charge - you need to have a compatible car (quite a wide range) or charger (Ohme only at the moment).
And the smart meter is an essential part of that... but they'd be better called half hourly meters.
£15 a year?
I'd love to see those calculations, because either you're a *massive* user, or you basically never drive, or you've missed something.
Remember that other loads can be moved as well, and that with an electricity rate lower than the rate for gas strange things happen, like the immersion heater being substantially cheaper than the boiler...
Yep - E7 still makes some sense given the load profile of our grid (and that's all Octopus Go is really), but moving forwards we will need the smart meter data to enable smarter tariffs, and that is where the grid can be smart.
The smart meter is, as you rightly point out, nothing of the sort - it's just a half hourly meter with automated reading (because manual readings would be a pain in the neck).
I agree in terms of ovens etc... decent induction hobs already do this. There are some stoves in the US which have a 3-4kWh battery instead of a "pan drawer" (yes it's a warming drawer, but who uses it for that)... The idea being that you don't need a heavy circuit for the oven, you just plug it into a normal wall outlet and it charges the battery "slowly", then powers the heating elements from the battery. The overall duty cycle of the stove is very low indeed.
My washing machine (not a particularly new one, but bought within the last decade) uses about 400Wh at the start of a typical cycle for heating water. If I tried to draw that from a hot water tank then I'd be wasting my time entirely, the machine would have filled before the hot water even arrived (even if my tank was fairly close).
Even doing a load every day that's under 150 kWh a year, or £40 ish. I don't think the complexity of anything more than a basic resistive heater is easily justified in this case - and even using a 1kWh battery feels overly complex given that it's only a 1500W load for a few minutes.
A tumble drier however... A heat pump there is a different story, not least because you can dry clothes in cool air, just so long as the air is dry - I imagine that would be substantially better for the clothes as well. And yes, a clothes line is even better, but let's be honest about the frequency of sky water.
I'm still manually diverting to the car once the battery is (nearly) full. I'd like a solar aware charger, preferably one that integrated with my battery system and made the best use of both.
With one energy company trying to be intelligent about the way they design tariffs I'm surprised there haven't been a few more joining in... but ho hum.
Almost - they were charging 34p without, and 27p (inc SC) with.
The reason they can do that is that the smart meter opens up time of day tariffs, and even with the peak cost being raised to 40p, the savings in off peak power dropped my overall rate.
Adding in the PV/battery system and this year I've paid an average of 10.2p (including the SC) this year.
Obviously that cost me some money... to raise the total cost of energy to the profit guarantee rate (34p) I would need to amortise the cost of the installation over a little less than 5 years (and I'm including the SC in my pricing, so the payback is actually shorter still at current prices)
Single day statistics can show anything you like.
Summer tends to have a little more power available during the day, and both solar and wind are being built out around the country.
The "off peak" period doesn't have to be at the same time all year round - and it can vary even more than that.
It's what octopus intelligent does - it looks at the grid, and looks at the charge you've requested on your car and then picks the best time to do the charge between when you plugged in and when you need the car.
Nothing complicated for the customer - just say "I want 75% charge by 9 am each week day" and plug in when you get home each day... the hours the car actually charges are then scheduled to be at the most effective times for the grid.
Yes - take the max they could spend and add on their household usage to get their fuel bill... /s
They can pay £885 by selecting an appropriate tariff, or ~£285 more than they currently pay by adding an EV and switching tariff.
That's less than £25 a month, and 3400kWh/year is likely 12-14k miles so that's £25 for a thousand miles - 2.5p per mile.
Compared with an ICE which gets 50mpg at 144p (RAC national average today) at 13p/mile or £1600 of fuel a year.
So yes, that's one hell of a saving (£1300 in the first year alone)
Well, yes - you might need to do some work to figure out what your usage is, and therefore what tariff you can take advantage of.
Even with a 40p peak rate I was paying an average of 27p (including SC) even before the PV and battery.
You don't see the cost saving because you aren't prepared to look for the cost saving.
The grid won't go into meltdown from EVs and HPs - as those running the grid consistently keep telling people.
The discount rate can easily be enough to save more than the peak rate will cost; and the more people who manage to time shift the better - lowering the peak usage is one very important target here.
They've invested heavily in distribution infrastructure... OH, for water? No they've ignored that. They've invested heavily in taking on debt and distributing the cash to shareholders.
Since privatisation in 1989 they've paid £50 billion in dividends, and they now have £56 billion in debt.
Is it only me that expects that £6 billion to appear as dividends soon?
Audit what code?
Do you need to audit the processor design as well, and the compiler code, and how do you verify that the firmware is the code you saw, or was compiled using the compiler you saw....
They get half hourly usage data (if you approve that data sharing) - this allows them to bill you.
You need to get a better supplier then...
Octopus generally get good reviews, and I've found them to be pretty good.
Referral bonuses are actually paid, you can choose your own payment date and payment value on the website.
They also have tariffs which work really well for people with PV/battery systems.
Smart water meters are already here - though my water company won't fit a meter at all. They claim the pipe isn't suitable.
With half hourly measurements, and that data being made available to the consumer, it's fairly easy to check that you have been appropriately charged.
The complexity of agile style tariffs is something that really needs automation to deal with - battery systems etc can import that data and automatically schedule their charge/discharge schedule to minimise the price of electricity.
But even old E7/E10 style tariffs can be better managed by smart meters, at least they actually keep decent time.
My tariff requires a smart meter, and I like having the data. I know that I am on the best tariff, partly because of the data I get.
It was always a bit of a guess previously.
I'm generally averse to specifying technology rather than specifications.
What if we discover a battery tomorrow which is 1% of the price and has a million charge cycle lifespan...
If you want to specify that the battery should have at least 70% of it's advertised capacity after ten years then that's reasonable (and given that they control the BMS it's possible).
One example of this is that despite, being better in every way than a filiament bulb, LEDs weren't allowed in the UK as bike lights until 2005...
They were, of course, absolutely ubiquitous well before then.
And it's certainly possible to replace an iDevice battery as well, I've done several.
Things like airpods are really bad though, it would have been approximately trivial to have the "stalk" screw into the ear bud, allowing the battery and mic to be replaced as a single unit - but leaving the expensive silicon and the speaker alone)
You can make a device with a removable battery waterproof... it's not all that difficult.s
In fact I'd argue that iPhone batteries are already user replaceable... though I haven't read the legislation, does it require it to be possible without tools?
Need a little bit better of an adhesive removal mechanism - or a couple of screws through some retaining clips
Well the MD80 can take about 18 tonnes of fuel, nearly a third of the 64 tonne MTOW.
Half of that fuel is in the wing tanks, and the other half is in the centre tank.
https://www.hilmerby.com/md80/md_fuel.html
"Max usable tank capacity 4 200 kg in each main tank and 9 340 kg in center at 0.803 kg/l in spec weight."
Not sure if the modified wings actually affect the centre tank structure (which might still be part of the wings)
> None of our scrapped lithium-ion batteries go to landfilling, and 100% are recycled.
Notice the world OUR. They dont say they ACCEPT YOUR or the PUBLIC or customer batteries.
Oh my goodness, you really are grasping at straws aren't you:
"Recycling
We observe the Waste Batteries and Accumulators Regulations 2009.
As a producer of industrial Lithium-Ion batteries, we take back waste industrial batteries supplied to an end user for treatment and recycling at no cost. As Tesla sells Lead-Acid batteries, Tesla is also considered a producer of Lead-Acid batteries in the UK. We collect waste automotive batteries for treatment and recycling—free of charge and within a reasonable time.
You can return end-of-life products, such as electronics with a size of up to 25 cm, to Tesla locations during working hours at no cost. To return industrial or automotive batteries, contact us and we’ll schedule an appointment with you."
"Yes petrol is bad, but EV batteries are worse."
Citation needed - because that's not what any peer reviewed research shows - and it's exactly the point at hand because EVs are replacing fossil fuel vehicles.
"Tesla sold a million cars last year, and this company recycled just over 1000,if you can do basic maths thats 1%."
Erm - you might want to look at your maths again: thousand/million is 0.1%
So you expect them to recycle batteries as they sell them, rather than after the 15+ years of useful life they have?
Tesla sales weren't a million units 15-20 years ago - 15 years ago they sold 500 roadsters in 18 months. I would expect those to be relatively low mileage vehicles, so their batteries are probably still fine.
"Nobody is going to recycle a battery when it costs 10x more than the value of the components. The reason after many years they are still only doing small numbers is they havent ffigure out how to get the cost down."
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1246828/value-of-recycled-ev-batteries-by-battery-type/
NMC batteries earnt recyclers 42USD/kWh
The lowest value was LFP at just 15USD/kWh
None of the numbers are negative - in fact the recyclers are already earning from their recycling activities.
They are also investing heavily to allow them to expand, which is why they aren't yet declaring profit.
But you haven't recycled any of the petrol that you've used - which is far more damaging to extract refine and burn
And why would you recycle something that's still in use?
Where are you getting your 1% from? The fact that they have processed more than a thousand battery packs, and are investing to scale up to the size that they can do a million over the next few years?
The pollution in manufacture is slightly more than for an ICE vehicle... it doesn't take long for that to be completely swamped by the running pollution (which, lest we forget is also being belched into the middle of populated areas).
However the more important question is - why would there be a major recycling network anywhere yet - even the earliest EV batteries haven't come to the end of their useful life yet, they're coming into their reuse phase, it'll be another few decades before they're at the recycle phase.
At the same time wealthy people often look at the total cost of ownership - it's how they keep their money. If it costs more up front, but less over the lifetime of a product then you spend the extra up front... something which those with less financial means can't do. #vimesboots
And the evidence suggests that it's actually capable of level 5 behaviour an astonishing amount of the time - it's clearly beyond L2, whatever the certification says.
No, it's not time to surrender licenses and hand over to the computers yet, but that doesn't stop me being impressed with the amount of driving FSD *is* capable of - particularly when it's capable of that on a wide variety of roads and in a good variety of situations.
As someone with a disability - even L2/L3 are massively valuable.
The reduction in cognitive load that they provide make driving for any significant length of time possible. I was reminded of that very strongly over the weekend, because the van I hired for Saturday didn't have the assistance features I used constantly - and driving less than 200 miles completely wiped me out for the remainder of the Saturday and all Sunday (I'm mostly recovered today). With the driver aids I can drive 300 miles and still be able to function in the evening, and the next day.
Ok - there are a couple with hooks, but not actual behind the ear style devices.
IEM style ear buds have the right cable route, but for obvious reasons that cable carries on.
I'm talking about wireless devices, with the cable going over to a small package behind the ear (providing plenty of space for battery, antennae, electronics etc.) which means that there is no force on the "in ear" bit to come out of the ear at all. Of course you can also trivially engineer in the space required for a removable battery - heck, mine run on Zinc/Air batteries.
Why does noone make a behind the ear style device? Yes, I mean like hearing aids... plenty of volume for a decent battery, and some good electronics, supported over the ear with a fine cable down to the driver(s) in your canal.
Hearing aids are comfortable for extremely long periods (all day, every day), have multiple day battery life, never fall out, easy to have open driver designs as well as semi closed all the way to custom moulded.
Instead we insist on balancing expensive electronics just outside the ear canal, with a sort-of fit with a generic shape of silicone tip hoping to hold it in place.
I've watched my son do it... he was three years old at the time though.
Shut down the whole tech for a church service, which I was running at the time. Took me very little time to diagnose the source of the failure, when I looked over he still had his hand on the switch (yes technically he'd hit the switch not pulled the plug, but same overall effect).
Streaming shouldn't care about latency (within reason), it might care about jitter - but that's why the system buffers whilst you're streaming... you don't download each frame "just in time", you download a few tens of seconds ahead of where you are in the file.
To be fair I had an issue with cable connectivity which was almost metronomic, and was nothing to do with throttling (although I nearly throttled them)
Every evening (10:30 ish from memory) the connection would outright fail, and resume early in the morning (7 ish).
Took several visits from engineers in the daytime before I actually got a network engineer who understood the logs I had and we tracked down a short section of cable with a tight radius bend in the green cabinet - the core conductor had fractured, and thermal expansion meant that it connected OK during the day, but when it cooled overnight the fracture separated and the signal was lost.