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Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

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Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#91
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But wouldn't this cause more issues? Sure, all my things may work with 12DC internally, but they expect 120AC (or w/e depending on country) at the plug, so I wouldn't be able to use them if I switch.

The idea being that consumer items will, more and more, be able to take DC directly instead of expecting AC. For example, any device that takes in USB power with a 120VAC "wall wart" plug can just be used with a buck convert plug instead or being powered directly from the DC current. LED lighting is taking in AC then converting to DC to power the LEDs. Your phone is taking in AC then converting to DC to power it. You…

How inefficient is the conversion process really though?

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#92
post #86
post #84

The west coast of the USA will be a desert very soon. Probably within a few years. Soon 40 million people will be without sanitation water. Then the next step is no drinking water.

How soon is soon?

Never. We will spend trillions of dollars to pump and desalinate, and as we do so costs will come down.

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#94
Deglobalization -- In the US, we're about to be forced to rebuild all the manufacturing we outsourced since the 1970s. It's not going to go well for thos countries dependent on imported food or energy.

It's possible a billion people will face famine in the next year or two as a result of the loss of grain from Russia and Ukraine, along with the loss of Fertilizers (or being priced out of them)

Energy Blindness -- We're so used to having free flowing oil cheap enough to burn for energy, it's an assumption built into everything. Unless we plan for the end of easy to reach oil, we could have supply chains collapsing everywhere.

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#96

Technology wise merging backend and frontend into a seamless framework seems like the next big thing. A lot of progress has been made this year on this with liveview, et al but haven't seen any mass adoption yet as only few people are talking about it. But i reckon once these frameworks mature enough they have the power to disrupt the whole way we think about building websites and frontend back-end coding.

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Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#97

Climate migration. What happens Europe now/since 2015 is nothing that will come in the next couple of years. And the individual countries and so as the EU is pretty much unprepared. I'd even say that will be one of the cause of downfall of the union.

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Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#98
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea being that consumer items will, more and more, be able to take DC directly instead of expecting AC. For example, any device that takes in USB power with a 120VAC "wall wart" plug can just be used with a buck convert plug instead or being powered directly from the DC current. LED lighting is taking in AC then converting to DC to power the LEDs. Your phone is taking in AC then converting to DC to power it. You…

How inefficient is the conversion process really though?

I"m not sure I'm really the person to answer this but I would guess inverter and/or buck/boost converters are in the 90%-95% range. So, chaining DC -> AC -> DC gives about anywhere from 15% to 30% losses.

I think the better argument is one for reduced 'hardware complexity'. Instead of having an inverter that then goes through a rectifier, all you need is a buck converter.

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

will?

yes, while it is gaining adoption, there are still a couple of major tasks before it really takes off, namely dependency management and structural sharing.

Who’s adopting it? I don’t even see a Wikipedia article.

Re: Ask HN: What's the next big thing that few people are talking about?

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something about this cannot be right, surely? You are saying one can invest in a solar setup and have 7+ years of free electricity, and all that starting after 3.5 years?

It's not wildly far off but I think his battery costs are a stretch. In fact double that would be a challenge to have a quality and reliable system. But it is definitely lass than 3x. Right now the best value for batteries I'm getting is 0.18 per w/h. To get 0.08 you would have to doing something like recycling small cell or ev batteries which isn't necessarily scalable and comes with some risks. Panel costs are accu…

The $0.08wh is something that you have to hunt around for.

Just a cursory look on Aliexpress gives $0.12wh for LiFePo4 batteries [0] [1].

Looking on Alibaba, I see some potential sellers that might get below that $0.12 but it takes looking around and potentially talking with sellers. I do think it's possible but it requires some hunting, especially in the 'consumer' quantities we're talking about (sub qty 100).

[0] https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3256803821576908.html?spm=a2...

[1] https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3256803518663847.html?spm=a2...

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