Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped • Hacker News Board

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#341

Post by kmonsen » Tue, Aug 18, 2020, 10:42 PM UTC

eggy wrote: post #323

kmonsen wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a red herring, here is the definition of democracy: "a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives." The US clearly fits in here. The US is not a direct democracy, but neither is any other country in the world, including Switzerland that perhaps is the one I know of that comes closest.

Given the subtopic I commented on was bringing up NYMBYs and political process and the word democracy, I don't see this as a red herring, or an attempt to divert or smokescreen the argument; I simply stated the US is a constitutional republic, which some would argue further and label it a federal republic. It seems your quote is from lexico.com. How do you respond when someone asks you what type of government does th…

Here is what you said: "To be clear, the US is a constitutional republic and not a democracy, and the constant use of the word democracy dilutes this fact."

Here is what happens when you google democracy: "a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives."

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/democracy: 1a: government by the people especially : rule of the majority b: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections

dictionary.com: government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system. a state having such a form of government: The United States and Canada are democracies.

You said the US is not a democracy, all definitions I can find says it is.

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

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Post by andromeduck » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 12:04 AM UTC

brudgers wrote: post #209

Baeocystin wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Gilroy, and we've had 3 days of 105+ weather. When the house I live in was built, they put in a 3-ton unit, which was complete fine for the first 20 years my family lived here. I replaced it a few years ago with a 4-ton unit, and added extra blown-in insulation. It has barely kept up with the heatwave. Next is dual-pane windows, I guess. There are a lot of folks with less who are straight-out suffering. The…

Going from a three to four ton unit was a mistake. One that's easy to make because it's counter-intuitive. And because bigger units are more expensive there's a sales incentive to sell bigger units too. To be effective at cooling people an air conditioner needs to remove latent heat in the form of water vapor. Lowering the air temperature isn't enough. Oversized units short-cycle, lowering the air temperature signifi…

My understanding is modern compressor tech has already resolved that issue.

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

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Post by daun » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 8:46 AM UTC

meroes wrote: post #38

nimbius wrote: post #3

as someone who apprenticed as a lineman briefly, this isnt at all unexpected. Just because you have generating capacity, does not always mean you have capacity in the duty cycle for your transmission infrastructure. Many substations are older, and were never designed to handle high duty and load during climate-change driven weather events. These substations suffer from underreporting as they often dont have remote mo…

I am a technician for xfinity in the bay area and NIMBYism a huge part too I would say. Huge portions of Mill Valley especially on and around Mt Tam had such bad poles and vegetation. Only the last 3 fire years did anything. But literally nothing gets approved besides exact replacement. Nothing gets put underground, or rerouted because (as I understand it) mostly NIMBY groups. And I believe ATT ultimately owns most o…

NIMBYs have almost nothing to do with blocking wire undergrounding. Parts of Manhattan Beach, for example, are undergrounding wires. The homeowners opposed to it don't want to pay "an average of $42,423" for the service.

https://www.dailybreeze.com/2020/01/08/a-third-manhattan-bea...

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

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Post by fencepost » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 1:14 PM UTC

andrewflnr wrote: post #238

fencepost wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the more impressive things I've seen with electricity is watching a transmission line into a local neighborhood turn orange and stretch to drape itself across a pickup truck parked in the wrong spot. Took a minute to realize what I'd just watched.

You glowing orange from heat?

Yep, only thing that made sense. There was a heavy storm going through and I was driving by at night, during the day probably wouldn't have been visible at all.

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

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Post by bart_spoon » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 1:34 PM UTC

zaarn wrote: post #320

PeterStuer wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends. New poles proposed often carry not just electricity, but also a cellular station, 2 or 3 cameras, 'smart' blazing bright led street lights going on and off at irregular times and 1 or 2 sizable led advertizing displays constatly adapting their messages to perceived passers by. I can definetly see how replacing a lowly old pole with one of these annoyance towers can lead to strong opposition even for those no…

Burying the cable like every other country on this planet with decent infrastructure does, will not create "a cellular station,2 or 3 cameras, led street light and advertising displays". How would these even work underground?

> Burying the cable like every other country on this planet with decent infrastructure does

I take it you've never been to Japan

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

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Post by thedracle » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 2:11 PM UTC

nimbius wrote: post #3

as someone who apprenticed as a lineman briefly, this isnt at all unexpected. Just because you have generating capacity, does not always mean you have capacity in the duty cycle for your transmission infrastructure. Many substations are older, and were never designed to handle high duty and load during climate-change driven weather events. These substations suffer from underreporting as they often dont have remote mo…

I would imagine with the amount of financial exposure these power companies have now regarding wild fires, it's not exactly in their best interests to try to push their infrastructure either.

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

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Post by zaarn » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 2:42 PM UTC

bart_spoon wrote: post #345

zaarn wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Burying the cable like every other country on this planet with decent infrastructure does, will not create "a cellular station,2 or 3 cameras, led street light and advertising displays". How would these even work underground?

> Burying the cable like every other country on this planet with decent infrastructure does I take it you've never been to Japan

Hence a "with decent infrastructure", though I should have narrowed it to "with decent power infra" to be more clear about it.

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

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Post by zaarn » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 2:49 PM UTC

henearkr wrote: post #330

zaarn wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the active RF spectra that people are concerned about don't penetrate deep into your body. They're either absorbed by the skin, the fatty tissue underneath or at the least, by the bone in the skull and ribcage. The reason your phone keeps working when your body blocks the signal is that the signal bounces of other surfaces. Blocking signals with your body becomes more true as frequency (and bandwidth) goes u…

Then 4G or Wifi may be worse than 5G. Experiments with inter-cellular adhesion were, among others, at 900MHz and 1800MHz, thus closer to 4G. However I don't know if other frequencies were really investigated (or with the same care, with different effects observed on male and female rodents, etc). I appreciate that in your brief analysis you are considering several mechanisms of action besides just the heating. There…

The issue is that the energy absorbed is literally too low to do anything. We're talking about heating your body up by 0.1 of a centigrade, so little that it is only visible when using extremely sensitive equipment in lab controlled conditions.

I'd worry more about standard heat given off by devices like laptops. The radio emissions aren't gonna do much but the 80C hot air out of the exhaust blowing into your lap is definitely going to do something. There is plenty of studies on the effects of overheating genitals in males.

But back to the topic; the energy is too small. If these radio waves had an effect, being out during a cloudy day would. The energy you get from solar radiation over a day is probably about the same.

Things like DNA breaking apart don't generally happen with this low frequency, largely because they require a bunch of energy to happen. Like ionization, even 1000W of 100MHz radio waves aren't going to make it happen. There is no amount of energy you can dump into a 100MHz transceiver that would cause ionization of atoms. It simply won't happen. Well, they will ionize but not because of the radio waves but because they've heated up enough that they're starting to undergo plasma formation. But that semantic difference is still important.

The sender in your cellphone or the energy you get from your wifi router are too small to be measured and by all acounts of physics, their effects are too small to be reasonably measured even in long term studies. We're talking literaly sub-milliwatt over your entire body. The entire body uses atleast 100Watts to stay alive. <0.1% change in thermal energy.

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

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Post by gdubs » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 2:50 PM UTC

Baeocystin wrote: post #289

chiph wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait - you don't even have dual-pane glass? That's like leaving a door ajar all day. You can fake a second pane by putting plastic film over the window frame and taping it securely around the edges so there's no leakage, capturing the air between it and the glass. This will act as an insulating layer. Air leakage = heat transfer. But you're better off replacing the windows with dual-pane units that have low-e coating…

Yup. Currently have the plastic film deployed on about half my windows. It's obviously not true double-pane, but it makes a real difference. Well worth the $. For folks who don't know, once you've applied the plastic film, you shrink it with a hairdryer until it is smooth. If you take your time, it doesn't look bad at all, and is optically clear.

3M makes a variety of films for solar reduction and safety; they’re pretty great. Only available through certified installers but we had them done to protect our historic single pane windows, and while we were at it we had some UV film put on our large west-facing windows.

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

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Post by gdubs » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 2:52 PM UTC

lisper wrote: post #135

dgfitz wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your unit is too big it actually makes things worse, because it cycles on and off a lot more which in turn means it pulls less humidity out of the air. I think the rule is you want one ton per 600sq ft that you’re cooling, give or take.

I'm pretty sure that we're underpowered if anything. Our house is three stories, built into a hill. Only the top two floors are even plumbed for A/C and only the top floor has a compressor installed. Like I said earlier, the builder didn't think we'd need A/C at all. Humidity inside is running about 50% at the moment.

Minisplits upstairs might be a good idea. Also, anything to reduce the stack effect. You might have air leaks pulling heat upwards all day. Our house is old and retrofitted, so the return air upstairs is inadequate but closing the downstairs vents makes a huge difference in the summer, since old air sinks.