Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

7.1 Earthquake in Japan

data.jma.go.jp

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 253 posts

Re: 7.1 Earthquake in Japan

#131

Post by kalleboo »

sandworm101 wrote: post #109
bombcar wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A hundred years from now people are going to be absolutely flabbergasted how we just piped gas everywhere all the time. Electricity allows for so many more automatic safeguards.

Replicating the power density of a gas pipe requires far more than 110v ac. The future might wonder why we accepted the danger of 5,000v power lines running through food courts just to avoid using gas burners.

You wouldn't multiply the volts, you'd multiply the amps, by using a separate sub-breaker for each shop, which you're doing anyway since you want to meter them separately.

This is already the norm in lots of Europe. It's not some weird new thing. In Sweden, no mall food courts have natural gas hookups, it's all three-phase electrical appliances. It's been like this forever (since Sweden has craploads of hydro and nuclear and zero gas).

Re: 7.1 Earthquake in Japan

#132

Post by klausa »

account42 wrote: post #124
qurren wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.impulselabs.com/ achieves this by storing energy in a battery. 120V15A in to charge, 10kW out for short durations. I don't have one, but it's an interesting concept. That said, I don't know what's better, a massive lithium battery in the kitchen that can be set into thermal runaway, or a gas line. But also, most Japanese styles of cooking doesn't need those levels of power anyway. 4-5kW induction hobs run…

I like how the video shows that you can detach the knob to clean the now flat surface ... instead of just putting the knobs somewhere other than the flat surface where food is likely to spill.

This is… literally the only surface that stoves in this form factor have?

Re: 7.1 Earthquake in Japan

#134

Post by timr »

ktallett wrote: post #68
akg_67 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NHK TV is showing extensive damage including fallen smokestacks at Nippon Paper Factory facility, bridge road separation, fallen bridge lane, road cracks, fire, water coming out of drainage etc. It was a huge earthquake and will take some time to assess the damage.

There is a collapsed roof of a shopping centre as well in Kumamoto. The Aeon Mall.

The second floor of the mall exploded for some reason, and the roof collapse is secondary to that. It seems to have happened after the earthquake and subsequent evacuation. There are videos of people leaving the mall:

https://x.com/yuto4388/status/2082060992377475247/video/1?s=...

Re: 7.1 Earthquake in Japan

#135

Post by rawgabbit »

kalleboo wrote: post #130
rawgabbit wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see some places in the Japanese countryside where homeowners get propane tanks delivered to them for cooking? I believe in an earthquake prone country, this is safer than having natural gas piped to their homes? The problem I think is that Japanese culture values hot baths daily. Heating water for the bath using electricity is still too costly.

Propane tanks strapped to your house is common even in cities since it's cheaper to install (but then costs more per cubic meter). The downside to propane tanks is they become fireworks if a neighbor has a fire which heats them up. In Japan anyone who goes all-electric these days is getting a heat pump water heater ("eco-cute") by default, resistive electric heating doesn't really exist out of small plugin units like…

If you have a link to an "eco-cute" water heater, I would like to learn more. Thanks.

Re: 7.1 Earthquake in Japan

#136

Post by kalleboo »

lstodd wrote: post #102
bombcar wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A hundred years from now people are going to be absolutely flabbergasted how we just piped gas everywhere all the time. Electricity allows for so many more automatic safeguards.

Electrical is inadequate power delivery-wise and requires completely different cookware to the point that it's a different cuisine. For example to replicate a gas burner you have to have above 15KW continious power. Good luck wiring that into your apartment, or feeding this with local solar. Or even finding an induction stovetop that won't melt its insides in a year or two at a measly 5KW.

Gas has more raw power but it's extremely inefficient because most of it just escapes into the room, whereas with induction it all goes into the cookware. Our induction stove boils water way faster than our gas one did, and the gas one on full blast melted and ruined the handle on the pot since so much of the heat escapes around the sides.

Technology Connections on YouTube has done videos on the topic, comparing electric to gas, showing that even old-school resistive electric is faster than gas https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yMMTVVJI4c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUywI8YGy0Y

Re: 7.1 Earthquake in Japan

#137

Post by FabHK »

benj111 wrote: post #112
dfxm12 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The study doesn't appear to be blind (not sure how you can do a blind cooking test). Also, The panellists were satisfied with cooking when they could control the heat as desired suggests inexperience with electric is a part of preference (as a personal anecdote, it took me a few months to get used to an electric stove in a new house after a lifetime of cooking on gas). This is also over a decade old. There have been…

If you aren't using induction, it's also slow, slow to heat, slow to cool. Yes you can get used to turning the heat up 5 minutes before you want hot. A down 5 minutes before your food is done. But it's a pain.

Induction is the trick. It's nearly as fast as gas.

Re: 7.1 Earthquake in Japan

#138

Post by [deleted] »

timr wrote: post #97
goginko wrote: post #78

This was my first real earthquake since moving to Kyushu. After it stopped I looked it up, and the first place to post the epicenter and shindo was NERV's twitter...which is named after the org from the anime and has an anime screenshot as its banner ( https://x.com/EN_NERV ). Apparently it's a real disaster information service, though. It's been mentioned before but maybe interesting to some ( https://news.ycombinat…

The Nerv app is quite good. It usually gives real-time alerts faster than the official sources. You can even have the weird experience of being notified of an earthquake, watching the shockwave move outward from the epicenter, and feeling it as it passes.

[deleted]

Re: 7.1 Earthquake in Japan

#139

Post by kalleboo »

rawgabbit wrote: post #135
kalleboo wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Propane tanks strapped to your house is common even in cities since it's cheaper to install (but then costs more per cubic meter). The downside to propane tanks is they become fireworks if a neighbor has a fire which heats them up. In Japan anyone who goes all-electric these days is getting a heat pump water heater ("eco-cute") by default, resistive electric heating doesn't really exist out of small plugin units like…

If you have a link to an "eco-cute" water heater, I would like to learn more. Thanks.

All the big Japanese makes have them. They basically look like a water tank with the outside portion of a mini split air conditioner hooked up next to them.

With my power company in Japan, by going "all-electric" (having an eco-cute and induction stove), I qualify for a rate plan where I can trade off solar power peak hours (half price) for the duck curve hours (double price), so I have my water heating only running during cheap hours and cut down on air conditioning during the expensive hours.

Ours is from Mitsubishi and is just the builder-grade one from our fix-rate renovation company. It will connect to the wifi so you can start a bath from an app on your phone on your way home from work. There's also an intercom between the bath and the kitchen so mom can tell the kids to get out of the bath, dinner is done. Traditional Japanese values.

Mitsubishi https://www.mitsubishielectric.co.jp/home/ecocute/

Panasonic https://sumai.panasonic.jp/hp/

Daikin https://www.ac.daikin.co.jp/sumai/alldenka/ecocute/structure

Corona https://www.corona.co.jp/eco/

Noritz https://www.noritz.co.jp/product/kyutou_bath/ecocute/

Re: 7.1 Earthquake in Japan

#140

Post by toast0 »

rawgabbit wrote: post #116
traceroute66 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Electricity allows for so many more automatic safeguards. Since the mid-2000s there has actually been a push by Japanese utility companies for adoption of what they call "all-electric" オール電化. Adoption has been reasonably good with new-builds because they can also have solar panels. But adoption in older properties has been slower. First in general, electricity in Japan has tended to be more expensive than gas. Seco…

I see some places in the Japanese countryside where homeowners get propane tanks delivered to them for cooking? I believe in an earthquake prone country, this is safer than having natural gas piped to their homes? The problem I think is that Japanese culture values hot baths daily. Heating water for the bath using electricity is still too costly.

Where I live in the US (near Seattle), there's no piped natural gas, most detatched houses have a 250-500 gallon propane tank. Seattle has piped gas, but my county never had the density to justify the expense to install distribution piping and now its disfavored.

My house has a second tank for a backup generator. We use the main tank for our stove/range, water heater, clothes dryer, and a decorative fireplace that's rarely used. Some neighbors have a propane furnace, but we've got a heatpump with resistive strips as backup heat.

Post reply on HN