Slow Electricity: The Return of DC Power? (2016) • Hacker News Board

Re: Slow Electricity: The Return of DC Power? (2016)

#231

Post by citrin_ru » Thu, Aug 19, 2021, 11:32 AM UTC

eldaisfish wrote: post #174

citrin_ru wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> since gas stoves are less efficient and much worse for the environment than a kettle. It is not obvious at all and requires calculations. When you use electric kettle you use energy which was obtained mostly from coal and gas (60% of it in the US) and efficiency of the conversion is less than about 40% on average (limited by efficiency of a steam turbine). Then about 8% of this power is lost during transportation/d…

>It is not obvious at all and requires calculations. Heating water in a domestic setting on a gas stove is incredibly inefficient and you don't even need a calculator to know why - put your hand adjacent to the stove and feel the heat being lost. This is not a small fraction, it is significant unless you run the stove really low and spread that heat over a large area. Now put your hand and any point outside an electr…

Thermal loss of course bigger for kettle on a gas stove than for an electric kettle. But while electricity is generated on a gas/coal powered plan a lot of heat emitted into the environment, and we cannot ignore this if we are interested in overall efficiency.

Re: Slow Electricity: The Return of DC Power? (2016)

#232

Post by zurn » Thu, Aug 19, 2021, 1:16 PM UTC

lbriner wrote: post #160

zurn wrote: post #68

Many of the loads discussed, eg washing machines, are also reasonable matches a local solar power source, as it's much cheaper to buffer hot water than have large batteries. (Water heating dominates the energy used in those, the mechanical sloshing around takes trivial power compared to it).

And what do you do for the 6 months of the year when there is not enough solar to heat water to a suitable temperature?

People living in arctic areas with multi-month polar night generally already have some other heating energy source, as it gets a bit chilly. But in the summer they can have 24/7 solar energy!

There's not many people living in these areas though like the sibling comment points out.

Re: Slow Electricity: The Return of DC Power? (2016)

#233

Post by __MatrixMan__ » Fri, Aug 20, 2021, 3:56 PM UTC

dheera wrote: post #14

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #13

If it means less time spent in a mess of wires trying to figure out which adapter brick is squealing, I'm all for it.

But please, please, PLEASE design a better connector than fragile USB-C. 120VAC plugs e.g. standard IEC computer power plugs can be hit with bricks and rammed into furniture while they are plugged in and they won't get damaged. All forces of impact get transferred to the chassis, not the PCB. That's good design. I break about a USB-C cable a week because they just aren't designed for the ruggedness that consumer use…

I've never broken one, but every few months I have to use a needle to scrape the pocket lint out of the port on my phone. Never had that problem with previous phones.