Re: The Electric Car
- From: The Ghost In The Machine <ewill@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 19:06:05 -0700
In sci.physics, G=EMC^2 Glazier
<herbertglazier@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote
on Sun, 16 Sep 2007 09:16:40 -0400
<27343-46ED2CB8-472@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
Ghost you are to negative. Best to keep in mind. As a source of power
electricity has no rival.It is clean,silent, and can be turned off and
on instantly. Goes to where its needed easily. It produces
"movement" in so many ways. from a watch to a train. The nice part
these machines will only take the power they need.
But something has to produce that power at the other end.
A fun fact for you: of 1125.5 million short tons of coal
consumed in 2005, 1037.5 million short tons is used for
electric power generation. That's 92%.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/page/acr/acr_sum.html
Obviously, this is amazingly bad for the environment
long-term, though if burned cleanly enough we might
only have to deal with increased ocean acidity and
maybe global warming from the CO2 in our atmosphere. ;-)
One can also perform various experiments. The simplest
I can think of is to take a small 12VDC or such electric
motor, and spin its shaft, with its wires open, and with
its wires shorting. Feel any difference?
Other experiments might show power factor [*] versus
mechanical load -- e.g., one might hook up an electric pump
to a water tank and vary the height of the output tube,
pouring back into the tank; the higher the tube end, the
more power is required to pump the water up to that height,
assuming constant discharge rate. If one's really
clever one might measure the temperature of the water as well.
You can't win, you can only break even on a very cold day,
and it never gets that cold!
Electric cars -- touted by some environmentalists as
"the solution to all of our problems" -- allow for
transportation of that pollution (though a rather indirect
but straightforward mechanism) to outside the city, but
do not reduce it absent additional considerations (e.g.,
substituting nuclear fusion power for a relatively dirty
coal-burning affair -- once nuclear fusion power becomes
a clean reality; it's not quite there yet). [!]
For similar reasons hydrogen cars have many of the same
problems; hydrogen is a conduit of energy or power, not
a source.
Your postulated maglev system is a third solution, which
will also transport pollution outside the city in much
the same way.
I don't know precisely where in CAISO (www.caiso.com)
or other such organizations/companies (depends on state;
CAISO is California-specific) the decisions to switch on or
off power stations is made, but there's a lot of thinking
and management going on behind that flipped light switch.
Presumably, one can measure minute voltage variations
as load increases and/or more power units go online.
(If these become severe enough one is faced with surges and
brownouts. It might be worth noting that 100 extra watts
in a nominally 120-volt, 50 gigawatt system, might show
up as a 240 nanovolt swing -- not that easy to measure,
unless one has very good equipment. [+])
Our bodies
are chemical machines These chemicals produce enough electricity to
light a 60w bulb.
More than that, depending on various factors. 3000
kcal/day is the recommended daily allowance of caloric
intake for a healthy young male adult; this translates into
about 145.3 watts. The actual heat greatly depends on
age and general physical health, and while I don't know
the efficiency of the human metabolism, elephants are
only able to absorb about 40% of their intake; the rest
comes out as elephant poop, which is rather valuable to
gardeners though for some reason less than well known;
they have troubles giving the stuff away, AIUI. (Not that
I want any; the last green thing I had died of neglect.
I am no gardener. :-) )
Of course elephants are herbivores; we are omnivorous,
and almost certainly have a shorter digestive tract.
But given that 40% one calculates 58 watts. The rest goes
into the toilet, unless one's camping and really has to
go behind the bush. :-)
My body right now is using this electricity to write
this post to Ghost.
The body's energy is primarily chemical. The details
are beyond my ken admittedly, though I know adenosine
triphosphate and various enzymes are involved. Of course
everyone should know general nutrition -- sugars, carbs,
proteins, fats.
(Ethyl alcohol in particular has some odd metabolic
pathways through the liver, and of course functions as
a depressant.)
All are brain signals work on electric current.
Brain signals are rather complex, a combination of electric
and chemical impulses. The synapses are critical to the
brain's functioning, AFAIK; various chemicals such as
L-dopamine and d-lysergic acid diethylamide, more commonly
known as LSD (a very dangerous psychoactive drug), and
phencyclidine, more commonly known as PCP (an even more
dangerous psychoactive drug) vary the functioning of these
synapses. Some drugs damage them irreparably -- "ecstasy",
more properly known as 3-4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine
or MDMA, can irreparably damage the brain, presumably
by ruining the chemicals in the synapses or serotonin
inhibitors or generators, and leave the abuser unable to
even move.
Lots
of brain signals are automatic. Lots of trains need no conductors,or
attendants,and that saves big bucks. Bert
Fine as far as it goes. However, you're postulating
coupling and decoupling of otherwise individually-controllable
cars under computer control, with no obvious payment system.
That won't fly very well as a business, though it might make
for a rather nice mass transit system. However, someone has
to pay for all of that motive power; taxpayers don't like
the taxes they're paying now.
At least with an electrically-powered train (maglev or
conventional) one has the farebox.
[*] power factor is the amount of phase between voltage
(E or V) and current (I) in an alternating current
system. A no-load motor consumes almost no power, and
E and I are 90 degrees out of phase. A fully-loaded
motor will generate maximum power and E and I are
in phase. Any more load and the motor will probably
malfunction; depending on general design it might
overheat, slow rotation, or both.
[+] the entire power system is actually far more
complicated, with a fair number of step-up and
step-down transformers -- which is one reason why
high voltage transmission lines are so dangerous,
and have those strange-looking insulation standoffs.
One other issue, after all, is ensuring that all of
the generators turn at just the right speed, to generate
60 Hz (US/Canada) or 50 Hz (parts of Europe) power.
[!] Solar power, specifically photovoltaic cells, merits
a seperate discussion; however, briefly put, at present
(and AIUI) one might get about 2x the energy one
puts into formulation of the silicon cell, over its
operating lifetime, if one's very lucky. Research is
continuing into decreasing the production costs (and
thereby increasing the return).
Nuclear fission power -- the more conventional variant
of "nuclear power" known to most -- is a rather complex
mess, starting with the endless permit processes to
build a new plant (at least here in the US; France
might have a slightly saner system), the radioactive
mine tailings as one mines uranium for the plant, and
of course the spent, highly dangerous (but fortunately
mostly solid or liquid) results of consuming the
uranium in the fission reaction, generating heat,
steam, and electric power. (Since most fission
plants use a primary and secondary heat flow system,
the danger of radioactive steam is greatly reduced.)
--
#191, ewill3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Linux. Because Windows' Blue Screen Of Death is just
way too frightening to novice users.
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