Al Gore's Plan

[Gene Frenkle]

Again...how?

 

 

 

It's impossible and violates every law of physics. Even if it were economical (it's not, high-T superconductors are still hideously expensive), you can't transmit high voltage over long distances with them, because high voltages cause superconductors to not be superconductors.

 

And now, I'm telling you AS A PHYSICIST, who specialized in statistical physics and actually edited a graduate-level textbook on high-T superconductors. I could explain the subject in execrable detail...but I won't. Because you're an asshat.

 

But keep trying. I'm sure you'll get something right someday.

Well, you continue to be quite full of yourself at least. Which is it, hideously expensive or a violation of every law of physics? It can't be both. Incidentally how does it violate, say, General Relativity or the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle? Those are laws of Physics, right Professor?

 

Everything is impossible until someone figures out how to make it otherwise. As an asshat, I don't pretend to understand all of the particulars of this, but I've read enough now to know that you're at least mostly full of sh--.

 

Randomly...

 

Man could not fly until he did.

The speed of sound could not be broken until it was.

The atom could not be split until it was.

Low Earth orbit could not be reached until it was.

Man could not walk on the moon until he did.

 

I think you're being intellectually dishonest at the very least. Outside of that, I'd simply have to question your stated credentials. As a 'physicist', you seem awfully closed-minded, especially considering all of the incredible advances in physics in the past century. I don't think I want my kids reading your textbooks if this is the attitude you take when writing them.

 

Anyway, it seems that there are really no great technological barriers to overcome, and certainly no impossibilities. Here's an excerpt from an article on economist.com outlining, among other things, how the transmission of DC current over vast distances (specifically related to the problem of transmitting power from alternative energy sources):

 

Electricity grids are about to become bigger and smarter.

 

Bigger means transcontinental, at least for people like Vinod Khosla. His analogy is America’s interstate highway system, built after the second world war. The new grids would use direct, rather than alternating, current. AC was adopted as standard over a century ago, when the electrical world was rather different. But DC is better suited to transporting power over long distances. Less power is lost, even on land. And DC cables can also be laid on the seabed (the presence of all that water would dissipate an AC current very quickly). In the right geographical circumstances that eliminates both the difficulty of obtaining wayleaves to cross private land and the not-in-my-backyard objections that power lines are ugly. Indeed, there is already a plan to use underwater cables to ship wind power from Maine to Boston in this way.

 

As it happens, Europe already has the embryo of a DC grid. It links Scandinavia, northern Germany and the Netherlands, and there is talk of extending it across the North Sea to the British Isles, another notoriously windy part of Europe. By connecting distant points, this grid not only delivers power to market, it also allows the system some slack. It matters less that the wind does not blow all the time because it blows at different times in different places. The grid also permits surplus power to be used to pump water uphill in Norwegian hydroelectric plants (a system known as pumped storage), ready for use when demand spikes.

 

Smarter grids, however, would help to smooth out such spikes in the first place. The ability to accommodate inherently intermittent sources such as wind is only one of several reasons for wanting to do this, but it is an important one.

 

A smart grid will constantly monitor its load and (this is the smart bit) take particular consumers offline, with their prior agreement and in exchange for a lower price, if that load surges beyond a preset level. For this purpose, a consumer may not necessarily be the same as a customer. The grid’s software would be able to identify particular circuits, or even particular appliances, in a home, office or factory. Their owners would decide in what circumstances they should shut down or boost up, and the smart grid’s software would then do the job. Water heaters and air-conditioners might stock up on heat or cold in anticipation of such shutdowns. Fridges would know how long they could manage without power before they had to switch on again.

 

Reducing spikes in demand that way will cut the need for what are known in the industry as “peakers”—small power plants such as pumped-storage systems that exist solely to deal with such spikes. Parts of America’s existing dumb and fragmentary electricity grid are so vulnerable to load variations that their owners think they may be able to cope with no more than about 2% of intermittent wind power. Clearly peaks will never be eliminated entirely. However, Mr Abate reckons that a combination of smart grids and gas-fired peakers should push the potential for wind power up a long way.

http://www.economist.com/specialreports/di...tent=readBottom

 

It seems to me that I've offered up quite a bit of proof, while you, the 'physicist', have offered nothing but unsupported arguments from authority and weak insults. Please enlighten the masses as to how this is impossible or just get back to work on the next version of your textbook. Or fling another lame-ass insult, your choice.

 

One thing I am absolutely certain about - you may claim to be a Physicist, but you are no Albert Einstein.

[Wacka]

DC cannot be transmitted as far as AC. DC has great losses. That is why Tesla split off from Edison and the power plants in NF are AC plants.

Even with superconducting, the wire will heat and either be non-superconducting or need even more coolant.

[molson_golden2002]

DC cannot be transmitted as far as AC. DC has great losses. That is why Tesla split off from Edison and the power plants in NF are AC plants.

Even with superconducting, the wire will heat and either be non-superconducting or need even more coolant.

That didn't stop Edison from trying to get DC accepted as the main system. He would set up demonstrations to fry stray cats, old farm animals and whatever else people would come to see fried. ZAPP!!! He actually tried to scare people into thinking AC was unsafe.

[/dev/null]

That didn't stop Edison from trying to get DC accepted as the main system. He would set up demonstrations to fry stray cats, old farm animals and whatever else people would come to see fried. ZAPP!!! He actually tried to scare people into thinking AC was unsafe.

 

No coincidence that Edison's company chose AC power when they designed Ol' Sparky

[DC Tom]

Well, you continue to be quite full of yourself at least. Which is it, hideously expensive or a violation of every law of physics? It can't be both. Incidentally how does it violate, say, General Relativity or the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle? Those are laws of Physics, right Professor?

 

Of course it can be both, you jackass. It's quite possible to dump a ridiculous amount of money into something that won't work.

 

Everything is impossible until someone figures out how to make it otherwise. As an asshat, I don't pretend to understand all of the particulars of this, but I've read enough now to know that you're at least mostly full of sh--.

 

Randomly...

 

Man could not fly until he did.

The speed of sound could not be broken until it was.

The atom could not be split until it was.

Low Earth orbit could not be reached until it was.

Man could not walk on the moon until he did.

 

I think you're being intellectually dishonest at the very least. Outside of that, I'd simply have to question your stated credentials. As a 'physicist', you seem awfully closed-minded, especially considering all of the incredible advances in physics in the past century. I don't think I want my kids reading your textbooks if this is the attitude you take when writing them.

 

I'm the one who's intellectually dishonest. And yet...you haven't demonstrated any knowledge of the subject. Explain to me HOW electricity is transmitted over long distances. Third time I've asked. I'm still waiting.

 

It seems to me that I've offered up quite a bit of proof, while you, the 'physicist', have offered nothing but unsupported arguments from authority and weak insults.

 

No, you actually haven't. You've offered "arguments from authority", when you yourself lack the capacity to understand the arguments, so much so that you can't see where you haven't proven anything. You've misquoted.

[Joe Miner]

No coincidence that Edison's company chose AC power when they designed Ol' Sparky

 

Actually, Edison was a big fan of DC, and used AC to run the electric chair because he wanted to show how dangerous it was. It was a big marketing ploy on his part.

 

What's that teach us?

 

Don't put engineers and scientists in charge of marketing!

[/dev/null]

Actually, Edison was a big fan of DC, and used AC to run the electric chair because he wanted to show how dangerous it was. It was a big marketing ploy on his part.

 

Yeah, that was the purpose of my post

 

MG commented that Edison would put on demonstrations of the dangers of AC.

 

What better way to demonstrate the dangers of AC than by building a device that can kill a man? Yet another stroke of brilliance by Edison. He gets the contract to build the Electric Chair and in the process he gets to show the world why another one of his other products (DC) is better for home use than his competitors product (AC)

[Gene Frenkle]

Bump!