General / Off-Topic 2 new Green concepts

[Robin of Spiritwood]

Solving tech problems is going to be done by innovation and science, not by political ideas and taxes.

1 Making Fuel

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180607112759.htm

Summary:
This one uses a big fan to blow air through a water solution, to trap CO2. The CO2 is then converted to fuel using renewable sources of energy. Costs look good, and the resulting fuels can be used in existing vehicles as they are. Plant is already making the fuel.

As a bonus, nobody will have to pay $ to the Russians or the Middle East for oil, and coal miners won't have to keep dying in mines.

High output solar-thermal plants in places like Nevada could power it.

2 Saving Power

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-envi...ity-technology-efficiency-software-waste-3dfs

Summary:
Analog controlled Electric Power Grids move all our electric power today, in an inefficient way.
Microprocessor controlled regulators can clean it up by adjusting the flow at high speeds, microseconds at a time. That can get 20% more power typically for free.

Equipment is already built and working.

[video=youtube_share;2m5nJ1gkOHI]https://youtu.be/2m5nJ1gkOHI[/video]

As a bonus, the power feed to all our appliances will be clean and free from spikes etc, causing equipment to run cooler and better. Audio equipment will have reduced noise in the signal, hard drives will last longer, etc.

 

[Shadowdancer]

Neither concept is really new, they're both rehashing and slightly refining ideas that have been around for decades. Especially "fuel from X" had implementations that can be traced back to at least the first half of the 19th century, so… happy 200th anniversary soon, but "smart grid" has also been in the wings for longer than the speaker's ability to grow facial hair.

As a bonus, the power feed to all our appliances will be clean and free from spikes etc, causing equipment to run cooler and better. Audio equipment will have reduced noise in the signal, hard drives will last longer, etc.

That's hard bull<expletive>, especially for the "hard drives" part. Anything behind a moderately sexy switching power supply doesn't give a single damn about how the input power looks (ideally you'd run that from a square wave or even DC…), and even analogue audio equipment with ancient power supply designs will, as long as rail derivation and filtering are competent, work virtually indistinguishable on the purest sine input and the slightly crummy waveform you find in normal households today.

 

[Robin of Spiritwood]

Neither concept is really new, they're both rehashing and slightly refining ideas that have been around for decades. Especially "fuel from X" had implementations that can be traced back to at least the first half of the 19th century, so… happy 200th anniversary soon, but "smart grid" has also been in the wings for longer than the speaker's ability to grow facial hair.


That's hard bull<expletive>, especially for the "hard drives" part. Anything behind a moderately sexy switching power supply doesn't give a single damn about how the input power looks (ideally you'd run that from a square wave or even DC…), and even analogue audio equipment with ancient power supply designs will, as long as rail derivation and filtering are competent, work virtually indistinguishable on the purest sine input and the slightly crummy waveform you find in normal households today.

The article reported a significant alteration to the server temp when the supply was switched. The nature of the power regulation in question is not the same as the present regulation built in to systems now. That's the point, after all.
We should remain skeptical, but not ignore empirical findings.

 

[Shadowdancer]

The article reported a significant alteration to the server temp when the supply was switched.

If the behaviour of an electronic device like a modern computer changes drastically with minute changes in primary power, it has a massively faulty power supply. You want to run one optimally? Generate a 300–350VDC supply and feed that into the mains input, bam, instant savings.

Industrial motors? Hook them up to a VFD.

Heaters and other resistive loads? Don't care.

And always question power measurements, there's a bit of fudge in how you can derive them (cf all the "power factor" snakeoil marketed to domestic use). It sure helps when you take screenshots of your own product's UI to prove them too. What counts at the end of the month is the bill you get from your suppliers, and I would bet a slightly used caramel bar that won't change significantly.

 

[lysan]

Solving tech problems is going to be done by innovation and science, not by political ideas and taxes.

1 Making Fuel

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180607112759.htm

Summary:
This one uses a big fan to blow air through a water solution, to trap CO2. The CO2 is then converted to fuel using renewable sources of energy. Costs look good, and the resulting fuels can be used in existing vehicles as they are. Plant is already making the fuel.

As a bonus, nobody will have to pay $ to the Russians or the Middle East for oil, and coal miners won't have to keep dying in mines.

High output solar-thermal plants in places like Nevada could power it.

2 Saving Power

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-envi...ity-technology-efficiency-software-waste-3dfs

Summary:
Analog controlled Electric Power Grids move all our electric power today, in an inefficient way.
Microprocessor controlled regulators can clean it up by adjusting the flow at high speeds, microseconds at a time. That can get 20% more power typically for free.

Equipment is already built and working.



As a bonus, the power feed to all our appliances will be clean and free from spikes etc, causing equipment to run cooler and better. Audio equipment will have reduced noise in the signal, hard drives will last longer, etc.

I love engineering!!!!

 

[Necronaught]

The question is will it take profit away from Big Oil? If it does it won't see the light of day, ever.