This is an interesting theory.
2022-01-24 GF Texas Datacomm Replies
Reply to Dessie Doolan in comments of Jeff Roberts flyover Day 551, this date.
At 3:57 the two groups of conduits are covered with concrete, one looks narrower than the other. I think this narrower one is for datacomm and telecom. If so, I don’t think they would need to run that much datacom to the switchyard/substation. The number of datacomm and telecom conduits would be more appropriate if it was going to a new building or complex.
However, if you look at the flyovers of Fremont campus, they have modulars or trailers that are semipermanent. Now that the GF Texas trailers have been moved to their present locations, they may be planning on making them semipermanent and connecting them up to the main building. There is a huge amount of land that has to be dealt with, so it may be years while Tesla deals with contractors to build future buildings on this campus. We already know that there will be a cathode plant building built so that’s another year of contractors working on site.
2022-01-24 Answers To EV Questions
This is good. I think everyone should read it.
https://cleantechnica.com/2022/01/22/snarky-answers-to-uninformed-misinformed-ev-questions/
2022-01-23 Gotion LFP Battery Supply Agreement With Tesla
Guoxuan ‘Gotion’ has agreed to supply a major American EV maker [Tesla] with 200 GWh from 2023 to 2028.
He said Gotion has demonstrated an LFP cell that has 210 W per kg. That’s amazing. Currently, BYD LFP cells are at 155 W/kg and CATL is at 140 W/kg.
He said that Elon Musk has tweeted, “LFP batteries are the chemistry of the future.”
LFP batteries use no cobalt, no nickel. They use lithium, iron and phosphate. Lower cost, easier materials to obtain and safer, less prone to catch fire.
2022-01-23 Say Farewell To Your Simple Pleasures
The coffee may become more expensive and more difficult to obtain. But everyone will have to eat less meat, especially beef, and less dairy products. We will have to switch to chicken, which takes less resources to grow. Or just give up meat and eat a plant based diet.
Please read these words and enjoy the thoughts because someday the coffee, the chocolate and the wine may only be affordable by the rich, just like private jets.
https://sustainablesong.medium.com/private-jets-and-coffee-68081cd1d406
2022-01-22 LED Xmas Light String Repair
A string of LED xmas lights had been fritzing on and off, then it finally failed. I had to pull out 4 lights before I found two that were dead. I had to file off the ridge around the base to get them to fit properly into the base. So it’s back working again.
It so happened that both bad ones were blue, which led me to believe that since blue has the highest forward voltage, they get the warmest and go bad first. Or instead, is it that the LED string has to handle the peak reverse voltage of the AC line, which is 180 volts? The LEDs flicker at 60 Hz so there is no filter capacitor. I don’t think there is a capacitive dropper hidden in the plug.
I was thinking about how to prevent the series string of LEDs from all going dark when any one LED goes open. I have thousands of 1N4731 4.3 volt Zener diodes that I could probably put across each LED so that if it goes open, the current would flow through the zener instead and keep the string running. But I would have to butcher the wiring to hide them where they’re not a shock and safety hazard.
One other thing that puzzles me is why there are 2 wires from the plug to the first LED then 3 wires between the rest of the LEDs. Maybe I’ll do some searching online for a wiring diagram.
To help trace down the presence of AC on the wires, I made the circuit commonly found on the web that has three transistors connected so the emitter of the first feeds the base of the second and the emitter of the second feeds the base of the third. This gives a compounded current gain of about 200 times 200 times 200 or about 8 million. So the AC electrostatic field of a ‘hot’ wire near the 4 inch antenna lights up the red LED. The 3V coin cell is a bit underpowered – it would be brighter with a 6 volt battery.
2022-01-21 Volvo Carbon Footprint; Fine Particulates in Our Bodies
https://cleantechnica.com/2022/01/21/unpacking-the-electric-cars-arent-as-green-as-you-think-claims/
Quote:
<< Final Thoughts
All this talk about carbon emissions overlooks one important point. In addition to the carbon dioxide that pours out of the tailpipes of conventional cars, they also spew a cloud of fine particulate matter into the atmosphere. Whether its coal, oil, gasoline, or diesel, fossil fuels create FPM pollution when they are burned. Fine particulates are so small they pass directly into the bloodstream in the lungs and travel to every part of our bodies, from our brains to our livers to our toes. They are found in breast milk and human placentas. They impair cognitive function, make us ill, and make us die sooner than we should. And for this the fossil fuel advocates want to bash electric cars? What is wrong with you people? >>
2022-01-20 Pumped Hydro For Long Energy Storage
They say the problem with battery energy storage is that they say it’s not long-term; for renewables we need long-term energy storage. Pumped hydro has been used for a hundred years. Nothing high tech or no scalability issues. Just dig two lakes, one above the other, with pumps and generators between them. The costs may be high but those are paid back by savings in zero fossil fuel renewable energy.
Quote:
<< The water can cycle between upper and lower reservoirs for a hundred years or more. Evaporation suppressors — small objects floating on the water to trap humid air — can help reduce water evaporation. In all, the amount of water needed to support a 100% renewable electricity system is about 3 liters per person per day, equivalent to 20 seconds of a morning shower. This is one-tenth of the water evaporated per person per day in the cooling systems of U.S. fossil fuel power stations. >>
<< Australia is installing solar and wind three times faster per capita than the U.S. and is already facing the need for mass storage. It has two systems under construction that are designed to have more energy storage than all the utility batteries in the world put together; another dozen are under serious consideration. None involve new dams on rivers. The annual operating cost is low, and the working fluid is water rather than battery chemicals. >>
A new pumped hydro storage system wil be installed in the Kidston gold mine in Australia, by 2024.
https://cleantechnica.com/2022/01/25/theres-a-new-kind-of-gold-in-them-there-pits/
2022-01-19 NM Regulators & Study- Public Owned Electric
It says there are other states that have public owned electric power. What needs to be done is speed up the changeover to renewables and stop burning fossil fuels and, most importantly, stop the utilities from dragging their feet when it comes to the changeover.
