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Edison Wins!
If thyristors, IGBTs, MOSFETS existed in 1890s, I bet Edison would have won the war of currents.
Generating plants would still use turbo alternators that produce AC power, but rectified to high voltage DC, for impedance free transmission of power — similar to in your car. I expect they would output around 400 Hz power prior to rectification, for maximum efficiency. You’d boost the voltage up for high voltage transmission, buck it when it got to household for safety.
Household electric motors would be driven by transistors producing high frequency (400 Hz or above) 3-phase alternating current, for maximum efficiency. Other DC-based electronics would use buck converters to further reduce voltage down to safe, usable levels. Every outlet and switch though would have to have heavier contacts due to the lack of zero point to withstand arching or use a MOSFET/IGBT to break connections rather then a mechanical switch.
Such a system would be more efficient, and use a lot less copper for transformer windings, but arching would be concern when contacts or wires broke. Might be more of a fire risk, and certainly a much greater shock risk, as you can’t let go of a high voltage DC wire easily due to lack of a zero point.
Such systems sort of exist in the world today — High Voltage Direct Current power transmission. But all existing HVDC systems are inverted back to AC power when connecting back to local substation — nobody uses DC down to the household level. But as more renewables come online, more people are switching power supplies and inverter-driven AC motors, this is a technology whose future might eventually come to the entire power grid.
The interesting discussion I got into the other day about climate change 🌎
The other day I was in an interesting discussion about climate change. It was kind of interesting in the sense that it came with a fundamental misunderstanding of how I see the problem and how it relate to the solutions towards it. Often people who are concerned about climate change, mostly see the problem in a collective sense, or one of personal guilt, rather then a personal risk — something to be prepared for and take steps to prevent oneself from becoming a victim of it in the future.
There is a popular trend in the liberal ideology to feel a lot of guilt about the world today. To be concerned about the hungry starving children in India, the poor people loosing their homes and all their belongings to wildlife or floods. People who have a lot less then they do, who ultimately fell into their misfortune by no fault of their own. Some people truly do have bad luck, but also some people bring upon their bad luck by making bad decisions and not being prepared for likely scenarios of the future.
Every other day when I open up Facebook and the Youtube, I see another one of these so-called sustainable investment opportunities and technologies. Endless advertisements for heat pumps, solar panels, renewable energy schemes (SHOUTING GIRL IN YOUTUBE AD: get solar power, now without panels on your roof !!!), electric cars, recycling, organic and vegan food, and endless investment opportunities in sustainable funds. Because if you have money, you can buy your way out of your guilt. Or so we are told by the advertisers, pushing endless amounts of plastic, aluminum, not-so-green chemicals, and electronics upon us. No need to give up the suburbanite way of living, as long as you pay for your sins. I often see these sustainable ads, and have to wonder what Martin Luther would have said about them?
All the evidence suggests that climate change is a big problem that is going to be solved by government action, not individual choices. Buying the right kind of car or properly cleaning out your salad dressing bottle and recycling it isn’t going to stop the planet from getting warmer. Investing in the latest green energy scheme might feel good, but there is no guarantee it will be profitable or even have much of an effect on the warming planet. Feel good actions are nice, but they aren’t really significant if they don’t lead to political change. There is an important place for political activism, and it’s wonderful that some people step up to do it — but political activism shouldn’t cover for personal failings.
My view on climate change is pretty darn simple — it’s going to happen and going to be real bad, especially if politicians fail to enact policies that are dramatic enough to arrest it. There is a lot of denial, especially in “greenie” circles that climate change won’t happen, especially if you buy the right products. Not the big jacked up truck I have, or the fact that I don’t clean out plastic bottles before chucking them in the fire. In this discussion I was having, it was pointed that if I move out to country, with my hobby farm, driving my big jacked-up truck back and forth to the city, my carbon footprint will increase, as will the impacts on the land by farming and living on it compared to my small apartment in city, where I can ride the bus to work, walk to a lot of destinations, and it’s a short drive to the store.
But if you believe that climate change is going to bad, and is almost inevitable as politicians don’t want to enact unpopular policies to slow it, then you have to take a different tack at the problem — namely, taking action to protect oneself from the worse impacts of climate change.
That means first and foremost saving and investing, so you have a liquid asset that can be a means to purchase necessities to survive when shit hits the fan, which is almost inevitable. It also means having land where I can produce a lot of my own food, and an off-grid system that isn’t dependent on a power grid that is likely to have a lot of problems in the future as storms become more severe, more areas flood and trees come down. Where power plants struggle with extreme heat and a wildly fluxing gulf stream. Where civil disorder becomes more common in cities, as people bake and traditional institutions fall. When driveway and roads washouts become more common, and need to be fixed by the farm tractor regularly.
It’s a scary world ahead, and I don’t think I can change it, but I can be prepared for what is going to happen. I can live with less, live simply, and reduce my impacts without buying into all these greenie crap that the marketers are constantly bombarding us with advertising on.
