<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2013-12-01 00:40, Kelly Anderson
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAPy8RwYZRJEOjs6NLsNK0cCeYCHVkR7ZdcE_8bJViJoQJyL4AA@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_extra">
<div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Nov 30, 2013 at 2:58 PM,
Anders Sandberg <span dir="ltr"><<a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:anders@aleph.se"
target="_blank">anders@aleph.se</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<div class="im">
<div>On 2013-11-30 13:45, giorgio gaviraghi wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:HelveticaNeue,'Helvetica
Neue',Helvetica,Arial,'Lucida Grande',sans-serif">
<div><span>we don't need centralize solar farms.
Each building will carry its own, same with
roads that will power the vehicles</span></div>
<div><span>we must decentralize power generation
get rid of power lines, stations and so on</span></div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div>I'm on the record stating that PV panels on every roof
is a really bad idea because of the infrastructure
requirements for every building. DC power doesn't travel
very far efficiently, so you can't distribute the
infrastructure easily. It is not the cost of solar panels
that kills you, it is the cost of the inverters and other
electronics to convert to AC. Very costly stuff.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
Still, local DC looks like it *might* be making a comeback. But it
is long-range transmission that is hard. <br>
<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAPy8RwYZRJEOjs6NLsNK0cCeYCHVkR7ZdcE_8bJViJoQJyL4AA@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_extra">
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div> </div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"> If you want to
really help mankind, invent a really good (large
capacity, many cycles) rechargeable battery. The rest is
easy. <br>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>What do you think of this one Anders?</div>
<div><a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://bit.ly/1cevY1Y">http://bit.ly/1cevY1Y</a></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
*Sounds* good. But the proof is in the pudding - there is no
shortage of press releases for promising tech.<br>
<br>
I have the suspicion that we need something more fundamentally
different than just clever improvements of current batteries. I am
watching supercapacitors with interest, although they still have far
to go. Still, a really cheap and simple battery with the right
properties might work out despite inefficiency: the solution does
not have to be close-to-limits-set-by-physical-law-perfect to make
distributed power generation or renewables effective (just consider
how fracking, for all its imperfections and headaches, is still good
enough to revolutionise the US energy industry).<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Dr Anders Sandberg
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford Martin School
Oxford University
</pre>
</body>
</html>