Subterranean Power Line Blues
 

We were talking about the CA fires and power shutdowns during those fires because of the Power Companies declared liable for $millions in damages after some of their high tension lines were blamed for starting some fires. One solution would be to bury the power lines but as the carrying capacity goes up so does the difficulty and expense. This story involves the repair of one of the really big main cables coming out of a generation station. Worst case example if you will.

At the Boardman, OR, generation plant the connection closet(size of my bedroom) is where the feeds from the generator connect to the 500,000 volt power lines going out. There was instead of a door a steel plate with half inch bolts every two inches around the perimeter. Somebody screwed up on syncing the phase of the generator to the power line and the explosion blew that steel plate 50 feet. Nothing to fool around with, but I digress. :blush:

You can read the details of the three month repair of that CA main here. It's a good read, not real technical.

Again smrt. I wonder how toxic that oil is when it breaches completely?

I assume it's the same oil they use in transformers and that's nasty shit, mineral oils or more recently PCBs. :yelsick:

Just don't look in the mirror and repeat Bruce three times.:eek:

How about I sandwich two mirrors facing in, with a ear bud in between that repeats Bruce three times?

Then we can all sit back and watch you kick your own ass.

Luce,
Always wanted to correct horror films.

Yeah, no, I ain't trying to kick m'own ass.

Too much work.

Hard work.:cool:

Why does it have to be fighting?

Is it gay if you're, you know, fucking your actual own self?

There's *always* a fight.

Gay? I thought that would be like the ultimate masturbation. But except for figuratively, for me it's a moot point anyway. :blush:

Age of that cable put is before PCBs were banned for being carcinogenic.

Such cables no longer use oil. Cables for that voltage are even routinely buried in the ocean floor. One was discussed here long ago was from Connecticut to Long Island. It was incorrectly installed because it was not properly buried underneath the Sound.

Others carry power from off shore wind generators. The science has come a long way from those 'olden days'.

This happened 17 years ago, the cable was installed 34 years ago, not under water, 10 miles of dry ground just south of the LAX in Los Angeles County, CA.

Exactly the point. That cable, even then, was obsolete technology. Today, same high voltage cables are laid even under the ocean. Obviously that could not happen with pipes containing oil.

Such cables no longer use oil. Or steel pipes. Routinely and safely, power cables are buried without metal pipes or oils - on dry land and in oceans. While fears remain to entrench denials, technology has long since moved on.

Burying a high voltage transmission cable is much easier than pipelines for oil, water, natural gas, etc. Even when equipment did not exist, the Big Inch pipeline (24" diameter) was buried from Texas to Pennsylvania in only six months.

Instead we waste that money and more on a $3trillion war to waste 5000 American lives for no purpose. And were only ten minutes away from doing it again. Amazing how fear and ignorance fails to target relevant objectives.

Amazing how many love to waste money on wars. And then deny how easily wires can be buried.

That was a 230,000 volt cable. The transmission lines that probably caused CA fire would have been maybe 33,000 volt wires - or less. Easily and routinely buried even in 1970.

Of course we cannot really blame the electric companies. Since so many 'powers that be' have been denying global warming. And obstructed anything that might address that reality.

I'm still tryin' to figger out why it's my ass that's gotta be kicked...:(

Me and me would never get out of the shower.

Hamish,
I'm sexy and I know it.

Well, there'd be no arguing over who pays for breakfast...

?

Oh, some kind of extremist joke.

I was pondering the car electric thing. Most states, I'd say all but I'm not sure, the state grants the electric company a monopoly, with the stipulation they provide as much power as the public wants. In return the state sets the prices to guarantee the company makes money. In PA at least they altered the agreement so you can buy power from other sources, but it still has to be delivered by the same state certified monopoly.

These cars will cause increased demand... big time, which means lots of money laid out for more infrastructure. Not just generating equipment, with the increased load the distribution network will have to be beefed up considerably, from transformers right down to the wire on the poles in some areas. Of course the rates must go up to cover those expenses because of the make money guaranty.
So everyone wins... except us.

If the cars charge at work, during the day, that will be a problem. But if they charge after midnight, when usage is down, it won't require any additional infrastructure at all, because all the charging will be off peak.

But also, home electricity usage is down like 8% in the last decade. We keep on installing energy-efficient lighting and appliances and heaters. For decades and decades, we added more electrical infrastructure because people used more energy every year; but in developed countries, usage has flattened and/or fallen in the last 20 years.

The reason people need 240v chargers is that they want to charge quickly. But the average driver can get enough charge overnight on a 120v outlet. (On 120v, it only charges about 3 miles/hour, but the average car is only driven 30 miles/day.)

I wonder how much of an electric car's cost is in the battery, and if providing a battery that is roughly one tenth the capacity of a typical Tesla but is still able to get the average person to work and back would be of interest to anyone. If it was cheap enough, it might be.

I like to take road trips some times and want a 300 mile range, but if I had a second commuter car, I might be happy with a 30 mile range on that one if it was cheap enough.

*considers it for a bit*

Nah. I would want a 300 mile range, just in case.

240 volt charges only mean wires can be smaller - less expensive. 120 volt chargers means more receptacles are available. Nothing more.

You gotta be kidding me, nobody I ever worked for would stand for that. Parking lots would look like drive in movies or the lots at the U of Alaska, Fairbanks.

I love you. Not now honey, it's midnight I have to go plug in the car.
No, they'll plug it in when they get home at 6 PM in case they have to run out during the evening and need those extra miles, and that's peak time. I'm betting damn few would be happy with 110 volt chargers.
Oh but the chargers have a timer to turn them on at midnight. Great, now everyone on the block turns them on at the same time. Remember what happens to the city water pressure at superbowl halftime?
This is true, baby steps in efficiency have added up. Now everyone on the block adds a power hog and the lines start to glow in the dark. Amperage up, resistance up, voltage down.
The average driver only exists on paper. Plus there's a lot of houses with several drivers and either several vehicles or the vehicles are driven at all hours. That doesn't work with 110 volt chargers.

A couple years back Philadelphia Electric Company did away with off peak rates, I wonder if other electric suppliers have also?

Yeah glatt, and hope you don't get caught in traffic, plus wear your long underwear in winter, bathing suit in summer, because the heater/AC draws too much juice.
I do not want a car that isn't available when I need/want it.

Not the chargers, the cars; the cars know how much juice they need and stuff

That's an urban myth actually!

An EV doesn't use fuel when caught in traffic, except for as you said, AC and heat and such.

I wouldn't have one as the only household vehicle. But I did look at the number of times I actually drove 250* miles in one shot over the last 3 years, and it was one time. Hmm.

Your mileage may vary!

That's a wash, because an EV doesn't have a wildly complicated cooling system, alternator, transmission, fuel+oil level/quality/pump/filtering and everything else that can fail in the middle of a trip.


*standard range Model 3, if charged to 100%. (Long range Model 3 = 322 miles)

Just finished that and got on the phone with J, she decided to only fill her car up halfway because the only available gas station is in a terrible area of the city.

My employer has parking structures with a few chargers. With more demand, a few can turn into many.
I don't think there's anything magical about driving exactly 30 miles a day. If 30 is the average, then there's a lot of people driving less.

As it happens, I actually do drive pretty close to 30 miles a day.

But I will say, as much as I support Tesla, I'd only get an electric car if I did have a garage with a 220 volt charger. Maybe in 20 years you'll be able to plug into a lamppost, but getting charging done when I have street parking would be way too much of a hassle.

No matter how, they're all turned on at once.
My mileage varies.
None of those things are a problem with proper maintenance, and that's something that anyone can do themselves pretty cheap. But if one of those things pops up on the road it can usually be repaired or jerry rigged to get you going with a few simple tools, duct tape clamps, hose, wire, etc. When your Tesla dies in the middle of east bumfuck what next?
Yeah, like the sticker on the widow that says how many miles per gallon you'll get. "Your mileage may vary"

Lack of available gas stations? She must be running on fumes. Half a tank doesn't help because the exposure is stopping at all. Oh,and tell her running it below an eighth of a tank in winter and a third of a tank in summer can kill a fuel pump.

Parking structure? Like a garage? I'd say your employer is definitely in the minority. I wonder if the garage in NYC that charge $2,000 a month(including tax) have chargers?
No it's not magical but I question first of all if it's realistic, and secondly if it should be used used to make decisions of practicality.
Plug into lamppost with a credit card? Yeah that would work except between lampposts, and you know the fat bastard next door always parks his gasoline car next to the damn post. :lol:

If that's a problem, the cars can be told to change behavior over the air.

Ah you got rabbit season/duck season'd there into listing a weird thing that happens to gas cars that have a fuel pump.

The car notifies you that something happened via your phone so you can call Tesla Roadside Assistance. That should be much more rare than a standard car but it just happened to the Car and Driver long-term test vehicle :|

yes

So now your car isn't getting charged when you think it is and you might not even know it.
That's another thing the manufacturer making changes to suit their purposes may not be changes I want. If they can do it over the air then it can be hacked. You could be hijacked/kidnapped and the car takes you to the kidnapper so he doesn't even have to put his coat on.
Rabbit, duck, say what? Internal combustion engines have lots of moving parts that need cooling and lubrication, plus the auxiliary systems they tack on like cabin climate control, power brakes and steering. Electric motors are simpler and powerful, but batteries suck. They make refueling slow and cumbersome. I've been hearing rumblings about capacitors instead of batteries that are quick to recharge. I rather see a hybrid that has a small engine and generator to keep me moving when the juice runs out.

The car calls you on the phone? Wouldn't you notice the car you're in has stopped moving? Ah well, the NSA will love these cars, they'll know where you are all the time.

That's a good start if you use one of those garages and in Manhattan street parking is like hen's teeth.

The 120 volt charger will add between 2 and 4 miles range per hour charge on a Tesla. The 240 volt charger produces between 26 and 30 miles per charge hour.

Tesla claims 3 to 4 on a 120 volt and 27 on a 240 volt, but the 2 to 4 and 26 to 30 come from the Tesla owners forum members actual experience.

I read the battery life will extend considerably if you set the maximum charge at 90%. I'd read that about cell phones too.

Those decisions are on an individual basis, and some of those individuals are the ones who pull the average down to 30 miles/day.


(Turns out I'm not pulling that average much in either direction: My average is 29.15 miles per day.)

This reminds me of what happened when the gummint said "OK no more incandescent bulbs" -- people started to list the shortcomings of compact fluorescents. "You can't just throw them away!" "Dimmers don't work right!" "The light is a weird blue!"

But if we had started with CFLs, and then the gummint said "OK only incandescents now", people would have angrily listed all their shortcomings. "These things take up ten times the energy!" "They get really hot, you can't even touch them. I burned my hand!" "The light is a weird orange!"

"Batteries suck" sure, but if we had started with batteries, and were told to switch to internal combustion?

"This thing is really slow!" "I have to stand next to the car like an idiot to fuel it -- every 300 miles!" "It breaks down three times as often!" "The fuel got on my pants and I had to actually throw them away!" "Service the car every 7500 miles? Ridiculous!" "So you're saying I have to check the oil level with a little stick?" "You're saying if this fuel leaks out it could catch fire and maybe even explode?" "So I can't refuel it at home?"

Those puller downers are damn couch potatoes, they ought to...

Get their motor runnin'
Head out on the highway
Look for adventure
And whatever comes their way

Not to is un-American, unpatriotic, disrespecting the troops,
they might as well be taking a knee. :yesnod:

:D

"So you're saying I can't leave it running in the garage, or my whole family will be poisoned and may actually die?"

"Oh my god, these things are so LOUD! They actually work off little explosions!"

"So you're saying this thing has a motor it needs to start its motor?"

"So you're saying that, even though this thing runs on that ridiculous fuel, it still needs a battery?"

"So you're saying the range is listed in 'amount of fuel' with a tiny little gauge, and only some of the cars even try to guess how far that is in miles? You just have to estimate?"

"So you're saying the muffler will rust until it drags under the car -- and somebody has to actually weld a new one on?"

:D

Slow?
I get 500 miles from a tank of gas traveling, I can go to Cape Cod without stopping to recharge for a day half way. Branson MO, three fuel stops maybe a half hour total time because it was almost 1200 miles.
Only if you don't maintain them.
No cure for stupid.
Other than the oil and coolant Electrics need the same maintenance, tires, shocks, wheel bearings, brakes, steering gear, wiper fluid, wiper blades, all that stuff, plus the battery and wiring the mice love to chew. Gasoline cars don't have the market on fires cornered by a long shot. Of course you can.

Back in the beginning we had both gas and electric. Batteries sucked even worse then so the people chose gasoline.
Well Henry Ford had a lot of input.

Like I said, no cure for stupid. http://cellar.org/2012/bwekk.gif

Only 4 current car models have 500 mile range on a single tank, is this a truck? Because the Cybertruck is expected to have a 500 mile range, so.

:D

The long-distance trip is truly the inconvenience of the EV.

It will get better; the version 3 Tesla supercharger, now being rolled out, will recharge the Model 3 battery to 80% in a half hour, or about 75 miles in five minutes.

VW's charging system is even faster, but requires water cooling...

Yes truck, 25 gallon tank, 20 mpg if I keep it down around 65/70 but drops much faster over 100, over 150 you can almost see the needle move. :haha:

Oh that was another thing the Tesla forum brought up. Like you said the charge procedure is controlled by the onboard system, so a long 120 volt charge uses a larger percentage of the power coming in the make it come in. I doubt it's a significant number, they were probably nit picking, but it's part of the equation.

Since the replacement battery cost will likely increase with inflation like everything else, when you know you're getting close it might be better to do it sooner than you have to in order to come out ahead.

The problem with this stuff is there's no crusty old fart whos been there, done that, got the t-shirt, to ask, but I suppose our AI Robot overlords will tell us what to do.

Electric is clearly a future. But batteries remain the 'still not yet developed' technology. For example, peers in Norway highly recommend an electric vehicle. Since electricity in Norway is almost all from renewable sources. However, many now complain: that battery does not have range that was promoted. Since that range assumes no air conditioner and no heat.

Hybrid still remains the superior and currently more practical technology. Since nothing yet comes close to an "energy per pound" found in gasoline.

But innovators have already defined how that next technology will exist. The electric car is called a skate board. Manufacturers may simply sell a skate board that contains electric motors, batteries, suspension, breaks, etc. And other manufacturers drop a customized chassis onto that skate board.

Whereas all parts of a current technology car must be integrated with all others, the skate board means your car, in the future, might be purchased from someone equivalent to today's computer assemblers.

We have seen how the future advances. Once big box stores could stock everything we need. Now the largest Walmart can no longer stock the many items we now consume. In every industry, standard products explode into so many variations that each product, more and more often, becomes customized for that unique customer.

That is what the skate board will probably do to the auto industry.

Oh dear, this is not good...

Attachment 69640

I read Mercedes is committed to building 50,000 electrics this year.

Gas station map...

i put in my Zip code and found out that there are 14 charging stations in the Greater La Crosse area.

Attachment 69647

I suppose if I bought an electric car, I would figure out the plug situation and get adapters if they are available, but I disapprove of this situation.

I see the very bottom one is a house outlet, and maybe the one next to it is some sort of 240 volt outlet. But why doesn't Tesla even have its own standard? The different manufacturers should come up with an industry standard plug.

The gas stations and car manufacturers have the pump nozzles figured out pretty well. Just buy gas, not diesel, or vice versa.

I believe this is what happened:

2008 Tesla offers Roadster, there is no standard plug design, they design one that is AC charging only. It's early and rare.

2012 Tesla offers Model S develops standard design that can use AC or DC, offers design to world as possible universal design, says if they use it they must participate in the Tesla charging network.

World decides Tesla is A) a competitor to their own car markets and B) may not be long for the world, and everybody wants their own charging network, develops their own standards.

Japan develops the J-1772 for AC charging and the CHAdeMO for DC charging.

The EU, with Audi BMW GM Ford Daimler and VW all participating, says feh and decides on the CCS standard which supports both AC and DC.

So other manufactures wind up with their own "standards".

NEMA 14-50 is previous US standard for high voltage 50 amp circuits (A dryer plug is actually a NEMA 14-30, unless your house is older and has a NEMA 11-30). A Tesla Wall Charger for the home is plugged into a NEMA 14-50 if there is one. We might ask LJ what type of plug his electrician put in for the new heater.

I know this is the way the world works, but I have to chuckle at how any company can use the word "standard" when describing how they are making something different.

How did we ever get USB connections?

Don't be fooled by the shape and layout of the pins, check the rating.

Attachment 69648

The USB was probably a follow the leader thing.
I want to make a thing that works with PCs, and I want to connect with all PCs for a bigger market so how can I connect.

I want to build a PC that appeals to the largest market so what kind of attachment port should I add.

Rinse, repeat.

That's an excellent chart.

Come to think of it, I have never seen a male version of a 20 amp 125v grounded plug. I've installed a bunch of those receptacles in my house because I love running 20 amp circuits, but I feel like the plug is imaginary.

Coming this year...

Rivian: WANT!!!
https://www.freep.com/story/money/ca...ve/2070315002/

Ever start up went the light turns green and half way into the intersection somebody just misses you while blowing the red light?
The electric accelerates so fast they won't miss you now.

Seriously though, they accelerate like hot rods used to but now with novice teens, distracted people, befuddled retirees, and multitaskers at the wheel. Drivers will be able to fuck up much faster. And no, it won't help you escape because you rarely see it coming.

I've done that and not been missed, with a Civic hybrid, which is not known for rapid acceleration.

Continuing the thread drift, I had that happen in front of me to someone else. I saw her coming too fast and stayed put, but he didn't--and she smashed into him so hard, he spun out and hit me anyway. All three cars were totaled. It sucked balls.

Red light cameras at every intersection will pretty much put a stop to that. People will slow down on yellow instead of speeding up.

I played this at a Dylan's birthday show, and the MC flipped cards like these and tossed them into the audience. Dylan was like the original Kool Keith.

Subterranean Homesick Blues

The cars will all have pedestrian warning systems, so they will beep at the driver just before they hit the person.

My fraternity brother and a fellow EE designed it.

When he dies, and you go to the funeral -- if his coffin doesn't go directly in the hole, just tell them to flip it around until it does fit.

protip, you'll probably have to flip it two times.

I'm not so sure, with more and more distracted drivers they may not even see the light... or intersection. :rolleyes:

As a matter of fact I just saw this today, the second part directly related.