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Mostly this is just a cute story about how the first car Ferdinand Porsche designed in 1898, the P1, was electric. Then as now, the size and weight of the batteries were a big design issue. But he managed to beat all his competitors in a big enduro/road race/demo. His car had a 49 mile range and 21 mph top speed, considered a blistering pace in the day.
Amazing how this is coming back around again. At this rate, I wouldn't be surprised to see steam engines coming back...
Computers have done that too. Mainframes, then stand alone computers aka desktops, now the "cloud' which is like a wireless mainframe as is the "web" if you really think about it.
Amazing how this is coming back around again. At this rate, I wouldn't be surprised to see steam engines coming back...
A steam engine would be very expensive and inefficient other wise I'd have a coal fired car.
The biggest issue is that it's not on demand, it's limited to applications that are continuously running like a power generation that is connected to the grid.
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Computers have done that too. Mainframes, then stand alone computers aka desktops, now the "cloud' which is like a wireless mainframe as is the "web" if you really think about it.
"The Cloud" is term used for many things but as far as how it might be applied to datacenter is you have a bunch computers that can pool resources. I have a VPS on a server which has a very limited amount of clients on a single machine, I'm guaranteed X amount of CPU and X amount of RAM. If my neighbors are not using there's I'll be allocated some of those resources, this would be like a mini cloud on a single machine and was standard practice before the term "cloud" came about. The same thing can be applied to multiple servers and that is typically ow the term is used today when applied to data centers.
A steam engine would be very expensive and inefficient other wise I'd have a coal fired car.
Ironically, after more than 5 decades as a museum display, a 600 ton "Big Boy," one of the biggest steam locomotives ever built, is being moved from California to Wyoming by Union Pacific to be renovated and put back into service hauling freight over the mountains.
According to a budy who is a railroad buff, the torque on these... only 25 of which were ever built, and all of which were retired post WWII... has never been equaled, which is why this one is being put back into service.
They are probably going to fire it with natural gas, oil etc. I was researching some of these tourist train rides out west recently and the Grand Canyon RR has a steam train that runs used vegetable oil. Note the diesel locomootive behind it.
It’s Time To Get Fired Up! Steam is back at Grand Canyon Railway. Fueled by waste vegetable oil (WVO), driven by an iron will, powered by ingenuity. We’re taking steam power into the 21st century while preserving our historic trains and the environment through which they run.
It will work with a railway because you have a lot of need for power. Along the same lines we discussed this on my own forum about making our own electric and then using the remaining heat for residential heating. The issues are the same as you have with solar and wind which is storage, actually worse because you could never have any on demand without storage. Ir would just be ridiculously expensive to build and then completely impractical to use.
I was researching some of these tourist train rides out west recently and the Grand Canyon RR has a steam train that runs used vegetable oil. Note the diesel locomootive behind it.
OMG, look at that smoke! That's what I was talking about!
I do think biodiesel fuel has a place in the current energy portfolio, because it makes use of what otherwise would just be a waste product to have to dispose of. First use of biodiesl fuel I experienced was 10 or 12 years ago at a big party in Brooklyn where a bus showed up running on filtered deep fryer oil. It didn't smoke, but the exhaust smelled like french fries.
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It will work with a railway because you have a lot of need for power.
Yeah, I think in this application the steam locomotive hooks up to the train to get it over mountain passes that the diesel engine doesn't have enough traction to manage.
OMG, look at that smoke! That's what I was talking about!
If they were using anthracite it wouldn't be an issue, that's what I use to heat with. It's limited to the northeast US and at least 2X the cost of soft coal.
Rail travel around 1900 was tough on the clothing of passengers. After a long trip on a coal-powered train, travellers frequently would disembark covered with black soot, unless the locomotives were powered by anthracite, a clean-burning form of coal. The Lackawanna owned vast anthracite mines in Pennsylvania, and could legitimately claim that the clothes of their passengers would remain clean after a long trip.
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I do think biodiesel fuel has a place in the current energy portfolio,
I figured this out once but forget what the exact figure was. The amount of oil McDonald's recycles would supply the US for a few seconds or minutes. Nothing wrong with reusing it for another purpose but in the grand scheme of things it's a big 0.
There is a new biodiesel fuel refinery in Kea'au, south of Hilo, here on the Big Island of Hawai'i, and they have a retail filling station nearby.
Not only does this remove a lot of cooking fats from the waste disposal stream, it's also capable of processing algae that is being produced in wastewater treatment units, to replace polluting cesspools and septic systems.
It's pretty neat... the special algae "eat" the waste, then get turned into fuel. And for feedstock, they can even use agricultural waste, like overripe mangoes. It's a win-win development.
I am aware that "cloud" is nothing but a new term for things that were being done before... At work we do the same thing with citric servers and load balancing, but for 5000 employees to use at dozens of remote sites. Our private cloud so to speak.
I thought McDonalds was processing their own used fryer oil into Biodiesel and ran it themselves?
Anything that avoids dumping nasty stuff away and allow you to use it, is not a '0' in my book. I stand by my previous statement that there is not one technology that is going to be the "answer" rather a combination of a bunch of technologies.
I have a friend that owns a small restaurant and catering business. 8 years ago he used to have to pay for used oil to be picked up, 5 years ago they started paying him.
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