> "We also used to be the center of the universe" > It's pretty ridiculous to compare the first law of thermodynamics to Geocentrism
Actually it strikes me as a pretty good comparison.
Except it's the other way around: way back when people still believed earth is flat, they believed a lot more in free energy as well. There were perpetual motion machine designs by the thousands. And lots of them patented even.
Reality is harsh though: no free energy, and no center of the Universe :(
But... actually it's not that harsh when you think about it. We're bathing in hundreds of types of energy (geomagnetical power, nuclear power, sunlight power, wind power, foil oil power). All of this becomes power ready for us to use, if we just have the right technology to capture it and convert it.
And having great technology to convert *actual* available abundant energy is almost like free energy! Who'd need energy out of nowhere, if we had so effective sun batteries that could charge your car for 24/7 operation just by sitting in the sun 2 hours daily?
We also have the added benefit the Universe won't collapse unto itself from the weird paradox free energy would create.
suv4x4 Sir, I hate to say this, but you are an idiot. "if we had so effective sun batteries that could charge your car for 24/7 operation just by sitting in the sun 2 hours daily" Impossible, and not because we don't have the technology but because the energy is not there! Just supposing you had a perfect solar collector 1 meter square, in two hours the most it could get would be 2,732 watts - an amount equivalent to less than a litre of gasoline, enough fuel for no more than a few miles.
"Except it's the other way around: way back when people still believed earth is flat, they believed a lot more in free energy as well. There were perpetual motion machine designs by the thousands. And lots of them patented even." This is really stupid, there was never a common belief that the world was flat, this is due to a story by Washington Irving and has no basis in fact. The ancient Greeks measured the circumference of the Earth to within a couple of percent, not really a productive exercise if you think the world is flat. There can be no patents from “then” because that time never existed. Also there will be no patents for machines which could never work, any that might have been erroneously issued would have been revoked.
"suv4x4 Sir, I hate to say this, but you are an idiot. ...blah blah talk about energy per square meter and gasoline comparison.. "
Thanks, for putting my "let's entertain the thought" hypothetical example under unneeded scrutinity and calling me an idiot.
I've not called investors to invest in my sun batteries though, I'm making my money by doing backend development. Hence, I should be allowed to not be very accurate with those things.
Nuclear power in your car also isn't practical, but yet we have a model where energy is generated in centralized nuclear power plants.
Simply computing the energy per square feet and comparing with gasoline is more idiotic in my mind, considering:
1. the car power generators need not be put on the car as stickers in the first place, and may not even be part of the car
2. you can have a one or two seat vehicles for in-city travel, with much less horsepower than waste much less energy to do the same typical job a current 4-seat sedan does nowadays.
3. the vehicle may use several weaker energy sources together to allow it to always be charged and ready in-time to handle typical load.
Well, watts aren't a unit of energy. A watt is a measure of change of one Joule (the actual SI unit of energy) per second. A kilowatt-hour is also a unit of energy equal to 3,600,000 Joules (1000 watts for 3,600 seconds). At any rate, the average solar output of the sun is about 1,340 watts, which equates to 1.34 kWh (kilowatt-hours) per hour (big surprise!). A normal gallon of gasoline contains about 131 mega-Joules of energy, or about 36.4 kWh. So, to recoup the amount of energy in a single gallon of gas, you'd need a little over 27 hours of direct sunlight on a one square meter array with no obstructions. But who cares about gasoline? Gasoline engines aren't 100% efficient, anyway, so let's compare this to a real alternative (well, for rich people, anyway). The Tesla Roadster gets around 200 miles on its' 56kWh battery. If it had 2 square meters of solar cells somehow pointed directly at the sun at all times, it'd recoup the whole battery in about 21 hours of daylight. But how many miles does that net you per hour of charge? About 9.5 miles. So, if you worked within 19 miles of home, and you stayed there at least 2 hours, you'd never have to buy a drop of gas again! Unfortunately, because reality sucks we're limited to just 12% efficient solar cells, which means that you'd only get 1.1 miles per hour of charge, and honestly, if you live only 2.2 miles from your work, you'd probably be better off saving the $100k by buying a vespa, a golf cart or just walking it. :)
The Chromebooks are here, starting with Samsung's Series 5, a cute little number that promises instant-on access, 3G connectivity, and long enough battery life to web surf with the best of 'em.
The most commented posts on Engadget over the past 24 hours.
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
> "We also used to be the center of the universe"
> It's pretty ridiculous to compare the first law of thermodynamics to Geocentrism
Actually it strikes me as a pretty good comparison.
Except it's the other way around: way back when people still believed earth is flat, they believed a lot more in free energy as well. There were perpetual motion machine designs by the thousands. And lots of them patented even.
Reality is harsh though: no free energy, and no center of the Universe :(
But... actually it's not that harsh when you think about it. We're bathing in hundreds of types of energy (geomagnetical power, nuclear power, sunlight power, wind power, foil oil power). All of this becomes power ready for us to use, if we just have the right technology to capture it and convert it.
And having great technology to convert *actual* available abundant energy is almost like free energy! Who'd need energy out of nowhere, if we had so effective sun batteries that could charge your car for 24/7 operation just by sitting in the sun 2 hours daily?
We also have the added benefit the Universe won't collapse unto itself from the weird paradox free energy would create.
suv4x4
Sir, I hate to say this, but you are an idiot.
"if we had so effective sun batteries that could charge your car for 24/7 operation just by sitting in the sun 2 hours daily"
Impossible, and not because we don't have the technology but because the energy is not there! Just supposing you had a perfect solar collector 1 meter square, in two hours the most it could get would be 2,732 watts - an amount equivalent to less than a litre of gasoline, enough fuel for no more than a few miles.
"Except it's the other way around: way back when people still believed earth is flat, they believed a lot more in free energy as well. There were perpetual motion machine designs by the thousands. And lots of them patented even."
This is really stupid, there was never a common belief that the world was flat, this is due to a story by Washington Irving and has no basis in fact. The ancient Greeks measured the circumference of the Earth to within a couple of percent, not really a productive exercise if you think the world is flat. There can be no patents from “then” because that time never existed. Also there will be no patents for machines which could never work, any that might have been erroneously issued would have been revoked.
"suv4x4
Sir, I hate to say this, but you are an idiot.
...blah blah talk about energy per square meter and gasoline comparison.. "
Thanks, for putting my "let's entertain the thought" hypothetical example under unneeded scrutinity and calling me an idiot.
I've not called investors to invest in my sun batteries though, I'm making my money by doing backend development. Hence, I should be allowed to not be very accurate with those things.
Nuclear power in your car also isn't practical, but yet we have a model where energy is generated in centralized nuclear power plants.
Simply computing the energy per square feet and comparing with gasoline is more idiotic in my mind, considering:
1. the car power generators need not be put on the car as stickers in the first place, and may not even be part of the car
2. you can have a one or two seat vehicles for in-city travel, with much less horsepower than waste much less energy to do the same typical job a current 4-seat sedan does nowadays.
3. the vehicle may use several weaker energy sources together to allow it to always be charged and ready in-time to handle typical load.
Well, watts aren't a unit of energy. A watt is a measure of change of one Joule (the actual SI unit of energy) per second. A kilowatt-hour is also a unit of energy equal to 3,600,000 Joules (1000 watts for 3,600 seconds). At any rate, the average solar output of the sun is about 1,340 watts, which equates to 1.34 kWh (kilowatt-hours) per hour (big surprise!).
A normal gallon of gasoline contains about 131 mega-Joules of energy, or about 36.4 kWh. So, to recoup the amount of energy in a single gallon of gas, you'd need a little over 27 hours of direct sunlight on a one square meter array with no obstructions. But who cares about gasoline? Gasoline engines aren't 100% efficient, anyway, so let's compare this to a real alternative (well, for rich people, anyway).
The Tesla Roadster gets around 200 miles on its' 56kWh battery. If it had 2 square meters of solar cells somehow pointed directly at the sun at all times, it'd recoup the whole battery in about 21 hours of daylight. But how many miles does that net you per hour of charge? About 9.5 miles. So, if you worked within 19 miles of home, and you stayed there at least 2 hours, you'd never have to buy a drop of gas again!
Unfortunately, because reality sucks we're limited to just 12% efficient solar cells, which means that you'd only get 1.1 miles per hour of charge, and honestly, if you live only 2.2 miles from your work, you'd probably be better off saving the $100k by buying a vespa, a golf cart or just walking it. :)