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  • Author Author: COMPACT
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"Remember Me Always!" - Part 005

COMPACT

Back from Isolation

image

I've been isolated from one of the few places left on the planet from the Internet - A cruise ship (and here is a picture I took from it)

Internet reception can be patchy and damned expensive when out and sea. Far too unreliable to post any reports.

A Cruise ship is a great place to deploy energy harvesting sensors and switches. There is plenty of background vibration and rocking energy that can be tapped.

 

 

 

One question that I always have about energy harvesters - What is the amount of energy harvested versus the energy required to make the harvester?

Is one able to recover the energy required to find, mine, refine and transport the raw materials and then manufacture and deploy it for operation?

  • in reply to ravi_butani

    Hi Ravi,

     

    I looked into all of the alternatives back in the 1970's when OPEC held up gas to the US.

    There is a huge reserve of energy sources around the world, it is just a matter of cost.

    Right now, oil is abundant and inexpensive.

    There will many more "discoveries" as we reach the point were we are almost out of fuel.

    So I do not worry about it.  Between all of the hidden fuel reserves and technology advances, I am not worried.

    What worries me is the rampant population expansion world wide.  Over 3 Billion people are just one bad crop failure from starvations.

     

    DAB

  • in reply to vish

    Remember, good old Elon is in the business of making money.  He is not an engineer.

    His job is to convince people to buy his cars under the illusion that they are a better deal than a conventional car.

    NEVER trust marketers.

    They just want your money.

     

    DAB

  • When conventional energy sources not available in future.... These all technology with unconventional energy sources will be only solution for man kind.... Keep exploring new technology which use unconventional power source may be costly any may not be too effecient today but in future we have nothing to compare with it....

  • in reply to COMPACT
    Do you know how much electricity is required to mine, transport and extract aluminium??


    I know that we have an entire Hydro Electric power plant (Manapouri) dedicated to running Tiwai Point smelter here in NZ.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_Aluminium_Smelters


    There are some interesting figures on consumption here.

    http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/can-we-replace-tiwai-smelter-giant-data-center-cs-138024


    Mark

  • in reply to DAB

    Agreed.

     

    You also didn't include the vast energy needed to make the batteries, or their life expectancy.

    Sure the gasoline engine needs maintenance, but few cars require the entire engine block scrapped a new one made.

     

    As you indicated the coal to electricity conversion is inefficient, and the BBC had a very interesting program on the gains the biggest coal user in england (I can't recall who) was doing to improve this.

    The figures they were quoting were less than 1 % and saving hundreds of tons every week.

     

    While I'm sure there will eventually be a happy medium, the cost of electric cars is much higher than their equivalent (in most countries without subsidies), so improved development is not being driven by consumer demand.

     

    Mark