Interesting Links for 04-05-2015

[andrewducker]

• The Dickonomics of Tinder (dick is abundant & low value)
  (tags: relationships sex internet viasupergee )
• Why do bad things happen to good people?
  (tags: people karma morality causality comic philosophy )
• Why Marvel’s Gamora & Black Widow Were Missing From Merchandise, And What We Can Do About It
  (tags: women marvel comics merchandising marketing

Comments

[drplokta]

I'm getting a bit tired of people saying "We use 100 GWh of electricity per year, and we could generate 100 GWh from this renewable source, and therefore we could generate all of our electricity from renewables. Because you couldn't. Until we have much better/cheaper storage technology, we have to generate electricity at the time it is used, including those times when the sun isn't shining, the wind isn't blowing, and the tide is on the turn. The only renewable that's currently suitable for generating the base load is hydro-electricity in places with reliable rainfall (e.g. not the western US).

[andrewducker]

We absolutely need better power storage (and I'm glad a lot is being invested into doing so - I hope that others go into competition with Tesla on this).

I still think it's worth celebrating the fact that solar is efficient enough that, at least while the sun is shining, it can produce the energy that we need.

[skington]

Supposedly pumping water uphill and then releasing it when you need more juice is the most efficient way of storing electricity (so far). And Scotland is rainy enough...

[drplokta]

And we have a pumped storage facility, at Dinorweg in Wales. It can handle about 3% of the UK's peak electricity demand, so it's useful for smoothing out peaks and troughs, but not for any kind of a wholesale move to intermittent renewables. It's too expensive to get the capacity we'd need that way, not to mention requiring us to industrialise many of our most scenic landscapes.

[ticktockman]

Here's the equivalent to pumping water, using a train hauling (or lowering) lots of mass: https://www.snl.com/InteractiveX/Article.aspx?cdid=A-26542351-12594

It doesn't pass the "currently suitable" test (yet). I don't know where I first spotted this - maybe in an earlier post here.