Interesting Links for 16-12-2016

[andrewducker]

Galileo, Europe's own satnav, to go online (tags: GPS space europe ) Orgasms used as sexual currency (tags: orgasm sex ) Kiosks, cars, ATMs-if it has a screen, it will probably soon run Android. (tags: android opensource Technology ) Just Eat online takeaway service pays £200m for UK rival Hungry House (tags: food delivery uk ) Vanadium-Flow

Comments

[steer]

It's obvious to me that tearing down the EU was the right and indeed only viable choice for Disney to make.

Oh god, I genuinely thought that was the most bizarre Brexit conspiracy in the world for a minute.

[mair_aw]

me too (in fact, until I read your comment)

[steer]

Orgasms used as sexual currency

Do you do contactless?

I'm sorry, I don't have anything smaller.

Etc etc...

[drdoug]

I'm a bit overdrawn at the moment.

I'm hoping for a big payday on Friday.

... this one can run and run ...

[steer]

Mind if I make a small deposit?

Is there a penalty for withdrawal at short notice?

[bart_calendar]

People are more likely to stay with someone who gets them off well and regularly and people in relationships take advantage of that.

This is not a news flash.

[drdoug]

Yeah, but I'm an academic, so I say more research required here. And I'm willing to make this personal and put direct effort in to this myself.

[nojay]

I can't read the Vanadium Flow battery article due to adblocker-blocker shenanigans but what are the deliverables? VF technology has been the Next Big Thing in power storage for over thirty years, Real Soon Now just like a lot of other Powerpoint Ranger stuff like compressed-gas storage, railway inclines, dimethyl ether and the like.

How much does it cost to build (dollars per GWHr capacity)?

How much does it cost to operate (dollars per TWhr in and out over a year)?

What is the round-trip efficiency (energy out/energy in)?

Lifespan, cost of decommissioning, operating hazards, mitigation?

Until those factors are known and some large-scale demonstration plants have actually been built and operated and the numbers verified then it's still blue-sky bullshit.

[apostle_of_eris]

yes
OTOH, "Presently, the largest V-flow battery in the U.S. is a 2MW/8MWh," so I Googled "household electricity usage" and the first hit says, "In 2015, the average annual electricity consumption for a U.S. residential utility customer was 10,812 kilowatthours (kWh)." So if the tech gets just a little better, one helicopter lift a year will give you a battery with a year's home electricity. There are markets for that!

[nojay]

10,812 kWhr is roughly 40 teraJoules, or the energy equivalent of nearly a tonne of dynamite. It would be, ahem, embarrassing if the helicopter lift strap should break close to your home and that energy expressed itself in a few seconds on impact with the ground rather than over a period of a year of delivery through wires. Operating hazards are something that have to be taken into account when the Biggest Breakthrough Since Breakfast is posited as the Solution! to all our ills.

There are batteries being used for bulk storage of electricity in places like Rokkasho in Japan, buffering a wind farm's output (you can Google for details and images). The individual sodium-sulfur batteries, each about 2MWhr in capacity stand isolated from each other in an open yard since they have a track record of catching fire (elemental sodium AND sulfur at a working temperature of about 300 deg C -- what could go wrong?).

[andrewducker]

Large chunks of that information is in the article