On Sunday, October 17, 2021 at 4:57:58 AM UTC-5, Thomas Koenig wrote:
> Anton Ertl <an...@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> schrieb:
> > Thomas Koenig <tko...@netcologne.de> writes:
> >>Anton Ertl <an...@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> schrieb:
> >>> Thomas Koenig <tko...@netcologne.de> writes:
> >>>>Anton Ertl <an...@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> schrieb:
> >>>>> Thomas Koenig <tko...@netcologne.de> writes:
> >>>>>>and you will also have EU-wide calm periods. One or two weeks
> >>>>>>is not uncommon, this is the feared "Dunkelflaute" (dark wind lull).
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Citation needed. Looking at
> >>>>><https://www.dwd.de/DE/presse/pressekonferenzen/DE/2018/PK_06_03_2018/pressemitteilung_20180306.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=4>,
> >>>>> it says that there are 0.2 cases per year with low (<10% rated power)
> >>>>> over 48hours across the whole of EU; but that relates to the PV and
> >>>>> Wind installations of 2018; with better distribution of such
> >>>>> installations, I expect the number of such cases to become smaller.
> >>>>
> >>>>Look at
> >>>>
> >>>>https://energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=de&c=DE&stacking=stacked_absolute_area&interval=month&year=2017&month=01
> >>>>
> >>>>between the 16th and the 25th of 2017, for the energy production
> >>>>in Germany. Existing wind turbines were at around 5% of their
> >>>>nominal capacity.
> >>>
> >>> I see that this is data about Germany, not the EU, and that there was
> >>> much more solar power production in that time span than in the weeks
> >>> before 2017-01-16, and that the time span you picked is more than four
> >>> years ago, which does not speak for a high frequency of such events.
> >>
> >>Not sure if you would minda total crash of the electricity supply
> >>every five years or so, with industry going down. No heating,
> >>because modern heaters depend on electricity. Water pipes freezing,
> >>all that sort of stuff. And for a looong time, because there will
> >>not be much power before or after, either.
> >
> > Nice alarmist scenario. Total crash?
>
> Yes. That is the way that electricity grids work - if the demand
> exceeds the input, then frequency goes too low, and it is shut down.
<
You also have the issue where if the voltage drops, induction motors suck more
amps, this cascades into a meltdown over a couple of seconds, if the generators
cannot bring the voltage back up to stable levels.
>

On Tuesday, October 19, 2021 at 4:11:42 PM UTC-5, BGB wrote:
> On 10/19/2021 2:57 PM, Stephen Fuld wrote:
> > On 10/8/2021 9:46 AM, David Brown wrote:
> >> On 08/10/2021 17:47, Stephen Fuld wrote:
> >>> On 10/8/2021 4:03 AM, David Brown wrote:
> >>>> On 08/10/2021 06:33, Quadibloc wrote:
> >>>>> On Thursday, October 7, 2021 at 6:21:49 PM UTC-6, MitchAlsup wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> Has anyone given a thought to where all the electricity is going to
> >>>>>> come from once we transition completely away from carbon based
> >>>>>> energy sources (excepting for airplanes) and dump all those EV cars
> >>>>>> onto the grid ??
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Yes. It is claimed that new energy storage technologies will make it
> >>>>> possible to meet our power needs from wind and solar.
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> It is not just storage. There is transport, distribution, updates to
> >>>> infrastructure, replacement of existing devices (like cars), raw
> >>>> materials and production of replacements, etc.
> >>> Most of those are just money, e.g. we know how to make electric cars,
> >>> update the grid, etc. Storage is still the big technolgical problem.
> >>>
> >>
> >> We don't know how to make reliable or sustainable electric cars. We can
> >> make petrol cars that last twenty years, but some electric cars seem to
> >> suffer endless problems, and many get scraped after small impacts
> >> because it costs too much to fix battery packs. (The statistics on dead
> >> electric cars are depressing.)
> >
> > OK, but that may be teething pains. Theoretically, an electric car
> > should be more reliable than a petrol one (assuming sufficient battery
> > life), as they have far fewer moving parts.
> >
> Main weak points I think:
>
> Batteries: LiON has a limited lifespan and some other issues.
<
Melt the lithium down and make new batteries.
>
> There is a possibility that Sodium-Ion chemistries could provide a
> cheaper and more stable (less explosion prone) alternative. There are
> some people who are working on lithium-metal batteries, but these would
> likely have lower energy density and even higher lithium requirements.
>
These batteries are significantly heavier and the energy density is not
as great as LiOn.
>
> Other possible failure modes may become more of an issue if EVs try to
> compete in terms of "affordability".
>
> Motor: If ran too hard or too hot, then the motor may burn up the
> windings. This is more likely to be a factor for if/when "cheap" EVs
> become more popular and they start trying to cost-optimize the motors.
>
> Namely a combination of aluminum windings (cheaper than copper), and
> using undersized motors (at the upper end of their operating range). A
> lot of consumer appliances have already switched over to aluminum-wound
> motors.
>
I note:: aluminum is no longer allowed to be used as wiring for the home.
>
> I suspect it is likely one would see physically small motors being
> driven at very high RPM with a significant levels of gear reduction,
> since it is generally cheaper to make a small motor that spins fast than
> a big motor with lots of torque (mostly subject to material constraints,
> like whether or not the motor spins so fast that it tears itself apart).
<
I have dozens of 1 HP motors that you can hold 5 of them in one hand.
Some spin as high a 45,000 RPMs. Believe me this is not the way to go.
>

On Wednesday, October 20, 2021 at 8:07:49 AM UTC-5, EricP wrote:
> BGB wrote:
> > On 10/19/2021 2:57 PM, Stephen Fuld wrote:
> >> On 10/8/2021 9:46 AM, David Brown wrote:
> >>>
> >>> We don't know how to make reliable or sustainable electric cars. We can
> >>> make petrol cars that last twenty years, but some electric cars seem to
> >>> suffer endless problems, and many get scraped after small impacts
> >>> because it costs too much to fix battery packs. (The statistics on dead
> >>> electric cars are depressing.)
> >>
> >> OK, but that may be teething pains. Theoretically, an electric car
> >> should be more reliable than a petrol one (assuming sufficient battery
> >> life), as they have far fewer moving parts.
> >
> > Main weak points I think:
> >
> > Batteries: LiON has a limited lifespan and some other issues.
> >
> > There is a possibility that Sodium-Ion chemistries could provide a
> > cheaper and more stable (less explosion prone) alternative. There are
> > some people who are working on lithium-metal batteries, but these would
> > likely have lower energy density and even higher lithium requirements.
<
> We can't recycle battery components economically.
> Very soon we are about to have a mountain of dead EV batteries.
<
It should cost a small fraction of the cost to mine the lithium to
just melt it down and make new batteries--more or less like steel.
>
> For what period of time does each EV car manufacturer
> guarantee to produce replacement battery packs?
> When new packs are no longer available do I have to throw out my car?
>
> And how difficult is the pack to replace?
> In the tv shows I've seen of EV's being manufactured,
> the battery pack attaches to the frame then the body above it.
<
Basically, you do not want 1,000 pounds being transported WITHOUT having
it screwed to the chassis.
<
> Do you have to un-weld and detach the body to replace the pack?

On 10/21/2021 6:57 PM, MitchAlsup wrote:
> On Tuesday, October 19, 2021 at 4:11:42 PM UTC-5, BGB wrote:
>> On 10/19/2021 2:57 PM, Stephen Fuld wrote:
>>> On 10/8/2021 9:46 AM, David Brown wrote:
>>>> On 08/10/2021 17:47, Stephen Fuld wrote:
>>>>> On 10/8/2021 4:03 AM, David Brown wrote:
>>>>>> On 08/10/2021 06:33, Quadibloc wrote:
>>>>>>> On Thursday, October 7, 2021 at 6:21:49 PM UTC-6, MitchAlsup wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Has anyone given a thought to where all the electricity is going to
>>>>>>>> come from once we transition completely away from carbon based
>>>>>>>> energy sources (excepting for airplanes) and dump all those EV cars
>>>>>>>> onto the grid ??
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Yes. It is claimed that new energy storage technologies will make it
>>>>>>> possible to meet our power needs from wind and solar.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It is not just storage. There is transport, distribution, updates to
>>>>>> infrastructure, replacement of existing devices (like cars), raw
>>>>>> materials and production of replacements, etc.
>>>>> Most of those are just money, e.g. we know how to make electric cars,
>>>>> update the grid, etc. Storage is still the big technolgical problem.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> We don't know how to make reliable or sustainable electric cars. We can
>>>> make petrol cars that last twenty years, but some electric cars seem to
>>>> suffer endless problems, and many get scraped after small impacts
>>>> because it costs too much to fix battery packs. (The statistics on dead
>>>> electric cars are depressing.)
>>>
>>> OK, but that may be teething pains. Theoretically, an electric car
>>> should be more reliable than a petrol one (assuming sufficient battery
>>> life), as they have far fewer moving parts.
>>>
>> Main weak points I think:
>>
>> Batteries: LiON has a limited lifespan and some other issues.
> <
> Melt the lithium down and make new batteries.

Could be, or maybe set them on fire and collect lithium oxide and cobalt
from the smoke...

Guess it depends on how much of the materials could be recovered this way.

One thing I had wondered about was blasting a solid material into a
plasma with a high-powered electric discharge, then accelerating the
plasma electromagnetically, and then deflecting the plasma beam with an
electromagnetic field in such a way that different elements separate off
along different paths (say, one beam that is mostly copper, another that
is mostly iron, then zinc and aluminum, ...).

Mostly because heavier elements would take more energy to deflect than
lighter elements.

Could maybe make sense for certain types of trash-streams after
mechanically separating out certain items that can be handled more
effectively in other ways.

Not sure about cost-effectiveness though.

>>
>> There is a possibility that Sodium-Ion chemistries could provide a
>> cheaper and more stable (less explosion prone) alternative. There are
>> some people who are working on lithium-metal batteries, but these would
>> likely have lower energy density and even higher lithium requirements.
>>
> These batteries are significantly heavier and the energy density is not
> as great as LiOn.

I guess some of the options are:
Li-Ion: Mainstream option, fire prone;
Li-Metal: worse energy density, need lots of metal;
Na-Ion: Worse energy density, but could be cheaper / safer;
Al-Ion: Research phase.

Lower energy density options:
NiMH: Tried and true, weak energy density and cost of nickel;
PbAc: Poor energy density, short lifespan;
NiFe: Worse energy density than PbAc, long lifespan.

Non-rechargable / primary-cells:
Zinc-Air, Aluminum-Air:
High energy density, but single-use and remanufacture.
Alkaline:
Worse energy density, quasi-rechargable (short lifespan).

>>
>> Other possible failure modes may become more of an issue if EVs try to
>> compete in terms of "affordability".
>>
>> Motor: If ran too hard or too hot, then the motor may burn up the
>> windings. This is more likely to be a factor for if/when "cheap" EVs
>> become more popular and they start trying to cost-optimize the motors.
>>
>> Namely a combination of aluminum windings (cheaper than copper), and
>> using undersized motors (at the upper end of their operating range). A
>> lot of consumer appliances have already switched over to aluminum-wound
>> motors.
>>
> I note:: aluminum is no longer allowed to be used as wiring for the home.

I think it depends on the building code.

Australia has completely banned aluminum wiring for pretty much everything.

In the US it was just sorta "strongly unpopular" for a while, but
apparently is back in style again due to rising costs.

Aluminum wiring is also fairly common is many of the electronics
products made in China, and in much of the cheap electrical wire being
sold on Amazon.

Sometimes it is both CCA and the wrong wire gauge, since apparently some
sellers measure the "gauge" of the wire by the outer-diameter of the
insulation rather than the actual thickness of the conductor. Like, it
is kinda annoying to buy what is supposed to be 18 AWG copper lamp
wiring, and then getting 22 AWG CCA with extra thick insulation.

Then one could argue: "but a 60W lightbulb running on 120V will only
pull ~ 500mA, which is well within the ampacity range of 22 AWG CCA",
but still, if one bought the wire as a way to get some 18 AWG Cu wire,
then 22 AWG CCA is not a substitute (could have just used 24 AWG wire in
this case).

Granted, this could be a point of divergence between US engineering (use
18 AWG because the NEC says so) and Chinese engineering (use the
cheapest wire possible that is still thick enough that it probably wont
catch fire under expected load).

>>
>> I suspect it is likely one would see physically small motors being
>> driven at very high RPM with a significant levels of gear reduction,
>> since it is generally cheaper to make a small motor that spins fast than
>> a big motor with lots of torque (mostly subject to material constraints,
>> like whether or not the motor spins so fast that it tears itself apart).
> <
> I have dozens of 1 HP motors that you can hold 5 of them in one hand.
> Some spin as high a 45,000 RPMs. Believe me this is not the way to go.

Cost reasons, or because of the absurdity of doing so?...

Usually smaller/faster motors are cheaper than bigger motors with more
torque, but do have a higher risk of mechanical failure and/or burning
up, which is what I was thinking here...

But, in some areas, per-unit cost is one of the primary engineering
concerns.

MitchAlsup wrote:
> On Wednesday, October 20, 2021 at 8:07:49 AM UTC-5, EricP wrote:
>> BGB wrote:
>>>
>>> Batteries: LiON has a limited lifespan and some other issues.
>>>
>>> There is a possibility that Sodium-Ion chemistries could provide a
>>> cheaper and more stable (less explosion prone) alternative. There are
>>> some people who are working on lithium-metal batteries, but these would
>>> likely have lower energy density and even higher lithium requirements.
> <
>> We can't recycle battery components economically.
>> Very soon we are about to have a mountain of dead EV batteries.
> <
> It should cost a small fraction of the cost to mine the lithium to
> just melt it down and make new batteries--more or less like steel.

Lithium doesn't melt down in air, it burns.
Rather exothermically I gather producing various toxic gases.
That's how many batteries are disposed of now.

They can be recycle but there are complications.
One is different kinds of batteries disassemble differently.
Keeping the batteries from bursting into flames
during disassembly is another.
And the key question is doing it all economically.

[open access]
Recycling lithium-ion batteries from electric vehicles, 2019
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1682-5

On 10/21/2021 7:45 PM, EricP wrote:
> MitchAlsup wrote:
>> On Wednesday, October 20, 2021 at 8:07:49 AM UTC-5, EricP wrote:
>>> BGB wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Batteries: LiON has a limited lifespan and some other issues.
>>>> There is a possibility that Sodium-Ion chemistries could provide a
>>>> cheaper and more stable (less explosion prone) alternative. There
>>>> are some people who are working on lithium-metal batteries, but
>>>> these would likely have lower energy density and even higher lithium
>>>> requirements.
>> <
>>> We can't recycle battery components economically. Very soon we are
>>> about to have a mountain of dead EV batteries.
>> <
>> It should cost a small fraction of the cost to mine the lithium to
>> just melt it down and make new batteries--more or less like steel.
>
> Lithium doesn't melt down in air, it burns.
> Rather exothermically I gather producing various toxic gases.
> That's how many batteries are disposed of now.
>
> They can be recycle but there are complications.
> One is different kinds of batteries disassemble differently.
> Keeping the batteries from bursting into flames
> during disassembly is another.
> And the key question is doing it all economically.
>
> [open access]
> Recycling lithium-ion batteries from electric vehicles, 2019
> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1682-5

Related to the whole battery life/recycling issue, I came across the
following article:

https://www.inverse.com/innovation/tesla-battery-life-replacement-cost

It is obviously pretty optimistic, and I don't know anything about the
position of Inverse, but it is another data point.

--
- Stephen Fuld
(e-mail address disguised to prevent spam)

BGB wrote:
> On 10/20/2021 8:07 AM, EricP wrote:
>> BGB wrote:
>>> On 10/19/2021 2:57 PM, Stephen Fuld wrote:
>>>> On 10/8/2021 9:46 AM, David Brown wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> We don't know how to make reliable or sustainable electric cars.Â
>>>>> We can
>>>>> make petrol cars that last twenty years, but some electric cars
>>>>> seem to
>>>>> suffer endless problems, and many get scraped after small impacts
>>>>> because it costs too much to fix battery packs.  (The statistics
>>>>> on dead
>>>>> electric cars are depressing.)
>>>>
>>>> OK, but that may be teething pains.  Theoretically, an electric car
>>>> should be more reliable than a petrol one (assuming sufficient
>>>> battery life), as they have far fewer moving parts.
>>>
>>> Main weak points I think:
>>>
>>> Batteries: LiON has a limited lifespan and some other issues.
>>>
>>> There is a possibility that Sodium-Ion chemistries could provide a
>>> cheaper and more stable (less explosion prone) alternative. There are
>>> some people who are working on lithium-metal batteries, but these
>>> would likely have lower energy density and even higher lithium
>>> requirements.
>>
>> We can't recycle battery components economically.
>> Very soon we are about to have a mountain of dead EV batteries.
>>
>
> Yes, probably.
>
> Though, if areas that can be mined cheaply for lithium and cobalt get
> sparse (say, if it becomes no longer cost-effective to strip mine parts
> of Africa for cobalt), it may become more cost effective to recycle the
> batteries.
>
>
> Then again, at the moment, they will probably pile up in landfills or
> similar, because otherwise it is like a similar situation to trying to
> ask people to "Maybe stop burning coal, OK?...".
>
>
> Then US goes and "leads the way" to a greener future by going and
> approving the construction of a bunch of new coal plants and expanding
> coal-mining operations, and one can just look at it and suspect that
> prospects at long-term survival are probably fairly bleak. While "peak
> oil" would effectively put a limit on total long-term CO2 emissions,
> there is no real such limit on coal...
>
>
>> For what period of time does each EV car manufacturer
>> guarantee to produce replacement battery packs?
>> When new packs are no longer available do I have to throw out my car?
>>
>
> Probably. The claim is that the lifespan of the packs is supposed to be
> longer than the lifespan of the car, but I suspect manufactures also
> expect people to throw out their old car and get a new one every 5-10
> years, rather than trying to keep it going until it is irreparable.
>
>
>> And how difficult is the pack to replace?
>> In the tv shows I've seen of EV's being manufactured,
>> the battery pack attaches to the frame then the body above it.
>> Do you have to un-weld and detach the body to replace the pack?
>>
>
> On the plus side at least, I think the packs are often attached to the
> rest the car with bolts.
>
> On the minus side, in some amount of cars, the battery pack *is* the
> frame...
>
The latter will be true for the upcoming Tesla models with 4680 packs
where there are only 3 main parts: The battery pack and the fron and
read single-piece casting that attaches to the pack.

OTOH, large scale battery recycling is just starting, car batteries in
particular will almost certainly NOT end up in landfills in the future.

For some materials, like Aluminium, recycling works extremely well, it
only cost a small fraction of the original production to recycle things
like used cans.

The main drawback is that it is harder to precisely control the alloys
you get out from a recycling facility, but for most uses this doesn't
matter that much.

Terje

--
- <Terje.Mathisen at tmsw.no>
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"

On 10/21/2021 6:21 PM, BGB wrote:
> On 10/21/2021 6:57 PM, MitchAlsup wrote:
>> On Tuesday, October 19, 2021 at 4:11:42 PM UTC-5, BGB wrote:
>>> On 10/19/2021 2:57 PM, Stephen Fuld wrote:
>>>> On 10/8/2021 9:46 AM, David Brown wrote:
>>>>> On 08/10/2021 17:47, Stephen Fuld wrote:
>>>>>> On 10/8/2021 4:03 AM, David Brown wrote:
>>>>>>> On 08/10/2021 06:33, Quadibloc wrote:
>>>>>>>> On Thursday, October 7, 2021 at 6:21:49 PM UTC-6, MitchAlsup wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Has anyone given a thought to where all the electricity is
>>>>>>>>> going to
>>>>>>>>> come from once we transition completely away from carbon based
>>>>>>>>> energy sources (excepting for airplanes) and dump all those EV
>>>>>>>>> cars
>>>>>>>>> onto the grid ??
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Yes. It is claimed that new energy storage technologies will
>>>>>>>> make it
>>>>>>>> possible to meet our power needs from wind and solar.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> It is not just storage.  There is transport, distribution,
>>>>>>> updates to
>>>>>>> infrastructure, replacement of existing devices (like cars), raw
>>>>>>> materials and production of replacements, etc.
>>>>>> Most of those are just money, e.g. we know how to make electric cars,
>>>>>> update the grid, etc.  Storage is still the big technolgical problem.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> We don't know how to make reliable or sustainable electric cars.
>>>>> We can
>>>>> make petrol cars that last twenty years, but some electric cars
>>>>> seem to
>>>>> suffer endless problems, and many get scraped after small impacts
>>>>> because it costs too much to fix battery packs.  (The statistics on
>>>>> dead
>>>>> electric cars are depressing.)
>>>>
>>>> OK, but that may be teething pains.  Theoretically, an electric car
>>>> should be more reliable than a petrol one (assuming sufficient battery
>>>> life), as they have far fewer moving parts.
>>>>
>>> Main weak points I think:
>>>
>>> Batteries: LiON has a limited lifespan and some other issues.
>> <
>> Melt the lithium down and make new batteries.
>
> Could be, or maybe set them on fire and collect lithium oxide and cobalt
> from the smoke...
>
> Guess it depends on how much of the materials could be recovered this way.
>
> One thing I had wondered about was blasting a solid material into a
> plasma with a high-powered electric discharge, then accelerating the
> plasma electromagnetically, and then deflecting the plasma beam with an
> electromagnetic field in such a way that different elements separate off
> along different paths (say, one beam that is mostly copper, another that
> is mostly iron, then zinc and aluminum, ...).
>
> Mostly because heavier elements would take more energy to deflect than
> lighter elements.
>
> Could maybe make sense for certain types of trash-streams after
> mechanically separating out certain items that can be handled more
> effectively in other ways.
>
> Not sure about cost-effectiveness though.

Was used to separate U235 for the Thin Man before they got UF6 gas
diffusion working. Also proposed for space industry, using
mirror-concentrated sunlight for the plasma instead of electric
discharge. Don't need strong fields to separate the ions when drift
lengths are in the tens of kilometers.
>

BGB wrote:
> On 10/21/2021 6:57 PM, MitchAlsup wrote:
>> On Tuesday, October 19, 2021 at 4:11:42 PM UTC-5, BGB wrote:
>>> On 10/19/2021 2:57 PM, Stephen Fuld wrote:
>>>> On 10/8/2021 9:46 AM, David Brown wrote:
>>>>> On 08/10/2021 17:47, Stephen Fuld wrote:
>>>>>> On 10/8/2021 4:03 AM, David Brown wrote:
>>>>>>> On 08/10/2021 06:33, Quadibloc wrote:
>>>>>>>> On Thursday, October 7, 2021 at 6:21:49 PM UTC-6, MitchAlsup wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Has anyone given a thought to where all the electricity is
>>>>>>>>> going to
>>>>>>>>> come from once we transition completely away from carbon based
>>>>>>>>> energy sources (excepting for airplanes) and dump all those EV
>>>>>>>>> cars
>>>>>>>>> onto the grid ??
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Yes. It is claimed that new energy storage technologies will
>>>>>>>> make it
>>>>>>>> possible to meet our power needs from wind and solar.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> It is not just storage.  There is transport, distribution,
>>>>>>> updates to
>>>>>>> infrastructure, replacement of existing devices (like cars), raw
>>>>>>> materials and production of replacements, etc.
>>>>>> Most of those are just money, e.g. we know how to make electric cars,
>>>>>> update the grid, etc.  Storage is still the big technolgical problem.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> We don't know how to make reliable or sustainable electric cars.
>>>>> We can
>>>>> make petrol cars that last twenty years, but some electric cars
>>>>> seem to
>>>>> suffer endless problems, and many get scraped after small impacts
>>>>> because it costs too much to fix battery packs.  (The statistics on
>>>>> dead
>>>>> electric cars are depressing.)
>>>>
>>>> OK, but that may be teething pains.  Theoretically, an electric car
>>>> should be more reliable than a petrol one (assuming sufficient battery
>>>> life), as they have far fewer moving parts.
>>>>
>>> Main weak points I think:
>>>
>>> Batteries: LiON has a limited lifespan and some other issues.
>> <
>> Melt the lithium down and make new batteries.
>
> Could be, or maybe set them on fire and collect lithium oxide and cobalt
> from the smoke...
>
> Guess it depends on how much of the materials could be recovered this way.
>
> One thing I had wondered about was blasting a solid material into a
> plasma with a high-powered electric discharge, then accelerating the
> plasma electromagnetically, and then deflecting the plasma beam with an
> electromagnetic field in such a way that different elements separate off
> along different paths (say, one beam that is mostly copper, another that
> is mostly iron, then zinc and aluminum, ...).
>
> Mostly because heavier elements would take more energy to deflect than
> lighter elements.
>
> Could maybe make sense for certain types of trash-streams after
> mechanically separating out certain items that can be handled more
> effectively in other ways.
>
> Not sure about cost-effectiveness though.

You have just described the real way to extract U235 from a mostly U238
uranium source, it is far more efficient than the original sentrifuge
method (which also allowed Stuxnet to sabotage it).

>>> There is a possibility that Sodium-Ion chemistries could provide a
>>> cheaper and more stable (less explosion prone) alternative. There are
>>> some people who are working on lithium-metal batteries, but these would
>>> likely have lower energy density and even higher lithium requirements.
>>>
>> These batteries are significantly heavier and the energy density is not
>> as great as LiOn.
>
> I guess some of the options are:
>   Li-Ion: Mainstream option, fire prone;
>   Li-Metal: worse energy density, need lots of metal;
>   Na-Ion: Worse energy density, but could be cheaper / safer;
>   Al-Ion: Research phase.
>
> Lower energy density options:
>   NiMH: Tried and true, weak energy density and cost of nickel;
>   PbAc: Poor energy density, short lifespan;
>   NiFe: Worse energy density than PbAc, long lifespan.
>
> Non-rechargable / primary-cells:
>   Zinc-Air, Aluminum-Air:
>     High energy density, but single-use and remanufacture.
>   Alkaline:
>     Worse energy density, quasi-rechargable (short lifespan).
>
>
>>>
>>> Other possible failure modes may become more of an issue if EVs try to
>>> compete in terms of "affordability".
>>>
>>> Motor: If ran too hard or too hot, then the motor may burn up the
>>> windings. This is more likely to be a factor for if/when "cheap" EVs
>>> become more popular and they start trying to cost-optimize the motors.
>>>
>>> Namely a combination of aluminum windings (cheaper than copper), and
>>> using undersized motors (at the upper end of their operating range). A
>>> lot of consumer appliances have already switched over to aluminum-wound
>>> motors.
>>>
>> I note:: aluminum is no longer allowed to be used as wiring for the home.
>
> I think it depends on the building code.
>
> Australia has completely banned aluminum wiring for pretty much everything.
>
> In the US it was just sorta "strongly unpopular" for a while, but
> apparently is back in style again due to rising costs.

Aluminium is great for high-voltage/high-power cables since the
conductivity per kg is better than Copper?
>
>
> Aluminum wiring is also fairly common is many of the electronics
> products made in China, and in much of the cheap electrical wire being
> sold on Amazon.
>
> Sometimes it is both CCA and the wrong wire gauge, since apparently some
> sellers measure the "gauge" of the wire by the outer-diameter of the
> insulation rather than the actual thickness of the conductor. Like, it
> is kinda annoying to buy what is supposed to be 18 AWG copper lamp
> wiring, and then getting 22 AWG CCA with extra thick insulation.
>
> Then one could argue: "but a 60W lightbulb running on 120V will only
> pull ~ 500mA, which is well within the ampacity range of 22 AWG CCA",
> but still, if one bought the wire as a way to get some 18 AWG Cu wire,
> then 22 AWG CCA is not a substitute (could have just used 24 AWG wire in
> this case).
>
> Granted, this could be a point of divergence between US engineering (use
> 18 AWG because the NEC says so) and Chinese engineering (use the
> cheapest wire possible that is still thick enough that it probably wont
> catch fire under expected load).

The solution here is to get rid of all 110V wiring and devices,
preferably going all the way to 400V which reduces resistive losses by a
factor of about 15.

Terje

--
- <Terje.Mathisen at tmsw.no>
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"

Terje Mathisen <terje.mathisen@tmsw.no> writes:

> OTOH, large scale battery recycling is just starting, car batteries in
> particular will almost certainly NOT end up in landfills in the
> future.

The main problem with battery recycling is that batteries ended up
lasting much longer than predicted. There is no industry because the
source material just does not exist.

The only reasonably viable source of batteries are the 2010-2013 Leafs
with deficient battery cooling, and most of those are still running just
fine. Nissan has an experimental battery recycling plant for those, but
not enough dead batteries to get it running properly.

Plug-in-hybrid batteries get charged and discharged a lot more often,
but Volt/Ampera batteries from 2012 have not lost a significant amount
of capacity yet.

/Benny

On 10/21/2021 6:21 PM, BGB wrote:
> On 10/21/2021 6:57 PM, MitchAlsup wrote:
>> On Tuesday, October 19, 2021 at 4:11:42 PM UTC-5, BGB wrote:
>>> On 10/19/2021 2:57 PM, Stephen Fuld wrote:
>>>> On 10/8/2021 9:46 AM, David Brown wrote:
>>>>> On 08/10/2021 17:47, Stephen Fuld wrote:
>>>>>> On 10/8/2021 4:03 AM, David Brown wrote:
>>>>>>> On 08/10/2021 06:33, Quadibloc wrote:
>>>>>>>> On Thursday, October 7, 2021 at 6:21:49 PM UTC-6, MitchAlsup wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Has anyone given a thought to where all the electricity is
>>>>>>>>> going to
>>>>>>>>> come from once we transition completely away from carbon based
>>>>>>>>> energy sources (excepting for airplanes) and dump all those EV
>>>>>>>>> cars
>>>>>>>>> onto the grid ??
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Yes. It is claimed that new energy storage technologies will
>>>>>>>> make it
>>>>>>>> possible to meet our power needs from wind and solar.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> It is not just storage.  There is transport, distribution,
>>>>>>> updates to
>>>>>>> infrastructure, replacement of existing devices (like cars), raw
>>>>>>> materials and production of replacements, etc.
>>>>>> Most of those are just money, e.g. we know how to make electric cars,
>>>>>> update the grid, etc.  Storage is still the big technolgical problem.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> We don't know how to make reliable or sustainable electric cars.
>>>>> We can
>>>>> make petrol cars that last twenty years, but some electric cars
>>>>> seem to
>>>>> suffer endless problems, and many get scraped after small impacts
>>>>> because it costs too much to fix battery packs.  (The statistics on
>>>>> dead
>>>>> electric cars are depressing.)
>>>>
>>>> OK, but that may be teething pains.  Theoretically, an electric car
>>>> should be more reliable than a petrol one (assuming sufficient battery
>>>> life), as they have far fewer moving parts.
>>>>
>>> Main weak points I think:
>>>
>>> Batteries: LiON has a limited lifespan and some other issues.
>> <
>> Melt the lithium down and make new batteries.
>
> Could be, or maybe set them on fire and collect lithium oxide and cobalt
> from the smoke...
>
> Guess it depends on how much of the materials could be recovered this way.
>
> One thing I had wondered about was blasting a solid material into a
> plasma with a high-powered electric discharge, then accelerating the
> plasma electromagnetically, and then deflecting the plasma beam with an
> electromagnetic field in such a way that different elements separate off
> along different paths (say, one beam that is mostly copper, another that
> is mostly iron, then zinc and aluminum, ...).
>
> Mostly because heavier elements would take more energy to deflect than
> lighter elements.

That is exactly how mass spectroscopy works.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_spectrometry

> Could maybe make sense for certain types of trash-streams after
> mechanically separating out certain items that can be handled more
> effectively in other ways.
>
> Not sure about cost-effectiveness though.

That is the problem. As others have pointed out, it has been used for
very high value applications, such as separating radioactive isotopes,
but I don't see it for for more "normal" uses.

--
- Stephen Fuld
(e-mail address disguised to prevent spam)

Terje Mathisen <terje.mathisen@tmsw.no> schrieb:
> BGB wrote:

>> Australia has completely banned aluminum wiring for pretty much everything.
>>
>> In the US it was just sorta "strongly unpopular" for a while, but
>> apparently is back in style again due to rising costs.
>
> Aluminium is great for high-voltage/high-power cables since the
> conductivity per kg is better than Copper?

The problem is the oxide layer, which is highly resistive and,
if you're unlucky, can generate fires.

>> Granted, this could be a point of divergence between US engineering (use
>> 18 AWG because the NEC says so) and Chinese engineering (use the
>> cheapest wire possible that is still thick enough that it probably wont
>> catch fire under expected load).
>
> The solution here is to get rid of all 110V wiring and devices,
> preferably going all the way to 400V which reduces resistive losses by a
> factor of about 15.

110 V is rather safe 230 V is less safe, but you still need to be
unlucky to be killed. At least one family member would not be
alive today if we had 400 V (unless you mean three phases, in
which case you are unlikely to touch two of them at the same time).

On Thursday, October 21, 2021 at 8:21:12 PM UTC-5, BGB wrote:
> On 10/21/2021 6:57 PM, MitchAlsup wrote:
> > On Tuesday, October 19, 2021 at 4:11:42 PM UTC-5, BGB wrote:
> >> On 10/19/2021 2:57 PM, Stephen Fuld wrote:
> >>> On 10/8/2021 9:46 AM, David Brown wrote:
> >>>> On 08/10/2021 17:47, Stephen Fuld wrote:
> >>>>> On 10/8/2021 4:03 AM, David Brown wrote:
> >>>>>> On 08/10/2021 06:33, Quadibloc wrote:
> >>>>>>> On Thursday, October 7, 2021 at 6:21:49 PM UTC-6, MitchAlsup wrote:
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> Has anyone given a thought to where all the electricity is going to
> >>>>>>>> come from once we transition completely away from carbon based
> >>>>>>>> energy sources (excepting for airplanes) and dump all those EV cars
> >>>>>>>> onto the grid ??
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Yes. It is claimed that new energy storage technologies will make it
> >>>>>>> possible to meet our power needs from wind and solar.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> It is not just storage. There is transport, distribution, updates to
> >>>>>> infrastructure, replacement of existing devices (like cars), raw
> >>>>>> materials and production of replacements, etc.
> >>>>> Most of those are just money, e.g. we know how to make electric cars,
> >>>>> update the grid, etc. Storage is still the big technolgical problem..
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> We don't know how to make reliable or sustainable electric cars. We can
> >>>> make petrol cars that last twenty years, but some electric cars seem to
> >>>> suffer endless problems, and many get scraped after small impacts
> >>>> because it costs too much to fix battery packs. (The statistics on dead
> >>>> electric cars are depressing.)
> >>>
> >>> OK, but that may be teething pains. Theoretically, an electric car
> >>> should be more reliable than a petrol one (assuming sufficient battery
> >>> life), as they have far fewer moving parts.
> >>>
> >> Main weak points I think:
> >>
> >> Batteries: LiON has a limited lifespan and some other issues.
> > <
> > Melt the lithium down and make new batteries.
> Could be, or maybe set them on fire and collect lithium oxide and cobalt
> from the smoke...
>
> Guess it depends on how much of the materials could be recovered this way..
>
> One thing I had wondered about was blasting a solid material into a
> plasma with a high-powered electric discharge, then accelerating the
> plasma electromagnetically, and then deflecting the plasma beam with an
> electromagnetic field in such a way that different elements separate off
> along different paths (say, one beam that is mostly copper, another that
> is mostly iron, then zinc and aluminum, ...).
>
> Mostly because heavier elements would take more energy to deflect than
> lighter elements.
>
> Could maybe make sense for certain types of trash-streams after
> mechanically separating out certain items that can be handled more
> effectively in other ways.
>
> Not sure about cost-effectiveness though.
> >>
> >> There is a possibility that Sodium-Ion chemistries could provide a
> >> cheaper and more stable (less explosion prone) alternative. There are
> >> some people who are working on lithium-metal batteries, but these would
> >> likely have lower energy density and even higher lithium requirements.
> >>
> > These batteries are significantly heavier and the energy density is not
> > as great as LiOn.
> I guess some of the options are:
> Li-Ion: Mainstream option, fire prone;
> Li-Metal: worse energy density, need lots of metal;
> Na-Ion: Worse energy density, but could be cheaper / safer;
> Al-Ion: Research phase.
>
> Lower energy density options:
> NiMH: Tried and true, weak energy density and cost of nickel;
> PbAc: Poor energy density, short lifespan;
> NiFe: Worse energy density than PbAc, long lifespan.
>
> Non-rechargable / primary-cells:
> Zinc-Air, Aluminum-Air:
> High energy density, but single-use and remanufacture.
> Alkaline:
> Worse energy density, quasi-rechargable (short lifespan).
> >>
> >> Other possible failure modes may become more of an issue if EVs try to
> >> compete in terms of "affordability".
> >>
> >> Motor: If ran too hard or too hot, then the motor may burn up the
> >> windings. This is more likely to be a factor for if/when "cheap" EVs
> >> become more popular and they start trying to cost-optimize the motors.
> >>
> >> Namely a combination of aluminum windings (cheaper than copper), and
> >> using undersized motors (at the upper end of their operating range). A
> >> lot of consumer appliances have already switched over to aluminum-wound
> >> motors.
> >>
> > I note:: aluminum is no longer allowed to be used as wiring for the home.
> I think it depends on the building code.
>
> Australia has completely banned aluminum wiring for pretty much everything.
>
> In the US it was just sorta "strongly unpopular" for a while, but
> apparently is back in style again due to rising costs.
>
>
> Aluminum wiring is also fairly common is many of the electronics
> products made in China, and in much of the cheap electrical wire being
> sold on Amazon.
>
> Sometimes it is both CCA and the wrong wire gauge, since apparently some
> sellers measure the "gauge" of the wire by the outer-diameter of the
> insulation rather than the actual thickness of the conductor. Like, it
> is kinda annoying to buy what is supposed to be 18 AWG copper lamp
> wiring, and then getting 22 AWG CCA with extra thick insulation.
>
> Then one could argue: "but a 60W lightbulb running on 120V will only
> pull ~ 500mA, which is well within the ampacity range of 22 AWG CCA",
> but still, if one bought the wire as a way to get some 18 AWG Cu wire,
> then 22 AWG CCA is not a substitute (could have just used 24 AWG wire in
> this case).
<
Now, imagine plugging in a 1.5 HP induction motor to that aluminum wiring
and running the mini-mill for a couple of hours, hogging a steel blank in
103ºF heat.
>
> Granted, this could be a point of divergence between US engineering (use
> 18 AWG because the NEC says so) and Chinese engineering (use the
> cheapest wire possible that is still thick enough that it probably wont
> catch fire under expected load).
<
Some people require better guarantees than "probably".
> >>
> >> I suspect it is likely one would see physically small motors being
> >> driven at very high RPM with a significant levels of gear reduction,
> >> since it is generally cheaper to make a small motor that spins fast than
> >> a big motor with lots of torque (mostly subject to material constraints,
> >> like whether or not the motor spins so fast that it tears itself apart).
> > <
> > I have dozens of 1 HP motors that you can hold 5 of them in one hand.
> > Some spin as high a 45,000 RPMs. Believe me this is not the way to go.
<
> Cost reasons, or because of the absurdity of doing so?...
<
At rated power loads, they are within spitting distance of burning up in 4
minutes--melting the epoxy used to hold the wires on the core.
<
We would completely clean them between races.........
>
> Usually smaller/faster motors are cheaper than bigger motors with more
> torque, but do have a higher risk of mechanical failure and/or burning
> up, which is what I was thinking here...
>
> But, in some areas, per-unit cost is one of the primary engineering
> concerns.

On Thursday, October 21, 2021 at 9:45:25 PM UTC-5, EricP wrote:
> MitchAlsup wrote:
> > On Wednesday, October 20, 2021 at 8:07:49 AM UTC-5, EricP wrote:
> >> BGB wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Batteries: LiON has a limited lifespan and some other issues.
> >>>
> >>> There is a possibility that Sodium-Ion chemistries could provide a
> >>> cheaper and more stable (less explosion prone) alternative. There are
> >>> some people who are working on lithium-metal batteries, but these would
> >>> likely have lower energy density and even higher lithium requirements.
> > <
> >> We can't recycle battery components economically.
> >> Very soon we are about to have a mountain of dead EV batteries.
> > <
> > It should cost a small fraction of the cost to mine the lithium to
> > just melt it down and make new batteries--more or less like steel.
<
> Lithium doesn't melt down in air, it burns.
<
You don't melt it down in an atmosphere, you stick it in a vacuum
furnace.
<
> Rather exothermically I gather producing various toxic gases.
> That's how many batteries are disposed of now.
>
> They can be recycle but there are complications.
> One is different kinds of batteries disassemble differently.
> Keeping the batteries from bursting into flames
> during disassembly is another.
<
10**-2 torr or pure N2 does wonders, here.
<
> And the key question is doing it all economically.
>
> [open access]
> Recycling lithium-ion batteries from electric vehicles, 2019
> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1682-5

On Friday, October 22, 2021 at 9:08:39 AM UTC-5, Terje Mathisen wrote:
> BGB wrote:

> The solution here is to get rid of all 110V wiring and devices,
> preferably going all the way to 400V which reduces resistive losses by a
> factor of about 15.
<
Excepting in wet situations, a person can safely pick up a 120V cable
that is still live using non-conduction shoes (tennis) and non-conducting
gloves. You cannot say the same thing about 400V.
<
> Terje
>
> --
> - <Terje.Mathisen at tmsw.no>
> "almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"

On Friday, October 22, 2021 at 9:20:28 AM UTC-5, Benny Lyne Amorsen wrote:
> Terje Mathisen <terje.m...@tmsw.no> writes:
>
> > OTOH, large scale battery recycling is just starting, car batteries in
> > particular will almost certainly NOT end up in landfills in the
> > future.
> The main problem with battery recycling is that batteries ended up
> lasting much longer than predicted. There is no industry because the
> source material just does not exist.
<
YET
>
> The only reasonably viable source of batteries are the 2010-2013 Leafs
> with deficient battery cooling, and most of those are still running just
> fine. Nissan has an experimental battery recycling plant for those, but
> not enough dead batteries to get it running properly.
>
> Plug-in-hybrid batteries get charged and discharged a lot more often,
> but Volt/Ampera batteries from 2012 have not lost a significant amount
> of capacity yet.
<
They did not start recycling steel and aluminum until quite a bit later in the
lives of automobiles, either. Battery recycling will (WILL) occur in the future,
So mining of the lithium is a get-started problem not a continuously-reuse
problem.
>
>
> /Benny

On 10/22/2021 9:08 AM, Terje Mathisen wrote:
> BGB wrote:
>> On 10/21/2021 6:57 PM, MitchAlsup wrote:
>>> On Tuesday, October 19, 2021 at 4:11:42 PM UTC-5, BGB wrote:
>>>> On 10/19/2021 2:57 PM, Stephen Fuld wrote:
>>>>> On 10/8/2021 9:46 AM, David Brown wrote:
>>>>>> On 08/10/2021 17:47, Stephen Fuld wrote:
>>>>>>> On 10/8/2021 4:03 AM, David Brown wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 08/10/2021 06:33, Quadibloc wrote:
>>>>>>>>> On Thursday, October 7, 2021 at 6:21:49 PM UTC-6, MitchAlsup
>>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Has anyone given a thought to where all the electricity is
>>>>>>>>>> going to
>>>>>>>>>> come from once we transition completely away from carbon based
>>>>>>>>>> energy sources (excepting for airplanes) and dump all those EV
>>>>>>>>>> cars
>>>>>>>>>> onto the grid ??
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Yes. It is claimed that new energy storage technologies will
>>>>>>>>> make it
>>>>>>>>> possible to meet our power needs from wind and solar.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> It is not just storage.  There is transport, distribution,
>>>>>>>> updates to
>>>>>>>> infrastructure, replacement of existing devices (like cars), raw
>>>>>>>> materials and production of replacements, etc.
>>>>>>> Most of those are just money, e.g. we know how to make electric
>>>>>>> cars,
>>>>>>> update the grid, etc.  Storage is still the big technolgical
>>>>>>> problem.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> We don't know how to make reliable or sustainable electric cars.
>>>>>> We can
>>>>>> make petrol cars that last twenty years, but some electric cars
>>>>>> seem to
>>>>>> suffer endless problems, and many get scraped after small impacts
>>>>>> because it costs too much to fix battery packs.  (The statistics
>>>>>> on dead
>>>>>> electric cars are depressing.)
>>>>>
>>>>> OK, but that may be teething pains.  Theoretically, an electric car
>>>>> should be more reliable than a petrol one (assuming sufficient battery
>>>>> life), as they have far fewer moving parts.
>>>>>
>>>> Main weak points I think:
>>>>
>>>> Batteries: LiON has a limited lifespan and some other issues.
>>> <
>>> Melt the lithium down and make new batteries.
>>
>> Could be, or maybe set them on fire and collect lithium oxide and
>> cobalt from the smoke...
>>
>> Guess it depends on how much of the materials could be recovered this
>> way.
>>
>> One thing I had wondered about was blasting a solid material into a
>> plasma with a high-powered electric discharge, then accelerating the
>> plasma electromagnetically, and then deflecting the plasma beam with
>> an electromagnetic field in such a way that different elements
>> separate off along different paths (say, one beam that is mostly
>> copper, another that is mostly iron, then zinc and aluminum, ...).
>>
>> Mostly because heavier elements would take more energy to deflect than
>> lighter elements.
>>
>> Could maybe make sense for certain types of trash-streams after
>> mechanically separating out certain items that can be handled more
>> effectively in other ways.
>>
>> Not sure about cost-effectiveness though.
>
> You have just described the real way to extract U235 from a mostly U238
> uranium source, it is far more efficient than the original sentrifuge
> method (which also allowed Stuxnet to sabotage it).
>

Interesting.

Granted, it is not too uncommon to come up with random ideas, look it
up, and then find out that it is already being done. Original or
"worthwhile" ideas are harder.

Some things are just kinda random, like I guess back when I was much
younger, I came up with a random idea for some "reversed" pliers. They
would normally grip things tightly (via a fairly strong spring), similar
to the locked mode of a vise-grip. Unlike in normal pliers, gripping the
handle would open the pliers to release the held item.

>>>> There is a possibility that Sodium-Ion chemistries could provide a
>>>> cheaper and more stable (less explosion prone) alternative. There are
>>>> some people who are working on lithium-metal batteries, but these would
>>>> likely have lower energy density and even higher lithium requirements.
>>>>
>>> These batteries are significantly heavier and the energy density is not
>>> as great as LiOn.
>>
>> I guess some of the options are:
>>    Li-Ion: Mainstream option, fire prone;
>>    Li-Metal: worse energy density, need lots of metal;
>>    Na-Ion: Worse energy density, but could be cheaper / safer;
>>    Al-Ion: Research phase.
>>
>> Lower energy density options:
>>    NiMH: Tried and true, weak energy density and cost of nickel;
>>    PbAc: Poor energy density, short lifespan;
>>    NiFe: Worse energy density than PbAc, long lifespan.
>>
>> Non-rechargable / primary-cells:
>>    Zinc-Air, Aluminum-Air:
>>      High energy density, but single-use and remanufacture.
>>    Alkaline:
>>      Worse energy density, quasi-rechargable (short lifespan).
>>

Idle:
Seems like a boron based battery chemistries should also be possible
(could potentially also have a high energy density).

>>
>>>>
>>>> Other possible failure modes may become more of an issue if EVs try to
>>>> compete in terms of "affordability".
>>>>
>>>> Motor: If ran too hard or too hot, then the motor may burn up the
>>>> windings. This is more likely to be a factor for if/when "cheap" EVs
>>>> become more popular and they start trying to cost-optimize the motors.
>>>>
>>>> Namely a combination of aluminum windings (cheaper than copper), and
>>>> using undersized motors (at the upper end of their operating range). A
>>>> lot of consumer appliances have already switched over to aluminum-wound
>>>> motors.
>>>>
>>> I note:: aluminum is no longer allowed to be used as wiring for the
>>> home.
>>
>> I think it depends on the building code.
>>
>> Australia has completely banned aluminum wiring for pretty much
>> everything.
>>
>> In the US it was just sorta "strongly unpopular" for a while, but
>> apparently is back in style again due to rising costs.
>
> Aluminium is great for high-voltage/high-power cables since the
> conductivity per kg is better than Copper?

Yeah, in terms of power to weight, aluminum (and magnesium) wire are a
lot better than copper.

Magnesium wire has the main obvious drawback of being highly flammable,
and once it gets burning, water will not be able to put it out. Aluminum
wire is at least not (actively) flammable.

In terms of power vs wire gauge, aluminum is worse (need a thicker wire
to carry similar current). One needs to increase the wire thickness by
around 2 AWG to have similar ampacity.

A lot of the people doing the whole "aluminum wiring sucks" thing are
often trying to compare copper wire and aluminum wire at the same
thickness, rather than comparing a copper wire to an aluminum wire with
a 2 AWG adjustment.

Though, in theory, if wiring up a house with aluminum, one would ideally
want to be wiring up their 20A circuits with 10 AWG rather than 12 AWG.

Well, similarly, one typically needs to use an oxide-inhibitor on the
wire, and avoid screwing it down to brass terminals (as this can create
a galvanic reaction with any moisture in the air), which can corrode the
metal and lead to an increased fire risk.

For electronics, it is more common to use CCA wire (copper electroplated
onto aluminum) or TCCA (which adds another tin layer over the copper
layer). These mostly give the wire interface properties more like those
of copper wire (can be soldered, higher corrosion resistance, ...).

Meanwhile, aluminum house wiring has usually been bare aluminum (rather
than CCA or TCCA).

On Friday, October 22, 2021 at 1:30:17 PM UTC-5, BGB wrote:
> On 10/22/2021 9:08 AM, Terje Mathisen wrote:

> >> In the US it was just sorta "strongly unpopular" for a while, but
> >> apparently is back in style again due to rising costs.
> >
> > Aluminium is great for high-voltage/high-power cables since the
> > conductivity per kg is better than Copper?
<
> Yeah, in terms of power to weight, aluminum (and magnesium) wire are a
> lot better than copper.
>
> Magnesium wire has the main obvious drawback of being highly flammable,
> and once it gets burning, water will not be able to put it out. Aluminum
> wire is at least not (actively) flammable.
<
You might want to lookup why the HMS Sheffield was lost in the Falklands
War............its aluminum superstructure caught fire and could not be put out.......
>
>
> In terms of power vs wire gauge, aluminum is worse (need a thicker wire
> to carry similar current). One needs to increase the wire thickness by
> around 2 AWG to have similar ampacity.
>
> A lot of the people doing the whole "aluminum wiring sucks" thing are
> often trying to compare copper wire and aluminum wire at the same
> thickness, rather than comparing a copper wire to an aluminum wire with
> a 2 AWG adjustment.
>
>
> Though, in theory, if wiring up a house with aluminum, one would ideally
> want to be wiring up their 20A circuits with 10 AWG rather than 12 AWG.
<
Yes, indeed, "done to code" is a euphemism for "the wires are 1 AWG too small"
And that is in copper.
>

On 10/22/2021 12:15 PM, MitchAlsup wrote:
> On Friday, October 22, 2021 at 9:08:39 AM UTC-5, Terje Mathisen wrote:
>> BGB wrote:
>
>> The solution here is to get rid of all 110V wiring and devices,
>> preferably going all the way to 400V which reduces resistive losses by a
>> factor of about 15.
> <
> Excepting in wet situations, a person can safely pick up a 120V cable
> that is still live using non-conduction shoes (tennis) and non-conducting
> gloves. You cannot say the same thing about 400V.
> <

I was in a class a few years back where people were working some with
440V wiring. One of the people in the class (and also the only female in
the class) managed to touch an exposed 440V wire that was live.

She survived, but I guess it took out a chunk of the skin on her finger
(and she had some other electrical burns on her hand).

Contrast, brief contact with 120V is usually only "a bit unpleasant".
In theory, a person could get electrocuted, but this is not usually the
case.

48V would be safer still, one wont get zapped unless their skin is wet.

However, getting similar power at 48V would require wiring up a house
mostly with 8 or 6 AWG wire, which would be mostly impractical.

Well, or switch from using romex-style wiring to solid busbars which are
screwed to wall studs and similar and then bolted together or
soldered/welded at intersections (with only short drops down to the
individual outlets).

Well, also nevermind the lack of any mainstream electronics devices
which would run effectively on 48 VAC or similar.

....

On 10/22/2021 11:30 AM, BGB wrote:

snip

> Actually, some of us would also like active power backup for houses,
> built-in house scale surge suppression, ...
>
> So, the house could be its own UPS, rather than needing a bunch of small
> UPS's all over the house to keep computers from getting messed up (or to
> be able to keep them running for more than a few hours at a time).
>
> Say, if one could have a house where the wall outlets always provided a
> stable voltage with no momentary interruptions (and no voltage spikes
> during bad weather, ...).

Of course, such things are readily commercially available. See, for
example,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Powerwall

--
- Stephen Fuld
(e-mail address disguised to prevent spam)

On 10/22/2021 2:00 PM, Stephen Fuld wrote:
> On 10/22/2021 11:30 AM, BGB wrote:
>
> snip
>
>> Actually, some of us would also like active power backup for houses,
>> built-in house scale surge suppression, ...
>>
>> So, the house could be its own UPS, rather than needing a bunch of
>> small UPS's all over the house to keep computers from getting messed
>> up (or to be able to keep them running for more than a few hours at a
>> time).
>>
>> Say, if one could have a house where the wall outlets always provided
>> a stable voltage with no momentary interruptions (and no voltage
>> spikes during bad weather, ...).
>
>
> Of course, such things are readily commercially available.  See, for
> example,
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Powerwall
>

Granted, but not exactly common thus far, and fairly expensive...

I did start trying to build a "large UPS" at one point (mostly using an
inverter intended to be installed in a car, along with a few lead-acid
car batteries, ...).

Project got stalled out (mostly by it getting moved out into the garage,
and thus not easily accessible / buried under crap). There was an issue
with the inverter though that it was designed to be turned on/off with a
remote, and there was no obvious way to implement an automatic
switchover short of reverse-engineering the remote.

Would have preferred something more like "short these two pins together
to turn it on" more like in a computer power-supply.

This situation would have also been a bit better had I had my own house,
then I could be like "OK, I claim this corner to put my batteries and
bolt an inverter to the wall".

But, alas...

Thomas Koenig wrote:
> Terje Mathisen <terje.mathisen@tmsw.no> schrieb:
>> BGB wrote:
>
>>> Australia has completely banned aluminum wiring for pretty much everything.
>>>
>>> In the US it was just sorta "strongly unpopular" for a while, but
>>> apparently is back in style again due to rising costs.
>>
>> Aluminium is great for high-voltage/high-power cables since the
>> conductivity per kg is better than Copper?
>
> The problem is the oxide layer, which is highly resistive and,
> if you're unlucky, can generate fires.
>
>>> Granted, this could be a point of divergence between US engineering (use
>>> 18 AWG because the NEC says so) and Chinese engineering (use the
>>> cheapest wire possible that is still thick enough that it probably wont
>>> catch fire under expected load).
>>
>> The solution here is to get rid of all 110V wiring and devices,
>> preferably going all the way to 400V which reduces resistive losses by a
>> factor of about 15.
>
> 110 V is rather safe 230 V is less safe, but you still need to be
> unlucky to be killed. At least one family member would not be
> alive today if we had 400 V (unless you mean three phases, in
> which case you are unlikely to touch two of them at the same time).
>
Is this something you know? I.e. you have some references I can go through?

Voltage mostly doesn't matter, current is what burns you.
Frequencies that interact with heart signalling are much more
problematic, and 50-60 Hz seems to be a bad range.

Terje

--
- <Terje.Mathisen at tmsw.no>
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"

On 10/22/2021 1:37 PM, MitchAlsup wrote:
> On Friday, October 22, 2021 at 1:30:17 PM UTC-5, BGB wrote:
>> On 10/22/2021 9:08 AM, Terje Mathisen wrote:
>
>>>> In the US it was just sorta "strongly unpopular" for a while, but
>>>> apparently is back in style again due to rising costs.
>>>
>>> Aluminium is great for high-voltage/high-power cables since the
>>> conductivity per kg is better than Copper?
> <
>> Yeah, in terms of power to weight, aluminum (and magnesium) wire are a
>> lot better than copper.
>>
>> Magnesium wire has the main obvious drawback of being highly flammable,
>> and once it gets burning, water will not be able to put it out. Aluminum
>> wire is at least not (actively) flammable.
> <
> You might want to lookup why the HMS Sheffield was lost in the Falklands
> War............its aluminum superstructure caught fire and could not be put out.......

Granted, aluminum can catch fire in certain cases.

I guess there was also a ship a few years back that was trying mostly to
ship a hull full of machining chips over to China to sell as scrap.

The chips caught fire, they tried to put it out with seawater, but this
only made it worse, and the ship sank.

But, in most normal conditions, if you try to light up a piece of
aluminum, it will not burn.

This is unlike magnesium, which is significantly more flammable. Put
enough heat on it, or drop another piece of burning magnesium on it, ...
and there it goes.

>>
>>
>> In terms of power vs wire gauge, aluminum is worse (need a thicker wire
>> to carry similar current). One needs to increase the wire thickness by
>> around 2 AWG to have similar ampacity.
>>
>> A lot of the people doing the whole "aluminum wiring sucks" thing are
>> often trying to compare copper wire and aluminum wire at the same
>> thickness, rather than comparing a copper wire to an aluminum wire with
>> a 2 AWG adjustment.
>>
>>
>> Though, in theory, if wiring up a house with aluminum, one would ideally
>> want to be wiring up their 20A circuits with 10 AWG rather than 12 AWG.
> <
> Yes, indeed, "done to code" is a euphemism for "the wires are 1 AWG too small"
> And that is in copper.

Aluminum wire is cheap enough that, in theory, they could switch from 12
to 10, 14 to 12, ... and still work out ahead.

But, for whatever reason, people often went the extra-unsafe route of
switching the wire 1:1 in terms of wire gauge.

Well, I guess along with the other usual issues:
Aluminum and brass interact badly;
Aluminum oxide is an insulator;
...

In theory, it could be possible to do the CCA electroplating "on the spot":
Strip the wire;
Dip the stripped end into a copper sulfate solution;
Apply a voltage to the other end (from a battery or similar);
Rinse and dry wire when done.

Though, one could argue that maybe the added labor cost during
installation would be considered prohibitive (like, if for each stripped
end, it requires dipping the end in the solution, hooking up a battery,
and then waiting possibly several minutes). Also the annoyance that it
requires another electrode that is not being copper plated (since this
process depends on polarity, ...).

This process could be streamlined by doing it on a single end of the
wire via vampire clips or similar (with the container of copper sulfate
serving as the other electrode).

Probably not worthwhile simply to allow using it with brass connectors
and similar.

And, house electricians probably don't really care that they can't
solder onto bare aluminum.

BGB wrote:
> Actually, some of us would also like active power backup for houses,
> built-in house scale surge suppression, ...
>
> So, the house could be its own UPS, rather than needing a bunch of small
> UPS's all over the house to keep computers from getting messed up (or to
> be able to keep them running for more than a few hours at a time).
>
> Say, if one could have a house where the wall outlets always provided a
> stable voltage with no momentary interruptions (and no voltage spikes
> during bad weather, ...).
>
>
> Getting 440V 3-phase utility power could also be useful, but typically
> this is not available in areas that are zoned as residential (one needs
> their own inverter to get this). There are 240V (single-phase) to 440V
> (three phase) inverters available though.

This is where I really pity those of you who ended up with 110V.
>
> In theory, one could put 240V wall outlets in a house as well, albeit
> they have a different plug type under the NEMA system (and providing
> both types of outlets without significantly increasing the amount of
> house wiring would require using 4-conductor cables).

We have, like the rest of Europe, 240V standard ("Shuko") outlets, for
up to 16A fuse/13A continuous load. Going higher requires the big blue
industrial outlets which are different for 16A vs 32A, or even larger
red plugs with 5 pins, ground being longer than the others, which
provides 3-phase 400V so that you can also extract 240V between ground
and any of the phase lines.

Here I am sitting just now, in our mountain cabin in Rauland Telemark,
the local power company defaulted to 400V for all new installations,
something which allowed me to put in a (max) 11 kW charger with cheap
5-wire 16A cable.

The situation is much less nice down in Oslo where we have the infamous
IT wiring standard, this is 240 V 3-phase with floating ground,
something which we share with only Albania afaik. :-(

Terje

--
- <Terje.Mathisen at tmsw.no>
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"

On 10/22/2021 3:10 PM, Terje Mathisen wrote:
> Thomas Koenig wrote:
>> Terje Mathisen <terje.mathisen@tmsw.no> schrieb:
>>> BGB wrote:
>>
>>>> Australia has completely banned aluminum wiring for pretty much
>>>> everything.
>>>>
>>>> In the US it was just sorta "strongly unpopular" for a while, but
>>>> apparently is back in style again due to rising costs.
>>>
>>> Aluminium is great for high-voltage/high-power cables since the
>>> conductivity per kg is better than Copper?
>>
>> The problem is the oxide layer, which is highly resistive and,
>> if you're unlucky, can generate fires.
>>
>>>> Granted, this could be a point of divergence between US engineering
>>>> (use
>>>> 18 AWG because the NEC says so) and Chinese engineering (use the
>>>> cheapest wire possible that is still thick enough that it probably wont
>>>> catch fire under expected load).
>>>
>>> The solution here is to get rid of all 110V wiring and devices,
>>> preferably going all the way to 400V which reduces resistive losses by a
>>> factor of about 15.
>>
>> 110 V is rather safe   230 V is less safe, but you still need to be
>> unlucky to be killed.  At least one family member would not be
>> alive today if we had 400 V (unless you mean three phases, in
>> which case you are unlikely to touch two of them at the same time).
>>
> Is this something you know? I.e. you have some references I can go through?
>
> Voltage mostly doesn't matter, current is what burns you.

Humans are also big resistors in this sense (wet skin contact is
typically several kOhm; dry skin contact typically much higher).

So, the current through a human will depend highly on the voltage and
how far away the contact points are, ...

Likewise, lower voltages are safer because humans inherent resistance is
enough to reduce the current through them to "reasonably safe" levels.

Whereas, higher voltages don't care, they will go where they are going
to go...

> Frequencies that interact with heart signalling are much more
> problematic, and 50-60 Hz seems to be a bad range.
>

Generally, this as well.

Probably 240Hz or 480Hz could be better, allowing smaller and more
efficient transformers, while not being high enough to turn ones' house
wiring into a giant radio transmitter (eg: kHz range).

Going too much higher than this would probably be a bad thing due to RF
emissions and leakage.