Energy Crisis Hits Home

suffering a brownout right now. good thing I got my 1500mah UPS I got from Got|Apex's deal page ;0) __________________ UPS is runnin' down renots will return! ;0) __________________ Get that hamster running faster! ...or that midget (whichever is your preferred method of back-up energy) __________________ http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/2000...ower_woes.html __________________ My alma mater has been experiencing power outages for the last four months. I don't have much sympathy. These entities have been saving huge amounts of money for the last six or seven years because they never expected it to get to this point. Want a good website to help clear up the situation? UCAN.org is a SD-based organization that deals with utility lobbying. Sure, their material is wildly biased, but if you read between the lines, you can get a pretty good sense of what the problems are. And they can't be wholly attributed to PG&E or SCE... __________________ The reason why California has a power crisis is because renots is using all the electricity to grow all those special plants he has in his basement. __________________ Quote: Originally posted by sbp The reason why California has a power crisis is because renots is using all the electricity to grow all those special plants he has in his basement. Wow, renots, I didn't know you were such a orchid enthusiast! __________________ http://slashdot.org/articles/00/12/08/1431244.shtml __________________ we're going to get jacked unless we do something SOON. Can you say "Free Energy" network and subsidized fuel cells? __________________ Are they orchids next to your smiling face, pennypinch? __________________ That's why we should use fuel cells, and you should invest in Plug Power (PLUG)! http://www.plugpower.com __________________ Wow . . . I studied in Prague with the son of one of the C-level execs at Plug Power . . . this was in 1998, about a year before they went public. At the time they had the kid making their promotional videos. He said they would go public at some point. Man, I hadn't thought about him for a while, had kinda wondered what happened to the company . . . I guess they did go public and the stock was succesful for a while, but seems like the stock has tanked since then. Oh well, while the promo video was kinda cheesy, the tech looked pretty interesting. [Edited by Butch on 12-09-2000 at 01:45 PM] __________________ Is the Internet causing an energy crisis? ~~~ Since 1998, California has licensed eight new power plants. But that new power won't begin coming online until next summer, which means the state's electricity woes are likely to continue for many months to come. Some companies have begun to look more closely at on-site generating equipment, including gas-fired turbines and fuel cells. Those technologies could be implemented at far lower cost than centralized power plants, and would obviate the need for big investments in new high-power transmission lines. In addition, on-site generation is more efficient - when electricity is transported long distances, significant amounts of power are lost due to resistance from the wires themselves. ~~~ __________________ UPS and power suplies: inefficient combination ~~~ The whole UPS issue stinks of inefficiency. The UPS converts 115VAC to 12-24 VDC to charge a battery, then when called on to provide current, converts 12-24VDC to 115VAC. Power loss at each conversion. Meanwhile, the average notebook PC has a single power source, the brick, that carges the battery and powers the hardware. The internal battery acts as a UPS. Why not modify power supply design to include a "battery port",e.g. a standard port connected to an external battery/power source, with switching circuit to charge battery or draw from it as needed. Since the internal components of a PC (or server) only require 12 VDC or +/-5 VDC, this would be more efficient. The tech for this circuitry is off-the-shelf, and a "battery port" wouldn't be a big deal, maybe 4 or 6 conductors. And don't get me started on CRT monitors.. ~Ed Gruberman Mavi forum