Subject: Battle of the Currents



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(3560)   Sat 27 Jul 91 22:53                             
By: Terry Olsen
To: Don Kulha

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 QE 2.75 b9 & RA 1.01 2306@
MSGID: 1:125/12 4e3096ec
Cheering article Don, but as with almost everything, $$$ rules and 
the central power plant (and hydroelectric dams) that produce power 
some distance from users (in cities) requre High Voltage lines in 
order to transport the power, there is just no other way to do it 
Possibly roof solor cells if efficient, or something like that will 
come in someday but even so, in order to have enough power to run a 
sawmill (for example) a lot of power is needed and that means high 
voltage lines...because it is cheapest.
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(3573)   Sun 28 Jul 91 11:59                             
By: Don Kulha
To: Terry Olsen

> Original Message Date: 27 Jul 91 22:53:00
> From: Terry Olsen
> To: Don Kulha

> Cheering article Don, but as with almost everything, $$$ 
> rules and the central power plant (and hydroelectric dams) 
> that produce power some distance from users (in cities) 
> requre High Voltage lines in order to transport the power, 
> there is just no other way to do it Possibly roof solor 
> cells if efficient, or something like that will come in 
> someday but even so, in order to have enough power to run a 
> sawmill (for example) a lot of power is needed and that 
> means high voltage lines...because it is cheapest.
> ---
     I can appreciate your point there and am quite aware of Ohm's 
law and it's implications...one needs a lot more conductor to move 
the same amount of energy through it at low voltage (thinking in 
terms of Pressure) than at higher voltage. I also know about the 
benefits of AC for moving power long distances. Still the article I 
quoted did point out the usefulness and some good points of using 
low voltage DC at the point of power production. Now if one needed 
200 KW of electrical power it would be a little difficult to do 
that onsite with photovoltaics for an industrial plant, especially 
if it ran 24 hours a day. Big utility hydro would be cheaper and 
maybe more practical. No, I think that the article and most of the 
discussion here relates to personal power production and small 
scale sytems...most of which would be on the order of 5-10kw a day 
or less. Good point though. Now if TI's new "bubble cells" prove 
practical and the cost per watt of produced power can be gotten 
down to a dollar a watt or less (currently at around $6 a watt) for 
an installed system then maybe we'll see solar being used a lot 
more for non-remote systems. For a lot of folks paying $20,000 just 
to get power to their homesite makes solar and other alternative 
technologies very attractive. At least now solar is far cheaper 
than atomic power which (hopefully) will turn that technology into 
a dinosaur....DCK

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(3590)   Mon 29 Jul 91  6:35                             
By: Terry Olsen
To: Don Kulha

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 QE 2.75 b9 & RA 1.01 2306@
MSGID: 1:125/12 4e3254a8
Yeah, for $20,000 a person can have a real power system, using 
batteries, hydor-electric (1 KW wheel) and 2.5 KW inverter.
So if a person has a good source of water it would pay off in 20 
years!
As for gettin rid of nucelar..well there are uses for nuclear we 
haven't done much with yet, especially spacecraft..No the two 
sources that I feel may become worth a great deal (I've been wrong 
before) are 1.dirct solor to electricity energy.  And 2. a beamed 
power system. colleltors in space.
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