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bob29

157 karma · joined August 27, 2020

BAN ME COWARD DANG leave this trash website and save your.brain

dang 13 hours ago | root | parent | next [–]

Please stop trolling. I don't want to have to ban you. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

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1 point by bob29 11 hours ago [flagged] | root | parent | next [–]

No. I vow to never stop trolling. Please ban me with the most severe methods at your disposal. Ban every account I've ever made, every device, browser, user agent, and every IP I've ever used to visit this site. If you do not, I will use every ounce of my vitality to incessantly troll the comments here. I realize now this site is an echo chamber amplifying only what I consider to be the most dispicable parts of humanity: cruelty, exploitation and greed. I want no shred of my uniqueness and diversity of thought to contribute in any way what so ever the conversation here, (except in trolling form, to diminish it, which I will do unless you ban me as I requested in the first paragraph).

It will save me the time of remembering/figuring out where the hosts file is to block this domain on the OS of every device that I have.

submissionscomments
bob29··on Launch HN: Carbon Crusher (YC W22) – Carbon Negative Roads
There is essentially no way this operation ends up with less carbon in the atmosphere.

It is very hard to do anything with biomass at industrial scale without emitting more carbon than the biomass itself contains.

Even look at biomass to energy, by the time harvest, transport, and process a tree for use to "offset" fossil fuel combustion, it's hard to say thats carbon negative.

Now you harvest the biomass, put it through some chemical engineering process to make a binder product, put this binder product in the hopper of some massive diesel powered behemoth machine that chews up, binds, and compacts and remakes roads. This obviously consumes a LOT of energy.

Is it a cool company? Yes, making effective nontoxic product out of another industries byproduct, to be used in something thats been foundational to human society for 1000s of years, roads, is maybe the neatest new company I've heard about in a long time.

Does it emit less carbon than some other ways of repaving roads? probably.

Is it carbon negative by ANY definition? OBVIOUSLY not (or I will eat my hat and throw an egg on my face.)

I'm honestly confused why there's ANY claim of being carbon negative, let alone it being front and center, when the underlying product can totally stand on its own??

bob29··on 13 years sailing around the world
Haha you sound bitter that people are able to make a hobby they enjoy their full time lifestyle, while you're stuck in some job you hate to be a weekend warrior at best.
bob29··on Alder Lake Core i9 processor is faster than the M1 Max
LISTEN YOU GEN Z PUNK, YOU DONT KNOW ABOU TTHE REAL TIK TOK

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tick%E2%80%93tock_model

bob29··on Urea prices increase 270% in 1 year
I believe Robotbeats calculations are lacking if the intent is to demonstrate how much fossil fuel energy is embodied in one unit (joules, calories, etc) of food:

-hydrogen is not a primary energy, no accounting for energy needed to produce 1kg of H2 gas -producing ammonia from hydrogen consumes energy -producing corn from ammonia requires more embodied energy than sunlight - other fertilizers, *cides, fuel and construction industrial sized agricultural machinery.

Only measuring the chemical energy in quantity of H2 vs the dietary calories in associated corn produced is incomplete model of fossil fuels required in agricultural production.

If you are saying the urea price spike has occured in a complete isolation, like temporary specific failure of urea manufacturing , maybe its not a problem. If its one of the first noticable effects of an overall fossil fuel shortage, its going to have huge feedback effects invalidating economic models such as slowing renewable growth, making the whole economy less productive.

bob29··on Crypto’s hottest game is facing an economic maelstrom
The more modern digital screen slot machines I've played now have 2 buttons, one that selects how many paylines, and one that selects how much money per payline you bet, and have rewards that can trigger minigames. I wouldn't say they're more engaging or fundamentally different than classic casino games, but I think for casinos there will always be an incentive to design games that can be optimally played by any drunk player.

On the flip side, as someone who used to be an obsessed video game player, behind all the fancy media assets, all I see in most videogames is running through a maze and watching the output from pseudorandom number generators.

To make a casino game that is actually fun, by gaming standards, I think it would look like World of Warcraft with an in-game integration of marketplace for gold and items instead of going to ebay.

bob29··on The unbearable fussiness of the smart home
“Boats can float in water, but they can sink in it,too.”
bob29··on Show HN: Long Range E-Bike
I'll take your word for it because I'm on the other side of the planet but it just seems incongruent and illogical that replacing a component with another compatible part, mass produced and used all over will get your bike confiscated and invalidated but a totally custom one off with no real world test, certification, or such is fine.

It just seems like bureacracy gone totally out of control. You take bicycles, possibly the pinnacle of appropriate technology, a set of tools can fit in a shoebox and nearly anyone can take apart and fix every last piece, and its super useful. Now incredibly there comes along additional components capable of augmenting and improving the bicycle. Add a multimeter and wirestrippers to your bike toolkit, attach a battery to your frame, replace a wheel or bottom bracket with a motor and any bike becomes an ebike, incredible. But then the law decides to ruin incredible by saying only select pre-approved models can be ridden. And making certain modifications is completely illegal, but dramatically internally modifying is allowed and even insurable.

I hope your pack is safe. Some aspects of the design seem inherently safe like using that many batteries in parallel for a 350 watt load, the peak usage will always be below the continuous rating of the cells. I'm no electrical safety professional but I have taken some workplace safety 101 online website multiple choice certification things and theres some issues i wonder about. Hopefully you've addressed and mitigated all of these concerns already, or plan to as you finalize the build, or get lucky, or are at least aware and prepared if a failure does occur. Here comes more internet stranger critique:I saw nothing about shock and vibration design, no drop tests, no mention of short circuit tests, no thermal measurements taken during a controlled charge/discharge, no mention of arc flash considerations during your assembly, first time use of a new tool that was uncontrollabe/inconsistent during assembly, possibly wasn't connected to a suitable electrical source, an ad-hoc decision to do 3x the number of welds w/no mention of ensuring that didn't overheat the cell.. And that's simple stuff any hobbyist is capable of, nothing compared to controlled third party testing that would be done to certify a commercial pack.

And how many man hours of development and testing do you think go into that commercial battery pack you can buy? Probably more than 2 months. And they're equipped with mutual nda's and proprietary data from manufacturers, vs youtube, online distributors, and some guts of a bosch bms. This was a first time pack build, manufacturers probably destructively tested more packs of each of their models than you have built, and at some point economies of scale and upfront investment give them access to superior manufacturing processes and materials. And because laws get applied equally to every person, consider this project built by another version of you, equally confident and less skilled or lucky, do they too get the official thumbs up to ride it in public?

In the USA if you wanted a 2 kwh pack you can buy them premade, although thats the largest they sell currently, and replace any ebikes battery with it, convert any bike into an ebike, or buy a third party assembled bike with it, or buy from a custom manufacturer that integrates the battery and motor into the frame itself. And needless to say you can put any motor or drive on it. But the idea of licensing, registering, and insuring a bicycle is an unheard of, and its especially word to have anyone inspect your bike or care what parts are on it. Entirely different worlds but it just feels like the European regulations introduce big limitations on the potential.

bob29··on Show HN: Long Range E-Bike
The insurance is OK with a home made battery? And there's no concern for public workers if some unidentified custom battery catches on fire for example?

I've never seen a thumb throttle burn down someones house. Alibaba batteries though? https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=87975

bob29··on Show HN: Long Range E-Bike
You're in the realm of replacing original parts with the new battery mod. Why not replace the Bosch motor controller with any available motor controller that lets you configure your throttle inputs however you want?
bob29··on Show HN: Long Range E-Bike
Another clueless American ebiker question about Europeon law. Is the article's bike legal? Individual can self build a high energy battery with parts and tools from online sellers putting an alibaba balance charger in parallel with the original BMS, no external testing review or inspection. And the authorities/insurance don't care about this customization vs the factory model they presumably inspected before certifying.

Alternatively if you software configure a motor controller so that it sends motor current from a throttle instead of a torque sensor in the pedals, you'll be busted?

bob29··on Show HN: SectorLISP now fits in one sector
https://www.red-lang.org/p/about.html

Almost as batteries-included as python.

bob29··on Wyoming site of new nuclear power plant from Bill Gates' TerraPower
How many of these "not really feasible" sites do you think their algorithm identified. They are coming to the conclusion there is 100 or 250x more capacity than required (depending on country).

Do you think their algorithm is so inaccurate that only 1% or less of the sites these researchers identified would actually be suitable for pumped hydro?

Also in short, announcing an on-time, safe, profitable nuclear project is easier than actually executing it.

bob29··on Wyoming site of new nuclear power plant from Bill Gates' TerraPower
I guess you didn't read the article, as it directly refutes your claim.

>We found about 616,000 potentially feasible PHES sites with storage potential of about 23 million Gigawatt-hours (GWh) by using geographic information system (GIS) analysis. This is about one hundred times greater than required to support a 100% global renewable electricity system.

Maybe someone on HN can convert 23 million gigawatt hours to terawatt hours and compare it to 60.

bob29··on Wyoming site of new nuclear power plant from Bill Gates' TerraPower
I think you're forgetting storage

>The Australian study makes it clear that there’s far more resource capacity than is required. They modeled only 300-meter plus head heights close to grid connectivity with limited height dams and found 250 times as much capacity in the US as was needed.

https://cleantechnica.com/2019/12/13/a-modest-pumped-storage...

bob29··on Renewable Energy Is Suddenly Startlingly Cheap
The IEA didn't see it coming https://maartensteinbuch.com/2017/06/12/photovoltaic-growth-...
bob29··on Nuclear reactions are smoldering again at Chernobyl
Interesting that years later the sensationalist doomer blogs[1] turn out to be correct[2], in contrast with the common obviously false mantra of "there is no nuclear waste problem/safety issues"

[1] https://cuttingthegordianknot.wordpress.com/2012/05/02/houst...

[2] https://earther.gizmodo.com/japan-s-new-fukushima-plan-dumpi...

bob29··on ‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world
Why isn't it net metering? It seems to be net metering whether you count in kilowatt hours or dollars.

They are selling back to the grid, with a smart meter that counts power in both direction. Theres many types of policies in net metering like details about what rate you buy and sell power to the utility. In some less favorable places, the grid sells you power at retail prices but buys it back from you at wholesale. In these places, to achieve a $0 utility bill you would be generating more during the day than you consume at night. If your net metering deal paid back at retail rates you may get a credit, but as far as i understand each utility can offer totally different net metering deals, if they offer it at all.

bob29··on Bitcoin mining hash rate drops as blackouts instituted in China
No. Literally Germany's coal is specifically because its their own coal, a natural resource within their own borders they control. For national security, they maintain a coal capacity. Germany's coal burning is national security, nothing to do with environmentalists.
bob29··on Giving EV batteries a second life for sustainability and profit
Hyundia announced an EV with built in inverter, they call it Vehicle To Load[1]. Like you mention with a transfer switch your whole house could be a "load" For a non-emergency it probably makes sense to use a <70% depleted 2nd life battery, and save the new battery for transportation usage.

[1] https://www.hyundai.com/worldwide/en/company/newsroom/hyunda...

bob29··on Red seaweed supplementation reduces enteric methane by over 80% in beef steers
>The rainforests that were there before certainly produce methane

Conditions on the forest floor typically facilitate aerobic decomposition which does not release methane. [1]

>If you want to lock up carbon, you need to take it from the plants and sequester it somewhere natural forces (rot, weathering) won’t break it back down again - like a house, or in a cave, or in a hypoxic environment.

Hypoxic environment is exactly the conditions methanogenic bacteria operate in to turn biomass into methane. [2]

> Converting atmospheric co2 (or methane) into plastic that gets buried in a landfill is net negative carbon balance for instance.

Except for the energy needed to convert the molecules, the energy needed to transport plastic to a landfill. Energy production and transportation both are powered by fossil fuels mostly.

[1]http://whatcom.wsu.edu/ag/compost/fundamentals/consideration...

[2]http://solarcities.eu/faq

bob29··on Nuclear technology’s role in the world’s energy supply is shrinking
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26404232
bob29··on Nuclear technology’s role in the world’s energy supply is shrinking
I didn't "furiously google" anything I "calmly referenced" some of the MANY notes I have from following articles, podcasts, and journals in this field, which I have spent most of my career in.

In fact, I didn't see ANY links from you supporting your nonsense about renewables not working, despite them working in many places across the globe.

>literally none of these are currently capable of replacing baseload nuclear and fossil fuel energy generation.

Literally STORAGE will never replace GENERATION, they are two different concepts which most people understand but you apparently don't. STORAGE can supplement INTERMITTENT GENERATION to create DISPATCHABLE GENERATION for far cheaper than nuclear plants.

bob29··on Nuclear technology’s role in the world’s energy supply is shrinking
There isn't a company you can call up because projects of this magnitude aren't quoted over the phone to internet forums users. 50 GWh is stored in ~30,000 barrels of synthetic fuel. GWh is an incomplete way to specify storage, there are different technologies for the different ways storage may be needed, depending on what resources are on the grid: short term to handle the peaks of everyone microwaving their breakfast and coffee at 7am or long term storage to handle a once every few decades event like a Texas snow storm.

No one is presently making these because the policy of the grid was developed around power plants that dig stuff out of the ground and burn it - the markets are based on bidding with the assumption every power plant will have a marginal cost of generation relative to the cost of its fuel. This policy doesn't reflect the nature of renewables which besides their capital cost have very low to 0 marginal cost of production. This has disrupted the energy markets in many ways and policy is still being developed to incentivize storage capacity.

bob29··on Nuclear technology’s role in the world’s energy supply is shrinking
The associated report does have more details whether or not you agree with them. The article is more of a summary.

re: demand projections "the carbon neutral and carbon negative scenarios were required to meet the same demand for energy services, for daily life and industrial production as the business as usual reference case from the EIA's Annual Energy Outlook and used its assumptions for population, for GDP and industrial production. So that's very much nothing changes in the world except for the energy system... kind of a view. And the modeling only allows technologies that are commercial today or that have been demonstrated at large pilot scale today. So in effect, I think that really sets a pretty high bar because in reality, I would expect a number of those things to change over the next 30 years. For example, I would expect probably lower population growth than EIA projects and considerably lower demand for energy services and industrial production as a result of a slowing economy. And I would have said that before we have the added effects of the pandemic. " re:feasibility "I think at it's core backcasting is about trying to understand what's entailed in the physical transformation. So the legacy of this work is in that discussion about feeling like that's the analysis that's needed. Not necessarily understanding what does a carbon tax do on the margin or what to other approaches do sort of in the short term and in the macroeconomic system. But really understanding how many more widgets do we need and how quickly do they need to be deployed if you don't want to do early retirement. So that context of the questions we're trying to answer really sets up the insights that come from backcasting. So one of the things we think a lot about is stock turnover. So sort of one of our modeling principles is that we don't do early retirement of any resources except for potentially an electricity supply. So for things like light-duty vehicles or industrial boilers, we really need to understand how long do those resources typically stay online? And that means if it's a 15-year turnover rate for something like a furnace or maybe it's a 30-year turnover rate for something like an industrial boiler."

re:cost "And we find that that case at a net cost of 0.4 percent of GDP in 2050 is able to achieve carbon neutrality. So that 0.4 percent of GDP in 2050 over the reference case, it really represents some major shifts in terms of monetary flows. So we're spending $950 billion on efficiency, new supply for low carbon solutions, and we're saving $800 billion on fossil fuels that are no longer being burned. So our analysis really only looks at the energy costs for the total system for that transition. We're not accounting for things like co-benefits or economic benefits from the avoided damage of climate change or other potential impacts, as well as potential health or environmental benefits. That total energy spending declines from about five percent of GDP for the energy system today to around four percent in 2050. " -quotes from podcast linked in first article

https://www.unsdsn.org/Zero-Carbon-Action-Plan

https://irp-cdn.multiscreensite.com/6f2c9f57/files/uploaded/...

bob29··on Nuclear technology’s role in the world’s energy supply is shrinking
https://energystorage.org/why-energy-storage/technologies/

These technologies exist today and are based on sound thermodynamic principles and existing industrial capability.

bob29··on Nuclear technology’s role in the world’s energy supply is shrinking
Actual experts have studied this. Full decarbonization by 2050 with <2% GPD spending per year. No new, and phasing out existing nuclear. Overprovision renewables and produce carbon neutral synthetic fuels with excess power production. Nuclear will never power chainsaws which many across the world depend on.

https://www.evolved.energy/post/2016/02/16/deep-decarbonizat...

bob29··on Nuclear power must be well regulated, not ditched
Hmm I wonder if there’s a link between the fish in the river being fine and the regulators preventing the reactor from boiling it in the summer ?
bob29··on Nuclear power must be well regulated, not ditched
Easy, there’s many: 1) Solar + transmission lines. It’s always sunny somewhere

2) wind + transmission lines, always windy somewhere

3) use some energy produced by hydro to manufacture some concrete river beds and reservoirs

4) use some of the energy produced by 1-3 to dig real deep for geothermal everywhere

5) Ocean thermal energy conversion

Don’t get me wrong , I’m not anti nuclear , I’m a huge fan of the big reactor in the sky it produces all we need with perfect reliability there’s no reason to do something as dumb as trying to build terrestrial reactors

bob29··on Nuclear power must be well regulated, not ditched
So you can build nuclear in a tsunami zone? in a seismic zone? in an area without cooling?

So you can mine and enrich uranium without carbon?

Nuclear does none of the things you fantasize it to do really.

bob29··on Nuclear power must be well regulated, not ditched
https://apnews.com/article/2fef5c6a978b4fd5a79596020f0bac8a
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