Are you saying large Transformers 1 mva, 10 mva, 100 mva, 500 mva are obsolete and should be replaced by switched mode power supplies? What mva is the threshold?
For new installation, yes, for any size a switched mode supply will usually be better in all dimensions. For the largest sizes, you can't buy them off the shelf, and there design costs may dominate. But after the thing is designed, in component costs, switched mode will win. Everything scales linearly with kVA, so there is no economics crossover point for the fundamental materials.
Eventually it will be worth switching out old transformers - they contain a massive amount of valuable copper and quite valuable steel, and their lower efficiency means every year they remain in service they are wasting $$$'s of electricity.
Transformers in cities can often be replaced with much smaller switched mode units underground, allowing the building housing the old transformer to be rebuilt as luxury flats to make the project much more profitable too!
Large power transformers have efficiencies in the 98-99.75% range.
I don't doubt switch mode could be smaller and cheaper up to some size, but I am struggling to see transformers larger than about 5 mva being replaced with power electronics.
Solar farms etc have inverters in modules I believe 500 kva each - and of course the power electronics are necessary there, there is no substitute.
I have a 20 MVA transformer that is nearly at end of life and would be open to cheaper replacements.
For 5-20 MVA you're talking about 67 kV substations or similar, where a transformer costs in the low 6 figures. HVDC converter stations in the same range would cost somewhere around 8 figures, although that's mostly a guess- you typically need maintenance and supervision in a way that you don't with transformers. 1%+ downtime is pretty common, which absolutely sucks if you aren't a full grid and can't pull extra generation.
Yeah, but that price tag is mostly due to the fact that HVDC isn't a widespread technology yet. Once factors of scale come into play, the situation will look different and the prices come down.
Additionally, the price of copper is already at an/near the all-time high and it's not going to get cheaper, and the land on which huge transformers sit is shooting up in value... so in the end, market forces may push towards solid-state technology anyway.
like you I hope I'm as present in my senior years! Female friends have entertaining stories about encounters with him from 17 years ago when he was 77!
what else have envy and greed driven? What would the world look like without those inate human emotions? It might be a simpler place but potentially the worst of history could have been avoided.
Wannabe's is pretty harsh for a group of people that started first and achieved their goals second.
Wannabe's never do the thing. They don't seriously try to do it. I have no reason to defend bezos but people made a serious effort there and they would not be wannabes even if they failed
I'm a wannabe for launching weather balloons and model rockets with my kids from the comfort and security of my well paying public sector job
I appreciate your point. Upon reading my post, I should have limited the term wannabe to Bezos in regards to building a space company. I should never have faulted hard working engineers making a serious effort to accomplish something noble. The fault, as always, is most likely with management.
However, I do not agree with your definition of wannabe. You can seriously try to do something and still be a wannabe. Bezos has seriously tried to do this, but I don't think he can cope with the notion that while he is enormously successful (by many metrics) at Amazon, he may not be the right person to lead a space company.
Webster's definition of wannabe
1 : a person who wants or aspires to be someone or something else or who tries to look or act like someone else
2 : something (such as a company, city, or product) intended to rival another of its kind that has been successful
In desireable locations the land cost is often more than the construction cost, so splitting that land cost across multiple dwellings makes them more affordable. Sure the cost per sq ft is higher when you are putting in three dwellings under one roof than for a McMansion, but you are getting three dwellings that in aggregate should be worth more than one McMansion.
In most cities in the US, land costs are not going to be a large part of the costs of building new construction. Materials and labor will be most of it.
I'm looking to sell my f150 in to these high used car prices and get an electric pickup for hauling my snowmobile. Self driving doesn't interest me at all. Cyber truck delivery is mid 2022. Hopefully it is cheaper than the long range f150 lightning.
Announced cybertruck prices were always highly predicated on huge battery manufacturing improvements (we now know as 4680 cells). There have been plenty of rumours Tesla is having trouble ramping up production volume and yields since they have admitted the refreshed Y might not get them right away, so if cybertruck does ship in mid 2022 it's likely to be a much more model 3 launch trickling out than Y where they could ramp up very fast.
That's ignoring all the basic issues with the cybertruck design. Tesla doesn't have EU pedestrian regulations to contend with (something cybertruck's basic shape likely cannot ever meet), but they still have a bunch of NHTSA stuff that isn't going to be easy with the weird choices they made. I suspect the production cybertruck won't be quite as extreme as what they showed.
I really like my model 3, but I treat any statement by Tesla as a complete fabrication until it's in the metal off a production line.
On the other hand, I'd be shocked if Ford doesn't deliver exactly what they announced for the prices they predicted. If I was looking to buy an EV truck right now I'd put my money on F-150 Lightning.
The whole grill coming up and the fact it’s so load/unload friendly is a game changer for people who daily drive a truck. No more leaving groceries in the bed to slide around or fiddle with getting them into the backseat of a crew cab. Then add in the plugs in the frunk and bed and it might be the most useable truck every developed.
Just to be clear vxworks is not bsd based that I could tell from Wikipedia. I work with Schneider electric plcs and sometimes vxworks errors bubble up.
I think they meant to say that BSD-based stuff is common but unknown to most, and that the same goes for VxWorks and TRON, in that both open source BSD and proprietary solutions have licenses that make their inclusion in other software products not noticed by many people.
I didn't realize that hydrogen is/will be commonly transported as NH3 ammonia before its end-use. I'm starting to see lots of articles about Ammonia as the transportable energy dense fuel of the future that could soon be flowing in pipelines.
In the state of MI today, off-peak electricity is 11c/kWh and gas today costs $3/gal.
The Mustang Mach E uses 190wH per mile, so each mile costs ~2c.
The Mustang Mach 1 ICE car gets 20mpg, so each mile costs 15c.
So today in MI, the energy cost of the electric is already 1/7 of the ICE. Nonetheless, you will find far more EVs per capita in California, where the EV energy cost advantage is far lower due to high electricity prices.
The difference is cultural.
Maybe it will change and MI will be an EV buying state, lets see. Alas, Biden has thrown the auto industry a bit of a softball with vehicle efficiency (far less aggressive than what he campaigned on), out of a practical need to bolster his support in the industrial and largely gas powered Midwest.
As a result, I don't suspect you will see a national carbon tax in the US anytime soon. That's the unfortunate reality that we have to work with.
