On Wednesday, April 24, 2019 at 11:35:11 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Wed, 24 Apr 2019 20:15:34 -0700 (PDT), Its Me
wrote:

On Tuesday, April 23, 2019 at 11:16:47 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 18:36:36 -0700 (PDT), Its Me
wrote:

On Tuesday, April 23, 2019 at 8:41:50 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 17:28:35 -0400,
wrote:

On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 17:01:36 -0400, wrote:

On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 16:08:55 -0400,
wrote:

On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 14:11:32 -0400, wrote:

They are assuming coal fired electric plants but I agree all electric
cars do is move the smoke stack down the road a ways.

===

In my opinion that's an over simplification. For one it ignores the
fact that stationary, large-scale power plants are much more efficient
than the average internal combusion engine used in vehicles. Secondly,
the charging is usually done at off peak hours when there is typically
excess grid capacity. Last but not least, the trend is pointing in
the direction of renewable energy such as wind and solar. If we live
long enough (doubtful), we might even see clean nuclear fusion some
day. As an additional benefit, electric cars have done quite a bit to
advance the state-of-the-art for light weight, high efficiency
batteries. Those gains will eventually prove useful for the storage
of wind and solar energy.
That all assumes a clean power plant in the first place. The article
was talking about coal plants and we still have plenty of them.
Your solar power is not going to do much if the cars are charged at
night.


===

At least in this country, coal plants are rapidly going away.

Solar power at night is not going to happen of course. New battery
technology, and other energy storage devices, will eventually help
with that issue however. If every south facing roof in Florida was
covered with high efficiency solar panels, there would be plenty of
energy to spare for battery charging. I think that will eventually
happen as the price of solar panels steadily decreases.

My problem is drilling holes in a roof that isn't leaking now. My
roofer neighbor says solar is great for his business. I also only have
about 3kw worth of south facing roof.
Solar is getting a lot cheaper tho. I was looking the other day and
there are lots of collectors in the 75 cents a watt neighborhood.
I wonder how FPL would feel if I built an array on their property ;-)

Running those cables to/from that array near their power lines may be the biggest problem.You may create a transformer that neither of you want.

That is way overstated. I have tried to scavenge power from those
lines for 35 years with absolutely zero success. If you believe what
you see on you tube I should be able to hold an F40 tube in the air
and have it light up ... nope. I should be able to string a wire
parallel to the line and generate something ... nope.
Coil of wire ... nope.
I really wanted a light in my boat house under those lines without
stringing another wire but no joy.
If you really look at these lines it is easy to see why. They are a
twisted triplex. They just have a twist about every half mile or so
but that is still way smaller than the wave length. (roughly from here
to California)

Besides, my wires would be running at 90 degrees to the power line and
underground.

You aren't trying hard enough.

It would take a fairly long run parallel to those lines to get any induced power. That a *very* inefficient transformer.

The twist has nothing to do with it. It's not RF (wavelength) they are concerned with, it's a expanding and collapsing magnetic field at 60hz. Twisted pair is used primarily to greatly reduce *induced* interference, not to reduce radiated interference. Those conductors you are seeing aren't twisted pairs, but rather an efficient way to run a conductor of a specific CMA. Easier and more efficient to run a lazy spiral of three smaller conductors sharing the load than to run one that is their equal. That doesn't change their radiated magnetic footprint.

You still haven't explained why they twist them. It would be easier to
just run them straight but it is obvious that they roll them about
every half mile.
I also believe the fields from 3 phases tend to cancel each other out.
If I put my clamp on ammeter around a cable carrying the current down
and back, I get zero and that is a lot closer coupled transformer than
anything I could do by stringing a wire along the ground.

You're right about the 90 degree rule. I'd be more worried about the induced noise in the panels and their conductors, which may not be at 90 degrees.

Since the whole grid is in sync, what "noise"? I lived my whole
computer career looking for noise and for the most part when we found
the enemy, it was us, RF from our switching power supplies (along with
some other PS schemes that were even noisier).

Since the twist is not electrical in nature (that I can imagine), I suspect the reason is mechanical. If the three conductors weren't twisted in some way, they'd just flop around.

Those solar panels aren't part of the grid, and have no "sync". Sunlight isn't 60 Hz.

On Thu, 25 Apr 2019 07:41:44 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 4/24/2019 11:42 PM, wrote:
On Wed, 24 Apr 2019 19:35:19 -0400, Alex wrote:

wrote:
On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 18:36:36 -0700 (PDT), Its Me
wrote:

On Tuesday, April 23, 2019 at 8:41:50 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 17:28:35 -0400,
wrote:

On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 17:01:36 -0400, wrote:

On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 16:08:55 -0400,
wrote:

On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 14:11:32 -0400, wrote:

They are assuming coal fired electric plants but I agree all electric
cars do is move the smoke stack down the road a ways.
===

In my opinion that's an over simplification. For one it ignores the
fact that stationary, large-scale power plants are much more efficient
than the average internal combusion engine used in vehicles. Secondly,
the charging is usually done at off peak hours when there is typically
excess grid capacity. Last but not least, the trend is pointing in
the direction of renewable energy such as wind and solar. If we live
long enough (doubtful), we might even see clean nuclear fusion some
day. As an additional benefit, electric cars have done quite a bit to
advance the state-of-the-art for light weight, high efficiency
batteries. Those gains will eventually prove useful for the storage
of wind and solar energy.
That all assumes a clean power plant in the first place. The article
was talking about coal plants and we still have plenty of them.
Your solar power is not going to do much if the cars are charged at
night.

===

At least in this country, coal plants are rapidly going away.

Solar power at night is not going to happen of course. New battery
technology, and other energy storage devices, will eventually help
with that issue however. If every south facing roof in Florida was
covered with high efficiency solar panels, there would be plenty of
energy to spare for battery charging. I think that will eventually
happen as the price of solar panels steadily decreases.

My problem is drilling holes in a roof that isn't leaking now. My
roofer neighbor says solar is great for his business. I also only have
about 3kw worth of south facing roof.
Solar is getting a lot cheaper tho. I was looking the other day and
there are lots of collectors in the 75 cents a watt neighborhood.
I wonder how FPL would feel if I built an array on their property ;-)
Running those cables to/from that array near their power lines may be the biggest problem.You may create a transformer that neither of you want.
That is way overstated. I have tried to scavenge power from those
lines for 35 years with absolutely zero success. If you believe what
you see on you tube I should be able to hold an F40 tube in the air
and have it light up ... nope. I should be able to string a wire
parallel to the line and generate something ... nope.
Coil of wire ... nope.
I really wanted a light in my boat house under those lines without
stringing another wire but no joy.
If you really look at these lines it is easy to see why. They are a
twisted triplex. They just have a twist about every half mile or so
but that is still way smaller than the wave length. (roughly from here
to California)

Besides, my wires would be running at 90 degrees to the power line and
underground.

There are a lot of LED lights that are charged with small solar panels.
Pretty cheap, too. How much light do you need?



===

Yes, there are lot's of solar powered garden lights that should do the
job, probably at less cost than trying to build a giant transformer.


Nikola Tesla would disagree. :-)

Tesla would point out, transformers only work if the windings only go
in one direction. If you are flowing current both ways they null.
(otherwise a GFCI would not work)
I think the net field from these 3p delta transmission lines is as
close to zero as the PoCo engineers can get.
OTOH the single phase medium voltage wye distribution feeding the
transformers on my street is not as efficient. A significant amount of
current is returning through the dirt.

On Wed, 24 Apr 2019 23:45:18 -0400, wrote:

On Wed, 24 Apr 2019 23:42:48 -0400,
wrote:

On Wed, 24 Apr 2019 19:35:19 -0400, Alex wrote:

wrote:
On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 18:36:36 -0700 (PDT), Its Me
wrote:

On Tuesday, April 23, 2019 at 8:41:50 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 17:28:35 -0400,
wrote:

On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 17:01:36 -0400, wrote:

On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 16:08:55 -0400,
wrote:

On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 14:11:32 -0400, wrote:

They are assuming coal fired electric plants but I agree all electric
cars do is move the smoke stack down the road a ways.
===

In my opinion that's an over simplification. For one it ignores the
fact that stationary, large-scale power plants are much more efficient
than the average internal combusion engine used in vehicles. Secondly,
the charging is usually done at off peak hours when there is typically
excess grid capacity. Last but not least, the trend is pointing in
the direction of renewable energy such as wind and solar. If we live
long enough (doubtful), we might even see clean nuclear fusion some
day. As an additional benefit, electric cars have done quite a bit to
advance the state-of-the-art for light weight, high efficiency
batteries. Those gains will eventually prove useful for the storage
of wind and solar energy.
That all assumes a clean power plant in the first place. The article
was talking about coal plants and we still have plenty of them.
Your solar power is not going to do much if the cars are charged at
night.

===

At least in this country, coal plants are rapidly going away.

Solar power at night is not going to happen of course. New battery
technology, and other energy storage devices, will eventually help
with that issue however. If every south facing roof in Florida was
covered with high efficiency solar panels, there would be plenty of
energy to spare for battery charging. I think that will eventually
happen as the price of solar panels steadily decreases.

My problem is drilling holes in a roof that isn't leaking now. My
roofer neighbor says solar is great for his business. I also only have
about 3kw worth of south facing roof.
Solar is getting a lot cheaper tho. I was looking the other day and
there are lots of collectors in the 75 cents a watt neighborhood.
I wonder how FPL would feel if I built an array on their property ;-)
Running those cables to/from that array near their power lines may be the biggest problem.You may create a transformer that neither of you want.
That is way overstated. I have tried to scavenge power from those
lines for 35 years with absolutely zero success. If you believe what
you see on you tube I should be able to hold an F40 tube in the air
and have it light up ... nope. I should be able to string a wire
parallel to the line and generate something ... nope.
Coil of wire ... nope.
I really wanted a light in my boat house under those lines without
stringing another wire but no joy.
If you really look at these lines it is easy to see why. They are a
twisted triplex. They just have a twist about every half mile or so
but that is still way smaller than the wave length. (roughly from here
to California)

Besides, my wires would be running at 90 degrees to the power line and
underground.

There are a lot of LED lights that are charged with small solar panels.
Pretty cheap, too. How much light do you need?



===

Yes, there are lot's of solar powered garden lights that should do the
job, probably at less cost than trying to build a giant transformer.

Hard to beat 12 ga copper ;-)


===

If you have a couple of thousand feet laying around, that would be an
interesting experiment. That much copper would buy quite a few solar
lamps however.

---
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
https://www.avg.com

On Thu, 25 Apr 2019 05:52:18 -0700 (PDT), Its Me
wrote:

On Wednesday, April 24, 2019 at 11:35:11 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Wed, 24 Apr 2019 20:15:34 -0700 (PDT), Its Me
wrote:

On Tuesday, April 23, 2019 at 11:16:47 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 18:36:36 -0700 (PDT), Its Me
wrote:

On Tuesday, April 23, 2019 at 8:41:50 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 17:28:35 -0400,
wrote:

On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 17:01:36 -0400, wrote:

On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 16:08:55 -0400,
wrote:

On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 14:11:32 -0400, wrote:

They are assuming coal fired electric plants but I agree all electric
cars do is move the smoke stack down the road a ways.

===

In my opinion that's an over simplification. For one it ignores the
fact that stationary, large-scale power plants are much more efficient
than the average internal combusion engine used in vehicles. Secondly,
the charging is usually done at off peak hours when there is typically
excess grid capacity. Last but not least, the trend is pointing in
the direction of renewable energy such as wind and solar. If we live
long enough (doubtful), we might even see clean nuclear fusion some
day. As an additional benefit, electric cars have done quite a bit to
advance the state-of-the-art for light weight, high efficiency
batteries. Those gains will eventually prove useful for the storage
of wind and solar energy.
That all assumes a clean power plant in the first place. The article
was talking about coal plants and we still have plenty of them.
Your solar power is not going to do much if the cars are charged at
night.


===

At least in this country, coal plants are rapidly going away.

Solar power at night is not going to happen of course. New battery
technology, and other energy storage devices, will eventually help
with that issue however. If every south facing roof in Florida was
covered with high efficiency solar panels, there would be plenty of
energy to spare for battery charging. I think that will eventually
happen as the price of solar panels steadily decreases.

My problem is drilling holes in a roof that isn't leaking now. My
roofer neighbor says solar is great for his business. I also only have
about 3kw worth of south facing roof.
Solar is getting a lot cheaper tho. I was looking the other day and
there are lots of collectors in the 75 cents a watt neighborhood.
I wonder how FPL would feel if I built an array on their property ;-)

Running those cables to/from that array near their power lines may be the biggest problem.You may create a transformer that neither of you want.

That is way overstated. I have tried to scavenge power from those
lines for 35 years with absolutely zero success. If you believe what
you see on you tube I should be able to hold an F40 tube in the air
and have it light up ... nope. I should be able to string a wire
parallel to the line and generate something ... nope.
Coil of wire ... nope.
I really wanted a light in my boat house under those lines without
stringing another wire but no joy.
If you really look at these lines it is easy to see why. They are a
twisted triplex. They just have a twist about every half mile or so
but that is still way smaller than the wave length. (roughly from here
to California)

Besides, my wires would be running at 90 degrees to the power line and
underground.

You aren't trying hard enough.

It would take a fairly long run parallel to those lines to get any induced power. That a *very* inefficient transformer.

The twist has nothing to do with it. It's not RF (wavelength) they are concerned with, it's a expanding and collapsing magnetic field at 60hz. Twisted pair is used primarily to greatly reduce *induced* interference, not to reduce radiated interference. Those conductors you are seeing aren't twisted pairs, but rather an efficient way to run a conductor of a specific CMA. Easier and more efficient to run a lazy spiral of three smaller conductors sharing the load than to run one that is their equal. That doesn't change their radiated magnetic footprint.

You still haven't explained why they twist them. It would be easier to
just run them straight but it is obvious that they roll them about
every half mile.
I also believe the fields from 3 phases tend to cancel each other out.
If I put my clamp on ammeter around a cable carrying the current down
and back, I get zero and that is a lot closer coupled transformer than
anything I could do by stringing a wire along the ground.

You're right about the 90 degree rule. I'd be more worried about the induced noise in the panels and their conductors, which may not be at 90 degrees.

Since the whole grid is in sync, what "noise"? I lived my whole
computer career looking for noise and for the most part when we found
the enemy, it was us, RF from our switching power supplies (along with
some other PS schemes that were even noisier).

Since the twist is not electrical in nature (that I can imagine), I suspect the reason is mechanical. If the three conductors weren't twisted in some way, they'd just flop around.

"Flop around"? Each conductor is securely attached to insulators.
They are not physically twisted in a bundle, they just get an
electrical twist by having the phases change positions from pole to
pole. They call it transposition. It allows the lines to be balanced.
(Relative inductance to each other and to the environment around them)

Those solar panels aren't part of the grid, and have no "sync". Sunlight isn't 60 Hz.

The inverter will be grid tied so the transport to the house would be
in sync.

On Thu, 25 Apr 2019 06:37:07 -0400 (EDT), Justan Ohlphart
wrote:

Wrote in message:
On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 09:25:01 -0700 (PDT), Tim wrote:These guys say so....http://brusselstimes.com/business/te...tudy-showsThey are assuming coal fired electric plants but I agree all electriccars do is move the smoke stack down the road a ways. You could say solar fixes that but most of these cars will be on theroad when the sun is shining and get charged late at night when ratesare lowest. I suppose you could put solar collectors on the roof of daytimeparking garages and charge a few cars.Like most of these schemes, as long as there are not many of them,they look good. A garage even less than half full of electric carswould eat that solar energy far faster than it gets collected.It is like those guys with a solar collector on the roof of their golfcart. It is great if you only use it every other day, don't use it alot and keep it parked in the sun. My charger puts out 20a at around40v
(0.8KWH) and it takes ~8-9 hours to recharge the batteries.The usable capacity of a typical 36v cart is 8KWH or more depending onwhich battery you choose. I bet Bill's Volt is close to 10x that. Certainly a Tesla would bemuch more.
My Club Car uses six eight volt deep cycle batteries. Would it be
better to deplete the charge to 50% before recharging or, as some
say, recharge after each day's use, no matter the state of
discharge? They say my charger is a smart one but it's not smart
enough to avoid gassing off a lot of water.

===

I have a lot of experience using and abusing golf cart batteries - 8
of them in the inverter bank on our trawler. It's much better for the
batteries to recharge them after each use rather than wait for 50%
depletion. Greater depth of discharge equates directly to shorter
life.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Typical-cycle-life-curve-of-a-Trojan-battery-for-renewable-energy-applications-38_fig1_283807259

Do not over charge however. You really need a good multi-stage
charger to do this properly.

---
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
https://www.avg.com

On Thu, 25 Apr 2019 07:36:13 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 4/24/2019 8:48 PM, wrote:
On Thu, 25 Apr 2019 00:39:30 -0000 (UTC), Bill
wrote:

wrote:
On Wed, 24 Apr 2019 19:35:19 -0400, Alex wrote:

wrote:
On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 18:36:36 -0700 (PDT), Its Me
wrote:

On Tuesday, April 23, 2019 at 8:41:50 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 17:28:35 -0400,
wrote:

On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 17:01:36 -0400, wrote:

On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 16:08:55 -0400,
wrote:

On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 14:11:32 -0400, wrote:

They are assuming coal fired electric plants but I agree all electric
cars do is move the smoke stack down the road a ways.
===

In my opinion that's an over simplification. For one it ignores the
fact that stationary, large-scale power plants are much more efficient
than the average internal combusion engine used in vehicles. Secondly,
the charging is usually done at off peak hours when there is typically
excess grid capacity. Last but not least, the trend is pointing in
the direction of renewable energy such as wind and solar. If we live
long enough (doubtful), we might even see clean nuclear fusion some
day. As an additional benefit, electric cars have done quite a bit to
advance the state-of-the-art for light weight, high efficiency
batteries. Those gains will eventually prove useful for the storage
of wind and solar energy.
That all assumes a clean power plant in the first place. The article
was talking about coal plants and we still have plenty of them.
Your solar power is not going to do much if the cars are charged at
night.

===

At least in this country, coal plants are rapidly going away.

Solar power at night is not going to happen of course. New battery
technology, and other energy storage devices, will eventually help
with that issue however. If every south facing roof in Florida was
covered with high efficiency solar panels, there would be plenty of
energy to spare for battery charging. I think that will eventually
happen as the price of solar panels steadily decreases.

My problem is drilling holes in a roof that isn't leaking now. My
roofer neighbor says solar is great for his business. I also only have
about 3kw worth of south facing roof.
Solar is getting a lot cheaper tho. I was looking the other day and
there are lots of collectors in the 75 cents a watt neighborhood.
I wonder how FPL would feel if I built an array on their property ;-)
Running those cables to/from that array near their power lines may be
the biggest problem.You may create a transformer that neither of you want.
That is way overstated. I have tried to scavenge power from those
lines for 35 years with absolutely zero success. If you believe what
you see on you tube I should be able to hold an F40 tube in the air
and have it light up ... nope. I should be able to string a wire
parallel to the line and generate something ... nope.
Coil of wire ... nope.
I really wanted a light in my boat house under those lines without
stringing another wire but no joy.
If you really look at these lines it is easy to see why. They are a
twisted triplex. They just have a twist about every half mile or so
but that is still way smaller than the wave length. (roughly from here
to California)

Besides, my wires would be running at 90 degrees to the power line and
underground.

There are a lot of LED lights that are charged with small solar panels.
Pretty cheap, too. How much light do you need?

I have 20 amps down there now. It is not an issue.
The reality is 60 feet of rope light around the top of the lift is
perfect. That ends up being about 100 watts.
If I was still interested in trying to scavenge some power I might try
something with an LED but I doubt I could even get a glimmer out of
one.
I have pretty much given up and debunked a lot of the urban legends.
If anyone has another experiment, let me know. It is just a short walk
across the Ed Labrador Memorial Bridge now, not Bwana hacking through
the jungle like before. I am up there 4 or 5 times a day with the
Deuce man.
The setup is 1 delta high voltage line running 230kv and 2 delta
medium voltage lines running 26kv. It is about 70 feet off the ground
behind the house going up to more like 85' where it crosses the river.
Bring out your fables. I love science.


Need more voltage. The 500kv lines that run down the center of California
induce lots of current in the parallel line. When a crop duster took out 5
towers, engineers thought an airplane would take out 4. Our friend worked
for the power company. A special crew works on the line. Has a faraday
cage suit. They shut down the downed line, reduced power in the parallel
line and grounded the don line a mile each side of the break. He said the
ground line at the tower by the break carried 200 amps.

Why wouldn't it be somewhat proportional? I am not really able to see
much of anything beyond tickling a digital meter and that happens just
about anywhere.



Because like RF, the high voltage lines produce a near field and then
a quickly diminishing "far field" as distance from the lines increases.
It's not proportional, is dependent on current flow and, at 60hz is not
anywhere as strong as at RF frequencies.

It's still something I think about though. The greatest risk is
at ionizing potentials that can cause immediate damage to living
cells. Non ionizing potentials may cause an affect, causing
cell molecules to vibrate (which is the whole idea behind
an MRI scan) but the jury is still out on damage due to long
term exposure.

Frankly, I am more concerned with the RF energy ... as low as it
is ... of a cell phone held up to your head to use.
There is much scientific controversy as to if long term exposure
constitutes a danger.


Because of the balancing effect of a 3 phase delta I am far less
concerned about the transmission line behind the house than I am the
single phase wye distribution in front.
I also wonder just how much energy we are really talking about. I
certainly have not been able to turn it into any measurable "work".
Again, the low voltage operators are running miles of wire parallel to
these medium voltage distribution lines and we are not seeing and
significant current induced into the phone or TV cables. In most cases
they are actually attached to the neutral return "strand". Dr Kirchoff
tells us the current in this strand will be as high as the current in
the medium voltage line, minus what returns through the earth. (and I
think that is more than they want to admit). There are generally 2 of
them so it is a little less than half of what the primary carries I
suppose (one strand for the PoCo and one for the Telco/cable guys but
they are both connected to the grounding conductor)

All of this is trivial compared to the fields you generate right in
your house, just because they are closer to you. The fact remains that
we have been living, bathed in 60hz fields for over 100 years and we
are not seeing any real effects. The cell phone thing is far more
recent. I guess we will know soon tho as more people have one up to
their head all day long. I guess I will be one of the control group. I
still do not carry a phone.

On Thu, 25 Apr 2019 09:49:37 -0400,
wrote:

On Wed, 24 Apr 2019 23:45:18 -0400, wrote:

On Wed, 24 Apr 2019 23:42:48 -0400,
wrote:

On Wed, 24 Apr 2019 19:35:19 -0400, Alex wrote:

wrote:
On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 18:36:36 -0700 (PDT), Its Me
wrote:

On Tuesday, April 23, 2019 at 8:41:50 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 17:28:35 -0400,
wrote:

On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 17:01:36 -0400, wrote:

On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 16:08:55 -0400,
wrote:

On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 14:11:32 -0400, wrote:

They are assuming coal fired electric plants but I agree all electric
cars do is move the smoke stack down the road a ways.
===

In my opinion that's an over simplification. For one it ignores the
fact that stationary, large-scale power plants are much more efficient
than the average internal combusion engine used in vehicles. Secondly,
the charging is usually done at off peak hours when there is typically
excess grid capacity. Last but not least, the trend is pointing in
the direction of renewable energy such as wind and solar. If we live
long enough (doubtful), we might even see clean nuclear fusion some
day. As an additional benefit, electric cars have done quite a bit to
advance the state-of-the-art for light weight, high efficiency
batteries. Those gains will eventually prove useful for the storage
of wind and solar energy.
That all assumes a clean power plant in the first place. The article
was talking about coal plants and we still have plenty of them.
Your solar power is not going to do much if the cars are charged at
night.

===

At least in this country, coal plants are rapidly going away.

Solar power at night is not going to happen of course. New battery
technology, and other energy storage devices, will eventually help
with that issue however. If every south facing roof in Florida was
covered with high efficiency solar panels, there would be plenty of
energy to spare for battery charging. I think that will eventually
happen as the price of solar panels steadily decreases.

My problem is drilling holes in a roof that isn't leaking now. My
roofer neighbor says solar is great for his business. I also only have
about 3kw worth of south facing roof.
Solar is getting a lot cheaper tho. I was looking the other day and
there are lots of collectors in the 75 cents a watt neighborhood.
I wonder how FPL would feel if I built an array on their property ;-)
Running those cables to/from that array near their power lines may be the biggest problem.You may create a transformer that neither of you want.
That is way overstated. I have tried to scavenge power from those
lines for 35 years with absolutely zero success. If you believe what
you see on you tube I should be able to hold an F40 tube in the air
and have it light up ... nope. I should be able to string a wire
parallel to the line and generate something ... nope.
Coil of wire ... nope.
I really wanted a light in my boat house under those lines without
stringing another wire but no joy.
If you really look at these lines it is easy to see why. They are a
twisted triplex. They just have a twist about every half mile or so
but that is still way smaller than the wave length. (roughly from here
to California)

Besides, my wires would be running at 90 degrees to the power line and
underground.

There are a lot of LED lights that are charged with small solar panels.
Pretty cheap, too. How much light do you need?



===

Yes, there are lot's of solar powered garden lights that should do the
job, probably at less cost than trying to build a giant transformer.

Hard to beat 12 ga copper ;-)


===

If you have a couple of thousand feet laying around, that would be an
interesting experiment. That much copper would buy quite a few solar
lamps however.


I only needed about 40' (x3) to connect to FPL and that works rain or
shine ;-)
In real life I do have about a half a mile of #12 conductor in the
ground or in pipe overhead installed when I put the pool in. I picked
up eight brand new 500' spools of wire at Garden City (no doubt
stolen) for $15 a spool and it is pretty much all gone now, installed
somewhere around here. Once I had the yard torn up, I ran conduits
everywhere. At this point I only have 2 or 3 unused.

As part of my experiment years ago, I did try 100 feet of wire,
straight under the power line and again coiled under the power line. I
also tried a whole spool of wire with an iron core shoved through the
middle ... Nothing.
I couldn't even tickle a NE2 neon bulb.

On Thu, 25 Apr 2019 10:03:10 -0400,
wrote:

On Thu, 25 Apr 2019 06:37:07 -0400 (EDT), Justan Ohlphart
wrote:

Wrote in message:
On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 09:25:01 -0700 (PDT), Tim wrote:These guys say so....http://brusselstimes.com/business/te...tudy-showsThey are assuming coal fired electric plants but I agree all electriccars do is move the smoke stack down the road a ways. You could say solar fixes that but most of these cars will be on theroad when the sun is shining and get charged late at night when ratesare lowest. I suppose you could put solar collectors on the roof of daytimeparking garages and charge a few cars.Like most of these schemes, as long as there are not many of them,they look good. A garage even less than half full of electric carswould eat that solar energy far faster than it gets collected.It is like those guys with a solar collector on the roof of their golfcart. It is great if you only use it every other day, don't use it alot and keep it parked in the sun. My charger puts out 20a at around40v
(0.8KWH) and it takes ~8-9 hours to recharge the batteries.The usable capacity of a typical 36v cart is 8KWH or more depending onwhich battery you choose. I bet Bill's Volt is close to 10x that. Certainly a Tesla would bemuch more.
My Club Car uses six eight volt deep cycle batteries. Would it be
better to deplete the charge to 50% before recharging or, as some
say, recharge after each day's use, no matter the state of
discharge? They say my charger is a smart one but it's not smart
enough to avoid gassing off a lot of water.

===

I have a lot of experience using and abusing golf cart batteries - 8
of them in the inverter bank on our trawler. It's much better for the
batteries to recharge them after each use rather than wait for 50%
depletion. Greater depth of discharge equates directly to shorter
life.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Typical-cycle-life-curve-of-a-Trojan-battery-for-renewable-energy-applications-38_fig1_283807259

Do not over charge however. You really need a good multi-stage
charger to do this properly.

I try to keep my cart batteries up and not let them discharge much.

On 4/25/2019 10:41 AM, wrote:
On Thu, 25 Apr 2019 09:49:37 -0400,
wrote:

On Wed, 24 Apr 2019 23:45:18 -0400, wrote:

On Wed, 24 Apr 2019 23:42:48 -0400,
wrote:

On Wed, 24 Apr 2019 19:35:19 -0400, Alex wrote:

wrote:
On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 18:36:36 -0700 (PDT), Its Me
wrote:

On Tuesday, April 23, 2019 at 8:41:50 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 17:28:35 -0400,
wrote:

On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 17:01:36 -0400, wrote:

On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 16:08:55 -0400,
wrote:

On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 14:11:32 -0400, wrote:

They are assuming coal fired electric plants but I agree all electric
cars do is move the smoke stack down the road a ways.
===

In my opinion that's an over simplification. For one it ignores the
fact that stationary, large-scale power plants are much more efficient
than the average internal combusion engine used in vehicles. Secondly,
the charging is usually done at off peak hours when there is typically
excess grid capacity. Last but not least, the trend is pointing in
the direction of renewable energy such as wind and solar. If we live
long enough (doubtful), we might even see clean nuclear fusion some
day. As an additional benefit, electric cars have done quite a bit to
advance the state-of-the-art for light weight, high efficiency
batteries. Those gains will eventually prove useful for the storage
of wind and solar energy.
That all assumes a clean power plant in the first place. The article
was talking about coal plants and we still have plenty of them.
Your solar power is not going to do much if the cars are charged at
night.

===

At least in this country, coal plants are rapidly going away.

Solar power at night is not going to happen of course. New battery
technology, and other energy storage devices, will eventually help
with that issue however. If every south facing roof in Florida was
covered with high efficiency solar panels, there would be plenty of
energy to spare for battery charging. I think that will eventually
happen as the price of solar panels steadily decreases.

My problem is drilling holes in a roof that isn't leaking now. My
roofer neighbor says solar is great for his business. I also only have
about 3kw worth of south facing roof.
Solar is getting a lot cheaper tho. I was looking the other day and
there are lots of collectors in the 75 cents a watt neighborhood.
I wonder how FPL would feel if I built an array on their property ;-)
Running those cables to/from that array near their power lines may be the biggest problem.You may create a transformer that neither of you want.
That is way overstated. I have tried to scavenge power from those
lines for 35 years with absolutely zero success. If you believe what
you see on you tube I should be able to hold an F40 tube in the air
and have it light up ... nope. I should be able to string a wire
parallel to the line and generate something ... nope.
Coil of wire ... nope.
I really wanted a light in my boat house under those lines without
stringing another wire but no joy.
If you really look at these lines it is easy to see why. They are a
twisted triplex. They just have a twist about every half mile or so
but that is still way smaller than the wave length. (roughly from here
to California)

Besides, my wires would be running at 90 degrees to the power line and
underground.

There are a lot of LED lights that are charged with small solar panels.
Pretty cheap, too. How much light do you need?



===

Yes, there are lot's of solar powered garden lights that should do the
job, probably at less cost than trying to build a giant transformer.

Hard to beat 12 ga copper ;-)


===

If you have a couple of thousand feet laying around, that would be an
interesting experiment. That much copper would buy quite a few solar
lamps however.


I only needed about 40' (x3) to connect to FPL and that works rain or
shine ;-)
In real life I do have about a half a mile of #12 conductor in the
ground or in pipe overhead installed when I put the pool in. I picked
up eight brand new 500' spools of wire at Garden City (no doubt
stolen) for $15 a spool and it is pretty much all gone now, installed
somewhere around here. Once I had the yard torn up, I ran conduits
everywhere. At this point I only have 2 or 3 unused.

As part of my experiment years ago, I did try 100 feet of wire,
straight under the power line and again coiled under the power line. I
also tried a whole spool of wire with an iron core shoved through the
middle ... Nothing.
I couldn't even tickle a NE2 neon bulb.


Not surprising. Even a tiny neon bulb requires about 60-100 vac (or DC)
to cause the gas to ionize and glow. One lead would have to be at ground.

---
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
https://www.avg.com

On Thu, 25 Apr 2019 11:15:26 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 4/25/2019 10:41 AM, wrote:
On Thu, 25 Apr 2019 09:49:37 -0400,
wrote:

On Wed, 24 Apr 2019 23:45:18 -0400, wrote:

On Wed, 24 Apr 2019 23:42:48 -0400,
wrote:

On Wed, 24 Apr 2019 19:35:19 -0400, Alex wrote:

wrote:
On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 18:36:36 -0700 (PDT), Its Me
wrote:

On Tuesday, April 23, 2019 at 8:41:50 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 17:28:35 -0400,
wrote:

On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 17:01:36 -0400, wrote:

On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 16:08:55 -0400,
wrote:

On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 14:11:32 -0400, wrote:

They are assuming coal fired electric plants but I agree all electric
cars do is move the smoke stack down the road a ways.
===

In my opinion that's an over simplification. For one it ignores the
fact that stationary, large-scale power plants are much more efficient
than the average internal combusion engine used in vehicles. Secondly,
the charging is usually done at off peak hours when there is typically
excess grid capacity. Last but not least, the trend is pointing in
the direction of renewable energy such as wind and solar. If we live
long enough (doubtful), we might even see clean nuclear fusion some
day. As an additional benefit, electric cars have done quite a bit to
advance the state-of-the-art for light weight, high efficiency
batteries. Those gains will eventually prove useful for the storage
of wind and solar energy.
That all assumes a clean power plant in the first place. The article
was talking about coal plants and we still have plenty of them.
Your solar power is not going to do much if the cars are charged at
night.

===

At least in this country, coal plants are rapidly going away.

Solar power at night is not going to happen of course. New battery
technology, and other energy storage devices, will eventually help
with that issue however. If every south facing roof in Florida was
covered with high efficiency solar panels, there would be plenty of
energy to spare for battery charging. I think that will eventually
happen as the price of solar panels steadily decreases.

My problem is drilling holes in a roof that isn't leaking now. My
roofer neighbor says solar is great for his business. I also only have
about 3kw worth of south facing roof.
Solar is getting a lot cheaper tho. I was looking the other day and
there are lots of collectors in the 75 cents a watt neighborhood.
I wonder how FPL would feel if I built an array on their property ;-)
Running those cables to/from that array near their power lines may be the biggest problem.You may create a transformer that neither of you want.
That is way overstated. I have tried to scavenge power from those
lines for 35 years with absolutely zero success. If you believe what
you see on you tube I should be able to hold an F40 tube in the air
and have it light up ... nope. I should be able to string a wire
parallel to the line and generate something ... nope.
Coil of wire ... nope.
I really wanted a light in my boat house under those lines without
stringing another wire but no joy.
If you really look at these lines it is easy to see why. They are a
twisted triplex. They just have a twist about every half mile or so
but that is still way smaller than the wave length. (roughly from here
to California)

Besides, my wires would be running at 90 degrees to the power line and
underground.

There are a lot of LED lights that are charged with small solar panels.
Pretty cheap, too. How much light do you need?



===

Yes, there are lot's of solar powered garden lights that should do the
job, probably at less cost than trying to build a giant transformer.

Hard to beat 12 ga copper ;-)


===

If you have a couple of thousand feet laying around, that would be an
interesting experiment. That much copper would buy quite a few solar
lamps however.


I only needed about 40' (x3) to connect to FPL and that works rain or
shine ;-)
In real life I do have about a half a mile of #12 conductor in the
ground or in pipe overhead installed when I put the pool in. I picked
up eight brand new 500' spools of wire at Garden City (no doubt
stolen) for $15 a spool and it is pretty much all gone now, installed
somewhere around here. Once I had the yard torn up, I ran conduits
everywhere. At this point I only have 2 or 3 unused.

As part of my experiment years ago, I did try 100 feet of wire,
straight under the power line and again coiled under the power line. I
also tried a whole spool of wire with an iron core shoved through the
middle ... Nothing.
I couldn't even tickle a NE2 neon bulb.


Not surprising. Even a tiny neon bulb requires about 60-100 vac (or DC)
to cause the gas to ionize and glow. One lead would have to be at ground.

I tried it with one side grounded, with it across the coil and with it
floating, using a variety of resistors from 0 to a meg. A digital
meter on this gives you a random number generator with some scary high
voltages if it is unterminated so there is a field, just not a very
strong one. This started trying to duplicate that F40 tube glowing
that you see on YouTube (before that on "scare you" TV shows) and
nothing I could do would make that happen.
It did seem intriguing tho, free light. Once I put in the boat lift, I
had power down there anyway so it was not worth fooling with.