Article on the BBC about battery storage

[jack]

1 hour ago, epsilonGreedy said:

Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Barack Obama all recommend the book, that is good enough for me.

 

https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Sapiens-A-Brief-History-of-Humankind

 

I'm on a break from this book. I got (from memory) about halfway through it last year after my wife raved about it, but eventually put it down because some of the generalisations and conclusions annoyed me. I may to get back to it one day.

[Brickie]

If it’s half as good as Ray Parlour’s autobiography then it’s a cracking read. 

[epsilonGreedy]

19 hours ago, jack said:

 

I'm on a break from this book. I got (from memory) about halfway through it last year after my wife raved about it, but eventually put it down because some of the generalisations and conclusions annoyed me. I may to get back to it one day.

 

 

Generalizations are to be expected when attempting to surmise in a book 70,000 years of history while also sketching out a new general theory of humanity.

 

Many readers do not like the absolutist interim claims in the book and the audio book is worse because the professional narrator uses an over confident vocal style unlike the book's author when he is interviewed live.

 

The most vociferous criticisms originate from the intellectually lazy 20th century social scientists typically those on a State backed salary or pension. Yuval Noah Harari threatens such people with new uncomfortable theories that also question the ability of existing social structures to fund their existence. The second book ties up some loose ends from the first.

[epsilonGreedy]

22 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

That may have been true until the 'science method' came along and people like Betrand Russell and Karl Popper showed what nonsense had been going on before.

A majority or consensus does not make something true.

 

 

Before your scientific method came along to save the world and provide an indisputable universal truth, the human race was doing quite well. In 70,000 years minus your 300 we had the agricultural revolution, the appearance of art, writing, national constitutions, the wheel, Roman engineering, Religion, money and the Duomo in Florence.

 

The scientific method is just a consensus algorithm that allows second rate minds to play science with the big boys. Archimedes did not need the crutch of scientific method when he jumped out of the bath, he just knew.

[billt]

Do you know what the scientific method is?

[Guest Alphonsox]

1 hour ago, billt said:

Do you know what the scientific method is?

 

Given that Archimedes is often described as one of the fathers of Experimental Science and the Scientific Method and I would guess not.

[jack]

3 hours ago, epsilonGreedy said:

Generalizations are to be expected when attempting to surmise in a book 70,000 years of history while also sketching out a new general theory of humanity.

 

Or alternatively, it probably isn't possible to summarise 70,000 years of history while also sketching out a new general theory of humanity in a single book, without a significant risk of over-generalising.

 

3 hours ago, epsilonGreedy said:

Many readers do not like the absolutist interim claims in the book 

 

Yup, that rings a bell.

 

3 hours ago, epsilonGreedy said:

Before your scientific method came along to save the world and provide an indisputable universal truth

 

And during that period, people were murdered for heretical theories based on simple factual observations. The scientific method has a lot of flaws, but it's still the best approach we have (one of those "it's the worst approach except for all the others" situations).

 

If anything, the problem we presently have is that the general population doesn't understand or accept much about science. If they did, then they'd do a better job of understanding science's limitations, and potentially wayward scientists would be kept honest.

[Nickfromwales]

Thoughts please on the powervault 3 system priced and described in the link. 

Thanks.  

[ProDave]

2 hours ago, Nickfromwales said:

Thoughts please on the powervault 3 system priced and described in the link. 

Thanks.  

Back of envelope calculations

 

Assuming you can store and use 6KWh of electricity every day, @12p per unit that will save £0.72 per day

That's a saving of £262.80 per year.

 

At a cost of £5345 that would take 20 years to pay for itself.

 

I doubt you would really store and use 6KWh every day, especially in winter so savings would be less.

 

Will the batteries really last 20 years?

 

Not there yet I am afraid.

[oranjeboom]

On 26/06/2018 at 11:32, SteamyTea said:

On a more serious note, it is going to be a struggle to get adoption of these sorts of systems until the price is really low.

I was chatting to a biker yesterday and we started to talk about EVs and climate change.

His view was that you never pay back the embodied energy and carbon on batteries, climate change did not exist as 'the climate has always changed', RE was too expensive, solar and wind power just 'don't work at all'.

I asked him where he got all this information from and he could not say.

He also thought old cars and bikes where better as some produced the same power as today's vehicles.

He then told me that methane was the real problem as it had a higher GHC potential than CO₂. So 'we need to burn that instead as it only produces water'.

I pointed out that not eating meat would have a greater benefit, but he did not like that idea, so it was rubbish (and it is in some ways).

 

I come across these sorts of 'fact' quite a lot.

 

I really think that there needs to be proper education on this, not popular newspapers spouting total rubbish all the time.

I am not sure how to do that without it sounding like a sermon.

 

I always pose the question 'what benefit is it to you keeping things the same?'.  Usually goes unanswered.

But EVs ARE a load of crap!!

 

Why? Cos the Daily Rag told me! I came across this today and found it hilarious: http://www.fullychargedshow.co.uk/previous-episodes/#/dail-mail-rant/

[epsilonGreedy]

21 hours ago, billt said:

Do you know what the scientific method is?

 

 

I called it an algorithm that helps scientists reach consensus. If you knew what the scientific method was you should have concluded that I do.

 

[billt]

22 hours ago, epsilonGreedy said:

The scientific method is just a consensus algorithm that allows second rate minds to play science with the big boys.

 

Well, it certainly isn't that, so I guessed that you didn't understand it.

[jack]

52 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

I called it an algorithm that helps scientists reach consensus. 

 

Underlining the snarky bits, you actually called it:

 

23 hours ago, epsilonGreedy said:

just a consensus algorithm that allows second rate minds to play science with the big boys. Archimedes did not need the crutch of scientific method

 

[epsilonGreedy]

19 hours ago, jack said:

Or alternatively, it probably isn't possible to summarise 70,000 years of history while also sketching out a new general theory of humanity in a single book, without a significant risk of over-generalising.

 

 

The book has ignited a new perspective on the history of homo-sapiens and a method for speculating about our near future, should we be concerned this endeavour incurs some element of risk?

 

@SteamyTea is frustrated his views on global warming are not universally accepted and his proposed solution is known as intellectual imperialism.

 

Some here think that scientific method has delivered 300 years of enlightenment and progress and freedom from tyranny. This is not true, 300 years ago France possessed many essential ingredients for enlightenment and progress in greater quantity than Britain but it did not happen in France because they practiced State controlled intellectual imperialism which could not deliver even a working steam engine.

 

Enlightenment and progress occurred in Britain instead of France not because of scientific method, it was due to freedom of expression and our political culture.

 

As to tyranny, it is alive and flourishing today.  Google Lindsey Sheppard.

[SteamyTea]

19 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

frustrated his views on global warming are not universally accepted

Yes, because the science is done (Svante Arrhenius showed the link, John Tyndall tested it) , there is nothing much else to know about the overall picture.  Some details still need to be finalised, but it is really just confirmation.

Using the term

19 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

intellectual imperialism

sounds to me like educational insecurity, or just sour grapes, take your pick.

Or try going to a shop and asking for something and then claiming that under your post modernist views the price per kilo is wrong.  You should be OK as your opinion is just as valid as the person who bothered to weight it, find out the unit costs, added the marketing costs and other overheads and bothered to run a business selling the 'stuff' (stuff is a term used by science to mean matter, generally).

 

Edited June 28, 2018 by SteamyTea

[jack]

1 minute ago, epsilonGreedy said:

The book has ignited a new perspective on the history of homo-sapiens and a method for speculating about our near future, should we be concerned this endeavour incurs some element of risk?

 

I personally doubt the book has done either of those things to any significant extent, but I haven't read all of it, so you may well be right. Even if it is everything you say, some of the conclusions didn't ring true to me, and more importantly I wasn't particularly enjoying it at the time, so I stopped reading.  

 

5 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

Some here think that scientific method has delivered 300 years of enlightenment and progress and freedom from tyranny. 

 

Google straw man.

 

8 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

As to tyranny, it is alive and flourishing today.  

 

Of course it is. Only the ignorant and/or mental think otherwise.

[MrMagic]

20 hours ago, Nickfromwales said:

Thoughts please on the powervault 3 system priced and described in the link. 

Thanks.  

 

If you're looking at the larger powervault (i..e 6kWh).. then bear in mind that the Tesla PW2 @ 13kW is only a grand more for over double the storage.

[Nickfromwales]

30 minutes ago, MrMagic said:

 

If you're looking at the larger powervault (i..e 6kWh).. then bear in mind that the Tesla PW2 @ 13kW is only a grand more for over double the storage.

Link please . ?

[MrMagic]

Just the little financial bit on the right hand side here - https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/powerwall

[epsilonGreedy]

10 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

Yes, because the science is done (Svante Arrhenius showed the link, John Tyndall tested it) , there is nothing much else to know about the overall picture. 

 

 

In that case global warming scientists now have some free time to contemplate the subtle differences between scientific consensus and the truth that societies choose to accept. On a matter as critical as global warming there is no point in indulging in further self reinforcement group-think at some annual global warming shindig, the challenge is to persuade the rest of mankind to act.

[SteamyTea]

Which goes back to my original point.

[Jeremy Harris]

Why is it that non-scientists choose to use false principles and grossly inaccurate generalisations to deride, even deliberately insult, those of us that spent many years studying to become scientists?  What's worse, some seem to assume that scientists must be trained to have closed minds and be unable to examine and analyse data that doesn't reinforce the hypothesis they are testing, when nothing could be further than the truth.

 

Apart from being very offensive, such thinking flies in the face of the way I, and everyone of my former colleagues, ever worked.  Hundreds of times we found data that didn't match our initial hypothesis, and every time that happened our eyes would light up at the thought of the new questions we needed to ask and then test.

 

Finally. I have no idea why the term "social science" is misused, to pretend that social studies are really a science.  In my view it is not a science and never has been, at best it's a bunch of untested ideas that someone with more ego than common sense has gathered together and tried to falsely claim as demonstrable fact.

[epsilonGreedy]

3 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

Which goes back to my original point.

 

 

Yes and your suggested solution was the creation of a definitive single source of truth for global warming presumably sanctioned by the State or supranational organization. This is the type of science what the French tried in the early 1700's, it failed and the industrial revolution began in Britain. The very notion that someone, who considers himself aligned with science, should reach for the Regime Ancien and its scientific dictatorship indicates you do not understand the philosophical foundation of science.

 

You want to stifle free speech on global warming and force feed your truth on the deplorables. This never ends well, the end result is either more Donald Trumps or the Elite staring up at the blade of a guillotine when the deplorables get angry. 

[SteamyTea]

1 hour ago, epsilonGreedy said:

4 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

Which goes back to my original point.

 

 

Yes and your suggested solution was the creation of a definitive single source of truth for global warming

Yes, it is called data, and we have a lot of it.

I suggest that education is the way forward, not myths, prejudice and denial of the truth.

 

This is starting to sound like the Woman's Hour joke I heard a couple of years back.

Question: "What do 9 out of ten people enjoy?"

Answer: "Gang Rape".

 

 

[epsilonGreedy]

11 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Yes, it is called data, and we have a lot of it.

 

 

No it is called scientific consensus based on the application of a process known as the scientific method. Data is just a contributory element of that process.

 

The challenge you now face is transposing scientific consensus into social consensus. That is a far greater challenge because the human brain is the most complex artifact in the known universe and that complexity increases by a vast factor when those brains interact in large social groups. Comprehending all this is much more difficult than understanding the physics of a black hole.

 

Reading the two books mentioned earlier in this thread would help you on an intellectual journey which in turn would help you promote the science of global warming but for some reason you are reluctant to do this.

Edited June 29, 2018 by epsilonGreedy