I like your idea. We can now generate substantial amount of power from floating wind turbines. Coupled with floating batteries (ie on cargo ships) we perhaps build floating charging stations along major shipping routes. There is no need for nuclear or to only charge at ports. Would it work?
Clusters of floating wind turbines each with their own battery storage might be useful here. I imagine along strategic (ie major) shipping channels. Would it pencil out? I have no idea.
Actually thinking about it some more why not park a couple of dozen older cargo ships along major shipping route. Equip them with wind turbines and batteries in shipping containers. Now the actual cargo ships passing by can stop for a few hours, plug in and charge. Use sodium ion batteries that can support thousands of cycles. Even use regular fuel as a backup in the charging ships. You can build and maintain anywhere and then haul them to the right location.
It depends on the appreciation and in turn the property taxes. I own my house outright. Completely paid off. But the increases in property taxes is forcing us to sell and move, likely in the next 5 years. Too bad, love the neighborhood and the area.
I don't understand. The increase in property tax is forcing you to sell? How much percent is the property tax? Alternatively won't you make a windfall in the sale (I assume property tax only go up when the value goes up)
In most places in the US (california being a notable exception) taxes are reassessed regularly based on market conditions. In some areas this can result in the property taxes rising to an appreciable fraction of the mortgage rate - or in the GPs case, what the mortgage would have been, if they hadnt paid it off already.
Yeah. Unfortunately the real market value grew so fast that when the assessed value catches up over the next few years the property tax is going to take a nice chunk of my net income.
Honestly, this is not a hardship but a nice problem to have. I grew up chronically poor and I feel fortunate and grateful that we have a comfortable home that is ours with equity while a lot of people have housing insecurity.
I agree on the windfall part but selling to get that money is not that simple in the current real estate market and political climate. ie you got to live somewhere... and everywhere you desire is expensive.
If you own the house outright then how can the increased value force you to sell? You don't have a mortgage, and your property tax can't be that much more than a normal rent in the area. Can it?
Because of the rising tax rate relative to income. Ours is projected to increase to about 20% of our net income. That's why.
So yeah nice on paper that the house is worth a lot more than we bought it... but that value matters if we sell and move. There is a lot more to that decision than just the property tax, however it sort of putting a time limit to it.
For my EV, which I charge about once a week on average, with 4,000 cycles that means about 77 years!! That's a huge deal. CATL quoted 10k cycle battery too. Wow. Very cool. Yeah energy density and operating profile and all that. But color me impressed.
It’s not only about longevity in time but also in terms of miles.
For heavy users and given a standard range of 250+ miles, we are talking about a longevity of 1 000 000 miles. I never had a car with more than 200.000km (120 000 miles).
In the US you see a lot of cars with many miles on them because distances are bigger there, especially on the west coast.
Also, there's just smog you need to pass which is significantly less than in many other developed countries. Some have yearly required checks that would check all safety features like brakes, tires etcetera. That's where a lot of cars fail that would just keep driving in the US
If you look through second-hand car listings in Europe, >400,000km is not that usual to see. In places where cars are relatively expensive, folks keep them running forever...
That said, a million miles is probably enough for anyone :D
I'm skeptical too however I think AI can add value by increasing knowledge worker productivity. Maybe save some money by needing less staff for some tasks. Maybe to mine vast amounts of data looking for a pattern. So I think it is useful however my skepticism is about the cost vs reward. Is it really worth the amount of money pumped into it, not sure. Time will tell.
So perhaps the differential air speed between the intake and exhaust is a big factor in the efficiency equation? The bigger the difference the more work is needed..
I'm surprised, at least for businesses, small cell wifi is not a thing. For example, if you walk into an office building everyone seems to have a physical phone on their desk that is hard wired. What if that is also a small cell AP. Like a personal AP. Using automation and central provisioning and analytics can make this doable. Yeah handoff and roaming has to be seamless and quick but it doesn't feel that hard, no? If so this would be pretty neat and would solve the contention issue in the air.
We get 2-3 power outages every year where I live. Mainly due to trees with ice/snow/wind. My solution was to buy three power banks. A 500Wh, and a couple of 300Wh. I have a pluggable camp fridge too and a gas fireplace. So one battery powers the fan in the fireplace, another for the cooler to keep the food from spoiling. And the third one for a couple of the lights (with LED bulbs). Works great and we can handle an outage that lasts about 4-5 days. Also we got 4 of these rechargeable lanterns for lights around the house. I just keep the batteries and lanterns charged. Really easy and my investment is about $1000.
Do you mean 500Wh rather than 500kWh? 500 kWh would be around 10 EVs worth, and looks like it costs around 700k [0], but 500Wh seems to be a common size for portable power stations [1]
I think you're off by a couple of orders of magnitude... 500Wh and 300Wh maybe? Or 5kWh and 3kWh if you got a very great deal? Your investment would be orders of magnitude more than $1000 for around a total of 1MWh!
I think the problem is the loss of the middle class. The ones on top getting a lot of the resources while the rest have to fight for whatever is left. It doesn't matter how hard or how smart you work.
I think you sum up the type of despair people feel pretty well.
It's really more helpful to look at "middle class or better." Because yes, the middle class has shrunk. But more of that share went to the UPPER income tiers.
The middle class went from 61% in 1971 to 51% in 2023. But the lower income brackets saw a +3% change while upper saw +8%.
Economists and rich people indeed think in terms of scarce resources. Any economics book will tell you that it is about managing scarce resources. Rich people will never allow for example the government to give increasingly more money and resources to lower income people, because they fear there's note enough for them. They don't believe in abundance for everyone.
>If it's not static and it grows, then it cannot be scarce
Elaborate? Scarcity means demand for the resources exceeds the available supply. There is essentially unlimited human wants and only finite resources. The resource quantity can grow but it will never meet demand. Even if all growth goes to the people with less resources, the resources will still be scarce.
Being "middle class" is a mindset, not a category of wealth. It's something of an anachronism from when there were two distinct classes: nobility/clergy, and the peasants. The middle class, the bourgeoisie (because they lived it towns, bourgs) didn't fit into either existing class. One can be wealthy or poor and still be middle class. Social conformity, infinitely expandable material demand, and emphasis on external, impersonal values are the hallmarks of this mindset.
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