Author Topic: Moronic EU propose to bring stage lighting under energy saving lighting rules  (Read 12551 times)

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Offline james_s

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But we're going to get all this new tech regardless, so if I add 1kW of power consumption to my house and I don't upgrade inefficient stuff I'm going to have the new draw on top of the old. Changes like changing out all of my incandescent lighting (which I did 20 years ago) more than offset any additions in my own household. Incandescent to LED household illumination is a nearly 10:1 reduction, that's pretty substantial. Modern refrigerators use far less power than those from 30+ years ago, cars now getting 35-50mpg vs 8-14mpg in the 70s, that's very significant even if overall consumption goes up due to more cars on the road it would be WAY up if not for the improved efficiency. Other improvements have been more incremental.

We do need to focus on alternative energy but that is in addition to improving efficiency wherever we reasonably can. It can be said that alternative energy is a bandaid too, like adding more lanes to a highway it generates demand. We're never going to have more energy generated than we can manage to use.
 
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Offline Zero999

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But they are still building NEW steam locomotives!

A1 Steam with the Tornado build proved that a new mainline steam locomotive could be built and certified, and I believe there are now a few more on the blocks.

Horribly inefficient of course, but I cannot help but feel that the world is a better place for the existence of people who do these insane things.

I would like to see someone try a new one using MODERN engineering and materials, but ironically that would as I understand it be more difficult to certify then what is basically a copy of a 1950s engine.

Regards, Dan.
Steam in itself isn't bad, it's just solid fuel is impractical for a locomotive. It makes more sense to convert it to electricity, quite often through steam, although gasification is also used, then transmit that, rather than the bulky fuel. I imagine a modern steam locomotive would be an electric one with a steam turbine electric generator bolted on.

Has anyone considered that all this is based on a false premise, because if you take into account that the so called efficient lighting has a much higher peak current draw in cycle due to the way the power supply works.

This means that using current methods to measure and charge for electricity usage they are "more efficient" but I can see that using a more advanced integrating method of measuring power usage will come as the technology already exists now to do this.

And all of a sudden a large proportion of the saving goes out of the window, it is not as though something like this has happened before! Oh wait we were encouraged to use Diesel because it was more efficient and now all those that took the advice and went down that road are being penalised.

If you really want to consider a bad move on energy usage, we have this thing called the internet which has over the past years resulted in the increase in size of data centres that serve all this low cost cloud infrastructure, why has no one stopped to consider how much energy these are consuming, which in a lot of cases is similar to a small town and makes street lighting seem fairly insignificant.
It's also saved energy and CO2 emissions. For example, it takes less energy to send an email, than to print it on a piece of paper and send it across the world.
 

Offline dmills

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And then with have the whole blockchain bullshit thing where the security model basically amounts to "We can throw more power at verifying this thing then you can throw at faking it"  :palm: Some orders of magnitude of asymmetry in that relationship would be nice.

We still very much live in the steam age (And probably will for as long as thermal power plants are a thing), they are just turbines rather then piston plants, and they spin magnets rather then working the loads directly.

Regards, Dan.

 

Offline Astrodev

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What are you talking about? Equipment to measure true power consumption has been around for decades and your utility meters already measure true power. Cheaper CFL and LED lamps are often low power factor but they generally won't have an unusually high crest factor. No matter how you measure it, a fluorescent or LED lamp will use far less energy than an incandescent lamp, there's no debate there. Do I really need to hook up some lamps and capture some current waveforms on a scope for you?

The problem is that present usage measurment (metering) and so billing is still based on average current and not integrated instantanious current but as things shift in the way we impact on the current requirement and so the infrastructure required to deliver the power, the way it is metered will inevitably have to change.

I am quite aware of the effect these types of lighting have on the current waveform as I have to take a lot of this into account when looking at the degree of derating required for large lighting setups, as we routinely use power quality analysis to ensure that the switchgear and cableing will not be overloaded.

I can't find hte white paper from Fluke that covers the impact of lighting changes on the power delivery requirements for a building, but the following article from them does give some of the information it is based on:
 http://media.fluke.com/documents/4141155_6003_ENG_A_W.PDF?_ga=2.46222503.1607972234.1523981019-1404776471.1522260634
 

Offline Cyberdragon

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And then with have the whole blockchain bullshit thing where the security model basically amounts to "We can throw more power at verifying this thing then you can throw at faking it"  :palm: Some orders of magnitude of asymmetry in that relationship would be nice.

We still very much live in the steam age (And probably will for as long as thermal power plants are a thing), they are just turbines rather then piston plants, and they spin magnets rather then working the loads directly.

Regards, Dan.

Actually, high efficiency piston engines (uniflow) can actually compete with turbines up to about half a megawatt. It would be pointless for continuous operation, but for small backup steam generators or local plants, reciprocating steam would work. You can also computer control reciprocating steam, it has been done in certain countries that still have a lot of reciprocating steam. You can also compound a uniflow, which would probably be even easier with electronic valves.
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Offline IanMacdonald

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These regulations spawn from the combination of Green party pipedreams about how windmills will replace fossil fuels, and the One Size Fits All bureaucratic mania of the EU.

Currently, the world spends something like $1.5 trillion a year on this nonsense. It's been going on for more than 20 years, and progress so far is to replace a few percent of fossil fuel usage. Climate change advocate or no, any rational person ought to be saying by now, 'This ain't gonna work, so let's try something else.:horse:

The something else could be fusion, LENR or thorium. The cost of testing out these options would be tiny compared to that $1.5 trillion a year, and as well as answering any concerns over climate change, success with any of these would be a landmark in human progress akin to the invention of the wheel, or powered flight. It would have the potential to transform living standards in third world countries. It would also get a few dangerously unstable regimes currently supplying us with fossil fuels off our backs for once and for all. Basically, all positive results, and for a fraction of the cost.  :-+

-and if the attempt fails, well at least we tried. If we don't try, then sitting huddled in our freezing house by the intermittent light of one wind-powered LED, we shall always wonder if it could have worked.
 

Offline Zero999

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And then with have the whole blockchain bullshit thing where the security model basically amounts to "We can throw more power at verifying this thing then you can throw at faking it"  :palm: Some orders of magnitude of asymmetry in that relationship would be nice.

We still very much live in the steam age (And probably will for as long as thermal power plants are a thing), they are just turbines rather then piston plants, and they spin magnets rather then working the loads directly.

Regards, Dan.

Actually, high efficiency piston engines (uniflow) can actually compete with turbines up to about half a megawatt. It would be pointless for continuous operation, but for small backup steam generators or local plants, reciprocating steam would work. You can also computer control reciprocating steam, it has been done in certain countries that still have a lot of reciprocating steam. You can also compound a uniflow, which would probably be even easier with electronic valves.
Reciprocating engines have a wider power band, than turbines, but is a reciprocating steam engine any more efficient, than an internal combustion engine? I don't have the figures, but I suspect an internal combustion engine is more efficient, than a steam engine. An internal combustion engine can be run from producer gas (mostly CO & H2 with a little CH4) which can be easily made from coal, or any reasonably dry, solid organic material, such as wood, using gasification. The question is whether fuel => producer gas => internal combustion engine, is more efficient than fuel => steam => reciprocating steam engine? I don't know.
 

Offline Cyberdragon

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You can run steam off geothermal, solar, or any other source of heat, thus producing no emissions. I'm talking about stationary engines of course and not vehicles.
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Online BrianHG

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Though there is room for better and more deployment in the solar and wind power harvesting, were eventually screwed until realistic semi-compact fusion becomes viable and cheaply available.  Eventually, this will create a new problem, but for that to happen, we will need to grow our population by 10x and we are lacking in many other areas, like current agriculture's super wasteful beef production to make it that far and current goals of certain individuals who are in control aren't compatible with making a world where we can exist with such a population, nor would they ever allow it.

Though, there is still hope...
« Last Edit: April 18, 2018, 01:37:46 am by BrianHG »
 

Offline NiHaoMike

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And then with have the whole blockchain bullshit thing where the security model basically amounts to "We can throw more power at verifying this thing then you can throw at faking it"  :palm: Some orders of magnitude of asymmetry in that relationship would be nice.
There are ways to run a blockchain vastly more efficient than the way Bitcoin does it. There are altcoins that are less compute intensive, altcoins that rely on storage rather than compute power, and altcoins that do useful work outside the blockchain system. My entire mining setup uses about 200W of which 180W or so is a GPU mining Curecoin/Foldingcoin (plus the rest of the PC being used for other purposes), the remaining 20W or so are a bunch of small miners for energy efficient altcoins.
Cryptocurrency has taught me to love math and at the same time be baffled by it.

Cryptocurrency lesson 0: Altcoins and Bitcoin are not the same thing.
 

Offline james_s

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Reciprocating engines have a wider power band, than turbines, but is a reciprocating steam engine any more efficient, than an internal combustion engine? I don't have the figures, but I suspect an internal combustion engine is more efficient, than a steam engine. An internal combustion engine can be run from producer gas (mostly CO & H2 with a little CH4) which can be easily made from coal, or any reasonably dry, solid organic material, such as wood, using gasification. The question is whether fuel => producer gas => internal combustion engine, is more efficient than fuel => steam => reciprocating steam engine? I don't know.

I would actually be interested in seeing the data just out of my own curiosity. I suspect that steam is competitive in large to very large sizes when the engine is run at or near full power most of the time and run for very long periods without being shut down. Internal combustion has the obvious advantage of being easy to control, you can just start one up in a matter of seconds rather than getting a fire going and waiting hours to build up a head of steam and then when you shut it down you have a lot of heat energy remaining in the boiler that goes to waste.

Obviously it's going to depend on available fuel too. If you have a lot of coal or wood it takes a lot of extra effort to convert the fuel to a form useful for internal combustion.
 

Offline Distelzombie

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Why is this a bad thing? Ever stood on a stage with the lights burning your skin while you have to keep a clear head? You'd fucking sell your grandmas kidneys to gift that stage owner LED lighting.

Offline james_s

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Why is this a bad thing? Ever stood on a stage with the lights burning your skin while you have to keep a clear head? You'd fucking sell your grandmas kidneys to gift that stage owner LED lighting.

Did you even read the thread? It has been hashed out multiple times why LED lighting is not particularly suitable for the task.
 

Offline Distelzombie

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Did you even read the thread? It has been hashed out multiple times why LED lighting is not particularly suitable for the task.
Mmmmmmmm... there are four pages and I just have this one question. :(  :'(
TLDR

Edit: Oh, it's on the first page. XD
« Last Edit: April 18, 2018, 02:23:26 am by Distelzombie »
 

Offline apis

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Seems like many white LED lights have more than acceptable spectrum also for filming (but you need to know what you are doing):



http://www.gtc.org.uk/members-area/tlci-results/current-tlci-results.aspx
 

Offline apis

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Though there is room for better and more deployment in the solar and wind power harvesting, were eventually screwed until realistic semi-compact fusion becomes viable and cheaply available.
Fusion isn't anywhere near production ready. They can't even get sustained fusion nor produce more energy than they put in to get the reaction started. And if they finally manage that they don't have any materials that can withstand the intense neutron radiation to be viable in a commercial reactor (i.e. the tokamak cracks/burns up after a while). Even if we keep pouring billions into fusion research (like the scientists say they need to continue) there is no telling when they will get useful results (if ever), except that it won't be within then next 50 years.

Nuclear power would have been great, but it's even less popular today after the tsunami wrecked the Fukushima power plant, and even if all countries begin replacing coal with nuclear there isn't nearly enough production capacity to do it fast enough (you need highly specialised competence to build nuclear reactors safely). And we should already have stopped using coal yesterday. Meanwhile, what countries are actually doing is replacing nuclear with coal and gas (which they buy from Putin). :palm:



That leaves solar and wind power. Wind has lots of downsides but at least it is proven existing technology. Solar is awesome but doesn't work far north like here in Scandinavia. You could produce enough solar energy in the Sahara and export it north to Europe, but the political situation right now isn't exactly making that attractive. Solar also only produce electricity when the sun is shining which means you need to store power for use during the night, another technology that doesn't exist yet.

The last option is to try and reduce power consumption, which no one likes since it means changing our habits. You don't win elections by telling people they shouldn't drive as much as they want to (or use whatever antiquated lighting technology they want to).
« Last Edit: April 18, 2018, 01:35:28 pm by apis »
 

Offline Distelzombie

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If you want a fusion reactor today (That is totally possible right now!) and don't want to wait, build a deep cavern in hard rock, fill it with water and then throw a Hydrogen fusion bomb in it. Collect steam. Profit.
There are obviously some negative aspects to it.
Edit: This is no joke. Electric output will be huge.
« Last Edit: April 18, 2018, 07:15:20 pm by Distelzombie »
 

Offline Nauris

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I would actually be interested in seeing the data just out of my own curiosity. I suspect that steam is competitive in large to very large sizes when the engine is run at or near full power most of the time and run for very long periods without being shut down. Internal combustion has the obvious advantage of being easy to control, you can just start one up in a matter of seconds rather than getting a fire going and waiting hours to build up a head of steam and then when you shut it down you have a lot of heat energy remaining in the boiler that goes to waste.

Obviously it's going to depend on available fuel too. If you have a lot of coal or wood it takes a lot of extra effort to convert the fuel to a form useful for internal combustion.

Gas engines have typically efficiency of around 50%, diesel little lower at 45%. Standby to full power is like two minutes for a 10MW engine, so not seconds but fast still.
 

Offline apis

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I would actually be interested in seeing the data just out of my own curiosity. I suspect that steam is competitive in large to very large sizes when the engine is run at or near full power most of the time and run for very long periods without being shut down. Internal combustion has the obvious advantage of being easy to control, you can just start one up in a matter of seconds rather than getting a fire going and waiting hours to build up a head of steam and then when you shut it down you have a lot of heat energy remaining in the boiler that goes to waste.

Obviously it's going to depend on available fuel too. If you have a lot of coal or wood it takes a lot of extra effort to convert the fuel to a form useful for internal combustion.

Gas engines have typically efficiency of around 50%, diesel little lower at 45%. Standby to full power is like two minutes for a 10MW engine, so not seconds but fast still.
Hmm, that is not what I have been told, and if you look at wikipedia:
Quote from: Wikipedia
Because of the above differences in diesel fuels vs. gasoline and other spark-ignition fuels, diesel engines have higher thermodynamic efficiency, with heat efficiency of 45% being possible compared to approximately 30% for spark-ignition engines.[1] Gasoline engines are typically 30% efficient while diesel engines can convert over 45% of the fuel energy into mechanical energy (see Carnot cycle for further explanation).
And the big ship diesels can have efficiencies better than 50%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_engine

Diesel engines generate more pollutants that are detrimental to peoples health though, so not ideal to use near human habitation.
« Last Edit: April 19, 2018, 01:44:48 pm by apis »
 

Offline Nauris

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Hmm, that is not what I have been told, and if you look at wikipedia:
Quote from: Wikipedia
Because of the above differences in diesel fuels vs. gasoline and other spark-ignition fuels, diesel engines have higher thermodynamic efficiency, with heat efficiency of 45% being possible compared to approximately 30% for spark-ignition engines.[1] Gasoline engines are typically 30% efficient while diesel engines can convert over 45% of the fuel energy into mechanical energy (see Carnot cycle for further explanation).
And the big ship diesels can have efficiencies better than 50%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_engine

Diesel engines generate more pollutants that are detrimental to peoples health though, so not ideal to use near human habitation.

Sorry I meant gas like natural gas not gasoline. What wikipedia says is true for small engines like in automotives but for big engines situation is different. It is also true that really big ship diesels can achieve over 50% efficiency but power stations usually use multiple smaller engines of 10...20MW size in parallel.
 

Offline Zero999

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Diesel engines are generally more efficient than gas (methane, propane, syngas etc. not gasoline) engines.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_engine#Thermal_efficiency

The question I asked was about reciprocating steam vs gas engines: I can't find any reliable data on modern reciprocating steam engine efficiency. The Wikipedia article talks about an efficiency of 30%, but that was back in 1849: perhaps that could be improved with modern technology?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engine_efficiency#Steam_engine

As mentioned above diesel is more dirty than gas, but gas can easily be made from organic waste, though biogas or gasification, so it has the potential to be carbon neutral.
 

Offline Rerouter

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... The most well proven bulk energy storage method on a state scale is pumped hydro, have 2 lakes, 1 far higher than the other, but ideally close to the other, when in surplus, pump water up, when in demand, let it flow through some turbines down.

Pumps and water turbines are remarkably efficient at large scales.
 

Offline james_s

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... The most well proven bulk energy storage method on a state scale is pumped hydro, have 2 lakes, 1 far higher than the other, but ideally close to the other, when in surplus, pump water up, when in demand, let it flow through some turbines down.

Pumps and water turbines are remarkably efficient at large scales.

There's a system like that at the Grande Coulee dam, I toured it several years ago, pretty impressive installation.
 


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