PandaNinjas
AzulCrescentlil tidbit about Solar
Not a funni comic and a bit nerdy, but i wanted to write about something that i find cool lol.
Robert "Anaerin" Johnston@AzulCrescent Aliens descend and ask "What's with all the kettles?"
"Kettles?" Humanity asks
"Yes! Kettles! Every time you want to generate power, your first instinct is to boil water with it!"
"Kettles?" Humanity asks
"Yes! Kettles! Every time you want to generate power, your first instinct is to boil water with it!"
Izzy's Old Account@AzulCrescent much of human technological history is just figuring out how to boil a bigger kettle
ari 
@izaya @AzulCrescent human technology has advanced for billions of years just to find novel ways to boil water
Bailey@ari @AzulCrescent @izaya I mean, engineers need their caffeine. Starbucks and Monster Energy Drinks have likely set thermodynamics back by decades. Imagine all the incredible discoveries missed out on by researchers who no longer need to boil a kettle of coffee (or tea if a Brit) in the morning for their daily brew.
madison taylor@AzulCrescent space age soonโข!!
Dawn@AzulCrescent I mean, explaining how a solar panel actually creates electricity got Albert Einstein his Nobel prize, so...
Thepi@AzulCrescent There's also a fun thing where LEDs and solar panels are fundamentally the same object, so you can use an LED as a (really crappy) solar panel, and you can use a solar panel as an LED (once)!
@thepi LMAO at the once ahahha
Robot@thepi @AzulCrescent you actually can use solar panels as LEDs for a longer period of time if you drive them sanely, they just output in infrared instead of the visible spectrum.
yes this means you can (well, could, theoretically) make a tv/aircon remote out of one
Julie@robot @thepi @AzulCrescent I was just wondering about this, kinda sad they don't output visible light, although the infrared thing is also really cool
@thepi @AzulCrescent That is so cool! Reminds me of the way microphones and speakers are also the same thing, just optimised differently
@thepi @AzulCrescent WAIT does that mean solar panels can just... glow?? Like, you could use solar paneled roofs as a massive (low pixel) display?
Popstar Tourist
T0โณF03รโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโโ@AzulCrescent also, as I understand it, natural gas turbines are a liiiiiiittle different than the others? as in, they burn the gas directly in the turbine instead of heating water; this saves an awful lot on capital expenditures, and has helped make them very popular.
(still a turbine though so the general point applies either way)
oh and then there's thermoelectrics ... but like outside of deep space probes noooobody uses those
LisPi@tomoyo @AzulCrescent > oh and then there's thermoelectrics ... but like outside of deep space probes noooobody uses those
Soviet radio relays.
Soviet radio relays.
ENG. Tretron ๐ฒ@tomoyo yes but you have more advanced gas turbine plants that are called a "combined cycle gas turbine plant" that uses the exhaust of the gas turbine to heat water in a boiler to drive an steam turbine. Those are really fascinating.
Personally I do prefer spinning metal, if has an advantage when it comes to grid stability...but i stop before i go full infodump into power systems and energy productions
Jima 
@tomoyo @AzulCrescent I've talked to some power plant boiler operators years ago, and from what I recall, (most? many?) natural gas plants boil water, too โ which makes it relatively easy to convert power plants from coal to gas.
@AzulCrescent Yay Trains!!
Kevin Standlee ๐x8@AzulCrescent There is a form of solar power that does involve boiling water -- "power towers" that concentrate the sun's rays onto a tower, where they melt salt, which goes to a heat-exchanger to boil water and generate heat in a conventional turbine. Their big advantage is that they can store heat and thus generate electricity at night.
I'm a fan of trains, too.
sabik@KevinStandlee @AzulCrescent
Also "molten sodium" is exactly the kind of concept you'd want if you were writing solar-powered steampunk
Also "molten sodium" is exactly the kind of concept you'd want if you were writing solar-powered steampunk
@sabik @AzulCrescent Agreed. When in operation, it does look a bit like a mad scientist's death ray -- or the Eye of Sauron if you prefer fantasy over SF. Here's a picture I took of such a power tower: Crescent Dunes near Tonopah, Nevada, USA. https://flic.kr/p/2m9k57o
Crescent Dunes
June da Bat 
@AzulCrescent The one major downside about solar panels is that the materials needed for their creation requires very polluting methods to aquire them, same thing for the batteries of electric cars as well
But is true that looking up how they work is actually interesting!
10-volt ._.@junedabat @AzulCrescent it pollutes way less than fossil fuels tho
@10volt @AzulCrescent Of course, but I think hydraulic power as well as nuclear power are cleaner and more efficient, but it may depend on what our country has
BlueWinds@AzulCrescentIt is indeed really neat. In the same vein, I am fascinated by Magnetohydrodynamic (big word) generators - they generate electricity directly from a hot gas without using a turbine too!
I recently had solar panels installed on the roof of my house; they're now generating more electricity than we use in a year. Which both looks cool on the roof and is good for the climate. Plus it saves on power bills, all good things.
@AzulCrescent Thermoelectric and radioisotope generators are also fancy. There's one subtype of the latter that is technically an example of the former.
Biggles 20X6!@AzulCrescent my hot take is that all energy sources are solar, just with longer preparation, supply and logistics chains.
Photovoltaics have the shortest supply chain between sunlight arriving and electricity going out, and thus are super awesome
fluffy ๐@Taco_lad @AzulCrescent Iโd think that nuclear is really stretching the definition of solar, since youโd have to include the life cycle of stars other than our own sun
Maaike@Taco_lad @AzulCrescent there's nuclear energy. I *think* the uranium in there actually comes from a supernova from before our current star existed? So I guess it's still solar but not in the usual way.
And there's geothermal and apparently most of that heat is in fact radioactive decay, so the same applies.
@AzulCrescent On the other hand, the diesel cycle is heat from fire, fire from heat
Ryan Finnie@AzulCrescent I like geeking out on the California ISO site, where they publish realtime and historical electrical supply and demand stats, and break supply down by type. Solar generation is a) massive and b) remarkably consistent averaged across the state, usually a nearly perfect bell curve.
Christoph G.@AzulCrescent Fuel cells directly generate electricity, too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell?wprov=sfla1
ThomasToSpace@AzulCrescent Woo, another Factorio player!
crumbcake@AzulCrescent IIRC something like 80% of the energy released by a fusion reactor is in the form of charged particles instead of heat, so it's possible that we could see a future fusion reactor using physics similar to a solar panel to capture energy.
@AzulCrescent (I have no idea if this is actually physically feasible or just another sci-fi pipe dream born from the internet)
T045T@AzulCrescent that is cool about solar panels, but I do like that thereโs also solar power plants that do use turbines:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanpah_Solar_Power_Facility
There were reports of that kind of solar plant killing birds, but it appears that
a) those reports were overblown and
b) people have taken steps to reduce bird mortality even further since then
(https://spectrum.ieee.org/reassessing-bird-deaths-from-solar-power-towers)
Robert Atkins@T045T @AzulCrescent Iโve driven past this a few times (on the way from Vegas to Burning Man) and the scale of it is quite something.
Floating Point Error@AzulCrescent well now I am interested in trying Factorio.
Evelyn fra denne andre รธya@AzulCrescent RTGs are also pretty cool, though people are (perhaps understandably) wary about having radiation at home, so to speak
C-27733@AzulCrescent hey btw the factorio devs are lowkey problematic so yeah ,,,
@minekpo1
das unfortunate. sigh.
das unfortunate. sigh.
@AzulCrescent yeah ,,, sorry 'bout that , tbf who would have guessed that the devs of imperialism simulator would have shitty political ideas ...
digimint (ECC-988287E1B)@minekpo1 @AzulCrescent i mean, satisfactory is as (arguably more) imperialist in concept, and i've never heard anything bad about any of their devs.
@digimint @AzulCrescent haven't played satisfactory but from what I know , the way the player interacts with the native life is somewhat different .
like even before learning that the factorio devs were right wingers , I was like "yeah I'm committing genocide" , the game design makes it quite clear that its not only that the biters are in the way , but its either you or them .
also pretty sure satisfactory doesn't have automated turrets and artillery that kill all native animals in range :P
yeah there is "these devs did not take the time to reduce the effect of our current sociopolitical climate influence their game" and there is "these devs think imperialism is based"
@minekpo1 @AzulCrescent the thing is, in satisfactory, you're working for a corporation with the explicit goal of colonizing the planet and exploiting its resources (there's even a little informational video at the start about it). in factorio, you crash-landed on the planet and are trying to build a rocket to get off of it. plus, in factorio, the native animals attack you specifically because you're polluting - in fact, you can actually avoid most conflict by designing your factory in a way that minimizes pollution and preserves trees and grass. you're rewarded for this, because killing them is strictly a waste of resources, with no material benefit. in satisfactory, you kill the native animals because (a) they're in the way, and (b) you can turn their flesh into DNA capsules to get tickets that let you unlock cosmetics. in factorio, conflicts with the native life are a punishment - a consequence of the way you're ruining the world, which the game communicates to the player in several ways. in satisfactory, the native life is just another resource to exploit.
that said, i don't really think either game could be reasonably read as pro-imperialism. it feels like a stretch to say either game wants you to think that what you're doing is good or noble - plus, to my knowledge, neither game states or implies that its respective enemy species are sapient, which is probably the most important factor that makes real-life imperialism so bad.
(also, has something come up that i missed showing that the devs are actually right-wing? all i've seen is a reddit thread where one specific dev recommended a video from someone who was a shithead (but who you wouldn't know was a shithead just from watching the video), and then reacted really badly when someone told him about it. my read after reading through most of the thread wasn't "this guy's right-wing and so is the rest of his dev team" so much as "this guy doesn't know how to handle someone he likes getting criticized." it feels like i'm missing something).
that said, i don't really think either game could be reasonably read as pro-imperialism. it feels like a stretch to say either game wants you to think that what you're doing is good or noble - plus, to my knowledge, neither game states or implies that its respective enemy species are sapient, which is probably the most important factor that makes real-life imperialism so bad.
(also, has something come up that i missed showing that the devs are actually right-wing? all i've seen is a reddit thread where one specific dev recommended a video from someone who was a shithead (but who you wouldn't know was a shithead just from watching the video), and then reacted really badly when someone told him about it. my read after reading through most of the thread wasn't "this guy's right-wing and so is the rest of his dev team" so much as "this guy doesn't know how to handle someone he likes getting criticized." it feels like i'm missing something).
@digimint @AzulCrescent AFAIK the devs also didn't back down , saying shit like "just because he says bigoted things doesn't mean he's a bigot" and used culture war talking points plus when recruting they mentioned how a benefit of moving to Prague is the women . there are also allegations of kovarex (head dev who also made the previous problematic comments) saying some transphobic stuff but receipts have been lost
yeah satisfactory also seems kinda fucked up fair enough , though I'll add that I never really felt incentivized not to pollute to avoid loosing resources , may be my play style though
@minekpo1 @AzulCrescent idk, i tend to be pretty careful about accusations like this - i've seen it go wrong in the past (which is why i read through the whole reddit thread in the first place).
i went through the thread again and it seems to me like kovarex has some fundamental misunderstandings about how the right uses dogwhistles and insincere arguments - misunderstandings which seem to be in large part due to cultural and linguistic differences. rather than trying to help him understand that, people started dogpiling and making exaggerated accusations or even outright threats
he repeatedly said he wasn't right-wing and he didn't have anything against trans people (even going so far as to say that positive comments he got from transphobes made him deeply uncomfortable). i don't think he's a particularly cool guy, but i also haven't seen anything that implies he isn't being genuine when he says those things.
similarly, i think that an off-hand misogynist comment on a job posting is off-color and disrespectful, but it's not really a concrete indicator of right-wing views.
tbh, it seems like this whole situation got really heated and personal for everyone in that thread, to an extent that makes me hesitate to accept broad and severe accusations without strong supporting evidence.
kovarex said things in that thread that were rude, disrespectful, and immature, and i think it's totally justified to not want to play factorio because of that, but i don't think that "the dev team is right-wing/transphobic" is a statement supported by the evidence i've seen. if someone has a record of transphobic statements kovarex made, or something that could reasonably imply that he was being dishonest when he said he wasn't right-wing, then that's an entirely different matter, and i would really like to see that evidence so i can finally get some clarity on all this.
small aside, not directed at you but just in general - this is why it's so important to save evidence. ideally using the wayback machine to create a neutral, third-party account from a trustworthy source, but even screenshots provide a specific record of what was said. it's easy to take things out of context, even unintentionally, and all it takes is one person doing so for misinformation to spread. i always try to go back to the original words that were said, since a lot of context often gets lost. having concrete evidence really helps distinguish between simple cases of malicious bigotry and cases with more nuance, and not having the full context muddies the water.
(also, sorry for replying with an essay - i'm an academic, i can't help it)
i went through the thread again and it seems to me like kovarex has some fundamental misunderstandings about how the right uses dogwhistles and insincere arguments - misunderstandings which seem to be in large part due to cultural and linguistic differences. rather than trying to help him understand that, people started dogpiling and making exaggerated accusations or even outright threats
he repeatedly said he wasn't right-wing and he didn't have anything against trans people (even going so far as to say that positive comments he got from transphobes made him deeply uncomfortable). i don't think he's a particularly cool guy, but i also haven't seen anything that implies he isn't being genuine when he says those things.
similarly, i think that an off-hand misogynist comment on a job posting is off-color and disrespectful, but it's not really a concrete indicator of right-wing views.
tbh, it seems like this whole situation got really heated and personal for everyone in that thread, to an extent that makes me hesitate to accept broad and severe accusations without strong supporting evidence.
kovarex said things in that thread that were rude, disrespectful, and immature, and i think it's totally justified to not want to play factorio because of that, but i don't think that "the dev team is right-wing/transphobic" is a statement supported by the evidence i've seen. if someone has a record of transphobic statements kovarex made, or something that could reasonably imply that he was being dishonest when he said he wasn't right-wing, then that's an entirely different matter, and i would really like to see that evidence so i can finally get some clarity on all this.
small aside, not directed at you but just in general - this is why it's so important to save evidence. ideally using the wayback machine to create a neutral, third-party account from a trustworthy source, but even screenshots provide a specific record of what was said. it's easy to take things out of context, even unintentionally, and all it takes is one person doing so for misinformation to spread. i always try to go back to the original words that were said, since a lot of context often gets lost. having concrete evidence really helps distinguish between simple cases of malicious bigotry and cases with more nuance, and not having the full context muddies the water.
(also, sorry for replying with an essay - i'm an academic, i can't help it)
@digimint thanks!
Tammi ๐ฎ ๐ @AzulCrescent i like how different the power generated by solar panels is. lemme infodump ^^
the DC it generates is not super easy to inject into an AC power grid. big power grids are built all on the assumption of having a spinning turbine somewhere that does the AC alternation. And the frequency has to be kept stable otherwise the equipment breaks or at least blows safeties off and causes a blackout at least. You do not need to worry about all of that if you charge a DC battery.
So injecting solar DC power into the old power grid system requires an inverter to be used and it has a microprocessor inside that tries to match the grids power. and then the processor drives the circuit to output an appropriate ac power.
But because they are not turbines they cannot be used to stabilize the grid itself. So called turbine inertia exists because a turbine keeps spinning even when power is lost, is great because it can react to sudden voltage drops. It can basically react to these drops within milliseconds and provide power to the network when there is a sudden lack of produced power.
This is all new interesting challenges for the system and solar power becomes more relevant it becomes a bigger consideration.
And there is a solution to address this: just add turbines again! But not as producers but as rotating grid stabilizers built from existing old power plant turbines and attaching them to flywheels for example.
Super high important datacenters sometimes also use flywheels as their temporary power backup solution to keep power as smooth as possible during outages to give time for a backup battery system and or generators to kick in without causing any disturbance.
Anyway infodump over :3
the DC it generates is not super easy to inject into an AC power grid. big power grids are built all on the assumption of having a spinning turbine somewhere that does the AC alternation. And the frequency has to be kept stable otherwise the equipment breaks or at least blows safeties off and causes a blackout at least. You do not need to worry about all of that if you charge a DC battery.
So injecting solar DC power into the old power grid system requires an inverter to be used and it has a microprocessor inside that tries to match the grids power. and then the processor drives the circuit to output an appropriate ac power.
But because they are not turbines they cannot be used to stabilize the grid itself. So called turbine inertia exists because a turbine keeps spinning even when power is lost, is great because it can react to sudden voltage drops. It can basically react to these drops within milliseconds and provide power to the network when there is a sudden lack of produced power.
This is all new interesting challenges for the system and solar power becomes more relevant it becomes a bigger consideration.
And there is a solution to address this: just add turbines again! But not as producers but as rotating grid stabilizers built from existing old power plant turbines and attaching them to flywheels for example.
Super high important datacenters sometimes also use flywheels as their temporary power backup solution to keep power as smooth as possible during outages to give time for a backup battery system and or generators to kick in without causing any disturbance.
Anyway infodump over :3
@AzulCrescent I find this cool too! I love how it actually generates electricity more or less directly from the sunlight, no moving parts to wear down or to add mechanical inefficiencies to the system
Cegorach@AzulCrescent โฆwellโฆ batteries?
TzafrirBut what happens if you want to convert the energy to AC current? Where do you lose more on that conversion?
Irenes (many)@AzulCrescent oh yeah! we think that's super cool too
demize@ireneista @AzulCrescent I also like how everything else is basically just variants on the steam engine
solar bucks the trend, and the steam engine just happens to be the most efficient even though it was basically the first thing we tried
Ecomate@AzulCrescent great info! ๐ ๐ช ๐ .. this is also interresting: Sometimes there is surplus of electricity created by sun or wind which then can be used create green Hydrogen fuel.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/07/230720124624.htm