this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2024
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Science Memes

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submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

It's all variations of "make things spin."

Either by heating up water so steam makes thing spin, using wind to make thing spin, or moving water to make thing spin.

I am willing to bet if you watched photo cells on solar panels under a microscope, the light would make something spin.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

Electrons are suspiciously close to spinning dynamos, so even just moving electrons might be considered spinning something.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I am willing to bet if you watched photo cells on solar panels under a microscope, the light would make something spin.

Nope, solar cells are solid state devices. ;)

Other examples of solid state electronic devices are the microprocessor chip, LED lamp, solar cell, charge coupled device (CCD) image sensor used in cameras, and semiconductor laser.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Nope, solar cells are solid state devices. ;)

except for the fact that you actually want a grid tied interia component for stability.

So even in that case, you still tangentially need a "spinning mass" even if emulated in software with how it supplies energy to the grid. It's still technically there.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Have you considered supercapacitors could be used for that?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 15 hours ago

that's still just inertia though...

Now just using the complicated AC coupling of DC energy, through complex electronics...

All when you could just, big motor with massive mass spinny real fast like, and then when the mass starts spinning the motor, it makes power.

Mechanically, it's probably both cheaper, and more cost effective to just use a flywheel, which is literally going to be an inertial system.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Honestly the easier way to switch from solar DC to grid AC is to just have a flywheel between the grid and the solar power plant. It might not be as efficient as a capacitor bank or super capacitor bank but it's dead simple to implement and it's extremely reliable.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

ideally you wouldn't want it in between, but beside, you would implement it as a "frequency smoothing" device, along side production, probably at a factor of regulation specified amounts.

Modern solid state conversion is very efficient and highly effective, it's just not great at the inertial problem, though it can be mitigated. It's just not as clean.