

We are slaves of electricity - doc4t
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/130024-electroslave

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seagreen
"Just for a moment, suspend your scientific beliefs and imagine that
electricity suddenly ceased to exist. Waking up, your alarm wouldn’t work.
Unless you have a gas grill, you can say goodbye to your morning toast."

Uh, I'm not a scientist, but I imagine you would just die instantly.

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mkr-hn
Does this pedantry add anything worthwhile? This isn't like someone saying "my
food has no chemicals in it," which reflects a problematic and easily
manipulated misunderstanding.

No one's trying to sell electricity-free food.

~~~
seagreen
Fair criticism. Maybe not, but I find the "what if foo was missing" arguments
emotionally manipulative and so worth making fun of. It's like going up to
someone in 1935 and saying, "What if _there wasn't any metal_? Your life would
totally suck!"

Well, duh. If your point is "the industrial age depends on metal" or "the
information age depends on electronics" go ahead and say it, but don't pretend
like it's a novel idea.

(Though as pavel_lishin pointed out I totally missed the "suspend your
scientific beliefs" part of the quote, I, uh, quoted. Oops. At least his
deadpan response is funny.)

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chime
It's not electricity. It's energy. Electricity is just a medium for
transferring energy from source to destination. The amount of usable energy at
our disposal is proportional to the level of technological advancement. See:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale>

~~~
jel
My sentiment exactly! We are dependent on energy itself. Numerous projects
have proven themselves feasible for generating energy in a cheap & clean
fashion. However, with all companies out to "make a buck", such innovations
often get swept under the carpet. Example? Think back to the decision of the
motor vehicle industry's choice to offer hydrogen-powered vehicles instead of
water-powered ones.

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mikeash
Water-powered vehicles? WTF?

~~~
bgilroy26
_Boiled_ water, rather

~~~
rprospero
Ah, okay, steam powered cars I've seen before. Of course, they're not so much
water powered as they are wood powered. The steam car is no more water powered
than my car is axle powered.

Still, now I'm wondering about the fuel efficiency of a steam powered station
wagon. How much wood would a wood-Woody burn if a wood-Woody would burn wood?

~~~
mikeash
Steam engines generally have terrible efficiency, at least at small scale. At
large scale they do well (lots of power plants are basically steam engines),
but smaller scale means higher output temperature, less equipment to capture
energy, etc. Wikipedia says that an engine that exhausts the used steam to the
atmosphere will be 1-10% efficient, as compared with ~25% for a normal
gasoline engine and 40-50% for electrical generation engines.

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Arelius
> Waking up, your alarm wouldn’t work. Unless you have a gas grill, you can
> say goodbye to your morning toast. Your car wouldn’t start (or brake, or
> steer, or do anything really). Trains, without signaling, would be dead
> weight. Automatic doors at the entrance to your office, school, or favorite
> coffee shop would remain resolutely shut. Your PC, your DVD player, your
> wireless router, your digital camera, your smartphone — all computers
> everywhere would be dead.

I feel that he's trying to overstate the role of modern electrical activity in
our lives. Using myself as a counterexample:

* I, along with many other people, wake up without an alarm clock of any sort. And Mechanical alarm clocks exist, and are completely suitable.

* I do actually have a gas grill, along with most self-respecting cooks, it's a superior heating element. (I also cannot eat toast) and other than the starter, that continues to work without power.

* I do not take a car to work, an average car, while technically uses "electricity" it is never connected to the electrical grid, and afaik, the only reason it needs a battery is for the starter, which there are other ways around. Additionally, very few of the fundamental properties of a car are dependent on electricity. In fact many cars on the road today will continue to function (however poorly without power steering and the like) without electricity.

* The fact that signaling for trains is electrical, is a symptom of convenience, not a fundamental requirement.

* None of the doors I encounter frequently are automatic, not at my home, my office, or any of the coffee shops, or stores I frequent. Other than large department stores, automatic doors seem to be the exception.

* Yes, all my electrical devices would be dead, but seriously mentioning "DVD Player" as if it's important.

Then he goes on to completely skip the most noticeable life-changer when
electricity goes out, Lighting. Modern electrical lighting has to be the most
significant way that electricity affects our lives, and completely transforms
the night.

That's not to say removal of electricity won't cause problems, specifically
the "Instant" removal of electricity, but our fundamental dependence on it
seems exaggerated.

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notJim
I really hate this link-baity title. We are not slaves to electricity. It is a
useful tool, and like all tools, it shapes the way we live our lives.

I really wish people wouldn't upvote this stuff. It's about 70% flowery,
overwrought generalities about electricity, and 30% hand-wavey press-releases
about battery technology. Admittedly, the battery technology bit could be
interesting, but I'd really rather read something substantial about it.

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EzGraphs
The article goes on to focus on the need for advancement in battery
technologies. Although the specific examples in view were mobile devices, I
think that is one of the most interesting aspects of the work Tesla(TSLA) is
doing. They are extremely motivated to make breakthroughs. Their business
depends up on it.

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billswift
And another Carrington event could fry all electronics, and possibly all
electrical equipment depending on how powerful it is, at any time.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_event>

