The Last DC Power Grid Shut Down in NYC 533
cell-block-9 writes "Today the last section of the old Edison DC power grid will be shut down in Manhattan. 'The last snip of Con Ed's direct current system will take place at 10 East 40th Street, near the Mid-Manhattan Library. That building, like the thousands of other direct current users that have been transitioned over the last several years, now has a converter installed on the premises that can take alternating electricity from the Con Ed power grid and adapt it on premises.' I guess Tesla finally won the argument."
Tesla won but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Tesla won but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of us here on
DC to AC converter inside? (Score:3, Insightful)
uh (Score:3, Insightful)
people are fond of pointing out democracy's many failures too
but the real overriding realization with democracy and capitalism is that however much you think they suck, and they do suck in many ways, they are still better than any other system we can think of and have tried
so please, criticize capitalism. but unless you can enunciate a superior alternative, your criticism means absolutely nothing
Re:Tesla won but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Much of the good ideas that really propel technology are that way. Capitalism rewards manipulative wheeler-dealers far more than creativity. It rewards those who can best exploit creative ideas, not make them.
Scale.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:uh (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:uh (Score:3, Insightful)
Gotcha.
Reading physics? (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, the wireless power transfer IS possible. Too dangerous to actually use, but possible. And he left behind plenty of shocked people to prove it (literally...).
Easier to feed back into? (Score:3, Insightful)
Reminds me of the quote (Score:2, Insightful)
One could easily apply this to economic systems as well. The only thing I could think of that would be better would be some Deus Ex-type computer-AI directing or at least regulating human activities. Self regulation seems to be one of our biggest difficulties.
Re:Is there 600VDC in Boston? (Score:5, Insightful)
Later elevators still used 600VDC but used a dynamotor
What you're hearing is not a dynamotor, but something called a Ward Leonard drive. It's a fixed-speed motor driving a generator, but its purpose is speed control. The field current of the generator, which is small, is adjusted to control the larger output of the generator. The variable output of the generator then drives the elevator motor. The Ward Leonard drive is thus a big power amplifier. Until power semiconductors got big enough, which wasn't really until the 1980s, this was the most effective way to smoothly speed-control large motors.
A dynamotor has a common field for the input and output sides, but a Ward Leonard drive does not.
Incidentally, the Wikipedia article in Ward Leonard drives is bogus. Here's a better reference. [google.com]
dude, calm down (Score:4, Insightful)
no one expects pure capitalism or pure democracy to ever be able to exist
i'm taking umbrage with radical fundamental departures from the core concepts: communism instead of capitalism, for example, or theocracy versus democracy
not capitalism, tweaked, or democracy, tweaked
the core ideas are always tweaked in one way or another to fit in the real world
I know everything technically is DC.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:uh (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:DC vs AC - not true today (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Tesla won but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:MOD PARENT "FUNNY"! (Score:3, Insightful)
I tend to agree. If I find something worthy of using a mod point for any reason, then I think it should be reflected in that user's karma. Why discriminate against humor?
Re:DC vs AC - not true today (Score:4, Insightful)
Capitalism *IS* the best way ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Capitalism isn't the problem; thievery is.
If you're point had been that Tesla would be the rich, fat cat and that would be bad, then your moral compass would be off but at least your logic would be sound.
Re:The article was wrong about subways (Score:3, Insightful)
Subways (and the like) are unique because the transmission line is also your final output/usage point. You CAN'T send electricity at high voltage for part of the trip. So you only need to make electricity at one voltage and feed it straight into the line with no conversions for efficiency. It doesn't matter that you can't change the DC voltage as it would actually be counter productive to do so.
This is also why I assume subways have their own dedicated power stations or used to at least.
Re:uh (Score:3, Insightful)
That's a good argument against capitalism, where capital, if you have it, works for you. Start out with enough, and you can eat damn well on investments and compound interest without ever working.
And on the opposite side of the scale, if you can't work, you don't eat either.
Personally, I think effort-driven communism ("How much you eat depends on your effort to contribute") is theoretically the best system, but chances are it will never be tried. Too many people have an interest in making their own slice of cake bigger, their efforts less, and too much cultural, genetic and religious emotional baggage to ever allow one's own kids to start at zero. (Abolishing inheritance is one of the first necessary steps in ensuring equality.)
Re:DC vs AC - not true today (Score:3, Insightful)
I didn't say anything about the "power supply", I was talking about the Motherboard, which feeds electricity to that power hungry CPU, taking in the 5VDC at 20 Amps and convert it to 1.33 VDC at 60 amps per unit
Now we have multi-CPU and multi-core CPU; that easily hundreds of amps on a MOBO; it mind boggling but your computer might be consuming as many amps at 1.33 volts as you4 entire house at 225/117VAC.
Re:MOD PARENT "FUNNY"! (Score:2, Insightful)