On Mon, Dec 28, 2020 at 4:26 PM Niels Bakker <niels=nanog@bakker.net> wrote:
* mpetach@netflight.com (Matthew Petach) [Tue 29 Dec 2020, 01:08 CET]:
But as far as the physics goes, the conversion of biomatter into petrochemicals in the ground is more "renewable" than the conversion of hydrogen into helium in the sun.
It's not. Where did Mr Metcalf think the energy comes from that is necessary for that process? You know, the energy that we can now extract by burning it?
The same place that provides the energy that gets water back to the top of the mountains to make hydroelectric energy "renewable". The same place that provides the energy that heats air masses to different temperatures around the planet, creating wind currents that move wind turbines to generate "renewable" electricity. It's just that water and wind energy cycles work on shorter time cycles; those cycles are measured in months and weeks, not in millenia the way the absorption of solar energy by plants and then eventual breakdown into petrochemicals underground takes. We have short-term renewables, like wind and hydro; we have longer-term renewables like oil and coal that take longer than the course of human history to renew; and then we have a completely consumable resource called the sun which powers all the rest, but is itself on a one-way trip to eventual extinction, albeit on a much longer time scale. I'm a huge fan of solar power, of wind power, and pumped hydro energy storage. But from a long enough time horizon, it all depends on a single, non-renewable energy source--the sun. We just have the luxury of punting that concern a few billion years down the road. ;) Coming back slightly more on topic--multiple diverse power sources are always good to have, but I'm mindful of the fried rodent incident at Forsythe Hall from the mid-90s. BARRnet and SUNet were both impacted when the datacenter there was taken completely offline from a power perspective, in spite of having two different off-campus power providers, plus a local cogeneration plant and a generator out in the parking lot. One rodent in the heart of the transfer switch made all the different power feeds completely moot. From a "single point of failure" perspective, the transfer switch tends to be the weakest link in the chain. Has anyone developed a distributed transfer switch, split into different locations in a building, fed at different entry points, that can withstand one portion of the transfer system being knocked out? Thanks! Matt (yes, Earth *is* a single point of failure...for now)