Tom had a huge vested interest in DC dynamos, which is why he vigorously opposed AC power distribution. Tesla and Westinghouse owned the patents to polyphase AC power distribution, and given the shabby way Edison had earlier treated Tesla, Tom was not likely to have obtained licenses to use them on favorable terms. Electrocution was not an issue, it was a Red Herring that Edison tossed out to scare the public. It is likely that Edison did not understand polyphase AC power distrubution, nor possess the math skills necessary to understand it. I am sure he employed plenty of degreed engineers who did understand it, but it would not have been in their best interests to try to force Edison to accept it since Edison had so much invested in the construction of DC power plants to power his patented incandescent light bulbs and various (public domain) DC traction and fractional horsepower motors.
That was the hearsay I considered, was the demonstration of electrocution of a goat or some such creature, that went airy. Ultimately, I consider that transmission of DC power would have been the killer of a DC system.
One aspect of calculating the potential energy of my defined mass, 2000 Kgm, is that it would give me an indication of energy required to lift the mass the stated 3 meters. If I used friction-less, ideal machinery to raise the ton, the energy used would equal the potential energy of the mass, once secured and sitting at rest. Agreed, or have I overlooked a factor and made a grievous error? Let's make a visual demonstration of the expenditure of the potential energy of my one ton (metric) mass, once it is released and driven into motion by gravity. Again, I will be using ideal mechanical apparatus which will resist the inertia of the mass and employ an electronic brake, if you will. The mechanical action of the resisting device will be so designed as to create an electric current in traditional manner. This will be sent to an appropriate heavy load which should introduce reverse EMF to the generator, creating a braking effect. Expending my potential E of 0.016 KWHr in the form of powering a 100 watt light bulb (perfect style, no efficiency coefficient needed), I could energize my bulb for 0.16 hour. 60 minutes × 0.16 = 9.6 minutes. Just using dead reckoning, I am inclined to disbelieve these findings.
Dead reckoning? That's a navigation procedure I haven't seen used since GPS became widely available worldwide. My father used to use dead reckoning to plot the course of the B-47 bomber he was responsible for navigating from his base in the United States of America (USA) to some target for his nuclear weapon in the Evil Empire of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) during the 1950s. Why use dead reckoning when he had a sextant, an ephemeris, and radar navigational aids? Stealth. At the cruising altitude of the B-47, if there was no visible contrail, and no glint from sunlight, the airplane was virtually invisible, even if you knew where to look for it. Back then, there was no effective way to "shoot it down" unless you already had fighter aircraft pre-positioned and waiting. So leave the radar emitters off until the bombing run to lessen the chance of an unpleasant surprise.
Edison's electrocution of animals, including an elephant, was quite well documented on motion picture film. No hearsay involved.
Camera project still remaining warm on back burner. I got a few licks in on another pet project this last week and acquired a "money" project that should wrap up by end of next week. In this instance, money project does not refer to a motherload strike but rather a project that offers a few alms for my time spent and work completed.
Dead reckoning or calculated results based on guesswork, or in this case, intuition. I was unaware that pumping stations were used in such massive hydroelectric operations as dammed water ways. My "volume" of stored energy is more so in the neighborhood of that required to power a single family dwelling. I believe it to be quite possible to extract the potential energy of a solid mass with an efficiency of no less than 80 percent. Same goes for the storing end of the process. That 80 percent figure is based on the power applied to the mechanism which will raise the mass and negates the conversions of wind, solar, or animal power converted to electrical power. Fabricating water tight vessels and gaining the height to result in usable pressures, plus the volume of water needed, would seem to eliminate a water/turbine system from these small energy situations. I do like the idea of thermal storage systems using water even though large volumes of water are needed. Speaking of efficiency of energy conversion, I will stick to my guns on the concept of potential energy equals energy required to reach a same level of energy stored. Therefore if I wish to raise a solid mass to a point where it will have a potential energy of 0.02 KwH, I would guess that my motor slip and line losses and friction losses will give my an efficiency coefficient of 30. Therefore, 0.02 / 0.30 = .066. Therefore, raising my mass to 3 meters with a rate of 100 watts would take more like in the neighborhood of 30 minutes.
I look forward to seeing the link you have posted but am interested in finding a few facts about a particular formula. I had asked this question on the "stack" but was told to go do my homework. Sort of a pat answer by those who have not done their homework yet hold the degree as if they had. Anyway WHONOES, I am not coming at you as being a physicist, but rather hoping someone in the know may stumble upon this text and supply a valid answer. In the formula for potential energy; mgh or mass (in kilograms) × gravity (9.8 meters per sec/per sec × height (in meters), I believe that the gravity factor needs to be calculated. The examples I have seen use the value 9.8 for this factor. As I understand this formula, it is used to calculated instantaneous velocity. After one second of free fall in Earth's gravity, an object's instantaneous velocity will be 9.8 meters per second. At the two second mark of free fall, the object's instantaneous velocity will be 19.6 meters per second. At three seconds, 29.4 meters per second, and so on. I am thinking that the calculated value using the gravitational formula is what should be used in the potential energy formula. I will be cracking open some old physics books and try to find these answers as the high brow minds seem a little busy calculating black hole mass and other improvable answers. Just sayin. I'm a little pressed for time and out of data at home but will get to your posted link soon. Thank you.
I find lead/acid batteries to be expensive, dangerous, heavy, high maintenance, and to have a relatively short life span but also, they seem to be the most popular storage system for residential alternate energy. Remember, I may very well find myself deep in the Congo, at night, in complete darkness, just wishing I had a couple 10 watt LED bulbs that I could light until dawn. Is it really practical to pack heavy, expensive lead/acid batteries to my little grass shack? A helicopter would be handy but I don't have one. It would probably just be me and a couple three other asses dragging equipment through the jungle. Now a 300 gallon caged poly tote tank is light weight. A hardy lead screw and some roller ball bushings, a few lengths of pipe, a couple gear heads and a frame work for a heavy flywheel, and a few hundred gallons of water, and I think I might be able to light up my little grass shack over night. Unincorporated villas in distant, difficult to reach destinations, will be the working places for these archaic designs that I have in mind.
You only need to match cables at the load end to stop reflections, then the cable looks like a resistor at the source
Why is this? If the cable is matched at the load end, there will be no reflections to be absorbed and the cable will appear as a resistance equal to its impedance. A resistance at the source will just waste power.
