EV charging systems already are configured for managing recharging load. My Focus electric can be set to start charging at any time. So, I get home plug it in, and it waits for the cheapest rates to start charging. It's called Value Charge. With smart metering and coordinated load management from the utility, it becomes even easier to optimize the whole system for electric vehicles.

Why don't you take your tin-foil hat brigade somewhere else. Maybe Syria, Somalia, you know someplace that has no effective government.

Could we at least number the anonymous cowards, I'd like to know if the crap is coming from one blabbermouth or if there's a team of sock puppets at work.

It would make it easier to get a better signal to noise ratio.

This has been proposed and it seems like it really can work.

The process goes something like

Use surplus renewable electricity to split water to get hydrogen.

Run the hydrogen and atmospheric CO2 through a Sabatier reactor and get methane.

Feed the methane into any natural gas pipeline (The nation wide natural gas pipelines typically have at least a 7 day supply available).

Use the nation wide natural gas pipelines to deliver the product to gas turbine generators.

Storage and production largely use existing infrastructure.

There's an enormous difference between "Question Everything" and "Only acknowledge what seems to agree with preconceptions".

I'll leave it for others to work out which behavior is theirs.

Escape velocity is Mach 33, 11.2 kilometers/second, orbital velocity is Mach 25, 7.7 kilometers/second.

It's got a ways to go.

Here's a more subtle way of doing a file system in (from personal, bitter experience).

As root of course.

Start in any directory

rm -rf .*

On the system that I discovered this on, the first file it removed was the system kernel. That's when the panic started. I was just trying to get rid of some hidden directories in a home directory.

When I take my Focus Electric in for scheduled maintenance, it's amusing to watch the service rep trying to find something they can actually do. So far the only items have been tire rotation and software updates.

That's also true. But, if your variable input energy source can't be used when it's available, running it into an inefficient process to store it doesn't have the same impact as it would if you had to run it through the inefficient process always. Putting it another way, Use it when it's available (for anything), or lose it.

They apply equally to nuclear power, but the question was how to store the excess renewable energy and use it to cover variable demand with variable production.

You use the wind power to run the pumps on reservoir storage, or to electrolyze water to run Sabatier reactors which generate hydrocarbon gases like methane. Feed the hydrocarbon gases into the existing natural gas pipelines which feed the gas turbine peaking plants. The natural gas pipeline system can maintain at least several days worth of supply for the whole nation.

There are more ways, those two are my favorite candidates. Just keep T. Boone Pickens away from the natural gas.

I didn't realize that "humanity" included self-righteousness, arrogance, and a large dose of holier than thou.

Lets see if I got this right, you do what is "right" (according to your religion) because your God says that he'll burn you forever if you don't; not because its the right thing to do. And because you do what is "right" you are feel that you have more "humanity" than anyone who doesn't believe in God.

If that is what it takes to keep you acting civilized, I'm all in favor of it.

The name of the nerve is the "recurrent laryngeal nerve".

Think it's stupid route planning in humans? It follows the same route in giraffes.

One of the other interesting facets of the whole area is that it isn't just a matter of having a 3D printer. If you're going to create parts for your own ideas, you have to be able to draw them. If you can't create the drawings/models, all you can do is search around for something the somebody else did and hope that it's close enough. (What's the fun in that?)

Maybe there is no great conspiracy against your wonderful "facts" and opinions.

There's a joke that is probably a better fit.

If one person calls you an ass, you can laugh it off.

If two people call you an ass, you can walk away.

If a bunch of people call you an ass, you should have yourself fitted for a saddle.

There's an URL around here somewhere for tin-foil hats.

Well, now that we've heard from the "Floggings will continue until morale improves" school of management.

Anybody want to work for this guy?