Storage ‘not fundamentally needed’ for future power grid, scientists say

Re:Storage ‘not fundamentally needed’ for future power grid,... by skybrian on Tuesday June 20, 2017 @11:20AM (#14595262)

I'm wondering how this works. Do you really watch over your dryer just to make sure it doesn't catch on fire? If that were really a problem, wouldn't a fire alarm do a better job than an easily distracted human?

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Re:Storage ‘not fundamentally needed’ for future power grid,... by michaelt on Tuesday June 20, 2017 @11:38AM (#14595419)

  Do you really watch over your dryer just
  to make sure it doesn't catch on fire?

In my house, how it works is if an appliance in another room catches fire, I'm alerted by the smoke alarm and I can choose a correct response - such as a fire blanket, turning off the electricity, and/or calling the fire brigade.

The purpose of me being in the building or nearby is to ensure a correct and timely response. If the fire brigade are called by a real person and asked to attend, they'll know it's not a false alarm.

But when I've seen the fire brigade called by automated systems? False alarms every time. And the police don't even bother to come out to a burglar alarm or car alarm going off - it's got to be confirmed as a genuine alarm by a neighbour or alarm monitoring service.

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Re:Storage ‘not fundamentally needed’ for future power grid,... by mikeash on Tuesday June 20, 2017 @01:52PM (#14596850)

This seems awfully paranoid. Dryers are responsible for less than 1% of house fires in the US. If my house is typical, then my odds of experiencing a dryer fire are maybe .002% per year. A substantial portion of these happen because people don't clean their lint, so you can cut the risk even more by just not being negligent.

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Re:Storage ‘not fundamentally needed’ for future power grid,... by skybrian on Tuesday June 20, 2017 @11:57AM (#14595625)

I think this might just be disagreement over what "unattended" means. To me, being in the same house (and not in the same room) is closer to "unattended" and perfectly normal.

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Re:Storage ‘not fundamentally needed’ for future power grid,... by euyyn on Tuesday June 20, 2017 @01:56PM (#14596891)

The context in this conversation is leaving the drier on while sleeping at night, though.

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Re:Storage ‘not fundamentally needed’ for future power grid,... by PeterisP on Wednesday June 21, 2017 @08:08AM (#14602979)

I see no significant difference between sleeping at night or watching TV in another room - in either case, I'd notice the dryer malfunction only by the sound of the fire alarm.

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Re:Storage ‘not fundamentally needed’ for future power grid,... by Naritai on Tuesday June 20, 2017 @06:08PM (#14599037)

right, which means a fire alarm is a perfectly good method of alerting a nearby human of a problem.

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Re:Storage ‘not fundamentally needed’ for future power grid,... by bryondowd on Tuesday June 20, 2017 @11:30AM (#14595355)

Good point. Although I suppose you might still want to be home rather than running it while you're at work or otherwise away, to have a chance of grabbing the extinguisher and/or calling the fire department before your whole home is lost. I'm not sure how common it is to have smoke detectors automatically notify the fire department, and I expect there's issues there similar to burglar alarms, with false alarms being far more common than real ones, which affects response time.

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Re:Storage ‘not fundamentally needed’ for future power grid,... by goodcanadian on Tuesday June 20, 2017 @02:12PM (#14597017)

I'm not sure how common it is to have smoke detectors automatically notify the fire department . . .

It is extremely common to have smoke detectors integrated with the burglar alarm. I do not know how common monitored alarms are in private homes, however: I personally can only think of one person I know that has that.

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