Re:Storage ‘not fundamentally needed’ for future power grid,...
by Dylan16807 on Tuesday June 20, 2017 @06:39PM
(#14599190)
> Welcome to the science of fire. If you pump energy into a system faster than you are removing it then you are heating it up, if you pump energy out faster than you are adding it then you are cooling something down.
That's why I said "more temperature sensors". It's possible to design a relatively-standard dryer where no part ever gets above boiling, even when the output is completely blocked, giving you a huge margin of error.
Heat in a dryer is all externally applied. It can't build up on its own.
This is how hay bales that are a little moist will catch fire, the digestive process (which is slow but exothermal) of the bacteria in the center of the slightly rotting bale of hay are so well insulated from the outside world by the rest of the hay that the temperature will at some point exceed the ignition temperature of the hay and then you have spontaneous combustion.
Something very similar can happy to driers if the exit ducts become more clogged than a certain percentage.
And let's not even talk about gas fired dryers (does anybody still use those other than dry cleaning services?).