Call it ADHD, hyper-fixation, or just plain internet rabbit holing, but I've come to the conclusion that Alternating Current is stupid.
Don't get me wrong, it has it's place, just not in my house!
Almost everything I plug into my walls has to convert the AC to DC to run the dozens possibly even hundreds of electronics I own. My vacuum is DC, my lights are DC, my computers are DC, my TVs, and game consoles, and tablets, and phones, and all of the things I use on a daily basis are DC. Why are we wasting so much energy pumping AC through our walls just to convert it at nearly EVERY plug!?
It is estimated that we waste between 10-30% of the energy drawn while converting to DC. That seems like a ridiculously wasteful experience, AND to add insult to injury if we add a solar setup to our homes, we then have to feed that energy into the home via an inverter to take the 12V DC and convert and step it up to 120V AC and then just to step it down and convert it back into DC for our electronics. Wasting another 5-15% of the energy.
Where else in our modern lives are we happy losing up to almost 50% of productivity (outside of writing rant blog posts, that is)?
I say it is time to end AC in the household! And possibly AC at the local grid level; and maybe even at the (inter)national grid levels.
High Voltage DC has come a long way since the Current Wars at the end of the 19th century, it might be time to revolutionize our power generation and delivery systems across the globe especially as we try to move toward more sustainable energy sources (and specifically solar).
