Re: Battery shapes

[RC Macaulay]

hohlraum wrote.. I'm sorry for this rant which is really off topic; but, we're facing a real problem in many of our contracts.  In our industry, we often must budget five years in advance.  In the past five years we have seen tremendous rise in commodity prices.  Today Cu is trading at the $3.60 per pound area.  This is up from about $1 per pound two years ago. The NFPA requires branch circuits to be rated for the KVA load which includes real and reactive power.  However, reactive power does not contribute to ohmic heating.  The NFPA was changed because PF were not always known so they took the safe approach. Here in the transit industry, we know our PFs for all our loads; however, I can't convince them that they do not have to increase their conductor sized to meet this NFPA requirement.  Besides, we're not even subject to the NFPA.  Because we're talking hundreds of miles of 750 kcm Cu conductors here, we're talking about millions of wasted $$. <rant over> Howdy h. Saw our first engineer's approval for use of aluminun electric power cable in lieu of copper for service in Houston for public works. For some years the use of aluminun wire was not permitted. Supposedly with the proper " conductive gel" applied to the cable ends installed into the lugs prevent electrolysis from acting when aluminun is in contact with silver plated copper buss. The question then becomes the insurance restrictions clauses. There are now only three giant copper producers since the Aussies rose to becoem the 3rd big guy on the block. The nation of Chile should be getting rich off copper ore.. but.. well.. errr.. seems there is the usual " slippage" in the books. Richard