Would love to bicycle to work. Here in the USA, very few people do so because (A) there's almost no room on the road and (B) motorists are almost always in a big hurry and not paying attention to anything except lights, police, and other cars.
I lived near a university once where there were some bike paths and it was really great.
When you compress air, it heats up and expands -- thus making the pressure go up faster than one might expect. So, when storing it you lose a lot of energy as heat.
When you let it uncompress, it cools -- losing a lot of energy again.
Point is, you lose quite a bit of energy going both ways.
A good solution might be to combine wind and pumped hydro: have the wind turbine pump water to a higher elevation when extra wind is available.
Those things would be easy if it's just you. However, imposing those policies on the wife is another matter. It just devolves into fighting over money all the time.
One data point you are missing: if you fire the incompetent wife, in the USA by default she gets the kids too. Guess what kind of life they will have with just her raising them.
> It is actually quite hard to fire someone in Germany, who wants to stay.
Wow. In the USA, companies can basically fire anyone for any reason at any time (in my experience). And getting fired usually happens very quickly -- as in, that instant: "Please pick up your things and come with me. No, don't touch the computer, someone else will log you out."
No, not anybody can. What if you have a family and are barely making ends meet as it is? It's very difficult to convince a wife that you'd like for the family to spend a little less so you can have a few months off next year between jobs.
How does a founder get fired? So, the CEO says "you're fired". Well, I'm guessing that if you're a founder then that means you're a co-owner. So, don't you just tell the CEO, "um... no"?
What you allude to in your first statement is incorrect for most cases, IMO. Staying together doesn't necessarily mean letting it decrease your happiness. It might just mean you have to get your happiness from a different place.
Often in life you're not presented with win-lose situations. Instead, you're presented with lose-lose situations, and it's your job to choose the least worst solution for everyone involved.
DC motors are very efficient, so, I'd have to see some numbers to buy that.
Also, a big plus for DC motors is that the controllers are simpler. AC motors require a high-power adjustable-frequency inverter.
The only downside of common standard DC motors that I know of is that you have to change the brushes every n years, which I'll gladly take over oil changes. :)
Lots of people do their own EV conversions from ICE (internal combustion engine) cars. Trouble is, up until now they've all used lead acid batteries (and as such, were heavy and didn't have great range).
The next step -- and what I'm really interested to start seeing -- is homebrew EV's using Lithium Ion batteries. I think this is going to be the next step.
I lived near a university once where there were some bike paths and it was really great.