Electric cars, unclean at any speed

[RustyLugNut]

Originally Posted by t vago

Well, a lot of other people here are doing just that, and it doesn't seem to bother them.

This is a kindergarten answer. "Look what he's doing . . . !". I make an appeal for discussion, and this is what you respond with?

You don't know that for certain. If you are claiming with absolute certainty that you do, you are either a). trying to sell something, or b). acting on faith. In either case, such a position has nothing to do with discussing the future of energy.

It has EVERYTHING to do with energy discussions and the need to start something NOW.

This is simple science. This is not global warming. We know where fossil fuel deposits tend to be found. We have a good idea where they come from and we know that they are not being rapidly replaced outside of a very small amount of abiotic oil. We also know we are using it up at an increasing rate. I can think of no reason to doubt the above. Do you? If you do, please discuss. This has little to do with sales or faith.

The "peak oil" people keep setting deadlines for apocalypse as if their next movie contract depends on it. But, their premise is sound. Someday, be it sooner or later, our growing fossil fuel use will eclipse the discovery and production. Well before the very last drop is used up, our society will be under duress. If history is any indication, humanity tends to do ugly things when resources become scarce.

And it's strange that nobody has actually challenged the sheer number of abandoned wind turbines that currently exist. 14,000? All of the articles I've read so far, that supposedly "debunk" this number, use the same kind of hand-waving and emotional outbursts in an attempt to change the subject away from the fact that there were in fact at least 14,000 abandoned wind turbines in existence in the US. "They screwed it up in the past, but We'll Get It Right This Time!" Oh, please. "14,000 wildlife-killing, decaying, polluting eyesores are surely better than the status quo." Really?

I do not attempt to debunk those facts. I see the ugly reminders of the mistakes on a weekly basis. But, I also see the results of lessons learned. Those derelict turbines were poorly sited in some instances with too many unproductive dead days. Wildlife interaction studies were not sufficient in many instances to minimize bird kills. Poor design of the turbines themselves resulted in expensive field repairs meaning many sit silent because something as simple as a bearing race cannot be replaced without a complete take down and dis-assembly.

As far as being eye sores? I consider them beautiful! The new Siemens towers along the Palm Springs Corridor are graceful and serene as they lazily spin reaching hundreds of feet into the sky. My wife doesn't even consider them as we race past to park at the Indian Gaming casinos which I consider to be the real eye sores.

[RustyLugNut]

Originally Posted by t vago

Ah, so it's faith.

Scientists Use Sunlight to Make Fuel From CO2
Sunlight to Petrol – A real solution or just a catchy phrase
Gasoline from water, CO2 and sunlight

Dead wrong. Sure. Whatever.

Those are links to ALTERNATIVES to fossil fuel. The RATE at which all those processes work is very slow in comparison to simply pumping oil out of the ground. But, they do provide an alternative. Site those plants next to a large and constant source of CO2 in a sunny location and you can produce good amounts of fuel. But, we will have to be economical in it's use because there will not be enough to replace all liquid fuel use at current rates.

[t vago]

Originally Posted by RustyLugNut

This is a kindergarten answer. "Look what he's doing . . . !". I make an appeal for discussion, and this is what you respond with?

What's to discuss?

Originally Posted by RustyLugNut

It has EVERYTHING to do with energy discussions and the need to start something NOW.

People are already doing something NOW.

Fracking, once thought of as some uneconomical pipe-dream, is now putting the USA on a path to be self-reliant in 5 years. That was another bit of wishful thinking, not so long ago. What's more, the peak-oil crowd can't stand the thought that there might more proven oil reserves under the USA, than the entire rest of OPEC combined.

And when the cost of fracking grows to be too great, synthetic fuel (which I posted a few links to, already) will become economical. People are already producing fuel using sunlight, water, and CO2. Put fuel producing scrubbers on the smokestacks of power plants, and you get more fuel AND you scrub out CO2 AND you make that waste heat actually do something useful - what a concept!

There are nuke plants on the drawing boards which promise to be much more efficient and safer than the ones before, yet nobody mentions them.

We even had ideas for turning solar power into low-power density microwaves to beam from orbit to rectenna farms. They would have provided a sizeable amount of power. I even remember that my university's engineering school had a graduate project about it. Why did this not receive any serious consideration? China certainly is considering it.

But it's all not as sexy as solar panels (which two government-subsidized solar power manufacturing companies went under last year, I believe) or wind turbines (which I've already mentioned).

Originally Posted by RustyLugNut

This is simple science. This is not global warming. We know where fossil fuel deposits tend to be found. We have a good idea where they come from and we know that they are not being rapidly replaced outside of a very small amount of abiotic oil. We also know we are using it up at an increasing rate. I can think of no reason to doubt the above. Do you? If you do, please discuss. This has little to do with sales or faith.

I do not share your apparent belief that this will spell the end of civilization as we know it. Nor do I believe that ICEs are inherently bad. They're tools, like most of what we interact with.

Originally Posted by RustyLugNut

The "peak oil" people keep setting deadlines for apocalypse as if their next movie contract depends on it. But, their premise is sound.

No, it's not. Peak oil theory depends on an unchanging rate of growth in fuel consumption, which is simply not true. It also depends on a fixed amount of supply, which is also not true. Shale oil, fracking, petroleum synthesis, orbital solar power, maybe even solar petroleum mining? Point is, nobody knows exactly when (or even if) this peak oil will occur. People who claim otherwise, are either selling something or are deluded.

Originally Posted by RustyLugNut

I do not attempt to debunk those facts. I see the ugly reminders of the mistakes on a weekly basis. But, I also see the results of lessons learned. Those derelict turbines were poorly sited in some instances with too many unproductive dead days. Wildlife interaction studies were not sufficient in many instances to minimize bird kills. Poor design of the turbines themselves resulted in expensive field repairs meaning many sit silent because something as simple as a bearing race cannot be replaced without a complete take down and dis-assembly.

And when tax subsidies and handouts are removed, turbines suddenly become unprofitable and become abandoned.

Why did Solyndra and Suntech go bankrupt? They were two well-known solar power manufacturing firms? If alternative energy is indeed the wave of the future, surely these firms would be making hand-over-fist, and struggling to keep supply up to meet demand. Obviously, the converse is true.

There's something wrong with a given method, if it requires taking money at gunpoint from one group of people, in order to give this money to another group of people who would otherwise have to convince the public using traditional persuasion methods.

[t vago]

Originally Posted by RustyLugNut

Those are links to ALTERNATIVES to fossil fuel. The RATE at which all those processes work is very slow in comparison to simply pumping oil out of the ground. But, they do provide an alternative. Site those plants next to a large and constant source of CO2 in a sunny location and you can produce good amounts of fuel. But, we will have to be economical in it's use because there will not be enough to replace all liquid fuel use at current rates.

They're not alternatives to petroleum, which is what the EV crowd is dead-set against.

Besides, who says it's bad being green? I'm here, aren't I? I've made contributions here which have been shown to reduce fuel consumption, right?

I just don't buy into the whole green-as-religion idea. An open mind is paramount, but it does not mean that one's mind should be so open that junk falls in and crowds out the facts.

[Frank Lee]

Why did Solyndra and Suntech go bankrupt?

I heard it was because the Chinese dumped product on the market so cheaply, they could not compete.

[UFO]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

I heard it was because the Chinese dumped product on the market so cheaply, they could not compete.

Correct.

[MPaulHolmes]

Originally Posted by ConnClark

electric cars are about as efficient as gasoline cars, but coal is cheaper than gasoline.

I'm having trouble following this... The charging efficiency of lithium is like 99%. Solar cost me around $3500 for 5.6kW. There were a few hundred extra dollars for the frame. The inverter can power about 16 houses (well, it's good to around 160kw) and is like 99% efficient at peak power. The MPPT charge controller will also do around 160kW. It's over 99% efficient at max power. Both of those cost less than $1500 to make each. That's like $100/house. The multicrystaline cells have gotten so much cheaper. You can regularly buy the panels for around $0.60/watt. Assuming a 3 phase motor, you can get over 90% efficiency. How do you get to the equal efficiencies?

[RedDevil]

Originally Posted by t vago

Fracking, once thought of as some uneconomical pipe-dream, is now putting the USA on a path to be self-reliant in 5 years. That was another bit of wishful thinking, not so long ago. What's more, the peak-oil crowd can't stand the thought that there might more proven oil reserves under the USA, than the entire rest of OPEC combined.

Fracking is quite interesting. Even our little country happens to have quite a bit of frackable reserves.
Yet our government has just ruled against a fracking project because of environmental concerns, despite the safety measures, checks and precautions in place here being much stricter than in the USA.

For an independent overview on fracking see Wikipedia on fracking.
See the latter part of it.
Oil and gas companies are actively influencing public opinion on Twitter, Facebook, etc. They have the right to do so. But they are not unbiased messengers of the truth; they defend their interests.
Nobody is funding the anti-fracking movement though. That's just people disgruntled cause they cannot drink their tap water anymore.

[RustyLugNut]

Originally Posted by t vago

They're not alternatives to petroleum, which is what the EV crowd is dead-set against.

Besides, who says it's bad being green? I'm here, aren't I? I've made contributions here which have been shown to reduce fuel consumption, right?

I just don't buy into the whole green-as-religion idea. An open mind is paramount, but it does not mean that one's mind should be so open that junk falls in and crowds out the facts.

I am sure that most of the EV crowd would agree that there will always be a need for oil. Not just as a fuel, but as a feedstock for industry.

What we speak of is the finite supply of FOSSIL resources. Even WITH fracking and deep ocean mining. All you are doing is postponing the inevitable.

The links you posted are part of the answer. But it will not allow us to continue at the consumption rate we are now at. You may poo poo the peak oilists but societal reactions to stressors are real. I grew up on a small Pacific Island and watched tribes war over something as simple as water rights. Oh! That sounds like the American West 100 odd years ago! Expand that to the world stage and you can see that things can go to pot in very subtle ways. Cheap, dense energy is what drove the industrial revolution and carries us today. That energy was FOSSIL fuels.

I think we agree more than we disagree on the need to find alternatives to bridge us to the holy grail of energy - fusion power. There will not be the societal upheaval if we can buffer the transition via improved recovery of FOSSIL fuels, improved use of those fossil fuels and the introduction of energy alternatives incremental though they may be.

And that space based microwave projector ? Besides costing Trillions of dollars to place and maintain, I fear the Dr. Evils of the world who could use it to fry Tokyo. I chose Tokyo as an example because Godzilla has wrecked it many times over.

[Pawtuckett]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

The military cost to defend the wind and the sun.

I can't stop laughing trying to imagine us actually DOING that.