Private conversion of an S10

[MeteorGray]

I do not believe that the problems with electricity generation and delivery are being fully appreciated nowadays.

We're getting big hints of some of those problems from California and Texas. More are sure to come.

This begs the question: where is all the power coming from when the Sanguine Greens get their way by stifling pipelines, drilling, fracking, splitting and mining?

How are batteries going to get recharged as electricity replaces petroleum for millions of vehicles out there?

I'm beginning to get an idea of how the citizens of Rome felt when they heard the fiddling sounds coming out of the Big House on the hill.

[Flakbadger]

All of that is well and good, but what is the alternative here, stick with gasoline? Continue to pump water that can never be recovered deep into the earth to smash open reservoirs of natural gas---and have all the byproducts (venting of greenhouse gases, earthquakes, groundwater contamination, leaks, possible explosions) of those operations?

Unfortunately no one system we have is capable of taking up the mantle of cheap and easy fossil fuels, so it's going to take engineering and a lot of diversification to figure this out. I'm not saying the current battery EVs are the solution. They aren't. But the possibilities of things like metallic hydrogen, fusion generators, micro-sized nuke generators with the stable pellets, possible new nuclear plants, wind, solar, tidal generators, silicon batteries etc are all viable avenues to explore, and will HAVE to be the future, because what we are doing now is not very future oriented.

[freebeard]

Unfortunately no one system we have is capable of taking up the mantle of cheap and easy fossil fuels, so it's going to take engineering and a lot of diversification to figure this out.

First step is to stop digging the hole deeper.

Work-from-home, virtual meetings and immersive gaming.

Put a geodesic dome over everything.

Solar heat and photovoltaics, microgrid, Arcimoto FUV.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by Flakbadger

All of that is well and good, but what is the alternative here, stick with gasoline? Continue to pump water that can never be recovered deep into the earth to smash open reservoirs of natural gas---and have all the byproducts (venting of greenhouse gases, earthquakes, groundwater contamination, leaks, possible explosions) of those operations?

I am favorable to biofuels that can be somewhat diversified when it comes to their feedstocks, such as ethanol and biodiesel, or biomethane too. And these options can also be integrated with food production.

[Flakbadger]

Originally Posted by cRiPpLe_rOoStEr

I am favorable to biofuels that can be somewhat diversified when it comes to their feedstocks, such as ethanol and biodiesel, or biomethane too. And these options can also be integrated with food production.

The burning of things to power thousands or millions of individual vehicles is an archaic form of energy usage. If you could hypothetically switch all vehicles to electric, and burn gasoline in a centralized generator to charge them, you would not only have a SINGLE emissions source to keep clean, but also the economy of scale would work in your favor. But at that point, why not switch the generator to a biofuel such as biomethane (which is a "free" byproduct of organic processing of waste), solar, wind, nuclear, or a combination?

That's the thing here, any sort of combustion engine is old tech. It's like coal. It did a wonderful thing in industrializing us or moving technology forward, but it's fundamentally limited, and its usefulness is closing out. Not only when speaking of the system as a whole (extraction, production, and transportation of fuel oil), but on an individual level as well.

Know what I don't have to worry about in my electric car? Oil changes. Alternators. Water pumps. Spark plugs. Air filters. Transmissions. Radiators. Catalytic converters. My old Yaris got me a lifetime 44 MPG, but I still had to change oil every 5,000-7,500 miles, which is more waste that gets put back into the world to be processed again.

Again the only limiting factor right now on electric vehicles is battery production, the rest of the vehicle is dead simple compared to a "traditional" car. And while in objective reality the world is definitely NO GOOD at producing batteries without destroying the ****ing planet, IN THEORY it could be (AND SHOULD BE) much much much cleaner and more sustainable in the long term than any form of combustion as our motive power.

[Piotrsko]

If you can get past any of the "anxieties", FLA batteries work ok for city use. I ran them in the ranger for 3years until It got cheaper to replace them with a used volt lithium pack. My FLA were recycled 100%

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by Flakbadger

The burning of things to power thousands or millions of individual vehicles is an archaic form of energy usage.

Even some "archaic" approach might have its practical advantages under some circumstances. I'd rather have an "archaic" fuel-burning engine in a plug-in hybrid and some fuel source readily available even in the middle of nowhere instead of getting stranded with a BEV dead on the roadside.

[Piotrsko]

You don't drive your Ev conversion to the middle of nowhere just to get stuck with a dead battery. You have 2 choices: go to the middle, or not. If I'm going there I take the F250 and my camping trailer which is like 800 miles round trip.

[Flakbadger]

Originally Posted by cRiPpLe_rOoStEr

Even some "archaic" approach might have its practical advantages under some circumstances. I'd rather have an "archaic" fuel-burning engine in a plug-in hybrid and some fuel source readily available even in the middle of nowhere instead of getting stranded with a BEV dead on the roadside.

Getting stranded because you ran out of electric charge is exactly the same as getting stranded because you ran out of fuel too far from a gas station; it boils down to poor planning on your part. If I were going to take a trip that had an indeterminate length, I would drive our gasoline vehicle, but only because it is currently easier to find a gas station with a parity price for filling.

There are hundreds of electric charging stations anywhere I want to go, but many of them vary in price wildly, and all of them seem to want you to have their particular app and/or card, which makes them incredibly undesirable. nOt HaViNg ThE iNfRaStRuCtUrE for charging everywhere is a non-issue, having a plethora of garbage companies trying to charge 8x what electricity costs is.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

At least for now, carrying a Jerry can or simply a large bottle with fuel is easier than hauling another battery pack and charging it on the field.