Re: Electric Cars Not Yet Viable

Depends on how many people you are willing to kill.

When NG burns, there is no smoke.

Hydro is great, but some people don't like dams.

Nukes, ditto.

Solar and wind have the obvious intermittency and storage problems, for anything past occasional loads (like water pumping) and light loads (cell phones, LED lighting.)

India is increasingly using coal to generate electricity.

Australia is happy to sell it to them. Ditto China, Korea, and Japan.

Capacitors store an absurdly small amount of energy compared to batteries, which themselves store a lot less than hydrocarbon fuel.

Sure. Let the market decide.

On Sunday, 30 June 2019 10:18:41 UTC-7, John Larkin wrote: ..

Huh? Where did that come from?

I was being metaphorical.

...

On Sunday, 30 June 2019 10:22:18 UTC-7, John Larkin wrote: ...

Currently yes - but do you know any theoretical limits?

With current vehicles the ratio is only about 4:1 in favour of hydrocarbons when the conversion efficiency is taken into account.

If we want to level the playing field we will need to increase subsidies to EVs and renewable energy in general!

If the US keeps burying its head in the sand and living in the past it will be left behind in future markets as it is out-developed by China and Europe.

An even better tactic is letting the engine run through the night, so the engine might run continuously through the whole winter.

I do not know how effective this is, but if the engine was shut down for the night, the lorry driver sometimes left the cabin light on through the night. This was supposed to keep the battery warmer, thus the capacity loss was not so bad and the engine might start easier.

During the Winter War 1939/40 the temperature was often -40 C. Finnish Air Force mechanics sometimes emptied the engine oil into kettles after the last sortie for the evening. The kettles were kept on open fire through the night and the warm oil was poured back into the engines just before the first sortie the next morning.

That we now mostly get from burning oil and gas. John Larkin thinks the wor ld has to keep on working exactly the same way that it did when he was grow ing up.

d fertilizers rather than sending it up in smoke?

ternatives.

ide great benefits without high investments in infrastructure.

Not only India.

In Australia - where the government is in the pocket of the mining interest s, and wants the power generating companies to build more fossil-carbon fue led power stations - the power generating comapnies are investing heavily i n solar cell farms and wind turbines. They generate power more cheaply than even new fossil-carbon fueled generating plants can manage, and the govern ing party's desire to keep their more generous contributors happy doesn't h ave any traction at all.

nd fertilizers rather than sending it up in smoke?

You don't hve to give up on energy intensive technology - you just have to exploit other energy sources.

Keeping on dumping more CO2 into the atmosphere means more intense tropical cylones and typhoons, which also kill people. John Larkin can't think thin gs through.

But quite a bit of CO2.

lternatives.

vide great benefits without high investments in infrastructure.

Intermittency is a problem. But batteries and pumped storage offer a perfec tly practical solution. It will be a while before we have enough of either sort of storage to cope the bulk of the demand, but it is also going to be while before we've got enough installed solar and wind generation to need a ll tha much storage.

And if we didn't we could expect a regime change to a government that would be willing to sell it to them. Americans know about banana republics, but China has the same kind of clout these days.

om:

I've heard of dumping gasoline in the oil before shutting down to make it t hinner, the fuel evaporate once the engine is heated up again

:-D That's EU red tape for you.

Their "management pyramid" is more egg-shaped, a huge bulge of middle management that knows nothing, does nothing, and just has eternal meetings with itself. I've been to a few. These people think (pretend to think) in PowerPoint.

Do they allow autos? Seems like they should have been banned long ago when they were truly disgusting making noises, producing pollution and being a hazard to people and animals in the street. Oh, wait, they are still like that.

es so they have to just let them burn, while hosing down what's around them to keep the fire from spreading.

No special equipment. Hit it with water. The only issue with an EV is the battery can reignite if the internal shorts are not dealt with. One city in Europe has a water tank the dunk the car in for a day or so. That would not be a huge problem to install at the storage depots.

hemicals that a burning EV does.

Total BS. The smoke from a gasoline fire is hugely toxic containing all ma nner of harmful hydrocarbons. We had a gasoline accident here around DC so me years back that was so bad the road didn't open for days and the bridge it was under had to be inspected for structural damage. A battery fire wil l never destroy a bridge. Don't think that gasoline cars bursting into fla mes is not an unusual occurrence. "171,500 highway vehicle fires occurred in the United States, resulting in an annual average of 345 deaths; 1,300 i njuries; and $1.1 billion in property loss." Nothing to sneeze at.

but the cost is quite high, and would require separate trucks and crews so no one wants to pay for them on their taxes.

That is for gas fires where you want to smother the fuel. EV battery fires are fought with water and water alone. They don't need oxygen to burn whi ch is what the foam prevents from reaching gas fires.

Try actually learning something about the issue rather than starting out ha ting something, then trying to make up an argument against it.

st of the

o swap

ently (last four years maybe) they decided to drop the idea.

ere you need to keep the vehicle on the road most of the time. It's really not that big of a deal for a standard use vehicle even on trips.

el 400

C to VT

start, can't heat the passengers until they are warmed up and require bein g warmed up to prevent damage to the drive train before driving at highway speeds. Jeeze, these ICE things are complicated to use. Makes you wonder why anyone wants them...

ach parking place had a 20A outlet for heaters. Lower heater hose, battery blanket and dipstick heaters. 20A was barely enough to keep the vehicle usa ble, and the engines were cool to the touch in minutes. You had to use card board to block the radiators, or the cold air would frees the coolant.

Pool. It wasn't uncommon to have to tow a diesel vehicle to those garages when they stopped running due to the cold. Let them sit overnight, and they would fire right up.

the rear end, and manual transmissions. This was pre steel belted tire days , so the nylon cords would freeze with a flat spot on the bottom of your ti res. It was called 'The land of the square tires', and they issued you a ce rtificate for surviving a year there.

the unofficial low was -79F, at an unheated test site.

ps are useless at those temperatures, and I have doubts that the lubricants in the electric motors would be any good.

alone anything comfortable? How many miles would you get on a full charge?

I expect you are right. I don't think Tesla has any plans to open dealersh ips in Antarctica either.

supply

ate cathodes, other metal based chemistries such as sodium or potassium. Ho w about super capacitors? All those reduce or eliminate cobalt.

the innovations such as the Halbach array that Tesla uses can reduce the a mount used for the magnets with permanent magnet motors.

I don't think it is going to be a problem. Sounds like there is no interes t in EVs in the UK.

Thought experiment...

I agree. Time to end subsidies and tax breaks to the petrochemical companies.

That has absolutely no bearing on the matter at all.

Or the Northern quarter of the US, I suppose?

No corn in Vermont.

Idiot. ...and AlwaysWrong.