![[H]ard|Forum](/styles/hardforum/xenforo/logo_dark.png){kind=logo}
Coal and gas is about 35% efficient which is 10% more efficient than gas engines. 5% of that energy is lost through transmission lines. Oil-fired power plants get 28% efficiency (India) and they burn specifically petroleum, which is closer to gasoline.
Exactly.. This is why I don't agree with the rapid regulation to move everyone to EV's. If we aren't building a better energy production technology for the grid to support all of this, nothing is actually being accomplished. Further, it's as if they are ignoring the fact that passenger vehicle emissions are a literal drop in the bucket compared to shipping, the plastics industry, etc.
When they get cars that look like this in EV down to the point where you aren't paying for them for the next 20 years is what i'd like to see.
View attachment 401657
Just me though....
As for Nuclear power, for the most part it isn't the technology it's the PEOPLE who cause the problems. Chernobyl technicians Ignored warnings and danger signs and blew it up. The others, People tried to work around things and caused more problems. Even the So-Called safest things in the world can be dangerous if you have idiots handling them imho....
Not what I said at all. I believe the government should be supporting the move to EV, and building infrastructure for it.
I did the math on the savings of fuel. If I only charge between 10PM and 6AM, I average 5.1 cents/kWh. Based off $3/gallon gas, it is 5 times cheaper per mile to use electric than gas to power my car. I drive about 6k miles a year now. It would only cost me $110 a year in electricity for those 6k miles. Also you can't forget that ICE cars extremely inefficient when idling where an electric car uses almost nothing. Maitenance on the electric cars is much less than ICE. You will also get less wear on your breaks with electric as you have regenerative breaking. My current car will likely be my last ICE car ever. I can count on one hand the number of times I have driven more than 200 miles in one day. If I ever have a need to do long distance road trips, I could always just rent an ICE car if I didn't want to deal with the charging.
Yup. California facing future blackouts and energy shortfall already due to all those pipe dream solar/wind power plants they keep building. Now, they're building new dirty gas power plants to support them. That's because wind/solar cost 3x/6x more than conventional technologies. Too lazy to do the math? Look at California or Germany's soaring costs for a reality check.
Sorry man, you don't have a leg to stand on. Alternatives to baseline power generation are coal/gas. These result in as many as 300000 deaths / year from air pollution (including radioactive particulates from coal). Total deaths from all major nuclear power plant disasters ever (Chernobyl, Fukushima) are less than 16000 - worst case scenario. Over 67 years of power generation, that amounts to 238 deaths/year or effectively 0 in the US. Nuclear currently powers 20% of the US and has been doing so safely likely before you and I were both alive. Future designs are even meltdown proof - time to end the opposition.
I wouldn't call it "distant." We're at a tipping point where EVs are rapidly entering lineups, and where costs are about to drop sharply. Tesla wants to sell a $25K EV by 2023, and VW has its $24K ID.Life on the way (though not for the US) by 2025. That's not including the general downward pressure on EV prices, including mainstream models like the F-150 Lightning. Now, you're clearly doing well enough that you don't need to buy those particular cars, but they signal that the industry is about to electrify in a big way.
The original plan was written in 2015, and got rid of all fossil fuels. No real reason couldn’t start today and still be done by 2030 - again there is nothing in the plan that isn’t technologically feasible.
Just over 40% for natural gas, and upwards of 60% if you add in waste heat recovery that further creates energy. I'm not going to go out on a limb at state "all natural gas is 60% efficient" or anything like that, but if people are going to continue to pound the ground saying that modern nuclear is better because of this technology that is never used, or that technology which was only tested but never put into massive scale production, then it's fair to say natural gas is quite a bit more efficient than gasoline engines plus lets not just look at the engine itself when discussing efficiency of turning fuel into USABLE energy you also need to take into account the energy needed to convert oil into gasoline, with natural gas plants there's largely no processing to get the fuel source.
I'm not pushing my hand in to say I'm pro-EV, but I'm not sure I buy this statement. According to the EPA, https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/fast-facts-transportation-greenhouse-gas-emissions , transportation accounts for 29% of greenhouse gases with light duty vehicles making up 58% of that 29%, I'd hardly call that as a drop in the bucket.
Well not to discredit the one college geology course you took, I took one too though
But "natural" CO2 emissions are largely carbon neutral, things get rid of CO2 and then other things absorb CO2. The BIG difference is that manmade CO2 is releasing CO2 that was locked up and removed millions of years ago, and low and behold it's also a great energy source but the fact of the matter is the stuff that absorbs CO2 isn't increasing anywhere close to fast enough to deal with what we're releasing... and if you're wondering about things like volcanoes, that is a true drop in the bucket compared to manmade emissions.
So 15%. I think my statement is correct considering that electricity generation won’t even be by renewables anyways. You add on the economic impacts… doesn’t seem worth it to me.Just over 40% for natural gas, and upwards of 60% if you add in waste heat recovery that further creates energy. I'm not going to go out on a limb at state "all natural gas is 60% efficient" or anything like that, but if people are going to continue to pound the ground saying that modern nuclear is better because of this technology that is never used, or that technology which was only tested but never put into massive scale production, then it's fair to say natural gas is quite a bit more efficient than gasoline engines plus lets not just look at the engine itself when discussing efficiency of turning fuel into USABLE energy you also need to take into account the energy needed to convert oil into gasoline, with natural gas plants there's largely no processing to get the fuel source.
I'm not pushing my hand in to say I'm pro-EV, but I'm not sure I buy this statement. According to the EPA, https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/fast-facts-transportation-greenhouse-gas-emissions , transportation accounts for 29% of greenhouse gases with light duty vehicles making up 58% of that 29%, I'd hardly call that as a drop in the bucket.
Well not to discredit the one college geology course you took, I took one too though
You have to convince the consumer to vote for those policies in the first place. Especially the hardcore radical ones that would be required to get rid of fossil fuels in less than a decade.
Oh that I know. Doesn't stop crackpot articles from claiming that if we wave a magic wand around it could happen. It's always "Oh, people just don't wanna"
I'm sure all those apartment complexes with hundreds of parking spots will be able to put in hundreds of charging stations! And it won't cost anything to dramatically upgrade the electric service to support them! And that electroboosters won't just insist that 150 cars can get by with a dozen chargers that people rotate in and out of throughout the day, because it's no big deal to come home mid-shift (or wake up at 3AM) to get a slot on a charger.
I felt this same way until I sat and thought about it for a minute. People don’t drive their vehicles with full tanks. I’d wager a buck that most cars are less than half tank a lot of the time. I dont think that behavior will change a whole lot with EV and the non super enthusiastic public. I mean, look at how bad gas station lines are when a gas shortage hits or a hurricane is about to roll through. The gasoline fueling infrastructure isn’t built to cope with surge demand very well, I’m not sure we can expect the EV infrastructure to do any better.
To start: solar power and home energy can reduce your dependency on the electrical grid, so there's a way out of corporatocracy where there isn't with ICE vehicles.
I think if you've got the land/property, and live in an area where it makes economic sense - Go for it. I would. The issue I have are the regulations forcing all new vehicles sold to be EV in a decade. I just don't see how that's economically viable/possible without skyrocketing the grid prices in the process. The average person isn't living in a property where they can install solar to make it viable. They are 100% dependent off the grid, which is already overloaded in many areas. I also take issue with the fact that the current EV's aren't workable at all, and don't have replaceable battery packs, etc. The battery goes and the car is totaled. What we need is a way for the battery to be easily swapped, almost like you're filling the car up with fuel. That would fix the replacement issues, and the charging rate issues. Gas stations could just become battery swap stations. Through the software you could easily monitor how much someone impacted the durability/life of a battery, and also bill them for that at time of swap, beyond the electrical costs.
Pretty much this. I live in Michigan with a 1k sq.ft house in the burbs. I did one of those solar planners and only the south side of the roof is viable. The payoff time was like 15-20 years or something insane like that. Then the cars themselves? Yeah there's about no used EV market around, unless you want something lame like a Leaf. Cost of new EV cars at the cheapest possible trims are still 35k+ for just the subtotal. That's simply too much for the average person to pay for.
2030 would be a bit early, but even California and New York are aiming for 2035. That's plenty of time for a transition, just so long as everyone involved (government, automakers, power utilities, etc.) take it seriously. I don't know about making batteries swappable at stations, but I do think companies need to start addressing replacement and recycling of batteries in a more substantial way. For that matter, we need to make charging more practical for apartment dwellers and others who don't have their own garages.
That’s all of transportation. See the post above. The math works to basically 15% for personal automobiles.
Not that you guys have be the lead per se since this is a global issue, but to say that you are not the problem is a bit disingenuous seeing as how by most metrics the US is the second biggest CO2 producer after China (although China is still twice what the US puts out to be fair):
That's still a substantial chunk of emissions. And like Camberwell said, the US is the second-largest CO2 emitter after China; cutting that 15 percent will mean something. There really needs to be a scramble to improve power capacity, but it doesn't have to come from conventional energy systems. California can afford to add more renewables, and there are new smaller-scale nuclear reactors that are both quicker to construct and make more sense in circumstances like this.
To expand on what Camberwell said: one of the biggest problems in addressing climate change is the "no, you go first" mindset. Americans reluctant to do anything because they think China should reduce its emissions first; developing countries are reluctant to reduce emissions because they see Americans dragging their heels; and on the cycle goes.
China will do nothing. The PRC doesn’t give a crap. They just need the west to kill themselves economically and they win. We could go 100% green and china would still be doing what they are doing. It’s naive to think otherwise. The PRC believes they are the master race and destined to rule the Earth. It’s just a matter of time for them.
This is the answer, but the same people who push EVs from an environmental angle also denounce nuclear as a whole. Instead we should somehow construct untold amounts of inefficient solar and wind, along with the energy storage required to even make it practical for grid use.
15% is not nothing, it is 15%. Every little bit helps. People like you are part of the problem.
Probably goes hand in hand with the push to get people on leases. People think they can afford more car that way.
15% from the US is nothing if nothing else is done. You have to drop emissions far more drastically to make any dent in the rising temperature. Again, this is not a simple issue.