Are you gonna get an electric car anytime soon? (Or do you already have one?)

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Scott, the real danger lies in the fact that once a lithium fire starts it is nearly impossible to extinguish it. On the other hand a gasoline fire can be extinguished fairly easily without any special equipment. I'm sure you are aware of the lithium battery factory going up in flames and killing 22 people just yesterday. The more lithium batteries there are in the world, the more a common an occurance these battery fires will become. They obviously didn't bother making that lithium battery factory fireproof, or have any automatic firefighting equipment in it, but given that, not even the fire fighters that showed up could actually put the fire out.

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-p...22-2024-06-25/

[Mike Blakesley]

As much as I like doing things that are good for the environment, I have to stand in amazement at all this new technology that gets shoved out before it's really ready. Around here, they are building a ton of wind farms and thinking that's going to be the replacement for coal power, when there is all sorts of evidence stating that it won't be enough power and/or won't be as reliable. But I guess that's the new way of the world -- stick something out there when it's 'good enough' as opposed to 'perfected.' Reminds me of the current state of the music industry, or digital cinema.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Keep your eye on the new reactor Bill Gates is building in Kemmerer, WY. If it works as the designers claim it will, than it will be a big step foreword. And yes, I agree on wind farms and solar panel farms. The blades on those giant windmills can't be recycled, so they bury them instead. Not sure if they recycle solar panels, but they might because they contain silicon. There is also the solar power plant north of Vegas along I-15. It has been very successful. It's also pretty amazing when you drive past it..

[Lyle Romer]

As much as I like doing things that are good for the environment, I have to stand in amazement at all this new technology that gets shoved out before it's really ready. Around here, they are building a ton of wind farms and thinking that's going to be the replacement for coal power, when there is all sorts of evidence stating that it won't be enough power and/or won't be as reliable. But I guess that's the new way of the world -- stick something out there when it's 'good enough' as opposed to 'perfected.' Reminds me of the current state of the music industry, or digital cinema.

Each turbine needs something like 40 acres of land and they are ugly and noisy. Basically anywhere a wind "farm" is installed can never possibly be developed into a habitable area for humans. Solar panels aren't attractive and also require enormous acreage but they don't ruin the surrounding area as much. On a recent road trip we drove past a solar "farm" off I-90 in South Dakota. From a distance it almost looked like a lake.

NIMBYs complain about cell towers in densely populated suburbs but think it's fine to have gigantic, white (why white?), wind turbine towers ruining the natural beauty of the rural midwest and west.

Nuclear should be the main focus for low CO2 energy production. 2nd should be rooftop solar followed by utility scale solar where it makes sense and isn't too hideous. Wind turbines should be relegated to far enough offshore where they can't be seen from the shore.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Each turbine needs something like 40 acres of land and they are ugly and noisy. Basically anywhere a wind "farm" is installed can never possibly be developed into a habitable area for humans. Solar panels aren't attractive and also require enormous acreage but they don't ruin the surrounding area as much. On a recent road trip we drove past a solar "farm" off I-90 in South Dakota. From a distance it almost looked like a lake.

NIMBYs complain about cell towers in densely populated suburbs but think it's fine to have gigantic, white (why white?), wind turbine towers ruining the natural beauty of the rural midwest and west.

Nuclear should be the main focus for low CO2 energy production. 2nd should be rooftop solar followed by utility scale solar where it makes sense and isn't too hideous. Wind turbines should be relegated to far enough offshore where they can't be seen from the shore.

There are lots of wind farms in Wyoming I used to pass by when going on service calls...and where they are located no one would probably want to develop the land into anything else anyway. It's also the 5th least populated State in the US. Texas has a very large number of windmills, but California has by far the most. I'm also not a big wind power fan, but I always looked at it as a temporary solution anyway. Nuclear and water is really the ultimate answer.
Here in Tennessee they have been closing coal fired stuff and replacing it with Solar. There are 29 hydro plants because of the large, very long rivers here, and 4 nuclear power plants at 2 locations. Those nuclear plants supply 45% of our power.

[Lyle Romer]

There are lots of wind farms in Wyoming I used to pass by when going on service calls...and where they are located no one would probably want to develop the land into anything else anyway. It's also the 5th least populated State in the US. Texas has a very large number of windmills, but California has by far the most. I'm also not a big wind power fan, but I always looked at it as a temporary solution anyway. Nuclear and water is really the ultimate answer.
Here in Tennessee they have been closing coal fired stuff and replacing it with Solar. There are 29 hydro plants because of the large, very long rivers here, and 4 nuclear power plants at 2 locations. Those nuclear plants supply 45% of our power.

Nuclear is, by far, the most practical solution for low CO2 power production. The dream of pixie dust power and fearmongering has prevented the US from being at least 50% nuclear at this point in time. If that plant you mentioned can really be built in 36 months, once it is proven 100s of clones should start being constructed shortly thereafter.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Well, there is inherent danger in existing plants, and the waste that's generated. Am pretty sure this new plant is going to work. I think they built a small prototype at the Nuclear Labs in Idaho to prove it's theory before buildina a full scale reactor...

[Paul Finn]

I have never seen explained the process of converting DC solar farm power and now huge battery storage farm power to pure regulated sine wave AC power for the grid. AC to DC for battery charging is pretty simple. But DC to pure AC at high power levels is not easy. What is the process and efficiency of the conversion? In the old days DC power from hydro-electric dams went to large motor-gererators at the end of the DC transmission lines for conversion to AC for the grid.

Paul Finn

[Lyle Romer]

I have never seen explained the process of converting DC solar farm power and now huge battery storage farm power to pure regulated sine wave AC power for the grid. AC to DC for battery charging is pretty simple. But DC to pure AC at high power levels is not easy. What is the process and efficiency of the conversion? In the old days DC power from hydro-electric dams went to large motor-gererators at the end of the DC transmission lines for conversion to AC for the grid.

Paul Finn

Expensive inverters.

[Harold Hallikainen]

Due to advances in semiconductors, I think DC to AC conversion is pretty efficient. Besides dealing with DC from solar panels, there are some very high power long distance DC transmission lines since DC passes current through the entire cross-section of the conductor instead of the concentration of the current near the surface of the conductor with AC. This results in lower losses for DC transmission with the same conductor size.

We have 3.3 kW of rooftop solar on our home. It is a line-tied micro-inverter system. Some months it produces more than our load, some less. Over a year, it averages 55% of our load. I hope to increase the number of panels some day. We have a lot of roof space still available.

We still have natural gas for heating (hot water, cooking, room heating). There was an interesting promotional piece in the latest bill stuffer. It said using natural gas for heating resulted in some percentage (I don't remember the number, maybe 30%) less CO2 emissions than electric heating. Though they are trying to promote natural gas and its image, I do think they are correct as long as any fossil fuel is used in electricity generation. Apparently gas fired power plants can have an efficiency of up to 60%. A gas water heater has an efficiency between 50% and 80% while electric water heaters have an efficiency of 70 to 95%. So, until we have almost no power generation by fossil fuels, I think home heating with natural gas still makes sense for now.

[Leo Enticknap]

There seems to be an anti-natural gas movement gathering steam on the grounds that they produce pollutants that are harmful if inhaled. IMHO, that is worth a more serious look than the jurisdictions that are trying to ban them on global warming grounds: as Harold points out, you won't reduce emissions by getting rid of your gas stove and buying an electric one, if the electricity for the latter is supplied by a coal-burning power station that might be out of sight and out of mind.

[Lyle Romer]

I saw some research company study that found that 44% of current EV owners were planning to go back to gas for their next vehicle.

[Leo Enticknap]

Yesterday evening I discovered, the hard way, another unintended consequence of the EV revolution.

Attempting to check in to a hotel, I found the entrance to the property blocked by a long line of cars - all of them electric. About 20 minutes of waiting and crawling later, I found out why: they were all queuing to use one of the five or so EV chargers that some bright spark (sorry!) had decided to locate at the entrance to the hotel's lot, such that anyone wanting simply to park at the hotel and check in cannot get past the line of cars waiting to charge in order to do so. Most of these vehicles were clearly not being driven by hotel guests: I would guess, because the hotel did some sort of lease/rent deal with the charger vendor, a condition of which was they had to allow non-hotel customers to use them.

Making all this worse was that the cords on the chargers were short enough that most of the drivers had to reverse into the charging spots in order to use them. A lot of these drivers clearly had little or no experience of backing into a parking spot, with the result that they had to make multiple attempts to line up, the queue behind them growing all the while.

You would have thought that the hotel's management would have anticipated this, and required that the chargers be put at the back of the building, as far away as possible from the main entrance.

As I am traveling on work and the hotel bill is being paid by the company, I feel uncomfortable naming the place on a public forum, at least without my boss's consent: but if I were there on my own dime, I would have no problem naming and shaming the joint. A quick look on Yelp and Tripadvisor reveals that I am by no means the first to have experienced this.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

And Tesla sales are dropping rapidly, down 14% the 2nd Quarter of this year. I think people are getting fed up with both Elon AND his cars. Plus there are lots of other EV's on the market, close to 50, including Tesla, today.

https://fortune.com/2024/07/19/tesla...i-ford-rising/

[Leo Enticknap]

Plus Hertz flooded the market with 100,000 used, mainly low mileage Teslas, selling them for around half that of a new one.