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lostagain View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Topic: My New TV
    Posted: 29 Aug 2020 at 4:06pm
Bottom line, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch.  
Never leave footprints behind.
Fred & Maria Kearney
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29 Aug 2020 at 4:21pm
We all have choices to make. You can have a Big Mac or a salad for lunch. Neither is free but one is good for your health, the other will kill you eventually but your taste buds might be happier in the meantimeLOL


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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29 Aug 2020 at 7:51pm
Yes, I was making an over-simplification in my statement about green technologies. It was already pointed out about hydrogen problems. That was one I had in mind. It sounds good that you only get water vapor from the tailpipe, but it is the process of making hydrogen available in sufficient quantities for practical use that is a problem. Windmills sound good if one looks at taking advantage of "free" wind, but what goes into a windmill and the impact of building and operating them is not so environmentally benign. Solar sounds good and I certainly support further development of that as it has already come a long way. However, it is still not a viable substitute for vehicles. One still needs adequate generating capacity that is not impacted by cloudy days or lack of wind. I'm in favor of developing newer nuclear technologies that are not as subject to the safety issues Fukushima Daiichi, 3 Mile Island, Chernobyl, or similar reactors. We need them to consume the byproducts of fission instead of removing and then trying to find a way to store them for thousands of years. Fusion would be great if the scientists can ever get to the point where the energy output exceeds the energy input needed to get a reaction going.

Right now, there is no viable substitute for ICE for transportation. I can't see doing the travel we have done with a battery operated tow vehicle. It is possible to tow with an electric vehicle, but I don't see it having the range needed for us to travel to visit our daughters and grandchildren without needing to allow one or two additional days just for charging stops. Meanwhile, that electricity has to come from somewhere. It does not magically appear.

I hope a viable alternative to fossil fuels can be discovered. I just don't think we are there yet. That is not political, just realistic.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30 Aug 2020 at 8:09am
We agree about hydrogen. At least as long as the vast majority (95% currently) is manufactured via steam reforming of methane in natural gas. That process separates the carbon and hydrogen in the methane so produces CO2 as a waste stream.  It uses lots of water too. So where is the environmental benefit?

The alternative to methane production of hydrogen is electrolysis, which can be done using renewable electricity. The problem with that is that now the hydrogen is no longer really a fuel. It is an energy storage system, like a battery. and therefore needs to compete with batteries. The wire to wheel efficiency of hydrogen produced by electrolysis, compressed, transported to a fuel station, dispensed into a fuel cell vehicle, and "burned" in the fuel cell to produce electricity to drive an electric motor is abysmal, only about 20%. Compare that to lithium battery ev's at about 60%, more if the electricity generation is co-located with the ev (eg, rooftop solar).  There is just no way H2 can compete as an energy storage system. Again, there is a reason this technology continues to get attention and funding, and that is because the source of energy is natural gas. 

I don't agree about wind turbines. Wind turbines have an even lower energy payback period than solar. Solar pays back the energy that went into its production and deployment in around a couple of years, wind turbines are around 6 months. The problem with wind turbines is siting them. Energy production from wind goes up with the cube of the wind speed so to be viable they have to be sited at the windiest locations possible. That puts a strain on our aging electrical transmission infrastructure. Solar produces energy in direct proportion to the sunlight it receives so you can pretty much put it anywhere. Then there is the NIMBY problem with wind. We need to get over that. Solar doesn't have that problem, no one minds solar on their or their neighbor's roof. 

I agree with you regarding nuclear. Its obviously not anyone's first choice to have in their backyard, but in reality a lot more people have died from smokestack pollution from coal plants than from all the nuclear accidents combined. So, like with wind, we need to get over the NIMBY. We don't really don't have much choice in the near term other than to deploy any and all cost effective low carbon generating capacity we can. 

Let's not confuse energy storage with energy production. Solar, wind, nuclear are all energy production systems, not energy storage systems. Energy storage is what is needed for vehicles. Those are fossil fuels, hydrogen, batteries, flywheels. Fossil fuels also happen to used for energy production, but only because they have been storing solar energy for millions of years. 

Actually, the only energy source we have that is not derived from solar is nuclear fission. And discussing fusion in the same paragraph as real production technologies like fission, solar, and wind is not helpful, the implication is that this is an intellectual exercise and not something we need to address now. 

Of the energy storage systems, batteries are viable for transportation now. There are over 7 million electric cars on the road as of 2020. So, I disagree with the statement that "there is no viable substitute for the ICE in transportation". That is simply not true. 95% of the trips we make are less than the range of today's ev's. and level 3 DC  fast chargers take about 30-45 minutes, not days. 

If you want to revise that to say "there is no viable substitute for the ICE in some transportation applications" then I can agree. So what? What in life is absolute? Suggesting that we can't do anything until we have some kind of perfect magic bullet that exactly replaces what we have now is just an excuse to do nothing and as such is not realistic and smacks of being political, whether that was intended or not. 







  


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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30 Aug 2020 at 9:11am
This is the only time you will ever hear me say that I want higher taxes:

I will be GLAD to see the federal and state governments step in and tax the EVs on a per mile basis to even out the costs for using our roads. Right now most EVs are using our roads for free and that needs to change. The motorfuel taxing system needs to be applied fairly and evenly across the board, even to EVs. The technology is there to accomplish this.

Some taxing entities want to raise the motorfuel taxes to make up for all the lost revenue with efficient petroleum powered vehicles, and electric vehicles, and as a result of so many Americans not driving as much as they did pre-covid.
 
This will unfairly burden the petroleum powered vehicles, while allowing EVs to travel 'under the radar'...and this needs to change. 



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lostagain View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30 Aug 2020 at 10:45am
Without wanting to be political, maybe when we look at tax policies, we should look at the full cost of every motive energy system, be it gasoline or unicorns.  If we consider the entire cost from initial production to the social cost of the health and environmental effects, we could adjust the taxes so that everyone pays a fair share of the true cost of transportation.  Rarely do we ever consider the real cost of our consumption of the earths resources.  If we did, we'd be a lot more considerate of Mother Earth.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30 Aug 2020 at 11:18am
Well yeah, I know some cities now have a 'rain tax'...the more square footage of roofing and pavement you have, the more tax you pay for rain runoff. 

Is that silly or what? Well...maybe it is....cuz it's designed to put money in the government wallet, but maybe it isnt so silly when you think about all the rain runoff and the expensive infrastructure built to handle it. 

But my primary concern is that the roads, bridges, tunnels, gutters, intersection controls, etc etc are generally paid for (to one extent or another, directly or indirectly) thru motorfuel taxes. 

EV owners dont pay those when they plug in to the home EV charger or pull the 'rope starter'...I mean click 'START' on the app, and head over to grandma's house or uptown to the nice trendy bistro where they can pat each other on the back for doing their fair share of reducing carbon footprints or whatever.

But they sure dont mind driving on roads and highways and streets that are being paid for by the 'ICE' vehicles they seem to abhor...some of them do, anyway.

I'm not being political either, but fair is fair. Time to figure this out...and trust me, they WILL.


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lostagain View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30 Aug 2020 at 11:30am
As I said above, there is no such thing as a free lunch, be it a vegan salad or a delicious bacon cheeseburger.  When we look at the real cost of stuff it always turns out to be far more expensive than we anticipate.  It's just that we expect our grand children to pay for it.
Never leave footprints behind.
Fred & Maria Kearney
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30 Aug 2020 at 2:18pm
Offgrid, You make a valid point about viability of alternatives to ICE powered vehicles. In some circumstances such as short distances, battery operated vehicles may be perfectly suitable. However, for long-haul towing like we have done, I don't see it as viable yet. That may change some day. However, charging will have to be made more friendly to those towing. The way most of them I have seen are set up, they are around the perimeter of a parking lot. One would need to unhitch and drive over for a charge, then re-hitch in order to get back on the road. That is impractical. One can't pull in hitched without blocking other charging stations or parking spaces. I can pull into a gas pump while hitched up with no problems.

This is a UK site, but it does point some of these things out. https://www.practicalcaravan.com/advice/switched-on-towing-electric-tow-cars

A Diesel-electric hybrid might be practical if the Diesel is being used to generate electricity for the motive force like in train engines with batteries for short distance use. If the Diesel (or gasoline) engine could then be run at a constant speed, it would likely simplify the emissions controls over an engine that has to control emissions over a wide range of engine speeds and loads.
StephenH
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30 Aug 2020 at 3:07pm
I have just one question: How many channels does it pick up?Wink
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