Wake Up Call for Green Energy

[doc henderson]

gas and oil has evolved and developed over a hundred years or so.  not overnight.  anyone flogging the horse and promoting the climate emergency is most of my discomfort.  nothing is for free.  the technology takes time to develop.  even in 10 years we may look back and say, "I cannot believe they thought this old tech would work on a large scale".  I have no problem with the concept of wind and solar.  I have a problem with having it rammed down my throat.  

[Ron Wenrich]

Just some tidbits to throw out.

Ice coverage maps:  try this:  https://earth.gsfc.nasa.gov/cryo/data/current-state-sea-ice-cover   You won't find data before 1979 since that's when they first started taking decent pictures from satellites. 

I heard one climatologist say that the Bearing Sea didn't have as much ice due to the winds coming up from the South.  It is different than times in the past.  Climate is dynamic, not static.

Latest Greenland data:  Surface Conditions: Polar Portal   It ain't melting.

Ocean and Ice Services | Danmarks Meteorologiske Institut  This shows the mean arctic temperature.  Also viewable for several years.  The green line is the base from 1958-2002.  For 2020, the mean arctic temperature is higher in the winter months.  During the summer, its been close to the norm.  Without increased summer temperatures, you won't get increased melting.  The reason for the increase in wintertime temps is an increase in water vapor.  Water vapor will hold a whole lot more heat than CO2.  When you average it out, temps appear to be higher, but it isn't during the melt season.  Maybe it isn't CO2 that's the culprit.

Sunspot activity is also a huge factor.  We're going into some solar cycles that are showing a decrease in the number of sunspots.  That has a profound effect to climate on earth.  Periods of low sunspot activity has a cooling effect.  Current snow cover in the world is above multiyear means.

If you mined all the lithium in the world and put it into batteries, you would be able to store about 22 minutes of the world's usage.  There's not enough lithium on the planet to provide even 1% of the population with an EV. 

[Hilltop366]

Although lithium is getting by for now it won't be the forever answer.

Thinking back didn't we almost burn all the oil back in the 70's when I was a kid.

[SwampDonkey]

Making those things is like burning it up to. To get 1.5MW, by now the cost is probably $1.5M per MW. It was over $1M a windmill 18 years ago. The Beechwood dam generates 112 MW in comparison and has been there 65 years. And Mactaquac is 660 MW around 55 years old now. It would take 75 windmills running continuous to replace 112 MW, 440 windmills to replace 660 MW. Each windmill needs 80 gallons of PAO synthetic oil for lubricant, based on crude, annually. Over 980 barrels annually, combined for all windmills, in this comparison. 1666 Mwatt-hrs gone poof. Each takes 1.5 acres of foot print, so your talking almost 773 acres of land. It will have to be cleared in some regions because up here you're not using potato fields. :D I'm using hydrodams as a comparison on how much footprint and resources it would take for windmills to replace that electricity. Not that dams will ever be replaced by windmills. And we know the numbers are a lot more because they are not continuously generating power and no efficient way to store it. And not even adding in materials to construct them of fossil fuels origin.

[brianJ]

FYI.  Today Tesla delivers the first semi truck to Pepsi.  They are 4 years late, no spare battery capacity.  The order book is over 100k units with deposits.  They hope to make 50k a year in 2024.  The combined heavy truck market is 250k units a year I think.  I've done the math on the semi truck and it is mind boggling how much money the trucking firms will save.  

Was that math for trucks doing local deliveries?    LTL or container transfers?

[Southside]

How do those battery reefer trucks work out? 

[barbender]

In MN, it gets so cold that we can spin the refrigerator backwards on a reefer and put it back in the battery😁

[Walnut Beast]

Without looking at a map that shows all of the charging stations for the E cars everywhere. I only know of one that I've seen one in a small town about ten miles away that's been there for a couple years in a little strip mall with a small grocery store and bar. I assume they put it in because they are only a couple miles off of a major interstate. So with the E bandwagon what are the plans for the major gas stations I wonder if they will implement them.

[stavebuyer]

I am really doubtful many gas stations have the excess electric capacity or space. Can be hard to get to a diesel pump or air compressor sometimes now and it takes about 2 minutes to top off a passenger fuel tank. No doubt 30 minutes for an EV will go smooth as silk.  :

Our county has 2 public charging stations available and the Makers Mark distillery and ISC Cooperage are big tourist attractions. I can see the headline in the weekly paper: "Tesla Owner cited for brawl at charging station"  :D

[SwampDonkey]

I only know of one within 24 miles, the electric company put it in at a gas station 4 years ago. I've never even laid eyes on an EV yet, with all these so called millions that are out there. :D I know you can't buy one in this area. Last I checked online at the nearest city all EV's are used and $40,000 to $80,000.

[Ianab]

None of us remember, but cars were invented before gas stations. 

"They will never catch on, where will you buy that gasoline stuff?"

The main gas station in town has just been remodelled with new food and barista coffee service. They don't have electric chargers yet, but that's because of low demand. Rough observation they have as many coffee/ food customers as gas. (and profit is probably similar per customer) We aren't on the main Nth/ Sth highway, so few vehicles are "passing through", mostly local, and they don't need the chargers. 

Out on SH1, they have "service centres", which will have a gas station / subway / McDs and even other decent food and coffee. A large car park, and industrial power supply.  That's where the chargers are going in, for folks that want to drive Auckland to Wellington. That's roughly an 8 hour drive, taking a 1/2 hour out to eat lunch and recharge your Tesla isn't a big deal. But the locals around Taupo won't be queuing up, because they can slow charge at home. 

It will mean a gradual shift in the gas station model, but that's already started. At some point the coffee and sandwiches might be a bigger profit than gas or electric charging. But like I said, folks will stop at the local station just for coffee, and will probably do the same in an electric car. Starbucks isn't big in NZ because even gas stations serve better coffee. 

[SwampDonkey]

Up here in New Brunswick the first Ford dealership was owned by K.C. Irving who had his first service station in 1924.

The first dealership in the US was Metzger, which opened in 1897, selling Waverly Electric cars.

Gas won out over electric. One major issue with electric is available resources to make the batteries. There's no way to totally replace gas with available lithium resources. Will something else come along? Maybe, if there's enough supply. It's likely a long way off though. In the 1970's when there was a gas embargo in the US and long lines at pumps, it never happened up here. I'd be willing to bet there is a lot more oil left then available lithium.

[Ianab]

Up here in New Brunswick the first Ford dealership was owned by K.C. Irving who had his first service station in 1924.

The Ford Model T was first sold in 1908. So 16 years later you got a gas station... 

Of course few people built a gas stations in 1908 in the hope that people might buy cars some time in the next 10 years. 

[Don P]

The model T had such a timing range because gasoline was available in cities but alcohol was more available in the country... at least in Henry Sr's mind. It was a duel fueler. Gasoline first arrived here over the mountain in jugs on a wagon which were lined up on the porch of the store round the corner. Well, that and any fuel of the time was very variable, it took some skill to dial it in after a fresh fill up.

How do you pollute less, make resources last longer, in general improve the quality of life... quit breeding like rabbits  :. It won't matter all that much which resource depletes first when you find the limit. The population has gone from 2 to 8 billion in one generation, cull the herd.

1 cord of wood=5000 miles on wood gas, no dug up carbon, current sunlight. 

[bigblockyeti]

Starbucks isn't big in NZ because even gas stations serve better coffee.

Same here.

[OntarioAl]

Don P
You hit the nail on the head
The elephant in the room is the exploding world population.
Cheers
Al
PS People are CO2 emitters

[LeeB]

Wonder how much heat 8 billion bodies produce?

[doc henderson]

It all originates from solar.     fossil fuels. oil, gas, coal, wood, biomass, wind, solar panel electric, plants we eat, sunlight radiation.  nuclear is a stretch but like a sun on earth.

[jake pogg]

In an isolated sub-arctic village where i live,some hundreds of miles away from the road-system (with our own 12 or so miles of gravel roads),a friend has barged out a Tesla to use around town!:)

He wanted one a long time,(an engineer who geeked out on the concept for many years ),and it's a 4x4 and supposedly could be used to haul his boat in and out of the water and pull a trailer full of birch for firewood and some other chores of the sort.

He has a modest PV array at home and was hoping to be able to charge it using that (our grid is a neanderthal kind where a 3306 Cat or two are humping 24/7,with the electric bills subsidized by the state and the feds and God Almighty himself for all i know as otherwise all anyone could afford would be a tallow candle lighting).

It's a first winter so the jury's still out as to how it may perform for him,will be cool to see what happens.

For many years my village had a deal under discussion with Toshiba corp. to have an experimental "pocket-size" nuclear reactor for testing purposes,but the regulatory side of equation (the concept being so new) had proved unsurmountable and the deal fell through.
I think that maybe the feds themselves are setting up an experiment at the Eilson AFB near Fbks,so maybe once that concept is developed and becomes more/less acceptable,then the many off-road villages around circumpolar North may become more practicable propositions...

(some good naytural adversity implicit in remote living may benefit the population in terms of quality and quantity both?) 

[beenthere]

PV array

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaic_system

electric bills subsidized by the state and the feds

We'll help, no problem.  It's just money.   ;D

[sharp edge]

I wonder why all the car co. are going EV. They usually just worry about money. Think the answer is the EV is a better car.

SE

[Don P]

It all originates from solar.     fossil fuels. oil, gas, coal, wood, biomass, wind, solar panel electric, plants we eat, sunlight radiation.  nuclear is a stretch but like a sun on earth.

If you stick to using current sunlight, (wood, biomass, wind, solar, plants pooped out our rear end and turned into methane, moonshine...), then you are not raising the levels of carbon in the air.
If you dig up buried ancient sunlight you raise the levels of carbon in the air.
Since you cannot really burn all the carbon in the wood, with each burn of biomass some amount is sequestered. A little tongue in cheek but when using those fuels you are running a big block air cleaner.
The flex fuel Ranger has been running poorly and I had to go over the mountain to get a DOT physical this morning so I filled it up with flex fuel. I'd say it was a high proof load, fun winding though the nat'l forest and it had a little whang in the air when I parked it. Kind of did a double take to see if it had morphed into a street rod  :D.
IC engines are not gas burners, they are vapor burners, find vapors and mixes that go boom. Pollen, terps...   :D

[doc henderson]

we have a lot of natural gas so that is what we use.  we have to remain diverse to accommodate local resources and not try to ship, transport, wire stuff all over the country if not needed.  If the CO2 levels go up, I bet the vegetation will be able to produce a bit more wood and leaves, and fruit.  CO2 is the substrate combined with water and energy that makes a tree "put on weight".  maybe if the CO2 goes up a few hundred parts per million, the trees and plants will do better and metabolize it back to sugar and oxygen. Wonder if we eliminated all the CO2, if all plant life depending on photosynthesis would suffocate and die.  a chloroplast is likened to a mitochondria in reverse "the power house of the cell".  the mitochondria takes sugar and Oxygen and releases stored energy from the sun producing CO2 and water.  plants take CO2 and water and energy from the sun and build stems and leaves and wood.  the circle of life.  sing it with me.  when we burn a carbon fuel like wood, we release CO2 and water as well as heat and light (radiation just like the sun).  If you kill all the plant life on earth, we will all die unless we can convert CO2 and water, back to oxygen chemically or mechanically.

[KEC]

For a long time it was believed that all life on earth was dependant on photosynthesis. Then they found vents deep under the ocean where CO2 emanates out of the earth. Bacteria feed on the CO2 somehow and form the basis of a food chain. Big tube worms and crabs have evolved so this gas has been coming out for a very long time. There are vents all around the world, plus CO2 from volcanos. Nobody ever talks about this. Maybe Hawiai should have to buy carbon credits for that volcano that is erupting. :D

[Don P]

The nutrition levels of grains drops. Not good.

I think we know better, it's how do we do it better and not break the bank.
Having blown thru half a cylinder of propane today, I can about bet you money my footprint is bigger than yours Doc, Im not preaching from too high a pulpit  :D