France & Britain banning fossil fuels

[Puggy]

Originally Posted by Tootalltechie

And get rid of the left over by 2050

I'll bet you by 2030 the electrical tech is so good, I'll have converted long before then. If my 1991 bus is still running. If I'm still alive.

[Iceni John]

It always amuses me when folk see the solar panels on the roof of my bus, and they assume they're to power the bus down the road! When I tell them it doesn't quite work like that they are genuinely surprised. Even 2kW of panels is still less than 3 HP - considering that my 42MT starter motor is 10 HP, I don't think that my panels would get my bus too far.

The subject of battery and hybrid cars' batteries has been glossed over by most people who like to extoll their virtues. There's no effing way that some Prius or Tesla or Leaf is "eco" when you consider what it takes to make its battery. Batteries need to be 100% recyclable, and what's more for a reasonable amount of energy and resources expended to do so, otherwise the whole idea of electric vehicles falls on its head. What happens to all that cadmium and lithium now? And how is a battery car recharged - if it uses electricity from a polluting coal-fired power station using coal from some trashed and unrecognizable West Virginia valley that the Koch brothers have destroyed, that doesn't sound too environmentally-responsible to me. I wonder if those self-righteous Tesla drivers ever think of that? Nah, didn't think so either.

I think the Amish have the only true renewably-powered vehicles on the road, and otherwise only bicyclists can lay claim to their eco credentials (unless they've eaten too many beans). Any private vehicle is intrinsically wasteful and extravagant, but if you live in the middle of nowhere with no public transport, what choice is there? No easy answers.

John

[cadillackid]

Originally Posted by turf

dam John! you're genius.

Coal fired buses...... it will bring coal back

did you all see the new electric BB? 2 battery sizes for range.

and the most interesting part is that they are grid tie batteries.

since they spend a long sitting, they can be plugged into the grid as a reserve power source, fewer brown outs. more capacity

I built a "grid tie" so to say off of my chevy volt when i had it.. for one.. without even trying, you had an easy 2000 - 2500 watts of continuous 12 volt power, plus you could tap the 360 volt main battery.. I never bought the cable to tap the 360 volt battery.. but I did use the 12 volts.. we had a major power outage in the winter and I was able to run my Gas home furnace, some Lights, charge devices, a TV, etc... the volt would sit in the driveway and start / stop its gas engine as needed to keep me power all the time... if you tapped the 360 volt battery, you basically had a 50 kilowatt generator in your driveway...

I know of (via a friend of a friend) one person who lives in a camper full time, that each day goes to town to work a few miles away in his nissan Leaf, charges it for free, then back to his camper it runs everything... all night long... lights, A/C, TVs, you name it... free power..

he has solar to maintain small things and house battery during the daytime.. but doesnt run A/C obviously on that..

-Christopher

[chev49]

Originally Posted by cadillackid

I built a "grid tie" so to say off of my chevy volt when i had it.. for one.. without even trying, you had an easy 2000 - 2500 watts of continuous 12 volt power, plus you could tap the 360 volt main battery.. I never bought the cable to tap the 360 volt battery.. but I did use the 12 volts.. we had a major power outage in the winter and I was able to run my Gas home furnace, some Lights, charge devices, a TV, etc... the volt would sit in the driveway and start / stop its gas engine as needed to keep me power all the time... if you tapped the 360 volt battery, you basically had a 50 kilowatt generator in your driveway...

I know of (via a friend of a friend) one person who lives in a camper full time, that each day goes to town to work a few miles away in his nissan Leaf, charges it for free, then back to his camper it runs everything... all night long... lights, A/C, TVs, you name it... free power..

he has solar to maintain small things and house battery during the daytime.. but doesnt run A/C obviously on that..

-Christopher

the power may be free for him, but your electric bill or taxes may be higher because of that. There is no free lunch

[turf]

this thread has me thinking.


i had a friend about 10 years ago that got a job at a new company that had a process to turn coal into diesel and jet fuel.

some how they liqufied the coal and then through distillation they got their specific fuels.

i lost contact with him shortly after and hadn't thought again about it until we were talking about coal.

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

[PNW_Steve]

Originally Posted by Iceni John

It always amuses me when folk see the solar panels on the roof of my bus, and they assume they're to power the bus down the road! When I tell them it doesn't quite work like that they are genuinely surprised. Even 2kW of panels is still less than 3 HP - considering that my 42MT starter motor is 10 HP, I don't think that my panels would get my bus too far.

The subject of battery and hybrid cars' batteries has been glossed over by most people who like to extoll their virtues. There's no effing way that some Prius or Tesla or Leaf is "eco" when you consider what it takes to make its battery. Batteries need to be 100% recyclable, and what's more for a reasonable amount of energy and resources expended to do so, otherwise the whole idea of electric vehicles falls on its head. What happens to all that cadmium and lithium now? And how is a battery car recharged - if it uses electricity from a polluting coal-fired power station using coal from some trashed and unrecognizable West Virginia valley that the Koch brothers have destroyed, that doesn't sound too environmentally-responsible to me. I wonder if those self-righteous Tesla drivers ever think of that? Nah, didn't think so either.

I think the Amish have the only true renewably-powered vehicles on the road, and otherwise only bicyclists can lay claim to their eco credentials (unless they've eaten too many beans). Any private vehicle is intrinsically wasteful and extravagant, but if you live in the middle of nowhere with no public transport, what choice is there? No easy answers.

John

Very well said!!

I think many of the hybrid & electric car drivers are poorly informed when it comes to how "green" their cars are when you consider the full life cycle.

[EastCoastCB]

Originally Posted by PNW_Steve

Very well said!!

I think many of the hybrid & electric car drivers are poorly informed when it comes to how "green" their cars are when you consider the full life cycle.

EXACTLY!

[meteoricide]

There's already a prototype for an electric bus ... been around for decades ... its called a diesel locomotive! Electric motor at every wheel ... diesel generator to drive them ... just scale it down from 100 tons to 10 - 20 tons. One good thing is - the COG is going to come WAY down!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[PNW_Steve]

Originally Posted by meteoricide

There's already a prototype for an electric bus ... been around for decades ... its called a diesel locomotive! Electric motor at every wheel ... diesel generator to drive them ... just scale it down from 100 tons to 10 - 20 tons. One good thing is - the COG is going to come WAY down!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Funny,..... The first hybrids used 2 stroke Detroit Diesel engines.

[1olfart]

I happened onto a Ecar race, on tv, a week or so ago. I couldn't believe what I was watching. Way cool that they had that amt. of power. Batteries have come a long way since out 1st transistor radios.
I saw a news story, yesterday, about drones that are solar powered, and can travel vast distances. The progress is faster than I can imagine, and as long as I'm around I will try to follow it's progress. I wonder what batteries, coupled with magnets, will produce in the future. Europe seems to be years ahead of us, in that field. Night All!

[Tango]

At this point in time there is a still a major hurdle to overcome before "pure" electrics take over the world. There is a finite limit imposed by fundamental physics to the energy density that any & all current storage systems can achieve. And we are currently operating at close to 100% of that limit. Before we can go beyond the present limits, there will need to be a major breakthrough in those basic laws.

Meanwhile...

Diesel electric hybrids could very well handle the kinds of commercial loads that are on the road today. As noted, trains and a lot of ships already take advantage of the incredible torque curve that electrics can produce by simply powering them (very efficiently, I might add) with an old school, diesel engine running at a constant speed.

[turf]

i tend to over simplify.

but by my math, A 150kw generator (or solar panels ) would equate to about 200 mechanical hp.

[joeblack5]

We are getting further and further behind.
this is 2015 in Germany

https://thinkprogress.org/this-100-p...y-e78233449fd1

https://nikolamotor.com/one

It is not that we do not do the research and experiments... we are just not following thru.
There is to much money to be made by the old oil and coal buddies to give in to newer and better solutions.

Opponents of electric cars are right, they are not perfect, they are only good for about 80 % of the applications.

later J

[EastCoastCB]

Originally Posted by joeblack5

We are getting further and further behind.
this is 2015 in Germany

https://thinkprogress.org/this-100-p...y-e78233449fd1

https://nikolamotor.com/one

It is not that we do not do the research and experiments... we are just not following thru.
There is to much money to be made by the old oil and coal buddies to give in to newer and better solutions.

Opponents of electric cars are right, they are not perfect, they are only good for about 80 % of the applications.

later J

Germany is all about image. Did you not see their giant coal excavator? Its the largest machine ever built.
All the electric cars in the world won't mean crap if they're all charging from Nuke, Coal, or FF plants.

[joeblack5]

image is important,..... that is why we like to drive the biggest cars, have the biggest houses and the highest energy consumption / person in the world......


Germany also has a very very very large amount of installed solar

later j

[EastCoastCB]

The latest from Deutschland-
https://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/16/e...est/index.html

As Germany hosts green summit, an energy firm is razing a nearby forest

[Twigg]

Originally Posted by EastCoastCB

Germany is all about image. Did you not see their giant coal excavator? Its the largest machine ever built.
All the electric cars in the world won't mean crap if they're all charging from Nuke, Coal, or FF plants.

Germany is leading the world in solar.

[EastCoastCB]

Originally Posted by Twigg

Germany is leading the world in solar.

Meanwhile they're destroying their country to dig up coal.

[Defjr333]

Lithium mines are almost as bad as radioactive waste. Solar farms kill birds on migration flights by cooking them and radiate ALOT of heat back into the atmosphere raising the global temp.....does nothing for global warming. Wind farms kill birds looking to nest or migrate as well. Not to mention the waste and pollution to CREATE these items. Nuclear....well look at Japan about to dump 275,000,000 GALLONS of irradiated water into the ocean from Fukoshima. Coal has been turned into diesel since Hitlers scientist figured it out. Fossil Fuels are dirty, yes. So are the rest. Point is, there are just too da#m many of us on this planet. We already cannot produce enough food without destroying more forest. The #1 reason of Amazon rain forest clearing projects are for agriculture and livestock. If every business, home, and vehicle were shut off tomorrow, the cows alone produce more CO2 than that. I believe the planet will continue to degrade until the world population returns to its historical normal limits. Which until 1800 was never about 1 billion. There in lies the problem....what we are now? 6, 7....higher? Personally by 2050 i will likely have passed on, or be so old I just wont care. I will use what works best for me. Besides, there are already ways to perform the Fischer-Tropsch process of CTD (coal to diesel) even at an end user size operation. So I will stay with Diesel, and locate coal to convert if needed.
Doug

[mmoore6856]

Originally Posted by Tango

At this point in time there is a still a major hurdle to overcome before "pure" electrics take over the world. There is a finite limit imposed by fundamental physics to the energy density that any & all current storage systems can achieve. And we are currently operating at close to 100% of that limit. Before we can go beyond the present limits, there will need to be a major breakthrough in those basic laws.

Meanwhile...

Diesel electric hybrids could very well handle the kinds of commercial loads that are on the road today. As noted, trains and a lot of ships already take advantage of the incredible torque curve that electrics can produce by simply powering them (very efficiently, I might add) with an old school, diesel engine running at a constant speed.

constant speed is the only way diesel/electric can work. i drive a truck all over us and canada. if we could use our cruise for 1/2 hour without having to slow down we call that a good run. most of the time i dont use it during the day as traffic wont allow it. only on a nite run out west can i enjoy it