dwightlooi

2 hours ago, loki said:

I know most people call it mixed, but really only because we have the illusion of property rights...at least when it's not the wealthy/influential against the gov. so because we don't have enshrined property rights in 99.999999% of the cases, we actually have socialism.... at least a weak form of it, just stop calling it mixed. lol

I said EXACTLY... then went on to implicate and berate a hero of the left from over 75 years ago without without actually naming him, his position or his political affiliation. But I guess it still hurts the moderator's leftist sensibilities.

31 minutes ago, surreal1272 said:

No. You are definitely high to think there is some grand conspiracy amongst scientists because that’s all we ever hear about, those super rich and corrupted scientists LOL. Oh wait.

 

And the nuclear/pyramid comparison is just, well, dumb because it makes zero sense in the grand context of what’s being talked about here. 
 

Save the tinfoil act for your nationalist buddies on Facebook. 

Again, just dumb “logic” on every level but again, I’m not even surprised at this point. 

It is not a conspiracy that people -- including people wearing white coats -- jump on a bandwagon for expediency of repute, monetary or career gains.

It is also not a conspiracy that practically ALL the repute, money and career opportunity for a "scientist" lies with supporting not contravening the Global Warming hypothesis and the massive political and social momentum it carries. As I have said, it is not very different from Wise Men supporting nonsense like the Earth Centric universe -- even Galileo (prudently) recanted his articulations to the contrary so he doesn't have to die or spend the rest of his life in a tower somewhere.

No tin foil hat needed to recognize the very simple fact that ALL the nuclear wastes mankind have made or will ever make can be put in a very small area that even if heavily polluted is not a problem for 99.9999% of the surface of the planet. That is good enough for me and for anyone with some common sense.

1 hour ago, David said:

VW has announced that they have ended all ICE development joining Audi as they focus on EV's for VW and Audi by 2030. Porsche will be the only company to continue with ICE for now as it funds the transition to EVs. Porsche will eventually join Audi and VW in becoming an all EV company but at a later date.

VW CEO did state the following: Duesmann gave no timeline for when the automaker will stop producing combustion engines. "Our customers will probably decide when the last combustion engine comes off the production line," he said.

That's not exactly a bad thing. There is not much additional efficiency to be squeezed out of the ICE. The last thing we need is any more annoying, unreliable, unrefined and expensive "improvements" to get another 0.5 mpg. Anyone who had to put up with, or modify their cars to get rid of, Auto Start-Stop knows what I mean. Also, how has previously stellar Honda-Acura reliability been since they adopted those 1.5L turbo engines boosted to 21 psi in their Accord? I am sure their customers appreciate going from 5 stars to 3 stars...

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36 minutes ago, Drew Dowdell said:

Silly. Just bury the problems in the desert instead of dealing with them and actually using it to our advantage. 

Why not? When it is not a problem to begin with and doing otherwise is hugely expensive and of minimal benefit? It is in fact silly to choose a vastly more expensive solution to what is essentially a non-problem. Put another way, we can totally clean up nuclear test sites rather than simply make them off limits. But it is a so expensive in exchange for a remote and largely useless plot of land you simply just put up a few signs and call it a day. Not just us, the Russians, the Chinese and everyone else does that. I have no problems with it. I'll rather talk about lead contamination of drinking water or Oxides of Nitrogen in the air than worry about non-issues like nuclear waste or Carbon Emissions.

3 minutes ago, Drew Dowdell said:

hmmm..... except.... it's a problem....

Nuclear Waste Costs Americans Billions Every Year | by FSI Stanford | Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies | Medium

"We’re spending $6 billion a year trying to deal with the problem, and we’ll continue to spend $4.5 to $5 billion a year without solving the problem."

So, spend $12 billion... two years of maintenance on the problem and build a few breeder reactors to break down the waste and eliminate the problem and generate a few gigawatts of power at the same time. 

Two things... We spend billions on placating environmental idiots on a non-issue -- that's nothing new. You can spend millions on trying to accommodate a turtle who leaves in an area bisected by a pipeline; it's as big and as tiny of a problem as you want to make it.

That fact is that we can simply take all the wastes, pile in in a the desert with a roof over it. The world wouldn't end and for 99.9999999% of the population it wouldn't be within 200 miles of anything they do. Maybe you can't live with that. I can.

29 minutes ago, surreal1272 said:

Must be why 99% of the folks who ACTUALLY study and have degrees in such fields, say the exact opposite of what alleged engineers say.. 

Are you high?

Because when they don't say that or they lose their jobs, get ostracized and get no money for their labs? And, when they do they get tenure, get acclaimed and are showered with billions of research money?

No, I am not high. Compared to other pollutants Nuclear Waste has never really been a problem even though environmental types like to make it the boogieman. Nuclear waste is COMPACT and SOLID. And, regardless of how toxic and/or radioactive they are, the Earth is a HUGE place and there is no shortage of arid and stable places where you can put them under shelter above the water table for centuries if need be. For context, ALL of the Nuclear waste generated in the USA since the Manhattan Project is about 80,000 tons whereas the Great Pyramid is about 5 million tons.

22 minutes ago, Drew Dowdell said:

@dwightlooi - I have to ask... what is the motivation of the Global Climate Change cabal? What ends are they trying to reach? Why commit a fraud on a global scale for no reason... there's gotta be a reason.... how will climate scientists and NOAA profit from this?

For the Government types it's an excuse to pass laws, make regulations and divert funds to get industries to come to them to beg for relief, favors or handouts, thereby empowering and enriching themselves and their buddies?

For people in White Coats it's billions of dollars in funding, adoration and maybe a prize from Stockholm vs losing your tenure, being ostracized and having no money?

For Celebrities, Media morons and Joe the Tree Hugger its a convenient avenue to feel good about themselves and have others feel good about them?

It's like the Medieval Church really... the Kings are for power through the Divine Right of Kings supported by the Church. The Wise Men was for it for legitimacy, patronage and not being burned at the stake. The Low Born are for it because serfdom sucked and it was comforting to think that they are servants to God and the promise of eternity, rather than slaves to their lords and clergy!

22 minutes ago, Drew Dowdell said:

Oh yea, I was talking about the pebble bed reactors that are self regulating.  Breeder reactors are an unfortunate necessity to deal with the waste from traditional reactors. Breeder reactors are extremely expensive, so I would figure out what ratio of traditional reactor to breeder reactor we needed to deal with the waste and only build enough of those to cope with the waste. 

I do think that hydrogen fusion has potential, but at this point they have only been able to power a single light bulb because it takes almost as much energy to run the thing as it generates.

Waste has never been really a problem, there are plenty of arid places to dump them so they won't ever get into the ground water. The reason people don't build breeder reactors any more is because they are a pain to start up, shut down and refuel. The whole thing must be filled with molten sodium, if the reaction stops the sodium solidifies and the reactor is literally "bricked". The the question becomes how to you remove the molten sodium coolant without overheating the fuel rods or how do you remove the fuel rods without solidifying the sodium? The way the Russians did it on the Alfa submarines was to refuel and actively operating reactor. Another way to to bring a megawatt class arc furnace alongside so you can keep the reactor on life support while you do it.

Actually, we have NEVER successfully fused atomic Hydrogen in a reactor. Both magnetic confinement and laser inertial reactors use Tritium and Deuterium fuel. Also, a fundamental problem with fusion is how you capture the energy released. Let's say you have a chamber within which you get a fuel pellet hot enough and under enough pressure to fuse. You can MEASURE that rather easily, but capturing the energy to do anything is a different story. In a fission reactor you have a very hot core of solid matter and you simply run a coolant through it then use it drive a turbine either directly or on a secondary circuit. But with either a laser chamber or a Tokamak toroid, there is no way to run a coolant into the insides and outside is not exactly designed to conduct heat and run a turbine either. Think of it has running your car in your garage and trying to get energy from that engine indirectly from from outside your house. It's contorted at best and mostly futile by design.

6 minutes ago, Drew Dowdell said:

Companies do put profits over people and over people's lives. It is the job of the government to reign that in. 

All of you climate change deniers waving your hands about air temperatures love to ignore the temperature of the water which is taking 90% of the increases and also increasing in acidity, killing ocean life... So deny it all you want and wave your hands in the air.... that way we'll be able to see you when you slowly slide beneath the water.

(1) GOVERNMENT does not put it's own interest, that of its leaders and those of its minions over that of the people and their lives? Now, that's bona fide naïvety through and through. And, who reigns government in but us right wing, small government, capitalist pigs? Left wing Liberal types are all too willing to shower Government with more involvement, more power and more TRUST.

(2) Again, the planet had been warmer than it is today and the world didn't end or become irreparable. As a matter of fact the last two times it was warmer, the Dark Ages ended and the Minoans thrived, respectively. That's the real inconvenient truth isn't it?

7 minutes ago, Drew Dowdell said:

I am all in favor of nuke power... I think a national program of Nuke, rooftop solar, and wind would make the national grid as green as can be. 

Good to hear that you are for the ONLY energy source to have the energy density and persistence to power a post oil & gas civilization. Whether or not we believe that there is ANY need to reduce carbon emissions, there will come a time when fossil will become more costly than their alternatives as easily accessible reserves are depleted. When that happens, securing access to Uranium reserves will be the center of geopolitics... it's better that we start now that later.

BTW, breeder reactors CAN blow up and melt down albeit not as easily as boiling water reactors of the 60s. As a matter of fact, they are a huge pain in the ass to refuel or decommission because they are molten metal cooled reactors. Their primary advantage is that the create fissile products that are subsequently fissile material and are hence much more fuel efficient.

Truly safe reactors are the helium cooled reactors driving gas turbines on the primary loop. Helium does not carry radioactivity worth a damn even if it escapes and the fuel matrix is self moderating such at an unmitigated failure shuts down the fissile reaction without intervention. Their downside of course is that they have much lower power density.

2 minutes ago, Drew Dowdell said:

No, the difference between you and I is that you think your beliefs are fact and should be treated as such.  Also, as you've consistently misrepresented what I've said, I also have better reading comprehension skills (#1, #2, and #3 are vastly incorrect appraisals of my stance).  #4 is disproven by science.... yes climate change can be natural, it can also be man-made, and the more we learn about the climate system the more apparent the irreversible damage is happening. 

LOL... #1, #2 and #3 are very accurate appraisals only perhaps too concise and generalized for your liking.

As to #4 I have already articulated why I do not believe the Global Warming hogwash many times, but here's the very concise version.

(1) The Earth had been warmer with half the CO2 and much colder with 10x the CO2 in the air.

(2) As a matter of fact, ice core samples have shown that temperatures did not track CO2 levels going back beyond when Dinosaurs walked the Earth.

(3) Hence, it is bogus to conclude that today's climate is either exceptional or  linked to CO2 in general (much less man made CO2).

5 minutes ago, ykX said:

So what happened to No Politics rule? ....

He who makes rule gets to decide what it means?

In this case, I suppose the absence of mention of any politician, political party, legislative agenda or election results makes it a philosophical discussion -- on green energy, transportation, climate change and healthcare -- rather than a political one?

@ Drew Dowdell

To put it concisely... here's the difference between You and I.

(1) You believe that greedy individuals and greedy companies are not doing you any favors, hence GOVERNMENT is often a better alternative.

(2) I believe that GOVERNMENT is also greedy organization comprised of greedy bastards, hence it is practically always a worse alternative because it has the power to compel its will upon you through fines, imprisonment and executions.

(3) In short, you trust the ruling authorities and their minions to fight for the welfare of the people, I trust the individual person to fight and win for himself. That is why you are a leftist and I am not.

(4) That... and of course... you believe in that Climate Change is man made and highly abnormal; I believe that Climate Change is natural and the current changes are not exceptional.

39 minutes ago, surreal1272 said:

For such a know it all, you sure managed to be wrong about Texas power on just about every front. Their grid and alleged "smart" system was proven an absolutely joke just over a month ago and that's just for starters how utterly horrible their entire system was and and still is.

 

And while you talk about not letting the government decide, you seem to have ZERO problem with letting the industry (in this case electric companies) run it for you, which (btw) includes controlling that SAME government you decry via lobbying and dirty politics. My dad (rest his soul) worked for Duke Energy for almost forty years and I could tell you some stories about the horrors that are the Texas Electrical grid and the folks who run it. It is laughable how off base you are and even more laughable that you bitch about Cali yet continue to live there. Not real smart if you ask me but hey, what do I know. In the end, trying to compare CA with TX, at this point, is like trying to compare a dog turd to a pig turd. Who cares? They're both s***.

Three things...

(1) Government is not more likely to serve YOUR interest than private enterprise. Ultimately, both serve the interest of the leaders and minions of the organization first and everyone else second.

(2) The difference between Government and Private enterprise is that the latter CANNOT COMPEL the consumption of, or payment for, their product or service on you. Government on the other hand CAN COMPEL you to pay for it through taxation. You do not have to use Microsoft windows or buy power from the private utility company however inconvenient that may be -- you can use Linux or you can get your own generator. If you don't pay your taxes they throw you in jail, seize your assets anyway and shoot you if you resist. Private companies -- even monopolies -- can't do that.

(3) You may say that you can influence government policy with your vote. But there's so many problems with that argument. Firstly, with private companies you have an absolute segregation of choice. You can decide on buying or not buying Tesla's Solar Roof independently of eating at MacDonalds or getting an iPhone. With government you are forced to vote on a one size fits all package from two political parties that encompasses everything. You don't like the way this party's appointee runs the power grid, but you don't like the way the other runs abortion, guns control, healthcare, immigration, education or whatever else... So do you really have the freedom to decide on this specific issue? I don't think so. Secondly, with Private Enterprise your choice is exclusively yours. If you decide that you want to screw Texan power companies, you can get your own generator, solar panels and a Tesla Powerwall. You, and you alone, CAN decide to do that. If you decide that you want to vote against for the gay promising to reform your municipal utility, it is diluted by millions of other voters may not vote for the same guy.

I believe that we should be largely an "on your own society" and government should be there to provide national defense, public safety, basic infrastructure and a legal frame work. Anytime something can plausibly be done by private or government entities it should be totally private -- and that includes energy, transportation, healthcare and education.

32 minutes ago, trinacriabob said:

@dwightlooi  Why do you come here to constantly argue and debate?

Isn't that the whole point of a forum? If you want to just post cat pictures there's Facebook, if you just want to parrot short messages there's Twitter.

Understanding  Batteries – Why so many cells?

Have you ever wondered why some EV batteries have thousands of cells? Why the Volt’s battery is so big even though it was “only” 16 kWh? Can you actually save about half the money if you have a 50 kWh battery instead of a 100 kWh pack?

(1)    Cells and batteries: Before we get started, let’s get the terminology right. A “cell” is the smallest element in a chemical charge storage device. A “battery” is a bunch of cells strung together. The 1.5V AA Duracell is a “cell”. A pack with four of them strung together for a total of 6V in your flashlight referred to as a “battery”.

(2)    EV Batteries: A lithium ion EV battery is typically made up of many individual ~3.65V “cells”. EV batteries string up many of them to achieve their high operating voltage of hundreds of volts. The Tesla Model 3 battery has 2,976 individual #2170 cells as 31 parallel strings with 96 cells a piece to achieve 350.4 volts. The Chevy Bolt strings up 288 individual cells in 3 strings of 96 for 350.4 volts.

(3)    C-rating: While we hear a quite a bit about battery capacity and voltages, we seldom hear about C-ratings. This is perhaps more important if you are looking to get a set of electric wheels to go fast. The C-rating is a battery’s discharge capability in relation to its capacity. A 1C 1000mAh battery can discharge at discharge its entire 1000mAh capacity in one hour. A 4C battery can discharge its 1000mAh energy in 15 mins. The Tesla Model 3’s 211kW (283 hp) reluctance motor will discharge the base 50kWh battery pack at a maximum rate of 4.22C.

(4)    Series or Parallel: When you connect multiple cells in a series (end-to-end) the voltage and capacity (kWh) goes up, but the discharge rating does not. Five 1C 1000mAh batteries in a series has 5 times the voltage and five times the energy storage capacity, but it is still a 1000mA battery. When you connect batteries in parallel, the voltage does not go up, but the capacity does and the discharge rating does.

(5)    Why so many cells in a battery: Put simply, you need enough cells in series to get to the voltage you need for the motor and you need enough of these series in parallel to get the discharge rating require so the battery doesn’t blow up. That Tesla Model 3 draws 211 kW / 0.35 kV = 602.9 A under maximum power. If you put 602.9 Amps through those tiny #2170 lithium ion cells, it’ll boil the electrolyte and set things on fire. That is what happens if you only have 96 tiny lithium ion cells in series to give you the operating voltage of 350.4V. But, if you divide that amongst 31 parallel string of 96 cells, each only has to see 19.4 Amps – tolerable if the battery is liquid cooled.

(6)    Many little ones or a few big ones: To make EVs go fast you need powerful motors and powerful motors need a lot of Amps. There are two ways to make batteries tolerate a lot of amps. One is to simply make them with larger electrode areas – the D sized cell tolerates more current than the AA cell for instance. The other is to use a lot of small cells in parallel. Tesla is an ardent advocate for lots of small cells, while GM is firmly in the “fewer bigger ones” camp. The Bolt’s 66kWh battery uses only 288 cells in 3 parallel strings of 96 cells. Its 149 kW motor puts 149kW / 0.35kV / 3 = 142 Amps through each of those large, slate like, GM prismatic cells. Boeing is also in the fewer and bigger is better camp with those Boeing 787 batteries that caught fire repeatedly early in the plane’s career. So I guess bigger is not good enough when it’s air cooled while sealed in a box. If you are wondering the good old 12V lead acid battery in your car has six nominally 2-volt cells in series with massive electrode plates to support hundreds of cranking amps.

(7)    Lower Capacity doesn’t necessarily mean fewer cells: As you can probably deduce by now, lower capacity batteries do not necessary have fewer cells. Why? Because you need a string of about 100 cells to get to 365 volts so you can run the kind of motor you typically need to move 3000 lbs to 5000 lbs worth of car, gays and guys’ stuff. However, unless each cell is capable of running the Amps the motor demands, you also need multiple parallel strings of cells for a high enough C-rating (discharge current tolerance). While total material and weight is certainly down to almost a third, the complexity may not go down that much. This is why batteries a third the capacity are usually not third the price.

I hope this helps everyone understand batteries better!

3 hours ago, Drew Dowdell said:

First, I'm not arguing in favor of socialism. I'm arguing in favor of capitalism with strong regulations, and direct oversight in situations where the company is providing a public good.  Private companies should be running grids and health care, but the utilities should be heavily regulated and required to meet certain reliability and resiliency standards.  What happened in Texas is exactly why your "ideal" does not work. It puts profits over people in emergencies, it fails to take appropriate measures to prepare for emergencies (Texas/ERCOT was warned of this exact scenario in 2011 in a comprehensive report, they did NOTHING because it would have cut into their profits) , and then it price gouges customers during the emergency.  ZERO of the other grids that are heavily regulated (and in my opinion still not regulated enough) had the issues ERCOT had.

Now THAT is an oxymoron. A heavily regulated economy is one where the government decides what is produced, when, how and by whom. That is BY DEFINITION a SOCIALIST Economy.

As far as Texas is concerned, they have 11.9 cents kWh electricity rates -- almost half what we pay in the Democratic People's Republic of California. Had they gone with excess generation and grid capacity that is not needed, it won't be 11.9 cents a kWh. I think Texans want low electricity rates and not pay through their noses every month so they can have uninterrupted power for a once in hundred year freeze. If that worries you, you are free to spend your money on a few extra blankets, get a backup generator or, hey, do the Green Boy thing and put in Tesla Powerwalls for $15 grand! Sure as hell beats the GOVERNMENT making everyone spend extra on electricity because GOVERNMENT thinks not losing power for a few days in a hundred years important when you may not.

4 hours ago, Drew Dowdell said:

We can’t have decent passenger rail in the US, even just regionally, because of private companies.

we can’t have decent, low cost healthcare in the US because of private companies.

For profit companies aren’t your friends. You are merely something they can extract money from while paying their employees as little as possible.

Socialism is for suckers who enjoy having government thugs rob your rich neighbor so they can give you a small cut of the loot.

(1) We can't have decent passenger rail because NOBODY wants to take passenger trains. Unlike Japan or Europe, the USA is a great and vast ####ry with urban centers pretty far apart. Once you get to about 500 miles people will rather fly than spend half a day on a slow train or 3 hours on a fast one. That is why we have massive airport hubs like Dallas, Denver, Chicago, Huston, Atlanta, etc. That is also why AMTRAK has been a bottomless pit for taxpayer subsidies.

(2) If nobody has insurance and the government does not provide a thing, private healthcare costs will plummet and it will almost immediately become very affordable irrespective of how "greedy" the industry is. If no money equals no care, you can be assured that $49... $39... $29... $19 signs will pop out in front of clinics and Ads for $19,995 flat rate heart surgery with 1.9% APR financing will run on TV. Why? Because if they don't make it affordable they are going to lose out on 90% of the market and go out of business! As a matter of fact, all you need to do to lower healthcare costs is mandate that the minimum out of pocket you have to pay before ANY insurance plan is allowed to pay a single cent is a relatively high number -- say $20,000 -- you'll reap much of the same effect.

The problem with healthcare isn't that it is private, but rather that a 3rd party (somebody else) is picking up the bill. It is not that not everybody has insurance, but rather that most people do! Or, if they don't the government picks up the bill or the hospital pass it on to the guy who does. Think about it... when all you pay is a $10 co-payment why do you care if the doctor charges $50 or $500 for that office visit? Why do you care if that blue pill is $1 or $100? When insurance pays for everything above a $2500 annual of pocket expenditure, why do you care if your surgery costs $2,000 or $200,000? If you don't care, why would why wouldn't they charge a lot? The insurance company might care, but only to the extent that they are not paying more than the other insurance companies. As long as that is true, every insurer can simply charge higher premiums and both the insurers and the providers can laugh all the way to the bank. Imagine that dinning out is paid for by insurance. The waiter at your restaurant probably can't tell you how much that plate of Pasta is except that your "co-payment" is $1, just like your doctor probably doesn't know how much his office is billing your insrance except that your co-pay is on your card! If you think that a public healthcare system with the government as a single payer will resolve the situation, think again. Government has always been the single payer for defense. Is that $1.7 Trillion F-35 program affordable, timely or problem free?

(3) No, for profit companies are not my friends. They don't have to be. All they have to be are a bunch greedy bastards fighting for my willing business. If I don't like their stuff, I don't have to buy it. Government is not my friend either. They come up with utterly deplorable schemes and rotten services. I have to pay for them with more than half my income or go to jail! That is the difference.

34 minutes ago, balthazar said:

If Big Gov’t actually worked for the people, they’d only accept the median U.S. salary & be on conventional healthcare like the rest of us.

If individuals can put everyone else before themselves and government can be counted on to put the interest of the People before the interests of Government, then COMMUNISM would have worked. The concept is simple enough -- everyone should be selfless and government should decide who deserves what. Why hasn't it ever worked? Because people will not be selfless; in particular those in power who gets to define and decide what's selfless.

9 hours ago, David said:

This could get ugly political if you really wanted to have pointed out to you the false destructive nature of not having a balance of government basics with for profit business. Democracy was on a balance not on a dictator wanna be with greed for the 1%. The last 4 years had the biggest destructive waste of burdening the tax payers while moving wealth to the 1% and look at the results.

Philosohpically, I am not a Socialist in any way shape or form. I aspire to the rich, I do not hate the rich. I aspire to privilege, I do not scorn the privileged. If anyone is not paying their fair share it's the losers making who either do not pay any net taxes or get money back -- about the bottom half of Taxpayers really. I reject the rewarding of failure and punishment of success. I reject the re-distributionist ideas of equalizing outcome. I reject invented racism and victimhoods.

Individual GREED -- if you want to call it that -- is the ONLY thing that keeps an economy functioning, by ensuring that what people want gets produced and delivered in exchange for the resources that they hold. GREED is the reason people go to work, invent stuff and deliver good service. The notion that somehow we can entrust that to well meaning politician and government bureaucrats is utter folly. Why? Because of three fundamental problems:-

(1) Because while you may wish that politicians and government employees will selflessly work for your benefit in a way that greedy corporate types and rich individuals will not. The truth is that such individuals are as rare in government as they are in private enterprise -- if not rarer.

(2) Even in the rare instances when they are magnanimous and benevolent, government types do not necessarily KNOW what the people want, how to provide it or have the imperative to quickly figure that out.

(3) When private enterprise produce a good or service that sucks and nobody wants, they must quickly make it not suck or go out of business and be replaced. When government does the same, well... you can pay your taxes or you can be arrested, thrown in jail and have your property seized. If FoMoCo can make cars that you HAVE TO BUY or be thrown in jail and have your home taken from you, you and I will still be driving Model Ts available in any color as long as it is black!

--

BTW, an elected leader is not a dictator, period. A dictator -- by definition -- pays no attention to court rulings, dictates laws and cannot be removed from power except through revolution. Have you seen any of that?

4 minutes ago, Drew Dowdell said:

Again, you’re wrong. Solar hasn’t been 3 times the cost of traditional generation for years. Same for wind. Additionally, the fossil fuel industry gets loads of subsidies too in the form of socializing external costs. 
 

I worked in the energy industry for over 13 years. I can go buy wind power for my home right now at equal or lesser cost than coal or gas.

Furthermore, a significant amount of those high California costs is the result California’s decades long boondoggle of selling their grid off to private for-profit companies to run, those companies putting profits ahead of reliability and upgrades, and way back when forcing blackouts to drive up energy prices through market manipulation.  California is still trying to catch up on years of grid neglect. And we’ve seen what can happen when you turn a power grid over to a for profit company in Texas.

You can believe the BS if you want. I stand by everything I said. The only thing worse than for profit oligopolies is a bureaucratic government monopoly. What makes you think public utilities will be working for YOU rather than public employee unions, appointed bureaucrats and their politician masters? When has public monopolies or single payer public schemes ever been efficient or affordable? Not convinced? Try the DMV for service, or try the F-35 or SLS for cost efficiency!

13 minutes ago, Drew Dowdell said:

Well that's simply, flat out, false. I'm not sure if you're intentionally lying because of your anti-green agenda or if you're simply using data from 15+ years ago.  LCOE is the levelized cost of generation after all of the construction, generation, maintenance, and decommissioning of a project is completed. Basically every dollar that goes into building, running, and then tearing down that generation.   It's reflected as dollars per megawatt hour. 

Projected LCOE in the U.S. by 2025 (as of 2020) $/MWh

Plant Type	Min	Simple Average	Capacity weighted average	Max
Solar photovoltaic (PV)	29.75	35.74	32.80	48.09
Geothermal	35.13	37.47	37.47	39.60
Combined cycle	33.35	38.07	36.61	45.31
Wind, onshore	28.72	39.95	34.10	62.72
Hydroelectric	35.37	52.79	39.54	63.24
Combustion Turbine	58.48	66.62	68.71	81.37
Ultra-supercritical coal	65.10	76.44	NB	91.27
Advanced Nuclear	71.90	81.65	NB	92.04
Biomass	86.19	94.83	NB	139.96
Wind, offshore	102.68	122.25	115.04	155.55

 

Those are 2025 estimated numbers, but they're based on today's numbers and a prediction on the direction of costs.  However, this time last year On-Shore Wind and Photovoltaic both fell below fossil fuels in lifetime costs.

Solar And Wind Costs Continue To Fall As Power Becomes Cleaner (forbes.com)

LOL... LCOE is one big fuzzy math scam coined by the Green Mafia to sell Green Energy. Let's look at four things which makes it utter rubbish.

(1) Solar and wind are NOT a 24/7 power sources. There is no solar power at night and dramatically less when the sky is overcast. The is no wind power when the air is still. This means that if you need 10MW of power for any locale you are going to need 10MW of non-renewable power regardless of whether you have 1MW or 10MW of wind and/or solar. Sure, you can use batteries but batteries are so expensive that utilities just spin up the turbines. In other words, if you need 10MW you can put in 10MW of combined cycle turbines (or whatever combustible generation plant) and call it a day. Or, you can put in 10MW of solar and you still need 10MW of combustibles for the night. However, when calculating LCOE wind and solar does not in anyway carry the capital costs of the fossil fuel generation capacity it needs to function, or account for the fact that 100% wind/solar requires 200% the installed capacity -- half of which is not renewable.

(2) LCOE includes TAX CREDITS for the capital investment and DISCOUNT RATE for it's delivered power. That is like saying my Corolla is more cost effective than your Civic because the government gives me $10,000 to help buy it and pays me 20 cents for every dollar I spend on gas, whereas you get nothing. It's the very definition of BS.

(3) Perhaps most importantly all we have to do is look at what happens when green capacity is added. From 2011 to 2021 CA went from 13.1 cent per kWh to 19.3 per kWh. During the same period the average for the 30 states that did not adopt solar and wind with any significance was stable at 11.3 +- 1.1 cents / kWh.  That 47% increase happened during a period when we went from 6% to 36% renewables. Assuming that rest of the porfolio is about the same price, the only way we get there is if that 30% of additional green power is (147-70)/30 = 2.56x more expensive, give or take. This is not counting subsidies and energy discount rates which are not reflected on your electric bill but on your TAX BILL and in State Bond issuance.

(4) Finally, ask just yourself this... if renewables (and that includes Ethanol) are competitive, why is there a need to subsidize their capacity and sale? The Model T didn't need subsidies to beat the horse drawn carriage! Cruise ship companies and freight hauling lines did not need subsidies to replace steamships with diesel (and to a small extent combined cycle turbine) vessels.

While we are on EVs, I must re-iterate my convictions that a superior EV is not one with a 300 mile range, but one with a 80~100 mile range and an on-board APU capable of sustaining the charge on the freeway or recharging the battery in an hour when parked.

(1) Instead of a 100kWh battery use a 32~36 kWh battery.

(2) Spend $3000~$5000 on a 30kWe (40hp) turbine electric generator.

(3) The total cost is about 2/3rds that of the high capacity battery and the utility of the vehicle will be superior.

Think about it... who drives more than 80~100 miles daily? 95% of commuters don't; not even when they take plenty of side trips to lunch, dinner, shopping and the movies. In other words, 80~100 mile is ALL THE RANGE YOU NEED except when you take a long trip (say from SF to LA).

The only reason 80~100kWh batteries are being put in EVs is to accommodate long trips. However, these expensive, heavy and space consuming batteries can;t even get you from SF to LA without spending an hour or two in limbo land recharging along the way.

A 30kWe turbine electric generator is the size of a carry on suitcase and weighs about 40 lbs. There is no coolant or radiator; you can tuck it where you normally tuck a muffler. They are very simple devices which looks like a turbocharger with a combustor between the compressor and the turbine with a generator on the shaft. Compression from a single stage centrifugal compressor tops out around 4.6:1 but it is since it is operating either at optimal speeds or not at all, the efficiency is not that far off a gasoline engine at low throttle openings where is sucking vacuum through a mostly closed throttle plate. More importantly, who cares if it only gets he equivalent of 25 mpg when you only use it few times a year? That is another 250 miles of electric power on a tiny 10 gallon tank which can be refueled in 2 minutes at any gas station?

Why 30KWe? Because it takes about 15kW (20hp) to sustain 75 mph on the freeway. That means that 30KWe is enough to see your battery charge no matter how you drive and it is also enough to fully recharge a 30 kW battery from empty to full in an hour (give or take).

A simple way of operating such a device is a three position switch on the dash. OFF - AUTO - ON.

• OFF = Disabled; turbine never ever runs and the vehicle is purely electric.
• AUTO = Turbine starts and sends 30kW to the battery when battery drops below 10% usable capacity and stops when the battery gets above 25% capacity.
• ON = Turbine starts and stops only when the battery is fully charged or until the user switches it to AUTO or OFF.

The generator is also the turbine starter, spinning it up to ~80,000 rpm then injecting fuel and igniting the spark igniter. The turbine is then self sustaining and revs up while gradually taking power via the generator until an equilibrum is reached at around 160,000 rpm. It takes about a minute.

21 hours ago, oldshurst442 said:

Id say...Ford Edge more so than the Escape.

Unfortunately, they do not an otherwise identical car to the Mach E save for the powertrain. But that 98.8kWh battery pack is a $15,000 item at $150/kWh (implemented cost) -- that is ready to put in the vehicle with the appropriate shaping, connectors, cooling system, etc. not the raw cost of Li-Ion cells. The cost of the motor and the inverter system (which charges the batteries and converts DC power to appropriate AC phases for the brushless induction motors) is usually not much more than a gasoline engine and a transmission. So about $16.2K is a reasonable estimate regardless. If you want, you can redo the math with it at $12K or $20K. It won't change the fact that you will not break even for over a decade even on the cheapest recharging rates -- the difference will be whether it is closer to a decade or two decades.