Vintage work crew photos

[Frank S]

An old saying coined mostly by science fiction writers goes like this "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch". I find that saying to hold true in every aspect of what we do in our daily lives. Just like over unity, from what we know of physics in our little spectrum of knowledge of the universe you cannot get something from nothing nor can you create more of anything out of less than what is already there.
BEVs are being touted as the end all saving grace of vehicles, but nothing could be further than the truth than the purposeful omission of the cost of energy to produce them, the added strain on natural recourses to produce them.
Hybrids are as has been mentioned probably the better of the 2 worlds. However, from a purely economic means of going to town and back. If for instance you don't need anything more than transportation if you had a duel chargeable Hybrid or even a BEV that you could plug in to recharge the battery when it is parked at your home from solar panels instead of being charged from the grid once the initial cost outlay was covered from miles driven not having to pay the utility company for your electricity you would realize at net savings of cash, Driving the duel chargeable hybrid sensibly you might not even have to run the engine very much at all.
But none of anyof this will do a thing to save the planet as they like to say, unless you maintain and keep the vehicle for its full life cycle. This trading for new every year or even every 5 years will do nothing but continue the cycle of waste.
I bet my 30-year-old diesel pickup that gets around 20 MPG is as green if not greener than most vehicles sold within the past 5 years will ever be if they are not kept on the road for at least 15 years, assuming any of the plastic laden electronically overburdened pieces of junk will last that long

[mwmkravchenko]

An old saying coined mostly by science fiction writers goes like this "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch". I find that saying to hold true in every aspect of what we do in our daily lives. Just like over unity, from what we know of physics in our little spectrum of knowledge of the universe you cannot get something from nothing nor can you create more of anything out of less than what is already there.
BEVs are being touted as the end all saving grace of vehicles, but nothing could be further than the truth than the purposeful omission of the cost of energy to produce them, the added strain on natural recourses to produce them.
Hybrids are as has been mentioned probably the better of the 2 worlds. However, from a purely economic means of going to town and back. If for instance you don't need anything more than transportation if you had a duel chargeable Hybrid or even a BEV that you could plug in to recharge the battery when it is parked at your home from solar panels instead of being charged from the grid once the initial cost outlay was covered from miles driven not having to pay the utility company for your electricity you would realize at net savings of cash, Driving the duel chargeable hybrid sensibly you might not even have to run the engine very much at all.
But none of anyof this will do a thing to save the planet as they like to say, unless you maintain and keep the vehicle for its full life cycle. This trading for new every year or even every 5 years will do nothing but continue the cycle of waste.
I bet my 30-year-old diesel pickup that gets around 20 MPG is as green if not greener than most vehicles sold within the past 5 years will ever be if they are not kept on the road for at least 15 years, assuming any of the plastic laden electronically overburdened pieces of junk will last that long

BEV can be what they propose. But I like your caveats. Electricity has to be renewable. And the lifecycle of the car has to be reasonable. The two largest opposing forces are in play here. Big business not wanting to do anything bad for business margins ( almost makes sense ). A consumers habits. Uphill both ways.

I like the idea of a relatively cheap to drive vehicle. I see the quality of the engineering involved. But the battery type has to change. There isn't enough Lithium available right now for demand. Nor is there enough Nickel. Again there are alternatives. But there is 20 years of know how into making Lithium ion cells. And that is the true problem. Any other battery type is just not alive long enough in large production capacities to have the engineering expertise available to make this work. Another Big business versus profits versus commodity availability conundrum. Not saying businesses are not willing to produce at a loss what they see long term as a profitable product. There are many examples of large companies being willing to foot the bill. And that is probably what will have to be done to make these electric cars viable.

From what I have seen for true mileage numbers from hybrids they are kind of a does nothing better but costs a lot more situation. Peoples normal driving habits do not give a person better fuel economy in these hybrid cars. You have to want to chase the efficiency. Some get awesome MPG. But most people I have talked to don't get a whole lot more than I did in my little Toyota pickup or my Little Toyota van.

As for efficiency. I drove Diesel Jetas around for over 15 years. I'd get nearly 50MPG in the city and over 60MPG on the highway. Now you get half of that. I'm not a chemist. But isn't double the mileage mean that you have potentially half of the pollutants?

[schuylergrace]

Yeah, it would be kinda hard for 95% of the electric for EVs to come from coal, when coal accounts for less than 11% of the electric generation in this country. And we all should remember that we are in the infancy of this technology. I don't think battery powered vehicles are a long-term solution--fuel cells seem like a much better idea once they are developed further--but batteries are a workable power source for now. Also, there are plans for vehicles to draw power from the roadways, which would make virtually unlimited distance travel possible, once the infrastructure is implemented. Right now, though, we are where we were back a century ago, when gasoline infrastructure was just being built out. Lots of changes are coming, but I think fossil fuels are dying out, if for no other reason than burning them is a waste of a finite resource that has so many other uses.

[mklotz]

Yeah, it would be kinda hard for 95% of the electric for EVs to come from coal, when coal accounts for less than 11% of the electric generation in this country. ...

According to this...

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3

about 22% of electricity is generated using coal.

[Frank S]

I like the idea of a relatively cheap to drive vehicle. I see the quality of the engineering involved.
As for efficiency. I drove Diesel Jetas around for over 15 years. I'd get nearly 50MPG in the city and over 60MPG on the highway. Now you get half of that. I'm not a chemist. But isn't double the mileage mean that you have potentially half of the pollutants?

That is how it figures in my book, We can once again thank government intervention for poorer milage figures across the board. All while claiming to clean up the air.
In 1989 my oldest daughter bought her first brand new car a Chevrolet GEO metro 5 sp standard shift. Kept a record of every dollar spent every mile driven and where she drove those miles. every gallon of gas bought whether she bought the lowest grade the mid-grade or premium for 18 months of driving. This was done to be part of her master's thesis. I'm sure you can visualize how meticulous and diligent she was in her record keeping. Purchase price of car after all discounts and 1st time buyers' incentive, she paid cash the night she bought it a drove off after writing a check for $5,600.00. total additional monies spent over the 18 months a whopping $2000.00 this included insurance, ( under my policy) the gas and everything else averaging 58 MPG for 75,000 miles driven. bringing the total cost of owning and operating that car to $7,600.00 or just a little over $0.10 cents per mile. If she had sold the car for half of what she paid for it, still at that time the blue book was nearly the same as her negotiated purchase price, she could have boasted a nickel a mile driving expense. Try operating any vehicle for even 5 times that even adjusted for inflation today.

[schuylergrace]

According to this...

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3

about 22% of electricity is generated using coal.

I went back and looked at my source (https://usafacts.org/earth-day-facts...waAvG-EALw_wcB), and it apparently covers all energy production, not just electricity. Your numbers are closer to what I remembered, which still don't have coal being the primary source of energy for electric vehicles. Thanks for a better picture of this energy sector, alone, which is what we were talking about.

[Frank S]

The other elephant in the room so to speak is transmission lines are already carrying more energy than they were designed for. Disregard how that energy is going to have to be produced, there is an upper limit to the amount of energy the lines can carry. One way to carry more energy is to up the voltages Transcontinental high-tension powerlines can currently have between 66 to 750 kilovolts depending on the distances required for the energy to travel. Higher voltages mean more leakage until at some point the leakage and resistance to current becomes greater than the amount of energy received at the substations.
One way to counter the losses from overloading the current grid system would be to have community micro generation plants. I can just hear the NIMBY's screaming already. A problem with these power plants is multifold Solar is one source it only works while the sun is shining. Wind being another only works when the wind blows and there are already many associated issues with both of those with storage being the number one for energy on demand. Small hydro plants along flowing rivers may be viable in some instances on a small scale but the restrictions already in place on all waterways in the USA prevent the construction along the riverbanks let alone having any thoughts to building dams. Oil is partially renewable contrary to public beliefs not all oil is 65 million years old, but we are faced again with supply and delivery systems trucking, rail or pipelines. Natural gas is arguably probably one of the environmentally cleanest forms or energy which can at this time be used to produce electrical energy, but it also requires the same mode of transportation as does oil. Nuclear would be or I should have said could have been one of the best had the stigma of nuclear power being associated with the bomb and the difficulty of disposing spent fuel rods not taken over the benefits of using it, and for the most part ground further advances in research to a halt years ago. It is not even worth mentioning converting plant matter into an energy source since the farmers are already having to literally rape their lands to produce crops now. Wait until there are 12, 15 or 20 billion souls to feed we might even reach 8 billion in a couple of years as it is. Coal is out before even adding it to the equation.
In my mind it is going to require a judicial use of every resource we currently have to just keep up let along cover the added strain of adding more and more electric vehicles. I believe we have more options that are not being perused being kept from us probably done by lobbyist and big corps coercing government puppets.

[mwmkravchenko]

The other elephant in the room so to speak is transmission lines are already carrying more energy than they were designed for. Disregard how that energy is going to have to be produced, there is an upper limit to the amount of energy the lines can carry. One way to carry more energy is to up the voltages Transcontinental high-tension powerlines can currently have between 66 to 750 kilovolts depending on the distances required for the energy to travel. Higher voltages mean more leakage until at some point the leakage and resistance to current becomes greater than the amount of energy received at the substations.
One way to counter the losses from overloading the current grid system would be to have community micro generation plants. I can just hear the NIMBY's screaming already. A problem with these power plants is multifold Solar is one source it only works while the sun is shining. Wind being another only works when the wind blows and there are already many associated issues with both of those with storage being the number one for energy on demand. Small hydro plants along flowing rivers may be viable in some instances on a small scale but the restrictions already in place on all waterways in the USA prevent the construction along the riverbanks let alone having any thoughts to building dams. Oil is partially renewable contrary to public beliefs not all oil is 65 million years old, but we are faced again with supply and delivery systems trucking, rail or pipelines. Natural gas is arguably probably one of the environmentally cleanest forms or energy which can at this time be used to produce electrical energy, but it also requires the same mode of transportation as does oil. Nuclear would be or I should have said could have been one of the best had the stigma of nuclear power being associated with the bomb and the difficulty of disposing spent fuel rods not taken over the benefits of using it, and for the most part ground further advances in research to a halt years ago. It is not even worth mentioning converting plant matter into an energy source since the farmers are already having to literally rape their lands to produce crops now. Wait until there are 12, 15 or 20 billion souls to feed we might even reach 8 billion in a couple of years as it is. Coal is out before even adding it to the equation.
In my mind it is going to require a judicial use of every resource we currently have to just keep up let along cover the added strain of adding more and more electric vehicles. I believe we have more options that are not being perused being kept from us probably done by lobbyist and big corps coercing government puppets.

If I remember correctly Texas has one of the whimpiest transmission line systems in the USA.

But even here.

https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-an...s-ontario.html

You see we produce just over 60% of our power from Nuclear. Actually we have one of the largest single site Nuclear facilities in the world next to China of course! But when a large solar farm or wind farm is installed they have to run new transmission lines. A large part of the cost.

We too have a lot of NIMBY people. Louder than the others of course.

I think we crack 8 billion this year Frank. And India surpassed China in the number of people. China created their own particular problem with the one child policy and longer lifespans. Now like Canada the mean age is going up by leaps and bounds. Makes it harder to find people to work.

Biomass burning is not really solution when you consider how important it really is for the health and long term wellbeing of the coils on our farms. Keep removing the closed cycle system of plants and then decomposing plants and you end up with a situation of requiring immense volumes of fertilizer. Not so good for the bugs and earthworms that do the bulk of keeping soil fertile. I grew up amongst large farms in rural Manitoba. Where the farms used a lot of fertilizer there were few seagulls looking for worms when they were plowing. And plenty is adjacent fields that the farmer did not fertilize.

If it were to be done over again distributed generation of electricity and storage of electricity would be the go to method. Mandating that every house have solar panels on their roofs and localized batteries of either electrochemical or other means is a way to make this kind of idea work.

Here's one I think is brilliant:

https://eteq.com/worlds-first-carbon...pens-in-italy/

They are doing a megawatt scale plant now to. Nothing in this system is cutting edge. Only it's assemblage. Engineering like this is a way to bridge the gap in Solar and in Wind. And scaled down to a few house lots maybe 6 in size (guessing here) you have 24/7 electricity. And many more people to have jobs in maintenance. Remember maintenance? Almost a four letter word now.

[Frank S]

If

If it were to be done over again distributed generation of electricity and storage of electricity would be the go to method. Mandating that every house have solar panels on their roofs and localized batteries of either electrochemical or other means is a way to make this kind of idea work.

Here's one I think is brilliant:

https://eteq.com/worlds-first-carbon...pens-in-italy/

They are doing a megawatt scale plant now to. Nothing in this system is cutting edge. Only it's assemblage. Engineering like this is a way to bridge the gap in Solar and in Wind. And scaled down to a few house lots maybe 6 in size (guessing here) you have 24/7 electricity. And many more people to have jobs in maintenance. Remember maintenance? Almost a four letter word now.

I remember correctly Texas has one of the whimpiest transmission line systems in the USA. No argument there. Texas is basically on it's own grid system and shares very little with other states the exception being the neighboring states. Ercop dropped the ball last winter due to the high reliance on wind and solar, for each megawatt of wind or solar there is supposed to be an equally sized Natural gas generator as back up or standby. Natural gas generators are the only thing that can be powered up and brought online on demand. due to the nationwide scamdemic many natural gas intensifying stations were left short staffed or in many cases taken off line completely, the high demand for gas to heat homes and run other things reduced the quanity and pressures required to run the generators,many of the generators were not even maintained to be brought online at all so there was power outages. This summer we are in an 11 to 12 year heat cycle causing much higher than normal electrical power requirements. so once again many areas are experiencing some outages, Nothing like California sees frequently but when it the temps. are in the triple digits any your power goes out you get uncomfortable really fast. Most of the outages seem to happen in the larger cities where their grid system is even more over stressed.

Mandating that every house have solar panels on their roofs and localized batteries of either electrochemical or other means is a way to make this kind of idea work. Would be one good way however the word MANDATE would have to be changed to offering an equitable incentive otherwise once I had enough solar/ wind and storage to meet 125% of my needs I'd take an ax to the grid lines and they know I would not be alone in doing so.

[mwmkravchenko]

Would be one good way however the word MANDATE would have to be changed to offering an equitable incentive otherwise once I had enough solar/ wind and storage to meet 125% of my needs I'd take an ax to the grid lines and they know I would not be alone in doing so.

Yeah. Only poor word use is my fault really, and people getting all riled up over being told what to do. The simple facts of life are that we are all told what to do. And it's generally for our good, and other peoples good. Freedom of choice stops where our freedoms impinge on other peoples freedoms. And the deeper we analyze that simple principle the less "freedom" we really have. The one part of freedom that amuses me the most is our freedom to accept the consequences of poor choices. I agree that incentives are required for any large group of people to make significant changes. That would be a given fact in regards to the initial cost of this kind of idea. For me the interesting thing is that pretty much only government has the ability to fund something like this as there is to little payback for pretty much any company. And it would effectively put the nails in the coffins of most if not all major utility providers. Residential neighborhoods would be self sufficient. Only industrial users of electricity would need to have peaker plants to keep up with demand. Or much better renewable and storage of some truly large scale capacity.

We can dream. But I think there's to much money and profit tied up in the present system worldwide to change without there being a truly ground shifting thing like what should be done.