Global warming - combustion engines, NO - jet engines, YES

General Discussion
61

That’s changing too. More utilities are putting up solar and wind plants. Fossil fuel generation is dropping as renewable sources are climbing. I think a good canary in the (heh) coal mine is that the Kentucky Coal Museum now runs on 100% solar power.

In short, yes, currently the majority of our electrical generation comes from fossil fuels and therefore the majority of electric cars “run on fossil fuels.” But the difference is that an ICE car will always run on gas or diesel. 20 years from now if it’s still around, it will still be using fossil fuels (exceedingly rare owner engine swaps to electric notwithstanding). On the other hand, if you get an electric car today, even if it’s charged with electricity generated by coal (which is unlikely nowadays), as soon as the power company builds a new power plant, the car’s energy source changes.

And BTW there are some promising developments in fusion power. Once we crack that little nut we’ll have access to an astonishing amount of power, and the waste produced will be helium. Which is also a really good thing because we need helium for a number of applications including superconducting magnets, and there was a severe shortage of it pre-covid, due in large part to stupid government policy that forced the depletion of helium reserves to be used in children’s party balloons.

So the future of energy looks bright, and it won’t involve fossil fuels not only because they do bad things to the environment, but because there are sources which are superior both in power output and environmental aspects.

No one is suggesting that we ban fossil fuels immediately. But we are suggesting that we recognize a problem as urgent, and take steps to rectify it. Things like, I dunno, not pouring billions of dollars into invading other countries or building border walls that can’t work because airplanes exist, and instead pouring them into rapid development of better energy sources so that we can drive to work, or fly across the country, without doing so much damage to the atmosphere.

And one of the problems is that there’s not only a reluctance to change from one power source to another, but there’s a faction of people in the country who are openly hostile to it. They’ll key Teslas, cover them in diesel soot intentionally, occasionally try to run them off the road. They’ll block EV chargers with ICE cars out of pure spite. And it stems from some stupid attitude that real cars aren’t powered by batteries. Which is an asinine belief on a number of levels, not the least of which is that batteries are apparently the only power source that prevents a car from being real. No one claims the jet-powered VW Beetle isn’t a car. Or that the diesel Audis aren’t cars. No one asserts the Stanley Steamer can’t possibly be a car. But for some reason, “real car guys” are supposed to hate electric cars despite their ability to do everything car guys want better than an ICE car ever could. We now have 4 door sedans that wipe the floor with Bugatti Veyrons at 10% of the price, and people are whining that they aren’t “real cars?”

2 Likes
62

Yup!
In my area, the electric utility company began mounting a solar panel on each their poles several years ago. As of last year, it appears that they have now done this on ~90% of their power poles.

Additionally, many major corporations have erected solar panel “farms” on their property. As just one example, Johnson & Johnson began the process of converting to solar generation of electricity ~19 years ago, and all of their facilities nationwide have been using solar power to generate their electricity for several years.

Harnessing the Sun’s Power | Johnson & Johnson (jnj.com)

And, NJ has authorized the installation of a LOT more off-shore wind devices to harness wind power off the NJ coast.
A Danish corporation–Orsted–appears to be the leader in this technology, with offshore wind projects in both Europe and The US. This site provides details of their many US-based projects:

U.S. wind projects (orsted.com)

And, just to keep this on an automotive footing, Subaru of America generates more than half of the electricity needed at their Indiana assembly plant from on-site solar panels.

Subaru U.S. Media Center

In nature, “adapt or die” is evident with species that have evolved over time in order to continue to exist as climatic conditions on earth changed. More and more corporate folks are beginning to realize that their companies must also adapt to changing times.
:thinking:

1 Like
63

In the last 10 years I’ve seen at least 20 solar farms and a couple dozen wind farms built within 30 miles from my house. Driving to my brothers in Central NY - I’ve seen at least 20-30 more wind and solar farms. It’s growing very very fast.

Exactly. Why not work to solve the problem instead of just complaining about what solutions people/industry/government has come up with.

1 Like
64

Didn’t some know it all Moron say that those giant Windmill generating things cause Cancer ?

1 Like
65

There is another alternative that no one seems to want to talk about and that is nuclear power. One Nuclear power plant can provide more power than all the current wind farms and solar farms combined.

Nuclear power does have to move beyond the Rickover era. If Rickover chose water cooling for power plants over liquid metal cooling. Rickover was an Admiral in the Navy and was concerned mainly with nuclear reactors for Naval ships. Ships sit in a huge body of water so his decision to go with water cooling makes a lot of sense.

Liquid metal cooling is much more efficient, though not practical for a ship. There are new designs that could use spent fuel from other rectors as fuel for these, but the NRC has to start looking at these options and stop blocking progress in this field.

66

Well, the hostility to electric cars is rather silly. But there will always be people among us doing stupid things. Friends of mine have a Tesla - the cheaper version. They seem to like it and I actually have no urge to vandalize it. I did see a Mustang Mach E parked at the only charging station in town (that I’m aware of). I’d drive it. I do wish Ford hadn’t named it a “Mustang” though, since it’s a cuv-esque looking thing.

There seems to be a similar hostility from some towards anyone who has doubts about man induced catastrophic climate change. Which seems equally as odd.

67

Personally, I fear nuclear waste more as an environmental threat than C02…

1 Like
68

MIT has evidently recently made a breakthrough in fusion power. We didn’t talk about it much in 8th grade science class. Too worried that our teacher was going to get called up during the Cuban crisis. I can still see his new Buick parked in the street. We’ve had the argument before that he said it was like the CVs now with no shifting and others here said that was not possible. That’s why he said he bought the Buick. It would have been a shame to have to sell it right away by being activated. At any rate it was the same (or similar) canyon copper color as my 59 Pontiac.

69

That old Buick probably had the trans tuned for ultra comfort. Buick tends to do that. Shift really soft between gears, gear shifts are not felt, but you see the change in rpm’s. Like the opposite of a performance shift kit!

70

At first he wanted the sodium reactor. Then they installed one in the USS Seawolf, and it started leaking while it was still undergoing tests tied to the pier. Never sailed a foot before developing issues. They plugged the leaks, which resulted in a reduction in superheater capacity, and despite Rickover changing his mind in favor of water-cooled, ran it for a year or two on the sodium reactor before Rickover had it yanked and replaced with a standard reactor.

Fun trivia: Future President Carter was supposed to be stationed on the Seawolf, but resigned before he could take the post to care for his dad.

Modern SFRs are better, of course.

I agree with you on the nuclear thing. Properly regulated, nuclear is safer than coal. Coal emissions have killed more people than radiation from nuc plant accidents. And coal is radioactive, too! That’s not a big deal with a lump of coal, but when you burn the coal, the ash sent up the smoke stack makes the area immediately surrounding the coal plant more radioactive than the area immediately surrounding a nuclear plant.

The problems arise when power plants take shortcuts and don’t follow best practices. Every nuclear plant accident that’s ever happened can be attributed to hubris and rule-ducking. If we ran the nuclear power industry the way the Navy runs its ships’ reactors, we’d probably never have an accident again. Those guys do not screw around with reactor safety and required knowledge of anyone dealing with the nuc side. There are annual, very difficult inspections and tests that can sink careers if they aren’t passed.

Coincidentally I just saw one the first time the other day. Good looking little spud, but I agree, naming it Mustang was dumb. What’s next? A Chevy Corvette van?

The hostility is there because in general people trying to solve a problem dislike abject denial of reality. If your kid gets mauled by a grizzly bear, you don’t want the ambulance crew to be standing around claiming it didn’t happen, and besides even if it did the kid’s blood will clot and he won’t die, and maybe tossing in some utter BS about how God will save him (which is actually an annoyingly common argument against the idea of global warming, because global warming will cause flooding and God told Noah he wouldn’t flood the world again).

If the EMTs pulled that crap on your bleeding-out kid, you’d probably get pretty angry, and you might even take a swing at them, because you don’t want them choosing to believe nonsense in abject denial of reality. You want them working as hard as they can to turn the kid’s future away from the morgue.

1 Like
71

Agree on the Vette van. It’ll be a mid engine, er motor, design.

Huge difference between the bear and the catastrophic climate change though. The bear is undeniably real and its affects are readily seen. Catastrophic climate change…well, the rises in temp aren’t out of the range of normal temp swings throughout history, there were years of hotter average global temps in the 1920’s than the average temp of 2019, temps stopped rising in the 50’s for a period which wouldn’t go along with the fossil fuel caused climate change theory (which admittedly could be an anomoly, but so could rising temps for a period), it has been admitted by scientists that the climate change models overestimate the rise in future temps, etc. So, yeah, I’m not a full believer that the theory is correct. I’m not convinced it isn’t correct either. I’m all for green energy. Why not? I don’t have any oil stock that I’m aware of. However, I am against the alarmism and I still think the economic cost of things like a Green New Deal could outweigh the benefits of cutting ties with fossil fuels. Meanwhile, China rolls coal and builds a war machine. I do think there are other things that are a greater and certain threat to us than climate change. Those are some of my thoughts on the subject. No one has to agree, but no point disparaging one another in the conversation (not that you did, but that’s often the way these conversations tend to go).

And I totally do believe the God theory. The world won’t end in a flood. However, I’m not certain anyone said climate change would cause a world ending flood and localized flooding does still, and will happen.

Speaking of God, I noticed the writer referred to the earth as round in Isaiah 40:22 this morning. I thought that was kinda cool.

“It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers”.

I haven’t been replying this entire time, btw. Typing in between work and I now I’m about to have to go “full time@ :grin:

72

Unfortunately one pound of hydrogen fused will only make about one pound of helium.
On the upside one pound of hydrogen fused would potentially make as much energy as 100 million pounds of coal.

73

There have been many breakthroughs in Fusion power over the years. It’s still a very long ways away. I seriously doubt that I’ll see it in my lifetime.

There are other nuclear reactors we could be build based on Thorium instead of Uranium. Far less dangerous…Nuclear waste is not thousands of years before it becomes inert, but just a handful of years. Thorium is as plentiful as lead. The US looked into it decades ago, but decided against it because the byproduct of Thorium reactors couldn’t be used to build nuclear bombs.

74

Well not so huge if you change the bear scenario to something that is a little more realistic. The kid gets mauled by a bear, the paramedics show up ready to do everything to save the child, but the parents interfere because it is against their religious beliefs. These are the people who also deny climate change, evolution, round earth etc.

75

Ok. Not following you there. I’m not sure those are “the same people”. I’m not convinced about climate change (and not totally unconvinced, which is honestly where I think everyone should be because at the end of the day, you’re just going off of what someone else said, oftentimes the media, unless you’re a climatologist), I do not believe in evolution (regarding creation, as obviously species do evolve - macro vs microevolution - but there is no “mid evolution” species or fossils- and there theoretically should be), but I do believe the earth is round (seen it from space unless that was a hoax) and I’d get my kids medical attention - because sewing them up and giving them antibiotics isn’t a theory - it’s been done before and proven to help / work. At the same time, ultimately, I’d still say it was up to God if they survived or not with or without medical attention. So, I’m not sure where I’d fit in.

Now whether you believe in God or not, I have no issue. I personally do. Even though the whole biblical story doesn’t sound reasonable at face value. But then again, neither does man made catastrophic climate change if you think about it. So, ultimately, you really choose what you believe based upon the facts you’re given and a certain amount of faith in either scenario. Not that science and God are mutually exclusive, in my opinion. Could be that God rolls out the end of times by our own doing. The Bible doesn’t specifically state otherwise. In fact it speaks of famine, war, etc along the way. But I see nowhere that it states not to seek medical attention, or eat, or get out of the way of traffic in order to prove anything.

76

There is a continuous record of evolution, as detailed as the sporadic nature of geology allows.

77

Does to me. Pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere quicker than they can be absorbed, temperature increases, bad things happen. Pretty simple, really.

2 Likes
78

It is simple. I completely understand the concept behind the theory. The theory has been around quite a while.

79

Personally I think we will have a much bigger positive impact from fuel cell than electric cars. Renewable and eventually cheap enough to mass produce.

The asian car makers are working on a lot of fuel cell stuff at the moment.

80

Personally I think the waste is negligible