Best or worst idea? Getting a Velotaxi/Rikshaw for private use

[Lucifer]

I'm not a fan of Teslas either. My money's on Hyundai taking the lead, but I just read an article about GMC deciding to target the passenger truck market, which is huge in Texas. I've seen a few cybertrucks, and man, those things look ridiculous. I saw one painted matte black that looked halfway decent, but they really look like little Tonka toys.

Of course, I have a long memory for cars, so I still remember Teslas breaking lower control arms and moonroofs falling off and stuff.

The reason I think Hyundai's going to take the lead is because they're running 48V systems, while Tesla et al are still 36V. That's going to be almost half the charging time at a charging station, bringing it to roughly the same amount of time as filling a gas tank.

Well, my motorcycle got stolen, but I had the van, so now I'm in an 07 Chrysler Town and Country. If you've been following my YouTube channel, I've been converting it to a house on wheels. I'm actually enjoying it, now, and I'm not a fan of Chrysler.

As an actual car guy, and professional mechanic, I've driven thousands of cars. The major manufacturers already know how to build chassis, suspension, body, etc. Once they figure out how to build a good electric drivetrain, they're going to stomp Tesla. I don't see Tesla ever being more than a niche player. They're only as big as they are right now because they're the only ones who can build a decent electric drivetrain. But GM/Chevy is getting close, and so is Hyundai. I'm expecting the next production models from those two to be extremely competitive with Tesla, which means that with the other advantages they already have from having built so many billions of cars already, they're going to pull ahead.

[Monkey]

Also convenient: the systems that read speed limit signs and display you the current value. Provided they are reliable (guess which was the only one I observed making a mistake...). Of course, you can always just check the other cars and the street layout to make an educated guess.

Or just use an android phone with Google Maps, which displays both the current speed limit and your current speed (and it tells you where the speed cameras are, not that I break the speed limit of course).

Well, my motorcycle got stolen

Man you really don't have the luck do you, sorry to hear this.

[Z-Man]

Or just use an android phone with Google Maps, which displays both the current speed limit and your current speed

Huh, I didn't know it can do that. I always have it on in the car for navigation because I'm usleless at following direction indications or memorizing routes, but I use the sound only.

[Lucifer]

Also convenient: the systems that read speed limit signs and display you the current value. Provided they are reliable (guess which was the only one I observed making a mistake...). Of course, you can always just check the other cars and the street layout to make an educated guess.

Or just use an android phone with Google Maps, which displays both the current speed limit and your current speed (and it tells you where the speed cameras are, not that I break the speed limit of course).

Yeah, this. There may be an app that'll let you magnify the speed limit display, too. If not, it should be relatively easy to put together, if you're inclined to do so.

Well, my motorcycle got stolen

Man you really don't have the luck do you, sorry to hear this.

It's just that kind of year. On the other hand, my youtube channel is growing, even if I'm still not making money at it, and I'm getting better at making videos. The van is coming along nicely. Got my license today! And insurance! So I'm going to have it legal to drive soon, and as long as it can hold it together, I'll be fine with that. The only real loss from the motorcycle is losing the money I would have gotten for selling it, because I was about to sell it.

I'm doing a review of TRON soon, and I'm going to need to get some arma footage for that.

Edit: At least I'm not Boeing.

[delinquent]

Teslas are terrible cars

Oh absolutely. I've heard a few people say this, including Delinquent.

I stand by that statement too. Tesla had, and still has, *major* issues with quality control. Fit and finish is lacking, panel gaps are often huge, software is left wanting, and service is fraught with issues.

On the subject of electric cars, though, I really don't think they are an adequate solution. To some degree yes, they are a cleaner alternative to petroleum vehicles, but it's not just the material used for construction and operation that one must consider.

The vast majority of lithium-ion and lithium-polymer cells come from China. It's true that deposits of raw materials are found throughout the world, but bulk manufacture still remains in their domain. That's a problem, for a number of reasons.

Disregarding any complaints about the CCP, which I'm sure we all have aplenty, China has an extremely poor track record when it comes to regulatory legislation. Their production industry is ridiculously pollutive, causing major contamination across the entire country. It was recently noted that much of China's land is no longer agriculturally viable due to one form of contamination or another, and that their supply chain is so unstable that the slightest wobble causes major statewide issues. This was quite obvious during the pandemic - during which China dipped heavily into it's strategic food reserves just to meet everyday needs of the population. One can imagine, then, that supplying the bulk of the world's vehicular battery demand would be catastrophic to its own citizens.

But the story doesn't end there. China has made huge forays, in recent decades, into third party countries, some of which falls under its "belt and road" initiative. One would normally expect such endeavours to respect the target country's regulatory standards, but this has been frequently demonstrated not to be the case. Then there are the inroads made into countries that have no standards, or who's standards simply aren't designed for this sort of industry. Most notable here are China's forays into the Africas, where their industries have proven so disruptive that locals have often run Chinese businesses out of the area. China's battery industry is no different, and their industry has proven hugely damaging to the likes of local groundwater tables and arable lands. It's also causing tensions to flare up significantly, putting at risk things like the green belt initiative (an attempt at stemming and potentially reversing the spread of the Sahara) and generally causing significant human loss.

I don't see the source of bulk battery manufacture moving from China any time soon, which would imply that, once again, the poorest countries would have to shoulder the consequences of the lifestyles of richer countries. Either that, or pricing would need to rocket to astronomical proportions just to cover the cost of the battery packs alone, causing even poorer EV takeup.

I've harped on about hydrogen more than a few times, and I know neither Monkey or Lucifer really agree on this one, but I still believe that a hydrogen-oxygen-nitrogen polymer fuel may be a better solution, provided a nitrate recapture system can be implemented. It would certainly permit existing ICE vehicles to be converted from petroleum fuel, and that alone could conceivably incite huge levels of takeup. More importantly, it could theoretically permit the vast majority of countries to be completely energy-independent, as well as relieving the industry that revolves around nitrogen fixing within the scope of agriculture (assuming, of course, that the recaptured nitrates can be used for arable production, which is not necessarily a given).

The other possible option is fusion. Assuming we obtain fusion technology sometime in the next fifty years, miniaturising that technology is a much smaller step. Then we wouldn't really need batteries at all. That's a long way off though/

[Monkey]

China...

In the short term, unfortunately, you do have a point. I'm hoping that at some point things will change for the better...either China plays ball or production shifts elsewhere. I may be in for a long wait.

I've harped on about hydrogen more than a few times, and I know neither Monkey or Lucifer really agree on this one

Haha, true.

I still believe that a hydrogen-oxygen-nitrogen polymer fuel may be a better solution, provided a nitrate recapture system can be implemented.

Sounds dangerous and like pollution waiting to happen. Also, polymers. Now I'm no chemist but, at school, we learnt that even the best scientists don't understand polymerisation fully. Admittedly, that was with carbon-based polymers and also some time has passed since I was at school but it still concerns me.

The other possible option is fusion.

If you are talking about nuclear fusion then please no. It's bad enough that we have nuclear power stations when, IMO, we shouldn't.

On the subject of electric cars, though, I really don't think they are an adequate solution.

At the moment, they probably aren't but I am hopeful that, in the future, they will be better and safer.

[Lucifer]

I've harped on about hydrogen more than a few times, and I know neither Monkey or Lucifer really agree on this one

Haha, true.

I still believe that a hydrogen-oxygen-nitrogen polymer fuel may be a better solution, provided a nitrate recapture system can be implemented.

Sounds dangerous and like pollution waiting to happen. Also, polymers. Now I'm no chemist but, at school, we learnt that even the best scientists don't understand polymerisation fully. Admittedly, that was with carbon-based polymers and also some time has passed since I was at school but it still concerns me.

There is currently no manufacturing for hydrogen that's not based on petroleum mining/drilling. None. Blue hydrogen is a buzzword. There is no green hydrogen. Also, the idea of using solar power to electrolicize ocean water to get "green" hydrogen is bonkers because it's just straight up more efficient to charge your lithium batteries with solar panels. The infrastructure needed to support *that* use case is like 1/4 the size/investment of the hydrogen infrastructure that hydrogen isn't even an option anymore. Sure, if the companies who are all Johnny come latelies to the EV revolution had been working on hydrogen in 2000, like they should have been doing, we'd have the hydrogen economy now, but that didn't happen.

There is, however, a lot of effort being expended to find the lithium deposits outside China, and Biden signed a bill a couple of years ago that directly promotes american manufacturing for lithium batteries. Sure, it's not as good as it should have been, but that's the case with everything that's come out of Washington since ObamaCare, but it's not nothing. And there is lithium mining in the US and South America, it's just not on the scale of what's in China. But it's growing. Long-term, China can't meet the world's demand for lithium batteries anyway, so the problems you're describing with relying on China right now are short-term problems.

Where we're at: We've got manufacturing EVs down pretty well, with some reliability issues, but nothing that can't be fixed in the next five years, tops. For reference, EVs are about as reliable as ICEs were in the 80s. So it's not like we can't/won't live with this level of reliability, it's that the standard is ridiculously high because of how far ICEs have come since then. We've got lithium battery recycling up to about 20%, meaning we can recover about 20% of the materials used in spent batteries when we recycle them. For reference, lead acid recycling is near 100%, but it's also a hundred year old industry. We're working on power infrastructure to support all of this, and renewable growth is pretty high across the board. Even in Texas, where the legislature is actively fighting renewables, they've gotten so cheap and reliable compared to natural gas that they're still growing. Just imagine how fast that sector would grow if our government got on board. For reference, under the douchebag Rick Perry, renewables had plenty of support, politically, because he had rich friends in that industry. Nationwide, and from what I've seen this is true in Europe and the UK as well, the power grid has to grow anyway, but new renewable power plant construction has outpaced and largely displaced coal and oil. Only natural gas is continuing. And there's been a stronger push for new nuclear, but that'll take awhile because it takes like 10 years to get a new nuclear plant built. The fact is, we don't need fusion, and the way things are going, we're going to have our renewable/nuclear grid without fusion before they figure it out. Sure, sometime in the next thousand years we're going to need fusion, but we're going to finish upgrading the grid before we have fusion.

The single biggest obstacle to full electrification is invested interests in things the way they are and popular opinion. The technology is sound and stable enough (meets minimum requirements). People are still whining about how an EV has to get 600 miles of range out of a single charge, but there aren't any ICE vehicles that get 600 miles off a single tank! A few years ago, it was 400 miles, and a few years before that, it was 200. They're just moving the goalposts.

Recently, Elon Musk made a really smart statement (I don't say that often!) when he said he was in favor of removing all government subsidies. Now he's a right-wing darling because so many right-wingers have absolutely no ******* clue how much their precious oil industry is subsidized. EVs and solar power have both become price competitive with ICE and fossil fuel power with something like 10% of the subsidies that fossil fuels get. If the government were to remove all subsidies, ignoring the huge recession that would put us in, it would immediately make EVs and renewables significantly cheaper than ICE and fossil fuels. Now, I know that there are subsidies in the EU and UK, but I also know they're not nearly as aggressive as they are in the US, so your mileage may easily vary over there.

American, Japanese, and European manufacturers have mostly ceded the South American, African, and Asian EV markets to China at this point. China is kicking ass and taking down names with their EVs in non-Western countries. So the unfortunate cold hard truth here is that if our own manufacturers can't get their shit together, then China is going to be the next actual superpower and it's going to be a Chinese world. That may not be such a bad thing, and Chinese imperialism may turn out to be more peaceful than American imperialism, but it won't be a fun world for all of us Westerners. And it's not just the automotive manufacturers, for that matter. It's the solar manufacturers, too. I think most of the wind power we're building is built in America or Europe, and Australia is really stepping up with solar, but it's just not enough.

Our right-wing populists are going to turn all of Europe and the US into third-world countries while claiming they're trying to make us all Great Again.

[delinquent]

either China plays ball or production shifts elsewhere. I may be in for a long wait.

My suspicions are that you will be. Under Xi Jin Pooh, the CCP has become far mroe authoritarian than it used to be, and the ongoing aggravations with Taiwan are proving a huge diplomatic thorn. Their continued aggressive stances toward Japan, India, and to some extent countries further afield, are definitive signs that China's foreign policy isn't going to change any time soon. In fact, they're getting more aggressive with each passing year, and their association with countries like North Korea further complicates matters. They are, in a single phrase, a human rights nightmare. That's not even mentioning the horrific abuses on western China, the de-identification of the Tibetan people, and so on and so forth.

Sounds dangerous and like pollution waiting to happen. Also, polymers. Now I'm no chemist but, at school, we learnt that even the best scientists don't understand polymerisation fully. Admittedly, that was with carbon-based polymers and also some time has passed since I was at school but it still concerns me.

On the contrary, we understand some types rather well. Step-growth polymerisation, for example, has been in continual commercial use since the war. We use solid state polymerisation to form things like nylons. When it comes to things like precipitation polymerisation, our collective knowledge is less complete - but this is mostly because we simply don't have a huge commercial requirement for this yet - which means we're mostly stuck in the "needs more work" stage. That means that quite a lot of materials from this approach need further processing, which is rather undesirable (I mean, DHT is such an awful chemical, last thing we need is more of it for stripping).

The majority of concern over polymerisation comes from the results of combustion - but this is not especially relevant to a hydrogen-oxygen-nitrogen polymer, because the resultant emissives cannot contain the complex hydrocarbons (which is what I suspect you're thinking about, particularly with diesel fuel) that would result from the combustion of a polymerised oil material. The only possible result from the combustion of a hydrogen-oxygen-nitrogen polymer is, quite literally, hydrogen, oxygen, both in the form of water vapour, and nitrates. That's where the nitrate capture requirement comes in, and you're right - it's potentially difficult, and if we got it wrong there's the possibility of nitrate release. However, nitrate capture is extraordinarily simple - we do it constantly already in nitrogen fixing research, and that includes extracting it from water sources. The hurdle is doing so in a manner that permits the nitrates to be reused, rather than being a disposable object. That might potentially look like a stripping process, wherein the capture device is reusable again, which is even better - far less waste.

If you are talking about nuclear fusion then please no. It's bad enough that we have nuclear power stations when, IMO, we shouldn't.

Fusion has its problems, but on such a small scale it is extremely unlikely to cause problems. In fact, any serious damage would result in a few small pops, and the drivetrain of the vehicle ceasing to operate. Fission is hugely problematic with respect to waste material, yes, but there's a push to reuse that waste material that is gaining some momentum - meaning the use of waste fissile material in the production of things like medical instruments, testing, that sort of thing. You'd be surprised at just how much of our current medical science is based around nuclear fission.

However, fission reactors are never going to be 100% recyclable, which is why imo they are just a stepping stone toward better solutions. Fusion, for example, is far closer to zero-waste than even solar and wind energy - both of which are more wasteful than you might think. The lifespan of a solar panel, for example, is around forty years, with the last ten of those years being at a far lower efficiency than when they were new - to say nothing of the supporting battery infrastructure. Again, a great interim solution, but definitely an interim one.

I rather like the idea of ocean based power, mind you. Current and wave capture devices fascinate me, and the engineering that goes into them is quite substantial. Still nto without their issues, but fascinating nonetheless.

There is currently no manufacturing for hydrogen that's not based on petroleum mining/drilling.

Actually, there is now! We have at least one facility in the UK that is producing hydrogen from seawater, and steam reformation is definitely trending down in popularity. There are even new pushes in arc hydrolysis, which I suspect might be a bit of a red herring, but claims to perform hydrolysis without solid cathodes/anodes. As with everything else, demand would increase production, and the cost of production would hence fall.

Your point about solar powered hydrolysis is well taken, but there is a convenience argument to be made. A raw fuel requires only a container and a combustion chamber, whereas power itself requires a complex battery storage system, and complex electronic controls. In its raw form, a combustible fuel also lasts rather longer than a battery that isn't connected to anything either, which means if one does not have the refuelling/recharging infrastructure immediately available to them, a tank of fuel will get them further. Of course, adding the infrastructure to the equation renders that example rather moot.

We've got manufacturing EVs down pretty well, with some reliability issues, but nothing that can't be fixed in the next five years, tops.

I'm not convinced of that. Tesla has had over a decade to get their shit sorted, but they are mroe concerned with making short-term profits. For EV technology to catch up properly, I'd argue we need another major contender in a better regulated market. I want to say the UK, but realistically it would be somwhere like Germany where the TÜV has a major say in vehicle safety.
[/quote]

People are still whining about how an EV has to get 600 miles of range out of a single charge, but there aren't any ICE vehicles that get 600 miles off a single tank!

I rather think that's more an american problem, to be frank. Over here and in the EU, we have more than a small number of cars that can get upwards of 70mpg, and presuming a ten gallon tank, that's 700 or more miles. I distinctly remember a top gear episode where those three stooges drove from Basel to Blackpool - that's 750 miles(!), and they still had another fifty odd miles in the tank thereafter.

But your point about politics is well taken. It continues to astonish me that politicians continue to play one-upmanship and brinksmanship just to gain the popularity advantage, when in reality all this approach does is serve to antagonise, divide, and disempower the population. I might be rose-tinting a bit, but I do miss the last millennium. Even if I was a nipper at the time. This current mess is going to make it very difficult to maintain a proper democracy in teh future, and it doesn't help that I suspect we'll also be at war again inside a decade.

[Monkey]

Our right-wing populists are going to turn all of Europe and the US into third-world countries while claiming they're trying to make us all Great Again.

Here in the UK, we've just gotten rid of our right-wing extremist government after 14 years of hell with them. The new government, while in no means being perfect, gives me some hope that things can be done better. For a start, there is less "fingers in pies" with the new lot. The old lot had their grubby fat fingers in plenty of oil-based pies.

The only possible result from the combustion of a hydrogen-oxygen-nitrogen polymer is, quite literally, hydrogen, oxygen, both in the form of water vapour, and nitrates... if we got it wrong there's the possibility of nitrate release.

Nitrates are nasty...really nasty. I'd like us to avoid having to capture them.

solar and wind energy - both of which are more wasteful than you might think. The lifespan of a solar panel, for example, is around forty years, with the last ten of those years being at a far lower efficiency than when they were new

The district I live in is run by the Green party. As a result, many homes, including poor homes, have solar panels on their roofs. Not only do they produce enough energy to power their households but they even get paid money from the Electricity board to provide power back in to the grid. Solar technology has come on leaps and bounds in the last couple of decades. The only issue is storing excess power ...the battery technology is not up to scratch to do this in an economic way. Even if the lifespan of current solar panels is 40 years, I'm sure that in just 20 years we will have much better technology (especially for storage of energy/etc) still, so the point is mute. The issue we face is politics and only that, IMO.

[delinquent]

Nitrates are nasty...really nasty. I'd like us to avoid having to capture them.

Nitrates are only nasty if they are either aerosolised and in the atmosphere, or in waterways that lack the biodiversity to handle them. They are incredibly important to agriculture, and to a significant number of other industries too. Nitrogen fixing is a particular bugbear that we have to get more efficient at, so developing capture technology is vital irrespective of what transportation is available. Furthermore, capturing them from a water vapour medium would lead to technology that is theoretically able to remove them from waterways with ease - meaning that we can actually sort out our rivers and streams for real.

The district I live in is run by the Green party. As a result, many homes, including poor homes, have solar panels on their roofs. Not only do they produce enough energy to power their households but they even get paid money from the Electricity board to provide power back in to the grid. Solar technology has come on leaps and bounds in the last couple of decades. The only issue is storing excess power ...the battery technology is not up to scratch to do this in an economic way. Even if the lifespan of current solar panels is 40 years, I'm sure that in just 20 years we will have much better technology (especially for storage of energy/etc) still, so the point is mute. The issue we face is politics and only that, IMO.

We already have some more energy/resource efficient storage means, but the cost of their implementation and maintenance outstrips our ability to use them. Momentum capture is perhaps less costly, but it takes up enormous amounts of space. This is why I like fusion so much, at least conceptually - it's piss easy to ramp up and down production, just as it is with coal or gas turbines. Solar and wind have the inherent disadvantage of being reliant on the time of day, or the weather conditions. Even ocean currents can be temperamental. Then there's the difficulty inherent in distributed resource capture in the first place, which is the massive fluctuations in the market.

Lets say I can get a few hundred pounds back in a year for hosting five panels on my roof. If each panel costs, say, £150, then they pay for themselves in short order. However, if the price of the energy I sell decreases in value, those panels take much longer to pay off - and may even be a net cost. That makes me less likely to be inclined to make this purchase, unless the cost of electricity is greater than the cost of the panels within x number of years.

Additionally, demand can often outstrip price, leading to negative pricing of electricity. This is great in the short term, because nobody dislikes being paid to turn on the kettle, but would crash the energy sector if permitted to remain the case long-term - which would mean hundreds of thousands without access to power.

One way to fix that is to add a pricing junction to each solar install. When demand and price is high, the option to sell exists. When demand is low or the price is low, the owner of each set of rooftop panels has the option of not selling back to the grid. The big problem here, though, is that it still doesn't fix the volatility problem. You can't treat water, power, gas, or medical care in the same market fashion as you do other, more luxury-oriented, goods and services, because that would prevent the less fortunate among us from having any sort of access to them.

For those reasons, I prefer the idea of an electrical grid based in fusion (or, until we get fusion, something else reasonably non-pollutive), that can ramp up or down its own generation in response to how much power is coming in from other renewables.

Also, fusion is technically less wasteful - after all, solar panels and wind turbines need maintenance and replacement, whereas a reactor can go for fifty years or more without needing to replace the entire assembly... theoretically, anyway. Even if it's not really attainable, my opinion is that we should strive to be as zero-waste as possible (hence my idea of a vehicle build out of a titanium alloy... but that's another engineering challenge, and may in fact be more wasteful than steel or aluminium sooo)

Anyway, here in the moment, yes - solar panels are fantastic (and getting more and more efficient - some panels are up to 45% or more!). I would like to see more small-scale hydro, but that's much harder to implement properly.

[Z-Man]

This graph fills me with hope:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/inst ... N~OWID_NAM
It's the total installed solar capacity. That very much looks like exponential growth, with a doubling every THREE years. Of course, that can't go on forever, and the graph shows capacity, which is of larger by far than actual production... and even if the growth did continue like that for a bit, solar currently supplies about 3% of the total electricity needs of the planet, so it has a long way to go. But hey, I'll take it.
And look how China overtook the EU and North America and now has more solar panels than the two combined. They are not doing everything wrong. Also, they apparently made great strides in reducing pollution over the last decade or two, especially air pollution, which is nowadays one of the leading causes of premature deaths in the world.

Fusion: Won't be here fast enough to make a meaningful contribution to get us away from fossils, definitely not as a small scale "Mr Fusion" for personal use. Maybe one of the fifty startups trying different approaches hits the jackpot, and by necessity, their devices are all small enough to deploy decentralized so they would not put a strain on the long range grid. Who knows?

Wave energy: As a surfer, which I now self-identify as, I'd be all in favor. Look at it that way: We can collect sunlight directly with solar cells to get power. But we can also let it hit the earth, warm it, produce wind, and collect the wind instead. Or, we could let the wind blow over the ocean, where it will convert the wind from large areas into wave energy which we then just have to pick up at the coast. There is just a bit of a problem: Sea water and technology don't mix well. Salt water itself is highly corrosive, and then there is all that annoying life in the water that sticks to stuff and makes it not work right.

Fission: Sure, build more. I'm now all for it. China tested a model last year where even a total cooling system failure does not lead to a meltdown. And even with old, 'unsafe' designs: Fear of nuclear accidents is like: Fear of terrorist attacks in the West, fear of getting eaten by a shark, fear that some stranger is going use sweets to lure your kid into a black van. Take the highest possible numbers of total deaths by nuclear accidents you can find. It'll be dwarfed by the deaths by coal. 'nother graph: https://www.statista.com/statistics/494 ... gy-source/
The waste is a problem. The highly radioactive spent fuel rods are a nasty mix of different elements. Research is ongoing on how to make use of parts of it, or turn it less nasty, via transmutation (like bombarding it with more neutrons of the right energy to turn it into faster decaying isotopes), but it's very far from being practical and I doubt it can deal with all, or even most, of the waste.

Producing anything, hydrogen or those polymers, to burn in ICEs in personal vehicles: Nope, bad idea. The laws of thermodynamics put a tight lid on the top conversion efficiency ICEs can have, and the production is also lossy, increasing the demands on primary energy. Such a scheme makes sense where battery electric does not cut it, like aviation, or the military; but for the near future, we need all the hydrogen we can get to decarbonize steel production and the chemical industry.

Now, hydrogen or molecules with lots of hydrogen atoms in them (hydrogen is hard to store) turned into electricity with fuel cells, that could be something.

Definitely, for personal transport, battery electric vehicles (and the smaller, the better; the fat electric SUV that only carries one person to work and back is WORSE for the environment than a small ICE they could use instead) are the best solution we currently have available, and it just does not make sense to wait for something better. Sure, we should keep researching and testing, and if that something better actually comes along, switch to that. Any switch is going to be slow, we just don't have the time to wait. Two of the largest blocks of contributions to CO2 emissions are traffic and heating, we have the means right now to get them down drastically: battery electric and heat pumps. (I have to admit here: The large building complex we live in is heated by gas, and I don't see that changing before the gas prices skyrocket)

[Monkey]

Nitrates are only nasty if they are either aerosolised and in the atmosphere, or in waterways that lack the biodiversity to handle them.

Eating a lot of foods with added nitrates can increase your health risks for:

• Development of cancer, especially digestive cancers, such as colorectal, stomach, and oesophageal

• Complications during pregnancy including blue baby syndrome

Note that issues arising from naturally occurring nitrates found in food stuffs differ from those arising from artificially added nitrates in food stuffs. It seems complicated but it is to do with what they react with in the body and what other chemicals exist in the food stuffs they are in. Personally, I do my best to avoid added nitrates in foods that I buy.

...the supply and demand of electricity from people with solar panels...

Getting paid for supplying electricity to the grid is just an added bonus. If that changes, it's not a big issue. The key is that solar panels on roofs can now produce enough electricity to power a home. The only issue is that of storing the electricity economically for when the solar panels aren't in use (at night mainly).

solar panels and wind turbines need maintenance and replacement

Not really. I don't know anyone in my area that has had to perform maintenance on, or replace, their solar panels. We have a lot of wind turbines near here too and the number keeps growing. I've not heard of any that have needed replacing yet. There may be some maintenance on them, I don't know much about that though.

look how China overtook the EU and North America and now has more solar panels than the two combined.

This goes to show what a disgrace our governments have been. I am disgusted by it.

As a surfer, which I now self-identify as

Do we have to start calling you "dude" now?

Sea water and technology don't mix well.

Maybe in some areas and in the past but things are definitely changing. In Arrecife, the capital of Lanzarote, they have a massive sea water desalination plant. It provides water for the whole of Lanzarote. Now this is really some achievement, as Lanzarote is one of, if not the, driest places in Europe. I know all this because I have been there quite a few times.

...nuclear power ...

As for Nuclear power, I will never be convinced that it is a safe and acceptable solution. One guy tried to tell me that more people die from falling off wind turbines than die from Nuclear issues. Firstly I say "bollox". Secondly I say that if that really is the case, make the turbines more secure for people that have to climb them!

[Z-Man]

Turbine maintenance; Every couple of months, someone has to climb up there with a bucket of grease. Ok, they take the elevator, and the grease is high quality machine oil.

As a surfer, which I now self-identify as

Do we have to start calling you "dude" now?

No, please don't And isn't it the other way round?

...nuclear power ...

As for Nuclear power, I will never be convinced that it is a safe and acceptable solution. One guy tried to tell me that more people die from falling off wind turbines than die from Nuclear issues. Firstly I say "bollox". Secondly I say that if that really is the case, make the turbines more secure for people that have to climb them!

Hah, yeah, I heard the same thing, just with people falling off roofs installing solar panels. These people take the lowest of the low values for deaths caused by nuclear energy. Statistically elevated cancer rates among uranium mine workers? Not counted. Chernobyl's liquidators? Bah, their mortality is well in line with population averages. Only if someone dies of acute radiation exposure with radiation caused by non-military, non-medical use of radiation, that counts. To the best of my knowledge, that number would be two: https://world-nuclear.org/information-l ... y-accident
And yes, a very small single digit number of people fall off wind turbines every year. Construction is a dangerous job, no matter what is being built; of course, to make nuclear come out as better, you have to ignore all the non-radiation related deaths in that industry.
But these people have a point: Nothing is 100% safe. But that is OK! Today, it is largely pointless to discuss whether wind, solar or fission nuclear are safest. They all are extraordinarily safe. Orders of magnitude safer for everyone than the next best thing. Every gigawatt of coal power replaced by one of the three, no matter which, saves lives. I remind you of the graph from my last post. Yes, it does not include future risks from nuclear waste, at least I don't think so, those are hard to estimate, especially since we don't really know what we are ultimately going to do with that stuff.

[Monkey]

As a surfer, which I now self-identify as

Do we have to start calling you "dude" now?

No, please don't And isn't it the other way round?

Whatever you say dude

Every gigawatt of coal power replaced by one of the three, no matter which, saves lives.

I'm totally against coal power too. I believe that, in this day and age, we shouldn't need coal or nuclear power at all.

I remind you of the graph from my last post. Yes, it does not include future risks from nuclear waste, at least I don't think so, those are hard to estimate, especially since we don't really know what we are ultimately going to do with that stuff.

Exactly. The waste is a huge concern. I don't care how deep underground it gets stored, it's super nasty stuff that will stay super nasty for a long enough time.

[Lucifer]

Ok, a quick word on efficiency. Efficiency is about how much power is available vs how much usable energy comes out. So if a solar panel is only 20% efficient, that means that of the EM waves hitting the panel, only 20% of them are turned into electricity. The upper limit on an ICE vehicle is somewhere around 40%. The theoretical upper limit for solar is much higher, but you're comparing apples to oranges. These efficiencies are meaningless when put next to each other. The energy for ICE comes ultimately from the sun, too, because we're burning the remains of previous photosynthesizing organisms. Hell, except for nuclear power, it all ultimately comes from the sun. Anyway, point is, when you're talking about the efficiency of an engine in a car, you're talking about the amount of energy in the fuel compared to the amount of kinetic energy received. The heat is waste heat, even if it's used for heating the interior when it's cold. With solar and wind, you're not converting directly to kinetic energy, you're converting to electricity, and then using it to charge batteries that will later convert the electricity to kinetic energy. The apples to oranges comparison simply breaks down, especially when someone like me comes along and points out all the energy it takes just to extract coal/oil/whatever, transport it, refine it, transport it again, etc. The total efficiency for petroleum ICE cars is almost as low as it was for steam power.

Also, because we use petroleum for all sorts of other manufacturing besides fuel, that industry isn't going to collapse. Solar depends on petroleum for all the plastics in the cells. Wind depends on petroleum for the epoxies used in the composite bodies (they're fiberglass and/or carbon fiber).

Anyway, I almost laughed out loud when someone mentioned the "complexity" of the systems used to control battery charging and EV driving. When's the last time you looked under the hood of your own car? EVs are simpler than ICEs. Full stop.

Also, can we quit bringing up Tesla when we're talking about EVs getting better? Tesla only lit the fire for the EV revolution. Despite the well publicized faults of the EVs coming from the other major manufacturers, every single one of them is going to build a solid EV before Tesla figures out how to use a torque wrench. Some of them already have, they're just not getting reported because when something works fine, there's no need to discuss it. Volkswagen is all in on EVs. Hyundai/Kia are all in on EVs. Chevy and Ford are both trying to get all in on EVs. Those are the companies that are going to make it happen (No, I don't have any idea what stupid thing Stellantis is up to). And the reason they're going to make it happen is because they already know how to build great cars, they just need to figure out the EV drivetrain. We're already seeing a lot of technology originally developed for EVs making it into ICE vehicles, even (electric power steering, electric air conditioning compressors, etc).

Now, let's talk about the elephant in delinquent's room. There will not be ICE vehicles powered by hydrogen. Literally nobody is working on them. Toyota's hydrogen car is an EV that uses a hydrogen fuel cell instead of batteries. It's still an EV. Arguing hydrogen vs EVs is silly because the hydrogen cars are EVs. The only renewable ICE car that may be on the market is coming from....Porsche? I want to say? They're working on a fuel replacement that'll be renewable and theoretically won't be in conflict with the food supply the way ethanol is. But I think they're focused on racing with that fuel. Even the rocket companies are shying away from hydrogen for fuel, because it has one overwhelming problem: energy density. It may be the most energy dense in terms of joules per kg, but it's the worst when you're talking joules per unit volume. The only way to make a hydrogen-powered car that can actually carry enough hydrogen to get anywhere is by using fuel cells, not by using an inefficient wasteful heat engine.

As to solar power in the US, we're just the dumbest ******* in the world right now. We could add a couple of tens of thousands of dollars to every mile of road built and stick solar panels on top of them and have safer highways as a result and then be able to power like half the country. We'd have to move all shipping that's too big for these solar-covered roads to trains, and probably clear some lanes or something to move from trains to wherever else, but it's absolutely doable. There are now double sided solar panels that you mount vertically and actually generate more power per square foot than the ones on my van. But solar and EVs are inextricably linked, because of an American company that's figured it out. The amount of power that EVs require is really high, so the 10-20 year life of the battery packs in EVs is based on *that* power draw. We're talking 10-15kw to push one of these cars. But when the battery pack is no longer capable of providing 10kw, that means it can provide like 9kw. When you take that and stick it on the power grid, you get another 10-20 years from the same battery pack. That means that, theoretically, a battery pack made today won't even need to be recycled for 40 years.

As for nuclear waste, that's a problem that is blown way out of proportion. Again, it's a political problem. Most nuclear "recycling" is actually just putting the waste back into the reactor. I don't think any reactors currently in use in America can do that, but France and China are all over it. As much as 90% of the nuclear waste from existing reactors can be put back into any of several reactor designs that are currently functioning in France and China, with even more in the pipeline. And the waste from those reactors can theoretically be reused upwards of 80%. So, in a thousand years, when the waste is finally coming out of a reactor that can't be reused in another reactor, we'll need to have figured out how to deal with it. And honestly, what we're doing in the US right now is stupid, but safe. (We just put it in casks and leave it on site) While Uranium mining is a lot safer now than it was, we actually have enough in what's currently considered waste to power the whole planet for like 1000 years. We just need to build the reactors, and we don't have to mine any new uranium. Hell, if we disarmed our nuclear arsenals, there's enough power there for current reactors to power the whole USA for like 500 years or something crazy like that. And nuclear reactors tend to pay for themselves easily in 5-10 years. This is definitely a problem caused by NIMBYs and people who believe too many science fiction tropes about nuclear weapons.

Geopolitically, when it comes to sourcing raw materials, the only power source we have right now than can be built 100% ethically is nuclear, believe it or not, but that statement assumes the recycling I mentioned in the previous paragraph. Anything that ultimately goes into a lithium battery is relying on blood elements from Africa or China (also called rare earth metals). China's also beating the west on solar panels and wind turbines. I think, but don't know this for a fact, that the only turbine being built that's not from China are the ocean tide turbines in the UK. I'm looking forward to Australia starting to put a big dent in the solar market, because with the EU and USA basically ignoring solar, and it gaining ground all over the place anyway, Australia's the only western country really investing into solar manufacturing.

Now, when it comes to preventing the planet from warming too much, solar is the best we've got in every possible way. Forget about electrical storage. Consider albedo. If we lay out solar panels in areas that tend to absorb solar energy, we'll convert some of it to electricity and reflect the rest of it right back out away from the planet (well, most of it, some will reflect/refract around the atmosphere anyway). Also, if we quit building roads and parking lots all over the place, those things really take in a lot of heat and keep it inside the atmosphere. They also contribute to flooding problems in cities. We need more grassland/forest/swamp/whatever.

I'm going to end by answering the question on solar panel maintenance. Obviously, you have to clean them regularly, because dust blocks light from hitting them. There are also plastic connectors that get brittle over time and need replacement, and you have to inspect the panels themselves for damage, like from hail or rain or birds that got chopped up in a nearby wind turbine and fell on the panel with enough energy to crack it. The aluminum frames can be expected to last for the lifetime of the panel, but the mounting hardware needs to be periodically inspected. Solar farms are built out of much smaller panels, with the first ones using only 100W panels. Now they're up to, I want to say, 500W panels. The individual panels aren't real expensive. Mine cost about $1/w. If you built a power plant out of them, that's a billion dollars to build a billion watts, of course. But I bought them four years ago. The same type of panels now go for like $0.75/W, and that number can be as low as $0.60/W if you buy a 250W or 500W panel.