Impossible. The reason the Tesla Model S and Roadster were such great cars is their extreme Cx (aerodynamic coefficient) and in the case of the Model S its design tailored to being an electric car. This is just another smokescreen, of people trying to tell Musk to stop messing with a trillion dollar industry. This guys idea is soo stupid it isn't even funny. Go Musk ! Go Tesla ! Go SpaceX. Continue making ULA/Ford/GM/Toyota look stupid ! I don't care, I love it !
The sole reason Fuel Cells are coming to the market is either they make or break it. I have a deeply rooted opinion that Fuel Cells are much like Nuclear Fusion, it was never meant to come to the market, at least not until we run out of petrol (hydrogen) or coal (fusion). But let the Electrical Vehicle vs Hydrogen Fuel Cells war start, I bet 10 to 1 the EV will win, and the results will come before 2025.
Gas pollutes, is risky (much higher risk of car fire than anything else), and is a finite resource. But on the other hand, producing hydrogen from natural gas also makes it a finite resource that pollutes too ! And the electric grid is done, EV chargers are much cheaper than hydrogen stations + hydrogen production capacity (from natural gas). Making hydrogen from solar or wind power is absurdly expensive today (even with the full advantage of all breaks solar and wind are getting). The only economical and clean way of producing hydrogen is from high temperature nuclear reactors (Gen IV molten salt or Gen IV gas cooled reactors). Or if an economical way to obtain 700C steam from solar power is devised.
I'm on the other side of the train. Brazilian, lived in the US for 7 years (93-01). On one side, I wish we had USA problems, ours are far more complex and far more serious. We have over 20 parties, the main reason our system if screwed up (trying to be polite) is we don't have district voting. We have a proportional (per state for federal / state voting, per city for city voting). But on one side I'm sure happy we don't have just two parties. But having just 2 parties is an invitation for those that are very powerful to be able to buy both sides.
Neither the GOP, Democrats, Tea Party are listening to the public. As long as there is only two real choices during the general election (Red or Blue) this will persist. The other countries with a pure district voting system without runoff elections are figuring out the importance of having a viable 3rd and 4th parties (UK and Canada). But since the USA think they know the answer to everything, they keep insisting on not learning from the other countries. C'mon guys, you need to implement runoff elections, so that the USA could have at least 4 viable political parties (4,5 or 6 would be the sweet spot). Plus, the electorade needs to stop voting for the guy with the most money and the most likable face, instead of finding out who he really is. You should vote for the guy with less money, which means he's more inclined to listen to you instead of listening to big money (like this net neutrality issue). Until you learn that it's not a GOP vs Dems battle. They are all utterly corrupt. It's about having a political party based on cheap campaign, so we are not tied to big money interests.
ships move at around 15 knots (20mph, 30 km/h) modern trains move above 80km/h perhaps if you slow down trains to go for absolute lowest fuel consumption (perhaps 40km/h) wouldn't it compete well with ships ? but yes, rail makes sense when you don't have a waterway link the big advantage of rail is quicker delivery, due to significantly higher speeds, but air freight is slowly coming down in price with each subsequent more fuel efficient large aircraft (A350-1000 cost per tonXmile should be pretty cost to A380-800 or B747-8). but this isn't just the challenge of the underwater tunnels, just keeping thousands of miles worth of rail snow free is big enough a challenge in the winter (half the year for alaska and the russian counterpart). this looks like a big jobs program.
The went with Linux to end being a slave to Microsoft. Roghly speaking I haven't owned a Windows install at all for over 5 years and just one Windows VM in the preceeding 5 years. I couldn't have been happier with the choice. Goodbye virus, worms. Hello being in control. Goodbye being force to use your computer only the way Microsoft / Apple wants you to, hello doing it anyway it better suits you. Of course, to some people that live+work inside a little box, Linux can be dangerous !
If you just add all of those billions spent on failed projects plus cost overruns from the ones that did kind of succeed and add interest, there's probably enough money to pay the US national debt.
you simply can't meet the NHTS road worthy standards while being light enough to fly, plus aircraft want a wide wing for efficient lift to drag ratios. How are you going to drive with 10 ft wing protruding from each side ? flying cars will never take off, put intended. making a prototype is one thing. The most viable idea in that arena is eventually having an affordable Osprey clone, minus all of it's pork barrel cost issues.
What they've become ? Anytime money is zero object, they succeed. It's when budgets succeed they fail, big time. Yes, they lost two shuttles, but the shuttle project was already an economical failure prior, it was just that nobody called the project that, it would have been Un American. NASA is a victim of a cold war mentality meets pork barrel politics meets career govt worker mentality. It's no different than the overall US gov way of doing business. It's not by chance that certifying a new Drug in the US costs around one billion dollars. It's not by chance that a certified GA aircraft costs over twice the price of a similar experimental aircraft. Until the people fully and utterly revolt against the system, it will continue. And ULA has the same type of inefficient management structure as a govt agency, more managers than engineers for crying out loud.
Where Elon / SpaceX succeeded and others failed isn't on basic bending metal skills. The closest I've seen is the Linux kernel development. They are always willing to try something new if the costs/risks are acceptable and the potential payback is worth it. It's being able to choose at the very highest levels what avenues to pursue and which ones to skip over. Other companies have failed exactly because of all of that pesky installed base issue. Specially the career engineers entrenched in their positions being against anything new, and pushing anybody with an out of the box thinking mentality away. Now that being sad, it wouldn't make any sense for SpaceX to spread it's manufacturing all over the USA, makes it much harder to continue to innovate and SpaceX current pace, nothing like having all designers/brains in the same building able to talk to each other quickly. Finally, senators from other states will try, but they will eventually be forced to let SpaceX compete dollar by dollar regardless of pork. They will prove they can do the same as any other old school aerospace provider at half to 1/4th the cost. At those huge margins, it's really hard to defend ULA, Boeing, Lockmart, Rocketdyne,... At some point they can't do it anymore. Any how, by 2016 this will become clear, with Falcon Heavy proven to be able to do everything the Delta Heavy and Ariane V can, at around 70% savings. And by then the Raptor staged methane engine should be tested and will promise to produce rockets capable of replacing the Falcon Heavy at half the cost, or 90% savings over the current heavy payload competition.
SpaceX has a backlog of 38 launches per SpaceX site. Of those NASA is the largest customer but less than 25% of total launches. NASA isn't going away in the next few years, they aren't going to leave the ISS. But even if the US govt decided to shutdown NASA late 2015, SpaceX already has enough private launches on its books to be a viable entity. Plus they aren't resting on their laurels, they are 6 to 12 months away from launching the Falcon Heavy which will be the largest operational rocket designed for high volume operations (SLS might have higher lift capability, but it's even less economical than ULA is, plus no SLS rocket is flying, while Falcon Heavy reuses most F9R rocket tech, so some of its core subsystems are being tested at every F9R launch, 4 launches with 100% success rate and counting). That's the beauty of efficiency. If push comes to shove, the fact that SpaceX is the cheapest game in the world today, they will tend to absorb the vast majority of non govt launch business, so in the end I'll say NASA needs SpaceX while SpaceX could certainly benefit / profit from having NASA as a biggest customer, SpaceX will still prosper without NASA.
Again, go fight Coal plants. They kill people EVERY DAY, by the dozens. You are very close to looking like what I call a PAID anti nuclear activist. TEPCO upper management are a bunch of idiots, that doesn't make every other nuclear operator in the world idiots too ! You are passing judgement over the entire nuclear industry based on an isolated incident of stupidity.
If there is one thing I agree with you is that 1970s and 80s corporations showed a lot of deeply evil behavior. It was before the internet, before a whistleblower could make his case to tens of millions over the course of a month. But it's the past. The reality today is deeply different. Today the public is able to put mass pressure over any minor appearance of reckless behavior.
Have you seen a coal ash pile ? Do you understand how many tons of mercury, cadmium, arsenic, and other poisonous metals are accumulated in those piles over a decade ? Over the course of a decade a large coal power plant site burns dozens of millions of tons of coal, producing close to a million tons of coal ash, that stuff is deadly. And it's so much they can't afford to secure it like spent nuclear fuel. Go fight the real fight !
Mr. Stansbury posted to the course discussions. A week ago it was still possible to cram the course (doing the tests). The tests deadlines are past due, so I'm not sure it's possible to enroll the course. He had access to pictures of the spent fuel pools in question, should a criticality even in the fuel pool took place there would be evidence (things would melt big time), there was no indications.
Oh, C'mon. The BMW i3 is a almost a compact car. You insist on comparing it to a no compromise EV Luxury Sedan ????? Both cars are on totally separate categories, don't waste your time comparing the two. The only think they have in common is the electric drive train. When BMW, Audi or Mercedes launch an EV that is at least a mid size, then we can compare notes.
Like willy_me correctly explained, there is no raw material scarsity to make Li Ion batteries. It's mostly an issue of battery production installed base, how amortized those plants are, and how efficient those plants are. Hence the Tesla Giga Factory effort. Once we have a huge installed base of li-ion cell production, we will be able to mass recycle old li-ion batteries, it's cheaper avoiding having to purify raw ore. Just another cost improvement. I'm pretty certain we'll eventually get bellow US$ 150 / kWh, perhaps even to US$ 100 / kWh, the question is how long until we get there, and if a better battery chemistry comes along that make li-ion obsolete.
Depends on where you start from. We just don't know how much Tesla is already paying for Li-Ion cells. I'll assume that a US$ 100k Tesla Model S 85kWh has 25% margin, 25% Li-ion cell cost, 50% rest. That would mean the cells cost US$ 25k. That suggests US$ 300 / kWh for the cells alone. If that could half to US$ 150 / kWh, then a good size 40kWh (for a smaller/lighter car) would cost US$ 6000 worth of li-ion cells, perhaps US$ 12k for the whole drive train + complete battery pack. At those prices an EV could compete with a Prius in price (extra li-ion cost vs internal combustion engine). The more die hard greenies are already using only a Tesla. There is already 87 supercharger stations in the USA, with plans for at least 40 more over the next 6 months, and but end of 2015 there will be a fairly complete nationwide network, including around 10 super chargers in Canada, and any high amp 220V outlet is usable for overnight charging. Even with 85kWh model having a range of 260 miles, by end of 2015 having a Tesla Model S should be way more convenient to an average family that does most of its driving less than 100 miles from home (saving time spent at the gas station), towards spending 40 minutes per recharge while travelling.
The Fukushima criticality in the fuel pool is another piece of FUD. The class monitor of the course I pointed you stated outright there is zero evidence of that. Who am I going to believe in, somebody with a Nuclear Engineering Masters or an anti nuclear activist ? I'm not going to take the liberty of copying his statement. But its compelling. It's data based instead of conspiracy theory based. His name is Cory Stansbury.
Please go out and complete an into to nuclear technology course, show you can actually grasp all technical parameters of a reactor. That you know the difference between the really disastrous pre-Chernobyl RBMK, to a way safer Three Mile Island/Fukushima Gen II to an AP1000 to a fast sodium reactor to a FLiBe Molten Salt reactor. https://class.coursera.org/nuc...
If radioactivity from nuclear power stations posed even a small health hazard, there would a pattern of elevated cancers among nuclear workers. There is none. Living at 4000 meters altitude (12000 feet) results in a radiation dosage 6x higher than radiation standards from a nuclear power plant. The NRC essentially believes living in Denver and SLC is risky and living in Aspen is deadly. No it's not a different type of radiation, it's all gamma, beta, alpha, radiation. Cosmic rays (specially at high altitudes) contain lots of high energy gammas. Yes, the same NRC that is blamed to being buddies with the nuclear industry. It's actually quite hated by the industry for their utter lack of commonsense. Flying in an airliner subjects people to 20x the radiation dosages than a sea level. Where is the pattern of airline pilots / flight attendants with huge cancer levels ? People have returned to the closest villages near Chernobyl where radiation is over 10x above nuclear radiation standards for the public. Watch Pandora's Promise, please. What you are defending we call the FUD anti nuclear campaign. They have to prove nothing, spreading Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt is enough. Go attack head on every coal power station first. Get rid of all coal in the world. Then get rid of natural gas. Current solar/wind efforts in Germany lead to higher CO2 emissions due to the hash decision to shutdown the oldest nuclear power plants. If we assume all nuclear electricity would otherwise have been provided by coal, then nuclear have saved millions of lives. Think about that ! A Chernobyl like accident has a chance of happening again like one in a million. It's zero reason to kill future nuclear power. It's like saying no to every new Hydro dam due to the Baqiao-China dam burst in the 70s that killed 170k people. Wait, actually Green Peace considers big hydro power stations murderous too. It provides 70+% of my Brazil's electricity production.
Ok, so I'm biased. I love Tesla, since they are kicking Mercedes, BMW, Audi,... in the butt big time. It's market share is way higher than LEAF vs similar sized cars. Tesla offered the 40kWh model S, there were so little orders they gave customers a software limited 60 kWh pack and withdrawn 40kWh model from the lineup. I'm waiting for a LEAF to the manufactured in Brazil. Right now a LEAF costs R$ 200k, a Prius costs R$ 120k, a Corolla costs R$ 80k, cause both the LEAF and Prius are imported, with about 50% extra from import duties. I hear LEAF's are selling a lot for cabs in large cities, due to special rebates offered only to cab owners. We need to get more pure EVs to be purchased for heavy duty applications, users that drive cars 100k miles / yr. The most important goal is to reduce oil burning. People that drive 10k miles / yr should buy the highest mpg non hybrid car, it's actually better for the environment (save coal burning to make steel, coal electricity in Michigan, Tennessee, China). This whole math will change a lot by 2020, as large li-ion plants using mainly solar + wind electricity come online. Like the Tesla giga fact. In less than 10 years, li-ion batteries will cost half as today, and EV prices should cost very little over a hybrid. At that point EV cost x benefit will drive mass adoption, plus we should also have newer battery chemistries in the high end that enable 500 mile range.
Prompt criticality accidents doesn't mean nuclear explosion. A nuclear explosion would have incinerated all of the reactors containments (internal fuel integrity, primary reactor containment, secondary reactor containment aka reactor building).
Plus once a reactor is shutdown, prompt criticality is impossible. Perhaps on Gen I reactors (all retired for at least 25 years now), but not even on any of Fukushima reactors.
If the radioactivity were that bad, where are the radiation deaths ? Where are the thousands of cancers ? That's the beginning of the anti nuclear BS. Today radiation even a mile from the Fukushima reactors have a much lower health risk than living in downtown Tokyo, yet it's ok to live in Tokyo, but people can't even opt to return to Fukushima ! If you realized how much of a health hazard coal mining, coal powerplants and every chemical industry dealing with chroline / fluor gas, mercury, cadmium, arsenic, lead. Those are generally an order of magnitude more serious health hazard. But they don't have the nuclear is dangerous media sensation target painted on them.
If we realized that we need thousands of Gen III / Gen III+ / Gen IV reactors to provide baseload power worldwide, and that those are SAFE, we could move on from this nuclear is risky generalization. And start a campaign to migrate Gen II reactors to Gen III+ reactors ASAP.
My bottom line is that even current light water reactors like an AP1000 are a necessary evil. I call them somewhat evil not because they are unsafe (they are safe enough I would live right at the fence post), but because they only use 0,5% of mined uranium without reprocessing (like done in France, Japan, Russia, UK and a few more countries), a little over 1% with maximum reprocessing. The nuclear waste problem is mostly a result of choosing not to reprocess. France produces half as much GWh / year as the USA, yet all of its long lived nuclear waste is kept in a single site, without need for deep geological storage.
Using more advanced reprocessing and separation of fission products would result in 81% of nuclear waste needing storage for just 10 years, 19% would need storage for 300 years, and all the remaining materials that require longer storage are still fuel, and can be burned using either molten salt or fast reactors.
Current nuclear is the only non fossil fuel electricity source that is reliable, trustworthy. Coal = tens of thousand times more lethal than nuclear, extremelly filthy (specially for those living close to a coal power plant or mine) Natural gas = if you don't think more CO2 in the atmosphere is a problem, then natural gas is ok until we run out of it, yet it's about 5x to 10x more deadly than nuclear Hydro = cheap, clean, great, if you have it, tap it, some countries have lots of it, like my Brazil, but most can't even get 1/3 of their electricity from hydro, but there is always the risk of the worst drought that happens even decade or two (happening right now), but it's actually extremely deadly to people living downstream from the Dam (even more deadly per GWh produced than natural gas) Solar = Great for daylight electricity, but what about the night, kills a dozen solar panels installers every year Wind = Turbines seldom produce over 20% of name plate capacity (even in areas with strong winds), unless wind is very strong, power = wind speed cubed, so any tiny oscilations in wind speed = large fluctuations in power output, so it's suicide to get even 40% of a country's wind from wind, since millions of wind turbines are required worldwide to make a dent in electricity production likely kill dozens per year due to maintenance accidents Geothermal = much like hydro, except no drought problem (only available in rare places) Biomass = very limited resource, we must take full advantage of waste -> biodigestor -> natural gas sources Nuclear = only baseload power source that doesn't produce CO2, modern nuclear plants operate with 97-98% uptime, only stop on scheduled maintenance or in scenarios that require preventive shutdowns (earthquakes, hurricanes for instance). No modern nuclear power plant suffered a meltdown. Only old plants (AKA Gen II nukes) ever suffered meltdowns, Gen III nukes are immune to every known nuclear accident scenario. Just existing depleted uranium, plutonium and spent nuclear fuel stockpiles enough to power the earth for hundreds of year using fast reactors (not my favorite, but better than existing light water nukes). Anti nuclear pundits are effectively being pro coal and natural gas. Being anti nuclear in Europe = relying on Mr Putin or using filthy coal.
The big issue about nuclear is its complex, so it's easy to form an anti nuclear opinion. I'm yet to discover anybody without an STEM college degree that is pro nuclear. It's easy to get distracted by the miss information.
Don't get me started on energy storage using batteries, the cost x benefit analysis just don't add up. Perhaps in another 15 years.
You can start by comparing the i3 with a more equivalent Tesla: 85 kWh = 265 mile range (3.11 miles / kWh) 60 kWh = 208 mile range (3.47 miles / kWh) 40 kWh = 160 mile range (4 miles / kWh) should be around 114 mpge the 40 kWh Tesla was never produced, too little demand, people want a real electric car, not an expensive toy.
I have been studying nuclear power since the outrageous absurd statements that were made anti nuclear power back them. The more I dug the cleared it became that most of the nuclear cost problems are a result of way too zealous nuclear regulation. Like 99% of the knowledge I accumulated after high school, I learned by myself. I recently completed a college intro course to nuclear technology, with an A+ grade: https://class.coursera.org/nuc... It made those same claims in general terms. What the course and you'll see. Radiation is everywhere, alpha, beta, gamma, x-ray, microwave radiation isn't something we can avoid. Our body is constantly producing beta and gamma radiation. Anybody that learn the basics about radiation quickly sees all the anti nuclear BS from a far more logical lenses, and see how much the anti nuclear prey on our ignorance. BTW its Marcelo. m.a.c.pacheco
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Impossible. The reason the Tesla Model S and Roadster were such great cars is their extreme Cx (aerodynamic coefficient) and in the case of the Model S its design tailored to being an electric car.
This is just another smokescreen, of people trying to tell Musk to stop messing with a trillion dollar industry.
This guys idea is soo stupid it isn't even funny.
Go Musk ! Go Tesla ! Go SpaceX. Continue making ULA/Ford/GM/Toyota look stupid ! I don't care, I love it !
The sole reason Fuel Cells are coming to the market is either they make or break it.
I have a deeply rooted opinion that Fuel Cells are much like Nuclear Fusion, it was never meant to come to the market, at least not until we run out of petrol (hydrogen) or coal (fusion).
But let the Electrical Vehicle vs Hydrogen Fuel Cells war start, I bet 10 to 1 the EV will win, and the results will come before 2025.
Gas pollutes, is risky (much higher risk of car fire than anything else), and is a finite resource.
But on the other hand, producing hydrogen from natural gas also makes it a finite resource that pollutes too !
And the electric grid is done, EV chargers are much cheaper than hydrogen stations + hydrogen production capacity (from natural gas).
Making hydrogen from solar or wind power is absurdly expensive today (even with the full advantage of all breaks solar and wind are getting).
The only economical and clean way of producing hydrogen is from high temperature nuclear reactors (Gen IV molten salt or Gen IV gas cooled reactors).
Or if an economical way to obtain 700C steam from solar power is devised.
I'm on the other side of the train. Brazilian, lived in the US for 7 years (93-01).
On one side, I wish we had USA problems, ours are far more complex and far more serious. We have over 20 parties, the main reason our system if screwed up (trying to be polite) is we don't have district voting. We have a proportional (per state for federal / state voting, per city for city voting). But on one side I'm sure happy we don't have just two parties.
But having just 2 parties is an invitation for those that are very powerful to be able to buy both sides.
Neither the GOP, Democrats, Tea Party are listening to the public.
As long as there is only two real choices during the general election (Red or Blue) this will persist.
The other countries with a pure district voting system without runoff elections are figuring out the importance of having a viable 3rd and 4th parties (UK and Canada). But since the USA think they know the answer to everything, they keep insisting on not learning from the other countries.
C'mon guys, you need to implement runoff elections, so that the USA could have at least 4 viable political parties (4,5 or 6 would be the sweet spot).
Plus, the electorade needs to stop voting for the guy with the most money and the most likable face, instead of finding out who he really is.
You should vote for the guy with less money, which means he's more inclined to listen to you instead of listening to big money (like this net neutrality issue).
Until you learn that it's not a GOP vs Dems battle. They are all utterly corrupt. It's about having a political party based on cheap campaign, so we are not tied to big money interests.
ships move at around 15 knots (20mph, 30 km/h)
modern trains move above 80km/h
perhaps if you slow down trains to go for absolute lowest fuel consumption (perhaps 40km/h) wouldn't it compete well with ships ?
but yes, rail makes sense when you don't have a waterway link
the big advantage of rail is quicker delivery, due to significantly higher speeds, but air freight is slowly coming down in price with each subsequent more fuel efficient large aircraft (A350-1000 cost per tonXmile should be pretty cost to A380-800 or B747-8).
but this isn't just the challenge of the underwater tunnels, just keeping thousands of miles worth of rail snow free is big enough a challenge in the winter (half the year for alaska and the russian counterpart).
this looks like a big jobs program.
The went with Linux to end being a slave to Microsoft.
Roghly speaking I haven't owned a Windows install at all for over 5 years and just one Windows VM in the preceeding 5 years.
I couldn't have been happier with the choice. Goodbye virus, worms. Hello being in control.
Goodbye being force to use your computer only the way Microsoft / Apple wants you to, hello doing it anyway it better suits you.
Of course, to some people that live+work inside a little box, Linux can be dangerous !
If you just add all of those billions spent on failed projects plus cost overruns from the ones that did kind of succeed and add interest, there's probably enough money to pay the US national debt.
you simply can't meet the NHTS road worthy standards while being light enough to fly, plus aircraft want a wide wing for efficient lift to drag ratios.
How are you going to drive with 10 ft wing protruding from each side ?
flying cars will never take off, put intended.
making a prototype is one thing.
The most viable idea in that arena is eventually having an affordable Osprey clone, minus all of it's pork barrel cost issues.
What they've become ? Anytime money is zero object, they succeed. It's when budgets succeed they fail, big time.
Yes, they lost two shuttles, but the shuttle project was already an economical failure prior, it was just that nobody called the project that, it would have been Un American.
NASA is a victim of a cold war mentality meets pork barrel politics meets career govt worker mentality.
It's no different than the overall US gov way of doing business.
It's not by chance that certifying a new Drug in the US costs around one billion dollars.
It's not by chance that a certified GA aircraft costs over twice the price of a similar experimental aircraft.
Until the people fully and utterly revolt against the system, it will continue.
And ULA has the same type of inefficient management structure as a govt agency, more managers than engineers for crying out loud.
Where Elon / SpaceX succeeded and others failed isn't on basic bending metal skills. The closest I've seen is the Linux kernel development. They are always willing to try something new if the costs/risks are acceptable and the potential payback is worth it. It's being able to choose at the very highest levels what avenues to pursue and which ones to skip over. ... At some point they can't do it anymore.
Other companies have failed exactly because of all of that pesky installed base issue. Specially the career engineers entrenched in their positions being against anything new, and pushing anybody with an out of the box thinking mentality away.
Now that being sad, it wouldn't make any sense for SpaceX to spread it's manufacturing all over the USA, makes it much harder to continue to innovate and SpaceX current pace, nothing like having all designers/brains in the same building able to talk to each other quickly.
Finally, senators from other states will try, but they will eventually be forced to let SpaceX compete dollar by dollar regardless of pork. They will prove they can do the same as any other old school aerospace provider at half to 1/4th the cost. At those huge margins, it's really hard to defend ULA, Boeing, Lockmart, Rocketdyne,
Any how, by 2016 this will become clear, with Falcon Heavy proven to be able to do everything the Delta Heavy and Ariane V can, at around 70% savings. And by then the Raptor staged methane engine should be tested and will promise to produce rockets capable of replacing the Falcon Heavy at half the cost, or 90% savings over the current heavy payload competition.
SpaceX has a backlog of 38 launches per SpaceX site. Of those NASA is the largest customer but less than 25% of total launches.
NASA isn't going away in the next few years, they aren't going to leave the ISS.
But even if the US govt decided to shutdown NASA late 2015, SpaceX already has enough private launches on its books to be a viable entity.
Plus they aren't resting on their laurels, they are 6 to 12 months away from launching the Falcon Heavy which will be the largest operational rocket designed for high volume operations (SLS might have higher lift capability, but it's even less economical than ULA is, plus no SLS rocket is flying, while Falcon Heavy reuses most F9R rocket tech, so some of its core subsystems are being tested at every F9R launch, 4 launches with 100% success rate and counting).
That's the beauty of efficiency. If push comes to shove, the fact that SpaceX is the cheapest game in the world today, they will tend to absorb the vast majority of non govt launch business, so in the end I'll say NASA needs SpaceX while SpaceX could certainly benefit / profit from having NASA as a biggest customer, SpaceX will still prosper without NASA.
You have made up your mind, no point in arguing with you. G'bye.
Again, go fight Coal plants. They kill people EVERY DAY, by the dozens. You are very close to looking like what I call a PAID anti nuclear activist.
TEPCO upper management are a bunch of idiots, that doesn't make every other nuclear operator in the world idiots too ! You are passing judgement over the entire nuclear industry based on an isolated incident of stupidity.
If there is one thing I agree with you is that 1970s and 80s corporations showed a lot of deeply evil behavior. It was before the internet, before a whistleblower could make his case to tens of millions over the course of a month. But it's the past. The reality today is deeply different. Today the public is able to put mass pressure over any minor appearance of reckless behavior.
Have you seen a coal ash pile ? Do you understand how many tons of mercury, cadmium, arsenic, and other poisonous metals are accumulated in those piles over a decade ? Over the course of a decade a large coal power plant site burns dozens of millions of tons of coal, producing close to a million tons of coal ash, that stuff is deadly. And it's so much they can't afford to secure it like spent nuclear fuel. Go fight the real fight !
Mr. Stansbury posted to the course discussions. A week ago it was still possible to cram the course (doing the tests). The tests deadlines are past due, so I'm not sure it's possible to enroll the course. He had access to pictures of the spent fuel pools in question, should a criticality even in the fuel pool took place there would be evidence (things would melt big time), there was no indications.
Oh, C'mon. The BMW i3 is a almost a compact car. You insist on comparing it to a no compromise EV Luxury Sedan ?????
Both cars are on totally separate categories, don't waste your time comparing the two. The only think they have in common is the electric drive train.
When BMW, Audi or Mercedes launch an EV that is at least a mid size, then we can compare notes.
Like willy_me correctly explained, there is no raw material scarsity to make Li Ion batteries.
It's mostly an issue of battery production installed base, how amortized those plants are, and how efficient those plants are. Hence the Tesla Giga Factory effort.
Once we have a huge installed base of li-ion cell production, we will be able to mass recycle old li-ion batteries, it's cheaper avoiding having to purify raw ore. Just another cost improvement.
I'm pretty certain we'll eventually get bellow US$ 150 / kWh, perhaps even to US$ 100 / kWh, the question is how long until we get there, and if a better battery chemistry comes along that make li-ion obsolete.
Depends on where you start from.
We just don't know how much Tesla is already paying for Li-Ion cells.
I'll assume that a US$ 100k Tesla Model S 85kWh has 25% margin, 25% Li-ion cell cost, 50% rest.
That would mean the cells cost US$ 25k. That suggests US$ 300 / kWh for the cells alone.
If that could half to US$ 150 / kWh, then a good size 40kWh (for a smaller/lighter car) would cost US$ 6000 worth of li-ion cells, perhaps US$ 12k for the whole drive train + complete battery pack. At those prices an EV could compete with a Prius in price (extra li-ion cost vs internal combustion engine).
The more die hard greenies are already using only a Tesla. There is already 87 supercharger stations in the USA, with plans for at least 40 more over the next 6 months, and but end of 2015 there will be a fairly complete nationwide network, including around 10 super chargers in Canada, and any high amp 220V outlet is usable for overnight charging.
Even with 85kWh model having a range of 260 miles, by end of 2015 having a Tesla Model S should be way more convenient to an average family that does most of its driving less than 100 miles from home (saving time spent at the gas station), towards spending 40 minutes per recharge while travelling.
The Fukushima criticality in the fuel pool is another piece of FUD.
The class monitor of the course I pointed you stated outright there is zero evidence of that.
Who am I going to believe in, somebody with a Nuclear Engineering Masters or an anti nuclear activist ?
I'm not going to take the liberty of copying his statement. But its compelling. It's data based instead of conspiracy theory based.
His name is Cory Stansbury.
Please go out and complete an into to nuclear technology course, show you can actually grasp all technical parameters of a reactor. That you know the difference between the really disastrous pre-Chernobyl RBMK, to a way safer Three Mile Island/Fukushima Gen II to an AP1000 to a fast sodium reactor to a FLiBe Molten Salt reactor.
https://class.coursera.org/nuc...
If radioactivity from nuclear power stations posed even a small health hazard, there would a pattern of elevated cancers among nuclear workers. There is none.
Living at 4000 meters altitude (12000 feet) results in a radiation dosage 6x higher than radiation standards from a nuclear power plant.
The NRC essentially believes living in Denver and SLC is risky and living in Aspen is deadly. No it's not a different type of radiation, it's all gamma, beta, alpha, radiation. Cosmic rays (specially at high altitudes) contain lots of high energy gammas. Yes, the same NRC that is blamed to being buddies with the nuclear industry. It's actually quite hated by the industry for their utter lack of commonsense.
Flying in an airliner subjects people to 20x the radiation dosages than a sea level. Where is the pattern of airline pilots / flight attendants with huge cancer levels ?
People have returned to the closest villages near Chernobyl where radiation is over 10x above nuclear radiation standards for the public. Watch Pandora's Promise, please.
What you are defending we call the FUD anti nuclear campaign. They have to prove nothing, spreading Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt is enough.
Go attack head on every coal power station first. Get rid of all coal in the world. Then get rid of natural gas.
Current solar/wind efforts in Germany lead to higher CO2 emissions due to the hash decision to shutdown the oldest nuclear power plants.
If we assume all nuclear electricity would otherwise have been provided by coal, then nuclear have saved millions of lives.
Think about that !
A Chernobyl like accident has a chance of happening again like one in a million. It's zero reason to kill future nuclear power.
It's like saying no to every new Hydro dam due to the Baqiao-China dam burst in the 70s that killed 170k people. Wait, actually Green Peace considers big hydro power stations murderous too. It provides 70+% of my Brazil's electricity production.
Ok, so I'm biased. I love Tesla, since they are kicking Mercedes, BMW, Audi, ... in the butt big time. It's market share is way higher than LEAF vs similar sized cars.
Tesla offered the 40kWh model S, there were so little orders they gave customers a software limited 60 kWh pack and withdrawn 40kWh model from the lineup.
I'm waiting for a LEAF to the manufactured in Brazil.
Right now a LEAF costs R$ 200k, a Prius costs R$ 120k, a Corolla costs R$ 80k, cause both the LEAF and Prius are imported, with about 50% extra from import duties.
I hear LEAF's are selling a lot for cabs in large cities, due to special rebates offered only to cab owners.
We need to get more pure EVs to be purchased for heavy duty applications, users that drive cars 100k miles / yr.
The most important goal is to reduce oil burning. People that drive 10k miles / yr should buy the highest mpg non hybrid car, it's actually better for the environment (save coal burning to make steel, coal electricity in Michigan, Tennessee, China).
This whole math will change a lot by 2020, as large li-ion plants using mainly solar + wind electricity come online. Like the Tesla giga fact.
In less than 10 years, li-ion batteries will cost half as today, and EV prices should cost very little over a hybrid. At that point EV cost x benefit will drive mass adoption, plus we should also have newer battery chemistries in the high end that enable 500 mile range.
Prompt criticality accidents doesn't mean nuclear explosion. A nuclear explosion would have incinerated all of the reactors containments (internal fuel integrity, primary reactor containment, secondary reactor containment aka reactor building).
Plus once a reactor is shutdown, prompt criticality is impossible. Perhaps on Gen I reactors (all retired for at least 25 years now), but not even on any of Fukushima reactors.
If the radioactivity were that bad, where are the radiation deaths ? Where are the thousands of cancers ? That's the beginning of the anti nuclear BS.
Today radiation even a mile from the Fukushima reactors have a much lower health risk than living in downtown Tokyo, yet it's ok to live in Tokyo, but people can't even opt to return to Fukushima ! If you realized how much of a health hazard coal mining, coal powerplants and every chemical industry dealing with chroline / fluor gas, mercury, cadmium, arsenic, lead. Those are generally an order of magnitude more serious health hazard. But they don't have the nuclear is dangerous media sensation target painted on them.
If we realized that we need thousands of Gen III / Gen III+ / Gen IV reactors to provide baseload power worldwide, and that those are SAFE, we could move on from this nuclear is risky generalization. And start a campaign to migrate Gen II reactors to Gen III+ reactors ASAP.
My bottom line is that even current light water reactors like an AP1000 are a necessary evil. I call them somewhat evil not because they are unsafe (they are safe enough I would live right at the fence post), but because they only use 0,5% of mined uranium without reprocessing (like done in France, Japan, Russia, UK and a few more countries), a little over 1% with maximum reprocessing. The nuclear waste problem is mostly a result of choosing not to reprocess. France produces half as much GWh / year as the USA, yet all of its long lived nuclear waste is kept in a single site, without need for deep geological storage.
Using more advanced reprocessing and separation of fission products would result in 81% of nuclear waste needing storage for just 10 years, 19% would need storage for 300 years, and all the remaining materials that require longer storage are still fuel, and can be burned using either molten salt or fast reactors.
Current nuclear is the only non fossil fuel electricity source that is reliable, trustworthy.
Coal = tens of thousand times more lethal than nuclear, extremelly filthy (specially for those living close to a coal power plant or mine)
Natural gas = if you don't think more CO2 in the atmosphere is a problem, then natural gas is ok until we run out of it, yet it's about 5x to 10x more deadly than nuclear
Hydro = cheap, clean, great, if you have it, tap it, some countries have lots of it, like my Brazil, but most can't even get 1/3 of their electricity from hydro, but there is always the risk of the worst drought that happens even decade or two (happening right now), but it's actually extremely deadly to people living downstream from the Dam (even more deadly per GWh produced than natural gas)
Solar = Great for daylight electricity, but what about the night, kills a dozen solar panels installers every year
Wind = Turbines seldom produce over 20% of name plate capacity (even in areas with strong winds), unless wind is very strong, power = wind speed cubed, so any tiny oscilations in wind speed = large fluctuations in power output, so it's suicide to get even 40% of a country's wind from wind, since millions of wind turbines are required worldwide to make a dent in electricity production likely kill dozens per year due to maintenance accidents
Geothermal = much like hydro, except no drought problem (only available in rare places)
Biomass = very limited resource, we must take full advantage of waste -> biodigestor -> natural gas sources
Nuclear = only baseload power source that doesn't produce CO2, modern nuclear plants operate with 97-98% uptime, only stop on scheduled maintenance or in scenarios that require preventive shutdowns (earthquakes, hurricanes for instance). No modern nuclear power plant suffered a meltdown. Only old plants (AKA Gen II nukes) ever suffered meltdowns, Gen III nukes are immune to every known nuclear accident scenario. Just existing depleted uranium, plutonium and spent nuclear fuel stockpiles enough to power the earth for hundreds of year using fast reactors (not my favorite, but better than existing light water nukes).
Anti nuclear pundits are effectively being pro coal and natural gas. Being anti nuclear in Europe = relying on Mr Putin or using filthy coal.
The big issue about nuclear is its complex, so it's easy to form an anti nuclear opinion. I'm yet to discover anybody without an STEM college degree that is pro nuclear. It's easy to get distracted by the miss information.
Don't get me started on energy storage using batteries, the cost x benefit analysis just don't add up. Perhaps in another 15 years.
You can start by comparing the i3 with a more equivalent Tesla:
85 kWh = 265 mile range (3.11 miles / kWh)
60 kWh = 208 mile range (3.47 miles / kWh)
40 kWh = 160 mile range (4 miles / kWh) should be around 114 mpge
the 40 kWh Tesla was never produced, too little demand, people want a real electric car, not an expensive toy.
I have been studying nuclear power since the outrageous absurd statements that were made anti nuclear power back them.
The more I dug the cleared it became that most of the nuclear cost problems are a result of way too zealous nuclear regulation.
Like 99% of the knowledge I accumulated after high school, I learned by myself.
I recently completed a college intro course to nuclear technology, with an A+ grade:
https://class.coursera.org/nuc...
It made those same claims in general terms. What the course and you'll see.
Radiation is everywhere, alpha, beta, gamma, x-ray, microwave radiation isn't something we can avoid.
Our body is constantly producing beta and gamma radiation.
Anybody that learn the basics about radiation quickly sees all the anti nuclear BS from a far more logical lenses, and see how much the anti nuclear prey on our ignorance.
BTW its Marcelo. m.a.c.pacheco