I'm so glad I don't game competitively for many reasons. I loved it at the time, but the paranoia and concern over hackers was such a big deal.
Your whole post reminded me of professional gaming and doping scandals. Only the methods change.
Hell, I would not be surprised if 'professional gamers' are occasionally doped up on a cocktail of drugs intended to decrease reaction time without screwing with fine motor control.
How likely is complex life to evolve under those circumstances? Besides, I got the idea that only microbes with their extremely high radiation resistance would survive even in the deep ocean, as enough would penetrate to kill even things like ocean vent crabs.
Intriguing theory you have about where you're likely to find 5KV electrical connections.
Helluva a strawman you got there, seeing as how I didn't specify a 5kV electrical connection anywhere in my post.
5kV@200A should be enough to charge 6 Model-S vehicles simultaneously, from dregs to full charge, in half an hour.
Much more likely that that sort of connection will be made to specialized places, sort of like a gas station.
Why? To save on wire? It might not be present at every Restaurant and mall, but given the lack of safety concerns I fail to see why you wouldn't collocate the chargers with facilities that are longer-term than convenience stores.
Most gas stations are currently collocated with convenience stores - IE a place you'd normally shop for no more than 5-10 minutes, or about what it takes to refill a car. When refilling a car takes 40 minutes, perhaps the store it's attached to should match - like a grocery, restaurant, mall, or big-box store.
Actually, you just missed the context. The problem with using XYZ organic source as fuel is that we use so much oil as a fuel that no single organic source can readily replace it*. On the other hand, our need for lubricants is many OOMs fewer barrels equivalent needed. As an example, we could use a fraction of our soybean crop alone to make all of the oil/paraffin type lubricants we need.
We don't need to have whaling as an industry again, we can just generate natural gas via various methods and reform it using known processes to make superior synthetic lubricants. Thermal polymerization gives you a soup of chemicals close enough to light sweet crude they can feed it into existing refineries without significant issue.
Given an alternative fuel that's different than oil(electric, maybe) that can scale to replace it economically and a mandate to stop using fossil oil completely you'd see that there are indeed plenty of companies that aren't dependent upon oil, even for their lubrication needs. Thus my drinking water example.
*I happen to like the idea of using algae, and we have enough desert area next to oceans to provide the necessary growing areas, but you're still talking about building square miles of algae farm to get enough.
The legal consequence? Most likely that the power company will notice you being zero for a couple months and do something: 1. Accuse you of tampering with the meter. Obviously you're using electricity and therefore they need to have usage statistics. Despite the solar panels on the roof you haven't signed up for one of their net metering schemes. 2. Contact your mortgage company or the property office that no electricity is being used, the property may be abandoned. I've seen that around. 3. See that you're not buying any electricity and have the housing authority come around to possibly condemn your house. 4. Like I mentioned in my previous post, if the solar panels connect to ANY WIRING that can be connected to their feed via something as simple as flipping a switch they consider it their domain and there are rules. The stated reason is to prevent you from electrocuting any linemen working on the wires if you're backfeeding. Thus my statement of 'you could always turn the breaker back on', resulting in an unsafe condition. Thus their removal of the meter, because that's how they make it 'safe' for their line workers when you have an unauthorized solar installation.
Last month I was 414 kWh - 1 computer running at all times(mixed SSD & spinning disk, disk will spin down if I'm not using it). Fridge is greater than 5 years old(considering new one, waiting for a good sale), heat is oil boiler, no AC, water is from well w/electric pump on MY meter.
I'll echo the others - I recommend investigating. Turn ALL the breakers off. Make sure your meter isn't still spinning. Spring for an individual meter like the 'killavolt' or even a clamp ammeter. Get a run-time clock for the AC system and water heater(if it's electric, probably not given your description). Check out your appliances.
Then again, you might have a family member running a space heater when you're not looking.
The problem with Hawaii is a typical american one: the market will solve it. What a laugh!
Isn't the market solving it now? Something like 40% of the roofs there have solar now, and they can't seem to install them fast enough. The electric company is indeed rebelling, but people's response to that have been to start installing battery banks so they can leave the grid completely. The electric company has backed up several times.
Hawaii is a prime example for a natural constellation that could produce its whole energy needs green and at an extremely low cost for the inhabitants.
Probably so. Might have to do why they're installing so many solar panels.
Enough mountains for pumped storage, enough heat in the ground for geo thermal plants, enough sun for PV and for solar thermal anyway and finally wind in abundance..
Mountains that are tourist attractions and therefore unavailable for pumped storage because the tourist industry is more important than green electricity. The biggest/most populous island actually isn't a good prospect for geothermal - they're looking at having to drill over 4km to get usable power. They do have a 3Mw plant on a different island though, and at one point was considering running some power cables from it to Oahu. As I said before, they're at 40% of homes having solar panels and growing. 'Wind in abundance' can actually be a big problem for wind turbines - they need steady wind more than just lots of it. It can also be difficult to erect turbines outside of calm conditions. Anyways, Solar is currently cheaper than ocean-based turbines, and land IS something that's pretty dear to Hawaiians.
Let me rephrase that, you want to expand the existing solar install base by OVER HALF A BILLION PERCENT?
Meh. Going by that scale the White House installing some panels back in the '60s was the biggest jump of all. They were starting from zero, after all.
Other things that used to be zero: Nuclear power, computers, cars, etc... I never said we'd reach 20% quickly, just that I consider it a practical level of penetration. I explained my reasoning.
Absorbing the costs: Whoever installs them, whether that be the power company, independent business, or homeowner. Ideally it'll shift from 'absorbing the costs' to 'reducing expenses' as they trade in part of their electric bill for a smaller lease payment.
What you do is rather than installing more natural gas peaking plants when you need power during the day is that you install solar panels. If/when solar panels becomes cheaper than building a new coal plant(perhaps due to EPA rules), you do that. Eventually you stop running those peaking plants during the day outside of unusual circumstances and run them at night.
Don't forget that until we get into installing stupid levels of solar power (>30%), that more rooftop solar installed can also mean less wiring needed in the grid - you're lowering average amps on the lines from power plants to the consumer.
Solar only feels like half a solution without cheap, high capacity heavy-cycle batteries capable of running everything for several days with zero power input and providing boost power for when solar output lags.
1. Heat retention - Add MASS to buildings, go from a 50 gallon water heater to a 200 gallon one. This would seriously extend the period you can go without climate control. Even if you need a little bit of pumping running a small pump is still less electricity than heating/cooling stuff. 2. For extra cheap storage my idea is 'retired' EV batteries. Get them when they're around 70% of original capacity, keep them until they're 30-40% before actually recycling them. 58kwh/2 is enough to power most US homes for a couple days, so 1 retired EV battery per household would be more than sufficient.
Like has been said, my personal definition: RC Helicoptor/plane: Line of sight control, little to no payload capacity, mostly manual flight. Drone: Has capabilities such as beyond line of sight control(and preplanned routes count), automatic flight correction, designed for a task such as collection of video. Something other than 'fly around for the heck of it'.
Upgrade a RC device enough that you can fly it out of view out of your view, around some object, then have it return and I'll upgrade it to drone status. That would probably consist of an extended range radio control system and a camera.
If it's controls are advanced enough that you can 'pilot' it using your smart phone, it's a drone.
Let's drive this to extremes just to see what happens. What if we manage to develop solar panels(and associated systems) that are 4X more efficient(they look black because they aren't reflecting light at all), and cost 1/10th as much. $20 gets you a panel that produces 1kw if given enough sunlight. By the way, at $20 per ~1.7 square meters, it would possibly be cheaper to build your roof out of solar panels rather than traditional methods such as asphalt shingles.
The practical result would be that electricity prices would invert - cheaper during the day. It might even be economical to use battery backup to not purchase(as much) power at night. From a practicality standpoint I picture individual homes using old EV batteries to provide power when it's dark out, with big power companies having more options. It would still be a net positive though - the cost of aluminum products would drop, electric heating would be back in vogue*, etc...
*Just that you'd have a big water heater tank that doesn't power on unless the solar panels have juice.
It's not a long term solution, since having a gas generator and electric motor means extra maintenance in the long term. The long term solution will be fast charging for electric. These cars are the bridge between the existing gas infrastructure and the new electric infrastructure.
Not to mention that, right now, the cost of the engine and integration is less than around 200 miles worth of battery, but the equation changes if you cut the price of the battery in half like Musk is hoping for.
For those who absolutely need to take their vehicle out for a long distance drive or a hundred miles out into the woods where there are no outlets I've suggested a generator-trailer. It wouldn't need to be big - a 250cc motorcycle engine should be enough to provide enough of a range extension to get them where they need to go. As a bonus, they get extra luggage storage in the trailer, a genset at their campsite, and still pretty good gas mileage.
Longevity: We generally start at 40 years. They'll still produce power after that, but that's around the 80% line. Footprint: about 1.7x1 meters per 250W panel. If you're willing to pay more, you can get a slightly more powerful panel into that area or a slightly shorter one(like 1.5M). Cheap panel - definitely 'roof sized'
Well, who knows how long he would have taken if he wasn't giving out rides, tours, and giving presentations on the car in exchange for charges. An RV lot can provide a plug with enough capacity for full-speed home charging, but doesn't really touch the speed of a Supercharger. Outlets installed for welding will vary between that and the equivalent of a dryer outlet, about 4X the 'cripple charge' rate of a standard 110V outlet.
I would not be surprised if a completed super-charger line along the route wouldn't drop it to 8-9 days, because I fully admit that a fossil fuel car that is 'pushing it' will be able to do it faster. 800 miles/day for a gasoline vehicle, about 600 for a Tesla. That's starting and ending at a fueling location(not necessarily a high speed one) so that it can start with a full charge come morning, and fueling up twice partially at high-speed chargers.
That's marvellous if you are along the corridor of chargers. Not so marvellous for the vast number of people who aren't. Or who can't afford a Tesla.
Currently only the Tesla has the range for practical long range travel. If you own a leaf and need to drive 3 western states away renting a different vehicle makes more sense. As for the corridor - their ultimate plan is a charging station every hundred miles or so along all the interstates. That leaves only extremely limited areas where you will be unable to charge up.
If EVs start pushing double-digit percentages of personal vehicles, the tens of thousands of stations somebody mentioned will pop up.
And I actually see chargers coming to restaurants and malls before at gas stations. Most gas stations have extremely limited longer term parking. Malls have plenty, and they'd be willing to subsidize your charge in exchange for getting you into them to hopefully spend more money inside.
The superchargers are only an initial step. I think it's telling that from my research that standards bodies haven't even finalized standards for chargers capable of the wattage a supercharger can push. With Musk going 'open source' on his charging technology, hopefully more up&coming vehicles will use it.
Given the increased time to refuel, even with a supercharger, the density has to be greater than the existing gas stations serving that route.
The vast majority of charging is at home and maybe in the future at work. Have you figured that density in? The only places you really need exterior charging stations for a 250+ mile EV is on the highways where they might go over that in a single day. Tesla is building those.
Personally, especially given the longer charge times I want to see the chargers at service points - Restaurants, malls, stores, etc...
On the other hand, if the choice i were making included a car that could fill up in five minutes and a car that took a minimum of half an hour, then yes it would make a difference. And not in favour of the half hour fillup....
You still have some differences. With the gasoline engine you don't just have the 5 minutes at the filling station. You also have the time to reach the filling station, then return to the route you would have taken if you didn't need fuel. This is because while gasoline is well understood, there are still safety requirements that dictate a certain amount of separation between fueling and doing other things.
Ideally, when electric cars are 'everywhere' you'll be able to pull into your restaurant of choice and start charging up. You spend ~60 seconds fiddling with the charge system then go in and have a meal - that's 4-6 minutes you're NOT spending simply standing there waiting for your vehicle to fill up.
I'll also point out some other considerations, such as time saved NOT having maintenance such as oil changes done every 3-10k miles, money saved as fueling an EV is a lot cheaper than gasoline, etc....
If you regularly drive 300+ miles a day and can't be arsed to spend the extra time charging it, sure, buy the 3 cylinder turbo-diesel. It'll cost you more in fuel, but you'll be quicker with it and still have excellent gas mileage. If you don't, consider renting said turbo-diesel on the rare occasions you need it.
You eventually start running into problems supplying that much power to the charging station to power the car. A 4 car 'ultra-charge' station could pull more power than an entire neighborhood when 4 cars are there.
Tesla has built a test battery swap station. They can swap a battery faster than you can dump 10 gallons into a car. They obviously didn't make many engineering compromises to built that capability into the car. Heck, it's probably a manufacturing thing - build the car, bolt in the battery.
Their idea for the swapping station is that the supercharger is free, you 'rent' a swapped battery. The idea is that you use your battery except when you go on a long trip or something, then you 'rent' a 85kwh battery pack while they kindly store & charge your battery for when you pick it back up in XYZ time. Meanwhile you drive, and either use regular charging or pay a bit more to swap your battery again(presumably they don't require this one to be returned to the same place). Keep in mind that as you pick your pack back up on the way back you get it fully charged for 'free'.
Even a few water heater explosions where the occupants managed to bugger up the safeties on it. Heck, my 'boiler' doesn't even exceed 180F, so no boiling or steam.
I can't say for sure, but hot water heaters already store explosive compounds (steam) at sometimes high pressures.
If your water heater is operating properly it's not getting any hotter than ~160F no matter how high you set it. This means no steam. At 180F safeties should start going off such as a resettable breaker in the temperature gauge that *should* cut power. If it actually gets hot enough to generate steam pressure will tend to increase, but there's a safety valve specifically for this purpose - your floor will get wet, but your heater won't explode.
Though I mostly agree with you on the natural gas - but there's plenty of people out there with NG and propane tanks out in their yard. I used to have a 500 gallon one. Depending on jurisdiction you might find that you need to keep your compressor and tank outside to meet code. They might allow a setup that only compresses enough gas for 1 fillup, or even one that will 'fill' your tank overnight by compressing directly into your car. Hard to say.
So, back to Cabrini Green? I'd also like to know where you get your numbers from.
How about a fact-check of a statement by theHUD secretary?
I had to look up Cabrini Green, and have to say 'not really'. The individual housing areas would be much smaller in number. The housing project you mentioned was originally aimed at low-income people, not the outright homeless.
Half the sentence? Okay. Less likely to come back? You can't guarantee something like that.
Put unstated 'on average' in there and you most certainly can. We've long passed the point of efficiency. Heck, compare our success rate with nordic countries and it shows that despite longer sentences we have worse outcomes, and that's after you control for crimes committed and everything else. Long prison sentences for stupid shit(like drug use) don't work, especially when the expense of the long sentence means that you end up not treating, rehabilitating, and training the prisoner.
If anything, I was being conservative about the benefits. Nordic countries manage to have 1/3rd the recidivism with 1/3rd the prison sentence(on average). Given how much we pay to incarcerate somebody for a year, how could this NOT be cheaper?
As for 'dumping recidivist offenders back on the street' - that's the POINT of making prison about reform - so they AREN'T nearly as likely to re-offend the moment they get back on the street. A 20% recidivism rate after 5 years of prison means LESS CRIME on the street than a 60% recidivism rate after 15.
Or did you NOT notice that the country's multi-TRILLION dollar debt load.
Ahem, original post: "help with the federal deficit". Besides that, I'm not sure how you came to the conclusion that I was ignoring our debt load when proposing 3 major policy changes all centered around saving money. Fortunately our deficit is down below $500B this year, which means that with only a minimum of extra belt tightening(see my proposals) to actually balance the thing. Then we can start paying off the debt.
Of course, attacking me as opposed to a strawman wouldn't let you do a good rant, now would it?
Oh. That's cute. Expecting the state governments to kick in money out of the goodness of their hearts.
You need to work on your reading comprehension. I'll restate: The federal and state governments combined already spend more than enough on healthcare to cover everybody in the USA under a system that reduces healthcare costs in the USA to the median of developed nations. Indeed, since the Federal government alone could cover 90% of the bill with CURRENT spending, on average individual states would experience SUBSTANTIAL SAVINGS.
Sorry, unless someone's pockets are being lined at every step of the way, don't expect it to EVER get done.
That's an excuse to do nothing about anything and you know it. We're not going to fix the problems we face doing nothing.
You're also expecting 100% participation, no recidivism, and nobody abusing the system.
...Boy, you don't know me at all. 100% participation - Why do I need this? 100% participation in what? No recidivism - 'less likely to come back(to prison)' is certainly not 'No recidivism'. In the case of the reforms I'm looking at, it's more like reducing the current 60% return rate down to 20%. Nobody abusing the system - Not writing a book, but I always figure on a certain level of abuse. That's what auditors and such are for, to keep that to a minimum.
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I'm so glad I don't game competitively for many reasons. I loved it at the time, but the paranoia and concern over hackers was such a big deal.
Your whole post reminded me of professional gaming and doping scandals. Only the methods change.
Hell, I would not be surprised if 'professional gamers' are occasionally doped up on a cocktail of drugs intended to decrease reaction time without screwing with fine motor control.
How likely is complex life to evolve under those circumstances? Besides, I got the idea that only microbes with their extremely high radiation resistance would survive even in the deep ocean, as enough would penetrate to kill even things like ocean vent crabs.
This math says pretty much nothing about our neighborhood.
Yeah, this is the equivalent of using the presumed sterility of the moon to measure the number of people within 1 km of my house. ;)
Still, from what I've seen of the equations, odds are the median distance between tool-using civilizations is likely well over 100 ly. :(
Intriguing theory you have about where you're likely to find 5KV electrical connections.
Helluva a strawman you got there, seeing as how I didn't specify a 5kV electrical connection anywhere in my post.
5kV@200A should be enough to charge 6 Model-S vehicles simultaneously, from dregs to full charge, in half an hour.
Much more likely that that sort of connection will be made to specialized places, sort of like a gas station.
Why? To save on wire? It might not be present at every Restaurant and mall, but given the lack of safety concerns I fail to see why you wouldn't collocate the chargers with facilities that are longer-term than convenience stores.
Most gas stations are currently collocated with convenience stores - IE a place you'd normally shop for no more than 5-10 minutes, or about what it takes to refill a car. When refilling a car takes 40 minutes, perhaps the store it's attached to should match - like a grocery, restaurant, mall, or big-box store.
Oh yeah, and my range & oven are both electric.
Your argument speaks against itself.
Actually, you just missed the context. The problem with using XYZ organic source as fuel is that we use so much oil as a fuel that no single organic source can readily replace it*. On the other hand, our need for lubricants is many OOMs fewer barrels equivalent needed. As an example, we could use a fraction of our soybean crop alone to make all of the oil/paraffin type lubricants we need.
We don't need to have whaling as an industry again, we can just generate natural gas via various methods and reform it using known processes to make superior synthetic lubricants. Thermal polymerization gives you a soup of chemicals close enough to light sweet crude they can feed it into existing refineries without significant issue.
Given an alternative fuel that's different than oil(electric, maybe) that can scale to replace it economically and a mandate to stop using fossil oil completely you'd see that there are indeed plenty of companies that aren't dependent upon oil, even for their lubrication needs. Thus my drinking water example.
*I happen to like the idea of using algae, and we have enough desert area next to oceans to provide the necessary growing areas, but you're still talking about building square miles of algae farm to get enough.
The legal consequence? Most likely that the power company will notice you being zero for a couple months and do something:
1. Accuse you of tampering with the meter. Obviously you're using electricity and therefore they need to have usage statistics. Despite the solar panels on the roof you haven't signed up for one of their net metering schemes.
2. Contact your mortgage company or the property office that no electricity is being used, the property may be abandoned. I've seen that around.
3. See that you're not buying any electricity and have the housing authority come around to possibly condemn your house.
4. Like I mentioned in my previous post, if the solar panels connect to ANY WIRING that can be connected to their feed via something as simple as flipping a switch they consider it their domain and there are rules. The stated reason is to prevent you from electrocuting any linemen working on the wires if you're backfeeding. Thus my statement of 'you could always turn the breaker back on', resulting in an unsafe condition. Thus their removal of the meter, because that's how they make it 'safe' for their line workers when you have an unauthorized solar installation.
Last month I was 414 kWh - 1 computer running at all times(mixed SSD & spinning disk, disk will spin down if I'm not using it). Fridge is greater than 5 years old(considering new one, waiting for a good sale), heat is oil boiler, no AC, water is from well w/electric pump on MY meter.
I'll echo the others - I recommend investigating. Turn ALL the breakers off. Make sure your meter isn't still spinning. Spring for an individual meter like the 'killavolt' or even a clamp ammeter. Get a run-time clock for the AC system and water heater(if it's electric, probably not given your description). Check out your appliances.
Then again, you might have a family member running a space heater when you're not looking.
The problem with Hawaii is a typical american one: the market will solve it. What a laugh!
Isn't the market solving it now? Something like 40% of the roofs there have solar now, and they can't seem to install them fast enough. The electric company is indeed rebelling, but people's response to that have been to start installing battery banks so they can leave the grid completely. The electric company has backed up several times.
Hawaii is a prime example for a natural constellation that could produce its whole energy needs green and at an extremely low cost for the inhabitants.
Probably so. Might have to do why they're installing so many solar panels.
Enough mountains for pumped storage, enough heat in the ground for geo thermal plants, enough sun for PV and for solar thermal anyway and finally wind in abundance ..
Mountains that are tourist attractions and therefore unavailable for pumped storage because the tourist industry is more important than green electricity.
The biggest/most populous island actually isn't a good prospect for geothermal - they're looking at having to drill over 4km to get usable power. They do have a 3Mw plant on a different island though, and at one point was considering running some power cables from it to Oahu.
As I said before, they're at 40% of homes having solar panels and growing. 'Wind in abundance' can actually be a big problem for wind turbines - they need steady wind more than just lots of it. It can also be difficult to erect turbines outside of calm conditions. Anyways, Solar is currently cheaper than ocean-based turbines, and land IS something that's pretty dear to Hawaiians.
Let me rephrase that, you want to expand the existing solar install base by OVER HALF A BILLION PERCENT?
Meh. Going by that scale the White House installing some panels back in the '60s was the biggest jump of all. They were starting from zero, after all.
Other things that used to be zero: Nuclear power, computers, cars, etc... I never said we'd reach 20% quickly, just that I consider it a practical level of penetration. I explained my reasoning.
Absorbing the costs: Whoever installs them, whether that be the power company, independent business, or homeowner. Ideally it'll shift from 'absorbing the costs' to 'reducing expenses' as they trade in part of their electric bill for a smaller lease payment.
What you do is rather than installing more natural gas peaking plants when you need power during the day is that you install solar panels. If/when solar panels becomes cheaper than building a new coal plant(perhaps due to EPA rules), you do that. Eventually you stop running those peaking plants during the day outside of unusual circumstances and run them at night.
Don't forget that until we get into installing stupid levels of solar power (>30%), that more rooftop solar installed can also mean less wiring needed in the grid - you're lowering average amps on the lines from power plants to the consumer.
People just don't expect 'drones' to be bigger than Cessnas, I guess.
Solar only feels like half a solution without cheap, high capacity heavy-cycle batteries capable of running everything for several days with zero power input and providing boost power for when solar output lags.
1. Heat retention - Add MASS to buildings, go from a 50 gallon water heater to a 200 gallon one. This would seriously extend the period you can go without climate control. Even if you need a little bit of pumping running a small pump is still less electricity than heating/cooling stuff.
2. For extra cheap storage my idea is 'retired' EV batteries. Get them when they're around 70% of original capacity, keep them until they're 30-40% before actually recycling them.
58kwh/2 is enough to power most US homes for a couple days, so 1 retired EV battery per household would be more than sufficient.
Like has been said, my personal definition:
RC Helicoptor/plane: Line of sight control, little to no payload capacity, mostly manual flight.
Drone: Has capabilities such as beyond line of sight control(and preplanned routes count), automatic flight correction, designed for a task such as collection of video. Something other than 'fly around for the heck of it'.
Upgrade a RC device enough that you can fly it out of view out of your view, around some object, then have it return and I'll upgrade it to drone status. That would probably consist of an extended range radio control system and a camera.
If it's controls are advanced enough that you can 'pilot' it using your smart phone, it's a drone.
Let's drive this to extremes just to see what happens. What if we manage to develop solar panels(and associated systems) that are 4X more efficient(they look black because they aren't reflecting light at all), and cost 1/10th as much. $20 gets you a panel that produces 1kw if given enough sunlight. By the way, at $20 per ~1.7 square meters, it would possibly be cheaper to build your roof out of solar panels rather than traditional methods such as asphalt shingles.
The practical result would be that electricity prices would invert - cheaper during the day. It might even be economical to use battery backup to not purchase(as much) power at night. From a practicality standpoint I picture individual homes using old EV batteries to provide power when it's dark out, with big power companies having more options. It would still be a net positive though - the cost of aluminum products would drop, electric heating would be back in vogue*, etc...
*Just that you'd have a big water heater tank that doesn't power on unless the solar panels have juice.
It's not a long term solution, since having a gas generator and electric motor means extra maintenance in the long term. The long term solution will be fast charging for electric. These cars are the bridge between the existing gas infrastructure and the new electric infrastructure.
Not to mention that, right now, the cost of the engine and integration is less than around 200 miles worth of battery, but the equation changes if you cut the price of the battery in half like Musk is hoping for.
For those who absolutely need to take their vehicle out for a long distance drive or a hundred miles out into the woods where there are no outlets I've suggested a generator-trailer. It wouldn't need to be big - a 250cc motorcycle engine should be enough to provide enough of a range extension to get them where they need to go. As a bonus, they get extra luggage storage in the trailer, a genset at their campsite, and still pretty good gas mileage.
Longevity: We generally start at 40 years. They'll still produce power after that, but that's around the 80% line.
Footprint: about 1.7x1 meters per 250W panel. If you're willing to pay more, you can get a slightly more powerful panel into that area or a slightly shorter one(like 1.5M). Cheap panel - definitely 'roof sized'
Well, who knows how long he would have taken if he wasn't giving out rides, tours, and giving presentations on the car in exchange for charges. An RV lot can provide a plug with enough capacity for full-speed home charging, but doesn't really touch the speed of a Supercharger. Outlets installed for welding will vary between that and the equivalent of a dryer outlet, about 4X the 'cripple charge' rate of a standard 110V outlet.
I would not be surprised if a completed super-charger line along the route wouldn't drop it to 8-9 days, because I fully admit that a fossil fuel car that is 'pushing it' will be able to do it faster. 800 miles/day for a gasoline vehicle, about 600 for a Tesla. That's starting and ending at a fueling location(not necessarily a high speed one) so that it can start with a full charge come morning, and fueling up twice partially at high-speed chargers.
That's marvellous if you are along the corridor of chargers. Not so marvellous for the vast number of people who aren't. Or who can't afford a Tesla.
Currently only the Tesla has the range for practical long range travel. If you own a leaf and need to drive 3 western states away renting a different vehicle makes more sense. As for the corridor - their ultimate plan is a charging station every hundred miles or so along all the interstates. That leaves only extremely limited areas where you will be unable to charge up.
If EVs start pushing double-digit percentages of personal vehicles, the tens of thousands of stations somebody mentioned will pop up.
And I actually see chargers coming to restaurants and malls before at gas stations. Most gas stations have extremely limited longer term parking. Malls have plenty, and they'd be willing to subsidize your charge in exchange for getting you into them to hopefully spend more money inside.
The superchargers are only an initial step. I think it's telling that from my research that standards bodies haven't even finalized standards for chargers capable of the wattage a supercharger can push. With Musk going 'open source' on his charging technology, hopefully more up&coming vehicles will use it.
Given the increased time to refuel, even with a supercharger, the density has to be greater than the existing gas stations serving that route.
The vast majority of charging is at home and maybe in the future at work. Have you figured that density in? The only places you really need exterior charging stations for a 250+ mile EV is on the highways where they might go over that in a single day. Tesla is building those.
Personally, especially given the longer charge times I want to see the chargers at service points - Restaurants, malls, stores, etc...
On the other hand, if the choice i were making included a car that could fill up in five minutes and a car that took a minimum of half an hour, then yes it would make a difference. And not in favour of the half hour fillup....
You still have some differences. With the gasoline engine you don't just have the 5 minutes at the filling station. You also have the time to reach the filling station, then return to the route you would have taken if you didn't need fuel. This is because while gasoline is well understood, there are still safety requirements that dictate a certain amount of separation between fueling and doing other things.
Ideally, when electric cars are 'everywhere' you'll be able to pull into your restaurant of choice and start charging up. You spend ~60 seconds fiddling with the charge system then go in and have a meal - that's 4-6 minutes you're NOT spending simply standing there waiting for your vehicle to fill up.
I'll also point out some other considerations, such as time saved NOT having maintenance such as oil changes done every 3-10k miles, money saved as fueling an EV is a lot cheaper than gasoline, etc....
If you regularly drive 300+ miles a day and can't be arsed to spend the extra time charging it, sure, buy the 3 cylinder turbo-diesel. It'll cost you more in fuel, but you'll be quicker with it and still have excellent gas mileage. If you don't, consider renting said turbo-diesel on the rare occasions you need it.
You eventually start running into problems supplying that much power to the charging station to power the car. A 4 car 'ultra-charge' station could pull more power than an entire neighborhood when 4 cars are there.
Tesla has built a test battery swap station. They can swap a battery faster than you can dump 10 gallons into a car. They obviously didn't make many engineering compromises to built that capability into the car. Heck, it's probably a manufacturing thing - build the car, bolt in the battery.
Their idea for the swapping station is that the supercharger is free, you 'rent' a swapped battery. The idea is that you use your battery except when you go on a long trip or something, then you 'rent' a 85kwh battery pack while they kindly store & charge your battery for when you pick it back up in XYZ time. Meanwhile you drive, and either use regular charging or pay a bit more to swap your battery again(presumably they don't require this one to be returned to the same place). Keep in mind that as you pick your pack back up on the way back you get it fully charged for 'free'.
Even a few water heater explosions where the occupants managed to bugger up the safeties on it. Heck, my 'boiler' doesn't even exceed 180F, so no boiling or steam.
I can't say for sure, but hot water heaters already store explosive compounds (steam) at sometimes high pressures.
If your water heater is operating properly it's not getting any hotter than ~160F no matter how high you set it. This means no steam. At 180F safeties should start going off such as a resettable breaker in the temperature gauge that *should* cut power. If it actually gets hot enough to generate steam pressure will tend to increase, but there's a safety valve specifically for this purpose - your floor will get wet, but your heater won't explode.
Though I mostly agree with you on the natural gas - but there's plenty of people out there with NG and propane tanks out in their yard. I used to have a 500 gallon one. Depending on jurisdiction you might find that you need to keep your compressor and tank outside to meet code. They might allow a setup that only compresses enough gas for 1 fillup, or even one that will 'fill' your tank overnight by compressing directly into your car. Hard to say.
So, back to Cabrini Green? I'd also like to know where you get your numbers from.
How about a fact-check of a statement by theHUD secretary?
I had to look up Cabrini Green, and have to say 'not really'. The individual housing areas would be much smaller in number. The housing project you mentioned was originally aimed at low-income people, not the outright homeless.
Half the sentence? Okay. Less likely to come back? You can't guarantee something like that.
Put unstated 'on average' in there and you most certainly can. We've long passed the point of efficiency. Heck, compare our success rate with nordic countries and it shows that despite longer sentences we have worse outcomes, and that's after you control for crimes committed and everything else. Long prison sentences for stupid shit(like drug use) don't work, especially when the expense of the long sentence means that you end up not treating, rehabilitating, and training the prisoner.
If anything, I was being conservative about the benefits. Nordic countries manage to have 1/3rd the recidivism with 1/3rd the prison sentence(on average). Given how much we pay to incarcerate somebody for a year, how could this NOT be cheaper?
As for 'dumping recidivist offenders back on the street' - that's the POINT of making prison about reform - so they AREN'T nearly as likely to re-offend the moment they get back on the street. A 20% recidivism rate after 5 years of prison means LESS CRIME on the street than a 60% recidivism rate after 15.
Or did you NOT notice that the country's multi-TRILLION dollar debt load.
Ahem, original post: "help with the federal deficit". Besides that, I'm not sure how you came to the conclusion that I was ignoring our debt load when proposing 3 major policy changes all centered around saving money. Fortunately our deficit is down below $500B this year, which means that with only a minimum of extra belt tightening(see my proposals) to actually balance the thing. Then we can start paying off the debt.
Of course, attacking me as opposed to a strawman wouldn't let you do a good rant, now would it?
Oh. That's cute. Expecting the state governments to kick in money out of the goodness of their hearts.
You need to work on your reading comprehension. I'll restate: The federal and state governments combined already spend more than enough on healthcare to cover everybody in the USA under a system that reduces healthcare costs in the USA to the median of developed nations. Indeed, since the Federal government alone could cover 90% of the bill with CURRENT spending, on average individual states would experience SUBSTANTIAL SAVINGS.
Sorry, unless someone's pockets are being lined at every step of the way, don't expect it to EVER get done.
That's an excuse to do nothing about anything and you know it. We're not going to fix the problems we face doing nothing.
You're also expecting 100% participation, no recidivism, and nobody abusing the system.
...Boy, you don't know me at all.
100% participation - Why do I need this? 100% participation in what?
No recidivism - 'less likely to come back(to prison)' is certainly not 'No recidivism'. In the case of the reforms I'm looking at, it's more like reducing the current 60% return rate down to 20%.
Nobody abusing the system - Not writing a book, but I always figure on a certain level of abuse. That's what auditors and such are for, to keep that to a minimum.