Analysis HAS been done. To use electric cars as an example, a well-to-wheels analysis using a mix of power sources, electric cars emit half or less CO2 per mile driven over gasoline powered cars. A good number to keep in mind is that just the refining of a gallon of gasoline uses a little over 7 kWh of energy... 7kWh can move even a mediocre electric car 20+ miles. Don't forget to include THAT in your efficiency calculation either! =Smidge=
Electric vehicles are normally charged to 100% capacity to extend the range. I don't know of any that deliberately charge to less than 100%.
There's "consumer available capacity" and "actual pack capacity."
Electric car manufacturers aren't stupid, and they know how to take care of their equipment. You build an EV with a 24kWh battery pack and only let the end user use the middle 21kWh. Keeping the state of charge away from the extreme ends (especially the low end) helps stave off damage to the chemistry.
So when you charge your EV to 100%, that's not the top of the battery's physical limit. =Smidge=
I'm pretty sure the Engineer units from Civilization II carried these. Can't think of any other way they could repel mechanized infantry units so effectively...
All it has to do is sit on the inside of one of the two rails, lift the first truck up a few inches and guide the wheels over the top of the rail. It would be maybe 20 feet long and could be build in 4-5 sections to be installable by one or two people.
Or with about the same level of effort but less planning required, cut the rail, break a few of the ties and bend it out. A set of cheap jumper cables will likely keep any track circuit detectors from noticing the break. =Smidge=
Unless specified beforehand (before the transaction starts) you must accept cash as payment. If I own a store and decide I will not accept nickels in any amount, I'm allowed to post a sign at the register saying I don't accept nickels and refuse anyone who tries to pay with them. If I fail to declare the conditions of the transaction before it starts, then I have to accept the cash.
Apple's policy was published so you knew about it before walking up to the counter to buy your phone.
Voluntarily refusing cash is nothing like a legal prohibition against accepting cash. =Smidge=
Why not just screw the included recovery hook into the front bumper? Manuals are often wrong and/or overprotective.
That may well be the case, but I'll let someone else risk voiding the warranty.
The recovery hook is designed for a straight pull - usually onto a flatbed truck - not for towing which may have a lot of lateral forces that could damage the hook and the car. If you want to do it any way, nobody's going to stop you.
The heater is commonly active on any car when the AC is in use. Even one with manual controls: Select appropriate vents, turn AC on, adjust fan speed for a comfortable amount of artificial wind, and then add heat using the temperature knob. Doing it this way helps reduce humidity, and allows for effective bi-level cooling.
On most other cars, the heat is free as a waste product of the engine. On the LEAF, the heat costs drivable battery capacity - up to 5kW. Put into miles driven, that may be as much as 10% of potential driving range. While the reasons you cite for running heat and A/C together are valid, that doesn't mean that it's really optimal in all situations. Why is there no option to control it?
(*The heater is variable output, of course, but that's no excuse for not having an option to disable it)
Meanwhile, the Leaf uses water cooling for some of its electronics. As long as this is the case, using the waste heat to warm up the passenger compartment is free, since the pump was already running anyway for cooling purposes.
False. The fluid in the heating system and the fluid in the motor/inverter/charger cooling system never mix while in operation. There is a common overflow tank, but they each have dedicated degas tanks and circulator pumps. This is another possible design flaw since even with the efficiency of the motor and electronics - if they get hot enough to need active cooling, they get hot enough to assist in cabin heating. Even if they might not get hot enough during a short drive, you have the electric heater element as a backup.
If you don't believe me, drop $20 on the service manual like I did and have a look at the system description and removal instructions.
And setting up a schedule is pretty plainly documented on page CH-18 of the manual, though it looks rather self-explanatory to me: It's all GUI-based.
Here's the full extent of the problem:
If you want to automatically charge to 80% ("long life mode") you must use the timers. There is no way to select 80% charge level if you use the "immediate charge" button. The only way to utilize the "long life mode" function and have immediate charging by default is to configure the timers in an undocumented fashion.
Why couldn't the maximum charge level be set independently of the timers? Why are the only choices 100% or 80%? Some people want to baby the battery but 80% isn't enough, so why not an option for 90% or configurable in increments of 5%? Why not fully configurable so if someone only needs 60% of their battery they can charge to that?
Further, if you have timers set at all, the LEAF will never charge immediately unless the button is pressed. This is a problem for some people since public charger sharing is common practice - so if someone comes and unplugs your car for a bit, and plugs it back in later, it won't continue charging. The car knows when charging is interrupted so you'd think an option to resume interrupted charging would be a no-brainer.
The above also applies if there's a power outage. Charging overnight and you lose power for a few seconds at 1AM? You'll never know it didn't charge until you're leaving for work the next morning.
Is there anything else that you think the smart folks at Nissan got wrong other than the range indicator (which, as I mentioned previously, I don't think is wrong)?
There's an actual heating element that runs off the traction battery to heat coolant (separate from the motor/inverter/charger coolant) which is circulated through a typical automotive heater core to heat the air blown into the cabin. It's computer controlled to keep the water in the system at some determined temperature based on ambient temp, desired cabin temp, humidity etc.
Even if the motor and electronics generated enough heat (and they may not in some cases) there is no way for the fluid in the two systems to mix. =Smidge=
That's great, but you have no control over it. The heater is basically on all the time the climate control is on no matter what.
Some users have been discussing how to cripple the heater (read: unplug the power/control wires) because they live in Arizona and will basically never ever need it. =Smidge=
Yes, there is a manual "emergency" provision for breaking
Actually there isn't. The parking brake is actually a switch that activates an electric actuator to mechanically clamp the rear wheels. (Add that to the list of stupid design decisions I guess). If you somehow lose ALL electrical power in the LEAF, you have nothing left but normal, un-boosted hydraulic disc brakes.
Though the brake system does have a set of capacitors as the emergency reserve. =Smidge=
The problem is, you don't have any idea how far you can actually drive once you get the low (or "very low") battery warning. It can literally be anywhere from 5 miles to less than a mile depending on your driving habits, weather and traffic conditions, and topology.
Good luck towing the LEAF with a strap or chain - the entire undercarriage is covered in plastic for aerodynamics. Unless you decide to hook up to the suspension arms which is a good way to ruin your alignment. There's also no mechanical neutral so towing the LEAF with the drive wheels on the ground may cause serious damage (so claims the manual, anyway).
And really: Are we all really so smart here that we must conclude that the other smart people at Nissan didn't already think of this in the delicate and extensive balancing act of creating a car that people actually enjoy owning and driving?
The same smart people who designed the heater to draw power even when the climate control is set for A/C (Not to mention the fact the heating system uses coolant and a heater core instead of heating the air directly, requiring a degas tank, pump and hoses)? The same smart people who explicitly designed it so you can NOT set the car to charge immediately upon plug-in by default (you have to hit a button and have 30 seconds to plug in to charge immediately, or trick it by setting both timers a certain, undocumented way)? Not really trying to knock the Nissan engineers but they are only human, and design-by-committee is a hazard for more than just software. There are a lot of little things that have no rhyme or reason for being the way they are. For example, they could easily have added a true SOC reading to the central console display. =Smidge=
This hack doesn't let you use more capacity from the battery. The car WILL NOT LET YOU drive the battery dead - it will shut itself off before you can do any serious damage.
Instead, this hack gives you useful information about how much charge you actually have left. Okay, you got a "Low Battery" warning and you're 5 miles from home. The range indicator and battery level gauge are both gone. Do you try to make it home and risk getting stuck in the middle of the street, or pull over and call a tow truck now? With the external SOC gauge, you are better informed to make that decision. =Smidge=
Any UV likely to reach your eye is non-ionizing. At the energies where it becomes potentially ionizing, it can't travel in air very far... so unless you have an short wavelength UV emitter up against your face there's hardly any danger there.
What the hell is on those drives that you're so paranoid about? If you have or work for a company or agency that deals with data that sensitive, you should be fired for not already knowing what to do with it. Otherwise you're being completely paranoid about it.
Take it apart, salvage the awesome magnets and aluminum body for scrap (40 cents/lb or so but it'll add up after awhile) and just toss the platters if you don't want to make wind chimes out of them. If you don't want to make that effort, drive a nail through it and toss. Nobody is going to sift through your trash to get the platters and then spend the tens of thousands of dollars on data recovery services just to sift through your decade-old browser cookies. =Smidge=
Uh, I charge my car at night when it's cheaper, sure. Then I drive to work, where I'd likely have to REcharge at least partially to make it through the day without extra planning ahead - otherwise I wouldn't plug in at all. So if I get off work with LESS charge than I had when I got there, I may have to alter my plans and stop somewhere. That would probably be inconvenient. If the plan is just to buy low and sell high, then I'll get a battery and leave it at home where I won't care what the state of charge is at any particular time of day.
Instead, the ACTUAL plan is to leverage other people's investments (in EVs) to benefit the grid. There is nothing intrinsically evil or broken about that, but I don't think many people would really go for it because it may be inconvenient for them. =Smidge=
This idea is kicked around a lot, and there are some pros and cons.
The intention is obvious: use stored energy in parked vehicles to help smooth spikes in demand and evenly distribute the load on the grid. But the difficulty is that people will want their cars to be charged when they leave work or the train station to head home, and peak demand is usually during those hours. Not only will a lot of cars be getting unplugged right when you need them, but few people will be willing to part with charge they might need to get home. =Smidge=
Some companies make money using open-source projects. Since the vast majority of people who contribute to open-source projects are unpaid volunteers you have basically made the argument that they should not volunteer at all. I thought it was solidly demonstrated through collaborative projects like open-source software that people will ply their skills for the sake of plying their skills regardless of personal gain, or lack thereof. Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose.
Besides, who's to say Valve won't compensate them in some way when all is said and done? Just because they're not offering paychecks doesn't mean they will never offer some token of gratitude. Free custom/unique in-game items are not unheard of. =Smidge=
Several years ago a local town library build a brand new computer center as an expansion to their public library system - two computer rooms and a large meeting room. It's its own building down the street from the original library. Even the official title of the project was the "Bookless Library."
I'm fairly sure that's not a wholly unique story.
Now if you want to complain about libraries struggling to stay relevant, let's talk about the "teen centers" with the big screen TVs and game consoles.... =Smidge=
Water vapor is a MUCH more potent greenhouse gas than the carbon dioxide that has all the environmentalists' shorts in a bunch.
Under certain conditions, yes. Studies suggest that thick, low-lying clouds provide net cooling effects thanks to shading and reflecting more than blanketing.
But this experiment isn't trying to use water vapor to provide a cooling effect - the ultimate plan is to use some other material. The test uses water 'cause it's cheap, abundant and environmentally benign. The "real" plan might use water as a carrier agent for whatever it is they actually send up. =Smidge=
How is this any different from RIAA or MPAA uploading fake torrents of their music and movies to make it more difficult for people to find what they want? They are doing exactly the same - polluting torrent sites by uploading fake content. I want the real game, not some fake pirate themed one.
The difference is the RI/MPAA is doing it to collect for IPs for their all-lawsuit business model. These people are doing it with the realization that a certain number of people are going to pirate it no matter what so they may as well make a joke out of it. I haven't downloaded the game but it sounds like it's otherwise the same as the original, commercial version save graphics.
Having a sense of humor about it seems to be a good thing if these types of stories are anything to go by. =Smidge=
The government is the one who paid (and is paying) for most of the basic research that allows the increase in efficiency and density - and the government is also one of, if not the, biggest customer of the final products.
That is true for far more than just the computer industry, too. =Smidge=
What amazes me is the computation done in biological systems.
When I consider the amount of correlation and replication done by RNA/DNA systems, I am left in the dust, wondering just what happened.
I'm not sure I would classify a polymerization as a "computation." Even then the RNA transcription rate is on the order of ~50 nucleotides per second or so, which isn't all that stunning. The only thing that's really impressive is how interdependent the chemical reactions are, and how sensitive the whole system is.
Don't be fooled by the DNA:: Computer Code analogy - it is very, very wrong. =Smidge=
How many people install (in the northern hemisphere) panels that are north-facing?
I hear it's a popular practice in the southern hemisphere:)
But I agree - the total area of the solar panels on the tree is greater than the static array. Normally that would be okay if it was accounted for (calculating everything per unit area) but the article does not seem to be the actual report he made. Shame, that...
The tree design also uses MUCH more area, even though he says it takes less - the tree might have a smaller base, but it casts a much larger shadow which limits your ability to build multiple arrays in a space-efficient manner.
For better results he could have compared it to single- and dual-axis tracking systems. =Smidge=
It's not just about maintaining trucks, it's about maintaining anything and everything. I see plenty of cars belching smoke on the roads. And heaven forbid the price of goods accurately reflect their costs. Maybe the solution is to haul less by buying more locally, or expand the use of rail freight. Sustainability is about more than just "being green."
Slashdot Mirror
Analysis HAS been done. To use electric cars as an example, a well-to-wheels analysis using a mix of power sources, electric cars emit half or less CO2 per mile driven over gasoline powered cars. A good number to keep in mind is that just the refining of a gallon of gasoline uses a little over 7 kWh of energy... 7kWh can move even a mediocre electric car 20+ miles. Don't forget to include THAT in your efficiency calculation either!
=Smidge=
Electric vehicles are normally charged to 100% capacity to extend the range. I don't know of any that deliberately charge to less than 100%.
There's "consumer available capacity" and "actual pack capacity."
Electric car manufacturers aren't stupid, and they know how to take care of their equipment. You build an EV with a 24kWh battery pack and only let the end user use the middle 21kWh. Keeping the state of charge away from the extreme ends (especially the low end) helps stave off damage to the chemistry.
So when you charge your EV to 100%, that's not the top of the battery's physical limit.
=Smidge=
The vehicles from the Jetsons were technically cars, right?
=Smidge=
I'm pretty sure the Engineer units from Civilization II carried these. Can't think of any other way they could repel mechanized infantry units so effectively...
=Smidge=
Except the "music" described in the video isn't random. To quote: "Random is easy. Repetition free, it turns out, is extremely difficult."
=Smidge=
All it has to do is sit on the inside of one of the two rails, lift the first truck up a few inches and guide the wheels over the top of the rail. It would be maybe 20 feet long and could be build in 4-5 sections to be installable by one or two people.
Or with about the same level of effort but less planning required, cut the rail, break a few of the ties and bend it out. A set of cheap jumper cables will likely keep any track circuit detectors from noticing the break.
=Smidge=
Unless specified beforehand (before the transaction starts) you must accept cash as payment. If I own a store and decide I will not accept nickels in any amount, I'm allowed to post a sign at the register saying I don't accept nickels and refuse anyone who tries to pay with them. If I fail to declare the conditions of the transaction before it starts, then I have to accept the cash.
Apple's policy was published so you knew about it before walking up to the counter to buy your phone.
Voluntarily refusing cash is nothing like a legal prohibition against accepting cash.
=Smidge=
Why not just screw the included recovery hook into the front bumper? Manuals are often wrong and/or overprotective.
That may well be the case, but I'll let someone else risk voiding the warranty.
The recovery hook is designed for a straight pull - usually onto a flatbed truck - not for towing which may have a lot of lateral forces that could damage the hook and the car. If you want to do it any way, nobody's going to stop you.
The heater is commonly active on any car when the AC is in use. Even one with manual controls: Select appropriate vents, turn AC on, adjust fan speed for a comfortable amount of artificial wind, and then add heat using the temperature knob. Doing it this way helps reduce humidity, and allows for effective bi-level cooling.
On most other cars, the heat is free as a waste product of the engine. On the LEAF, the heat costs drivable battery capacity - up to 5kW. Put into miles driven, that may be as much as 10% of potential driving range. While the reasons you cite for running heat and A/C together are valid, that doesn't mean that it's really optimal in all situations. Why is there no option to control it?
(*The heater is variable output, of course, but that's no excuse for not having an option to disable it)
Meanwhile, the Leaf uses water cooling for some of its electronics. As long as this is the case, using the waste heat to warm up the passenger compartment is free, since the pump was already running anyway for cooling purposes.
False. The fluid in the heating system and the fluid in the motor/inverter/charger cooling system never mix while in operation. There is a common overflow tank, but they each have dedicated degas tanks and circulator pumps. This is another possible design flaw since even with the efficiency of the motor and electronics - if they get hot enough to need active cooling, they get hot enough to assist in cabin heating. Even if they might not get hot enough during a short drive, you have the electric heater element as a backup.
If you don't believe me, drop $20 on the service manual like I did and have a look at the system description and removal instructions.
And setting up a schedule is pretty plainly documented on page CH-18 of the manual, though it looks rather self-explanatory to me: It's all GUI-based.
Here's the full extent of the problem:
If you want to automatically charge to 80% ("long life mode") you must use the timers. There is no way to select 80% charge level if you use the "immediate charge" button. The only way to utilize the "long life mode" function and have immediate charging by default is to configure the timers in an undocumented fashion.
Why couldn't the maximum charge level be set independently of the timers? Why are the only choices 100% or 80%? Some people want to baby the battery but 80% isn't enough, so why not an option for 90% or configurable in increments of 5%? Why not fully configurable so if someone only needs 60% of their battery they can charge to that?
Further, if you have timers set at all, the LEAF will never charge immediately unless the button is pressed. This is a problem for some people since public charger sharing is common practice - so if someone comes and unplugs your car for a bit, and plugs it back in later, it won't continue charging. The car knows when charging is interrupted so you'd think an option to resume interrupted charging would be a no-brainer.
The above also applies if there's a power outage. Charging overnight and you lose power for a few seconds at 1AM? You'll never know it didn't charge until you're leaving for work the next morning.
Is there anything else that you think the smart folks at Nissan got wrong other than the range indicator (which, as I mentioned previously, I don't think is wrong)?
Not
There's an actual heating element that runs off the traction battery to heat coolant (separate from the motor/inverter/charger coolant) which is circulated through a typical automotive heater core to heat the air blown into the cabin. It's computer controlled to keep the water in the system at some determined temperature based on ambient temp, desired cabin temp, humidity etc.
Even if the motor and electronics generated enough heat (and they may not in some cases) there is no way for the fluid in the two systems to mix.
=Smidge=
That's great, but you have no control over it. The heater is basically on all the time the climate control is on no matter what.
Some users have been discussing how to cripple the heater (read: unplug the power/control wires) because they live in Arizona and will basically never ever need it.
=Smidge=
Actually there isn't. The parking brake is actually a switch that activates an electric actuator to mechanically clamp the rear wheels. (Add that to the list of stupid design decisions I guess). If you somehow lose ALL electrical power in the LEAF, you have nothing left but normal, un-boosted hydraulic disc brakes.
Though the brake system does have a set of capacitors as the emergency reserve.
=Smidge=
The problem is, you don't have any idea how far you can actually drive once you get the low (or "very low") battery warning. It can literally be anywhere from 5 miles to less than a mile depending on your driving habits, weather and traffic conditions, and topology.
Good luck towing the LEAF with a strap or chain - the entire undercarriage is covered in plastic for aerodynamics. Unless you decide to hook up to the suspension arms which is a good way to ruin your alignment. There's also no mechanical neutral so towing the LEAF with the drive wheels on the ground may cause serious damage (so claims the manual, anyway).
The same smart people who designed the heater to draw power even when the climate control is set for A/C (Not to mention the fact the heating system uses coolant and a heater core instead of heating the air directly, requiring a degas tank, pump and hoses)? The same smart people who explicitly designed it so you can NOT set the car to charge immediately upon plug-in by default (you have to hit a button and have 30 seconds to plug in to charge immediately, or trick it by setting both timers a certain, undocumented way)? Not really trying to knock the Nissan engineers but they are only human, and design-by-committee is a hazard for more than just software. There are a lot of little things that have no rhyme or reason for being the way they are. For example, they could easily have added a true SOC reading to the central console display.
=Smidge=
This hack doesn't let you use more capacity from the battery. The car WILL NOT LET YOU drive the battery dead - it will shut itself off before you can do any serious damage.
Instead, this hack gives you useful information about how much charge you actually have left. Okay, you got a "Low Battery" warning and you're 5 miles from home. The range indicator and battery level gauge are both gone. Do you try to make it home and risk getting stuck in the middle of the street, or pull over and call a tow truck now? With the external SOC gauge, you are better informed to make that decision.
=Smidge=
Any UV likely to reach your eye is non-ionizing. At the energies where it becomes potentially ionizing, it can't travel in air very far... so unless you have an short wavelength UV emitter up against your face there's hardly any danger there.
=Smidge=
What the hell is on those drives that you're so paranoid about? If you have or work for a company or agency that deals with data that sensitive, you should be fired for not already knowing what to do with it. Otherwise you're being completely paranoid about it.
Take it apart, salvage the awesome magnets and aluminum body for scrap (40 cents/lb or so but it'll add up after awhile) and just toss the platters if you don't want to make wind chimes out of them. If you don't want to make that effort, drive a nail through it and toss. Nobody is going to sift through your trash to get the platters and then spend the tens of thousands of dollars on data recovery services just to sift through your decade-old browser cookies.
=Smidge=
Uh, I charge my car at night when it's cheaper, sure. Then I drive to work, where I'd likely have to REcharge at least partially to make it through the day without extra planning ahead - otherwise I wouldn't plug in at all. So if I get off work with LESS charge than I had when I got there, I may have to alter my plans and stop somewhere. That would probably be inconvenient. If the plan is just to buy low and sell high, then I'll get a battery and leave it at home where I won't care what the state of charge is at any particular time of day.
Instead, the ACTUAL plan is to leverage other people's investments (in EVs) to benefit the grid. There is nothing intrinsically evil or broken about that, but I don't think many people would really go for it because it may be inconvenient for them.
=Smidge=
This idea is kicked around a lot, and there are some pros and cons.
The intention is obvious: use stored energy in parked vehicles to help smooth spikes in demand and evenly distribute the load on the grid. But the difficulty is that people will want their cars to be charged when they leave work or the train station to head home, and peak demand is usually during those hours. Not only will a lot of cars be getting unplugged right when you need them, but few people will be willing to part with charge they might need to get home.
=Smidge=
Some companies make money using open-source projects. Since the vast majority of people who contribute to open-source projects are unpaid volunteers you have basically made the argument that they should not volunteer at all. I thought it was solidly demonstrated through collaborative projects like open-source software that people will ply their skills for the sake of plying their skills regardless of personal gain, or lack thereof. Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose.
Besides, who's to say Valve won't compensate them in some way when all is said and done? Just because they're not offering paychecks doesn't mean they will never offer some token of gratitude. Free custom/unique in-game items are not unheard of.
=Smidge=
Several years ago a local town library build a brand new computer center as an expansion to their public library system - two computer rooms and a large meeting room. It's its own building down the street from the original library. Even the official title of the project was the "Bookless Library."
I'm fairly sure that's not a wholly unique story.
Now if you want to complain about libraries struggling to stay relevant, let's talk about the "teen centers" with the big screen TVs and game consoles....
=Smidge=
Water vapor is a MUCH more potent greenhouse gas than the carbon dioxide that has all the environmentalists' shorts in a bunch.
Under certain conditions, yes. Studies suggest that thick, low-lying clouds provide net cooling effects thanks to shading and reflecting more than blanketing.
But this experiment isn't trying to use water vapor to provide a cooling effect - the ultimate plan is to use some other material. The test uses water 'cause it's cheap, abundant and environmentally benign. The "real" plan might use water as a carrier agent for whatever it is they actually send up.
=Smidge=
How is this any different from RIAA or MPAA uploading fake torrents of their music and movies to make it more difficult for people to find what they want? They are doing exactly the same - polluting torrent sites by uploading fake content. I want the real game, not some fake pirate themed one.
The difference is the RI/MPAA is doing it to collect for IPs for their all-lawsuit business model. These people are doing it with the realization that a certain number of people are going to pirate it no matter what so they may as well make a joke out of it. I haven't downloaded the game but it sounds like it's otherwise the same as the original, commercial version save graphics.
Having a sense of humor about it seems to be a good thing if these types of stories are anything to go by.
=Smidge=
The government is the one who paid (and is paying) for most of the basic research that allows the increase in efficiency and density - and the government is also one of, if not the, biggest customer of the final products.
That is true for far more than just the computer industry, too.
=Smidge=
What amazes me is the computation done in biological systems.
When I consider the amount of correlation and replication done by RNA/DNA systems, I am left in the dust, wondering just what happened.
I'm not sure I would classify a polymerization as a "computation." Even then the RNA transcription rate is on the order of ~50 nucleotides per second or so, which isn't all that stunning. The only thing that's really impressive is how interdependent the chemical reactions are, and how sensitive the whole system is.
Don't be fooled by the DNA :: Computer Code analogy - it is very, very wrong.
=Smidge=
How many people install (in the northern hemisphere) panels that are north-facing?
I hear it's a popular practice in the southern hemisphere :)
But I agree - the total area of the solar panels on the tree is greater than the static array. Normally that would be okay if it was accounted for (calculating everything per unit area) but the article does not seem to be the actual report he made. Shame, that...
The tree design also uses MUCH more area, even though he says it takes less - the tree might have a smaller base, but it casts a much larger shadow which limits your ability to build multiple arrays in a space-efficient manner.
For better results he could have compared it to single- and dual-axis tracking systems.
=Smidge=
It's not just about maintaining trucks, it's about maintaining anything and everything. I see plenty of cars belching smoke on the roads. And heaven forbid the price of goods accurately reflect their costs. Maybe the solution is to haul less by buying more locally, or expand the use of rail freight. Sustainability is about more than just "being green."
=Smidge=