Gotta disagree with that point; If you're going to comment, you gotta commit!
Not being able to delete or edit a post is a great incentive to think about what you're about to put up on the internet for all the world to see, and how it will reflect on you/your internet persona for years and years to come.:) =Smidge=
Most EVs have battery warranties of 8 yr/100K miles to 70% rated capacity. Numbers vary of course, but that equates to about $2000 worth of battery. Most people would save that much in gas alone well within that span of time.
Meanwhile the cost of EV batteries has dropped 75% in the past ~8 years and many estimates suggest there's still cost reductions ahead. By 2020 a refurbished battery for an EV should cost about $180/kwh, meaning you get essentially a new car for under $6000 before any trade-in value for the old pack. That's a pretty great value considering the cost of operation is so low.
There are also RAV4EVs still running on their original NiMH battery packs, so even with severe degradation it doesn't make the vehicle worthless to the right user.
> Some BEV cars cannot even be towed with a dead battery because it needs electric power to release the parking brake.
I cannot think of a single vehicle where this is true. What make and model does this apply to? =Smidge=
Is it? I'm pretty sure your "theory" was that people were selling their electric cars after 3 years because they weren't satisfied with them. (I'm basing this on the obviously rhetorical question you asked suggesting people are not satisfied with them)
> I expect prices to rise and then used electric cars won't be such a sweet deal any more.
They'd be at most $7500 more expensive, but probably not. The car's used price is essentially the residual, so if the base price was increased by $7500 the residual price would increase by only a portion of that depending on the lease terms.
Residual value is another strange puzzle for EVs, as the market has been rapidly expanding and the capabilities improving, the resale value of used electric cars is typically lower than ICE counterparts. The exception being Teslas which depreciate slower than equivalent gasoline vehicles. I suspect the real "enemy" of used EVs is not the expiration of the $7500 tax credit but the reduced depreciation rates as the market realizes they hardly wear out at all, mechanically speaking. =Smidge=
> You bought a car used that's only 3 years old. Why would someone keep a car for only 3 years and then sell it?
Because leasing is a thing. Especially with EVs, since it currently makes more sense to lease than to buy: Not everyone's finances lets them take full advantage of the tax credit, so they lease and the dealer (who technically owns the car and thus claims the credit) applies the credit to the base value of the car, which in turn lowers the cost of the lease.
You lease a car for 2-3 years - generally paying less per month than if you financed it for outright purchase - and at the end of the lease you give it back to the dealer. The dealer then sells the car at a steep discount as "pre-owned." =Smidge=
No, 59.8% is so close to 60% that it's an acceptable round-off. Nobody rounds 51.1% to 60% (much less 70%) unless they're straight up lying.
This is pure hyperbole intended to undermine Germany, possibly at Russia's request/suggestion. You're an idiot for buying it and a dipshit for defending it. =Smidge=
> Everyone knows that Trump exaggerates (or lies - I don't care which word you use.)
If you have to lie to make your point, then you don't actually have a point to make. There's actually a pretty big difference between 50, 60 and even 70 percent, especially when it comes to making up the difference should your supply become threatened.
> But the point of his comment remains true.
Except it isn't. Russia needs to sell that gas more than Germany needs to buy it, so any shenanigans by Russia to intimidate Germany by reducing supply or raising price would be very self-harming. Germany can shift to new energy sources (including alternate natural gas imports as well as alternative sources) but Russia would be SOL to find an alternate source of income as oil and gas exports are half their federal budget and about 70% if their total exports, especially if other nations go along and reduce their imports from Russia or act to decrease the price of fossil fuels (which has been kneecapping Russia's economy for the past decade already). =Smidge=
Page 36: Germany's total gas imports in 2017 totaled 94.8 billion cubic meters of gas, of which 48.5 came from Russia. That's 51.16% if imported natural gas. =Smidge=
> That Trump lied about the amount of natural gas using the numbers 60 to 70 percent : The journalist did not even try to do basic research, and kind of admits that.
I'm having trouble finding the necessary data on the site you linked, mostly because you didn't link to anything relevant. You may as well linked to Google.com as supporting evidence for your claims. Care to walk us through the process to get the numbers you're citing?
Meanwhile, the NYT article straight up states that 50% number ("nearly half") for natural gas imports, and links to a June 2018 report that shows Germany gets 48.5% of its total natural gas from Russia (51.1% of all *imported* natural gas).
Trump doesn't know what the actual value is, and has overstated it significantly when trying to make his point (and overstating claims is literally his only shtick). The fact that you have repeated the 70% value - a complete fabrication as far as I can tell - is a dismal reminder of how effective Trump's lie has been.
So good job on not doing your own research, and repeating a lie, I guess. =Smidge=
Nobody would pay to have their ads air on a broadcast with no viewers. Ergo, if advertisers are buying ad space, people are watching.
You can get a sense of who's watching in your area at any given time of day by what kinds of ads are airing, too. The selection of products and services will be aimed at the largest viewing demographic for that time slot in that region. =Smidge=
Good thing there isn't a major, national media group that controls a whole bunch of local news channels and can force them to run pre-written stories to push a political narrative. That would be awful!
I disagree that the data is "almost certainly worthless" - it's data on your habits and preferences, which is valuable to advertisers and content producers.
If the TV uses your own internet connection, then the data it collects can plausibly be associated with your internet browsing habits since it's the same IP/account. Once that connection is made your entire life is pretty much laid bare... who you are, where you live, your gender, age, income, education, credit rating, purchasing habits, employment history, who your friends are, etc etc. =Smidge=
OK, but we need very little uranium, in comparison to other ways of generating electricity.
I'd say nuclear power uses quite a lot more Uranium in comparison to other ways of generating electricity, considering those other ways don't use any Uranium at all...
According to the World Nuclear Association, nuclear power consumes about 200 tons of Uranium oxide per GWe per year.
I now wonder what is the comparison with mining the raw materials to make all those wind turbine blades and solar panels, as well as the fossil fuel it takes to ship / truck them all over the place for their installation?
Probably not nearly as much as the environmental impact of uranium mining and enrichment. Mining uranium is an ongoing process that produces thousands of tons of radioactive and hazardous waste in the form of mine tailings before it even gets to the enrichment plant.
Solar panels are made primarily from silicon, which is refined from sand and quartz rock. While not all sources of quartz are created equal, it's not exactly hard to come by. Right now there is no method of recycling solar PV panels since there is no economic benefit to figuring out how, and there's not a lot of scrapped PV panels piling up causing a problem: Panels installed decades ago are only recently reaching their natural end of life, and panels produced today have output warranties of 30+ years... so in practical terms they will probably outlive the people who bought them.
For wind turbines, the blades are typically made of carbon and/or glass fiber composites. (Carbon fiber is potentially renewable though AFAIK current industrial scale production relies on petroleum.) The pillars are steel, and the bases are steel and concrete.
Then there is an army of techs necessary to climb those towers and maintain the equipment in the generator room of those wind turbines, and those guys burn gasoline to get to those wind machines.
Unless they use electric vehicles, which would make a lot of sense since they would literally be surrounded by renewable energy sources. And as far as I know, there is no legal limit on how much exposure to a wind turbine nacelle you're allowed in a year.
Solar is probably less maintenance intensive, but can only generate a limited number of hours per day. Right now we have few ways to store generated power, so that situation isn't ideal either.
The "baseload power" argument has been bunk for almost a decade now. Turns out that utility companies from all over the world, who are responsible for maintaining the stability and reliability of the electrical grids within and between their jurisdictions, are keenly aware that renewable energy is going to continue to grow. They're planning for it. They're doing studies and analysis. Those studies keep showing that "baseload" power like coal and nuclear are just not necessary even without storage.
Nah, it increases the wavelength. You become invisible to thermal imaging cameras but you glow like a lightbulb....the technology isn't quite perfected yet. =Smidge=
Well except if you read the actual paper (PDF warning) that Moore wrote which created the whole concept, everything seems to be framed in terms of square area and component size.
Moore's law is about transistors per unit area. Adding cores increases both. Only new manufacturing techniques to cram in more transistors will let the trend continue, and they are indeed pushing the limits of what's physically possible.
At 7nm we're talking features that are only about three dozen atoms wide. The current roadmap has 5nm production in a few years. This kind of thing is well outside my knowledge but I'm pretty confident you can't make devices smaller than a single atom, so they are rapidly approaching a wall one way or another! =Smidge=
> I'm guessing the engineers working for GM, Honda, Hyundai and Toyota are SO much dumber than you are or are outright frauds.
No, I'm sure they're doing the best they can to try and make it work. And maybe they will! Maybe there will be a breakthrough. Hydrogen does have some advantages (like longer range and faster refueling) that make it an attractive goal. Or maybe they won't ever reach that breakthrough... It won't be the first time that companies invested millions - even billions - into a technology that doesn't pan out.
No fraud necessary, just hope and good intentions dashed against the rocks of reality. =Smidge=
> do you really think 5000 PSI (344 BAR) is that much greater than 3300 PSI (SCUBA HIGH)?
Well it is about 1.5x more... but if you were paying attention you'd notice the pressure doesn't actually matter in any of the calculations. It's only relevant insofar as you will need a compressor which is added cost you haven't accounted for.
> The arguments you present against the adoption of hydrogen fueling are the EXACT same arguments that were presented against battery charging before someone actually did it.
And the reason those arguments were wrong is because you do not need dedicated charging equipment for electric vehicles. You never have. Literally any standard wall outlet will do in a pinch. Like I already explained: Virtually every habitable building has electricity, virtually none of them have hydrogen fueling equipment.
> And by the way, the same that were presented against petroleum fuel for internal combustion engines before that.
[Citation needed]
> You should be aware the Mirai carries 5 kilos at 10,000 PSI for about 300 range
It's not about range of a specific vehicle, it's about the rate at which your $4000 H2 generator can provide fuel. The Clarity is the most advantageous for your side of this conversation, having the lowest fuel capacity.
> I'm guessing this doesn't count either: (H2Station)
With a footprint of 10 square meters that doesn't seem like something you can put in a house, and that doesn't include the actual dispenser. How much does it cost?
$2 million plus. Huh, that's the same cost I mentioned earlier... it's almost like I know what I'm talking about! Perhaps I have some relevant experience in the field of gaseous vehicle refueling that hasn't come up yet... like maybe I used to spec and design CNG stations. I dunno!
Anyway, don't hurt yourself moving that goalpost; It was never up for debate whether these facilities exist. This started with your assertion that H2 fueling equipment was cheap
> As a result of those factors, the entire concept and argument favoring home charging is more than a little elitist. That doesn't even mention $100,000 in vehicle purchase price... The 30k car from Tesla is far behind schedule and the prospects are looking worse with every passing month.
All this and more applies to H2 vehicles, you know. As for cost, you can get a Nissan LEAF, Hyundai Ioniq, or Ford Focus EV for under $30K. Everybody likes to beat up on Tesla but they are far from the only EV manufacturer.
> The US is the only place in the world NOT making a major push this direction.
How are you defining "Major Push" ? California alone has been investing roughly $20 million per year into H2 infrastructure since 2013.
And you realize that hydrogen is fundamentally less "green" than pure electric, right? More energy is wasted in the processing and handling of hydrogen and the construction of hydrogen equipment than in the equivalent battery electric ecosystem. And now that I think about it, fresh water is also a dwindling natural resource so a "hydrogen economy" would actually be quite devastating in some parts of the world!
Please understand that I have nothing against hydrogen as a concept. If the math worked I would be all for it... but the math just doesn't work. =Smidge=
No. It's 0.089 kilograms per 1000 liters: 0.089 [grams per liter] = 0.089 [1000 grams per 1000 liters]
You need 50,561.80 liters for 4.5 kg of hydrogen at STP. I did a lot of generous rounding for quick and easy math and ended up with 40,000. Still within an order of magnitude and the "real" number actually hurts your case quite a bit. =Smidge=
Yes, electrolysis and fuel cells exist and have for some decades now. The question is if they are good enough and cheap enough to replace gasoline engines. The answer so far is no, and by such a wide margin that the only people still advocating for such are either hucksters or die-hard hopefuls.
Here's why;
The larger of the two models you linked (The $4000 one) is listed as producing 0.5 liters per minute at 7 bar. Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles start at 340 bar, such as the Honda Clarity with it's ~4kg storage tank. The only other HFC vehicle I know of is the Toyota Mirai which uses a 700 bar tank...
Hydrogen is just under 0.0001 kg/L at STP. So for 4kg you need 40,000 liters of gas. That's 80,000 minutes to fill a tank, or just over 55 days. (The pressure difference is so large that the 7 bar is almost negligible here). The Clarity has an EPA rating of 240 miles per tank. It takes over 50 days to refill 240 miles worth of driving, or an equivalent of 0.18 miles of added drivable range per hour.
Compare to an EV recharging at L1 rates, which maxes out at 1.4KW. Even a mediocre EV will get 3 miles per KWh, so at L1 (standard wall outlet) that's about 4 miles of added drivable range per hour. L2 charging at home is about 5 times faster but let's keep it simple.
To get the equivalent hydrogen refueling rate, you'd need about 22 of those units... or $88,000 worth of electrolysis machines. Compressors not included. (The EVSE that plugs your electric car into the wall costs ~$200 for a nice one, and you get one with the car itself.)
The only way to make this economically viable is to consolidate, and leverage economies of scale. An electrolysis setup specially engineered for refueling a single vehicle overnight (8 hours max) might cost $20,000 to be very optimistic, but a $2,000,000 centralized station can perhaps refuel well over 100 cars per day at a few minutes each. Problem is, now you have to built enough $2,000,000 hydrogen fuel stations before enough people will buy HFC vehicles to make it a profitable thing to do. Once upon a time gasoline cars had a similar problem, but considering the only competition at the time was horses or steam powered trucks - and the fact that gasoline stores and transports rather nicely - it wasn't an insurmountable problem.
Hydrogen doesn't even make a whole lot of sense for stationary storage; The losses from electrolysis to storage to generation add up quick, and it has a tough time competing with chemical batteries for $/KWh.
=Smidge= (I suppose to be perfectly fair with comparisons, a typical gas pump dispenses ~10 GPM, resulting in about 18,000 drivable miles per hour equivalent...)
Do share a link, then, 'cause all I can see are "HHO" generators which produce a stream of hydrogen and oxygen gas mixed, aka hydrogen torch machines.
Then make sure you price out a desiccant dryer 'cause you'll have to get the humidity down to under 0.1% so you don't condense water into your tanks as you compress it to 350-700 bar.
Oh, and you'll need a compressor that can boost the pressure to 350+ bar. =Smidge=
You don't need a charger... the charger is in the vehicle for L1 and L2 level recharging, which is perfectly adequate for the vast majority of people. Fast chargers are more a convenience and marketing tool than a necessity.
All you need is electricity; which, again, can be found at just about every habitable building.
> I will only say there is this somewhat common but mildly dangerous chemical around called dihydrogen monoxide that is a fairly useful for for obtaining hydrogen.
You need energy to split the water into hydrogen gas. You need specialized equipment to do this in sufficient quantities in a reasonable time frame while staying safe, and that equipment will need maintenance as the electrodes foul from water impurities and components start to fail from direct contact with the hydrogen (being a small molecule, H2 has a tendency to work its way into materials over time and ruins their physical properties).
You need specialized equipment to dry and compress the hydrogen which consumes even more energy and requires more maintenance. Of, if you're using an absorption method for storage, you'll need several hundred pounds of extremely dangerous and toxic metal hydrides sitting around somewhere.
This is not the kind of infrastructure that you can put inside every home and outside every business, economically or logistically.
> Alibaba
Good luck refueling your hydrogen fuel cell car on a desktop electrolysis torch machine or whatever.
Hydrogen may have a niche application but it's been oversold to the point of it becoming snake oil. Sorry, but barring some cataclysmic event that decimates lithium battery production *and* hydrocarbon fuel production, hydrogen as a vehicle fuel is not going anywhere. =Smidge=
Tesla has been one of the first to recognize and start addressing the problem. 59% reduction in Cobalt usage while increasing the battery pack capacity is nothing to sneeze at.
> H2 solves it now and for a long time.
Great, where do I get the Hydrogen from? Virtually every habitable building in the US has electricity, but there are very few hydrogen fueling stations. I can tell you form first hand experience that a modest CNG station costs north of $2mil, so if a hydrogen fueling station costs less than $5mil I'd be impressed.
Oh, and Hydrogen fuel cells that output enough instantaneous power for acceptable performance are huge and way too expensive, so HDC vehicles usually use a smaller fuel cell and supplement it with... a lithium battery! =Smidge=
> That's what the pre-bate under the fair tax does; eliminates tax for the necessities low income people need to buy.
Only up to the poverty line... which is nice (probably won't be enough), but that still leaves the majority of the population that are between the poverty line and not-quite-well-off to foot basically all of the nation's expenses while the wealthiest barely pay a dime in comparison.
> payroll taxes (which reduce workers' wages)
If payroll taxes are done away with, your take-home wages will not increase by that amount, if they increase at all. A large chunk of those taxes are paid directly by the employer so that money was never yours to begin with.
And before you get the idea that employers will use the extra cash to hire more people; They won't. You hire an employee to increase your capacity to do business, meaning that employee needs to make you more money than they cost. If a business actually needed more people to maximize their ability to do business, they probably would have been hiring already.
> corporate income tax (which everyone pays as baked into the cost of everything they buy)
This is an outright lie; Corporate income tax is paid on... get this... income! How can you bake taxes you will pay on a sale into an item you haven't sold yet? How can you do that without knowing how much money you'll be paying in taxes? No business sets prices like that. You get your product or service and you charge what the market will bear, or less if you think that will pay off in the long run (e.g. loss-leader products, undermining competition etc).
The notion that customers effectively pay corporate income taxes is also in conflict with the idea that payroll taxes deduct from YOUR paycheck. My payroll taxes are paid on MY income, and are not an expense on the company I work for (though my salary as a whole is). This is exactly the same as when a customer pays a business, and the business pays tax on that income; It's not the customer's expense. I can't justify a raise to compensate for the income taxes I pay any more than a business can increase their prices to cover the income taxes they pay.
> import taxes (which everyone pays as baked into the cost of anything they buy that was imported)
Fair Tax would not eliminate import taxes. Import taxes exist to artificially raise the cost of foreign goods to keep domestic goods competitive, and are functionally the same (though operationally different) from a tariff. Removing import taxes would severely injure the domestic economy by lowering the price of imported goods beyond our ability to compete.
Speaking of damaging the local economy; With every sales-taxable thing now with a tax of 30%+ or whatever the hell it would need to be to balance the books, what would that do to domestic purchases? The sale of luxury goods and services would crater as people decide to save their money instead of buying anything they don't absolutely need. How many hundreds of billions of dollars worth of damage do you suppose that would do to our economy?
> The nasty thing about payroll and corporate income taxes is that most people have no idea they even pay it,
Customers don't pay corporate income taxes, as discussed above.
As for payroll taxes, if you don't know you're paying them or how much you're probably liable to get audited by the IRS very soon. Between W-4, W-2 and your pay stubs you should be aware of this information. =Smidge=
Slashdot Mirror
Gotta disagree with that point; If you're going to comment, you gotta commit!
Not being able to delete or edit a post is a great incentive to think about what you're about to put up on the internet for all the world to see, and how it will reflect on you/your internet persona for years and years to come. :)
=Smidge=
Deferred expense over continuing expense of higher cost fuel and higher maintenance; it's still a net savings, handily.
=Smidge=
> What's the wear like on the batteries?
Most EVs have battery warranties of 8 yr/100K miles to 70% rated capacity. Numbers vary of course, but that equates to about $2000 worth of battery. Most people would save that much in gas alone well within that span of time.
Meanwhile the cost of EV batteries has dropped 75% in the past ~8 years and many estimates suggest there's still cost reductions ahead. By 2020 a refurbished battery for an EV should cost about $180/kwh, meaning you get essentially a new car for under $6000 before any trade-in value for the old pack. That's a pretty great value considering the cost of operation is so low.
There are also RAV4EVs still running on their original NiMH battery packs, so even with severe degradation it doesn't make the vehicle worthless to the right user.
> Some BEV cars cannot even be towed with a dead battery because it needs electric power to release the parking brake.
I cannot think of a single vehicle where this is true. What make and model does this apply to?
=Smidge=
> I see, so my theory was correct.
Is it? I'm pretty sure your "theory" was that people were selling their electric cars after 3 years because they weren't satisfied with them. (I'm basing this on the obviously rhetorical question you asked suggesting people are not satisfied with them)
> I expect prices to rise and then used electric cars won't be such a sweet deal any more.
They'd be at most $7500 more expensive, but probably not. The car's used price is essentially the residual, so if the base price was increased by $7500 the residual price would increase by only a portion of that depending on the lease terms.
Residual value is another strange puzzle for EVs, as the market has been rapidly expanding and the capabilities improving, the resale value of used electric cars is typically lower than ICE counterparts. The exception being Teslas which depreciate slower than equivalent gasoline vehicles. I suspect the real "enemy" of used EVs is not the expiration of the $7500 tax credit but the reduced depreciation rates as the market realizes they hardly wear out at all, mechanically speaking.
=Smidge=
> You bought a car used that's only 3 years old. Why would someone keep a car for only 3 years and then sell it?
Because leasing is a thing. Especially with EVs, since it currently makes more sense to lease than to buy: Not everyone's finances lets them take full advantage of the tax credit, so they lease and the dealer (who technically owns the car and thus claims the credit) applies the credit to the base value of the car, which in turn lowers the cost of the lease.
You lease a car for 2-3 years - generally paying less per month than if you financed it for outright purchase - and at the end of the lease you give it back to the dealer. The dealer then sells the car at a steep discount as "pre-owned."
=Smidge=
No, 59.8% is so close to 60% that it's an acceptable round-off. Nobody rounds 51.1% to 60% (much less 70%) unless they're straight up lying.
This is pure hyperbole intended to undermine Germany, possibly at Russia's request/suggestion. You're an idiot for buying it and a dipshit for defending it.
=Smidge=
> Everyone knows that Trump exaggerates (or lies - I don't care which word you use.)
If you have to lie to make your point, then you don't actually have a point to make. There's actually a pretty big difference between 50, 60 and even 70 percent, especially when it comes to making up the difference should your supply become threatened.
> But the point of his comment remains true.
Except it isn't. Russia needs to sell that gas more than Germany needs to buy it, so any shenanigans by Russia to intimidate Germany by reducing supply or raising price would be very self-harming. Germany can shift to new energy sources (including alternate natural gas imports as well as alternative sources) but Russia would be SOL to find an alternate source of income as oil and gas exports are half their federal budget and about 70% if their total exports, especially if other nations go along and reduce their imports from Russia or act to decrease the price of fossil fuels (which has been kneecapping Russia's economy for the past decade already).
=Smidge=
Correction: The table is Billion Cubic Meters, not percentages. That's 48.5 billion cubic meters from Russia, not 48.5%.
Still 51.1 percent though, not "60 to 70" percent.
=Smidge=
How about the 2018 report that the NYT article linked?
https://www.bp.com/content/dam...
Page 36: Germany's total gas imports in 2017 totaled 94.8 billion cubic meters of gas, of which 48.5 came from Russia. That's 51.16% if imported natural gas.
=Smidge=
> That Trump lied about the amount of natural gas using the numbers 60 to 70 percent : The journalist did not even try to do basic research, and kind of admits that.
I'm having trouble finding the necessary data on the site you linked, mostly because you didn't link to anything relevant. You may as well linked to Google.com as supporting evidence for your claims. Care to walk us through the process to get the numbers you're citing?
Meanwhile, the NYT article straight up states that 50% number ("nearly half") for natural gas imports, and links to a June 2018 report that shows Germany gets 48.5% of its total natural gas from Russia (51.1% of all *imported* natural gas).
Trump doesn't know what the actual value is, and has overstated it significantly when trying to make his point (and overstating claims is literally his only shtick). The fact that you have repeated the 70% value - a complete fabrication as far as I can tell - is a dismal reminder of how effective Trump's lie has been.
So good job on not doing your own research, and repeating a lie, I guess.
=Smidge=
Nobody would pay to have their ads air on a broadcast with no viewers. Ergo, if advertisers are buying ad space, people are watching.
You can get a sense of who's watching in your area at any given time of day by what kinds of ads are airing, too. The selection of products and services will be aimed at the largest viewing demographic for that time slot in that region.
=Smidge=
Good thing there isn't a major, national media group that controls a whole bunch of local news channels and can force them to run pre-written stories to push a political narrative. That would be awful!
=Smidge=
I disagree that the data is "almost certainly worthless" - it's data on your habits and preferences, which is valuable to advertisers and content producers.
If the TV uses your own internet connection, then the data it collects can plausibly be associated with your internet browsing habits since it's the same IP/account. Once that connection is made your entire life is pretty much laid bare... who you are, where you live, your gender, age, income, education, credit rating, purchasing habits, employment history, who your friends are, etc etc.
=Smidge=
OK, but we need very little uranium, in comparison to other ways of generating electricity.
I'd say nuclear power uses quite a lot more Uranium in comparison to other ways of generating electricity, considering those other ways don't use any Uranium at all...
According to the World Nuclear Association, nuclear power consumes about 200 tons of Uranium oxide per GWe per year.
I now wonder what is the comparison with mining the raw materials to make all those wind turbine blades and solar panels, as well as the fossil fuel it takes to ship / truck them all over the place for their installation?
Probably not nearly as much as the environmental impact of uranium mining and enrichment. Mining uranium is an ongoing process that produces thousands of tons of radioactive and hazardous waste in the form of mine tailings before it even gets to the enrichment plant.
Solar panels are made primarily from silicon, which is refined from sand and quartz rock. While not all sources of quartz are created equal, it's not exactly hard to come by. Right now there is no method of recycling solar PV panels since there is no economic benefit to figuring out how, and there's not a lot of scrapped PV panels piling up causing a problem: Panels installed decades ago are only recently reaching their natural end of life, and panels produced today have output warranties of 30+ years... so in practical terms they will probably outlive the people who bought them.
For wind turbines, the blades are typically made of carbon and/or glass fiber composites. (Carbon fiber is potentially renewable though AFAIK current industrial scale production relies on petroleum.) The pillars are steel, and the bases are steel and concrete.
Then there is an army of techs necessary to climb those towers and maintain the equipment in the generator room of those wind turbines, and those guys burn gasoline to get to those wind machines.
Unless they use electric vehicles, which would make a lot of sense since they would literally be surrounded by renewable energy sources. And as far as I know, there is no legal limit on how much exposure to a wind turbine nacelle you're allowed in a year.
Solar is probably less maintenance intensive, but can only generate a limited number of hours per day. Right now we have few ways to store generated power, so that situation isn't ideal either.
The "baseload power" argument has been bunk for almost a decade now. Turns out that utility companies from all over the world, who are responsible for maintaining the stability and reliability of the electrical grids within and between their jurisdictions, are keenly aware that renewable energy is going to continue to grow. They're planning for it. They're doing studies and analysis. Those studies keep showing that "baseload" power like coal and nuclear are just not necessary even without storage.
https://www.nrdc.org/experts/k...
Storage is just extra gravy on the side, and since it will take decades to fully transition there's plenty of time to build that, too.
=Smidge=
Nah, it increases the wavelength. You become invisible to thermal imaging cameras but you glow like a lightbulb. ...the technology isn't quite perfected yet.
=Smidge=
Well except if you read the actual paper (PDF warning) that Moore wrote which created the whole concept, everything seems to be framed in terms of square area and component size.
=Smidge=
Moore's law is about transistors per unit area. Adding cores increases both. Only new manufacturing techniques to cram in more transistors will let the trend continue, and they are indeed pushing the limits of what's physically possible.
At 7nm we're talking features that are only about three dozen atoms wide. The current roadmap has 5nm production in a few years. This kind of thing is well outside my knowledge but I'm pretty confident you can't make devices smaller than a single atom, so they are rapidly approaching a wall one way or another!
=Smidge=
> I'm guessing the engineers working for GM, Honda, Hyundai and Toyota are SO much dumber than you are or are outright frauds.
No, I'm sure they're doing the best they can to try and make it work. And maybe they will! Maybe there will be a breakthrough. Hydrogen does have some advantages (like longer range and faster refueling) that make it an attractive goal. Or maybe they won't ever reach that breakthrough... It won't be the first time that companies invested millions - even billions - into a technology that doesn't pan out.
No fraud necessary, just hope and good intentions dashed against the rocks of reality.
=Smidge=
> do you really think 5000 PSI (344 BAR) is that much greater than 3300 PSI (SCUBA HIGH)?
Well it is about 1.5x more... but if you were paying attention you'd notice the pressure doesn't actually matter in any of the calculations. It's only relevant insofar as you will need a compressor which is added cost you haven't accounted for.
> The arguments you present against the adoption of hydrogen fueling are the EXACT same arguments that were presented against battery charging before someone actually did it.
And the reason those arguments were wrong is because you do not need dedicated charging equipment for electric vehicles. You never have. Literally any standard wall outlet will do in a pinch. Like I already explained: Virtually every habitable building has electricity, virtually none of them have hydrogen fueling equipment.
> And by the way, the same that were presented against petroleum fuel for internal combustion engines before that.
[Citation needed]
> You should be aware the Mirai carries 5 kilos at 10,000 PSI for about 300 range
It's not about range of a specific vehicle, it's about the rate at which your $4000 H2 generator can provide fuel. The Clarity is the most advantageous for your side of this conversation, having the lowest fuel capacity.
> I'm guessing this doesn't count either: (H2Station)
With a footprint of 10 square meters that doesn't seem like something you can put in a house, and that doesn't include the actual dispenser. How much does it cost?
https://h2stationmaps.com/cost...
$2 million plus. Huh, that's the same cost I mentioned earlier... it's almost like I know what I'm talking about! Perhaps I have some relevant experience in the field of gaseous vehicle refueling that hasn't come up yet... like maybe I used to spec and design CNG stations. I dunno!
Anyway, don't hurt yourself moving that goalpost; It was never up for debate whether these facilities exist. This started with your assertion that H2 fueling equipment was cheap
> As a result of those factors, the entire concept and argument favoring home charging is more than a little elitist. That doesn't even mention $100,000 in vehicle purchase price... The 30k car from Tesla is far behind schedule and the prospects are looking worse with every passing month.
All this and more applies to H2 vehicles, you know. As for cost, you can get a Nissan LEAF, Hyundai Ioniq, or Ford Focus EV for under $30K. Everybody likes to beat up on Tesla but they are far from the only EV manufacturer.
> The US is the only place in the world NOT making a major push this direction.
How are you defining "Major Push" ? California alone has been investing roughly $20 million per year into H2 infrastructure since 2013.
And you realize that hydrogen is fundamentally less "green" than pure electric, right? More energy is wasted in the processing and handling of hydrogen and the construction of hydrogen equipment than in the equivalent battery electric ecosystem. And now that I think about it, fresh water is also a dwindling natural resource so a "hydrogen economy" would actually be quite devastating in some parts of the world!
Please understand that I have nothing against hydrogen as a concept. If the math worked I would be all for it... but the math just doesn't work.
=Smidge=
> Density (at STP) 0.08988 g/L
Yes.
> 0.8 Kilos per 1000 L
No. It's 0.089 kilograms per 1000 liters: 0.089 [grams per liter] = 0.089 [1000 grams per 1000 liters]
You need 50,561.80 liters for 4.5 kg of hydrogen at STP. I did a lot of generous rounding for quick and easy math and ended up with 40,000. Still within an order of magnitude and the "real" number actually hurts your case quite a bit.
=Smidge=
> But the tech is there
Yes, electrolysis and fuel cells exist and have for some decades now. The question is if they are good enough and cheap enough to replace gasoline engines. The answer so far is no, and by such a wide margin that the only people still advocating for such are either hucksters or die-hard hopefuls.
Here's why;
The larger of the two models you linked (The $4000 one) is listed as producing 0.5 liters per minute at 7 bar. Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles start at 340 bar, such as the Honda Clarity with it's ~4kg storage tank. The only other HFC vehicle I know of is the Toyota Mirai which uses a 700 bar tank...
Hydrogen is just under 0.0001 kg/L at STP. So for 4kg you need 40,000 liters of gas. That's 80,000 minutes to fill a tank, or just over 55 days. (The pressure difference is so large that the 7 bar is almost negligible here). The Clarity has an EPA rating of 240 miles per tank. It takes over 50 days to refill 240 miles worth of driving, or an equivalent of 0.18 miles of added drivable range per hour.
Compare to an EV recharging at L1 rates, which maxes out at 1.4KW. Even a mediocre EV will get 3 miles per KWh, so at L1 (standard wall outlet) that's about 4 miles of added drivable range per hour. L2 charging at home is about 5 times faster but let's keep it simple.
To get the equivalent hydrogen refueling rate, you'd need about 22 of those units... or $88,000 worth of electrolysis machines. Compressors not included. (The EVSE that plugs your electric car into the wall costs ~$200 for a nice one, and you get one with the car itself.)
The only way to make this economically viable is to consolidate, and leverage economies of scale. An electrolysis setup specially engineered for refueling a single vehicle overnight (8 hours max) might cost $20,000 to be very optimistic, but a $2,000,000 centralized station can perhaps refuel well over 100 cars per day at a few minutes each. Problem is, now you have to built enough $2,000,000 hydrogen fuel stations before enough people will buy HFC vehicles to make it a profitable thing to do. Once upon a time gasoline cars had a similar problem, but considering the only competition at the time was horses or steam powered trucks - and the fact that gasoline stores and transports rather nicely - it wasn't an insurmountable problem.
Hydrogen doesn't even make a whole lot of sense for stationary storage; The losses from electrolysis to storage to generation add up quick, and it has a tough time competing with chemical batteries for $/KWh.
=Smidge=
(I suppose to be perfectly fair with comparisons, a typical gas pump dispenses ~10 GPM, resulting in about 18,000 drivable miles per hour equivalent...)
Do share a link, then, 'cause all I can see are "HHO" generators which produce a stream of hydrogen and oxygen gas mixed, aka hydrogen torch machines.
Then make sure you price out a desiccant dryer 'cause you'll have to get the humidity down to under 0.1% so you don't condense water into your tanks as you compress it to 350-700 bar.
Oh, and you'll need a compressor that can boost the pressure to 350+ bar.
=Smidge=
> At one time there were no chargers either.
You don't need a charger... the charger is in the vehicle for L1 and L2 level recharging, which is perfectly adequate for the vast majority of people. Fast chargers are more a convenience and marketing tool than a necessity.
All you need is electricity; which, again, can be found at just about every habitable building.
> I will only say there is this somewhat common but mildly dangerous chemical around called dihydrogen monoxide that is a fairly useful for for obtaining hydrogen.
You need energy to split the water into hydrogen gas. You need specialized equipment to do this in sufficient quantities in a reasonable time frame while staying safe, and that equipment will need maintenance as the electrodes foul from water impurities and components start to fail from direct contact with the hydrogen (being a small molecule, H2 has a tendency to work its way into materials over time and ruins their physical properties).
You need specialized equipment to dry and compress the hydrogen which consumes even more energy and requires more maintenance. Of, if you're using an absorption method for storage, you'll need several hundred pounds of extremely dangerous and toxic metal hydrides sitting around somewhere.
This is not the kind of infrastructure that you can put inside every home and outside every business, economically or logistically.
> Alibaba
Good luck refueling your hydrogen fuel cell car on a desktop electrolysis torch machine or whatever.
Hydrogen may have a niche application but it's been oversold to the point of it becoming snake oil. Sorry, but barring some cataclysmic event that decimates lithium battery production *and* hydrocarbon fuel production, hydrogen as a vehicle fuel is not going anywhere.
=Smidge=
https://www.teslarati.com/tesl...
Tesla has been one of the first to recognize and start addressing the problem. 59% reduction in Cobalt usage while increasing the battery pack capacity is nothing to sneeze at.
> H2 solves it now and for a long time.
Great, where do I get the Hydrogen from? Virtually every habitable building in the US has electricity, but there are very few hydrogen fueling stations. I can tell you form first hand experience that a modest CNG station costs north of $2mil, so if a hydrogen fueling station costs less than $5mil I'd be impressed.
Oh, and Hydrogen fuel cells that output enough instantaneous power for acceptable performance are huge and way too expensive, so HDC vehicles usually use a smaller fuel cell and supplement it with... a lithium battery!
=Smidge=
> That's what the pre-bate under the fair tax does; eliminates tax for the necessities low income people need to buy.
Only up to the poverty line... which is nice (probably won't be enough), but that still leaves the majority of the population that are between the poverty line and not-quite-well-off to foot basically all of the nation's expenses while the wealthiest barely pay a dime in comparison.
> payroll taxes (which reduce workers' wages)
If payroll taxes are done away with, your take-home wages will not increase by that amount, if they increase at all. A large chunk of those taxes are paid directly by the employer so that money was never yours to begin with.
And before you get the idea that employers will use the extra cash to hire more people; They won't. You hire an employee to increase your capacity to do business, meaning that employee needs to make you more money than they cost. If a business actually needed more people to maximize their ability to do business, they probably would have been hiring already.
> corporate income tax (which everyone pays as baked into the cost of everything they buy)
This is an outright lie; Corporate income tax is paid on... get this... income! How can you bake taxes you will pay on a sale into an item you haven't sold yet? How can you do that without knowing how much money you'll be paying in taxes? No business sets prices like that. You get your product or service and you charge what the market will bear, or less if you think that will pay off in the long run (e.g. loss-leader products, undermining competition etc).
The notion that customers effectively pay corporate income taxes is also in conflict with the idea that payroll taxes deduct from YOUR paycheck. My payroll taxes are paid on MY income, and are not an expense on the company I work for (though my salary as a whole is). This is exactly the same as when a customer pays a business, and the business pays tax on that income; It's not the customer's expense. I can't justify a raise to compensate for the income taxes I pay any more than a business can increase their prices to cover the income taxes they pay.
> import taxes (which everyone pays as baked into the cost of anything they buy that was imported)
Fair Tax would not eliminate import taxes. Import taxes exist to artificially raise the cost of foreign goods to keep domestic goods competitive, and are functionally the same (though operationally different) from a tariff. Removing import taxes would severely injure the domestic economy by lowering the price of imported goods beyond our ability to compete.
Speaking of damaging the local economy; With every sales-taxable thing now with a tax of 30%+ or whatever the hell it would need to be to balance the books, what would that do to domestic purchases? The sale of luxury goods and services would crater as people decide to save their money instead of buying anything they don't absolutely need. How many hundreds of billions of dollars worth of damage do you suppose that would do to our economy?
> The nasty thing about payroll and corporate income taxes is that most people have no idea they even pay it,
Customers don't pay corporate income taxes, as discussed above.
As for payroll taxes, if you don't know you're paying them or how much you're probably liable to get audited by the IRS very soon. Between W-4, W-2 and your pay stubs you should be aware of this information.
=Smidge=