Well, if we're going to get super strict about what counts as 'renewable', then nothing in the universe can ever be truly renewable, 'cause, gosh, it's all going to end somehow! Let's just agree that a source of energy which will continue for billions of years is renewable.
Get ready for federal 'tweaking' to prevent further renewable growth. Time to tax renewables so that coal can be competitive again. Now that renewables are seriously starting to cut into market share, special interests are going to pull out all the stops to make sure nothing changes.
A car surviving a crash intact is a very bad thing. Crumple zones are there to absorb energy. If a vehicle doesn't crumple, that means it's sending all the energy through to the soft, meaty passengers.
The utilities are probably charging them an arm and a leg for a ultra high voltage industrial type connection since superchargers are capable of pulling so much energy in a short period of time. Cutting the link could be a substantial cost saver.
Compare that to a house which is much more of a low steady draw. In order to guarantee 365 days of off grid capability for a house, Solar city would have to massively overbuild to account for that one crazy energy usage day.
I used to think that as well, but there is some really interesting hybrid technology coming down the pipe. Combining an electric motor with a gas engine enables designers to get away from the Otto cycle and exploit far more efficient cycles such as the Atkinson cycle without sacrificing performance.
Economic problems for one. As the USA tries to delay the future, they lose out on the new jobs and profits that come from being a leader in the new industry.
1. People don't want it. Political.
2. Horrible track record of coming in over budget and behind schedule.
3. Mountains of nuclear waste.
4. Time to construct. (even if we were to say that we're going to switch the grid over to nukes, it will be 20 years by the time all regulatory hurdles are cleared and plants start producing electricity.) We now have about 10 years to get the grid off carbon to avoid the worst of climate change.
5. Terrorism concerns. Nuclear proliferation concerns.
6. Unless R&D hits a brick wall today, renewables + storage will out-compete them on price anyway.
7, It's been repeatedly shown that you can have a fully functional grid without them, they're simply not necessary!
At least they make an effort to cover the range of available literature and don't cherry pick what I can only assume is a supporting article since I can't access it.
Highly unlikely fuel cells are the future of personal vehicles
Firstly, a fuel cell is vehicle is really nothing more than an electric with a different kind of battery. The advantage of the fuel cell 'battery' is that it can be refueled similar to current gas vehicles. But this is really a dubious advantage since I'd wager most people would rather let a car charge in their garage overnight rather than make a detour to a service station a few times a week. Even if I'm wrong, this is still about where the advantages end. The disadvantages and obstacles are numerous:
1. Fuel cells are a very young, exotic, technology, at least for consumer use. Batteries are already good enough now and getting better and cheaper rapidly
The infrastructure is not available to enable widespread adoption of fuel cells even if people wanted them. Batteries can be charged anywhere and supercharging technology is spreading rapidly cutting into the possible 'refueling time' advantage.
2. Electricity is fundamentally easy to move around. We can use wires. Hydrogen requires new pipelines or trucks to move it from point of production to point of use along with 'gas' stations to dispense.
3. Hydrogen may be better suited to large truck or buses which have space to store large tanks of hydrogen.
I'll let the more scientific minds on this forum correct me if I'm wrong...
4....but it seems to me that the wastage of energy from production to consumption of energy is higher through fuel cells than simple battery electric. Electric generation>convert electricity to hydrogen>hydrogen transport/storage>convert hydrogen back to electricity for use. -VS- Electric generation>transport and store directly in car battery>Discharge for use.
To sum it up: Fuel cells are starting from a long way back, on balance offer few if any advantages over current batteries. Meanwhile, battery tech is entering a period which is already giving us dramatic price drops and improvement in performance. Fuel cells are likely destined to continue on as a niche technology.
Anything that actually does something can be dangerous if it's used incorrectly. People choose to use it though when they want an actual effect to occur. If your point is that you're putting on a show to pretend to your kids that you're treating them, well, that's a different thing altogether.
Ya, there is something inherent about apple that leads to a plethora of unsafe knockoffs. They design their products to need expensive accessories that they then gouge the consumer on. If they really wanted to slowdown the knockoffs, they should start selling at a price that's related to the cost of production.
Everyone is confusing India with North America. There are still millions of people in India without any power whatsoever. Having a clean source of electricity for half the time, even if it goes out the other half is a vast, vast improvement. Energy storage will ultimately come, but it's not critical yet.
They won't ever need to take 'the other system' down. It's modular. You can swap components out on the fly. One of the reasons they ditched the diesel was that it was too unreliable. Batteries are the backup now, 3 days worth of backup in fact. Integrating wind into the system would undoubtedly make it incredibly robust, but would be crazy overkill.
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Well, if we're going to get super strict about what counts as 'renewable', then nothing in the universe can ever be truly renewable, 'cause, gosh, it's all going to end somehow! Let's just agree that a source of energy which will continue for billions of years is renewable.
Why would you buy a 20 watt solar panel from Walmart for a hundred bucks when you can get a 150 watt solar panel from Amazon for $175?
Get ready for federal 'tweaking' to prevent further renewable growth. Time to tax renewables so that coal can be competitive again. Now that renewables are seriously starting to cut into market share, special interests are going to pull out all the stops to make sure nothing changes.
A car surviving a crash intact is a very bad thing. Crumple zones are there to absorb energy. If a vehicle doesn't crumple, that means it's sending all the energy through to the soft, meaty passengers.
The utilities are probably charging them an arm and a leg for a ultra high voltage industrial type connection since superchargers are capable of pulling so much energy in a short period of time. Cutting the link could be a substantial cost saver.
Compare that to a house which is much more of a low steady draw. In order to guarantee 365 days of off grid capability for a house, Solar city would have to massively overbuild to account for that one crazy energy usage day.
JOBS!
I call BS. Doing all that in 5 minutes is almost impossible unless perhaps you're paying for full service... or not washing your hands after you pee.
I used to think that as well, but there is some really interesting hybrid technology coming down the pipe. Combining an electric motor with a gas engine enables designers to get away from the Otto cycle and exploit far more efficient cycles such as the Atkinson cycle without sacrificing performance.
http://www.caranddriver.com/fe...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Economic problems for one. As the USA tries to delay the future, they lose out on the new jobs and profits that come from being a leader in the new industry.
Even assuming your numbers are correct, don't blink or you'll miss wind and solar production passing coal in a few years.
Nuclear is not the answer for so many reasons.
1. People don't want it. Political.
2. Horrible track record of coming in over budget and behind schedule.
3. Mountains of nuclear waste.
4. Time to construct. (even if we were to say that we're going to switch the grid over to nukes, it will be 20 years by the time all regulatory hurdles are cleared and plants start producing electricity.) We now have about 10 years to get the grid off carbon to avoid the worst of climate change.
5. Terrorism concerns. Nuclear proliferation concerns.
6. Unless R&D hits a brick wall today, renewables + storage will out-compete them on price anyway.
7, It's been repeatedly shown that you can have a fully functional grid without them, they're simply not necessary!
Not necessarily. More efficient cells mean that you can get away with fewer, lowing your costs to install.
They've done a 90MW in California already. Not much tinkering necessary.
Lawyers are smart people. I'm sure a clause in the contract would stipulate the conditions necessary to fulfill the pledge.
If Australia starts to get serious, I bet Musk will have the batteries on boats before the contract is even signed.
Might as well wait for the paper to be published.
Nope. Need a log-in, and single payer healthcare systems are not in collapse world-over.
If anybody is really interested in a comparison between the Canadian and US healthcare systems, start with Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
At least they make an effort to cover the range of available literature and don't cherry pick what I can only assume is a supporting article since I can't access it.
Highly unlikely fuel cells are the future of personal vehicles
...but it seems to me that the wastage of energy from production to consumption of energy is higher through fuel cells than simple battery electric. Electric generation>convert electricity to hydrogen>hydrogen transport/storage>convert hydrogen back to electricity for use. -VS- Electric generation>transport and store directly in car battery>Discharge for use.
Firstly, a fuel cell is vehicle is really nothing more than an electric with a different kind of battery. The advantage of the fuel cell 'battery' is that it can be refueled similar to current gas vehicles. But this is really a dubious advantage since I'd wager most people would rather let a car charge in their garage overnight rather than make a detour to a service station a few times a week. Even if I'm wrong, this is still about where the advantages end. The disadvantages and obstacles are numerous:
1. Fuel cells are a very young, exotic, technology, at least for consumer use. Batteries are already good enough now and getting better and cheaper rapidly
The infrastructure is not available to enable widespread adoption of fuel cells even if people wanted them. Batteries can be charged anywhere and supercharging technology is spreading rapidly cutting into the possible 'refueling time' advantage.
2. Electricity is fundamentally easy to move around. We can use wires. Hydrogen requires new pipelines or trucks to move it from point of production to point of use along with 'gas' stations to dispense.
3. Hydrogen may be better suited to large truck or buses which have space to store large tanks of hydrogen.
I'll let the more scientific minds on this forum correct me if I'm wrong...
4.
To sum it up: Fuel cells are starting from a long way back, on balance offer few if any advantages over current batteries. Meanwhile, battery tech is entering a period which is already giving us dramatic price drops and improvement in performance. Fuel cells are likely destined to continue on as a niche technology.
Anything that actually does something can be dangerous if it's used incorrectly. People choose to use it though when they want an actual effect to occur. If your point is that you're putting on a show to pretend to your kids that you're treating them, well, that's a different thing altogether.
This is a very good point.
Ya, there is something inherent about apple that leads to a plethora of unsafe knockoffs. They design their products to need expensive accessories that they then gouge the consumer on. If they really wanted to slowdown the knockoffs, they should start selling at a price that's related to the cost of production.
Everyone is confusing India with North America. There are still millions of people in India without any power whatsoever. Having a clean source of electricity for half the time, even if it goes out the other half is a vast, vast improvement. Energy storage will ultimately come, but it's not critical yet.
They won't ever need to take 'the other system' down. It's modular. You can swap components out on the fly. One of the reasons they ditched the diesel was that it was too unreliable. Batteries are the backup now, 3 days worth of backup in fact. Integrating wind into the system would undoubtedly make it incredibly robust, but would be crazy overkill.
Never spend more than $1000 on a laptop... unless someone else is paying.
That would tear a traditional roof apart. Good thing there's insurance...