Ok sounds good. Of course that brings us back to how we are going to generate all this additional electricity needed for transportation, and the infrastructure to support it...with a handfull of EV cars in Cali, they already have shortages and told when to or not to charge their cars!!! Gen 4/5 reactors for the win! Problem with that is is takes at least 10 years to get thru all the regulatory stuff and build one...
I don't know if you've been through the desert south west lately, but there are thousands of acres of new solar every time I take the Jeep out. We did a solar project for a local school district where they built solar car ports over all their parking lots across 21 different schools. Free power plus sheltered and shaded vehicles (think about how much less you need to cool your vehicle when not parked in the sun in 100⁰ weather). How many parking lots are there in America? Now start building the same canopies over freeways. 0 space lost and massive energy production from the sun. Sounds like a win win to me? I might be biased both as an electrician and someone who's worked at tesla and lucid motors having driven or ridden in some of the quickest vehicles ever made thanks to instant torque, but I'm all for the EV future. I'll buy an EV wrangler tomorrow if it has solid axles and a 400 mile range and no full well it will be infinitely better off road thanks to finite motor control and instant torque.
The trailer idea could work as just an additional battery pack as well. Service stations with universal trailers along the major freeways charged and ready to go. Having been in the construction industry for 25 years, I’ve seen battery tech and electric motors improve by leaps and bounds in small form first hand. The old 7.2v long handle marital cordless drills were barely above useless. Drill a few holes and the battery is dead. Now you can drill holes and screw in boxes all day on a single 20v 6AH pack, and they have 12AH packs if you want more range. The 1st time I saw the 60V hole hawg I thought it was a joke, the 1st time I used one I bought mine immediately. We now have cordless band saws, angle grinders, cable cutters, lawn mowers, chain saws, table saws and even air compressors. Lots of high amp draw, power hungry tools served just as well by batteries as they were by gas or 120v cords. Just last weekend installing my drop brackets I snapped one of the upper control arm bolts in half with the cordless impact because it didn’t want to come out. If batteries and motors improve as much in the next 20 years as they did in the last 20, I don’t think anyone will miss gas at all.
My favorite one I’ve read about recently is this rechargeable fluid that could be taken in and out of compatible batteries and I suppose in theory you could have a vehicle using a fairly traditional stop at gas station it seems to me.
It's still basically using Lithium so you have to find a large source of Lithium somewhere, it's just packaging it differently inside the cell. Of course if you get more energy output per ounce of lithium, then you don't have to have as many slave children mining as much lithium.
I’m sure the steam engine guys sounded just like you 100 years ago. Don’t worry 20 years from now I’ll come visit you at your gas museum job you volunteer at in retirement and hear stories of “back in my day”.Ok solar, which while getting better is still at what 20% efficiency? And those solar panels last about what, 10 years before needing to be replaced? And the elements needed to build them, controlled as of now mainly by our main global competitor...you see where I'm going... sorry I just love playing devils advocate...
That is the most exaggerated nonsense spread by conservatives. The vast majority of lithium comes fro Australia which has stricter and more worker friendly labor laws than the US. The 2nd leading supplier is Chile, again no slaves or child labor. 3rd is Argentina, again no with the slaves. 4th is china, being communist I guess you could call them slave ajacent if you don’t understand how actual slavery works. Zimbabwe which produces less than .5% of the lithium could maybe have child slaves in mines? Of course that diamond on every politicians wife’s finger and the ones around the necks of their mistresses were probably mined by child slaves in Africa, but let’s not talk about that.
Solar panel manufacturing is not exactly an "environmentally friendly" process, and only about 10% of them are currently being recycled when taken out of service for whatever reason. Logic says the other 90% go to the dump. And if you believe the environmentalists, solar farms in the desert wreak havoc on wildlife and habitat. It's definitely not a "win, win". It's also definitely not "free power". Someone is paying for the panels, installation, maintenance, etc.
Anyone that thinks logically vs. emotionally will realize that nuclear power is a great option. A much better option than solar in my humble opinion. We need to streamline the paperwork process and build more plants yesterday.
Until now, I don't think I've ever heard a single person, liberal or conservative say that the majority of lithium is mined by slaves. I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that he meant cobalt, which is essential to lithium battery manufacturing.
Heh you don’t get out much on the internet, most uneducated liberals and conservatives on the internet argue about how many slaves mine lithium not even realizing they have the wrong thing entirely. Yes they all mean cobalt, no they only think lithium and other various “rare earth metals” are minor in comparison with it comes to any lithium battery.
Some of the small cobalt mines in the Congo absolutely use slaves, 0 safety practices, etc and make up 10-15% of the world supply of cobalt, but again that's far from the norm and it's a war torn country where civil rights are nearly non-existent in all fronts. The vast majority of Congolese mining operations are large scale and run just like most major mining operations around the world. Blaming EVs or the demand for batteries is just virtue signaling in reverse. Without the cobalt and diamond mines they would likely be in the same boat as Haiti where people simply starve to death. Should the buyers of these products apply pressure for better working conditions from their suppliers? Absolutely. Is it something we can simply regulate away? No.
I try not to. Seems that it used to be about 90% informative, 10% BS. Now it seems to be the other way around.
As a youngster a teacher told us that Nuclear would replace petrol when we were adults. There already were the 1958 Ford Nucleon concept with a 5K mi range scale models (In the Dearborn museum). A design study for the X-12 nuclear locomotive. The WS-125 nuclear bomber project 54-61 , JFK scrapped it. The Russian nuclear TV95 Bear reportedly flew 40 times 61-69, some crewmen died of radiation poisoning. The nuke plant for Sacramento was began in 66, commissioned in 75 at a $375M (~1.6 B today) cost, decommissioned in 89 per vote. Public sentiment had already swung negative. Accidents, plant shutdowns, the opportunity has passed unless Fusion becomes functional, we were ~10 years away in the 70’s……still are. ? The teacher had a magazine with a Nuclear symbol on the front of a locomotive and I believe vehicles and planes also were on the cover.
And we've always been 10 years away from a new ice age, widespead global droughts and famines due to warming, massive floods from complete polar ice cap melts, super hurricanes every year, California west of the San Andreas Fault breaking off and falling into the sea, etc, etc
