No rest for the rocketry as NASA's Easter weekend heats up The US Space Agency has a busy few days ahead as a trio of International Space Station (ISS) residents prepare to return to Earth this weekend, and a critical SpaceX Dragon freighter is readied for launch on Monday. NASA astronaut Don Pettit and Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner, at the end of their seven- …
... then they wouldn't need the care packages from Earth.
Unfortunately, given that BioSphere II couldn't sustainably grow their own food (the C02 scrubbers weren't the only limiting factor, hell, the extra CO2 probably helped the crops), there's small chance that ISS could. (Although, given enough volume of attached inflatable modules, assuming Bigelows don't need too many patches, maybe they could come close?)
Even the spaceship "Valley Forge", from the movie Silent Running (1972), was more of a preservation ark than a source of food.
Unfortunately, given that BioSphere II couldn't sustainably grow their own food (the C02 scrubbers weren't the only limiting factor, hell, the extra CO2 probably helped the crops), there's small chance that ISS could.
Wasn't BioSphere II's problem one of unintentional CO2 scrubbing? So the concrete ending up doing what most natural processes do and turning CO2 into calcium carbonate, so not enough CO2 rather than too much.
But there have been a lot of biological experiments looking at ways to grow food in space, including.. less conventional shapes. Plus stuff that (I think) was pioneered for that application that's being used down here like foams to hold growing plants and keep mess down to a minimum. Then also potential effects for organic life support and recycling, so natural O2 & CO2 source/sinks along with recovering water and minerals from waste. So less need to launch mass, just a few.. potential risks around crop failures.
And then space in space, so how easy it would be to add BioSpheres to the ISS to build space grow labs, and maybe DEA agents providing biosafety to stop any weed seeds ending up in orbit. Hops, malt and grape seeds should be permitted because space isn't sustainable until we can produce booze there. But one of those ambitious projects that could benefit humankind that's currently being hampered by a certain person pissing off everyone that could potentially contribute to building an ISS2.0 Especially with SF writing about using ISS as a staging post to start assembling a bigger and better one. So maybe ISS2.0 will end up being BRICS in space, and the US and EU aren't invited.
go back to south Africa, the US is sick of you. Electric cars that are a bigger Enviromental impact than gas cars, polluting the air and even the skyline with your rockets and satellites. Destroying gov research funding so your space x crap gets more money. You like Bezos and Gates, are leaches on society and destructive while hoarding power for personal gain. Go away, we are sick of you and your type.
"Electric cars that are a bigger Enviromental impact than gas cars"
You were doing so well up until that point. Yes, battery production is a bit messy (primarily because built in china, using dirty power sources) and yes energy isn't 100% renewable right now. But it's a step.
Even if an electric car was using 100% fossil-produced energy, it would *still* be greener than an ICE vehicle. Know why? Because a power station will operate at peak efficiency at all times - a car is only capable of producing peak efficiency at a certain rev level (around 2500rpm in a petrol car), which it will almost never be at. And at peak efficiency, it'll *still* be at best 50% energy efficient (realistically waaay lower), the rest being lost in heat (and noise).
Good point about conversion efficiency.
Remember to look at the back end of the process -- what happens to dead electric car battery packs which all are auto-manufacturer- and model-specific?
Current EV battery-pack recycling is currently not very effective, and can create its own toxic waste.
https://www.science.org/content/article/millions-electric-cars-are-coming-what-happens-all-dead-batteries
Just blithely assuming, "Oh, it'll get better" is not a sane plan.
Fair, but a saner plan than blithely tapping into a limited resource that will not get replenished (certainly not at the rate we consume) that's getting harder, riskier and more expensive to extract.
Ultimately I expect it's the market that will drive the shift, and equally solve your recycling problem. Right now, it's cheaper to just mine the battery materials, at some point recycling tech will improve to the point it's cheaper to harvest the material from dead cells. Or shift to a different battery tech, my money is still on hydrogen fuel cells, with refuelling done as a battery-swap at "petrol stations" and the dangerous refuelling part done en-masse, similar to how you buy BBQ gas. Similarly the markets will shift the energy sources as fossils become more expensive and green gets cheaper. I expect fossils are already prohibitively expensive, but are being masked by subsidies.
Ultimately I expect it's the market that will drive the shift, and equally solve your recycling problem. Right now, it's cheaper to just mine the battery materials, at some point recycling tech will improve to the point it's cheaper to harvest the material from dead cells.
Problem is it isn't the market driving the shift, but virtue signalling politicians. Easiest way to drive the shift would be if EVs were cheaper and more convenient than ICEs, but they're not. Well, maybe not in Europe, but China's perhaps ahead of that game. Then if it's all about energy and being 'Green', it's the energy costs of trying to recycle batteries, extracting the chemistry and turning it back into something useful.
Or shift to a different battery tech, my money is still on hydrogen fuel cells,
Other fuel cells are available. Fun one is ethanol as a fuel, which is easier to make, store, transport and use than hydrogen. Especially given crazy ideas that somehow we can replace fossil fuels with H2 without consuming collosal amounts of energy, along with costs to store, transport, use etc. Plus if you get stuck in a snowstorm, an H2 fuel cell will keep you warm, as long as you don't get bored and drink your fuel. Batteries will just go flat faster.
Similarly the markets will shift the energy sources as fossils become more expensive and green gets cheaper. I expect fossils are already prohibitively expensive, but are being masked by subsidies.
That's one of the big lies spun by the 'renewables' lobby. In the UK, they're subsidised to the tune of £10bn+ a year and the reason UK electricity prices are now amongst the most expensive in the world. And they're going to get even more expensive unless we ditch 'Net Zero'. But we can't do that while we have Ed Millibrain working for the 'renewables' lobby. Fossil fuel prices are kind of artificially distorted, but they're not really subsidised. Especially when there are extraction royalties, higher CT rates, fuel duties, and of course VAT on top. But because electricity is getting ever more expensive, and oil prices have fallen again, EV's are getting more expensive to run than ICEs. Especially at public chargers, and that problem is only going to get worse.
See also-
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications/investigation-moray-offshore-windfarm-east-limiteds-compliance-tclc
Since it began operating in the BM in September 2021, Moray East Offshore Windfarm has been regularly instructed by NESO to reduce its generation to manage transmission constraints. Its bid prices since then appear expensive relative to the expected marginal cost of reducing generation for this generator. Our investigation will assess whether these bid prices were excessive during periods of constraint.
They've generated around £100m over a couple of years to not deliver electricity. Normally when supply exceeds demand, prices drop.. But not in the UK with the way the energy market is rigged.
The materials are sufficiently valuable that recovery is going to happen.
It's not really worth doing at the moment because there are so few battery packs coming to the end of their life (because even the end of their lives in an EV isn't the end of the battery).
But look at the amount of mining and refining and burning that has gone on in the mean time by an IC vehicle - NONE of which will be "recycled" in any way shape or form, and all of which release unwanted chemicals directly into the atmosphere.
That's my point - even if you didn't de-carbonise the grid, a fossil powered EV would *still* be more fuel efficient than an ICE vehicle for those reasons. Even Top Gear figured that out when they built an EV and strapped a generator to it because you can run the generator at its most efficient RPM constantly.
Once you factor in the efficiency of a thermal power station at converting chemical energy into electrical energy then the transmission losses then the round trip losses from the EV charger to the battery and back to the motor then I'm not convinced its that much more compelling than just running a modern fuel-efficient ICE. Its probably better but its not like 2 or 3 times better.
If we didn't all insist that we have the God-given right to drive around in 2,000kg+ behemoths that barely fit on the road and don't fit in most parking spaces with leather clad and electric operated everything, and we didn't drive like the riders of the apocalypse are after us then things might not be quite as fucked up as they are. But that would involve some personal sacrifice and that'd never do....
If we didn't all insist that we have the God-given right to drive around in 2,000kg+ behemoths that barely fit on the road and don't fit in most parking spaces with leather clad and electric operated everything,
Ah, but making those 3,000kg by adding batteries is oh so much greener! Also nothing necessarily wrong with leather clad, providing it suits the driver. Also I was at Goodwood the other weekend watching the somewhat controversial Beast of Turin ripping around the circuit. Which got me thinking that it'd be exempt from London's congestion charge, despite having a 50 pint engine. Not practical for the weekly shop, and I resisted the auction* and other potentially fun cars.
But that would involve some personal sacrifice and that'd never do....
Cars a weird. Or the drivers are. How else does one signal status and virtue while out and about? Even if that means living with parents or a bedsit to afford the obligatory Lambo needed to become a parasocial media celebrity. (cr)Apps like TikTok were probably the best thing that ever happened to supercar manufacturers, but maybe not the loan companies. See also the legion of the damned that reserved Cybertrucks on the expectation of being able to flip them. Guess that's not too much of a problem with Tesla because they keep the reservations, and might still be able to flog the vehicle to some other sucker.
* Which on a Lambo note, one at the auction was apparently 'worth' £500k+, practically new, and sold for a lot less. Guessing that might have been a bank repo.
From memory, the "raw" output is about 3 times better - cars on average will convert around 20% of the potential from fuel into running the engine on average (it can peak at 50% in a really really efficient modern car, but rarely are the conditions, revs, gearing etc optimal) and the rest will be output as heat into the cooling systems. A power plant will do 60%. The losses in transmission isn't as high as people think - between 2 and 10% - so that power plant efficiency is still in the 55% zone.
Loss between battery and motor, won't be anything substantially different between the loss between engine and the wheels (horsepower vs brake horsepower). So yeah, it's still in the 2-3 times more efficient zone. You've also got the advantages of keeping the pollution in known places and treating it accordingly, rather than distributing it evenly through a metropolis.
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