Posts by MachDiamond 8862 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Aug 2012
"Climate Change Act with it's 'legally binding' carbon reduction targets. "
That's very simple to deal with, just start banning businesses that output CO2. Too bad that a lot of that has to do with food, but compliance to meet any binding obligations can be done. What happens on the other side of the ledger has to be ignored. Still, fantastic opportunities in the mortuary and funeral industry to be had.
"those same scumbags have been telling us windmills have been getting cheaper, and will continue to be cheap."
The problem with wind turbines is there isn't a match between when they are generating and when there's demand. Hooking them into the grid is hopeless the way things work now. They either need to power things that don't have a problem with the intermittency or the grid needs to be able to signal when the wind is blowing and power can be had on the cheap. The turbines are getting cheaper, but that's not the issue, it's a utilization problem.
"rely on technology that doesnt exist to solve a problem not understood but also by the claims of the 'problem' we have planned solutions such as Drax burning wood chips."
Yes, but you left out that those wood chips are imported since the Greens would lose their minds if they were sourced locally. Burning tons of bunker fuel is perfectly fine, apparently.
" It's total fucking madness, and all parties you can vote for are committed to the same madness."
So, pretty much everything we expect from government already. There are no parties, just different patterns on the neckties and BS that's exactly the same once you get past the smell.
"Or was that a conspiracy theory? Hard to remember which ones are real."
Some from column A, some from column B.
Politics is a big problem. There's lots of fanfare for a new rail line, but no so much for ongoing maintenance and upgrades. After some time the current system gets worn out and unreliable and people move into their cars long before anybody in government notices (being driven everywhere or having been allocated a nice car to drive themselves). The level of red tape can be overwhelming too so private companies aren't interested in transportation projects unless a government is handing them a cost-plus contract so there's a guarantee that they will make stacks of money whether they build it efficiently or not.
"The power grid very obviously can't handle everyone moving to an EV"
Why not if it can provide refineries with enough energy to turn crude into transportation fuels for ICEV's? There will be some issues with distribution, but that can be handled over time if government doesn't insist on a super fast conversion from ICE to EV.
"The Tesla Semi with its 500kWh battery would be unable to carry a full load in Europe without exceeding the 40/44 tonne MGW limits."
That's what I thought, but Tesla's (only) customer right now is Pepsi's Frito-Lay division. Packets of crisps aren't very dense. As it turns out, most of the time large trucks "cube out", in other words, the trailer is full up before the weight limit is hit. A company shipping steel and other dense items isn't going to do well with an electric truck. Range and charging time will be super important too. Passenger cars sit a lot, but commercial vehicles don't.
"(depending on what the tax revenues get used for"
In California the taxes get used to provide attorneys to people that have entered the country illegally so they can fight expulsion. Ok, not only that, but the money that was supposed to go in the fund for roads got redirected to the General Fund so it can be used for anything and California is about as liberal as they come with all sorts of government funded "feel good" programs.
Any taxes collected for road use should go into a fund only for roads. <shrug> well, it makes sense to me.
"Instead it should be based on distance driven, as fuel taxes (indirectly) are."
That sounds good on the surface, but the apparatus to collect, collate and calculate the miles driven costs money and is invasive. Let the government get their foot in the door and the next thing is they'll want a breakdown of why the trips were made and then to where, precisely, did you go, when were you there, etc.
There's lots of data collected about "average" miles driven per year and it's easiest to just asses a flat fee to recover what was collected in petroleum fuel taxes. The State could adjust that from time to time (with limits) to account for heavier vehicles being used and the need for more maintenance and hopefully better road construction to start with.
"So that's ~1.1m/kWh"
There's a big difference between the latent energy in a fuel and what you can realistically extract from it. A piston engine isn't all that efficient, but a turbine-electric car might be a tad more noisy and harder to maintain. Startup is a bit more involved too.
The energy used to drill a well for oil will often amortize out to zero (close enough) so that can be ignored, but once the oil is brought to the surface, it goes on the Cook's tour of world locations before splashing into your petrol tank. Not to mention all of the energy it takes to refine the oil into something that can be used for transportation. Electricity is far more efficient than that and there isn't the need for military involvement to keep places where electricity is made from exploding into war and cutting off supply.
"So EV's get flogged to gullible consumers on the basis of deceptive TCO figures."
But maffs is hard.
I always recall the line from Real Genius "that's what you get for not having an education". There are nice spreadsheet online that do a very good job of helping one analyze whether an EV would be a good buy. It would be stupid to have the manufacturer giving you advice in the same way as having a solar installation company doing the assay to see how large of a system you might need (if you have any ROI to begin with). They don't do that, they hand you the guff about a "standard system" for homes in your area with some margin to grow. Everybody I know that's got a quote from those places was quoted something way overbuilt and way over priced. Unfortunately, many people fall for it and have a hard time selling their homes later.
"If you used Red Diesel to run a genset (~25% efficiency?) to charge an EV, would it really be cheaper than plugging it into the grid?"
If you can use the heat as well, it could be well worth it depending on maintenance and repair costs. There's also going to be a cost with permits to store and receive shipments of fuel. I expect that for a large tank, there will be (semi) annual required inspections. You would really need to have a use for a lot of heat. A friend of mine worked for his dad installing cogen systems at laundromats. The idea was that if you are going to heat a bunch of water, you might as well get some electricity out of the process as well. They used a modified Toyota 22R engine jacketed to capture a good portion of the heat it produced while running on natural gas.
"Should you be fuelling EVs via duty paid, or 'red' diesel?"
If the tax was written and implemented to maintain roads (bridges, etc), there doesn't seem to be a problem with using 'red' diesel in a generator since it's not used on the roads.
"Adding that up I would have thought the electric grid would need to at least triple in size if not quadruple, and it's expensive enough just to maintain it at its current size."
People keep insisting on having kids so just maintaining "the grid" at its current size is a non-starter. I don't see merit in building out using the same 100 year old technology since there are plenty of ways to use/distribute power more efficiently.
"Assuming the car and/or charger is "smart" and talks to the grid"
That's the key piece of needed technology. The simplest thing to do is transmit pricing. When prices are high, supply is constrained. When prices are low, there is plenty to go around. People can set their cars to charge based on prices and other parameters or just tell the car to charge regardless of price as they need to go on a long trip. That same pricing information would be handy to anybody that wants to save some money on things like heating. A dual zone water heater can just heat up water at the top of the tank but heat the whole thing when price drops below a certain point. HVAC settings can have a price parameter to keep a leash on costs. It's really needed if you install a home battery. When prices are high, you can use power from the battery and recharge it when prices are low or you have excess solar generation.
"If you want to do something about pollution, those are the people you need to target, not the people like me who drive about 3 miles per week."
If you can charge at home, you'd be a good candidate. The price of a limited early EV is a pittance. I was thinking of that when I was looking at a job nearby. It was 20 miles from my driveway to work and 1st gen Leafs sell for very little. The bonus is the job site has free EV charging so "fuel" would be nothing and I'd not be putting commuting miles on my current car. It would be no problem that the car only has 70 miles of range. I would have likely had all sorts of fun "adding lightness" to the car via all sorts of mods such as deleting the back seats.
"> You plug it in when you get back from work and you can unplug it before you goto bed.
Which just so happens to coincide with the UK peak electricity demand between 6pm-10pm"
It would be better to set the car to charge in the wee hours on an off peak tariff. They will all do that, btw.
"EVERY EV charger connected to some network somewhere."
Where did you get that from? If you plug into a public charger, yes. Even worse is one that reads the VIN for billing and extracts heavens know what other data. An EVSE at home doesn't need to connect to any network and a 13a plug is about as brain dead as you can get.
Let's say you just use a granny charger at night that's letting you charge at 2kW. An efficient EV in the city can do 4miles/kWh so that's 8 miles of range for every hour of charging. If you have the car plugged in for 10 hours, that's 80 miles of range replaced. Depending on what EV tariffs are being offered for off-peak charging, it could be less expensive to have a higher powered EVSE fitted and only charge during off-peak hours (lots of ways to do that including setting times in the car) but charging faster. 80 miles is a fair bit of driving every day (21,000/miles/yr (5-day week)) for most people so they could set their car to only charge during off-peak when rates are lower.
"If you drive 30 miles per day, you'd be better suited to a bike."
If you are in your mid-20's and it isn't raining, sure. If you have to don "business clothes" for work, a sweaty bike ride isn't going to be viable unless your work has a locker room where you can have a quick shower and change clothes. Of course, that takes time. When you get to my ancient years, have done bad things to your back and aren't as in-shape as you once were, biking is far less of an option. It's also not that handy if you want to hit the shops on the way home and don't want to step out to find your bike has gone missing.
"Remember, part of the problem is the underlying assumption that we can save the planet and still continue to have and use cars just as we do today."
There are too many issues with the whole petroleum industry to enumerate here, but reducing the demand would be a good thing all around. Air quality in gridlocked cities would improve and there would be fewer cars dripping oil all over the place.
"Trip hazards of charging a car parked on the road would be a no-no. And there are a lot of properties like that. It just points up the lack of public charging infrastructure."
Those in terrace homes will either have to move or forgo an EV. It's just like living in a leased flat that doesn't allow pets: no doggie for you. As far as the trip hazard goes, there are channels being made that insert into a cutout in the pavement so cables aren't laid across where people are walking. Solutions will be found for many charging issues but I think that trying to add gobs of public charging is picking the fruit on the top of the tree first. It would be no problem to charge an EV at my home. I have plenty of off-street parking and the former owner fitted a high capacity outlet in the garage for a welder. While that's on the inside, it's on a wall where I could park on the opposite side so installing an EVSE on the outside wall would be dead simple. I could even leave the outlet for a welder if I remember not to use both at the same time.
"Modern Battery Chemistry has changed all that. If your car uses LFP batteries then they risk of spontaneous combustion is almost zero. This is unlike the older chemistries."
Like anything engineered, there are lots of variables to optimize for. Safety can be a key factor that shouldn't be ignored in favor of energy density. Number of cycles is also huge.
The reason we have petrol tanks that can allow us to travel 400-500 miles is how inconvenient it would be to have to stop for a fill up every 2 days. With an EV and the ability to plug in at home, that's much less of a problem. Lots of EV owners report they've only used their granny charger and only stopped at a public fast charger 3-4 times over a few years when on a long trip. If you commute to work each day, your energy usage in an EV is based more on distance than time so battling traffic isn't as much of a energy waste as it is with an ICEV. 240-300 miles of range is what many EV makers have been shooting for with a few also offering smaller battery packs for people that don't need that much and want to save some money. Since I do a lot of field service work, I track my mileage for taxes. It's a rare day that I'd need a top up while out. I would need to stop when visiting my mom, but an extra 15-20 minutes isn't a problem and I already know there are plenty of charging stations along the route. There are even some lower power fast chargers near to restaurants we often visit for lunch when I go by so that needed stop can be eliminated a lot of the time. All of this waffle is to say that super long ranges aren't needed by most.
"The only reason I'm not worried about the "britcoin" digital currency is because of this country's utter ineptitude when it comes to large-scale IT projects."
Good point. Never mind all of the possible abuses of the system if they aren't likely to keep the system up and running reliably.
"I predict that 400/230V residential distribution will be the first limiting factor in widespread EV adoption"
Why? Most people charge their EV's in the middle of the night when tariffs are low and they aren't otherwise using much power.
"The electric grid is the most overloaded, inefficient, expensive, unreliable and vulnerable of all our energy distribution networks. "
Citation needed. Just a cursory look at how far petroleum products travel from the well to the point of usage shows how very much more inefficient it is to burn petrol and diesel for personal transportation.
"Remember Jobs taken a dollar a year salary?"
Like most others that were doing that, many had to take more to comply with California minimum wage laws. That's salary, of course, not total compensation. If the company is coining it, it can be a huge advantage to take stock or stock options. In the mean time, the company is paying for meals, housing, wardrobe, transportation and business trips to exotic locations. A pretty good deal for a minimum wage employee, dontcha think?
"but they're always telling us how they're going to give the cash they've taken from us to their own pet charities or spend it on really useful stuff like exploding phallic rockets."
Seeing as how Tim Cook is gay, that statement could have a whole other dimension.
"especially not a US who loved researching nuclear-powered bombers among other things"
It turns out that the research was just a way for Alvin Weinberg to get funding to look into MSR's. The scientists and engineers knew that powering a plane with a reactor was a non-starter without even having to get out their slide rules.
"So Concorde was always going to be chasing a luxury market, which is tough in the air-travel business – which these days is mostly a loss leader for a financial-services organization already."
There isn't the same need for face to face as there used to be either. Communications are so much easier and varied that they can even be done with a mobile while sat on a beach. That takes aways a chunk of business travelers that might have been able to justify a Concorde flight to be across the Atlantic in the least amount of time. Concorde would also need to be able to compete with the super-luxury first class options being offered on some long distance flights in terms of cost. It's hard to say what a Concorde ticket might cost today. The original run of aircraft would be past retirement age and any new craft would be much more expensive to produce.
The sound barrier is a good demarcation line between affordable and too expensive for most applications. There's a similar breakpoint for trains.
"Yes, its noisy and ineffiicient by modern standards but then a typical business jet isn't exactly cost effective compared to a 737-8 that's crammed to the gills."
Business jets can be extremely cost effective depending on how you make your measurements. They fly when the passenger(s) needs them to fly. They can operate out of smaller airports that are closer to where the passenger(s) needs to be and there isn't all of the faffing about with security, queues and baggage content analysis. If you just want to measure the cost per passenger mile from one commercial airport to another, the 737 will win every time, but most people don't live at airports or wind up wanting to go to another one.
"I kept up the occasional "KZZZEERT!" until she got the terminology right."
The terminology is very important. Lot's of people use "loctite" when they mean "threadlocker". I made a bunch of money when some production staff went to the cabinet to get some "Loctite" and grabbed cyanoacrylate (super glue) instead of the threadlocker they were supposed to use. The company brought me a pallet of messed up bespoke product to see how much of it I could recover as the parts were very expensive. Loctite is a brand and they make loads of different adhesives and stuff. I also used a different brand of threadlocker in my own products as Loctite was too expensive if I couldn't find a bottle on eBay cheap.
"Amazon and others are exporting their cultish working practices to the rest of the world, only moving the absolute minimum they need to to get away with them in other countries."
That's fine. Those are the rules. If people think the rules are on the thin side, they need to contact their government representative and see if any attention will be paid to increasing those minimums. Good luck with that. The big companies make campaign contributions and the proles just complain that it's so unfair. It's the same argument as people saying the big companies aren't paying their "fair share" of taxes. Yes, they are or they'd be fined. If they paid more than required, they'd be fined as well for not acting responsibly for their shareholders to whom they are accountable.
"Amazon is my very, very, last resort for anything. I'd rather spend more if I can get things elsewhere."
I don't even use them as a last resort. My local hardware store can order all sorts of stuff (about 8 phone book sized catalogs if you remember phone books) and have it at the store in a few days. The owner of the local corner shop can find all sorts of things from the wholesalers he visits in the big city every week. He also keeps a list on his phone for what his regulars ask for. I like to buy local as much as possible. I want to ensure that those shops will be around and stocked when TSHTF. I usually need stuff at the last minute for a project I'm working on and even next day isn't good enough. I'm building some storage racks right now and may need some more sheet metal screws, maybe not. With the hardware store 2 blocks away, I'll have one rack finished off tomorrow whether I need to buy screws or not. I might even have the other one done if I have enough time whether it needs parts or not. If I relied on Amazon, it would be next weekend if any parts needed to be ordered and I'd have no idea if they actually will show up and what the quality looks like.
"Getting older, the mental "burnout", by the end of the workday, increasingly becomes an issue, so would be quite happy with a "mindless" manual job (but unfortunately not with the pay, as have dependent household to support). So could see how a warehouse job may have its attractions."
The last job where I was working for somebody else, I learned how to leave work at work. It had to be self-taught since nobody anywhere even mentions signing out from your job at the end of the day. The upside was that I was working at a small aerospace company and I was a one person department (avionics). There was nobody in the organization that could step in and take over my job so I didn't worried about getting sacked. That's not to say I wasn't passionate about what I did, but only that I didn't have to keep working after hours to make sure I kept my job.
I've alway had lots of outside interests. Some of them have been related to what I did/do for a living and some don't. I could nearly always get mentally engaged in something after work even if it was just getting through a few more chapters of a new book I was finding a good read. Getting some outside help could be a good move. Just like engaging a trainer to stay in good physical condition, mental training could be just as good.
"Are the people in Walmart loading docks or UPS's shipping center treated significantly better than Amazon employees?"
Well, the UPS workers in the US are union and at least the drivers just sewed up an insane pay rise. I used to see advertisements for holiday workers at the UPS sorting centers when I'd drop off packages, but after paying the initiation fee to the union and the dues out of each check for middle of the night work, it wasn't worth it.
"There's a difference between taking on a shit job that's got to be done, and taking on a shit job that is also a non-job like this one. If one cannot spot the difference, that's surely a black mark against one's resume?!"
Maybe she figured she could fleece Elon for a healthy 9 figures as her swan song before retirement. The writing was on the wall that the job would be a lightning rod and xitt sandwich taster from the very beginning. Given her net worth and a nice dollop of cream on top and she could live a long rest of her life in fabulous places dining on nothing but caviar and Champagne with hot and cold running fit male assistants.
"Also Brain - Why the f**k would I ever want to call someone on Twitter."
Elon's ground breaking idea is that X will be the "one app to rule them all" so people will be doing all of their communicating, banking, etc on the platform.
The problem is that Elon takes a lot of drugs so things don't get properly planned, marketed and released in any sort of rational way. A professional company would have released xCall, the next something or another in modern communications. Works along side xItter microblogging thingy.
The vast majority of people worry about being mugged in the street and robbed in their homes. It seems like so much effort is being put in by government to look after all of the children, they aren't paying much attention to the 'youths' hanging about on street corners after dark jus doin nuffin.
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