Posted on 12/01/2020 5:15:01 PM PST by george76
Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk said on Tuesday that electricity consumption will double if the world’s car fleets are electrified, increasing the need to expand nuclear, solar, geothermal and wind energy generating sources.
Increasing the availability of sustainable energy is a major challenge as cars move from combustion engines to battery-driven electric motors, a shift which will take two decades, Musk said in a talk hosted by Berlin-based publisher Axel Springer.
There’s no unicorn energy source or free lunch. Currently, electric cars are primarily powered by coal, natural gas, and nuclear. Those are the sources we use to generate electricity, after all, according to the Energy Information Agency. Renewables are growing but still account for less than 20% of U.S. electricity.
There’s no free lunch when it comes to renewable energy source, which may not even be all that renewable. Wind and sun are free, but the means of generating power from them are not.
They require batteries, which requires extensive mining and the use of toxic chemicals.
Mining is a dirty business.
...
Tens of thousands of aging blades are coming down from steel towers around the world and most have nowhere to go but landfills. In the U.S. alone, about 8,000 will be removed in each of the next four years.
...
the blades can’t easily be crushed, recycled or repurposed. That’s created an urgent search for alternatives in places that lack wide-open prairies. In the U.S., they go to the handful of landfills that accept them, in Lake Mills, Iowa; Sioux Falls, South Dakota; and Casper, where they will be interred in stacks that reach 30 feet ..
Removing them and transporting them to landfills increases windmills’ energy footprint over time.
...
more electric cars will require more electric generation.
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
Bingo. There is no lithium fairy.
Where are you going to get all the materials for all of us to have batteries? And where will they go when they are played out?
It’s what we have said for years. The energy required to plug in 100 million cars a day is far greater than what we have currently. We would need probably five hundred to a thousand new nuclear power plants. And that will require increased amperage capacity for the entire power grid.
And no new nukes.
Electric is NOT the future,
Very Prophetic!:
“As I’ve read elsewhere, this massive push to electric cars is a clever way to total people control.”
Electric cars have very limited range vs traditional diesel/gasoline vehicles plus the huge fact that electric charging stations are still few & far between.
So with the eventual elimination of liquid fueled cars, the govt has then corralled the mobility and freedom of movement of the people.”
My wife and I are 80 something, and our parents were basically adamant to have their own vehicles up to the time they couldn’t drive safely anymore. Cataracts where a big issue then. Now we have cataracts removed from both eyes and catch a ride home. Then, we can drive to the Dr’s office for the checkup.
We now see that same independence with people up to their 90’s.
Our direct descendants, sons/daughters and nephews and Nieces will not give up their vehicles. If something happens job or career wise. Their vehicles and rental trucks can take them to a new home, career a few hours away or a couple of days away.
Even in a good retirement home, my mother kept her driver’s license and a like new 4 door sedan. When her retirement home skipped on lunches, she and 3 friends went to a good cafeteria. Or they bought fast food at drive through restaurants and ate in the car like teens or at a nice park.
At our church, we have a few independent 90 year old somethings still driving their vehicles.
If we’re going to start making transsexuals get positions because of diversity quotas, I’m OK with shutting down all the nuclear reactors. I don’t want a mentally ill diversity hire operating them.
Glad he mentioned nuclear.
Elon Musk has created and demonstrated a viable space transportation system. How about expanding it into an actual space station of his own, complete with solar satellite panels?
The idea's been around for decades. At first it was just an object in orbit that collected sunlight, concentrated it, and beamed it to earth for collection - an enormous convex mirror. The sunlight boiled water to run steam turbines, just like any other power plant, but no fuel was needed, just sunlight.
This idea never got off the ground, because of startup costs and the danger to birds and aircraft. The idea was refined to lose the mirror, collecting sunlight in solar panels instead, which would be beamed to earth via microwave - much more elegant and safer.
Unlimited electric power on demand - that's an idea that might appeal to Elon Musk. He's not afraid to spend money, a whole pile of it, to reap such an unlimited reward. Maybe it's time to run the numbers again?
Thought(?) I heard Ford is heading that way for all models. Saw the electric mustang————uh, no!
Fixed it.
Less than the gasoline energy required.
“Why Gas Engines Are Far From Dead - Biggest EV Problems”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hatav_Rdnno
Thorium was originally proposed to fix the proliferation issues. But U-233 works pretty well for making “Big Boom”.
And Thorium reactors make it, just like Uranium reactors make Plutonium.
I prefer the Uranium cycle. At least until we run out of it. Then I will prefer the Thorium cycle.
Ideally, at some point, we have fusion mastered, long before we dig all the heavy metals out of the ground, and burn it up in fission reactors.
Also, many people don’t realize that Chernobyl was running on “dirt”, which is to say, unenriched natural U238. Though some reports still say it was (at a level of 1 to 2%).
But you can do that with Graphite or Heavy Water. But when you do it with graphite, and you boil away all of your water, the reaction doesn’t stop, until the reactor undergoes self disassembly and the fuel assembly geometry is disturbed. There are reports that indicate Chernobyl may have been operating in uncooled, fully exposed, criticality for at least a few seconds after the lid came off (fishermen told stories of seeing actinic light beaming upward, just after the explosion, before they died a few days later).
At least in Heavy Water reactors, like the Candu reactors, they slow down from lack of water, or when they boil their coolant. They won’t even rupture since they can’t exceed a maximum power output, since when voids form in the heavy water, the reaction also slows down.
Elon can do math.
This will make him an enemy of the people.
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