2021 Climate Change

[kamkar]

Ideally i would prefer to have my own grid, and not connected to the grid to sell off excess, and i would like that without subsidies or tax breaks.
The excess i might have i would rather use on a permanently on hot tub on the porch
Even if that mean i can only fully charge my car in 2 - 3 days

 

[SawMaster]

Indeed I think this is the best solution, but buying and refreshing the batteries can't be done piece-meal; it must be done all together which is a serious chunk of money on a large system Taking this path ensures that a problem elsewhere doesn't affect your power and eliminates the need for a 'grid' infrastructure and it's costs. But where the natural power source is near enough and large enough, grid delivery can be very good too. There are lots of people living 'off-grid' these days quite happily but it's not feasible everywhere and you do have to manage your power usage wisely In the more remote areas it can actually be cheaper too. But even if it's only used as a partial; solution this means less grid generation is needed and with that less infrastructure for it.

One of the YT channel's I'm subscribed to actually charges his Tesla with his solar system which is as ideal as things get, but he's in a very sunny location which allows that. Were it not for the initial costs being beyond me I'd be off-grid already

Phil

 

[Nigel]

Ideally i would prefer to have my own grid, and not connected to the grid to sell off excess, and i would like that without subsidies or tax breaks.
The excess i might have i would rather use on a permanently on hot tub on the porch

Yes, would be nice, but economies of scale make big offshore wind turbines much cheaper and more reliable than individual turbines, and a lot less work to look after, and unless you happen to live on a little island then you won't get reliable wind anyway!

Not a good example for anyone to follow, but California

So that is a good example to learn lessons from!

In UK it is normal to charge your EV on cheap overnight electricity, with a dedicated smart charging socket that turns on when the power is cheapest. Since the grid isn't being used for much else at that time there is no need to upgrade the grid for EV use, and because the wind turbine power isn't used for much else at that time there is plenty of cheap wind power available so no need to increase generating capacity for EV use either.

So far EV trucks are very much distance constrained with little hope for large improvements due to battery technology limits. Rail is not always an alternative and again converting that to electric is financially impossible when you will have to build a grid and generation capacity for it over vast distances like the US west and many other places must deal with.

I don't expect heavy goods vehicles to go EV, needs a big step in battery technology for that to make sense, hydrogen seems far more likely, possibly hydrogen generated locally to remove hydrogen transport requirements, generated using cheap overnight electricity of course.

And the rail, well a lot of places already have electric trains, most UK rail transport is electric, a third of global rail. In some places maybe conversion to hydrogen is cheaper than conversion to electric.

OK, USA is less than 1% of rail electrified, do you guys never invest in any infrastructure other than for war? (I know Trump built a bit of wall, but he used military funds for it!)

 

[Dashmellow]

do you guys never invest in any infrastructure other than for war?

Is it possible for you to discuss the USA without indulging in nation bashing?

There are probably too many major US infrastructure projects and mega-projects under construction or recently completed to even mention but a few of them include high speed rail, major transportation hubs, major international airport development and re-development, large scale housing, planned communities and urban development, bridges, multi-billion dollar corporate structures like the Apple Park "spaceship" (one mile in circumference) campus and Tesla's Gigafactory.

On the climate change/energy front the US is home to five of the largest solar thermal facilities in the world including the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility, the SEGS, the Mojave Solar Project, the Solana Generating Station and the Genesis Solar Energy Project.


Ivanpah

 

[Dashmellow]

I don't expect heavy goods vehicles to go EV, needs a big step in battery technology for that to make sense...

Despite your dismissive attitude it may come as a surprise to you that large capacity heavy EV trucking as well as EV heavy construction equipment is already in the works. They aren't just coming, they're here!

Elon Musk said that “Getting a range of 500km is quite easy, and trivial to be frank; achieving a Tesla Semi electric truck with 800km range will be easy, and eventually Tesla will achieve 1,000km range for long-haul trucking". These trucks will have the same abilities as regular 40 metric tonne diesel trucks but the electric motors can supply much greater torque than their diesel counterparts.



Freightliner has introduced a whole line of heavy electric trucks tractors including the eCascadia tractor.

Meet Your New Fleet of Freightliner Electric Trucks​

Caterpillar's new Z-line 26 ton EV excavator has a 122 kW electric motor and a 300-kilowatt-hour battery pack.

Caterpillar unveils an all-electric 26-ton excavator with a giant 300 kWh battery pack




Case has introduced the 580 EV, it's new all electric backhoe. Volvo, Hyundai and others are introducing their own EV heavy equipment offerings. The coming industry in heavy trucks and construction equipment is already well under way.

Next Up for Electrification: Heavy-Duty Trucks and Construction Machinery​

The Industry's First Fully Electric Backhoe Loader — The CASE 580 EV ​

CASE - 580EV

​

 

[Dashmellow]

You can operate this one using your phone! Love it!

 

[kamkar]

IMO wouldn't long haul of goods, be better if it was done on electric trains, at least in the US with so many road miles and so many trucks.
If you are going to swap all US trucks 1:1 with lipo battery ones, there will be no lithium for anyone / anything else

DSB’s nye, elektriske lokomotiver fra Siemens er kommet til Danmark | Presserum | Siemens i Danmark | Siemens

Siemens Mobility har leveret tre lokomotiver tidligere end planlagt til DSB Vectron lokomotiverne ...

translate.google.com

Vectron (locomotive) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

With a total weight of 85 t and a 98% recycling rate, what remains of a Vectron electric locomotive after recycling is about 1.700 kg of residual materials – the weight of a mid-size passenger car.

As i understand it, the plan here is to electrify all railroad lines here, and i must reluctantly admit that make sense to me, but i still have absolute 0 ( kelvin ) trust in the National railways here, and i am awaiting some kind of problem with those Siemens trains as that have been the norm for the last 2-3 types of new trains the railroads have gotten here,,,,,, Though not Siemens branded.

BTW. Many really big things, cranes / excavators ASO have always / for many decades been electric, simply no need to make them independent maneuverable as they dont really move much.

I am however interested in seeing how Maersk will go green, after all those big container ships, they need a lot of power to get from A to B

 

[Dashmellow]

IMO wouldn't long haul of goods, be better if it was done on electric trains, at least in the US with so many road miles and so many trucks.

Many locations would not be easily accessible for delivery from trains, so both long haul trucking and trains play a role. Also, many goods need to be loaded directly onto tractor trailers for shipping rather than transported to railroad yards or terminals, then unloaded and reloaded into boxcars and unloaded again when arriving at their destination.

The US is a huge nation of course, and so inter-modal shipping is often used. So, for example, containers may be transported on trains and then transferred to tractor trailers or vice versa. Often these containers first arrive by ship or are loaded directly onto ships after being loaded at the factory.

 

[kamkar]

Yeah last "mile" will probably have to be done by trucks, or vans when really close to destination,,,,,, maybe delivery driving / flying drones.

In the little town where i had my house, about a mile from there was a little larger town, but still down by the railroad tracks there was a loading / offloading setup, which dont look to have been used in my lifetime.

Googling it just now there actually was a station there since 1862, but it was torn down in 1972 and are now just a technical station, but it are still operational.
This is all thats left now.
There is like a ramp just outside the frame to the left, like you would see at loading docks.

Actually my birth town Aarhus, its goods terminal have also been discontinued for a long time.

Administrative building.

It is now changed to something fancy smancy arts and crafts and what not, so not a place i would go today.

Google Maps

Find lokale virksomheder, se kort og få rutevejledninger i Google Maps.

www.google.com

I think maybe these little stations, at least out in the country have to be reopened as smaller hubs for goods, in the big towns you of course need a bigger hub and maybe even smaller hubs within the city.

 

[SawMaster]

Just no way to do much different than fossil-fueled ICE powered machines in a lot of places. And in many instances you can't have a piece of equipment sitting around charging when it can and should be working and earning it's keep. I've worked jobs where the initial grading was a 24-hour operation that took 4 days to finish,. If you'd seen the kinds of people they often use to maintain and repair these machines in the field and the kind of work they do you wouldn't want them to be anywhere near hydrogen, or dealing with large lithium batteries Especially in my business of construction there's frequently just no substitute for fossil-fueled ICE equipment- no other way can be made to work without raising costs astronomically. Alternative fuels may work in a lot of places and might make sense there but it can't be universal, and that's the problem- the solution we need has to be at least nearly universal or it won't be enough to change our present course.

Just because you can do something is never reason enough on it's own to do it. As long as fossil fuels are the cheaper way to do things they are going to be what's used.

I can't fathom how Maersk can reach it's goal without 'cheating' by using carbon credits, but I'd like to see it happen. One of our worst polluters are ships using the very nasty bunker fuel. The reason they can't be stopped is that no nation rules the seas or sets rules for them, and the shipping companies control the input of smaller nations on agreed Maritime regulations so they out-vote any efforts which will increase their costs regardless or how it affects anyone or anything else.

Money runs the world including governments and unless you can provide something equal in every way to what we have now nothing major is going to change.

Phil

 

[Dashmellow]

The heavy construction equipment manufacturers claim that their new EV offerings are extraordinarily robust and reliable. The fact that you can avoid the cost of engine maintenance, diesel fuel, engine lubricants and in some cases hydraulic oils using electric actuators offers enormous long term cost savings and dramatically increases vehicle reliability. Of course, you also reduce carbon emissions by hundreds of tons per year per machine. Many of these new EV construction machines can be powered by auxiliary external power via cables when needed which also charges them at the same time. (pass-through-charging. )

 

[kamkar]

Yeah i assume in some way going electric will simplify things, though a electric motor car rev like a SOB, it do not sound like a 6 rotor Wankel,,,,, or other nice gas burners.

Of course often it take a Aussie for such things.

 

[Dashmellow]

This 45 ton E-dumper from Komatsu has a 9,000 pound 600 kWh lithium battery pack. Used in mining pits it never needs to be recharged.
As it descends from the top of a mining quarry it produces more electricity from regenerative braking than it uses to ascend to the top once again.

 

[jokiin]

Yeah i assume in some way going electric will simplify things, though a electric motor car rev like a SOB, it do not sound like a 6 rotor Wankel,,,,, or other nice gas burners.

Of course often it take a Aussie for such things.

rotors have a good following here but we can't take credit for that, that's actually in New Zealand, pains me to say it but they're probably the best when it comes to rotary performance mods, they really push the limits

 

[kamkar]

It do sound like in a second or so, someone are going to be a head short or on fire.
And i am all pro noise on the race track.

 

[SawMaster]

Even with pass-through charging many of these machines move to much, too far, and too fast to use it. Plus there would be added safety risks with electricity involved.

Sometimes isn't enough to avert climate change- it must be almost all of the time. And it isn't that we shouldn't try- it's just that we need to understand that the real-world results will make the best we will achieve nearly meaningless for a long time to come. The best path to reducing greenhouse gas emissions is to change how we live- which nobody is going to do.

John Finger raced rotary-engine cars here and also sold Mazda cars here too. He helped develop those engines in conjunction with the factory. I've spoken with him many times about that stuff. What killed rotary engines is emissions restrictions; they burn a little oil by design to produce large amounts of power from a small lightweight package which overall is an improvement on reciprocating piston engines. The last rotary model sold here (the RX 8) was so choked by emission regulations that it wasn't competitive in the market; nobody wants a slow sports car Fun Fact: The exact same oil injection pump used in Mazda rotaries was also used in many 2-stroke motorcycles with automatic oil-injection

Phil

 

[Dashmellow]

Even with pass-through charging many of these machines move to much, too far, and too fast to use it. Plus there would be added safety risks with electricity involved.

Sometimes isn't enough to avert climate change- it must be almost all of the time. And it isn't that we shouldn't try- it's just that we need to understand that the real-world results will make the best we will achieve nearly meaningless for a long time to come. The best path to reducing greenhouse gas emissions is to change how we live- which nobody is going to do.

Can't seem to find the videos I looked at earlier but they show an EV backhoe working just fine with a large auxiliary cable attached. There was another showing a system similar to a trolley car with overhead electrical connections. These are early days yet with this new technology.

The best path to reducing greenhouse gas emissions is to change how we live- which nobody is going to do.

Reducing greenhouse emissions with EV technology will be one of the main pathways.

There is zero chance that whatever changes we make about how humans live on this planet that we will no longer need heavy construction equipment unless we go back to living like primitives. Electric and alternative energy heavy trucking and construction vehicles will be a requirement.

No offense intended but with your logic it seems we would still be riding around in horse & buggies and riding on steam trains, Phil.

 

[kamkar]

well they can water fields trailing a water hose, so i assume they can also be harvested / planted trailing a electric cable if need be.

Not sure what people could do with crop circles outside of watering, the setup look rather flimsy for planting or harvesting using the watering boom
But the watering systems here you just pull your hose out thru the fields and then unhitch the machine, and then it water while it follow the hose in whatever pattern back thru the fields.
Real farmers have square fields, those newfangled circles we leave to others.

 

[Dashmellow]

well they can water fields trailing a water hose, so i assume they can also be harvested / planted trailing a electric cable if need be.

Not sure what people could do with crop circles outside of watering, the setup look rather flimsy for planting or harvesting using the watering boom
But the watering systems here you just pull your hose out thru the fields and then unhitch the machine, and then it water while it follow the hose in whatever pattern back thru the fields.
Real farmers have square fields, those newfangled circles we leave to others.

Wow! That is very similar to the job I used to have when I worked on a 60,000 acre cattle ranch in Wyoming. One of my jobs was to irrigate 1,000 acre fields of alfalfa. At sunrise I would drive a very similar looking tractor out to one side of a field and hook up a giant hose to a pump that drew water from a big irrigation ditch and water half of the field with a rig similar to that except that the entire length of pipe spouted water. Later in the day I would unhook the pipe from the pump and drive the tractor all the way back to the other side of the 1000 acres dragging the hose and hook it up to pump at an irrigation ditch on the other side and water that side of the field. Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. It is hard to describe the scale of the acreage out there. These fields were giant rectangles though.

 

[kamkar]

Yeah.
Not sure how large the largest Danish field are, but a quick google tell me the biggest agricultural farm are 3.355 acres, but only 1.631 acres are farmed fields, the rest are forest and other little stuff.
Okay you can say you farm forest but most people do not harvest every year then.
The farm have 35 full time employees.

Only 80 acres of those are above sea level, the rest are reclaimed land from Mariager fjord just north of where i live.
Lot of reclamation going on here in the old days, we lost many larger lakes ASO on that account.

2/3 of Denmark's size are active farmed.
% of the country farmed VS country size.


Imagine if 2/3 of the US was farmed, that would be a lot of acres to plow.