Tesla Model 3 revealed
Discussion
rovermorris999 said:
It's a shame basic physics isn't taught to everyone. This thread has turned into a waste of pixels. Time to go.
It is probably best to teach everyone that challenges are not worth overcoming. All we can do is burn dinosaur juice, then pack up and go home. Turn the lights off when you leave. Tuna said:
That last image is First Solar, which cost $2.5 billion to cover 9 square miles. You want to cover 20,000 times that area.. which would cost 50 Trillion dollars if you ignore the complication of building at that scale.
Of course we're not saying solar is impossible. It has a useful place in a mixed source strategy. However, it's not a magic pill and there are huge technical and financial challenges to overcome to use it on a large scale.
Ever heard of "economies of scale"? Of course we're not saying solar is impossible. It has a useful place in a mixed source strategy. However, it's not a magic pill and there are huge technical and financial challenges to overcome to use it on a large scale.
A simpler method of plugging floor tiles together should reduce the costs as well.
k-ink said:
No you are right. All we can do is burn dinosaur juice. As you were
We are converting to solar, slowly, but implying that it is somehow obvious and we are just being held back by evil oil companies is either tin-foil-hattery or ignorance.
As coal/oil/gas becomes more expensive either through the cost of getting it out of the ground or through regulation (in particular coal) solar WILL become more viable.
Even better, solar efficiency (how much of that 0.1% of the Sun's energy hitting earth actually gets converted) is improving all the time too.
However, TODAY IT IS MORE EXPENSIVE, particularly in the non-sunny UK, which sadly doesn't have a large array of cables running direct to the equator.
It's not more expensive because the CEOs of BP and Shell get together with their Illuminati friends and drive up the cost of polysilicon.
It's more expensive because of physics.
k-ink said:
No you are right. All we can do is burn dinosaur juice. As you were
I wouldn't say that, just that capturing even a fraction of a percent of solar energy is a very major challenge because although there is a lot of it, it's very spread out and most of the planet is underwater.Its all seems so hard to go renewable, has anyone wondered and looked at things the other way around?
Imagine we were already renewable, there were no coal mines or oil wells and refineries. And no one had built one before. I'm sure people would say - but we'd need millions of oil wells and there's no way to ship 80 million barrels of oil a day around the world to relpace all that PV we have installed. Besides... why would we want to start digging up a resource that's going to run out when we have all this 1st order energy turning up direct from the sun, and then 2nd order energy from wind and water movement.
Humans are a bit dumb and only look at the here and now. Renewables aren't going to happen over night but they are going to happen. In fact they are already happening, despite the best attempts by Fossil sponsored PR.
Not everyone is going out in 2017 and buying an model 3. And the grid won't collapse, or the local DNO networks. Over time they will have to be upgraded, but certain people like to position that as "see EVs are no good". That's a bit like saying Netflix is no good as broadband speeds can't, sorry couldn't cope with 4k video. Mine currently runs at 160Mbits/s so I can run several 4k feeds. If there's a need to reinforce the local power networks it will be done it's called capitalism. It might actually cost money that will even be added onto your bills. OR it could actually lower them. Instead of expensive to build gas turbines being sat idle at night, they can run for longer hours, making more profit per £ invested in capital so the unit cost of energy drops. They also need less maintenance when run continously meaning more hours operating per year. Spinning up from a cold start and then stopping again is what wears them out.
Though even that can be put off a decade or more with intelligent switching as part of the Smart roll out. We're quite a long way from having to worry about there being enough power in a street. Although if you live in a street with a lot of BMW you may have to worry sooner. Did you know if you are installing a charge point above a certain kW rating it gets logged with teh DNO. So they proably already have prediction of work that will be needed in grid reenforcement. Co-icidentally this doesn't necessarily mean new cabling. It could be some utility scale energy storage. Conveniently it's a product Telsa sell... so one would assume they are looking at barriers to take up and marking sure they have products ready to sell.
Imagine we were already renewable, there were no coal mines or oil wells and refineries. And no one had built one before. I'm sure people would say - but we'd need millions of oil wells and there's no way to ship 80 million barrels of oil a day around the world to relpace all that PV we have installed. Besides... why would we want to start digging up a resource that's going to run out when we have all this 1st order energy turning up direct from the sun, and then 2nd order energy from wind and water movement.
Humans are a bit dumb and only look at the here and now. Renewables aren't going to happen over night but they are going to happen. In fact they are already happening, despite the best attempts by Fossil sponsored PR.
Not everyone is going out in 2017 and buying an model 3. And the grid won't collapse, or the local DNO networks. Over time they will have to be upgraded, but certain people like to position that as "see EVs are no good". That's a bit like saying Netflix is no good as broadband speeds can't, sorry couldn't cope with 4k video. Mine currently runs at 160Mbits/s so I can run several 4k feeds. If there's a need to reinforce the local power networks it will be done it's called capitalism. It might actually cost money that will even be added onto your bills. OR it could actually lower them. Instead of expensive to build gas turbines being sat idle at night, they can run for longer hours, making more profit per £ invested in capital so the unit cost of energy drops. They also need less maintenance when run continously meaning more hours operating per year. Spinning up from a cold start and then stopping again is what wears them out.
Though even that can be put off a decade or more with intelligent switching as part of the Smart roll out. We're quite a long way from having to worry about there being enough power in a street. Although if you live in a street with a lot of BMW you may have to worry sooner. Did you know if you are installing a charge point above a certain kW rating it gets logged with teh DNO. So they proably already have prediction of work that will be needed in grid reenforcement. Co-icidentally this doesn't necessarily mean new cabling. It could be some utility scale energy storage. Conveniently it's a product Telsa sell... so one would assume they are looking at barriers to take up and marking sure they have products ready to sell.
Baby steps, Lead cell batteries are on their way out.
http://cleantechnica.com/2016/04/23/theres-market-...
Li-ion batteries are on the verge of surpassing lead-acid batteries in terms of lifecycle costs. They already surpass their lead-acid competition in all performance metrics:
Weigh 60% less than lead-acid batteries,
Take up less space,
Better charge–discharge properties,
Last 2 to 4 times longer, and…
Are very resilient in hot environments such as engine compartments.
http://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-lithium-ion-me...
Of course all these batteries are not destined for EV's but the more Li-ion production ultimately the lower the cost of EVs
I personally think that the ICE market will move to Li-ion completely over the next 10 years, high end cars are already there. https://www.mbusa.com/mercedes/vehicles/model/clas...
http://cleantechnica.com/2016/04/23/theres-market-...
Li-ion batteries are on the verge of surpassing lead-acid batteries in terms of lifecycle costs. They already surpass their lead-acid competition in all performance metrics:
Weigh 60% less than lead-acid batteries,
Take up less space,
Better charge–discharge properties,
Last 2 to 4 times longer, and…
Are very resilient in hot environments such as engine compartments.
http://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-lithium-ion-me...
Of course all these batteries are not destined for EV's but the more Li-ion production ultimately the lower the cost of EVs
I personally think that the ICE market will move to Li-ion completely over the next 10 years, high end cars are already there. https://www.mbusa.com/mercedes/vehicles/model/clas...
rovermorris999 said:
It's a shame basic physics isn't taught to everyone. This thread has turned into a waste of pixels. Time to go.
What basic physics are we missing? Have you read David Mackays book (RIP he died this month). Well worth a read whichever side you are on. .. tut "its too hard and impossible pointless no less pollution or worseand more expensive" or the "let's make this happen and get the costs down as we go".
otolith said:
most of the planet is underwater.
See the photos above. Companies have built floating solar panel arrays, so they can be placed anywhere on Earth. If you look back in this thread you'll notice I am one of the people saying electric cars are very interesting and no doubt are the future, yet I have questioned them. Presently the electricity for EVs ultimately comes from dirty sources. So they don't really solve anything at all, presently. But this could easily change.
We can ditch coal, nuclear, burning oil, everything filthy and dangerous. There is a solution and it has been known for decades. It just means doing it properly, on a huge scale in very hot locations. Installing solar panels in cloudy countries on a microscopic scale is a waste of time. A few panels on UK based roof tops is merely decoration, not a solution. Will large scale international installations be dead easy and cheap? No. But we could solve it if we were forced to. Hell, we are building micro sized satellites which will travel to the next star via laser power at 0.2 the speed of light. We are capable of anything if we try. We are only talking about plugging solar panels together on the ground!
Edited by k-ink on Monday 25th April 18:58
k-ink said:
Presently the electricity for EVs ultimately comes from dirty sources. So they don't really solve anything at all, presently. But this could easily change.
Even now, they could help city-centre air quality quite dramatically. Personally, I don't think photovoltaics are a sensible solution for large-scape energy production, but PVs aren't even the only form of solar power let alone the only "renewable" way to generate electricity.
kambites said:
Even now, they could help city-centre air quality quite dramatically.
That might provide a measurable local difference. But it wont make any different to the Earth as a whole. All that will happen is the dirty pollution will have moved from the city to the power plant. So the net result is still pollution in the air. The only real benefit is a shiny new toy on someones driveway and a false impression of being green.EVs are half the solution. The original power needs to be clean as well, or it is all for nothing.
I suppose that depends on where your priorities lie. If you believe short-term human health is important, air quality in cities is a serious problem.
Assuming for the moment that scientific near-consensus is correct and MMGW is a problem on the scale that we're told, it's going to be decades before it significantly effects the nations that have any power to do anything about it. City air-quality is a serious problem now, especially for China.
Assuming for the moment that scientific near-consensus is correct and MMGW is a problem on the scale that we're told, it's going to be decades before it significantly effects the nations that have any power to do anything about it. City air-quality is a serious problem now, especially for China.
Edited by kambites on Monday 25th April 19:11
Yes it is. But air does not stay still. The filthy air in China gets blown all over the world. We are breathing in all that s
t as well. When chernobyl blew up the radioactive particles were measured in the air all around the world. Brownian motion ensures every person alive will breathe the exact same air particles, given enough time. So whether the pollution occurs a few miles here or there is laughable. Ultimately it is the same net result. We are fish in a tank stting in our our environment.
t as well. When chernobyl blew up the radioactive particles were measured in the air all around the world. Brownian motion ensures every person alive will breathe the exact same air particles, given enough time. So whether the pollution occurs a few miles here or there is laughable. Ultimately it is the same net result. We are fish in a tank stting in our our environment.k-ink said:
Yes it is. But air does not stay still. The filthy air in China gets blown all over the world. We are breathing in all that st as well. When chernobyl blew up the radioactive particles were measured in the air all around the world. Brownian motion ensures every person alive will breathe the exact same air particles, given enough time. So whether the pollution occurs a few miles here or there is laughable. Ultimately it is the same net result.
Many of the pollutants which cause the biggest problems for human health either degrade very quickly into something relatively harmless (carbon monoxide, etc) or are so dense that they don't go very far (diesel particulates). t as well. When chernobyl blew up the radioactive particles were measured in the air all around the world. Brownian motion ensures every person alive will breathe the exact same air particles, given enough time. So whether the pollution occurs a few miles here or there is laughable. Ultimately it is the same net result.Micro- and macro- environmental pollution are obviously related to an extent, but they are definitely not the same thing.
k-ink said:
The world wont magically get better if all we do is buy shiny new EVs. That is pure fantasy.
"The world" may not, but central Shanghai certainly will. Obviously the aim should be not to produce the pollution in the first place, but if we are going to it's got to be better for us not to do it six feet from our noses.
ETA: Of course in the long run, solving the micro-environmental problem might well make a solution to macro-environmental pollution slower to find as the populous and hence governments lose interest in something so long-termist that isn't effecting them directly.
Edited by kambites on Monday 25th April 19:21
k-ink said:
Only if the wind is blowing in the right direction. The net pollution China makes will still be in the atmosphere for the world to breathe.
As stated, that's simply not true. Some of the pollution will be in the atmosphere; some of it will be on the ground; some of it will have degraded into things which aren't pollution or at least are less harmful pollution.Even for things which don't degrade or fall to the ground, there are chemicals which are catastrophic for human health when breathed in but are beneficial at other points in the atmosphere (such as ozone).
Saying "pollution is pollution, wherever it's released" is simply not true.
kambites said:
I suppose that depends on where your priorities lie. If you believe short-term human health is important, air quality in cities is a serious problem.
Assuming for the moment that scientific near-consensus is correct and MMGW is a problem on the scale that we're told, it's going to be decades before it significantly effects the nations that have any power to do anything about it.
That's basically the US and China then?Assuming for the moment that scientific near-consensus is correct and MMGW is a problem on the scale that we're told, it's going to be decades before it significantly effects the nations that have any power to do anything about it.
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