We will be challenged to keep trolling

[GAMBLER]

3 hours ago, rolmops said:

Spoonfed,

Pollution and climate change hits us all. liberal, democrat, republican and conservative alike. going forward is a lot more effective working together to face a shared danger instead of fighting each other because of politically blown up ,but usually small differences. Believe me ,you in Springfield Mass or I in Rochester,NY will both get shafted equally hard if we do not work together. There is a saying in the  IDF where I served. It goes like this: If you fight divided you hang alone ,but if you fight together you win the war.

Climate change has been happening for thousands of years.  We used to be in an Ice age.....  We cant believe everything the climate change experts say.  Any evidence can be skewed to fit an agenda.  How spot on were Al Gores predictions back in 2000? 

Edited November 28, 2021 by GAMBLER

[HB2]

Just pulled in from driving up from North Carolina 11 hrs drive . A,lot of traffic and all gas stations were busy . It takes 5 min to fill your tank . It takes 1/2 hr charge  approx to get 200 miles of an average car .  . What a nightmare that will be . But that SHOULD improve.  And the amount of amperage( 70 to 100amps ) Times the amount of pumps there are . If you remember the gasoline lines  in the late 70s this will be nothing . And it will affect everything else electric . 

 

You are dreaming if you think there will be less tax . There will most likely be more   . Much more . Who is going to pay for all the amperage service upgrades and all that goes along with it  such as sub stations ,etc? I'll give you one guess. 

 

Supply and demand will dictate price . You can store oil , you can't store electric . Not that I know off . 

 

I know this really needs to be done at some point and I sure hope this is thought out . But we couldn't even set up a website for Obama care  for months . And now this ? 

 

I am less than enthusiastic . 

 

We now have big oil . Next is big solar / wind / electric . As long as we ( and I mean the politicians ) can get the money to the people they are" chummy"  with . 

[HB2]

And furthermore ,who will set the  price of the electric ? OPEC and foreign entities   set and control oil production and prices . We were energy independent and now we are not .  Which gives them more control. Great move . Or is that the plan ? 

 

I can see the gov setting the price as most of the elec will be produced here. 

 

And the way things are headed , I can see different prices for different people. Rich pay more than poor , etc...... 

Equity we hear so much about . 

 

Absolutely nothing surprises me anymore . 

[jimski2]

Two car families will be the future.

[jimski2]

5 minutes ago, jimski2 said:

Two car families will be the future.

My battery powered golf cart gets more hours running than my 24MPG SUV. When will our leaders see the success operation of golf carts in the 67,000 population of the Villages in Florisa?

[Tall Tails]

The word "Sustainable" means cash grab... trust me when I tell you this.  I work for a company who is very much capitalizing on this non sense... I hate to even say this but I agree with Rolmops our future is Micro Nuclear Fusion.  They also have a big push to end the rural way of life.. they want us living in suburbia where they have more control.  

[chinook35]

Nuclear fusion reactors are far in the future. Fusion requires a miniature sun   I have serious issues with creating suns on earth  can we control these “suns” ?  How do you contain this massive amount of energy and heat ?  

[rolmops]

42 minutes ago, chinook35 said:

Nuclear fusion reactors are far in the future. Fusion requires a miniature sun   I have serious issues with creating suns on earth  can we control these “suns” ?  How do you contain this massive amount of energy and heat ?  

Yes, it always was 35 years away into the future. Now finally, research has brought it in the realm of reality. The amount of energy needed to ignite fusion is still larger than the energy produced, but research is at the point of tipping the scales toward the energy producing side.

Right behind it in research is cold fusion which is a lot closer now than it ever was,but still 35 years away. I believe , I will see it in my lifetime.

For now I still have my completely refurbished mercruiser 4 banger and I hope to use it next summer.

[McWally]

7 hours ago, Tall Tails said:

The word "Sustainable" means cash grab... trust me when I tell you this.  I work for a company who is very much capitalizing on this non sense... I hate to even say this but I agree with Rolmops our future is Micro Nuclear Fusion.  They also have a big push to end the rural way of life.. they want us living in suburbia where they have more control.  

Do not comply with centralized control. As the paradigms shift in energy, media, money, and ownership, always fight for the decentralized option. We can walk into a prison built out of the new tech or use it to replace the power brokers of today and lock them out. Explore means to opting out of what they are trying to do. Real wealth right now is measured in your independence from the system. Accumulate resources that enable you to build upon that wealth with the future in mind. 

[dry net]

12 hours ago, jimski2 said:

Two car families will be the future.

I don't understand the point your trying to make. Aren't two car families the norm now? With both husband and wife working how could one get away from it?

[jimski2]

Become familiar with Teslas electric cars and trucks. Round trip mileage of 358 mileage will get you to work daily. Check out the videos on trucks and cars. Bezos has battery driven cars and trucks, see Amazon and Rivian for videos. The villages in Florida with 65,000 residents relies on every home with a battery golf cart for local visiting and shopping.

[dry net]

Thought that was where you were going with that. There are numerous u tube videos made by Tesla owners explaining the real world functionality of their cars. Give-em a watch.

[jimski2]

Not only Tesla but Amazon is putting thousands of electric delivery trucks on the road now. Amazing is the Amazon truck driving with a Ford F150 in its bed. The Tesla Tractor Trailer rigs are impressive.

[Chuck Smth]

As far as the minerals mining - where do you think all the iron, steel and aluminum come from to build an internal combustion engine? Where does the power come from to run the foundries? People forget that.

Lithium is plentiful and easy to mine. We have enough lithium to power multiple civilizations. We have free fusion energy from the sun, you get enough Watts per square foot that we can power the entire nation easily with a few hundred square miles out in the desert. Of course, you'd want to de-centralize but you get the picture. Solar energy density is amazingly high.

 

Now, samarium cobalt and neodymium we don't have domestically. That's a concern. Samarium cobalt comes from the Congo and China. Neither is a good option. Engineers need to solve that problem, and they will. 

 

Chuck

Edited November 30, 2021 by Chuck Smth

[TyeeTanic]

23 hours ago, chinook35 said:

Nuclear fusion reactors are far in the future. Fusion requires a miniature sun   I have serious issues with creating suns on earth  can we control these “suns” ?  How do you contain this massive amount of energy and heat ?  

 

Nuclear fission was not a "possibility" in the 1800's. 

Nuclear fusion will be possible in the near future.  Sustainable fusion for 30 seconds long has been demonstrated just this past month.

 

The event is held suspended by magnets, so the high temperature of the core is not in direct contact with any materials.

[TyeeTanic]

2 hours ago, Chuck Smth said:

As far as the minerals mining - where do you think all the iron, steel and aluminum come from to build an internal combustion engine? Where does the power come from to run the foundries? People forget that.

Lithium is plentiful and easy to mine. We have enough lithium to power multiple civilizations. We have free fusion energy from the sun, you get enough Watts per square foot that we can power the entire nation easily with a few hundred square miles out in the desert. Of course, you'd want to de-centralize but you get the picture. Solar energy density is amazingly high.

 

Now, samarium cobalt and neodymium we don't have domestically. That's a concern. Samarium cobalt comes from the Congo and China. Neither is a good option. Engineers need to solve that problem, and they will. 

 

Chuck

Everything has it's challenges.

 

Solar energy in the desert works, until the panels are coated in dust. Then you have to bring water into the desert to clean the panels ... plus no way to recycle solar panels, it is a major contaminant in landfills.

 

Nuclear for now is the way to go ... minimal waste (although highly radioactive) ... but we can solve that with a deep geological repository ... or send capsules of waste to the moon. 

[nickihoyboy]

Heard a couple of statements recently that, if true, kind of sum up where we are at this point in the debate.

"You can make windmills with steel, but you can't make steel with windmills".

"Tesla is now one of the richest and most valuable companies in this country. So why are they still getting untold millions of dollars in government subsidies?"

My viewpoint on this whole issue is that we (this country) should definitely be exploring any number of options concerning alternative methods of energy, but I think trying to convert to alternative sources too quickly could be disastrous. We need to ease into a change, not try to do it overnight. I do believe that companies related to the fossil fuel industries will fight the change tooth and nail, but they will have to concede eventually. They should be major players looking toward alternative sources that they can develop to replace the oil and gas. And becoming dependent on one alternative source could create the same issues we have with fossil fuels right now, we need multiple alternatives. Let's face it, the biggest threat to the earth's environment is just people in general. As the population of the earth grows, people are going to have an effect on the environment just due to sheer numbers and, unfortunately, many countries don't really care as much about the environment as they do other issues.

[jimski2]

Tesla and Bezos {Amazon} are promoti.ng the battery vehicles for their own use. Tesla is to sell batteries he makes. Solar panels to charge the batteries along with windmills to do the same when the wind blows. Bezos is the richest man on Earth. The demand for gasoline and coal will fall in the future. Your boat will sail or be battery powered charged with solar cells. My brother has an Airstream camper whose refrigerator runs on solar power off the roof. His ice cream does not melt if you can imagine that. Germany and Denmark have huge buildings that collect the wind power from off shore wind farms that power those countries on weekends with their power plants shut down.

[dry net]

Demand for gasoline and coal will only fall when they are regulated out in the future. If what you say is true let me have my gasoline powered truck you have your whatever and we can both be happy. Somehow I don't think it will be that easy.

[fcboats]

4 hours ago, jimski2 said:

Tesla and Bezos {Amazon} are promoti.ng the battery vehicles for their own use. Tesla is to sell batteries he makes. Solar panels to charge the batteries along with windmills to do the same when the wind blows. Bezos is the richest man on Earth. The demand for gasoline and coal will fall in the future. Your boat will sail or be battery powered charged with solar cells. My brother has an Airstream camper whose refrigerator runs on solar power off the roof. His ice cream does not melt if you can imagine that. Germany and Denmark have huge buildings that collect the wind power from off shore wind farms that power those countries on weekends with their power plants shut down.

Random thought Tuesday....

[billy p]

On 11/27/2021 at 1:20 PM, rolmops said:

Big changes are about to happen in energy production. There are the truck sized nuclear fission reactors being developed in Britain as we speak. These will help decentralize electricity production. More interesting is the beginning of construction of nuclear fusion power plants. Future prediction has it that within 10 years these fusion plants will start producing nuclear energy without the radio active by products that are so frightful. Just like fossil fuel was the energy miracle of 140 years ago, fusion energy will be the next great step forward.

For now we are experiencing the often painful change of one energy source to another less harmful form of energy production.

Windmills and solar panels do less damage  to the environment than fossil fuels, but they really are only a bridge helping us go to the next stage of energy production.

It would not amaze me at all to see vehicles with small fusion power plants traveling our roads and lakes.

Very interesting comments but somewhat unrealistic .  Where to begin.  Small nuclear reactors have been around since the 1950s and certainly Admiral Rickover pioneered the submarine nuclear reactors which a re not only modest in size but have an outstanding safety record.  The concept of "truck sized" fission reactors and decentralized electric power production is interesting but simultaneously creates all sorts of security and reliability issues.  Fusion has been researched for decades and simply hasn't even become practical even in the simple context of producing more energy than is initially input without considering the engineering of commercially viable fusion systems on either a large or small scale.  And don't even get started on cold fusion.  Nuclear fission energy production is a commercially viable technology that is extremely safe.  Chernobyl was a classic Russian design "oops" that was doomed from the beginning to fail dramatically because you had the nuclear reactor equivalent of a Habachi grill (remember those?) with a positive reactor coefficient.  I know a nuclear engineer who actually warned the Russians about their reactor who was scolded by the U.S. State Department because she wasn't "nice" to the Russians.  And Three Mile Island, where safety systems worked as designed, was problem because of reactor operator error in not trusting their own equipment and instrumentation.  As long as you don't put fission reactors on earthquake faults like the Japanese, fission is fine and you can get a lot of megawatts.  And megawatts is what you need and you are not going to get it from solar and wind.  And your idea that one could run a generator (off of fossil fuel no doubt) in the back of one's truck to charge boat batteries is just way, way out there and unrealistic.  The real problem is that politicians simply do not understand that this electric grid and our electrical generation capacity is not capable of supporting a short term transition to electric powered vehicles.  This is going to be a 20 to 30 year build out, not a 10 year one that the politicians think it will be, which will cost trillions in the end and do untold economic damage while China simply keeps running their 1082 plus coal fired power plants.  And China built more coal fired plants in the past year than were retired in the whole world.  We will have invested trillions in electrification of cars and boats in the U.S. along with solar panels and windmills and who knows what else and it will have zero impact on the environment because China and India will continue to be massive emitters of carbon.  This is sadly about political control and the exercise of power by politicians who wouldn't know the difference between a flounder and a bald eagle.  In this state, it is all about the political power of NYC but I don't see windmills in Jamaica Bay and in the Hudson and East 
River and solar panels up and down the Empire State Building.  Upstate is going to get the solar panels and windmills and massive power plants.  Boating and fishing and the economy and the lifestyle of people living along Lake Ontario is not a consideration of the NYC politicians.  We are expendable little pawns and ignorant country dwellers in their eyes.

[jimski2]

China depends on iron ore and coal from Australia. When the high sea trade routes are closed to China, watch what happens.

[Gill-T]

[dry net]

12 hours ago, jimski2 said:

China depends on iron ore and coal from Australia. When the high sea trade routes are closed to China, watch what happens.

WAR!

[jimski2]

The 40/50 HP electric motors will operate a 16 foot aluminum boat. Compare the weight of a couple tanks of gasoline and a 40 HP outboard and the battery weight and motor weight are similar. The Trailer boats are launched and charged at home or on shore. My 18 foot trailer boat with a two battery charging system is on charge daily even through the winter.