OFFTopic from 'KS-16S caused a fire...'

[eddiemoy]

3 hours ago, TomOnWheels said:

Just saying, I'm not trying to prove anything... My comment was just more humoristic, saying that if a gouv ban KS they should also do the same with Tesla as after all there is far more fire accident with Tesla cars than with KS. What do you think about that video https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/tesla-explosion-video-china-model-s-fire-shanghai-a8880786.html 

Is it fake ? Looks like Tesla is taking it seriously but after all I have no idea, I'm just curious.

Not sure what happen there, but as you can see the fire is being vented away from the cabin. That is how the battery handles fire.   

I’m sure tesla will figure out what happened.  

[LanghamP]

5 hours ago, TomOnWheels said:

Just saying, I'm not trying to prove anything... My comment was just more humoristic, saying that if a gouv ban KS they should also do the same with Tesla as after all there is far more fire accident with Tesla cars than with KS. What do you think about that video https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/tesla-explosion-video-china-model-s-fire-shanghai-a8880786.html 

Is it fake ? Looks like Tesla is taking it seriously but after all I have no idea, I'm just curious.

The Mont Blanc tunnel tragedy shows how a normally harmless fire can kill a large number of people if it's enclosed, and somewhat like our lithium ion batteries won't stop burning.

I think this is an awesome lesson to always keep a charged medium or big wheel in your car at all times, and be able to carry a reasonably sized person on it (I can). The people killed in the tunnel were highly unlikely able to outrun the fire, and since all the cars were jammed up they couldn't escape in their cars. For EUC riders, this fire would have been trivial to escape from.

[LanghamP]

On 5/11/2019 at 12:18 PM, Marty Backe said:

Show me one death certificate that says, "Died from air pollution".

Specific deaths caused by air pollution in CA cities.

https://gizmodo.com/the-u-s-cities-with-the-most-deaths-from-air-pollution-1834981653

Here are the top 10 cities in the report, with the number of estimated deaths caused by air pollution in 2017:

1. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale, California (1,322)
2. Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, California (940)
3. Bakersfield, California (293)
4. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (232)
5. Fresno, California (225)
6. New York-Jersey City-White Plains, New York-New Jersey (188)
7. Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, Arizona (152)
8. Visalia-Porterville, California (131)
9. Cleveland-Elyria, Ohio (116)
10. Chicago-Naperville-Arlington Heights, Illinois (122)

[Maartenv]

On 5/10/2019 at 7:54 PM, Marty Backe said:

I say "arguably". There has been serious work evaluating the entire life-cycle of the electric car vs gas car.

There’s a lot of FUD on this topic. It’s only the case if you take the worst possible energy mix (only electricity made from coal, while many with an BEV have solar panels or at least use nuclear in the mix), take an electric car of some years old that uses (among other bad stuff) a lot of cobalt, and if you don’t count the whole life-cycle of the Ice-car. Even then it breaks even at around 30-40.000 kms in my country. Don’t forget that the most valuable and profitable companies in the world (big oil) are spending heaps on lobbyists. Independent studies are mostly a lot less doubtful.

[Marty Backe]

On 5/27/2019 at 1:53 PM, Maartenv said:

There’s a lot of FUD on this topic. It’s only the case if you take the worst possible energy mix (only electricity made from coal, while many with an BEV have solar panels or at least use nuclear in the mix), take an electric car of some years old that uses (among other bad stuff) a lot of cobalt, and if you don’t count the whole life-cycle of the Ice-car. Even then it breaks even at around 30-40.000 kms in my country. Don’t forget that the most valuable and profitable companies in the world (big oil) are spending heaps on lobbyists. Independent studies are mostly a lot less doubtful.

True enough.

It's really unfortunate that there aren't any lobbyists for the anti-oil constituents.

Independent studies? I've got a bridge to sell you 

We all have our biases and religions.

Personally, I thank God for every big <fill-in-the-blank> company that exists in this world because otherwise we'd be existing at a 17th century standard of living. Unless you live in a monastery, everything that makes your life easy, enjoyable, and healthy depends on the economies of scale that big companies provide. Sure, there's some unpleasantries that come along for the ride but they are far outweighed by the benefits, in my opinion. 

Edited June 30, 2019 by Marty Backe

[LanghamP]

One shouldn't be concerned about existential threats if

1. You are old enough that such threats won't directly impact you.

2. You have no children.

3. Or you are ok with sticking your children with the bill (aka social security and Medicare).

4. Your lifestyle depends on you being willfully ignorant.

5. Your paycheck depends on you being willfully ignorant.

To me these are excellent reasons to give those who would be impacted the most by existential threats to the human race. However, what I don't like is for people, despite an avalanche of evidence, to simply deny the existence of the threat in the first place.

Does it take much to be kind to future generations? Consume less beef, limit your air travel, try to live without your car most of the time, avoid rawdogging, and consistently vote for representatives who limit personal consumption for the social good. Are these sacrifices even apparent in your day to day life? It seems to me that with not much effort or sacrifice one can halve or quarter their carbon footprint and consumption.

[Lucas Alexander Oliver]

On 5/10/2019 at 10:54 AM, Marty Backe said:

I say "arguably". There has been serious work evaluating the entire life-cycle of the electric car vs gas car. There are of course no emissions from the non-existent tailpipe, but the power plants the generate the electricity that charges the car emit emissions. But the biggest impact is the manufacturing process that creates the battery packs. This includes the mining of all the minerals and the energy required to process said minerals into the ingredients that go into the battery.

I'm neutral on the subject (I'm not pulling for one technology to win - I'll buy whatever is most convenient and best for my pocketbook), but I find it interesting to view the big picture.

Here's a Wikipedia article that discusses some of this. There are other articles that paint a worse picture for the electric vehicle. That's why I say "arguable". I don't think the final verdict is out yet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_aspects_of_the_electric_car

marty.... i would love to ride wheels to a bar to play trivia with you sometime.. i think on your team we'd be guaranteed the win... lol   

[Mono]

On 5/11/2019 at 3:35 AM, Marty Backe said:

The reason that renewables will never work at scale is that they are unreliable.

LOL, considering the sun or the tide as unreliable is quite a leap  When the grid is big enough "unreliability" (meaning: fluctuating supply) becomes a relatively small issue, to all I know, because fluctuations average out. The belief that "they never work at scale" is a belief from the past (and it was possibly always rather a publicity myth than a belief). We know that renewables can make up for the majority of electricity production if we want them to. For example, Norway, New Zealand, Brazil, Austria, Denmark, Canada, Sweden and Portugal are already all above 50% renewable at this point in time, a dozen or so countries have been above 80% already in 2016. "Never work at scale" is different.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electricity_production_from_renewable_sources

Edited June 29, 2019 by Mono

[Marty Backe]

18 minutes ago, Mono said:

LOL, considering the sun or the tide as unreliable is quite a leap  When the grid is big enough "unreliability" (meaning: fluctuating supply) becomes a relatively small issue, to all I know, because fluctuations average out. The belief that "they never work at scale" is a belief from the past (and it was possibly always rather a publicity myth than a belief). We know that renewables can make up for the majority of electricity production if we want them to. For example, Norway, New Zealand, Brazil, Austria, Denmark, Canada, Sweden and Portugal are already all above 50% renewable at this point in time, a dozen or so countries have been above 80% already in 2016. "Never work at scale" is different.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electricity_production_from_renewable_sources

Was I actually saying that the sun and tides were unreliable? Let's have an honest discussion or none at all.

[Mono]

9 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

Was I actually saying that the sun and tides were unreliable?

Yes, that is what I understood even with charitable reading (and I could be wrong), though the first sentence of my answer was more tongue in cheek.

You wrote "The reason that renewables will never work at scale is that they are unreliable." The sun and the tide are renewable energies. By simple logical reasoning follows that you were saying that the sun and tide are unreliable (I can't imagine you meant that solar panels and tidal power plants are technologically unreliable). If you wanted to write that some renewable energies are unreliable, your conclusion in the very same sentence was a non-sequitur. Just tell us what you meant.

Quote

Let's have an honest discussion or none at all.

Let's. Renewable energies have shown to work at scale, so there is nothing really to discuss there.

One could discuss the cost optimal mix of renewables depending on the geological situation of the country. I sense though that you are more interested to find arguments why renewables could not possibly produce most of the electricity in your country and to pay as little as possible for your electricity (disregarding possible future costs for others) and less interested in an honest discussion. I am always happy to be proven wrong, because that's how I learn the most.

Edited June 30, 2019 by Mono

[esaj]

10 hours ago, Mono said:

For example, Norway, New Zealand, Brazil, Austria, Denmark, Canada, Sweden and Portugal are already all above 50% renewable at this point in time, a dozen or so countries have been above 80% already in 2016. "Never work at scale" is different.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electricity_production_from_renewable_sources

For cold countries with long dark winters (and frozen sea) the sun and tides are far less useful.

Norway has a lot of mountains with rivers, hydroelectric powerplants are easy to build there (" Over 99% of the electricity production in mainland Norway is from hydropower plants. "). Iceland enjoys the volcanoes and lots of hydroelectric plants ("In 2015, the total electricity consumption in Iceland was 18,798 GWh. Renewable energy provided almost 100% of electricity production, with about 73% coming from hydropower and 27% from geothermal power. ... Iceland is the world's largest green energy producer per capita and largest electricity producer per capita, with approximately 55,000 kWh per person per year. ").

Here in Finland, no volcanoes, no big mountains or rivers, all the sensible hydroelectric plants are already done (although there has been an ongoing debate about an artificial lake for decades), we do have wind, but that's somewhat unreliable (there's not always wind) and requires huge windmill parks to produce the amounts you can get from geothermal or hydroelectric plants. Still, there are new parks being made and planned all the time, but to get through the harsh winter (at least for normal "consumers", most of the energy is needed for heating at the coldest and darkest season), other sources are needed.

 

Edited June 30, 2019 by esaj

[Mono]

12 hours ago, esaj said:

Here in Finland, no volcanoes, no big mountains, all the sensible hydroelectric plants are already done (although there has been an ongoing debate about an artificial lake for decades), we do have wind, but that's somewhat unreliable (there's not always wind) and requires huge windmill parks to produce the amounts you can get from geothermal or hydroelectric plants. Still, there are new parks being made and planned all the time, but to get through the harsh winter (at least for normal "consumers", most of the energy is needed for heating at the coldest and darkest season), other sources are needed.

What's your source for this claim?

I would be surprised, if Finland could not produce more than 50% of its necessary electricity from wind, if they wanted to, just because it is a big country with a small population. BTW, what's the most common way of heating in Finland? I thought that Norway would heat with electricity, because it is renewable anyway. 

Another mindset that stiffens the renewable debate is the idea that electricity shall not be traded. People seem to be happy with the idea to import oil or gas from other countries (to produce electricity), but (for no good reason) afraid of and opposed to the idea to import electricity.

Edited June 30, 2019 by Mono

[esaj]

Just now, Mono said:

What's your source for this claim?

I would be surprised, if Finland could not produce more than 50% of its necessary electricity from wind, if they wanted to, just because it is a big country with a small population.

Yes, covering the country with wind mills a lot of wind power can be made, but they have faced issues (infranoise, some people claim they ruin the landscapes and scare away wild life). The latest value I found fast was from the Finnish Windpower Association:  "Finland has the potential to increase wind power capacity considerably. At the end of 2014, there were 260 installed wind turbine generators, with a combined capacity of 627 MW. They generated 1.3% of Finland’s electricity consumption in 2014."

Another issue is that building and maintaining a huge number of turbine generators is pretty costly. It's already an expensive country compared to wages (at least on western scale). The biggest craze on wind-power started in early 2000's, as government was subsidizing wind power construction for a long time (financial grants, tax breaks etc), don't know if it's still ongoing, but at one point some of the wind power companies said that they'd go out of business without this, so at least for some it's not economically feasible without the subsidies.

 

Just now, Mono said:

BTW, what's the most common way of heating in Finland? I thought that Norway would heat with electricity, because it is renewable anyway. 

I'd guess mostly electricity, followed by remote heat (heating plants that usually burn something, waste heat from industry/data centers and such), many have air-source heatpumps (still electricity, but over 100% "efficiency" compared to what it pulls from the grid, as it extracts heat from the colder side to the warmer side, kinda like a reverse AC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_source_heat_pumps  ). Some newer houses have geothermal heatpumps, but the installation costs for adding one afterwards are about my yearly net income, and most likely very few people will get one to an old house.

 

Just now, Mono said:

Another mindset that stiffens the renewable debate is the idea that electricity shall not be traded. People seem to be happy with the idea to import oil or gas from other countries, but (for no good reason) afraid of the idea to import electricity.

We're actually a net importer of electricity, because we don't have enough production  https://www.fingrid.fi/en/electricity-market/load-and-generation/

[Mono]

13 minutes ago, esaj said:

Another issue is that building and maintaining a huge number of turbine generators is pretty costly.

Sure, wind energy is currently more expensive than burning oil. However it is by no means prohibitively costly, I think it's usually less than 10ct/kWh. When we price in external costs, it may already now be less expensive than oil.

[esaj]

2 minutes ago, Mono said:

Sure, wind energy is currently more expensive than burning oil. However it is by no means prohibitively costly, I think it's usually less than 10ct/kWh. When we price in external costs, it may already now be less expensive than oil.

Yes, probably the price comes down at scale, and there are multiple new parks being planned around the country. Nobody just wants them in their own backyard, so they have to be built away from cities, and the maintenance can be an issue in the winter (1+ meter of snow when you go up north, bad roads, storms etc). Still, the amount of wind power will continue to rise here, and I'm not saying it's a bad thing. But even if the windpower could cover 100% of the energy needs when there's enough wind, other sources are needed when the wind dies down, or there would need to be sizable "overcapacity" and a reliable way to store huge amounts of energy until it's needed.

[esaj]

Found some more recent statistics of the wind power here, only in Finnish, quick translation:

At the end of 2018 Finland had 698 wind power plants (I guess they mean the amount of turbines, not entire parks) with a total capacity of 2041MW. During 2018, 5.8TWh (terawatthours) was produced, which covered 6.7% of electricity consumption in Finland.

There are ongoing plans to raise the capacity to 16500MW (although it doesn't say at what timescale, within the next decade maybe?)

Map of current and planned parks:  http://ethawind.com/map/

Edited June 30, 2019 by esaj

[Mono]

4 minutes ago, esaj said:

Yes, probably the price comes down at scale, and there are multiple new parks being planned around the country. Nobody just wants them in their own backyard, so they have to be built away from cities, and the maintenance can be an issue in the winter (1+ meter of snow when you go up north, bad roads, storms etc). Still, the amount of wind power will continue to rise here, and I'm not saying it's a bad thing. But even if the windpower could cover 100% of the energy needs when there's enough wind, other sources are needed when the wind dies down, or there would need to be sizable "overcapacity" and a reliable way to store huge amounts of energy until it's needed.

The idea that over a large surface area the wind could die down at the same time is probably ill-conceived. But yes, producing 100% from wind is probably not the best option and a grid that can transfer electricity from places where it is available to places where it is needed helps to reduce the necessary overhead. Reinventing electric energy production from scratch is certainly not without challenges, but it is already within our technological capabilities.

If Germany finds the space to produce 20% of its energy for 80 million people (230/km^2) with wind, I am sure Finland finds the space to produce 50% for 6 million people (16/km^2).

[Mono]

11 minutes ago, esaj said:

There are ongoing plans to raise the capacity to 16500MW (although it doesn't say at what timescale, within the next decade maybe?)

Cool, that would be an increase from 7% to 55% of the overall consumption, which sounds ambitious but also like a reasonable goal.

[LanghamP]

10 hours ago, Mono said:

sense though that you are more interested to find arguments why renewables could not possibly produce most of the electricity in your country and to pay as little as possible for your electricity (disregarding possible future costs for others) and less interested in an honest discussion. I am always happy to be proven wrong, because that's how I learn the most.

It's simply a bad faith argument that @Marty BackeBacke is putting forth, and like most bad faith arguments, is done because of a desire to keep a certain lifestyle.

If there's one thing I've learned, it's that asking someone to change a lifestyle they are comfortable with is simply impossible. They can come from a scientific background, and you can present them with all the studies and facts you want, and they will simply dismiss everything you say and every study you present. They will use every excuse as a justification, while remaining silent on irrefutable points.

You cannot change someone's mind if their lifestyle depends on them to remain willfully ignorant.

That's why catastrophic events are good; they wipe out the ill-prepared/ignorant while dispelling all doubt that there is, indeed, a looming catastrophe. However, you hope that the catastrophe isn't something like Easter Island (or Greenland) whereby the civilization goes into a death spiral from which there is no recovery from. I fear, however, that man made global warming and pollution will have significant effects in 20 years, simply because our consumption of all things is going up a steep ascent.

The Atlantic (that liberal rag that I love to read) shows that Baby Boomers are the primary motivators of excessive cement and automobile consumption via building and parking restrictions.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/boomers-are-blame-aging-america/592336/

[Biped Phil]

Gentlemen!  Please!  Many good rhetorical points have been made!  Let's All Go Ride Unicycles!!