Comments by "Archangel17" (@MDP1702) on "Joe Scott"
channel.
-
5
-
4
-
All you said about solar panels is essentially wrong or irrelevant.
solar panels have a limited lifespan
Doesn't everything? Current expected lifetime for solar panels is around 25-30 years (technically they could last longer, but every year around 0,5-1% of their capacity is reduced due to among others damage to the glass like scratches etc.), which is more then enough and this "short" life actually allows them to be more quickly/easily replaced by improved panels/technologies, where with a nuclear reactor planned to last 60-80 years, you would be stuck with it for 60-80 years, even if in that time better options become available.
contain toxic materials
Regular solar panels do not contain toxic materials (at least no more than other electronics that people use so often). And the panels that do contain toxic materials are not a problem. In order to get these toxic materials into the environment, they need to either be burned or grinded to dust.
and there is no plan to safely dispose of them
This is the most stupid statement. Recycling of solar panels is mandatory in the EU, 95-98% of a panel is recycled with the remaining 2-5% being mostly glass and other non-problematic things (the reason why they don't improve it more is because there is no economical point in trying to recycle all 100% of the glass from the panels at a much higher cost). Yes, without regulation solar panels are most often still dumped, that will almost always remain a bit cheaper, but it definitely isn't like there are no options to deal with old solar panels.
Renewables can definitely provide an effective and green transition of the power needs, however it will need storage, which is expected to have reduced in costs enough around 2030-35. And personally I'd expect a mix of nuclear and renewables be (for the close future) be the best option. Long term fusion would probably be the best and if that doesn't work I wouldn't be surprised that in the long term renewables alone might be preferable.
Btw, if we ignore 4th gen we'd only have around a centuries worth of nuclear material to provide the worlds energy needs.
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
2
-
2
-
@lucofparis4819
nobody ever figured out a way to make highspeed vactrains and highspeed pneumatic trains both industrially feasible, and economically viable.
And again, the same was with other things that are now becoming commonplace.
How much effort has actually been put into it except 1 or 2 projects? It was considered dead in the past, so no one looked at it.
I am not saying there aren't any problems or challenges, but to just dismiss it because it wasn't viable in the past and isn't viable in your mind is rather stupid.
Obviously there are hurdles to overcome, but the advantage of it becoming practical is huge.
The video is interesting, but kind of besides the point (at least to me). Yes, there are trains that can go fast, though at this moment the fastest train in operation has a speed of +-270mph, even if hyperloop achieves only 600mph, that still more than doubles the speed. Yes, the mcmaglev from the video goes faster, but even its top speed (record) is 40% lower than what the hyperloop would do with 600mph. And it isn't like the mcmaglev is cheap, it is currently predicted to cost around 150 million per km (and cost overruns aren't that rare in big projects). If Hyperloop can beat that, they could defintely be economical.
Furthermore mcmaglev needed 30-40 years to reach were it is now, the hyperloop concept only exists for a few years.
There are some valable points though, for example why does it need an aerodynamic shape, this can however be explained from a safety standpoint, if somewhere there is a small breach and some air seeps in, you don't want your hyperloop to have a flat front. Ofcourse I wouldn't be surprised if some or even most of hyperloop companies are shams or something similar.
I also don't like that he acts like the hyperloop would have only one pod, and not just like trains have multiple carriages together, maybe it wasn't first envisioned as such, but I don't see why that couldn't be possible, the only downside is a longer airlock.
Now imagine using the mcmaglev technology in a low pressure environment, not only can it go even faster, but consumption could be reduced and possibly even the necessary strength (and cost) of the system.
At this moment we can just not determine yet whether hyperloop will work and whether or not it will be able to compete or even outcompete "regular" highspeed trains.
Hyperloops and the likes are simply not material and energy efficient enough to ever count as a useful option
This is a ridiculous statement, because we simply don't know yet. It could be that a short hyperloop just isn't energy efficient, but a long one is.
as even commercial airplanes are already a safer, cheaper, and equally fast (in theory, and definitely faster, in practice) option.
Yes, one problem, they pollute. The EU has already agreed to a plan where planes can't fly between airports/cities that are closer than 500km (if I remember correctly) and that would go in from 2030 or somewhere around that. This would be the distance between Amsterdam and Paris, or in the US Los Angeles and San Francisco.
When simpler tech is already superior to your high-tech energy intensive concept, it's never gonna leave the drawing board.
We'll have to wait and see. Trains were in the past superior to cars and have remained less energy intensive, and yet look at how things played out.
Or even planes, the early planes most definitely weren't better than the existing trains, it took decades for them to eventually jump past trains.
Why waste more resources and money to ship one's cargo no more faster than regular high speed trains or cargo planes
Cargo planes is easy again: pollution. And no, high speed trains aren't faster and they aren't used for cargo anyway.
in an environment far less safe for the cargo which could easily destroy it? Who would pay for that kind of service?
It depends on the cost. If people need to pay lets say 10-15$ extra to get it with you in a week or less vs 4-5 weeks, then that would be interesting. And if cargo operation proves it is safe, then maybe even passenger travel can be opted for.
Planes aren't inherent safer, they are build to be so safe. They have needed decades of iterations and improvements to become as safe as they are now.
Honestly a hyperloop above ground doesn't make much sense to me, unless it can be competitive with things like the mcMaglev, however if you can build it underground with lesss problems in regards to breaches, property, buildings, terrain, .... then yes, maybe. I wouldn't be surprised if this is (partially) why Musk still keeps an eye on it, to see if it can't be eventually a usefull venture for the boring company (or work with it), if they can get costs low enough, that and Mars. At this moment Musk claims they can tunnel at around 15 million per km. Now these tunnels might be too small for a hyperloop (though, maybe a small one is possible), but it still could show promise if hyperloop systems keep it under 100 million per km.
Again I don't know if hyperloop ever becomes a thing, it might, it might not. I just dislike that people automatically wave it away based on the little information and experience we now have. This has been done so often in the past and sometimes proven right, but other times proven completely wrong.
Eitherway neither of us have influence over it or lose anything by just keeping an open mind. If it works, it works. If not, whatever, at least we know.
2
-
@lucofparis4819
you seem to believe that vactrains and pneumatic trains are somehow one or two breakthroughs away from becoming a new mode of transportation
I do not believe that, but I also don't just immediately discredit the idea based on the view of people not working on it and who use the "history" card as a stupid argument. There have been no trials to use pneumatic (no one is talking about this btw, don't know why you mention it) or vactrain technology in around a century. Hell, vactrain is probably never even looked at before now. If there have been, please provide me with the examples.
We are talking about the transportation analogue of crossbows: modern ones are awesome and leagues above medieval crossbows, but battlefield wise they've been obsolete for centuries.
This is a weird analogy that to me doesn't hold any value. Crossbows went out of fashion because of gunpowder weapons. Yes, modern crossbows are much better, but so are modern gunpowder weapons.
There hasn't been any historical equivalent to a vactrain, since in the past the technology to get a vacuum was inefficient and much more expensive, neither were people back then looking at vehicles with a speed where the effort would be even remotely worth it. Again I am not saying a vactrain can for sure work and/or be economic, but we thought the same about so many other things, that they might not work and/or be economic, only to eventually be proven wrong.
You may only know of one or two, it doesn't mean there was only those two.
Then please, enlighten me about more.
I strongly advise you take a second look at the video I've linked, as it does review the various projects that were established.
He mentions literally one old project 150 years ago that was about pneumatic trains, something that isn't even discussed anymore for a long time in regards to a hyperloop.
As for the current projects/companies: like I said earlier, there sure can be companies and projects that are scams or suffer problems, that however doesn't entirely discredit the idea. You think other technologies/ideas never suffered these kind of problems, with people trying to use it for their own benefit?
Hyperloop companies are literally 5 years old or less. In your linked video itself he said that Japan invested 50 years of development in the maglev trains, the first maglev train tests happened many years after development started. But, oh well, hyperloop companies need to get it done in less than 5 years, do you know how stupid that is? Then he talks about spaceX test track and the problems there, but remember, spaceX isn't even in this bussiness, so why would it matter that their testtunnel isn't working great? It is not like their goal was to use a top of the line advanced vacuum tube or develop one, they just needed a track that is used once a year. At this moment they are thinking about having the extension to a 10 km vacuum tube also be a competition.
Several companies might also be just keeping information close to their chest, not revealing much untill they actually can present something concrete. Hell, at this moment BO exists for 20 years and hasn't even reached orbit, not because it is impossible (clearly it is not) or because they are inept (at least I'd be surprised if they were), but because they take their time and do tests and development out of public eyes, most companies do this. SpaceX is a great exception to that rule.
At this moment we know literally nothing about the technical capabilities of these companies, since they don't participate in SpaceX public competition, university teams do. So the "a student group could do what a professional company could not" dig from the video is so flawed, since professional companies don't take part, exactly because of the intellectual property becoming public property, ie. everyone can make use of it after. This competition is meant to promote and aid the idea of hyperloop and more broadly stem fields in general. If a university team can reach a speed of 463 km/hr, it is certainly possible that professional companies can reach higher speeds.
Dude, Hyperloop is just a name. It's not a new co dept because the name is new. It's just yet another try of the same old concepts
Dude, show me these old concepts from the past, where a vehicle (probably similar to or just a maglev) moves through a vacuum tube. Since you are so certain, it shouldn't be difficult to find for you. And ofcourse the tried development of these concepts. There where old concepts of flying through the air for quite some time, but they just weren't feasible at those points in time, not untill we developed small, light and powerfull enough engines.
it's an evidence based statement
Ok, show me the numbers, and no, that video clip won't do at all. That is just an opinionated piece, hell, I could probably make planes sound crazy and uneconomical to someone who doesn't know about planes yet (which is kinda hard to do these days) if I wanted to.
By the way no, the Hyperloop isn't faster than the SCMaglev, the White Paper gives a faster speed, but the tests do not
We have literally no idea about the tests of professional hyperloop companies, all we have is the speed of university teams. And seeing the length of the testtracks, at 1g acceleration they'll have to start slowing down around the current max speed (at 1g they'd reach the max speed achieved after around 900m), they possibly could have reached higher speeds on a longer track, we'll see about that in the future seeing SpaceX plans to extend the testtrack to 10 km.
This is also why a university team holds the record, they can increase the acceleration to as high as they can (the current recordholders claim they can reach an acceleration of 2g), they don't need to care about whether it is practical for future application.
In fact this is exactly what professional companies have also said, they need longer tracks to achieve the higher speeds, afterall even 1g is unlikely to be used in a commercial operation, so there is no way for a professional company to get the highest speeds if they don't want to go into uncomfortable acceleration ranges.
Several companies have already plans for longer testtracks. Some sponsored by the government, others already as a small initial (part of a) commercial plan.
Once again, the physically necessary equipment needed to achieve the claimed speeds will render the project too costly, thus, the Hyperloop will have to aim for more modest speeds to will destroy its apparent advantages over existing systems, rendering this endeavour pointless
This is ridiculous, how can it be slower if it could use the same technology as currently exist if they want, a hyperloop could use maglev technology just as well, it will rather be whether the gain from near vaccuum vs in air travel will be high enough to offset its investment and maintenance cost.
Theoretically there isn't a limit to speeds they can achieve in a vacuum tube using maglev technology (though it depends on the practical limitations of maglev) if the track length is indefinite. Ofcourse there are practical concerns limiting the speed, like length of track, acceptable safety risk, power use, ...
It depends on so many factors, we just can't say whether it will be economical or not. For example if they could use boring company tunnels at twice the price/mile musks says they reached/can reach, a tunnel from San Francisco to Los Angeles cost around 7 billion to dig (14 billion for two way). Ofcourse this is just one part, but putting it underground might lower other costs, because the risk for a breach causing air to jump in would be much lower and things like a terrorist attack would also not be a problem and you could also go in a straight line, not many curves (if at all) would be needed. Now has/can the boring company reach this cost? I obviously can't say. Can they make the hyperloop system small enough to use in a boring company tunnel? Again impossible to say.
And yes, 7/14 billion sounds like a lot, but the total costs of the scmaglev is 80 billion on a shorter track, so all in all these costs could definitely be in the economical limit.
2
-
2
-
@Marylandbrony If we are going to expand in space, it likely wouldn't be on planets surfaces imo, rather using extremly large rotating space stations (check out o'neill cylinders) or something similar, which could mimic any gravity. Moreover you could tailor these stations to have the environmental factors you want. Ofcourse something like that would be far from easy to build (though normally possible with current tech), but colonising other planets wouldn't be that much easier either due to several reasons.
Farming really isn't a problem. We already can farm indoors with artificial light etc. So most vegetables and crops could be farmed in enclosed farm buildings. Now, things that grow on trees like fruits might be more difficult, but we could technically do that too, you just would either need much larger spaces or you would need to genetically adapt those trees.
I don't think you understand the massive amount of resources that are out there in space. Most of our resources would come from space mining in such a society, not from Earth. One particular asteroid has so much estimated valuable resources that it might be 125 000 times more valuable than the entire earths current GDP if estimates are correct. One of the entire reasons to go into space as a civilization would be to harness these resources rather than use up the earth.
Farmland is really badly used now. If we could cut husbandry of cattle, we'd free up 50%+ of our current farmland. Not to mention if we really wanted we could switch to indoor farming, which could reduce farmland usage several times and water usage by even more than 100 times. The downside of that currently is the cost (mostly from energy use and labour) and the energy use.
If we can artificially grow meat, or can create non-meat burgers that are almost exactly the same in taste, we could even with current technology feed the the current population possibly 10 to 100 times over, even by US standards.
Ofcourse this is futuristic, but definitely within reality if we really (had to) dedicate ourselves to it.
2
-
@Allen Loser
Could you use 1 comment in future, or at least try to limit the number?
150 kilowatts to 350 kilowatts delivered from the charger to the battery pack is also not impressive compared to in excess of 14,000 kilowatts equivalent delivered to my fuel tank at six gallons per minute on the slow hook.
You keep hung up in this. How often do I need to say that yes, fuelling up is way faster, but if you can charge your EV in 15 minutes this would be more then enough, since you'd only do this during a long trip something like 250-300 miles. Most people only do this kind of travel a few times a year, losing 15 minutes is nothing on such a long trip and will allow you to go to the bathroom, stretch your legs and leave again refreshed.
cordless drill cells
What exactly do you mean by this? When I try to find out it only shows me batteries of a drill.
Tesla should have played at least three suppliers against each other to beat them up for low unit price, rapid delivery time, low defect rate and liberal payment terms.
You have no idea how EV batteries work, do you? Tesla is already expected to be with a supply shortage if it doesn't start producing its own cell in two or so years. There aren't many battery suppliers that can supply enough batteries need for large scale EV production and it is not like they are the only ones. Neither is there a great deal of price difference. If you really think Tesla didn't try to get the best supplier, I don't know what to tell you. You are acting like Tesla just wanted to buy a car and could act like you suggest, this clearly shows a lack of understanding in the EV battery market.
The comparison is invalid because drivers in 1910 did not lack for means to fuel their ICEVs with kerosene or ethanol.
You really belief this don't you. Often people had to drive many miles to just be able to fuel up. I don't know where you get it from most people had access to ethanol fuel or kerosone more easily than gasoline.
Your prior post justified slow rollout of charging facilities
And how does my post justifies a slow roll out exactly? I don't understand how you could get this idea.
Buying fuel at a retail pump works best for me at this time.
And I am talking about in 5-10 years as I have been clear about several times. And if it suits you best, fine with me, but you'll be in the minority.
Buying fuel at a retail pump still works best for you. You haven't changed your behavior either.
Because I just said that I am talking about 5-10 years. I can't afford an EV now, for me they are still to expensive, when they reach parity in around 5 years I will certainly buy an EV as my next car and I will be happy about it. I always get an annoyed feeling when I notice I need to go to the gas pump, that will finally go away once I can just plug in my EV at home.
Hydrogen is pointless as a transportation fuel.
It is indeed pointless for roadtransportation, it might however be usefull for ships and maybe short- to midrange planes. Maybe your synthetic gas too, but it is there it will compete, not in the car industry.
No new storage, transportation and retail sales infrastructure is needed.
True, but many of the disadvantages remain: noice, pollution in aread of driving, more maintenance cost for the car, higher price, ...
Premature replacement of hundreds of millions of cars and trucks is avoided.
Why are you talking about premature replacement? It isn't like people are just going to be forced to buy a new EV, they can use their ICE car as long as they want, which is for most cars around 80-12 years.
Nobody need ever forgo the benefits and convenience of liquid hydrocarbon fuels or settle for the fundamental deficiencies of using a battery pack as the sole fuel tank in a car or truck.
Trust me, there will be few people finding hydrocabon fueled cars better and more convenient than EV's in the long run. Even several companies are looking at replacing their semi's with BEV semi's because of the lower running costs (less maintenance, cheaper "fuel", ...)
You are in no hurry to switch. Why should I?
I am not saying you should switch NOW, I am saying in the future not switching would be stupid and will be seen by almost everyone as such, even with 'green' gasoline.
2
-
2
-
@doritoification
Even if it's economical to recycle these things (I disagree about that right now but I have no doubt we can eventually get there one day)
Tesla is already taking recycling batteries as a cost saving measure (though not untill enough batteries get dated). Apparently it will be less expensive than mining for new materials. And the cost of recycling a solar panel is around 20$ (transport not included), so not expensive at all, unfortunately it is still cheaper to just dump it in a landfill (often around 1$ or less, at least in the US), that is why there needs to be regulations. If you take around 50 dollars per panel (more than enough, probably way too much), that would only increase the cost of solar panels by around 0,16-0,20$/watt. Again, it all comes down to regulation in regards to solar panels.
the amount of material required to get to the circular stage is still monumental.
Ofcourse it still a lot of material, but it isn't like a nuclear powerplant doesn't use any material either. You don't just need to account for the fuel, but also the building material of the plant itself, otherwise wind and solar don't use materials if you only account for fuel.
I don't know how your source get to such low material usage for nuclear. A more recent study found that materials needed for solar production ranged from less than nuclear to around twice as high (+-5000 tonnes vs 10 000 tonnes).
And besides it is not about these abundant materials (the needed materials used for providing the entire world electricity production with pv is a nothing compared to the worldproduction of these materials). It is more about the less abundant materials.
Not sure why you feel the need to ignore 4th gen for the discussion of uranium abundance.
Simply for the fact that at this moment not a single 4th gen is in operation (I don't infer there won't be any, just that it is not the case now). it still needs to prove their LCOE costs, for all we know it will be higher than predicted (or lower), so that is way I didn't account for it (yet).
And my comment wasn't so much to say nuclear isn't possible or a good source, but nuclear fission remains non-renewable. And people were saying that nuclear is the best even before 4th gen was really mentioned/possible. So I remain a little sceptic about 4th untill it has several reactors running for a few years and then see what of the prediction was correct.
the fuel costs for nuclear are so low relative to the overall costs that a more expensive ocean extraction method would be perfectly tolerable for the economics of nuclear.
I don't think that is true, I believe I read somewhere that a more expensive extraction process could increase the cost of nuclear significantly (maybe exactly because it now is overall cheap).
Seeing as a globally scalable battery solution is "still in development" I don't see why we should ignore 4th gen nuclear in the same boat
The difference is that the globally scalable batteries already exist now, a lot of cost reduction will come from just mass producing it more than is currently the case. 4th gen isn't in operation yet, so we'll have to see where it truly will end.
2
-
@doritoification
feel free to share your source about solar material consumption
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325382044_Electricity_generation_technologies_Comparison_of_materials_use_energy_return_on_investment_jobs_creation_and_CO2_emissions_reduction
It's nor surprising when you see the shear scale of a solar farm, for example the proposed cleve hill solar park, and compare the land occupied with a nuclear site.
Land use =/= material use. Yes, a nuclear powerplant is much more compact, but also uses a lot more material per m2. And ofcourse not all solar panels have to be placed in new terrain, you can also place it on roofs, parking lots, .... Land coverage is not a problem for solar. It can even be placed above crops. In hot dry area's this even helps the crops and in for example Germany you can combine them too, though just with a little more space between the solar panel rows. Or you place them above canals and irrigation ways, like they do in India, with several beneficial effects.
So yes, it uses more land, but that isn't a problem.
-Hinkley point C will sell power at it's strike price of 113 Euros/MWh
Which is rather high to be honest. That will make it one of the mroe expensive sources out there.
-Out of this strike price 7 Euros is "fuel fabrication"
I am not claiming fuel prices now are high, they aren't, rather that if you need to go from the "easy" excavation to a harder one, this can seriously increase the price. Possibly double it, currently the cheapest method stands at above 200$/lb, that is around 6-7 times higher than normal, so even if it makes up just 1,5$/MWh, this might increase fuel price with 9$/MWh. Now ofcourse this isn't a lot, but with solar and wind already reaching 40$/MWh and expected to still decrease in price, every $ might count.
The pie chart price breakdown half way down the article should show why this is the case
I would like to see if they can actually get this 40$/MWh, since the lowest ones I found for new nuclear power plants are around 75$/MWh (western plants), that is almost double. I wonder if this 40$/MWh is not an overly optimistic calculation.
if the government just got their financing structure for large national energy projects like Sizewell C in order
The problem is that no investor is going to invest in building a nuclear powerplant without being ensured a huge return, why? Because of the risk and length of ROI time. The risk of budget overruns, the risk of the plant being shut down too early for whatever reason, .... Investment in nuclear powerplants is just seen as a huge risk, even if in the long term you can make profit.
It is for this reason that it is unlikely you'll get a gen 3 plant under 75$/MWh ensured price any time soon. Yes, I do think the UK government had fucked up Hinkley'd budgetting if any of these cost predictions are even in the remote vincinity, but this doesn't take away the reason why they did something like that. Even in 2012 Flamanville LCOE was already expected to be between €70-80/MWh.
*Additionally, uranium from sea water might as well just be considered renewable *
That would be interesting.
To be clear I personally have nothing against nuclear and expect we'll get a mix of nuclear, renewables and storage, however I do am against building gen 3 now, since gen 4 might be just around the corner and could possibly be rolled out in the next 15 year. and if they achieve the expectations, they'd be a much better choice. If we build gen 3 now however, we're stuck with it for the next 60-80 years.
And I do hate it when people claim renewables aren't feasible (they certainly are) or that nuclear somehow is the holy grail (fusion might be, fission isn't). Yes, renewables can't run everything currently, but we don't expect to run everything on renewables now, rather in the next 15-20 years in even optimistic expectations, by then storage should be improved more than enough to be competitive.
2
-
@doritoification
I don't want to be mislead by my own echo chamber
Same, I have often had to review what I know/my stance because of what others said/provided. Other times though I can't collaborate their source with others, which makes me remain critical.
I did notice that the paper has an EPR lifespan at just 40 years ... so I do think that could have skewed their data
That is true. Though if you look at the long term, there would also be reduced material costs for solar and wind, after all you'd probably just need to replace the panels after 30 years, not the rest of the structure (if properly maintained), for wind turbines, you could possibly get away with just a renovation of the top part, or up to the ground, but reuse the foundation. And since solar panels ought to be recycled, you would have little extra material impact due to solar panel replacement. In that sense I do think taking a 40 year lifetime isn't really that bad. If you take 60, almost no extra material would be added to solar panels either.
is the cost of electricity generation and is not the real price paid after accounting for system costs
True, system costs of renewables are still higher. However with cheaper storage this could partially be mitigated. You wouldn't need back-up plants and have essentially no curtailment. Ofcourse you'd have the storage costs, but with decreasing prices in both storage and renewable production, this could eventually balance out. Personally I expect renewables to be used for households, bussiness and partially transportation and nuclear for the large energy users ie. industry.
One advantage of renewables is that you could generate on site, reducing overall costs. For example regular houses or bussiness with solar panels and home storage are probably going to be the norm rather than the exception, since you'd avoid taxes, grid costs, power outages, ... (so overall possibly reduced 'greater system' costs/invoice prices/whatever you'd call it).
We would need 10 HPCs just to run the transportation sector when it goes fully electric
That seems awfully high. Current predictions estimate that the electrification of transport (trucks and cars) would increase demand by around a third. The UK consumed around 300TWh in 2019, so that makes 100TWh for the transport industry. If I calculated correctly (confirmed by your link) Hinkley point C would generate around 26TWh yearly, so you'd need 4 HPC's for transport.
Total consumption with current and transport would need around 15 HPC's, though you wouldn't want to have all demand be produced by them. Anything above 60% of the grid is abnormal (only France does higher, but they export a lot of electricity to neighbours when domestic demand is low), So probably max 9 HPC (without industry electrification).
One of the problems with using experienced workforce is that you'll get a serial construction, which could (for 9 plants) take from 45 (5 years per plant) to 72 years (8/plant). You'll need to have projects working parallel, meaning using also less experienced workers. Obviously, yes the price might go down after the first one (it would be weird if it didn't), but the question is by how much. EDF in France still offered the French government a year ago a price of around €5 billion per MW, for HPC that would come to around +-€16 billion per plant (14 billion pound), which apparently is around the price EDF gave for Hinkley in 2012 and even with later plants overbudget costs can happen, for example site related costs. That is not particularly inexpensive. I guess we'll not know untill a second (and third) plant is build.
2
-
2
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
This video kind of reflected my feelings, there are a lot of problems and it might never become a thing, but just outright dismissing it is at this moment stupid. It would be like people dismissing planes a 100+ years ago (and yes, there certainly were people doing that). It can at this moment still go both ways.
And 'cheap' tunneling would be the holy grail for the hyperloop, I personally don't except anything from above ground hyperloop systems (except maybe in vast open spaces, like the desert?), too much problems with land rights, slopes, turns, pressurization, safety, ... Underground would have massive advantages in structural integrity, no turns needed, slopes not needed or very gently, less problems with pressurization, ...
But maybe I will be proven wrong and above surface hyperloops will work?
If the boring tunnel can achieve their cost goals and someone can fit hyperloop systems in their tunnels, that might be the best way. It would cost around 7-14 billion to tunnel (two way) from LA to SF, that is not much, obviously you need other infrastructure too for the hyperloop, but seeing that shorter trajects of highspeed rails can cost up to 80-100 billion, it might be achievable.
I do really hate it when people just dismiss it as it being technologically or scienctifically impossible/economical, we at this moment can't say whether that will be the case. Obviously hyperloop isn't going to be here in the next 10 or probably even 20 years, even if it proves viable, maglev had decades of development to get to the point where it is now. And it again might just be a case of getting tunneling costs down, which might again push something like the hyperloop to the future.
The main problem now is that hyperloop was hyped up, instead we should just ignore for the next several years and see what has happened then.
1
-
1
-
@albertrogers2506 I Always have to laugh when people use France as an example.
For one it is the only country with overall more than 50% of their electricity mix being nuclear, secondly France has access to a lot of hydro, before they went for nuclear big time, hydro made up almost half of their electrcity mix. This access to hydro really helps them regulate power greatly. furthermore when they produce too much power, they export it to their neighbours, who happily buy it because electricity from old nuclear reactors is cheap. If they however wouldn't buy it, the price of the nuclear electricity would go up by quite a bit.
And for now France is having serious problems with their first new nuclear reactor in almost 2 decades. This while renewables are slowly rising. Whether France remains on the nuclear rotue, goes renewable or a mix is yet to be determined, though a mix is most likely.
In the end current nuclear technology either needs massive storage like renewables or overcapacity, which will put the already high costs for new nuclear production even higher.
Gen 4 shows promise, however since not a single of these reactors are online yet and gen 3 reactors prove to be rather more difficult and expensive than expected, I'll wait untill gen 4 reactors have run somewhere for at least a couple of years, hopefully by 2030-35 we will know, by that time it is expected that storage costs will have come down enough to be competitive with peakerplants and even new baseload gen 2/3 nuclear reactors.
And wind worthless? This really shows you ignorant bias.
Using ships as an example is stupid. For one, yes nuclear reactors have a high energy density, thus more suitable for ships, however they are goddamn expensive. Commercial shipping already looked into using nuclear for large containerships, they quickly abandoned the idea due to costs. The reactor alone would be several times more expensive then the entire ship. Then you also need to ensure safety (what if a nuclear powered ship gets highjacked, what if a meltdown occurs on a ship, ...), nuclear engineers on all of these ships, ... This while shipping companies are actually looking into using windpower to reduce consumption, from a kite pulling the ship and reducing between 5-10% of consumption to using special windmills. These are now in test phase, but seem promising, especially the kite might help, since it requires only little space and offers easy use.
In the end, at the moment nuclear is not THE power source because of costs, maybe it comes down with 4th gen, but untill that time renewables are (at least up to around 40% of the electricity mix) more economical and with reducing costs of storage eventually this will climb close to 95% eventually.
Personally I expect a mix of nuclear and renewables, however this is if gen 4 reactors indeed proves to be less expensive.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Tesla announced on battery day that their new tabless batteries would have 6 times the power capacity, which would mean if they now have a 150 kW power capacity, than the new battery cells could possibly achieve 900kW. This could definitely mean charging time for 20-80% could be reduced to less than 10 minutes. Ofcourse it isn't as easy as just scaling this, there is also infrastructure, duration of this high power (it probably can't be kept for more than a minute, maybe even just a few seconds, I don't know), ... but even reaching 300kW for a large part of the process will put it close to 10 minutes. Getting EV's that need less than 10 minutes fastcharging in the next 2 decades or so isn't unthinkable.
The question is, how much will it be needed? Truck drivers already need to take mandatory rest periods every 3-4 hours (at least here in Europe), which will go fine with charging their trucks during this rest. They also can't operate for more than +-10 hours at a time, then they need a long rest (several hours). If their battery packs are divided in 4 packs, charging simultanously, they might already be almost fine with current technology (and tabless batteries will first be used for semi's and cybertucks anyway). The average person only does around 2-6 or so longer trips a year and during longer trips many people (especially with families) will stop every 2-3 hours to take a small break, if they then can charge up in 15-20 minutes it is fine.
1
-
@Allen Loser I made a mistake and didn't accounty for the size difference, so it is probably more like 350kW max. But due to the way the new cells are made, it might be possible to use maximum power for longer than now. 15 minutes 20-80% is what it should be capable of doing.
As for the chargers, there are already 350kW chargers being rolled out, they will be more expensive to use, but it would probably be comparable to gas in price. And ofcourse you only use these high power chargers when really needed.
Stonger chargers will definitely be possible, though the question is whether that is usefull. People might now think 15 minutes is long, while in the future thinking why it was a problem.
As for being tethered to your home. Aren't you already? There isn't really a problem with this unless you are almost never home, but you need to sleep somewhere, and eventually you'll find chargers everywhere. Regular charging is really no issue if you can charge at home. If you don't have access to a charging point, that is something different, though as time goes on eventually everyone will have access to overnight charging capabilities.
1
-
@Allen Loser
Capacity of a battery pack has little to do with the ,maximum charging rate possible.
I was talking about the power capacity, not the energy capacity, ie. what power a battery can take and for how long.
And the rest you said about batteries I already knew. Clearly you misinterpreted what I said and thought I knew nothing about the batteries (or other things involved).
I am not tethered to home. I can sleep anywhere I please, limited only by the number of miles which I can drive before becoming too tired to drive and my ability to pay for lodging. You must return home if you are to refuel at home.
Either you are disingenious on purpose or I don't know why you would write this. Obviously when you are taking a trip away from home you would use a fastcharger or a charger at your lodging. It is not like you can only charge at home, that is just your primary charging area for regular use.
The charging rate is in excess of 14,000 kilowatts at the charging facilities which I patronize.
Are we going to start like this? First off all, everyone knows filling up with gas is faster, that is not a debated issue. Secondly if you compare fuelling to charging it is better to use miles per minute rather than kilowatts. The way you put it, you make it seem like filling up with gas is 140 times faster than most regular fast chargers or 40 times faster than the fastest charger available, that is clearly not the the case due to the inefficiency of your car engine. Eitherway this is irrelevant. A fastcharging time of around 15 minutes would be fine for almost everyone, since you'd only use this when making a longer trip, other times you wouldn't leave your house for it and would spend maybe 5-10 seconds on it.
No, you don't incur damage to you fuel tank, you however do incur damage to your engine, clutch, drive train in general by using gas, where as with an EV other parts of the drive train rarely need to be replaced or serviced in the cars lifetime. You can have thousands more maintenance costs with an ICE vs an EV. You can literally save the costs of a new battery in maintenance savings. And when a battery is unsuitable for further driving it can still be used for non-mobile applications (it still would have 65-70% of the energy capacity remaining), so you can get quite a bit of the value back. Even when it needs to be recycled you can still get some money back, since recycling a battery is cheaper than getting all the resources from mining.
Furhermore at this moment battery packs with proper management are expected to last longer than the car itself unless you drive a lot with it, in which case you save more on other things like fuel, maintenance, ...
Those refueling facilities are ubiquitous
They are now, they weren't in the past. They needed a roll out, so do chargers now.
1
-
@Allen Loser
Your original post was about charging rate improving by a claimed factor of six times.
And I later corrected myself. I didn't at first take into account the +-5 times increase in volume of the new battery. It is kind of stupid that Tesla then touthed 6x increase in power instead of being more clear. Still 15 minutes is expected with 350kW chargers
Let me know when recharging facilities supplying power at a rate in excess of 14,000 kilowatts
It seems it is useless to discuss things with you. if you charge at home this speed doesn't mean anything. Most people would use a fastcharger only a few times a year, and usually when they already need a stop to rest as is advised for safe driving (ie. after 3-4 hours of driving). In that case a 15-20 minute charging time can even be seen as a benefit, increasing road safety by decreasing drivers who never rest and start making mistakes (and if you want to say anything, yes, maybe you are a superman who doesn't need any rest and can drive as long as you want, studies prove this isn't the case for most).
The engine in my 1986 Volvo 240 wagon outlasted the body of the car which rusted out after 18 years of use.
And what where the maintenance costs on it? The miles? Ofcourse an engine can outlast a car, doesn't mean there were no costs on it. I can easily tout xx years of operation, while only driving 100-150 miles with it too.
A manufacturer can overcome my consumer resistance with a fully transferable, unlimited lifetime warranty for as many battery replacements as needed at no cost to the owner.
This is unlikely to come around, maybe increasing it to something like 15-20 year, but never a lifetime, since an EV could possibly last much longer than an ICE car depending on the body. At this moment it is set at 8 years or 150.000 miles (around the average lifetime of most cars btw apparently), which already is longer than most warrantees out there and ofcourse car manufacturers aren't going to use a warranty that is close to the failure time, so you can add at least 15-20% to that time/mileage. And ofcourse that is only using the economics of warranty, car manufacturers would also like to be known for their product. If one company can have a battery go 1 million miles (which is what Tesla is aiming at) then they might reap extra economic benefits from this too. Based on current known data from Tesla cars purely on degradation, the battery should easily last 500k miles and might flirt with a million miles.
So then why not offer a longer warranty you might ask? Well, economics. Tesla is a company, so they rather limit any possible expense as much as possible. Why use a longer warranty than officially needed. Almost no company will offer longer warranty than required unless you pay extra for a longer warranty.
Ford built flex-fuel vehicles in the early 1900s. They could be fueled on kerosene, gasoline or ethanol (corn squeezins).
And? Like we have free land to spare already, right? The entire world production of corn isn't even enough to power the entire US car fleet with ethanol. It is now already being used mixed with gasoline (at least here in Europe) to decrease pollution. You know what is happening? People start using the fuel with less ethanol in it (which is a bit more expensive) because their garage tells them to and there is a slight increase in consumption when gasoline is mixed with ethanol.
Something else to take into account, which you seem to not think about. With current consumption and current known oil reserves we'd run out in 50-100 years. And that is with no rise in consumption, obviously without EV's the consumption will increase worldwide. But sure, you keep using the exhaustable fuel that is also necessary/usefull for so much more in the long run.
You like so much people seem to lack long term vision and caring, as long as it doesn't interferes with your current routine, right? Even if it would barely cost you time and will (once EV's are on price parity, expected around 2025) cost you less. But ok, if you want to keep paying more and fuck over future generations more, you do you. And just to be clear, I don't expect you to buy an EV immediately or before you need a new car, I don't have an EV yet either and will probably not get one in the next 5 years, after that? Absolutely.
1
-
@Allen Loser
Power output of 150 kilowatts is not impressive. That is 200 horsepower. No Tessla currently offers an output as little as 200 horsepower. A P100D already offers an output in excess of 500 kilowatts (~700 to 750 horsepower). An output of 900 kilowatts from a new battery pack is not an increase of six times over a P100D battery pack.
I never talked about the power the battery could give the engines, I always talked about charging power (at least in relation to 150-350kW).
A battery pack which is five times larger in volume and presumably in capacity, will take longer to charge at the same charging rate of 350 kilowatts of existing chargers.
For one it isn't the battery pack that is larger, but the cells in it. And the cell saw around 15% of energy capacity increase per kg. These cells also changed design (tabless batteries) so there is less problems with batteries heating up during the charging process. So no, it won't take longer, but shorter since it should be able to charge at max capacity for longer. Batteries usually only charge a small time at max capacity.
A fully transferable, unlimited warranty is a no-cost way to overcome consumer resistance / consumer skepticism if the new battery packs are as good as claimed.
Except it is not needed. As it stands now Tesla can't keep up with car orders and regular car manufacturers still focus mostly on ice cars and hybrids now, however they are jumping on EV's in a limited way, because they realize EV's are the future and they don't want to be (completely) left behind. So why already trying to overcome consumer resistance / skepticism if they have enough consumers already (for Tesla)? Or if they are still also selling ICE cars (regular manufacturers)? Maybe in the future they might try it to pull the last ones skeptics over the line. Though by then most people will have EV's, so then it most likely wouldn't be necessary, there will be more than enough prove.
Concern for warranty liability is an admission that Tesla believes the probability of a warranty claim is non-negligible.
I just said Tesla is a company, a company will never give a longer warranty, even if the chance of there being a problem is negliable.
There was plenty of corn to fuel all ICEVs in existence in 1910 as were stores selling kerosene.
Really? They could power all 500 000 vehicles in the US back then? Consider me stunned, but not really. There are now 273 million cars in the US. Really, it is not so difficult to find out, google a bit and make some calculations and you'll find I was right. Or let me do it for you.
1 bushel of corn = 3 gallons of ethanol
Wordwide yearly consumption of corn (in bushels) = 44 690 000 000
44 690 000 000 * 3 = 134 880 000 000 or 135 billion gallons of ethanol
US yearly gas consumption for cars = 145 billion gallons
And considering that ethanol also has lower energy content it is even worse. This would make the needed amount of gallons around 217 billion gallons of ethanol needed.
And we aren't taking into account that this corn is needed for other things, so you would need a lot more land use, water use, energy use (transforming corn to ethanol), ... No, ethanol is not going to be viable replacement, not even close.
Drivers who expected to travel in areas where fuel was unavailable carried additional fuel in jerry cans. That there was not yet a chain of recognizable gas stations was not a showstopper for early drivers.
It most certainly was for quite a lot of people. You do know the jerry can was invented in the 1930's for the German military right? It wasn't something in use in the 1910's since at that point oil was only just becoming a usefull resource. Sure they had cans, but they weren't as easy to use, needing a wrench, a funnel and spout and easily punctured causing leaks.
And honestly how far will people be from electricity? Like if a car is meant to go into the wild or in an area without electricity, I can understand gasoline vehicles remaining in use, this however is/will be the exception.
Lack of a sufficient number of recharging facilities is a deficiency of BEvs which can be fixed by allocation of sufficient capital.
What do you think is happening? The EU is planning to have 3 million public chargers by 2030, where there are now around 200 000, so a 15 times increase. This is to support the goal of at least 30 million EV's on EU roads by 2030 (currently a little less then 2 million).This falls in their green deal plan, which would also for example forbid short plane flights from 2030 onwards (less than 500km), 80.000 EV trucks, ... According to their estimates 10% hydrogen and 10% e-diesel would increase the necessary renewables by 41% by 2050, thus instead they go full on battery powered vehicles for the road.
Gasoline and diesel fuel can be synthesized from CO2 and water.
And how energy inefficient is that? Since they essentially just work as an energycarrier/storage, you could as well use hydrogen.
The primary reason that synthetic fuels are not in widespread use is the production cost exceeds the retail price of fuels refined from crude oil.
Exactly. And electricity is even cheaper then fuels refined from crude oil, with the added benefit that is doesn't exhaust co2 (and other pollutants) at the place people live, which synthetic fuel would. Then Hydrogen would be better than synthetic fuels too.
Advocates for renewable energy have not yet delivered on the promise of electricity which is too cheap to meter
Except it is. The problem is that renewables were expensive just a few years ago, these expensive renewables are still in the mix and often times government get subsidies for these expensive renewables from the past back through the electricity bill. In Germany the cost of production of electricity is only 2 eurocent/kWh higher than in France which uses old nuclear, which is supposed to be cheap and comes down to around 8 cent/kWh, however at this moment the government adds another 5-6 cent/kWh to the bill to recover spent subsidies and in total Germany has more than 52% of the bill being taxes at a total bill cost of 30 cent/kWh.
Eitherway, you need a price of around 40 cents/kWh (here in Europe) to break even. Even the highest bill is only around 30 cents/kWh. Here in Belgium it is around 25-28 cent/kWh and the average for the entire EU is around 21 cent/kWh (or around half as expensive as gas). This is taking into account current efficiency of EV's however this is also still increasing (a bit).
You can see the amount of EV's increasing with lower electricity. For example the Netherlands only have 14-15 cent/kWh and EV's are sold there much more than here in Belgium.
Producing fuel from the ashes of burned fuel requires a lot of energy. Nordic Blue Crude uses hydropower
Which is essentially just a waste, it would be better to use this hydropower to directly power something. The only reason you wouldn't is if the electricity market is saturated by for example other hydropower. But that is not a bussinessmodel for creating gas for cars, but rather to use gas as an energy storage option that is easily transferable, in which case it will likely go into competition with hydrogen and possibly be used to fuel powerplants then cars in the long run or other maybe will find some other uses.
I am willing to pay more for synthetic diesel fuel if it were available at a retail pump near me. I am unwilling to sacrifice conveniencne and mobility to drive a BEV which is inferior to my seventeen year old VW TDI in providing mobility.
You wouldn't sacrifice your mobility or convenience, it is just that you seem rusted in the idea that only fuelling at a pump provides mobility and convenience, while this is certainly not true. This is similar to people that wouldn't give up their bike/horse and cart in the past for a car or people who still want a landline when everything can be done with a mobile phone. It just needs a change of how you view/experience things. Personally I'd find plugging in my car at home much more convenient than fuelling up at a gas station, even if I now live within 5 minutes of several fuelstations. And charging my car during an otherwise also advised reststop is also not going to inconvenience me or feel like I sacrifice mobility (with a 15-20 minute charge time). Again I am talking of 5-10 years from now with a build out infrastructue (though for me already good enough now), I can understand people's hesitance of buying an EV now, they are still quite expensive and not everywhere is the infrastructure build out enough, but in the future an EV is a no brainer for everything except the very special exceptions.
Are you conceding that Tesla lied?
They didn't, it can just be deceving, probably due to my own faulty interpretation though.
And well, depending on the country you might not get a choice (if you live in the US, this is unlikely), for example the UK plans to ban sales of new ICE cars by 2030.
1
-
@Allen Loser
What fraction of the retail price of a new battery pack are you willing to pay for a salvaged automotive battery pack with 70% of the original capacity, if purchased for stationary use?
I'd say personally around 25-30%, but it most likely would not be private persons buying them, they are too big overall as home batteries in capacity (though maybe the original owner can use them as homebatteries instead of selling it), but large companies might be willing to pay a bit more (maybe with a clause to refund x% in case the battery fails in the next x cycles or so). But even 25-30% would still be more than fine.
Three salvaged battery packs are needed where two new battery packs would do if 66% to 70% capacity remains in the salvaged battery packs
And? Size isn't really a huge concern, if it is, you ofcourse are going to buy a new one. Neither is weight a concern if it is stationary.
A market for salvaged automotive battery packs will develop only if the discount compared to the retail price of buying new is sufficient that consumers choose salvaged battery packs over new for stationary uses.
Ofcourse, and maybe in the next 2 decades that might no be the case with dropping battery costs, though this also means your new battery is cheaper, great. Once battery costs are more or less stable, I don't see a reason why people would not want to possibly save 70% on the costs of a new battery (again maybe with a guarantee that it will still work x cycles, or pay per month untill either the battery fails or a certain amount is reached).
However about salvaging/re-use I do have to add that Tesla is against this for probably 2 reasons: they sell powerwalls to be used in homes, if people re-use car batteries this means less income and secondly like I said, recycling is less expensive than mining, so they want to recycle these batteries as soon as possible to decrease their costs. And now that they are planning to build the batteries into the car body itself, it will be more difficult or even impossible to re-use them.
This a beef I have with Tesla, just like Apple they are going against right-to-repair which aims at making it possible for third parties to work at a car/item to repair it, even with genuine parts. I can understand them somewhat, an EV is not as safe to work on if you don't know what you do and if something goes wrong due to 3rd party changes Tesla could be still be hurt, even if indirectly. However I do also need to add that the battery being put immediately in the car body is meant as a cost savings feature, not an anti-repair/anti-reuse measure.
that a BEV may be competitive in selling price by 2025 is a disincentive to buy a BEV now.
True, which is why I don't mind if people say they'll wait to buy one for a few years. There however are enough people for who the extra costs is worth it as seen by the sales. Also several countries offer great BEV incentives and if your electricity costs are low enough, the extra cost might already be earned back in less time than the car's expected lifetime. This however isn't the case here in Belgium, thus my mother just this week bought a new ICE. Seeing an average cars lifetime of 8-12 years (and her old car's time of 10 years) she'll probably buy a new EV somewhere around 2030-32, which is more than fine by me.
1
-
@Allen Loser
Building million mile battery packs is pointless unless salvaged battery packs are reused, not recycled.
Few cars are driven one million miles before the rest of the car wears out or is wrecked beyond repair.
Possibly yes, which is probably why we haven't heard of it on batteryday, though I don't really agree.
For one when batteries will be used in semi's, the amount of miles driven will quickly increase, reaching on million miles with a semi isn't so weird. Driving on average 275 miles a day will put you at 1 million miles after around 10 years.
There isn't so much that degrades in an EV, not the engine, not the brakes (not as fast as least), ... Everything that does were out can be rather easily replaced except the body, but for semi's that should easily last the 10 or so years they need to operate it to reach 1 million miles.
Add to this that the cybertrucks body is expected to last much longer than normal body frames and it could keep going for a million miles with limited maintenance. But ofcourse we won't know untill it actually is being put in use somewhere in the next 2-3 years.
Maybe Tesla will re-use them first. It is not like I know everything about it, though if the million miles are a consequence of the other needed characteristics of a battery design (like with the tabless batteries), then it is just an extra advantage.
I already have a million mile fuel tank at a fraction of the cost of a battery pack.
Yes, but with an ice the engine, clutch, gear box, ... is the battery in terms of degredation. Can they all last 1 million miles without replacement?
you don't save 75% but only save 62.5% of the cost of purchasing new battery packs.
And? you still save a lot vs 2 new battery packs. Again if you rather buy 2 new battery packs, that is obviously your choice. Or don't buy any. Honestly this isn't relevant to the discussion we had. That you wouldn't be interested, doesn't mean other people/companies/organisations also aren't interested.
The cost for three salvaged battery backs exceeds the cost of two new battery packs if you were to pay 70% of the cost of new for salvaged battery packs with 70% of capacity remaining.
Yes, but you also would have a larger capacity than 2 new battery packs. If it costs 70% for 70% capacity remaining, there is no discount, it is just like you are buying a new one, which obviously wil never be done.
$672 in lost dividend income on 400 shares of common stock in a green utility company.
Don't know where this comes from, must be a special case for you, your region? And I don't understand what this has to do with a solar panel set up.
My cost basis of $7,864 was comparable to the fully installed cost of a three kilowatt (grid-attached) system in 2016.
2016 is a long time ago in terms of solar panels. Since the end of 2016 solar panel costs halved.
Demand for heat can not be ignored in most climates if the intent is to go off-grid.
I agree, though I personally never talked of going off-grid untill you now brought it up.
No battery backup is needed if not going off-grid.
That is not entirely true, though it depends. If there is a variable electricity price you could take advantage by charging the battery when costs are low and use it while costs are high, though this is not yet usefull in most countries/regions. Ofcourse a bit of battery storage ensures that in case of a power outage, you don't lose power. And if you have solar panels and only get a small amount of the energy back for free upon sending it on the grid, storing it in a battery might be better. Also in the future it is possible that utility companies will offer money to home battery owners to use their battery to store and use power from it (though limited to a certain % of the battery) essentially integrating your battery in a "virtual powerplant" configuration.
But I do believe most US states have feed in tarrifs (or whatever it was called) where you can get the same amount of energy from the grid free of charge as you put on it with your solar panels, and thus making battery storage useless for solar panels, since you're using the grid as a battery.
Reject the subsidies offered to the oil companies from which you buy fuel for your car.
Don't buy or use their products.
You do realise this would mean you can't fuel up your car anymore, since all large gasoline suppliers are in this subsidie chain.
Help manufacturers of BEVs attain economy of scale and price parity.
Buy a BEV now, not five or more years from now.
Now I can't follow, is this meant sarcastically?
1
-
@Allen Loser
I thought that I was agreeing with you that a huge discount is needed to make purchase of salvaged battery packs economically viable.
Yes, but 62% savings is still great, especially considering the size.
Doing so costs more than buying new if the price paid is above 70%
Yes, and on 70% it would cost the same as new battery packs, and I agree you wouldn't do this. No one is going to buy it at 70% if the pack is only 70% left. I also don't know why you'd bring this up, since I never remotely gave such a high number for a used battery pack.
Meaning that the market value of a residential PV system purchased in 2016 has depreciated by half, or more, while the shares of stock purchased appreciated.
What stocks? Like this seems to be just something for you personal which I can't speak about. As for a depreciated by half, not necessarily, it still is installed and even if it is, so what? When you sell your house it isn't going to come down to this $3500 or so. And if you don't plan to sell, the same conditions apply that you accepted/estimated when you had it installed.
This is really irrelevant.
I would still be making money on my investment if I had not been forced to sell at a profit.
Again, this is about something I can't talk about. And is completely useless for this conversation. I don't know why you've shoehorned this in here.
Analysis of a NEW investment must be made using current data. Perhaps the price of a new PV array will drop in the future to a point at which it makes sense.
In the US (at least states with feed in tarrifs or whatever it is called), if you live in a region that will guarantee the same amount of free energy from the grid as you put in, it really makes a lot of sense to get solar panels, you will definitely save money with it.
I can still fuel my VW TDi on suitably processed soybean oil if all major oil companies go out of business.
And what will happen if everyone does that, suddenly there will be a shortage of it.
Don't continue to purchase and use gasoline or diesel fuel for my benefit.
Since I don't live in the US I don't need to care about subsidies to large US fossil fuel companies. Neither would my buying gasoline or not change anything. I just mentioned it since you think EV's incentives are bribes, so this should be the same for subsidies, which are much larger.
Economy of scale will not develop if you, and many others, do not put your money down to buy a BEV now.
Economy of scale is not a problem for EV's, this is growing every year at a rapid pace and most (new) EV's models are being manufactured at peak production. I don't see why you suddenly come with this.
You continue to support oil companies by your purchase of their products, pollute the air and promote climate change while you continue with the same behavior which you disparage.
And? In +-5 years this will change. It doesn't matter whether I switch now or within 5 years. Furthermore I need to be capable of buying an EV, that is at this moment not the case. You try to paint me as a hypocrite, yet I have always been clear that I was talking about 5-10 years from now, I don't know how often I need to say this. If you only buy an EV within 10 years, fine by me. If you just outright dismiss looking at EV's in a few years because of a stupid preconceived notion, that annoys me.
Like me, you are waiting for a product to be offered which meets your needs better than what you already use.
An EV would atm already better suit my needs, it just isn't where it needs to be for me to be able to afford it.
Pointing out your hypocrisy
I guess you failed in that, since I have always been clear on my stance and there is nothing hypocritical about it.
Where do you live that the grid is so unreliable that it is worth the cost of battery backup?
This is not the case with me personally, but there are area's, for example California, Australia, ... And again it depends a lot on solar panels, electricity prices, .... whether a battery storage is financially interesting, it isn't just interesting to either go off-grid or in case of black outs, it can be economically interesting in other cases too.
Do you permit oil companies to siphon gasoline from your tank during a shortage on a promise of replacing the gasoline later?
This is completely different and disingenious. But well, looking at the last few replies I am starting to expect this from you.
1
-
1
-
1
-
Since there is no way around the discussion that a carbon-tax will further burden those who are already financially burdened
This entirely depends on what how it is taxed. If you tax the production, producers will move to cheaper alternatives, like renewables. Only production that has a monopoly and can increase costumer price without the possibility of people moving to other producers would be able to actually increase the end cost, that or just every producer decides to just increase prices, but this leaves a gap for new producers to fill (essentially what Tesla did).
As the lower-income households are those with lower carbon emissions
This is actually not entirely true, at least not in terms of per dollar. Often times lower income household have proportionally higher emissions because they can't afford the lower emission alternatives like solar panels, ev's, cleaner cars, investment in heat pumps instead of natural gas, ...
It remains better to just tax the producers, however use the income from these taxes to compensate the poorest/lower incomes that might get hit by price increases through social systems/benefits. For example if you tax gasoline more, then use that income to offer better access to public transport for lower incomes and/or by giving them a gasoline tax reduction, offer more benefits for lower end EV's, ...
1