MISSING THE POINT Many US states are spending their VW settlement funds on more diese

Rodmiser

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Just look up the head LINE, and ask WHY????

Last word DIESEL OK
 
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Tin Man

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MISSING THE POINT Many US states are spending their VW settlement funds on more diesel engines:

This author is feeding into the magical thinking that significant electrification will be both doable and helpful. Many of us skeptics feel otherwise: THE “NEW ENERGY ECONOMY”: AN EXERCISE IN MAGICAL THINKING

Executive Summary
A movement has been growing for decades to replace hydrocarbons, which collectively supply 84% of the world’s energy. It began with the fear that we were running out of oil. That fear has since migrated to the belief that, because of climate change and other environmental concerns, society can no longer tolerate burning oil, natural gas, and coal—all of which have turned out to be abundant.

So far, wind, solar, and batteries—the favored alternatives to hydrocarbons—provide about 2% of the world’s energy and 3% of America’s. Nonetheless, a bold new claim has gained popularity: that we’re on the cusp of a tech-driven energy revolution that not only can, but inevitably will, rapidly replace all hydrocarbons.

This “new energy economy” rests on the belief—a centerpiece of the Green New Deal and other similar proposals both here and in Europe—that the technologies of wind and solar power and battery storage are undergoing the kind of disruption experienced in computing and communications, dramatically lowering costs and increasing efficiency. But this core analogy glosses over profound differences, grounded in physics, between systems that produce energy and those that produce information.

In the world of people, cars, planes, and factories, increases in consumption, speed, or carrying capacity cause hardware to expand, not shrink. The energy needed to move a ton of people, heat a ton of steel or silicon, or grow a ton of food is determined by properties of nature whose boundaries are set by laws of gravity, inertia, friction, mass, and thermodynamics—not clever software.

This paper highlights the physics of energy to illustrate why there is no possibility that the world is undergoing— or can undergo—a near-term transition to a “new energy economy.”
I'll even put my $.02 in that IT automation of information in the medical field has created enormous bloat and control by administrators, no question contributing to the high cost of health care as well as its depersonalization. It follows that electrification of personal transportation might create a real mess of extra vehicles and slow movement of autonomous driving mirroring the "road diets" promoted by the Kool-Aid drinking progressives.
 
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Tdijarhead

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Energy is about concentration. First we found we could burn wood. Then charcoal a by-product of wood burning, then coal was discovered, then in the natural progression of things oil and gas and finally (so far) Nuclear. Up to this point the most concentrated form of energy.



In the rolling wooded hill sides of PA that I live in, 100 years ago many of these same hill sides had been stripped bare of trees. I wonder what these hills would look like today if oil and gas had not been discovered and put to use. I think of oil and gas as the original "green" energy. The use of which has allowed most of the vast clear cut areas of 100 years ago to completely regrow and flourish.
 

CheapBastard

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My brother just bought a Volt and the salesman told him that by 2028 everything on the road has to be electric, his words were that “it’s already been mandated into law” I’m not sure , mighta been a sales pitch, I can’t really see it
 

turbobrick240

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jmodge

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My brother just bought a Volt and the salesman told him that by 2028 everything on the road has to be electric, his words were that “it’s already been mandated into law” I’m not sure , mighta been a sales pitch, I can’t really see it
If timeline memory serves me correctly, it was in the mid 90s that I read and a newspaper article on hydrogen powered vehicles. It had stated that, by law there was to be a certain percentage of hydrogen powered vehicles on showroom floors by the early 2000’s. It claimed a bill had been passed and signed. And I never heard anything about it ever again.
Maybe it was too difficult for the technology to overcome the lobbying power of the oil and gas business.
Does anyone else remember similar news?
 

tikal

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EVs are starting to work well on urban, mostly congested environments. It is somewhat of a 'low hanging fruit in some parts of the US (California, NE, NW, etc.).

At the current cost of fuel in the USA there does not seem to be a rush to either downsize or electrify/hybridize the power-train of our passenger vehicles. Graph the historical nationwide average MPG vs price of unleaded gasoline vs weight of our passenger vehicles and it will become more clear what the trend indicators are teaching us.

Of course there are other known and unknown variables. Time will tell if/when they will make a long term impact(s) on our habits (good or bad).
 

Ol'Rattler

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The article on "Magical Thinking" really is spot on. Where we get our energy needs to be taken away from the politicians and given back to real science. Unless some miracle happens in the storage of energy, converting to the alternatives would leave such a mind bogglingly enormous energy shortfall that we would be back in the dark ages which the climate alarmist conveniently forget to mention.

The trouble with politicians regulating our energy needs is that politicians can not agree on much of anything and will always legislate along party lines irregardless of what is best for the people and also politicians most of the time promote what they can make the most money off of. Ever wonder why career politicians that only make $174K a year are multi millionaires?
 
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Powder Hound

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If timeline memory serves me correctly, it was in the mid 90s that I read and a newspaper article on hydrogen powered vehicles. ...
Hydrogen has a number of interesting aspects that make it quite attractive for propulsion. However, it has a number of problems associated that make it suitable only where the silly high costs of using it are appropriate, such as rocket fuel where the costs and waste are paid for by the apparently bottomless pockets of us taxpayers.

Problem 1: It is expensive to produce. There are only 2 common ways of producing it, electrolysis of water, and reduction of methane. As far as the water, well that's a big negative. You'll lose energy in making it, you'll lose energy in transportation and storage, and then you'll finally get it to a car. Where it gets burned and turned into water. Nice on the emissions (short loop) until you start to figure out where the energy came from to make it in the first place. Since wind and solar are a minuscule proportion of the energy on the grid, you're back to burning methane and coal, which I thought we were trying to get away from in the first place.

And converting methane? I don't recall all the details, but it seems to me that if you're grabbing hydrogen from methane, you're either going to have some heavier hydrocarbon output, or a magic machine that poops carbon bricks out the back (doesn't exist). So you still have a waste product to get rid of, unless you're going to *gasp* burn it.

So now we're going to have a nice, efficient (just for fun) class 8 truck that runs on hydrogen. You're going to end up reducing the payload from 25 tons down to 15 tons due to the extra tanks and plant required to carry the CNG and convert it on the fly to hydrogen, and keep the waste for processing at the destination. Not happening.

Problem 2: Storage. Hydrogen molecules are so flipping small they actually run right through the sides of a metal tank. Seriously. You get a percentage loss for each day you try to store the stuff. Hence the notations above where the only ones to use liquid hydrogen are the rocket guys who have budgets measured in cubic dollars. That's also why the methane reduction ideas are the only ones seriously considered for us normal humans. But that still has a lot of problems not yet resolved.

Problem 3: Economics. The battery solutions are getting a lot more traction these days because everybody can use small batteries for all kinds of things including of course, those wonderful cell phones we all know and loathe. Scaling them up for all the cars in the world sounds nice, but there's 2 problems associated with that, which are of course the generation of the electricity to store in those expensive batteries, and the fact that there are only a very few sources of lithium in the world. It is expensive stuff, and unlike oil and gas, we don't seem to be finding lots more of it anywhere.

So, in short, the real problem with hydrogen is that there are real problems with hydrogen, they don't have convenient, nor cheap solutions, and so at this point, it is just too expensive and inconvenient to consider further.

The elephant in the room: CO2. Yes, this supposed evil greenhouse gas that will poison us all after it cooks us from rising temperatures. It is all because of human activity, right? WRONG!!

The truth on CO2 as a greenhouse gas is that the studies conveniently neglect to point out a few pertinent facts. The concentrations of CO2 vary only on the order of ppms at most. Usually measured in units of parts per BILLION. Barely measurable without lots and lots of expensive equipment. This is due to the simple fact that the biosphere on this planet works very well to keep the CO2 component in balance. That's it. No more to say. Another fact is that all the 'studies' that claim to predict global warming based on CO2 refuse to admit to the fact that they depend on models where the assumptions are most likely driven by the desired outcome rather than actual fact. In addition, the models aren't vetted except by other theoretical exercises. They all amount to self-obfuscating and self-testing prophecies that don't have a connection to the real world.

Final conclusions: With the comments above about magical thinking and getting solutions out of the hands of politicians, I am in full agreement. Really, if we let the marketplace make the decisions, the things that work will be the winners, and the things that don't will be brutally culled. That is why the capitalist marketplace is the most efficient of all the economic systems out there.


OK, so I'm off my soapbox. For now.

Cheers,

PH
 

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There are just too many to list....
I use hydrogen power every day. My engine just passes the carbons it is bonded with out the tail pipe for the trees to eat. I just try and use as little hydrogen as possible, so I have as little leftover carbon as possible, so I do not over feed the trees.
 

jmodge

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So, that explains why the idea of hydrogen powered vehicles fell from the face of the earth. Also I believe our President at the time was a Texan involved with the Oil Industry. Even though I seem to remember the article saying he signed it.

On a side note though, it's not that difficult to poop out carbon bricks when a high percentage of fiber is used in the manufacturing process.
 

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tikal

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I use hydrogen power every day. My engine just passes the carbons it is bonded with out the tail pipe for the trees to eat. I just try and use as little hydrogen as possible, so I have as little leftover carbon as possible, so I do not over feed the trees.
Thank you Brian for bringing up an important point. Indeed each of us can do a little bit to reduce our CO2 footprint for our transportation needs and beyond. With a measure there are a lot of stuff we can do to reduce, reuse and recycle!

In my humble view it is not that difficult IF we want to do it!
 

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The truth on CO2 as a greenhouse gas is that the studies conveniently neglect to point out a few pertinent facts. The concentrations of CO2 vary only on the order of ppms at most. Usually measured in units of parts per BILLION. Barely measurable without lots and lots of expensive equipment. This is due to the simple fact that the biosphere on this planet works very well to keep the CO2 component in balance. That's it. No more to say.
???? CO2 is up >40% since we our addiction to fossil fuels began. It was ~280ppm for centuries and it's spiked to >400ppm. Still rising at >2ppm/yr. We're currently adding ~35B tons of CO2/yr which equates to >6ppm/yr if you do the math. (35E15 kg) CO2/yr / (5.148E18 kg) mass of Atmosphere = 6.7ppm/yr;

Claiming that CO2 is 'in balance' is not close to correct.... not as long as we're adding ~35B tons/yr....

The change in the radiative balance caused by that ~40% increase is ~1.5w/m^2; Which may not sound like a lot but that's over ~510 TRILLION m^2. So that's ~2.4E22J/yr. For context the bomb dropped on Hiroshima released 6.3E13J. So the change in radiative balance of the atmosphere is adding the energy equivalent of ~380,952,000 Hiroshima bombs/yr.... or ~12/s.... MATH! :( The only reason the effect has been 'minor' is because oceans are "Big Water" and are absorbing ~93% of that energy...
 
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turbocharged798

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Fossil fuels is such a nonsense term. Despite the garbage we were fed in school, oil is not fossilized dinosaurs. Its from dead plant(and small animal) matter getting pushed under the earth's crust under the ocean. Combine it with heat and pressure and oil is made. Despite the junk science pushed on us for years oil is still being produced by the earth and always will be. Oil wells are just like water wells. You can draw on them but if you draw too quick you will deplete them. We are also likely depleting our oil reserves far faster than the earth can recover them.


New oil wells are popping up were we could not find oil before.
 

nwdiver

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Fossil fuels is such a nonsense term. Despite the garbage we were fed in school, oil is not fossilized dinosaurs.
Correct. Oil is not fossilized dinosaurs. It's long dead plants or plankton... that have been 'fossilized'.
 

nwdiver

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Has anybody compared that 40 % CO 2 increase to the increase in the world population?
Yes... it's because there are more people... burning fossil fuels...

7B Humans Exhale ~2.6B tons of CO2/yr (which came from the atmosphere) vs 35B tons from fossil fuels (Which had been locked away as minerals for millions of years) People are part of the carbon cycle; They can't increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere through metabolism any more than cycling water in a pool can make the pool over flow.
 

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???? CO2 is up >40% since we our addiction to fossil fuels began. It was ~280ppm for centuries and it's spiked to >400ppm. ...
Which is what, 120ppm, or .000120 if the measurements are correct. Such a small percentage. Such a huge effect. Kinda bends the thinking a bit. An older society termed this as straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel.

Your worries assume that it is horrible, awful, and will kill everything on the planet. From where did the original number originate, and how was it obtained? And how is the connection between those figures and climate warming established? How are they vetted?

If it sounds like I am horribly skeptical concerning the shrill cries from people that never spent any time in a physics class, then you would be correct. I am always skeptical of people who are trying to govern my life using hyperbole generated out of bad data and perverted science.

Good luck with that.

Cheers,

PH
 

Tin Man

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I'm not trying to dodge anything, but wonder how much wood, tar, and coal were burned before we had oil available (presumably when Rockefeller developed a market for kerosene in the 19th century)? I remember the days when coal would be delivered to a private home to feed the furnace. It is likely that we are much more dependent nowadays, including our use of electricity.....
 

Tdijarhead

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I'm not trying to dodge anything, but wonder how much wood, tar, and coal were burned before we had oil available (presumably when Rockefeller developed a market for kerosene in the 19th century)? I remember the days when coal would be delivered to a private home to feed the furnace. It is likely that we are much more dependent nowadays, including our use of electricity.....
My point exactly in my earlier post. Without oil and gas we’d be looking at a barren denuded country.


Rockefeller developed that market and put the final nail in the coffin of the whale oil business, which gasp....saved the whales....


Energy is about concentration. First we found we could burn wood. Then charcoal a by-product of wood burning, then coal was discovered, then in the natural progression of things oil and gas and finally (so far) Nuclear. Up to this point the most concentrated form of energy.
In the rolling wooded hill sides of PA that I live in, 100 years ago many of these same hill sides had been stripped bare of trees. I wonder what these hills would look like today if oil and gas had not been discovered and put to use. I think of oil and gas as the original "green" energy. The use of which has allowed most of the vast clear cut areas of 100 years ago to completely regrow and flourish.
 
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nwdiver

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Which is what, 120ppm, or .000120 if the measurements are correct. Such a small percentage. Such a huge effect. Kinda bends the thinking a bit.
To quote Neil deGrasse Tyson, 'The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you'

A far smaller amount of SO2 injected into the atmosphere caused global temps to dip ~1F resulting in 'The year without a summer' If a gas shifts the radiative balance of the atmosphere enough a small amount can go a long way....

An increase of 120ppm CO2 equals an increase of 1.5w/m^2. CO2 increasing from 180ppm to 280ppm was the difference between glaciers ~5000' thick over NYC and no glaciers. There are very few gasses in the atmosphere that trap heat and can accumulate w/o precipitating out (like H2O). CO2 is one of them.

'Shrill cries'? I'm just stating facts. Which fact is wrong, how and what's the real number?

- CO2 has risen ~40% because of the ~35B tons/yr of CO2 we're adding from burning fossil fuels
- The 120ppm increase results in a radiative forcing increase of ~1.5w/m^2
- A radiative imbalance of 1.5w/m^2 adds the thermal energy equivalent of ~380M/yr Hiroshima size nuclear bombs to our oceans and atmosphere.
- AND... that's just CO2... there are feedbacks such as H2O (an even more powerful GHG) because warmer air can hold more H2O => even more warming....

That's just physics..... if it's wrong.... how is it wrong?


My point exactly in my earlier post. Without oil and gas we’d be looking at a barren denuded country.
So.... shouldn't we be trying just a little to break that addiction? I now produce ~20,000kWh/yr and use <10,000.... it's not hard......
 
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nwdiver

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Is this conversation trending towards a banned subject per forum rules?

BANNED SUBJECT LIST

Or perhaps the rules have changed and I am not aware?
I didn't see physics on the list.... how can physics be a banned subject? It is what it is. Accept it and move on... denying reality just makes things worse.

But you can ask @Powder Hound why he felt compelled to start spreading misinformation.... If you don't want facts then stop spreading nonsense....

CO2. Yes, this supposed evil greenhouse gas that will poison us all after it cooks us from rising temperatures. It is all because of human activity, right? WRONG!!
 
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turbobrick240

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I think the forum has outgrown the ban on that particular subject matter. It must seem very silly to those with a science background. Times change , and at some point ignoring reality becomes more of a hazard than offending a handful of folks who'd rather do just that.
 

nwdiver

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I think the forum has outgrown the ban on that particular subject matter. It must seem very silly to those with a science background. Times change , and at some point ignoring reality becomes more of a hazard than offending a handful of folks who'd rather do just that.
Agreed; I'm rarely if ever the one that starts these conversations but I'm not going to let misinformation that is so far off from reality linger unchallenged....

This is due to the simple fact that the biosphere on this planet works very well to keep the CO2 component in balance. That's it. No more to say.
^LOL..... WHAT?!^

 
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