Politics Vs Climate (and how to stop it)

[finley]

Interesting idea that (I didn't realise ammonia would burn) but it's still basically a car, which IMO is the cause of most of our energy woes (and a whole load of others). Ammonia, hydrogen, batteries - it's all just energy storage, and that energy has to come from somewhere. If you're burning that energy as fast as a car does, the economics just don't work out.

Also, liquid ammonia is awful stuff. It is actually an almost ideal refrigerant, but it's rarely used for that purpose because of its toxicity and smell. A garage full of hydrogen probably won't explode because it'll diffuse outside as soon as you open the door (or long before that). A garage full of ammonia would be pretty unpleasant if you got a lungful - OTOH, at least an ammonia leak makes itself very obvious.

Electric cars: well, of course the ones used in solar races are not very practical, but most of the ideas can be adapted to real road vehicles. There's a funny-looking three-wheeler ("Aptiva", or something like that) that's a good example of that. Remember the main design constraint on any vehicle is the human driver, which increases the cost and decreases the attainable efficiency considerably.

[BigJohn]

Remember the main design constraint on any vehicle is the human driver, which increases the cost and decreases the attainable efficiency considerably.

Absolutely. If you didn't have a driver, your wouldn't need a car at all! Think of the savings!

[finley]

Now you're getting the idea!

[headhonchoII]

I think driverless delivery vehicles powered by electricity could be huge , Finley also mentioned before.

I think electric cars will be feasible using the idea of lease versus own. The main problem is the cost of the battery. If you can have a warranty on the battery (or car) this will change the risk profile to the user.

There are successful leasing and car sharing companies in operation , this is simply an extension on that.

[finley]

I think driverless delivery vehicles powered by electricity could be huge , Finley also mentioned before.

And it's not even new. Some variation on that theme has been in use (albeit on site-restricted networks) for years. There's a derelict miniature rail network underneath London (and apparently Chicago) that was once used for automated delivery of mail. Most car factories use fully-automated transport of components. It would be perfectly feasible to scale up to a nationwide scale, in parallel with (in countries which have one) an existing road network. The whole thing could be built and operated for a small fraction of the cost of the traditional method. Problem is, there are few private corporations with the cash or the appetite for risk to even attempt that; and governments are rarely interested in projects that take longer than four years.

OTOH, modern economies are so utterly dependent on the movement of stuff from A to B, any organisation that successfully pulled it off would literally rule the world. Logistics would become the new finance.

I think electric cars will be feasible using the idea of lease versus own. The main problem is the cost of the battery. If you can have a warranty on the battery (or car) this will change the risk profile to the user.

I think you're right ... and in the case of fully-automated vehicles, it would be as pointless to own one as it would be to own an MRT EMU. Batteries: the entire issue disappears once you lose the human driver, because efficiency increases by a factor of four or five (due to a combination of several factors). The battery is therefore proportionally smaller and cheaper. So whereas a traditional vehicle might need a 20kWh battery, a fully-automated system could get away with maybe 4kWh. The controller can also apply charge-discharge optimisations because it has a priori knowledge of the route, desired transit time, and location of charging stations, so the battery has a longer total lifetime.

[fred smith]

What if we had all houses adjusted by 10 to 30 degrees to face the proper angle of sun to ensure the most utilitarian usage of sunlight for heating, cooling and solar power? What if we could harness the energy of birds when they fly? What about using technology to generate power from plants growing in field... All of these things are within our grasp... soon we will be energy independent and no one will ever have to use gas oil or coal again.

[headhonchoII]

As the old adage I learned at home goes, 'if you ain't got anything good to say, say nothing'.

[fred smith]

As the old adage I learned at home goes, 'if you ain't got anything good to say, say nothing'.

Was that a stab at irony or did you fail to learn the adage properly? Ap-parently (snicker), home schooling is not all that it is cracked up to be... and I am sure that a remark about not the sharpest pencil in the drawer would not be well received at this, er, point... and lest your response be taken or construed as a veiled attack on my unbridled enthusiasm for the future of energy supply, I reiterate that it is all about the hope and change and the changing hopes whereby we hope to change what changed our hope to hoping for changing instead of changing for hope. I reach for my Bible and learn about the birds in the air and the lilies in the field and wonder if this is not a message from the Divine Being, the True One that we are looking in all the wrong places to harvest the energy that will establish peace and prosperity on earth forever and ever allelujah.

[BigJohn]

As the old adage I learned at home goes, 'if you ain't got anything good to say, say nothing'.

Was that a stab at irony or did you fail to learn the adage properly? Ap-parently (snicker), home schooling is not all that it is cracked up to be... and I am sure that a remark about not the sharpest pencil in the drawer would not be well received at this, er, point... and lest your response be taken or construed as a veiled attack on my unbridled enthusiasm for the future of energy supply, I reiterate that it is all about the hope and change and the changing hopes whereby we hope to change what changed our hope to hoping for changing instead of changing for hope. I reach for my Bible and learn about the birds in the air and the lilies in the field and wonder if this is not a message from the Divine Being, the True One that we are looking in all the wrong places to harvest the energy that will establish peace and prosperity on earth forever and ever allelujah.

Hey Fred, why don't you peace off and stop crapping on these nice people's thread?

[fred smith]

Hey Fred, why don't you peace off and stop crapping on these nice people's thread?

Ahhhhh.... yes..... therein lies the problem... it is always about "being nice," isn't it? and wouldn't it be nice if xxx or yyyy or zzz and it is the intent behind the action rather than the result or benefit at what cost that always seems to matter the most with these NICE people whether global warming or Middle Eastern power politics...

Has anyone learned his or her lesson yet?

Probably not but then that would not be very nice of me to point out, would it? Ah.... I see.... okay.... all righty then...

Back to generating power from snowflakes as they fall to the surface? Perhaps, a new time machine to go into the future to retrieve the needed technology to save our planet? maybe if we all wire our jaw and fingers, we can cumulatively generate enough electricity to save 50 polar bears and wouldn't that be... NICE?