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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

Readers who wish to learn more about the workings of electric motors will enjoy this video, which explores the idea of an electric V8 engine.

Its creator asks: “Is an electric V8 engine a good idea?”

The answer for someone curious about the subject or looking for a cool science fair project, the answer is of course.  Everyone else needs to ask, does it have any advantages over the standard motors, e.g., AC induction motors that we find in our EVs today? Is it more efficient in transferring electrical energy to kinetic energy?  Could it be more reliable and have lower costs of maintenance?

If you check out the video, you’ll see that the answer is clearly no.  It has dozens upon dozens of parts that are flying around at breakneck speeds.  The whole thing looks like an explosion waiting to happen.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Warning: In just 50 years, we went from Jimmy Carter, a man of honor, to Donald Trump.

We need to re-elevate our moral sensibilities.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles
Here’s an article on the use of EVs as a tool to power our homes and/or send electricity back to the grid.  My comments are in italics.
A study by Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute shows how electric vehicles (EVs) could double as home storage batteries using bidirectional charging.  Yes, this is called “vehicle-to-grid,” aka “V2G.” 
It was an interesting concept in the 2000-aughts but has gone essentially nowhere over the last two decades, largely because the amount of electrical energy in an EV’s battery is not worth the inconvenience and the cost of the vast amount of technology necessary to make all his happen.
Also, let’s suppose that an EV owner wants to commit to having a certain number of  kWhrs taken from his battery every day at a given time, but his plans change, he needs to use his car for some purpose that he couldn’t have foreseen, and now he’s stranded.  That’s not an appealing deal.  
Most EVs in Germany are driven for just 1 hour daily, leaving 23 hours of idle time. During this downtime, EVs could stabilize energy grids by storing and sharing power when demand peaks.
The amount of time EVs are not driven is totally irrelevant to this discussion.   
This strategy could boost solar and wind energy use, as EVs could store excess daytime energy and release it at night.
Sorry, but no.  Part of the reason that V2G will never be implemented is that it would have an infinitesimal impact on our grid-mix, while coming along with a huge price tag.  
For individual EV owners, this could mean annual savings of €31 to €780 by sharing stored energy with their home or the grid.
Doubtless, if an individual EV owner wants to make this investment, there will be some return.  €31/year is less than $0.09 per day.  That doesn’t sound too motivating to me, but maybe I’m just a hard sell. 
BTW, I can’t find this “study.”  I’m thinking that, if it exists at all, it was written about 20 years ago, when this subject was actually under consideration. 
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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Here’s Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman’s recent column in the New York Times addressing the oft-discussed issue: Are efforts to achieve environmental sustainability necessarily damaging to the strength of the economy?

As usual, as we dig deeper into subjects like this, we learn that there are important complexities.

In this case, some efforts to decarbonize open up huge economic opportunities.

Krugman uses the “carrot and stick” metaphor and points out that carrots like financial bonanzas tends to work better than sticks, like taxes.  Yet, in reality, our society is too far from where it was a few decades ago, where the consumption of fossil fuels becomes extremely unattractive the moment someone is asked to cover the costs of the environmental damage associated with climate change, ocean acidification, and loss of biodiversity.

 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Is it possible that this is a more complicated issue than the way it’s framed here?

If you want to ignore all the technological, economic, and political issues associated with renewables, nuclear, and fossil fuels (coal in this case), and phrase the question as it’s posed at left, that’s fine, but all you’re saying is that you have a perhaps 3rd grade understanding of a subject that is the focus of some of the greatest minds on the planet.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

Perhaps the only advantage to living in the 21st Century is the expanse of technology that extends our lifespans, while making our existences healthier, more productive, and more rewarding.

Ironically, we Americans are actually retrogressing when it comes to the implementation of science.  In particular, the breakthroughs in vaccinations that were made in the mid-to-late 20th Century which virtually eliminated many of the dread diseases that, as shown below, were taking a terrible toll.

Now, we are about to install a 14-year heroin addict as the Secretary of Health and Human Services, who believes that vaccinations are “dangerous,” and has pledged to ban several of them.

 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

If the next four years in U.S. politics is simply a reprise of Trump’s first presidency with its ignorance of world affairs, petty corruption, profound indifference to the well-being of the common American, rejection of science, its overt racism, and the nation’s humiliation on the world stage, we can all count ourselves lucky.

Most of us fear that Trump, now a lame duck with nothing to lose, will leave office in 2029 having:

• Transformed American democracy into an oligarchy of multibillionaires.

• Shielded himself from the rule of law, quashing all attempts to prosecute him for the crimes he committed in his attempt to overthrow of our government following his loss in the 2020 election, setting a horrific precedent for all future presidents.

• Consolidated power into the executive branch, upsetting the balance of powers that was put in place in the U.S. Constitution at the founding of our republic.

• Eviscerated the Justice Department such that it’s impotent to hold the oligarchy accountable for its crimes. This, of course, is the defining characteristic of the most despicable regimes on Earth, i.e., that their leaders are above the law.

• Completed the job of destroying the U.S. educational system, rendering our country increasingly unable to compete in the global marketplace.

• Withdraw the world’s largest economy from any effort to adapt to or mitigate climate change and other forms of environmental degradation.

Could it possibly be as bad as our well-founded nightmares?  Might we get off easy?  Who knows?

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Science

Astrophysicist Brian Greene makes an excellent point here, but I’m not holding my breath.  In the brief (15-year) period of time since the launch of 2GreenEnergy, our public education standards have continued to deteriorate, while our kids’ interest in science remains feeble.

At the same time, “grown-up” Americans have begun to ridicule the phase “trust the science,” and there is no consensus  that public policy should be based on scientific findings.   In fact, we just re-elected a president whose support base rejects science as it applies to both environmental stewardship and epidemiology.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Climate Change

I agree with all this, with the exception of “disorder.”  Capitalism is extremely well ordered.

Those old enough to remember the movie “Wall Street” with its character Gordon Gecko, played by Michael Douglas, will recall the talk he gave to an audience of investors that begins, “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies and cuts through to the essence of the evolutionary spirit.”

That said, capitalism promotes war, racism, poverty, environmental degradation, and inter-national hatred.   One hundred years ago, this was ugly.  Now, it’s a fast track to the unprecedented suffering of all life species on Earth, with humankind at the forefront.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

As suggested at left, the confluence of Donald Trump and tens of millions of totally ignorant Americans is having horrific consequences for essentially everyone on this planet, but especially for the aforementioned tens of millions of totally ignorant Americans who will be soon living under even harsher and more degraded conditions than they were before.

Even the most empathetic among us find it hard to feel sorry for the MAGA crowd.

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