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why biofuels instead of solar. I find it impossible to believe that growing algae, converting that into oil, refining that into gas, shipping that gas across the country, then burning it in cars that get 30ish MPG is going to be more efficient than turning sunlight directly into energy and using that as fuel with 103 eMPG.

Global energy demand would be offset by solar production if even less than 1% of cropland were converted to an agrivoltaic system


Read that again - 1% of farmland is all that is needed for solar to generate all of the worlds energy needs while done in a way it can still be used for farming. But no, let's subsidize massive amounts of corn corn and convert into ethanol, which makes cars less efficient, instead of building out solar. Just so the oil industry remains viable.

China is positioning themselves to dominate the EV car industry because other than Tesla, the US car industry is doing nothing but token effort. While China is pouring tons of resources into it.




It's just less disruptive to the whole system. People and companies don't have to buy a new car, lawn mower, heavy machinery, etc.

Maybe when electric cars get up to a 500+ miles capacity and they figure out how to store solar and wind energy for night and during the winter/cloudy days then it will be the pure end solution. I just think biofuels can bridge the gap and make it quicker to get rid of fossil fuels. If we have enough biogas to replace natural gas then the natural gas electric plants can run off it to supliment solar and wind when needed.

Even if you have geothermal and solar on your house, most people who have it suggest to have natural gas or propane as the backup for the extremely cold days. Electricity as the backup is real expensive.

If you read the comments of alot of green energy stuff. The biggest complaint is people don't want to change their stuff and put in the big investment. Biofuels provide green energy but people don't have to make changes or invest large amounts to use them.
 
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why biofuels instead of solar. I find it impossible to believe that growing algae, converting that into oil, refining that into gas, shipping that gas across the country, then burning it in cars that get 30ish MPG is going to be more efficient than turning sunlight directly into energy and using that as fuel with 103 eMPG.

Global energy demand would be offset by solar production if even less than 1% of cropland were converted to an agrivoltaic system


Read that again - 1% of farmland is all that is needed for solar to generate all of the worlds energy needs while done in a way it can still be used for farming. But no, let's subsidize massive amounts of corn corn and convert into ethanol, which makes cars less efficient, instead of building out solar. Just so the oil industry remains viable.

China is positioning themselves to dominate the EV car industry because other than Tesla, the US car industry is doing nothing but token effort. While China is pouring tons of resources into it.




Random thought: would it be possible to someday have stations that physically take the battery out of your car and replace it with a fully charged battery? Is there some obvious hurdle here, other than the large amount of engineering work that would need to be done, and the difficulty of getting different auto companies to commit to a standardized battery?
 
It's just less disruptive to the whole system. People and companies don't have to buy a new car, lawn mower, heavy machinery, etc.

Maybe when electric cars get up to a 500+ miles capacity and they figure out how to store solar and wind energy for night and during the winter/cloudy days then it will be the pure end solution. I just think biofuels can bridge the gap and make it quicker to get rid of fossil fuels. If we have enough biogas to replace natural gas then the natural gas electric plants can run off it to supliment solar and wind when needed.

Even if you have geothermal and solar on your house, most people who have it suggest to have natural gas or propane as the backup for the extremely cold days. Electricity as the backup is real expensive.

If you read the comments of alot of green energy stuff. The biggest complaint is people don't want to change their stuff and put in the big investment. Biofuels provide green energy but people don't have to make changes or invest large amounts to use them.

people buy new cars, lawn mowers, heavy machinery, etc. already. Just buy EV next time you buy a vehicle when there is an EV alternative. If everyone does that, it won't take long to phase out the old vehicles/equipment.

Why 500 mile capacity? Many EV cars have 200+ mile capacity, some have 300+ mile capacity. Only a tiny, tiny percentage of the population would typically drive more than even the 200 miles in a given day and then they can plug it in to recharge for the next day when they get home.

v3 chargers add 175 miles of range in 15 minutes. So about 500 miles of range with a 15 minute or stop on a 300+ mile range vehicle. Who drives 500 miles without stopping at least 15 minutes somewhere?

And there already are battery storage solutions for storing solar/wind power. Electricity as backup heat is only expensive if you have to pay for the electricity instead of capture it for free from the sun.

I'm not saying there isn't a place for some use of biofuels, I just don't think it's at all the correct primary answer.
 
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Random thought: would it be possible to someday have stations that physically take the battery out of your car and replace it with a fully charged battery? Is there some obvious hurdle here, other than the large amount of engineering work that would need to be done, and the difficulty of getting different auto companies to commit to a standardized battery?

They are doing that in china - takes about 5 minutes. I'm not sure it's going to hold up vs increasingly faster charging and increasing longer range.

 
Last week I learned that 40% of field corn is converted to ethanol. Pretty astonishing actually. I was driving through Iowa/Nebraska and googled it..

I know there is a project to use another easier to grow plant, which can be converted to gasoline, and according to my sources is eight times more energy output to input than Ethanol. My understanding is that Ethanol is more energy in than out, but I have no real data.

Farmers in Iowa/Nebraska/Indiana are already in the energy business. They are supplying ethanol, but they are also building windmills like crazy over the fields. Its interesting because if they convert the corn fields to this new thing, its net energy positive. Essentially doing the same thing as coal, oil or gas, but skipping the whole 30 million year thing.

EDIT: I checked on the project. It was killed because they make more money in oil.. Algae Bio fuels are the new new thing, but its exxon so I expect the same result. Basically, as long as there is oil, they can make more money than they can with farm produced biofuels.

Are you talking cellulotic ethanol? I believe it is elephant grass, which can be grown on marginal land with very little upkeep. I have not kept up on it for a few years so I don't know if it ever panned out.
 
people buy new cars, lawn mowers, heavy machinery, etc. already. Just buy EV next time you buy a vehicle when there is an EV alternative. If everyone does that, it won't take long to phase out the old vehicles/equipment.

Why 500 mile capacity? Many EV cars have 200+ mile capacity, some have 300+ mile capacity. Only a tiny, tiny percentage of the population would typically drive more than even the 200 miles in a given day and then they can plug it in to recharge for the next day when they get home.

v3 chargers add 175 miles of range in 15 minutes. So about 500 miles of range with a 15 minute or stop on a 300+ mile range vehicle. Who drives 500 miles without stopping at least 15 minutes somewhere?

And there already are battery storage solutions for storing solar/wind power. Electricity as backup heat is only expensive if you have to pay for the electricity instead of capture it for free from the sun.

You make all good arguments for this stuff and I see no problem with solar, wind, and electric cars but most consumers don't seem willing to move over.

My thought process is you just have to change the supply side of it over so consumers just buy green energy without thinking about it. Like people don't change their furnaces or water heaters till they break. I know some people are still using converted coal boilers that now use natural gas that are like 80 years old.

Even if you got every person to switch to electric right now when buying a brand new car, I think it would still take 20 years to have barely any gas cars on the road. That's the life cycle of a car.

I've reading alot about geothermal and there is no way I'd switch completely over to a geothermal heat pump. People have so many problems with high bill because problems in systems. I would keep the natural gas boiler I already have and switch to geothermal. No way I'd want to be stuck with just a geothermal system that can't keep up during a sub zero stretch in the winter.
 
They are doing that in china - takes about 5 minutes. I'm not sure it's going to hold up vs increasingly faster charging and increasing longer range.


Very cool. As a counterargument, though, eliminating the need to optimize batteries for faster charging may make it easier to optimize them for other desirable qualities (size, weight, charge cycles, capacity). Could also have multiple tiers of battery, like a cheap eco-friendly 100 mile batteries that you get 90% of the time you swap, and premium 300+ mile batteries that you get when you're headed off on a longer trip. Fun to think about.
 
Random thought: would it be possible to someday have stations that physically take the battery out of your car and replace it with a fully charged battery? Is there some obvious hurdle here, other than the large amount of engineering work that would need to be done, and the difficulty of getting different auto companies to commit to a standardized battery?
I think standardizing on current batteries would freeze us in old tech.. lots of game changers coming yet in battery tech..

I also think a mixed energy source ecomony is almost certain, and EV is the best way to achieve a common energy currency..

I don't think it will take much alternate energy source to impact oil prices.. if Tesla succeeds and with it the other EV knockoffs, we could reduce gas demand 20% in ten years, which would push gas prices down... making gas vehicles cheaper to drive..

So I see a mixed plan for some time..

Economically this is ok.. politically it may be in our best interest to tax oil imports, which will pressure foriegn oil producers, most of which are not our friends..
 
They are doing that in china - takes about 5 minutes. I'm not sure it's going to hold up vs increasingly faster charging and increasing longer range.


I think in a perfectly clean and using the same set of test cars this stuff works. When you get out in the real world and there will be more problems that will scare off consumers from it. There will have to be someone there to troubleshoot it. A stuck bolt or not making proper contact with level owner mad and waiting for a real life person to help them out. That's where I think that stuff will fail.

Better battery life and fast charging will probably come to market before something like this has everything worked out. Just look at hydrogen gas stations and how long it took them to figure out a safe/effective way to make them. BMW was pushing hydrogen cars in the early 2000's and the couple of fueling stations just have popped up in California.
 
I think standardizing on current batteries would freeze us in old tech.. lots of game changers coming yet in battery tech..

I also think a mixed energy source ecomony is almost certain, and EV is the best way to achieve a common energy currency..

I don't think it will take much alternate energy source to impact oil prices.. if Tesla succeeds and with it the other EV knockoffs, we could reduce gas demand 20% in ten years, which would push gas prices down... making gas vehicles cheaper to drive..

So I see a mixed plan for some time..

Economically this is ok.. politically it may be in our best interest to tax oil imports, which will pressure foriegn oil producers, most of which are not our friends..

Sorry, I phrased that poorly. I didn't mean that companies would have to commit to a single standardized battery. I meant that companies would have to commit to making cars and batteries compatible with some standardized swapping machinery, which is still a constraint, but not one that would freeze us in old tech.
 
You make all good arguments for this stuff and I see no problem with solar, wind, and electric cars but most consumers don't seem willing to move over.

My thought process is you just have to change the supply side of it over so consumers just buy green energy without thinking about it. Like people don't change their furnaces or water heaters till they break. I know some people are still using converted coal boilers that now use natural gas that are like 80 years old.

Even if you got every person to switch to electric right now when buying a brand new car, I think it would still take 20 years to have barely any gas cars on the road. That's the life cycle of a car.

I had amended my post to say "I'm not saying there isn't a place for some use of biofuels, I just don't think it's at all the correct primary answer."

And I was going to say 10 to 20 years to convert vehicles to electric. It my go quicker than that, though, because of the vast difference in fuel/maintenance costs


and because the infrastructure will switch over from supporting gas to supporting EVs.


And people are switching, we need more people to seriously consider it when they buy a new vehicle.


 
 
#TSLAQ? What does it matter if the engine can last forever if the quality control standards are this concerning?

Electronic transportation will get there, hopefully TSLA, an american company, will continue to lead the charge. We'll find out soon enough with more competition coming...

 
We ordered our first Tesla last week. I told my mom about it, she went to test drive them and ordered one for herself today.
 

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