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  1. #81
    Quote Originally Posted by Caolela View Post
    Germany has been doing a pretty good job with theirs. Not always 100% of their power needs but a big chunk of it:

    Germany Just Got Almost All of Its Power From Renewable Energy

    They've also been steadily closing their nuke plants because of the ongoing disaster at Fukushima. All of them will be shut down in a few more years.
    As is sadly the case with almost articles such as this - the title is not only clickbaity - but misleading.

    A surge in Solar met all their requirements for an 8-hour period (probably very good weather across the entire country all at once) for the first time ever - for one day to break a record. The bulk is still headed by conventional power. And even then that surge was only achievable due to Germany's strong power exporting - with 7.7 Gigawatts still backing up the surge to meet demand.

    Wind provides a fair bit more consistently, yet is still subject to weather (and wind-farms have the added effect of taking up massive areas at once).


  2. #82
    Quote Originally Posted by Garnier Fructis View Post
    A 30 minute charge will give you about 170 miles, according to Tesla. It takes 75 minutes for a full charge, but it's not linear, so at 40 minutes you've already got ~80% charge.

    So let me revise this for you: Hey kids, we took a short trip out of town, now it's lunch time so let's go grab lunch and our car will be finished charging by the time we're done.

    Apologies for the long response. It wasn't because you had an amazing bulletproof point, though. No, it took me all of 2 minutes to look up this shit.

    - - - Updated - - -



    If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then... it's not a duck?
    Yes one model has supercharge woohoo, and most cities I see on their map has one woohoo.


    http://bgr.com/2017/01/13/tesla-supe...ork-price-kwh/

    With more Teslas on the road, long lines at Supercharger stations has become an increasingly frustrating problem for owners. As a result, Tesla late last year had no choice but to announce that free access to its Supercharger network would be coming to an end for new Tesla owners. Notably, existing Tesla owners and those who purchase a Tesla before January 15 of this year will not be affected by the new rules.


    Here's the bottom line, I am all for electric cars, I hope they get better and more cost efficient but anyone who is in manufacturing will tell you, it takes a while to get there. You could invent a car that runs on bullshiit campaign promises, but it will be years until everyone can get/afford one. Until then people need oil NOW.

  3. #83
    Some interesting discussion on oil versus renewable, but I'm surprised nobody once has mentioned battery technology.

    Let me explain...

    Those of us that are concerned about the expansion of oil and want America to become less dependent on oil need to realize that it isn't as simple as just generating electricity from renewable resources. Our energy grid has to deliver electricity instantaneously to demand - this means production has to meet demand at any given moment. The problem with solar and wind is that they are subject to weather, and can't be throttled to meet demand (whereas, for example, fossil fuel and hydroelectric can be throttled). What America is lacking not only the infrastructure for renewable energy - which is rapidly becoming cheaper than oil - but we lack the infrastructure for holding on to electricity that will allow us to throttle output at any given moment to meet demand.

    This is where batteries come in. Our battery technology is behind what our grid needs - once we build the infrastructure for both renewable energy *and* large-scale efficient battery arrays then the demand for fossil fuels to power our energy grid will plummet. This is also an issue for cars, as safer and more efficient batteries will increase the efficiency of electric cars. One person also mentioned that electric cars are worse than gas cars - this is only true because our electric grid is so dirty. An electric car is actually quite clean here in Washington state because most of our electricity here is hydroelectric.

    I am admittedly fairly neutral on the whole pipeline thing, although efforts to scale *UP* fossil fuels is absurd when we need to be investing in infrastructure for cleaner and cheaper energy sources - and that means revolutionizing our energy grid through both battery and clean energy generating infrastructure.

    I consider myself a progressive, and that's why I want to see my government invest more into science than the whims of big business. The greatest wealth-generator have always been scientific breakthroughs.

    I highly recommend watching NOVA's 'Search for the Super Battery' to learn more.

  4. #84
    Stealthed Defender unbound's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ezgeze View Post


    And that is only for 2010 thru 2015. Over 3,300 incidents of crude oil and liquefied natural gas leaks or ruptures have occurred on U.S. pipelines.

    Any other questions that we can answer for you?

  5. #85
    Quote Originally Posted by unbound View Post
    And that is only for 2010 thru 2015. Over 3,300 incidents of crude oil and liquefied natural gas leaks or ruptures have occurred on U.S. pipelines.

    Any other questions that we can answer for you?
    Now do a map with the direct deaths/damage caused by train derailments
    "You six-piece Chicken McNobody."
    Quote Originally Posted by RICH816 View Post
    You are a legend thats why.

  6. #86
    Quote Originally Posted by Coconuter View Post
    If you're anti-nuclear and pro-solar, I urge you to do more research on existing models (build, safety, resources used, disposal, efficiency, space, etc.).

    Solar is still far off from truly being anywhere close to a green energy source. The amount of panels and non-renewable resources used while they are near the theoretical maximum efficiency is proof of this. My personal reality check was at my workplace, I started up a project to look into going solar. I was starting with a $2.4 million project using nearly 2.8 acres of land. They claimed it had just over a 5-year payback and a life span of 25 years.

    Over 80% of that payback was from government tax benefits and green energy checks. So it paid itself off using money from tax payers. The real savings? About $70k/year.

    Does solar have benefits? Sure. But outside of 12V DC lighting, not much, barely even for residential.

    As for nuclear, if you're still against it, you haven't picked up a single book about newer plant designs, fuel enrichments, disposals, wastes, safety, or anything. You just jumped on a bandwagon and you're riding it hard because you have no true desire to learn.
    We have been owners of a 10 kW solar energy system for just over 2 years which was installed when we built the house. I just did a cost analysis to see if installing a deep cycle battery array system would make sense. So I thought I would share the results.

    Cost of installing the system was approximately 16k (after state and federal rebate) which includes permitting, engineering, installation and material. I did a lot of the engineering and permitting and general contracting work myself. Otherwise the cost would be closer to 20 - 26k. The soft cost is actually higher than the material cost. System life is estimated to be on the order of 40 - 50 years.

    The system generate an average of 1,592 kWh per month. Low end is around 1,200 kWh and high end around 2,000 kWh. I estimated the energy cost generation at 3.0 - 3.1 cents per kWh (including SDG&E grid maintenance charge). If you are leasing or buying from a solar company, you are not going to see this charge.

    Our electrical usage varies across the board. From a low of less than 100 kWh when we were on vacation to around 900 kWh during the hottest summer months (August, September & October). Also, my wife stayed home in 2015 and worked full time in 2016 which further complicates the calculation. The 900 kWh came from summer 2015. Last year, because no one was home during the week days, our electrical consumption during the summer months dropped down to around 600 - 700 kWh. In January, 2017, our power consumption was less than 200 kWh. So a 10kW system is oversized for our house. We could have easily went with a 5kW system.

    Since SDGE use a tiered system, we could not use the average power consumption to determine our saving. So I did a month-to-month comparison of energy usage and SDG&E rate table. I estimated that we saved around $2,400 in electrical charge since we installed the system. Saving over the life of the system is estimated around $40,000 to $48,000. It could be more if the cost of electricity keep going up.

    The amount of saving will vary from state to state, and jurisdiction to jurisdiction, depending on the cost of the electricity (San Diego is supposed to be the highest in the US) and the compensation system (net metering vs. tariff). As a solar system owner, I am still at the mercy of the power company. To be truly independent of the power company, I need to have a battery system to store the power generated by the solar system (next step).

    Batteries are the "weakest link" in a modern solar system. They're heavy, full of lead and sulfuric acid, require regular maintenance, and will wear out sooner than any other component. I could go with Lithium, fuel cells or flywheel storage. However, as of today, the old fashioned lead acid batteries are still the best in term of cost (at least half of Lithium) and the charging process (charging a bank of Lithium batteries requires highly specialized set up).

    This post is getting a bit long, so I am not going to bother with the cost breakdown for the battery system. I estimated installing HUP Solar-One batteries (18 - 24 years life), with automatic battery water level maintenance system (reduce maintenance since you only have to put water in the central tank), and emergency generator will increase the cost of power generation to 15 cents per kWh which put the system in parity with buying power from SDG&E at their current rate. It does protect us against future hike or if one day SDG&E decides to stop buying excess solar power.

  7. #87
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    Quote Originally Posted by Garnier Fructis View Post
    A 30 minute charge will give you about 170 miles, according to Tesla. It takes 75 minutes for a full charge, but it's not linear, so at 40 minutes you've already got ~80% charge.

    So let me revise this for you: Hey kids, we took a short trip out of town, now it's lunch time so let's go grab lunch and our car will be finished charging by the time we're done.

    Apologies for the long response. It wasn't because you had an amazing bulletproof point, though. No, it took me all of 2 minutes to look up this shit.

    - - - Updated - - -



    If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then... it's not a duck?
    ... a 30minute charge at a supercharging station.
    On a 240-volt outlet it's 31 miles of range for each hour of charging. So for 160mi (2hr of driving here), you're looking at just over 5 hours of charging.
    On a 110-volt outlet it's 5 miles of range for each hour of charging. Or 32 hours of charging...

  8. #88
    Quote Originally Posted by Annoying View Post
    ... a 30minute charge at a supercharging station.
    On a 240-volt outlet it's 31 miles of range for each hour of charging. So for 160mi (2hr of driving here), you're looking at just over 5 hours of charging.
    On a 110-volt outlet it's 5 miles of range for each hour of charging. Or 32 hours of charging...
    Right, and I was talking about supercharging stations in my original post, and how they have built and are continuing to build enough supercharging stations so that you basically have to be in a flyover state at this point to get stranded. There are enough supercharging stations in most states that you should be able to make it to another one well before your full charge runs out.

    And if someone is driving a Tesla on a road trip and can't be bothered to look up locations of supercharging stations and ends up plugged into a random outlet for 5 hours, that's their own fault and not a fault of the car.

    Quote Originally Posted by zenkai View Post
    Yes one model has supercharge woohoo, and most cities I see on their map has one woohoo.


    http://bgr.com/2017/01/13/tesla-supe...ork-price-kwh/

    With more Teslas on the road, long lines at Supercharger stations has become an increasingly frustrating problem for owners. As a result, Tesla late last year had no choice but to announce that free access to its Supercharger network would be coming to an end for new Tesla owners. Notably, existing Tesla owners and those who purchase a Tesla before January 15 of this year will not be affected by the new rules.
    I love how we not so subtly changed topic from charge times to congestion at charging stations, which is tangential to what I was saying.

    But while we're at it, since your article doesn't actually mention how long the waits are, an article from the same site but from December pinned down the wait times as being between 1.5 and 2+ hours, during holiday season. Add in a 30 minute charge and we're looking at 2-3 hours, during holiday seasons. Still a far cry from the 8 hours you offered up. Plus, your article mentions that they're putting a price on the charge. Combine this with an idling fee (for leaving car there too long), and the continual building of more stations, this is really not a problem.

    Here's the bottom line, I am all for electric cars, I hope they get better and more cost efficient but anyone who is in manufacturing will tell you, it takes a while to get there. You could invent a car that runs on bullshiit campaign promises, but it will be years until everyone can get/afford one. Until then people need oil NOW.
    The bottom line is that not building this pipeline is not the end of the world, and is not going to leave a single driver stranded on the road. People act like not getting new sources of oil is the end of the world or something.
    Quote Originally Posted by Zantos View Post
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    Quote Originally Posted by Redditor
    can you leftist twits just fucking admit that quantum mechanics has fuck all to do with thermodynamics, that shit is just a pose?

  9. #89
    Old God Captain N's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Garnier Fructis View Post
    And if someone is driving a Tesla on a road trip and can't be bothered to look up locations of supercharging stations and ends up plugged into a random outlet for 5 hours, that's their own fault and not a fault of the car.
    They don't even have to look it up. The Tesla's On-Board Dash "Tablet" will remind the driver when their charge is low and will automatically show them charging stations close to their location. It's almost like having an automatic SIRI...

    "Your battery charge is at 10% here are three super charging stations close to you..."

  10. #90
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    Quote Originally Posted by unbound View Post


    And that is only for 2010 thru 2015. Over 3,300 incidents of crude oil and liquefied natural gas leaks or ruptures have occurred on U.S. pipelines.

    Any other questions that we can answer for you?
    http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamescon.../#289f3d7c5777
    truck worse than train worse than pipeline worse than boat
    Oil isn't going away anytime soon, so, yeah, pipelines are necessary.

  11. #91
    There's enough oil pipeline in the US to wrap around the Earth a 100 times.

    The pipeline isn't on Sioux property and never was, it runs adjacent to Sioux property but not on it.
    .

    "This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected. We will do what damage we can."

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