Another electric bus fire

[jtr1962]

There's a documentary on green energy that goes in depth about the truths of all the different technologies, how things are manufactured, and the history. You should watch it. It's available on YouTube. It's called Planet of the Humans by Michael Moore.

Thanks. I'll look for it. I'm not unaware of some of the waste, and frankly, hypocrisy on green energy. As I said already, I think the sanest path is to endeavor to just use less energy, regardless of how it's generated. I'm looking into insulating my house better. Eventually, I'll go solar but until then cutting electric use to the bare minimum makes lots of sense. And I did a good job of it. Here's my annual consumption since 2003:

Year  Total kWh
2003   12,500
2004   13,870
2005   13,520
2006   11,240
2007   10,940
2008   10,540
2009   10,870
2010   11,060
2011   13,340
2012   13,760
2013   12,750
2014   15,420
2015   14,570
2016   16,400
2017   14,770
2018   10,450
2019    6,910
2020    6,710
2021    6,475
2022    3,527 (to date)

I started going after it in 2018. My mom had a habit of having all 4 air conditioners going in the summer night and day. That accounted for a lot of the high usage in 2017 and earlier. Since 2020 I've just been chipping away at it slightly. Right now a solar system which covers my garage roof would be sufficient to meet my needs.

 

[Mister Ed]

Nothing wrong with discussion, please keep politics out of it or take it to the underground.

 

[xxo]

There's a documentary on green energy that goes in depth about the truths of all the different technologies, how things are manufactured, and the history. You should watch it. It's available on YouTube. It's called Planet of the Humans by Michael Moore. Fair warning, has some bad language, which is why I won't post it.

Good movie. I don't agree with all of it, but definitely worth watching - explains a lot about green energy.

BTW solar panels in China are made in coal fired smokestack factories.

 

[bykfixer]

We're not ready to go all electric just yet, but without trial and error will never will be. The key word being error, we obviously have some issues to work out. Month to month, year to year advances are taking place. Will America ever stop putting out carbon emmisions completely?

I doubt it. I do like the idea of electric buses, and even cars. Yet until they can self charge and be 100% recycleable by all electric means and methods the end goal will continue to allude us.

 

[xxo]

Will America ever stop putting out carbon emmisions completely?

Only when we all stop breathing.

 

[idleprocess]

The key word being error, we obviously have some issues to work out.

The price of progress - however you wish to define the term - is unforeseen costs: dead-end designs, failed concepts, mistakes, injuries, lives. These costs can be mitigated but not eliminated. And in focusing on the novel we often miss many of the same costs associated associated with the mundane status quo.

I doubt it. I do like the idea of electric buses, and even cars. Yet until they can self charge and be 100% recycleable by all electric means and methods the end goal will continue to allude us.

Emphasis added. This is a confusing goalpost. Anything capable of performing significant work in the physics sense requires external energy - ants, beavers, humans, horses, machinery. The nature of mechanized transportation requires more energy than the environment can passively provide with known means, thus self-charging is not a reasonable expectation.

In the broader sense, realistic sustainability isn't about actual zero emissions nor resource extraction - simply reducing these to the point that the damage they do is below a threshold that can be managed without cooking us, killing rivers, expanding deserts, reducing huge tracts of land to barren moonscape, poisoning the land, etc. Given that the industrial economy cannot presently function in a fully closed loop and not enough of us are willing to live at ~1850 levels of resource consumption we'll have to work within what's economically possible when it comes to reducing the resource intensity of the modern economy.

Therefore, given that asceticism is neither widespread nor even feasible we'll have to settle for a level of 'smokestack' industry so long as said smokestacks are producing durable goods that can reduce the resource intensity of modern life. Solar panels are thermally-intensive to manufacture, but pay off the energy cost of their manufacture in a few short years then continue to produce for many subsequent decades. Lithium extraction often times is a dirty process, but electric vehicles can then greatly reduce the energy requirements for and air pollution associated with ground transportation for 10-20 years - and technology is coming online that will allow economic recycling of lithium cells at end of life, allowing the loop to partially close.

 

[orbital]

...

BTW solar panels in China are made in coal fired smokestack factories.

+

Always remembered this post ^

the other day I got a 250W Newpowa panel specifically for its higher 'single panel' voltage (specific usage)
Well made & packaged really good, looked on the back to check the specs and at the bottom it said....

Made in Malaysia



,,maybe they use several dozen to power their plant.

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add: open circuit voltage is approx. 27vdc