ZORRAM

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For those that are still EV shy or EV hostile like Cdi****** a plug in hybrid looks to be the best solution for now. No home charging required. It gives you the best of both worlds and if you can charge sometimes it will save a ton on gas. Charging is not required though. I recently spent several months in Texas where I could not charge at home and charging was limited to malls, dealerships and grocery stores The Chevy Volt still worked great. With gas prices soon going to over $6 per gallion in the USA some type of solution is needed.

https://insideevs.com/features/370949/what-do-i-drive-chevrolet-volt/

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@DiscreetFX

If you could front me $175,000 I'm sold on the EV concept!



... if not I'll stick to an easily repaired gas guzzler that doesn't reap and strip mine from the four corners of the globe to build it's unrecyclable and future hazardous waste battery!

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@BigD

If your going to go there don’t forget what drilling, refining and shipping oil across the globe does to the earth. I think you will find the environmental impact is much worse. And you’ll have to stop using that computer you have to post here since it uses the same thing an EV does.

Last edited by DiscreetFX on 02-Jun-2022 at 10:40 AM.

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@DiscreetFX

Quote:

DiscreetFX wrote: For those that are still EV shy or EV hostile like Cdi******

You haven't yet understood that I'm not a priori against EVs. And I doubt that you'd ever understand it.

Cars are... tools. Which have pros and cons. Like all other tools.

So, I'll choose the ones which better fits my needs.

Got it now?

@cdimauro

Of course, use the tools you like.

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@Karlos

On hyperloop...
Quote:

Quote: A practical implementation may work at lower speeds over relatively short distances in areas that are too congested above ground. What possible benefits would this have over, say a regular overhead train?

Hmm. I guess the sound of a massive penny dropping really is silent.

Last edited by Karlos on 04-Jun-2022 at 10:01 AM.
Last edited by Karlos on 04-Jun-2022 at 10:00 AM.

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@DiscreetFX

Yeah, I agree that regional mining makes a lot more sense to me than a global mineral market but that's not the way the world works outside of The Settlers! In fact 'green concerns' make this worse in many instances as instead of keeping local UK coal production going for Drax power station we converted it for use with wood pellets and then ship them from Canada!!!! How is that a 'green' option when you factor in the energy used for ongoing shipping?

Summary: the green agenda basically boils down to another way of taxing us through 'green taxes' and increased charges. The incompatible Smart Meter fiasco will also be charged to us through higher energy prices and ultimately we the consumer lose while the planet is still not noticeably better off!

The beneficaries seem to have been;

1) The farmers claiming subsidies for growing and burning biomass (leading to a shortage of wood for fencing/stakes etc = prices go up).

2) Upper middle class savvy investors claiming subsidies for solar panels and hence claiming a profit giving back to the national grid.

Neither of those things necessarily help the planet but they do perpetuate the wealth gap, that's a fact!

Last edited by BigD on 04-Jun-2022 at 10:21 AM.

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"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@BigD

We need to build a Dyson Sphere in space.That should harness all our energy needs from the Sun for thousands or even millions of years. Problem solved once construction is complete.

https://youtu.be/pP44EPBMb8A

Last edited by DiscreetFX on 04-Jun-2022 at 10:24 AM.

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@DiscreetFX

Quote:

With gas prices soon going to over $6 per gallion in the USA some type of solution is needed

Remote working at home perhaps?

@all

Welcome to the Cobalt Mine

The same in not so funny!

Last edited by QBit on 04-Jun-2022 at 06:15 PM.

I don't buy the whole CO2 / climate change exaggeration. And At the price replacement batteries are going for it's practically impossible for the average Joe to be able to buy them and not have a very significant on his life savings/quality of life/work etc...
If you have a bit more CO2 (and that has happened in the past) the world won't end. The main problem is there's not enough forests and trees anymore to reuse the CO2. The other problem is pollution, which is not going away with the current use of electric vehicles. But the pollution has gone much lower with modern engines. Also parts of the west is importing electricity made using carbon based thermal stations on other parts of the world, the irony...
As far as I'm concerned we're being tricked by the politicians / billionaires of the World Economic Forum and the Bilderbergers of the world. While we crumble, they profited from wars and practically every catastrophe that existed in recent history.

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José

@Jose

I agree that climate change is heavily politicised (I mean you'd have to be living in total isolation for 40 years not to) but it's the contrary in my view. Big corporations have battled to downplay it for years to ensure they can make as much money as possible for as long as possible.

EV is a super low hanging fruit for governments who basically can't, or won't do anything that's actually going to make any real difference in the long run. It requires nothing or effort from governments, they place all the onus on the public.

And as I've pointed out, it's not just about getting an EV today, it's changing habits of car ownership too. Almost everyone I know is on a lease scheme where they just get a new car every 2 years rather than owning their car for longer. If they do this with a brand new EV with the manufacturing equivalent of 30-40K km of CO2 emissions on the clock from the start (relative to a combustion engine car), then how much are they reducing emissions anyway?

Keeping your car long enough to reap the emission reduction benefits (though reducing actual air pollution is an excellent reason for owning one), not using it where not essential, etc require people to change.

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@Jose

Quote:

Jose wrote: I don't buy the whole CO2 / climate change exaggeration.

Be skeptical if you want, it won't make any difference. My insurance company says they have to raise their rates because global warming is increasing the cost of claims. If I don't pay insurance then I risk losing everything, which I can't afford. So it makes no difference if I believe the risk is exaggerated, I still have to pay for the effects.

Quote:

And At the price replacement batteries are going for it's practically impossible for the average Joe to be able to buy them and not have a very significant on his life savings/quality of life/work etc...

Electric cars are cheaper to own for most people. But hey, I understand your position - it's no fun being caught a poverty trap. Have to work to earn money, need a car to get to work, can't afford a new hybrid or electric so have to pay exorbitant gas prices. If only you had enough money to save money!

But that's one of the reasons I bought a used electric car. For sure the battery is getting tired and may have to be replaced in a few years, but I am retiring in November and then I won't need it for work. In the mean time I have saved thousands in fuel and maintenance costs, at a time when I could only get a low paying job due to Covid.

Quote:

If you have a bit more CO2 (and that has happened in the past) the world won't end.

This is true.

What's the hottest Earth's ever been? Quote:

Our 4.54-billion-year-old planet probably experienced its hottest temperatures in its earliest days, when it was still colliding with other rocky debris (planetesimals) careening around the solar system. The heat of these collisions would have kept Earth molten, with top-of-the-atmosphere temperatures upward of 3,600° Fahrenheit. Even after those first scorching millennia, however, the planet has often been much warmer than it is now... Following the collision that spawned the Moon, the planet was estimated to have been around 2,300 Kelvin (3,680°F)... Another hothouse period was the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) about 55-56 million years ago. Though not quite as hot as the Cretaceous hothouse, the PETM brought rapidly rising temperatures. During much of the Paleocene and early Eocene, the poles were free of ice caps... the global mean temperature appears to have risen by as much as 5-8°C

If the ice caps melt the sea level will rise by ~190 feet. Not the end of the World by any means. The little city I live in would be 150 feet underwater, but I'll probably be dead by then so why worry?

With higher temperatures making hotter areas uninhabitable, and 80% of coastal areas flooded, the global population will have to shrink dramatically one way or another - from starvation, disease, war... none of which will make the World end - except for the billions who perish. But who cares about them?

Quote:

As far as I'm concerned we're being tricked by the politicians / billionaires of the World Economic Forum and the Bilderbergers of the world. While we crumble, they profited from wars and practically every catastrophe that existed in recent history.

And nothing has produced more profit for them than fossil fuels. They surely don't want to give it up no matter how much damage it does. Like tobacco companies, they have known for decades what their toxic products are doing, and what did they do? They lied about it.
Quote:

The fossil fuel industry has perpetrated a multi-decade, multibillion dollar disinformation, propaganda and lobbying campaign to delay climate action by confusing the public and policymakers about the climate crisis and its solutions. This has involved a remarkable array of advertisements – with headlines ranging from “Lies they tell our children” to “Oil pumps life” – seeking to convince the public that the climate crisis is not real, not human-made, not serious and not solvable. The campaign continues to this day... in 1959, America’s oil bosses had been warned that burning fossil fuels could lead to global heating “sufficient to melt the icecap and submerge New York”. Their knowledge only grew. A 1979 internal Exxon study warned of “dramatic environmental effects” before 2050. “By the late 1970s”, a former Exxon scientist recently recalled, “global warming was no longer speculative”.’... Instead of warning the public about global heating or taking action, fossil fuel companies stayed silent as long as they could. In the late 1980s, however, the world woke up to the climate crisis, marking what Exxon called a “critical event”. The fossil fuel industry’s PR apparatus swung into action, implementing a strategy straight out of big tobacco’s playbook: to weaponize science against itself. A 1991 memo by Informed Citizens for the Environment made that strategy explicit: “Reposition global warming as theory (not fact).” Mobil and ExxonMobil ran one of the most comprehensive climate denial campaigns of all time, with a foray in the 1980s, a blitz in the 1990s and continued messaging through the late 2000s. Their climate “advertorials” – advertisements disguised as editorials – appeared in the op-ed page of the New York Times and other newspapers and were part of what scholars have called “the longest, regular (weekly) use of media to influence public and elite opinion in contemporary America”. As recently as last month, six big oil CEOs were summoned to US Congress to answer for the industry’s history of discrediting climate science – yet they lied under oath about it. In other words, the fossil fuel industry is now misleading the public about its history of misleading the public.

Oh yes, they tricked us alright.

Last edited by bhabbott on 05-Jun-2022 at 03:43 AM.

Jose Quote:

I don't buy the whole CO2 / climate change exaggeration. And At the price replacement batteries are going for it's practically impossible for the average Joe to be able to buy them and not have a very significant on his life savings/quality of life/work etc... If you have a bit more CO2 (and that has happened in the past) the world won't end. The main problem is there's not enough forests and trees anymore to reuse the CO2. The other problem is pollution, which is not going away with the current use of electric vehicles. But the pollution has gone much lower with modern engines. Also parts of the west is importing electricity made using carbon based thermal stations on other parts of the world, the irony... As far as I'm concerned we're being tricked by the politicians / billionaires of the World Economic Forum and the Bilderbergers of the world. While we crumble, they profited from wars and practically every catastrophe that existed in recent history.

I have caught activists and so called "scientists" distorting the CO2 history of the earth. The following graph looks pretty scary.



Graphs are often cut off just before the time when there were very high levels of CO2 and sometimes graphs don't start at zero. CO2 levels were at several times current levels for much of the Earth history as the following graph shows.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faint_young_Sun_paradox#Carbon_dioxide_as_a_greenhouse_gas Quote:

It is now thought that carbon dioxide was present in higher concentrations during this period of lower solar radiation. It was first proposed and tested as part of Earth's atmospheric evolution in the late 1970s. An atmosphere that contained about 1000 times the Present Atmospheric Level (or PAL) was found to be consistent with the evolutionary path of Earth's carbon cycle and solar evolution. The primary mechanism for attaining such high CO2 concentrations is the carbon cycle. On large timescales, the inorganic branch of the carbon cycle, which is known as the carbonate–silicate cycle is responsible for determining the partitioning of CO2 between the atmosphere and the surface of Earth. In particular, during a time of low surface temperatures, rainfall and weathering rates would be reduced, allowing for the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere on timescales of 0.5 million years (Myr).

Methane levels were likely at a much higher level as well. Our planet has supported warmer weather for much of the history and it was advantageous for life on Earth.

It is very expensive to reduce hydrocarbon emissions which would cost trillions of dollars globally to reduce to levels acceptable by extremist activists. It is not practical in many cases as Warren Buffett described in his 2020 Annual Shareholder Letter.

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4515899-chevron-stock-did-warren-buffett-issue-long-term-buy-signal-energy Quote:

Historically, the coal-based generation of electricity that long prevailed was located close to huge centers of population. The best sites for the new world of wind and solar generation, however, are often in remote areas. When BHE assessed the situation in 2006, it was no secret that a huge investment in western transmission lines had to be made... Billions of dollars needed to be invested before meaningful revenue would flow. Transmission lines had to cross the borders of states and other jurisdictions, each with its own rules and constituencies. BHE would also need to deal with hundreds of landowners and execute complicated contracts with both the suppliers that generated renewable power and the far-away utilities that would distribute the electricity to their customers. Competing interests and defenders of the old order, along with unrealistic visionaries desiring an instantly-new world, had to be brought on board. Both surprises and delays were certain.

Berkshire Hathaway Energy (BHE) has invested $18 billion in the energy transmission grid for renewable energy and there has been no dividend from that unit nor is it expected from 2006-2030. That is a very long term investment and perhaps one for the good of the planet rather than a good investment. Buffett did learn from his experience with BHE though. He has increased his investment in Chevron (CVX NYSE ticker) increasing the Berkshire Hathaway position to $26 billion much of it relatively recently. CVX is my largest stock position as I have stated before and is now outperforming UAN which I also recommended and which I have continued accumulating recently on dips as it has remained too cheap. I don't own Berkshire Hathaway stock but I own several of the stocks Buffett has been buying which are usually top quality. I actually owned CVX before Buffett started buying it and possibly APPL too. Energy and tech are not his strong points but he understands valuation, how to hedge inflation and pricing power very well.

@all
Computers don`t lie! Humans do!

https://www.climateprediction.net/

@Karlos

Quote:

Karlos wrote: Almost everyone I know is on a lease scheme where they just get a new car every 2 years rather than owning their car for longer.

In the US ~25% of new cars are leased. Which means 75% aren't.

Quote:

If they do this with a brand new EV with the manufacturing equivalent of 30-40K km of CO2 emissions on the clock from the start (relative to a combustion engine car), then how much are they reducing emissions anyway?

What do you think happens to 2 year old leased cars? That's right, they either get leased out again or sold to people who perhaps can't afford a new car. Within a few years those cars are saving CO2 emissions over gas cars, for a continuing net reduction. So this is only a short term 'problem', with the upside being that more used electric cars (which have paid back their lifetime CO2 costs) are available to displace old (more polluting) gas cars.

As for higher upfront CO2 emissions 'on the clock', this is debatable. In an economy that runs on fossil fuels, the cost of goods in general is directly related to the amount of 'oil' that was used to make it. Electric cars aren't that much more expensive than gas cars, and will become cheaper as production techniques are refined. Manufacturers will find ways to reduce the amount of fossil energy used (especially now that oil prices are so high). As battery prices come down they may even become cheaper than gas cars, and then they will have an advantage from day one.

Quote:

Keeping your car long enough to reap the emission reduction benefits (though reducing actual air pollution is an excellent reason for owning one), not using it where not essential, etc require people to change.

Most people keep their cars for longer than 2 years, and most will likely keep their electric cars longer because they stay 'new' for longer.

As for not using it where not essential, I admit to driving my Leaf a bit more than my old gas car because it is so much cheaper to run - and with the price of gas today I would have driven my old car even less. But even with those extra miles my Leaf is still much cleaner.

People will change because they want to, once they see the benefits. And some won't. Which is fine. We don't need everyone only driving electric and only when essential.

@matthey

Quote:

matthey wrote: I have caught activists and so called "scientists" distorting the CO2 history of the earth. The following graph looks pretty scary.

Because it is? Show me any time within the last billion years that CO2 levels have risen that fast against the natural trend.

Now sure, I know a billion years isn't that much. I mean, the Earth has existed for over 4 billion years. Who cares what happens over a blip of time that only spans few human generations? Well some of us do. Some of us don't think it's fair to continue pouring filth into the atmosphere (and everywhere else) with gay abandon, for future generations to clean up.

Quote:

Graphs are often cut off just before the time when there were very high levels of CO2 and sometimes graphs don't start at zero.

The horror! Yet you just did it yourself.

Quote:

CO2 levels were at several times current levels for much of the Earth history

And you wouldn't want to be there when they were.

Quote:

Methane levels were likely at a much higher level as well. Our planet has supported warmer weather for much of the history and it was advantageous for life on Earth.

'Life', but not our life.

Quote:

It is very expensive to reduce hydrocarbon emissions which would cost trillions of dollars globally to reduce to levels acceptable by extremist activists.

I agree. But it's even more expensive to do nothing. Few are demanding extreme measures, and few are listening to them. But reducing emissions to less extreme levels is not so hard. In many cases renewables are actually cheaper. Coal is losing favor because coal power stations are more expensive to run than wind and solar. And if the environmental cost of fossil fuels was included in the price, well...

Oil, gas and coal are depleting resources. It's getting harder and more hazardous to extract. The Saudis are now pumping seawater into their wells to get the oil out. They know it won't last forever, which is why they are installing 200GW of solar power. They aren't extremists, just realists. BP is spending big on a new oil and gas field in the North Sea, but it won't come online until 2025. Meanwhile they are also building a lot of off-shore wind and solar in a 'transition' to renewables. Other oil companies are looking at making similar moves, so when when the oil runs out (or becomes noncompetitive) they will still have an income.

Quote:

It is not practical in many cases as Warren Buffett described in his 2020 Annual Shareholder Letter.

And in many cases it is. Warren Buffet runs an investment group that tries to make money off the markets. As you say, Energy and tech are not his strong points. He has never invested in Tesla, which is an unfortunate oversight because Tesla shares have increased in value by over 10 times in the last 2 years.

@all

My Opinion to the Climate Change Discussion!

PADDING!!!!!!!

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