Reality check on electric cars

[T. A. Gardner]

It says that NEW vehicles must be EVs. Buying and selling ICEs will go on your whole far-right Trumpian life.

Until the government next decides that people are keeping their ICE vehicles and mandates programs to get rid of them...

 

[Kafka]

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Until the government next decides that people are keeping their ICE vehicles and mandates programs to get rid of them...

I'm a pretty anxious dude. Always been that way my whole life. But the level of paranoia and utter abject terror you MAGA folks live in makes me feel positively ZEN most of the time.

Every day you get up you have to be mortified about children getting sex change operations in junior high, women getting pregnant just for the pure joy of an abortion, red blooded straight men being forced to gay marry against their will, Communism, Islam, Mexicans raping their way across the continent (when not doing yard work), EV cars that are engineered to catch fire if you so much as think about Jesus, hardcore man-on-man porn in the elementary school libraries, women earning as much as men, women getting good jobs that would normally go to you, women and, of course, windmill cancer.

Sucks to be you. If you like I think there are some antianxiety meds available or even some antipsychotic meds. The ones that can make the sharks stop talking to you about how much they want your electric boat to sink.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

With the exception of the many R&D groups right now working on any number of advances in the field. This is just a reality. I've seen it with my own eyes. I've read the articles as well. It's real.

So? How are they going to change the laws of chemistry and the periodic table?

I'm not an electrochemist so I'm going to have to ask for a reference on that claim. Not that I don't believe you, I just don't know for certain. According to Wikipedia the max voltage output of an electrochemical cell is up to 6V so that right there is 2X higher than the max you suggest.

While far from the best, it shows the idea and charges of various elements. Not all are suitable for use in a battery. So, while 6 VDC might theoretically be possible, it's highly unlikely because of the elements involved. Either by their scarcity, reactivity, or other properties you just can't use them. A great example of that is say, Fluorine. Toxic, extremely reactive--makes lithium look safe-- either a gas or liquid at usable temperatures, and just all around dangerous to handle. You aren't using that in a battery.

Hydrogen doesn't. Not only is it difficult as a fuel when in a compressed gas state but solid-state storage as in a metal hydride is pretty low. The only versions of a H2 fuel cell car is one in which the H2 is generated from things like methanol. And that's a HORRIBLE fuel. Super dangerous to fuel your car with.

The issue with hydrogen is storage. A thick steel tank looks like a screen door to hydrogen... Anhydrous ammonia is an alternative. It can be made from natural gas and it's easy to store and relatively safe to handle. If the storage problem can be solved, Hydrogen is the fuel of the future. But we could use ammonia in the meantime.

Have to disagree on this. When a windmill catches fire and burns to the ground you don't have to abandon the state. Also, mining for uranium is not necessarily an environmentally friendly thing.

Three Mile Island was a worst-case scenario for the US nuclear power industry. Nobody died. Nobody got cancer as a result of the accident. It was properly contained. At the same time, the operators made egregious mistakes over hours trying to resolve the problems. They did virtually everything wrong.
Interestingly, Bessie-Davis in Ohio, the same plant design, had the same original cause of the TMI meltdown--a stuck open relief valve on the pressurizer--occur there about a month earlier than the TMI accident. The Bessie-Davis operators recognized the problem correctly and safely shut the reactor down without further problems.

Chernobyl is irrelevant as it is a graphite moderated, fast fission reactor design used NOWHERE in the Western world because it's only marginally safe and it was being operated in an unsafe and unauthorized manner.

Fukushima (I'm leaving out a number of smaller incidents) only saw radioactive material released because it lacked a secondary containment like TMI had. That is, at TMI the reactor was inside a large, concrete containment building that was damn near bomb proof. At Fukushima, the reactors were in what amounts to big tin sheds.
Even at Fukushima, the dangers of the accident were limited almost entirely to the site and as with TMI evacuations were mostly done out of an abundance of caution.

Oh, did you know that cleaning up TMI cost way, way, less than the BP Deepwater Horizon oil platform disaster in the Caribbean?

As for uranium mining, it's mostly done in underground mines and uranium ore is only a health hazard if you stand next to it for something like months on end. It's an alpha emitter. Lithium mining (for batteries) is far, far more nasty simply by the nature of the process.

Uranium mine in Arizona

Lithium recovery after ore is mined in US

The mining itself is usually open pit with massive tailings.

Natural gas, while less CO2 output for the amount of energy generated through burning than gasoline is STILL going to generate CO2. It can't do anything else. That's how it creates the energy from the exothermic oxidation of carbon.

Natural gas is only necessary with nuclear power to run as peaking plants for intermittent use during heavy load periods. So, the relatively small amount of CO2 released is pretty much irrelevant compared to anything currently in use.

 

[Daylight63]

So? How are they going to change the laws of chemistry and the periodic table?



While far from the best, it shows the idea and charges of various elements. Not all are suitable for use in a battery. So, while 6 VDC might theoretically be possible, it's highly unlikely because of the elements involved. Either by their scarcity, reactivity, or other properties you just can't use them. A great example of that is say, Fluorine. Toxic, extremely reactive--makes lithium look safe-- either a gas or liquid at usable temperatures, and just all around dangerous to handle. You aren't using that in a battery.

I was thinking more in terms of electrochemical and redox reactions to show the theoretical limit of a cell. I know the valence of the groups.

The issue with hydrogen is storage. A thick steel tank looks like a screen door to hydrogen... Anhydrous ammonia is an alternative. It can be made from natural gas and it's easy to store and relatively safe to handle.

I think that might be the first time I've heard anyone suggest that anhydrous ammonia is "safe to handle". It's a pretty aggressive chemical. I once saw an entire office building emptied out because of an ammonia leak. It is an acute toxin with among the highest ratings for risk per the NFPA (3). It also takes a lot of energy to get the H2 off the NH3. The Dept of Energy has a nice summary of the challenges of using NH3 for the H2 economy

https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/articles/potential-roles-ammonia-hydrogen-economy

But this isn't a matter of the storage of H2. This is a matter of making H2.

If the storage problem can be solved, Hydrogen is the fuel of the future.

About 25 years ago I was at a transportation fuels conference in Europe. They basically said that EXACT THING. H2 storage is the nut to crack. Until then it would always be a fringe of the transportation fuel market. And the truth has borne out over the last quarter century.

Of course we were working with solid state storage which was looking promising (it wasn't metal hydrides), but it didn't pan out.

Three Mile Island was a worst-case scenario for the US nuclear power industry. Nobody died. Nobody got cancer as a result of the accident. It was properly contained. At the same time, the operators made egregious mistakes over hours trying to resolve the problems. They did virtually everything wrong.
Interestingly, Bessie-Davis in Ohio, the same plant design, had the same original cause of the TMI meltdown--a stuck open relief valve on the pressurizer--occur there about a month earlier than the TMI accident. The Bessie-Davis operators recognized the problem correctly and safely shut the reactor down without further problems.

I'm digging the more "inherently safe" designs that people have been working on over the past couple decades. There's also the small modular units like those from NuScale that are intriguing. There's a lot of potential to this technology even still.

But we both know that the public is going to balk, and possibly rightly so. We still struggle to deal with the waste and even our best efforts like Yucca Mtn. can fall apart at the last minute.

Fukushima (I'm leaving out a number of smaller incidents) only saw radioactive material released because it lacked a secondary containment like TMI had. That is, at TMI the reactor was inside a large, concrete containment building that was damn near bomb proof. At Fukushima, the reactors were in what amounts to big tin sheds.

That and they put too much of their pumps necessary to move the water in a place perfectly designed to be destroyed in a tsunami. I sometimes wonder if they realized tsunami is a Japanese word.

As for uranium mining, it's mostly done in underground mines and uranium ore is only a health hazard if you stand next to it for something like months on end. It's an alpha emitter. Lithium mining (for batteries) is far, far more nasty simply by the nature of the process.

Even then we have countless claims against the uranium mining industry for cancers incurred by the miners. Yes it is an alpha emitter but if you breathe any in you have a radioactive friend inside you for a very long time. And even though an alpha can't get through a sheet of paper, if its pressed against your lung tissue it's bad.

Lithium mining is definitely not a great thing, but it can also be done by brine evaporation as opposed to active hard rock mining. Only some Li comes from hard rock spodumene mining.

The mining itself is usually open pit with massive tailings.

Uranium mining also produces tailings. All rock-based mining produces tailings. In the case of U mining tailings there's a lot of other radioactive isotopes in there like Th etc. So it's not particularly friendly stuff either.

If we want to talk tailings and waste, coal is pretty awful.

Natural gas is only necessary with nuclear power to run as peaking plants for intermittent use during heavy load periods. So, the relatively small amount of CO2 released is pretty much irrelevant compared to anything currently in use.

Fair enough.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

\


I'm a pretty anxious dude. Always been that way my whole life. But the level of paranoia and utter abject terror you MAGA folks live in makes me feel positively ZEN most of the time.

Every day you get up you have to be mortified about children getting sex change operations in junior high, women getting pregnant just for the pure joy of an abortion, red blooded straight men being forced to gay marry against their will, Communism, Islam, Mexicans raping their way across the continent (when not doing yard work), EV cars that are engineered to catch fire if you so much as think about Jesus, hardcore man-on-man porn in the elementary school libraries, women earning as much as men, women getting good jobs that would normally go to you, women and, of course, windmill cancer.

Sucks to be you. If you like I think there are some antianxiety meds available or even some antipsychotic meds. The ones that can make the sharks stop talking to you about how much they want your electric boat to sink.

Norway already did it, as but one example with EV's.

The rest of your diatribe is ignored.

 

[Nordberg]

Until the government next decides that people are keeping their ICE vehicles and mandates programs to get rid of them...

So as a Trumpy, you have to make up scenarios an thnk we will change the thread. People will keep ICEs. You keep a car until it has to be replaced. Then you can buy an EV and find out how wrong you were.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

So as a Trumpy, you have to make up scenarios an thnk we will change the thread. People will keep ICEs. You keep a car until it has to be replaced. Then you can buy an EV and find out how wrong you were.

No, likely I'll just keep the ICE vehicles. Right now I own 4 vehicles. One is a 1974, the second is 2001, the third is 2014 and the last is a 2023. It's very likely short of any being totaled in an accident that I'll replace any in the next 10 years.

EV's are a dead end. They have been for over 150 years now.

 

[Poor Richard Saunders]

That's just dissembling. If you are restricted, it's the same thing as forced.

Not even close. No one is forced to buy a car. You can choose to buy a car or you can choose to not buy a car but you are not forced to buy a car.

Well, if in 10 years there are hydrogen powered cars available, we should skip the EV's and work towards those as they make sense. (Or ammonia powered vehicles). Government is the worst way to get things done. It should be a last resort, not the first.

I see you have decided that you are going to FORCE people to buy hydrogen cars.

Hydrogen cars would be in addition to EVs. That is ignoring the fact that hydrogen cars are EVs that just use a different power source than battery powered EVs.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

Not even close. No one is forced to buy a car. You can choose to buy a car or you can choose to not buy a car but you are not forced to buy a car.

That's just a No True Scotsman fallacy:

The government outlaws all new cars but EV's. If you want car, it will have to be an EV.

You then claim, first, well you can keep your current car, then claim, next, you're not forced to buy a car.

The point of the argument isn't the exceptions, it's the rule. The rule is if you want to buy a vehicle after the date set by the government, it must be an EV. You are given no choice.

I see you have decided that you are going to FORCE people to buy hydrogen cars.

I suggested those, along with ones that use anhydrous ammonia, are a better alternative. I'm not forcing anyone to buy one, nor am I suggesting the government force people to buy them. I can live with cars that create some pollution when operated. I'm fine with the standards for ICE vehicles as they currently stand.

My position is How much pollution should we allow? not, We must get rid of ALL pollution. The latter is a fool's errand and it's the position of the EPA and environmental Left.

Hydrogen cars would be in addition to EVs. That is ignoring the fact that hydrogen cars are EVs that just use a different power source than battery powered EVs.

If there is a practical hydrogen car, EV's are finished. Nobody will buy an EV when they can use hydrogen and fill their vehicle just like a gasoline powered vehicle in minutes, not hours. Hydrogen (or anhydrous ammonia) vehicles are not the same as EV's. They use a portable fuel that can be loaded into the vehicle in a few minutes and then go hundreds of miles. They are the equivalent of an ICE vehicle using a different fuel.

 

[Litmus]

It seems you either didn't read my post or don't understand math. My post is to show that the current electrical grid can support charging EVs because it can support everyone running air conditioners.

you're stupider than retarded monkeys.

 

[Daylight63]

No, likely I'll just keep the ICE vehicles. Right now I own 4 vehicles. One is a 1974, the second is 2001, the third is 2014 and the last is a 2023. It's very likely short of any being totaled in an accident that I'll replace any in the next 10 years.

That's going to be the reality for the foreseeable future.

EV's are a dead end. They have been for over 150 years now.

EV's today are not like the EV's of 150 years ago. Technology advances.

One of the thing that many people in MAGA seem to forget is that America innovates. We put a man on the moon, we made the most powerful weapon ever devised in 4 years, we are able to innovate and build and make amazing changes.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

That's going to be the reality for the foreseeable future.



EV's today are not like the EV's of 150 years ago. Technology advances.

One of the thing that many people in MAGA seem to forget is that America innovates. We put a man on the moon, we made the most powerful weapon ever devised in 4 years, we are able to innovate and build and make amazing changes.

They are faster and have more "safety" features, but otherwise, they're virtually the same. The Apollo program wasn't so much innovative as incremental.

 

[Daylight63]

They are faster and have more "safety" features, but otherwise, they're virtually the same. The Apollo program wasn't so much innovative as incremental.

Also the battery technology is fundamentally different.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

Also the battery technology is fundamentally different.

No, it isn't. Batteries today consist of a cathode, anode, and electrolyte. The ONLY difference is in the materials they're made out of.

 

[Daylight63]

No, it isn't. Batteries today consist of a cathode, anode, and electrolyte. The ONLY difference is in the materials they're made out of.

Ummmm, when you say the "only difference is the materials they are made of" that is kinda 99% of the game.

If your reasoning were significant no one would have ever invented anything but the Fe Ni battery.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

Ummmm, when you say the "only difference is the materials they are made of" that is kinda 99% of the game.

If your reasoning were significant no one would have ever invented anything but the Fe Ni battery.

Iron-Nickel batteries are not significantly different in design from Lead-acid ones. The only thing different in a Lithium ion battery is the use of a screen to limit the movement of molecules / atoms between the anode and cathode. In all other respects it works the same way.

 

[Daylight63]

Iron-Nickel batteries are not significantly different in design from Lead-acid ones. The only thing different in a Lithium ion battery is the use of a screen to limit the movement of molecules / atoms between the anode and cathode. In all other respects it works the same way.

By this reasoning there is literally no difference between a Lamborghini and a horse drawn carriage. Both are 4 wheeled conveyances.

It is absurd on the face of it to assume that simply because some things share a common method of operation that they are the same thing.

Again, if that was true it would not have taken any time to develop new battery technology. But that isn't the case.

 

[Poor Richard Saunders]

No, it isn't. Batteries today consist of a cathode, anode, and electrolyte. The ONLY difference is in the materials they're made out of.

By that standard, an EV is no different from an ICE vehicle. It has 4 wheels and a power source to make it move. The only difference is the materials the power source uses to power the vehicle.

 

[Poor Richard Saunders]

That's just a No True Scotsman fallacy:

The government outlaws all new cars but EV's. If you want car, it will have to be an EV.

You then claim, first, well you can keep your current car, then claim, next, you're not forced to buy a car.

The point of the argument isn't the exceptions, it's the rule. The rule is if you want to buy a vehicle after the date set by the government, it must be an EV. You are given no choice.

I suggested those, along with ones that use anhydrous ammonia, are a better alternative. I'm not forcing anyone to buy one, nor am I suggesting the government force people to buy them. I can live with cars that create some pollution when operated. I'm fine with the standards for ICE vehicles as they currently stand.

My position is How much pollution should we allow? not, We must get rid of ALL pollution. The latter is a fool's errand and it's the position of the EPA and environmental Left.

If there is a practical hydrogen car, EV's are finished. Nobody will buy an EV when they can use hydrogen and fill their vehicle just like a gasoline powered vehicle in minutes, not hours. Hydrogen (or anhydrous ammonia) vehicles are not the same as EV's. They use a portable fuel that can be loaded into the vehicle in a few minutes and then go hundreds of miles. They are the equivalent of an ICE vehicle using a different fuel.

It seems it is you that is using a No True Scotsman fallacy as you claim the only true zero emission vehicle is an EV powered by a lithium battery.
The government is not requiring that all new cars be EVs with lithium batteries. California is saying that by the year 2035 all new cars should be zero emission vehicles.

You might want to look at how hydrogen fuel cells work. They don't combust the fuel to drive a piston like in an ICE car. The fuel cell has an anode and cathode like a battery. A hydrogen fuel cell vehicle uses electrical motors to make the car move. It's an EV.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

By this reasoning there is literally no difference between a Lamborghini and a horse drawn carriage. Both are 4 wheeled conveyances.

False analogy.

Modern Edison nickel-iron battery. No different technologically than one made 100 years ago

The same goes for other batteries.

It is absurd on the face of it to assume that simply because some things share a common method of operation that they are the same thing.

Detail changes in design don't mean anything other than incremental improvements in performance.

Again, if that was true it would not have taken any time to develop new battery technology. But that isn't the case.

"New" battery technology is rare and mostly focused on using different elements or improving incrementally the performance of a battery.