Thread: VW caught by the Yanks for breaking emission laws

Originally Posted by bee utey

Haha, what a comedian. I know what "base load" is, it's a dinosaur.

It's all just load, capable of being provided in various ways. Hey, you could try googling "base load myth", and read some of the analysis out there. For starters:

Busting the baseload power myth ? Analysis and Opinion (ABC Science)

There is a reason why it is called "base load power". It's not just about power generation. I wonder if you can work it out.
Oh, did you read the comments after. Some good ones there.

Ah, solar and wind. No matter how you sell it, they still only work when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing.
I guess that means no air-con on a hot and still summers night.
No heaters on a still and overcast day in winter.

Last I read of Mills he was going to provide 24 hour solar power in the U.S. The solar advocates have gone quiet on how that turned out. Mills conveniently ignores the variability of solar and wind generation, which is why they are unsuitable for base load supply. Solar/wind have their place but it will never be as base load supply. If only the solar/wind advocates would stop trying to make a base load silk purse out of a renewable energy sow's ear, then they might have some credibility. As it is, they have none.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_..._researcher%29
I suspect Mr Mills has little knowledge of power distribution systems. Any idea what his qualifications are?

Originally Posted by bee utey

So Pat, what do think is the pinnacle of evolution of the motor vehicle? Is it the Model T Ford? Is it the 300TDi Defender? Is this year's cutting edge vehicle the last ever vehicle to be improved? Do you really think that there is no room for battery tech to evolve to a point where it out competes fossil fuels? You know, there's what industry insiders call the Kodak moment, where a company sneers at new tech and ties its fortunes to old tech continuing forever. Guess what, Kodak is dead. Film has almost completely died under the digital onslaught. Battery tech still has a long way to go but has made huge strides in the last few years alone. It is what is called a disruptive technology. One day it will be bigger than fossil fuel. And that is an opinion of not just me but qualified people who have access to huge amounts of data on energy industries.

Oh and "base load" is a myth invented by manufacturers of inflexible coal and nuclear plants, and to maintain the myth they have to sell it off cheap as domestic water heating after 11pm. New energy sources have new challenges that don't involve millions of dumb time clocks switching on resistive heating elements all over the country. With a solar boosted heat pump HWS I have virtually zero "base load" after 11pm, so do other solar powered houses.

Never said the Tdi was the pinnacle of motor vehicles,if you read any of my posts on the defender replacement thread you would know I think an electric defender would be the best 4wd vehicle possible,it would have four independant traction motors powered by a frugal T/D engine like the Tdi.I'm not against electric cars,solar,wave energy,what I'm against are people who think we will have it within a few years,you lot are dreaming,absolutely dreaming. Pat

Unfortunately one thing the electric car crowd ignore is the finites. There is only a limited and finite supply of certain elements used to make the high power batteries.
This creates 2 issues that no one wants to answer.
1. How long would supply last if a majority of the worlds 80million sales PA went electric or hybrid? I've read anything from 20 to 330+ years , a lot seem to say a shorter life than fossil fuels, so hopefully a more knowledgable person could enlighten us?
2. Current supply could not handle a massive increase in demand and the main sources of supply are locked up.

Found it,
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articl...-Ion-Battery-M

Basically if the worlds majority of cars where battery powered there would be a 17 year lifespan for lithium.
Rare earths are another issue. But just focus on this one to start.

Originally Posted by frantic

Unfortunately one thing the electric car crowd ignore is the finites. There is only a limited and finite supply of certain elements used to make the high power batteries.
This creates 2 issues that no one wants to answer.
1. How long would supply last if a majority of the worlds 80million sales PA went electric or hybrid? I've read anything from 20 to 330+ years , a lot seem to say a shorter life than fossil fuels, so hopefully a more knowledgable person could enlighten us?
2. Current supply could not handle a massive increase in demand and the main sources of supply are locked up.

Found it,
Is There Enough Lithium to Maintain the Growth of the Lithium-Ion Battery Market? | Greentech Media

Basically if the worlds majority of cars where battery powered there would be a 17 year lifespan for lithium.
Rare earths are another issue. But just focus on this one to start.

Good point, and frm the little I know the rare earths are just that, very rare !

Seeing as this thread has gone OT, and talking of finite supplies, there is bugger all Helium left !
Google it, it's really surprising, and we waste it on party balloons !

Who hasn't done the Chipmunks impersonation at a party, I know I have mucking around with the kids (OK, there was one big one there that just had to act like a little one ).
There's seven billion of us now and all resources except the sun and wind are finite. And we can probably include ocean currents and waves in that.

Everything else has a fixed supply.
things may not be as dire as for example predicted back in the seventies regarding oil, but how much digging up stuff can we tolerate ?
It's impacting severely in some areas already on our precious water and food supplies.

We are going to have to embark on some serious recycling just to maintain our lifestyles, and as the third world starts demanding the things the first world takes for granted........

Interesting that the article that Frantic has linked to talks about what is expected to happen by 2015 when it was supposedly written in 2015. Most of what he writes is fairly old recycled material from other people's articles that he has come to conclusions about and then glued together in to his own article.

The one thing he completely ignores in his writings is that lithium-ion batterys are just about completely recyclable and can be recycled time and time again.

Having said that just like with every technology sooner or later something else comes along when it becomes economically viable to change. 200 years ago most houses in Europe used whale oil for lighting, that need killed off most of the worlds whales so then there was a need to find a different technology which lead to the introduction of firstly coal gas lighting and then when there wasn't enough supply of that in some places eventually electricity.

Throughout history this is what man has done when required.

If you look back ten years ago the experts were saying Oil was meant to commercially run out in the next twenty years now they are saying there is enough commercial reserves for another fifty plus years. Eventually oil will run out and other affordable forms of energy will be needed, but long before it does run out worries about things like global warming and air quality etc will cause politicians around the world to change direction on how personal transport and other high energy users are supplied with affordable electricity.

As I said I'm no greenie at all and never have been, but I am a pramatic realist and it doesn't take to much grey matter to see where this is all going. Will it happen in the next five years like some think? No but it will happen in most of our lifetimes, the often older flat earth brigade more than likely won't see the end game but they will if they open their eyes even a little bit be able to see the change coming, in fact, if they started looking now they would see it has already begun.

Originally Posted by TerryO

Interesting that the article that Frantic has linked to talks about what is expected to happen by 2015 when it was supposedly written in 2015. Most of what he writes is fairly old recycled material from other people's articles that he has come to conclusions about and then glued together in to his own article.

The one thing he completely ignores in his writings is that lithium-ion batterys are just about completely recyclable and can be recycled time and time again.

Having said that just like with every technology sooner or later something else comes along when it becomes economically viable to change. 200 years ago most houses in Europe used whale oil for lighting, that need killed off most of the worlds whales so then there was a need to find a different technology which lead to the introduction of firstly coal gas lighting and then when there wasn't enough supply of that in some places eventually electricity.

Throughout history this is what man has done when required.

If you look back ten years ago the experts were saying Oil was meant to commercially run out in the next twenty years now they are saying there is enough commercial reserves for another fifty plus years. Eventually oil will run out and other affordable forms of energy will be needed, but long before it does run out worries about things like global warming and air quality etc will cause politicians around the world to change direction on how personal transport and other high energy users are supplied with affordable electricity.

As I said I'm no greenie at all and never have been, but I am a pramatic realist and it doesn't take to much grey matter to see where this is all going. Will it happen in the next five years like some think? No but it will happen in most of our lifetimes, the often older flat earth brigade more than likely won't see the end game but they will if they open their eyes even a little bit be able to see the change coming, in fact, if they started looking now they would see it has already begun.

I think the recycling of lithium batteries has been covered elsewhere, in that its cheaper, 4-6 times on current prices, to mine and make new batteries as a electric/hybrid only carries about 10-12 kg out of a battery pack weighing in the hundreds. You cannot ship them in bulk as the older and more damaged they are, the more chance they will go up in a ball of fire as they cause a chain reaction if not packed correctly. Look into the airfreight rules/incidents of a majority of plane couriers to see the issues.

Something I learned tonight that is almost related to some of the threads in this post is that there is an electric vehicle in the Dakar Rally. I believe this isn't the first year there has been an electric vehicle.

I realise they are carrying a bigger battery pack than you would expect in a commuter vehicle, but it seems to me that the Dakar would be a fairly serious test.

One of the things most people seem to be unaware of is that while in theory, there is a finite supply of any raw material, in reality, this is vastly greater than "the known reserves" which is the figure these predictions are almost invariably based on.

No rational mining company is going to put money into exploration to deliberately extend reserves beyond perhaps ten years at current rates of production, and further, the "reserves" are highly dependent on price of the mineral.

A good example of this is in the oil industry. High prices over the last few years have resulted in a lot of reserves becoming available for production - and as these have come into production, prices have fallen. Same with iron ore and coal.

And while lithium mines are rare, this largely reflects the demand for the product, as lithium is one of the common elements in the earth's crust.

Rare earths are somewhat different. While not spectacularly rare, they are very difficult and expensive to extract from the ores. Incidentally, there is a rare earth mine progressing towards production near Dubbo, but it probably needs increased world demand to actually start production. The number of hoops they have had to jump through over the last ten years is mind-boggling.

John