LENR vs Solar/Wind, and emerging Green Technologies.

As I thought, there are only 4 superchargers in Atlanta, none of them convenient to my house. But, if I had an electric car, I would charge it at home so that wouldn't matter. As I said, there are chargers at the FAA office and at shopping malls in Atlanta, but I never see them in use.

On the way to Staunton, VA there are 2 superchargers. One is off the roads I use. It would be a long detour. The other is nearly 500 miles from Atlanta, so it is too far. It is almost too far for a Prius, which has a 600 mile range. A 600 mile range means you have to fill up after 500 miles. You don't want to come without 50 miles of running out of gasoline (or electricity) in the middle of nowhere in Virginia. The only gas station shown on the GPS might well be out of business. Or it might close at 6 p.m. when the owner goes home for supper, as one of them did.

Of course there will be more superchargers in the future if electric cars become popular. But never as many as there are gas stations, for the reasons I described above.

Quote from interested observer

Looking at the Supercharger map between Atlanta and Staunton, VA, I don't see any issue. There are chargers roughly every 100 miles all along I85 (Greenville, Charlotte . . .

Too soon. You wouldn't want to interrupt the trip for a half-hour at Greenville. It is only 130 miles. I guess you could recharge there . . . Giving you just enough range to reach Staunton. I am guessing the supercharger in Charlotte would be a 20-minute detour for us, plus a half-hour wait to charge up to 100%.

The point is, you would have to plan this out, maybe drive several miles out of your way (although not in Greenville), spend a half-hour charging. That is more planning and logistics than with gasoline, and I think it will still be that way far into the future, given the differences between electric cars and gasoline.

I suppose that eventually, batteries may have a 1000 mile range. So it will no longer matter because no one drives that far in one day. You could recharge overnight at a motel. Or perhaps with super-superchargers, they will recharge to 100% in 10 minutes, making them more or less as quick as refilling with gasoline.

Let me again say that for city driving and commuting, electric cars are more convenient than gasoline models, because you can charge them at home overnight. Cheaper, too, because they are so efficient. The Leaf is ideal for Atlanta traffic and commuting. The only problem I see is for long distance driving in the U.S. But I would think twice about paying a ton of money for a Tesla that I cannot conveniently drive to Virginia or Pennsylvania. I prefer my Prius for that trip. I wouldn't want to rent a car leaving a $50,000 Tesla in the driveway at home. (Not that I would ever pay that kind of money for a car, unless it drives itself, always, in all traffic.)

A plug-in gasoline hybrid is not a good choice for me because I would only fill it with gas ~4 times a year, and the gasoline would get stale, I think.

A 1000 mile range may not be enough in the distant future, with the underground roads I predicted in my book, because the cars may go 180 mph. Under robotic control. No human should ever drive that fast! I don't think we should allow such speeds on above-ground highways, even with robotic control. The Japanese Shinkansen railroads are elevated far above ground, so no problem.

Quote from interested observer

I guess you must take a pretty exotic route. Like I said, use cases...

I77 north at Charlotte. Much less traffic. More scenic. Friends & relatives along the way.

By the way, this discussion of highway travel with a Tesla is not from my imagination. I read an auto magazine article by a reporter who drove a Tesla on some long distance trips, to see how the superchargers and logistics work. He said it took considerably longer with more detours than a gasoline car.

The problem will lessen with time, as more electric cars come on the road. If a large fraction of cars are electric, and gasoline consumption drops a lot, say ~20%, the opposite problem may emerge. It may become difficult to drive a gasoline car. In the 1973 gas crisis, sales fell only a little, but many gas stations went out of business, because their margin is so thin. In some neighborhoods it became inconvenient to find a gas station. Today, in depressed areas of Alabama, the GPS will show many gas stations and fast food places that went out of business. You may have to go a long distance to fill up. If gasoline sales fall 20% and gas stations on smaller highways go out of business, many people on highways may run out of gas.

When gasoline sales fall by ~70% (or some number like that), gas stations everywhere will go out of business, and it will soon be impossible to operate a gasoline car in many places. You can't recharge it at home. You must have the gasoline delivery infrastructure, and it is not a multi-purpose infrastructure like the power grid.

Many people think that new technology is a one-for-one replacement for the old, with similar charactoristics. I suppose that is why the mayor of Atlanta thinks we need more charging stations for electric cars, even though the ones we have are seldom used. She probably thinks that regular cars need gas stations, so electric cars need charging stations. Nope, not so much. The newspaper say we need charging stations so that people will not feel "range anxiety." I talked to some Leaf owners. They say they never feel range anxiety, and they don't bother charging at the shopping malls.

Years ago, I heard a more extreme example of thinking the new will resemble the old. I said "cold fusion will not need a fuel delivery infrastructure." A rather stupid person said: "Yes, it will. We will need pipelines for the heavy water." She did not realize you could deliver a year's supply of heavy water for a city in a pickup truck, and most of the fuel will be built into the motor, like acid in a battery.

Hopefully the water will recalculate from steam back to water not letting it escape but keep a green house effect going.

https://cleantechnica.com/2019…018-cleantechnica-report/

Tesla model 3 was the best selling car in California in 2nd half of 2018.

I wonder what percentage of households have two cars? And then what percentage of those ever need both cars to over 200 miles a day?

I would suggest that a significant percentage of households could survive very well with one electric and one gas car.

Quote from interested observer

Jed: "By the way, this discussion of highway travel with a Tesla is not from my imagination. I read an auto magazine article by a reporter who drove a Tesla on some long distance trips, to see how the superchargers and logistics work. He said it took considerably longer with more detours than a gasoline car."

Well, my comments are not from my imagination either. I have personally taken many long-distance trips in a Tesla and the logistics using Superchargers have been just fine and required virtually no special planning.

Evidently your experience was different from this car magazine journalist's. Perhaps I read the article some time ago, and things have improved. Or perhaps he deliberately selected long distance routes to places off the beaten path. Anyway, I defer to your real-world experience.

I can see from the supercharger map that it would not be difficult to drive from Atlanta to Washington DC with a Tesla. You couldn't do it with an older Leaf, with a 75 mile range, but they were not designed for long distance travel. The latest ones have a range of 151 to 226 miles.

This article says the Leaf cannot use the Tesla superchargers:

https://www.drivingelectric.co…-i-use-tesla-supercharger

Quote: "According to Tesla CEO Elon Musk, this is because no other vehicle manufacturer agreed to sign up to Tesla’s Supercharger network when the company offered." Pretty stupid of those other vehicle manufacturers.

Quote from interested observer

Some people are determined to drive 800 miles in a day and would probably use a catheter if they could.

A diaper. That is what a homicidal NASA astronaut used. That's what they use during rocket launches, when there are often delays and no bathroom breaks. See:

https://www.npr.org/templates/…story.php?storyId=7226705

Quote: "Nowak wore diapers on the almost 1,000-mile drive from Houston to Orlando so she wouldn't have to stop, the Sentinel reported."

Quote from Shane D.

Just ate my second Impossible foods burger. This time at Burger King. For reference, I am a burger lover. Also been eating meatless "burgers" like Boca, and the Morningstar veggie patties for many years. The Impossible Whopper was as tasty, and meat-like (including texture) as any burger I have ever eaten. They must have changed the formula since last time I ate one, because this tasted even better. Could not get over how similar it was to hamburger meat. And it far surpasses any of the other meatless burgers.

That has been the news a lot lately. The stock value of the company went sky high. More power to them!

This is made of vegetable materials, like the "Beyond Meat" products. This is not in vitro meat.

As the veggie-based meats become more and more like meat, I wonder if they will produce an "uncanny valley" problem, similar to what humanoid objects do. They creep people out. They are off-putting.

Quote from interested observer

In any case, the next few years should be quite interesting in the electric car space.

In NZ secondhand Nissan Leafs.. 2013...to 2018) from Japan are being unloaded at a high rate.

the fastcharger network (nonTesla) now covers most of the inhabited bits.

NZ, the UK appear to be the main buyers for these righthand drives

The question is.. will the grid be able to handle 10% cars going electric without burning coal..

or maybe the government should shut down the huge aluminium smelter in the south which runs on hydroelectricity

as far as Tesla goes.. its not a big player in NZ

its agreement to build in China looks fraught with risk..

.China takes the 'land'' if Elon doesn't deliver by 2023

Quote from JedRothwell

They are off-putting.

The first soy steaks were awful..

soy protein is bland so taste enhancers are needed.

but personally I find hiyayakko - cold tofu with spring onions and bonito flakes

more tasty than a prime rare steak dripping bits of blood.

sustaining bonito population would be a problem if hiyayakko caught on

Robert in the UK ..

Volkswagen catching up to Nissan electrically

supercharger network in UK

Quote from RobertBryant

The question is.. will the grid be able to handle 10% cars going electric without burning coal..

or maybe the government should shut down the huge aluminium smelter in the south which runs on hydroelectricity

There are two issues: supply and load-balancing. The technologies have now advanced so far that:

PV in Californian desert is cheaper than coal (and the US has enough desert)

Viable solutions exist for 6 hour long load movement (they are not free, but commercial and getting cheaper all the time)

In addition there is an enormous potential in demand-side load management. The "biggies" are:

• AC/heat pumps
• EV battery charging

And then smaller things like fridges etc.

PV and wind are pretty synergistic - you tend to get a lot of one when not much of the other. Equally PV and AC are necessarily synergistic. The problem (possibility of massive supply imbalance) is days with cloud throughout the US and zero wind on or off shore, again throughout the US. I don't think they happen? And, if they did, demand would at least be a bit lower from less AC.

THH

On that topic. I'm quite surprised posters here have not suggested evil green tech interests from organising posters to talk up green tech and rubbish LENR - a threat to their business?