This parable applies exactly the same for a petrol car. Those can stop working too, you know? In fact, they have far more ways they can fail. So therefore everyone needs two cars. A truly specious argument!
Right. In fact, people who depend on cars need 1.01 automobiles. When you car is in for extended service or collision repair you call for an Uber or you rent a car for a few days. The dealers in Atlanta offer 1-day rentals.
Right. In fact, people who depend on cars need 1.01 automobiles. When you car is in for extended service or collision repair you call for an Uber or you rent a car for a few days. The dealers in Atlanta offer 1-day rentals.
That is true. I have had to rent a vehicle when mine is out in the shop. The kind of work that I do requires long displacements within and between rural areas that can’t be done in practical time frames and terms in a bike (a thing I would love to be able to do, but it would thwart my “productivity”). However even I don’t even need 1.01 car if you take in account that I don’t use it every day, so I probably need less than one car. Unfortunately fractionation of the use of the car below the unity, while possible in theory, becomes a hassle soon due to the opportunity of use than can’t always be organized in advance.
However even I don’t even need 1.01 car if you take in account that I don’t use it every day, so I probably need less than one car. Unfortunately fractionation of the use of the car below the unity, while possible in theory, becomes a hassle soon due to the opportunity of use than can’t always be organized in advance.
That problem may be solved with self-driving cars. I mean fully automatic ones with no human controls, like elevators. Suppose half of the automobile fleet was like today's taxis or Uber cars. An empty one comes to your house when you need it, and then when you finish it goes elsewhere to serve someone else. Dispatching a taxi today is expensive because you have to pay the human driver. An empty self-driving car would be cheap to send. During rush hour, there would be a shortage of cars, so I suppose many people would have to own their own cars. But people who work odd hours or people who do not need a car for commuting would use the automated taxis.
I expect rush hours will have less traffic and they will be less concentrated in one time period because of increased telecommuting, remote work, and satellite offices. These trends were underway already when the pandemic increased them. This badly hurt the office real estate business. It may never recover. (Business travel by airplane has also been greatly reduced, and replaced with Zoom.)
You might also use these cars for errands that do not require a person, such as sending a chair to your brother's house. Put the chair in the car and tell it to go by itself. Or if your 10-year-old needs to go to soccer practice, let her go by herself. I expect anyone over 6 will be allowed to go by themselves in a self-driving car, like today's "unaccompanied minors" on airplanes.
These would be cleaner than today's taxis because they would be cleaned up every day by robots. Probably in better mechanical condition, as well.
The would be a lot cheaper than owning a car.
The automobile companies are planning for this kind of future, with many more fleet sales, and fewer sales to individuals.
Display MoreThat problem may be solved with self-driving cars. I mean fully automatic ones with no human controls, like elevators. Suppose half of the automobile fleet was like today's taxis or Uber cars. An empty one comes to your house when you need it, and then when you finish it goes elsewhere to serve someone else. Dispatching a taxi today is expensive because you have to pay the human driver. An empty self-driving car would be cheap to send. During rush hour, there would be a shortage of cars, so I suppose many people would have to own their own cars. But people who work odd hours or people who do not need a car for commuting would use the automated taxis.
I expect rush hours will have less traffic and they will be less concentrated in one time period because of increased telecommuting, remote work, and satellite offices. These trends were underway already when the pandemic increased them. This badly hurt the office real estate business. It may never recover. (Business travel by airplane has also been greatly reduced, and replaced with Zoom.)
You might also use these cars for errands that do not require a person, such as sending a chair to your brother's house. Put the chair in the car and tell it to go by itself. Or if your 10-year-old needs to go to soccer practice, let her go by herself. I expect anyone over 6 will be allowed to go by themselves in a self-driving car, like today's "unaccompanied minors" on airplanes.
These would be cleaner than today's taxis because they would be cleaned up every day by robots. Probably in better mechanical condition, as well.
The would be a lot cheaper than owning a car.
The automobile companies are planning for this kind of future, with many more fleet sales, and fewer sales to individuals.
Yes I am broadly aware of this, I am not sure we are ready to get there technology wise just yet (I mean, seeing this come everyday reality within 3 years), but certainly the incentives to get there as quickly as possible exist. My Brother In Law works for Google X in the commercialization of automated drone delivery services, and the pandemic was a “gift from the heavens” for them. I recall him commenting at a family gathering a few years ago that the self driving car industry still has some technology challenges unsolved and that the high level of competition had somehow stifled the development by making it less interesting for big companies to keep funding the high cost research lacking the uncertainty of becoming leader of the markets. I really hope that has changed by now.
My Brother In Law works for Google X in the commercialization of automated drone delivery services,
This is a very important technology especially for remote place like Swiss alps or "desert homes" in the USA. This in fact can completely change some business limitations.
Self driving cars are easy to cheat. I just wait for the first people that manipulate a scene to kill a Tesla....
I recall him commenting at a family gathering a few years ago that the self driving car industry still has some technology challenges unsolved and that the high level of competition had somehow stifled the development by making it less interesting for big companies to keep funding the high cost research lacking the uncertainty of becoming leader of the markets. I really hope that has changed by now.
There is another problem After 4 years of meetings the giants of the insurance business are still discussing how insurance for self driving cars will work in practice. Who is liable when a self-driving software error and a badly maintained road surface causes two self driving vehicles to collide? That question is just a basic example of one of many thousands of scenarios being thrashed out by lawyers and actuaries.
Until tort law is not looked at as a lottery in the USA, a lot of this is just wishful thinking. Anyone in the US can file a lawsuit tying up not only the operator but everyone in the supply chain. (Think programmers who supplied just a couple lines of code.)
Look at the Drama for Tesla and the self driving option. They are getting flack in cases where the operator is clearly violating operating instructions, but, Tesla is still being dragged in.
Until tort law is not looked at as a lottery in the USA, a lot of this is just wishful thinking.
I do not know about tort law, but in the U.S., Japan and Europe government committees and standards organizations have been hammering out new laws and regulations to allow the use of self-driving cars. There is some international cooperation setting new standards. I think that by the time the cars emerge in large number, the laws will be ready to accommodate them. Insurance companies and police departments should be strongly supportive of these cars, because they will greatly reduce accidents, injuries and fatalities.
Basically the same idea of flywheel storage, and pumping water to high reservoirs: expending energy to store into mass as potential energy. At the end each solution has pros and cons, and its a matter of cost vs efficiency which ones will be preferred.
A gigantic grandfather clock! Like Big Ben.
US pledges to slash climate emissions
The United States has pledged to halve greenhouse-gas emissions by 2030, compared with 2005 levels, and aim for net-zero emissions by 2050. US President Joe Biden announced the commitment as he opened a virtual climate summit that is being attended by 40 world leaders. The target is roughly in line with recent commitments by the European Union and others. “There’s a long way to go, but I’m more optimistic than I was a few months ago,” says climate analyst Bill Hare.
Nature | 5 min read
There are lots of interesting potential energy storage schemes out there. Here's a couple of them:
That's great! It looks like something in a Japanese animated movie.
End of Lithium??
https://www.uq.edu.au/news/art…isbane-manufacturing-deal
Aluminum graphene battery. 70x faster charging...higher power density 3x live time.
https://www.renewableenergywor…elerating-analysis-shows/
QUOTES:
Roughly four-fifths of U.S. coal plants are either scheduled to close by 2025 or now cost more to operate than new nearby solar or wind power would, new research shows.
The May 5 analysis comes from Energy Innovation: Policy & Technology, based in San Francisco. The work highlights the accelerating pace of the clean energy transition, even aside from the social costs of coal plant pollution.
“Out of the 235 plants in the U.S. coal fleet, 182 plants, or 80 percent, are uneconomic or already retiring,” according to the report, which counted plants in service in 2018. Put another way, the share of total U.S. coal plant capacity from that year that won’t be competitive beyond the next few years has climbed from roughly five-eighths to three-fourths in just two years.
. . .
The levelized costs for new solar or wind are falling faster than previously anticipated, Gimon said. Those are all-in lifetime costs for a facility divided by its energy production.
Meanwhile, the capacity factor for existing coal plants fell to 40% last year, down from 53% in 2017. A lower capacity factor means plants are being run less often and not providing full output, which increases operating and capital costs.
If Dr. Barsoum from the US Navy is right (a big IF) then those coal
electric plants will be used even less...
The UK's coal plants are almost never used now- wind, solar, biomass (a disgrace) gas turbines and nuclear seem to do the job.
interesting development reported after few years of effort. Skip to the second half. It looks like indeed some signs of Searl effect. Neodymium core temperature dropped below zero
My daughter recharged a Nissan Leaf at a Walmart highway stop in Maryland, using a commercial charger from a company called Electrify America. Here is the statement, with notes by me in square brackets:
05/15/2021 1:28:07 PM
Charging pricing:
$0.43/kWh (pre-tax) [The average cost of electricity in Maryland is 13.22 cents/kWh, so this is marked up by a factor of 3.3. That seems reasonable to me, since they have to install and maintain equipment.]
Charging time: 00:30:19
Charging cost: $4.73
Idling: $0.00 ($0.00/min)
Paid idle time: 00:00
Grace period: 00:10 min
[I guess that means they don't want you leaving the car plugged in after it is fully charged.]
End state of charge: 97%
Total energy delivered: 11 kWh
Sales tax (6%):$0.28
Total paid: $5.01
[My daughter says 11 kWh is enough to drive ~40 miles on the highway. So that's 30 minutes to charge for 40 minutes of driving. Not a good equation. It was fine for where she was going, but not very practical. You see they will have to improve charging before electric cars are practical for long highway trips.
The cost works out to be 13 cents per mile, which is comparable to gasoline. The average car now gets 25 mpg, and the average cost of gasoline has been around $2.75 in recent years, so that is 11 cents per mile. As you see, the cost of electricity from your home charger is about 3 times less per mile. It is even cheaper if you sign up for a reduced rate at night and recharge overnight. In parts of Texas where they have lots of extra wind energy at night, the cost is zero. They charge a flat fee per month, plus they charge for daytime electricity.]
