Sub's Alternative Energy Thread

[Atxshoxfan]

Incorrect. If you replaced all the gasoline cars/busses/trucks from a random major city with electric, you would notice an immediate large, not negligible, improvement in local air quality. The improvement in noise pollution would be even greater.

There still is legitimate debate over the ultimate/total/lifetime environmental cost of processing batteries vs. dinosaurs. It's clear we are heading in the right direction for the future.

Subsidies are bad.

Electric cars are FUN!

Anyone Who believes the crap you do is about as believable as Dumbo.

[C0|dB|00ded]

50 years from now when there's nothing but electric vehicles...The air quality is better than it has ever been LA and NYC. Yet there's so much toxic waste disposed of in Kansas that the average lifespan is 55 years.

If you're looking at it from a total lifetime environmental cost then there's no point in calling attention to the localized advantages. This sounds like robbing Peter to pay Paul.

I hope we charge 'em billions to dump their toxic waste (in western Ks.), our economy could sure use it.

[SubGod22]

A potential future fuel source that is clean and renewable. It's a ways a way, but it's an interesting tech if they can continue to increase its efficiency.

Revolutionary New Clean Fuel Developed that Could See Cars Being Powered by Sunshine

An environmentally clean fuel made from the power of the sun has been devised by scientists which could revolutionize motoring.

The solar-powered technology converts carbon dioxide and water into liquid fuels that can be directly dropped into a vehicle’s engine.

The researchers from the University of Cambridge harnessed the power of photosynthesis to convert CO2, water, and sunlight into multi-carbon fuels—ethanol and propanol—in a single step.

These fuels have a high energy density and can be easily stored or transported, according to scientists whose work was published in Nature Energy.

“Shining sunlight on the artificial leaves and getting liquid fuel from carbon dioxide and water is an amazing bit of chemistry,” said Dr. Motiar Rahaman, the new study’s first author.

“Normally, when you try to convert CO2 into another chemical product, you almost always get carbon monoxide or syngas, but here, we’ve been able to produce a practical liquid fuel just using the power of the Sun.”

They managed this by developing a copper and palladium-based catalyst, optimized to allow the artificial leaf to produce more complex chemicals.

Unlike fossil fuels, these solar fuels produce net zero carbon emissions and are completely renewable—and unlike most bioethanol, they do not divert any agricultural land away from food production, experts said.

It's conceptually interesting and like most new things, will take time to improve upon. But it's still pretty cool to see the different avenues that may end up being the future.

[SubGod22]

Are electric vehicles, and other powerful lithium batteries really ready for Prime Time? Besides being very expensive, difficult to dispose of, and without infrastructure to re-charge, they are dangerous. They don't require a "vehicle crash" to ignite. Are we only a half a decade away from doing away with Internal combustion engines?

Lithium-ion batteries caused an electric Wichita city bus to catch fire early Wednesday morning, making it the second time in a week fire officials have attributed a damaging fire to such batteries. The bus damage is estimated at $650,000. It’s a growing problem nationwide, so much that it will be the topic during a national fire convention next month.

https://www.kansas.com/news/local/article275502066.html

Working for a company that has some connection to some of these types of jobs from time to time, I just learned that the City of Wichita didn't go through a company specializing in this sort of tech and essentially retrofit a gas powered bus with parts bought off of Amazon and put it together. Also bought the charging unit off of Amazon rather than going through a company that specializes in these sorts of things.

So this incident may have had less to do with the actual tech and more to do with the City trying to do it on the cheap and failing to do it properly.

[SubGod22]

Another interesting potential form of generating a non-polluting electricity.

Generating Electricity Out of Moisture in the Air Is Becoming Increasingly Possible, Even in the Sahara Desert

A totally science-fiction device developed by scientists in Massachusetts would allow people to pull electricity out of thin air.

Back in 2020, GNN reported on an exciting experimental technology called Air-gen.

It used a protein nanowire film derived from the bacteria species Geobacter sandwiched between two electrodes that could generate electricity via the humidity absorbed within the fine pores of the film.

Now, the team from Univ. of Massachusetts Amhurst has made another breakthrough in this Air-gen technology.

“What we realized after making the Geobacter discovery is the ability to generate electricity from the air—what we then called the ‘Air-gen effect’—turns out to be generic,” explains Amhurst Professor Jun Yao.

“Literally any kind of material can harvest electricity from the air—as long as it has a certain property. It just needs to have holes smaller than 100 nm (nanometers)—or less than a thousandth of the width of a human hair.”

No need for sun or wind. Works indoors. Low cost, non-polluting, and renewable.

Another potentially exciting source to follow.

[pinstripers]

https://twitter.com/TonyClimate/status/1662276814650343426

beaches to disappear

[Atxshoxfan]

https://twitter.com/TonyClimate/stat...76814650343426

beaches to disappear

They've been preaching this crap since at least the 50s. Some folks are getting very rich off of your tax dollars in order to overcome this BS.
John Kerry is just a freckle on the ass of the scammers. How many companies took millions and billions of tax dollars, only to close shop within a year or two after getting their big pay days.


And by the way, now it's not just the beaches in danger. According to AOC all of mankind only has about 8 years left.

[Atxshoxfan]

Another interesting potential form of generating a non-polluting electricity.

Generating Electricity Out of Moisture in the Air Is Becoming Increasingly Possible, Even in the Sahara Desert



No need for sun or wind. Works indoors. Low cost, non-polluting, and renewable.

Another potentially exciting source to follow.

While I'm not a believer of global warming, I'm pro alternative energy in a free market and not government mandated sort of way. I can't get on board with wind generation because I've seen the landscapes in our country become polluted with thousands of wind turbines in areas of the country. Wind generation requires wind, which is not always available and is not reliable in freezing temps as the turbines freeze. Solar requires sunlight, which is not always available either. So both of these would require storage systems (batteries), which are going to ruin landscapes by mining the minerals and then disposal of those batteries at their end of life.

But this method is intriguing. I put a pencil to the info I found on it and it appears that 3in x 3in panel can generate about 1 volt at a humidity level of 50%. So if I'm doing my math correctly, that means 1ft x 1ft panel would generate about 16VDC. And a 3ft x 1ft would be about 48VDC which is enough to power a golf cart. So all of this seems doable, but the questions I have are 1- are the minerals and goods required to build these readily available? 2-at what expense in terms of money and destruction of our landscape? 3- What is the life of these devices? 4- If these actually use the moisture (suck it up) and leave the air around it dry, what happens when we have millions of homes and vehicles in an area, sucking up all the moisture? Does our grass and other plant life die? Just curious, because it sounds like something I could get behind .

[wufan]

While I'm not a believer of global warming, I'm pro alternative energy in a free market and not government mandated sort of way. I can't get on board with wind generation because I've seen the landscapes in our country become polluted with thousands of wind turbines in areas of the country. Wind generation requires wind, which is not always available and is not reliable in freezing temps as the turbines freeze. Solar requires sunlight, which is not always available either. So both of these would require storage systems (batteries), which are going to ruin landscapes by mining the minerals and then disposal of those batteries at their end of life.

But this method is intriguing. I put a pencil to the info I found on it and it appears that 3in x 3in panel can generate about 1 volt at a humidity level of 50%. So if I'm doing my math correctly, that means 1ft x 1ft panel would generate about 16VDC. And a 3ft x 1ft would be about 48VDC which is enough to power a golf cart. So all of this seems doable, but the questions I have are 1- are the minerals and goods required to build these readily available? 2-at what expense in terms of money and destruction of our landscape? 3- What is the life of these devices? 4- If these actually use the moisture (suck it up) and leave the air around it dry, what happens when we have millions of homes and vehicles in an area, sucking up all the moisture? Does our grass and other plant life die? Just curious, because it sounds like something I could get behind .

My take is that human population centers generate heat through building and various emissions. This heating is localized, but does have some impact on a global scale. The combined warming effect is negligible on a global scale and there is no danger now or in the next 200 years,

We need to be good stewards and not pollute the air we breathe or the water we drink. As to the beauty of the landscape, I actually find windmills to be an aesthetic positive, similar to a city skyline. Hydroelectric damns and select deforestation create new ecosystems which are also a net positive IMO.

[Atxshoxfan]

These are aesthetically pleasing? No way.

[ShockTalk]

My take is that human population centers generate heat through building and various emissions. This heating is localized, but does have some impact on a global scale. The combined warming effect is negligible on a global scale and there is no danger now or in the next 200 years,

We need to be good stewards and not pollute the air we breathe or the water we drink. As to the beauty of the landscape, I actually find windmills to be an aesthetic positive, similar to a city skyline. Hydroelectric damns and select deforestation create new ecosystems which are also a net positive IMO.

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[wufan]

These are aesthetically pleasing? No way.

No those are not. I like the ones on the way to Hays and in Beaumont.

[wufan]

Here’s one in the Smokey hills.

[WstateU]

Jane doesn’t qualify for the “Favorite Candy” thread…

Jane Fonda blames 'White men' for climate crisis, calls to 'arrest and jail' them

https://www.foxnews.com/media/jane-f...ls-arrest-jail

[pinstripers]

If you have ever been close to a wind tower, or have lived near one, then your opinion matters.