Will Electric Vehicles Be Viable? When?

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DChemTech
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Re: Will Electric Vehicles Be Viable? When?

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Andres125sx wrote:
04 Jul 2021, 13:25
Tommy Cookers wrote:
03 Jul 2021, 12:36
proven 'natural weather changes' (in NW Europe) take decades/centuries not 'hundreds of thousands of years'

seemingly the most recent has been conveniently kidnapped by talkers-up of man-made warming (their 1850 start date)
having switched to 1850 as the start of the industrialisation they ignore the prior cooling apparent in 1800-1850
Decades? No way, provide some source please


What cooling are you refering to in 1800-1850?
I guess more the cooling prior to 1800, the so-called little ice-age. Even though that was most likely a local cooling (of the northern hemisphere), rather than a global cooling effect. It started to level-off in 1800, and then the global impact of rising CO2 emissions quickly kicked in to reverse the cooling trend into heating. The cooling may or may not have continued after 1800 were human-caused CO2 emissions absent, but the rapid rise in CO2 concentrations (and subsequently temperature) for sure decisively ended it after, and there's no doubt that's on humanity. There's certainly no coverup or convenient choice of date at play here, there's a good reason the ending of the minor cooling trend (whatever the exact cause was) ended with the onset of industrialization.

J.A.W.
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Joined: 01 Sep 2014, 05:10
Location: Altair IV.

Re: Will Electric Vehicles Be Viable? When?

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DChemTech wrote:
04 Jul 2021, 13:53
Andres125sx wrote:
04 Jul 2021, 13:25
Tommy Cookers wrote:
03 Jul 2021, 12:36
proven 'natural weather changes' (in NW Europe) take decades/centuries not 'hundreds of thousands of years'

seemingly the most recent has been conveniently kidnapped by talkers-up of man-made warming (their 1850 start date)
having switched to 1850 as the start of the industrialisation they ignore the prior cooling apparent in 1800-1850
Decades? No way, provide some source please


What cooling are you refering to in 1800-1850?
I guess more the cooling prior to 1800, the so-called little ice-age. Even though that was most likely a local cooling (of the northern hemisphere), rather than a global cooling effect. It started to level-off in 1800, and then the global impact of rising CO2 emissions quickly kicked in to reverse the cooling trend into heating. The cooling may or may not have continued after 1800 were human-caused CO2 emissions absent, but the rapid rise in CO2 concentrations (and subsequently temperature) for sure decisively ended it after, and there's no doubt that's on humanity. There's certainly no coverup or convenient choice of date at play here, there's a good reason the ending of the minor cooling trend (whatever the exact cause was) ended with the onset of industrialization.
Well, not quite, since a single moderately-sized volcanic eruption on the other side of our planet in 1815
was sufficient to cause a significant 'climate change event' in Europe, with -ve impacts on agriculture
due to the cooling effect of high-level volcanic ejecta/albedo reflectivity on IR-to-UV light spectra,
plus 'acid rain' fall-out to boot: https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... r-excerpt/

Of course since we are now in the 'Anthropocene Epoch' - humanity has the means to mitigate/manipulate
atmospheric gas % by tech-means, sans 'green' stupidities, proactively - just as the the WW2 'Manhattan'
nuclear weapon/B-29 delivery systems were 'fast tracked' as a 'needs must' project ~80 years ago...
"Well, we knocked the bastard off!"

Ed Hilary on being 1st to top Mt Everest,
(& 1st to do a surface traverse across Antarctica,
in good Kiwi style - riding a Massey Ferguson farm
tractor - with a few extemporised mod's to hack the task).

Greg Locock
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Joined: 30 Jun 2012, 00:48

Re: Will Electric Vehicles Be Viable? When?

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Some time between 1100 and 1900 it got very cold. The exact date depends which strand of spaghetti you trust, 1710 is often quoted

http://cdn.antarcticglaciers.org/wp-con ... arison.png

Image

Brake Horse Power
18
Joined: 25 Oct 2017, 21:36

Re: Will Electric Vehicles Be Viable? When?

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The red line is visually the most present, but what is the average assumption isn’t really clear. Besides that, stretch the x of the graph to *2100* and put in the IPCC projection of the temperature anomaly.. the Y of the graph will be way to small to fit in the new point. Which pretty much sums it up. The graph before 1850 is in the range of 1 degree, towards 2100 with current behavior we are looking at some 4 degrees.
Last edited by Brake Horse Power on 05 Jul 2021, 12:09, edited 1 time in total.

DChemTech
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Joined: 25 Mar 2019, 11:31
Location: Delft, NL

Re: Will Electric Vehicles Be Viable? When?

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J.A.W. wrote:
04 Jul 2021, 15:04
Well, not quite, since a single moderately-sized volcanic eruption on the other side of our planet in 1815
was sufficient to cause a significant 'climate change event' in Europe, with -ve impacts on agriculture
due to the cooling effect of high-level volcanic ejecta/albedo reflectivity on IR-to-UV light spectra,
plus 'acid rain' fall-out to boot: https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... r-excerpt/

Of course since we are now in the 'Anthropocene Epoch' - humanity has the means to mitigate/manipulate
atmospheric gas % by tech-means, sans 'green' stupidities, proactively - just as the the WW2 'Manhattan'
nuclear weapon/B-29 delivery systems were 'fast tracked' as a 'needs must' project ~80 years ago...
Volcanic eruptions are quite interesting in that their Aerosol emissions can have a steep, imminent and global effect. But it typically doesn't last very long, a couple of years and the effect is gone. 1991-1992 had a similar dip, which had an influence for ~5 years.

DChemTech
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Location: Delft, NL

Re: Will Electric Vehicles Be Viable? When?

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Brake Horse Power wrote:
05 Jul 2021, 08:49
The red line is visually the most present, but what is the average assumption isn’t really clear. Besides that, stretch the x of the graph to 2021 and put in the IPCC projection of the temperature anomaly.. the Y of the graph will be way to small to fit in the new point. Which pretty much sums it up. The graph before 1850 is in the range of 1 degree, towards 2100 with current behavior we are looking at some 4 degrees.
Yep, there's a lot about that graph that is up for discussion. Averaging unclear, error margins not shown... what is the location, also? Is it a single spot, or average of multiple locations? Local climate can change much more severely than global. It also ends at 2004; right now, we are well over 1 degC of warming compared to pre-industrial. And, the 'big' medieval oscillation shown here is around +/- 0.4 degC. A whole different level than the 4.0 degC in 100 years that we're heading for now...

DChemTech
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Location: Delft, NL

Re: Will Electric Vehicles Be Viable? When?

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Zynerji wrote:
03 Jul 2021, 14:27

I mean, with CAS9 and CRSPR tech, why not work on engineering trees/corn that consume 10x more CO2 during their life cycle? I can't believe that no one has thought of it, because there is no money to be made from it. Pine trees that grow 10x faster, and sequester 10x CO2 and then provide cheap building supplies would be a win/win/win.
Whenever one says "I can't believe noone has thought of it", it is probably time for some reflection. Most likely people have thought of it, but there are good reasons it's not out there yet. When you learn the rough potential of new technologies (like CRISPR), the possibilities seem endless. It takes learning the details to know where the limits are. Now, I don't know what the physiological limits are for growth in these species, but for sure, at some point transport & thermodynamics will start to become a limiting factor (in essence, how much nutrients are needed for growth & energy, and how to get them where they are needed inside the organism). You can engineer to speed up transport to some extend, thermodynamics are a hard limit. And anyhow, 'higher order functions' involving complex networks of genetic activity are extremely hard to unravel and engineer. So currently, when people want something that grows fast, they generally resort to a crop that has evolved to grow fast.

And even then, the amount you can store is proportional to the surface area you can cover, which is limited. Beyond that you can start growing & harvesting for material/burning crops for energy (with CCS, preferably), which is a fine idea if done sustainably (meaning, you harvest no faster than you grow, ton for ton), but also seems to piss off a lot of people, because people also decided to start harvesting older forests under the guise of 'sustainable bio-energy' and ruining biodiversity with that.

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Zynerji
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Re: Will Electric Vehicles Be Viable? When?

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DChemTech wrote:
05 Jul 2021, 09:31
Zynerji wrote:
03 Jul 2021, 14:27

I mean, with CAS9 and CRSPR tech, why not work on engineering trees/corn that consume 10x more CO2 during their life cycle? I can't believe that no one has thought of it, because there is no money to be made from it. Pine trees that grow 10x faster, and sequester 10x CO2 and then provide cheap building supplies would be a win/win/win.
Whenever one says "I can't believe noone has thought of it", it is probably time for some reflection. Most likely people have thought of it, but there are good reasons it's not out there yet. When you learn the rough potential of new technologies (like CRISPR), the possibilities seem endless. It takes learning the details to know where the limits are. Now, I don't know what the physiological limits are for growth in these species, but for sure, at some point transport & thermodynamics will start to become a limiting factor (in essence, how much nutrients are needed for growth & energy, and how to get them where they are needed inside the organism). You can engineer to speed up transport to some extend, thermodynamics are a hard limit. And anyhow, 'higher order functions' involving complex networks of genetic activity are extremely hard to unravel and engineer. So currently, when people want something that grows fast, they generally resort to a crop that has evolved to grow fast.

And even then, the amount you can store is proportional to the surface area you can cover, which is limited. Beyond that you can start growing & harvesting for material/burning crops for energy (with CCS, preferably), which is a fine idea if done sustainably (meaning, you harvest no faster than you grow, ton for ton), but also seems to piss off a lot of people, because people also decided to start harvesting older forests under the guise of 'sustainable bio-energy' and ruining biodiversity with that.
So, did you say something? I see lots of words, but little meaning.

DChemTech
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Joined: 25 Mar 2019, 11:31
Location: Delft, NL

Re: Will Electric Vehicles Be Viable? When?

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Zynerji wrote:
05 Jul 2021, 12:29
DChemTech wrote:
05 Jul 2021, 09:31
Zynerji wrote:
03 Jul 2021, 14:27

I mean, with CAS9 and CRSPR tech, why not work on engineering trees/corn that consume 10x more CO2 during their life cycle? I can't believe that no one has thought of it, because there is no money to be made from it. Pine trees that grow 10x faster, and sequester 10x CO2 and then provide cheap building supplies would be a win/win/win.
Whenever one says "I can't believe noone has thought of it", it is probably time for some reflection. Most likely people have thought of it, but there are good reasons it's not out there yet. When you learn the rough potential of new technologies (like CRISPR), the possibilities seem endless. It takes learning the details to know where the limits are. Now, I don't know what the physiological limits are for growth in these species, but for sure, at some point transport & thermodynamics will start to become a limiting factor (in essence, how much nutrients are needed for growth & energy, and how to get them where they are needed inside the organism). You can engineer to speed up transport to some extend, thermodynamics are a hard limit. And anyhow, 'higher order functions' involving complex networks of genetic activity are extremely hard to unravel and engineer. So currently, when people want something that grows fast, they generally resort to a crop that has evolved to grow fast.

And even then, the amount you can store is proportional to the surface area you can cover, which is limited. Beyond that you can start growing & harvesting for material/burning crops for energy (with CCS, preferably), which is a fine idea if done sustainably (meaning, you harvest no faster than you grow, ton for ton), but also seems to piss off a lot of people, because people also decided to start harvesting older forests under the guise of 'sustainable bio-energy' and ruining biodiversity with that.
So, did you say something? I see lots of words, but little meaning.
Why the condescending response? I'm just saying that quite certainly people are thinking of such options, but there are good reasons they are not working on it (or if they are, haven't achieved anything close to it).

Brake Horse Power
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Joined: 25 Oct 2017, 21:36

Re: Will Electric Vehicles Be Viable? When?

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Zynerji wrote:
03 Jul 2021, 14:30
And PS:

I'm a big fan of converting decommissioned submarines into off-shore, underwater, anchored Nuclear powerplants that are operated from the shore.
This is not the solution, just look at how many nucleair subs go out of service and compare their power (100-180MW) to global energy demand. It is just a drop on a hot plate.

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Zynerji
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Re: Will Electric Vehicles Be Viable? When?

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Brake Horse Power wrote:
05 Jul 2021, 13:50
Zynerji wrote:
03 Jul 2021, 14:30
And PS:

I'm a big fan of converting decommissioned submarines into off-shore, underwater, anchored Nuclear powerplants that are operated from the shore.
This is not the solution, just look at how many nucleair subs go out of service and compare their power (100-180MW) to global energy demand. It is just a drop on a hot plate.
Have you been in one? The space that is vacated by the missile silos is very significant. A larger reactor could be installed and provide much more power than just the subs reactor.

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Zynerji
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Re: Will Electric Vehicles Be Viable? When?

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DChemTech wrote:
05 Jul 2021, 12:36
Zynerji wrote:
05 Jul 2021, 12:29
DChemTech wrote:
05 Jul 2021, 09:31


Whenever one says "I can't believe noone has thought of it", it is probably time for some reflection. Most likely people have thought of it, but there are good reasons it's not out there yet. When you learn the rough potential of new technologies (like CRISPR), the possibilities seem endless. It takes learning the details to know where the limits are. Now, I don't know what the physiological limits are for growth in these species, but for sure, at some point transport & thermodynamics will start to become a limiting factor (in essence, how much nutrients are needed for growth & energy, and how to get them where they are needed inside the organism). You can engineer to speed up transport to some extend, thermodynamics are a hard limit. And anyhow, 'higher order functions' involving complex networks of genetic activity are extremely hard to unravel and engineer. So currently, when people want something that grows fast, they generally resort to a crop that has evolved to grow fast.

And even then, the amount you can store is proportional to the surface area you can cover, which is limited. Beyond that you can start growing & harvesting for material/burning crops for energy (with CCS, preferably), which is a fine idea if done sustainably (meaning, you harvest no faster than you grow, ton for ton), but also seems to piss off a lot of people, because people also decided to start harvesting older forests under the guise of 'sustainable bio-energy' and ruining biodiversity with that.
So, did you say something? I see lots of words, but little meaning.
Why the condescending response? I'm just saying that quite certainly people are thinking of such options, but there are good reasons they are not working on it (or if they are, haven't achieved anything close to it).
I fear that "those reasons" are because actually SOLVING the problem is the last thing they want to do. Better to have an unsolvable problem that they can use long-term to whip emotions for funding and votes.

Slandering Scientists? Nah, just the people that fund them.

DChemTech
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Joined: 25 Mar 2019, 11:31
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Re: Will Electric Vehicles Be Viable? When?

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Zynerji wrote:
05 Jul 2021, 14:02
I fear that "those reasons" are because actually SOLVING the problem is the last thing they want to do. Better to have an unsolvable problem that they can use long-term to whip emotions for funding and votes.
To be open, I downvoted your post, because now you are essentially slandering the entire worldwide scientific community with unsubstantiated accusation, and with that, you are personally attacking me and my colleagues. I did not downvote your other post (and have never used the word 'snark' in my life).

There is a lot wrong with academic funding, and with measuring academic impact by publications and citations. I will be the first to acknowledge that. However, I vehemently disagree with your accusation that the scientific community deliberately leaves problems unsolved for personal gain. I myself left industry and rejoined academia, in part because I want to be more on the forefront of development (whereas industry can be somewhat conservative), and I want to be addressing real world problems without always directly having profits and costs in mind. And I know many colleagues are driven by a similar desire to solve problems. We're not in it for the money. Hell, if I was, I would have stayed in industry - which offers a certain, higher, faster growing salary, and wherein I do not need to compete for research funding (because remember, funding is for research expenses, not for the scientists own benefit.). And for those that are in it for fame - nobel prizes are more easily earned by actually solving problems.

It's easy to say "why don't you just use CRISPR to speed up X". But you need to realize that nature has limits, and that CRISPR is no magic bullet that allows us to break those limits. We can use CRISPR to make crops more resilient, more nutritious, more efficient. And with that, sure, we can probably speed up things a bit here and there as well. But we can't do magic - and a 10x speedup in growth is pretty much that. Even if within thermodynamics and transport limitations such a gain would be possible, it is extremely complex to realize, as growth is a rather fundamental aspect that requires orchestrated action from many genes, and we simply do not understand physiological responses to a degree where we can effectively alter such actions. That applies to plants as well as humans. We can probably engineer away some single-mutation diseases in fetuses, like sickle-cell disease or so, but we cannot effectively alter IQ or tackle schizophrenia, as many genes are involved, and we don't have a clue of how their mutual interaction affects the total picture.

(addition: another line of reasoning in this would be: "If CRISPR could speed up growth of crop X by a factor 10, why do we not see it in nature?". Nature has been optimizing organisms to their environment for many millions of years, and eventually, those that win are those that outcompete other organisms in a given niche, i.e. those that can utilize nutrients more efficiently and grow more rapidly. Now nature is not perfect, and there is always room for improvement, but it quite unlikely that a factor 10 improvement is achievable yet no organism has been capable to exploit some of that) .
Last edited by DChemTech on 05 Jul 2021, 14:41, edited 1 time in total.

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Zynerji
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Re: Will Electric Vehicles Be Viable? When?

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DChemTech wrote:
05 Jul 2021, 14:26
Zynerji wrote:
05 Jul 2021, 14:02
I fear that "those reasons" are because actually SOLVING the problem is the last thing they want to do. Better to have an unsolvable problem that they can use long-term to whip emotions for funding and votes.
To be open, I downvoted your post, because now you are essentially slandering the entire worldwide scientific community with unsubstantiated accusation, and with that, you are personally attacking me and my colleagues. I did not downvote your other post (and have never used the word 'snark' in my life).

There is a lot wrong with academic funding, and with measuring academic impact by publications and citations. I will be the first to acknowledge that. However, I vehemently disagree with your accusation that the scientific community deliberately leaves problems unsolved for personal gain. I myself left industry and rejoined academia, in part because I want to be more on the forefront of development (whereas industry can be somewhat conservative), and I want to be addressing real world problems without always directly having profits and costs in mind. And I know many colleagues are driven by a similar desire to solve problems. We're not in it for the money. Hell, if I was, I would have stayed in industry - which offers a certain, higher, faster growing salary, and wherein I do not need to compete for research funding (because remember, funding is for research expenses, not for the scientists own benefit.). And for those that are in it for fame - nobel prizes are more easily earned by actually solving problems.

It's easy to say "why don't you just use CRISPR to speed up X". But you need to realize that nature has limits, and that CRISPR is no magic bullet that allows us to break those limits. We can use CRISPR to make crops more resilient, more nutritious, more efficient. And with that, sure, we can probably speed up things a bit here and there as well. But we can't do magic - and a 10x speedup in growth is pretty much that. Even if within thermodynamics and transport limitations such a gain would be possible, it is extremely complex to realize, as growth is a rather fundamental aspect that requires orchestrated action from many genes, and we simply do not understand physiological responses to a degree where we can effectively alter such actions. That applies to plants as well as humans. We can probably engineer away some single-mutation diseases in fetuses, like sickle-cell disease or so, but we cannot effectively alter IQ or tackle schizophrenia, as many genes are involved, and we don't have a clue of how their mutual interaction affects the total picture.
I mean, they are pulling the DNA repair gene out of Whales and splicing it into other lifeforms. Why cant they take the gene that makes dandelions grow 100% overnight and put it into a tree?

( I know this is flippant and simplistic, but unfortunately, in the world of funding, it has to be a marketable outcome, and solving problems is waaaay less profitable than producing a Sovereign Specific.)

DChemTech
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Re: Will Electric Vehicles Be Viable? When?

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Because a typical dandelion weighs a couple of grams, and a typical tree some tonnes? That's what I mean with nutrient limitations - you need to get all the material to 'build' a tree in one place, and make sure all the chemical transformations can be conducted within a given timeframe. At some point, you cannot physically achieve that anymore. On average, trees grow by about 100 kg a year - so some 0.3 kg/day (and probably over 1 kg/day in growth season). That's much more than a single dandelion adds overnight, but on the whole of a tree, it's hardly noticeable.
And, as said, it's probably not a single gene that's responsible for growth, but an orchestration of hundreds. That is not to say there are no possibilities to enhance growth, and in some settings even with a single mutation in that orchestration. There are, and these are being researched. But not orders of magnitude.
Last edited by DChemTech on 05 Jul 2021, 14:50, edited 1 time in total.

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