QuoteSimon Marchaux's mini-nukes.

So after spending a few trillion to upgrade the transportation network what gets shipped?

If we have no diesel there is no bunker fuel.  Nothing is coming in from China.  Trade between American city states?  Chicago sends its laundry to Detroit and Detroit sends dirty laundry to Chicago.  What kind of economy is that.  If we do not know what the world will look like, how do we know what to build?  Have city workers put down video games and moved to the boondocks to do farmin?  The new world is a transformed world, and the interstate transport system has nothing to transport if they have not.

What happens when they don't want to stop playing video games and won't move to nowhere do farmin?

True that in the long term there will be much less being shipped around, but as long as we have people in cities in New York and Los Angeles and most of the food is grown in Iowa and Nebraska cornfields, the food needs to move around.

Once we hit the year of the Great Famine, when we have crop failures in say 2 of the main growing regions of the world like the midwest and SE Asia or Ukraine, all bets are off.  So many people will die in such a short period of time none of the big systems we have will survive, or be needed.  Same with a powerful pandemic (like Covid except 1000X worse).

However, as long as it remains a gradual shrinkage, we'll need to transition as much as possible from FFs to EV.  Far as shipping is concerned, those big container ships are ideal for powering with a nuke, we already do that with aircraft carriers.

Is it really plausible that we can build that many mini nuke reastors and mine up all the thorium salts needed to fuel them for powering the whole global transportation fleet land and sea?  Probably not, but we're supposed to not be negative and try to come up with solutions, right?  Not just throw up our hands and say we're mostly gonna die anyway and live like stone age H-Gs.  That's what I really think will happen, but I'm not supposed to say that because it's too Dr. McStinksion.

RE

I don't think a transition of the trucking fleet in the US (or anywhere else for that matter) is really on the cards barring some short distance local deliveries. The way trucks are used, the mileages they accumulate, the loads they carry just make an EV transition fanciful. People will stick with diesel for as long as possible.

If things start going south there won't be the money to fund any major investment in nuclear technology. And I am assuming there is the political will to do that which is far from certain considering the amount of people who are against nuclear energy. Also, nuclear energy production and their associated industries have a significant lead time.

Quote from: K-Dog on Feb 03, 2024, 08:39 PM

Quote"...  Trade between American city states?  Chicago sends its laundry to Detroit and Detroit sends dirty laundry to Chicago.  What kind of economy is that.  If we do not know what the world will look like, how do we know what to build? ..."

That pretty much sums up two thirds of the problem ... the other third being that we actually have a few clues as to what that world will look like ... but many just get shell shocked by them; others really just get truly butthurt by the realization of having been duped into believing a childish fantasy.

As if Teslas weren't unrealistic enough as the Future of Transportation, these so-called "next gen" EVs take the fantasies of rich technophiles to a whole new level.  As you might expect, the pricetags on all but one of them are stratospheric, and they boast performance specs that make a Ferrari ICE 12 cylinder look like a lawnmower engine.

You will positively puke when you listen to the advertising text that the narrator gushes out, as he practically has an orgasm describing the features of each of these vehicles.

There are some good concepts in here, a mini cargo vehicle system and a monorail vehicle that takes a standard railroad track and turns it into a bidirectional public transit system, but even these ideas are totally overwhelmed by impracticalities and outrageous pricetags.

Stuff looks great at the annual car show, and keeps a few lucky auto engineers who are probably related to the Ford family or Toyota family in a high paying job.  Otherwise, you'll never see them in production.  John DeLorean is smiling in his grave.


RE

The propaganda push back against EVs is now in full gear, as in addition to all the criticisms we have alreadt discussed of their viability which I mostly agree with, they have now added that besides that they are worse for the environment and more polluting than ICE wehicles, which I mostly do not agree with.  This is not pollution due to CO₂ emissions, but from particulates that wear off the polymer tires they use.  This is comparing apples and origins and is misleading even if it is true, which is doubtful.

What's the reason?  Is it the auto or oil companies trying to keep the public buying ICE cars?  I don't think so.  I think it's politicians who need to back off from their green energy mandates for a transition to EVs, which can't be met.  They need an excuse to do that, and claiming EVs are worse for the environment than ICE vehicles is the way to do that.  This makes being "green" but against EVs plausible to dumb ass J6P.  Totally transparent bullshit.

https://nypost.com/2024/03/05/business/evs-release-more-toxic-emissions-are-worse-for-the-environment-study/

Electric vehicles release more toxic emissions, are worse for the environment than gas-powered cars: study

RE

Quote from: RE on Mar 05, 2024, 10:25 PMElectric vehicles release more toxic emissions, are worse for the environment than gas-powered cars: study
RE

First OEM tires on my EV lasted 45K miles. What do tires on ICE powered machines last nowadays, significantly more? And the article might have missed the concept that on my EV, I rarely use the brakes. It is still on OEM pads and rotors, more than plenty of life on them. Turns out, you don't use your brakes very often on EVs. Instead you generate electricity, to put electrons back in the battery. The brake pedal itself, when applied, only puts more juice into the battery, except in a hard application. You've got a meter on the center console that tells you when you are just powering up the battery, or kicking over into needing friction brakes. It becomes a game. How few times can you NOT touch the brake pedal.

This isn't my first EV. My old one also went about 50-60k miles per set of tires. And after 170k miles, it still had OEM pads and rotors. Wonder how easy that is to achieve on an ICE machine.

As I said, this article is quite obviously propaganda to cover up the inability to achieve the stated goals for reduction of CO₂ emissions.  Even if they were true, which from your experience doesn't seem to be the case, the pollution they are being blamed for isn't CO₂ at all.  It's just a scare tactic to throw at greenies who think EVs are the Holy Grail and will solve their climate concerns.  They are not, but not because the tires wear out too fast, because they'll never be able to substitute for the current ICE fleet, nor will a charging network capable of handling such a substitution ever be built.  Nor will they ever be charged by all renewable energy.  Nuclear is conceivable, but the cost of building all the reactors and mining all the fissionable isotopes necessary is cost prohibitive.  There's still quite a bit of money to be made building these things though, which they will right up to SHTF day arrives, and never even get switched on to deliver their first nanowatt-microsecond of juice to your EV.

RE

Comparing tire and brake dust to tailpipe emissions.   

Somebody has way too much time on their hands.

Quote from: TDoS on Mar 06, 2024, 04:00 PM

Quote from: RE on Mar 05, 2024, 10:25 PMElectric vehicles release more toxic emissions, are worse for the environment than gas-powered cars: study
RE

First OEM tires on my EV lasted 45K miles. What do tires on ICE powered machines last nowadays, significantly more? And the article might have missed the concept that on my EV, I rarely use the brakes. It is still on OEM pads and rotors, more than plenty of life on them. Turns out, you don't use your brakes very often on EVs. Instead you generate electricity, to put electrons back in the battery. The brake pedal itself, when applied, only puts more juice into the battery, except in a hard application. You've got a meter on the center console that tells you when you are just powering up the battery, or kicking over into needing friction brakes. It becomes a game. How few times can you NOT touch the brake pedal.

This isn't my first EV. My old one also went about 50-60k miles per set of tires. And after 170k miles, it still had OEM pads and rotors. Wonder how easy that is to achieve on an ICE machine.

I don't understand this, on any drive you take the braking force used should be the same through the tires to the road surface regardless of EV braking or ICE rotor and pad braking. What am I missing? the exact same braking force is applied to the road surface is it not? The braking is done at the road surface.

Quote from: 18hammers on Mar 07, 2024, 01:01 PM

Quote from: TDoS on Mar 06, 2024, 04:00 PM

Quote from: RE on Mar 05, 2024, 10:25 PMElectric vehicles release more toxic emissions, are worse for the environment than gas-powered cars: study
RE

First OEM tires on my EV lasted 45K miles. What do tires on ICE powered machines last nowadays, significantly more? And the article might have missed the concept that on my EV, I rarely use the brakes. It is still on OEM pads and rotors, more than plenty of life on them. Turns out, you don't use your brakes very often on EVs. Instead you generate electricity, to put electrons back in the battery. The brake pedal itself, when applied, only puts more juice into the battery, except in a hard application. You've got a meter on the center console that tells you when you are just powering up the battery, or kicking over into needing friction brakes. It becomes a game. How few times can you NOT touch the brake pedal.

This isn't my first EV. My old one also went about 50-60k miles per set of tires. And after 170k miles, it still had OEM pads and rotors. Wonder how easy that is to achieve on an ICE machine.

I don't understand this, on any drive you take the braking force used should be the same through the tires to the road surface regardless of EV braking or ICE rotor and pad braking.

Quite correct. The braking force is the same, regardless of what it is putting drag on the tires, and the tires seem to wear no differently than other sedans and compacts I've owned, regardless of how much heavier than are. Maybe...if I squint...I can believe I lose a thousand miles or three on the EVs, but I have to squint, and really hard, and I'm stil not sure.

Quote from: 18hammersWhat am I missing? the exact same braking force is applied to the road surface is it not? The braking is done at the road surface.

You've got it right. One salient point made in the article is that EVs tend to be heavier than their normal ICE counterparts. Ergo it would seem normal if they used brakes and tires up slightly faster. Proves that the author has no clue about what can be used instead of brakes/rotors to slow the car down. That point doesn't change the wear on tires, but it changes the brake wear issue BIG time.

Quote from: TDoS on Mar 07, 2024, 03:32 PMThat point doesn't change the wear on tires, but it changes the brake wear issue BIG time.

Greater weight would translate to a higher coefficient of rolling and static friction, so when stopping or turning the friction between the tire and the asphalt would grind it down faster, along with grinding the asphalt and sending particulates into the atmosphere.

RE

Quote from: RE on Mar 07, 2024, 05:50 PM

Quote from: TDoS on Mar 07, 2024, 03:32 PMThat point doesn't change the wear on tires, but it changes the brake wear issue BIG time.

Greater weight would translate to a higher coefficient of rolling and static friction, so when stopping or turning the friction between the tire and the asphalt would grind it down faster, along with grinding the asphalt and sending particulates into the atmosphere.

RE

Yes, and this nonsense is turning out to be effective propaganda.  The sponsors of this bullshit got their money's worth.  I have seen an airhead denier quote the study about EV 'emissions' in a local Seattle forum.  We are used to people pontificating and not checking things out in the doomosphere.  But people on plain Jane forums like 'Nextdoor" check NOTHING out.  Facts, who needs them when opinions work fine.  So on it goes.

It all makes me think we are doomed.

Quote from: K-Dog on Mar 07, 2024, 10:58 PMIt all makes me think we are doomed.

And so we are.  What isn't clear is where that doom will take us, to extinction rapidly or more slowly, or to population knockdown and stabilization at some level, and then possible rebound, taking a few cycles before ending in extinction in an unknown number of cycles and years.  It could happen as fast maybe 10 years with Global Thermonuclear War or it could take 10,000 years as per the prophesy of Zager & Evans.  Theoretically it could take as much as 500 million years, when the Hydrogen on the Sun has been exhausted, it begins to expand into a Red Giant and the radiation level at the surface of the earth becomes inhospitable to any higher life forms, proceeding until a few of the hardiest forms of life like Tardigrades and other extremophiles that can survive around sulfur vents at the bottom of the ocean are the only living organisms remaining.  Once the sun expands enough and the oceans boil off, even the tardigrades won't be alive, but they can revive after being frozen in space when dropped back into a suitable environment.



The longer scenarios to extinction become unlikely because at some point the additional hazards of super volcanoes and asteroid impacts kick in, rare events but they do happen at regular intervals.  Yellowstone is overdue for another one, I think Toba is also.  I doubt we'll get that far though.

So, like having cancer from smoking, we have a terminal disease that is accelerating the timeline to death, but we don't know if it's a straight shot or if the cancer will go into remission yet.  In any case, life with cancer is much more unpleasant than when you were healthy, and some people would rather not live with cancer and prefer euthanasia as a choice.  Many smokers with cancer are told, "if you stop, you'll live longer", but they go right on smoking, because they are addicted and don't really want to keep living if they can't smoke.  That apparently describes the condition of our society, at this point any one with half a brain knows if we keep going on this road it's gonna kill us, but keep on anyhow because they're addicted to Happy Motoring and dishwashers and Hawaiian Vacations and don't want to give up the creature comforts they're used to.  So the society keeps gong until it drops dead.

We are Doomed, but for those of us who watch it progress, what is interesting is how the society does or does not react to the impending doom.  It's interesting also to observe each new manifestation of collapse as it reveals itself.  Some things evident now were not apparent in 2012 when I opened the original Doomsted Diner to offer the Daily Special dish of doom, like the falling birthrate and depopulation.  Then, the main worry was overpopulation.  Problems with EVs like low resale value were not forseen.  The list goes on and on.

The frustrating part for the activist who would like to see the progress toward doom slowed or even halted is like the doctor who can't get the smoker to quit.  "You're killing yourself, you fucking idiot!" he screams, to no avail.  I'm not a doctor.  I'm a researcher investigating how the cancer progresses.  Sadly of course, there will be nobody around to read the research when it's finished, and few read it now anyhow.  So it goes.

RE

QuoteSadly of course, there will be nobody around to read the research when it's finished, and few read it now anyhow.  So it goes.

And when your post is deleted by the men in black, few becomes ZERO.



I had to restore yesterdays posts.  We were hit again.  You and Knarf were both victims, but I restored what was deleted.

Seems the powers that be are hell bent on radicalizing the radicals. 



Do you feel your volume being turned up?  I do!