[RE]

Not bad for a guess but your numbers are way off. The level 1 charger on a Tesla is roughly 1200 watts or 4 to 5 miles per hour. You would not use a level one charger on solar with a large array you would use a level 2 at 30 amps at 240 volts for roughly 25 to 30 miles of charge per hour. If I was designing it I would do a 3kw array feeding to the grid for an electric car driving roughly 10000 miles a year. If the were off grid I would want to boost the array size to 5000 watts just for the car portion. I end up charging about 3 dollars Canadian per watt so roughly 15000 for the array required to run the car

Just had the numbers provided by Google,  I figured you would come back with a more accurate figure. 30A 240V is 7200W, how much do those inverters go for?  How much for the wiring from the array to the garage?  How much for the installation on roof and off roof on scaffolding?  How many sq feet does it take up?  How much for the grid tie in  and licensing?  How much to set it on motors to track the sun?

In any event, it is cheaper than my Google estimate, and for 25-30 mi/hr of charging, time is 2 5 hour days of charging for a 250-300 mi range.  Still need the sunny days, still can't use the car during the time of day you need to be charging it.

As I see it, EVs make great commuter cars as long as the workplace parking has plug-ins.  However, this then puts the charging load on the grid unless said workplace has an array big enough to charge all the employee Teslas simultaneously.  I wonder if even Tesla HQ has an array that big?

RE

Edit:  You're proposing 3kw  of power, not 7200w.  So the charging time is more than twice as long, about the 5 days I originally calculated.]

[Nearings Fault]

You start getting into units there; Watts versus Watt Hours. The level 2 charger is 7200 watts. The proposed grid connected array was 3000 watts. The numbers are not power just peak draw or production... So average per hour array production is roughly 3 hours per day so 9000 watt hours per day everyday,So roughly 30-50 miles per day of production. Grid connected that means it doesn't matter if you are there or not. That is why the off-grid array would be larger since you want more bang for your buck while the car is there. If you are driving more than 50 miles a day you need a lifestyle change.

[RE]

If you are driving more than 50 miles a day you need a lifestyle change.

Agreed 100% there.  All I am really trying to demonstrate is how unrealistic the fantasy model is that we can transition over to EVs and power them with renewables and maintain the suburban model of living.  It's not just the pricetag, it uses too much energy.  A typical New York commuter who lives on Long Island or in NJ drives 50 mile each way into Manhattan every day.  People who live around cities like Austin or Atlanta drive even further.

After that you have the kids being shipped back and forth to school, all the soccer moms playing chauffer  and UPS trucks driving to everybody's McMansion to drop off the latest online impulse buy from Amazon.

The techno solution crowd sell the idea we can keep all this going with zero emissions by 2035 if we just expand and upgrade the grid and drop solar pv arrays on every subdivision in Connecticut.  People believe this and will keep believing it right up till the brownouts hit every day and they start rotating blackouts to ration the juice.

Nothing short of a complete lifestyle change will suffice, but there's no housing model to replace the suburban dwellings.  Can't move all those people back to the city, they're already short of housing.  Can't move them out to the boonies, there isn't enough work out there.

Rock, meet Hard Place.

RE

[Nearings Fault]

Hard to argue with any of that. I decided that I would work on the solutions which work and I want to see in the world. Just because people are being sold the green business as usual model does not mean that that model emerges or even should emerge. If 10 years from now millions of people have solar arrays with battery backup and electric cars that is a good thing. What they do with them at that point is up to them.aybe they create a world for themselves involving less stuff and commuting and waste. We do not know what happens next.

[RE]

Hard to argue with any of that. I decided that I would work on the solutions which work and I want to see in the world. Just because people are being sold the green business as usual model does not mean that that model emerges or even should emerge. If 10 years from now millions of people have solar arrays with battery backup and electric cars that is a good thing. What they do with them at that point is up to them.aybe they create a world for themselves involving less stuff and commuting and waste. We do not know what happens next.

I'm all for prepping up best you can of course, and if you are amongst the lucky few with income enough to afford these techno marvels and have a type of work you can pursue within 25 miles of your home in a rural location, that's great.  The problem of course is one of numbers, and because such a limited subset of the population is in a position to achieve this level of resilience you end up with the social problems that upset the apple cart.

Just as a rising tide will lift all boats, so an ebbing tide will bring them all down.  At the risk of laying on the metaphors too thick, no man is an island.    Once a critical mass within a given country no longer has regular access to the energy that allows them to access and store food, to have lights to read by and keep the streets safe, to transport themselves to the workplace, one domino after the other begins to fall.  The businesses that relied on people who commuted to them fail from lack of personnel, the products and services they provided no longer are available, the economy collapses and even if you're out in the boonies with a charged up EV, there's no place to drive to still open for bizness.  Nowhere to buy the supplies you need to run your own bizness, no food superstores with anything on the shelf, no money that works to buy anything.

What percentage of the population has to be without sufficient energy for these basics of lights, food acquisition and storage and transportation for the cascade failure begins to spread through the society?  I'd wager less than 50%, but I would be surprised if we could even get 20% of the population up to your level, which at the moment doesn't include an EV car.  As I recall, your plan is to use Wood Gas for the transportation energy needs.

So, you and other Doomers with an equivalent level of preparation should do better than most, but the real question is what happens to the society surrounding you?  How does that reform and reconfigure, and can you stay insulated and removed from the chaos surrounding you?  What comes after?

Unanswerable questions of course, but still worth considering what part you would play, since your goal here is to survive the Zero Point.

RE

[RE]

Now why don't they buy?

https://www.axios.com/2023/07/10/unsold-electric-cars-are-piling-up-on-dealer-lots

Unsold electric cars are piling up on dealer lots

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uvp71LGVISs

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[RE]

Here's where the tech was incubated.  Now better known as "Layoff Valley".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xvrKW2H_hA

RE

[K-Dog]

Here's where the tech was incubated.  Now better known as "Layoff Valley".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xvrKW2H_hA

RE

There was an overflow into Seattle.  There was an existing talent pool, and costs were competitive for small companies compared to the bay area.  The 80's and 90's supported a pool of about 150 electrical engineers in the Seattle Area serving small companies.  I am one of them.  I stopped the video to comprehend the VU tube meter circuit shown in the textbook.

Then things went overseas. 

Microsoft became a big player at the end.

If they heyday of Silicon Valley was like the Cambrian Era, then Microsoft and others who moved things to China constitute a Permian Extinction.

[K-Dog]

This puppy is short so I'll let the urban philosopher do the talking.

[RE]

If these guys think the job market for code jockeys is bad now, wait until the lights go out.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5y37j/thousands-of-software-engineers-say-the-job-market-is-getting-much-worse

Thousands of Software Engineers Say the Job Market Is Getting Much Worse

RE

[RE]

More small EVs currently mostly available in Europe or China, but you can get the ones that are in production shipped here.

The average price on them is about $15K, but some are as cheap as $3K.  They mostly CAN be charged up in a reasonable amount of time with a small home solar PV installation.  Range varies from about 30 miles to 100 on a charge, and top speed average about 30mph.  Quite a few do highway speeds though and 1 does over 100 and 0-60 faster than a porche.  There are 60 different models shown in this vid!

There's even a mini quad-copter which is an oversize drone.  Only 20min flying time, but if I had a nice 45' yacht to live on, it would be perfect to anchor offshore and hop inland to a taverna for a few bottles of retsina and ouzo.  24min in to the vid

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[RE]

Even better than Cold Fusion!  Forget the colonies on Mars!  Liquidate your investments in AI!  We're going BACK TO THE FUTURE!



Do you think this guy will get some Venture Capitalist to give him some start-up cash?  Will Goldman underwrite an IPO for $100B for the new DejaVu Corporation (DJV) on the NYSE?  It's gotta be worth at least as much as Facebook, right?

This shit actually gets reported and makes it onto the Google Newz page.  Meanwhile details of the Moscow attack remain murky.  Juliane Assange did however continue to avoid extradition to the FSoA for a while longer.

https://bgr.com/science/an-astrophysicist-claims-he-finally-figured-out-time-travel/

An astrophysicist claims he finally figured out time travel

RE

[RE]

The ultimate goal should be total energy independence and the eventual planned obsolescence of the entire energy grid. Then the only remaining consideration becomes what to do with thousands of miles of unneeded transmission line...

Yes, and our transportation goal should be to breed a Skittle Shitting Unicorn for every driver and drill a water well for every McMansion.  We'll all eat organic eggs from free range chickens raised free of antibiotics and hormones and our fruits and vegetables will be raised on permaculture farms from legacy non_GMO seeds without fossil fuel fertilizer or pesticides utilizing no-till dry land farming methods.

We have the technology!  All we have to do is take the Green Pill and it all becomes possible.  We'll pipe water from the Great Lakes to New Mexico and the desert will bloom.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericmack/2024/03/28/our-aging-electrical-grid-cant-keep-up-so-it-should-go-away-entirely/?sh=1e687c7f2785

Our Aging Electrical Grid Can't Keep Up. So It Should Go Away Entirely

RE

[RE]

Once every few years some crackpot scientist from some obscure think tank claims to have  found a source of limitless and free energy, the proverbial "perpetual motion" machine.  "Something for nothing and your checks for free".  Cold Fusion was all the rage a few years ago, this time we're going to get not just free electricity but also clean water from Evaporation, which anyone who got a passing grade in 9th grade Physical Science takes Heat to change the physical state of matter from liquid to gas, or gives it back in the reverse process of condensation, going from gas to liquid.

No idea how these jokers are getting electricity and clean water out of this action which goes on constantly everywhere on earth where there is Water present in both a liquid and gaseous state like in such hard to find places as the entire atmosphere of the planet.  lol.  Somehow until now, scientists going baack to Galileo and inventors like Da Vinci have missed this solution to our energy and water woes.

Is there a Venture Capitalist out there who will give these guys a $Million$ grant for start up ccapital?  It's Nano-Nana-Nini technology, so it's very high tech and you need a Ph.D. in BS to understand it.

https://www.thecooldown.com/green-tech/hydrovoltaic-devices-electricity-water-evaporation/https://www.thecooldown.com/green-tech/hydrovoltaic-devices-electricity-water-evaporation/

Scientists make 'major finding' with nanodevices that can seemingly produce energy out of thin air: 'Contradicting prior understanding'

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[K-Dog]

Cold Fusion was all the rage a few years ago

Raindrop Voltage

The comparison to cold fusion is accurate.  I looked several minutes trying to find more about hydroelectric core technologies without much luck.  Not a good sign.  Truth does not have to hide.  You have to call it misinformation to hide it.

But regardless of the scientific principles, the math obviously fails.

The phenomina seems to be more of a word salad generator than any energy source.  Somehow rain running across a charged surface to an electrode generates voltage for instance.   There are several permutations.

This shows an actual scientific principle is not necessary to generate a scientific paper.  You simply methodically observe something and write about it.  Observing something does not mean there is anything to see.  And since you are observing and scientifically detached, you can be as stupid as hell.  Your stupidity becomes a virtue.  You can pretend tiny insignificant effects matter since all you are doing is collecting numbers. 

The principle invoked in the evaporation process is totally obscure.  But they all suffer from the same math problems.

Voltage represents potential energy, but is not a direct measure of energy.  Voltage generated by a falling raindrop can't mean shit. 

The product of current and voltage together produces power.  Both are needed.  Voltage without current is meaningless if you are talking about power.  Simply charging something up to a high voltage does not mean a lot of energy stored.  Even capacitors designed to store electric charge have negligible capacity compared to a battery, any battery.

Charge On a Sphere

How much energy does electrostatic energy store?

I think we can agree that a metal sphere a foot in diameter charged to a million volts will have more energy than a raindrop with any electric charge we will find on planet Earth.  Orders of magnitude more.  A few thousand times more might be a low guess.

The capacitance of an isolated sphere is C = 4πε0r.  What does this equation do with a 1 foot metal sphere?

C = 4πϵ0 × 0.1524 meters  (0.1524 meters is six inches)

The permittivity of free space, a property of the universe, is 8.85E−12 F / m (Farads per meter)  -> that is .00000000000885 Farads per meter.

C = 4π×8.85×10−12 F/m × 0.1524 meters => C ≈ 3.56 × 10−11 F => C = 3.56 × 10−5 microfarads.  A microfarad is a millionth of a Farad.

The energy on a capacitor is given by 0.5 × C × V^2.  C is capacitance in Farads and V is voltage.  In this equation voltage is squared.  Using this equation calculates energy.

E = 0.5 × 3.56×10−11 × (1×10E6)^2 

E = 1.78 joules (for 1 sphere)

If my computer needs 500 watts to operate, how many 1 foot spheres must I discharge from one million volts in an hour to keep my computer running?  There are 3600 joules in a watt-hour.  My computer needs 1,800,000 joules.

1,800,000 joules divided by 1.78 joules per sphere, yields 1,011,236 metal spheres.  Each a foot in diameter. 

Trillions of raindrops would be needed to keep this single computer running.  Not billions, trillions when you think about it.  Maybe more.  We started out with a charge of a million volts, and we still needed a million 1 foot metal spheres to run this computer.  Energy goes up with the square of voltage and the raindrop phenomena generates small voltages.

I'll risk saying that there are a few technical problems to work out.

Could a collection area of a square mile in a hurricane run this computer using the obscure phenomena being studied?  Maybe.  But in a hurricane a windmill a mile in diameter will power a city.