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Electric cars are NOT "green", and NOT "the future"!
7 years ago
General
I don't care how many times some idiot thinks electric cars are "futuristic" or "green" or "the future", they are WRONG WRONG WRONG!!!
Electric cars have been around since the early 1900s (look up "Detroit Electric Car Company") back when electric, gas, and STEAM cars were all competing with each other, and electric cars have remained relatively the same engineering wise just switching over from lead acid batteries (that you could refill) to expensive disposable lithium battery packs and more efficient motors, otherwise in all reality they are just as old as gasoline cars.
Being a car nut and having a background in geology as well, I know a wee bit in this area, I'll try to keep it simple.
People ALWAYS seem to forget, or just not care, what goes INTO their so-called "green" branded consumer products, and just how far away from being "green" those branded products are.
Since it isn't obvious to most uneducated "green" product buyers, I thought I'd point out a few things about these battery powered cars.
First off, be it lead, Nickel-Metal Hydride, or Lithium Ion batteries, not to mention the petroleum needed to manufacture all the plastic bits and pieces of said cars (the whole process of recycling, transport, manufacturing, and so on to make a "new" product, all create pollution), most the metals in these so-called "green" cars are considered "RARE EARTH MINERALS" (other than the lead) meaning they are RARE as in LIMITED SUPPLY before we run out, they also have many nasty by-products, like how lithium runoff and curing creates these massive pools of lithium often called "lithium pits" that kill and crystallize many unfortunate animals that happen to wander into or land in them, not to mention soak into water tables and destroy entire eco systems, but they are all in China and other countries now with media blackouts so the greenies don't have to feel guilty that they are worse polluters than even OIL is...
Most the metals used in these cars have to be strip-mined from the earth causing more environmental damage than even "big oil" does by drilling holes for oil, where an oil bore hole may only be 4-12 inches across, a strip mine can be MILES across. "Big Green" is just and big and greedy as "Big Oil".
If you think buying brand new "green" products is helping the environment, you are wrong and likely too busy sniffing your own farts to care where all said green shit comes from.
Cars do NOT grow on trees!
Every bit of plastic and metal has to come from somewhere.
2-3 old cars have to be recycled to make ONE "new" car. Because even though 80-95% of a car is recyclable, many things have to be made from "new" materials in a "new" car.
Electric cars also need to be recharged, most likely using the established electrical grid that is getting most of its power from coal and gas, (because said idiot environmentalists stopped new nuclear energy from being developed since the 1970s, and wind energy only turns a profit with massive government subsidies and don't forget that there are rare earth minerals needed to make said expensive wind power, and we can't forget all the envirotards that get all the clean hydro-electric dams removed as well), and lets face it, you would need a damn solar tower array to recharge these cars quickly from solar power (and again solar panels still require manufacture that pollutes), so even people with solar panels still use dirty energy to recharge these cars or end up having a painfully slow recharge rate.
So, now, what happens if it is mandated to only have electric cars?
Well first off, your electricity bill is going to go through the roof, sure people can survive without paying for gas or gasoline, but electricity is pretty much everything these days, so even people without electric cars are going to see utility prices rise, not to forget to mention the terrible electrical infrastructure in the USA would not be able to handle the increased strain for decades.
Second, we now need to worry about a "rare earth mineral crisis" causing even more, and bigger wars than there have been over oil deposits, and because of the fact it needs to be strip mined, you can't just drill a hole miles down to get said resource in a relatively small area, and all the heavy earth moving vehicles and supply lines, and everything else that would go into "big green" would make the environmental impact from "big oil" like nothing more than a little footnote in human history.
People often forget the old "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, REPURPOSE!" And instead just continue to be wasteful consumer whores and buy anything branded as "green" without a single thought as to where said "green" thing came from.
Now this may sound all doom and gloom....
I'm sure somebody with a shitty gas hybrid car or an electric Tesla wants to call me a "big-oil cock sucking captain planet villain nazi" or such to try and make themselves feel righteous in their bad environmental purchase...
So what can be done?
What could be the actual "Future" of automotive and even air transportation?
Well, it is the most abundant material in the UNIVERSE!
What is it you ask?
Fucking HYDROGEN!
Seriously, hydrogen cars have been in development for years, and much like outfitting a standard combustion engine we already have for cleaner "natural gas", you can do the same to make a fuel injected car run off hydrogen with the only byproduct being WATER!
Seriously... You can drink the exhaust of a hydrogen car, I did with the BMW Hydrogen 7 back in college...
It was the cleanest water I have likely ever drank, and it came from a BMW 6.0L V-12 Combustion Engine! That's fucking METAL AS HELL!
There was also a car called the Honda Clarity FCX around the same time I actually got to drive around that ran on a hydrogen fuel cell back in 2009 of so.
That means we could "retrofit and REUSE" the cars we already have. Usually all you have to do is update the computer, put in gas injectors, stainless exhaust pipes, and a high pressure natural gas or hydrogen tank.
You can make hydrogen gas using water though Electrolysis, including sea water (which we have plenty of on this planet), and you can make it all day long at home using actual solar or on site wind energy in a unit as small as a central airconditioning condenser and fan. Or about a 4x4x4 foot cube of space. Since it would be making the gas all day instead of making it on demand just when you need it like the electric car needs, the slower rate work out just fine.
There are also two types of ways of using hydrogen to power a car, using a hydrogen fuel cell to power electric motors directly, or using hydrogen gas combustion to power a standard combustion engine. With the combustion engine you can set them up to work with gasoline AND hydrogen.
Personally I like the idea of converting a gasoline car to run off hydrogen combustion instead of just buying a whole new car, because I can keep my old classic cars and not have to worry about the waste that goes into creating a whole new car.
Now... What is the drawback to this?
Well, the fact you can MAKE IT AT HOME pisses off not only "big oil" but pisses off "big green" as well because the only money either would get is from the purchase of a home hydrogen fueling station... And the government would be VERY ANGRY at the lack of gas tax much like they already are with gas cars becoming more efficient (due to the government's own imposed regulations), and would likely tax people PER MILE instead, their way of fucking over people that have to commute long distance. So these entities are going to do all they can to just "sit on it" until it is absolutely necessary to roll out. Especially since big oil and the corporate world is already planning for a future without gasoline by having hydrogen, and or battery swap stations, on the drawing board along with GMC that bought up all patents to multiple "Capacitive battery" designs (a battery you could dump a full charge into in less than a minute and have it slowly release said charge without overheating) and made it completely disappear nearly 10 years ago. There is also the initial cost of the home equipment and set up and automotive retrofitting before you start getting "free fuel", but this pay-off comes MUCH SOONER than the typical 7-14 year premium you pay for an electric or hybrid vehicle over a standard gas or diesel vehicle.
For now, all electric cars are overpriced toys for the rich to make themselves "feel" like they are "helping" while continuing to be rabid consumer whores that like to sniff their own farts (sorry, I can't help but to keep making the Southpark fart sniffing reference). It is one thing to say you are saving gas money, it is another entirely to say you are "Saving the world".
The future IS Hydrogen, NOT batteries... Unless there is some revolution in battery design that involves little to no rare earth minerals and has super fast recharge rate that beats out gasoline/diesel refueling, price, time, and range.
Electric cars have been around since the early 1900s (look up "Detroit Electric Car Company") back when electric, gas, and STEAM cars were all competing with each other, and electric cars have remained relatively the same engineering wise just switching over from lead acid batteries (that you could refill) to expensive disposable lithium battery packs and more efficient motors, otherwise in all reality they are just as old as gasoline cars.
Being a car nut and having a background in geology as well, I know a wee bit in this area, I'll try to keep it simple.
People ALWAYS seem to forget, or just not care, what goes INTO their so-called "green" branded consumer products, and just how far away from being "green" those branded products are.
Since it isn't obvious to most uneducated "green" product buyers, I thought I'd point out a few things about these battery powered cars.
First off, be it lead, Nickel-Metal Hydride, or Lithium Ion batteries, not to mention the petroleum needed to manufacture all the plastic bits and pieces of said cars (the whole process of recycling, transport, manufacturing, and so on to make a "new" product, all create pollution), most the metals in these so-called "green" cars are considered "RARE EARTH MINERALS" (other than the lead) meaning they are RARE as in LIMITED SUPPLY before we run out, they also have many nasty by-products, like how lithium runoff and curing creates these massive pools of lithium often called "lithium pits" that kill and crystallize many unfortunate animals that happen to wander into or land in them, not to mention soak into water tables and destroy entire eco systems, but they are all in China and other countries now with media blackouts so the greenies don't have to feel guilty that they are worse polluters than even OIL is...
Most the metals used in these cars have to be strip-mined from the earth causing more environmental damage than even "big oil" does by drilling holes for oil, where an oil bore hole may only be 4-12 inches across, a strip mine can be MILES across. "Big Green" is just and big and greedy as "Big Oil".
If you think buying brand new "green" products is helping the environment, you are wrong and likely too busy sniffing your own farts to care where all said green shit comes from.
Cars do NOT grow on trees!
Every bit of plastic and metal has to come from somewhere.
2-3 old cars have to be recycled to make ONE "new" car. Because even though 80-95% of a car is recyclable, many things have to be made from "new" materials in a "new" car.
Electric cars also need to be recharged, most likely using the established electrical grid that is getting most of its power from coal and gas, (because said idiot environmentalists stopped new nuclear energy from being developed since the 1970s, and wind energy only turns a profit with massive government subsidies and don't forget that there are rare earth minerals needed to make said expensive wind power, and we can't forget all the envirotards that get all the clean hydro-electric dams removed as well), and lets face it, you would need a damn solar tower array to recharge these cars quickly from solar power (and again solar panels still require manufacture that pollutes), so even people with solar panels still use dirty energy to recharge these cars or end up having a painfully slow recharge rate.
So, now, what happens if it is mandated to only have electric cars?
Well first off, your electricity bill is going to go through the roof, sure people can survive without paying for gas or gasoline, but electricity is pretty much everything these days, so even people without electric cars are going to see utility prices rise, not to forget to mention the terrible electrical infrastructure in the USA would not be able to handle the increased strain for decades.
Second, we now need to worry about a "rare earth mineral crisis" causing even more, and bigger wars than there have been over oil deposits, and because of the fact it needs to be strip mined, you can't just drill a hole miles down to get said resource in a relatively small area, and all the heavy earth moving vehicles and supply lines, and everything else that would go into "big green" would make the environmental impact from "big oil" like nothing more than a little footnote in human history.
People often forget the old "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, REPURPOSE!" And instead just continue to be wasteful consumer whores and buy anything branded as "green" without a single thought as to where said "green" thing came from.
Now this may sound all doom and gloom....
I'm sure somebody with a shitty gas hybrid car or an electric Tesla wants to call me a "big-oil cock sucking captain planet villain nazi" or such to try and make themselves feel righteous in their bad environmental purchase...
So what can be done?
What could be the actual "Future" of automotive and even air transportation?
Well, it is the most abundant material in the UNIVERSE!
What is it you ask?
Fucking HYDROGEN!
Seriously, hydrogen cars have been in development for years, and much like outfitting a standard combustion engine we already have for cleaner "natural gas", you can do the same to make a fuel injected car run off hydrogen with the only byproduct being WATER!
Seriously... You can drink the exhaust of a hydrogen car, I did with the BMW Hydrogen 7 back in college...
It was the cleanest water I have likely ever drank, and it came from a BMW 6.0L V-12 Combustion Engine! That's fucking METAL AS HELL!
There was also a car called the Honda Clarity FCX around the same time I actually got to drive around that ran on a hydrogen fuel cell back in 2009 of so.
That means we could "retrofit and REUSE" the cars we already have. Usually all you have to do is update the computer, put in gas injectors, stainless exhaust pipes, and a high pressure natural gas or hydrogen tank.
You can make hydrogen gas using water though Electrolysis, including sea water (which we have plenty of on this planet), and you can make it all day long at home using actual solar or on site wind energy in a unit as small as a central airconditioning condenser and fan. Or about a 4x4x4 foot cube of space. Since it would be making the gas all day instead of making it on demand just when you need it like the electric car needs, the slower rate work out just fine.
There are also two types of ways of using hydrogen to power a car, using a hydrogen fuel cell to power electric motors directly, or using hydrogen gas combustion to power a standard combustion engine. With the combustion engine you can set them up to work with gasoline AND hydrogen.
Personally I like the idea of converting a gasoline car to run off hydrogen combustion instead of just buying a whole new car, because I can keep my old classic cars and not have to worry about the waste that goes into creating a whole new car.
Now... What is the drawback to this?
Well, the fact you can MAKE IT AT HOME pisses off not only "big oil" but pisses off "big green" as well because the only money either would get is from the purchase of a home hydrogen fueling station... And the government would be VERY ANGRY at the lack of gas tax much like they already are with gas cars becoming more efficient (due to the government's own imposed regulations), and would likely tax people PER MILE instead, their way of fucking over people that have to commute long distance. So these entities are going to do all they can to just "sit on it" until it is absolutely necessary to roll out. Especially since big oil and the corporate world is already planning for a future without gasoline by having hydrogen, and or battery swap stations, on the drawing board along with GMC that bought up all patents to multiple "Capacitive battery" designs (a battery you could dump a full charge into in less than a minute and have it slowly release said charge without overheating) and made it completely disappear nearly 10 years ago. There is also the initial cost of the home equipment and set up and automotive retrofitting before you start getting "free fuel", but this pay-off comes MUCH SOONER than the typical 7-14 year premium you pay for an electric or hybrid vehicle over a standard gas or diesel vehicle.
For now, all electric cars are overpriced toys for the rich to make themselves "feel" like they are "helping" while continuing to be rabid consumer whores that like to sniff their own farts (sorry, I can't help but to keep making the Southpark fart sniffing reference). It is one thing to say you are saving gas money, it is another entirely to say you are "Saving the world".
The future IS Hydrogen, NOT batteries... Unless there is some revolution in battery design that involves little to no rare earth minerals and has super fast recharge rate that beats out gasoline/diesel refueling, price, time, and range.
Or the example of nuclear energy you gave here. If you take into account the fission material, coolant and moderater that are possible for nuclear reactors, you could swap them arround and in theory have a few dozen possible reactor models, yet only ever 2 kinds of reactors (with mild alterations of each) were ever built. There was never a 'Pebble-bed reactor' nor a 'Molten salt reactor' or other safer types or reactors, because the industry was unwilling to invest in other kinds when they allready had existing kinds of reactors, also because they could barely be used for military purpose, yet also because the public never really created any pressure to research in these other kinds. They were just like 'nuclear energy is bad' and shut down the research that way. Comdemning an entire field of science though is not a good idea, considering that nuclear science is widely used in medical research for cancer treatment and whatnot. So this kind of extremism probably prevented a lot of research for safer methods of energy production.
I absolutely hate how the uneducated masses kneejerk react to every little thing like it is the end of the world just because they don't understand reality vs Hollywood movies. Like with guns, non gun people think shotguns will blast a person back 20 feet, and a rifle will literally explode someone. It is the same with nuclear energy, they hear "radiation" and think everyone living withing 1000 miles of the reactor will get cancer and grow 4 extra arms, or they hear "meltdown" and think of Chernobyl and nuclear bombs dropped on japan.
Hell even the same thing with hydroelectric dams where the envirotards think that because a fish dies or a snail is endangered that ALL dams need to be stopped... These are then the same people that complain about their electric bills being too high. Meanwhile in reality they often make "fish funnels" at hydroelectric dams so migrating freshwater fish have a path they can take to swim up and down stream while avoiding the turbines.
What is even more hilariously sad is the same "save the snails with green energy" people don't make a peep when wind turbines and solar collector towers not only change local climate by creating microclimates in and around wind and solar farms, but fail to mention all the birds and bugs killed by wind turbines and fried by solar farms every day/year.
If only we could get rid of the Carter Doctrine regarding nuclear energy and spent fuel reprocessing. He did a incredible disservice to this country.
Also Hydrogen combustion sounds fascinating. I wasn't aware of it. However wouldn't there be a massive energy cost extracting the hydrogen?
Yes there is an energy cost to extracting hydrogen from water (as with nearly all things tech wise as it becomes more efficient as it becomes more mainstream), but as I said it can be made passively during the day using just solar power, because while you are out driving your hydrogen car, it will keep making new hydrogen for the next time you need a fill-up, unlike battery recharging where you need the power as it is being made on demand, so you have the future storage aspect unlike battery recharging where you would need to have multiple battery packs charging while you use them one at a time and swap them out to have a fully charged one.
As to the actual cost of making hydrogen from water, it is just now becoming "cost competitive" to the point that it is only about 5-10% more expensive than natural gas fuel.
Oh and a cool fact about hydrogen combustion in cars.... It makes a serious amount of more horsepower on the same engine compared to running gasoline or natural gas. If I remember right, the BMW Hydrogen gains over 100bhp when switching from gasoline to hydrogen, and that was back in 2009! I believe the guy showing it to us was mentioning that they could easily get more but would have to make the engine thicker and heavier and would cause an even bigger power gain, but too much of an efficiency loss and throw off the 50/50 weight distribution.