the payoff of investing in battery research

[ElmerJFudd]

1 hour ago, JazzPiano88 said:

 

 

Give this a shot (works for me in Firefox and Chrome after dismissing the subscribe box:   https://t.co/tKPZvb7ySK

Some studies at a time when more studies than ever are being done don’t hold up to peer review.  That’s all part of the process.  Good to know there are diligent scientists scrutinizing data.  This only helps to strengthen the value of scientific research, peer review and replicable outcomes.   Researchers tend to be extremely careful before publishing due to the embarrassment of  having a faulty study.  Maybe a balance between the the pressure to publish and accuracy needs to be found for some. 

[Anderton]

It's half-time! As long as this thread is based on factual information, I'll keep it open. If it gets into political finger-pointing, I'll lock it.

 

I do believe it's important to discuss the various tradeoffs involved in dealing with this problem. Those who don't feel a problem exists are entitled to their opinion, too. The reality is we can only speculate on how this will turn out years from now.

 

Case in point: Back in 2000, it was assumed by the scientific community that warming oceans would cause more frequent, and more powerful, hurricanes. But then there was a lull for several years with less hurricane activity. What wasn't taken into account was that the jet stream would shift southward, and shear off the tops of hurricanes before they had a chance to develop. Now, we are seeing more rapid intensification of hurricanes when they pass over water, so it seems like the premise was belatedly correct. But recently, the jet stream has been bifurcating into two streams from time to time, and no one's quite sure how that's going to end up.

 

So, it's a giant experiement without a control group, and anything could happen. Yellowstone could blow up, or nuclear war could break out...either one would give us a nuclear winter, and that would cool things down right quick

 

 

[ElmerJFudd]

40 minutes ago, JazzPiano88 said:

 

We've got windmills growing like weeds across the countryside killing large populations of birds.   When the subsidies run out and they can't afford maintenance it'll be a disaster of rusting out towers of garbage that is too expensive to scrap.

An interesting response on the bird issue from the  American Bird Conservancy.  
 

https://abcbirds.org/blog21/wind-turbines-are-threat-to-birds/

[Anderton]

4 minutes ago, ElmerJFudd said:

An interesting response on the bird issue from the  American Bird Conservancy.  

 

Thanks, that pretty much supports what I'm saying in general. For example, if windmills were not placed in migratory paths, there would be a lot fewer killed birds.

 

The search for one-size-fits-all solutions rarely delivers results. 

[ElmerJFudd]

Back on original topic… battery technology advancement. 
 

“Professors Soojin Park and Youn Soo Kim of POSTECH got together with Professor Jaegeon Ryu of Songang University and found a way to make it so that our cars can last longer between refueling, or rather, recharging … a lot longer.”.  
 

Looking toward 3000 mile range silicon-based batteries.  
 

https://www.themanual.com/auto/electric-car-battery-range-could-extend-3000-miles/
 

We’re in the infancy of battery technology.  Necessity and demand are speeding up advancement.  It of course benefits any nation to be at the forefront of such work. 

 

[ElmerJFudd]

9 minutes ago, Anderton said:

 

Thanks, that pretty much supports what I'm saying in general. For example, if windmills were not placed in migratory paths, there would be a lot fewer killed birds.

 

The search for one-size-fits-all solutions rarely delivers results. 

Indeed, climate change and pollution doesn’t benefit birds either. These are complex issues  that shouldn’t be over simplified.  

[analogika]

1 hour ago, JazzPiano88 said:

 

We've got windmills growing like weeds across the countryside killing large populations of birds.   When the subsidies run out and they can't afford maintenance it'll be a disaster of rusting out towers of garbage that is too expensive to scrap.

 

Every single statement in that quote is false. 

a) while there is certainly some birdstrike (in Germany, extremely questionable estimates range up to around 100,000 birds per year), the numbers are absolutely miniscule compared to, say, windows (18 million +), traffic strikes (70 million +), and CATS (100 million!). I've seen estimates that house cats claim up to a BILLION dead birds in the United States, per year. Obviously, these aren't directly comparable, since cats affect different populations and species than wind turbines, but it's useful to get a feel for what we're talking about, here — and it's probably not "large populations".
Also, there have also been studies (link) that show that bird populations actually learn to AVOID wind rotors. They just fly around them, like you'd expect. 

b) even without subsidies, the only source cheaper than wind energy per kWh here in Europe is large-scale photovoltaics. In the U.S., on-shore wind is the cheapest, followed by water and photovoltaic, according to the latest data I could find. That's including service and eventual scrapping.

c) It's also rather disingenuous to just claim a "disaster too expensive to scrap" without actually comparing to the alternatives. The cost of dismantling just ONE of our former nuclear power plants in Greifswald has already ballooned to 6.6 BILLION Euro. Dismantling them all will cost around 300 billion Euros — and 275 billion of that will be subsidies paid for by the state, thanks to Merkel's energy-lobbyist cronies. 
And that's not even counting several hundred billion earmarked to pay for safe long-term storage of spent fuel — assuming we'll actually find a spot to bury it (they've scouting unsuccessfully for decades). 
I'm not sure how it works in the U.S., but I'll eat my moog if non-wind energy isn't heavily subsidised overtly or indirectly there, as well. 

[analogika]

1 hour ago, Anderton said:

 

This is true. In the 70s, there was a concern that trends might lead us toward a mini-ice age. However, that was over half a century ago. Data since then has pointed to a warming, not cooling, trend.

 

The difference is that previous climate change events occurred over hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of years (unless there was an anomalous event, like a super-volcano blowing up or a huge meteor strike). The concern is that the current rate of change is happening over decades. The only change we know of that correlates to this period of time is an ongoing release of carbon dioxide, which is known to trap heat. So, the theory embraced by most (not all) scientists is that heat is driving the accelerated rate of change. Some believe it is a natural phenomenon, although there have not been other events of which I'm aware, like unusual solar activity or heat changes in the earth's core, that could account for this.

 

An oft-referenced meta-study from 2013 found a 97% consensus among the papers published between 1990 and 2013 that global warming is happening, and that it is man-made. So 3% disagreed — but most of those actually didn't disagree that it was happening, or that it was dangerous: they merely gave other (conflicting) reasons for why it was happening (volcanic emissions, solar activity, geothermal activity). 

A newer meta-study from 2021, polling papers from 2012-2021, found "greater than 99% consensus" (link) (and thankfully, they don't fall for the lobbyist reframing of "global warming" as "climate change"). 

[Threadslayer]

18 hours ago, JazzPiano88 said:

Americans also don’t do what they’re told (except for in California)

That's not very nice. True, but not at all nice. 

[Threadslayer]

16 hours ago, Anderton said:

It's half-time! As long as this thread is based on factual information, I'll keep it open. If it gets into political finger-pointing, I'll lock it.

It's nice to see this often-bellicose subject discussed rationally and to read the thoughts and citations people employ to support their opinions. Hopefully it can keep going for a while without anyone's vascular system rupturing. If anywhere can make it work, this is the place.

[Anderton]

3 hours ago, Threadslayer said:

It's nice to see this often-bellicose subject discussed rationally and to read the thoughts and citations people employ to support their opinions. Hopefully it can keep going for a while without anyone's vascular system rupturing. If anywhere can make it work, this is the place.

 

Absolutely. I think the difference is that the people here are open to learning, and taking in new data points in order to arrive at a more informed decision. I've certainly learned from this thread. 

 

I also hope to see this thread continuing to evolve in the direction of all of us being better-informed. To be clear, I understand that even with the same set of facts, people can have different opinions. 

 

Often, erroneous information is presented by people in good faith because they believe what they've been told by people who supposedly know what they're talking about. So, I think it says a lot about the people here that a) they can call BS and back it up, and b) people can alter their opinions based on new information.

 

For example, I didn't know windmills killed so many birds. I also didn't know that simply moving them off migration paths would cut that number down considerably.

 

I also didn't know that just planting a lot more trees would help with the CO2 problem. It seems obvious now that I think about it, but it hasn't gotten much attention because it's not a political hot potato to put seeds in the ground