Electric Cars and Solar Power Kills babies.

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ravingdave
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Electric Cars and Solar Power Kills babies.

Post by ravingdave »

http://www.edn.com/blog/1700000170/post/450015045.html



Oddly enough, his reasoning is valid. (if you buy his assumptions.)


:)


David

chrismb
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Post by chrismb »

A primitive argument. Spending money within an economy can motivate that economy and, as one of the first few commenters says, will stimulate further technologies. It is not power per kg that is of significance, for practicality it is miles-on-a-single-tank/charge, thereafer it is efficiency. A dull article.

Just as a point of interest, over here in Europe some of the VAG diesel engines are now around the 55% thermal efficiency mark. I had one a couple of years ago, one of the 1896cc diesel variable turbo models, and once I got 89mpg on my regular 22 mile commute, normally ~83 to 87 mpg. A regular 1500kg 5 door hatch on a regular motorway, on regular tyres, on regular diesel, stepping lightly on the throttle - yup, 89mpg. It was a bloomin' nuisance in winter - the heater never warmed up for the first 25 miles!.....

Torulf2
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Post by Torulf2 »

Everything kills babies. I do not think a person ho buy a tessla had as first alternative to give the money to pore peopled. He/she had bought something ells to play with. Something that probable not had stimulated the technological development. Maybe stimulated a technology how can save babies in the future.

IntLibber
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Post by IntLibber »

chrismb wrote:A primitive argument. Spending money within an economy can motivate that economy and, as one of the first few commenters says, will stimulate further technologies. It is not power per kg that is of significance, for practicality it is miles-on-a-single-tank/charge, thereafer it is efficiency. A dull article.
Sorry, you've got a dumb analysis there. The article writer is exactly right. When I was an energy analyst in Seattle and promoting my exit sign retrofit kit, I did a study, since replicated by others, showing that any energy conservation measure that has a ROI period of less than two years reduces economic growth, wastes more money than it saves, and actually increase pollution because the economic output that goes into creating the money wasted itself produces pollution.

For this reason, electric cars are NOT the panacea, they are merely a feel good toy for self absorbed rich idiots trying to impress know-nothing tree hugger women.

chrismb
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Post by chrismb »

IntLibber wrote:
chrismb wrote:A primitive argument. Spending money within an economy can motivate that economy and, as one of the first few commenters says, will stimulate further technologies. It is not power per kg that is of significance, for practicality it is miles-on-a-single-tank/charge, thereafer it is efficiency. A dull article.
Sorry, you've got a dumb analysis there. The article writer is exactly right. When I was an energy analyst in Seattle and promoting my exit sign retrofit kit, I did a study, since replicated by others, showing that any energy conservation measure that has a ROI period of less than two years reduces economic growth, wastes more money than it saves, and actually increase pollution because the economic output that goes into creating the money wasted itself produces pollution.

For this reason, electric cars are NOT the panacea, they are merely a feel good toy for self absorbed rich idiots trying to impress know-nothing tree hugger women.
Can you define 'wastes money'? The argument in the article is that the money could be better used by being directed out of one's own economy. That could be easily covered by a reasonable definition of 'wasting money', if you so constructed such a definition. What do you mean by that?

IntLibber
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Post by IntLibber »

chrismb wrote:
IntLibber wrote:
chrismb wrote:A primitive argument. Spending money within an economy can motivate that economy and, as one of the first few commenters says, will stimulate further technologies. It is not power per kg that is of significance, for practicality it is miles-on-a-single-tank/charge, thereafer it is efficiency. A dull article.
Sorry, you've got a dumb analysis there. The article writer is exactly right. When I was an energy analyst in Seattle and promoting my exit sign retrofit kit, I did a study, since replicated by others, showing that any energy conservation measure that has a ROI period of less than two years reduces economic growth, wastes more money than it saves, and actually increase pollution because the economic output that goes into creating the money wasted itself produces pollution.

For this reason, electric cars are NOT the panacea, they are merely a feel good toy for self absorbed rich idiots trying to impress know-nothing tree hugger women.
Can you define 'wastes money'? The argument in the article is that the money could be better used by being directed out of one's own economy. That could be easily covered by a reasonable definition of 'wasting money', if you so constructed such a definition. What do you mean by that?
Ok the deep economic concept of 'wasting money' comes from an econometric comparison of the rates of return on investment of various investment options, with an eye to accounting for all system externalities for each investment schema, thus including the carbon and other environmental toxin foot prints into the cost of capital.

In laymans terms, take option A, which directly produces 1000 lbs of toxic footprint from its own emissions and costs you $20,000 USD of capital to buy, which helps you generate $100,000 worth of economic output annually while your consumption of food, electricity, and refined resources that themselves have their own footprints, saving $20,000 of your output a year as capital to reinvest, you have an ROI of 12 months.

Now take option B, which directly produces 500 lbs of toxic footprint from its own emissions (battery disposal) annually, costs you $100,000 of capital to buy, while you have to work five times as long to earn back the capital to pay for it, means you have a 5 year ROI on the item and produce five times more pollution putting forth the effort to pay for it, while only reducing the direct emissions of option B vs option A by 50%.

Now, once you've done that, and then start including the equations time = money, and that the average insurance value of a human being in a western industrialized nation is about $2.5 million, it becomes clear that production of electric cars vs internal combustion cars kills five times as many people.

Now, if electric car is twice as likely to get you laid, and you would kill for the one you love, you have to kill 2.5 times more people to get laid in an electric car than you do in an internal combustion car.

At an increased cost per vehicle of $80,000, and say, 10 million electric vehicles sold per year, then the life work of an addtional 32,000 people will go to waste each year (1.28 million man-years of labor). With a national labor force of 100 million the cost of wasted capital alone should result in a drop in economic growth of 1.28 % each year.

This means that the average economic growth rate would be around half of normal, which would have the effect of economic recessions lasting significantly longer than normal and economic booms lasting significantly shorter amounts of time.

This explains why California, once the most economically vibrant state in the nation, is now an economic basketcase of the sort normally seen in latin american nations, and under the Cap and Trade Bill passing congress, intends on dragging the rest of us down with it.

chrismb
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Post by chrismb »

I can't quite tell what is tongue-in-cheek and what isn't!?

In an economy of defined boundaries (a currency), money cannot be wasted nor created except at a point where it is 'authorised' to do so. These days, that happens at the bank when you or I go in and say "I wanna buy a new car, lend me 10 grand". At that precise point, assuming your loan is successful, the bank will 'create' 10 grand out of thin air - it has been given licence to do so by the State. In UK and US, I think the amount that a bank can do that is x 10 of the actual investments it holds. i.e. if all banks lend out the maximum, then 90% of everything has been bought on loans and not backed up by assets (hence the pickle we're in now! - they were at their limit, then the assets dropped in value, instantly causing them to fall foul of the x 10 limit).

So, the more people there are, the more the economy can expand as they then need more.

Captial assets can be 'wasted'. If we destroy everything we own, then we've wasted money! Otherwise, it just all goes around in a big circle so long as wealth is based on tangible capital assets (not on debts owed!).

The story you're describing would, I suggest, preclude many economy-enhancing developments. "Hey, Newcomen, stop building that daft steam-engine contraption and go buy some horses to do the job!". "Faraday, get a life! How do you think that electro-magnet thing will ever pay-back. Give me your 5 year business plan, pronto!"

Unfortunately, the world really is run by people that think that way.

Torulf2
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Post by Torulf2 »

If you invest 1 $ now to save the world 100 years in future you have made a bad investment. Long time development of technology may me same waste of money. For example the development of space flight. And maybe fusion power.

chrismb
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Post by chrismb »

Torulf2 wrote:If you invest 1 $ now to save the world 100 years in future you have made a bad investment.
Y'see, I think that's just plain wrong. Accountants and politicians might love the idea, but it's a stupid, ignorant idea.

Humans would still be living in caves like animals if that were true. Fortunately, some individuals make commitments to general, human self-improvement, even if it is a detriment to themselves. If we [at least, some of us] did not have an instinct to improvement for its own sake, then we'd not be having this discussion now.

Tom Ligon
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Post by Tom Ligon »

Reading that article, he seems to say the drive system of the electric would be lighter (I'm not convinced), but then applies the weight savings as a penalty against the electric. Screwy logic at work there.

The arguments above are why I drive a used Ford Focus most of the time (32 mpg) and leave the 20 mpg pickup truck parked unless really needed. Going from a 32 mpg vehicle (with decades of life left) to a small new hybrid would have a dubious payback both environmentally and financially. My commute and yearly mileage are modest.

Some of my co-workers commute from another state every day, slogging thru rush-hour traffic for fifty miles or so each way. I don't know how they stand it, and why they don't move closer to work. It is really not the fuel mileage of the vehicle, it is the miles driven. I'd rather someone drive 2 miles in a 20 mpg truck than 100 in a 45 mph hybrid.

I'm cooling down from a 28 mile bike ride at the moment. If I could make myself get up early enough in the morning to commute by bike, I'd really be doing something that made sense. Miles not driven save 100% on the gas use.

However, for every 100 miles, I need about 5000 calories. That would keep a couple of Sally's babies fed for a few days, so I guess there is no getting around killing babies.

TallDave
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Post by TallDave »

If you invest 1 $ now to save the world 100 years in future you have made a bad investment.


Exactly. I remember being told in the 1980s that we needed to conserve because we were going to run out of food and oil by 2000.

If we had sacrificed 1% of our productive potential from 1909-2009, we'd have given up roughly a threefold improvement in living standards.
These days, that happens at the bank when you or I go in and say "I wanna buy a new car, lend me 10 grand". At that precise point, assuming your loan is successful, the bank will 'create' 10 grand out of thin air
The banks do not simply create that wealth. They are not giving you $10K, they are investing it in you. If you don't have some means of income, they will not lend you the money. So the $10,000 is more properly viewed as a capitalization of your earning potential, as opposed to "thin air."

This kind of collateralizing transaction is actually the main difference between poor countries and rich countries. Hernando De Soto has a great book called "The Mystery Of Capital: Why Rich Countries Are Rich and Poor Countries Are Poor" that goes into this in detail.
So, the more people there are, the more the economy can expand as they then need more.
No, no, no, a thousand times no. Wealth is created by production, not by need.
Humans would still be living in caves like animals if that were true.
Quite the opposite. 99% of the improvement in our condition was achieved by harnessing selfishness.
Fortunately, some individuals make commitments to general, human self-improvement, even if it is a detriment to themselves.
Generally more harm has been done that way than good. The last two great experiments in human self-improvement at the expense of the individual were Nazism (eugenics)and Communism (economic self-sacrifice). Neither worked out well, to say the least.

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

carbon and other environmental toxin
Trees would disagree with you about CO2 being a toxin.

In fact plants love 5,000 ppm CO2. There may be a reason for that:

Image
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

Miles not driven save 100% on the gas use.
You are not counting the gas used to make your fuel: food. The conversion ratios are not as favorable as one might like.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

jmc
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Post by jmc »

Hmm. I think the baby killing statement is way over the top, he seems to have a rabidly vehement attitude to all things green with an intensity that I've only ever come across from some American types.

If you assume a minimum weight to make the car safe and take into account the weight of the passengers and the reduced weight of the engine, then you can build an electric car that is just as efficient as a petrol car, provided you are prepared to make do with a reduced range.

The electric engine can achieve efficiencies of 80%. It also reduces the wasteful use of valuable finite oil and increases urban airquality

chrismb
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Post by chrismb »

Exactly. The act of 'killing' is an active one, not a passive one. One might argue 'negligence' but not 'killing'. It is just silly and discloses the backward mentality of this [as I call it] 'medaeval' culture - some curious longing for times past when people lived in houses made out of sh*t.

If anyone were to try to argue the contrary, then clearly if I were to go out and actually shoot someone stone dead, take their money, then use that to save the lives of 10 kids in Africa - which, in point of fact, I am sure I could do, this being the imbalance of wealth between the two 'worlds' - then arguably I have just *saved* 9 lives. Would I be a 'murderer' or a saint? The act of sacrificing a life now to save many in the future cannot, in itself, be a crime else all politicians who currently sanction our guys in Iraq and Afganistan would be guilty of the same crime.

Indeed, it gets more bizarre if one thinks of sacrificing oneself. If I shoot myself dead and bequeath my life-insurance to pay for African kids, then I would save more lives than my one own. By that logic, everyone in the West with life insurance should do that. Then they'd generate huge amounts of money for the 3rd world whilst simultaneously reducing their CO2 emissions. Maybe these medaevalist thinking idiots should lobby for some legislation that says every family must suicide at least 50%, this producing a net cash benefit to prolong the life of more folks than actually suicide, plus gain an environmental advantage.

The unpalatable truth for a society that love to make hand-wringing guilt a favoured hobby (and that pressurises those who dissent from feeling guilty) is that these countries of dying kids are the ones that kill their kids through war, agricultural and financial mismanagement and arrogant politiking. No-one in Africa is blaming themselves for the kids that die in the Western world. Why do we have to get all hand-wringy over it here? To neglect to do something is only a crime when you have a legal responsibility. I have a legal responsibility for my own kids and to fulfil that I need to perform with, and consume, energy and resources. I also have a responsibility to pay taxes, and my government (bless 'em) ship vast amounts of this cash in foreign aid whilst kids here die from poverty-related issues. I have no legal responsibility to help anyone else and it is therefore quite impossible for me to kill anyone by neglect.

Get real!... the article isn't worth the coal-fired energy it takes to illuminate it on my screen.

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