Trump isn't pro Americans he's just anti minorities.
Willing to die for America? Doesn't matter, I can exploit you for political gain.
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Off Topic Politics Thread
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Willing to die for America? Doesn't matter, I can exploit you for political gain.
Is this exactly what hybrid cars already do? Apparently they're more fuel efficient because of it.
Before people get mixed up, and start comparing F1 cars to anything in the future, there have been plenty of energy store and release systems proposed for ordinary cars for decades, but using FF as the on-board fuel, so that is nothing new. Of all the systems, FF-Hybrid cars are the last mass acceptable type that went into volume production. So that's it for FF vehicles. The F1 Kers, or similar Fes [Flywheel Energy Storage], system has been adopted in several public transport applications over the years. Some of them came before Kers, some after, so it's no big technology deal.
Here's a biggie. I'm going to say that the all-battery car is a dead end technology. The Tesla is a dead end technology. Eventually, Elon Musk will go to a non-polluting on-board fuel/power converter cell that feeds electricity to an electric motor. The battery will be bigger or smaller than at present, depending on the requirement, if one is needed at all in the conventional sense. The problem with the Tesla and all others like it is the weight of the batteries, and the ore, Lithium. Lithium is fairly abundant, but finite, and the price of it will inevitably rise [and has been].
Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the known universe. It is, to all intents and purposes, infinite. Yet it may still not be the base fuel which powers vehicles in the future because it requires trips to a fuel station, just like a FF vehicle. That's something which I think that those directing the future of road transport want to eliminate. That last sentence is just my gut feeling, and I have little evidence that that might happen other than that technology is becoming more personal. Even power generation will be a personal thing. The original national power grid feed is essentially old hat, but that's another discussion.
Here's a biggie. I'm going to say that the all-battery car is a dead end technology. The Tesla is a dead end technology. Eventually, Elon Musk will go to a non-polluting on-board fuel/power converter cell that feeds electricity to an electric motor. The battery will be bigger or smaller than at present, depending on the requirement, if one is needed at all in the conventional sense. The problem with the Tesla and all others like it is the weight of the batteries, and the ore, Lithium. Lithium is fairly abundant, but finite, and the price of it will inevitably rise [and has been].
Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the known universe. It is, to all intents and purposes, infinite. Yet it may still not be the base fuel which powers vehicles in the future because it requires trips to a fuel station, just like a FF vehicle. That's something which I think that those directing the future of road transport want to eliminate. That last sentence is just my gut feeling, and I have little evidence that that might happen other than that technology is becoming more personal. Even power generation will be a personal thing. The original national power grid feed is essentially old hat, but that's another discussion.
It amazes me that the government doesn't stick solar panels on top of every council house and state owned building.
I did read something a while back that personal cars may end up being a thing of the past with driverless cars being like sort of taxis that arrive in minutes because they are all based locally. Need to go somewhere, press a button. Very futuristic but I think it would be beneficial anyway. Not a fan of so many cars on the road let alone the modern person's habit of always driving everywhere.
The main issue with solar power generation at the moment is battery technology. PV cells are fairly useless without an efficient storage system, as most working people aren't at home when the sun's producing power, so all that lovely energy is just wasted. The best batteries currently are lithium ion based, and as TSS says above, lithium has to be mined and if the demand exceeds supply, it won't be economically viable to use for domestic systems. So someone needs to come up with a new type of battery which is small, light, and infinitely rechargeable for domestic systems. Not much to ask is it?
I do love the idea of people just using driverless taxis for short to medium distances, with longer journeys on electric trains powered by hydrogen. The "car is king" bubble has to burst soon, as the motorway infrastructure is already swamped by the sheer number of vehicles, and the lives of people in small towns and villages made a complete misery by the bloody things. Before long, even medium sized towns will start having congestion charges, so public transport will have to be regenerated.
Imp actually brings up a good point there. There are several reasons why the government doesn't stick solar panels on every council house and state owned building, but it boils down to one thing. Overall cost. Also, solar panels are just not quite efficient enough yet, when they are up and running, to make their whole hearted adoption worthwhile and viable. When they are, and that is coming within the next decade, I expect to be of Imp's opinion, because whatever is generated, and not used, can always be pushed down the local power grid to be used by someone else and be a net plus for the provider, to be consumed later. This is all unless clean, cheap power cells beat them to it, but I also expect every private house to have solar panels as part of their default specification in the future. It would be an obvious move to make. Presently, where solar panels are easily upto the task presented to them, they are near perfect energy providers. Cheap, clean power cells could work in tandem with solar cells. That would be fun. Abundant energy. More than anyone could ever want.
I don't see a better energy storage alternative to lithium ion batteries out there on the horizon yet, so I think we're stuck** with them for the time being. Anybody know different? Once again, the cheap, clean power cell would render their requirement almost dead.
**stuck, being a relative word here. Lithium ion batteries are pretty good.
All well and good when you live in cities, towns and even villages but what if you're out in the middle of nowhere? People living in rural areas must not be left behind. I live in a small village with two buses into town in the morning, one at 8 and one at 10. I work 8 miles from my home and I wouldn't cycle to work as the B-road is fast, windy and hilly. The nearest train station is in the town that I work in. The only real option I have is to drive as, because of my job and the need to visit my Mum, I need a certain amount of flexibility. About once a week I car share and I could probably increase that to twice but not much more. Studies carried out in London, Cardiff, even Swansea are not that relevant for this area because not all the options are available.
I know nothing about this technology but I'd love an electric car, have solar panels on the roof of the house and some kind of solar panel on the car so that while it's parked outside my house, in the supermarket car park, when I'm visiting my Mum in her care home or in my work car park it can be charging continuously. Is that impossible?
Some of the technology talked about here is perfectly suited to the rural area, but I agree that personal transport in the rural environment is a must. Your car of the near future could have a driver-less option, while you sit back and watch some entertainment on the windscreen, or just look at the scenery. How about that.? Mind you, watching the scenery might be a bit of a challenge. At least you wouldn't be bored.
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Note the spherical tyres. Goodyear have already developed one for the future called the Eagle.
Doesn't really matter if the sun shines or not, you can still generate plenty of kilowatts. What's more important is the angle of the roof to the sun, obviously due South is best. But what we need to do is have most buildings with PV cells and feed them all into the grid. The feed-in tariff has steadily been reduced over the last few years, this needs to be reversed to give people an incentive to install the panels.
We used to provide help and advice to residents to get them installed as part of our energy service but once again it was one of those non essential things that got cut with the conservatives forced rent decrease.
This won't change anything. They'll put a couple of people out there to say "we do deal with these things" and the day after they will all get back to deciding which of their mate's companies gets the contracts and making sure their own portfolios increase in value.
If the media were worth their salt they would be digging around all over the country but no, the headlines are Kensington so they are ignoring the systematic nature of this legal corruption..........that people have been moaning about for ages now.
I said before Grenfell happened that the word "re-generation" sends shudders through local residents.
Imp actually brings up a good point there. There are several reasons why the government doesn't stick solar panels on every council house and state owned building, but it boils down to one thing. Overall cost. Also, solar panels are just not quite efficient enough yet, when they are up and running, to make their whole hearted adoption worthwhile and viable. When they are, and that is coming within the next decade, I expect to be of Imp's opinion, because whatever is generated, and not used, can always be pushed down the local power grid to be used by someone else and be a net plus for the provider, to be consumed later. This is all unless clean, cheap power cells beat them to it, but I also expect every private house to have solar panels as part of their default specification in the future. It would be an obvious move to make. Presently, where solar panels are easily upto the task presented to them, they are near perfect energy providers. Cheap, clean power cells could work in tandem with solar cells. That would be fun. Abundant energy. More than anyone could ever want.
I don't see a better energy storage alternative to lithium ion batteries out there on the horizon yet, so I think we're stuck** with them for the time being. Anybody know different? Once again, the cheap, clean power cell would render their requirement almost dead.
**stuck, being a relative word here. Lithium ion batteries are pretty good.
But we aren't stuck to one kind of battery type. Could cars or things that require high amounts of power have lithium (or a future high power battery type) whereas power stations could be replace by vast powerbanks of batteries like Fork Truck water based ones? You can store the power in all sorts of forms as long as it is accesible into electricity in the national grid when required.
Yeah, I see what you're saying, but the lead-acid battery is all but done and dusted, in terms of development. They're pretty awful to dispose of too. Tesla cars actually have lithium-ion batteries providing the electricity storage on them. As a technology lithium-ion batteries are undeniably pretty damn good, and we were really stuck before they emerged, but they're still not good enough, in terms of cost. Incidentally, lithium is remarkably light in weight too. It'll float in motor oil, for example. I think I read somewhere, a couple of years ago, that there are 39 million tonnes of mine-able lithium predicted in the planet. A couple of years ago that was enough for around 100 years. Then last year our use of lithium went up 12% [IIRC] and we are barely scratching the surface in terms of what we would use it for if there was an infinite amount. So lithium is a very nice ore that already has great uses. We even need it in our diet, it's that important. I don't think we should be raiding the planet for it too much just yet.
I also think that the days of the national grid as we know it are numbered**, because it is so bloody inefficient. By the time electricity gets to the socket it can have lost 75% of its efficiency, because it is being produced so far away. That's bad. We ought to be going back to local power stations, or if the power cells are developed quickly enough, just having semi off-grid household power stations, with just enough connectivity so that we can return power to a local grid and sold when we don't need it. Some solid state box of tricks could take care of that. Like a really smart meter, but calculating the excess power going out instead of coming in.
**So you know what I think of these proposed French/Chinese nuclear fission power stations, that will be so out of date by the time they are providing the costliest electricity ever, that they'll probably be immediately shut down.
Jesus Imps, don't you ever tire of being so cynical? Have some faith in the legal system, even if you have none in the people administering it.
As to your last point - London's housing crisis is absolutely beyond tipping point. That's why the focus is currently on the capital and not on Lincoln.
The focus is only ever on the capital. I'm not on about Lincoln. What is happening in Kensington is happening all over London, is happening all over the UK. But no-one will be bothered about why it is happening. Just pin the blame on a few councillors and then get back to making each other rich.
Not cynical. I have complete faith that the legal system will sort out the people to blame in this case. I just have zero faith in any politician or anyone else that could open the can of worms to do so.
An update on lithium-ion battery applications. Several may know that Leon Musk promised to solve South Australia's power problems, as they have had sporadic blackouts. So Tesla are going to build the World's largest lithium-ion battery: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-40527784