Making ethanol from corn is the least efficient use of farmland

[blackpowder]

Be careful to throw up the red flag of democracy. It could lead to an easy derail for someone.
Govt manipulation sometimes necessary.
But eventually yes, a true economic incentive needs to operate to drive innovation.

[WiltonRanch]

Be careful to throw up the red flag of democracy. It could lead to an easy derail for someone.
Govt manipulation sometimes necessary.
But eventually yes, a true economic incentive needs to operate to drive innovation.

You can never have too much education, too much knowledge, or do too much research neither. I eschew though it must be allowed to be free of ideology and strictly empirical for it to be worthwhile. The soviets did piles of R&D but it sucked because ideology and method were/are inflexible and downright foolhardy.

[chuckChuck]

https://www.consumerreports.org/hybrids-evs/evs-offer-big-savings-over-traditional-gas-powered-cars/

EVs Offer Big Savings Over Traditional Gas-Powered Cars
A CR study shows that total ownership cost savings can more than make up for an electric vehicle's typically higher purchase price

Consumer Reports article from October 2020 which is now very out of date because the price of gasoline has gone up alot.

"The savings advantage can be compelling in the first few years and continues to improve the longer you own the EV. Our study shows that fuel savings alone can be $4,700 or more over the first seven years.

When comparing vehicles of similar size and from the same segment, an EV can cost anywhere from 10 percent to over 40 percent more than a similar gasoline-only model, according to CR’s analysis. The typical total ownership savings over the life of most EVs ranges from $6,000 to $10,000, CR found. The exact margin of savings would depend on the price difference between the gas-powered and EV models that are being compared."

[WiltonRanch]

https://www.consumerreports.org/hybrids-evs/evs-offer-big-savings-over-traditional-gas-powered-cars/

EVs Offer Big Savings Over Traditional Gas-Powered Cars
A CR study shows that total ownership cost savings can more than make up for an electric vehicle's typically higher purchase price

Consumer Reports article from October 2020 which is now very out of date because the price of gasoline has gone up alot.

"The savings advantage can be compelling in the first few years and continues to improve the longer you own the EV. Our study shows that fuel savings alone can be $4,700 or more over the first seven years.

When comparing vehicles of similar size and from the same segment, an EV can cost anywhere from 10 percent to over 40 percent more than a similar gasoline-only model, according to CR’s analysis. The typical total ownership savings over the life of most EVs ranges from $6,000 to $10,000, CR found. The exact margin of savings would depend on the price difference between the gas-powered and EV models that are being compared."

Do you own an EV?

[shtferbrains]

Do you own an EV?

CHUCK is waiting for a Ford Lightning.
He has explained repeatedly that that is his choice because they are ideal for storing surplus solar that he generates.

What did the purchase price work out to once you got it optioned to your preferences if you don't mind me asking?

Might trade for one myself if I can deal for maybe 30k difference.
I'm sure my trade is worth about 55k.
Will that work?

[AlbertaFarmer5]

CHUCK is waiting for a Ford Lightning.

No, he's still waiting for the solid state battery powered EV. He has been posting cut and paste claiming that they are only a year away from being released for, I forget how many years now. Still appears to be a few years in the future.

Much safer to make promises about something that is unlikely to actually occur.

Although China did release some prototypes recently. Performance was no where near the promises.

[chuckChuck]

https://www.motortrend.com/features/tech-trends-battery-fuel-cell-motors/

The EV Tech That Will Improve Range, Cost, and Environmental Impact
It's going to take even better electric cars to grow the market—that's where these advances come in.
Frank Markus Author

Jun 14, 2021

With most crystal balls indicating an impending mad dash toward widespread adoption of electric cars, the R&D community is working overtime to solve the thorny problems limiting the market penetration of plug-in vehicles to around 4 percent of global passenger vehicle sales: not enough range or raw materials, and too much mass and cost. Here are some key advances to watch for in battery, fuel cell, and electric motor technology.
Battery Tech

Today's lithium-ion batteries mostly use lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide chemistry with a liquid or gel electrolyte. This stuff can freeze or catch fire, lithium "dendrite" spikes can form and cause a short circuit if the battery is charged too quickly, and cobalt is rare, expensive, and increasingly difficult to source ethically. Lithium iron phosphate chemistry eliminates cobalt and is less prone to overheating and explosion. Lithium manganese oxide also promises better temperature stability and safety. Replacing the graphite electrodes most batteries now use promises to boost energy density, and Tesla has hinted at a new electrode design employing silicon nanowires that could boost gravimetric energy density from today's 254 Wh/kg to 400.

Solid-state batteries using ceramic or other solid electrolytes generally eliminate the fire risk, improve energy density, and permit ultra-fast recharging. QuantumScape's design employs a simple current collector instead of an anode to save weight; prototypes are now delivering 400 Wh/kg, with 600 promised. Its ceramic separator promises to tolerate recharge rates roughly akin to the time you'd spend filling a gas tank. Solid Power is developing an iron-sulfur chemistry with Ford and BMW; the founder of defunct Sakti3 is working on solid-state batteries for Fisker. And we hear Samsung has a silver-carbon anode solid-state battery in the works.

Another important development is wireless battery management, which promises to replace heavy, costly copper wiring with faster Wi-Fi communication. All GM Ultium batteries will reportedly feature such a system. And on the materials availability front, we're watching efforts to mine the Pacific Ocean's Clarion-Clipperton zone, which is littered with loose potato-sized polymetallic nodules composed of 29.2 percent manganese, 1.3 percent nickel, 1.1 percent copper, and 0.2 percent cobalt. A virtual electric vehicle starter kit.
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Fuel Cells

Most automotive fuel cells employ a proton-exchange membrane—they're compact and light, and they operate at comfortable temperatures. But they need humidity (which poses water management and freezing challenges), and they require reasonably pure hydrogen. Production vehicles will use these systems for the foreseeable future. There are fuel cells that can directly extract hydrogen from methanol, but these produce CO2 and are now only used in industrial applications like forklifts. A third type is the flow battery, in which an electrolyte containing one or more dissolved electroactive elements flows through an electrochemical cell that reversibly converts chemical energy directly to electricity, depleting the electrolyte. The spent electrolyte must then be re-energized, either by plugging in and pumping it backward through the flow cell or by replacing it with fresh electrolyte and re-energizing the electrolyte offboard. Liechtenstein-based NanoFlowcell has developed a compact sports car called the Quantino powered by its flow cell but hasn't announced a production partner. Of perhaps greater interest on the fuel cell front are technological approaches to generating, isolating, storing, and transporting hydrogen.
Electric Motor Tech

Abundant research is ongoing to improve the cost, weight, and efficiency of electric motors, too. China produces 95 percent of the rare earth materials in permanent magnets, but funding from the Defense Department's REACT program (Rare Earth Alternatives in Critical Technologies) has produced three promising results: The University of Minnesota developed a strong and inexpensive iron-nitride magnet, the University of North Texas' Ames Laboratory is exploring cerium as a more abundant neodymium replacement, and Argonne National Lab has an "exchange spring" magnet in the works, the science of which is utterly inscrutable to non-PhDs (happy Googling).

How magnets are arranged makes a big difference, as well. Most motors place them so their north-south poles radiate out from the axis of rotation with the gap between rotor and stator parallel to the axis. A new class of axial-flux motors, sometimes called "pancake motors," arrange the poles parallel and the gap perpendicular to the rotation axis. This puts the magnets farther away from the axis of rotation, which increases their leverage (and therefore torque), and heat is easier to manage. The new McLaren Artura PHEV's axial-flux motor is said to be 33 percent more power dense than the one used in the McLaren P1 hybrid hypercar.

Reluctance motors can do without permanent magnets or rotor windings altogether, and they deliver high power density at low cost, but are noisier and suffer "torque ripple" (a slight interruption in torque when transitioning between poles). But just as recent electronics advances have made synchronous reluctance motors easier to control, a power-pulsing concept from Tula Technologies promises to eliminate or hide this torque ripple, increasing this motor's appeal for automotive applications.

Electric motors are so efficient that most do without a traditional transmission, but a better balance of launch torque and cruising-speed efficiency can be achieved with a second gear ratio roughly half that of the launch gear. Toronto-based supplier Inmotive's bicycle-derailleur-inspired two-speed chain-drive concept requires no high-pressure lubrication or cooling, and it suffers no frictional losses from multiple gears maintaining continuous mesh. This can either stretch the range or shrink the battery by 7-15 percent. And Bosch has developed a continuously variable CVT4EV push-chain transmission offering ratio spreads of between 3.0 and 4.0, designed to provide sufficient torque from a smaller motor as speed varies.
What About Reuse/Recycling?

We were originally told tired EV batteries would get a second life of storing green energy or providing emergency backup power before being fully recycled. How's that going so far?

Reuse: Nissan set up systems to assess and repackage its Leaf EV battery modules as replacement Leaf batteries, forklift batteries, and as the xStorage Home energy storage system. Similar home units reusing EV batteries are offered by U.K.-based Powervault, Sweden's Box of Energy, and Australia's Relectrify, but it's hard to determine exactly the number or percentage of retiring EV batteries reused each year.

Recycling: When batteries are no longer usable, there are roughly 100 global companies that'll recycle them, according to London-based Circular Energy Storage. Together they reportedly processed about half the roughly 200,000 tons of lithium-ion batteries retired worldwide in 2019. Most are in China and Korea, near where batteries are made; the recycling rate drops to more like 5 percent in the U.S., Europe, and Australia.

Canadian firm Li-Cycle is constructing what promises to be North America's biggest battery recycling center in Rochester, New York. It's designed to process nearly 28,000 tons annually—about a third of the battery waste stream we'll face in 2030. Li-Cycle claims its hydrometallurgical (leaching) process involves zero wastewater, minimal greenhouse gas emissions, and no landfill waste, and it recovers 95 percent of the lithium, nickel, and cobalt. This will make Li-Cycle a primary supplier of these metals and the U.S.' only domestic source of cobalt.

Redwood Materials in Carson City, Nevada, founded by Tesla co-creator J.B. Straubel, uses a combination of pyrometallurgy (thermal extraction) and hydrometallurgy processes to recycle Gigafactory-reject cells today. This recovers between 95 and 98 percent of the nickel, cobalt, copper, aluminum, and graphite, and more than 80 percent of the lithium. Redwood has ambitions of also recycling general consumer electronics, and others are launching similar recycling efforts to recover rare earths and other precious elements used in EVs. One potential hitch: Cobalt is the money metal that really makes recycling pay, so those new battery chemistries mentioned above that eliminate cobalt could end up setting recycling efforts back.

[Hamloc]

Some interesting facts from Bjorn Lomberg

European Union puts climate at the top of its political agenda yet more than 80% of its primary energy needs are met by fossil fuels. Solar and wind provides less than 4% of the EU’s total energy.

Batteries are inadequate and expensive easily quadrupling solar electricity costs. In 2021 Europe only had battery backup capacity to back up less than 1 and a half minutes of its average electricity usage. By 2030, with 10 times the stock of batteries there will be enough for 12 minutes.

At present 60% of the EU’s total renewable energy comes from burning wood pellets. Need I go on?

[chuckChuck]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/28/uk-electricity-from-renewables-outpaces-gas-and-coal-power

UK electricity from renewables outpaces gas and coal power
This article is more than 1 year old

In 2020 wind turbines provided almost a quarter of electricity, and in EU renewable energy outperformed fossil fuels

Thu 28 Jan 2021 00.01 GMT
Last modified on Mon 8 Feb 2021 13.36 GMT

The UK’s renewable electricity outpaced its fossil fuel generation for the first time in 2020 and could remain the largest source of electricity in the future, according to an independent climate thinktank.

The thinktank behind the report, Ember, revealed that renewable energy generated by wind, sunlight, water and wood made up 42% of the UK’s electricity last year compared with 41% generated from gas and coal plants together.

Although renewable energy has overtaken fossil fuels during the summer months before, 2020 was the first time that renewables were the main source of the UK’s electricity over a year.

Renewable energy also outperformed fossil fuels across the EU for the first time, according to the report, following a collapse in the use of coal last year.

Ember said the UK’s growing stable of windfarms was one of the main reasons for the country’s renewable record. Almost a quarter of the UK’s electricity was generated by wind turbines last year, double the share of wind power in 2015 and up from a fifth of the UK’s electricity in 2019.

By contrast, electricity from gas-fired power plants fell to a five-year low of 37% of the UK’s electricity, while coal power plants made up just 2% of the electricity mix.

Charles Moore, the programme leader at Ember, said: “With Boris’s 40GW 2030 offshore wind target, gas generation is set for further rapid declines over the 2020s. It is clear the UK has started its journey towards gas power phase-out in 2035 as recommended by the Climate Change Committee.”

The report found that solar and hydro power generated 4% and 2% of the UK’s electricity respectively last year, which was unchanged compared with the year before.

Bioenergy, which is power generated by burning wood pellets, grew slightly to make up 12% of the UK’s electricity, raising concerns over the use of an energy source “with a high risk of negative climate and environmental impacts”.

Moore said: “We view bioenergy as a much higher risk form of renewable energy, for both climate and environmental outcomes, than the other forms such as wind and solar.”

The trend towards renewable energy power accelerated in 2020 following a sudden drop in demand for energy from the national grid as shops, offices and restaurants closed during the Covid lockdown restrictions, the report said. Renewable energy, the cheapest source of electricity in the UK, was able to claim a larger share of the electricity mix as the electricity system operator left gas plants idle and called on nuclear reactors to lower their output to stop the grid from being overwhelmed with more electricity than the UK required.

The thinktank predicted that renewable electricity will maintain its lead in the UK’s electricity system in the years ahead, even after normal demand levels return, as new wind and solar farms are built across the country.

“The coronavirus has accelerated the trend towards renewable energy but we would have expected renewables to overtake fossil fuels by 2021. It has brought forward the trend by only a year or two,” Moore said. “Renewables will probably remain above fossil fuels this year, but it’s very dependent on various things like nuclear output and the weather. Even if fossil fuels return this year it will be a narrow lead and a short-lived one.”

The UK recorded a string of green energy records in 2020, including the highest recorded output for wind during Storm Bella on Boxing Day, and a new record for solar power in April.

The electricity system operator, which is owned by National Grid, said the larger role for renewables also caused the “carbon intensity” of Great Britain’s power system to fall to its lowest level on record. It fell to 181g of carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour of electricity last year, compared with an average of 215g in 2019 and 248g in 2018, it said.

[chuckChuck]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-canada-renewables-idUSKBN2BF0H8

Canada predicts largest oil province Alberta to lead growth in renewables

By Nia Williams

3 Min Read

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - Canada’s biggest oil-producing province Alberta is expected to see the fastest growth in renewable energy capacity between 2018 and 2023, the Canada Energy Regulator forecast in a Tuesday report, as new wind and solar projects help replace coal-fired electricity.

By 2023, 26% of Alberta’s electricity capacity will come from renewable sources, up from 16% in 2017. The neighbouring prairie province of Saskatchewan will also see renewable energy capacity jump to 33% from 25% over the same period.

Both provinces are in the process of phasing out coal-fired electricity generation, and replacing it with natural gas, wind and solar power. Alberta will add nearly 2,000 megawatts of renewable power capacity between 2017 and 2023, while Saskatchewan will add 587 megawatts in that time.

The “Canada’s Renewable Power” report says the country’s total installed renewable capacity will hit 71% in 2023, or 106,027 megawatts, up from 67% in 2018. However the rate of growth will slow from 2.9% per year in 2010-2017, to 1.3% per year in 2018-2023.

“When people think about the Prairies, many of them think about fossil fuels. Interestingly, our projections show they are actually now leading the way in renewable energy growth, while national levels will slow in the next three years,” said Darren Christie, CER chief economist.

The vast majority of the country’s clean power comes from an extensive network of hydropower dams in British Columbia, Manitoba and Quebec. Canada generated 426,000 gigawatt hours of electricity from renewables in 2018, 66.2% of its total power.

Among the countries included in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Canada has the eight-largest share of renewables in its electricity mix, and is targeting net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Christie said much of the activity over the last decade had been driven by Ontario phasing out coal-fired power plants and building more renewables, and that growth was tapering off.

“There’s a bit of a passing of the baton from Ontario to Alberta and Saskatchewan,” he added.

Reporting by Nia Williams; Editing by Aurora Ellis