Inflation Reduction Act may be Unconstitutional - Take your Credits ASAP

billvon said:

So when everyone in India decides they want their own car, the technology to do it with non-fossil energy sources will exist. And that's worthwhile.

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The thousands of years to extract the minerals from the earth for those EVil batteries not withstanding, of course.
We could dig more holes for lithium and cobalt and... but the same folks that want EVs don't want more holes in the ground because they will disturb the nesting grounds of the flying tortoise-rat-fish. Unless those holes are in a third world country with no EPA.
And the beat goes on.

I'd love to see a breakdown of how much CO2 is involved in a standard gas powered car's production, compared to an EV.
Then compare the other, unquestionable pollution side of things (lithium mining I hear is not very enviro-friendly).

I recall years ago someone did something kinda like that comparing a Prius to a Hummer and the Prius essentially started off with a 50k mile "deficit" so to speak or something like that just because of how much it took to mine and refine the stuff for the batteries and all. (Don't try to beat me up on the exact numbers, it was years ago and I don't remember the specifics, just the gist of it and it was kinda funny/ironic).

Look I'm not against EVs for those who want them. But that's the key - you WANT it? Then buy it. But don't you tell me I HAVE to buy something that I don't want (or even work as well as the current alternative). Then you factor in the extra cost and yeah, I don't have that kind of money, sorry. But if you do, and you want to buy one, by all means, go ahead. I only care when you start trying to force your desires on everyone else. At that point, you can go shove it

HighDesertOffgrid said:

The thousands of years to extract the minerals from the earth for those EVil batteries not withstanding, of course.
We could dig more holes for lithium and cobalt and... but the same folks that want EVs don't want more holes in the ground because they will disturb the nesting grounds of the flying tortoise-rat-fish. Unless those holes are in a third world country with no EPA.
And the beat goes on.

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We'll just keep mining third world Canadian tar sands for oil that we can export, because mining lithium makes a mess.

Frankly I think mining of any kind makes some level of mess. You should see the gravel pit not too far from here. Talk about a big mess, and that's just for some boring rock.

billvon said:

Yep. Fortunately we are working on that.

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Yep and it will not happen quickly enough, according to the doomsday predicters of climate change. Everything I see these doomsday people saying is we have until 2030 before it's all over. I'd be stunned if the US has replaced even 25% of ICE vehicles with EVs by 2030. I'd also be stunned if even 50% of those EVs were being charged by renewable power sources.

billvon said:

Of course they are. There are places in the US that were all hydro for decades. And hydro is the perfect complement to wind and solar, since it is both throttleable and storable.

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Of course they are not. There is not enough wind, hydro & solar in the US to replace fossil plants. Period. Not even close. I live 10 miles from a hydro station - virtually 100% of my utility-provided power is from hydro. Newsflash - the grid is all inter-connected so even the hydro places are fed fossil fuel power in times of need.

billvon said:

Economics is doing that for us. Nuclear reactors are, by far, the most expensive form of new electrical power we have, and new plants take ~20 years from initial planning to first power output. The Vogtle reactors that are just coming on line now are a good example of that cost/timeline.

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Those costs and extended timetables are ONLY because of EPA / liberal idiots who have made the process stupid and convoluted. The only reason we have all these issues with building plants is because we have allowed uneducated, misinformed idiots have too large a voice in how things get done. I say we unplug all of them from the grid first.

billvon said:

Sure, we can do more research and see if MSR's or SMR's (or fusion, the eternal energy source of the future) will be better than that - cheaper, faster to install, safer. But that research takes a long time - solar/wind/hydro is available right now.

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And again, it is impossible to replace all of the fossil plants in the US with renewables with current technology. It's a fact. Basically, the US grid is 60% powered by fossil fuels and 18% powered by nuclear plants. That leaves 22% powered by renewables. That's great but it is far from being plausible to power the US.

Fun Facts -

For 2022 residential electricity sales in the US were 1.5 trillion kilowatt hours.
For 2022 commercial electricity sales in the US were 1.375 trillion kilowatt hours.
For 2022 industrial electricity sales in the US were 1.008 trillion kilowatt hours.


All of the renewable electrical generation technologies in the US together have a max capability of 330 million kilowatts. Even if all of them could run 24/7 at max output (and we know solar and wind are not producing 24/7) they would generate 2.9 trillion kilowatt hours of power in a year. Let me make that easier for you to understand - the US used almost 3.9 trillion kilowatt hours of electricity throughout 2022. Notice how far off the renewable capacity is from that? That is almost a one trillion watthour deficit. Factor in the realities of real solar and wind production and the deficit is much greater than my utopian example. Therein lies the issue...

I hope it is obvious I am a solar enthusiast, why else would I be on this forum? But first and foremost I am a realist. Reality is right now we need fossil fuel power plants. The only realistic replacement for them is nuclear power plants. Politics and BS is what causes nuclear plants to be built in inappropriate places. Politics and liberal idiots have caused storage of spent fuel to be an issue. At some point science and data have to used to make decisions instead of fear and emotions.

Q-Dog said:

We'll just keep mining third world Canadian tar sands for oil that we can export, because mining lithium makes a mess.View attachment 199371

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I'm okay with that. How many kwh in a kilo of tar sands?
First you need a battery pack for that Terex. Got one?

Q-Dog said:

We'll just keep mining third world Canadian tar sands for oil that we can export, because mining lithium makes a mess.View attachment 199371

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They clear cut through forests and illegally punctured the aquifer in several places by me just to put in the new pipeline to send your pretty tar sand oil down through Minnesota

HighDesertOffgrid said:

I'm okay with that. How many kwh in a kilo of tar sands?
First you need a battery pack for that Terex. Got one?

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Who cares. A complaint was made about the environmental costs of lithium extraction, as though oil extraction has no environmental costs.

But if you want to fugure out how much energy you get from tar sands, have at it. It costs about $100 per barrel to extract, transport, process and refine bitumen (tar sands oil) into a usable product.

Q-Dog said:

Who cares. A complaint was made about the environmental costs of lithium extraction, as though oil extraction has no environmental costs.

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I didn't see that complaint. But i hear there is a very rich lithium deposit near the Salton sea. When do you expect the digging to start?

HighDesertOffgrid said:

I didn't see that complaint. But i hear there is a very rich lithium deposit near the Salton sea. When do you expect the digging to start?

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Funny you mention the Salton sea. I read an article that had a paragraph on potential lithium extraction from the brine water there.

"Direct lithium extraction offers an interesting domestic application in the Salton Sea, a highly saline and polluted body of water in California that currently releases significant air pollution in local communities. If successfully commercialized, direct lithium extraction promises to improve production yields from the 40 to 50 percent with existing methods to greater than 80 percent; this method would also take less time and reduce land and water needs, compared with conventional brine mining. The potential here is massive—new analyses suggest that direct lithium extraction in the Salton Sea could provide lithium for more than 375 million EV batteries, about 24 times current production levels globally."

Checkthisout said:

Oh look we found. We found the guy with 4 covid shots who still got covid....

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I went to the post office yesterday and while at the counter noticed a box of those blue masks everyone was wearing “ by declaration” ,so to speak…a years or two ago…
I found it interesting when I noticed the disclaimer on the box…

This disclaimer is recent I believe as I never saw it before ..haaaaaaaaaaaaa…
we are all on a Nantucket sleigh ride…. And have no hand on the helm….

J.

Q-Dog said:

Who cares. A complaint was made about the environmental costs of lithium extraction, as though oil extraction has no environmental costs.

But if you want to fugure out how much energy you get from tar sands, have at it. It costs about $100 per barrel to extract, transport, process and refine bitumen (tar sands oil) into a usable product.

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I never said that.

HighDesertOffgrid said:

I didn't see that complaint. But i hear there is a very rich lithium deposit near the Salton sea. When do you expect the digging to start?

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You didn't because I didn't complain, I just mentioned it as a point of comparison. And I never said oil extraction has no environmental costs. But some people can't help but embellish a little bit I guess

HighDesertOffgrid said:

I didn't see that complaint. But i hear there is a very rich lithium deposit near the Salton sea. When do you expect the digging to start?

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I think that one will be a liquid process ... no digging involved.

Q-Dog said:

I think that one will be a liquid process ... no digging involved.

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The only way that will get permitted is if the Pelosi/Newsom crime family are majority stakeholders.
Poor Sonny Bono will be rolling over in his grave.

B-ManFX4 said:

Yep and it will not happen quickly enough, according to the doomsday predicters of climate change. Everything I see these doomsday people saying is we have until 2030 before it's all over. I'd be stunned if the US has replaced even 25% of ICE vehicles with EVs by 2030. I'd also be stunned if even 50% of those EVs were being charged by renewable power sources.



Of course they are not. There is not enough wind, hydro & solar in the US to replace fossil plants. Period. Not even close. I live 10 miles from a hydro station - virtually 100% of my utility-provided power is from hydro. Newsflash - the grid is all inter-connected so even the hydro places are fed fossil fuel power in times of need.



Those costs and extended timetables are ONLY because of EPA / liberal idiots who have made the process stupid and convoluted. The only reason we have all these issues with building plants is because we have allowed uneducated, misinformed idiots have too large a voice in how things get done. I say we unplug all of them from the grid first.



And again, it is impossible to replace all of the fossil plants in the US with renewables with current technology. It's a fact. Basically, the US grid is 60% powered by fossil fuels and 18% powered by nuclear plants. That leaves 22% powered by renewables. That's great but it is far from being plausible to power the US.

Fun Facts -

For 2022 residential electricity sales in the US were 1.5 trillion kilowatt hours.
For 2022 commercial electricity sales in the US were 1.375 trillion kilowatt hours.
For 2022 industrial electricity sales in the US were 1.008 trillion kilowatt hours.

Electricity generation, capacity, and sales in the United States - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

U.S. annual electricity generation and generation capacity by fuel/energy sources and definitions of important electricity terms.

www.eia.gov

All of the renewable electrical generation technologies in the US together have a max capability of 330 million kilowatts. Even if all of them could run 24/7 at max output (and we know solar and wind are not producing 24/7) they would generate 2.9 trillion kilowatt hours of power in a year. Let me make that easier for you to understand - the US used almost 3.9 trillion kilowatt hours of electricity throughout 2022. Notice how far off the renewable capacity is from that? That is almost a one trillion watthour deficit. Factor in the realities of real solar and wind production and the deficit is much greater than my utopian example. Therein lies the issue...

I hope it is obvious I am a solar enthusiast, why else would I be on this forum? But first and foremost I am a realist. Reality is right now we need fossil fuel power plants. The only realistic replacement for them is nuclear power plants. Politics and BS is what causes nuclear plants to be built in inappropriate places. Politics and liberal idiots have caused storage of spent fuel to be an issue. At some point science and data have to used to make decisions instead of fear and emotions.

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The fossil fuel industry has been lobbying against nuclear since the 1950s.... But nice of you to regurgitate more of their propaganda.

You always forget to include money and bribery and lobbying from the old dinosaurs that don't want to give up their share of the pie into your stupid scapegoating.

y0bailey said:

The fossil fuel industry has been lobbying against nuclear since the 1950s.... But nice of you to regurgitate more of their propaganda.

You always forget to include money and bribery and lobbying from the old dinosaurs that don't want to give up their share of the pie into your stupid scapegoating.

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Let's be honest. All sides lobby and push to have their stuff. Don't think or pretend that the "green" side is any cleaner.
I think that lobbying has become practically criminal anymore. It is more like bribery than lobbying.

SparkyJJO said:

Let's be honest. All sides lobby and push to have their stuff. Don't think or pretend that the "green" side is any cleaner.
I think that lobbying has become practically criminal anymore. It is more like bribery than lobbying.

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No doubt there but do you really think the little green guys hold a candle to the billion dollar fossil fuel industry that's has a head start for decades?

I've asked for numbers plenty of times but sadly you guys never provide.

Any chance to blame a liberal and build strawmen, never a bad word against your propaganda bros.

It's all $. I just rather back the horse that burns this place down more slowly

But then again half of the mouth breathers here know more than NASA so why do they even waste their time with us here? I'm sure they're running calculations on how to land little pieces of coal on the moon right now.

y0bailey said:

I've asked for numbers plenty of times but sadly you guys never provide.

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Perhaps it’s the way you’re asking……..just maybe…?

I wouldn't call them "little green guys" when they are literally trying to force "green" down our throats. I don't have to provide some sort of study to see that. The govt is very active in this as of late.