Climate in the 21st Century

Will Humankind see the 22nd Century?

  • Not a fucking chance

    Votes: 43 29.1%
  • Maybe. if we get our act together

    Votes: 36 24.3%
  • Yes, we will survive

    Votes: 69 46.6%

  • Total voters
    148

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
I think by 2030 EVs will be affecting the gasoline markets globally, but more oil can be refined into diesel and jet fuel instead of gasoline. I think by 2035 the power utilities will feel the effects of the growing number of prosumers, people and businesses who make and store their own power while hooked up to the grid and they will want a deal.

Using a single source of energy for home and transport that they can generate themselves, should be attractive to many people, provided the benefits are in line with the costs. Even if it is a small system that only offsets their electric bill for their transportation costs, some panels on the garage with a cheap sodium battery as part of an EV home solar recharging kit.

The two biggest factors involved in our transition away from fossil fuels will be solar and batteries, we are there with solar as the cheapest form of power generation and well on our way with cheap batteries that should steadily improve over time. There will be other forms of power generation, but solar should dominate for most of the human population and battery storage will make any form of energy generation more efficient.


According to the EIA, the growth of the petrochemical sector is supporting the demand for oil. Transportation, not so much.

IEA reported that, “the use of oil for transport fuels is set to go into decline after 2026 as the expansion of electric vehicles, the growth of biofuels and improving fuel economy reduce consumption.”
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
It's not all roses, how about the people who can't generate their own power? Should everybody be required to be hooked up to the grid who is now and pay a low basic flat fee to maintain the system? They are incentivizing energy storage and cheaper batteries are on the way in a couple of years. We also can't go with the grid as currently configured and will need a smart improved grid, we won't have a new one, the existing one will be upgraded.

 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
Batteries with higher energy densities and improved solar panels should make a practical self-charging compact EV possible, with a useful enough solar recharging range for the needs of most people. Free transportation costs would be a big draw for many people, if the purchase price were low enough. Even if you lived in Canada or the US northeast or north, you would only need to plug it into 120 volts for 3 or 4 months in the winter and even then, it would still generate some power on its own.


Solar Powered Cars Are Here — But Can They Go Mainstream?

184,616 views Nov 20, 2022 #cnbc
Three companies, Sono Motors, Aptera Motors and Lightyear are all developing solar electric vehicles that are set to hit the European and U.S. markets over the next few years. While these cars have regular, lithium-based batteries that can be charged using electricity from the grid, they also contain integrated solar panels which can provide an additional 15-45 miles of range on a sunny day. As the technology develops, many see the potential for solar electric vehicles to gain wider adoption as EV manufacturers and consumers alike seek greater efficiency and range alongside a decreased dependence on the grid.
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
IMO one of the biggest drivers of change will be extreme weather events and trends, last year the rivers of Europe nearly dried up with disastrous results for shipping and agriculture. We are seeing the same in America with extended droughts, heat waves, hurricanes and tornados. Not being able to get insurance for houses or paying high rates might help too.


Mississippi River Near Historic Lows Putting Grain Exports at Risk
 

VaSmile

Well-Known Member
I think by 2030 EVs will be affecting the gasoline markets globally, but more oil can be refined into diesel and jet fuel instead of gasoline. I think by 2035 the power utilities will feel the effects of the growing number of prosumers, people and businesses who make and store their own power while hooked up to the grid and they will want a deal.

Using a single source of energy for home and transport that they can generate themselves, should be attractive to many people, provided the benefits are in line with the costs. Even if it is a small system that only offsets their electric bill for their transportation costs, some panels on the garage with a cheap sodium battery as part of an EV home solar recharging kit.

The two biggest factors involved in our transition away from fossil fuels will be solar and batteries, we are there with solar as the cheapest form of power generation and well on our way with cheap batteries that should steadily improve over time. There will be other forms of power generation, but solar should dominate for most of the human population and battery storage will make any form of energy generation more efficient.


According to the EIA, the growth of the petrochemical sector is supporting the demand for oil. Transportation, not so much.

IEA reported that, “the use of oil for transport fuels is set to go into decline after 2026 as the expansion of electric vehicles, the growth of biofuels and improving fuel economy reduce consumption.”
I'm committed to my next car being an EV. Looking to buy a 2025 model around 2028(dependent on how long my fit last, and if I choose to pay off my wife's car early ((4yrs left))

My research has told me that Evs are improving at about 15% every 2 years in terms of range, charge times, cost. Not hard data just the feel I get form checking the market of what I can afford every 3-4months for the past 18.

Charging availability will get a huge up grade in 2025 as many automakers will have their stand build set up to use both N.amarican standard and tesla charge station.

Basically the feeling I get is that if you bought a 2022 ICE model and drive it for a decade you will be dumb to replace it with a ICE car in 2033.
By 2035 we will have 500mile range EVs making 220hp with a MPGe of 130 rapid charge times of 10 minutes 240v in 3hr and 120v in 5hr being sold for 40k USD(Adjusted of inflation)

Going solar for anyhome owner with sufficient sunlight is already a no brainer from an accounting stand point, and will only get better.

At the end of the day it's all about the batteries. The are progressing at a every faster rate then EVs, solar panels, smart grids, micro grids and such. the only real question is how good will they get? What dose fully developed energy storage tech do? The laws of physics put a known limit on efficiency (we have not meet it yet) but we are nowhere close(and never will be)to knowing the limiting factors of chemistry !
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
Maybe it's too late, but too late for what? Warmer world with higher sea levels and mass extinctions as life adapts to new conditions. Too late perhaps to preserve the world we have known, but not too late to make one people and animals can survive in. In any case we must try and do our best to lower carbon and methane emissions. There is no giving up here we will go down swinging.

 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
I'm committed to my next car being an EV. Looking to buy a 2025 model around 2028(dependent on how long my fit last, and if I choose to pay off my wife's car early ((4yrs left))

My research has told me that Evs are improving at about 15% every 2 years in terms of range, charge times, cost. Not hard data just the feel I get form checking the market of what I can afford every 3-4months for the past 18.

Charging availability will get a huge up grade in 2025 as many automakers will have their stand build set up to use both N.amarican standard and tesla charge station.

Basically the feeling I get is that if you bought a 2022 ICE model and drive it for a decade you will be dumb to replace it with a ICE car in 2033.
By 2035 we will have 500mile range EVs making 220hp with a MPGe of 130 rapid charge times of 10 minutes 240v in 3hr and 120v in 5hr being sold for 40k USD(Adjusted of inflation)

Going solar for anyhome owner with sufficient sunlight is already a no brainer from an accounting stand point, and will only get better.

At the end of the day it's all about the batteries. The are progressing at a every faster rate then EVs, solar panels, smart grids, micro grids and such. the only real question is how good will they get? What dose fully developed energy storage tech do? The laws of physics put a known limit on efficiency (we have not meet it yet) but we are nowhere close(and never will be)to knowing the limiting factors of chemistry !
I was looking at an EV at the beginning of the year, but there was a two-year waiting list, it was too expensive and cold weather performance was not good enough for Canada yet, but soon. Also, they were not making many small cheap compact EVs, just huge kilowatt guzzlers for the wealthy early adopters.

I post a lot on battery breakthroughs, improvements, new types and new factories going up, batteries are the key to a green future and a dramatically changed energy economy. Everything from home solar generation and storage to solar EVs depends on battery improvements and mass manufacture.

I like to post about solutions for the most part, we are in the midst of an energy revolution over the next 10 to 20 years and that has political implications, from how do you pay for roads with no fuel tax to what kind of relationship you have with your grid operator as a prosumer or someone just paying a power bill. Going green can widen the wealth gap too, with only the well-off taking advantage of tax breaks or waiting for a government rebate check to arrive, rebates need to be built into prices.
 

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
Concrete supercapacitors? Imagine construction using this for everything made after 2030.

 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
Concrete supercapacitors? Imagine construction using this for everything made after 2030.

Flow and iron-based batteries are good for base load, but don't react to fluctuations in demand and are supplemented with Li-ion batteries for this now. They are starting to use super capacitors with them however and it vastly improves their performance when it comes to variations in load. Maybe the floor and foundation of the storage facility could also serve as a capacitor as would any large concrete structures nearby. I think super caps will be the primary solution for grid fluctuations along with some form of cheap battery chemistry like sodium or zinc. They might also be useful to stabilize the power in battery systems supporting fast charge stations for EVs.
 
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DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
Anybody living on a desert coast could use this and large floating arrays can be winched ashore during bad weather for farming operations. People in such sunny desert areas could devote a considerable portion of their roof space and wouldn't need that much for solar PV in most cases. When coupled with a greywater system it could meet the needs of the house and garden. Such systems should make more places inhabitable if they can generate a couple of hundred liters of water a day and use the grey water for the garden.


10 square meters (a 6' x 15' panel) could process around 50 liters of fresh water an hour and over a 10-hour period it could put 500 liters in the cistern a day. Mass produced mostly by robots from mostly plastic they might be made cheap. Storing water is a lot easier than storing electric power and a lined hole in the ground covered in solar panels is all that is required to store a lot of it. A grey water system can recover over 90% of the water used by the house for the garden, trees and lawn, just that used to flush solid waste would be lost to the septic system.

 
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DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member

Iron and Saltwater Battery How easy is that

26,683 views Oct 8, 2023
From an obscure 'obsolete' technology that few developers were interested in a decade ago, redox flow batteries are now exploding onto the global energy storage market as a genuine multi-billion dollar competitor to lithium-ion. They have many attractive selling points already, but a US company called ESS claim to have the lowest cost, least environmentally impactful version using the cheap and abundant commodities of iron and saltwater.
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
Lots of things can wipe out our global civilization and cause the deaths of billions, besides our own folly, here is one possibility. Wipe out the grid, communications and transport planet wide and what would be the result? We live in a cashless society these days and are more dependent on technology than ever before, all of it could be wiped out in an instant and we would be instantly back in the 19th century, but without the means or methods to support ourselves.

 

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
Lots of things can wipe out our global civilization and cause the deaths of billions, besides our own folly, here is one possibility. Wipe out the grid, communications and transport planet wide and what would be the result? We live in a cashless society these days and are more dependent on technology than ever before, all of it could be wiped out in an instant and we would be instantly back in the 19th century, but without the means or methods to support ourselves.

Once Pootin gives Kim plans for better intercontinental ballistic missiles a well placed nuke at the right height above the lower 48 could cause an EMP that would do much the same in a limited fashion.

Would take years to recover from and cause a lot more deaths and damage than dropping the same nuke on LA or NYC.

Chances of it ever getting to target are pretty slim with all the defences the US has against those same scenarios tho. Or did they give all that stuff to Ukraine? ;)

:peace:
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
A future possibility, if you could get 10kWh/day out of a washing machine sized device, but those who live in the desert and up north in winter would have trouble maintaining humidity levels outdoors. A laser with a MEM mirrors system could punch the right sized holes in a sheet, or a roll of whatever material was selected at high speed. If small holes are the issue, we have the technology! If they worked and could be made fast and cheap using automation, then maybe they might be useful at some point in the future. The air in winter is usually pretty dry and the thing should be temperature dependent, so that means indoor use in most wintery places and indoor air is often more polluted than outdoor air. Supplying it indoors with clean humid air should not be an issue or cost much though, even if you lived in the desert.

One problem I have with this device is where does the 10kWh of energy a day come from? Using the law of conservation of energy 10kWh is a lot of energy, where does it come from? Does it convert thermal energy to electrical energy and cause a temperature drop? Does it dry the air as it passes through removing some of the water? So, this thing is sitting in your basement generating 10kWh of electricity a day from the humidity in your house, or even supplemented, does it heat up or cool down? change the chemical or molecular structure of the water? Where does all this energy come from since energy can be neither created nor destroyed but can appear as matter. It sounds like an electrical perpetual motion machine, unless someone can explain where that 10kWh/day is coming from, if it appears at all. It appears to violate the laws of thermodynamics.


Is This Accidental Discovery The Future Of Energy?

20,834 views Oct 10, 2023
Is This Accidental Discovery The Future Of Energy? Imagine getting the energy needed to power our phones, light up our homes, or drive our cars, from thin air. And no, we’re not talking about Nikola Tesla’s dream of wireless power a century ago, but a new and accidental discovery along those lines from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Researchers have found a way to turn humidity into electricity. It’s called hygroelectrical power, and believe it or not, a company named CascataChuva is already trying to commercialize a variant of the technology. So, what is it and how does it work?
 
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DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
Just one of many breakthroughs happening weekly in battery R&D all over the world as the money pours in and the bets on the future are placed. There have been several recent breakthroughs in lithium sulfur batteries that should lead to their commercialization and energy densities of double or triple current levels should be attainable. Such power to weight levels would lead to much more efficient and longer range EVs with the battery pack mass halved or more, lower costs too, because less battery and enclosure are required, and less structure needed to carry the additional weight.


Researchers from the US and China have identified a previously unknown reaction mechanism that addresses the very short lifetimes of Li-sulfur batteries. Their paper is published in the journal Nature.

Lithium-sulfur batteries can store two to three times more energy in a given volume, resulting in longer vehicle ranges. Their lower cost, facilitated by the abundance and affordability of sulfur, makes them economically viable. Further, these batteries do not rely on critical resources such as cobalt and nickel, which may face shortages in the future.
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
More mineral finds and new batteries, it is amazing what you can find when you start looking for it! The problem is processing and refining rare earths and lithium, though new methods are being developed and tested. Some methods are as simple as mats of wicks dipped in salt solutions that can separate out various minerals like lithium and common salt.

 

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
Only thing better than blue crab is king crab. When I was a kid in MD mama would make a day of it on the bay, with a pack of chicken necks, a ball of string, and a long-handled net. Place where we stayed every year loaned us a huge enamelware stockpot and we steamed them, then had a shuck& nibble party.

 
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