Messages

1

The politics / Re: The Trump Presidency

« on: February 23, 2021, 06:56:52 AM »

Supreme court rejects Trump bid to block tax records from prosecutor

Shades of Al Capone ?

As a businessman who owns a lot of Real Estate, .......

AHHAHAHahahaha

/ignore

2

Policy and solutions / Re: Batteries: Today's Energy Solution

« on: September 30, 2020, 04:29:25 AM »

So Tesla may be able to manufacture 10% of the worldwide demand. 90% of a market still seems like a worthwhile target for other battery makers.

3

The rest / Re: SpaceX

« on: June 20, 2020, 10:07:30 PM »

Starship will be capable of taking people from any city to any other city on Earth in under one hour.

SpaceX has done some extremely impressive things and this video is entertaining, but the idea is impractical in so many ways it's just silly. This is flying-cars-and-jetpacks-for-commuting level silliness.

Perhaps.  Until Starship helps deliver tons of emergency supplies, equipment — and people — around the world in a pandemic, or earthquakes, or after hurricanes or floods... in hours, rather than days. 

A ticket on the Concorde cost thirty times the price of a comparable airline flight, making its widespread use constrained by that, among other things.  But earth-to-earth on the Starship in less than an hour is said to cost in the same range as an hours-long plane flight. 

Starship test “hops” reaching space, then returning to land, will demonstrate the feasibility of the concept as soon as this year.

Concorde is an interesting example. It never made money (counting development costs) and only had positive cash flow in a few of its years of operation, even with those ticket costs. And Concorde, at least, was certifiable (in a commercial passenger aircraft regulatory sense).
A lot of things can physically be done but are not practical. The video showed routine earth-to-earth commercial passenger travel. That's what I'm referring to. Never happen.

4

Policy and solutions / Re: Cars, cars and more cars Part Deux

« on: June 18, 2020, 07:27:46 AM »

My car battery died.
This is not the first time, and my guardian says it’s because I don’t drive it enough. He wants me to drive it about twenty minutes in a parking lot two or three times a week.
Is he right?

Or, if practical for your situation, get a cheap car battery charger and use that to charge the battery up every week or so. No need to burn all that gas to go in circles.

5

The rest / Re: SpaceX

« on: June 18, 2020, 07:22:28 AM »

Starship will be capable of taking people from any city to any other city on Earth in under one hour.

SpaceX has done some extremely impressive things and this video is entertaining, but the idea is impractical in so many ways it's just silly. This is flying-cars-and-jetpacks-for-commuting level silliness.

6

Consequences / Re: Global Surface Air Temperatures

« on: June 17, 2020, 04:24:46 AM »

@ZLabe tweet:
For the first time, every month so far this year has been at least 1°C greater than the 1951-1980 climate baseline.

*Note: M = sunspot cycle max, m = sunspot cycle min, V = volcano

[Anomalies from @NASAGISS. Graphic by http://columbia.edu/~mhs119/Temperature/T_moreFigs/]

https://twitter.com/ZLabe/status/1273064349368647681

7

Policy and solutions / Re: Electric cars

« on: April 08, 2020, 09:09:08 PM »

...   I doubt if there will ever be enough energy density in a battery to run an aircraft the size of a 747. 

Completely irrelevant when we're talking about electrifying the automobile.

But also shows a lack of awareness of how technology progresses in every field, including electric energy storage.  Current technology lithium ion batteries are not the pinnacle of battery storage technology.

8

Consequences / Re: COVID-19

« on: March 26, 2020, 06:13:33 AM »

...
 
You have to ask also how many prospects for dying in Covid19 there are in the population. How many old and sick in lifestyle diseases are there? ...

There are more than 50 million people 65 and older in the US. That's a rather large pool.

9

Consequences / Re: COVID-19

« on: February 25, 2020, 09:48:10 PM »

Here is another forum's extensive discussion of the epidemic:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/covid-19-or-the-wuhan-coronavirus-sars-mk-ii.482180/
BTW, the DJIA is down 2.4% (-671.36) and dropping.

Before you bother clicking this: access requires that you sign up for an account.

10

Policy and solutions / Re: Renewable Energy

« on: February 12, 2020, 10:26:28 PM »

"Yet the environmentalists don't seem to realise that the first impacts of the liveable biosphere breakdown won't be humans.  It will be animals."

Congratulations for winning "The Stupidest Thing I Have Read On ASIF For A Long Time" award!

Yes, I have to agree.

/ignore

Ah, I feel smarter already.

11

Policy and solutions / Re: Tesla glory/failure

« on: February 10, 2020, 09:46:31 PM »

In theory, I agree with you —  for hardware items.  If Tesla sells a Performance Model 3, with a spoiler, special wheels and brakes, but mistakenly prices it as a Standard Range Plus, I’d say you got a sweet deal and of course Tesla shouldn’t come buy and rip off the performance bits.

But service items are different.  They don’t exist unless there is a contract, a “true meeting of the minds,” in legal parlance.  Your insurance company may send you a copy of your policy, but it is not in effect unless you pay the premium.

I'm with Oren in fact, not theory.  If Tesla themselves sold the vehicle which they had taken back from an owner with a software set enabled, then it was incumbent on Tesla to remove said software set _before_ sale.

It is clear I was right about my analogy.  Tesla licenses their FSD software to the owner of the vehicle and it is a non transferrable "license to use".

They need to be 100% clear about this so that mistakes don't happen.

In this case they should take it on the chin and just put it back.  In future they should be better prepared.

Now that this is clear, it will make second hand Tesla's far less attractive.  After all who wants to buy an 8 year old Tesla in mint condition only to find out they have to shell out $8k more to get the license for the features the car was sold with?  I certainly have now been totally put off even looking at a second hand Tesla.  I was checking prices and seeing where they moved to.  I have now, officially, stopped.

This has always been a sore point in the IT world.  Car owners are going to dislike it WAY more.  After all, this means Tesla could sell FSD several times over the lifetime of the vehicle.  They may be a blend of a technology company and a vehicle manufacturer, but this is one thing they don't have to emulate from the technology world.

NeilT, how exactly is it clear that it's a software license?

I just looked at my purchase paperwork and there is nothing that indicates it is feature akin to a software license. In my purchase agreement there is a description of the vehicle configuration. It includes the base model, the long range add-on, the wheel style, the paint color, etc., and "Full Self Driving Capability." Nothing in the text of the contract lays out any details about how FSD is treated any differently than any other physical aspect of the car.

Re that particular case, from the horse's mouth (https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/tesla-yanked-fsd-option-without-notice-class-action-lawsuit-any-lawyers-here-pending-resolution.183804/)

Teslas that pass back through Tesla's ownership often have those software options removed before resale. Just like they might have different wheels installed. At the very least Tesla definitely screwed up in not disabling FSD when they sold it on. But they don't disable FSD on cars sold from one third party to another (and have not gone back through Tesla ownership).

Somewhat of an aside, Tesla has acknowledge their mistake and is re-enabling FSD on that owner's car:
"A couple of hours ago I have got a call from Elon! Just joking! It was a customer experience rep, she apologized for my troubles, told me that Tesla has restored all missed options cited a miscommunication and it was not intentionally!"
(from the thread linked above)

12

Policy and solutions / Re: Tesla glory/failure

« on: February 10, 2020, 09:23:33 PM »

But AFAIK, FSD is owner-specific and does not transfer with the car.  I don’t think a Tesla used Tesla can be sold “with FSD,” it would need to be activated by the new owner.  In the past, owners could upgrade to full Autopilot any time after purchase by selecting a purchase option on the car’s display (today I expect it is in the Tesla app); the cost is charged to the owner’s account on file, just like one pays for supercharging.

Another edit:  Like the monthly Tesla premium connection fee that provides additional services.  Or any subscription software feature.

Yet another edit:
Like the Acceleration Boost upgrade.  I would not expect this to follow to a new owner.

Tesla rolls out Model 3 ‘Acceleration Boost’ as in-app purchase option
https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-mobile-app-upgrades-acceleration-boost/
Image below.

Sig, where does that understanding come from? I've seen nothing that indicates FSD is a "subscription" or other sale tied to me and not the car. I bought a 3 with FSD and it was listed on the invoice. If I buy another, I don't get FSD on the new one unless I pay for it again. It is part of the car.

13

Policy and solutions / Re: Batteries: Today's Energy Solution

« on: January 22, 2020, 09:03:46 PM »

Not knowing much about capacitors (yeah, less than even that), I had this idea the moment after I heard that Tesla bought Maxwell - that one could load up a (future 1,000 km range) EV's capacitors really fast (like in 5 minutes - "megacharge"!), then get the car back on the road, and have the capacitors then, at near-optimum rates, charge up the battery.

Same!

It just seems so... logical!  But maybe increasingly fast battery charging brings it close to the time required to safely charge such a capacitor. I look forward to learning why it doesn’t work.  Maybe in Tesla’s upcoming battery and drive train investor day? 

It may be as simple as not being cost effective. Totally apart from the capacitors themselves, the connectors, conductors, contactors, IGBTs and fuses for, say, a couple thousand amps or more at 400V have got to be bulky, heavy and expensive.

14

Policy and solutions / Re: Electric cars

« on: August 11, 2019, 05:13:54 PM »

So, you have electric ovens?  Electric clothes driers?  Those use the very same type of circuits as a Tesla wall charger.  And there they are, inside your apartment!  Your neighbors powering them up, every day!

Your tinfoil hat has slipped down over your eyes.  The utility room of your building is constantly running more power than multiple Tesla superchargers. 

...

+1

TerryM -> /ignore

15

Consequences / Re: Prepping for Collapse

« on: August 04, 2019, 05:12:02 AM »

I don't agree with this either. You're attributing selfless motives to a class of people that (imho) think primarily of themselves. I don't think that, on the whole, the .1% that are in positions of decision-making power will prioritize their descendants' wealth over their power/wealth today. Every single one of those powerful sociopaths expect to be dead before the SHTF.

The ruling class has clearly known for ~50 years what's coming.

I don't think they do. If they did they wouldn't let it happen. Climate change  will take most from the ones who have the most. Its the end of the world as we know it. Those with power will lose it, those with money will lose it.
...snip

16

Policy and solutions / Re: Renewable Energy

« on: August 03, 2019, 02:43:22 AM »

I'll go out on a limb and say a lot of us like to hear about progress even when it isn't the answer to every single problem. Lighten up, yeah?

Ken
With all of this wonderful news, when should we expect the Keeling curve to curve back on itself?


Renewables and batteries are wonderful additions to our power mix, but in most venues they aren't keeping up with additional demand.


Terry

17

Policy and solutions / Re: Energy Efficiency: The “First Fuel”

« on: June 04, 2019, 07:06:58 AM »

It sounds like a free 2% increase in new installations with the potential to increase old installations by 2%. That is good news indeed.

If I read that right, (unfortunately) the reversal requires 200C heating.

18

Science / Re: 2019 Mauna Loa CO2 levels

« on: May 07, 2019, 04:52:56 AM »

Y-o-y increase for last week (start April 28) was posted today as 4.48!

edit: ha, never mind, I see that last year the weekly average was oddly low

19

Policy and solutions / Re: Renewable Energy

« on: October 30, 2017, 05:34:24 PM »

St. Louis, Long a Coal Capital, Votes to Get All of Its Power From Clean Sources

By 2035!  Wow.  It's not enforceable as is... but is particularly significant because the city is home of "many of the nation's largest coal companies, including the industry's two giants, Peabody Energy and Arch Coal."  The city currently gets about 95% of its power from fossil fuels and nuclear.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/st-louis-long-coal-capital-votes-get-all-its-power-n814861

Yeah, we'll see how this goes when we try to get concrete commitments and plans. Ameren, the power supplier for the region, has on the order of 3% renewable energy in its electricity production mix right now and recently published its long range plan to hit about 13% RE in 2030.

2030.

The US overall RE contribution is greater than 13% today.

There are significant financial ties between Ameren and Peabody/Arch coal companies. I don't see Ameren being very interested in dumping coal as a primary energy source without a LOT of financial incentives. Even if wind/solar is cheaper.

20

Consequences / Re: Wildfires

« on: September 16, 2017, 04:53:24 PM »

Oooh, nice. I've been wondering how to do that.

Looking back a handful of years it is interesting to note that 2016 was a mild year overall, in spite of the Fort McMurray fire.
2015, 2014 and 2013 all had greater area burned than this year to date.

You can get the 2016 burned/burning number by date directly. For example 2016 up to Sept 15:

http://www.ciffc.ca/firewire/current.php?lang=en&date=20160915

2016 had less than half of this year's burned area to this point.

21

Arctic sea ice / Re: IJIS

« on: August 18, 2017, 08:13:01 PM »

Is the global extent graph new?
https://ads.nipr.ac.jp/vishop/#/extent

Oooh, that is new. Nice.

22

Policy and solutions / Re: Renewable Energy

« on: August 18, 2017, 04:24:34 AM »

...Thing is, we're hitting an onshore limit to turbine size due to the difficulty in moving blades for anything larger than 3 WM.  We're installing 8 WM at sea and companies are designing much larger (up to 50 MW) turbines for offshore.

50MW?? Wow. How big are the blades for that monstrosity?

23

Policy and solutions / Re: Renewable Energy

« on: August 18, 2017, 04:21:28 AM »

The problems you list are (AFAIK) reasonable.  Let's see if we can dream up solutions.

Dirt floor.  Lay down a plastic barrier and then interlocking plastic panels, not unlike how ice rinks are created on arena floors.

Are blades baked in ovens?  I see nothing about that here -

https://www.nap.edu/read/1824/chapter/7

Painting.  The outer finish, the gelcoat, is sprayed into the mold as the first step.  Then the layup is done on top of the gelcoat.  There's some touchup painting that's done after the blade haves are joined, but that's hand work.

Power?  Run the transmission lines sooner than normal. 

Workers?  We now move construction crews from wind farm to wind farm.  Housing, breaks to go home to visit families, etc. is already something done.

Management?  On site as needed.  Skype connections to the main office/engineering. 

Water?  Supply storage?  Minor issues.  Water trucks (tankers).  A few shipping containers for storage.  Bring in what is needed per week (some interval) in a shipping container and haul the empty one away.

If the blade factory is set up close to the wind farm then it becomes affordable to move the blades the last few miles by chopper.

Thing is, we're hitting an onshore limit to turbine size due to the difficulty in moving blades for anything larger than 3 WM.  We're installing 8 WM at sea and companies are designing much larger (up to 50 MW) turbines for offshore.

Some good observations.  In general I think I'm coming from the direction of a large, established tech giant like GE trying to do this. It is so far outside of their normal way of doing anything that it just won't happen. A small startup, maybe, but then those don't get (multi)billion dollar contracts for a huge wind farm.

Interlocking panels such as an ice rink only work on a solid, high-load capability base (concrete).

While I don't know for certain how blades are cured, that reference is 25 years old and blades have only become larger and more weight/stress critical since then. It is very difficult to get good hot-wet properties out of a matrix resin without an elevated temp cure.

Gelcoat makes sense.

Carting workers around: that is the norm for small outdoor construction crews that are just ("just") digging holes, pouring foundations and bolting together pre-manufactured components, but that's not the norm nor will it be easy for the type of facility envisioned. Not that it can't be done, it just isn't now.

Management by Skype: See small, nimble young company versus staid engineering behemoth above .

Water, etc. I think I envision a workforce an order of magnitude larger, or more, than you do.

If the whole point of moving the facility (more $$) is to save transportation money (less $$), why does that mean you have more to throw at helicopters? It just means you save the train and truck costs.

But I get the point about significantly larger blades. Obviously they can't get much larger than now and still be manufactured on the east coast (GE, for instance) and be railed shipped to Iowa. They span two train cars now, I really doubt spanning three or four is doable. I'm sure there are a lot of finance people penciling out how much it costs to do what you suggest versus how much more they can charge for larger, more efficient units.

Interesting times.
And discussion. Thanks!

24

Policy and solutions / Re: Renewable Energy

« on: August 17, 2017, 08:06:56 PM »

Apologies if this seems overly negative. It's an interesting thought exercise.
It might seem simple and cheap to stand up manufacturing sites on the fly, but if you've worked for a large tech manufacturing company you can see why it's not. Manufacturing 100 foot blades is not low tech.
Can't do it (realistically) on a site with dirt roads and a dirt floor so now you've got paving and slab pouring to do. For LARGE buildings.
While the blades may not be autoclave-cured composite, they certainly at least need a large oven. And paint booths. And prep area prior to paint. And post fab assembly (hubs, etc). And pre-fab supplies receiving and storage.
The work areas will need to be temperature controlled to some degree or another, so add portable heating/cooling equipment.
Where do you get all that power from out in the middle of nowhere? The grid tie may or may not be done, and if so only for sending power.
Or water?
Hiring, training and firing locals is expensive. As is paying premiums/ living expenses to current workers to go live out in the middle of nowhere for years.
That's just scratching the surface. Add overhead functions (engineering support, HR, management, Quality, etc) and all the other costs I undoubtedly missed.
A temporary factory just addresses what's probably the cheapest part of the shipping costs: long distance rail/truck. You still have to get the blades delivered the last few miles where there are no roads and maybe challenging topography.

25

Policy and solutions / Re: Renewable Energy

« on: August 15, 2017, 03:52:06 PM »

It always warms my heart to see the many wind turbines passing through St. Louis on the way to the various wind farm projects in the midwest.

26

Policy and solutions / Re: Batteries: Today's Energy Solution

« on: August 04, 2017, 04:22:11 PM »

Batteries

27

Policy and solutions / Re: Solar Roofs - Musk Style

« on: May 14, 2017, 05:31:14 PM »

"I'm not sure why the Tesla tile is mounted horizontally and the slate and tile vertically.  And if that skews the test one way or another."

HUGE kerfuffle on the interwebs about that.   Per Musk, 1) that's the way the tested tiles are mounted on the roof, and 2) orientation is not a factor in Tesla tile strength.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/862421991617306624

Supports have the same separation distance for all, so it's equivalent.
Actually, the orientation of the Tesla tile provides a shorter vertical dimension over which to react the impact load. The Tesla tile test is more aggressive than the other two.

28

Antarctica / Re: Rift in Larsen C

« on: January 24, 2017, 02:54:55 AM »

I'm not sure if this is an advance, or just the change in satellite view, but it's only a couple of days difference.

http://www.polarview.aq/images/105_S1jpgfull/S1A_EW_GRDM_1SSH_20170123T001522_3CA4_S_1.final.jpg (28 MB)

S1A_EW_GRDM_1SSH_20170118T000717_9C56_S_1.final.jpg  (30 MB)

But it looks like the earlier image (20170118) has the longer crack. Must be a trick of the lighting.

29

Arctic sea ice / Re: The 2016/2017 freezing season

« on: December 13, 2016, 01:21:49 PM »

Does anyone know why Andrew Slater isn't doing his version of the FDD charts this year? I like that format.

http://cires1.colorado.edu/~aslater/ARCTIC_TAIR/

30

Greenland and Arctic Circle / Re: Jakobshavn Isbræ / Ilulissat Isfjord / West Greenland

« on: June 22, 2016, 02:34:28 PM »

swoozle : You can see the retreat line of the glacier in red, in front of the glacier there is a zone (grey)  that is filled with new ice. When the ice decay the bottom of the iceberg is topped over and the colour of old ice is blue. Does it help ?
http://go.nasa.gov/28N4Dbu

Yes, thanks very much!

31

Greenland and Arctic Circle / Re: Jakobshavn Isbræ / Ilulissat Isfjord / West Greenland

« on: June 22, 2016, 10:47:09 AM »

Hopefully I'm not the only noob that has scoured those shots and can't see the change; can one of you guys point at exactly where this event occurred? Thanks!

32

Arctic sea ice / Re: The 2016 melting season

« on: June 15, 2016, 07:47:10 AM »

JAXA reported it about an hour ago. ....

Woops, even my number was too high.
JAXA/IJIS dropped 45k (today's report), not 76k

33

Arctic sea ice / Re: The 2016 melting season

« on: June 15, 2016, 06:12:20 AM »

If it still matters about pure and simple extent anymore, with everything being so crazy now, SIE took a pretty good drop today of 76k+. I don't think it will be too long before it all becomes more straight foward again.

Who's SIE dropped that much? IJIS was ~55k.

34

Greenland and Arctic Circle / Re: Greenland 2016 Melt Season

« on: June 13, 2016, 04:37:50 AM »

So, I think the site info needs updated. If anyone knows of another site that gives monthly or more frequent info, it would be great to know.

Danish polar portal
(http://polarportal.dk/en/groenlands-indlandsis/nbsp/isens-overflade/)
has info such as:

35

The rest / Re: Human Stupidity

« on: June 01, 2016, 05:58:11 AM »

Ha.

I don't think a thread titled "Human Stupidity" is a place where you should assume you'll upset people by being pessimistic / realistic. I, for one, generally agree with you. 10 years seems a little fast but who knows.

36

Arctic sea ice / Re: IJIS

« on: May 31, 2016, 09:50:30 AM »

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