[spd2918]

My numbers and your numbers were sourced from different studies and neither is 100% current (as I posted). Both show electric cars run on fossil fuels. So lets stop calling them zero emissions.

Nuclear power has a future when people recognize how clean it is.

[JMintzer]

Originally Posted by spd2918

I'm not sure what your point is, as sources give different percentages from different studies and time spans. All sources show natural gas as the main current source of electricity and most show coal as the second. Electric car champions never want to talk about that.

Electricity is mainly produced from fossil fuels, thus electric cars are mainly fossil fuel burners that are not green. Add to that the environmental cost of strip mining for battery materials and you have an argument that electric cars are more damaging than modern ICE cars.

My point about nuclear energy (again, in case people missed it):
Electric cars make environmental sense when this country realizes nuke power is the best option for power sources.

Problem is, whenever you mention Nuclear, people think of "The China Syndrome"...

Or The disaster in Japan... Or how to get rid of the spent rods...

What they don't realize is that the newer Generation 4 Reactors are much safer, much more efficient, can use the old spent rods for fuel and the waste only lasts a hundred or so years, rather than millennia, like the older reactors...

[TSO/ISPF]

Originally Posted by JMintzer

Problem is, whenever you mention Nuclear, people think of "The China Syndrome"...

Or The disaster in Japan... Or how to get rid of the spent rods...

What they don't realize is that the newer Generation 4 Reactors are much safer, much more efficient, can use the old spent rods for fuel and the waste only lasts a hundred or so years, rather than millennia, like the older reactors...

Are there operational power plants at that level ?

[biker1]

Except mine are correct. Nobody called electric cars "zero emissions". Where did you make that up from? What I did say, if you go back and reread my post, is that electric cars use less total energy than gas cars.

Nuclear has no future in this country. You can try to delude yourself but that is the fact. Feel free to argue whatever you feel like with someone else. This is starting to sound like SJW (that would be you) v. Ben Shapiro.

Originally Posted by spd2918

My numbers and your numbers were sourced from different studies and neither is 100% current (as I posted). Both show electric cars run on fossil fuels. So lets stop calling them zero emissions.

Nuclear power has a future when people recognize how clean it is.

[JMintzer]

Originally Posted by heims01

Are there operational power plants at that level ?

Not yet. But Rotosam (sp?) in Russia just broke ground on one this Summer...

[biker1]

Most of the arguments against nuclear have little basis in fact but the reality is that nuclear has become a bad word. Germany is in the process of sunsetting all of it's nuclear plants. Even France, which generates over 70% of it's electricity from nuclear, will be reducing it's reliance on nuclear power to 50% over the next 15 years. I don't see the trend reversing itself. In a rational world, we would be building nuclear power plants, lots of nuclear power plants. But we don't live in a rational world as people are afraid of things they don't understand.

Originally Posted by JMintzer

Problem is, whenever you mention Nuclear, people think of "The China Syndrome"...

Or The disaster in Japan... Or how to get rid of the spent rods...

What they don't realize is that the newer Generation 4 Reactors are much safer, much more efficient, can use the old spent rods for fuel and the waste only lasts a hundred or so years, rather than millennia, like the older reactors...

[GrumpyOldMan]

Originally Posted by JMintzer

Problem is, whenever you mention Nuclear, people think of "The China Syndrome"...

Or The disaster in Japan... Or how to get rid of the spent rods...

What they don't realize is that the newer Generation 4 Reactors are much safer, much more efficient, can use the old spent rods for fuel and the waste only lasts a hundred or so years, rather than millennia, like the older reactors...

Actually, the OLDER nukes, like the ones used in Russia, are much safer and can't met down. But we won't use them.

[biker1]

Do you mean the same design as Chernobyl? If so, that was a bad design with no containment structure.

Originally Posted by GrumpyOldMan

Actually, the OLDER nukes, like the ones used in Russia, are much safer and can't met down. But we won't use them.

[JMintzer]

Originally Posted by GrumpyOldMan

Actually, the OLDER nukes, like the ones used in Russia, are much safer and can't met down. But we won't use them.

Wasn't Chernobyl in Russia? It was actually worse than a meltdown...

[spd2918]

Originally Posted by biker1

I should have been clearer. When I used the term SJW, I was referring to somebody who typically argues a point without any facts and data as opposed to Ben Shapiro who has facts and data.

I should have said fossil fuels, not just coal. And I already corrected myself for that. We don't disagree that electric cars run mostly on fossil fuels.

Did you Google "zero emmision vehicles?" You should do that.

[GrumpyOldMan]

Originally Posted by JMintzer

Wasn't Chernobyl in Russia? It was actually worse than a meltdown...

No, I was referring to Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor. They have their own "problems", but don't create the fuel rod disposal problem and can't "melt down".

Another solution is micro-plants. I worked as a consultant at the Palo Verde Nuclear plant in AZ for a couple years. It is the safest plant in the US, having operated for a LONG time with no serious incidents - less incidents than coal.

But, one of the thing we were investigating at the time was a study being done in the Northwest to look into distributed generation instead of centralized generation. Centralized generation is really bad at almost everything, but makes the owners very rich. Distributed generation is not perfect but solves a lot of the problems with "terrorist attack" security issues, wide spread outages, and on and on. The idea is to produce electricity at or close to the point of usage. Neighborhood or even individual houses producing their own and feeding any excess into a shared grid. Very robust structurally. The obvious methods of decentralized generation are things like small gas fired turbines, solar, wind, geothermal, hydro, hydrogen fueled turbines, fuel cells, etc. There is (has been?) research done on micro nukes also.

There are MANY possibilities that are safer, more robust and in the long run less expensive. But power companies don't want them, they can't control decentralized generation for profits.

[GrumpyOldMan]

Originally Posted by spd2918

A smear is using falsehoods.

Pretty much, falsehoods or out of context.

[Two Bills]

Originally Posted by dtennent

I have never seen a story about a horse spontaneously combusting. Come to think of it, they don't require any electricity either. Wow, now if we could only find horse drawn golf carts...

Horse and carts are a nightmare in roundabouts, and can you imagine the horse poop threads on here!

[tvbound]

Originally Posted by GrumpyOldMan

No, I was referring to Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor. They have their own "problems", but don't create the fuel rod disposal problem and can't "melt down".

Another solution is micro-plants. I worked as a consultant at the Palo Verde Nuclear plant in AZ for a couple years. It is the safest plant in the US, having operated for a LONG time with no serious incidents - less incidents than coal.

But, one of the thing we were investigating at the time was a study being done in the Northwest to look into distributed generation instead of centralized generation. Centralized generation is really bad at almost everything, but makes the owners very rich. Distributed generation is not perfect but solves a lot of the problems with "terrorist attack" security issues, wide spread outages, and on and on. The idea is to produce electricity at or close to the point of usage. Neighborhood or even individual houses producing their own and feeding any excess into a shared grid. Very robust structurally. The obvious methods of decentralized generation are things like small gas fired turbines, solar, wind, geothermal, hydro, hydrogen fueled turbines, fuel cells, etc. There is (has been?) research done on micro nukes also.

There are MANY possibilities that are safer, more robust and in the long run less expensive. But power companies don't want them, they can't control decentralized generation for profits.

"Centralized generation is really bad at almost everything, but makes the owners very rich. Distributed generation is not perfect but solves a lot of the problems with "terrorist attack" security issues, wide spread outages, and on and on."


One only has to look to Texas last winter - to prove your point. For those who might want to try and bring it up, it is false that alt-energy production was at the root of Texas' problem during last winter.

[Byte1]

ZZZZZZZZZZ....call me when you invent an electric car that will actually go 500 miles on a charge, not cost an arm and leg (can be afforded by low and middle income) and don't cost $10K to replace the batteries every 5-10 years. And when I say travel 500 miles (or even 300 miles) I mean driving at 65-75mph for long distances, with the A/C running. And I mean without having to stop for a four hour charge.
Lithium batteries are very volatile and will burst into flames if overheated during charging or hard running. I realize that there are a lot of safeguards on these cars, but there are still reports of burning electric cars.
I'll keep the mostly affordable gas cars, thank you.