/sci/ - Science & Math

I dunno, anyone have an energy cannon to plug into this?

>>8855793

An off road electric vehicle? That's kind of self defeating, no?

Wow... go Chevrolet! It does look cool.

b-b-but it doesnt use gas

>>8855770
>>8855812
Coal powerplants have a higher thermal efficiency than automobiles and also generate fewer emissions because you can fit more specialized power generation equipment into a huge facility than you can into a tiny car.

>>8855770
Because internal combustion engines are still less efficient than steam turbines, generators, battery chargers and electric motors combined.

>>8855825
Absolutely true, but Tesla markets itself as a zero emission vehicle. Which isn't true.

Its emissions just happen before they get to the car.

>>8855869
>Its emissions just happen before they get to the car.
...where they can be captured before they ever reach the atmosphere.

Powerplants have to meet much more stringent emissions standards than cars. You're just salty.

>>8855871
And then what, bury it in the ground? How do we know that doesn't cause more potential environmental problems long term than releasing it into the atmosphere?
At least we have plant life on the surface that uses co2. Co2 that is at a dangerously low level for plant life as it is.
Say you did store it underground, and then there was a major Earthquake that released it all in one shot, instead of gradually. Would that be better?

>>8855879
This is just embarrassing. Quit being so butthurt about Musk.

>>8855881

I'm not. I'm actually glad that someone is taking a different approach.

I just wish they were a lot more honest about the cons associated with it.

>>8855869
>Its emissions just happen before they get to the car.
If the car doesn't create emissions then it's a zero emission car. This isn't that difficult.

>>8855892
>I just wish they were a lot more honest about the cons associated with it.
Like what? That an electric product has to use the current utility infrastructure? No shit.

>>8855892
They do acknowledge the cons

It's not perfect, okay? We're moving towards perfection, he wants to implement solar house shingles worldwide on every house. Imagine

>>8855879
>And then what, bury it in the ground?
Literally yes. Their brilliant plan is to pump it into depleted oil reservoirs (squeezing out whatever remaining drops of oil they can in the process) and HOPE that it stays down there.

Or more realistically, they're also considering irreversibly reacting the CO2 with mineral oxides and silicates, removing this carbon from the carbon cycle entirely.

>How do we know that doesn't cause more potential environmental problems long term than releasing it into the atmosphere?
In the VERY long term, it's actually precipitating the inevitable ultimate end of life on Earth. As you said
>Co2 that is at a dangerously low level for plant life as it is
And atmospheric carbon is already GRADUALLY becoming irreversibly fixed in mineral sinks, which is expected to lead to unsustainably low CO2 concentrations in the distant future. They literally want to artificially accelerate this process to solve a comparatively short-term problem.

Of course we're still talking hundreds of millions if not billions of years, so I don't exactly blame them for not caring. If we haven't found a solution for that problem by then, we don't deserve to survive.

>>8855915
If the car doesn't create emissions then it's a zero emission car. This isn't that difficult.

That is a cop out. These cars require a great deal more carbon to produce, than a standard gas powered car. Then there's the batteries. I guess they'll just disappear into a wormhole or something? And yes, let's not forget the mountains of coal that actually power them.

Deflect as much as you'd like from the cons. There are still major cons to this idea.

>>8855879
>Co2 that is at a dangerously low level for plant life as it is
Rex Tillerson, I know that's you. You have to get back to work.

>>8855825
>Because internal combustion engines are still less efficient than steam turbines, generators, battery chargers and electric motors combined.
I checked it and turns out its true

combustion engines are around 20%, power stations are about 60%, loose about 10% from transmission, and electric cars are about 60% efficient from grid to road, thats 30% over all.

so its overall 50% better at turning coal into movement than a car. or other way around, it will only cause 66% of the pollution than a car (assuming same exit gas composition, which isnt true since power stations burn cleaner than cars do, but it gives a lower limit)

Now someone just needs to check if the production of the batteries and shit, combined with the lower lifetime of such a car doesn't cause more pollution than you save and were done.

>>8856504
shut up boy

>>8855770
Coal produces CO2, CO2 makes plants happy, Only can the current state of science™ fandom can attacking something that helps generate biomass be viewed as being "green". Meanwhile battery production creates a toxic waste pit and windmills have an anthropogenic impact while carving up birds and bats. Do nothing for biomass yet are "green". Snake Oil is what the world actually runs on.

>>8856535
>Only can the
Only in the

>tires still need to be replaced regularly
>roads still have to be maintained regularly

>>8855770
Obviously you don't live in a big city. Even if it is not 100% "green", the pollution would happen somewhere outside the cities. Therefore no smog or other nasty shit, especially if we're talking about diesel. Also power plants can be made pretty clean.

>>8855793
This looks incredible

>>8855923
Solar freakin roadways!

>>8855770
>They look cool

That's a fallacy actually, they look boring.

>>8857309
It does, and I was wrong about it earlier when I posted this >>8855808

I looked it up, it's actually hydrogen powered and in testing trials with the U.S. Army right now. Pretty Boss!

>>8855770
How much better it is depends on where you are driving it. I live in Washington state, where most of our electrical energy comes from clean sources (hydroelectric, nuclear) but in some states driving a Tesla has about the same carbon footprint as any other car.

Nonetheless electric cars are still a very important part of the solution. The other part is clean energy, likely nuclear power as that's currently the only affordable clean energy.

However even if we were all driving electric cars and on nuclear power that would still alleviate less than half of our current carbon emissions. A much bigger contributor is farming, specifically meat farming. A short term solution is to stop subsidizing meat so much in the USA, increasing its price to more natural levels and leading to people eating way less meat, but hopefully long term we can develop a way to grow meat in a laboratory environment, which would be super expensive at first but could potentially be far far cheaper than natural meat ever could be, on top of having far far less impact on the environment.