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Thevenin

@ Thevenin @beehaw.org

Posts
1
Comments
50
Joined
3 yr. ago

  • EVs won over US early adopters, but mainstream buyers aren't along for the ride yet

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  • The lack of competitive minivans, hatchbacks, coupes, long-bed trucks, and station wagons really hurts uptake. While crossovers are all the rage for the average consumer, EV adopters trend away from the average, and having a wide selection can make a huge difference when it comes to overcoming the price barrier or difference in capability.

    Case in point, I've seen motorheads swear they'd never touch an EV with less than 500 miles of range, only to recant the moment they saw a Honda E.

  • EVs won over US early adopters, but mainstream buyers aren't along for the ride yet

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  • I'm gonna post this link to a former comment of mine, since this subject comes up a lot. Neither EVs nor public transit is a magic bullet.

    The efficiency of public transit depends on ridership; nowhere in the world does it actually achieve 100% occupancy for more than a few minutes at a time, and nothing is more wasteful than a train running a circuit with only one passenger. At least by my calculations, it would take an average occupancy rate increase of 1.6x (for electric light rail) to 2.4x (for electric busses) over pre-pandemic levels for US public transit to reach parity with EVs, both in terms of electricity per passenger mile and tons of raw material per capita (such as steel, aluminum, copper, glass, and plastic). We'd need higher occupancy than the trains in Europe and the busses in Taiwan. Whether or not that's geographically possible in North America is an open question.

    Ebikes are great, no question there, but thanks to parasitic drain in cheap chargers, they use 1/3rd the energy a typical EV does (kWh per passenger-mile, adjusted for occupancy but not speed), when they should use only 1/10th. That's a problem I expect to see solved in the next year or so, but it's a great reminder that nothing runs on magic.

    As I say in the linked comment, public transit has critical advantages in the fields of urbanism and human-centric city design. I like trains and busses, and I vote for them every chance I get, it just bothers me when people conflate these advantages with environmental impact.

  • EVs won over US early adopters, but mainstream buyers aren't along for the ride yet

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  • They didn’t make it weird in any way really.

    My dude, they were so dedicated to making it weird that they gave it no glove compartment.

  • EVs won over US early adopters, but mainstream buyers aren't along for the ride yet

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  • The Chevy Bolt is no longer in production.

  • Joe Biden just did the rarest thing in US politics: he stood up to the oil industry; The Biden administration suspended new permits for natural gas terminals. Can we see more of this kind of backbone?

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  • I will say this about Biden: the dude's downright sneaky. It seems to be his administration's main strategy to publicly walk back a major agenda point, let right-wingers celebrate, and then after the media hype (and potential for right-wing backlash) dies out, quietly split it up into smaller programs that get pushed further than the original agenda ever could.

    So yeah, it seems on-brand that the Biden administration would push for LNG exports after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and then go back later and curtail them instead.

  • Gentle reminder to everyone that support for #windows10 ends in about 90 weeks. Many computers can't upgrade to Win 11 so here are your options:

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  • Gives me these kinda vibes.

  • Multiple small wInd tubines in ongrid home setup.

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  • Swept area and wind speed increase exponentially with size and height. So a single 5kW wind turbine will almost always be more cost effective than five 1kW wind turbines.

    As others have said, without the height of a utility-grade turbine, you'll need to study the wind on your property to find where the wind is strongest and most consistent so you don't put a turbine in a dead spot. If your property is adjacent to an open field, that's probably a good place to start.

    If I didn't just talk you out of consumer-grade turbines, I'd suggest checking out these guys: https://windandsolar.com/wind-turbine-generators/

    And their Youtube channel, where they explain why their turbines are the way they are: https://m.youtube.com/user/MissouriWindandSolar

    And as always, Energy Sage has great advice: https://www.energysage.com/about-clean-energy/wind/small-wind-turbines-overview/

  • Hertz 180: Rental giant to sell 20,000 EVs and replace them with gas-powered vehicles

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  • Transmission Is Key to a Low-Cost, Decarbonized US Grid

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  • MIT's estimate of about $73/MWh for renewable+transmission is low. It appropriately estimates amortization costs, but purchasing from a transmission operator will always come with a markup. Not much (utilities don't usually behave like corporations), but enough to be significant.

    MIT's price for renewable+storage at $135/MWh seems high, too. Lazard calculates LCOE for wind+storage at $42-114/MWh and for solar+storage at $46-102/MWh.

    I'm still a big fan of HV transmission, as it enables renewable generation to take advantage of cheap land and/or terrain advantages (high wind speed in the Midwest, concentrated solar in the South, geothermal in the West). But I think we'll still see a lot of local utilities just get batteries and call it a day.