"In any event, this is going to be interesting to watch. I have been more and more impressed with how China is embracing the future. They are bold and unafraid to try (and invest heavily) new things. And US? We shall see."
I suppose many looked at the title to this article and are confused. I don't blame them. But get used to these terms. You are going to hear more and more about them in the very near future. Wait a minute Bird! You are the one who told us to get ready for this BIG electric car revolution in America! Are you back sliding? Nope. I am just going to tell you there is more on the horizon than the EV (Electric Vehicle).
I recently read on a tech blog that China, besides developing their own electric car, is also working on a FCEV (Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle). Even though fuel cell technology is still fraught with problems, the Chinese are committed to solving them. Some refer to whoever can make the FCEV viable will have found the "golden bullet" in transportation. Not the "silver bullet", but the "golden bullet".
Fuel cell technology has been around for years. It has fascinated scientists. Why? Hydrogen, comes from an inexhaustible supply. And - it is as clean as a whistle. The current drawback with harvesting hydrogen, is in the process required to separate it from water. That still takes fossil fuels to power that process. And because hydrogen is very powerful (powerful enough to be used in rocket ships), it can be volatile.
That these do not deter the Chinese. They still believe it can be done, and done by the year (get ready) - 2025. But hold on. Is that the end of the rainbow with new automotive technology? Maybe not. Whereas the FCEV is an improvement over the EV (no battery required), the FCV (Fuel Cell Vehicle) would just use pure on-board hydrogen, mixed with outside oxygen, for power. The Chinese are already working on developing hydrogen pumping stations, where one can fill up with pure hydrogen.
But (and this is where the rumor mill kicks in), I also heard on a YouTube sight someone has developed a technology which would fit under the hood of a car. This item will separate the hydrogen out of ordinary water while driving. If that is true, your morning fill up would be the garden hose instead of a gas station, electric charging station, or a hydrogen pumping station.
Every time I address the impending demise of the gasoline engine, some of my more conservative friends want to take me out and have me drug tested. I will say one more time - I love my gas guzzling truck as much as anyone else loves theirs. But the future (maybe the very near future), has trucks like mine going "bye-bye".
In any event, this is going to be interesting to watch. I have been more and more impressed with how China is embracing the future. They are bold and unafraid to try (and invest heavily) new things. And US? We shall see.
The US can steal the Chinese "intellectual property". Quid Pro Quo.
ReplyDeleteOn that brother Dave - you and I are in lock step agreement!!!!
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ReplyDelete2025 Dave. Stay cool.
DeleteThis must be fake news. A gallon of gas burned couldn't possibly put out 19 pounds of pollutants. No wonder you guys don't believe the science!
DeleteChina does not invest. They have a command economy in large part.
ReplyDelete20 Years ago GM had the "skateboard," a standard frame on which any body could be placed, and it was a fuel cell electric. not only that, but it burned GASOLINE through its fuel cell-- no new infrastructure required, no dangerous hydrogen problem. One can only assume that the government mandates and subsidies, plus regulations and taxes, kept it off the market.
And this whole idea that we NEED such a vehicle to save the planet is pure poppycock.
Anxiously awaiting the UC administrations favorite, the "clean coal" auto! Available at your nearest West Virginia campaign rally!
DeleteUC? The problem with "clean coal" is that the environuts believe it means burning coal without producing CO2. Rather difficult when burning coal is written chemically as C+O2=CO2. But then the laws of physics and chemistry can be overriden by a partisan vote of Congress, yes?
ReplyDeleteOh, and by the way, there ARE methods to turn coal into natural gas (been around for a century) or to liquid fuels. Not necessarily cost-effective when you've got the real stuff in the ground, ready to go. And once you scrub the sulfur and such out of the smokestacks, we've got 700 years worth of coal in the ground we can use. So long as we don't burn it all in the same year, the climate isn't going to change by anything anybody notices.
UC = Un-indicted Co-conspirator
DeleteClimate change and severe weather events will be biting us in the a.. for the next who knows? Tipping points have been reached, feedback loops are in place. Nothing we can do to stop it.
It's not all bad. Millions of acres of northern latitude forests will be converted to farmland. Canada and Russia will benefit the most.
Once govts. realize the cause is lost, fossil fuels will be favored again and your coal will eventually be king.
Almost correct, but not quite. Yes, we will have climate change and severe weather forever, just as we have always had. Human CO2 has almost ZERO to do with it. Since we did not cause it, you are correct, we cannot stop it.
ReplyDeleteThe only gripe I have is that while governments are figuring this out they are spending bloody fortunes (of our money) trying to prevent something they cannot prevent, and making life inconvenient in the process.
It would help if your side would quit denying the changes are coming.
DeleteWe need to identify risks, especially to our national security, and make plans and set aside funds to mitigate those risks.
Hate to say it, but more regulations re:coastal housing, building and farming in drought areas, i.e., no insurance or relief for scofflaws. We don't need more Puerto Rico debacles.
Dave, you've been hoodwinked. The EPA, author of the "Clean Power Plan" that would cut coal use by 30%, says that the effect on global climate, 100 years from now, would be a reduction of 0.01 degrees! That's according to /their/ computer models, which estimate way high. It's negligible!
ReplyDeleteWe've been sold a myth, and it is costing us a fortune.
I would love to see an end to rising temps, rising seas, 1000 year weather events occurring every few years etc., but it ain't going to happen. We need an infrastructure plan similar to the Interstate highway program to prevent damage and devastation to our ports and coastal cities in the next 50 years. Miami, Charleston, Norfolk and NYC are already spending beyond their means in advance of the.catastrophes.
DeleteYou seem to be confusing (as is the essential of the HOAX) global warming with MANMADE global warming. The cost of preventing this disaster has been estimated at $70 Trillion, ASSUMING human beings are causing it, while the cost of adapting to it is roughly 1/10 of that, and we don't care why, how, or if it occurs.
ReplyDeletePrevention requires we know the exact cause, timing and magnitude of the oncoming crisis, and we have no clue, just a bunch of screaming that, to date, has been proven totally wrong.
As you indicate, lack of causative knowledge means we can't prevent crisis.
DeleteBut measurement of change can predict when we will be threatened by change and can lead to accurate predictions of what needs to be done to minimize damage.
Sea levels are likely to continue to rise, and many severe weather events are likely to become more intense.
Brace for more record-breaking high temperatures, including multiday heat waves, and more severe precipitation when it rains or snows.
Drought could plague the western United States for decades to come.
Atlantic and Pacific hurricanes are expected to get even more intense.
We can take action, we just have to recognize the dangers and fund the appropriate reaction.
"measurement of change can predict when we will be threatened by change..." That sounds remarkably like the old stock market adage "a trend will continue until it changes." You should know that if we simply follow the temperature trend of the last 150 years, we do NOT face any sort of global warming catastrophe. The data proves it.
ReplyDelete[let me digress for a moment. Outside Juneau, Alaska, they have a Visitor Center for the Mendenhall Glacier. I was there 30 years ago, and they had signs, right outside the VC along the creek coming off the glacier. The closest one read, I believe, "1950." Further up towards the face of the glacier was "1960" and "1970," each about 50 yards further than the previous. But look in the other direction, away from the receding glacier face, and you find signs saying "1920,"1900,"1850," and on down to "1600"! Global warming isn't "new" and it is not accelerating because of human activity. Myth or Hoax or Scam, take your pick, but it simply is not true in the sense of a cause for alarm. IF and WHEN warming creates a problem, like sea level rise, we can deal with that symptom and move on. Even the Acolytes of the Great Church of Global Warming tell us we have most of 100 years before the disaster befalls-- plenty of time to deal with it. In the meantime, we should let the developing countries develop, with cheap energy, because a robust economy can better deal with natural disasters.
Unfortunately the prognostications of the Climatistas are baked wind. Hurricanes are DOWN. Tornadoes are DOWN. California drought has been largely wiped out but could recur. Meanwhile the Earth is greening, so previously barren places can now grow food, and warmer weather is healthier than cold.
ReplyDeleteScience says that hurricanes should DECREASE with warming, and that has proven true. And if we burn enough coal, we can run our air conditioning to combat the NATURAL warming that is occurring. Don't worry. Be happy.
For the sake of the human race, I hope you are correct and the science is flawed.
ReplyDeleteRest assured, the science is just fine and on our side. It is the hype, the religious zeal, the hoaxers, cheaters and rent-seeking pseudo-scientists and power-hungry politicians causing all the concern. It has rightly been called "the most successful pseudo-scientific hoax in history."
ReplyDeleteI can offer you the scientific proof if you still don't believe. It's conclusive.
Science-based educational campaigns have virtually no effect on climate opinion.
DeleteWeather events and economic swings have some temporary effects.
What moves the needle are elite cues.
That’s just a fancy way of saying that people care more about something when they see it around them, when they read it in the newspaper, see it on TV, hear politicians discussing it, see activists in the streets marching about it, watch celebrities pretending to care about it.
Those are all elite cues.
That’s the stuff that shapes ordinary people’s opinions, on all sides of the political spectrum.
Very few individuals have the time and wherewithal to investigate the world’s woes independently.
They absorb the values and worldviews of their tribes.
Conservatives think climate change is a communist plot because that’s what the right’s elites have told them.
If you are saying that the actual science, the kind that promotes skepticism, looks at data and demands proof, is not widely followed as a basis for public opinion, you would be exactly right. Unfortunately all of the "big megaphones" are on the left side of this issue, where the alarmists claim the folks with actual scientific data are "science deniers."
ReplyDeleteAs somebody who DOES know a little science and studies these things, it galls me no end that these shysters have been able to fool so many, so badly, for so long. Just look at the basic "proof" the Warmists use: "Temperatures are going up, therefore manmade CO2 is causing it." WHAAAT? There is no scientific basis for that statement, and it is provably wrong, in several different ways. Yet that is the basis of policy. Stupid, stupid.
Ya, CO2 certainly isn't the culprit, nor will methane released from the permafrost melting.
DeleteVolcano's have spewed chemicals in the air for eons, cattle have farted enough gas and numerous other sources release chemicals.
But what IS happening is sea level rise. Will it stop? Maybe. If not, we have to prepare for it's consequences.
Rise in ocean temps should lead to predictable events. Not many of which will harm us. Storm intensities elevated. That is weather, not climate change.
I too hate the approaches we are taking, they don't make sense. We need to find the fly poop in the pepper and attack the "real" issues. The left thinks the whole shaker is fly poop and the right denies that flies poop. Where does that leave us? Do nothing. That is what we're doing now. Maybe that is what the human race deserves. Catastrophic changes before action? It may be the biggest mistake humans have ever made.
You are still buying the hype, not the science. Historical records show that sea levels are continuing to rise at the same modest rate as they have for the last 150 years, since the end of the "Little Ice Age" when you EXPECT "global warming" to take place entirely naturally. Go back even further and you discover that increases in atmospheric CO2 FOLLOW rises in global temperature, and you can prove the entire theory of CAGW (Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming) is not only wrong, but backwards.
ReplyDeleteRise in ocean temps should decrease the frequency and intensity of hurricanes. It also will cause oceans to rise (i.e. expand). That is predictable. But sea levels also "rise" because of land subsidence, like when you put a large number of high-rise buildings on Miami Beach, pushing the ground down.
"Do nothing" is EXACTLY the approach we should be taking, but instead we are spending upwards of $20 Billion a year on more research, and mostly, putting up windmills that only generate electricity about 30% of the time. At twice the cost of coal. And you still need the coal plant 70% of the time. And the life cycle CO2 output (per MWH) is the same.
Before sensible "action" can be taken, we must destroy the scientific and rational basis for what "we" are already doing.
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DeleteGlobal warming poses a philosophical challenge to libertarians and small-government conservatives: your world view is premised on the idea that government power should always be held in check lest it destroy individual freedom while my world is faced with a crisis of global proportions that could only be averted by a strong and prolonged government action.
DeleteIf soybean farmers can be paid subsidies by the govt. for actions taken by the UC, then we can certainly find money to put money in escrow for the devastation that will be caused by global warming.
NO, we can't! There is not going to be any "devastation caused by global warming"! The IPCC clearly states that "the prediction of long term climate conditions is not possible." And the notion that government has to be involved in this "crisis," IF and WHEN and HOW and WHERE it occurs, is ludicrous on its face. Let's suppose you own a nice high-rise condo in Miami. Twenty years from now, you discover that there are more days per year when you get your feet wet stepping out the front door, at high tide. Do you call King Canute and tell him to hold back the tide? No, you invest in a sea wall, or sump pumps, or you move, or you buy galoshes. You adapt as the Venetians have. Us folks in Minnesota need not be involved at all, nor should we care. It is NOT a global problem.
ReplyDeleteNow I will agree with you this far. If the billions of dollars being spent by our government trying to prevent climate change were held back, maybe returned to the taxpayers or at least reduced federal debt, we, individually and collectively, would be in a better financial position to deal with whatever Nature throws at us. For example, I keep demanding our legislature repeal that stupid Renewable Energy Mandate we have. It's costing a fortune and does nothing, zero, nada for the environment.
I would certainly agree with your comment regarding the REM. Let the free market dictate how energy resources are allocated and we and the environment will be better served.
ReplyDeleteMN will be as responsible as all the other UNITED States in paying for the Miami Seawall, NewOrleans levee construction and pumps, CA fire costs, etc.
You are probably right, that the generous US of A will help out with [what are really unforeseeable] natural disasters, and framed that way I find it hard to object. But if you want Minnesotans to help Miami because they blame us for global warming, I would hope there would be a resounding "screw you."
ReplyDeleteWe have a long way to go before this stupid blame game and the resulting TERRIBLE policies get rescinded. Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Accords is just a largely symbolic but important first step.
The UC's withdrawal was meaningless as almost all work is done at state and local level. A dozen states and several dozen cities have pledged adherence to goals.
ReplyDeleteYour federal tax dollars will be spent outside of fly-over land, per usual.
UC?? Anyway, so long as my state tax dollars are going to this nonsense-- even more worthless than a federal effort-- I need to try to bring reason to the situation. Of course, as somebody said, "it is impossible to reason a man out of an idea he did not reason himself into in the first place." I've tried and tried showing people the science and the numbers, and they fall back on a blind faith in the "consensus," which doesn't even exist.
ReplyDeleteUC = un-indicted co-conspirator
Deleteand the consensus exists, at least in Amerika.
Introduction to a Federal Paper on What Federal Agencies are Doing to Adapt to Climate Change.
There is a growing consensus that regardless of our
efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, significant
climate change is unavoidable. Although climate
mitigation remains critical, we must also be thinking
about and planning for ways to limit the adverse
impacts from unavoidable changes in our climate. By
taking steps now to adapt to climate change, we will be
better able to limit future damages and their associated costs.
https://www.c2es.org/site/assets/uploads/2012/02/climate-change-adaptation-what-federal-agencies-are-doing.pdf
A little dated, but it shows how wide a net the UC and his minions will have to cast to reign in this conspiracy?
Technically, a “consensus” is a general agreement of opinion, but the scientific method steers us away from this to an objective framework.
DeleteIn science, facts or observations are explained by a hypothesis (a statement of a possible explanation for some natural phenomenon), which can then be tested and retested until it is refuted (or disproved).
As scientists gather more observations, they will build off one explanation and add details to complete the picture.
Eventually, a group of hypotheses might be integrated and generalized into a scientific theory, a scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena.
Thank you! So, let us propose that the hypothesis is "manmade CO2 is driving global warming that will be catastrophic 100 years from now." So... the proof of this hypothesis will not be available for 100 years, and then ONLY if we can prove that a)the temperature rise has been "catastrophic" (highly unlikely), b) total CO2 is the primary driver of climate (it isn't), and c) that manmade CO2 is the principal component of total CO2 (it isn't).
ReplyDeleteScience is not done by consensus, but politics is, and that is where the solution to the madness lies. And the key to doing that is ending the Great Deception by which this hoax, this scam-- this "bait and switch"-- is being perpetrated. That is, the ongoing insistence that "global warming" (which we can sorta prove) and "manmade global warming" are exactly the same thing.