Why is it that Electric Cars never seem to catch on?

>>1099
Always running out of juice.

>>1099
The auto companies make money by being paid by Big Oil. They make cars that consume lots of oil, they make money. The cars consume more oil, big oil makes more money, the American manufacturers lax on efficiency. Then they try to get the government to penalize foreign cars with higher efficiency standards to protect their model, rather than adapt and adopt.

It costs a nickle for the same power in an electric car that it costs for a gallon of gasoline. Auto makers see no incentive in giving people a vehicle more expensive to produce and seeing no fringe benefits from the power company.
Watch "Who killed the electric car?"

>>1094
>not even definitive
Good choice of words. Yes, while the theory of man contributed global warming is a theory, I'm more concerned with the actual pollutants affecting animals and plant live. Carbon is such a red herring that it's like blaming sin for earthquakes.

>>1095
Ain't it amazing? Man. I still remember the late-80s early 90s. all the propaganda and smashings with the guilt stick. The difference now as opposed to then is we have actual better alternatives at the production and industrial levels rather than just force them to pay lip service.
Feels good man.

>Good choice of words.
Yup

Although I think electric cars probably won't make a comeback anytime soon

haha hybrids what a pile of shit

Living in BC, one of my "man that would be cool" dreams would be working for Ballard in their hydrogen fuel cell research. I don't even know what trade I want to study yet that's a far shot but it'd be nice. I'm pretty hopeful for their developments, despite them being very low key in the media right now. Over half the buses used in Whistler for the Olympics and Paralympics were HFC powered and with no media attention being drawn to it, I can only assume everything went well.

ain't using an electric car just a cup out? since most power plants still run on diesel and shit like that.

>>1115

>>1120
The overall expenditure is much less.
Way more efficient.

>>1120

Well, it's a stepping stone and probably the most marketable at the moment. Gotta wean the transportation industry off fossil fuel somehow. You're right though in the long term. Even the cleaner electric generation processes in wide use have dramatic environmental impact.

>>1120
>most power plants still run on diesel
Who taught you that?

Predominant power generation in developed world is hydro and nuclear

Only in places like China is coal fired boiler technology from pre-WWII still even used

>>1128
they had electric dams before WWII and some places don't have huge rivers.

>>1128
The US still uses fossil fuels for close to 75% of its electricity generation.

>>1135
That is a god damn lie

>>1136
hmmmm....
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table2_1_a.html
first pdf

>>1137
>Independent Power Producers
This seems to be the biggest issue.

>>1135
If there is one thing I can't stand when it comes to environmental sciences and general environmentalism, it's finger pointing.

>>1138
When did fact checking become finger pointing?

Also, I did mean to link to the full report when I posted that; it slipped my mind while I was copying the graph, though. Sorry.

Hell, I've still got the tab open; I wanted to go through it more later. I wasn't trying to pull a fast one, I was just trying to be helpful.

>>1120
Gasoline needs to be refined from crude oil. It needs to be physically shipped from place to place. Then you have to pay absurd amounts for it.

Whereas, coal fired power plants are native, coal doesn't endanger the ocean if a mine collapses and distributing electricity over the grid means you always have it on tap. It's also cheaper to recharge an electric vehicle, even if it takes longer; electric power is more efficient. You also can't set up a panel to collect sunshine and get gasoline, but you can get electricity!


It's no secret that most of our electricity comes from putting coal in a furnace and then heating steam to turn a turbine. Currently. If we'd just fucking modernize, we could have so many modern clean nuclear power plants. We've even developed ways to recycle used isotopes and we're developing ways to directly turn radiation into electricity. So radioactive waste = a lower key power source.

Personally I bank on the hydrogen fuel cell. Hydrogen as a medium wouldn't require rare earth metals in order to hold the charge the way a battery would, and modern gas storage is superior to modern batteries. And you can refill gas tanks to 100% capacity for ten years, easily. Whereas with a battery.. you'll be lucky to retain 50% capacity in 5-8 years. And yet with hydrogen fuel cells, you have all the benefits of the internal combustion engine and the electric vehicle both. No fuss, no muss!

>>1142
I heard that using algae based biofuels and nuclear energy for electricity, if you convert an insignificant part of siberia or canada into a giant factory you could fuel the worlds need for chemical energy several times over

>>1145
Absolutely. Using 1% of the Sahara or Arizona desert for nothing but solar farming would provide all the electricity the US consumes. And we're making the process bigger return on investment every year.
We've got little micro organisms processing combustable oil in algae (and also when dried can serve as a pellet stove fuel source- no need for wood to burn for heat) and using retroviruses to split oxygen and hydrogen.
It won't be too many years before we have more energy than we know what to do with.

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-05/first-working-glucose-biofuel-cell-could-power-devices-bodys-chemistry

can't wait for my internally embedded computers.

>>1150
Can't wait to generate electricity with my hands

Hey, this could help diabetics!

>>1151
more like

>In turn, human activities are influencing climate. As discussed in the following chapters, scientific evidence that the forth is warming is now overwhelming. There is also a multitude of evidence that this warming results primarily from human activities, especially burning fossil fuels and other activities that release heat-trapping greenhouse gases (GHGs) into the atmosphere. Projections of future climate change indicate that Earth will continue to warm unless significant and sustained actions arc taken to limit emissions of (GHGs). These increases in temperature and (GHGs) concentrations are driving .i multitude of related and interacting changes in the Earth system, including decreases in the amounts of ice stored in mountain glaciers and polar regions, increases in sea level, changes in ocean chemistry, and changes in the frequency and intensity of heal waves, precipitation events, and droughts. These changes in turn pose significant risks to both human and ecological systems. Although the details of how the future impacts of climate change will unfold arc not as well understood as the basic causes and mechanisms of climate change, we can reasonably expect that the consequences of climate change will be more severe if actions are not taken to limit its magnitude and adapt to its impacts.

My apologies for any spelling errors; I used an OCR program to grab the text instead of typing it out from the report.

From: http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12782 (scroll down to Free Resources, then click on Full Text in the Read section)
http://americasclimatechoices.org/

Basically, if the NAS is weighing in like this, this stuff is so well accepted it can reasonably be considered fact. We are fucking up this planet.

http://www.popsci.com/gadgets/article/2010-05/google-tv-unveiled-much-potential-web-enhanced-future-tv
oh boy.

http://kotaku.com/5544768/the-second-age-of-airships-is-upon-us?skyline=true&s=i

Now I can Vyse Inglebard too!

  >>1182
Fuck year.

HAHAHAHA I remember the /baw/ thread.
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-05/venter-institutes-synthetic-cell-genome-contains-hidden-messages-watermarks

>>1215
DAMNIT

I was making it way more complicated than it needed to be.

Are there any smartphones that allow local syncing with Thunderbird?

  do want

>>1277
my voyeurism sense is tingling.

  I want this screen.

>>1147

Don't forget e. coli! It could produce hydrogen, or turn plant carbohydrates (perhaps from algae?) into diesel and kerosene!

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080129170709.htm
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/08/12/bug.diesel/index.html
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=bacteria-transformed-into-biofuel-refineries

There's a car called the Baker Electric that was made in 1906, and got 110 miles to the charge.

>>1288
Wow, ipad is really shitty

Oh wow, who knew you could record your desktop simply by using VLC

So I want to do a livestream to show some friends an anime series. What's the best way to do this?

>>1696
Set of private youtube videos, deleted after your friends have seen it

>>1699

That's not Live. That's not live at all.

>>1696
From what I've seen, you're better off playing episodes on your media player of choice (like maybe VLC) while streaming your desktop with Livecaster, since uploading anything on Livestream is a no no nowadays

>>1700
Streaming something live would eat up your internet bill as well as that of your friends
You also have to all be watching it at the same time

Putting it up on a video sharing site like GoogleTube is easier on the bills as well as easier for people to watch if they have jobs or other things messing up their schedule

>>1704

...uh...you're still uploading as much video...and they're still playing as much video either way...so I'm not seeing a huge difference in bandwidth usage?

>You also have to all be watching it at the same time

Which is the point? It's 'watching things with friends'.

>>1709
Uploading things to youtube can be done in different formats, even from library/netcafe computers.
Streaming is something you do from home.

>watching things with friends
Oh... I didn't think of it that way.

Sorry, I watch things with friends by renting vids and inviting them over.

I thought he just wanted to show them a cool flick they don't want to pay for.

  SCIENCE HAS GONE TOO FAR.

>>1704

lol other countries that have bandwith limits.

http://www.dyson.com/fans/

I wonder if these things could be used as aircraft propulsion...Imagine next-gen choppers and Ospreys using them instead of blades! No need for antitorque rear rotors on helis! And THESE babies could become a reality!

>>1719

I don't think so, tim. this is just a powered down jet engine.

>>1732

Aww dang, I checked the website, it has an engine dealie in the base. I thought it used an electric force thingy to propel the air. I read about one sed for computer fans. It works like the Ionic Breeze thing.t