Cheap Books, Random Thoughts

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ADDED, ANOTHER CHEAP BOOK YOU MIGHT WANT:Dune

The following random thought will eventually become a more carefully written blog post, but I want to get this out there sooner than later.

Mention electric cars, or solar panels, or any other kind of thing a person might buy and deploy to reduce their Carbon footprint.

Mention that to enough people and some wise ass will eventually come along and tell you how wrong you are. About how electric cars are worse for the environment than gas cars because bla bla bla, or how solar panels are worse for the environment than burning natural gas because of yada yada yada.

I guarantee you that in almost every case, said wise ass is either using bogus arguments they learned form the right wing propoganda machine and that they accepted uncritically, or they are working with two year old information or older.

The electric car, or electric bus, or what have you, is very often, most of the time, and in the near future, always, the better option. If you are reading this sentence and don’t believe me, let me tell you now that your argument from incredulity does not impress me.

I’m particularly annoyed about the anti-electric bus argument. Electric busses already usually pay for themselves well before their lifespan is up using today’s calculations, but a machine designed to run for decades is going to be in operation years after we have almost totally converted our power system over. If you are a state or school board or something an you are currently working out the next five years of planning, there is a chance you may be thinking now about buying a bus that will be in operation in the 2050s. Are you seriously thinking about buying an internal combustion vehicle for that? Are you nuts?

Anyway, that was that thought. Now, for your trouble, a book suggestion. Have you read “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold” by John Le Carré? In some ways this is Le Carré’s best novel, but it is also totally different than all his other novels, in that it is short, a page turner, quick, not detailed. It is like he wrote one of his regular novels then cut out 70% of it. If you’ve never read Le Carré and you read this, don’t expect his other novels to be the same. They are all great, but they are also denser, longer, more complex, demand more of the reader.

I mention this because right now you can get the Kindle edition of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold for $1.99. I’ve not read this novel in years, but I think I’m going to get this and add it to my growing collection of classics on Kindle, which I may or may not eventually read.

By the way, there was a movie.

Two other books, both sciency, both cheap in Kindle form, I’ve not read either one, but maybe you know of the book and are interested.

Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth

John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Saint Phocas, Darwin, and Virgil parade through this thought-provoking work, taking their place next to the dung beetle, the compost heap, dowsing, historical farming, and the microscopic biota that till the soil. Whether William Bryant Logan is traversing the far reaches of the cosmos or plowing through our planet’s crust, his delightful, elegant, and surprisingly soulful meditations greatly enrich our concept of “dirt,” that substance from which we all arise and to which we all must return.

Pandora’s Seed: The Unforeseen Cost of Civilization

Ten thousand years ago, our species made a radical shift in its way of life: We became farmers rather than hunter-gatherers. Although this decision propelled us into the modern world, renowned geneticist and anthropologist Spencer Wells demonstrates that such a dramatic change in lifestyle had a downside that we’re only now beginning to recognize. Growing grain crops ultimately made humans more sedentary and unhealthy and made the planet more crowded. The expanding population and the need to apportion limited resources created hierarchies and inequalities. Freedom of movement was replaced by a pressure to work that is the forebear of the anxiety millions feel today. Spencer Wells offers a hopeful prescription for altering a life to which we were always ill-suited. Pandora’s Seed is an eye-opening book for anyone fascinated by the past and concerned about the future.

Have you read the breakthrough novel of the year? When you are done with that, try:

In Search of Sungudogo by Greg Laden, now in Kindle or Paperback
*Please note:
Links to books and other items on this page and elsewhere on Greg Ladens' blog may send you to Amazon, where I am a registered affiliate. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, which helps to fund this site.

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143 thoughts on “Cheap Books, Random Thoughts

  1. Taxis are getting more and more electric. They’re cheaper to run, which a taxi driver really likes, they are better the more stops and standing in traffic you do, which taxis have to do more often than any other form of car driver (like with busses), and they are more reliable, which for a business that relies on the car to make any money at all is quite important. The cost of the car is fairly irrelevant, so they’ve been ahead of the curve for years.

  2. The future ain’t what it used to be. I just feel like writing a comment here because last night I was on an eight-hour AI coding jag and now I need to relax. Is it true, or is it not true, that in the early nineteen-thirties, the American automobile industry conspired to replace the widespread electric trolley systems in American cities with fossil-fuel buses? Apparently it happened here in Seattle, and I hear it also happened in Los Angeles. And did anybody read about the “Predator in Chief” today in the Fri.9.JUN.2017 New York Times? (Hang on while I go fetch it 🙂
    Ah yes, on page A27 of the national edition, “James Comey and the Predator in Chief,” by Nicole Serratore. Good work, Ms. Serratore!

  3. I get a kick (well more like an urge to commit serious mayhem) when people raise the “economy” argument – as in it will ruin the economy to go green. I like to remind such people that if they believe that man made global warming climate change is real then there won’t be an economy when everything is dying from numerous causes – such as no ocean phytoplankton left to create oxygen for the atmosphere, and food for everything further up the food chain (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ocean-s-oxygen-starts-running-low/).- economics is the very last thing that should be considered, if considered at all other than to choose the best bang for buck – when it comes to climate ,mitigation. Unfortunately under our current economic systems it appears to be the first (if not only) consideration.

  4. It’s not really the economic system, it’s what that system promotes in humans. Capitalism means money is power therefore those who gain capital gain power. And after a point, money is pointless, it’s the power it represents that is important. So spending money is losing power.

    Therefore those who are greedy gain power and use the power to satisfy higher greed.

    Greed is rewarded.

    This would be OK if government were allowed to act against capitalism, but since Reagan/Thatcher, this has been a tenet of faith that government MUST NEVER interfere with captialism.

    It was at that point that corruption was inevitable.

    The economic system would not do it, it is the political system that the economic system engendered and allowed to happen that is the problem.

    Hence, as always, the projection of deniers that it’s all political. It’s what they do, therefore “everyone does it”.

  5. As noted many cities had trolley bus systems in the 1940s and 1950s. I recall riding them with my grandmother in Fort Wayne In, in the late 1950s. They eventually got ripped out in favor of buses, because it was easier to change/extend routes than with trolley busses, to extend you had to put new poles along the sides of the street and then string the wires. Cities were growing rapidly at the time, and the flexibility of the buses that won. (note that in a lot of cases trolleys replaced streetcars in Fort Wayne that process was started before WWII and completed afterwords).

  6. Mentiflex, I just read “Predator In Chief”

    Apparently (according to Comey’s testimony), Comey is a woman and Trump was sexually harassing him/her…

    Good stuff.

  7. You’ve outdone yourself Mike . That’s the shortest dishonest misrepresentation of the written word you’ve ever done

  8. Oh, it was betula with the dishonest comment. It was the complete sentence that tricked me – it’s usually not capable of them.

  9. Reports from Denmark show that when subsidies on electric cars went away the sales went to zero, so they restored the subsidies.

  10. Our local garbage trucks seem to have just two positions for the accelerator and brake pedals – full on and full off. I would have thought they would be an early choice for electric or hybrid power.

  11. The sort of mathturbatory bullshit that anti-evs will go to to “prove” that we cant use them are insane. This example from slashdot:

    Assume on average a 85 kWh battery pack getting a 50% supercharge. 85 kWh * 0.5 = 42.5 kWh. Real-world charging efficiency is about 80% [tesla.com], so 53.125 kWh is needed to put 42.5 kWh into the car’s battery.

    Assume 160 W/m^2 commercial panels. PV solar capacity factor in the desert Southwest is about 0.185. That is, over a year, a 100 Watt panel will produce the equivalent of a constant 18.5 Watts. So the 160 W/m^2 panels will produce 160 Watts * 0.185 = 29.6 Watts average over 24 hours, or 0.7104 kWh / m^2 in 24 hours.

    This means to supercharge a single Telsa S requires 53.125 kWh / 0.7104 kWh/m^2 = 74.78 m^2 of solar panels.

    Oh wait, you’re gonna store that solar energy in a battery first? That’s going to introduce more charging and discharge losses. If you figure 90% for both, that’s 74.78 m^2 / (0.9*0.9) = 92.32 m^2 of solar panels needed for every car you want to supercharge that day.

    How busy is a Supercharger station? Summary says 6-20 stalls per station, so say 13 average. Figure they’re half occupied during day hours, empty at night. At 30 minutes to charge, that’s 2 per hour per bay, or (6.5 bays occupied)*(2 vehicles per bay per hour)*(12 hours) = 156 vehicles charged per day.

    So to generate enough electricity to supercharge those 156 vehicles requires (156 vehicles)*(92.32 m^2/vehicle) = 14,401 m^2 of solar panels per Supercharger station. Or approx 120m x 120m of solar panels. Or put another way, the average home solar installation is about 30 m^2. So each Supercharger station would need as many panels as 480 homes.

    All seems rigorously correct, right?

    Look for the hidden assumption. That every day every car has to fill up all the battery, indicating that the average US commute is 200-300 miles per day….

    Ironic considering that the post was titled “Did someone do the math on this first?”.

  12. Look for the hidden assumption. That every day every car has to fill up all the battery, indicating that the average US commute is 200-300 miles per day….

    The example you posted only concludes that a supercharger station with 14,401 m^2 of solar panels per would be capable of fully charging 156 EVs a day.

    That’s not by any stretch of the imagination “every day every car has to fill up all the battery”.

  13. Plus it’s a 50% charge, so 200-300 becomes 100-150.

    How big is a supercharger station? If you have 13 stalls, that is room for quite a bit of solar panels.

  14. “That’s not by any stretch of the imagination “every day every car has to fill up all the battery”.”

    Yes it is. It’s right there in the assumptions. Try reading it.

  15. “How big is a supercharger station? ”

    The ones Musk is designing have 20. Again it’s in the assumptions there too.

  16. Yes it is. It’s right there in the assumptions. Try reading it.

    Where? I’m not seeing it, so can you quote what you are referring to?

    Don’t get me wrong. Given the problems with particulate emissions from ICEs I’d advocate for a shift to EVs even if CO2 wasn’t a GHG.

  17. Right there.If you can’t see it there then putting it here will not work, since you’re deliberately not seeing it.

  18. Just quote the bit where it says the same as:

    Look for the hidden assumption. That every day every car has to fill up all the battery,

    Help me out here. I’m on day two of a celebration of the moment the Tories bit themselves in their own arse. So not making strong claims about my reading comprehension tonight.

  19. It’s already in the post. Looking there you see it. And since you claim not to, you’ll claim not to see it when I post again.

  20. Go read post #9, then read your asinine claim, dumdum. Then see where your issue lies. I know you don’t know or want to know how to math, but try mathing it.

  21. “92.32 m^2 of solar panels needed for every car you want to supercharge that day.”

    Quite different than every car.

    I asked how big, and your answer was 20. Can you give some square meterage? If it’s 20, then we need 21600 sq meters. Perhaps the superchargers is 500 sq meters then?

  22. “Quite different than every car.”

    So every car they service is not every car they service????? Or that 156 is more cars than they are calculated to service in one day??

    Come on, “mike”, tell me in what way is it quite different from what it says it’s working out?

    Oh, you’re talking bullshit. Got it.

  23. Wow, you are bullshitting again.

    The quote you provided presents a calculation showing how many 50% supercharges are possible per day based on

    The example you posted only concludes that a supercharger station with 14,401 m^2 of solar panels per would be capable of 50% charging 156 EVs a day.

    Look for the hidden assumption. That every day every car has to fill up all the battery,

    So the ‘fill up all the battery’ claim is obviously wrong and the ‘every car’ claim is misleading. The calculation presents a maximum number of cars that can be 50% recharged per day given assumptions about SPV area and number of stalls. That’s it.

    The problem with being a paranoid nutter is that you see enemies even when none are present.

  24. BBD, stop making blatantly unsupported cries. Its pathetic.

    “Mike”, find a thought then explain it.

  25. “So the ‘fill up all the battery’ claim is obviously wrong ”

    Obviously you don’t know what “obviously wrong” looks like, dummy.

  26. I take it that the only model S tesla is the one with the biggest battery and that there are no other cars, right?

    I saw the 40+kwh which is the current state of an “empty” ev. Hell, remember when you whined and bitched about using 70kwh for gernany? Remember when using mor9e than a tiny fraction was impossible for them as reserve?

    Yet here you are whingingand bitching and moaning that something is “completely different” and “obviously wrong” and base your petulant bullshitting on going far more extreme than the case you considered ridiculously overstated when someone else used it.

  27. Hey, dumdum, “mike”, go and justify the other assumptions while you’re at it (and go look up average daily drive stats, moron, they ARE available in your country, dipshit), after all, you wouldn’t be going round complaining about accuracy from me without having checked the argument you support, right?

    Here’s a starter for 10: the assumption that claiming x cars per day is right. Tell me when you have EVER heard of petrol forecourts measured in cars per day. And why would it ever be used? What is used and will be more informative of the operation of that petrol forecourt?

    I just took the most blatant bullshit. The claim that the daily commute is ~200 miles.

  28. “The example you posted only concludes ”

    But based on a bullshit argument. Which was the point. YOU however quite like that because it puts solar in a bad light. Pun irrelevant. And you don’t like my point because it refuses to allow solar to be painted falsely in a bad light and basing the arguments on BS figures, then calculating a figure “accurately” on that garbage then you, as you did with Mackay, going “But show where the maths is wrong!” when the problem is the garbage going in to that maths.

  29. As an example of another fake garbage statement to refuse solar a place, one argument in a post went in response to the idea “put the solar panels on roofs and it takes up no space” was approximately that it had to go on top of roofs (though the thread also pointed to the solar tiles which replace roofing tiles), and therefore “no space required” was a lie.

    Which is only “true” if you’re talking about 3d volume. Where that falls over as even vaguely correct is if you then include the 3d volume of a traditional power plant when complaining about the space taken by solar compared to nukes or coal. Which is never done. Because solar panels are a lot shorter than a steam turbine run power station and makes them look much worse than they are if you take space as the ground occupied.

    So the “argument” is specious by virtue of the proponent not even believing it consistently.

  30. A common denier whine about paris is that china is worse and you should not use per capita, because it doesn’t matter what individuals do, it’s what countries agree to that is important.

    If so, maybe the USA should drop to the levels of Saudi Arabia. Nobody can say they’re not living lavishly and freely using fossil fuels. So the USA should agree to produce as much as Saudi Arabia. 500 million tons per country. Though in fact this would not reduce global production, but it could be a figure to start from for those producing more to agree to get to, if they don’t like per-capita and want per-country figures.

  31. >Obviously you don’t know what “obviously wrong” looks like, dummy.

    Oh he does.

    I asked for the area of a charging station.

    >The claim that the daily commute is ~200 miles.
    Other than being off by 50%, it means you assumed that they claimed every car is charged every day.

  32. Wow

    I saw the 40+kwh which is the current state of an “empty” ev. Hell, remember when you whined and bitched about using 70kwh for gernany? Remember when using mor9e than a tiny fraction was impossible for them as reserve?

    No. That would be you lying as usual.

    What I do remember is your wholly incorrect attempt to argue that VtG could power Germany for several consecutive days.

    I recall pointing out that this was rubbish because:

    1/ Entire German EV fleet has 70kV batteries

    2/ Entire fleet’s batteries are *fully charged* at the outset

    3/ Entire fleet remains permanently grid-connected (no transport!) for 72 hours

    4/ Entire fleet’s batteries will be *fully drained* and nobody will care that there’s no transport after 72 hours of no transport

    You haven’t got a fucking clue what you are yelling about and you would do well to learn a lesson in modesty. But as you are nothing more than a lunatic, I doubt you are capable of it.

  33. But based on a bullshit argument. Which was the point. YOU however quite like that because it puts solar in a bad light.

    The commenter used a very generous assumption for solar IIRC. (S)he also kindly did not point out that Elon’s latest bit of self-promotion won’t work at all well during cloudy winter weather.

    As long as you continue to confuse marketing puff by the energy industry with workable proposals you will keep faceplanting like this and people will laugh at your naivety and lack of topic knowledge.

  34. > >Obviously you don’t know what “obviously wrong” looks like, dummy.

    > Oh he does.

    Clearly he doesn’t.

    > >The claim that the daily commute is ~200 miles.
    > Other than being off by 50%,

    Wrong. 3.5 x 42 = 147

    Obviously you don’t know what 50% is.

    > it means you assumed that they claimed every car is charged every day.

    Only if you assume it’s smaller than the smallest Tesla S. The biggest one has a300 mile range. Obviously you don’t know what claims are. “mike”.

  35. As an example of another fake garbage statement to refuse solar a place,

    More utter crap from the Deaf Fuckwit himself.

    Nobody is ‘refusing solar a place’. Lots of people think that Elon is a self-promoting prick though. Latest example: using this gimmicky and probably unworkable announcement that his charging stations will be off grid to garner publicity without really giving a shit whether or not it would be a much more technically sound approach to have the stations grid-connected.

    But as I said, you know nothing, so this went right over your turnip.

  36. > No. That would be you lying as usual.

    No, that would be you claiming I’m lying when I’m not. As usual.

    > I recall pointing out that this was rubbish because:

    Obviously you don’t know what “recall” means. It’s not “making shit up”.

    >1/ Entire German EV fleet has 70kV batteries

    Nope, that was under the assumption that if germany changed all their cars to EVs. Which could easily be 70kwh. What precisely are you calling rubbish????

    > 2/ Entire fleet’s batteries are *fully charged* at the outset

    Clearly you don’t know what fully charged means. And you never claimed this one either.

    > 3/ Entire fleet remains permanently grid-connected (no transport!) for 72 hours

    Nope, you never said that either, and I never said it. What, precisely, is rubbish here, other than your claim you made this point?

    > You haven’t got a fucking clue what you are yelling

    You yell without a fucking clue….

    > The commenter used a very generous assumption for solar IIRC

    Clearly you don’t know what “generous” means. SPV is about twice the figure quoted, and 500w/m^2 is close to production.

    And nobody pointed out that petrol stations are pointless when there’s a tankers; strike on.

    You scream without a clue, dumdum.

    > lack of topic knowledge.

    Clearly you don’t know what knowledge is.

  37. > More utter crap from the Deaf Fuckwit himself.

    Except you quoted me, not yourself, moron.

    > Nobody is ‘refusing solar a place’.

    Yeah, just like nobody is denying women rights or blacks and muslims rights.

    Odd how bigoted arseholes never come out and say what they’re doing. Just keep pretending that they’re being “honest” when all they’re doing is trying to kill opposition. Either figuratively or literally.

    Sorry dumdum, your toxic anti-solar/renewable BS is patently clear. Just plain denial won’t change it.

  38. > Nobody is ‘refusing solar a place’.

    Yeah, just like nobody is denying women rights or blacks and muslims rights.

    Oh FFS.

    your toxic anti-solar/renewable BS is patently clear.

    The only thing I object to is idiots like you peddling misinformation while mistakenly imagining themselves as knights in shining armour. In fact you are a liability. Nobody wants you on their team.

  39. > Oh FFS.

    Oh you are crying again, dumdum.

    > peddling misinformation

    Clearly you don’t know what misinformation is if you think it’s not you doing it, dumdum.

  40. BBD, is Elon claiming he will do it with solar panels, or he is going to use more diesel generators, as found at one supercharger station when a local channel conducted a sting over Memorial Day weekend to see how many people were using it(also the site of the ‘invitation only’ fake battery swap that Elon used to defraud California).

  41. mikeN, the only references to those things that show up are from Watts’ site, daily caller, freerepublic — none of which anyone should believe. Do you have an honest source?

  42. You’re the one who included 200-300 miles. Unless you are saying that fully charged range is 400-600 miles, you messed up.
    You again messed up by using this number and saying it’s the hidden assumption of the author that they drive this much every day. The author makes no such claim in your excerpt, only about the equivalent solar panel area for the number of cars that are charging. Nowhere in your excerpt does it say anything about these cars need to charge every day, that for every 156 Teslas in the population you need this much solar panel, that the daily usage is 200+ miles per day, or anything like that.

  43. Curse no preview.

    I won’t say yet that an honest source doesn’t have references – but I haven’t seen one — especially for the “defrauding” assertion.

    “You are posting too quickly. Slow down.”

    Who has taken charge of the running of SB?

  44. You are implying that the author is claiming every car you want to supercharge that day has a daily commute of 200-300 miles.

  45. “BBD, is Elon claiming he will do it with solar panels”

    Uh, you can read his claims. Dumbfuck.

    “You’re the one who included 200-300 miles.”

    You’re the one saying 200 miles was twice over what it “really was”.

    “Unless you are saying that fully charged range is 400-600 miles, you messed up.”

    Nope, dumbass, 42kwh is about 150 miles for the Tesla S at rated. 200 is not twice 150. Maths, idiot. It works.

    “using this number and saying it’s the hidden assumption ”

    WRONG! Lying little toad.

    ” that they drive this much every day.”

    200-300. Not 400 to 600, moron.

    “The author makes no such claim in your excerpt”

    Yeah, know what that is? A HIDDEN assumption. Not hidden if it’s right there in the open, is it. Even you acknowledge it was claimed hidden by me. So even you say you’re lying.

    “Nowhere in your excerpt does it say anything about these cars need to charge every day”

    Yes it does. See post #9 again.

    “that for every 156 Teslas in the population you need this much solar panel”

    WRONG. Indeed that is WHY I say that the hidden assumption is that the average commute is being claimed to be a full charge, fuckwit. Because the message being sent is what you just said there. And there you go proving yourself lying when you assert that no such claim is made.

    “‘for every car you want to supercharge that day’ is quite different from ‘every car’.”

    WRONG, see your earlier quote from you above that. They are the same thing you want to claim.

    That it’s complete bollocks is why you assert that it’s different in the wording yet insist on this being the case when you rephrase it. Hence it’s hidden in the meaning of the claim, not explicit in the claim.

    You do a good job proving both your own idiocy and the moron’s asinine presumption and proving I’m 100% correct on it.

    Not forgetting that you’ve also failed to actually check the maths assumptions that are explicitly written for being actually accurate.

    Why?

    Because it gives you an answer you LIKE, therefore you won’t actually look at it skeptically.

  46. “use more diesel generators, as found at one supercharger station”

    Nuke stations have diesel generators on site. I’ve posted this information before, but you don’t like it so didn’t care to remember it.

    Funny how one sided the investigation is, innit.

  47. In the OP

    Ten thousand years ago, our species made a radical shift in its way of life: We became farmers rather than hunter-gatherers.

    When I was an undergraduate student in the 60s, I recall my professor (J.L. Harper, an ecologist) saying “Agriculture is an experiment and we won’t know if it’s been successful until humanity reaches a steady state.” It’s something that’s stuck with me and influenced my thinking ever since.

  48. It’s really unfortunate that you guys can’t have a serious discussion about an interesting topic, for which there is actual data but always devolve into “but you said…nitpick blah blah…”

    http://www.marketwatch.com/story/here-are-the-typical-commutes-for-every-big-metro-area-2015-03-25

    If I recall correctly, the distribution for all US commutes puts almost all below 40 miles, and this was the number that the Chevy Volt designers used originally. (You get to work and then you can recharge.) Been a while since I read this so corrections accepted.

    Anyway, it has been demonstrated conclusively by now that you can build vehicles (ones with electric drivetrains, with or without a backup generator) that are superior to ICE.

    That is, even if there were no pollution (local or climate-related), passenger cars at least will inevitably go electric.

    So what are you actually arguing about??

  49. zebra, “mike” preferred to ask people here rather than do the work himself because it meant more work to no avail. It’s not like he’s going to do anything with it. And it varies massively depending on where you are. The AVERAGE UK car journey is less than 2 miles. Me? I walk that, unless it’s a monthly shop. Even if it’s pissing down.

    “So what are you actually arguing about??”

    See post #9. Someone who has a post titled “did anyone do the math?!?!?” didn’t do the math and missed out a huge assumption, along with wrong assumptions ensuring GIGO, both of which are ignored by dumdum and “mike” because they like the big scary impossible number for solar, because it means no change from the huge incumbents currently doing power.

    You could have read the thread before complaining about it.

  50. And, yeah, “you all are just nit picking” is a deliberate thing. These retards go nitpicking and “I didn’t use precisely those words!” (cf the cheese-faced talking gonad in the US) and I’m just joining in. that it goes nowhere is kind of the point I’m making. And if they want to nitpick and weasel lawyer around to stop progression, why the hell should I not partake of the same obstruction to stop them getting anywhere?

    Because if the conversation is stymied by one side, they get to control where it goes, and therefore it is a misleading technique to get a predetermined outcome in debate.

    Gaslighting is dumdum’s preferred technique which I had thought he’d outgrown, but was disabused of that hope.

  51. Wow,

    I did read– or, started reading– the thread, and then gave up when the silliness started. Which I guess supports your point about the intent of the usual suspects.

    But my approach is to answer their kind of obfuscation by going back to the fundamentals and developing the argument rather than letting them set the agenda. This is something I admonish everyone about, not just the denizens here.

    Don’t let them frame the argument, don’t let them redefine the language, and so on.

    We need to talk about the physics and the technology and the economics and so on, in order to educate the (probably non-existent) “objective lurker”. (And I also acknowledge that you do that from time to time as well.)

    So, I want to discuss why diesel or gas generators at a charging station is actually a Good Thing, from an engineering viewpoint. Any takers?

  52. Either you stopped before you found out what the conversation was about, or you didn’t bother remembering it then.

    It was #9 we were arguing about. That’s it. If you didn’t read all of that before getting bored, you need to recalibrate your attention span. If you did, then why did you ask?

  53. “Don’t let them frame the argument, don’t let them redefine the language, and so on. ”

    But if you:

    answer their kind of obfuscation by going back to the fundamentals and developing the argument

    they can either obfuscate if they don’t see advantage to the direction taken or let that one progress if they see advantage to the direction. So they get to choose your path by precluding all others other than the ones they think they can use.

    Ergo your method refutes your stated aim to deny them the ability to frame the argument and redefine the language. It’s letting them do just that by precluding anything other than the path they want.

    Obfuscate yourself and they don’t get to drive the paths they like. They can complain, but you can point out the hypocrisy and keep doing it anyway and let THEM give up on the tricks first. After all, “they started” it isn’t a reason to do something, but it’s a reason for them to give up before you. They can continue to nitpick or weaselese but they gain no advantage to that because nothing progresses, which means no progression for their ideology.

    And if they want to continue just to make their opponent pay a higher psychic price (hat tip to Bill Hicks, PBUH), then return the disfavour.

    But if nitpick and word games are going to be used by them, approval of that technique is inherent in it. So I will use it without worry or qualm.

  54. “So, I want to discuss why diesel or gas generators at a charging station is actually a Good Thing”

    Go read dean’s posts.

  55. #64,

    Dean? I don’t see much of anything on the topic from anyone.

    But with respect to the other stuff: You ignore the truth that wrestling in the mud with pigs is pointless, because they enjoy it.

    They can indeed continue to try to obfuscate, but putting out the facts lets people see the difference.

    If every gas station existing in the US also had a few fast charging stations, even if driven by diesel generators, then “range anxiety” would become meaningless, and the transition to EV would accelerate, which would lead to a substantial reduction in CO2 emissions. Fast charging meaning you can get a partial charge in the same time it takes to fill your tank with gas.

    Now, your wacky friends can’t answer that. They can try to distract and handwave, but the fact is there.

  56. “#64,

    Dean? I don’t see much of anything on the topic from anyone.”

    That would require you read it. Try doing that, then come back.

  57. “Now, your wacky friends can’t answer that.”

    And they won’t. They’ll ignore it. Much like you ignored the request to read dean’s posts, you preferring instead to whine that “not much is on this subject!!!”.

    They’ll then blast off somewhere else with a lie or misrepresentation to disregard. And nobody will read, because unless everyone else is banned from posting, your post that they “can’t answer” will be ignored by some idiotic moron whining “Oh why oh why is this all just nitpicking?!?!?! Stop doing that and answer REAL QUESTIONS! They can’t answer that and you win!!!!”.

    See the problem?

    It doesn’t matter what answer is given if people pretending, and I really do mean pretending here, to be wanting to listen to “something real” refuse to actually read what’s written when they can get a good dose of “A pox on both your houses!” and a bit part as “Only Sane Man In The Room”.

    Go read dean’s post instead.

    And when we’re done, reflect on how little it mattered that real things were said when someone can just pop up and complain there’s not much to read and it’s all pointless and pretend to themselves that this is so because that’s the general sense they got from not reading it all.

  58. Seriously, go read it. There’s really only one, but two posts from dean. Read them both in case you miss something.

    Go read it.

  59. read them yet, zebra? They’re neither hard to find (hint: Ctrl-F dean) nor numerous nor even at all lengthy. If your complaint about the lack of content is based on the amount you couldn’t be bothered to read, it’s not really the fault of any of the posters, even the asshats posting. It’s your fault.

  60. Dear zebra

    Read #18.

    And please stop sucking up to the lunatic wow. It makes you look like a complete arsehole.

  61. Anyway, it has been demonstrated conclusively by now that you can build vehicles (ones with electric drivetrains, with or without a backup generator) that are superior to ICE.

    That is, even if there were no pollution (local or climate-related), passenger cars at least will inevitably go electric.

    Never in question and explicitly acknowledged by me at #18 where I wrote:

    “Don’t get me wrong. Given the problems with particulate emissions from ICEs I’d advocate for a shift to EVs even if CO2 wasn’t a GHG.”

    So what are you actually arguing about??

    Wow’s the one doing the arguing because he is a nutter who will disrupt any conversation on pretty much any topic because he’s a nutter.

    So, please *stop* encouraging him. And stop blaming me for his lunacy.

    Thanks.

  62. Wow,

    #49 and #51 do not address my information at all. We all know the sources used by the usual suspects are nonsense, but again my point: Put up good information so people can make the comparison for themselves.

    Anyway, I achieved my goal of putting out some basic facts, so that readers who are so inclined can learn and perhaps use them in discussions elsewhere.

    No need to continue for me.

  63. “#49 and #51 do not address my information at all”

    I know.

    What do they say?

    “Where is your evidence that the claim is true?”

    See anyone answering that?

    No.

    You’ve run on to accept it however, and you’ve been driven into the path that the morons wanted you. Despite your clarion call to not let them drive anyone’s narrative.

    So you never answered dean, but you accept the claim of diesel generators as real, you ignore his question and pretend it never existed. You even cry off that it doesn’t answer your question, when what it DOES do is make your question null and void.

    The lack of any useful information is not the fault of any poster here. It’s yours.

  64. “but again my point: Put up good information ”

    So where is the good information that diesel generators were found running at supercharger stations on memorial day?

    Put up good information you say.

    So where is it?

  65. “And please stop sucking up to the lunatic ”

    Ah, lunatic does not mean “refuses to let me talk bollocks”, dumdum.

    “and explicitly acknowledged by me at #18 where I wrote:”

    Where, exactly does your #18 show that I was completely wrong? Nowhere. Where in that post is the information showing I’m wrong? Nowhere. Where in that post is any correction? Nowhere.

    What you’re doing is bullshitting again and going “LOOK!!!! SQUIRREL!!!!”.

    “Wow’s the one doing the arguing”

    Ah, right, so you haven’t posted anything? Or haven’t posted an argument? Because I totally get the idea of the second option. But it didn’t stop you posting and crying as if you WERE making an argument.

    “nutter who will disrupt any conversation on pretty much any topic”

    Ah, right, so numeracy is again out of the window, nutbag (oh, and male gender? Again? Just because you have a cock fixation doesn’t mean you get to imagine being a cock is involved with everyone you argue with), because post #9 was the topic, and then you complained (remember, you haven’t argued a thing you say) and disrupted it because you are projecting again.

    LOLworthy indeed.

    “And stop blaming me for his lunacy. ”

    And again you are getting the target wrong again. You’re the lunatic, dumdum, you are the one who disrupted. You#re the one making asinine claims as if you have an argument then disclaim having made any argument at all.

    zebra is blaming you for YOUR lunacy. That I provoked your lunatic ranting because I dared point out the anti-renewable idiocy out there is not my fault alone, even if I were doing it deliberately to troll your sorry flabby arse.

  66. Dumdum, your “technique” is to trash talk solar and wind and then hide behind the “but I’m FOR solar and wind!!!!” when called out on it.

    Works in high school between Valley Teen girls who want to bitch about others, but doesn’t work with people able to see past the words and have memory for more than the squirrels pointed at.

  67. Wow,

    You just want to argue. Not interesting.

    My information is that diesel generators are a good idea, not a bad one.

    So, who cares if the usual liars are lying one more time?

    If it’s important to you, carry on. I want to discuss real physics, engineering, and economics. They are all on our side.

  68. No, zebra, I want an argument:

    a reason or set of reasons given in support of an idea, action or theory

    So mike makes the claim based on fuck all that diesel generators were found in a shock inspection, dean asks where is this shown, because the only sources he has are unreliable at best, you then complain that there needs to be good information, but refuse to supply it, preferring to complain that “All you want is to argue, so I am morally better than you for pooh poohing the idea that I should provide any information”.

    Doesn’t work like that cupcake.

    You CAN refuse to provide what you want others to do, but you then lose the right to actually get what you want.

    Dean wanted a link, you didn’t even care to notice that nobody gave any good evidence. Instead you wanted to feel better than everyone else here by being the sanest person around and berate the conversation having nothing.

    Guess what? Whining about how nobody is doing it the way you want is ALSO adding nothing to the conversation.

    You COULD have added something. Like, oh, I don’t know, an answer for dean. And left out nonsensical self aggrandizement like “All of you have provided nothing!”.

    What makes it even more ironic is that you complained that “real information” cannot be answered, ignored me pointing out that it would be ignored, making it as if it never existed and therefore rendering it pointless and a waste of time, then treated dean’s attempt to get some “real information” into the thread precisely like I predicted would be done with any real information.

    And rather than own up to this, own up to you doing it yourself, own up to how your fluffy bunny optimism only works in your mind under your precepts of what it means to work, but fails even with you if you don’t like to consider it.

    Moreover you double down on the ignorance because your ego wasn’t fluffed and, because you have to make it someone else’s fault, twisted it to be my moral failing for wanting to argue,rather than ask that you actually MAKE AN ARGUMENT rather than whine about other people not making one.

    Lead by fucking example, idiot. It adds a hell of a lot to your precepts if you live by them.

  69. “My information is that diesel generators are a good idea, not a bad one.”

    Nope. You can concoct a scenario where it is. You can concoct a scenario where it isn’t. There’s no scenario, since there absolutely no information to inform anyone of it.

    Here:

    Instead of running solar panels, they run the diesel generators.

    Bad use of them.

    To keep the security system working they have a backup generator for when the batteries are low.

    Good use for them.

    My information was that nuke stations have massive diesel generators in there too. As power backup. That’s a real fact.

    Made not a single fucking difference. It was as if it was never said. YOU ignored it. And so if I’d banged on and on about it until that path was open to pursue? Oh, that would be me being a nutter wanting to argue, right?

    Dean queries “Any reliable source?” and you ignored it. You even accept the claim as valid for no effort. Because you don’t care about what dean wanted, you only care what you wanted, and you didn’t want to know if it was a real story or not.

    But when you assess whether the thread is pointless arguing or valid argument and counterarguments on whether YOU want to know or not, again, the lack of point to arguing in a thread is not inherent to the thread but inherent to you. It’s not an objective assessment but your subjective feeling on it. And there’s fuck all anyone here can do about your feelings, and nobody cares if you think it’s subjectively unsatisfying, there’s bugger all WE can do about it. Unless you want a cheap lobotomy by untrained non-surgeons.

    Your clarion call to “post real information” is as fake as dumdum’s clarion call “But I LIIIIKKE solar!!!”. It’s an assertion not backed up by any jot or tittle of support outside the claim. It’s certainly not a thing you will bother to change yourself. Much better to complain that nobody else is changing.

  70. “So, who cares if the usual liars are lying one more time? ”

    Because without honesty or if there’s hypocrisy, no argument can take place.

    If I use an argument for me one time then use the opposite argument another, there’s no way EITHER argument can be taken as valid argument, since they are both demonstrably not accepted by me when I use them if I find them inconvenient. So there IS NO ARGUMENT, only whether I can excuse my desire.

    That’s not an argument. There’s no way to change someone’s point of view if their point is “I wish to excuse my preconception”.

    See creationism and especially YEC/flat-earthers for how little an argument means, only the conclusion matters, therefore there is no argument with them. You have to argue with their audience instead.

    With hypocrisy, there’s no way to tell if any claim or position is the topic of discussion, because they will gladly SAY anything and arguing against that point will find that the position wasn’t there in the first place.

    See the Gish Gallop for the memetic example of this.

    And if lies are lied and left, go read up about Goebbels.

    Who cares? If someone can lie then it is an eternal game of whack-a-mole. With the added “bonus” of people complaining about you pointing out it’s lies as if somehow that’s your fault.

    “Who cares if they’re lying one more time?” is also self-defeating BS. Because who then cares if the liars lying one more time are being ridiculed or pointlessly argued one more time? Especially if it’s the same culprit again doing the pointing.

    Hypocrisy and dishonesty kill any case for an argument. But hypocrisy makes it pointless to even start trying. At least lies can be pointed to, but hypocritical posters are mist and reform anywhere the counter is not.

    And if honest argument is not worth worrying about, what the fuck is the point of any of these blogs or comment threads? That’s what WtfUWT runs on. They don’t CARE about honest argument. I don’t post there (I tried for a very short while) not because it’s idiotic stupidity, not because of the lies passed about in that echo chamber, nor even that it’s an echo chamber, but because of the massive hypocrisy.

    And if they gave up the pretense of being “honest”, I would count them as at least theoretically useful to see what the echo chamber is creating today. I’d actually read it. Laugh my arse off, but read it nonetheless. Their hypocrisy just kills any point of doing that, though, since there is no meaning to anything stated. It’s what hypocrisy means in an argument: abnegation of any meaning in the discourse.

    And THAT is a waste of time when you engage in it, even to consume.

  71. Dean, if I remember correctly, the WUWT post about the diesel generator was based on a local news report.

    The extra credits from CARB, I remember reading about California getting upset and cancelling them, but I think you are right that the sourcing is almost entirely self contained.
    It is why I tend to include an invitation for someone to disprove this claim by getting a fast battery swap with a Tesla.

  72. Zebra, it’s not much to argue about. See post #11. Wow stated this has a hidden assumption that every car must be going 200-300 miles a day, the full range of a single charge. BBD pointed out the calculation is for the equivalent of the number of cars getting charged there daily, which is smaller than the total number of cars being serviced there over time, and thus no assumption about the daily commute. I pointed out an extra error that Wow missed the 50% charge in the first part of the calculation.
    Wow responded in his usual way. Somehow this time you fell for it.

  73. “Dean, if I remember correctly, the WUWT post about the diesel generator was based on a local news report.”

    If all you have is reference to WUWT we know it’s bullshit.

  74. “Wow stated this has a hidden assumption that every car must be going 200-300 miles a day”

    So no longer 400-600? You did say “Oh, half that”, but that makes it 42kwh, 150 miles. So they assume a daily commute of 150 and THAT’S fine?

    Oh, and no, that’s not the only thing wrong with it. The solar panel output? Wrong. The loss for powercycling with the supercharger? Wrong. The amount of power per car? Wrong. The idea of measuring it in cars? Wrong.

    “BBD pointed out the calculation is for the equivalent of the number of cars getting charged there daily”

    Except that wouldn’t be 156 crs, would it. If they used up 4kwh, that would make it about 1600 cars. If they used up 2kwh, over 3000 cars. 12kwh? Over 500.

    So it was a bullshit number for the area needed, overestimating by a shit-ton the amount of space needed and a bullshit claim of 156 cars, minimising the usefulness of them.

    Two massive conclusion errors that both denigrate the solar powered supercharger stations?

    One massive mistake is just idiocy. Two is malice.

    “I pointed out an extra error that Wow missed the 50% charge in the first part of the calculation.”

    But that would be 50% of an inflated number: it was 60-65% efficient in the assumptions compared to reality of over 93%, and the figure for power per car was wrong too.

    So if you were wanting to be ACCURATE rather than defensive of a moron’s post on slashdot, that would be 145 miles/0.62*0.93 = 217 miles.

    So when I corrected it for the shorfall and claimed “~200 miles”, how wrong was I? 50%?

    Nah.

    But you wanted me to be hyper accurate yet didn’t bother if the anti-solar retard I was quoting was. You didn’t even care to check his figures, did you, despite my pointing out in post #34 one problem with it and exhorting you to check over the maths.

    So your claim of error on my part was nowhere near what your insistence made it and the errors in the piece you were defending meant nothing to you.

    Which puts the kybosh on any claim you may make for wanting accuracy. You didn’t want accuracy, you wanted blood.

  75. MikeN #85,

    I didn’t “fall for”anything.

    My point is that all the numbers are meaningless and that charging EV using diesel generators at charging stations is a good idea, not a bad one, and so the argument about whether that happened is also meaningless.

    EV are better than ICE as cars, and if we had charging stations everywhere that we now have gas stations, EV would become the choice for most passenger cars.

  76. My point is that all the numbers are meaningless and that charging EV using diesel generators at charging stations is a good idea, not a bad one,

    Or the stations could even be grid-connected. Someone should tell Elon.

  77. “so the argument about whether that happened is also meaningless.”

    From the point of view of the value of EV, yes. From the point of view that seemingly fake stories like that, or the fraud assertion, get passed around by the usual dishonest spots and picked up by people who visit them, it isn’t meaningless, because now the people who dismiss EVs will have more “evidence” to support their stance. As with climate change, once dishonest stories get passed around by the deniers, facts have a difficult time getting to the front of the discussion.

  78. “Or the stations could even be grid-connected. Someone should tell Elon.”

    He already knows, dumbass.

    But what he’s doing is considering disconnecting from the grid some of the charging stations so they’re not on the grid. Quite possibly because he’s being charged a shitload for connection that he doesn’t need.

  79. zebra

    The thing is, diesel generators are…wait for it….

    dispatch-able!

    They’re also filthy. Gas via the grid would be better both in terms of GHGs and particulate emissions, but of course there will be exceptions where diesel generators are the better option.

    @ wow

    He already knows, dumbass.

    Fuck off, nutter.

  80. “Fuck off, nutter.”

    No, you’re the nutbag, dumdum. He already knows. It is not news to him. They’re already grid connected. That means he knows.

    Fucking idiot.

  81. Edit:

    They’re also [inefficient and] filthy. Gas [generation] via the grid would be better both in terms of GHGs and particulate emissions,

  82. BBD,

    No, you are incorrect.

    First, diesel generators can be cleaner than diesels in vehicles.

    Where the infrastructure exists, as in many cities, natural gas generators at charging stations would be even better, of course.

    But keeping a thermal plant running so that people can get an occasional quick charge is just silly; it isn’t at all clear that it wouldn’t be worse in terms of CO2.

  83. Or biodiesel. Or synthetic gas. Or hydrogen cells. Or….

    But still this isn’t the plan. Elon already has them connected to the grid and he’s not planning to disconnect them all, because some of them cost more to have connected than they need connecting. The ones still connected and needing that connection will use the grid. The ones that don’t won’t need diesel generation.

    And like I said, nukes have colocated diesel generation to act as local backup. Nobody seems to think this is a problem with nukes.

  84. “First, diesel generators can be cleaner than diesels in vehicles.”

    But cleaner isn’t clean. Just not as dirty. And nothing indicates it’s actually happening, only an unsourced claim. A nonexistent diesel generator is cleanest of all.

  85. ” it isn’t at all clear that it wouldn’t be worse in terms of CO2.”

    Diesel generators can be thermal plants. And gas generators can be combustion engines.

    It isn’t at all clear what you’re on about.

  86. No, you are incorrect.

    News to me. Last I looked, DGs are just above coal in the least-preferred bracket of generation technologies.

    Where the infrastructure exists, as in many cities, natural gas generators at charging stations would be even better, of course.

    Why are they needed *at* charging stations? The point is to strive for efficient decarbonisation – but this isn’t really about that, it’s about Elon self-publicising again, regardless of the actual engineering best path. He wants to sell Tesla EVs and *that* is what this nonsense is all about. It’s advertising puff for his own business.

    But keeping a thermal plant running so that people can get an occasional quick charge is just silly; it isn’t at all clear that it wouldn’t be worse in terms of CO2.

    Except nobody is suggesting that – it’s just silly. The sensible suggestion is that grid-connected charging stations are just like anything else grid-connected – a part of overall demand. Please, no more straw.

  87. “Why are they needed *at* charging stations?”

    ARE they needed at ANY charging stations?

    “He wants to sell Tesla EVs and *that* is what this nonsense is all about”

    And it’s not about whether diesel generators are clean.

    “Except nobody is suggesting that – it’s just silly.”

    No more silly than insisting that diesel generators are being used at all charging stations. But, yeah, you hate the renewable option, any old shit to keep those waters muddy.

  88. “The sensible suggestion is that grid-connected charging stations are just like anything else grid-connected”

    And do you think that none of them are?!?!?!?

  89. So, zebra, you see the problem of accepting a claim that is unsupported because you can’t be arsed to find out or even require someone find out whether it’s actually true or not.

  90. Zebra, diesels may be good at generating stations and I have no objection. I brought it up because I don’t think that is the vision Elon was trying to sell there, but it is consistent with what he said and what he has done.

    Wow, if you want to bring up other objections fine. I am not wedded to the idea that solar powering of superchargers is impossible, and the math I did above was actually in your favor if you could stop long enough to realize it. You brought up 200-300 km, as the daily commute, and I pointed out that you ignored the 50%. Now you change some numbers around to claim you never made this error. You still don’t concede BBD’s original objection that there is no hidden assumption.

  91. And do you think that none of them are?!?!?!?

    Christ on a crotch.

    Elon Musk is proposing to dis-connect them. As a PR stunt this is fine; as an engineering approach to efficient decarbonisation it is bollocks.

    If you shut up, the adults could actually have a sensible conversation.

  92. ” I brought it up because I don’t think that is the vision Elon was trying to sell there”

    No, you brought it up to claim that it was a scam, “greenwashing”. It’s not the vision he has.

    “Elon Musk is proposing to dis-connect them.”

    FFS, idiot, then why are you insisting that he should CONNECT them to the grid?????

    “As a PR stunt this is fine; ”

    How the hell would you know? Please provide proof it’s a PR stunt.

    “as an engineering approach to efficient decarbonisation it is bollocks. ”

    It’s nothing to do with efficient decarbonisation. It’s about making the supercharger stations widespread and cheap to run.

    You DO know he employs engineers, right?

    “If you shut up,”

    You’d be able to BS.

    Sorry, toots, not gonna happen. I’ll point out the childish idiocy you spout every time.

  93. “Wow, if you want to bring up other objections fine. ”

    So you don’t care if the poster was inaccurate. Therefore your complaints about me were not merely incorrect, they were a smokescreen and not about accuracy.

    “You still don’t concede BBD’s original objection that there is no hidden assumption.”

    Well, yes. Because his objection is bollocks. There IS a hidden assumption. As evidenced by you going “But there’s no mention there of the daily range of the cars being 200 miles!!!” but the assumption being that they’d use the same power up each day as travelling 200 miles.

    You know, an assumption that isn’t written there but hides behind another assertion. A hidden assumption as it were.

    So why should I concede the objection dumdum had when his objection was false?

  94. >So you don’t care if the poster was inaccurate.

    No I don’t care about the accuracy of a random comment to a Slashdot post. That the single error you pointed out(initally) had two errors within it was more interesting, though I will concede not nearly interesting enough to fill up this thread.

    > Because his objection is bollocks.
    Nope. he is correct. The excerpt you cite works just as well if they leave out the 156 car number. If there are less than half charges, you get more cars, but still the same amount of total energy for charging. The variables were number of stalls, amount of time occupied, size of battery, time of charge. How often people need to charge is nonexistent in the calculation.

  95. “No I don’t care about the accuracy of a random comment to a Slashdot post. ”

    Therefore the accusation is accepted: you complained because you wanted blood, not accuracy, you liked its result, and that was all you cared about.

    “That the single error you pointed out(initally) had two errors within it was more interesting”

    What? Which two errors? The battery pack size directly relates to the fact that the hidden assumption of unrealistic daily commute. That’s one error. The other errors (more than two, so I don’t know how you munge several into each other) came later. None of which you cared about.

    > > Because his objection is bollocks.
    > Nope. he is correct.

    Nope, he’s wrong.

    “The excerpt you cite works just as well if they leave out the 156 car number”

    They don’t, though. That’s why the assumption is there, hidden in that count: that the 156 cars all drive 200 miles between “filling up”.

    “. If there are less than half charges, you get more cars”

    Correct. Which is why you wouldn’t do “how many cars does it fill up?” as a metric. It’s only trotted out to make it look like you’d need a billion acres to make it work.

    “but still the same amount of total energy for charging”

    But still a greater number of cars. So their assumption hidden behind that claim of 156 cars is that they are the only cars they do that day.

    “The variables were number of stalls, amount of time occupied, size of battery, time of charge.”

    Correct. Now if it were to be claimed that it would be a lesser charge, it’s not 156 cars they can hold, is it, because that figure is the result of staying there charging for 30 minutes.

    Occupancy would therefore change. That’s one of the assumptions. So they overinflated their count of factors to assume. In a post complaining about nobody having done the maths, he didn’t do it either, but made more work by that claim.

    “How often people need to charge is nonexistent in the calculation.”

    And therefore the conclusion he relied on is hidden in the assumption: 42.5kwh needs to be charged up. You see, he added in the unnecessary occupation guess then didn’t add in the consequent requirement (if he wanted to keep that assumption as relevant) of how frequently they’d have to come back.

    If it’s every week, then that would be 7×156 cars.

    Complaining that dumdum’s objection is valid because the assumption I claim is hidden isn’t in the text quoted is kinda stupid. It’s hidden. Do you require something written between the lines before you can “read between the lines”???

    What the moron could have done, and if you wanted a conversation rather than arguing, is relate how many cars whatever acreage of solar panels could service.

    1) Power produced by that acreage in one day
    2) Power loss in charging
    3) Power used on average in an EV’s daily commute

    If #1 doesn’t do daily amount of power, then #3 should be given in the exact same time period.

    Why is the occupancy required then? It isn’t.

    But it’s added in to fake out that this poster was “serious” and “educated” and “rigorous”. When all they wanted was to fake authority in his asinine claims. Because without that fake authoritative appearance, his errors of assumption would be harder to ignore.

    Such as the solar panel output. Or the charging loss.

    Hell those three I give don’t even rely on the size of battery used.

    And then the occupancy rate is merely how many stalls do you build to get enough people through in a day when demand for charging is uneven and peaks. Which is a business case for the design, not an engineering case.

  96. You have been misled by a shortcut into incorrectly thinking you have found a hidden assumption. It could be the supercharger station is serving a population of 156 cars recharging daily, 1000 cars recharging once a week, 10000 cars, or a million cars. They still would have reached the same calculation of the area of solar panels needed. An alternate way of reaching the same number is to say(I’m not scrolling up to make sure the numbers are accurate) it takes 30 minutes to do a half charge, That is 85 kilowatt hours per hour per station. The occupancy is about half at daytime and empty at night. So a total of 13 stalls used 8 hours a day 8800 kilowatt hours per day. It requires 14,400 square meters of solar panels to produce 8800 kwh in an average day. No assumption of how often cars are charging, only that the stations are half full and number of stalls.

  97. “Mike”, you’re making shit up again. I can prove that with your own words:

    “You have been misled”

    Certainty. HAVE been.

    “It could be”

    Suddenly no longer certain.

    No, the 156 cars is the same bollocks that “range anxiety” uses to scare people off the idea. And it;s the use of 156 cars that is the fact that shows the assumption. If they’d said 1560 cars, then that would indicate something around 15 miles a day. Saying 156 cars, that would indicate 150 miles a day, which is bullshit. The other errors mean the range is actually about 200 miles from the solar panels, and the power of the solar panels is twice that given. It is the second error that indicates the intent of the “error”.

    “They”

    ????

    Only one dude posts one at a time. Unless you are hinting that the post was the result of an astroturf organisation who wrote the text and got someone to post it to slashdot…

    “never said you need 14,400 square meters for every 156 Teslas did they?”

    Yes they did.

  98. The occupancy is also moronic. What’s the occupancy of a petrol station? 10%? 20? Go on, find it. I did a quick look couldn’t get a figure. Someone who runs a franchise might hire someone who has that figure, nobody else does.

    If it’s 30 minutes per car for “half charge”, then why use the 85kwh figure for the battery? At that rate it’s 21 minutes for the smaller batteried tesla and therefore 221 cars. For a Volt, much less time and more cars.

    What the two cars have in common is (very nearly) the same miles per kwh figure.

    But they didn’t use that.

    For someone whining “Did anyone do the maths on this!?!?!?”, they didn’t do the maths. They did a lot of seeming maths, all based on ass-pull assumptions. And the one they didn’t say is how many miles those cars did on average under his assumption. Because that would have shown how dumb and half-assed the assumptions were and how stupid the method taken was.

    Daily EV power use average
    Daily charging station power average
    Efficiency of charging

    Done.

    But no, convoluted with assumption stated after assumption, but no explaining that one assumption is an unfeasibly huge daily commute.

    Where, for example, do they say how long a period between “refills”?

    Nowhere.

    And given that even you know that cutting charge requirements reduces charge time, making no difference to the end result in feasibility, why not use the rational charge rate and make it easier?

    Because that way there’s no 144000m2 per 156 cars “conclusion”.

    That 144000m2 being off by a factor of 3, by the way.

    Note too that Elon Musk hires people to do this and he DOES have the figures for the solar power utilisation and shortfall rate, both of which are required to work out if the solar panel can and should be disconnected.

    Someone hated EVs, Tesla, Musk or solar, or maybe all the above, and had to whine.

  99. Wow and MikeN,

    Wow: “power produced by that acreage”, “power loss in charging”, “power used in daily commute”.

    MikeN: “85kW-hr per hour per station”

    Come on guys.

    “Electric power is the rate, per unit time, at which electrical energy is transferred by an electric circuit. The SI unit of power is the watt, one joule per second.”

    When you divide… kW-hr (per means divide) by hrs, you get kW.

    So, the charging circuit has a capacity measured in kW. If it is hooked up to solar panels (through the appropriate circuitry), the solar panels themselves must have an equivalent capacity.

    Now, I suggest you go and look at

    https://www.tesla.com/supercharger

    for a nice discussion of how it works.

    Then, calculate, for one vehicle, a first approximation of the panel area that would be necessary, to have the necessary capacity, using info from a non-partisan source, rather than trying to work backwards from some post somewhere.

    Completely pulling it out of my ass, as you guys would say, I guess 1,000 sq meters would do the trick.

    So then, you can also work out different scenarios for the energy, not “power”, that can be loaded into the batteries of vehicles.

    Note that whatever the source (grid, local wind/solar, diesel), it is the charging capacity of the charging system that would constrain how many cars you can charge up to whatever level of charge in a given time period.

  100. “When you divide… kW-hr (per means divide) by hrs, you get kW.”

    Yup, other ways of doing it. But the vastly overcomplicated method the moron used was designed to make it look more rigorous than it was and to stop people looking at the assumptions.

    See mike and bbd. Not one cared about their accuracy but really cared about mine. Undermining their complaint into partisan BS.

  101. “Note that whatever the source (grid, local wind/solar, diesel), it is the charging capacity of the charging system that would constrain how many cars you can charge up to whatever level of charge in a given time period.”

    And would your contention be that Musk didn’t do the maths on it?

    But, and this gets to the point of it, someone didn’t want Tesla or Musk or solar power to get a good story, or even just a story, without making it a bad idea SOMEHOW.

    Poisoning the well.

  102. Zebra, the post was about area of solar cells needed for a charging station. The number of cars to be powered is something imagined by Wow as an error.

  103. Ah, right,so

    = 156 vehicles charged per day.

    Doesn’t exist.

    Got it. This is a reverse hallucination.

  104. 156 vehicles charged per day is not the same as 156 vehicles in the city/area served by supercharger. Thus your ‘hidden assumption’ doesn’t exist. It could be a thousand cars going in for the charge once a week, same resulting area of solar panels. BBD spotted your error instantly. Admittedly, I would have missed it.

  105. MikeN,

    I’m just trying to have you guys use the correct terminology and approach the problem in a direct way based on fundamentals.

    I am not saying your numbers are way off, but why not establish your claim as I described– show the calculation for one car receiving a specific amount of energy (Not! “Power”!) using clearly unbiased sources.

    I came up with 1,000 sq meters to provide a capacity in the range described by Tesla. So with 10 charging stations, you would need 10,000 sq meters. So, orders of magnitude are correct, although I suspect 1,000 is a little high because Tesla is likely to be using premium panels, which might be double the capacity of “average” or “typical” ones.

    But anyway, you are in fact assuming that the stations are charging continuously at that capacity for 8 hours, and each car is hooked up for half an hour, and then you do get a number of cars, which is 160.

    I it seems unlikely that this is a realistic scenario at this time, so I think Wow has a point. Where are all these Teslas coming from to fill up this one station?

    I would suggest that any off-grid solar-powered such facility would have much less total capacity, and the idea of a backup diesel generator (e.g. for nights) is both sound and still very green.

    Also, I don’t think that panel areas that are multiples of 1,000 sq meters is really that big a deal. I see big installations fairly often driving on the highway– there’s lots of land that otherwise goes unused on and adjacent to the rights-of-way, for obvious reasons.

    Again, as Wow suggests, if there’s an easy cheap hookup to the grid with sufficient capacity, then that’s what they will use. But in a less populated stretch, where land is cheap, it may well make sense to go self-contained.

  106. 1000x300x0.185=55.5kw averaged per diem
    55.5*24=1333kwh=4500miles travelled. At 15 miles per day average, 3,000 cars.

    Or about 1 car every 30 seconds, near enough.

    For you, per bay.

    Hmmm.

    When you made the claim it was supportable values, what value did you get for the power output and how did you apply it to car charging?

  107. “But in a less populated stretch, where land is cheap, it may well make sense to go self-contained”

    Some states have allowed power companies to levy punitive connection charges to “their grid” to disincentivise solar power outside their control.

    So Tesla may find they don’t get the value from the connection. Another reason not to bother with grid connection.

  108. Remember, the idea is that the “best places” for solar will be disconnected, since they will be the ones that don’t need the connection to the grid. That was why the slashdots poster used desert conversion rates for solar.

  109. “156 vehicles charged per day is not the same as 156 vehicles in the city/area”

    Indeed it does not mean that. But what it DOES say is that it;s the same as “156 vehicles in the city/area served by supercharger. “.

    Because that’s what it says in the words.

  110. Remember too that the use of such charging stations will change as the system is built and expanded and used, along with the need of the EV fleet.

  111. Zebra, I checked and I never used power incorrectly here. I was worried about the terminology and stayed away from energy too. Figured it would just be another way for Wow to call me a liar. Your numbers are about the same, since Wow’s quote said 14,400 sq meters for 13 charging bays. Despite Wow’s claims, I was never arguing the feasibility and asked the area of a supercharger with this in mind.

    >I it seems unlikely that this is a realistic scenario at this time, so I think Wow has a point. Where are all these Teslas coming from to fill up this one station?

    Not Wow’s point, rather thinks there is a hidden assumption in the calculations(and now your calculation) that people will drive 200 miles per day. The number of cars that you get, 160, could be a larger number with less charge per car, or charging less regularly.
    You ask where are this large number of cars coming from. Presumably Musk envisions a larger installed base of Teslas. It looks like you need around 1 station(10- 20 chargers) per thousand Teslas, unless they charge faster.

  112. “rather thinks there is a hidden assumption in the calculations(and now your calculation) that people will drive 200 miles per day”

    42kwh. multiplied by three over two because of the failure of efficiency assumption, that being the result of charging 156 cars.

    So not an explicit assumption but the inevitable consequence of the assumptions stated.

  113. ” It looks like you need around 1 station(10- 20 chargers) per thousand Teslas, unless they charge faster.”

    And the optically evident source for that…?

  114. ” It looks like you need around 1 station(10- 20 chargers) per thousand Teslas, unless they charge faster.”

    And the optically evident source for that…?

    Your post of the range of a Tesla. 156 cars per day for the charger, and estimating a (half)charge once a week.

  115. MikeN,

    I think you just have the concept wrong.

    The supercharger stations (currently) are there primarily to allow people to make long trips. Normally people would plug in overnight at home to keep up the charge for commuting and driving around town.

    That’s why I think, as Wow says, that Tesla’s very smart engineers and mathematicians will plan the capacity of each facility based on expected traffic. There’s plenty of data for them to use to do that.

    So.there would be lots of facilities with two or three charging stations, with the total capacity provided by 2.000 sq meters of panels if it is off-grid.

    It will be quite a while before any such facility would be “overbooked” by people taking 600 mile road trips, all arriving at the same time and expecting a super-fast charge.

  116. >So.there would be lots of facilities with two or three charging stations, with the total capacity provided by 2.000 sq meters of panels if it is off-grid.

    You are still reaching the same numbers, about 1000 sq meters per charging station(for at home charging, solar panels equal to the area of the car should suffice right?). Wow brought up the ‘hidden assumption’ of daily commutes and I went with that. Looks like they don’t need that many then. However, if it is for long drives, then presumably the superchargers will be placed on highways and 2-3 chargers will be way too low, while city places can get by with just a few.

  117. Zebra, by saying Wow has a point, you are saying that you are making a ‘hidden assumption’ that ‘every day every car has to fill up all the battery, indicating that the average US commute is 200-300 miles per day’ as Wow posted in #11.

    Do you think that is an error in your calculations?
    Wow obfuscating as usual. BBD pointed out this assumption is not in what Wow posted, and gets accused of not caring about accuracy.

  118. The point to make, now we’ve all gotten the idea that “counting how many cars can it service” is a fucking stupid idea since it doesn’t matter in calculating power supply, is that the engineers at Tesla have the figures that would let anyone know if it can be disconnected from the grid, and why it would make sense.

    And they think that there’s a case for it.

    All we can do is discuss how society would change if there were more such stations around and more EVs using them. Would we charge up at the mall or supermarket, making fast charging needless? Would we accept “free parking with power” at work or shopping if our cars were used to stabilise the grid? Would supercharging become needless for 99% of travelling because we only need it along highways for long journeys to cut down on journey times? And could that be nullified if they were common enough that we could use the driving break to charge wherever we happened to be when we felt like it?

  119. “by saying Wow has a point, you are saying that you are making a ‘hidden assumption’”

    Nope. If he;s saying I have a point, which point do YOU think he’s saying I have a point at?

    “> And the optically evident source for that…?

    Your post of the range of a Tesla.”

    So you’re saying I have a point? That if you wanted to claim how many cars, it ought to be how many charging stations per tesla could it service? But the calculation doesn’t require the range of a tesla. Or the range of any car. Just how many kwh is used per mile, and how many miles per day on average is used driving about. Range of the car isn’t there. Only efficiency.

    Hell, petrol stations aren’t rated for how many you need per thousand cars. How many you need is more relevant for petrol cars, though, since you’re not allowed to make your own petroleum distillates.

    But at least you’re getting that the number of cars should be in the many hundreds or thousands if you wanted to put some metric like that up and the slashdotter was underreporting, making it look worse even if you want to claim it wasn’t malicious.

    Per charging bay, solar panel acreage really only matters if you have no storage at all but need to supercharge based off the output straight out, but nobody is pretending that there’s no storage at all.

  120. ” BBD pointed out this assumption is not in what Wow posted”

    “mike” being a dumbass again and pretending that he doesn’t know what hidden means. Or that it wasn’t said.

  121. “Wow brought up the ‘hidden assumption’ of daily commutes and I went with that”

    No you didn’t. You bloviated about how it wasn’t written down that they assumed it was a daily commute of 200 miles. ONCE you asked what the daily commute was. You then ONCE reworked the figures to something around 1-2000, which would be 10-20 miles a day. Then continued on with your “but it doesn’t say the assumption you claim it has hidden!”.

  122. “It will be quite a while before any such facility would be “overbooked” by people taking 600 mile road trips, all arriving at the same time and expecting a super-fast charge.”

    And if it ever happens, someone will open up another charging station if there’s money to be made there.

    Or people will stop driving 600 miles on a charge and stop pretending that their EV is the same as a mythically fast and efficient petrol car. And not take dangerous 5-10 hour continuous drives.

  123. MikeN,

    I think you meant to say that “solar panels the area of the house (not “the car”) would suffice” for home charging. Which might be correct, except that you are doing your thing of being vague, because you don’t specify what “home charging” would be quantitatively.

    I’ve put in a fair amount of time trying to give people the foundations of what is needed to objectively and usefully discuss these questions (electric circuits 101). If you are too concerned about getting something wrong, or not maintaining your ideological purity, to even try to use the correct terminology with respect to power and energy, and look at this from an engineering design perspective, then I am truly wasting my time responding.

    Wow’s last paragraph at 136 sums things up pretty well.

    There are multiple different scenarios and situations. You take the fundamental physical facts which I have laid out and apply them to each, based on the specific goal you are trying to achieve.

    If you aren’t willing to stipulate what the goal is in the first place, what is the point of having a discussion?

  124. Zebra, no I meant the area of the car. 1000 sq meters per charging station, and probably each charging station supports 50 cars, comes out to 20 square meters or so.

    >You bloviated about how it wasn’t written down that they assumed it was a daily commute of 200 miles. ONCE you asked what the daily commute was. You then ONCE reworked the figures to something around 1-2000,

    Because they didn’t make that assumption, hidden or otherwise. My calculation of 1000 cars was different from their use of 156 cars, which was to support it. You still don’t get it, as usual. It’s like how you say the range of the cars is irrelevant. Yet I used the range in my calculation. You are correct that kwh/mile is just as good and the range can be skipped. Yet if I had calculated the time of charge from the range, then arguing the size of the range is a wrong assumption would be flawed, because it is the same no matter what range I use. No matter the size of the daily commute, even if every car is coming in for a full(or is it half) charge, you still get the same 156 cars number.
    Daily commute 1 mile per day, you still can have 156 cars per day getting a half charge.

  125. “Because they didn’t make that assumption”

    No, they still did.

    ” It’s like how you say the range of the cars is irrelevant. ”

    It is.

    “Yet I used the range in my calculation.”

    That still doesn’t make it relevant.

    “You are correct that kwh/mile is just as good ”

    Nope, it’s the only measure of any use. If the fleet of cars were magically upgraded to double the battery capacity by some weird alien overlord, the range of all the cars would double. But the number of cars possible to service would not change a jot. Despite the range doubling.

    You don’t WANT to get it. Ironic given your whining earlier.

    “No matter the size of the daily commute, even if every car is coming in for a full(or is it half) charge, you still get the same 156 cars number”

    Nope. You got 1-2000 for example from the same cars driven the same way.

    And if the cars were doubled in range because it was more efficient by a factor of two, then you’d double that number.

    Showing yet again that the number given is BS and the range is a nonargument.

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