When you dare to take the time to post something even remotely related to your field its so basic a kid could understand it. That's when you do. Instead, it's you guffawing at others. Can't refute what they have to say because it's true. Validated with a dreaded YouTube video or an article with (GASP!) even more links with more truths that you despise. You've been telling yourself stories that only you believe. Call me mad, angry, ill-tempered...I really don't care. What you won't call me is a liar. You peddled the Covid crap with the same gusto you peddle your Tesla EV...which if you even bothered to really read the "contract"...YOU DON'T OWN.

You don't have to have a degree to know when you hear stories. Guys tell them in bars, at watercoolers and fenceposts all the time. Hardly anyone ever believes them. See, when you read the articles and watch the YouTubes some post on threads to back up what they want to get across or show real professionals it validates their opinions. You're too stupid to know that. You tell yourself that nobody can be as smart as you and laugh it down. You're too proud to admit you've been had...again. If this comes across as mad, angry or even ill-tempered...at least it's not a lie. Even you have admitted it too.




That's worth twenty cents to the dollar!

"You can take a good look at a T-bone by sticking your head up a bull's ass, but wouldn't you rather take the butcher's word for it?" - Tommy Boy

DrMaddVibe wrote:

Thanks Gene. Sounds like your feet are firmly on the ground. As engineers we see the importance of being dispassionate about these things. Are you a mechanical engineer?

Full disclosure; 11 months ago I moved into the consultant group and finished off my other duties. But I will always be an engineer at heart.

Brewha wrote:

I've been accused of that many times, but it was merely a title.

Gene363 wrote:

If the Energy Departments announcement tomorrow about a break thru in fission is a repeatable experiment, and it can become viable in the timeframe I've heard rumors about ,it will makes EVs a lot more practical. It should also kill most of the other green energy bull.

burning_sticks wrote:

DMV, many people here have taught me a thing or two. Particular about the law and law enforcement - because they were LEO's and I'm just an engineer.

You have a problem with EV's? try me out. This kind of tech is my field.

Brewha wrote:

I sure could go for a 192 2 Megajoule(MJ) laser right about now.

HockeyDad wrote:

Stuck in traffic?

Gene363 wrote:

No, I work remote. I herd senior and principal engineers for a living!

HockeyDad wrote:

😂 Unless you're "motivating" them from space you might want to consider a much less powerful laser. OTOH, if want dismissal with severe prejudice, carry on.

Gene363 wrote:

That’s the problem with this whole woke society. HR won’t let us motivate engineers with a little laser prodding.

HockeyDad wrote:

Unfortunately, a lot was left out of the announcement. They used 192 2 Megajoule(MJ) lasers to fuse a tiny amount of Deuterium and Tritium to produce 3 MJ, They gained approximately 1 MJ or about 300 watts of energy. But, to power those lasers they spent about 300 MJ of energy. This type of fusion, if it ever actually becomes sustainable is 100's of years away. They would have to be able to sustain about 100,000 of these fusions per day in order for it to power a small city. Not to mention that Tritium is one of the rarest isotopes on the planet. Even if they captured every isotope of Tritium created in fission reactors it still wouldn't be enough to meet the amounts needed to make it work. This experiment was more a proof of concept, that fusion can be achieved in this way. Other labs have tried to recreate this experiment and failed.

The Tokamak plasma fusion reactors the Chinese and the EU built are much more promising. They've achieved temperatures of 100 mill degrees C. For comparison the core of our sun only gets to about 15 mill degrees C. But, they are decades away from commercial use. Material sciences need to catch up to make this technology viable.

As for EV's... All the materials mined for the batteries, the production of the batteries and cars use coal, oil and natural gas. The same are used to charge the cars throughout their lifecycle. When an EV reaches end of life there is currently no economically viable process to recycle these batteries. Any process to recycle these batteries would again require power produced by coal, oil and natural gas. EV's are not green yet. "Green" is a feelgood marketing term.

CelticBomber wrote:

I'm not opposed to EV's at all. What I am opposed to is government intervention into a subsidy that taxpayers have to pay for to make it viable. Same thing is happening with EV's that happened with ethanol. Both cannot survive without the money taxpayers on the hook. EV's have a place but to scrap the existing manufacturing processes for cars, trucks and petroleum industry just because...hell no. The "science" shows that the planet isn't going to melt away any time soon despite the media's best efforts. Even if it was...nations like China, India, Pakistan and Russia won't be making effective changes until 2060. Shuttering our auto plants with a 30+ year window debilitates us as a nation even militarily.

Where I have a problem with it is in the right here and now. My needs are not going to be changing. We have horses and wildlife. They will need to be transported. That little Rivian toy isn't even up for going more than 200 miles on its own so I'm not going to "do the math" with a 30 foot 3 horse slant with living quarters trailer and 3 horses being towed by a F250 now. There are no stations that would allow that kind of rig to wheel up and charge and even if there were you and I both know that some dip$hit in a Tesla would take that space up in a heartbeat.

Then there are the homes that cannot and will not support an EV charger being added to it. The entire house would have to be rewired and that's tens of thousands for that before we ever get to the station and the car. We can quibble about what's powering the homes grid...for me its a coal plant. They're not shutting that off any time soon. They're not even talking about building a new nuclear power plant either. So all the talk about green ends right there for me. All you're doing is overburdening a grid that washes out when we have a bad lightning storm much worse when it's a Cat 1 hurricane. Cat 5...it doesn't matter, it's all going bye bye. So adding more...with the demand of EV's and their charging needs...a LOT more. Its not being thought out by the smartest people in the room at all. This (what's going on right now) reminds me of the Elmer Fudd cartoon where he's hunting a fly with a shotgun. Shooting the place up to the point there's no walls or ceiling and the fly...buzzes around him after the dust clears.

I'm more practical and cost effective when it comes to my personal spending. I buy and pay off my vehicles. My truck was brand new in 2011 and it's still running just fine. My trailers are paid for. My house is paid for. I just bought my wife her dream vehicle and it was a 2020 Jeep with less than 20K miles on it. I don't want to go into debt for the sake of saving the planet, which I cannot. Neither can you. Nor your kids. I'm quite positive that there will be another ice age before the place melts away. So, as you can see the EV isn't practical for me. I DGAF about being in a little car that doesn't make a noise starting up. I DGAF about being the fastest off the line because performance to me is longevity not finish line. I've been knee deep with GM and their electrical platforms in the late 80's and 90's. Worked in their engineering departments and design laboratories as well as their test tracks in Mesa, AZ and Milford, MI. They couldn't get it to work then. Now, Uncle Sam is giving them a subsidy and incentive to fail for free. It's still so experimental that I laugh when people talk all serious about no gasoline stations in 2030. Um...they're still going to be there. The sale of a new car in their locale isn't. That's the only difference. I see those goalposts moving back...and again...and again if not ripped out.

If I could be King of the County for a hot decade...I would really think about bullet trains with stations that are viable. Meaning that once you reach a station you could walk a few blocks and be at your destination. Buses with routes that are viable and EV's would be a virtue signal device or for local delivery. Nobody is talking about the bigger picture and that's signals to me that its going to fail. Not that I'm happy if it does. It means it wasn't thought out and we're paying again for the mistakes made by stupid people. I really hope the next time you see an article or YouTube that is opposed to your thinking that now you see where I'm coming from. Am I right? Maybe not. I know I'm not perfect. Understand that I've thought it out a few ways before I gab about it though. That goes for everything in my world. I'm using article that support my point of view or the experts for what I had thought to illustrate a point.

DrMaddVibe wrote:

So you have brought up dozens of topics across five paragraphs……

So - maybe don’t buy and EV?
I guarantee you that you can keep your gas truck for the rest of your life - even buy a new on if you like. I figure you have a solid 30 years before a new truck purchase would force you into a non-gas truck. Maybe.
Hell, you can keep a truck running for 100 years….

Brewha wrote: