Stochastic Contemplations.

[worth1]

How is Gov. Abbott looking to Texans lately? Is there wide support for his tactics to search trucks coming over the border?

There is a thread on the border in the controversial section.
No idea how the Texans feel about the enhanced safety inspections.

[karstopography]

How is Gov. Abbott looking to Texans lately? Is there wide support for his tactics to search trucks coming over the border?

There was something on the local (Houston) news last night about a deal Gov. Abbott made with three of the governors of border Mexican States, Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, and Chihuahua. Deal evidently is that the enhanced inspections are to stop with the Mexican Governors to step up security on their side. Sounds like that will help end the border bottlenecks brought on by the enhanced inspections. Only the crossings across from Tamaulipas will still be subject to the enhanced inspections.

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/04/14 ... chihuahua/

Lots of persistent and long term problems at the US border with Mexico. Is it a federal or state issue? If the enhanced inspections brought on meaningful change for the better, then good. The majority of the governors on both sides of the Texas/Mexico border came to the table, excluding one state, to agree to a better framework that works for each state. Would the governors in Mexico had come to the table without the pressure and problems caused by the enhanced inspections, I wonder.

[worth1]

How is Gov. Abbott looking to Texans lately? Is there wide support for his tactics to search trucks coming over the border?

There was something on the local (Houston) news last night about a deal Gov. Abbott made with three of the governors of border Mexican States, Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, and Chihuahua. Deal evidently is that the enhanced inspections are to stop with the Mexican Governors to step up security on their side. Sounds like that will help end the border bottlenecks brought on by the enhanced inspections. Only the crossings across from Tamaulipas will still be subject to the enhanced inspections.

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/04/14 ... chihuahua/

Lots of persistent and long term problems at the US border with Mexico. Is it a federal or state issue? If the enhanced inspections brought on meaningful change for the better, then good. The majority of the governors on both sides of the Texas/Mexico border came to the table, excluding one state, to agree to a better framework that works for each state. Would the governors in Mexico had come to the table without the pressure and problems caused by the enhanced inspections, I wonder.

I don't think they would have came to the table.
A huge majority of the people crossing aren't Mexican citizens.
They are from Central and South America.
With that said they weren't doing anything and letting the problem pass on to the US.
So we created another problem that was their's.
Untold numbers of trucks backed up.

Was that the governors intended result?
Or an event that fell in his lap?
As far as drug smuggling that border isn't the problem.
We as US citizens need to fix it.
How I don't know but we are the demand.

[worth1]

The kid that has been putting up Muskies plane locations on Twitter is worried.

[Tormahto]

I think the hydrogen cell cars are the way to go.
And I think Tesla is working on them too.
No waiting for a battery to charge.
Just fill up with hydrogen.
Another thing is Chrysler is getting rid of the Hemi yet again.
Moving to Straight six configuration.
I wonder if the will still have the Hemi type value train and pistons.
In reality the in line 6 is a very reliable and high mileage engine and the reason you see them almost exclusively in big trucks.
They are also inherently balanced because they are basically two 3 cylinder engines.

"Just fill up with hydrogen."

What could possibly go wrong with millions upon millions of transfers of compressed liquid hydrogen by amateurs? And then the millions upon millions of vehicles driving around with tanks of compressed hydrogen? The Pinto pales in comparison to the potential pyrotechnics, here.

Hydrogen is a pipe dream, rather a pipe bomb dream, just like electric cars for all. The electric grid cannot come even remotely close to handling the charging of 100,000,000 vehicles. A few decades ago, the future was supposed to be a composite "plastic" engine block, in a 3 cylinder turbocharged configuration.

My state just passed a law, yesterday, that bans the selling of gasoline powered cars, in 2035. In about a decade, I expect it to be repealed.

Our state is made up of clueless virtue signaling lawmakers. A few months back, a law had to be repealed that was about egg hatcheries having to give chickens much larger cages with door openings for free range options. Not a single hatchery was in compliance, and we would have had a severe egg shortage. Importing eggs from other states would have caused the other states to have shortages, and prices were estimated to likely triple.

[worth1]

The hydrogen is more feasible than battery.
They have done extensive testing on the tanks to insure the integrity after a collision.
They are safer than plastic gas tanks.

[karstopography]

I wouldn’t give up on the future just yet. The horse and buggy crowd said awful things about gasoline powered automobiles way back when. Roughly 7,500 hydrogen fuel cell cars are in operation in California, the only state with any significant hydrogen fueling stations. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/japan-hydr ... le-energy/
Japan has about 4,000, but more fueling stations and has expressed a commitment to Hydrogen.

[mikestuff49]

I think it's more realistic to concentrate on alternate fuel cars, whatever the propulsion mode than to hang on to ice cars. Infrastructure can easily catch up to accommodate these cars. Paved roads only came to be after there was a demand for them. Battery technology keeps improving and, even though there is a crunch of raw materials to build them from now, that probably won't last forever. Our electric grid can be greatly improved and the variety of ways to harness sun, wind, and ocean currents leaves us a vast untapped resource.

I think it is fully possible to support 100,000,000 electric vehicles. First, you don't charge an electric vehicle 24 hours a day 7 days a week. You charge it when you need to. My car uses less electricity than my HVAC system. It costs considerably less to build an EV charging station than it does to build a gas station. As a matter of fact, gas stations would be a great place to install charging stations.

We have a mind set that we need to keep burning fossil fuels to survive. This is mostly perpetuated by those who benefit by the continued use of fossil fuel and the politicians they donate heavily to.

Our children and grandchildren deserve to live in the best world we can leave to them. Right now, we aren't trying very hard to improve or maintain what we have.

[Sue_CT]

We clearly have problems at the border. Every administration has faced it, no one has been able to solve it. I don't believe in using inhumane methods to do so. But I wish someone would come up with a good method. I will leave it at that since this is not the controversial forum.

I believe we can keep moving forward in decreasing the number of gasoline powered cars on the road. But as I suspected would happen, there are already stations that charge to recharge an electrical vehicle. It is not going to be free long term with businesses offering it from the goodness of their heart or simply as an incentive. But right now I believe it costs about 6.00 to fully recharge at a rapid charging station, a lot less than filling up with gasoline. I doubt it will stay that low, but time will tell. I would love to see gasoline stations with electric recharge stations next to gasoline pumps. They would have to be off to the side since it takes longer to recharge than fill up, but they charge per kwh, so I bet many would simply choose to just get a partial charge, enough to comfortably get them home to fully recharge for example.

There is no reason we can't have gasoline powered cars, electric and hydrogen powered vehicles, all on the road at the same time as automobiles evolve.

[mikestuff49]

Sue,

I couldn't agree more. This isn't going to be a sudden switchover. The advantages of electric vehicles, though will make the transition faster than we might think. In order for chargers to be available on a large scale, there would have to be a profit incentive for stations that installed them. That is fine in my book. My car has a 75 KW battery and, if it were fully depleted (it never is), it would cost me about $7.00 to recharge it at home. You mentioned partial charges. If I am on a road trip, my car will calculate the necessary charge and when I need to charge. It will tell me where the superchargers are and the percentage I need to charge there to continue on my journey. If chargers were widely available, this would be unnecessary.

What we actually NEED is an affordable electric car. It wouldn't even need to have all the bells and whistles. If battery materials settle down and become readily available, there is no reason why companies can't produce ev's for less than the cost of a gas powered car.

[Tormahto]

The hydrogen is more feasible than battery.
They have done extensive testing on the tanks to insure the integrity after a collision.
They are safer than plastic gas tanks.

One must think about the weakest link in the system, to avoid disaster. I know next to nothing about hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, other than my city has a fleet of them, along with their own private fueling station. One question about weak links would be, are things like O-rings involved?

I'll agree that battery is not feasible.

Not unless many more power plants are built, which the new "greenies" in elected positions, state and nationally, are against.

[worth1]

Hydrogen cars are electric cars.
The Hydrogen is converted to electricity.
Takes 5 minutes to fill up.
Not against battery cars but the long haul needs Hydrogen.

[Tormahto]

I think it's more realistic to concentrate on alternate fuel cars, whatever the propulsion mode than to hang on to ice cars. Infrastructure can easily catch up to accommodate these cars. Paved roads only came to be after there was a demand for them. Battery technology keeps improving and, even though there is a crunch of raw materials to build them from now, that probably won't last forever. Our electric grid can be greatly improved and the variety of ways to harness sun, wind, and ocean currents leaves us a vast untapped resource.

I think it is fully possible to support 100,000,000 electric vehicles. First, you don't charge an electric vehicle 24 hours a day 7 days a week. You charge it when you need to. My car uses less electricity than my HVAC system. It costs considerably less to build an EV charging station than it does to build a gas station. As a matter of fact, gas stations would be a great place to install charging stations.

We have a mind set that we need to keep burning fossil fuels to survive. This is mostly perpetuated by those who benefit by the continued use of fossil fuel and the politicians they donate heavily to.

Our children and grandchildren deserve to live in the best world we can leave to them. Right now, we aren't trying very hard to improve or maintain what we have.

Currently we need to use fossil fuels to survive. Synthetic fertilizers is what is needed to grow the crops to feed the world's population. Scaling up organics to feed 7+ billion people is impossible, with the human mind set.

As for the electric vehicles, I've read a few reports (can anyone trust such reports?) that say mining and manufacturing the battery powered vehicles is more damaging to the environment than the damage from gas vehicles.

[worth1]

The plastics and fertilizer is a worrisome problem.
One thing that we as the human race needs to do is to learn to stop wasting so much.
Like the fancy throw away aluminum containers with the screw off lid that get tossed in the trash.

Really?
I would have died to have something like that as a kid in the 60's.
Now people just throw them away.
All this stuff takes a huge amount of energy to produce.
The only way to stop it is education and stop buying it.

[Sue_CT]

Yes, apparently they are "almost" always significantly greener. NY Times looked at that. Hope you can read this, not sure, since I have a subscription online so I can't tell which articles everyone can see and which ones I can see because of my subscription.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/02/clim ... nment.html

Comparison developed by MIT:
https://www.carboncounter.com/#!/explore

[mikestuff49]

I'm not sure why "battery is not feasible", since there are more than a million cars on the road powered by batteries. Also, think cell phones. Also not feasible? We probably need better batteries, but as development progresses, they will come.

I've owned an electric car for almost 3 years and have always wanted to go where I wanted to go without a problem. Tesla guarantees that the battery will maintain at least 80% of its charge capacity for 8 years.

[Sue_CT]

I believe that 8 year guarantee is actually a federally mandated minimum requirement for electric cars.

Edited: Yup. https://www.greencars.com/guides/defini ... ht%20years.

[mikestuff49]

Sue,

I believe you are right. An 8 year guarantee on a 300 mile charge battery still gives me 240 miles at the end of the warranty. Works for me. I also bought the full self driving option, which was a whopping $6000 option at the time and, while it's not a reality yet, it is getting pretty close, and the FSD option is now $12,000. Essentially, I could sell my car now for more than I paid for it.

[karstopography]

I see a fair amount of Teslas here. The people across the road have one. The office next to my wife’s, there always one there. I was walking in a parking lot next to a Tesla backing out and maneuvering, scary silent, you can’t listen for them, they don’t seem to make any sound.

I have to have a truck, there’s no other way for me to function, too many things going on I must have a truck bed for. But, I see Tesla has a truck in the works or maybe it’s already out there. I’d get one, maybe, we’ll see, my 1998 GMC 4x4 is pretty perfect. Hopefully, I’ll get five or ten more years out of that one.

[worth1]

Batteries aren't feasible for many applications.
Such as truck drivers that don't have time to sit and wait for a battery to charge.
They are great for lesser mileage runs but not for someone that runs 16 hours a day or someone like myself that would be in an energy deficit before the truck charged up at home.
There isn't any argument about this they already know it.
To make a battery last longer it would have to be bigger.
This would cut down on usable weight of payload.
You would get to the point of diminishing returns.

This same thing happened with steam ships until the technology kept getting better allowing the ships to carry less coal for distance traveled.
And then as in now there was an industry against steam power.
Sailing clipper ships.
The Suez canal spelled their ultimate doom by cutting off the long run around Africa.

None of this was overnight.
And now as back then the kinks will be worked out.
I myself am not subscribing to anything big oil puts out to stop it from happening.

In my industry I've seen battery operated tools take over the trades.
As a matter of fact I was the first person in my company to beg for and get one.
It was a 9 volt Milwaukee I used to run up screws and drill holes.
Since then I have seen jobsites go from extension cords all over the place to battery powered tools.

I have seen the transition from nicad batteries to lithium ion.
That was a huge step forward.
The old nicad batteries had to to be ran all the way down or they would develop a shorter and shorter memory.
Not so with the lithium ion batteries.

My partner and I use 4 different tools that run on batteries.
When they get to about half charge we charge them back up and we have spare batteries.
We always have batteries fully charged and never have to wait on them to charge.
Other people are lazy or just stupid and run everything down before charging.

The trade offs are tools that require a ton of energy.
Like a truck they require a huge battery.
They become extremely heavy, bulky and difficult to use.
Like a big rotary hammer drill.
I never said batteries aren't feasible I said they weren't for certain applications.