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Is Climate Change Impacting Your Long Term Planning?


Maithanet

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59 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

I am curious how electric models would hold up in North country. We have 30 degree below zero weather occasionally in our winters up here, and 4 wheel drive is considered a necessity in these conditions. Those little Tesla models ive veiwed would never handle my local road conditions in the dead of winter. 

They'd be a bit heavier so would get more traction, and electric motor's give higher torque than an ICE, which as I recall is part of the reason they don't need multi-gear transmissions. I suspect this would mean they would handle reasonably well even without 4 wheel drive, but it shouldn't be all that difficult to make a 4 wheel drive electric.

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I had seen the headlines regarding a majority of this years new car sales in Norway being electric models. Reason to be optimistic, but im also concerned when I read articles saying theyve had trouble with the lithium power packs in extreme weather. 

I will be very interested in seeing the performance and reliability of these in a year or two-https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a25933730/ford-f-150-electric-pickup-truck-confirmed/

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I don't think the performance and reliability should be time dependent, but gasoline engines have a fundamental advantage over batteries in cold weather: combustion intrinsically produces heat so keeping the car and occupants warm is basically free. Electric cars need to spend energy to keep the occupants warm and the battery itself also has optimal operating temperatures which are above freezing. Thus, the range of electric cars will always be reduced in cold weather in a way that doesn't happen for gasoline cars and there isn't a way around this: even if the battery and the rest of the car is somehow redesigned to operate far below freezing (this is hard), the people inside will still need to be warmed.

On the bright side, I checked and the Model 3 can be configured with all-wheel drive as can the Model S (though of course this configuration costs extra). The Model X has it by default. I haven't been able to find detailed specs for most of Tesla's upcoming competitors, but I suspect they'll also have this option.

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14 minutes ago, Altherion said:

I don't think the performance and reliability should be time dependent, but gasoline engines have a fundamental advantage over batteries in cold weather: combustion intrinsically produces heat so keeping the car and occupants warm is basically free.

Waste heat. It's more accurate to say batteries have an advantage over internal combustion in warm weather, since they don't have to convert stored energy into heat when it's not needed. When heat is wanted, the battery isn't using any more energy to create it than combustion does, and it can be directed to where it's needed more efficiently.

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Altherion I didnt mean reliability regarding time dependent, I meant I will be curious to see how reliable the electric F-150 would be when we first start seeing them in showrooms in 2020 , hence the "in a year or two" reference.

Anyways as to cold weather performance all I can say is seeing is believing and when I see other electric trucks able to be out on the road with me when its minus twenty then I will trust them as I do what delivers me to work rain or shine now. 

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I spent my entire youth - my 20s and 30s in England trying to raise awareness about what we're doing to our climate and environment. I felt like King Canute. Now I see an increasing minority of people - especially young people, getting genuinely well-informed and concerned - but too few and not enough. The adults - my generation have damned you to hell and there's little you can do about it.

Even back in the '80s I was acutely aware that the actual problem was our whole capitalist premise - we want growth, development, more. We want our children to have a 'better life than us' in terms of material comfort. The planet could not sustain that then and since those days we've pumped 100% more carbon into the atmosphere. 'Light Green' "solutions" such as electric cars and recycling plastic bags are merely rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic.

We vote into power as the most powerful person on the planet an idiot who sees climate change as a hoax and appoints captains of the most polluting and corrupt businesses into the highest offices; in Europe attempts by leaders to reduce the carbon footprint are met by huge-scale violent demonstrations by the grassroots. In short, the people who care are vastly outnumbered by the short-term greedy, ignorant, selfish people who somehow 'love their children' whilst destroying their futures. We could still mitigate the worst of what is to come, but we won't.

My pessimism is encapsulated in this very TV show. The whole damn theme is an allegory on climate change. Everybody enjoys the show, discusses it, here on this forum, yet there is a collective cognitive dissonance at work. We continue to play the game of thrones in real life while paying scant regard to the real-life Winter that is coming. Okay, people get bored with documentaries and gloomy news, so GRRM found a way to put the message right in our faces in a way that entertains us - and that's all it is - entertainment; ignore the message. That's human nature. We're fucked. I'm out. Sorry.

 

 

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I m going to buy more sweaters because the solar cycle looks to be moving towards cold weather the next few years.  Possibly a tactical turtleneck or two if the canucks start moving south.

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12 minutes ago, mcbigski said:

I m going to buy more sweaters because the solar cycle looks to be moving towards cold weather the next few years.  Possibly a tactical turtleneck or two if the canucks start moving south.

Why would the canucks move south? The only 2 nations who stand to gain from global warming are Canada and Russia. I think one of the reasons Putin is disrupting Western societies is because he foresees Siberia as the world's breadbasket in coming decades and is playing the trumpettes like (willing) idiots as he bides his time.

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