Tesla S at Dell World 2013

[Darren Dirt]

Nikola Tesla vs Thomas Edison

^ very LOUD "Epic Rap Battle" warning woulda been nice. 


However I skim the NEARLY TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND COMMENTS (!) and saw this gem near the top...




Kate NotGettingThis 3 days ago

Why are schools teaching kids about Edison? Why are they crediting him instead of Tesla?

How hard is it to say, "Lots of people think Thomas Edison created the lightbulb, and many other inventions, but it was actually Nikola Tesla. Let's read about Tesla."

Personally, Edison is the hugest jerkwad ever. He stole from Tesla and when he bet Tesla he couldn't fix his machine, he didn't pay up and kept the fixed machine. Some people are asking why there's so much hate for Edison, and I saw someone attacking Tesla for A) living in a hotel room, and B) his OCD.

A) He most likely ended up in a stupid hotel room because Edison stole his inventions and ideas. He must've spent quite a bit of money and time on fixing one of Edisons's machines, or creating something, thinking he'd get paid for it. Nope, Edison never paid him, and he quite possibly claimed some of the inventions/ideas Tesla came up with were his. Therefore, Tesla never got to sell his inventions/ideas for money to sustain himself.



YEAH!

[Darren Dirt]

And-a I will drive 500 miles and-a I will drive 500 more...
http://nextbigfuture.com/2014/07/elon-musk-says-500-mile-range-electric.html


(I just wish it also could ... you know... http://www.scaled.com/projects/bipod )

[Lazybones]

And-a I will drive 500 miles and-a I will drive 500 more...
http://nextbigfuture.com/2014/07/elon-musk-says-500-mile-range-electric.html


(I just wish it also could ... you know... http://www.scaled.com/projects/bipod )

In other recent news Toyota is giving up on batteries and going fuel cell http://usfinancepost.com/no-more-electric-cars-from-toyota-21713.html

[Tom]

That's a dumb article title. Fuel cells output electricity. they are still electric cars.

[Lazybones]

That's a dumb article title. Fuel cells output electricity. they are still electric cars.

Hence why I didn't use their title.

[Thorin]

Well gasoline-powered engines can output electricity as well, but there's a pretty clear distinction between plug-in electric vehicles and gasoline-generator electric vehicles.

I'm surprised Toyota is dropping their Prius, it's one of their flagship products nowadays.  Even though it doesn't sell that well in Alberta.

[Tom]

I doubt they'll drop it entirely. use the same car, but replace the massive batteries with a fuel cell. I assume they've managed to get some decent power out of their fuel cells, and have a way of distributing or refilling their fuel cells to owners. If not.... it'll do worse than the prius

[Mr. Analog]

Most electric vehicles are actually coal powered vehicles, as the most abundant power generation is still coal

So really an electric car just offsets the CO₂ exhaust from the vehicle to a coal fired power station somewhere (which will also increase the amount of radioactive waste, fly ash and other coal byproducts contain radioactive elements like Thorium, Uranium 235, etc...)

[Tom]

Ya. Though more and more green energy is brought online every year. And alberta has a bunch of natural gas plants, and places are starting to not build more coal plants.

The EPA in the us has a new rule they want to put in place restricting the emissions of coal plants, that would pretty much make any old plants out of spec, and any new ones have to really improve. Some states are fighting it (of course) but meh.

[Mr. Analog]

I'm less worried about coal emissions in first world countries, where gas is cheap anyway.

Imagine a low cost electric car hitting a large market with little to no emission laws and high gas prices. The mind boggles

[Lazybones]

Most electric vehicles are actually coal powered vehicles, as the most abundant power generation is still coal

So really an electric car just offsets the CO₂ exhaust from the vehicle to a coal fired power station somewhere (which will also increase the amount of radioactive waste, fly ash and other coal byproducts contain radioactive elements like Thorium, Uranium 235, etc...)

Don't forget the toxic waste used for the batteries...

On the other hand a pure electric vehicle offsets the Freight needed to transport crude oil (often by train), the additional fuel used by trucks to distribute the refined gas to the gas stations and over all the plants have a fairly high efficiency..

It is also easier to upgrade the electricity source to a new green source for all existing electric cars than it is to upgrade all the cars to change fuel cell type etc after the fact... If for some reason your area switches from Coal to hydro dam, or to geo, wind, solar... All of the electric cars become more green, even the older ones.

[Mr. Analog]

I don't half wonder that in the next 5 to 10 years we'll see a renewed interest in nuclear powered cargo vessels. There was some research done with several prototypes back in the 60s but then it was expensive to maintain compared to the price of Diesel

For large navies going nuclear solved the logistics problem of having to maintain a (weakness) large support fleet for key assets (carriers, attack subs, etc), it wasn't cheap but it solved problems.

But yeah, it's scary the kind of chemistry that goes into high performance batteries!

[Lazybones]

I don't half wonder that in the next 5 to 10 years we'll see a renewed interest in nuclear powered cargo vessels. There was some research done with several prototypes back in the 60s but then it was expensive to maintain compared to the price of Diesel

For large navies going nuclear solved the logistics problem of having to maintain a (weakness) large support fleet for key assets (carriers, attack subs, etc), it wasn't cheap but it solved problems.

But yeah, it's scary the kind of chemistry that goes into high performance batteries!

The biggest problem with nuclear is life cycle... both for the waste (very little in new designs but still horrible stuff) and end of life (no one wants to shut them down).. Essentially once they are built they start degrading and are used as if they will last for ever.. Any fixing to them if damaged is very dangerous and just because it is out in the Ocean doesn't mean that leaking waste isn't a problem if one sinks..

[Mr. Analog]

Everything has risks, that's for sure

[Lazybones]

Everything has risks, that's for sure

Decommissioning them is super expensive and seemingly NEVER complete http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_decommissioning#North_America