EV alternative for light/medium duty trucks

Campfire?:@

thomas201 wrote:
Another path is carbon capture from the atmosphere (using amine scrubbing like nuclear subs and carbon dioxide from natural gas)

There is only one carbon capture commercial power plant in North America at Estevan Saskatchewan.

It is a 150 megawatt plant and uses 50 megawatts to run the carbon capture. It was designed to capture 65% of the CO2 but appears to miss that goal by a LOT--about 35 to 40% is captured. That is when it is working.

The CO is being sold to North Dakota to pressurize oil wells. The power company has faced fines for not meeting production targets.

There is a catalyst in use--and the fly ash from burning coal contaminates it.

Bottom line we need to get off fossil fuels as fast as we can.

Them boys at the coal plant chose a poor technology. Better to scrub it and make calcium sulfate (sheetrock). Works fine at thousands of natural gas processing plants (me) and on subs (BIL, nephew and son). You always have to pick the right technology for the problem.

“ Bottom line we need to get off fossil fuels as fast as we can. ”

I’m still waiting on a plan detailing how the world is going to do that, but I’d settle for one for the USA. There has been little attention paid on how to replace all the products (thousands of them) that are dependent on oil, coal, nat gas. Replacing ICE cars and trucks is the low hanging fruit and will take 30-50 years to accomplish unless the fed’s require all ICE vehicles be taken off the road and/or gas/diesel stations be closed.

At the end of the day, assuming we are GROSS carbon neutral (none of the “net neutral” junk) Mother Nature is still going to go through warming/cooling cycles.

Not a low cost solution as stated in the link. Basic EV is going to be lower cost long into the future even if some applications will require liquid hydrocarbon fuel at higher cost.

One thing I've noticed. It takes many versions, ea getting things better to realize true progress.

Saw a comparison to Wright brothers plane, to walking in the moon. Took 66 years.

We have a few more years/decades for EV or hydrogen power to be truly usable etc like ICE rigs. I'm positive things will get there. When, not if.

Marty

blt2ski wrote:
One thing I've noticed. It takes many versions, ea getting things better to realize true progress.

Saw a comparison to Wright brothers plane, to walking in the moon. Took 66 years.

We have a few more years/decades for EV or hydrogen power to be truly usable etc like ICE rigs. I'm positive things will get there. When, not if.

Marty

Battery technology has been around for decades and good progress has been made, but still lacks the energy density to store enough energy to tow loads the distance equivalent or better to ICE vehicles at highway speeds. Hydrogen fuel cells have been around longer than batteries and packaging density is an issue as well.

The biggest issue with EVs is they keep trying to claim it can match ICE and then build overpriced models that exceed requirements while still failing to match ICE.

Probably 60-80% of light/medium duty trucks are used in daily runs of under 200 miles (often less than 100-150mile) and then go into a storage lot for many hours each night where it would be fairly simple to recharge them. That's well within the capability of EVs and the smaller you go with the battery, the closer it gets to the cost of an ICE.

Even if the Tesla 500mile semi turns out to be true, it's still not going to solve long haul trucking because you have to recharge it while the ICE trucks are back on the road making miles.

Carbon capture is really just a feel good green washing. On a scale to have a meaningful impact would be massive and the energy to power it would far exceed any benefits.

The best return on the dollar spent by a long shot is in increased efficiency but better windows and lights don't get snazzy marketing campaigns.

An important item people forget about is fuel is only a portion of what we use crude oil for. If we were to cut fuel consumption in half, all the other products that use oil as a feed stock would skyrocket in cost. Take asphalt concrete as an example. It's relatively cheap but we use a lot of it for building and refurbishing roads. If we cut the supply in half, road construction costs would probably quadruple. It would also cause more damage to cars/trucks as road maintenance is put off.

pianotuna wrote:

....
Bottom line we need to get off fossil fuels as fast as we can.

Why?

blt2ski wrote:
One thing I've noticed. It takes many versions, ea getting things better to realize true progress.

Saw a comparison to Wright brothers plane, to walking in the moon. Took 66 years.

We have a few more years/decades for EV or hydrogen power to be truly usable etc like ICE rigs. I'm positive things will get there. When, not if.

Marty

The issue I see is the decades we have missed because of oil industry subsidies have gave ICEs a advantage over other technology. If you called the water heater system installed on WH by Carter as Wright brothers, we could be 2/3rds of way to moon. But the people that own politicians saw that could cause a decrease in demand.

valhalla360 wrote:

The best return on the dollar spent by a long shot is in increased efficiency but better windows and lights don't get snazzy marketing campaigns.

Is it deliberate that you don't mention the fuel efficiency mandates made cars go much farther on gallon of fuel? And some of that tech is transferred to EV.

An important item people forget about is fuel is only a portion of what we use crude oil for. If we were to cut fuel consumption in half, all the other products that use oil as a feed stock would skyrocket in cost. Take asphalt concrete as an example. It's relatively cheap but we use a lot of it for building and refurbishing roads. If we cut the supply in half, road construction costs would probably quadruple. It would also cause more damage to cars/trucks as road maintenance is put off.

Skyrocketing cost? Yes much of the crude is used for non-fuel products, much is plastic. Now, with much of the cost of getting oil to market paid for by motorist, it is cheaper to make new plastic packaging, instead of out of recycled, or even better reusing the containers. (You remember taking pop bottles back to store? IIRC, much of what we bought then was in glass jars. Glass containers can be cleaned/reused) If the cost of getting rid of the container/harm done to environment, was included in price of bottle pancake syrup, would it be cheaper to clean glass bottle?
And for decades the percentage of asphalt recycled has increased. As the price of the oil has gone up, technology to recycle has improved. Now I know some city/state contracts require a percentage of "virgin" material, but that can change. And if it is recycled, it is not in a fill.