Electric car batteries

[klondike]

Maybe it's selective memory but it seems to me now that we get a week or two of really hot weather and a week or two of really cold but most of the rest falls into a pretty mediocre similarity.

Ok yes it's a bit warmer in winter and a bit colder in summer but the extremes don't last anywhere near as long as they used to.

 School summer holidays stretched on forever with only the odd rainy day while snow or frost was the way of things for large swathes of the winter.

January 13, 2025, 11:35:17 PM

Cars back then were only for the rich. With no car you didn't have much choice. Nobody would have used public transport for commuting to work between different towns.

[Mups]

I thought they reckoned our summers were getting hotter?   

We've had some really hot spells the last couple of summers, didn't we.    In fact  they have now said 2024 was the hottest on record and it will keep on increasing now.   Something to do with greenhouse gases.

[Michael Rolls]

how far back do those records go? There are times when the planet has been much hotter than 2024!

[klondike]

They've often said a year was hotter than ever before but my memory tells me it wasn't where I live.   Weeks of meh! followed by a few scorchers or even a couple of weeks of scorches don't make a record year. Certainly warmer winters or at least less long periods of cold fit my recall though so possibly averaged out it could be so,

[dextrous63]

Bottom line is that it doesn't seem sensible to carry on setting fire to things to heat homes and generate electricity.  Nor does it seem particularly sensible to cut down and/or destroy the very things that convert co2 to oxygen.

There's gotta be a better way.

[klondike]

There probably does have to be a better way but other than nuclear nobody has come up with a reliable one.

[Mups]

Bottom line is that it doesn't seem sensible to carry on setting fire to things to heat homes and generate electricity.  Nor does it seem particularly sensible to cut down and/or destroy the very things that convert co2 to oxygen.

There's gotta be a better way.

I agree about the trees, Dex.

[JBR]

There probably does have to be a better way but other than nuclear nobody has come up with a reliable one.

I believe that nuclear is the only viable way of continuing to produce electricity and everything that depends on it.  There is still an apparent fear of nuclear energy generation which was perhaps valid in its early days.  However, it now seems to be much safer, which is only to be expected as knowledge and experience increase as time goes on.

There is still the matter of safe disposal of used nuclear fuel, but it can be effectively disposed of by methods such as encasing in appropriate materials and deep burial.  By the time the protective encasements might have deteriorated (glass, for example) the radioactivity of the used fuel will have reduced almost completely.
A possible option, perhaps, could make use of the continued heat of the waste to produce further electricity, though I'm not sure exactly how this would be done.

It occurs to me that one effective means of disposing of the stuff would be to send it into space and directly into the sun!  No, I'm not joking.

[Mups]

I believe that nuclear is the only viable way of continuing to produce electricity and everything that depends on it.  There is still an apparent fear of nuclear energy generation which was perhaps valid in its early days.  However, it now seems to be much safer, which is only to be expected as knowledge and experience increase as time goes on.

There is still the matter of safe disposal of used nuclear fuel, but it can be effectively disposed of by methods such as encasing in appropriate materials and deep burial.  By the time the protective encasements might have deteriorated (glass, for example) the radioactivity of the used fuel will have reduced almost completely.
A possible option, perhaps, could make use of the continued heat of the waste to produce further electricity, though I'm not sure exactly how this would be done.

It occurs to me that one effective means of disposing of the stuff would be to send it into space and directly into the sun!  No, I'm not joking.

But if it was buried deeply, JBR,  where could that be?   They are building more and more houses  on every available  spare bit of land they can find now, and it will get worse, because there are too many people in the UK now. The solution? -  Let a load more in. 

All the farmland will be gone in the future, and we will be made to change our diets as food as we know it,  won't exist in the distant future. 

Anyway,  would you feel relaxed about this stuff being buried in your neighbourhood,  because I wouldn't,  and I bet nobody else would want it on their doorstep either.   They could always excavate Downing Street I suppose. 

[klondike]

It occurs to me that one effective means of disposing of the stuff would be to send it into space and directly into the sun!  No, I'm not joking.

Oddly it takes one hell of a lot of energy to send something into the sun. Counterintuitive but true.

[JBR]

But if it was buried deeply, JBR,  where could that be?  They are building more and more houses  on every available  spare bit of land they can find now, and it will get worse, because there are too many people in the UK now. The solution? -  Let a load more in. 

All the farmland will be gone in the future, and we will be made to change our diets as food as we know it,  won't exist in the distant future. 

Anyway,  would you feel relaxed about this stuff being buried in your neighbourhood,  because I wouldn't,  and I bet nobody else would want it on their doorstep either.  They could always excavate Downing Street I suppose. 

We have many now-disused coal mines.  Of course, if we ever hope to rely on coal in the future, that may not be the best option.
Another possibility is 'burial at sea'.  The waste material must be appropriately sealed and packaged to as to resist leakage for many hundreds of years, but I am sure that is perfectly possible.  Perhaps dropped into one of the incredibly deep areas of the oceans.  Fortunately, these are not actually owned by any specific country.

[dextrous63]

Oddly it takes one hell of a lot of energy to send something into the sun. Counterintuitive but true.

Some time ago there was a story about the possibility of using electromagnetic tubes to accelerate pods up to escape velocity.  This would have obviated the need for fuel based rockets whilst also making launches considerably cheaper. No idea whether this is still being looked into or not.  Even if the acceleration ended up to be too great for humans to survive, one would imagine that non-organic materials might be just fine, especially if we're just trying to get shot of something.

[Mups]

We have many now-disused coal mines.  Of course, if we ever hope to rely on coal in the future, that may not be the best option.
Another possibility is 'burial at sea'. The waste material must be appropriately sealed and packaged to as to resist leakage for many hundreds of years, but I am sure that is perfectly possible.  Perhaps dropped into one of the incredibly deep areas of the oceans.  Fortunately, these are not actually owned by any specific country.

No no no,  not at sea either.         There's enough rubbish dumped in our oceans already.
Anyway, one day the containers would corrode,  and poison all the sea creatures and beaches.  And don't forget the hauls that trawlers catch for human comsumption, too.   
 They already reckon Tuna is not good to eat in any quantity because its full of mercury from the sea.

[klondike]

Some time ago there was a story about the possibility of using electromagnetic tubes to accelerate pods up to escape velocity.  This would have obviated the need for fuel based rockets whilst also making launches considerably cheaper. No idea whether this is still being looked into or not.  Even if the acceleration ended up to be too great for humans to survive, one would imagine that non-organic materials might be just fine, especially if we're just trying to get shot of something.

To dump something into the sun you have to negate the earth's orbital velocity. That's 30km/s which is way way over escape velocity.

[JBR]

To dump something into the sun you have to negate the earth's orbital velocity. That's 30km/s which is way way over escape velocity.

Don't we overcome the orbital velocity when we sent satellites to other planets or beyond?