It sounds strange, but WW2 bomber bay quick-release clips + a little sliding robot are the key to Battery Electric Vehicles.
Read this article slowly, with a coffee. This is worth taking time over because this is simply the most viable technology I’ve seen (apart from redesigning our cities over time with technology and plans that are tried and tested over the last 5000 years of course!) Fuel cells may have a place, but the hydrogen generated from expensive renewable electricity will only return maybe 10% of the initial electricity as transport electricity! (We take wind power for instance, split water, compress the hydrogen, store it, pump it into the car under pressure or liquefied, run it through a fuel cell only to produce electricity again!)
Whereas with batteries we take the same wind power and charge the battery directly, and get maybe 50%? THEN as per the normal inefficiencies of cars not all this final transport energy even hits the wheels, but that’s the same for both Hydrogen and Electric. (Depends on aerodynamics, weight to power ratio, etc).
This guy is touted as the new “Steve Jobs” of renewable power and electric cars. They may be right… for a while.
Ultimately, if some bizarre new nano-technology doesn’t arrive, ‘peak metals’ may make us reconsider the role of cars in our cities though. We shall see. Interesting times.
Smart man to recognise the need.
Cell manufacturers would immediately see a battery leasing deal going with this…..bill ‘em every mth.
Watch this become a VHS VCR versus Betamax war :D
excuse the edit ....back on topic
few years ago I met a bloke on a camping trip ....he was a lecturer from sydney uni teaching maths and physics which he loved ...he also ‘spun bockie balls in the dimples of placcie panels’ .......heh! I think I said ......‘bockie balls are found in candle smoke!’ ......heh?! like that was going to explain it!
anyway, he should be here ...not me! This bloke was questioning what he was doing at Uni with his research and what possible uses could it have for mankind.
I suggested we don’t eat ThOSE mushrooms again and went back to fishing.
I spent a week with this guy and he always come back to ‘what’s bullshit in all this and what’s not!’ I think he went back to sydney to quit .....never did find out.
Interesting geopolitics… the best batteries to date are Lithium Ion. The greatest reserves of Lithium in the world are in a MASSIVE salt pan in Bolivia.
After peak oil hits and every country “sees the light” and realises they can have economical energy security from renewable energy at home (except with the massive challenges of being electron based, not liquid fuels based), will Bolivia the world’s new OPEC of Lithium production?
I just saw Plimer on Lateline. Tony Jones interviewed him and Plimer was caught with his pants down.
1. Repeatedly referred to long periods of “history” to make the case that climate changes on its own, and that the earth is a dynamic system.
Blargh?! Show me a climatologist that will disagree with this statement?
2. Tony Jones repeatedly referred to Plimer’s arguments, all through the book, that the earth was cooling since 1998.
Plimer’s cherrypicking. 1998 was SUPER hot, but everything since then has been hot hot hot! 1998 was the hottest year on record, but the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 7th hottest year on record were all since then.
3. In response, Plimer says one has to look to deep history to understand what is happening. In other words, ignore the fact that the world’s temperatures are rising because he wants to talk about the ancient past, unless he’s talking about the few years since 1998 when temperatures can conveniently be referred to as “cooling”. In other words, ONLY look at the cherrypicked data Plimer wants to show you.
4. His book says NASA recently corrected GLOBAL temperatures to show the highest GLOBALLY recorded temperature was in the 1930’s, and this is where he was really caught red handed. NASA recently revised the year of AMERICAS highest temperature, not the globe. But what do you expect from someone that quotes data from 15 year old studies that have been comprehensively debunked by the peer-reviewed scientific community.
Summary: The guy once made money debunking creationists, and now thinks he’s in the “mythbusters” game. I actually feel sorry for him on this silly one man crusade against the scientific community… but not that sorry. He’ll make enough money out of the book. There’s too many Australian dills out there that think they’re smarter than the many specialists with Phd’s in climatology!
To top it all off, he’s on the board of 2 mineral exploration companies and so has a bias for the Australian mining industry!
Yep Kevin, I’ll be rushing out to buy “Heaven and Earth” some century soon now… ;-)
I saw it too. Pilmer seemed under prepared and floundered in the interview, which was odd given Pilmer wrote the book and should have been on the front foot all the way given it’s such a silly myth blah blah blah. Trying to just laugh off the other side of the argument, in an embarrassed kind of way, isn’t a good look.
The clips they had from other scientists - including the one who Pilmer apparently referenced quite a bit, were pretty hilarious. Especially with that guy saying his book was just sloppy and should be re-written, as he might to some poor undergrad student, ouch.
I never want to be on the wrong side of an argument with Tony Jones. haha :)
But yeah pretty funny/sad Pilmer has become what he hated.
“I just saw Plimer on Lateline. Tony Jones interviewed him and Plimer was caught with his pants down.”
:) ......sorry I missed it!
I’ll do the vid search later but will say I have a lot of time for that lad Tony Jones. He’s been a good friend to our orgs and goes to endless efforts to check all sides of these stories. I’ve been through his mill myself and no one comes out squeekie clean. His team dug up stuff on me I didn’t know myself. You have to be careful when you invite those guys in. ;) .....was a fruitful experience though and I thank the guy.
Staying on topic, I just fueled my cruiser with greasel and am off down that ## calder again to my sons internetless home.
.....see you in a few days.
But yeah pretty funny/sad Pilmer has become what he hated.
Yeah, that’s the key isn’t it? Plimer was debunking the Creationists and making money from having a go at the “fringe” scientists, and now he’s become the fringe scientist himself pushing all his CRAZY cherry-picked rubbish!
PS: I still hope we discover some new “circuit breaker” but once again, I’ll only accept it once I see it in the peer reviewed literature. All Plimer’s “objections” have been answered time and again in the literature, but just like a Creationist, he has a bone to gnaw and won’t let it go.
+ he’s selling a book
+ he’s on those mineral exploration boards
Yes indeed, the joke goes back to the sixties. In fact, there was a song from 1969, “Day After Day” by Shango, whose whole theme was ‘California’s slipping away, tie up the boat in Idaho.’ The whole song is on YouTube, if you’re interested :
So, according to your understanding of the science, how much have sea-levels already risen? How do we know what to expect? How do they estimate the physics will play out? Eagerly awaiting a non-sarcastic link to a peer reviewed paper….
Sorta connected with climate change ........but certainly connected with crazier gets crazier!
Sitting here thinking about the Bendigos exposure with the Great Southern Ltd and as we are founding members of our local at Inglewood BB .....and my brother instiigated the Ringwood BB I was thinking .............. .
Maybe Bendigo Bank can give a free house-lot of timber with every homeloan heheheheeeeee
......you guys think me crazy but this could work !
My daughters about to put a house on her acre block which is nicely enclosed on three sides with state forest (and Bracks roos) and opposite the state school that my daughter attended herself. Small small country town of tarnagulla. She is on her own with two boys under 4 but is just getting the council permits in order with the shire.
She could do with a house lot of timber to sweeten the deal ......getting the timber supplied once you have the underfloor down (usual first payment from bankloan) would be a real help in getting there yourself.
She, I know, would pass on the government handout (first home buyers grant) which causes you to use trades and builders as you get it at the end with the final when you least need it (obviously structured that way for good reason) and not build it yourself .....which she is determined to do.
I know she’d rather have the timber ......and she’s adse it up herself if needed ......determined woman.
anyway, just something that crossed my mind when I saw the news last night about Great Sth Ltds mess .....I think the banks in for a kickin’ and looking at the news reel of the island forests of greatest concern I don’t think a few house lots of timber will make a difference or save any investors.
Needs some BIG thinkers to solve this one.
Maybe get one some mother of a processing ship with a chipper (sorry mulcher) on board and get the Kiwis in to air lift the trees to the ship ....I don’t know .....what’s Elvis doing when he’s not killing fires?
on topic .....just charged up my lithiums. 4 x 3S1P-2200mAh-23Cs
2 of these 3S1P(3cells4.2volts parallel) -2200mAh(capacity)-23C(max burst) batteries run in parallel will keep my 750 gram cessna style model plane in the air for 30 minutes.
5 years ago I couldn’t have expected 5 minutes before these new lithiums.
I’ve payed as much as $140 in the past for these batteries (about $40 now) as I see my use in RC models as developing the industry (as calculators did for flat screens) thats the argumenty i use with my wife anyway.
Processor controlled step motors similarly ......RC use heaps of them and it’s allowing the asian industry to develop their own NC industry outside of western control and thinking…...etc.
These lithiums I use aren’t the top end…A123 ‘s are the best as it’s always been about recharge speed ......while this battery changer for electric vehicles the thread opened with, is well publicised since and has moved into production stage in europe I believe.
So clever and so simple ......and alleviates this charge time issue everyone and every company has been working on.
Nice calm day today allowing me to give my dumb thumbs a work out. Lovely day to be out in the open for a fly of my model though ......wish I could go up myself :)
See, if we could fold these lithium batteries into a “twofold array” and configure the Lithium molecules into Crystals, we’d have Di-lithium Crystals!
(Sorry, saw Star Trek on the weekend… ;)
Yep, battery technology has jumped along. It may even help with the peak oil thing as well… lots of interesting niche energy markets coming. (eventually, whether or not our governments are making the right decisions beforehand).
4.5 billion for REAL rail projects can’t be bad. (But the billion into COAL - LINES helps accelerate our coal exports and helps with global warming .... how exactly? Oh, yes, of course, I should have known…. Kevin believes in clean coal! Hmmmmmmmmmmm)
Trouble is the tricorder batteries are flat and I’ll need an adaptor if I’m going to plug in on this planet!
:(
Kev and his clean coal ain’t so funny but I suppose he figures the coals already sold to the chinese on the never never plan (similar to the alcoa/smelter deal in vic)
......and reckons we need to make a good face/front to it with the ‘clean coal’ stance.
Yet to see how they can though without burying the CO2 ......and that’s still a pipe dream.
Best the coals left in the ground until they have the technology .....but it won’t be!
Andrew Simms – he’s not just from a think tank; he’s from a think and do tank – is counting down the months:
” Ten months have passed since pointing out that we have, at best, 100 left before a new, far more dangerous phase of global warming begins … With at best 90 months left on our clock … “
Doomsday is now scheduled for Friday, December 2, 2016, which is unfortunate, because we miss out on a weekend.
Hi Kevin,
To be fair to your scepticism and that of your sceptical Christian friends, I really think it is the “The End” part that creates the problem many Christians have with global warming. We of course know that it is God who is in control of “THE END!” and I of course agree with that.
But my understanding is that the Christians leaders in this movement such as Sir John Houghton (who was the head of the IPCC for many years and compiled this reply to the “Great Global Warming Swindle” mockumentary), and Bill McKibben who wrote the first ever book on global warming for a public audience, “The End of Nature”, is that they are not speaking so much as the end of the world as they are the end of the stable climate conditions that have allowed our modern prosperity in so many ways.
So, just as was the case in the Irish Potato famine and Mao’s “Great Leap Forward” and even the collapse of the Roman Empire, it is not “THE END!” but more of the same… another ending. Only our kids will live through the consequences of our behaviour.
More seriously Kevin, what do you do with the PROVABLE, DEMONSTRABLE FACT that Co2 molecules refract long wave length energy and stop as much heat getting back out into space? What do you DO with that? Where does it just vanish to in your thinking?
I see some of these pollies taking ‘devisive’ stands when it comes to following this ‘CO2 is good’.
Seems the only ones going there are those that can see an advantage in picking up the ‘alternate’ vote? .......or is it about holding power in one of our houses of parliament or as some may call it “doing a Brown!”
You have to wonder about motives when they just ignore the facts.
I’m lobbying my local member to get on the wagon about carbon taxing gymnasiums and health spas.
Was thinking it’s easy done since they log every calorie burnt already.
Further to that I think the home gym should be on ‘wireless’ to the tax office and they can debit your account weekly for every CO2 molecule released.
I note that Steve Fielding has jumped on the denialist bandwagon and “needs to be convinced” about the science. Which is probably what happens if you get your ‘science’ from right-wing, shock-jock newspaper pundits.
For our design work I had just finished reading through a great article about “Scientific Ethics” by apologist Lewis Jones. I was reading this to brainstorm design & image concepts for the upcoming CASE magazine. Anyway, the article was more generally about how to understand what science does, what God reveals in Scripture, and how we need to put both together to come up with scientific ethics. EG: One can have the best theology in the world, but if one doesn’t have good science then one isn’t going to have a true ethic on how to use this creation in a way that truly glorifies God. It was an interesting article, and then to see Steve Fielding get up and embarrass Christians with his strange statements and confused beady eyes…. well, nonplussed doesn’t quite cover it. Perpetual disappointment… no, that doesn’t cover it either. ;-)
what do you do with the PROVABLE, DEMONSTRABLE FACT that Co2 molecules refract long wave length energy and stop as much heat getting back out into space? What do you DO with that?
Also, see above for my comments on “The End of the World”. When Bill McKibben, a Christian, writes about “The end of the world as we know it” he’s not writing about an eschatological event such as the end of humanity etc, just the end of climate conditions that have made this particular civilisation possible. Civilisations come and go quite routinely across the ages… I certainly hope it doesn’t come to that, and I don’t think it’s likely, but it is certainly one possible future.
Steve Fielding June 08, 2009 Article from: The Australian
IT seems every Australian has an opinion on the Rudd government’s emissions trading scheme. Green groups have been calling for stronger emissions targets while businesses have been pushing for more assistance to be granted to affected industries. Others simply argue that Australia should be waiting until Copenhagen before rushing ahead with any scheme. The one question, however, that no one seems to be asking, is whether or not we even need an emissions trading scheme at all ?
Only 500 years ago, people believed Earth was the centre of the universe and the sun and planets revolved around it. Anyone who dared challenge this idea was denounced as a heretic and punished by imprisonment, torture or in some cases even death. Public debate on this issue was strictly prohibited. It is only on account of people such as Copernicus and Galileo, who dared question the “indisputable science”, that we now know these assertions to be false. For me, these events are in many ways reminiscent of the present debate on climate change. Though thankfully we do not persecute those arguing against the idea of human-induced global warming, a blind acceptance of only one perspective has meant that proper debate on this issue has essentially been stifled. Opponents of the popular opinion that global warming is a direct result of carbon emissions, a group that includes many notable and distinguished scientists, are often derided and quickly dismissed.
It is for this reason that I headed to Washington this week on a self-funded trip to look at the science and facts behind global warming. I am neither a climate sceptic nor a climate extremist. What I am, however, is open-minded.
As an engineer, I have been trained to listen to both sides of the debate in order to make an informed decision about any issue. Any scientist worth their salt will tell you that in order to form a conclusive view about any topic, you need to properly explore all available possibilities.
Until recently I, like most Australians, simply accepted without question the notion that global warming was a result of increased carbon emissions. However, after speaking to a cross-section of noted scientists, including Ian Plimer, a professor at the University of Adelaide and author of “Heaven and Earth”, I quickly began to understand that the science on this issue was by no means conclusive. At the conference I attended on Tuesday hosted by the Heartland Institute, I heard views that challenged the Rudd government’s set of “facts”. Views that could not be dismissed as mere conspiracy theories, but that were derived using proper scientific analysis. The idea that climate change is a result of the variation in solar activity and not related to the increase of CO2 into the atmosphere is not something I can remember ever being discussed in the media. The question of whether global warming is a new phenomenon or something that is just part of the naturally occurring 1500-year climate cycle was never raised in any of the discussions I have had with the Rudd government. Has the government considered these questions, or has it just accepted the one scientific explanation for climate change at face value?
These are the sorts of questions that I believe need to be answered before any emissions trading scheme can be properly considered.
I plan to put some of these questions to Penny Wong and her advisers when we next sit down to discuss the carbon pollution reduction scheme bill, just as I did when I spoke to climate change experts in President Barack Obama’s administration this week. I want to know why she is confident carbon emissions are driving global temperatures when during the past decade carbon emissions have been increasing rapidly but according to some scientists global temperatures have not been rising. Can the Minister explain why through the past 100 years, global temperatures have not changed in proportion to the changes in carbon emissions? Has the Minister seen modelling which shows that solar radiation is highly correlated to global temperature changes, and if so, why can this not be a plausible alternative explanation for global warming?
Perhaps CO2 is not the bogeyman of the climate world as many would have us believe.
It seems even the parliamentary library, an independent resource for politicians, has become caught up in the carbon craze. Only recently, the library produced a 13,000-word manifesto on the case for carbon-related climate change. Strangely enough, however, no accompanying research paper was provided exploring any alternative views. Why are these opposing arguments treated with such disdain and, in fact, largely ignored ?
I raise these questions not because I am wholly convinced of the merits of these arguments. Rather, because I believe that only by having a healthy debate on the issues and not shirking from these confronting facts can we expect to arrive at the proper conclusion, whatever that may be.
I have been criticised by some for raising these questions. However, I firmly believe that a fear of doing something unpopular should never get in the way of the responsibility to do what is right.
Several weeks ago the then parliamentary secretary for climate change, Greg Combet, correctly declared that the carbon pollution reduction scheme was one of the most significant environmental and economic reforms in the history of the nation. He could not be more correct. It is a scheme that will unquestionably lead to thousands of Australians losing their jobs, more than 23,000 in the mining industry alone. It is a scheme that will send the cost of basic goods and services upwards at a time when we can least afford it and will leave state governments $5.5 billion worse off by 2020. As a federal senator, I would be derelict in my duty to the Australian people if I did not even consider whether or not the scientific assumptions underpinning this debate were in fact correct. Unlike the Greens, who with alarmist rhetoric and extreme ideology have painted themselves into a corner, I am willing to engage in this debate so that the best outcome for all Australians can be achieved.
Interestingly enough, there is indeed one fact on which every scientist does agree. That is, if Australia pushes ahead with a carbon trading scheme without the participation of the big global polluters such as the US, China and India, then Australia’s efforts will be of little consequence. Even the most ardent carbon-despising scientist would agree. Perhaps it is time the Rudd government and the Greens started paying attention.
Steve Fielding represents Family First in the Senate.
Strangely enough, however, no accompanying research paper was provided exploring any alternative views. Why are these opposing arguments treated with such disdain and, in fact, largely ignored ?
Because, STEVE, they’ve been DEMONSTRATED to be written by unscientific, non-peer reviewed, moronic, misleading, fossil fuel funded jokes written by half-wits wanting to make some $$$ on the “global-warming as conspiracy” market. But other than that, I’m SURE there’s some good science in there somewhere. ;-)
RE: Plimer: Newsflash… Geologist who once made money debunking Noah’s ark and Creationism wants to sell another ‘debunking’ book!
ALL of Plimer’s silly objections to climate science thave been addressed by hundreds and hundreds of detailed, peer-reviewed papers. Reading him you’d get the impression that only he understood that the sun’s strength changes over an 11 year cycle, or only he understood that Milankovitch cycles influenced climate in massive 100 thousand year swings, and ONLY PLIMER understands all this… see? He’s the man, see? Listen to him, and make sure you buy his next dozen books on the subject! ;-)
Tony Jones ripped his credibility to shreds in ONE interview. Plimer came across as a sly car-salesman. Plimer quotes decades old and out-dated papers that have since been completely addressed by the REAL climatologists and experts in solar forcings and “earth wobbles”, and sold this old data as still a “going concern” as a scientific theory. Blargh! The real climatologists spanked Plimer for poor paper writing. And Plimer tries to get around this because he’s writing for a “public audience”.
In answer to your question above about why we want to “heat space”.... cause, otherwise that heat is trapped in our atmosphere, doing the global warming thang, see? Spectrometers prove how Co2 molecules react to certain wavelengths of energy, and the Radiative Forcing equation proves how much extra “heat” this would trap based on the 385 ppm Co2 we’ve created as opposed to the 280ppm pre-industrial revolution.
Plimer asserts that human activity is not responsible for atmospheric CO2. In support of this view, he claims that no link has been established between human activity and increasing CO2 levels, the latter being produced from natural sources, particularly volcanic activity.
In Chapter 9 of its 4th Assessment Report, the IPCC goes to considerable detail to show that human activity is responsible for by far the largest CO2 emissions in the world. It has to be assumed that Plimer has never read the Chapter since he makes no attempt to refute their findings.
And this one is a favourite
Talk of carbon pollution is nonsense since, he asserts, if the atmosphere were being polluted we would all be in the dark because “carbon is black”. Sounds inane to me.
Yep, I’m rushing out to buy that book! Sounds like a worthwhile read already! ;-)
Anyway, this short 6 minute youtube explains the old objection that “global warming has stopped since 1998”. Really nicely produced, by a graphic designer with 30 years of activism, hanging out with Al Gore and climatologists, and quoting NASA documents and official reports.
Explains it well.
Try this episode to see if you like it: 6 minutes, “Party like it’s 1998!”
As it is Kevin, I’ll remind you of my usual questions for sceptics….
Be careful, because if you DO disprove the physics behind global warming, you might just “disprove” our microwave ovens and the internet as well (and then they’ll disappear in a puff of logic). You’d basically have to disprove everything we know about Spectrometry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrometer
The rest of climate science is counting other forcings in the climate that might influence the rise and rise of Co2… and that’s already been done repeatedly in thousands of climate studies and peer reviewed papers. It’s a counting game. Done.
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