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ElectrikDonuts t1_iqxeb85 wrote

Reply to comment by phitfacility in Solar power world record broken with ‘miracle material’ by NickDanger3di

And EVs are around 80%-90%

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phitfacility t1_iqxg2ib wrote

The missing key now is making those motors and batteries without ransacking thousands of tons of earth for ounces of material that need further refinement. Then comes shipping 87k times to make a final product.

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a9dnsn t1_iqxgi6b wrote

I would say the key is building extensive electric based public transportation like buses and trains so most of those cars never need to be built. But good luck convincing the US to do that anywhere at least. Everyone wants their own car.

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TheLastSamurai t1_iqxquko wrote

Exactly, the car industry is pulling the wool over all of our eyes, they don’t want public transportation to scale up

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ElectrikDonuts t1_iqxhlk4 wrote

Yeah, that is a 100 yr problem. Our generation likely wont see the Us having transit like Switzerland and japan have now. EVs will be fixed over the next 20 years. Eventually we will have fusion and mass transit, hopefully

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Puubuu t1_iqxj53k wrote

To be fair, i don't really want to commute in those japanese trains where the last few people had to be pushed in...

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hhhhhjhhh14 t1_iqxnbjn wrote

We're so far away from overcrowded trains in all but one city that it shouldn't be a concern whatsoever

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ShadowDV t1_iqy32qe wrote

the Chicago Red line has entered the chat

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ShadowDV t1_iqy2jvl wrote

Public transportation doesn’t magically solve the problem. I live in the downtown of a midsized city, and the nearest grocery store is 5 miles away. Nearest hardware store 4 miles. In fact most of the business I frequent are between 4 and 10 miles away. I’m not walking to the bus stop, waiting for the bus, going 5 miles, turning a 10 minute drive into a 25 minute ride, getting several bags of groceries, and then waiting outside in the snow for the next 20 minutes for the next bus to come.

Now, I’ve lived in Chicago without a car, so I’m not against the idea in principle. But all the businesses I needed on a daily basis were available within a 15 minute walk from where I lived, and an EL stop was 10 minutes away. This is all possible because the population density is high enough to support businesses clustered in walkable neighborhoods.

In most of middle America, the population density is typically not high enough in an area to support these types of walkable communities. So everything is spread out, designed for communities with POVs.

It would take a massive redesign and rebuilding of communities for the public transportation thing to be viable.

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JaxRhapsody t1_iqzeawe wrote

I don't wanna rely on public transportation. I wanna get in my car, blast my music, do and go where I want at my own liesure or urgency, not worry about schedules, other people and other public trans bullshit. I don't currently have a car, and I still refuse to get on a bus. I hop on my bike, crank up the headphones, or BT speaker, and do all that other stuff. I don't like living on a bike either, but it's still better than some bus, or tram. But yeah, I'm all for better public trans if more people use it, and it doesn't inconvenience the rest of us, who don't use it.

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Diablojota t1_iqy28f3 wrote

We lack the population density that other countries have. For general scale, Germany is a bit bigger (land size) than the state of Georgia. Georgia has around 11 million people. Germany has 85 million. It’s extremely difficult to build cost effective infrastructure that doesn’t bankrupt a municipality because not enough people use it to cover the costs.

It’s far easier to convert people to purchasing EVs or some alternative fuel vehicle.

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AdministrativePage7 t1_iqzaagd wrote

Fyi Germany is roughly double the area of GA

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Diablojota t1_ir0bhn9 wrote

Even at double, the population density still holds. GA doubled would be 22 million vs 85 million. I could have chosen Montana, which is slightly larger than Germany. They have just over 1 million inhabitants.

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KeppraKid t1_iqz9gpc wrote

I'd like to see a strong public transit backbone with some cars thrown in that are owned by the government that are electric self-driving that you can use using a public credit system wherein you get free uses up to a point and then have to pay and then hard locked.

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ElectrikDonuts t1_iqxhfs6 wrote

Shouldnt be a problem considering it takes 20,000 lbs of gas to get a 30 mpg vehicle to 100,000 miles and we have relatively no issue finding that material. Material prices on EV batteries could 4x and auto cost on new EVs would be affected less than gas swinging 10% on any ICE

Reducing material consumption by 10s of thousands of lbs should be easier than you think. Especially considering that material can be recaptured, repurposed, and recycled in the future. Unlike oil and gas

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the_real_abraham t1_iqxutrh wrote

The problem with using fossil fuels isn't just the combustion. It's also spreading petroleum products and by-products over millions of miles of roadways. Lithium production keeps improving. Batteries and storage keep improving. As far a pollution goes, I find the tire particles we're all currently breathing a more pressing issue.

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paulwesterberg t1_iqy62yu wrote

I would like to point out that in addition to reducing air pollution due to fuel burning EVs also reduce pollution due to braking because they can use regen to recapture energy rather than wasting it with friction brakes.

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skyfishgoo t1_iqyb35u wrote

you mean like we do for oil and uranium.

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phitfacility t1_iqycqid wrote

We do it all for the resources, there's a huge bounty waiting between Mars Jupiter ⛏️

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Yeti-Rampage t1_iqy0hjj wrote

Different metric - solar energy efficiency means you’re capturing X% of solar radiation, which is both massive and free.

EV efficiency means you’re converting X% of input electricity to power. The input electricity comes from power plants, and is costly.

I always caution against comparing solar cell efficiency to other technologies.

FYI Solar cell efficiency hits theoretical limits around low-30% for single junction, maybe 50% or so for dual junction. World record is a 3-junction around 39% I think from the company Solar Junction.

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ElectrikDonuts t1_iqy1xza wrote

Im comparing the EV to the ICE comment

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Yeti-Rampage t1_iqy3xbe wrote

I think I figured out the confusion - ICE can mean “internal conversion efficiency” in the context of a solar cell (and in fact 33% is a good number for 2-junction solar conversion efficiency).

But the comment above was about “internal combustion engine” (also abbreviated ICE).

Hence your EV comparison makes sense.

Apologies for the misunderstanding!

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