Sustainable Fuels

[acbytesla]

Infrastructure has a lot to do with if electric can work where you are. Or how deep your pockets to install an adequate solar array.

For Mexico to catch up to Norway in EV use we would need to beef up our power grids by triple to support home chargers. Local climate has another factor, northern Alaskan climate and Scotland's are different.

Solar and windfarms take real investment to get up to a level that supports full communities and states. Mexico hasn't done that yet. I hear nothing about it much less a public charger network for major metro areas.
Right now my area is landfll gas and LP generate electric with a spattering of geothermal. We could do solar well.

What you have come to take for normal we haven't seen yet. Yet where I live is quite comfortable in our current situation. Others have far less in the world.

Yes. Norway is close to if not the wealthiest nation per capita on the planet. And it is in particular, energy rich. Not, only does it have massive offshore oil from the North Sea, it has windfarms,and huge hydroelectric dams.

 

[acbytesla]

You're letting yourselves be left behind, out of sheer apathy it seems. You could absolutely coin it in with solar. I often look at the clouds here and think, what could my solar array do without these? (I know, because we have cloudless days, and it's massive.) Get off your arses and get with the programme.

If we're going to criticise an excellent source of energy because it might not work so well in northern Alaska, we might as well go back to the caves. Most of the world lives in sun-belt countries and some of them don't even realise what they've got.

To be fair Rolfe it's not apathy, it's the wealth of his country.

 

[Rolfe]

I understand that, but he is suggesting that people are just sitting back and not pushing at all to gear up for the future, maybe because "we should be content with what we have because others have less."

 

[acbytesla]

I understand that, but he is suggesting that people are just sitting back and not pushing at all to gear up for the future, maybe because "we should be content with what we have because others have less."

Sorry, I don't get that. This is a chicken and egg problem. Charging infrastructure is required before it is practical to buy EVs. And poor countries don't invest in charging infrastructure when people don't own EVs. Benotto was definitely wrong about his extreme latitudes hypothesis. But you have to understand how he got there.

 

[8enotto]

I understand that, but he is suggesting that people are just sitting back and not pushing at all to gear up for the future, maybe because "we should be content with what we have because others have less."

No. We should be pushing to upgrade to a better system. Absolutely.
The government would have to be motivated to step up but resources just aren't being made available yet. Maybe they aren't even available at all.
Energy here is a government monopoly from oil wells to gas pumps, our electricity the same. Telephone, television and cell services are all deeply interconnected with high government offices. They really like things as they are now. Big profits.

Changes are coming but it will take time whether we like it or not.

 

[EHocking]

Demand will drive supply. Just as it did for ICE cars and filling stations.

Purpose built stations weren’t built until 1905 some 20 years after automobiles were available (Benz 1886). Up until then, pharmacies, grocery stores and hardware stores etc had a sideline in selling petrol, which was considered a waste by-product of their main sales of kerosene. When ford made (generally) affordable cars, demand for filling stations grew in the US.

 

[acbytesla]

Demand will drive supply. Just as it did for ICE cars and filling stations.

Purpose built stations weren’t built until 1905 some 20 years after automobiles were available (Benz 1886). Up until then, pharmacies, grocery stores and hardware stores etc had a sideline in selling petrol, which was considered a waste by-product of their main sales of kerosene. When ford made (generally) affordable cars, demand for filling stations grew in the US.

This is the one thing I truly give Tesla credit for. It was a decision that gave them at least a five year lead on every other car company. The fact you could charge their cars while traveling made their cars more than a novelty.