The Alternative Energy Thread

And Beaumont, Texas, is closer to Jacksonville than it is to El Paso

A Once-Shuttered California Mine Is Trying to Transform the Rare-Earth Industry

Now that'll be a bZ4X worth buying!

Here's something I never expected to see:
NASA Says No to Lithium Mining in Area of Nevada Where Satellites Are Calibrated

Fascinating. I didn’t realize there was ground-based calibration at all. I thought most satellites were like the LANDSATs, calibrated off of each other.

I didn't know that there were any natural phenomena at all that they cued off of. If you poke around on the interwebs you'll find all kinds of interesting locations (that are all human-made) used by aircraft to calibrate various sensors. I'm not talking about things like the locations of certain internationally famous places, I'm talking about weird-looking structures that resemble pictographs or something. These are places where we've built things that serve no other purpose than enabling aircraft (or spacecraft) to calibrate this or that thing. Maybe it is camera resolution and maybe it is nothing more than making it easy to figure out the GPS coordinates that they're doing there, but it's not like they picked the Washington Monument because it was the tallest thing in DC and that's where they do their calibrations. They built this stuff in the middle of nowhere for no other reason than, "If your plane or satellite sees this, then that tells them that they're at X/Y latitude and longitude with specifics thrown in as need be."

No farking clue that they'd need a nearly pristine lakebed as part of this.

World's largest hydro-solar power plant enters full operation in China

World’s first non-toxic aluminum-ion batteries developed

Accidental discovery could charge up large-scale energy storage systems

Hydrogen-powered flights aim to go commercial by 2025

EV maker Lucid slashes prices of Air sedan as part of offer amid heating competition

They're now a "mere" $80K.

Wait until you hear how fast they eat tires. 6K miles, in some cases.

I'm looking to set up a story based on an article I read a few weeks ago about the rubber pollution caused by EVs in general chewing up tires so much more than conventional vehicles.

That's the thing that folks who say, "Oh, the Earth could easily support 10 billion people if we did <insert minor thing here>." forget. Let's say we do away with all ICE-powered vehicles and everything is now super-clean electric. How's the air pollution from bits of tire and road dirt that they fling into the air compared to regular automotive pollution? What about the microscopic bits of metal thrown into the air by trains? Would it be as bad as we have now? Or would it be worse? Because if EVs (or other technology) are 90% better for the environment, does that really matter if we're at 200% of the automobile ownership level for EVs than we were for ICE vehicles at their peak? If those EVs (or some kind of mass transit system) cause environmental problems that are as bad as those of ICE vehicles when they reach the kind of levels needed to keep a society of 10 billion people alive, we're fucked.

Groundwater pollution, not air.

It's both, actually. Tire debris doesn't stay up in the air as long as exhaust emissions, but the amount thrown up by vehicles is enough to cause respiratory problems in sensitive people.

Prospectors hit the gas in the hunt for ‘white hydrogen’

Floating powerhouses: ideal solar farms for the world

Owner Of Hydrogen-Powered Hyundai Tucson Hit With $113k Repair Bill

The Lamborgini Lanzador Concept Is A First Look At The First All-Electric Lamborghini



I gotta say that as a kid I had some kind of off-brand Matchbox or Hot Wheels kind of cars that this really reminds me of.

EVs Are Only Environmentally Friendly If You Drive A Lot: Report

DOE announces $15.5B to support electric vehicle transition, grow domestic battery manufacturing

MIT makes a super thin solar cell that can turn any surface into a power plant

Lucid Only Managed To Move 478 Cars In August

General recommendation: I learn more from this guy than anywhere else, though sometimes it's more info in an hour than i can really process except "this is a good thing happening" or "uh oh"

Volts | David Roberts | Substack

Japan: World’s largest nuclear fusion reactor achieves first plasma

Meh. "First plasma" has been achieved many times in many reactors. First break even would be real news.

JT-60SA: World's largest nuclear fusion reactor powers up in Japan

eVince microreactor boasts 8+ years of nuclear power without using water

Scientists transform cigarette butts into biodiesel fuel