Life cycle emissions are the total amount of greenhouse gases emitted throughout a product’s existence, including its production, use, and disposal.

To compare these emissions effectively, a standardized unit called metric tons of CO2 equivalent (tCO2e) is used, which accounts for different types of greenhouse gases and their global warming potential.

Here is an overview of the 2021 life cycle emissions of medium-sized electric, hybrid and ICE vehicles in each stage of their life cycles, using tCO2e. These numbers consider a use phase of 16 years and a distance of 240,000 km. //

1. The production emissions for BEVs are approximately 40% higher than those of hybrid and ICE vehicles. According to a McKinsey & Company study, this high emission intensity can be attributed to the extraction and refining of raw materials like lithium, cobalt, and nickel that are needed for batteries, as well as the energy-intensive manufacturing process of BEVs.
2. Electricity production is by far the most emission-intensive stage in a BEVs life cycle. Decarbonizing the electricity sector by implementing renewable and nuclear energy sources can significantly reduce these vehicles’ use phase emissions.

Many have forgotten that we are standing on the shoulders of legends such as Teller and Oppenheimer.

Recently the Oppenheimer grandson rallied in favor of nuclear:

"New Manhattan Project for Carbon-free Energy"

https://tucoschild.substack.com/p/oppenheimer-nuclear-energys-moment

Also note the energy density of nuclear vs other energy containers:

Li abttery : 0.5 MJ/kg

Diesel/gas : 46 MJ/kg

Nuclear, U-235, E=mc^2 : 79,390,000 MJ/kg

In 1959, the AEC and the nuclear power establishment made a momentous policy change. They abandoned the concept of a tolerance dose rate below which harm is undetectable, and adopted the Linear No Threshold hypothesis, which claims that harm is proportional to cumulative dose, regardless of how rapidly or how slowly that dose is received. In other words, radiation harm is unrepairable. It just builds up. The tolerance dose rate model assumes our bodies can repair radiation damage. As a result, harm does not build up as long as we stay below the tolerance dose rate, which up to 1950 was 1 mSv/d.

What's really perplexing about this foundational transformation is that it apparently was done with no discussion. There seems to be no official decision from the AEC. No meeting minutes. No dueling memos. The official history of the AEC, Mazuzan and Walker, 511 tedious pages covering the period 1946-1962, makes no mention of the decision.1
The book makes no mention of LNT at all.

"We already know from early research that it is possible."

Why is it that greens want everyone to drive electric cars but don’t want people to have electricity? Or, it seems, the cars.

I noted last week in these pages how the people who want everyone to have an electric car in the garage have also been pursuing policies that, per the North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s latest report, are likely to result in rolling blackouts this summer. //

Fossil and nuclear plants are being taken offline (bye, Indian Point!) while their replacement with “renewables” like wind and solar lags and often fails to produce power when it’s most needed.

Nothing has improved on that front. But the thing about electric cars is that they don’t just need electricity, they also need batteries to store it in. And electric motors.

That’s awkward because those cars and batteries require lots of copper and other metals, plus the extraction of “rare earth” minerals that come mostly from China and Africa, where they’re often produced by child or slave labor.

(We used to mine rare earths in America, but the enviros basically got that shut down. It’s easier for companies to get the stuff out of the ground in places where there aren’t sandal-wearing scolds everywhere.) //

These organizations are much quieter about the exploitation of minerals — and people — in places like China and Africa. //

But the bottom line is: If you endorse the spread of electric cars, you by extension endorse the extraction of the resources it takes to build and charge them. //

If you support a policy but oppose its prerequisites, then you’re either a fool or a fraud. Or maybe both.

A realistic and sensible electric-car policy would support reliable, safe, environmentally friendly power to charge them — which means plants fired by nuclear power and fracked gas. //

Honestly, when people start working to bring us cheap energy and metals from the Moon and the asteroids, environmentalists will probably complain about that too. And they’re entitled to complain if they want.

What they’re not entitled to is to be taken seriously.

The National Fire Protection Association found that four-fifths of cooking fires involve electric stoves. They correlated with significantly inflated rates of reported fires (2.6 times higher than gas stoves), civilian fire death rates (3.4 times higher), civilian fire injury rates (4.8 times higher), and average fire dollar loss (3.8 times higher). //

A proposed DOE standard, published in May, would require dishwashers to use significantly less water and power. Moreover, federal regulations have, historically, skyrocketed average cycle times, driving consumers to choose the far less water-efficient practice of handwashing dishes.

The first of two nuclear reactors in Georgia is generating electricity and could be days away from achieving full-power operation

Prescription for the Planet -- Tom Blees

Robert Hargraves
5.0 out of 5 stars
Rx: nuclear power + boron fuel + plasma waste gasification

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 7, 2008

This is a book about three world-wide problems and three technologies to solve them. It's a book about technologies written by an Alaskan fisherman for understanding by the general public.

Nuclear power can solve global warming primarily by eliminating CO2 emissions from coal power plants, and secondarily by enabling new vehicle fuels. Nuclear power reactors in the US have not changed design in decades, and the public's perception seems to be acceptance of the mysterious domed plants, but with concern for the spent nuclear fuel waste.

There are newer, better nuclear technologies than these solid fueled, water-cooled reactors, which are generally unknown to the public. Tom Blees describes one: The Integral Fast Reactor consumes spent fuel reactor waste, generates power from the 95% of potential energy left in the waste, and does not involve any transport of weapons-proliferation-sensitive plutonium outside the plant. The IFR project, developed and tested for a decade at Argonne National Laboratories, was two years from fruition when it was killed in 1984 by President Bill Clinton, Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary, and Senator John Kerry.

The IFR would have solved the coal-burning energy crisis, consumed existing nuclear power plant waste, and not isolated inventories of plutonium (as does the French power program.) I nearly cried when I first heard of the death of the IFR, and Blees tells the story well. Since Blees wrote this book he has learned about the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor, which has these same advantages at lower cost.

Boron fuels were completely new to me. Cars, trucks, and airplanes require portable energy supplies, such as gasoline, diesel oil, or natural gas (the Pickens Plan). Electric batteries can provide this stored energy for cars. Liquid or compressed hydrogen is another (impractical) energy carrier. Blees points out that boron metal can be a portable fuel. Boron metal is combined with oxygen in a special engine to generate power. The resulting boron-oxide is later brought to a refueling station to be exchanged for a new supply of boron metal fuel. The refueling station uses electricity to convert the boron oxide back to boron metal fuel.

Boron fuel eliminates carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles, and it eliminates dependence on foreign oil. (I think there is much more boron fuel R&D work to be done.)

Plasma arc gasification of waste is another technology new to me. Four states of matter are solid, liquid, gas, and plasma. Plasma is so hot (4,000 - 17,000 C) that electrons are torn free, molecular bonds are broken, and elemental nucleii are freed. Toxic chemicals are destroyed. The cooled plasma becomes a glass-like slag. It takes a lot of electric power to operate a plasma arc torch, but in the case of municipal solid waste, the process can generate 28x more natural gas energy than electric energy consumed.

There are solutions for our environmental and energy problems! Blees' Prescription for the Planet is nuclear power + boron fuel + plasma waste gasification.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/review/1419655825/R2X21JGKLSMBBY

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1419655825/

The Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) is a fast reactor system developed at Argonne National Laboratory in the decade 1984 to 1994. The IFR project developed the technology for a complete system; the reactor, the entire fuel cycle and the waste management technologies were all included in the development program. The reactor concept had important features and characteristics that were completely new and fuel cycle and waste management technologies that were entirely new developments.

The forced energy transformation crowd continues to be in denial about how badly the California grid has been compromised by wind and solar, how expensive the battery solution is, and the prospect of Big Brother in the home (setting temperatures and restricting power use at will). As Ludwig von Mises observed, the failure of government intervention leads to more and more intervention, posing a choice between free markets and Leviathan.” //

AdenW
May 24, 2023 6:03 am
A simple solution. Smart meters and virtue signalling.

1. Greens sign up to a Green register, get the badge they can display to show how good they are.
2. Smart meters
3. Greens have to sign up to renewables only electric supply
4. Then when the wind doesn’t blow, the sun doesn’t shine, a message is sent to the smart meter and click, they get cut off.
   Once a green, always a green, you are on for life.

South Africa is heading into the southern hemisphere winter with the prospect of the country's worst-ever power cuts - up to 16 hours a day. The roots of the problem lie in poor management, corruption and sabotage.
Short presentational grey line

Late one Thursday afternoon, last November, a maintenance contractor reached his hand under a huge rotating shaft at an ageing power station in South Africa.

It took the man just a few seconds to unscrew a steel plug, smaller than a coffee mug.

As he moved away from the scene, precious lubrication oil quickly began seeping from the innards of the shaft. The steel bearings inside overheated and before long the coal mill, and with it one of the station's eight turbines, ground to a sudden, and expensive, halt.

What is certain is that the sabotage at Unit 4 was not an isolated event.

Instead, it was one relatively small act in a vast, ongoing, and highly successful criminal enterprise that involves murders, poisoning, fires, cable theft, ruthless cartels and powerful politicians.

It is an enterprise that risks derailing international attempts to nudge South Africa away from its dependence on coal and towards renewable energy sources. //

At major road junctions across the nation, unemployed and homeless men now earn a few rand from drivers in exchange for directing cars when the traffic lights are off.

The image of people in luxury vehicles tossing coins to beggars for helping them navigate the country's failing infrastructure seems like a fitting metaphor for the current struggles facing this deeply unequal society.

A multi-functional power and energy meter designed for facilities and energy professionals to monitor electrical systems, devices and consumption. Includes MODBUS RS485 and software. Optional analog & digital input, outputs, relay and Ethernet modules.

Compatible with different current transformers such as 5A, 1A, 80mA, 100mA, 200mA, 333mV output CT and Rogowski coil, the Acuvim II series may be used as data gathering devices for intelligent power distribution systems or plant automation systems. All monitored data is available via a digital RS485 communication port running Modbus RTU protocol. Ethernet and Profibus DP communication are also options.

The Acuvim-II Series does not offer data logging or have any onboard memory, for these features see the Acuvim-IIE and Acuvim-IIR.

Those looking for Time of Use (TOU) features should check out the Acuvim-IIE instead.

Those looking for a Revenue Grade Power Meter should look at the Acuvim-IIR instead.

Provides an Ethernet connection to the Acuvim II Series power meters via Modbus-TCP/IP, HTTP Post, HTTPS Post, FTP, SMTP for e-mail, and SNTP time synchronization. Features 4GB onboard memory with 15-second interval data logging capabilities, and industry-leading 100ms response rate via ModbusTCP/IP protocol.

US $166.00
Price shown before tax, Shipping fee: US $74.71
Acrel ADW210-D24 series wireless multi circuits energy meter/three phase wireless energy meter/wireless smart energy meter

Size : ADW210-D24-1S

Monitor your energy use in real time with our home energy monitors. Install in your breaker box in under an hour, or if you live in California or Pennsylvania, just plug the Vue: Utility Connect into any wall outlet.

INSTALLS IN CIRCUIT PANEL of most homes with clamp-on sensors. Supports single-phase up to 240VAC line-neutral; single, split-phase 120/240VAC; and three-phase up to 415Y/240VAC (no Delta). Panels with access only to busbars will need flexible sensors available from Emporia Energy.
24/7 ENERGY MONITORING: Monitor your home's real power anywhere, anytime to prevent costly repairs, conserve energy, and save costs. Monitor solar / net metering. Light commercial 3 phase option available as a separate bundle. PROTECTED BY A 1-YEAR WARRANTY.
APPLIANCE MONITORING WITHOUT GUESSWORK: Comes with sixteen (16) 50A sensors to accurately monitor your air conditioner, furnace, water heater, washer, dryer, range, etc.

President Joe Biden’s latest push for electric vehicles is reminiscent of a soliloquy by Don Quixote: short on facts, long on rhetoric, and filled with unrealistic expectations. Sadly, though, Biden’s policy mistakes are moving beyond fiction to a reality that confines consumers to cars that are unaffordable and unwanted.

Like Don Quixote tilting at harmless windmills he thinks are giants, Biden is attacking American energy and the auto industry for daring to use fossil fuels. And as Don Quixote went from quest to quest attempting to free imaginary prisoners, Biden is hellbent on freeing Americans from the imaginary captivity of their reliable, safe, flexible, and economical gasoline- and diesel-fueled engines.

That disconnect from reality perfectly encapsulates Biden’s energy policy. His Environmental Protection Agency recently proposed such strict regulations for cars and trucks that effectively mean that 54% of new vehicles sold domestically must be electric vehicles, or EVs, by 2030.

Even if Biden managed a 500% increase in EV sales by the end of the decade, he’d still fall woefully short of his goal. The only conceivable way to make half of new vehicle sales EVs by 2030 would be if Americans were so poor that they could afford few new cars, and thus the small number of electric vehicles still could amount to half of all new vehicles. That’s right out of Mao’s Great Leap Forward.

Just from the standpoint of raw materials, Biden’s EV goal is fictitious. We simply can’t get the needed materials in sufficient volume in time. Furthermore, the schizophrenic energy policy of this administration simultaneously is ramping up demand for those raw materials while hamstringing the supply. Biden continues blocking mining of lithium, graphite, nickel, and rare earth metals.

That’s inexplicable, since Biden’s green energy transition would increase demand for those materials by 4,200%, 2,500%, 1,900%, and 700%, respectively, in less than 20 years.

But when you consider that “it has taken on average over 16 years to move mining projects from discovery to first production,” then Biden’s proposals aren’t unachievable—they’re laughable.

And from where does Biden think the electricity to power these electric vehicles will come? The strained electrical grid already has brownouts and blackouts in parts of the country and couldn’t handle millions more EVs, especially when Biden also is blocking copper mining, the main ingredient in electrical wires.

The grid’s transmission capacity would need to grow 60% in less than seven years and grow 200% in less than 30 years. And this is just the grid infrastructure, not what would be needed to power it.

E-fuels sound like a panacea, but there's not enough spare electricity to make them.

“You wrote, for instance, in a Forbes column last year that renewables actually increase global emissions. Do you stand by that comment?” he said.

Furchtgott-Roth explained the piece.

“Yes. Because they’re made with coal-fired power plants in China. I did explain that if renewables were the wind turbines and solar panels are made and batteries are made with coal-fired plants in China,” she said. “I did explain that if these were made with emissions-free energy such as nuclear power, then the benefits to the environment would be much greater. But many environmentalists who are in favor of renewables are against dense emission nuclear power, and therefore making these renewables often raises emissions.” //

When Whitehouse questioned her about the human component of climate change, she was ready for him again. She pulled out a book and waved it.

“Yes. Scientists disagree on the human component of global warming,” she said. “And in this book, ‘Unsettled’ by Steve Koonin, who was under secretary of energy under President Obama, and who taught for 30 years at CalTech and has a PhD in physics from MIT, he says that, ‘It is uncertain how much human activity affects global warming. The case is unsettled,’ and I’m no better scientist than he is.”

Nearly 2 million local National Grid customers could be seeing red over hefty proposed rate hikes pushing them to get more green.

The natural gas and electric utility giant has proposed gas-use increases of 17% for its New York City residential customers and 16% for Long Islanders, with the company blaming inflationary costs and government green-energy requirements.