Another great reason to buy an EV...

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Another EV (Tesla) up in smoke due to saltwater exposure with hurricane.

This will really make you want to buy an EV if you live near the coast.
These vehicles have so many positive traits! /s

If you own a hybrid or electric vehicle that has come into contact with saltwater due to recent flooding within the last 24 hours, it is crucial to relocate the vehicle from your garage without delay. Saltwater exposure can trigger combustion in lithium-ion batteries. If possible, transfer your vehicle to higher ground


View: https://www.facebook.com/Palmharborfire/posts/697381912418591
 
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YEP. There have been quite a few of these fires.

Oh and, remind me how mining copper, cobalt, nickel and other elements, and these non safely disposable batteries is better for the environment and more "green' than burning petrol today...

In 2009 Porsche's flat-6 was putting cleaner air our the tailpipe than the urban air ingested into its intake. Fact. The modern internal combustion engine has reached a level of efficiency and clean emissions, never imagined possible 30-40 years ago.

There was a video recently of two electric cars that had collided on an interstate. They had to shut down the lanes on each direction and clear them, while the two cars burned and had vicious explosions over and over again. Hideous. The fire crews wouldn't go near them. Assumably, until the last battery cell explosion.
 
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What's really fun is asking an EV owner or advocate how the electricity (to charge the battery) is generated.

Invariably, I get a blank look. Sometimes... an otherwise intelligent person will answer (and I swear to dog this is true), "From the wall."
 
Gosh... who could have seen that coming???

EVs are a huge con job on gullible people.
I think they have their niche. If you are in a more urban setting and don't drive long distances I can see some advantages to an EV. Think of how many gold carts on the road you see in touristy areas. Shoot, I see road golf carts in some areas that have zero tourist attraction. They aren't that much smaller than a car, but you can plug them in to charge up and do short distance errands.

With that said, at a national level and at some state levels, yeah it is a con job to be forcing them and mandating no more gas vehicles (CA rules mandate no more gas trucks to be sold by 2036), not to mention the federal money being given away as tax breaks/incentives to purchase one...
 
What's really fun is asking an EV owner or advocate how the electricity (to charge the battery) is generated.

Invariably, I get a blank look. Sometimes... an otherwise intelligent person will answer (and I swear to dog this is true), "From the wall."
Ie what kind of generation was used (coal, nuclear, hydroelectric, etc) was used to create that energy. They look at you slack-jawed. Probably the same one who thinks ground beef originates in the store in shrink wrap…
 
Ie what kind of generation was used (coal, nuclear, hydroelectric, etc) was used to create that energy. They look at you slack-jawed. Probably the same one who thinks ground beef originates in the store in shrink wrap…
In the U.S., I believe we're still at about 60% "fossil fuels" for generating electricity.
 
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It takes more than 24 hours for problems to arise. I think it was the last hurricane in FL, but the fire department towed all the flooded EV to a huge lot, away from everything and quarantined the cars. Enough of them erupted in flames a month later that it was totally worth it.

Similar problem with EVs involved in accidents. Collision repair facilities keep them away from everything for weeks before starting to work on them. The shock of the impact does strange things to the battery and wiring.
 
It takes more than 24 hours for problems to arise. I think it was the last hurricane in FL, but the fire department towed all the flooded EV to a huge lot, away from everything and quarantined the cars. Enough of them erupted in flames a month later that it was totally worth it.

Similar problem with EVs involved in accidents. Collision repair facilities keep them away from everything for weeks before starting to work on them. The shock of the impact does strange things to the battery and wiring.

It's delayed that long?
Sounds like Long Covid to me.
They should require masks on all Teslas and EVs.

We had the science in the 80s, and if we save one EV for the planet, it's worth it.

2003-08-12_Geo_Storm_GSi_in_Springfield%2C_VA.jpg
 
The science of water getting into stuff and ruining it has been studied since the first person got rained on or went in the ocean. It is even worse when salt water is involved. The battery itself is not the problem. The corroded connections and wires combined with the stored electricity in the battery is the problem. It takes more than 24 hours for the corrosion to start. Once it does, the resistance at the connections increases to the point where they get hot and ignite.

When I was a kid, the power company was renewing all the power lines along our street. We lived near the ocean. Being a curious kid, my buddies and I pestered the workers with a thousand stupid questions. Basically put the project a week behind schedule bothering the workers. I did ask one of them why they don't run the power underground and avoid storm damage. I specifically mentioned waterproof connections. To this day I remember his response. He laughed at my "waterproof" idea and said, "kid, there ain't no such thing as waterproof. Save yourself a lot of trouble trouble chasing that fairy tail." Approaching 60 years on this rock and he was not wrong.
 
In the U.S., I believe we're still at about 60% "fossil fuels" for generating electricity.
And there ain’t no fossils in them. Another con job.

As yourself “why are capped, dry wells later found to be brimming with oil?” I’ll wait.
 
Crude oil is dead algae and plankton, combined with silt (mud) trapped in the ground and subject to heat and pressure, and no oxygen. Slightly higher temperatures produce methane from this stew. Lower temps, crude oil. Coal comes from dead plants that end up buried. It transforms pretty much the same way.

Half-baked or perhaps better described as middle-aged oil is kerogen. Waxy goop. That's what is in oil sands. Half-baked coal is lignite, which is a form of hard, compressed peat. Think of these like as something cookie dough. You can consume it before it's fully baked.

The original Latin meaning of the word 'fossil' referred to anything that was dug up, or in the ground for a long time.

The irony is that the energy trapped within both coal and crude oil was originally derived from the sun. Photosynthesis. Tell that to your Prius-driving friends.

The making of crude and coal will never end. It's a natural, organic process. Like anything else, if you consume it faster than it is being made, you will run out. Then have to wait a million years for the next batch.

I spent a lot of time in refineries, steel mills, foundries, generating plants, and chemical plants in my early career. It's all dirty. Digging raw material out of the ground and processing it to make all the stuff we use every day .... it's all dirty. The only thing humans do that is truly clean is doing nothing. Living like an animal, in harmony with the environment. That ended about ten thousand years ago.
 
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The late Rush Limbaugh had at one time, described crude oil as a product of the earth’s refuse system that processes its own organic waste. (My paraphrase)

BL, what you described is spot on. It’s perpetual. Dead dinosaurs my eye…that’s another, IIRC, lie concocted by Rockefeller many, many years ago, to give the illusion that we have a finite, limited supply…and to justify pricing and controls thereof.

Now on the subject of ‘dirty’, isn’t it Iraq and specifically the Kurdistan region, that has some of the sweetest crude?
 
The late Rush Limbaugh had at one time, described crude oil as a product of the earth’s refuse system that processes its own organic waste. (My paraphrase)

BL, what you described is spot on. It’s perpetual. Dead dinosaurs my eye…that’s another, IIRC, lie concocted by Rockefeller many, many years ago, to give the illusion that we have a finite, limited supply…and to justify pricing and controls thereof.

Now on the subject of ‘dirty’, isn’t it Iraq and specifically the Kurdistan region, that has some of the sweetest crude?
Light sweet crude is considered the best oil. It comes from a lot of places. The simple answer is it is lower in sulfur. Sour crude is high in sulfur. Light sweet crude is easier to process and the gasoline that comes from it more easily complies with emissions standards. Heavy crudes have more solids. It's thicker and more expensive to process than light.

Believe it or not, a good portion of US crude, referred to as WTI, is among the best in the world. Brent Crude is next, then OPEC Reference, which is the least expensive. There are 160 variants of crude oil. The sweet-sour scale goes from 0 to 3.5. The density scale that defines heavy/light ranges from 20 to 50. Most Middle East oils lean toward heavy/sour. North Sea oils and most US crude is light/sweet, as are North African and Asia crude. Mexico and Latin American oil is generally medium/heavy.

Wonder where light and sweet terms came from? Old-school oil prospectors used to smell and taste it to gauge its type and quality. True story.

Oil refining is pretty simple. The process is called cracking. You heat up the crude and it separates into its components. Gasoline, diesel, kerosene (jet fuel), gasses, etc. The chart below is one of the best I've seen. But the products listed are only a fraction of what comes from crude.

When Prius-driving friends (who love the smell of their own farts) piss and moan about fossil fuels, ask them what they are ready to give up if that faucet were turned off. See chart. We would all be living in caves and wearing bearskins again if that were to occur.

Some have speculated that the cost of plastics, which just about every product in the world uses, would quadruple. You can make plastic (polymers) made out of other materials - called bioplastics - but the process is very expensive. People have been trying to figure this out for years and they still haven't found a way to make it anywhere near the cost of petroleum-based polymers.

Screenshot 2023-09-05 at 8.22.28 AM.png
 
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Here's something most people don't know about oil supply....

Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the world. NUMBER ONE. More than Saudi Arabia, and by a wide margin. The downside is that it's a lower grade of oil. But, yeah... they have the most.

Venezuela WAS the most prosperous / wealthy country in Latin America. And now??? Socialism. They now produce NOTHING. They were also the #1 producer of low-cost aluminum in the world. Now? Nada. They have huge iron ore deposits, and they USED to be one of the biggest steel producers in the world. Now? Zippo. Socialism. They have diamonds. They have gold. They had cheap hydroelectric power (one of the top 3 dams in the world). Beautiful coast and other natural tourist attractions. Fertile agricultural lands. And now??? Kaput. Socialism.
 
Here's something most people don't know about oil supply....

Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the world. NUMBER ONE. More than Saudi Arabia, and by a wide margin. The downside is that it's a lower grade of oil. But, yeah... they have the most.

Venezuela WAS the most prosperous / wealthy country in Latin America. And now??? Socialism. They now produce NOTHING. They were also the #1 producer of low-cost aluminum in the world. Now? Nada. They have huge iron ore deposits, and they USED to be one of the biggest steel producers in the world. Now? Zippo. Socialism. They have diamonds. They have gold. They had cheap hydroelectric power (one of the top 3 dams in the world). Beautiful coast and other natural tourist attractions. Fertile agricultural lands. And now??? Kaput. Socialism.
Truth. Corrupt politics and greed sowed the seeds of socialism. Have nots aren't hard to sell on communist philosophy. Ironically, they didn't benefit. Things only got worse. Such potential for prosperity. Unfortunate. It's a total train wreck and has been for a long time.
 
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