Modern Vespa

The main problem with hydrogen -- at the moment, anyway -- is that despite it being the most abundant element in the universe, there isn't actually very much of it available for use here on Earth. It's a component of water, of course, but it takes an enormous amount of energy to electrolyze the hydrogen from the oxygen in sufficient quantities to use as a fuel.

This makes hydrogen, at least in the current state of technology, not actually an energy source, but merely an energy carrier -- not entirely unlike a battery. We put energy into it, we carry it around with us in our cars, taking energy out when we need it.

There are several potential future developments that could change that calculus, the most likely being better hydrogen splitting technology (most likely in the form of a yet-to-be-discovered catalyst for the electrolysis process). Hydrogen will never be a net-positive energy source (on planet Earth), but maybe it could require less energy to procure than it currently does.

One very large piece of hydrogen infrastructure is already in place, though. Municipal water and electricity delivery are already in place in every part of the civilized world. If hydrogen could be produced in the field near to where it was being consumed, then that would be a win -- no need to transport the hydrogen to filling stations, just make it on-site.

But I expect the gas stations will have been converted to coffee shops by the time we get to that level of technology.

I'll have a Grande Latte and a Muffin.

Actually, I think gas stations will be converted to water stations in some parts of the US. OK, maybe not gas stations but other related infrastructure.
Once the oil and gas infrastructure becomes less used for oil and gas, water becomes the next logical product to transport by that infrastructure.
Especially to the dry South Western states.
And, for anyone who thinks it would be 'icky' to transport water through what are currently oil pipelines, I ask: How many times is water 'used' between Minnesota and Louisiana (without an intermediate evaporation)?

Could you imagine?
"The keystone crude water pipeline had a leak! The water is...filling up the local lake during this drought. It's contained now, but it's estimated that roughly 50 acres surrounding the break got some much-needed water. And now, here's Tim with the weather."

Why havn't they built De-salination plants on the West Coast seeing as you guys seem to regularly run out of water ?

We lose most of our reservoir water through leeks in distribution pipes over here so we ain't anything special.

I think it's rained here at least once a day every day for the last three weeks.

Arse.

Three reasons:

1) Desalination plants cost a lot of money to build
2) Desalination plants use a ton of energy to run
3) The byproduct is highly-salinated sludgy salt water that must be dumped back into the ocean, which has an environmental impact on the local area.

Apparently there are twelve desalination plants existing in CA, and another $140 million plant has just been approved:
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/14/california-approves-desalination-plant-as-drought-hits-water-supplies.html

A drop in the bucket, I expect. But the calculus on desalination is changing as we speak -- the drought gets droughtier, and renewable energy gets renewier.

Claps with joy.

The same question has been asked over here when we have droughts but come November it just rains and rains and everyone shuts up for 6 months.

All true, and important considerations. And at least equally significant - we have many uses for freshwater. Drinking is, of course, one of the most essential and necessary to support life. Others include agriculture, landscaping, natural systems, industrial processes, etc. These other uses require much more freshwater than drinking and it is unlikely that we would even be able to meet all these needs with conventional desalinization.

Israel does it already (for reference, one cubic meter is ~264 gallons). Considering their overall population it's not far-fetched to suggest the desert Southwest of US could do the same.

From: https://www.gov.il/en/departments/general/project-water-desalination-background#:~:text=Israel's%20current%20scope%20of%20desalination&text=The%20Soreq%20plant%20provides%20150,the%20Ashdod%20plant%20100%20million.

"Israel's current scope of desalination
Today some 585 million m3 of water per year are desalinated in the State of Israel. The Soreq plant provides 150 million m3 per year, the Hadera plant 127 million, the Ashkelon plant 118 million, the Palmachim plant 90 million, and the Ashdod plant 100 million. As noted, Sorek B plant is expected to provide an additional 200 million m3 of water per year and the Western Galilee plant is expected to provide at least an additional 100 million m3 of water per year."

There are about 9 million people in Isreal, and they're knocking on the doorstep of producing 900 million cubic meters of desalinated water per year (almost two years ago).

That's ~100 cubic meters per year per person, or ~26,400 gallons, which amounts to ~72 gallons per day per person.

My wife and I use about 300 gallons per day between the two of us, or have over the last ~9 months.

And I suspect much of that Israeli water is used for agriculture. They use a ton of drip systems, not wasting it by just spraying it all over the place like we do here.

To put this in context, the California State Water Project currently collects and transports up to 5,200 million cubic meters of freshwater. Another 18,500 million cubic meters is diverted from the Colorado River system.

And California has 39 million people -- 12 million of them in the Los Angeles metro area alone.

Maybe they could take all the salt, dehydrate it and send it to Minnisota.

The amount of brine we are talking about is orders of magnitude larger than could be dried out in any reasonable amount of time. For every liter of water produced by a desalination plant, roughly 1.5 liters of salty brine are produced.

Here's some background on the problem: https://unu.edu/media-relations/releases/un-warns-of-rising-levels-of-toxic-brine.html

Oil seems to be a once in a planetary lifetime (or at least species--ie homo sapiens--lifetime) lottery jackpot.

Think we're going to find out nothing comes close in terms of energy density, availability (for a while, anyway) and low cost (again, for a while).

Also, there's no free lunch when it comes to energy. For example, hydro devastates the ecology of waterways, hydrogen's main by-product is water vapor--a greenhouse gas more potent than CO2--and nuclear has the waste problem. Unless we can alter the laws of physics, fusion isn't going to replace oil.

It's unlikely there's another harmless energy source able to support the current population and lifestyles. Waves, tides and lightening contain more energy than humanity could ever need, but harnessing it in a benign way is a bit of a barrier. Of course we should try, but be realistic in our expectations.

All this may be rain on many people's parade, but the sooner we accept how unique and irreplaceable oil is, the sooner we'll treat it as an invaluable resource and use it accordingly. Expecting, or even hoping for a close substitute is probably going to result in great disappointment and a bad ending.

I'm wondering just how much longer we could preserve our oil reserves if we all rode on 250cc bikes or scooters and cars and trucks of no bigger than 2 litres.

Just sayin.

However, if a method can be found to distribute the brine over a much larger area in the ocean, the overall effect would be exactly the same as normal evaporation of the sea as part of the water cycle.

Desalination plants make zero change to the 'saltiness' of the oceans, except very locally where the outflow has been badly designed.

Making the solution to that pollution, in fact, dilution.

Gas stations were also service center where you could get your car repaired.
They transitioned to being neighborhood markets with fuel being one of the products they sell
The next transition could be to swappable battery packs

Agreed, but such a method has yet to be devised or built or even theorized, to the best of my knowledge. How would one distribute that much salt brine over a large expanse of the ocean? Pipelines? Yes, it all averages out. Except when it doesn't.

While it's not a 2 wheeler, there are some interesting ideas for this city car
This particular thing looks like a subsidy/grant harvesting scheme

https://www.squadmobility.com/squad#specs

Now that IS interesting.

Yes, it's easy to imagine a scenario in which we desalinate so much water that the brine becomes a bigger issue. One desalination plant is not going to affect much, but at large scale it may do so.

There are almost 16,000 desalination plants currently operating around the world, and they discharge 142 million cubic metres of hypersaline brine per day.

That's a lot.

Here's a particularly harrowing article on desalination.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/11/corpus-christi-sold-its-water-to-exxon-and-is-losing-its-big-bet-on-desalination/

The Canadians have an electric town car too. The following Rick Mercer report contains his usual wry humor.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ri2BG2qOvCg?feature=player_detailpage

Cheers.
Bob

So it's "too expensive" to lay 2-mile pipes and so the project is stalled seemingly for ever? Numpties.

I've sold our Subaru & replaced it with a Low Speed Vehicle
A 2013 GEM
Our needs for 2 person transportation are within a few miles of home, once or twice a week. Doctors & groceries
It does what I need it to do
The thought from the beginning was that we could rent a car should the need arise
I take a scooter out from time to time for faster fun

There are only a few legal constraints.
LSV restricted to roads with a speed limit less than 35 mph
Max legal speed 25 mph
Registration, tags, insurance, all the costs are reduced, similar to scooters
This doesn't mean that there would be any effective oversight, that would vary by jurisdiction

My mode driving is much like towing a trailer in the mountains, when the line gets too long, pull over let people pass
In traffic, no difference,
Not much difference in time to go places, cheaper, less likely to be involved in a serious accident,
The car is of a scale I can do most of the maintenance, fairly simple technology, charges off a regular outlet


Getting more performance is a matter of tricking the governor, more battery, motor, bigger controller, ac motors...
I'll install a lithium battery pack in place of the lead/acid pack, 1/3 rd the weight, 50 mile range, better overpass climbing

Fat EVs may cause 'more death on our roads' – watchdog
https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/12/ev_weight_ntsb_death/ And more

EVs are getting too heavy and too powerful, safety chief says
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/01/top-safety-advisor-raises-alarm-about-ever-heavier-evs/

This is literally the lamest argument against EVs ever devised.

But yeah. All passenger vehicles should have a size and weight limit. You should need a permit for driving that monster truck and limit it to work trips only.

It tends to be self-correcting. There is a distinct advantage to a lighter vehicle, especially an EV. This incentive should generally drive the market to smaller, lighter vehicles.

But then there's the people who buy huge pickup trucks for daily commuting and trips to the grocery store, just on the off chance that they might need to pick up a couple of cubic yards of dirt on their way home from the store.

You don't like the National Transportation Safety Board?

ALSO it's not against them it's just about limiting the battery size

... and for when the street disappears and turns into a rocky, rutted stream bed.

It's an argument that has come up before -- including right here in this thread. Battery size or weight?

Yes weight of course. Forgive the typo

I'm all for reducing the maximum allowable weight of consumer vehicles. If you legitimately need a bigger truck, get a proper commercial license. Otherwise, use a @#$% normal sized vehicle to get groceries.

Big trucks will do that to streets.