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Thread: Electric cars in SA

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    Diamond Member Blurock's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by adrianh View Post

    The whole "save the planet" shtick is also nonsense because it actually means "make it so that the 1st world can live nicely in the suburbs" - look at recycling - it is a total farce because the garbage simply gets pushed onto the 3rd world.
    Agreed, Adrian. It is almost like Germany declaring that they are now going green and closing all their stinking coal powered plants. They will be green because they will import nuclear and coal power from France and Russia. (They do not want their own nuclear plants because of the danger of contamination)

    I am not a scientist, but I remember from school that plants take carbon dioxide from the air and through a process of photosynthesis, mixing it with water and light, convert it to sugars (carbohydrates) with oxygen as a by product. In other words, plants need carbon dioxide to grow. We need plants to clean the air. That is how this planet was created and programmed. How many of the "green" people may not even know this? Earth is an interdependent ecosystem and things go wrong when people start to interfere.
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    Diamond Member Justloadit's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Blurock View Post
    I am not a scientist, but I remember from school that plants take carbon dioxide from the air and through a process of photosynthesis, mixing it with water and light, convert it to sugars (carbohydrates) with oxygen as a by product. In other words, plants need carbon dioxide to grow. We need plants to clean the air. That is how this planet was created and programmed. How many of the "green" people may not even know this? Earth is an interdependent ecosystem and things go wrong when people start to interfere.
    Yes, but the amount of carbon dioxide we spew into the air daily far over supplies the current plants that use it to grow.

    Remember that we are taking oil from the byproduct of decayed plants which have taken millions of years to absorb into what we burn in few hours.
    If you study the bio history of the earth, there was no plant life in the beginning, as there was almost no oxygen in the air. Over millions of years the microbes consumed the carbon as fuel, and broke the bonds down the carbon dioxide into a by product - oxygen. As the level of oxygen changed, so then did plant life begin to emerge.

    During the dinosaur periods, the animals grew so large, because oxygen was abundant, much higher percentage than today which helped with the growth rate.

    As natural disasters took place, so then did the air percentages changed. The carbon dioxide has been stored in the oil, but now we are releasing it into the air with every litre burnt.

    But don't worry, mother earth has been here for 4 billion years, and will be here for another 4 billion years. Every now and again, she makes an adjustment to balance nature, so we are simply just speeding the process up. A virus here, a virus there, a volcanic eruption here a continental shift and tsunami there. A tornado here a cyclone there, and it makes a cleansing motion of what ever is unbalancing it.

    So enjoy it while you can, as they say in G.O.T. - "Winter is coming!"
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    The earth will be here no matter what we do - it simply adapts. We are a blip on the radar of the bigger scheme of things.

    The whole climate change going green thing is ONLY about the comfort of the 1st world suburbs - nothing more and nothing less.

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    Diamond Member Justloadit's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by adrianh View Post
    The earth will be here no matter what we do - it simply adapts. We are a blip on the radar of the bigger scheme of things.

    The whole climate change going green thing is ONLY about the comfort of the 1st world suburbs - nothing more and nothing less.
    Yes but as a species, we are enabling our demise.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Justloadit View Post
    Yes but as a species, we are enabling our demise.
    Whether the man in the street drives electric cars or not is not goining to change this fact. Further - it is not the species as a whole - it is 1st world driven obsolescent consumerism that is driving the demise of the 3rd world.

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    Diamond Member Justloadit's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by adrianh View Post
    Whether the man in the street drives electric cars or not is not goining to change this fact. Further - it is not the species as a whole - it is 1st world driven obsolescent consumerism that is driving the demise of the 3rd world.
    Unfortunately consumerism is a human behavior, you do not have to be a 1st world country to be part of the league.
    If there was no consumerism, then 'you' would not have a business.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Justloadit View Post
    Unfortunately consumerism is a human behavior, you do not have to be a 1st world country to be part of the league.
    If there was no consumerism, then 'you' would not have a business.
    Fair enough.

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    Site Caretaker Dave A's Avatar
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    The thing that worries me the most about large scale electric vehicle rollout in South Africa is the spare capacity on the electrical grid to power the resultant increase in demand.
    As in there isn't any... And not nearly enough being done to ramp up supply in the medium term either.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dave A View Post
    The thing that worries me the most about large scale electric vehicle rollout in South Africa is the spare capacity on the electrical grid to power the resultant increase in demand.
    As in there isn't any... And not nearly enough being done to ramp up supply in the medium term either.
    I dont beleive the problem is capacity ... people has realised that eeeishkom has too many sticky fingers ... at the rate backup systems are being installed ... the only fools who will be sitting with load shedding is eeeishkom themselves.

    It seems they have realised it and now trying to get a piece of the pie because they cant get thier shyte together ... so the public are being punished by means of taxes and penalties and levies.

    Everyday I get in my vehicle to go to work ... I notice how this country is falling apart little by little ... be it the little things like the sign post of the side of the road disappearing into the bush ... never mind the potholes ... the roads cracking up due to lack of maintenance ... the ele ctrical cable theft is so out of control the rail system has come to a grinding halt ... power outage even when there is no load shedding is also just getting a little ridiculous ... cusotmers are being told ther ear eno plans to upgrade the existing infrastructure (not part of the new plan) ... the filth ... but more importantly ... the lack of growth ... employment etc ... anyway I need to get to work.
    Comments are based on opinion...not always facts....that's why people use an alias.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dave A View Post
    The thing that worries me the most about large scale electric vehicle rollout in South Africa is the spare capacity on the electrical grid to power the resultant increase in demand.
    As in there isn't any... And not nearly enough being done to ramp up supply in the medium term either.
    Electric cars are a 1st world urban dream driven by the need to shift pollution out of the wealthy cities. (We all know where this pollution will be shifted to)

    I don't think that people even begin to think of the load that electric cars would put on an electricity grid. How many cars are on the road now - change them all to electricity - calculate their charging requirements - add that lot on to ANY grid.

    Imagine each and every household adding 40Amp for 4-8hours every night to charge their cars. The entire thing is bizarre. The entire grid would have to be upgraded to allow people to charge their cars at home - now we need to consider charging stations - the grid would have to be upgraded to enable that to happen.

    There are so many thing about electric cars that are really problematic.
    1. When an electric car is in an accident it is considered to be a serious fire hazard - normal tow trucks can't just tow them and stash them in the lot with other cars. (They don't know whether the Lithium cells might be damaged)
    2. If those batteries catch on fire the fire cannot be extinguished - water makes it worse (have you seen a Tesla on fire - the thing burns to a crisp)
    3. It takes too long to charge the batteries (you don't just pull into a filling station and leave 15 minutes later - you stand in a queue and wait for each car to charge for hours.
    4. ....and and and...

    The issue here isn't Eskom - the issue is that the whole electric car thing is totally idiotic in 90% of the 3rd world let alone the rural 1st world - and of course it doesn't make any sense whatsoever to the military.

    The problem with electric cars is that the industry is driven by a "Fandom" that glorify Elon Musk as the eternal saviour. For some reason the "Fandoms" (like the Apple "Fandom") refuse to look at the issues objectively.

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