Category Archives: Automobiles

Self-driving cars in San Francisco cause accidents, congestion, and more

Posted on May 17, 2024 by

Cruise robotaxi crashes into firetruck in San Francisco Two companies operate self driving taxis in San Francisco: Waymo and Cruise.  Over 92 problems were reported in 2023, which led to Cruise being suspended, in part due to footage of a … Continue reading →

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Peak lithium makes transportation & electricity storage pointless

Posted on July 29, 2022 by

Preface.  The lithium batteries in cars need electricity to recharge, but the electric grid can’t stay up with just wind and solar, that’s why natural gas is the energy storage today. Nor do pumped hydro or compressed air energy storage … Continue reading →

Posted in Automobiles, Battery - Utility Scale, Electrification, Peak Lithium, Recycle, Recycling | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Implications of Refinery closures for Homeland Security & critical infrastructure safety

Posted on March 24, 2022 by

Preface. The talk of electric vehicles saving the world from greenhouse gases is nonsense, a red herring to distract everyone from what’s really at stake, and from the material requirements to build them with rare earth and other scarce minerals, … Continue reading →

Posted in Automobiles, Infrastructure & Fast Crash, Oil & Gas, Peak Oil, U.S. Congress Infrastructure | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Lifespan of infrastructure, transportation, and buildings

Posted on February 27, 2021 by

Preface. What follows is from the International Energy Agency 2020 report “Energy technology perspectives” on how to transition to net zero emissions by 2050. This might require the replacement of just about everything, since power plants, steel blast furnaces, cement … Continue reading →

Posted in Airplanes, Automobiles, Concrete, Dams, Electricity Infrastructure, Energy Infrastructure, Limits To Growth, Manufacturing & Industrial Heat, Oil & Gas, Transportation Infrastructure, Trucks | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Autos need finite rare earth, critical, & precious metals

Posted on February 3, 2021 by

An electric car uses five times as many minerals as a conventional car (IEA 2020): IEA, Minerals used in selected power generation technologies, IEA, Paris https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/minerals-used-in-selected-power-generation-technologies There are 17 rare earth elements (REE) that China controls up to 97% of … Continue reading →

Posted in Automobiles, Peak Rare Earth Elements | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

EV cars and utility scale energy storage batteries are not likely to materialize

Posted on September 21, 2020 by

Preface.  Clearly there’s not enough minerals and metals to shift from fossil fuels to electric vehicles and utility scale battery storage, due to peak critical elements, peak platinum group elements, peak precious elements, peak rare earth elements, and peak everything … Continue reading →

Posted in Automobiles, Batteries, Battery - Utility Scale, Peak Lithium | Tagged , , , | 13 Comments

A billion new autos by 2030 will kill climate change

Posted on July 27, 2020 by

Preface. The article below argues that electric cars aren’t going to replace gas and diesel vehicles enough to lessen greenhouse emissions. The average electric vehicle requires 30 kilowatt-hours to travel 100 miles — the same amount of electricity an average … Continue reading →

Posted in Automobiles, Climate Change | 13 Comments

Nuclear powered airplanes, cars, and tanks

Posted on July 3, 2020 by

Preface. If trucks, tractors, ships, locomotives, and airplanes can’t run on electricity or the electric grid stay up without natural gas to balance wind & solar (see When Trucks Stop Running), if cement and steel and other products requiring the … Continue reading →

Posted in Airplanes, Automobiles, Far Out, Nuclear Power Energy | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Life before Cars: When Pedestrians Ruled the Streets

Posted on May 31, 2020 by

Preface.  The past is future after fossil fuels, but minus the horses for a while, since before cars they required about a sixth of U.S. farmland for their feed.  My grandfather, Francis J. Pettijohn, used to fondly reminisce about how … Continue reading →

Posted in Automobiles, Transportation What To Do | Tagged | 1 Comment

MIT: Why the electric-car revolution may take a lot longer than expected

Posted on February 22, 2020 by

Preface. This study from MIT explains why price parity of electric and gasoline vehicles is likely to take a lot longer than 5 years, and perhaps never if cars continue to depend on lithium-ion batteries. Deeper cost declines beyond 2030 … Continue reading →

Posted in Automobiles, Lithium-ion | Tagged | 5 Comments