I wonder if there’s an easy way to test them, other than actually driving out and trying it somewhere.

that 20000-30000 premium over ICEs

What currency are you using for this comparison? Definitely not USD.

A Tesla Model 3 runs for about $40k. A Camry runs for about $35k. Or if we want to go down market a Nissan Leaf is about $30k and probably comparable to a $25k Sentra.

Similar trim levels of vehicles offered as both EV and gasoline powered show minimal difference. Compare the Ford F-150 Lariat in both the gasoline ($75k) and the EV versions ($79k). Or the new Lexus ES, where the EV ($49k) is actually cheaper than the hybrid ($51k).

And if you go into the used market, EVs are starting to hit that market in real numbers, too. Plenty of options for under $20,000, and a handful of options for under $10,000.

Cars are expensive. EVs generally are close to that already expensive price.

A lot of the grid power still based on fossil fuels or coal

Even if you of a long tailpipe emissions analysis of pure coal power, the total emissions are still lower than a comparable gasoline powered engine.

Coal emits about 2.31 lbs (1.05 kg) of carbon dioxide per kwh.

Gasoline emits about 20 lbs (8.9 kg) of carbon dioxide per gallon burned.

So a car that gets 3.5 miles per kWh and is purely charged on coal emits about 0.3 kg of carbon per mile. A car that runs on gasoline and gets 30 miles per gallon is about the same.

In comparison, natural gas is about 0.96lbs of CO2 per kWh, so that EV charged on natural gas would emit roughly the same as a 74 mile per gallon vehicle.

Note that currently, in the US, coal is about 16% of electricity production, and natural gas is 41%. If you compare the emissions to the overall mix, you’ll get even lower numbers for the EV emissions.

Which adapter do you have?

Exactly. Engine displacement is just one number, and there have been major paradigm shifts in designs to squeeze way better performance and efficiency out of those engines across a wide range of RPMs: switching from carburetors to fuel injection, developing variable valve timing, better transmissions/traction control systems for actually get that torque and power on the ground.

Plus, like, the rise of EVs, or even performance hybrids, has shown that you can have ultra high performance without any displacement at all.

Looking back at the muscle cars of the 1970’s, where the idea came from, it’s crazy how huge those engines were, compared to 0-60 and quarter mile times that just weren’t that impressive by the 90’s, much less today. The 1970 Chevelle SS 454 had a 7.4L engine at 450 hp, but only got a 5.4s 0-62 and a 13.8s quarter mile. In 1995, the Toyota Supra put up similar performance with a 3.0L, 280 HP engine (although back then the Japanese manufacturers had some kind of gentleman’s agreement not to exceed 280hp in a way that tended to understate their overall performance). Today, Tesla literally manufactures a family friendly 3-row SUV that blows those numbers away. Scrolling through a list of cars that have sub-10 second quarter mile times off the factory floor, most of them have at least hybrid drivetrains where electric motors boost the overall torque and power.

Relying on displacement these days is just giving up.

I take your point, but I also think that all the other stuff can improve, too. Fertilizer use peaked in the US in 2013, and better land use practices are trying to use less water and less fertilizer and allow less erosion.

None of this is by any means guaranteed to get better, but it’s also not inevitable that it will get worse. The work needs to be done.

Your thesis doesn’t match up with this chart:

https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector

We’re working to decarbonize the highest categories on that list, with rapid adoption of solar/wind, some potential for more nuclear and geothermal in the medium term, and maybe even fusion in the long term.

Then, while decarbonizing electricity, we’re electrifying heating for homes, water, cooking, and we’re electrifying transportation.

US carbon emissions per capita peaked in the 70’s, and peaked as a whole in the 2000’s. US carbon emissions per capita still greatly exceed those of other rich nations.

It’s very much possible to have modern first world living standards, even with significant reductions in our resource use and net emissions. We just need to line up the incentives (aka pricing) with what is good for the Earth. And we’re already doing that in many of the heaviest polluting sectors.

We are producing enough food (and clothes, and appliances, etc., etc.) for 10 billion people, and the planet is burning. It is not sustainable long term.

That’s not necessarily true. How much of our overall greenhouse emissions come from which sector?

From this chart, decarbonizing electricity and transport will go a long, long way, and decarbonizing manufacturing and construction could also give some room to reduce overall emissions by more than the entire agricultural sector produces.

And it’s not just some kind of pipe dream. We’re doing real work at decarbonizing electricity, heat, transport, shipping, construction, etc., as the prices of low or zero emissions options start to outcompete the higher emission options for many applications.

Plus if the data center boom crashes as a bubble, a lot of the infrastructure investment into increasing energy production and distribution with both high carbon and low carbon sources will at least have financed a lot of low carbon energy and the potential for curtailing the least carbon efficient generation methods.

I think you have to look at the actual orders of magnitude difference in raising the temperature of water versus air. The Arizona story you linked is about a study that found up to +4°F (+2.2°C) temperatures in air.

The same amount of heat, spread across the same volume of water moving at the same speeds, would only raise that water by 1/830 as much, for a +0.0048°F (+0.0027°C) 1/3300 as much, for a +0.0012°F/+0.00067°C temperature change across the same area/volume.

(I got to 830 by taking the specific heat of dry air of approx 1 J/g K at room temperature and regular atmospheric pressure and 1.22 kg/m^3, versus water’s 4.184 J/g K and 1000 kg/m^3).

(Edit: I fucked my math. Water has approximately 3300 times the heat capacity as air, per unit volume, and I just looked it up directly).

The higher conductivity of water might be offset by the higher convection potential of air (because air responds to temperature changes with differences in density/pressure, which creates wind in itself), so that the heat will spread through either medium relatively quickly and therefore dissipate very quickly with distance to the source.

I just don’t see a world where a data center raises the water by even 1°C, even locally.

The plants on the lakes so monitor the water temp so they don’t affect the ecosystem during the warmer seasons still.

Yeah, but look at the magnitudes of the heat units involved. Modern nuclear plants generate 0.6-4.5 GW at around 30% thermal efficiency (so they generate between 2-15GW of heat). These underwater data centers are looking at 25 MW (0.025 GW) while surrounded by water in 5 of the 6 3-dimensional directions.

There is some risk to local ecosystems, but we’re literally talking 2 or more orders of magnitude difference compared to nuclear plants or other thermal plants.

But that’s true no matter where you put the data center. If you have to dump the waste heat somewhere, the high density and specific heat of water is a better heatsink than the air around us.

This page says the ocean is about 352,670,000,000,000,000,000 gallons, which is about 1.3 x 10^21 liters, and each liter is a kg of water (yeah, yeah, the dissolved salt adds some mass but I don’t think it adds sufficient thermal mass to make a difference). It takes 4.184 kilojoules to raise 1kg of liquid water 1°C, and 1 joule is 2.778 x 10^-4 wh.

So that’s 1.55 x 10^18 watt hours, or 1,550,000 TWh.

Global electricity consumption is about 30,000 TWh per year, so if you use the entire world’s electricity consumption for 51 years you’d raise the oceans’ temperature by 1°C.

Or if you take global data center power capacity of about 125 GW, and ran them at full power 24/7, you’d be producing about 10.8 TWh per day or 3944 TWh per year. It’d take about 393 years of the world’s data centers to raise the ocean by 1°C.

Just goes to show that much more of the energy heating up our world and our oceans is coming from the sun heating up the planet and the planet failing to radiate it out past our greenhouse blanket, not from the actual heating of our atmosphere from our own energy sources.

This is actually one of the principles that is causing building codes to start accommodating load bearing timber in tall buildings. Even though wood is combustible, wood beams that are thick enough can withstand fire for long periods of time. They’re still working out what the different tests and standards should be, but some jurisdictions have approved timber skyscrapers.

For the hallway picture, each blue line corresponds with what should be a parallel line, along edges of square tiles or the corner of the floor and the two walls.

For the dinosaur doll, each white dot connects a feature on the dinosaur to that feature’s reflection.

For the shadows, each white dot connects a corner of the object to the corner of the shadow.

I think each of these lines is meticulously chosen.

Let’s also assume the heat capacity of the hot dog is about 3000 J/kg*K

So the specific heat of water at those temperatures is 4184 J/kg K, and those food court hot dogs are probably about the same as Kirkland dinner franks, which have about 73g of water, 31 g of fat (specific heat of about 2300 J/ kg K), 16g of protein (1500 J/kg K), and 3g of sugars/carbs (1200 J/kg K), and let’s say negligible ash, so we’re left with a weighted average of about 3280 J/kg K.

That’s within 10% of your assumed value, so I think I just wasted my time trying to check your assumption, which was pretty close to my number that took a lot more work.

But fundamentally there is less energy storage in a charged sodium atom than a charged lithium atom so it seems sodium batteries must always be bigger and heavier than equivalent-capacity lithium batteries.

Well the battery chemistry will always include much more than just the loose charge carrier of Na+ or Li+ or whatever cation floating around. It’s always a suitable cathode material made from other elements, too. Lithium ion batteries in cars today have cathodes mostly of high performance lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxides (NMC) or cheaper/more stable lithium iron phosphate (LFP).

The dominant sodium ion chemistry hitting mass production now uses Prussian Blue Analogues for the cathode (made from a 3d matrix out of sodium, plus a metal like iron/manganese/nickel, plus cyanide made from carbon and nitrogen).

Plus even separately from the raw chemistry of the battery, built in mechanisms for durability or longevity or charge cycles or thermal management or safety or other material properties may change the overall weight of the battery for any particular performance characteristics.

In the end, the performance of the entire battery is what matters, and lithium’s head start in less weight per cation may one day be overcome if the overall materials involved can be lighter in some as-yet commercialized sodium ion chemistry.

Land mammals seem to converge into anteaters

Hold on, let’s give it some time to see if sea mammals will, too.

California is famous for having different emission regulations. They have an exemption from the national law that they’re allowed to make stricter emissions and gas mileage regulations. None of those should prove to be a burden for anyone who wants to sell a battery EV in California, because there’s no standard that applies only in California to EVs.

Kia pulled its EV6 GT, which basically did not sell well in the US. They only manufactured that particular top tier trim level in Korea, but the other EV6 trim levels continue to be manufactured and sold in the U.S. (Wind, GT-Line). Kinda stupid that they named their top of the line the GT and the one just below that the GT-Line, but brands can be stupid with naming schemes sometime.

now both Hyundai and Kia have stopped selling EV models last year solely in the US

They’re basically one company and they stopped importing EVs. They still build and sell plenty of new EVs in the U.S., made in their plants in the state of Georgia. They’re also currently expanding capacity at their plants, in the hopes of catching more of the growing electric SUV market.

So they no longer sell the top of the line trim level of the Kia EV6, or the Hyundai Ioniq 6, but they’re still building and selling very similar models on the same platform. The Kia EV6 still exists in the lower trim levels, and the Ioniq 6N and the Ioniq 5 and 5N, and their smaller EVs (Kia Niro, Hyundai Kona) are still available, too. Both brands launched their 3-row electric SUVs in the US, too (Hyundai Ioniq 9, Kia EV9).

A lot of companies are slowing down their EV rollouts, but I wouldn’t say that Hyundai/Kia is the best example of that.