Can you imagine how much better our country could be with this President with just a little cooperation from the liberals instead of all the obstruction

"Also Sprach Zarathustra" everytime Obama gets his serious face on - Haha!

I’ll bet the clean energy businesses he mentioned are still in business. Are yours subsidised by the taxpayer, as they are in Australia?

@JacintaL of course. 1 day out of 3 is sunny yet we're to believe solar is a winner even though it isn't even cost effective in Arizona (They have to require 15% renewable). I still get to mock people that put those panels on their house, though.

@RobBlair, gawd!! We have, I think, two states currently aiming for 50% renewables, and the current Labor govt in Queensland (mine) is set to head that way, too. South Australia experiences blackouts in summer and has to buy in power from nearby states, sending power prices through the roof. Apparently Australia’s power is some of the most expensive in the world. The federal govt (supposedly conservative) keeps straddling the fence on coal - it’s torn between the reality of the requirement for coal-fired power stations and closing them down because the environmentalists think Australia can save the world from its cataclysmic end. That, and the fact that some of us think that many politicians on both sides have personal investments in renewables.

@JacintaL Well thank you for funding the research and development into renewable energy sources and batteries that might someday become viable. I'd love to remove government from energy policy. It is best to keep all levers and sharp objects away from our lawyers in DC. Keep them in the cow pens sniffing cattle for flatulence.

@RobBlair Solar collectors ain't cheap. And they don't last long enough to pay for themselves.
You have to be rich to save money on energy.

I think the technology is worth pursuing... but it's not ready yet. Congress doesn't get that (among a host of other things) and they think you can legislate technology into existence.

@JacintaL
Thanks for the info. It's interesting to hear about how this works or doesn't in Australia.

I read that Germany has the highest percentage of renewable power in the world. Not coincidentally they pay literally three times what America does for electricity.
Not long ago... after a Winter where the sun didn't shine and the wind didn't blow they had blackouts.
Then someone proposed a law to limit Germany's renewable power production to 40%.

With that said... I'm actually heavily invested (too heavily invested) in a company that makes hydrogen fuel cells.
The Hydrogen Economy is kinda the holy grail of energy production. China is investing in that heavily... not so much because they want to be "green" but because their air pollution is horrible.

@An_Ominous, @RobBlair, I reckon it’d be far more effective to quit all subsidies to the renewables industry and channel that money into the prize pool of a competition for the first person/group/business that can come up with a viable alternative energy source. As you point out, An-Omnibus, there’s no real investment in technology and dangling a mult-$B carrot at that industry might mean real research is put into it. Hey, this method worked for finding a solution to the navigation industry’s longitude problem a couple of centuries ago.

@JacintaL Yep... government doesn't necessarily invest in what works... dare I say Solyndra?

I think your idea is a good one... instead of investing massive amounts in what currently exists giving some real incentive to invent something better makes a lot of sense.

When Tesla first debuted a sports car... it was made with the existing tech of the time. It ran on something like 512 laptop batteries. They went ahead with the build before the battery technology was ready.

@An_Ominous, I don’t think I’ve heard of these hydrogen fuel cells. Can you tell me in layman’s terms how they work?

I’m really keen for Australia to look at nuclear power, but that’s not even up for discussion here - all of which is truly maddening (and frightening) because our industries are going to suffer hugely if we keep gong down the renewables path.

Just on Germany, I thought I read somewhere that they were buying power from neighbours. These things always look good on the surface, don’t they, but scratch it a bit and the warts start to show. As they say, Truth is still tying up its shoelaces while a lie has lapped the globe.

@JacintaL Man, your last two aphorisms are excellent... but now I'm trying to think of a way to use both in my next post.

Plug Power is the company I'm invested in... so far good product, bad stock.
They started off making fuel cells for forklifts. They're superior to batteries in that they can refuel the forklift in 5 minutes rather than taking overnight to charge a battery. Fuel cells also work very well in low temperature environments... batteries don't. Plug Power has a blanket deal with Wal-mart and a strong contract with Amazon. Just recently Plug Power started making fuel cells for on-road applications. Toyota has had a hydrogen powered car on the market for a few years now.

The science behind it... admittedly I'm a little iffy on that. You don't actually burn the hydrogen the way you would gasoline. I think that would tend to go boom. The fuel cell works more like a chemical battery... except that you can refuel it with hydrogen. It has a cathode and an anode like a battery... oxygen is taken into the fuel cell at the cathode... it combines with the hydrogen to form water... and generates electricity in the process.
As the spokesman for Nikola Motors said... you tear water apart and then put it back together.
The green part of the tech cycle is electrolysers... they use electricity (ideally generated by solar or windpower) to break water down into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen is then a portable energy source. More often companies get the hydrogen from natural gas reformers. This isn't nearly as green as splitting water... but it's cheaper.

Supposedly fuel cell tech is the wave of the future... almost every day I read about some new company implementing the tech.
The problem of course is infrastructure. There are already some hydrogen fueling stations in the US to serve hydrogen cars... but they're few and far between.
I read recently about an Australian company that made a fuel cell... but they were getting the hydrogen from ammonia, NH3 and there seem to be some serious benefits to that approach.

Here's a link to fuel cell basics.

[americanhistory.si.edu]

@An_Ominous, thanks for the info. So let me get this straight - if they’re being used in forklifts, do those forklifts still need some kind of fuel other than the hydrogen cell? If not, how long can the cell power the forklift for before it needs recharging?

@JacintaL The hydrogen is pumped into the cells, into a tank much like a gasoline pump.
Of course it's more complicated... the hydrogen has to be compressed and the pumps have to be "smarter" than a normal gasoline pump.
Part of the Plug Power installation includes a hydrogen pump. Another advantage of this is... companies that use forklifts with batteries have to have a rather large space to charge them... and charging takes at least 8 hours. The Plug Power pump only takes up about 100 sq feet of space.
I think they have refueling the hydrogen tank down to about 3 minutes now. Their run time depends on the size of the tank. Plug Power can retrofit fuel cells onto existing battery forklifts... but it works better if the forklift was originally designed for fuel cells.
Just this week Plug began supplying fuel cells to Charlatte a company that makes Ground Support Equipment for Fed Ex.

One of the main problems with battery powered electric vehicles is range. And it has been recently discovered that battery EVs lose 40 percent of their range at around 20 degrees Fahrenheit. Conventional Batteries take a long time to charge... and if you charge them fast they get hot. They also tend to fade over time.
Elon Musk of Tesla calls them Fool Cells... but Nikola Motors is using them in their electric long haul trucks to extend the range. Fuel Cells are Musk's main competition... and if society decides to adopt them over battery technology, Elon is screwed.

@An_Ominous, don’t know if you’ve seen already but we’re coming up to a General election in May, and the Labor opposition leader is touting a policy of 50% of all cars to be electric by 2030 on Australian roads. The left keeps saying But Norway can do it (!), why can’t Australia? The sadder thing is that current polls show Labor is likely to win.

@JacintaL The first question to ask, and will probably never be answered, why government? Oh well, at the least rabbits have a good home.

@JacintaL
I read a Popular Science article that described a possible side effect of many electric cars on the road. They made the (likely) assumption that California would adopt the most EVs (electric vehicles.) California's power grid is already strained. This was years ago, but California already had a policy that would give people credit on their utility bill if they allowed the EV to not merely be charged by the grid but in times of need to charge the grid. Californian rates your usage by peak hours... electricity costs less in the middle of the night when fewer people are using it. So two scenarios were possible you might have a power blackout because charging all the EVs put further strain on the grid. Or you might wake up to find your EV had been drained back into the grid... thus if you needed to get to work you would need to have a backup car... a gas guzzler.

Politicians are not scientists... or apparently even well read in science. AOC is demanding EVs be adopted. I doubt if she knows any of the problems with photo-voltaic solar cells... and I bet she doesn't even know fuel cells exist.
So we have people like that making "policy."
Then again both Obama and Trump have touted Clean Coal Plants. Last time I looked there wasn't such a thing.

@An_Ominous, it’s unbelievable, isn’t it? You’re just left shaking your head at the sheer, unbridled ignorance of people who so readily put themselves in the public eye.

I used to be a little lefty (I didn’t realise I was anything at the time; I just followed the herd and assumed the ABC was trustworthy so bought all news at face value). Back then I would’ve assumed that the govt knew best on most things - after all, they have advisors and consult experts, don’t they? God, I still can’t believe how naive and trusting I was.

All that you mention above re EVs is true of Oz.

Was being sarcastic, Gerri4321. Love Trump.

@JacintaL good to hear

Sarcasm alert.

@JacintaL sorry, forgot the [sarcasm] sign

Was "in the moment" as they say

@Phrankhs, all good. if you don’t know the person making the statement you’re not going to pick up on the sarcasm.

Was being sarcastic.

@JacintaL Good!!!