Tesla burning Cash

[Arty]

True. But lets be fair. Microsoft can afford the "potential" loss in sales. They'll make up for it with better market adoption, and with OEM/Enterprise sales.

*Cough* Government contracts *cough* 

[bomerr]

snip

here source for the 30% efficiency. https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/atv.shtml

 

You seem to be getting a lot of stuff mixed up and you are focusing on the wrong info. Yes oil has more energy density than coal but do you think they are burning oil to refine oil in the refineries?  No they are getting energy off the grid, most likely from coal.  Also the 6 MPG 18 wheeler is competing against practically zero cost to transport electricity across a wire. In short you are missing key points like the energy used to refine oil, the cost to extract the oil in the first place--especially now with fracking which uses ground water, a resource more valuable than oil in the first place--, inefficiency of ICE, and so on. In short I think you need to do some more search man.

 

P.S. using chevron as your source is probably a bad idea. 

 

To reiterate. To burn oil and produce electricity for it would require generators built for that task. It's cheaper to not build the generator as that is a cost. Furthermore coal is cheaper than oil therefore it's cheaper to just buy energy off the grid; instead of burning your more expensive product. 

[dalekphalm]

here source for the 30% efficiency. https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/atv.shtml

 

You seem to be getting a lot of stuff mixed up and you are focusing on the wrong info. Yes oil has more energy density than coal but do you think they are burning oil to refine oil in the refineries?  No they are getting energy off the grid, most likely from coal.  Also the 6 MPG 18 wheeler is competing against practically zero cost to transport electricity across a wire. In short you are missing key points like the energy used to refine oil, the cost to extract the oil in the first place--especially now with fracking which uses ground water, a resource more valuable than oil in the first place--, inefficiency of ICE, and so on. In short I think you need to do some more search man.

 

P.S. using chevron as your source is probably a bad idea. 

 

To reiterate. To burn oil and produce electricity for it would require generators built for that task. It's cheaper to not build the generator as that is a cost. Furthermore coal is cheaper than oil therefore it's cheaper to just buy energy off the grid; instead of burning your more expensive product. 

Your points don't disprove any of mine.

 

How do you think the Coal is transported to the power plants? Yes, that's right, diesel trains mostly. How is the 18 wheeler competing against electricity across a wire? If you're going to compare that, then I could just counter argue that the very electricity could be generated by an Oil power plant.

 

You say how is the Oil refined? From power off the grid? Probably from Coal? Where do you get that idea? Source?

 

I counter argue, how is Coal refined, or even mined to begin with? Yes that's right. From power off the grid (Or via ICE Oil derived and powered vehicles, probably diesel).

 

Your argument seems to boil down to: Oil needs power to be refined, and it needs to be transported. And therefore that power must come from coal?

 

Guess what: Coal needs power to be mined (A LOT OF POWER), it needs power to be refined, and it needs power to be transported.

 

You can mine, refine, and transport Oil completely 100% without resorting to power generated by Coal. Can you do the same with coal? I doubt it. It might be hypothetically possible, if you replaced all ICE powered vehicles with Natural Gas or Electric ones - but that's not remotely practical or real.

 

Maybe where you live they are still heavily reliant on Coal - but hey, that's your government's failing, not mine. Let me show you some figures:

2005 (Source Wikipedia):

2015

http://www.ontarioenergyboard.ca/OEB/Consumers/OEB+and+You/Ontario+Energy+Sector

As you can see, Ontario went from 19% Coal to 2.7% coal in 10 years. That number will continue to drop, as coal is all but phased out.

 

So far you've come up with a single source, that does verify your 30% figure, but you've provided no other sources to back up any of your claims, whereas I've provided sources backing up all of mine.

 

Hell, I'm not even arguing about ICE powered vehicles - although they're still generally the best way to transport things. You could replace all ICE vehicles with Electric, and that would be fine. An Oil refinery would still be better than Coal though. Oil can even be transported via Pipelines, just like Natural Gas - you can literally pump it straight into the Oil Power Plant or the Refinery - saving huge amounts of transportation costs. Coal cannot. Coal is transported via ICE powered vehicles,trains, or ships.

 

Coal is easy to work with, yes. And that's great for a developing nation who doesn't have the investment capital or the technology to create/invest into better fuel sources. But for a developed nation, coal is quite simply, no longer worth it, unless you happen to live right beside a coal mine - Spoiler alert, most don't.

[bomerr]

snip

nuclear is kind of  moot point. As soon as you have ur first nation accident all public support for nuclear will dry up and that's that, hence why no more nuclear plants are built in the USA. 

[dalekphalm]

nuclear is kind of  moot point. As soon as you have ur first nation accident all public support for nuclear will dry up and that's that, hence why no more nuclear plants are built in the USA. 

Sure - so don't have one.

 

3-Mile Island, Fukushima, and Chernobyl ALL could have been prevented.

 

Obviously that's easier said then done, but Canada has done very well with Nuclear Power, and retaining public support of it. ANY inherently dangerous technology requires public support - and yes, that includes Oil and Coal too - and guess why coal is disappearing? Partly because of Public outcry. Coal power is estimated to have a $1 Billion CAD cost to health care. That's a huge cost that could easily be prevented by using, say, Natural Gas, or Oil (Which yes, does Pollute too, just not as bad - Coal is super dirty to burn).

 

The USA frankly needs to regain public support for Nuclear power generation. They need to be investing in the next generation Fission reactors, such as Thorium Reactors, and other designs. Hell, they've come up with 4th Gen nuclear power plants that can use Nuclear Waste from older generation power stations as fuel. Obviously not as efficient as using pure Uranium fuel, but it also makes said nuclear waste significantly less radioactive in the process.

http://phys.org/news/2014-08-next-generation-nuclear-reactors-radioactive-materials.html

 

Until Fusion becomes practical, we have to rely on either Fossil Fuel or Nuclear Fission to generate the world's energy requirements. Wind, Solar, and Hydro each have their own benefits, but are either too inefficient, or too limited in where you can deploy them (or both). Fossil Fuel or Nuclear are the only things that generate electricity on the scale needed, reliably, pretty much anywhere.

 

Ontario is very lucky in that we have unique access to the Niagara Falls hydro-electric dam. So we can heavily use Hydro-Electric power that is nearly completely green, with minimal efficiency loss or environmental impact. Some places, such as Quebec, are also uniquely situation to take heavy advantage of Hydro-Electric, but the vast majority of countries/states are not so lucky.

 

Buying and running a Tesla in Ontario is very nearly green, from the Electricity generation side of things. The only major impact is the production of the battery and the actual manufacturing of the car (The latter of which is unavoidable, since every car must be manufactured). Tesla is heavily investing in developing Battery Recycling technology, and reducing the environmental impact of Battery Production though.

[bomerr]

Ontario is very lucky in that we have unique access to the Niagara Falls hydro-electric dam. So we can heavily use Hydro-Electric power that is nearly completely green, with minimal efficiency loss or environmental impact. Some places, such as Quebec, are also uniquely situation to take heavy advantage of Hydro-Electric, but the vast majority of countries/states are not so lucky.

 

Where do you get your info from?

 

Niagara Falls is shared between Ontario and New York; likewise the energy grid is shared between Canada and America. 

[dalekphalm]

Where do you get your info from?

 

Niagara Falls is shared between Ontario and New York; likewise the energy grid is shared between Canada and America. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niagara_Falls

 

Niagara has three separate falls:

Horseshoe - which is 90% in Canada, 10% in the US

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_Falls

 

American Falls

Bridal Veil Falls

Both of these are entirely in the US.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niagara_Falls#Power

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Adam_Beck_Hydroelectric_Generating_Stations

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niagara_Tunnel_Project

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Moses_Niagara_Power_Plant

 

You're correct, of course. The American New York side of the falls does generate significant amount of electricity... I'm really not sure what that has to do with anything though.

 

Collectively, the entire falls generates roughly 4.4 Gigawatts of power. Roughly speaking, about half of that is generated by each side. Please note that the power generation is not shared or collectively own. There are two separate Power Plants operating - Sir Adam Beck stations I and II on the Canadian Side, and Robert Moses Station on the US side.

 

Canada recently completed the Niagara Tunnel Project, which added an additional 150 Megawatts to the Canadian Power Stations, which is enough to power approximately 160,000 homes.

 

Again, not entirely sure why this is of interest to you, since this does not contradict, limit, or otherwise change any of my points at all, but hey. There you go

 

EDIT: Ah, I think you're quoting that specifically because of the word "unique access". That was not to indicate that ONLY ONTARIO has access to Hydro-Electric power, simply that we use it for a more significant amount of our total power generation.

 

Also of note: New York State has a population of around 20 Million people - Ontario only 13.6 Million - which contains almost half the population of Canada.

 

As I stated, Hydro-Electric is pretty damn region specific. Which is why you can't deploy it anywhere. The American Hoover Dam is another noteworthy Hydro plant - with a 2 Gigawatt power generation capacity - very significant.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_Dam

[bomerr]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niagara_Falls

 

Niagara has three separate falls:

Horseshoe - which is 90% in Canada, 10% in the US

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_Falls

 

American Falls

Bridal Veil Falls

Both of these are entirely in the US.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niagara_Falls#Power

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Adam_Beck_Hydroelectric_Generating_Stations

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niagara_Tunnel_Project

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Moses_Niagara_Power_Plant

 

You're correct, of course. The American New York side of the falls does generate significant amount of electricity... I'm really not sure what that has to do with anything though.

 

Collectively, the entire falls generates roughly 4.4 Gigawatts of power. Roughly speaking, about half of that is generated by each side. Please note that the power generation is not shared or collectively own. There are two separate Power Plants operating - Sir Adam Beck stations I and II on the Canadian Side, and Robert Moses Station on the US side.

 

Canada recently completed the Niagara Tunnel Project, which added an additional 150 Megawatts to the Canadian Power Stations, which is enough to power approximately 160,000 homes.

 

Again, not entirely sure why this is of interest to you, since this does not contradict, limit, or otherwise change any of my points at all, but hey. There you go

2003 blackout my friend. the power grid is shared unless that recently changed. 

[dalekphalm]

2003 blackout my friend. the power grid is shared unless that recently changed. 

The power grid is shared by most bordering nations. What's your point? It allows for more seamless power generation and higher efficiency.

[bomerr]

The power grid is shared by most bordering nations. What's your point? It allows for more seamless power generation and higher efficiency.

so it's not "unique access to the Niagara Falls hydro-electric dam." as you said. 

[dalekphalm]

so it's not "unique access to the Niagara Falls hydro-electric dam." as you said. 

See my edit. The point of that statement is not that "Ontario" has a monopoly on Hydro-Electric power generation, but rather to point out that Hydro-Electric power is very region specific, and cannot be deployed everywhere. Furthermore, it was to point out that Ontario generates a significant amount of it's power needs from Hydro-Electric (22% to be exact, as of January 2015 - source, my previous post on the 4th page).

 

You're nitpicking my wording, for reasons? I don't know. You're not making a counter point. You're correct, the wording "unique" was probably the incorrect word to use. Does that change my point in the slightest? Not at all.

 

Also, just for fun, the 2003 blackout was caused by a power station in Eastlake, Ohio, dropping offline (Due to a software bug in their UNIX-based Management software, of all things) - once that station went offline, it caused a massive chain reaction that overloaded power stations all across the North-east. I assume they've put in place measures to prevent such a chain reaction from happening again, but who knows? Lets hope we never have to test that theory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003#Findings

[RagnarokDel]

they still potionally lost 15M*100$

that's for a year, it's very little paid for Microsoft compared to the cost of advertising people to get them on the same platform. Microsoft is a company that generated 93.58 billion in revenue in 2015.