[OT] Engine braking

[monarch_dodra]

On Thursday, 1 August 2013 at 21:40:57 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 8/1/2013 2:30 PM, H. S. Teoh wrote:
>> The disadvantage of gasoline is that in a sense we're 
>> "cheating",
>> because the energy stored in it was built up over millions of 
>> years by
>> ancient organisms that have long decayed, and we're only now 
>> discharging
>> all that build-up. We didn't pay anything to put that energy 
>> there,
>> that's why it's so economical.
>
> Yet the electric power to charge the batteries comes from 
> burning coal and natural gas :-)
>
> Yeah, I know, solar, wind, etc. But that's still way off in 
> providing base power.
>
> Like I said, it ain't easy being green. It's hard to do a "dust 
> to dust" analysis, and most of the time people simply choose to 
> ignore costs that are hard to calculate.

That's in the US. Most of Europe is on nuclear power.

If we set aside controversies on the dangers of plant meltdown 
(BTW, Fukushima was hit by a mag 9 *and* a tidal wave, just 
saying), it *is* about over 9000 times greener.

IMO, nuclear power is like airplanes: Spectacular when an 
accidents happen, but at the end of the day (IMO) safer: Coal 
miners die by the 100's when a cave in happens, and thousands of 
people die in china due to coal pollution.