Hitting 39 mpg in the summer in our 5000# Highlander Hybrid is pretty darn awesome. If the 250 is like the other Toyota hybrids, it may beat the EPA numbers.
The reduction in other infrastructure needs and corresponding big MPG gaims is why hybrids are so awesome. If I end up needing a...
I am aware of that project and your previous posts on the proximity to it. I'd be upset too if that popped up in my pristine backyard, regardless of how much I'd personally financially benefit from it. It's all in the trade offs and ultimate the disturbance of lots of new areas we are going to...
It's not just lithium (although most lithium is mined from brine deposits, which green groups are noting to cause lots of issues in Chile). It's cobalt, copper, nickel, rare earths. It's huge solar fields of wind farms to power the vehicles, then tens of thousands of miles of new transmission...
We can have some terrible air quality here in the Ozarks....when the USFS or Missouri Department of Conservation decides to do a 2,000 acre controlled burn :rolleyes:. Certainly makes the woods look nice and open, but it's terrible for air quality, especially for my wife and son who have allergy...
The difference is that everyone of those well pads had a land disturbance permit/stormwater pollution prevention plan (required for disturbances >1 acre), had a threatened and endangered species survey done, has brine/fracing fluids discharged into modern tanks or lined ponds, has a spill...
LA is #63 in worst air quality in the world and the first USA city. Most every other city above that is in a developing nation without much in the way or environmental laws or controls; many are that way as they are in the business of making cheap things for us. Everyone buying EVs can just make...
Both of those photos are all real, and both of them would have looked just like the USA did in many areas up until our initial environmental movement in the 1970s. China and India have not yet had similar movements; eventually their people will hopefully be able to say "no" and have clean water...
It kind of came to me while sitting in on a decarbonization webinar the other day for work - it reminded me of going to a evangelical church! A bit of Googling found that quite a few of others have written articles about the -isms having many similarities with religious movements. As a religious...
It's interesting that modern environmentalism (the wrong kind of environmentalism) kind of coincides with the decline of traditional religion. Most people have a deep need to be connected to some kind of meaning and higher purpose; in the absence of religion that is replaced with various -isms...
As a student of geology, it started out as a bleak, lifeless rock and went almost back to that multiple times due to various extension events (K-T extension event, snowball earth, and the asteroid that wiped out the last mega-fauna the roamed the earth). Climate change is real - now and...
It certainly is changing, just like it has done countless times for the past 4.5 billion years. Some say human civilization developed in an unusually stable climate period on Earth.
I certainly do hear it, but usually in the context of electrifying to become "carbon neutral". While that is possible, the carbon footprint is just replaced with some other type of footprint (literal footprint of solar, hydro, agricultural land turned to biomass production). So I'm not really...
Just FYI, we bought our hybrid because if the awesome MPG and Toyota reliability. For the purpose of reducing our long-term fuel costs and vehicle repair/maintenance costs. Whatever environmental benefit it has is icing on the cake. Toyota hybrid crossovers and cars are pretty awesome, and I am...
I was reviewing the preamble of one of those rules (that directly affects my industry - although not one of the climate rules) earlier this week. EPA calculated a annualized compliance cost of around $250M, and annualized benefits of around $50M. So, their own math showed we will basically be...
I work in both the mining and electric utility sectors on a daily basis, nationally and globally, and have worked in O&G in the past. It's very clear who the winners and losers are to me, both locally in the USA and more globally, both in people, both in corporations. Our current political...
The problem is our first world lifestyle and high standard of living in the West, which are resource-intensive. Switching one problem for the other because it is "green" does not change that underlying problem
(which few even acknowledge,) it just changes who the winners and losers are.
Yet, somehow buying a Tesla, powered by either coal or natural gas (or a flooded river valley, or agricultural/rural land converted to solar), with energy stored in Li Ion battery generated from lithium brine in one of the driest regions of the earth, and cobalt sourced from a country with known...
I think the power ratings are based on a SAE standard. It's probalby not possible for a manufacuter to "cook" the numbers like they used to the 1960s muscle car wars.
However it seems totally plausible that the Tundra has high drivetrain losses (given the large TC and 10.5" diff) or has a...
It's also totally conceivable that they ECU is programmed to reduce or more slowly apply engine torque in 4-LO situations that usually break the diffs. That would be super easy to do for the electric assist and turbo boost. GM used to do that on their HD trucks in the aughts - "torque...
FWIW, the 8.2 in the 250 looks significantly beefed-up in the housing department compared to the 150-platform 8.2. The tubes are drastically reinforced, which will likely provide additional stiffness and prevent housing flex which can blow up the R&P. Past the 3rd member, the tubes taper all of...