Well, that is the amount gold that is mined or recycled every year that is used in electronics. The thing is though, a lot of the gold used in electronics is never recovered. So a considerable amount of the gold used in electronics is removed from from circulation in a way the gold in jewelry or bullion or coins isn’t. It isn’t the primary driver of gold’s price increase, but it is a significant factor.
Gold prices have risen steadily for a long time, partly because of its use in electronics. Over $2500/ounce now. But another quirk of gold is the ease with which we can make very thin coatings of it over other materials, sometimes only a few atoms thick. So it is commonly used, but in very very small amounts per device.
At some point it almost stops seeming like greed and more like the willful extinction of the human race. But I’m probably just underestimating the greed.
Sure he’s got climate wins, but some of the wins are questionable, like giant hydrogen hubs. Hydrogen sounds great on the surface, but the more you dig into it, the more issues crop up. Some of these hubs will end up producing hydrogen by burning fossil fuels, and that isn’t a win at all. And speaking of not winning, we are producing more oil and natural gas than ever before. That’s why we aren’t excited about his “Climate Wins”, they are offset if not overcome by losses.
Having said that, regarding the Climate, pollution, and everything related, Trump is the worst choice. He’s already promised Carte Blanche to oil execs if they donate to his campaign. (Not in those words of course, simpler, more incoherent ones.)
Probably worse for Barbra than the picture is this phenomenon being named after her. I was familiar with the the Streisand Effect and who the name came from, but didn’t know the backstory and hadn’t seen her house.
For anyone curious.
Maybe that was literally the case, he apparently had mercury poisoning at around the same time.
It’s starting to sound like a retelling of the old lady who swallowed the fly.
Someone needs to invite /u/Poem_for_your_sprog to Lemmy.
Growing crops to make ethanol is not particulatly green. In fact, in most existing production loops we would be better off environmentally to just burn pure gasoline than produce the ethanol to mix into it, unfortunately. Too much water, too many tractors and trucks, and way too much electricity into ethanol production to be worth what we get out of it. And the bit of carbon the crops sequester doesn’t overcome it. Electric vehicles are by far the greenest option right now.
It won’t have started getting closer again before the Milky Way collides with the Adromeda galaxy in 5 Billion years, so it and anything we send on a similar path isn’t coming back.
I looked up prices in Massachusetts, they are higher than the national average. Looks like 2 main factors:
1 A higher than usual percentage of mini splits vs central air. These will be more efficient and have a lot of comfort benefits, but are considerably pricier then retrofitting a central air system. So if you are retro fitting CA, you could come in under average.
2 MAs impressive $10k+ incentive system for whole home heat pump systems has resulted in HVAC companies raising prices, because of course it has. This is why we can’t have nice things.
In addition to Thejevans points, your cost estimate is very high. That cost would be in line for a geothermal heat pump, which is far more efficient. Air to air heat pumps can be installed for more like $3-10k in most residential homes. And on the higher end that is a big house that is probably saving more than $550 a year.
I am not any kind of expert either, but I have been following this company for a couple of years. If it makes it to market and is at all price competitive i can’t see it not being a big deal. Granted, that is an if, not when, but they seem to be further along than most battery tech you read about.
No rare earth metals or even nickel or copper, has a very flat degradation curve even at charge rates up to 30C (testing stopped at 3k cycles in the coin cell tests), non flammable and non toxic. The only thing you would wish for is better capacity, but it is already better than any mass produced Li ion cell, and it has a theoretical maximum a couple times that of Li ions.
You’re right, battery news IS always breathlessly excited about the next crazy advancement, but they have a lot of things in their favor on this one. They broke ground on a manufacturing plant last year, which is not the case for most battery news stories. And the battery uses no rare earth metals, is non flammable, and performes better by nearly every metric than lithium ion. If they make it to market, I think they will absolutely be revolutionary.
A increasing percentage of new construction gets heat pumps. Some replacement HVAC units make the switch, but there is still a large portion of people who won’t because of misinformation and/or stubbornness.
But, unfortunately, most existing residential systems do not use heat pumps, under 20% in the US I believe.
They are too expensive. But only because auto manufacturers are only making midsized and larger suvs or luxury cars. The average price of an EV has dropped over 50% in China since 2015. That would have been tough for us to match, mostly because of batteries, but we could have made much more progress than we have.
The electric grid isn’t nearly as unprepared as people say. Sure, we need to build out more charging stations, but the grid as a whole far exceeds current needs. In fact, nationwide electrical usage is actually trending down in the US because of efficiency gains. Better building codes, heat pumps, LED lighting, if it uses electricity newer stuff is more efficient. If we had sold 8 times as many EVs in 2023 than we did, electricity usage would have stayed about flat.
This may be the most apt application of this meme I have ever seen, lol
Well, as far as crash safety, I would think it would almost always safer to be facing backwards. That’s the way infant car seats are. Facing backward would mean your whole body would absorb the inertia change against the seat and your head would be supported. Better than seat belt bruises and a bobble head imitation, seems like.
That’s assuming the forward facing people in the back row are buckled of course. 60 mph headbutt would be…bad. Turn those seats around too maybe?
I believe they are kei cars. I looked up the safety ratings on them when I heard about them, and the D.O.T. equivalent board that rated them gave them 5 stars. But it could be that was a kei car specific rating. It did show diagrams with front and side air bags, and all the electronic crash avoidance systems. It’s bigger and seems like it would be safer than a smart car. I honestly think the hold up is that if we had options like that in the US fewer bigger, more expensive, cars would be sold. Maybe not a lot fewer, but enough fewer that it is overall more profitable not to offer them.
Nissan Sakura and Mitsubishi eK X EV are $14-16k, but are only for sale in Japan. Nissan closed orders for the Sakura because they already had more orders than capacity to make them. We need vehicles like that everywhere! That would drive EV adoption far, far more than another “affordable” $45k SUV.
Very true. Unfortunately, this process just pulls gold from dilute sources and gathers it into nuggets, from small ones to very very large. No gold is being made new though, that would be great.