The answer to "Aren't we burning fossil fuels to get electricity?" is not "yeah" but "sometimes and not necessarily". In Scotland all electricity is now produced using wind or solar power, and they export energy to us in the rest of the UK - so it can be done folks!!
@@Cr3at1vem1nd same way you do in any electrical system, with an inverter. The question you should be asking is how they keep the voltage the same throughout the day, which is probably with wattage limits.
@@amantedecapaldi4037 bathing in with a plugged in toaster causes electricity to shock ones body, usually to attempt suicide. Hence, the "when things get bad"
there are many other methods in development for energy storage at a grid level, such as storing it as heat, molten salt, molten metal, pump hydro, etc, electric is still the way to go, as all forms of energy can be turned into electricity and be used in the most efficient way available
EV batteries are too valuable to dispose of. They are recycled into new batteries by shredding them and then mining the concentrates for all the valuable metals so they don't have to go dig up new ones. Try that with oil or gasoline when you are done with it!
Another note: even if it never becomes salt, even if 100% of the grid is put on oil, those plants generating electricity are worlds apart more efficient than the engine in your car. In both energy creation and ability to control and regulate emissions.
This is very true, cars are only able to utilize about 10-30% of the energy that comes from combustion of fuel, the rest is lost to heat and limitations of engine and driveline inefficiencies. Electric can utilize up to 80% and even a little over. It also takes alot of fuel to transport fuel, where as the logistics of electrical power is much more efficient and cheaper after the initial setup.
Wrong. Electric plants that run on Gas use the same type of turbines to spin their generators as used in jet planes (without the afterburner). So their thermal efficiency is about the same. They dont however use any sort of catalytic converters. So cars are much much much cleaner.
@@VNtergon accounted for, you can look it up, up to 90 is the efficiency of logistics of energy all the way to your wheels. Creating electric energy, storing it, transferring it, and charging your car is much much more energy efficient than transporting gasoline and burning it inside an engine
Neil explains a fundamental issue of strategic commodities well. There is no free lunch, but there are new strategic commodity to replace the old ones. This also glosses over many looming realities.
@@redpooljack777 8:14 Niel glosses over the issue of electricity, it does not invent itself. Presently it is mostly generated from fossil fuels the thing he wants to get away from. In the future for us to transistion wholey to electricity we would need ...A new grid ... Batteries to store the renewable energy for use when it is needed ...new transformers to handle the massive loads ....this is just back of the napkin thinking here but ther Niel's and his like have no intrest in that fact and are not pursuing it. They do want our stove, water heaters, cieling fans and whatever else they can get away with. The remedy they persue shows the lack of rerality they are pushing. They love to preach at us though.
@@richardpratt3091 Niel glosses over the issue of electricity, it does not invent itself. Presently it is mostly generated from fossil fuels the thing he wants to get away from. In the future for us to transistion wholey to electricity we would need ...A new grid ... Batteries to store the renewable energy for use when it is needed ...new transformers to handle the massive loads ....this is just back of the napkin thinking here but ther Niel's and his like have no intrest in that fact and are not pursuing it. They do want our stove, water heaters, cieling fans and whatever else they can get away with. The remedy they persue shows the lack of rerality they are pushing. They love to preach at us though.
I have been living alone, tiny and "off grid" for 3 1/2 years and learned a great deal about what self sufficiency means. I still buy food at the grocery store and rely on both propane & gas for heating & cooking. I would like to switch to using wood for heat although at least during winter months I will still need a generator because solar power is not available during snow storms when panels are covered and the sun is not shining. Cutting back on fossil fuel consumption and living within our means in an appropriate sized dwelling for the size of our family while curtailing waste and promoting self sufficiency is a trend right now and I whole heartedly support it since I know how well it can work. I hope we can all be part of the solution not the problem.
Everything cost energy. It is investment. Our planet have mechanisms to get CO2 from atmosphere. So in future when we will have these structures and stop overpolluting planet it could get to the balance and stop greenhouse effect. This is very good strategy from my point of view.@@blackkitty1774
agreed, electric motors are a lot more efficient than a petrol vehicles transmission though and the heat and friction from the engine , the petrol motor and trans etc loses 70-80% of its energy and 20-30% drives , the EV loses 20%- of its energy and 80%+ drives so that is the other side of the equation to balance out . huge energy x 0.2 vs some energy x 0.8 . The power has to be delivered from wind, solar, dams , nuclear , tidal to make a bit more progress. The sun has infinite energy in terms of the human race , things are getting more efficient and as they become in demand the progress will happen more rapidly and be cheaper.
man o man what a show! i cant believe its a 14 min video, it only felt like 5! you guys rock out! educational, funny and serious! we need more people on this planet like you two guys, thank you kindly for what you's do!!!!
Hey Neil - still living in Denial of the UFO evidence released by the US Navy just this week showing UFOs checking out the USS Russell and USS Omaha as verified by the Pentagon as real. True science is exploring All the evidence
@crutchgecko yes. Too much time on the entertainment and so I finally went to 1.75 to gather some facts. Could have done much more in the time to cover obstacles to going more renewable energy.
Back in the 70’s there were two small power plants running off of water in my small town. My stepfather, he proposed to bring them back into service, they had been abandoned. He determined that they’d produce about 70kw each. He wanted about $80k to get them both back in service, one needed new equipment and such and the other just needed a bit of work. The town turned him down cold. Too expensive. Those two abandoned power plants are still their, the dams they were on, the town has since destroyed.
we need to follow up on break thrus with new cleaner nuclear power options. Thorium fueled nuclear reactors when perfected may be the cleanest we can hope to replace. This also backs up my idea that global warming is exagerated greatly to better prepare us for the complete end of oil within 51 years natural gas is gone is 53 and coal will last up to 100 more years. SO its worse for the environment but it will better prepare us for the collapse of the bronze age times 20.
@@Morristown337 it's funny. in the past, we did run out of oil about 250 times so far (it just surprisingly never really happened.) after this massive "disappointment," to not repeat the same mistake again, we just call an arbitrary date in the future that's far enough away to not hold accountable for having been wrong again, lol.
I alway try to seek the ground truth when questioning an issue and I want to thank Chuck & Neil on not masking the facts in this episode and explaining it in depth. Keepin'it-💯
Hey Neil - still living in Denial of the UFO evidence released by the US Navy just this week showing UFOs checking out the USS Russell and USS Omaha as verified by the Pentagon as real. True science is exploring All the evidence
Watch the movie Gandhi. While it can't do the salt march justice, one can get an overview of the British hold on salt in India and one of Gandhi's famous acts of civil disobedience. "The 1882 Salt Act gave the British a monopoly on the collection and manufacture of salt, limiting its handling to government salt depots and levying a salt tax. Violation of the Salt Act was a criminal offence. Even though salt was freely available to those living on the coast (by evaporation of seawater), Indians were forced to buy it from the colonial government."
Thanks for creating this series of talks, Dr. Tyson and Chuck (sorry if I spelled your name incorrectly 😅). This show is taking science to the public with a good dose of humor.
He mentioned wind and hydroelectric are actually solar power. Technically fossil fuels are solar power as well. The organic matter that makes up fossil fuels originally got their energy from the sun too, it’s just been stored in the earth’s crust for millions of years.
Yes I did not like that statement, because those are independent forms of energy at this point, because even in a series of cloudy days you will still have the wind and hydro.
@@antcowan Sorry, I cant resist... As Niel loves to say, the heavy atoms of nuclear power and thorium that powers geothermal are also solar sourced (just from a different star) since anything other than hydrogen is stardust.
What is the difference between bio fuel and crude oil? Both are plant matter and we are green washed to believe bio fuel is somehow cleaner because we processed it instead of the earth.
It's moronic libtard propaganda from another brain dead celebrity. He conveniently totally ignores all the reasons that going electric is completely impractical. Just a few glaring problems are 1) you can't fill a jerry can with electricity and take it to a remote location, so a very expensive power grid is required for everything. 2) I live in Fl, so hurricanes knocking out power for weeks is a pretty common thing. It would be quite hard for the bucket trucks to take the line workers to fix the power of their trucks can't be charged. But add earthquakes to that, too. 3) what about all the pollution necessary to mine and refine the rare earth elements needed to make those electric car batteries? Their environmental impact is FAR higher than even a coal power plant. Then it gets thrown into a landfill to toxify the earth. 3 major reasons an electric reliant society would be crippled on a regular basis with no outside interference from anything but mother nature, but this 'scientist' couldn't manage to consider even a single one? I used to really respect this guy, but since Trump got elected he has chipped away at his credibility until none remains. He is a joke. An embarrassment of his former self. He has zero respect for science so I have zero respect for him as a scientist
@@carcar5984 did you even see the video, he never even said to go all electric, infact he was explaining something completely different from what you have written here
@@carcar5984 what they don't even address is the fact that we're going into another 12,000-year cycle where the sun is just going to basically tear our atmosphere off but you know they don't address what a Carrington event would do to just about everything electrical today and how we're right on the cusp of one in fact we're being hit right now with three solar flares and it's just now ramping up to more
Technologogical improvement bringing obsolescence of a previous age. Age of scarce salt repleced by abundant salt. Age of scarce cartel controlled fossil fuels replaced by abundant renewable energy, hydro, sun, wind, tidal, geothermal, fuel cells et al...cost of energy dropping...but fossil fuel propagande trying to avoid stranded FF assets.
@@jeffcows7563 It is not a lie, for thousands of years, salt was the only way to preserve food. Nations like Rome would go to war to establish control of salt.
Pepper was also an important commodity, which led to discovery of America. Europeans were looking for a sea route to India (since Turkey shut down the land route) as they could not live without the spice black pepper. So many European explorers embarked on looking for a sea route, including Columbus, who missed India completely and went around the globe to reach America (That is why he called the natives Indians).
@@RK-tf8pqColumbus actually sailed west, across the Atlantic, thinking he'd get to Asia faster than going around Africa, just had the wrong idea about the Earth's size. He didn't "miss" India, going blindly around the world.
@@kadmus78 small correction: he didnt missjudge the circunference of earth, he just didnt knew there was land there. The assumption at the time was that there was just ocean. In alternative, some scholars think that, since the some north European tribes (like the vikings) had already been to America a few centuries before Colombo, the existance of that continent somehow was fed to him and thats why he was so adamant about doing the trip (he tried to sweet talk multiple royal houses until the Spanish gave in).
I agree. Yet there are still those, just check the comments, who look around and say that because the grid, generation and consumption are not tailored to electricity that it is impossible and will never work. They forget about the product development cycle. It takes time, but humans will solve this issue despite political resistance.
And yet you don't realize how much oil is used to create products in everyday life it's not just gasoline or diesel fuel is used to make plastics it's used to make nylon it's used to make all kinds of things including food.
Neil forgot to mention that even an electric car that got its power from 100% fossil fuels still has less direct/indirect emissions per mile than a internal combustion engine car. Just food for thought.
@@thanosaias2717 not unless the car is doing better than 88 mpg. Just one reference of many. www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/2020-05/evs-cleaner-than-gasoline.pdf
the biggest factor here is that 50% of a car's carbon footprint is already emitted before it leaves the factory. electric cars however have a much shorter lifetime.
@@thanosaias2717 No it's not. A gasoline engine car has an energy efficiency of about 20 to 30%, Modern turbo diesel trucks 55%, Electric cars about 75 to 85%. With an electric motor car there's less wasted heat and don't have a gearbox (with all the wasted friction and drag).
And that even if an EV is recharged with coal electricity, that it’s high efficiency means it’s driving more miles per unit of pollution than a gas car.
@markcox8127 yes, the power plant captures more energy from the fuel than an inefficient internal combustion engine ever can. So, each pound of burned fuel will give more available energy in a power plant than in a car. Turning that fuel's energy into electricity will yield more available power from the power plant than the energy lost in an engine. The electric car should use less pounds of fuel if the electricity it uses comes from an efficient power plant.
@@ejmtv3 Sure. Earth Day is about reducing pollution and negative impacts on Earth, of which we have many. If we weren't harming Earth in any way, and that was normal, we wouldn't need an Earth Day.
Let’s not forget that even though the process of generating the electricity usually involves burning something somewhere, the efficiency of the power plant is greater than the efficiency of burning the gasoline in an internal combustion engine. Moreover, the process by which the oil is distilled into gasoline and the manner which that gasoline gets in the tank has an environmental impact.
Fission reactors REALLY need to be included in these conversations, especially the thorium versions, and/or small reactors (like in US submarines). I completely understand the desire for "magic bullet" solutions, but the current "green" solutions are far from environmentally friendly. Yes, thorium would have some radiation issues, but nothing anywhere near the volume, meltdown, and half-life issues with uranium reactors.
Fission needs to be more seriously considered, and not just automatically rejected, as we have done over the last several decades. Is fission really worst than other options, like coal, natural gas or gasoline? Solar, hydroelectric, wind, tidal power, just don't meet the demand. The difference can only be made up burning fossil fuels, or reducing our demand for power (which isn't going to happen in America, let alone the rest of the world), or using Fission. At least with today's technology.
Remember were dealing and learning about alternatives. Alternatives! Not solutions. Just alternatives. Less reliance upon an uncontrollable substance replacing it with more cost effective IN THE LONG RUN less environmental impact. Yes, less, not none but less. Reduced if you like that word better. But nevertheless, a step in the right direction. Many owners of alternative powered vehicles wouldn't go back to the old tech of the ICE. And please don't start with vehicle fires. The NHTSA has released the numbers on that. 100,000 gas cars, 1500 fires. 100,000 electric cars 25 fires. Um yeah, math doesn't watch Fox News I guess.
@@jamesjohnson3910 I think you had a Freudian-like slip. Uncontrollable? Do you know anything about thorium reactors? No need for cooling towers and fresh water. The reaction stops and starts basically at will. No chance of meltdown. And I find your lack of concern about thermal runaway with lithium to be "interesting." Two ships now, burning uncontrollably, one at the bottom of the Atlantic, the other about to be. Completely environmentally friendly? I think not. All forms of alternatives to fossil fuels should be considered. Not just the politically correct versions.
The military and NASA have a virtual blank check to power their vehicles like submarines and deep space probes. Anything is possible if money is no object. Nuclear is the most expensive way of producing electricity, and that's with government subsidized insurance. The reality is it needs to be cheaper than fossil fuels or there will be no perceived advantage to transitioning to green power by the majority of Americans. Solar and onshore wind already beat coal on cost and gas on cost, and it's just a matter of time before adding batteries to solve intermitency also wins on cost. When that happens it will be businesses and consumers that make the transition, not governments and environmentalists. That day is very fast approaching as there is around a dozen or so major battery factories in various stages of planning or construction right now.
I suspect the uranium nuclear status quo won't give in to the advantages of thorium reactors until/unless fusion becomes feasible and threatens to make fission as we know it obsolete.
@@BrookseyJayWhen I read between the lines like you're doing here, I gather you are trying to start something ... how did you come to that conclusion?
Yes!! Thank you. I’ve been saying salts one of the oldest known and used preservatives. Makes me chuckle a little when a product says “preservative free” and contains a ton of salt or vinegar :)
“Preservative free” means it doesn’t have any artificial chemical substance that prevents it from spoiling. It doesn’t count any natural preservatives like salt, sugar, etc.
...and now, thanks to Neil and Chuck, I understand what it means to be "worth your salt"...and how it pertains directly to earning one's salary. I also understand how, in the long term, electric cars _today_ lay the groundwork for ending fossil fuel dependence in the _future,_ even while still largely dependent on coal-burning power plants _currently._ (No electrical pun intended.)
Understandable statement after watching this vid.... BUT ... This is a statement from the ages when salt was life... like stated in the vid. Soooo "worth your salt" means "worthless".
@@denniss1211 Many phrases from antiquity still survive in modern vernacular. The situations they reference may no longer apply, but that doesn't necessarily change the meaning of the phrases themselves. Then again, many people still say, "Bless you," when somebody sneezes...having no idea why. In that case...as with, "Worth your salt," the _general_ sentiment is maintained, even while awareness of its _root_ is lost over time. For that matter, the etymological basis of, "Goodbye," is absent for most people who say it, even those who are generally religious. Linguistic Evolution is just one fascinating subset of Evolution in general. Yes?
Neil never mentions that every electric machine today depends on cobolt. 74% of all cobolt comes from the Congo. And that story isn’t pleasant. Unless this resource is intended to tie the world over until something else, oil will be consumed for a long long while.
Very few people want to talk about what the power usage is and the footbridge left behind in building a car, any car. We are actually better off if people just get existing cars to last as long as possible.
Isn't everything solar power? I mean if you want to extrapolate it, oil is solar power, because the sun nurtured the plants that the animals ate that died and eventually turned into coal, oil, and other fossil fuels. The primary source of all energy in the solar system is the sun.
Mostly, but not quite. There's 4 sources of power that have nothing to do with the sun. They are: - *Nuclear* : Fission and fusion are both reactions to do with the atoms of elements (yes the sun is a giant fusion reactor, but we can and do create these reactions independently of it) - *Geothermal* : the heat from the core of our planet and the resulting tectonic movements (oil is a mix of solar and geothermal power) - *Tidal* : the rising and falling of our oceans as triggered by the gravity of the moon - *Chemical* : the mixing of elements to create exothermic reactions The only large-scale source of power we use that isn't solar is nuclear. But since solar power is technically nuclear power, it's mostly all nuclear anyway.
@@aleximraypapineau The point I was making is in the video they say wind is just solar power because the sun creates the heat and pressure differences that cause the wind to blow. But by extrapolation, we can get every other energy form... nuclear is maybe the only one you can't directly tie to the sun I guess... but the sun's mass did pull together the planets from the matter left over from other exploded stars so the reason we have such naturally occuring high atmoic number elements like uranium is due to the sun's gravity.... but that's the biggest stretch. Tidal: The motion of the moon is also because of the gravity of the sun, no sun no tides. Also the sun directly effects tides too, though only half as much as the moon. Geothermal: Without the sun, the earth would have frozen to the core long ago. Chemical: Nearly all exothermic chemical reactions are carbon based, which we find in such abundance because of former life fueled by the sun. Also like nuclear, the sun caused all this matter which became our planet to form together, first in a ring and eventually into a planet. Without the sun, all this matter would have dispersed into unusable space dust. These are all a stretch, I fully admit. Wind being solar power is a stretch too though, which was the point I was trying to make.
Oil is not animals, It comes from a process that is long extinct. When the earth was young there was nothing that consumed dead plant matter. So dead plants just piled on top of each other creating beds of dead plant matter hundreds of meters deep. Eventually a bacterium evolved that could process dead plant matter. Oil and coal formed under great pressure as the bacteria began to break down the plant matter. Oil is the biproduct of these bacteria. Coal is basically compressed plant matter infused with the bacteria's byproduct.
I thought this discussion was headed towards the Solar Two solar project (built in 1995). It uses sunlight focused or concentrated on salt. The sunlight's heat makes the salt molten and the molten salt is used as an energy storage medium. In 2011, the Solar Tres in Spain became the first commercial solar power plant of its kind. The molten salt is used to heat water into steam for steam turbine generators and since the molten salt is able to retain intense heat long enough, the salt is able to generate power 24 hours per day.
The idea is still being worked. Remember,her we are in the early stages of developing an entirely new energy system from harvesting, to distribution, to consumption. Try and open your mind up to the posibilities.
Plus, even if the power plant uses fossil fuels to generate the electricity for your car, it does so with easily double the energy efficiency than a regular car engine.
No IT does not! Physics Works the same at the powerplant! A kWh produced in the US has in average a footprint og 450g CO2, which means a Tesla emits 110g CO2/mile! A compact diesel, as popular in Europe emits 145g CO2 Per mile, but a Tesla in Europe, only emits 80g CO2/mile, or 7g CO2 in Norway, because our Grids are cleaner! So if you own a Tesla in the US, it is never going to recoup its manufacturing emissions, before you get rid of your goal fired plants.
@@Tore_Lund nice stats. Source? A the grid will get greener, a diesel will not. Additionally, do you want diesel exhaust in your neigbourhood poisening your kids, or in a powerplant where its away from people and the gases can be easily scrubbed. Anyway. EV is better, even when coal is used for electricity
@@Tore_Lund Efficiency, not physics, is what matters... and powerplants are much more efficient than gasoline or diesel engines, which waste (as heat) more than half the energy put into them. And conventional vehicles have comparable emissions costs in their manufacture, which you don't "recover", whatever that even means.
@@ΘάνατοςΧορτοφάγος now they speak to me about how toxic lithium is? Do you even know that as you're charging something you're actually being exposed to outgassing lithium? No I suppose you didn't you're just trading one toxin for a more unstable more toxic substance of which where are you going to mine all this lithium because I don't think you understand where lithium actually is and where it's mine from or how destructive lithium mining is go look up a lithium mine and look at the pictures of it now realize that most of the lithiums reserves in the world are in former or current rainforests and the process to extract it is fracking
@@Tore_Lund You're inaccurate and we've already nearly gotten rid of the coal plants. 19% of electricity came from coal in 2020 in the US...and they're shutting down plants across the country at faster and faster rates...mostly due to the economic inefficiency...but that's fine too.
@@HCkev You are going to power NYC, LA, Dallas on a couple Li-ion. We need huge amounts of metals, including far more rare earth metals, but we also need a massive amount of copper that we don't have. Long story short: If you think we're going renewable in the next 30 years, invest in copper as soon as you can. We will either have a copper boom, or these green energy initiatives will fail.
I just love Neil's segway from cars, to salt, back to cars, and oil. The almighty black honey. Neil's comparison of the bottlenecked oil industry to the versatility of the electric industry just blew my mind. Happy Earth Day everyone! 🌎🌱🌻🌳🌊 Stay safe and keep looking up!
Fun video with great perspective. As an electric power enthusiast since the early 70's, this transition to electric power in so many areas is very exciting. @neildegrassetyson, as the transition to electric power is underway, how do we factor in the global environmental costs of battery production and transportation into this discussion?
He did touch on this in a very interesting way. He basically said battery tech is Old. We need to put our brains to work solving that inefficient and problem causing issue.
Always great content from a year or so ago but with electric rates nearly tripling in the northeast (US) I can tell you I'm MUCH more aware of where my electricity comes from today! 😫
So after listening for 15 minutes what did we really learn? Nothing new. It still takes fuel to male electricity. Wind and solar can't cover the loss of nuclear, and fossil fuels, so now What? Changing the status of Pluto didn't change its orbit, or influence. It is still Pluto. LOL
@@mikep490 Hello Mike. I have a question for you. I know that's what people are taught. (Oil comes from plants.) Can you show us any plant fossils in the crude oil? I would love to see some pictures. I'm not talking deposits in tar pit either... Let's take a different track. Was the Great Oxygenating Event caused by plants or other organisms? 🤯
@@davidbaldwin7733 I've heard this theory, but also heard this theory debunked. Depends on who you believe. I believe that ICE & EVs will be pretty much line ball for the whole life cycle of the car if the electricity source is 100% sourced from fossil fuels. The greener the power sourse, the bigger the win for EVs. Given the future is moving greener for our electricity production, this will only skew in favour of EVs going forward. The other side affect of going green, is better air quality in our cities. Can't happen soon enough in my eyes.
@@GhettoHuerta Imagine a planet GRID where australia could produce electricity for the united states and the other way around, maybe efficiency over the transport could drop but that would be so cool( no need to store)
I was rather expecting to hear s little bit of concern about the added strain on the power supply when we all plug in our vehicles. Also why didn't you address where the raw materials come from that make cars possible and batteries possible. How much power do we need? Why is planned obsolescence allowed?
Most people would be plugging their cars in at night when there is low demand and the rates are lower. But we absolutely do need to upgrade our power grid in any case.
Every single residence in California, the largest EV market by far, is now required to have rooftop solar for any residence less than 4 stories. Most of these houses / apartments, condos, etc. will have MORE electricity than they need for their own use, including their EVs. Distributed Power Generation is the future of almost everywhere. There are raw materials in nearly every continent to make these batteries (and cars)...they should be mined locally...just like we currently do with Oil in the US. The positive difference is that once you put everyone on EVs...there is NO localized poisonous gases coming out of their tailpipes...killing more people per year than traffic accidents. OIL needs to go...NOW...not later. Coal is already on its way out...less than 20% of US Electricity came from coal last year. The UK was WAY less...most days they don't require using ANY coal. The world will be a much cleaner place because of that. EV batteries are valuable enough that they can be almost 100% recycled. that will be VERY important in the future as we get more and more new batteries from recycled resources. Cheers!
You guys rock!!! Neil, thank you for being open minded, peaceful, and inspiring so many people. I'm sure you have made a difference in many lives, but i know that You have made a difference in one life, mine.
@@j.d.o.453Inspired me to take off some filters that held me back in opening my mind further. I'm seeing from a new perspective and want to explore and discover what research can examine.
The good news about electric cars running on electricity that was produced by fossil fuels is, If I take the energy equivalent of a gallon of gas and put it through a turbine to make electricity and then put it in my EV, I can drive 135 miles on that. If I were to put that gallon of gas in my car I could only go perhaps 30 miles.
Love how he explains how it’s not primarily about the environment but rather to break the dependency on oil. Electricity can be generated by many sources.
It takes one double V12 diesel digger running for a full day To mine lithium for enough batteries for 2 cars! That digger runs on oil. Oil is required even for plastics!
@@martinlaird9712 Sure, but the final goal the global energy transition is that even that double V12 diesel digger will be replaced with something electric. Realize that we're *currently* in the middle of the energy transition and it is accelerating. To be clear, just because there currently exists _both_ renewables and fossil fuels at the moment does _not_ mean any failure of renewables. Because the transition takes time (years) in order transition smoothly with minimal economic disruption. Moreover, every unit of renewable energy technology manufactured helps dismantle fossil fuel hegemony bit by bit. In that way, using fossil fuels to create more renewable energy products is actually *the best* use for fossil fuels! OTOH, one of the *worst ways* to use fossil fuels is within an internal combustion engine (ICE) car. It has an appalling nominal efficiency of 20% where a whopping 80% of it is lost to heat! All along with lots of toxic emissions blown right into our faces in the neighborhoods where we live, play, and work. Furthermore, burning just 1-gallon of gasoline produces an astonishing 20lbs of CO₂. That doesn't even include the massive 24x7x365 ongoing global effort of people, machinery, finances and investments to explore, drill, transport, refine, transport again that fuel to get to gas station all before a _single drop_ of it is burnt for energy. The ICE car needs to eliminated ASAP and that is the first big domino to fall in bringing down the fossil fuel hegemony. Note that plastics are *tiny* portion of the total daily oil use of some 100-million barrels *per day* burnt up for energy in a one-time effectively irreversible process. Moreover, there are growing alternatives to plastics by the way of bio-plastics derived from plant based sources. Bioplastics are going to be especially vital for the food industry for one-time use utensils and packaging since bioplastics degrade quickly and naturally.
@@BrookseyJayThere’s a variety; energy can for instance be stored as potential energy, eg pumped hydro, as another form of chemical, eg using generated electricity to make hydrogen which can be transported and stored. Batteries can use many types of materials and chemicals, not just lithium which are currently used for their high energy density and compactness in mobile devices, neither of which are critical in mains battery storage, eg nickel-hydrogen or nickel-cadmium.
This really opened my eyes! as Neil says himself, from the book Turning Oil into Salt. I was thinking too close minded about just the CO2 etc.. So it is about having an alternative to oil. I understand that it is important getting strategically less dependent. But it also allows alternatives sources to grow slowly.
Electric power plays a crucial role in our understanding of the cosmos, from powering telescopes to investigating quantum phenomena. Quantum physics explores the fundamental nature of particles and forces at the smallest scales, revealing complex interactions that can influence cosmic phenomena. As we deepen our understanding of both electric power and quantum physics, new insights could emerge about the fundamental workings of the universe. How might advancements in quantum physics and electric power technologies enhance our ability to explore and comprehend the cosmos?
I live in an area where electric vehicles don't really make sense. Not enough charging stations and so cold in winter 1/4 the year that they lose a lot of that already small range. But I hope it gets sorted out. Because my area also shows up on the "worst air quality in the country\world" lists too often. I'd love to get to a point where all vehicle emissions could be offloaded to the power company (and simplifying how to deal with emissions at a single source).
@@peterdorn5799 never understood, if you could use the fuel as a coolant and cut one loop out of the design, just seems like a win-win situation. Political pressure put a stop to them?
Nobody argues that electric doesn't create a carbon footprint. I'm yet to have someone explain to me, block by block, why electric wouldn't create a net favorable carbon reduction, however. Taking it a step further, can the carbon methods currently being used to create electricity not themselves eventually be replaced with electric, so that electric assets are now creating electric assets?
"Hydro and wind are solar powered ...". By that logic, so is Oil and coal. The bio matter that transformed into it, absorbed the sunlight to power the biological processes that changed CO2 into the carbon the plant grew from. There is not much energy on earth, stored or otherwise, that didn't come from the sun.
@@jensconcepts671 They've already gotten better, faster, cheaper and much larger production volume. They're already driving the costs lower...doing better every year. ICE engines are not.
My mother's father worked in a Scots coal mine. For the 3rd shift in a row (a bad event underway), my mom brought down his food for her dad for the 3rd shift. In payment of the overtime, the overseer sent my grandfather home with a cabbage. My mom's mum thought that was great. Talk about working for cabbage....
I’d like to thank you guys for this series of videos, I’m in a long convalescence following major surgery and boredom is a real PIA, however the informative and humorous way that you present the various topics is both fascinating and entertaining, really helps me pass the time, terrific work, thanks very much 👍👍👍👍
I think it’s absurd to think of being ashamed because we harnessed the power of fossil fuels. Without fossil fuels any other power technology couldn’t have come about. I think it’s wise to look at the use of fossil fuels as a limited resource, and a huge mistake to think of it only in terms of the brain washed carbon footprint lies. Hydro is probably the least impactful to the environment overall longterm. I’ve felt for decades that to be able to somehow tap into the massive power of the sun in a far greater way than now possible or practical would be awesome. And let’s not get so blinded by the green ideology that we forget that defending our once great country (that is now in an extremely dangerous decline) will necessarily be dependent on fossil fuels for the foreseeable future.
but do you really know where its coming ? here in germany , idiots protested to close nuclear power plants and now we buy electricity from other countries who produce it with coal ...
@@gpsoulhunter7335 In the US you know where power comes from (except for Texas which is not on the Federal grid). Power companies are regulated and need to have set contracts with power generators. They can't randomly switch around because they might not be able to get power when they need it and the transmission facilities might not have the capacity. Texas on the other hand has no agreed contracts ahead of time and each power company can switch to any source in Texas at any time (as long as the source agrees).
you cannot decide where you get your power from, unless you are completely separated from the grid. I've worked in power generation for almost a decade. you are still getting your energy from the closest generation facility on the line. the federal government gives, "green credits" to power generation companies based off of their renewable megawatt generation. these companies can then use these credits benefits to offset their taxes for that generation. this is a way the government incentivizes renewable power. but these credits don't have to be applied directly to that generation facility. in fact, they are bought and sold on the open market like a commodity. long story short. your power comes from the same place. these companies buy green credits off the market and label the electricity you consume as "Green Power." then if they are not the local power company, they still pay the power company for the same power you always paid for. use the credits for their taxes. then charge you for the cost of the power, the credits, and a management fee.
wind is not created by warm surface water and air temperature differential, it is a result of the Earth's magnetosphere being squeezed, but granted by the Sun's emission of electromagnetic waves ... so still caused by the Sun, but by a totally different method ...
They are black outs and brown outs in the summer when a lot of people uses their AC. With all 100% renewables, there will be lots more black and brown outs.
I'm so glad to have finally had someone else mention that wind and hydro are also forms of solar energy!!! It's simply a matter of the time delay. PV solar is ~8minutes new photons. Wind is a few days old to be the built up thermal differentials. And hydro a few weeks or months or annual snowpack from rain amd snowfall. And even other biomass and fossil fuels are solar powered, just on years to milenia long time frames and also much lower efficiencies. As they all begin with photosynthesis at ~1~3% conversion efficiency, and fossil conversion is as low as 0.0008% efficiency (photon to ICE car wheel). Versus about ~36% for wind photon to BEV wheel, or ~10% for solar PV (based on EROI power factor) photon to wheel...
Electric vehicles are only practical if you are always on the grid though. Hydrogen vehicles have range similar to long range electric vehicles but can be refiled in a few minutes like a gas car
@@MarkLLawrence yes but that's not practical on a large scale especially looking into the future. Hydrogen power is simply better but it's not as established as battery electric, yet.
@@steve-o6413 polymers are made from byproduct in oil refinery process while mostly making fuel. If you make less fuel then you have less polymers. You can't just make one thing from crude oil. Check prices right now, for 5 months there is a shortage of polypropylene and polyethelene graunlate due to apparently less jet fuel production. The prices of these granulates almost doubled. And for example, this translate to drastic price increase in styrofoam or other building materials, or even flexible packaging used to pack goods.
@@steve-o6413 Most OIL will go away...we will completely stop using it as fuel for ground transportation...and short haul flight for smaller planes. Plastic is being banned in the EU as we speak. Single use plastic utensils and other things will be eliminated. We've started using (and wasting) plastics because we COULD...not because we should. It will be a LOT less than many people think..
Yes, solar power and high efficiency storage on a smart grid! Sounds like what Tesla and others are trying to accomplish. Thank you Chuck for making us laugh every day lol !
Apparently the lithium mines are far worse than oil rigs. Burning all that coal to generate electric energy seems like it would cause more greenhouse gas emissions than oil and gas does. Would like to hear what Neil thinks of Nuclear as a more widespread option, and also natural gas.
Correct. People who look at LNG (which is responsible for reducing carbon emissions in the United States by 50%) scream FRACKER! And then turn a blind eye to how fracking Lithium is far, far more environmentally disastrous. SMH
It's kind of like the production of OIL, Coal and Gas...But WAY less BAD for the world. Have you seen a video on the destruction that OIL, COAL and Gas create in the world??
@@larrybremer4930 We're burning through them way too fast for it to be sustainable anyway. And natural photosynthesis has an abysmally low energy conversion efficiency: less than 3%.
@@breagerey That doesn’t even come close to making up for the environmental costs of making batteries. Electric cars aren’t the solution for now at least.
@@Aidio95 your ignoring the environmental offset of the manufacturing and use. An ice engine has > 2k parts .. all of which need to manufactured. That's not free. Nor are you including pollution generation from use of the end product. (everything from what comes out the tailpipe to the lubricants to keep an ice engine going) EVs arent the answer for everything - but there's not much doubt they are massively more efficient in power generation and pollution. At this point, for a lot of uses, they have a significant economic advantage as well.
I LOVE these videos, cool detailed scientific information in a happy fun atmosphere, that most people can understand. Something that wasnt mentioned is how much less efficient a small combustion engine, like in a car, is versus a power plant. It's a huge difference, it's vastly more energy efficient.
I have a question for future episodes. Me and my friend have been listening to an episode talking about different Dimensions while at work and we were wondering if SOUND and SMELL can be trans-dimentional?
Imagine if everything runs on electric, even if the power plants runs on fossil fuels, it'll be way easier to design some kind of carbon capture or any other kind of device that can reduce the pollution impacts of burning fuel for electricity generation because all the emissions are at the same place.
I think it will actually be about economics and real science in the long run. We have political science driving renewables today and government subsidies that are unsustainable.
@@knowledgeBoosterkb123 These people talking about cryptocurrency are scammers. The next step is they'll try to send you their whatsapp contact info and then try to bilk money out of you by having you invest with them directly. There are thousands of them around on youtube spamming people's comments in batch mode. A spam bot it's called. Not even a real person, just a fake youtube account.
So, in a perfect world, for every liter of gasoline burned you are using 2.275kg of oxygen. If you know the amount of gasoline you car’s engine is using you will have a pretty good idea how much oxygen was used.
'My face becomes a lot smarter when you're in it'
~Chuck Nice, April 2021
Infinity cars
Face sitting at its greatest.
The answer to "Aren't we burning fossil fuels to get electricity?" is not "yeah" but "sometimes and not necessarily".
In Scotland all electricity is now produced using wind or solar power, and they export energy to us in the rest of the UK - so it can be done folks!!
People never heard of dams, huh
Wow!
How do you stabilize the Hz in the grid with just solar and wind?
@@Cr3at1vem1nd same way you do in any electrical system, with an inverter. The question you should be asking is how they keep the voltage the same throughout the day, which is probably with wattage limits.
Ha ha it can be done with just a small population. And lots of farting cows Scotland is as just as hipocite as the Democrats are.
The talent that Neil has between explaining and humor is just AMAZING
Yeah he's extraordinarily eloquent.
I love the guy but he’s not great at letting other people speak.
Chuck gives him balance lol
He is a human treasure
@@jamesmcclain3588 its harder then you think in podcasts, everyone is guilty of doing this in most podcasts
Neil is that teacher that makes science interesting.
“No, but I do bathe with a toaster when things get bad” is an amazing line. 😭
I didn't get that 😭
@@amantedecapaldi4037 bathing in with a plugged in toaster causes electricity to shock ones body, usually to attempt suicide. Hence, the "when things get bad"
@@mahmoudali6605 wth? It's new suicide method in the market. Wow didn't know that... Thx 😊👍
Chuck, are things really that bad?
I think its hilarious. That being said you should check out the ted talk about casual suicide.
In the next episode, perhaps you could cover how batteries are made and the environmental impact from their construction and disposal.
ua-cam.com/video/1oVrIHcdxjA/v-deo.html
there are many other methods in development for energy storage at a grid level, such as storing it as heat, molten salt, molten metal, pump hydro, etc, electric is still the way to go, as all forms of energy can be turned into electricity and be used in the most efficient way available
And all of the fossil fuels required to make your solar panels, wind mills and your electric car....
Disposal? Sorry, I think you mean recycle. EV batteries are about 95% recyclable.
EV batteries are too valuable to dispose of. They are recycled into new batteries by shredding them and then mining the concentrates for all the valuable metals so they don't have to go dig up new ones. Try that with oil or gasoline when you are done with it!
Another note: even if it never becomes salt, even if 100% of the grid is put on oil, those plants generating electricity are worlds apart more efficient than the engine in your car. In both energy creation and ability to control and regulate emissions.
This is very true, cars are only able to utilize about 10-30% of the energy that comes from combustion of fuel, the rest is lost to heat and limitations of engine and driveline inefficiencies. Electric can utilize up to 80% and even a little over. It also takes alot of fuel to transport fuel, where as the logistics of electrical power is much more efficient and cheaper after the initial setup.
You're forgetting Japan and China wear masks to protect themselves from pollution. Who will regulate them?
Wrong. Electric plants that run on Gas use the same type of turbines to spin their generators as used in jet planes (without the afterburner). So their thermal efficiency is about the same. They dont however use any sort of catalytic converters. So cars are much much much cleaner.
@@Kev2980 and what about the efficiency of generating that electricity and then transporting it and then charging you car? Try to account those.
@@VNtergon accounted for, you can look it up, up to 90 is the efficiency of logistics of energy all the way to your wheels. Creating electric energy, storing it, transferring it, and charging your car is much much more energy efficient than transporting gasoline and burning it inside an engine
Neil explains a fundamental issue of strategic commodities well. There is no free lunch, but there are new strategic commodity to replace the old ones. This also glosses over many looming realities.
Which "looming realities"? The Peak Oil høa× or the CO2 Çlimate Çhange høa×?
@@redpooljack777 8:14 Niel glosses over the issue of electricity, it does not invent itself. Presently it is mostly generated from fossil fuels the thing he wants to get away from. In the future for us to transistion wholey to electricity we would need ...A new grid ... Batteries to store the renewable energy for use when it is needed ...new transformers to handle the massive loads ....this is just back of the napkin thinking here but ther Niel's and his like have no intrest in that fact and are not pursuing it. They do want our stove, water heaters, cieling fans and whatever else they can get away with. The remedy they persue shows the lack of rerality they are pushing. They love to preach at us though.
Like...
@@richardpratt3091 Niel glosses over the issue of electricity, it does not invent itself. Presently it is mostly generated from fossil fuels the thing he wants to get away from. In the future for us to transistion wholey to electricity we would need ...A new grid ... Batteries to store the renewable energy for use when it is needed ...new transformers to handle the massive loads ....this is just back of the napkin thinking here but ther Niel's and his like have no intrest in that fact and are not pursuing it. They do want our stove, water heaters, cieling fans and whatever else they can get away with. The remedy they persue shows the lack of rerality they are pushing. They love to preach at us though.
@@redpooljack777Trigger easily, eh?!🤣
I'd love (and pay) to see these explaination videos in a much longer format where you dive even deeper. Great work both of you!
I would pay for it too!
Yea there's a podcast for that... On this youtube channel too...
I'd pay for it in salt.
It’s called Cosmos space odyssey
Just don't pay in salt
You know you live in the north when the question is asked "how much is salt" and instead if table salt your mind goes straight to ice salt
I have been living alone, tiny and "off grid" for 3 1/2 years and learned a great deal about what self sufficiency means. I still buy food at the grocery store and rely on both propane & gas for heating & cooking. I would like to switch to using wood for heat although at least during winter months I will still need a generator because solar power is not available during snow storms when panels are covered and the sun is not shining. Cutting back on fossil fuel consumption and living within our means in an appropriate sized dwelling for the size of our family while curtailing waste and promoting self sufficiency is a trend right now and I whole heartedly support it since I know how well it can work. I hope we can all be part of the solution not the problem.
Love it! Wood is the best renewable source of energy. It's clean too.
I wish i could live off the grid. I love the convenience of living near the the city, but i hate people. If that makes any sense, lol.
I was a generator mechanic in the army and from my experience it takes a lot of fuel to make electricity
That why water dam is one of the best method...Made take long time to build..Its alway method with out fuel..Just got find the method
@@keithbranch7718it took oil to build those dams
Everything cost energy. It is investment. Our planet have mechanisms to get CO2 from atmosphere. So in future when we will have these structures and stop overpolluting planet it could get to the balance and stop greenhouse effect. This is very good strategy from my point of view.@@blackkitty1774
@@blackkitty1774 yeah but not much, compared to electricity output.
agreed, electric motors are a lot more efficient than a petrol vehicles transmission though and the heat and friction from the engine , the petrol motor and trans etc loses 70-80% of its energy and 20-30% drives , the EV loses 20%- of its energy and 80%+ drives so that is the other side of the equation to balance out . huge energy x 0.2 vs some energy x 0.8 . The power has to be delivered from wind, solar, dams , nuclear , tidal to make a bit more progress. The sun has infinite energy in terms of the human race , things are getting more efficient and as they become in demand the progress will happen more rapidly and be cheaper.
man o man what a show! i cant believe its a 14 min video, it only felt like 5! you guys rock out! educational, funny and serious! we need more people on this planet like you two guys, thank you kindly for what you's do!!!!
Hey Neil - still living in Denial of the UFO evidence released by the US Navy just this week showing UFOs checking out the USS Russell and USS Omaha as verified by the Pentagon as real. True science is exploring All the evidence
NDT speaks so slowly I put the replay speed on x1.75 so I can get more of him.
@crutchgecko yes. Too much time on the entertainment and so I finally went to 1.75 to gather some facts.
Could have done much more in the time to cover obstacles to going more renewable energy.
The obstacles of renewable energy is that they lack energy density, And they create more greenhouse gasses than they save. @@geofru
Back in the 70’s there were two small power plants running off of water in my small town. My stepfather, he proposed to bring them back into service, they had been abandoned. He determined that they’d produce about 70kw each. He wanted about $80k to get them both back in service, one needed new equipment and such and the other just needed a bit of work. The town turned him down cold. Too expensive. Those two abandoned power plants are still their, the dams they were on, the town has since destroyed.
"Generations to come will be proud of what we have done for them rather than ashamed." -Neil deGrasse Tyson
That was deep
i nearly teared up
we need to follow up on break thrus with new cleaner nuclear power options. Thorium fueled nuclear reactors when perfected may be the cleanest we can hope to replace. This also backs up my idea that global warming is exagerated greatly to better prepare us for the complete end of oil within 51 years natural gas is gone is 53 and coal will last up to 100 more years. SO its worse for the environment but it will better prepare us for the collapse of the bronze age times 20.
@@Morristown337 it's funny. in the past, we did run out of oil about 250 times so far (it just surprisingly never really happened.) after this massive "disappointment," to not repeat the same mistake again, we just call an arbitrary date in the future that's far enough away to not hold accountable for having been wrong again, lol.
No comments on batteries?
I alway try to seek the ground truth when questioning an issue and I want to thank Chuck & Neil on not masking the facts in this episode and explaining it in depth. Keepin'it-💯
Happy Earth Day!!!
Can you explain the part where NDT said we don't need Earth Day?
Neil Talks are always refreshing. Thank you for what you do Sir!
Hey Neil - still living in Denial of the UFO evidence released by the US Navy just this week showing UFOs checking out the USS Russell and USS Omaha as verified by the Pentagon as real. True science is exploring All the evidence
I don't know...Neil seemed a little "Salty" today! ;-)
SALT FORGIVE ME!!! I have taken you for granted😩
Don't you mean for granulated?
@@SleeplessRonin 🤦🏾♂️
@@SleeplessRonin bahaha
....No, For “Granite”...lol
Watch the movie Gandhi. While it can't do the salt march justice, one can get an overview of the British hold on salt in India and one of Gandhi's famous acts of civil disobedience.
"The 1882 Salt Act gave the British a monopoly on the collection and manufacture of salt, limiting its handling to government salt depots and levying a salt tax. Violation of the Salt Act was a criminal offence. Even though salt was freely available to those living on the coast (by evaporation of seawater), Indians were forced to buy it from the colonial government."
Thanks for creating this series of talks, Dr. Tyson and Chuck (sorry if I spelled your name incorrectly 😅). This show is taking science to the public with a good dose of humor.
"I only bathe with a toaster when things get bad" took me out, I love this channel lol
That's edgy, haha I like it
He mentioned wind and hydroelectric are actually solar power. Technically fossil fuels are solar power as well. The organic matter that makes up fossil fuels originally got their energy from the sun too, it’s just been stored in the earth’s crust for millions of years.
All energy consumption in earth is direct or stored solar energy. The sun is the source of all energy in any form period
@@chakawoowoo except nuclear and geothermal.
Yes I did not like that statement, because those are independent forms of energy at this point, because even in a series of cloudy days you will still have the wind and hydro.
@@antcowan Sorry, I cant resist... As Niel loves to say, the heavy atoms of nuclear power and thorium that powers geothermal are also solar sourced (just from a different star) since anything other than hydrogen is stardust.
What is the difference between bio fuel and crude oil? Both are plant matter and we are green washed to believe bio fuel is somehow cleaner because we processed it instead of the earth.
This is the best argument for alternative power sources I've ever heard.
Thank you so much.
Inspiring talk about Energy, thank you for having this conversation...
It's moronic libtard propaganda from another brain dead celebrity. He conveniently totally ignores all the reasons that going electric is completely impractical. Just a few glaring problems are 1) you can't fill a jerry can with electricity and take it to a remote location, so a very expensive power grid is required for everything.
2) I live in Fl, so hurricanes knocking out power for weeks is a pretty common thing. It would be quite hard for the bucket trucks to take the line workers to fix the power of their trucks can't be charged. But add earthquakes to that, too.
3) what about all the pollution necessary to mine and refine the rare earth elements needed to make those electric car batteries? Their environmental impact is FAR higher than even a coal power plant. Then it gets thrown into a landfill to toxify the earth. 3 major reasons an electric reliant society would be crippled on a regular basis with no outside interference from anything but mother nature, but this 'scientist' couldn't manage to consider even a single one? I used to really respect this guy, but since Trump got elected he has chipped away at his credibility until none remains. He is a joke. An embarrassment of his former self. He has zero respect for science so I have zero respect for him as a scientist
@@carcar5984 Yes, he dropped the ball on this one, but your withering criticism of him is wrong.
@@carcar5984 hello moronic peasant
@@carcar5984 did you even see the video, he never even said to go all electric, infact he was explaining something completely different from what you have written here
@@carcar5984 what they don't even address is the fact that we're going into another 12,000-year cycle where the sun is just going to basically tear our atmosphere off but you know they don't address what a Carrington event would do to just about everything electrical today and how we're right on the cusp of one in fact we're being hit right now with three solar flares and it's just now ramping up to more
The salt story is entertaining and useful to fully explain the metaphor. Well done!
Technologogical improvement bringing obsolescence of a previous age. Age of scarce salt repleced by abundant salt. Age of scarce cartel controlled fossil fuels replaced by abundant renewable energy, hydro, sun, wind, tidal, geothermal, fuel cells et al...cost of energy dropping...but fossil fuel propagande trying to avoid stranded FF assets.
It's a lie my mom canned lots of food for the winter and only used salt for flavor.
Get your facts rite.
@@jeffcows7563 It is not a lie, for thousands of years, salt was the only way to preserve food. Nations like Rome would go to war to establish control of salt.
Chuck: We'll pay you in pepper!
Me, a history nerd: Well, now you're just being greedy. Have to get rich quick, don't we?
When the contents of your spice rack was worth more than it's weight in gold, had a large padlock on and only the housekeeper could open it.
Pepper was also an important commodity, which led to discovery of America. Europeans were looking for a sea route to India (since Turkey shut down the land route) as they could not live without the spice black pepper. So many European explorers embarked on looking for a sea route, including Columbus, who missed India completely and went around the globe to reach America (That is why he called the natives Indians).
@@RK-tf8pqColumbus actually sailed west, across the Atlantic, thinking he'd get to Asia faster than going around Africa, just had the wrong idea about the Earth's size. He didn't "miss" India, going blindly around the world.
@@kadmus78 you are right. I stand corrected.
@@kadmus78 small correction: he didnt missjudge the circunference of earth, he just didnt knew there was land there. The assumption at the time was that there was just ocean. In alternative, some scholars think that, since the some north European tribes (like the vikings) had already been to America a few centuries before Colombo, the existance of that continent somehow was fed to him and thats why he was so adamant about doing the trip (he tried to sweet talk multiple royal houses until the Spanish gave in).
Cannot love this enough for taking the big-picture, science-grounded view over the drill-and-burn mentality. Thank you.
I agree. Yet there are still those, just check the comments, who look around and say that because the grid, generation and consumption are not tailored to electricity that it is impossible and will never work. They forget about the product development cycle. It takes time, but humans will solve this issue despite political resistance.
And yet you don't realize how much oil is used to create products in everyday life it's not just gasoline or diesel fuel is used to make plastics it's used to make nylon it's used to make all kinds of things including food.
Neil forgot to mention that even an electric car that got its power from 100% fossil fuels still has less direct/indirect emissions per mile than a internal combustion engine car.
Just food for thought.
It's the other way around
@@thanosaias2717 not unless the car is doing better than 88 mpg. Just one reference of many. www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/2020-05/evs-cleaner-than-gasoline.pdf
the biggest factor here is that 50% of a car's carbon footprint is already emitted before it leaves the factory. electric cars however have a much shorter lifetime.
@@niko7496
The evidence so far says otherwise.
@@thanosaias2717 No it's not. A gasoline engine car has an energy efficiency of about 20 to 30%, Modern turbo diesel trucks 55%, Electric cars about 75 to 85%. With an electric motor car there's less wasted heat and don't have a gearbox (with all the wasted friction and drag).
Neil really can put it so that anyone can understand what's going on. Let's make oil the new salt!
ua-cam.com/video/SXPmRSHt86c/v-deo.html
@@berk6240 nonnegative b Lvbxove as ay
some people talk trash how Neil interrupts people.. the level of his PASSION gives me infinite space for his need to just let out his thoughts.
Most people need interupted!!! Especially when Neil is tringn to get a point accross in a limited amount of time.
Love it that you brought it up early that electric cars have no emissions at the tailpipe BUT the emissions are at the coal fired electric generator
Most likely gas fired power stations not coal
@@jmatt98 Average US electricity 20% from coal in 2022. NG up, coal down.
And that even if an EV is recharged with coal electricity, that it’s high efficiency means it’s driving more miles per unit of pollution than a gas car.
@markcox8127 yes, the power plant captures more energy from the fuel than an inefficient internal combustion engine ever can. So, each pound of burned fuel will give more available energy in a power plant than in a car. Turning that fuel's energy into electricity will yield more available power from the power plant than the energy lost in an engine. The electric car should use less pounds of fuel if the electricity it uses comes from an efficient power plant.
"No, but I bathe with a toaster when things get bad."
That's was quite a dark matter.
HA! Dark matter... 🤣
Happy Earth Day 🌎
Can you explain the part where NDT said we don't need Earth Day?
@@ejmtv3 Sure. Earth Day is about reducing pollution and negative impacts on Earth, of which we have many. If we weren't harming Earth in any way, and that was normal, we wouldn't need an Earth Day.
He said we are stellar meaning we are made of cosmic dust and we belong to stars and hence Earth day is superfluous
Love your explanations that are easy to understand. I would like to hear more about electric cars (waste products, used batteries, etc...).
Do a search in UA-cam for cobalt mines in Congo. Heart wrenching.
Let’s not forget that even though the process of generating the electricity usually involves burning something somewhere, the efficiency of the power plant is greater than the efficiency of burning the gasoline in an internal combustion engine. Moreover, the process by which the oil is distilled into gasoline and the manner which that gasoline gets in the tank has an environmental impact.
ua-cam.com/users/shortsstf2YrznkZU
ua-cam.com/video/n_zP-cfvzr0/v-deo.html
www.youtube.com/@RobertBryce
ua-cam.com/video/f-O5pidEvmM/v-deo.html
ua-cam.com/video/f-O5pidEvmM/v-deo.html
Fission reactors REALLY need to be included in these conversations, especially the thorium versions, and/or small reactors (like in US submarines). I completely understand the desire for "magic bullet" solutions, but the current "green" solutions are far from environmentally friendly. Yes, thorium would have some radiation issues, but nothing anywhere near the volume, meltdown, and half-life issues with uranium reactors.
Fission needs to be more seriously considered, and not just automatically rejected, as we have done over the last several decades.
Is fission really worst than other options, like coal, natural gas or gasoline? Solar, hydroelectric, wind, tidal power, just don't meet the demand. The difference can only be made up burning fossil fuels, or reducing our demand for power (which isn't going to happen in America, let alone the rest of the world), or using Fission. At least with today's technology.
Remember were dealing and learning about alternatives. Alternatives! Not solutions. Just alternatives. Less reliance upon an uncontrollable substance replacing it with more cost effective IN THE LONG RUN less environmental impact. Yes, less, not none but less. Reduced if you like that word better. But nevertheless, a step in the right direction. Many owners of alternative powered vehicles wouldn't go back to the old tech of the ICE.
And please don't start with vehicle fires. The NHTSA has released the numbers on that. 100,000 gas cars, 1500 fires. 100,000 electric cars 25 fires. Um yeah, math doesn't watch Fox News I guess.
@@jamesjohnson3910 I think you had a Freudian-like slip. Uncontrollable? Do you know anything about thorium reactors? No need for cooling towers and fresh water. The reaction stops and starts basically at will. No chance of meltdown. And I find your lack of concern about thermal runaway with lithium to be "interesting." Two ships now, burning uncontrollably, one at the bottom of the Atlantic, the other about to be. Completely environmentally friendly? I think not. All forms of alternatives to fossil fuels should be considered. Not just the politically correct versions.
The military and NASA have a virtual blank check to power their vehicles like submarines and deep space probes. Anything is possible if money is no object. Nuclear is the most expensive way of producing electricity, and that's with government subsidized insurance. The reality is it needs to be cheaper than fossil fuels or there will be no perceived advantage to transitioning to green power by the majority of Americans. Solar and onshore wind already beat coal on cost and gas on cost, and it's just a matter of time before adding batteries to solve intermitency also wins on cost. When that happens it will be businesses and consumers that make the transition, not governments and environmentalists. That day is very fast approaching as there is around a dozen or so major battery factories in various stages of planning or construction right now.
I suspect the uranium nuclear status quo won't give in to the advantages of thorium reactors until/unless fusion becomes feasible and threatens to make fission as we know it obsolete.
Neil is the greatest story teller of all time. I want him to tell me the story of Excalibur. I want to hear Neil teach me about investing finances.
Neil has the type of voice that fits right in with Morgan Freeman's voice. Great for story telling ♥
Check out the Nick Zentner channel and hear geologic stories!
He is a decent story teller. Not the best of all time. That is my opinion.
I love listening to Mr. Neil deGrasse Tyson. It is so enlightening and educational.
K..
Do you mean for a black man? Sounds like that’s the direction you were heading
@@BrookseyJayWhen I read between the lines like you're doing here, I gather you are trying to start something ... how did you come to that conclusion?
You mean Dr Neil DeGrasse Tyson yes? Or professor! Don't demote the man!
@@rickypen 🤣
First time watching these two together, wasn’t expecting this to be so funny. Loved it.
They become lovers
@@BrookseyJay I was going to scold you for this comment but then I chuckled at it and lost all credibility. Damn you, BrookseyJay! 😂
@@TommyFlanagan666 thank God I was starting to lose hope that we still had a sense of humor!😁
Yes!! Thank you. I’ve been saying salts one of the oldest known and used preservatives. Makes me chuckle a little when a product says “preservative free” and contains a ton of salt or vinegar :)
“Preservative free” means it doesn’t have any artificial chemical substance that prevents it from spoiling. It doesn’t count any natural preservatives like salt, sugar, etc.
@@furikakez Yes... I’m quite aware... that’s what I mean. It’s all just marketing BS.
also baking soda :)
...and now, thanks to Neil and Chuck, I understand what it means to be "worth your salt"...and how it pertains directly to earning one's salary. I also understand how, in the long term, electric cars _today_ lay the groundwork for ending fossil fuel dependence in the _future,_ even while still largely dependent on coal-burning power plants _currently._
(No electrical pun intended.)
that phrase is from history. similar to currant analogies like Tossing the Salt for who gets the football at the beginning of the game.
Also keep in mind how that coal is transported to the power generation plants………diesel burning trains…….which leads us back to fossil fuels.
Understandable statement after watching this vid.... BUT ... This is a statement from the ages when salt was life... like stated in the vid. Soooo "worth your salt" means "worthless".
@@denniss1211 Many phrases from antiquity still survive in modern vernacular. The situations they reference may no longer apply, but that doesn't necessarily change the meaning of the phrases themselves. Then again, many people still say, "Bless you," when somebody sneezes...having no idea why. In that case...as with, "Worth your salt," the _general_ sentiment is maintained, even while awareness of its _root_ is lost over time. For that matter, the etymological basis of, "Goodbye," is absent for most people who say it, even those who are generally religious. Linguistic Evolution is just one fascinating subset of Evolution in general. Yes?
Neil never mentions that every electric machine today depends on cobolt. 74% of all cobolt comes from the Congo. And that story isn’t pleasant. Unless this resource is intended to tie the world over until something else, oil will be consumed for a long long while.
Very few people want to talk about what the power usage is and the footbridge left behind in building a car, any car. We are actually better off if people just get existing cars to last as long as possible.
I love watching you both. Quick mind and quick wit working together.
Not sure those two things are different.
Theres an old saying that "he isn't worth his salt". I hadn't thought of the salt trade in a long time. Thank you
But he’s the salt of the earth 😃
Cassandra,
the romans, I think it was, paid their army in salt and that is how we get salry as term for payment for work done.
Isn't everything solar power? I mean if you want to extrapolate it, oil is solar power, because the sun nurtured the plants that the animals ate that died and eventually turned into coal, oil, and other fossil fuels. The primary source of all energy in the solar system is the sun.
so lets cut out the fossil fuel middle man before we become fossil fuel ourselves.
Mostly, but not quite. There's 4 sources of power that have nothing to do with the sun. They are:
- *Nuclear* : Fission and fusion are both reactions to do with the atoms of elements (yes the sun is a giant fusion reactor, but we can and do create these reactions independently of it)
- *Geothermal* : the heat from the core of our planet and the resulting tectonic movements (oil is a mix of solar and geothermal power)
- *Tidal* : the rising and falling of our oceans as triggered by the gravity of the moon
- *Chemical* : the mixing of elements to create exothermic reactions
The only large-scale source of power we use that isn't solar is nuclear. But since solar power is technically nuclear power, it's mostly all nuclear anyway.
@@aleximraypapineau The point I was making is in the video they say wind is just solar power because the sun creates the heat and pressure differences that cause the wind to blow. But by extrapolation, we can get every other energy form... nuclear is maybe the only one you can't directly tie to the sun I guess... but the sun's mass did pull together the planets from the matter left over from other exploded stars so the reason we have such naturally occuring high atmoic number elements like uranium is due to the sun's gravity.... but that's the biggest stretch.
Tidal: The motion of the moon is also because of the gravity of the sun, no sun no tides. Also the sun directly effects tides too, though only half as much as the moon.
Geothermal: Without the sun, the earth would have frozen to the core long ago.
Chemical: Nearly all exothermic chemical reactions are carbon based, which we find in such abundance because of former life fueled by the sun. Also like nuclear, the sun caused all this matter which became our planet to form together, first in a ring and eventually into a planet. Without the sun, all this matter would have dispersed into unusable space dust.
These are all a stretch, I fully admit. Wind being solar power is a stretch too though, which was the point I was trying to make.
Oil is not animals, It comes from a process that is long extinct. When the earth was young there was nothing that consumed dead plant matter. So dead plants just piled on top of each other creating beds of dead plant matter hundreds of meters deep. Eventually a bacterium evolved that could process dead plant matter. Oil and coal formed under great pressure as the bacteria began to break down the plant matter. Oil is the biproduct of these bacteria. Coal is basically compressed plant matter infused with the bacteria's byproduct.
Another way of looking at it is that all energy is nuclear.
Loved to hear nuclear. One of the cleanest sources of energy
In terms of ghg emissions, sure. Does have a bit of a waste problem though.
@@Hyperpandas yeah. But it does go deep underground and lie there, almost where it came from. Right?
@@ranjanagosavi4735 Not quite. Accidents can happen in transport and storage.
I thought this discussion was headed towards the Solar Two solar project (built in 1995).
It uses sunlight focused or concentrated on salt. The sunlight's heat makes the salt molten and the molten salt is used as an energy storage medium. In 2011, the Solar Tres in Spain became the first commercial solar power plant of its kind. The molten salt is used to heat water into steam for steam turbine generators and since the molten salt is able to retain intense heat long enough, the salt is able to generate power 24 hours per day.
I believe it was shut down. It was killin =g birds that flew into the concentrating beam and were being killed, and sometimes even vaporized.
The idea is still being worked. Remember,her we are in the early stages of developing an entirely new energy system from harvesting, to distribution, to consumption. Try and open your mind up to the posibilities.
Been waiting all week for this
Plus, even if the power plant uses fossil fuels to generate the electricity for your car, it does so with easily double the energy efficiency than a regular car engine.
No IT does not! Physics Works the same at the powerplant! A kWh produced in the US has in average a footprint og 450g CO2, which means a Tesla emits 110g CO2/mile! A compact diesel, as popular in Europe emits 145g CO2 Per mile, but a Tesla in Europe, only emits 80g CO2/mile, or 7g CO2 in Norway, because our Grids are cleaner! So if you own a Tesla in the US, it is never going to recoup its manufacturing emissions, before you get rid of your goal fired plants.
@@Tore_Lund nice stats. Source?
A the grid will get greener, a diesel will not. Additionally, do you want diesel exhaust in your neigbourhood poisening your kids, or in a powerplant where its away from people and the gases can be easily scrubbed. Anyway. EV is better, even when coal is used for electricity
@@Tore_Lund Efficiency, not physics, is what matters... and powerplants are much more efficient than gasoline or diesel engines, which waste (as heat) more than half the energy put into them. And conventional vehicles have comparable emissions costs in their manufacture, which you don't "recover", whatever that even means.
@@ΘάνατοςΧορτοφάγος now they speak to me about how toxic lithium is? Do you even know that as you're charging something you're actually being exposed to outgassing lithium? No I suppose you didn't you're just trading one toxin for a more unstable more toxic substance of which where are you going to mine all this lithium because I don't think you understand where lithium actually is and where it's mine from or how destructive lithium mining is go look up a lithium mine and look at the pictures of it now realize that most of the lithiums reserves in the world are in former or current rainforests and the process to extract it is fracking
@@Tore_Lund You're inaccurate and we've already nearly gotten rid of the coal plants. 19% of electricity came from coal in 2020 in the US...and they're shutting down plants across the country at faster and faster rates...mostly due to the economic inefficiency...but that's fine too.
Possibly discuss the cost of making the batteries and the need to get rare earth metals from the sea floor.
There is no rare earth in lithium-ion batteries.
@@HCkev You are going to power NYC, LA, Dallas on a couple Li-ion. We need huge amounts of metals, including far more rare earth metals, but we also need a massive amount of copper that we don't have.
Long story short: If you think we're going renewable in the next 30 years, invest in copper as soon as you can. We will either have a copper boom, or these green energy initiatives will fail.
@@pinochet3698 Tesla battery packs fix that problem. Just ask South Australia.
@@denniss1211 I'm pretty sure you've posted this comment 4 times on multiple videos. 🤖
@@HCkev Right, it's in motors not batteries..
I just love Neil's segway from cars, to salt, back to cars, and oil. The almighty black honey. Neil's comparison of the bottlenecked oil industry to the versatility of the electric industry just blew my mind. Happy Earth Day everyone! 🌎🌱🌻🌳🌊 Stay safe and keep looking up!
Yes we already invest in crypto. It's basically free money
Just don't look up when you walking beside a busy highway! 😁
"Segway"
Segue, not one of those electric things you ride around on. 😂
@@alexs3187 thank you!
We could mitigate electric carbon emissions if our electricity was generated from nuclear power.
Just remember Chernobyl and Fukushima 😢..
Fun video with great perspective. As an electric power enthusiast since the early 70's, this transition to electric power in so many areas is very exciting. @neildegrassetyson, as the transition to electric power is underway, how do we factor in the global environmental costs of battery production and transportation into this discussion?
And are we have enough renewable sources to meet demands of complete electrification? Every drop of oil will be burned until it's the last one....
He did touch on this in a very interesting way. He basically said battery tech is Old. We need to put our brains to work solving that inefficient and problem causing issue.
Always great content from a year or so ago but with electric rates nearly tripling in the northeast (US) I can tell you I'm MUCH more aware of where my electricity comes from today! 😫
So after listening for 15 minutes what did we really learn? Nothing new. It still takes fuel to male electricity. Wind and solar can't cover the loss of nuclear, and fossil fuels, so now What? Changing the status of Pluto didn't change its orbit, or influence. It is still Pluto. LOL
@@Easy-dk2dp Yes, from "fossil" plants.
He doesn't dare say that electric vehicles create much more pollution than internal combustion vehicles over its life(production, usage, disposal).
@@mikep490 Hello Mike. I have a question for you. I know that's what people are taught. (Oil comes from plants.) Can you show us any plant fossils in the crude oil? I would love to see some pictures. I'm not talking deposits in tar pit either... Let's take a different track. Was the Great Oxygenating Event caused by plants or other organisms? 🤯
@@davidbaldwin7733 I've heard this theory, but also heard this theory debunked. Depends on who you believe. I believe that ICE & EVs will be pretty much line ball for the whole life cycle of the car if the electricity source is 100% sourced from fossil fuels. The greener the power sourse, the bigger the win for EVs. Given the future is moving greener for our electricity production, this will only skew in favour of EVs going forward. The other side affect of going green, is better air quality in our cities. Can't happen soon enough in my eyes.
Teslas energy business is partly focused on storing energy!! This is so important
Maybe one day we won't need to store it, but that day isn't Today...
@@steve-o6413 Why wouldn’t you ever want to store it? It’s extra energy you can save for bad days and transfer to places that need it
@@GhettoHuerta Imagine a planet GRID where australia could produce electricity for the united states and the other way around, maybe efficiency over the transport could drop but that would be so cool( no need to store)
Storing energy is essential to travel. Imagine the stored energy required to leave this star system, travel to another and come back.
Star Talk....what a great, great show. Love the humor. Neil is the best.
These brothers really know how to explain stuff! Love it!
I was rather expecting to hear s little bit of concern about the added strain on the power supply when we all plug in our vehicles. Also why didn't you address where the raw materials come from that make cars possible and batteries possible. How much power do we need? Why is planned obsolescence allowed?
Most people would be plugging their cars in at night when there is low demand and the rates are lower. But we absolutely do need to upgrade our power grid in any case.
He totally dodged the question, and really didn't answer the one he made up all that well.
Every single residence in California, the largest EV market by far, is now required to have rooftop solar for any residence less than 4 stories. Most of these houses / apartments, condos, etc. will have MORE electricity than they need for their own use, including their EVs. Distributed Power Generation is the future of almost everywhere.
There are raw materials in nearly every continent to make these batteries (and cars)...they should be mined locally...just like we currently do with Oil in the US.
The positive difference is that once you put everyone on EVs...there is NO localized poisonous gases coming out of their tailpipes...killing more people per year than traffic accidents.
OIL needs to go...NOW...not later.
Coal is already on its way out...less than 20% of US Electricity came from coal last year. The UK was WAY less...most days they don't require using ANY coal. The world will be a much cleaner place because of that.
EV batteries are valuable enough that they can be almost 100% recycled. that will be VERY important in the future as we get more and more new batteries from recycled resources.
Cheers!
You guys rock!!!
Neil, thank you for being open minded, peaceful, and inspiring so many people. I'm sure you have made a difference in many lives, but i know that You have made a difference in one life, mine.
that so cool. how?
@@j.d.o.453Inspired me to take off some filters that held me back in opening my mind further. I'm seeing from a new perspective and want to explore and discover what research can examine.
@@mahmoudali6605 With so much at stake, I would hope for a think tank focused on that. Not how to smear the other side before some election.
The good news about electric cars running on electricity that was produced by fossil fuels is, If I take the energy equivalent of a gallon of gas and put it through a turbine to make electricity and then put it in my EV, I can drive 135 miles on that. If I were to put that gallon of gas in my car I could only go perhaps 30 miles.
Love how he explains how it’s not primarily about the environment but rather to break the dependency on oil. Electricity can be generated by many sources.
Yeah for sure. I’m in the process of going solar now
I wonder if there’s another energy other than electricity because that’s what we are dependent on
It takes one double V12 diesel digger running for a full day To mine lithium for enough batteries for 2 cars! That digger runs on oil. Oil is required even for plastics!
@@martinlaird9712 Sure, but the final goal the global energy transition is that even that double V12 diesel digger will be replaced with something electric.
Realize that we're *currently* in the middle of the energy transition and it is accelerating. To be clear, just because there currently exists _both_ renewables and fossil fuels at the moment does _not_ mean any failure of renewables. Because the transition takes time (years) in order transition smoothly with minimal economic disruption.
Moreover, every unit of renewable energy technology manufactured helps dismantle fossil fuel hegemony bit by bit. In that way, using fossil fuels to create more renewable energy products is actually *the best* use for fossil fuels!
OTOH, one of the *worst ways* to use fossil fuels is within an internal combustion engine (ICE) car. It has an appalling nominal efficiency of 20% where a whopping 80% of it is lost to heat! All along with lots of toxic emissions blown right into our faces in the neighborhoods where we live, play, and work.
Furthermore, burning just 1-gallon of gasoline produces an astonishing 20lbs of CO₂. That doesn't even include the massive 24x7x365 ongoing global effort of people, machinery, finances and investments to explore, drill, transport, refine, transport again that fuel to get to gas station all before a _single drop_ of it is burnt for energy. The ICE car needs to eliminated ASAP and that is the first big domino to fall in bringing down the fossil fuel hegemony.
Note that plastics are *tiny* portion of the total daily oil use of some 100-million barrels *per day* burnt up for energy in a one-time effectively irreversible process. Moreover, there are growing alternatives to plastics by the way of bio-plastics derived from plant based sources. Bioplastics are going to be especially vital for the food industry for one-time use utensils and packaging since bioplastics degrade quickly and naturally.
@@BrookseyJayThere’s a variety; energy can for instance be stored as potential energy, eg pumped hydro, as another form of chemical, eg using generated electricity to make hydrogen which can be transported and stored. Batteries can use many types of materials and chemicals, not just lithium which are currently used for their high energy density and compactness in mobile devices, neither of which are critical in mains battery storage, eg nickel-hydrogen or nickel-cadmium.
Let's not forget about the carbon footprint of power plants, power companies, and everything else needed to be able to plug your car in.
Like the batteries
This really opened my eyes! as Neil says himself, from the book Turning Oil into Salt.
I was thinking too close minded about just the CO2 etc.. So it is about having an alternative to oil.
I understand that it is important getting strategically less dependent.
But it also allows alternatives sources to grow slowly.
Nuclear power is still the most efficient and cost effective power generation source.
Electric power plays a crucial role in our understanding of the cosmos, from powering telescopes to investigating quantum phenomena. Quantum physics explores the fundamental nature of particles and forces at the smallest scales, revealing complex interactions that can influence cosmic phenomena. As we deepen our understanding of both electric power and quantum physics, new insights could emerge about the fundamental workings of the universe. How might advancements in quantum physics and electric power technologies enhance our ability to explore and comprehend the cosmos?
I live in an area where electric vehicles don't really make sense. Not enough charging stations and so cold in winter 1/4 the year that they lose a lot of that already small range.
But I hope it gets sorted out. Because my area also shows up on the "worst air quality in the country\world" lists too often. I'd love to get to a point where all vehicle emissions could be offloaded to the power company (and simplifying how to deal with emissions at a single source).
when neil started talking salt, thought he would pivot to molten salt reactors, developed in the 60's at oakridge national laboratory
Was expecting the same.
@@koori3085 glad to have you on the advocating team, I look for opportunities to tell the story as often as possible
@@peterdorn5799 never understood, if you could use the fuel as a coolant and cut one loop out of the design, just seems like a win-win situation. Political pressure put a stop to them?
Thank you! I had no idea this was an option for the world!!!!! I actually feel a great sense of relief after reading more about this!
its shocking how little the public knows of these old school reactors. safer than anything else.
Both of you are so enjoyable ! It's fun listening to these informative talks, thank you Startalk !!!
Nobody argues that electric doesn't create a carbon footprint. I'm yet to have someone explain to me, block by block, why electric wouldn't create a net favorable carbon reduction, however. Taking it a step further, can the carbon methods currently being used to create electricity not themselves eventually be replaced with electric, so that electric assets are now creating electric assets?
"Hydro and wind are solar powered ...". By that logic, so is Oil and coal. The bio matter that transformed into it, absorbed the sunlight to power the biological processes that changed CO2 into the carbon the plant grew from. There is not much energy on earth, stored or otherwise, that didn't come from the sun.
so is salt the process of making salt from sea water involves the solar powered evaporation of water!
True, but Tyson is referring to ‘today’s’ sun not sun from millions of years ago
@@ClownCarCoup
To be more precise, 8 minutes ago sun..
Economics!!! The study of the use of scarce recourses which have alternative uses.
I thought this was going to be a discussion about the carbon footprint of making an electric car and mining the metals for the batteries.
Yeah, would have been better with just the genius.
Did you read the headline??
I thought that was were he was heading with the battery 150 year old technology and the need to do better
@@jensconcepts671 They've already gotten better, faster, cheaper and much larger production volume. They're already driving the costs lower...doing better every year. ICE engines are not.
My mother's father worked in a Scots coal mine. For the 3rd shift in a row (a bad event underway), my mom brought down his food for her dad for the 3rd shift. In payment of the overtime, the overseer sent my grandfather home with a cabbage. My mom's mum thought that was great.
Talk about working for cabbage....
_7:20__ "You used to be hot, SALT. No longer. __-Now it's Chipotle-__ Now you are just SALTY!!"_
I’d like to thank you guys for this series of videos, I’m in a long convalescence following major surgery and boredom is a real PIA, however the informative and humorous way that you present the various topics is both fascinating and entertaining, really helps me pass the time, terrific work, thanks very much 👍👍👍👍
I think it’s absurd to think of being ashamed because we harnessed the power of fossil fuels. Without fossil fuels any other power technology couldn’t have come about. I think it’s wise to look at the use of fossil fuels as a limited resource, and a huge mistake to think of it only in terms of the brain washed carbon footprint lies. Hydro is probably the least impactful to the environment overall longterm. I’ve felt for decades that to be able to somehow tap into the massive power of the sun in a far greater way than now possible or practical would be awesome. And let’s not get so blinded by the green ideology that we forget that defending our once great country (that is now in an extremely dangerous decline) will necessarily be dependent on fossil fuels for the foreseeable future.
In many states you can decide where you want to get your power from (Fossil Fuel, or renewable). It's not a big cost difference.
but do you really know where its coming ? here in germany , idiots protested to close nuclear power plants and now we buy electricity from other countries who produce it with coal ...
@@gpsoulhunter7335 In the US you know where power comes from (except for Texas which is not on the Federal grid). Power companies are regulated and need to have set contracts with power generators. They can't randomly switch around because they might not be able to get power when they need it and the transmission facilities might not have the capacity. Texas on the other hand has no agreed contracts ahead of time and each power company can switch to any source in Texas at any time (as long as the source agrees).
Add in the taxpayer supplied government subsidies required to make renewables competitive.
@@gpsoulhunter7335 im pretty sure Chernobyl had nothing to everything to do with that
you cannot decide where you get your power from, unless you are completely separated from the grid. I've worked in power generation for almost a decade. you are still getting your energy from the closest generation facility on the line. the federal government gives, "green credits" to power generation companies based off of their renewable megawatt generation. these companies can then use these credits benefits to offset their taxes for that generation. this is a way the government incentivizes renewable power. but these credits don't have to be applied directly to that generation facility. in fact, they are bought and sold on the open market like a commodity. long story short. your power comes from the same place. these companies buy green credits off the market and label the electricity you consume as "Green Power." then if they are not the local power company, they still pay the power company for the same power you always paid for. use the credits for their taxes. then charge you for the cost of the power, the credits, and a management fee.
wind is not created by warm surface water and air temperature differential, it is a result of the Earth's magnetosphere being squeezed, but granted by the Sun's emission of electromagnetic waves ... so still caused by the Sun, but by a totally different method ...
Love this channel. Need to find a way to introduce my daughter to it...
I so much enjoy these two guys, one with such good ideas and a different vision and the other smart, funny. So much entertainment.
They are black outs and brown outs in the summer when a lot of people uses their AC.
With all 100% renewables, there will be lots more black and brown outs.
False. Solar power peaks when AC usage does. Look at California's duck curve over time.
@@RandomAccountHolder And what does that have to do with anything?
What do renewables have to do with blackouts and brownouts then if you're going to please ignorance?
@@RandomAccountHolder You are still connected to the grid.
You are connected to the pole.
Actually, I'm not, but even those that are aren't more likely to have those problems due to renewables.
I'm so glad to have finally had someone else mention that wind and hydro are also forms of solar energy!!!
It's simply a matter of the time delay. PV solar is ~8minutes new photons. Wind is a few days old to be the built up thermal differentials. And hydro a few weeks or months or annual snowpack from rain amd snowfall.
And even other biomass and fossil fuels are solar powered, just on years to milenia long time frames and also much lower efficiencies. As they all begin with photosynthesis at ~1~3% conversion efficiency, and fossil conversion is as low as 0.0008% efficiency (photon to ICE car wheel).
Versus about ~36% for wind photon to BEV wheel, or ~10% for solar PV (based on EROI power factor) photon to wheel...
That's an interesting perspective on the reason to move to electric vehicles. Very interesting idea
Electric vehicles are only practical if you are always on the grid though.
Hydrogen vehicles have range similar to long range electric vehicles but can be refiled in a few minutes like a gas car
@@B1u35kyRight now yes, but eventually they will have enough range to be as versatile as gas vehicles.
@@Mal-ws3kt but you still need to plug them in. Hydrogen cars are a better version of electric vehicles.
Don't need the grid if you have your own solar panels and battery storage. Many EV drivers have already done this.
@@MarkLLawrence yes but that's not practical on a large scale especially looking into the future. Hydrogen power is simply better but it's not as established as battery electric, yet.
Chuck is hilarious. Bathe with a toaster when things are bad was awesome on the fly. Brilliant.
Neil you forget how polymers are oil byproducts and they are so cheap, common and easy to shape so it's hard to just leave oil.
Oil isn't going to disappear and we will still be dependent upon just not as dependent...
@@steve-o6413 polymers are made from byproduct in oil refinery process while mostly making fuel. If you make less fuel then you have less polymers. You can't just make one thing from crude oil. Check prices right now, for 5 months there is a shortage of polypropylene and polyethelene graunlate due to apparently less jet fuel production. The prices of these granulates almost doubled. And for example, this translate to drastic price increase in styrofoam or other building materials, or even flexible packaging used to pack goods.
@@steve-o6413 Most OIL will go away...we will completely stop using it as fuel for ground transportation...and short haul flight for smaller planes.
Plastic is being banned in the EU as we speak. Single use plastic utensils and other things will be eliminated.
We've started using (and wasting) plastics because we COULD...not because we should. It will be a LOT less than many people think..
@@silvk1000 Styrofoam is going to be eliminated too...completely hazardous for the environment and the animals in it...including humans.
Coal an gas are solar power just longer processing involved
Yes, solar power and high efficiency storage on a smart grid! Sounds like what Tesla and others are trying to accomplish. Thank you Chuck for making us laugh every day lol !
Trying being the key word here.
@@MrInjun382 In the Process of doing... There., FIFY.
@@davidc2838 yeah ok. Pie in the sky
@@MrInjun382 Better than doing nothing.
Who's country do we need to destroy to achieve this goal?
Wow! Excellent overview putting the EV trend into perspective. While it's not perfect, it offers a new direction with a future.
That’s very optimistic. What exactly are you willing to sacrifice to achieve that perspective.
Apparently the lithium mines are far worse than oil rigs.
Burning all that coal to generate electric energy seems like it would cause more greenhouse gas emissions than oil and gas does.
Would like to hear what Neil thinks of Nuclear as a more widespread option, and also natural gas.
Correct. People who look at LNG (which is responsible for reducing carbon emissions in the United States by 50%) scream FRACKER! And then turn a blind eye to how fracking Lithium is far, far more environmentally disastrous. SMH
Mr. Tyson keep your sidekick
I'd like to see a video on the production of lithium.
I was thinking the same thing Gerry.
It's kind of like the production of OIL, Coal and Gas...But WAY less BAD for the world.
Have you seen a video on the destruction that OIL, COAL and Gas create in the world??
Fossil fuels are actually also solar power stored through photosynthesis.
true, but on an extremely long latency cycle. more peat moss please!
@@larrybremer4930 We're burning through them way too fast for it to be sustainable anyway. And natural photosynthesis has an abysmally low energy conversion efficiency: less than 3%.
it's actually all bigbang powered, if we want to get technical.
@@dylanmaxwell495 That's only if the big bang actually happened, science isn't so sure anymore.
Wonderful, only a minute in and the facts are addressed.
Actually not all the facts
...except for a discussion on how detrimental battery production to store this electricity in your EV is, you mean?
@@n8skow or how the dirtiest coal burning power plant is ~3 x more efficient at generating energy than the average ice vehicle?
@@breagerey That doesn’t even come close to making up for the environmental costs of making batteries. Electric cars aren’t the solution for now at least.
@@Aidio95 your ignoring the environmental offset of the manufacturing and use.
An ice engine has > 2k parts .. all of which need to manufactured.
That's not free.
Nor are you including pollution generation from use of the end product. (everything from what comes out the tailpipe to the lubricants to keep an ice engine going)
EVs arent the answer for everything - but there's not much doubt they are massively more efficient in power generation and pollution.
At this point, for a lot of uses, they have a significant economic advantage as well.
During the "spice trade" pepper was more valuable than gold by weight, and was actually a form of physical currency btw.
I LOVE these videos, cool detailed scientific information in a happy fun atmosphere, that most people can understand.
Something that wasnt mentioned is how much less efficient a small combustion engine, like in a car, is versus a power plant. It's a huge difference, it's vastly more energy efficient.
Interesting talk about energy, thank you for having this conservation 😉
I have a question for future episodes. Me and my friend have been listening to an episode talking about different Dimensions while at work and we were wondering if SOUND and SMELL can be trans-dimentional?
Imagine if everything runs on electric, even if the power plants runs on fossil fuels, it'll be way easier to design some kind of carbon capture or any other kind of device that can reduce the pollution impacts of burning fuel for electricity generation because all the emissions are at the same place.
Energy is solved but it has to go through the right people that is what is going on it is all about power and control of people going forward.
To my knowledge fusion hasn’t been a positive outcome. What energy has solved anything?
I think it will actually be about economics and real science in the long run. We have political science driving renewables today and government subsidies that are unsustainable.
@@danlowe8022 true ,we have plenty of ways to make energy it is all about controlling people in there lives and how well they live going forward
@@drakemia4079controlling people eh.
Your lack understanding and poor grasp of the science involved with ev is great.
You are amazing chuck and neil.
@@knowledgeBoosterkb123 These people talking about cryptocurrency are scammers. The next step is they'll try to send you their whatsapp contact info and then try to bilk money out of you by having you invest with them directly. There are thousands of them around on youtube spamming people's comments in batch mode. A spam bot it's called. Not even a real person, just a fake youtube account.
@@nobodyknows3180oh i though he was being genuine. And yeah i will be aware of these kind of scammers Thanks for letting me know.
Wish you had been my teacher of everything at school!! You're such an inspiration 🙌🙏
So, in a perfect world, for every liter of gasoline burned you are using 2.275kg of oxygen. If you know the amount of gasoline you car’s engine is using you will have a pretty good idea how much oxygen was used.
Using the solar power is the best way to go no matter how you analyze it