The transition

stompandgo said:
I've owned Ego lawn care equipment for about 5 years. My first battery died last week. The failure mode is that it is able to take a charge, but the runtime is only a few minutes before it cuts out and the red light flashes. That's good, but not great, for something that's rarely used more than 40 times per year.
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I'm in a somewhat similar experience in that my Atlas 40v/80v lawn equipment is 6 years old and I'm just getting into the 7th season. My original 2 batteries still work as, or very close to new. I did add a third battery that is now 3 years old and I can't tell the difference between any of the three.
I did have an anomaly at the start of last year where one of the original batteries refused to take a charge. When tested the voltage had dropped to 12/24V when it had been stored at 35/70v. So I very slowly charged it at a very low current with a desktop power supply and got it up to 35/70v. Next morning it was still at that voltage so I put it in the charger and it took full charge to 41.5/83V. It then operated flawlessly the rest of the season, stored well over the winter and is still working as new now.
I don't know what caused the anomaly but I do know one thing... I'll never own a gas mower again.
 
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Rás Cnoic said:
yeah that clip above covers that. it's cheap and within their borders, as are renewables. They are using both - vast population in huge metropolises with modern electricity demands of their enormous industry. But as the renewables infrastructure continues to be built that will change.
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If people can't understand that China is playing the long game, then their heads are in their ass and the sand.
 
This is where we are.

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Art Deco said:
Like almost every politician in the west ...
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I'm gonna be a bit contrarian and argue why putting off the transition to renewables, up to a point, might be kind of stupid smart.

Solar panels and batteries are Wright's Law devices whose costs decline rapidly year over year as economies of scale take over. Any device whose manufacture is very amenable to automation (e.g. integrated circuits) tends to follow that law.

In practice, over the past several decades, year-on-year solar panels are on average twenty percent cheaper (per watt of generated power) per year. And compound interest effects work here as well. That means in five years the costs will be down sixty percent and over ten years the costs will be ninety percent less. As a practical example, I deployed 8kw of rooftop solar in 2015 and the panels cost me about $15,000. Today 8kw worth of panels from similar sources would cost around $1400.

Today the majority cost to install rooftop solar at home is the electrician.

What this argues is that kicking the can down the road even a few years can save, in aggregate, an enormous amount of money by delaying on that transition. I don't think that's what our politicians intend, but that is the practical effect.

Another interesting side effect that happens here is how competition arises. If you have invested hundreds of billions of dollars into factories and a supply chain around a particular solar or battery technology, you are probably going to be extremely hesitant to make that investment obsolete by building the next-generation of factories that provide cheaper and more efficient solar panels. So that other country that missed out on the last stage of the revolution has every incentive to start building factories for the next generation. Just saying.
 
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Gionnirocket said:
If people can't understand that China is playing the long game, then their heads are in their ass and the sand.
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As this article suggests, the same war games are being considered.

This may well be all America has left before it slips off world domination.

jacobin.com

The Pentagon Seriously Contemplated Nuking China in 1958

Newly leaked documents show that US officials in 1958 cavalierly planned a nuclear strike on China over a handful of disputed islands. As Washington once more stokes tensions with China, it’s a reminder of the callous recklessness at the heart of US foreign policy.
jacobin.com jacobin.com
 
Thirty-three Jaecoo SUV vehicles worth more than £900,000 have been engulfed in a fire at Southampton docks.
Firefighters were called at about 4.20am today to a site on West Bay Road after locals reported 'explosions'.
Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service said 33 hybrid vehicles were involved.
But the cars are believed to be electric E5 vehicles from the Chinese brand Jaecoo - prices for which start from £27,505 apiece.
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Thats seems like a normal fire unless the small hybrid batteries run out before destroying them.
 
I also need to point out that 62% of Denmarks renewables are actually burning biomass.
That figure of 5.3% of world energy is probably nearer 4% for solar and wind.

I thinks its reasonable to say that the worlds incoming data centres will eat that up themselves.
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I remember back in the late 1990's they were building data centers like crazy for the dot com boom. Then the bubble burst around 2000 and there were empty data centers in the most unlikely places. I did a project on Guam around 2012-2014 and Tata owned a large modern data center on the south end of the island connected to a fiber nexus in the Pacific just off Guam. It was almost completely empty.
 
Theyre not all for AI, looks like we will be getting one for the panopticon

www.irishlegal.com

UK home secretary dreams of AI-powered ‘panopticon’

The UK's home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has been criticised after naming the panopticon as her model for the British criminal justice system. In an interview with Tony Blair, Ms Mahmood — who served as the UK's justice secretary from July 2024 to September 2025 — said her vision in tha
www.irishlegal.com www.irishlegal.com
 
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I could wire up private solar electricity without an electrician (I have been a factory mechanic and wired a room of a house age 11). but it rains 270 days a year here.
I've looked at wind power. My country trailer is at the top of a hill, but every supplier is obsessed with putting expensive fancy electronics on top of a steel tower. Have Californians (who lead this movement) never experienced a lightning storm? We lose a lot of A/C and furnaces to lightning blowing up the control board. An aeromotor with a driveshaft that ran down to the ground to spin a belt driven generator down there would be sustainable. Also rare as hen's teeth. Where to buy a 90 degree 1:1 gear box that will last 100 years? Especially as the bottom shaft seal would be covered in gear lube 100" of the time.
I've looked at water power. I have 1.6 acrefoot of water a month out there 9 momths a year. 20' drop from the pond to the property line. But every commercial system could be trashed by a freeze. The California effect again. An open top wheel with bent blades would work, so nobody sells one. Some French name. Funny thing, global warming has caused minimum winter temperatures here to drop by 10 degrees.
 
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