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from the so-the-green-tractor-is-going-green? dept.
John Deere has released a video of an all-electric concept tractor in the lead-up to the SIMA Agribusiness show in France, pointing the way toward a zero-local-emissions tractor product in the future.
In some ways, tractors seem like an ideal candidate for electrification. Electric motors are great for generating the kinds of huge torque figures tractors require, and tractors are generally fairly short range vehicles that live in the same shed every night, making for convenient recharging. They're also very low-maintenance in comparison with diesel gear.
That's the thinking behind John Deere's SESAM (Sustainable Energy Supply for Agricultural Machinery) tractor, a gutted out JD 6R with a huge battery bank up front and dual electric motors developing up to 130 kilowatts (174 horsepower) of continuous power.
(Score: 3, Informative) by BsAtHome on Saturday December 10 2016, @10:46AM
The real problem is that if all people in the world use the same amount of energy as we have become used to in the "west", then this earth is not big enough. Either you have to do with less and share, or you actively deprive your fellow earthling the privilege you enjoy. The sum of energy consumption for all of earth's population, regardless how we get it, is a finite measure. We have already been using more than is good for us using fossil fuels.
So, either you reduce your consumption to your fair share(*) or you keep the competition down by depriving it from a fair share. I guess the latter will not be looked upon with great enthusiasm by those you deprive.
(*) fair share is defined as the amount the earth can sustain for the global population divided by the population.
(Score: 2) by aiwarrior on Saturday December 10 2016, @11:13AM
Or you know, You compensate the increased numbers earthlings with better efficiency all around, just a possibility... Maybe recycling becomes economically more practical also, just...another possibility before Eugenics or mass economical control a-la Sovietic style.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by TheLink on Saturday December 10 2016, @04:16PM
You compensate the increased numbers earthlings with better efficiency all around, just a possibility
There's a limit to how much efficiency will get you, unless you mean efficiency as in not actually doing certain stuff in the first place or not having those extra humans.
1) If everyone wants 1kW of cooling/heating, better heatpumps may work but there's a limit of how efficient they can get. You are not going to be able to get 1000W heating/cooling with 10watts of power.
2) If everyone wants a car of a certain level of capacity and safety, it will consume significant amount of energy and resources.
If I don't have children I can drive a Humvee for the rest of my life and still use less total resources than someone who had 2 children who each had 2 children who each had 2 children etc. Even if those children only rode bicycles around. My footprint would be "wide" but it would be very short.
However assuming we don't take the population reduction path, there are two non-exclusive solutions to the problem of having a high population:
a) Get off this planet and use other resources
b) Convincing/conditioning the masses to be satisfied with virtual Circuses. The Bread has to be real but the Circuses don't.
Option a) is not really that possible at the moment and it would actually take too much resources to get billions of people off the planet- it would be more of off-planet population growth in space colonies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 10 2016, @04:32PM
"1) If everyone wants 1kW of cooling/heating, better heatpumps may work but there's a limit of how efficient they can get. You are not going to be able to get 1000W heating/cooling with 10watts of power."
You can share that 1kW of cooling/heating. Kind of inevitable, with higher population density.
"2) If everyone wants a car of a certain level of capacity and safety, it will consume significant amount of energy and resources."
Public transportation. Also works better with higher population density.
In a lot of cities a car is not very useful. Parking, traffic congestion. On the rare occasions that you actually need a car (say, a family trip), you can rent one. It's the low-density areas that need cars.
Both of your points are kind of self-correcting. Feeding or smartphones would be much better examples, IMHO :)
(Score: 3, Touché) by Unixnut on Saturday December 10 2016, @08:06PM
> On the rare occasions that you actually need a car (say, a family trip), you can rent one.
This is constantly trotted out as a realistic option, when it isn't. For example. I live in the centre of one of the denser cities on earth. Nobody I know (apart from me) has a car, including the entire company I work for. There just isn't the space for it, and the congestion is such that you can get around faster on foot or by bike.
The solution to needing a car was what you described, car rentals. Things like "zipcar" came around. The problem with renting a car when you actually need one, is that you will find everyone else needs one at the same time.
For example. weekends. People don't take a family trip during the week, kids are at school and parents are at work. However weekends is when everyone want a trip.
What usually happens is that the cars sit unused almost all the time, and then 5% of the time everybody wants one. So what is the solution? Either you have enough cars on standby to satisfy peak demand (in which case you have not solved the congestion thing at all, just changed who owns the cars) or you use surge pricing to decide who gets to use the car (which will result in people just saying "screw it" and buying their own cars).
And it isn't just with car rentals. I was carless for a few months, and in theory I always have a public transport , cab or uber equivalent nearby. Problem is, say on a Friday night I want to go out to a friends place (out of range of public transport). Guess what, everything is booked, unless I wanted to wait 45 minutes for a 15 minute car journey, and even then there is no guarantee they would actually show up in 45 minutes, or show up at all in fact. .
When you need a car most, tends to be when everyone else needs one. So the "shared commons" thing really isn't going to work out.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 10 2016, @12:21PM
How about the third and most-obvious solution? Reduce the population.
If we don't do it voluntarily, then there will always be a large part of humanity that is suffering. Eventually disease, pestilence, and famine will keep our numbers in check if we don't.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 10 2016, @12:50PM
clearly the answer is carpet bombing poor countries.
if you kill everyone nobody will be left to complain.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 10 2016, @01:21PM
That's already happening.
And it's happening because we are already fighting over resources.
Because we already have too many people.
Checkmate.