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John Deere's Electric Tractor: a Vision of Zero Emissions Farming

posted by Fnord666 on Saturday December 10 2016, @08:41AM   
from the so-the-green-tractor-is-going-green? dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

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.

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Original Submission

• Re:Zero-local-emissions... Re:Zero-local-emissions... (Score: 2) by RedBear on Saturday December 10 2016, @08:55PM

  by RedBear (1734) on Saturday December 10 2016, @08:55PM (#439793)

  At least they're honest, with the zero "local" emissions stuff. Because that electricity is going to come from somewhere, and the whopping batteries required by a tractor use lots of interesting materials dug out of someone's back yard, and processed in someone else's back yard.

  Absolutely correct. Fossil fuels are much better since they appear magically in our own backyards and require no transportation or processing whatsoever.

  Also, fossil fuels are definitely not subsidized. At all. The world doesn't subsidize fossil fuels to the tune of 5 trillion per year. Nope. Fossil fuels are super cheap.

  Frankly, I am increasingly convinced that hydrocarbons are just about the best fuel solution we have. We already have the infrastructure to distribute them, they burn nicely in all of the (mature technology) hydrocarbon engines that we have. Why not put renewable energy source to work producing hydrocarbons, i.e., using them as the storage medium?

  Boy, that sounds great. I'm sure we'll figure out how to mass produce 100 million barrels of hydrocarbon fuels per year by this time next week. And I'm sure we can all agree to continue pretending that burning hydrocarbons doesn't produce particulate pollution that causes smog, acid rain, and contribute to the early death of hundreds of thousands of people worldwide each year.

  Too many renewable energy types are determined to reduce everyone's standard of living. People are not going to accept this. Just as an example: There's a local project to convince people to let their heating be controlled by the availability of renewable energy on the grid. So, during the day, your house heats up because there's plenty of solar energy. During the evening and night, you're then not allowed to heat. If you have a house with average insulation, you would spend half your time hot, and the other half cold. People are not going to accept this crap - this is not the way to sell renewable energy.

  Yeah, the best possible way to do things is to strip all the insulation from our homes and use a hundred times as much energy to maintain a constant 70 degrees inside. Cost be damned, pollution be damned, we need to maintain our standard of living and show the rest of the world how awesome we are.

  And now back to reality:

  - Renewable energy is not somehow magically dirtier than fossil fuels.
  - Renewable energy is no longer more expensive than fossil fuels.
  - Renewable energy will NOT cause our utility bills to skyrocket.
  - We CANNOT continue to use the fossil fuels that are still in the ground without severely damaging our planet's climate for thousands of years.
  - "Liberals" are not out to enslave humanity and destroy everyone's quality of life by making energy too expensive to use. They just want a world where all of our descendants can survive and flourish.
  - It is ludicrously inefficient to waste renewable energy to create hydrocarbons when we can just directly dump that same energy into vastly more efficient electric propulsion systems.
  - Have you even heard of wind energy? It works quite well at night.
  - You are spreading unsupportable nonsense.

  --
  ¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
  ... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ

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• Re:Zero-local-emissions... (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @01:07PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @01:07PM (#439960)

  And I'm sure we can all agree to continue pretending that burning hydrocarbons doesn't produce particulate pollution that causes smog, acid rain, and contribute to the early death of hundreds of thousands of people worldwide each year.

  This is much less of an issue with artificially produced hydrocarbons, than ones refined from oil pumped out of the ground.

  I don't think they are a solution to our problems, but don't rule them out for spurious reasons. Artificially produced hydrocarbons may be the best fit for some use cases.

  Parent