Xoon

East of the shackleton craters seems like the best spot for a lunar base:

It has near constant sunlight throughout the lunar summer. 

Also a light map made by NASA, brighter means more sunlight throughout the six months. 

The most illuminated ares marked here:

A and B seems like the best location, since they receive the most sunlight of them all (81-85% of the day).

Building a colony in this general location would be the best from a power standpoint. 

Cabeus and shoemaker crater are the best spots for mining water that can be refined to for example fuel.

Lastly, flyover of the moon:
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3686

Source:
http://www.nature.com/news/2007/071023/full/news.2007.182.html
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/multimedia/lroimages/lroc-20101215-south.html

7 hours ago, LostCosmonaut said:

 

I agree with this line of reasoning. Another key difference between the moon and the ISS (in terms of their usefulness for future colonization efforts) is the gravity differences. We know that prolonged time in zero-g has negative effects on the human body (and one g is fine), but we don't really have any data on the range in between. If living in 1/6 gravity is enough to keep away the negative effects of microgravity, then we're good on Mars (which is about 1/3 g).

 

 

Speaking of Mars, one option that occasionally gets brought up is launching missions to Phobos and Deimos before actually landing on the surface; http://csc.caltech.edu/references/Hopkins-Phobos-Deimos-Paper.pdf This has the advantage of not having to deal with the Martian atmosphere and a slightly smaller gravity well to climb out of. I don't see any reason to colonize those moons long-term, however. Maybe in the extreme future we can relocate Phobos and use it as the anchor for a Martian space elevator.

Phobos and Deimos could be used for the same purpose as the moon, for cheaper materials and fuel to space. Since Mars has stronger gravity and a atmosphere, it take more power to transport materials to space. 

23 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

I don't disagree in principle, but what is the difference in practical terms between someone who will happily torture another person to death without consideration for their suffering (because doing exactly whatever the fuck they like gratifies them) and someone who will torture someone to death without consideration for their suffering (because making others suffer gratifies them).  Empathy is a BS concept to a great extent, it is very strongly moderated by societal expectations as the BBC article I linked to clearly demonstrates.

When I speak of empathy, I mean a persons ability to emulate others emotions.  Not how caring you are or something like that. You can be strong in empathy and still don't give a crap about someone dying, this comes down to perceptions as you mentioned.  However, a person low in empathy is less likely to be affected by the death, while a person high in empathy is more likely to be affected. 

And then we come down to the definition, a psychopath is extremely low in empathy. This means they have a really hard time understanding others feelings. Which is why they end up not giving a shit. A sadist is extremely high in empathy, ironic right? To the point where they feel it stronger than the actual person, they also confuse pain with sexual pleasure. This means they can be caring and loving of people. However, if they are narcissistic, or low in consciousnesses they are likely to hurt others for their own pleasure.  

A psychopath would not torture someone to death unless it was to prove a point, or for deterrence. It is simply illogical and a waste of time. A sadist would, regardless of how logical it is. 

4 minutes ago, Sturgeon said:

Hm, well I never said sadists were the same thing as psychopaths.

You said psychopath/sadist, making it seem like they are similar, so I just explained to make sure everyone here was on the same track. Media tends to portray mental disorders and personality disorders pretty poorly. 
Examples like Sociopathy, mania, psychopathy, psychosis and schizophrenia.  The new film "Kingsmen 2" is a great example here. 

They really love to romanticize a hybrid psychopath/sadist, which per definition is almost impossible to be. 

7 minutes ago, Sturgeon said:

 

Ooookay, well, I am not a psychologist and I apparently brought down the potato sacks here hahah.

I didn't say psychopaths couldn't function in society, just that if they have murderous tendencies they usually get ID'd early in life.

Basing this on some reading I've done regarding psychopaths, but that doesn't make me an expert so feel free to correct me.

A psychopath is a person that lacks or is low in empathy. A sadist has exaggerated empathy, meaning they feel other peoples emotions more strongly than normal people, and gets sexual pleasure from others pain, and in some cases their own pain. 

In this case a sadist would probably do the killing out of pure pleasure. A psychopath would have to have motivation, like fame, money or ideological. In their eyes, murdering a few people does not seem like a big price to accomplice their goals. 

Both can go under the radar simply because people are not diagnosed unless they deviate from the norm. Meaning, if a sadist keeps their desires in check, they could appear as just another person.

For squarehead:

They are the polar opposite because they can't technically be both, as explained above.  Psychopaths put their gratification first, and will do anything to get it, thinking if you are dumb enough to be fooled, you deserve it. A sadist just loves pain.

They both fall under the "Evil triad" though, pretty much evil aspects of humans. 

4 hours ago, Sturgeon said:

 

Well, what makes Scumbag unusual is that normally psychpaths/sadists are unable to fly under the radar for six decades. They usually get caught in their developmental years when they are pulling the wings off birds, or, at worst, knifing or shooting their classmates. Then they are circulated through various ineffectual programs and/or prison until they die or (in rare cases) readjust. They do not normally lie dormant until they go on a shooting spree in their '60s. That is why people wonder if this was politically motivated.

 

Plus there's the fact that, in 2017, 85% of all actions taken by individuals, aside from eating, sleeping, and relieving the bowels, are politically motivated.

Sadists and psychopaths are the polar opposite.  And they both can function well in society. CEOs and journalists are popular choices for psychopaths. 
Psychopaths are very good at hiding under the radar, even managing to convince psychologists into not diagnosing them. 

He might be motivated by the fact that he is 60. He might want fame or to be remembered. 

Why does a shooter need a proper reason to preform mass murder? 

Many mass murderers can be classified as sadists. People that mistake pain for pleasure, and has much stronger empty than the average person.  Just think about how you feel when the bad guy in a movie is finally taken down, and make that feeling much stronger, that is how a sadist feel. Also, the feeling of orchestrating such a big thing, the feeling of being in control of thousands of people's life.  Many people murder just because of pleasure alone. 

To make things worse, is the amount of romanticizing from the media. Just think about the amount of prestige this person gets from pulling off the US's deadliest shooting. The media loves it and spreads it far and wide. He gets marked in history. Playing right into his hand.  This song pretty much shows a mass murder in a nutshell for the media:

And the amount of people exploiting the event for fame, attention and virtue signaling makes me puke. If these kinds of evens were played down and kept covering to a minimum, they would massively drop in popularity. 

2 hours ago, juretrn said:

True enough...

then again, good for "humanity" doesn't mean good bussiness-which is what will pull the big investors in.

The economic prospects are enormous, it's just that the risk and very long term investment is not seen as worth it for business.  Example: Why should I risk billions on a something that might only make huge profits in 25 years?  Also, by doing it, you basically pave the way for the rest, meaning they can do the same at a much lower risk. 

Simply put, humans are prefer more short term and quick solutions with instant gratification, and are egoistical, not wanting to share with others.

7 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Which is why we keep reinventing the mobile-phone.....Capitalism is a dead end, it confuses profit with progress.

Capitalism is supply and demand. Unless sufficient demand is there, they would rather make money of what they have. Why waste R&D on something that is not guaranteed to be hugely profitable? 
This is why Tesla is a pain in the ass for car manufacturers. He keeps pushing the bar up, forcing the car companies to actually invest in R&D.  Same goes with space. 

There is a reason why war and conflict causes such huge leaps in technology and advancements, because it creates a huge demand. 

4 minutes ago, Scolopax said:

In relation to the topic, I've always questioned why some people are so persistent with the idea of colonizing Mars before the moon.  Since we aren't entirely adept yet with extended, sustainable living away from Earth and its resources* (beyond ISS since it routinely gets resupplied), would it not be better to pick a location that is a great deal closer?  It'd be much faster to react and respond to an issue should one occur.

 

*I think we've discussed this before here, but I don't recall where and when.

From what I have heard, the reason NASA wants to go to Mars is because the public cares a great deal more about a Mars mission than a Moon mission, meaning more funding to do more stuff. If they could chose they would take the moon.  Elon Musk said he wanted to make our species interplanetary, and since he needs to keep up his achievements, he chose Mars. 

Currently, only India, Japan, Russia, China and to some extend the US plans to colonize the moon by around 2020-30. But those are small scale and not close to what Elon Musk is planning. 

Colonization Of The Solar System

This thread is for discussing the colonization of the solar system, mainly focusing on Mars and the Moon since they are the most relevant. 

Main topics include transportation, industry, agriculture, economics, civil engineering,  energy production and distribution, habitation, ethics and politics. 

First order of business, our glories tech messiah Elon Musk has set his eyes on Mars:

Reason stated? Because being a interplanetary species beats being a single planetary species. 

How does he plan to do this?
By sending two cargo ships by 2022 to Mars for surveying and building  basic infrastructure, then two years later in 2024 sending 4 ships, two cargo ships and two crewed ships to start the colonization. First thing would be to build fuel refineries and expanding infrastructure to support more ships, then starting to mine and build industry. 

This could mark a new era in human history, a second colonization era, this time without the genocides. The economic potentials are incredible, a single asteroid could easily support the entire earths gold, silver and platinum production for a decade. The moon holds a lot of valuable Helium 3, which right now is worth 12 000 dollars per kilogram! Helium is a excellent material for nuclear reactors. 

Speaking about the moon, several companies have set their eyes on the moon, and for good reason.

In my opinion,  the moon has the possibility of becoming a mayor trade hub for the solar system.  Why is this? Simply put, the earth has a few pesky things called gravity, atmosphere and environmentalists. This makes launching rockets off the moon much cheaper. The moon could even have a space elevator with current technology!  If we consider Elon Musk's plan to travel to Mars, then the Moon should be able to supply cheaper fuel and spaceship parts to space, to then be sent to Mars. The Moon is also rich in minerals that have not sunk to the core yet, and also has a huge amount of rare earth metals, which demands are rapidly increasing. Simply put, the Moon would end up as a large exporter to both the earth and potentially Mars. Importing from earth would almost always be more expensive compared to a industrialized Moon. 

Now how would we go about colonizing the moon? Honestly, in concept it is quite simple.When considering locations, the South pole seems like the best candidate. This is because of it's constant sun spots, which could give 24 hour solar power to the colony and give constant sunlight to plants without huge power usage. The south pole also contain dark spots which contains large amount of frozen water, which would be used to sustain the agriculture and to make rocket fuel. It is true that the equator has the largest amounts of Helium 3 and the best location for rocket launches. However, with the lack of constant sunlight and frequent solar winds and meteor impacts, makes to unsuited for initial colonization. If the SpaceX's BFR successes, then it would be the main means of transporting materials to the moon until infrastructure is properly developed. Later a heavy lifter would replace it when transporting goods to and from the lunar surface, and specialized cargo ship for trans portion between the Moon, Earth and Mars. A space elevator would reduce prices further in the future.  Most likely, a trade station would be set up in CIS lunar space and Earth orbit which would house large fuel tanks and be able to hold the cargo from  cargo ships and heavy lifters. Sun ports would be designated depending on their amount of sunlight. Year around sunlight spots would be dedicated to solar panels and agriculture. Varying sun spots would be used for storage, landing pads and in general everything. Dark spots would be designated to mining to extract its valuable water. Power production would be inistially almost purely solar, with some back up and smoothing out generators. Later nuclear reactors would take over, but serve as a secondary backup energy source. 

The plan:
If we can assume the BFR is a success, then we have roughly 150 ton of payload to work with per spaceship. The first spaceship would contain a satellite to survey colonization spot. Everything would be robotic at first. Several robots capable of building a LZ for future ships,  mining of the lunar surface for making solar panels for energy production, then mining and refinement for fuel for future expeditions. The lunar colony would be based underground, room and pillar mining would be used to cheaply create room that is also shielded from radiation and surface hazards. Copying the mighty tech priest, a second ship would come with people and more equipment. With this more large scale mining and ore refinement would be started. Eventually beginning to manufacturing their own goods. Routinely BFRs would supply the colony with special equipment like electronics, special minerals and advanced equipment and food until the agricultural sector can support the colony.  The colony would start to export Helium 3 and rocket fuel, as well as spacecraft parts and scientific materials. Eventually becoming self sustaining, it would stop importing food and equipment, manufacturing it all themselves to save costs. 

I am not the best in agriculture, so if some knowledge people could teach us here about closed loop farming, or some way of cultivating the lunar soil. Feel free to do so.

Mining:
I found a article here about the composition of the lunar soil and the use for it's main components:

In short, the moon has large amounts of oxygen, silicon, aluminum, calcium, iron, magnesium and titanium in it's soil.

How do we refine them? By doing this.

Aluminum could be used for most kinds of wiring to requiring high conductivity to density ratio. Meaning power lines, building cables and such. Aluminum is not very suited for building structures on the surface because of the varying temperatures causing it to expand and contract. Iron or steel is better suited here. Aluminum could however be used in underground structures where temperatures are more stable.  Aluminum would also most likely end up as the main lunar rocket fuel. Yes, aluminum as rocket fuel. Just look at things like ALICE, or Aluminum-oxygen. Aluminum-oxygen would probably win out since ALICE uses water, which would be prioritized for the BFRs, since I am pretty sure they are not multi-fuel. 
 More on aluminum rocket fuel here:
https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/88130-aluminum-as-rocket-fuel/&

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/realdesigns2.php#umlunar

https://blogs.nasa.gov/Rocketology/2016/04/15/weve-got-rocket-chemistry-part-1/

https://blogs.nasa.gov/Rocketology/2016/04/21/weve-got-rocket-chemistry-part-2/

Believe it or not, but calcium is actually a excellent conductor, about 12% better than copper. So why do we not use it on earth? Because it has a tendency to spontaneously combust in the atmosphere. In a vacuum however, this does not pose a problem. I does however need to be coated in a material so it does not deteriorate. This makes it suited for "outdoor" products and compact electrical systems like electric motors. Yes, a calcium electric motor.  
 

Lastly, a few articles about colonizing the moon:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_the_Moon

https://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-scientists-say-we-could-colonise-the-moon-by-2022-for-just-10-billion

https://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/topnav/materials/listbytype/HEP_Lunar.html

NASA article about production of solar panels on the moon:
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20050110155.pdf

Map over the south pole:
http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/images/gigapan

Feel free to spam the thread with news regarding colonization. 

On 28.9.2017 at 4:11 AM, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Having said that, allegedly you are building a new deep space-station together.....The mind boggles. 

It's actually supposed to be a CIS-Lunar space station, meaning a space station orbiting the moon. 

On that matter, would the people here be interested in starting a thread about colonizing the solar system, focusing the most on the moon and mars? 

It seems to me that the left attracts a lot of closet racists, supremacists, masochists and sexist people.

Sexist examples being how one can say that woman and men are equal, for then to demand support for woman so that they can end up with the same result. And example here is a gender quota. It was enforced here to improve equality. But when you think about it, it is actually extremely sexist, demeaning the woman that climbed to the top the proper way and being a passive way to state that woman are not capable of reaching leader positions without aid.  And it hurts business. I have a friend that is a storage worker. The company used to only hire boys around the age of 16-17, because they were just as hardworking and efficient as men. They would also guarantee to make more value than say a 18 year old, since they would leave for collage a year later. People under 18 are also paid 4,5 dollars less an hour, which makes them cheaper too. They hired no woman. Why? Because woman in general er less physically fit for the job. It requires a lot of upper body strength and stamina, which males already have over 40% more of when they hit puberty on average. This causes woman to be less efficient and cost the company more.  Also all the guys I talked to that worked there loves the job, excellent pay and a lot of work hours, while the woman hates it, too exhausting and too much work. Of course when the feminists got to know that this company was almost 100% male at the storage they attacked the PR of the company, calling them sexist. This forced the company to selectively not hire boys until they could reduce the gender difference. Which is ironic, since it is also sexist. They now hire woman between the age of 18-25 because they are more physically fit than underage girls.

When it comes to closet racists I see it in the way people treat black people for example. I have a friend that likes to pull the "black card" as he calls it, basically, if the person that accuses him of something is not black, he will call them racist, which makes them instantly try to convince him that they are not, then he goes free, since he is black. I also see a lot of people treating black people like they are kids, letting them get away with ludicrous things because they are black, and society is racist apparently. One big irony is in the US, where these people claim that there is nothing wrong with black communities, and the outcry every time a policeman arrests a black guy. It is a fact that black people disproportional make up most violent crime and homicides. This is why we should focus on fixing the problems in the communities, rather than focusing on their race as many closet racists do. Parenthood and seems to actually be the biggest problem here. 

To specify supremacists: People that believe that since we are so rich and developed we have to intervene and force ourselves on others. We must go to poor countries to help the poor people there, since they can't support themselves. We must build schools and give them food and shelters that collapse the moment the camera crew leaves. But of course we are not going to improve their infrastructure or help them create jobs, because who would could we help then and take in as refugees?  My former teacher works to help the Nepal people, they have done great things to improve the society there. Built power plants, factories, hospitals, psychiatrics and much more.  When the earthquake hit Nepal, all the mayor humanitarian organisations came with wide news coverage and cried about how horrible it was. They set up temporary shelters and claimed that they helped out people. But when the news coverage died off two weeks later, they all left and the shelters collapsed since they were simple wood and plastic constructions.  My former teacher almost fell into despair because of that, how little the "humanitarians" actually cared. We also have the got damn white helmets, a "non-profit" humanitarian organisation that happens to be funded by the US and Britain, that just happens to aid terrorist organisations like Al-Qaida. They travel in convoys with them, and when Russia bombed this convoys, media screamed about Russia bombing humanitarian convoys. Just ignore they fact that they actually participate in the fighting and preform war crimes on camera, which can be found all over the web. They also stage propaganda, a good example is where a person has a huge smile on his face in a hospital scene, thinking he is off cam, but but then he realizes he is on cams and suddenly acts all depressed and despaired. Aleppo boy is also a great example, his father admitted that it was all fake.  Russia is so fed up with the white helmets that they do a second strike on their target later, so that they take out the Al-Qaida supporters. 

That's enough ranting for me today .

On 15.9.2017 at 11:02 PM, Xlucine said:

1) Is it really a terrible thing if the coolant flow reverses while you're backing into a parking space? If you're going 70 down the highway in reverse I can see it being an issue, but at low speed for a short time the motor should manage

2) Put another motor in to drive the coolant pump - AFAIK this is what is done for aircon systems. Assuming constant efficiency for the electric motors (i.e. adding the pump load to the big motor is just as efficient as the smaller motor), it'd probably be better for energy economy as you can control the coolant pump speed independently (and turn it off when the motor is cool)

1. What I am afraid of is a hot spot in the coolant circuit going back into the motor and demagnetizing the permanent magnets. 

2. This is probably the best solution, though a bit heavier. 

40 minutes ago, Sturgeon said:

Approximately 20 weeks of police academy with a high school diploma, in most places in the US.

...Actually that explains a lot now that I've written it.

5 months?!

How long is the education in the US?

Here it is 3 years in police college. 5 for a master. 
We haven't had armed police until recently (because of the homegrown terrorism and the terrorist threat abroad).

Crime is very low here in Norway, to the point where criminals traveling from abroad is a bigger problem where I live. 

Very interesting sense of fashion, dressed up for a peaceful protest here:

And what flag is that?  The emblem looks like anonymous, but the brown and black part is weird.

I created this topic for sharing, learning and discussing electric motors and their associated systems. 

First thing I want to discuss is cooling systems for EV electric motors. To get the most power out of the motor you can simply overvolt the motor, since more current=more power, this however decreases the lifespan of the motor. The reason why is because electric motors have magnet wire isolation rate to last 20 000 hours at their rated temperature.  Let's take the cheapest type, which is usually rated at 150 degrees Celsius.  Let's say it operates at 150 degrees, and you overvolt it and increase the temperature to 160 degrees, you have now halved the life of the motor to 10 000 hours. Increase it to 170 degrees and it halves again to 5 000 hours, and this continues to the motor burns. 

How do you counter this? 

You can wind the motor with thicker wires, which creates less resistance, and less heat, but this also hurts the power density of the motor, since thinner wires can be more compact. Thinner wires also increase the amount of turns you can do per pole, increasing the power.

You can have the case be a heatsink, though this gets to ridicules levels quickly, making the motor extremely heavy. We have for example a 5hp motor at 140kg, a complete no-go for EVs. 

You can use a higher grade isolation, being rated as high as 500 degrees Celsius in some cases. The issue here? Higher cost and a thicker wire for the same resistance. It also has some implications. If you are using a PM motor you have magnets inside, which demagnetize at a certain temperature. You want PMs for compact motors, and the stronger the better. Neodymium magnets are the strongest, but they also demagnetize at 60-80 degrees Celsius, which means that having higher grade wire does not really do anything. You can of course use weaker ferrite magnets that work up to 250 degrees C, but then you lose power density. 

If you are a incredibly rich person that wants to make his own toy you can use sliver, which weights less, has less resistance and conducts heat better, at about 77 times the price, compared to copper.

Now lastly the best solution in my opinion is cooling. This can be done in two different ways, air cooling and liquid cooling. Air cooling requires the motor to have a lot of surface area, be open and therefor not water or dust proof and to have a powerful fan blowing over it, a bigger fan, means a more cool motor. This however, is about as effective as in cars.

Now lets get to the point. Liquid cooling. There are several approaches, we can give the motor a water jacket, and simply pump the water through it. We can have channels than run through the stator and rotor. Or we can (simplified) fill the motor with transmission oil, like they did in the Toyata Prius. Here the rotor circulates the oil as far as I have understood.

The method I prefer is using channels that run through the stator, closely touching the wingdings. This is simply because copper is good at conducting heat, while steel is not. Though, I have no idea to circulate cooling fluid through the rotor.

Which brings me to my question. How do you circulate the coolant? 
I was thinking about putting a pump right on the axle.  This seemed like the good idea, until I realized that the electric motor also has to spin in the other direction, which would make all the coolant flow in the other direction too. I guess you can use a valve system to make sure it always flows one direction, but then you need a bidirectional pump which is not as efficient. 
Alternatively, you can use this:

Does anyone have a better idea of how to solve this? And how to cool the rotor? 

Also, would it be possible to use a vortex tube to cool the air before it passes through the radiator? 

30 minutes ago, Donward said:

The issue of pumping waters back into dam reservoirs is that there are other user groups that need that water. Salmon (and other species) migration. Farmers and irrigation. Plus flood control. 

When it comes to the salmon migration,  it should not really pose a problem. Just look to Norway. If it was really a big problem, we would not have such a huge fishing industry (In comparison to other sectors in the country.

2 minutes ago, Toxn said:

We use a pretty extensive pumped storage scheme (~1600 MW total) here to balance out load and take over if a plant goes down.

 

Unfortunately; being a semi-arid country means that your dams are always going to be at risk, so I don't think we'll ride that wave much further. Others think differently:

http://www.microhydropower.net/rsa/

Nuclear power seems like the best bet here. 

15 minutes ago, Toxn said:

There's also thermal storage, mass storage (pump water back up into dams during off-peak time) and gigantic lithium ion battery banks.

 

Solving the storage issue will make a lot of alternative energy sources much more viable.

Again, this is why hydropower is so damn good. Use whatever renewable you want, and supplement the rest with hydropower, and when you have excess, pump the water up in the dams again. 

22 minutes ago, Ulric said:

Oh Solyndra, that brings back memories. Abound solar was a miniature version of that out here in Colorado. Basically, tens of millions of taxpayer dollars were funneled through Abound into the pockets of prominent Dems in the state, then the company declared bankruptcy.

 

We can all agree that reducing pollution is a good thing. However, some of us disagree with the proposed solutions to something that might not even be a problem that we can solve. For example, we use oil for so many things, we would have to find a frightening number of alternatives to a wide variety of products to end our dependency on oil. Only a fraction of it is burned as a fuel. We could very reasonably replace coal fired power plants with nuclear, but hippies are strangely opposed to cleaner, more efficient, reliable electricity production. This is compounded by a lack of even the most basic understanding of how our electrical system works.

 

I guess my complaints are that nobody is willing to look at realistic solutions to being more efficient and reducing pollution, and instead are trying to force through programs that are thinly veiled scams to enrich and entrench politicians and their donors.

 

I remember a local news segment a while back with one of the higher ups from Vestas, a large wind turbine manufacturer. There was talk about ending subsidies for wind energy, and his response was that doing so "would kill our business". If you business model relies on the government taking away money from people to alter the markets to make your product less uncompetitive (I'm not going to say that it makes it competitive, because no power in the universe can make wind competitive with any real form of electricity generation for an industrialized country) you don't have a business, you have a charity at best, and more realistically, a fraudulent enterprise.

 

Wind is garbage, solar is garbage, the numbers for "renewable energy" are skewed by the inclusion of burning biomass (wood, cow shit, etc). It's all a scam, and the people making money off of this are strong proponents of the Religion of Anthropogenic Climate Change, because it lines their pockets.

I find it funny how solar and wind is the most popular renewable energies in media. 

First of all, even if we could be make perfect solar panels, they would still be too unreliable because of weather.  Really sucks when your city breaks down because of a cloudy day isn't it? 
You know what the best part is? My bloody country is trying to build out solar power, the got damn hydropower king, with 90% hydropower. Just looking at a solar map shows how ludicrously stupid this is. 

All this because we built a few gas powerplant/refineries in case we need urgently more power.

We are also building out windpower here, because a damn makes our valleys look too ugly, ironic isn't it?:
 

Honestly, solar is very good in a private or individual setting, but it is bloody useless in a national sense unless your country is located in the optimal solar locations. Same goes for windpower, it varies widely, and has to break to avoid the generator from overloading in strong winds. Both need a energy storage medium to be effective, like , I don't know, hydropower! Funny isn't it? 

Or you can supplement it with fossil fuels or nuclear power.

I honestly only see a future in hyrdopower because of its ability to store potential energy, and thermal power since it is pretty much constant. 

Supplement this with nuclear power and you pretty much has the cleanest possible power generation.

You could of course exploit local geography with solar, wind or tidal current power. But they will never become mainstream. 

I really love the irony of the transport sector too. Regular folks has to be taxed for fuel and the cars has to be efficient and media panics about emissions. But in comparison to the shipping industry, the worlds car pollution is a drop in the ocean. 

In Norway a new government has been chosen, the Right-Progressive-Christian-Left coalition won.

This means the Right party will lead Norway for 4 more years. 

Fun fact,  a communist party named Red got 2,6% of the votes. 

7 hours ago, Meplat said:

There is no form of military/industrial surplus market there? 

I admit Arizona does seem to be "the place where planes go to die", but there has to be something remotely similar in every country. 

We completely lack any form of aircraft industry, maybe a few repair shops, but those are far and few in between. 
Forsvaret does not sell plane parts, at most a tracked vehicles, but usually a old car or truck or parts for them. 

We tend to recycle a lot, which makes it hard to even find good scrapyards, and our low population does not help. (About a 30. times smaller than the US).

3 minutes ago, W. Murderface said:

Why not connect the motors with aluminium cables as well?

Because optimally, the VSD (speed controller) should be right next to the motor or a part of the motor housing. 

This leaves no space for cables. 

1 hour ago, W. Murderface said:

 

For wheeled vehicles at least, I think there's the possibility to increase the protected volume by moving the motors away from the hull and into the wheels. As for tracked stuff, I'm not sure putting your primary sources of locomotion on the relatively stickie-outtie top rear corners of the hull is a smart move. You could bury them deeper, but that'll cost you at least some of your hard won protected volume. Either way, I think there's a case to be made for copper or aluminium wires for drive trains.

 

Not necessarily engine related, but: having a huge generator on board opens up windows to directed energy weapons, and further down the line maybe even rail guns. 

Only places I find aluminum useful would be for the motor casings and the cables between the Generator, battery, and controller.