By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – –
Some people in South Florida are finding it difficult to flee Irma because they cannot fill their tanks up with gasoline. Many gas stations are shuttered. Others have extremely long lines.
But people with electric cars such as a Chevy Bolt or Tesla 3 do not need gasoline. At least until the hurricane hits, they have electricity and can fuel their automobiles with it. The new generation of electric cars gets over 200 miles on a charge. If someone left Miami Beach when the government began urging people to flee on Tuesday, even if they could not quickly recharge, they’d be deep into Georgia by today. Rather than hanging around in doomed Miami Beach unable to get gasoline.
GasBuddy: There’s Insatiable Demand For Gas In South Florida | CNBC
With a change of law, it would be possible for residents with solar panels on their roofs to sell electricity to neighbors, keeping the lights on during an electricity outage.
Solar panels plus a battery pack can keep the lights on after a storm, assuming they escaped damage.
Solar ovens can be used to cook even when the electricity has been knocked out.
Likewise, Portable solar generators can be used at home or while on the road.
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Wochit Business: “Tesla’s Most Expensive Cars Just Got a Price Cut”
Already see result of Republican attack on science in recent storms.
Take away the instruments and The New Climate regime can be made to go away?
Since 1950’s US Air Force has been using monitoring satellites with microwave imaging capabilities that could see through the clouds, see through ice to measure temperatures deep in ice, and to see into the ocean to measure the temperature.
Funding was cut off
link to dailykos.com
Title of article
“Alabama Republican Rep. Rogers DESTROYED Key Hurricane Monitoring Satellite”
Yup, charge up your cars with electricity from the nuclear power plants before they shut down.
With two ageing, low lying, nuclear plants in the path of this huge storm I’m think more about Fukushima than Teslers.
My wife and I had a big laugh when we read Rush Limbaugh, who said the hurricane was a publicity stunt to gain revenues for the weather channel and a hoax to promote climate change, has announced he will not be broadcasting today.
For “Security reasons” Limbaugh said he could not say where he would be during the storm….in other words….he would not admit he evacuated his Palm Beach location.
Tesla’s beautiful new solar panel roof tiles would be a LOT sturdier than solar panels in a high wind….
Enlightened politics could give incentives for all the rebuilding in Texas , Louisiana and Florida to go solar, and also to replace cars with EVs….don’t wait for it to happen though….BUT we should push for it !!!
Sorry, Juan, solar ovens are crap. They don’t work during rain, clouds or night; the net heating rate tends to be slow due to forced convection heat transfer to outdoor breezes; and some of the reflective surfaces used can concentrate short wave UV light onto the hands and eyes of the user.
Portable solar generators produce low voltage DC current which is efficient for charging communications equipment and batteries, and less efficient for running equipment requiring 110VAC power. They are best paired with equipment designed to use DC power, for example items designed for use in aircraft and some RVs.
Of course Scott Pruitt, current barbarian in the gate at the EPA, says now is not the right time to discuss climate change out of sensitivity to Florida residents. (Yeah, my head is exploding too, given he was a grifter on the payroll of big oil).
No, as the inimitable Charles Pierce notes, it’s never the right time to discuss anything for these people is it? Like after mass shootings – we don’t want to “politicize” gun deaths, or hurricanes, or poverty now do we? These are things that just are, and we whistle past the graveyard once again.
Hey Scott, why don’t you do humanity a favor and lash yourself to a post on a beach in Miami this weekend? Because you and people like you are responsible for what is, in essence, mass murder. Big oil, big tobacco – see the difference? Neither do I!
The issue of gas vs electric in a disaster area deserves future study. It’s not simple, though. Some people are actually prudent enough to stockpile gasoline, more than their car’s tank can hold, before the stations shut down. You can’t cheaply do that with electricity yet.
However, actual ordinary Americans aren’t prudent at all. The ones actually generating solar electricity at home are going to do well after fast, hard-hitting events that don’t leave the skies cloudy for a week afterwards like this last hurricane did.
And if the electricity and gasoline supplies both come back at the same time, you will be billed the same for the electricity as before. The way utilities are regulated, they can’t just shoot that up on you. Whereas, the Kroger gas station I usually use in Houston ran out of gas for 3 days, then briefly resupplied at the previous price of $2.16, only to hike it to $2.60 several days later. We will see how long this lasts.
Writing from Australia let me extend my sympathy for your gasoline ripoff at $2.60. Yesterday I looked around for discount fuel and filled my tank at $A1.10 a litre, I think that’s about $US3.50 per US gallon. And Australian fuel prices are cheap compared with Europe.
Hurricanes Irma and Harvey: Natural disaster and political breakdown
9 September 2017
“In its response to Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Irma and other natural disasters, American capitalism has demonstrated its bankruptcy as a social system.”
link to wsws.org
Why aren’t trains evacuating people from the path of Hurricane Irma?
By Jeff Lusanne, 9 September 2017
“Hundreds of thousands need to flee the path of Hurricane Irma. Instead of fleets of trains carrying them away, residents are left to fend for themselves in their own cars on congested roads.”
link to wsws.org