this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2025
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.

Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:

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And I thought they were supposed to be shying away from fossil fuels.

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[–] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 22 points 3 days ago (30 children)

A charging station operating on 100% diesel to power an EV is much less efficient than a modern ICE vehicle of a similar mass sans batteries.

Citation needed. Do ICE engines not get hot and therefore also have great losses because of waste heat?

Presumably a generator making electricity for a charging station would only run when electricity is needed, while an ICE engine would be losing energy to heat the entire time the vehicle is idling in traffic.

Why would a diesel generator not be made to efficient and why are ICE engines always made to be efficient? How do you know which kind of generator they were using? Why would they use the generator for 100% of the energy needed?

[–] rtxn@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (3 children)

Keeping in mind that this is a hypothetical scenario and that I did point out that the overall efficiency is dependent on how much of the power is generated by renewables and how much by the on-site diesel generator:

  • An ICE skips the conversion to electricity and its storage. Losses and losses.
  • An ICE vehicle weighs less than an EV of a similar size because it doesn't have batteries (see this chart to compare the energy density (MJ/kg, horizontal axis) of lithium batteries to gasoline and diesel)
  • There is a point in the diesel/solar ratio at which the system's overall efficiency is higher with an EV than an ICE, but I don't know where that is because, once again, you're pissing yourself over a hypothetical scenario.
[–] Bytemeister@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago (2 children)

It doesn't really matter actually. Electric motors are so much better at delivering power, that you will get more range from a gallon of gas by towing an 'flat battery' EV behind a truck and then driving the EV than you will just driving the truck without towing the EV.

[–] evulhotdog@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Doesn’t that highlight the torque that is available and delivered, more than efficiency of the electric motors, charging, heat losses, etc.?

There has to be a better example to prove your point than this.

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