Tesla Battery Factory To Be In Reno

Article: http://www.sacbee.com/2014/09/10/6693558/landing-tesla-is-latest-chapter.html

 

Having recently visited Reno and found it is in better shape than here, with a lot more operating businesses than here? Yes, I would move there. I like the desert. Thanks to new laws on Indian Casino gambling, Reno has less to offer that industry, and Vegas is newer, but also suffering thanks to the costs of fuel. Most gamblers would rather spend their money gambling, not getting there. What Reno offers is cheap housing with close access to the Eastern Sierra and Great Basin, which is very nice outdoors. Reno has a lot of bicyclists too, at least as many as Nevada City and I spotted a fair number of scooters operating too. Modern poverty, the New Poor, are mostly college graduates who put most of their wages into student loan payments, aren't addicted to drugs or living in slums in Oakland, and seems a lot happier than Old Poor. I'm sure they'll get run-down eventually, but the New Poor have every reason to start their own businesses in places like Reno where that's legal and there's few obstacles. This is a huge difference from California, which only really wants tourists to take out loans, spend the money, then leave, spending the rest of their lives miserable and trying to pay off the debt. In Nevada there is no zoning laws. You can do what you want with your land. Garbage dump? Machine shop? Horse ranch? Yep. Whatever. Placement of stuff in the area is a bit more random, but the economics are different and its a very freedom loving state, which doesn't explain why they kept electing a bigot to the Senate. Course, California elected a neurotic with PTSD to ours and her recent comments indicate senility just as badly as his. Perhaps if Nevada gets rid of the prick it would be worth it to move there.

 

Anyway, Sparks, a suburb of Reno on its east side, is a good location for the Tesla factory for some important reasons. Its got railroad access. It has major trucking interstates. The mine for the lithium they're going to make the batteries from is in Nevada, so its a lot cheaper to truck it there than to Texas or Detroit or whatever. The mine in question works by rain falling on a big basin of rocks, the lithium leaches out, then the water is pumped out of a well at the low spot in the basin, and the water then gets the lithium removed. Presumably to be sprayed across the square miles of rock again. Few non-geologists know this, but Nevada is full of volcanoes and has serious earthquakes just like California does. I seriously considered going to grad school at University of Nevada Reno for Vulcanology, mainly because its really interesting when mountains explode. My grim and dark humor funny bone tingles then.

See. Isn't that cool? The non-fiction section of the library has more fun stuff like this in the natural sciences section 550 ish. Also check in periodicals, though serious science papers on geology are either chemistry or environment articles in most cases. Chemistry at the small scale drives the large scale events like this eruption, which is mostly steam and carbon dioxide overcoming the ability of the rocks to contain the pressure. Geology classes makes this sort of thing a lot more dull. That is precisely why I opted not to study meteorology because I want clouds to remain pretty.

 

So I'm glad that Tesla is doing the sane thing and building a factory that's relatively close to the mine so they can retain control of their batteries and thus the price of the car, rather than be mocked for shipping the lithium to Germany and China for different stages of the process before shipping it back. All that shipping costs money, and its bad for the environment but the money is the important thing. You can't sell a cheap electric subcompact to the masses if you are putting most of the cost into the battery shipping around the world twice. This is better. So kudos for sanity.

 

Its going to take several years to build the factory and get things running before they hire anyone, but if you've ever wanted to work with lithium, which explodes on contact with water, you can certainly do so. Be sure to write up a will, and take extensive photos of your body to help the plastic surgeon if you happen to survive getting splashed and burned by it. You can even bicycle to work during the summer. Just understand that in the winter, they get some snow, and a lot of black ice so winter tires are a really good idea in that season. Upsides are lots of cheap houses from the boom are still sitting empty, and its a short trip to Tahoe and skiing if you like that sort of thing.

RECIPE: Summer Mint Iced Tea

Iced tea is traditional in America as the predecessor of soda pop, back before we had bubbles, and when those seeking refreshment didn't want to get silly drunk on ale or mint juleps. My mother was from The South, in the boonies no less. I have a second cousin who plays banjo and is famous. He only has the normal number of fingers.

Most people who do iced tea do it wrong. Powder tastes horrible. Its also, unfortunately, too strong. The best way is sun tea, where you hang tea bags in a gallon jug of water in the sun for a few hours on a warm day, then chill the jug a few more hours in the icebox before serving. And I do mean icebox as opposed to the Spring House, which my grandmother used to use for keeping things cold. Iced tea done right is cheap enough that no matter how poor you are, you can afford to make it.

My own preference for iced tea begins with English Breakfast tea, as it is just sharp enough and its black tea, which is far better tasting than green. It has been roasted or fermented. I also use mint. Many people put spearmint in their tea. Others put lemon, to counteract the acid of the tea. I don't like it. This is almost the base of a mojito, only its caffeinated rather than hoochified with rum.

I prefer peppermint in my tea. The best tasting and strongest peppermint tea I can buy commercially is Celestial Seasonings Peppermint. Stash mint tastes stale and not strong enough. A proper peppermint tea bag should be just short of stained with the oil. The kind I buy comes in bags without strings.

1. So boil 2 cups of water in a pyrex measuring cup, in the microwave. It takes around 4 minutes.
2. Add 2 bags of mint, 3 bags of black tea.
3. Steep for at least 20 minutes to get every last bit of flavor and caffeine out of it.
4. Pour tea into nearly a gallon of water, less the pint, into which you've placed 3 or 4 packets of sweetener. I went with Stevia. It doesn't screw with my bloodsugar so this is a free food.
5. Pour tea into jug, pour jug into measuring cup, repeat a couple times. 
6. Cap the jug and place into the fridge a few hours before serving.

Serve in a tall glass with ice. I find it lasts me several days and exactly hits the spot when I'm dehydrated and tired from shelving books for hours. Works a treat.

Cheers.

How To Fix Formula 1 Racing

Formula 1 racing is struggling this season. The new hybrid engines are finicky. Normally, racing should be on the edge of failure, but the new ones are more like the edge of functioning. Most of the time, they're broken. And for most of the teams, the irritation is getting to the point that two of the three leading teams are threatening to dump the entire series entirely, one of those being Ferrari. You can't have Formula 1 without Ferrari. Red Bull (Renault racing) is also struggling and their chief driver Sebastian Vettel was 4 time world champion in the prior series car. In this he struggles to finish. When world champion race drivers can't rely on their car to actually finish a race? You have serious problems. Teams are going through engines and taking penalties for changing them. The cars lack sufficient front grip for passing in most of the places they like to pass, and the tires are unreliable and finicky for their operating temperatures too, to make up for this. They don't wear well when they're working, either. This formula sucks. There was a sign posted opposite the pits at Monza this morning: "Formula 1 Is Dead." And these are Italian fans.

 

Guys, you gotta fix this. Over two thirds of the teams are threatening to dump the formula and take their teams and money elsewhere, probably to American Le Mans or possibly start a new series. What they should do is put their collective foot down and dump this car. It sucks. It is a disaster. My Dad, who has been watching formula one for most of his life, suggested a really simple solution.

 

Offer two engine choices.

1. V6 turbo, 2.5 liters.
2. 3.0 Liter V8 normally aspirated.

That's it. Give them back the wings. No more ERS/KERS, no more electric motors and batteries. Let the drivers be 20 pounds heavier. Driver weight is an actual rule, btw. They are stick thin and just this side of actual starvation. Most doctors would put them on IV nutrition and hospitalize them, based on how they look. Their blood tests are probably showing all sorts of dangerous chemistry and organ failure happens in starvation like this. Did you know that? It is true.

 

Anyway, those two engine choices, more front and rear wing. I don't care if this is like the older cars. The older cars were better and with more downforce they can pass in more places and that's more interesting than watching the drivers skid off the track because the stupid cars have about 500 pounds of battery onboard, which overheats, causing the rear brakes to fail since those are actually shifting energy to the battery, which then causes the front brakes to overcompensate and skid instead of stopping and has caused most of the crashes under braking this season. A hundred million dollars worth of damage and its life threatening too. Eventually it is going to kill a driver. So get rid of it.

 

Racing is NOT regular car driving. This is important. With this latest hybrid mess, the series organizers said this would relate more to modern driving but it really doesn't. All it does is show how horrible electric cars are, and how unreliable and dangerous they are. Let Formula 1 be actual race cars. If there were no gasoline for my car anymore I would ride my bicycle to the track and camp overnight to watch it. That's how much I like racing. If there were no fuel coming out of the ground  we'd synthesize the gasoline for the race by converting it from coal or cracking it from algal biodiesel. Whatever. These are things that can be done.

 

In 1911, before WW1, people used to ride on horsedrawn carts to the race track to watch those newfangled automobiles and see those barnstormer fabric wing airplanes, and wing walker acrobats. Warren't that the finest show? Indeed!

 

So yes, stop pretending that Formula 1 should have squat to do with a Prius Hybrid and turn them back into the fastest cars again. Right now, Indycars are 20 mph faster than Formula 1, and that's just embarrassing.

 

Dump the hybrids, Bernie. Get back to regular engines.

Dump the batteries. Get back to racing.

MUSIC: POE

Just picked up Poe's "Hello" CD from the library where I volunteer. They have music, including popular music, there. I don't have a paying job, and I'm fond of this older album. I used to work with Angry Johnny, so we liked his theme song at work.

It's nice to have music when I can't afford to buy it anymore.

Surprise Popular Post

My recent post on Tiny Houses in the age of poverty was the most viewed of any of my posts. 105 and counting. I am stunned. I spent a week writing that, adjusting and erasing and rewriting it until I figured it was enough, then added videos and posted. It drove up my daily views for 252, which is my personal best. Considering I only have 2 followers, most of the time my posts are being read by two people at most. The other 10 hits are bots checking for advertising revenue mentions. Weird.

Hardcore Mountain Bicycle Commuting

So my 17 year old Honda Accord is potentially dying. The differential is going out. I'm taking it to a shop this week in hopes they can fix it, but if they can't I'm driving it till it dies. If I can't land a paying job before that happens, I either buy something used, or more likely, I ride my bicycle to the volunteer job I'm working till they hire me of I run out of optimism or I graduate with a Library Technician degree and get a paying job somewhere else. And that's certainly possible.

 

To that end, I have been cycling up and down the hills here, so that when I have to do it for real, riding to Nevada City requires climbing a hill, following a ridge a couple miles, then dropping a steep twisting road, then a long slope into Nevada City, cross a bridge and climb another steeper hill where the town is. Naturally, the library is at the top of the hill. And note that a return trip would descend that hill, then climb back up to this ridgetop road, a long climb of about 800 feet from the bottom of the hill at the bridge. On narrow streets with potholes, parked cars, texting soccer moms, drunks, junkies, and dog walkers with long leashes. It would be challenging, to say the least. For those of you who ride in flatlands, these hills require first and second gears and drops you down to nearly walking pace. Due to nearly silent modern cars, you also have to pay attention listening for those creeping up behind you, so no music, you headphones. You listen or you'll get hit. You should also know that 10% of the air is missing because its 2600 feet elevation, just below the snow line, and we DO get blizzards here without much warning. So you wheeze till you adjust to the elevation. Good for training, however.

 

I am running a hard frame mountain bike, no shocks etc, and slick tires to roll easier on pavement. I've replaced the brakes, since the old ones had plastic in a critical load bearing part and failed, and swapped the handlebars for more ergonomic ones, which helps a lot. I am still using the original chain and derailleurs and even pedals, once I adjusted them to move easier. Works great, very smooth. I think this bike had top level parts, other than the brakes. With the replacements, the bike is dandy, and very quick despite being steel. So if I have to bike to my volunteer job, I can. And if I get hired but can't afford a car till I've got a down payment, I can still bike.

 

In the snow.

 

Uphill.

 

Both ways.

 

UPDATE: Took the car to the mechanic, says its too expensive to fix the right way and metal shavings in the gears have likely destroyed them too so replacing the transmission, which is more expensive than the car is worth by Bluebook. I either have to find a used transmission and swap it, possibly doing the work myself since the shop wants $1200 for that labor and its literally 5 bolts and fluids and I already own jackstands. If I can track down a transmission in California, it would be worth it to pick the thing up rather than pay hundreds for shipping. Everybody wants to rip you off. That's America today. A bunch of con men and thieves. I wonder if the Honda is the car equivalent of the iPhone? An invitation to be ripped off?  

Donner Pass Grafitti

There's a bunch of graffiti on Donner Pass, in the old abandoned railroad tunnels, the ones that were the original transcontinental rail line built by the Chinese and Crocker, before his opium addiction and whore of a wife invented the United Nations while high at their mansion in San Francisco.

This is the view from the railroad bed, now just a gravel road with the tunnels running through. Back then in the 1860s, during the construction, Crocker was free climbing the cliff faces and dealing with the Chinese rock cutters building the tunnels in the granite. This being granite the tunnels are still there.

 

I climbed these on Sunday and took pictures of what is currently there. There's lots more, but these were the most artistic looking stuff.

Ugly sister?

I would respect this so much more if it said "Orwell was right" instead of Ormes. Lame.

This should say: Camus. Because, ya know, Existentialism, yo!

Product placement ad for the Roku streaming box. I swear this place would be improved with some touchups. A few more U's and suddenly its hilarious.

 

Also, the MYSTERIOUS PETROGLYPHS left behind by some bored Indians, probably actually drunk Truckee loggers who then peed on the rocks after "discovering these ancient ruins" that are who knows how old in reality. Honestly, anybody can scrape a rock and then pee on it to make it weather artificially. I'm naturally suspicious of any claims of ancient value, particularly since the trail goes right by this and its already weathering away pretty quickly. My bet is they're recent and fake. This is why I think bored sculptors should assemble steel plate art of crouching Japanese anime mecha in fields, with plagues suggesting whatever joke you want. Leave them there for tourists to laugh at. Car-henge kind of humor.