The Future isn't what it used to be

[Crissa]

Now if you have a portable radioisotope generator in the hood with enough shielding and output, you don't even need a battery.

Well, a radioisotope battery puts out a constant voltage at an amperage draw. So having a rechargeable battery would be quite useful if you wanted to use power in bursts of higher amperage, just as long as you had lulls in your usage so the cells could recharge.

-Crissa

 

[LoneWolfO6]

There was a time, in the 80's when I used to drive all up and down Baja with my 82 Subaru wagon. Anyway, back then I would go for a month without any phones or any connection to my other life in the US. I loved it!!!!

Some one said “20, years ago, remember?” The thought popped into my head, “yes the 1980s, good times. Then reality set in and you realize they meant 2003? WT£, how time flies!

 

[LoneWolfO6]

The past is here and the far far future in one movie…8 more days!

 

[HaulingAss]

I think it's more to do with frontier lifestyle when it comes to sci-fi. The infrastructure needed to charge an electric vehicle at a remote location is more costly and takes longer than a Jerry can.

The infrastructure needed to charge electric vehicles is much simpler than that needed to refine gasoline and it requires less work to operate and maintain it. It lasts for many decades. In Mad Max, the barbaric people were portrayed as operating fuel tankers, oil wells, oil refineries, etc. What a nightmare to keep everything running, including the diesel trucks. Where do you get all the parts and pumps needed? Solar cells can be made in a kiln or scavenged from abandoned solar installations and charging equipment is solid state and will work many decades later if it's been kept out of the rain.

In any case, it's all a distopian fantasy because transportation of a marginal society is one of the last things on their minds. Humans survived over the millenia without wheels.

 

[JBee]

I built a solar-powered AM radio in 1972 using a 101-in-one electronics kit that my elementary school had purchased for students to experiment with, the kind with resistors, capacitors, transistors and a solar cell that could be connected together with short little wires between the spring terminals. It even had a very rudimentary integrated circuit mounted in the very center that could be incorporated into your circuits instead of the battery.

I was amazed when I discovered my radio worked using the earphone even before I connected the solar cell. I thought I had invented a magic radio that worked with no power source and spent 5 minutes checking all my connections to ensure it had no source of power. My teacher burst my bubble when he explained I had created a crystal radio that was powered by the energy contained in the radio transmissions.

Solar cells were more than a novelty in the 1970's, in fact, the satellite Vanguard 1, launched in 1958, was powered for a number of years by solar cells. The first solar cell was invented in 1883 by Charles Fritts by depositing a coating of gold over a thin layer of selenium.

So you are saying solar was a novelty in the 70's and was on satellites and crystal radio kits that didn't even need them to work? ?

My point was that there wasn't much commercial or household solar, and definitely not much EV charging at that time. Secondly, that solar PV is a by-product of silicon production for chips, which are only recently more common, since the advent of PCs etc.

As for things being solar powered: technically even you are solar powered. So long the sun shines, and it gets to the earth surface, it's potential can be used to do work, and with work we can make change, and life is change. Dystopian or not, with the sun "on" we have a chance at least.

If anything, in a limited manufacturing end of civilisation scenario, biofuels would be the most effective and easiest form of energy use and distribution. Biofuels are a self-replicating solar energy collector with built in chemical storage, which we can eat, and the waste thereof can be used to run our technology too.

Which was also what they were using in Beyond Thunderdome.

 

[Crissa]

There were solar panels and a solar hot water heater on the Whitehouse in the 70s.

-Crissa

 

[Newton]

Praise The Sun!
we are in fact, the Empire Of The Sun

 

[Cyberman]

Praise The Sun!
we are in fact, the Empire Of The Sun

Literally, every single power source you can think of comes from the sun. 100%. I dare anyone to come up with a power source that doesn't come from the sun.

 

[CyberGus]

Literally, every single power source you can think of comes from the sun. 100%. I dare anyone to come up with a power source that doesn't come from the sun.

Nuclear fission?

Although, all matter in the universe except hydrogen was forged in stellar cores, so everything is made of stardust...including fissile elements.

They came from a sun, just not our sun

 

[BillyGee]

Literally, every single power source you can think of comes from the sun. 100%. I dare anyone to come up with a power source that doesn't come from the sun.

 

[Bill906]

Literally, every single power source you can think of comes from the sun. 100%. I dare anyone to come up with a power source that doesn't come from the sun.

Nuclear (as Cybergus said) and Geothermal.

 

[CyberGus]

Nuclear (as Cybergus said) and Geothermal.

Uhhhh, I'm pretty sure it's pronounced "nukeular"

 

[Bill906]

Uhhhh, I'm pretty sure it's pronounced "nukeular"

That's how I said it.

 

[Cyberman]

Nuclear (as Cybergus said) and Geothermal.

Nuclear, as in uranium and such were created inside a star that went supernova (not our current star, but still a star), which created everything in our planet: all the iron, copper, gold, rock, magma etc., and resulted in the forming of our current star, the Sun. All the heat (geothermal) came from there too. Thanks for playing.

 

[Cyberman]

Got me. I got nothing!