The Long Tail Pipe

The USA should delete Musk from power, Instead of deleting whole agencies as he demands

David Herron — Fri, 14 Feb 2025 10:57:44 +0000

Nobody voted for Elon Musk to have a position of political power. But, since Donald Trump’s inauguration as the 47th President of the USA, Musk has used DOGE (a fake government agency) to invade real government agencies, and to start firing people and canceling contracts. These actions are blatantly illegal…

Elon Musk, fiduciary duties, his six companies PLUS his political activities

David Herron — Mon, 10 Feb 2025 15:35:17 +0000

How many CEO’s have, as Elon Musk is currently doing, ran six major companies simultaneously? Instead, history show’s it to be detrimental to the health of people juggling many companies at once. In Elon’s case, it’s not just that Elon is CEO or Chairman of six companies at once. He…

Is there enough Grid Capacity for Hydrogen Fuel Cell or Battery Electric cars?

David Herron — Sun, 23 Apr 2023 13:23:50 +0000

Which fuel has the best likelihood of replacing the gasoline/diesel stranglehold that’s threatening humanity with a global warming catastrophe? Hydrogen? Electricity? Recently someone on Twitter made the claim shown above – that a car industry insider, with over 30 years of experience, claims that many senior people in the car…

Is Tesla finagling to grab federal NEVI dollars for Supercharger network?

David Herron — Tue, 15 Nov 2022 21:42:44 +0000

Last week’s announcement from Tesla to create the North American Charging Standard (NACS) from its proprietary charging plug has raised serious questions in some quarters. Tesla’s plan is a smack in the face of regular standardization efforts, and it seems aimed at satisfying the requirements of the National Electric Vehicle…

Tesla announces the North American Charging Standard charging connector

David Herron — Sat, 12 Nov 2022 03:40:43 +0000

(November 11, 2022) Today, Tesla Motors made an announcement it seems is meant to solve the issue of electric vehicle charging standards in North America. Tesla’s solution is to unilaterally declare their proprietary charging port is now open for all to use, and that it is now to be called…

Lightning Motorcycles adopts Silicon battery, 5 minute charge time gives 135 miles range

David Herron — Thu, 10 Nov 2022 00:16:17 +0000

The future of electric vehicles is starting to happen with a deal between Lightning Motorcycles and battery maker Enevate. Lightning has a long history of making fast and powerful electric motorcycles. Their partnership with Enevate makes Lightning one of the first companies to offer a Silicon-based EV battery. The new…

Tesla Autopilot under US Dept of Transportation scrutiny

David Herron — Mon, 13 Jun 2022 22:10:31 +0000

Several times now, Tesla vehicles struck stationary first responder vehicles dealing with stuff on the road. The concern is whether Tesla’s autopilot system exacerbates human factors to undermine the effectiveness of the driver’s ability to supervise the vehicle. Remember that Tesla’s autopilot system is not a full-fledged driving automation system…

Spectacular CNG bus fire misrepresented as EV bus fire

David Herron — Fri, 22 Apr 2022 04:04:22 +0000

Last week in Perugia, Italy, a Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) bus caught fire, spectacularly. The fire was put out, the bus was completely destroyed, and thankfully nobody was injured. However, on Twitter, the video is being shared by people claiming it to be an electric bus. What we have is…

Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, Russia, and the European Energy Crisis

David Herron — Tue, 21 Dec 2021 23:34:56 +0000

Russia's occupation of its neighbors, and threats to the Nord Stream 2 project, risk a war between Russia and Ukraine.

Li-Bridge leading the USA across lithium battery chasm

David Herron — Sat, 30 Oct 2021 01:50:34 +0000

Li-Bridge alliance hopes to solve supply problem where China manufactures over 75% of lithium batteries worldwide.

USA increasing domestic lithium battery research and manufacturing

David Herron — Fri, 29 Oct 2021 00:37:46 +0000

Avoiding a dependency on foreign batteries requires the USA to manufacture its own lithium batteries.

Electrify America building USA/Canada-wide EV charging network

David Herron — Wed, 27 Oct 2021 23:07:26 +0000

Nation-wide EV charging networks looking to close gaps in charging infrastructure coverage.

Komatsu and Honda create electric micro-Excavator

David Herron — Sun, 11 Jul 2021 00:27:16 +0000

This is essentially an electric scooter for digging trenches

California launches Rule-Making for clean energy electricity grid

David Herron — Fri, 09 Jul 2021 23:39:43 +0000

California is leading the way to integrating solar, wind, energy storage, and electric vehicles, as distributed energy resources.

Apple California Flats solar farm using Tesla Megapack energy storage

David Herron — Thu, 01 Apr 2021 19:17:31 +0000

Large Tesla Megapack storage array being built in California to supply power for Apple infrastructure.

Tesla Supercharger network finally expanding into Romania

David Herron — Thu, 01 Apr 2021 02:02:54 +0000

Romania is finally going to see Tesla Supercharger support, two years after Elon Musk's promise.

Volkswagen USA LIED about changing its name to Voltswagen

David Herron — Wed, 31 Mar 2021 23:54:41 +0000

Volkswagen marketing stunt name change to Voltswagen was either innocent, or a lie.

Apple moving 110 suppliers to renewable energy solutions

David Herron — Wed, 31 Mar 2021 20:21:20 +0000

Sustainable carbon neutral manufacturing becoming a thing at Apple, Inc

BMW sourcing lithium from Argentinian salt lakes

David Herron — Wed, 31 Mar 2021 01:28:44 +0000

BMW stepping up its lithium battery game with a lithium supply deal to support battery manufacturing

Kia introduces EV6, 500 km range, ultra-fast 800v charging

David Herron — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 21:24:49 +0000

New electric car from Kia is in line with what Kia promised with the Soul EV

Volkswagen renames itself Voltswagen to demonstrate EV embrace

David Herron — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 20:27:06 +0000

Name change from Volkswagen to Voltswagen would cement VW's role in EV's, too bad this is a marketing stunt

Big Lie: Wind turbines freezes Texas during massive winter storm

David Herron — Wed, 17 Feb 2021 23:13:53 +0000

Frozen electricity infrastructure in Texas was due to cold weather, and bad maintenance, not wind turbines

Shell announces shift to renewable energy, peak oil production in 2019

David Herron — Wed, 17 Feb 2021 02:45:52 +0000

Royal Dutch Shell is accelerating its drive to lower carbon emissions while delivering value for shareholders... supposedly

Electric Last Mile Solutions seeks to electrify delivery van market

David Herron — Fri, 12 Feb 2021 21:28:35 +0000

This Class 1 electric delivery van could be manufactured at 80,000 per year by 2025.

BMW funding research into sustainable lithium production

David Herron — Thu, 17 Dec 2020 01:49:00 +0000

Lithium can be produced in areas not subject to active resource wars

We must pressure Biden over climate despite choosing Kerry as climate representative

David Herron — Wed, 25 Nov 2020 18:03:00 +0000

Environmental and climate change issues must be kept on the front burner in Washington DC

Tesla Autopilot danger from “passive vigilance” effect

David Herron — Sat, 24 Oct 2020 17:16:00 +0000

NTSB warns that Tesla Autopilot induces passive vigilance effect that can distract drivers away from driving their car

CALFire seizes PG&E equipment investigating cause of Zogg Fire in 2020 wildfire season

David Herron — Sat, 10 Oct 2020 22:06:26 +0000

Yesterday, CALFire, California’s primary fire agency, announced it had seized some of PG&E’s equipment stating that just before the Zogg Fire ignited there were alarms emitted on PG&E’s network. The Zogg Fire is one of many many wildfires that have plagued California in the 2020 season. The 2020 wildfire season…

Protect yourself from unhealthy air in wildfire zones

David Herron — Sat, 12 Sep 2020 22:22:49 +0000

As this is written, the US west coast is under a “Siege” from hundreds of wildfires triggered by unusually hot weather. Millions of acres of wildfires have burned over the last month in California alone, with millions more acres burning in Oregon and Washington State. If Climate Scientists are correct,…

5+ million acres burned, choking smoke, Climate Change accelerated

David Herron — Sat, 12 Sep 2020 18:44:33 +0000

The primary feature of this phase of the 2020 West Coast Fire Season is the smoke. There are unprecedentedly huge wildfires burning, and a new front on the horrors opened a few days ago with several large wildfires in Oregon and Washington State. While the fires are threatening immediate destruction…

La Nina develops, promising long 2020 fire and hurricane season

David Herron — Fri, 11 Sep 2020 03:07:11 +0000

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced today that the La Nina pattern has developed. This phenomena involves a cooling of the surface of the Pacific Ocean near the equator. This pattern is known to cause a series of chain reactions resulting in a longer hurricane season in the…

California wildfires 2020, over 2 million acres burned

David Herron — Wed, 09 Sep 2020 23:43:50 +0000

The 2020 wildfire season in the Western USA (California, Oregon, etc) started early. Dozens of fires ignited one weekend in August leading to wildfires all around the state, and today four of the largest wildfires in California’s history are burning simultaneously. More recently a heatwave sparked other wildfires in not…

Disease risk higher in highly polluted areas – COVID-19 risk greater?

David Herron — Thu, 02 Apr 2020 02:24:42 +0000

With the COVID-19 pandemic, one thing we notice is the higher fatality rate for elderly patients, or for those with impaired health, or for those who are smokers. It seems that those with weaker immune systems have a harder time fighting off COVID-19, and therefore are more likely to result…

Conservative values failing USA as EPA guts fuel efficiency standards, fails with COVID-19 response

David Herron — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 18:06:00 +0000

The Republican party that’s in control of the Federal Government is stuck in Grover Norquist’s paradigm – that he famously wanted to shrink Government to be small enough to drag into the bathroom and drown in a baththub. What a violent fantasy that is! Yesterday the US Environmental Protection Agency…

SunSpec aims to help Veterans transition to clean energy jobs

David Herron — Tue, 31 Mar 2020 18:15:16 +0000

SunSpec, the leading organization developing standards in the Solar industry, has launched an initiative aiming to train folks for jobs in the distributed energy resource (DER) sphere. Thanks to the decreasing cost of renewable energy systems, DER’s installation is apparently still increasing. Thanks to Internet-of-Things technology, renewable energy systems are…

US Dept of Energy funding electric vehicle and battery research

David Herron — Fri, 06 Mar 2020 23:16:14 +0000

The Trump Administration has been taking all kinds of actions to undermine environmental regulations, coddle polluters, and support fossil fuels, but at the same time the Administration continues to fund research into clean energy technologies. In January, the Dept of Energy announced a funding opportunity for up to $133 million…

Bucharest abandons Oxygen tax, amid high pollution event

David Herron — Thu, 05 Mar 2020 12:44:00 +0000

Last week, on the eve of instituting a tax on polluting cars entering the central area of Bucharest, the Mayor of Bucharest, Gabriela Firea, abandoned the so-called Oxygen Tax plan. Under the plan cars not meeting the Euro 3 criteria would be banned from the center of Bucharest, and overall…

Renault brand Dacia unveils most affordable electric car in Europe

David Herron — Thu, 05 Mar 2020 04:30:10 +0000

Dacia, the Romania-based car maker owned by Renault, has announced its first all-electric car, the Dacia Spring. It is a 4-seat city car, meaning it is a very small car, but Dacia says those are “real seats”, which one supposes to mean they’re full size. It should have a 200…

Pandemics, like Coronavirus, and our RoboTaxi-driven autonomous future

David Herron — Fri, 28 Feb 2020 23:50:49 +0000

The big news right now is the Coronavirus outbreak that began in China last fall. CoVID-19 as it is more formally known is a relatively highly infectious disease, that the human population has no immunity against, and a relatively high (2%) mortality rate. Given those figures, governments around the world…

Big advertising splash for GMC Hummer EV

David Herron — Thu, 30 Jan 2020 21:00:20 +0000

Ever since General Motors killed the electric car, we’ve had doubts over GM’s seriousness about EV’s. In almost the same breath as the EV1 program was canceled, GM ramped up sales of the Hummer. In 2008, GM announced a plug-in hybrid (the Chevy Volt) while stating that over the long…

EUs Green Deal threatens 40% of Romanian electricity production

David Herron — Mon, 27 Jan 2020 19:08:00 +0000

In December, the European Union announced the European Green New Deal that is intended to greatly speed up the EU’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The new goal is for Europe to become Climate Neutral (no net greenhouse gas emissions) by 2050, and to reduce emissions by 55% by…

Hyundai/Kia invests in developing electric vehicle technology

David Herron — Thu, 16 Jan 2020 23:17:30 +0000

Hyundai and its sister company Kia announced today an investment in UK-based Arrival, an electric vehicle startup company. The plan is to use Arrival’s scalable electric vehicle skateboard platform to develop several new vehicles for a range of target markets. In a statement sure to infuriate American fans of Kia…