You need to understand what Consumer’s is trying to pull - the same stunt as what utilities in Ohio have tried pulling - they’re complaining that they can’t plan for capacity when consumers can change providers, pulling a chicken little stunt to bring in calls for elimination of choice in the name of energy…

And despite claimed backlog, no one seems to be having trouble getting plants built in short order.

Don’t let facts get in the way of your neocon distopia while you demand that you keep polluting the environment with emissions and waste from ancient, inefficient, uncompetitive coal plants.

The grasshopper isn’t even comparable. That was a very low speed landing, as opposed to the rapid descent on the Falcon 9 or the BO craft, where the rockets fire only at the last second.

You really don’t get it, do you? You’re killing your lateral velocity in a near vacuum. This is easy as pie. It has NOTHING to do with the landing procedure.

Aren’t you a pessimist?

It’s pretty easy to build a natural gas plant in the location of a decommissioned coal plant....

Want to take wagers on your shortages? ‘Cause they ain’t gonna happen.

Sure - but you also would need a place to refill a hydrogen car. Adding outlets is much cheaper than a hydrogen refuelling infrastructure.

Don’t panic about the lost capacity, though - it won’t be hard to make up for it - one of the many reasons natural gas power plants are winning in the market is that they can be…

Efficiency on the battery doesn’t change significantly with age, just range.

Life of a fuel cell will highly depend on the type of cell and the fuel used. Some exist that will easily outlast a battery, but the ones going into cars and buses today typically actually have a lower lifespan than a Tesla or Volt battery -…

Because a fuel cell gets its hydrogen from one of two primary methods - electrolysis or natural gas reformation - both of which are inefficient and consume significant amounts of energy. That same energy could be used more directly and efficiently in powering the vehicle directly in an EV.

See Figs 13 & 14 for total…

no, no, no -

Voltage doesn’t matter.

CURRENT matters.

Many, many moons ago I built a plugged-in high voltage power supply for a class - it reached up to 26,000 volts. At that voltage, though, it could barely produce 4 milliamps. Basically it just gave you a tingle.

That’s why a normal static shock which reaches 20,000 V…

If they can get the charge time down like that, this is evidence that hydrogen fuel cells may never see any significant production numbers - their only current advantage is in refuelling time - they’re less efficient than a straight out EV... and if they lose the refuelling advantage, their niche disappears... after…

Why get a sedan? Because they’re underrated.

Wagons pretty much don’t exist anymore unless you’re willing to shell out some serious cash. So its a CUV, hatch, minivan, or sedan as practical choices. Hatches seem like great options with great accessibility, but too many makers doom them by building them with negligible…

Ugh.... I forgot how hideous these things were. Not particularly well made, either.

Dude - your point isn’t even correct. Both use a short burst right before landing to halt the descent in a (hopefully) controlled manner. If BlueOrigins landed like the grasshopper did, you’d have a point. But it doesn’t - it approaches and lands just like the Falcon 9.

Lateral velocity is easy to kill. It’s coming in for a landing, staying upright, and doing so from a rapid descent (necessary to minimize burn time and fuel use) that is tough. There’s no appreciable difference in descent rate between these vehicles.

WOW. Reading comprehension not a strong point?

“infinityedge” claimed the “boostback burn” is difficult. I pointed out how ridiculously easy that maneuver is compared to landing - and you’re once again confusing the difficulty of orbital flight with what we’re talking about. Orbital flight is clearly harder than…

It isn’t hard. Seriously. That is NOT a hard equation to solve. As I said, its a simple, closed form solution.

The fuels the Falcon 9 uses are common for all sorts of boosters - and the efficiency of its engines are barely better than the RS-27 introduced in 1974. They’re the same specific impulse as that of the…

No - that’s pretty darned easy. You need a certain deltaV, you know your specific impulse, then calculating the size of the tanks to have enough to serve as the first stage and complete the burn is a simple closed form calculation.

Because they don’t need to for what they’re trying to do.

Pointing to those EASY maneuvers as difficult to explain the failure at doing the HARD part is rather absurd.

I’m sorry, but if you don’t realize how easy the “boostback burn” is compared to landing, you’re relatively hopeless.