Interesting Articles Relating to EVs

[Sky King]

Millions of hardworking Americans dream of one day retiring to an easier life – but at what age?

The latest Retirement Confidence Survey from the nonprofit Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) indicates that there’s a big difference between workers’ expected retirement age and the age at which they actually retire.

The study is based on answers from 2,521 U.S. workers and retirees surveyed online from January 2-31, 2024.

What Is the Average Retirement Age in America?​

According to a fact sheet published with the survey, the median age that U.S. workers retire is 62. Interestingly, the median age that American workers expect to retire is 65.

Screenshot via the 2024 Retirement Confidence Survey

As in prior years, there is a big gap between when active workers expect to retire and when retirees say they actually did.

Here are some additional findings from the survey:

• Just 14% of workers planned to retire before age 60, while 32% did.
• 10% of workers planned to retire between ages 60 and 62, although 29% did.
• 23% of workers expected to retire at age 70 or older or not at all, while only 6% did.

“This difference between workers’ expected retirement age and retirees’ actual age of retirement suggests that a considerable gap exists between workers’ expectations and retirees’ experiences,” the sheet says.

Money expert Clark Howard says that, while retiring in your early 60s may seem pretty appealing, there are some financial considerations you need to take into account, especially since we’re living longer than generations before us.


He notes that it’s difficult for many of us to reach the level of financial security required to sustain retirement for what might be 40 years. Clark says this financial freedom applies to maybe 25% of Americans who have access to a pension, own a successful business or are “max savers” in the Financial Independence, Retire Early (FIRE) movement.

“The other 75%, you haven’t been in a position where you’ve been able to save a great deal of money,” he says. “And you don’t have a pension, and you’re not even eligible for Social Security. And how are you going to provide for your health care until Medicare starts at 65?”

How To Ensure a Comfortable Retirement​

Clark says it will benefit your quality of life in retirement if you can continue to work until you reach full retirement age — or even later. Each year you can delay retirement in your 60s will help your wallet tremendously down the road. He says the goal is simple: “Getting some extra years in so you can build up more savings.” from clark.com

“You can reach the point where you qualify for Medicare. And if you’re willing to do what I’m about, which is wait until age 70 to take Social Security, it means that if you live till 100, 90 or 85, the Social Security check is going to be so, so, so much larger than it would have been otherwise.”

Another option you may want to consider is longevity insurance, which pays you every month that you live past a certain age.

“The way it works is you buy one of these policies … usually people buy it in your 60s and it starts paying at age 80 or 85,” Clark says.

 

[Sky King]

Man in Search of Lost Bitcoin Fortune Wants to Buy the Landfill Where He Swears It’s Buried​

Man Tries (Again) To Recover More Than $700 Million He Threw in the Garbage​

James Howells has been chasing his lost hard drive for more than a decade now.
https://gizmodo.com/man-in-search-o...hlid=19c7af4da9f70f8035a05ae1a7359ba1006a98bb

 

[Happy Camper]

Man in Search of Lost Bitcoin Fortune Wants to Buy the Landfill Where He Swears It’s Buried​

Man Tries (Again) To Recover More Than $700 Million He Threw in the Garbage​

James Howells has been chasing his lost hard drive for more than a decade now.
https://gizmodo.com/man-in-search-o...hlid=19c7af4da9f70f8035a05ae1a7359ba1006a98bb

Sad thing is that drive probably ended up near a magnet at some point. I'm sure he can find it, but will it matter?

 

[Sky King]

He has no cash in it just time so I'd let it go & not ruin the rest of my life worrying about it.

 

[Sky King]

Electric Cars​

Their Not-So-Little Dirty Secret — and the Alcohol Solution​

Their Not-So-Little Dirty Secret — and the Alcohol Solution​

David Blume here. Today I'm sharing an excerpt from an article I’m writing about the dirty, not-so-little secret of electric cars. This was sparked by my recent up-close-and-personal encounter with the failure of what had been the biggest battery storage facility in the world.

The federal government of the U.S. is subsidizing coal and nuclear power producers with $400 billion to build out the electrical vehicle energy system. A great deal of this is for a large number of battery storage facilities all over the country to make sure that there is enough power in reserve that can be added to the grid to accommodate electric vehicle use.
But this technology is not even close to being proven safe.

On January 16, in Monterey County, California, about 10 miles from my coastal farm, the Moss Landing battery storage facility built by Vistra erupted in flames. Three hundred nearly truck-sized batteries were stacked in the facility. The cause is “under investigation,” but we know that lithium ion batteries with their liquid hydrofluoric electrolytes will literally go through a chain reaction, similar to a nuclear weapon, when exposed to the least amount of air. The only thing worse than igniting with air would be if they came into contact with water, which would literally tear apart the water’s hydrogen and oxygen into explosive gasses.

The standard operating procedure in the face of even the smallest battery fire is to do nothing but let it burn until it exhausts itself. That’s right, there is no known way to put out a lithium battery fire. While burning, the heavy metals and corrosive acids make clouds filled with toxic metal particles. Once inhaled, there is no known treatment.
As the fire continued smouldering, there was a lot of discussion about what was in the air after the battery detonations. Within a few days, a meeting was called in which the permitting officials were present to address the public and take questions about the disaster. Moss Landing has a population of only 1500 people, and the meeting was held in the nearby small community of Castroville, whose claim to fame was once being the world’s artichoke capital.

The panel of four bureaucrats presented what they had done to permit the plant, and it was clear that they had had no resources to truly evaluate what Vistra presented them. They lamented that they’d had no scientists or experts to help them in the permit process and that they didn’t have a scientist available to answer the public’s questions.

When it was my turn to speak, I told them that I had nothing but compassion for the spot they found themselves in. I announced that I was a local resident, a farmer, and, yes, a scientist.

The speakers had referred to the main gas in the air as HF and HC. Sounded innocuous, but I pointed out that they were talking about hydrofluoric acid gas and hydrochloric acid gas. I described how hydrofluoric acid is so corrosive you can’t even contain it in a glass beaker. It literally can eat glass. On your skin, it will just keep eating flesh until it reaches bone. One whiff and your moist lungs will be permanently scarred.

As I began to speak, I was bodily accosted by a guy and told to stop talking — that all I should do is ask questions and not speak about my concerns. He was physically intimidating; I had never experienced anything like this at all the public hearings I have attended over the years.

Later, when the legislative aide for a member of the County Board of Supervisors started to ask provocative questions, another heckler intimidated that speaker, as well. It became quite clear that Vistra had infiltrated the hearing to shut down any testimony of qualified people becoming part of the record.

But local television stations were covering the hearing, and I was able to answer the reporter’s questions on-air without being heckled.

I explained that the highly toxic plume went east from the plant, but if the wind had been more from the south, Silicon Valley would have been blanketed with heavy metals dropping from the sky.

My organic farm is to the north and not in the path of the toxic stew, but I speculated that the large number of certified organic farms in the path of the fallout might not be able to continue to be certified. Who is going to compensate them for the ruination of the loved and cared-for soil that they have built over time? Who will answer for the heartache they will suffer knowing that Vistra has just ended their livelihood as ethical organic farmers?

And given the explosive nature of even the smallest amount of these sorts of batteries, has the Vistra fire just taught all the terrorists in the world that there is now a toxic explosive weapon that can be detonated anywhere simply by breaking open a battery case? In researching this article, I saw many alarming results just from explosions of electric bicycle batteries, including nearby SUVs destroyed and homes engulfed in flames.

So is there a way we can have electric vehicles without the risks associated with these batteries that can be bombs? Yes. The biggest automobile company in the world, Stellantis, has announced that it is betting the future on hybrid electric / alcohol-fuel-cell-powered cars, busses, and motorcycles. Toyota announced the same plan for its cars to use benign, safe direct ethanol fuel cells (DEFCs).

Unlike combustion engines — which require an explosion in cylinders to drive the vehicle down the road — a fuel cell directly converts the liquid fuel into electricity to drive an electric motor which takes the vehicle down the road. So what is the battery in this set-up? It’s the tank of ethanol that is the storage of power to be converted to electricity — with no moving parts, just benign appropriate technology.

 

[Sky King]

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[Happy Camper]

Bro, you're posting advertisements now...

 

[Happy Camper]

Looks like we won't have to worry about the gas powered car ban fairly soon.

https://insideevs.com/news/750930/trump-epa-california-tesla-cm/

 

[bullfrog !]

Looks like we won't have to worry about the gas powered car ban fairly soon.

https://insideevs.com/news/750930/trump-epa-california-tesla-cm/

I would be more worried about the increasing price of gasoline cars and gasoline! Lol!!! Don’t matter if you can’t afford to buy and run them!