Hello and welcome back to the final blog! I have an exciting blog to wrap everything up! Today we are talking about rockets!

SpaceX, owned by Elon Musk, is the most advanced private space company in the world right now. What makes them so special you might ask? To save on development and cost, their rockets are reusable. Meaning they do not have to build a new multi-million dollar rocket each launch saving on cost and development.

Source: SpaceNews

Their most used rocket, the Falcon 9, has become the most capable rocket in the world. It now has over 150 successful launches, 109 successful landings, and 89 reflown rockets. Those numbers are skewed a little by their test launches early in the lifespan of the Falcon 9. SpaceX has not lost a rocket since last February and that mission was still a success, the bottom of the rocket simply did not land correctly so it could not be reused.

This success is tremendous especially given the difficulty of their missions. They send a rocket up into space, then detach the rocket and fly it back to land on the middle of a barge in the ocean. How cool is that? That is so ridiculously hard and SpaceX administers these missions multiple times a week! Check out the video below of three of these rockets landing at once! Its at the 7:35 mark!

To give you some context of how successful SpaceX has been, each launch costs about $30 million dollars due to the reusability of its rockets. NASA has not sent up a rocket in years, but they are building a large rocket called the SLS which is costing around $4 billion dollars for a single launch. How about that for the importance of reusability in rockets?

So, what’s the point of sending up all of these rockets? SpaceX is now the cheapest option to send anything to space, whether it be satellites, people, or anything else. On top of that, SpaceX is in the process of building a satellite network called Starlink.

Source: Business Insider

Starlink will provide high speed internet throughout the world. It is largely key for rural areas where broadband internet is scarce. Starlink, despite being only partially operational, was opened for use in Ukraine amid the Russian invasion offering internet access to countless Ukrainians struggling to connect. There are currently 150,000 Ukrainians who depend on Starlink as the invasion continues.

Starlink has already sent up 2,000 satellites, but for Starlink to become fully operational, SpaceX says they need to send up about 12,000 satellites. The Falcon 9 can send up about 50 satellites each trip, but SpaceX’s newest and largest rocket yet, Starship, is close to being done and will be able to send up 400 satellites each trip. This will help Starlink get operational even faster which will generate even more cashflow for the space giant. With this cashflow SpaceX will gain an even larger advantage in the race to space commercialization and exploration.

If you are interested in this topic, I highly recommend watching a live launch! They are streamed on YouTube multiple times a week. Simply look up the launch schedule online and tune in the next time SpaceX is going to Space!

Hello and welcome back to Talking Tech with Nolan! Today I am going to tell you why you should not let your phone get hot for any reason. That might be a weird way to start this blog but hear me out! I am trying to help save your phone’s battery life.

Source: MacWorld

This all started when I keep hearing that when you used a faster charging brick to charge your phone, it was worse for the battery. After hearing so many people say it, I started to take people’s word for it, but I wanted to know why.

I did some research on my own and actually found a video by my favorite youtuber and source for tech news, MKBHD (link). In his video he broke down everything you might need to know about batteries.

Cell phone batteries are nearly all lithium-ion batteries. They are highly concentrated power cells in which lithium ions flow through an electrolyte solution from the negative side to the positive side when the device is using power. When it is getting charged back up, the ions flow the opposite way.

The interesting thing about charging lithium-ion batteries is that they absorb the most power at low charge percentages and when the phone gets almost all the way charged, the rest of the power is lost in heat. When you phone is charging, your phone smartly accepts less and less power as it charges to reduce this heat, but heat is unavoidable especially if you are charging and using the phone intensively simultaneously.

When you use a larger power brick to charge your phone, it puts more power into the phone and despite charging the phone faster, it also generates more heat.

The problem with this heat you may ask? Well, it is simple, heat degrades the battery of your phone. Heat causes the electrolyte solution to crystallize making it harder for the ions to pass through to charge the device resulting in less battery capacity.

So should you avoid these fast chargers at all cost because they cause your phone to heat up and consequently degrade your battery? No not necessarily. There is more to this battery story.

Source: Apple

Phone batteries naturally degrade each time you charge them. You might know this if you ever checked your phone’s battery health in settings or heard about Apple’s battery scandal a few years back. The industry standard is such that a phones battery will degrade to 80% capacity after 800 charges. That is a relatively reasonable number. If you think about it, that is after two years if you charge your phone once a day. Even with new phones being able to do faster and faster charge times, this standard has stayed the same largely due to new cooling technology and innovative ways to work around this.

New phones all have new cooling systems aimed at keeping the battery at a stable temperature. On top of that, there is new technology that puts two different battery cells inside and charges them simultaneously achieving faster charge times. With a little sacrifice for battery size, healthy charge speed is achievable

New cooling technology should not quell all of your fears about battery health, but smartphone companies are also implementing new software options to maximize battery health for your benefit as well.

I think the takeaway should be that smartphone battery health is better than ever before and while you should still be careful with your battery to maximize it, there are a lot of factors working in your favor to keep your phone as long as possible.

Join me next week for the latest in tech news and tips!

Hello and welcome back to my civic issues blog! Today we will be continuing to address our environment. This week’s topic is plastic pollution.

A Quick Anecdote:

To give a little perspective on how prevalent plastic pollution is in our everyday lives, I’ll start with a quick anecdote. Throughout high school, I stocked the shelves at the local grocery store. Most days, part of my role was to replenish the water bottles on the shelves from the stockroom since plastic water bottles were one of the most popular products in the whole store. I would usually bring out about 20 35-packs of water bottles, but on especially warm summer days, there were a few times where I would bring out 50+ 35-packs of disposable water bottles personally. That is over 1700 disposable water bottles being purchased in one day!

Only about 29% of disposable water bottles get recycled nationwide, according to the EPA. If we did the math, that means over a thousand water bottles are being thrown out in a single day in my town alone. Imagine what that number is world wide!

Credit: UN

The Extent of Our Issue:

That being said, water bottles make up only part of our larger worldwide plastic pollution issue. It is estimated that plastics pollution was at 348 million tonnes in 2017, according to UNEP.

Credit: Sport Diver

This pollution has a major impact on wildlife ecosystems. After all, about 11 million tonnes of plastic waste flow into the ocean each year. This pollution affects over 800 marine and coastal species, often through entanglement and ingestion. In the Pacific ocean alone, there is a massive garbage patch that spans nearly twice the size of Texas. That amount of pollution in the ocean is unfathomable to me.

Credit: USA Today

On top of affecting wildlife, plastic pollution has an impact on human health as well. Exposure to plastics could potentially affect fertility, hormonal, metabolic, and neurological activity. Additionally, burning plastics contributes to air pollution.

UN Resolution:

On a more positive note, the UN is working on a cure to the plastic pollution epidemic. This past week, the UN passed a resolution on plastic pollution worldwide. Its goal is to address the full lifestyle of plastics, the design of reusable and recyclable products, and the need for enhanced international collaboration to facilitate the plan to be realized. The premise of the plan is to gather the best recycling/plastic management policies across the world, and to create international laws encouraging their use. This deal is set to be the most significant environmental multilateral deal since the Paris accord.

Moreover, a major component of this agreement is how it is going to support the Paris accord. Protecting ecosystems from plastic helps our world reduce the impact of greenhouse emissions. After all, greenhouse gases are absorbed by the ocean, trees, and plants. If we are able to protect their ecosystems, we know it will benefit our climate change goals.

Credit: UN

This deal is only a resolution, but it is set to become a legally binding agreement by the end of 2024. Now, it might just sound like a promise to you, but the fact that the world is uniting to address this problem is huge. If this deal is done right, it could reduce plastic pollution immensely. Hopefully, we will see less photos of turtles stuck in plastic, plastic bags running down rivers, and mounds of plastic water bottles laying on the sides of the road.

What can YOU do?

I think it is our civic duty to protect our environment from plastic pollution and to reduce our footprint in general. At Penn State, it is simple things like using a reusable water bottle, avoiding the Styrofoam to-go boxes in the dining hall, or even recycling your cans/bottles after a night out (come on, I know most of you don’t recycle those types of bottles) that can go a long way. But from a more global perspective, it is huge that our world is coming together to address this issue.

Let me know down in the comments your thoughts on plastic pollution as a whole and on this new resolution passed by the UN. Do you think it will have a big impact?

Thank you for reading!

 

Sources:

https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/03/1113142#:~:text=The%20impacts%20of%20plastic%20production,and%20neurological%20activity%2C%20while%20open

https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/plastics-material-specific-data#:~:text=The%20recycling%20rate%20of%20PET,was%2029.3%20percent%20in%202018.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/science/2018/03/22/great-pacific-garbage-patch-grows/446405002/

 

Hello and welcome back to Talking Tech with Nolan! Today we will be talking about a “new” Apple product. (You’ll see why I put new in quotes later on.) With that said, lets get into it!

Recently, Apple released an update to its iPhone SE, and most people without too much background knowledge in the tech community might be scratching their head at this release. After all, the phone looks exactly like the iPhone 8. You know the phone released 5 years ago in 2017?

Credit: Apple

Benefits:

Apple’s iPhone SE is its budget device. Despite its looks, it has many things going for it. First off, it is the cheapest iPhone you can get at only $429. That is almost $300 dollars cheaper than the iPhone 13 mini and just about half the price of the latest iPhone 13 which start at $699 and $799 respectfully. For college students on a budget, this is the cheapest way to get a new iPhone these days.

On top of its price, this phone also has headroom for days! Although this phone has the chassis of the dated iPhone 8, it has the A15 bionic chip inside. That is the same chip that Apple puts in its latest iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro models. This chip is flat out the fastest and most efficient processor on the market right now, according to MKBHD’s review of this device.

Now this phone is not going to feel like the fastest phone, but the key behind getting the latest chip in this device is that this phone will maintain its speed and Apple will support this phone with the latest software for years to come. We are talking at least 5 years.

Credit: Mashable

Who’s it for?

This phone is perfect for people who do not care about the latest technology in phones, but rather need an iPhone to just be a phone for them and last a very long time. On top of that, this is one of the best overall phones in the $400 smartphone market. Of all the other devices in this class, including the Google Pixel 5A and the Samsung Galaxy A52, this phone simply performs the best across the board, while giving users the smoothest operating system experience in any phone in IOS.

iPhone 13 mini vs. iPhone SE

Credit: Gear Patrol

Drawbacks:

Despite a few benefits, this phone is far from perfect. After all, it’s basically a 5-year-old phone with a new chip. It has a home button and a fingerprint reader as opposed to FaceID on the new phones. Now some people love the fingerprint reader over face identification, and some people are home button fanatics, but I personally like having more screen to my phone. After all, this phone has the massive top and bottom bezels of the original iPhones. This causes the phone to only have a 4.7” display. This is smaller than the screen size of the iPhone 13 mini (5.4”), ironic given the names, right? On top of that, it still has the same battery size as the iPhone 8, limiting its battery life to about a day compared to some competition that has 2 day battery life.

Now given what I have told you, can you see why I say this is a “new” product. Apple just slapped a new processor in a 5-year-old design and called it good. There are certainly pros and cons to this device, but I know for sure that if you are in the market for a new phone and are on a strict budget, this is the way to go for sure!

Thanks for reading! Come back next time for another installment of Talking Tech with Nolan!

Hello and welcome back to my civic issues blog! Lately my blogs have been very heavy in the science and maybe less civic, but bear with me. I am trying to give you information and potential solutions on issues related to our energy crisis and climate change crisis. There are many ways we can adapt and attempt to solve these major issues facing our world today. With this information, I hope you can better understand the solutions to our problem and figure out which solution or solutions you support the most.

Now if you have read my passion blog, you would know I absolutely love electric vehicles (EVs). After all, I review one seemingly every week. Today I will be talking about electric vehicles’ opposition and likely partner in creating an emission free transportation industry: hydrogen vehicles.

When I refer to electric vehicles, I am referring to electric vehicles powered by batteries that charge by connecting directly to the power grid. These vehicles are zero-emission and run on fully renewable resources should the grid be powered with renewables.

Their counterpart to making the transportation industry zero emissions are hydrogen vehicles. Hydrogen vehicles have a longer range than electric vehicles and have only about a 5-minute refuel time compared to electric vehicles’ lengthy charging times. Since hydrogen cars will be fueled in a similar way to gas vehicles, there will be no need to build up a charging grid like the EV network has had to do. Gas stations can simply be modified to by hydrogen stations (I know! It sounds funny, but I think it will catch on). Lastly, there would be less concern with recycling of hydrogen vehicles since there will not be a massive, dangerous battery to dispose of at the end of its life.

This may lead you to ask where all this hydrogen comes from and whether it is a renewable resource. Hydrogen by itself is not a renewable resource, but there is a way to get hydrogen by splitting water with electric current and catalysts into oxygen and hydrogen. Water is a renewable resource and if we have water, we will be able to create hydrogen in this way. Once we have the hydrogen, we will be able to transport it to the Hydrogen stations and into vehicles much like we do with gasoline. Again, we already have the infrastructure.

Now, all these benefits sound great, but that is where there are some problems with these vehicles. Hydrogen vehicles come in two types: hydrogen combustion engines and hydrogen fuel cell engines.

Hydrogen combustion engines use basically a gas engine in a car with a few modifications to make it run on hydrogen. Companies such as Toyota, BMW, and Yamaha have all worked on or are working on hydrogen combustion engines, according to CNBC. A problem with these vehicles is that these vehicles produce the greenhouse gas, NOx, if they are not properly regulated. This would solve our energy crisis by offering an alternative fuel but would not help our climate change problems.

On the other hand, hydrogen fuel cell engines seem like the perfect alternative. Creating electricity out of hydrogen with only a byproduct of water. The problem here is that there are doubts from businessmen and scientists about this being a feasible option. According to CNBC, Elon Musk and the CEO of Volkswagen have voiced their concerns with fuel cell technology, saying it is foolish and does not line up with the science. That being said, I know there are even a few researchers at Penn State studying fuel cell technology and I have faith in this technology.

I think in an ideal world, fuel cells and hydrogen powered vehicles would be used in cases where the batteries needed to power vehicles would be too large. This would be the case in shipping, air travel, rail, buses, trucks, and construction vehicles. There is progress in this idea as well, the airplane manufacturer, Airbus, just announced it is working on a hydrogen version of its plane, the A380, and that it could take the skies as soon as 2026.

This issue once again relates to civics when it comes to public investment into this technology to stop climate change. Recently the Department of Energy invested $52.5 million into clean hydrogen research, according to energy.gov. Is this enough to invest, or is this too much and should we be investing in different areas instead? I am not sure and I’m not even sure if anyone knows the right answer.

There are different countries around the world taking different approaches to this technology. Car companies and countries such as Jaguar Land Rover, Toyota, Hyundai, and Japan as a whole are all investing in and committing to hydrogen technologies while Volkswagen and other European auto makers are ditching the technology, according to Discovery.com.

Based on what you heard, do you think the US should invest in hydrogen vehicles or ditch them in favor of other technologies? Also, if given the option to own a hydrogen, gas, hybrid, or electric vehicle as your next car, which one would you choose and why? I am curious what the consensus is here. Will people go for reliability, or environmentally friendly?

That’s it for now! Thanks for reading!

https://www.discovery.com/motor/electric-vs–hydrogen–the-pros-and-cons-of-greener-transportati

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/22/toyota-commissions-yamaha-motor-to-develop-hydrogen-fueled-engine.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/23/hydrogen-generation-could-become-1-trillion-market-goldman-sachs.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/22/-airbus-plans-to-test-hydrogen-engine-on-a380-jumbo-jet-to-fly-mid-decade.html

Hi and welcome back to Talking Tech with Nolan! Today I will be talking about an Apple product that is relatively new but has been in the news lately for privacy concerns.

AirTags are Apple’s new accessory that help people find their lost belongings. It comes in a metal casing about the size of about a quarter and one can attach this device to backpacks, keys, purses, or anything else you might misplace. AirTags connect with any nearby Apple devices to locate itself anywhere in the world.

When you set up your AirTag, it is linked to your Apple ID and your phone number. If someone else finds your lost property with an AirTag attached, they will be able to look up who’s it is and hopefully return the lost item.

AirTags even have a feature called precision tracking that allows users to locate the exact location of the AirTag within 30 feet. MKBHD has a cool demo of this feature in his YouTube video(0:00-0:22) on AirTags. (Note: Most of the information from this post comes from the video) If you have an AirTag, you will no longer be tearing up a whole room to find something, but rather you phone will help you locate it immediately with ease.

AirTags come with a replaceable watch battery inside that needs to be replaced about once every year. They have barely been out a year, so I don’t think many people have ran into this issue just yet.

AirTags start at $29 for one, and you can get a four pack for $99. These are not cheap, but nothing Apple sells is cheap and there is great functionality for these little pucks.

Now all these features are well and good, but these devices have been linked to stalking lately. The Attorney General of both New York and Pennsylvania warned that these devices have been used for stalking and that doing such is a felony, according to CNET.

These devices are so small that someone can easily slip one in someone’s bag or pocket without them knowing and track their every move.

Apple has designed many features to combat this, which has minimized the issue, but not necessarily solved it. When an iPhone discovers an unknown AirTag that has been in close proximity for 10-15min, the iPhone gets an alert and the AirTag makes a sound. If you have an android device, you can download an app called Tracker Detector that does the same thing. Apple also has encrypted all its data transfer.

I think these features to reduce stalking are working and there are only a few stalking incidents surrounding these devices. I mean after all, I think if you really wanted to stalk someone, there are better ways than using an AirTag that has built in protection against stalking.

I want you opinion. Do you think you would ever get an AirTag? Do you have concerns with stalking?

Thanks for reading! Come back next time for another installment of Talking Tech with Nolan!

https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/apple-launches-airtags-and-find-my-detector-app-for-android-in-effort-to-boost-privacy/

https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/us-state-officials-warn-about-airtag-stalking-danger/

Hello and welcome back to my civic issues blog! Today we will be continuing our discussion on the environment and energy crisis.

When it comes to our energy crisis, we desperately need a new, clean, renewable energy source to limit climate change and give the world energy for years to come. Our current energy sources are simply not doing the trick. Fossil fuels are dirty and running out, hydropower is limited to areas with running water and alter aquatic ecosystems, wind energy is limited to windy areas and looks ugly in the sky, solar energy is expensive and not efficient enough, and the list goes on.

In previous blogs, I have talked about the benefits of nuclear energy, but even that is limited in many ways. First, you need Uranium, a nonrenewable resource, to run those plants and second there is the chance that the reactor has a meltdown and a devastating event such as Chernobyl could happen again. Despite these facts, I am still a proponent of nuclear energy and think we should expand the number of nuclear power plants today because of their clean nature.

Now, this type of nuclear energy is called fission. The process of splitting atoms apart to get energy. There is a second type of harnessing nuclear energy which is called fusion. Fusion is what the sun uses to provide light and honestly is the source of all power on Earth. Fusion is “what happens when the nuclei of small atoms stick together, fusing to create a new element and releasing energy. The most common form is two hydrogen atoms fusing to create helium” according to Vox.

Should we be able to harness fusion and essentially create an artificial star, we would have an energy source that produces no greenhouse gasses, and has minimal waste compared to current energy sources. All of this sounds great, but the science and funding of this science is the difficult part.

The sun can perform fusion because of its size and the strength of its gravitational field. It can slam atoms together with ease. On Earth, we do not have that luxury. We need to adapt and find new ways to combine these atoms. Now, scientists have been able to do fusion here on Earth but doing so has required putting more energy into the system then the fusion energy produced. This is problematic when we are trying to use these energy systems to power our world.

As scientists continue to work toward energy-positive fusion reactions, they are getting closer than ever. This past August, scientists at the National Ignition Facility created 1.3 megajoules of output from 1.9 megajoules of input, the highest yield reaction to date (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory). I say this to show that although this sounds like a very far-fetched scientific dream, there is progress being done in this field.

That is where the civic nature of this topic comes into play. According to Vox, currently, the US department of energy spends about $500 million on fusion each year. Compared to about $1 billion on fossil fuel energy and $2.7 billion on renewables, or $23 billion on NASA and $700 billion on the military. This is only a small amount of money going towards possibly the energy of the future.

Granted, this is only possibly the energy of the future, it is hard to give more money to a program based on promises and not necessarily by results. At this rate, fusion energy powering our world is honestly at least years and likely decades away. The research and funding we put into fusion research right now go toward seeing if energy-positive fusion reactions are even possible. As we continue to advance in this field, hopefully the money will soon go toward making these reactions efficient and ultimately into using that money to power our gird, but again these timetables are still far into the future.

On the other hand, increasing funding would likely speed up research and give humanity a potential answer to their energy and climate change crises. I am not sure what the right area to invest in, as a society, to solve our currently crises, but I would like to propose to you that investing in fusion energy might just be the right area. It kills two birds with one stone. Should we be able to do fusion, this could be humanities greatest achievement to date.

Let me know in the comments if you have heard of fusion energy before and if you think it is a possible solution to our current energy and climate change crises.

Thanks for reading!

https://www.vox.com/22801265/fusion-energy-electricity-power-climate-change-research-iter

https://www.llnl.gov/news/national-ignition-facility-experiment-puts-researchers-threshold-fusion-ignition

Hello and welcome back to Talking Tech with Nolan! Today I will be talking about the phone with the latest buzz in the tech world, the Samsung S22. This is the best from Samsung and maybe the biggest competitor to the iPhone today.

Even if you are an Apple fanboy, hearing about the latest and greatest from Samsung might give you a few ideas of features coming to the iPhone soon. Apple often is a little late to some features Samsung has been putting out. When Apple does do these new features, they usually do it best, but again this blog might just be a sneak preview of what is to come to your new phone, Samsung or not.

Same Old, Same Old

That being said, with their flagship smartphone in 2022, Samsung did not change much from the previous model. It appears they are going with the, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it strategy.”

This year, the S22 is smaller than the S21. This is counter to all the other trends in the smartphone industry. If you look around, I am sure phones look bigger than they were a few years ago, and much bigger than 5 or 10 years ago. Samsung shrunk all of its models this year by 0.1”. That does not sound that big, but I am sure you would be able to tell the difference if you held this phone in your hands. This caused the phone to have a more compact look and feel. There are mixed reviews about the smaller form factor this year, but there is a consensus among reviewers that the phone feels high quality this year. Samsung used a metal back over plastics this model. It gives the phone a little more heft, but a better feel.

Features:

That’s enough about the feel of the phone, you are probably asking now how well this phone performs, maybe even compared to your dear iPhone. This phone is the best of the best when it comes to a software experience outside of the iPhone. It is buttery smooth, and the most advanced android operating system now. This phone has one of the best screens on the market, one of the best cameras on the market, and even has the best under-the-screen fingerprint readers on the market. Yes, you heard that right. The fingerprint sensor is under the screen. How cool is that? If only Apple could do that for us iPhone people.

This phone also comes with a faster chip, and newer hardware across the board, but you cannot really tell the difference on those features. All phones are so fast these days that the differences in speed are hard to notice. It’s the same thing with iPhone every year. They say they come out with this brand new super-fast chip, but most people cannot tell the difference in the slightest. Oh well. It’s just the nature of the industry.

Now again, this phone does not have many headlining, new features, but you must trust me, this phone is the best of the best. If you think about it, would you rather have a cool new feature and a buggy phone, or a phone with no bugs that is just good at everything? I choose the not buggy phone and honestly, if your phone was buggy even once a week, I think you would agree with me.

Some final thoughts:

The S22 and S22+ start at $799 and $999 respectively and if you looking to upgrade your phone to something that is not iPhone, this is the one to get.

Since I cannot get hands on experience with these devices, I got all of my information on these blog from MKBHD and CNET’s YouTube videos on these devices.

Anyway, let me know down below if you are an iPhone or Samsung person. If you are on either side, would you ever switch and why?

Thanks for reading!

Today, in this second issue of my civic issues blog, I am going to touch on Electric Vehicles and their environmental challenges.

Electric Vehicles are much more efficient and cleaner than their gas counterparts. In an Electric Vehicle, over 77% of the electrical energy from the grid is converted to moving the car forward while gas vehicles only convert about 12-30% of the energy stored in gasoline, according to fueleconomy.gov. On top of that, gas vehicles emit green house gases into the atmosphere as they drive while electric vehicles have no exhaust. Because of this, the International Energy Agency estimates battery powered vehicles will account for up to 12% of the global automotive fleet. That’s exciting and something we should strive for, right?

That answer is certainly yes but gets complicated when it comes to where the power from the grid comes from and the ability to recycle the massive, toxic batteries that power them.

When it comes to electricity generation in the United States, about 60% comes from fossil fuels, 20% comes from Nuclear, and only the last 20% comes from renewable resources according to eia.gov. That means when you are driving an electric vehicle in America, there is only a 20% chance that your commute to work it truly clean. The dirty ways to get power are just displaced miles away from you.

On top of simply accounting for where the power comes from, we should consider where the resources come from for these batteries. Batteries contain minerals such as cobalt and lithium that are mostly extracted and processed overseas. There it costs local communities greatly in labor, and unclean energy generation. The new demand for batteries in electric vehicles will reduce greenhouse emissions in developed countries but will be sacrificed in the places where the materials are mined (Wired). Once again, the nonrenewable energy generation is simply displaced.

I am not saying we should stop pushing electric vehicles. If you read my passion blog, I excitedly write about them all the time, but I think it is important that we completely understand how clean they are before you fully commit to them.

That leads us to understanding what to do with electric vehicles’ batteries. In the tiny, Chevrolet Bolt, the battery to power the vehicle is 960lbs and runs the full wheelbase of the car. Recycling any lithium-ion battery is not easy but recycling one at that scale is extremely difficult.

Credit: Wired

Lithium-ion batteries are toxic and can cause destructive fires that spread quickly. The EPA says at least 65 fires at municipal waste facilities were caused by batteries. Rather than throwing out these batteries, it makes sense to recycle them, but that is where it further gets complicated.

Today, more than 95% of the small car batteries in gas vehicles are recycled because consumers can claim deposits when they return the batteries, and they are simple to dismantle. Electric Vehicle batteries are more complicated and harder to recycle. Partly due to their size, partly because they are dangerous. The voltages in these batteries are lethal and very difficult to disassemble without the right tools.

In addition, the process of recycling these batteries is very expensive. Most of this cost is simply in transportation. About 40% of the cost of recycling comes in transportation of these massive batteries. When it comes down to it, it costs more to recycle them than to just mine more of the same resources. Playing margins like that make sense for businesses, but not for the environment.

How exactly should we tackle this problem? Should we have more government involvement in this process? Should the government even be involved? How should we best invest in renewable resources?

That is where is problem gets very sticky. Around election times, these issues seem to be highlighted as one political party tries to fix this issue with more government while the opponent uses false data to say we do not need to fix this issue and that we should limit government involvement.

This issue should not only be brought up to the public every 4 years. It should be an effort everyday to solve our energy crisis before it is too late.

Let me know down below if you support government regulation of the battery recycling process, if you support government investment of renewables in general, or if we should just let private businesses tackle these issues.

Thanks for reading!

Hello and welcome back to Talking Tech with Nolan! After a couple car posts in a row, I am going to switch it up and talk about computers! Today I am going to tackle the age-old debate: PC vs. Mac.

Now, I know this topic might push a few buttons on either side of the spectrum. Most people are very loyal to their camp when it comes to this topic, and I am going to try to be as unbiased as possible to please both sides. That being said, I will give a little disclaimer that I used to be a Mac user, but I have since switched to PC for reasons I will explain later.

Hardware:

Until a few years ago, Macs and PC ran nearly the same hardware. They both largely ran Intel chips as their CPU (main processor) and really had enough of the same hardware to the point that people could run MacOS and Windows operating systems on the opposite device. In the past year or two, that has changed with the introduction of M1, new Apple chips that are now available across the Mac lineup.

These new chips made by Apple, are ultra-fast and have excellent efficiency. These chips have largely been out pacing their Intel and AMD (another PC chip manufacture) counterparts both in performance and battery life.

That being said, with more efficiency and tight integration, Apple is even able to put less memory in its devices than its PC counterparts. More memory, and very high-end processors are also available in PC, but right now because of the state of Apple’s chips, I am going to give the point to Mac on Hardware.

Mac – 1 PC – 0

Software:

That brings us to software. Both Windows and MacOS run very smoothly. When it comes to interacting with the operating system, it is a matter of preference.

MacOS is known to be a little more stable than its Windows counterpart, it crashes a little less and is less susceptible to malware, but MacOS can be limiting when it comes to external software downloads. This is actually the reason I do not have a Mac right now. As an Engineering student we use CAD (computer aided design) and other software that is exclusive to Windows devices. Because of that fact, I am going to give the point to PC on Software.

Mac – 1 PC – 1

 

Customization/Expansion:

Macs come in a one-size-fits-all package. You can barely get inside them, let alone upgrade or customize the parts inside them. This can be beneficial because then Apple is able to tightly integrate all of its components but limiting because if you need a more powerful device, more memory or storage, you have to buy a whole new device.

PC on the other hand affords customizability on nearly every front. This is attractive to people who like to keep the same device and upgrade it. Gamers in particular take advantage of the customizability of PCS. That’s a point for PC.

Mac – 1 PC – 2

Performance:

When it comes to performance, it is a tossup. Depending on the application, PCs might be better, or Macs might be better. Despite this tossup, Macs have been pulling ahead in this category as of late. They get better battery life and performance on most programs. If you want to see a head-to-head comparison of a Mac vs. a PC, check out The Tech Chap’s comparison video. I think I am going to give the point to Mac here.
Mac – 2 PC – 2

Price:
Macs are notorious for being expensive machines, but that does not necessarily mean they too overpriced. Now if you want a cheap laptop, you should go PC, but you get what you pay for in a Mac. If you are willing to pay the premium for a Mac, in my opinion, they are better than PC devices in the same price range if you do not need to run a program that is exclusively on Windows operating systems. This might be controversial, but I think I am going to give the point to Mac the value they provide.

Mac – 3 PC – 2

Overall Thoughts:
Looking at the scores, it appears Mac won, but you cannot go wrong when it comes to picking a Mac or a PC. They are both fantastic devices that you will not be disappointed with. It really all comes down to application and user preference when deciding between the two.

Let me know down below if you have a Mac or a Windows and if you would ever be willing to switch to the opposite device! Thanks for reading! Talk to you next week on Talking Tech with Nolan.

Credit for content in this piece: Techquickie