SSL612 ~ making a very tough decision...
so I know a lot of you guys have been wondering hey what's going on with our engine replacement because we haven't talked about it in a long time, well it's been a long time in the making and we've had a lot of different options coming at us, and available that we had to discuss and think through, and decide which direction we wanted to go with it because as you remember we were having a lot of issues with this guy right here this guy is waiting to be retired, he's still holding in there for us, but every time we leave the anchor it's always a question of not if what's going to happen, but when, so today we're going to kick off this talk with you guys and discuss some of the options that were available to us and why we decided to go certain ways over others along the way, so that is coming up now okay yeah I'll be back soon Tiki, ciao ciao yeah I'm sure as many of you remember we also have our brand new electric dinghy, and we've been loving it, it's full electric propulsion, electric motor, electric battery, wiring, no engine, combustion nothing whatsoever, so of course this is a natural option that might be attractive for the full-size sailboat as well right? well that's what we don't know because there's issues either way but that's all the things we're going to discuss in this next series of videos, yeah you'll notice here in the anchorage we've got a couple of our friends here with their sailboats also and some of them have already dealt with engine replacements or repowering, so we're going to be talking to some of them today also and just talk to them about what they have now and what they would do differently if they had it all to do over again and I think you guys are going to find that very interesting, but first we're going to head across the island to visit one of my friends who is a cruiser, was a cruiser he just sold his boat in Canada a little while ago, but now he's discovered San Andres and loves it, so he just arrived back on the island again yesterday and you guys might remember Larry because this is his third trip down in this season, so you could say you could say that he really likes San Andres, but we're gonna go talk to Larry first and then come back and visit some of my friends here because they're out doing some things right now, but we'll get back there shortly yeah we're going to take a little ride across the island because Larry's got himself a place over at booby rock on the other side of the island, so we are gonna take a little ride buckle up yeah I'll tell you the decision between going diesel or electric is a tough one to make when you're dealing with you know your main propulsion system for the boat everything with electric looks promising, but is it really feasible for a live-aboard boat that lives at anchor and doesn't return to... it doesn't return to a dock every night just to plug in that's a considerable consideration so something we have to keep in mind also, we still own our motorcycle as you know it's not electric, it's gas propulsion, but that's just because it's what was available to us and we just wanted something to be able to get around and have fun, but also be able to do all of our jobs while we're on the island without having to rent taxis and get rides everywhere all the time, because that's very limiting, whereas the more of having... whereas having the motorcycle is very freeing, so it's been very good for us but having said that, we knew it was going to be short term we never intended to have this motorcycle a long time, we've had it for over well between two of them we've had them for a year now, so it's pretty much time that we're going to move on from the motorcycle also because we're gearing up to go traveling again, get sailing and of course the motorcycle's not practical, we'll have to load onto and off of the boat every time we go to a new place, especially in a new country, and then we're going to replace it with something that's a little more viable for long-term travel a little more rewarding for where we want to go and a little better exercise, so I intend to get back to a couple of probably folding bikes possibly electric bikes, don't know yet, and I have loved it I can't tell you how great it's been just to be able to take that opportunity and be a biker again even for a little while I haven't had that chance in a long time since we started sailing so it's been nice this is one of the areas they call la loma which is one of the rhizome towns this is where people who were born here you know they've always been on San Andres for generations their family lives up here still so not necessarily part of the columbia settlement, but these are the original people of San Andres so one of the reasons I really like it up here is really nice people friendly they just live up here in nature a little bit away from the city have their own world, I love coming for a little cruise up here down through the hills just gotta watch the speed bumps this is the coastline that was hit the hardest by the hurricanes last year when we were here I don't know if you can see, but they're just starting to fill up with more sand and rocks again and everything it was completely just wiped clean of course all these trees everything was just stripped clean, everything was dead brown, took a long time to recover, but things are coming back very nicely for one year later (hey) somebody looks deep in though (trying to figure out how to put a dock in here get in and out of the water when it's this rough) contemplation, rough? this ain't rough (well) this is still calm (yeah, they don't scare people away) looks like they tried something earlier, it didn't last long (well with the rope?) there's just steps there (oh yeah) (gotta use nice metal railing or something and anchor it here, and anchor it on those two rocks and project it out into the water) good luck with that (why?) because this is still calm (well yeah it's funny because three days ago the water was nice and flat and it was low tide, it would have been nice to do it then) oh yeah we had no wind then wind's just starting to pick up again now (yeah a little the white caps out here) yeah we're only getting you know 15 knots now, nice area though, very rugged you don't want to fall on that [ __ ] (well people go in and they're crawling up and cutting their feet on this and that) oh I know, look at the shoreline this is... that's jagged stuff right there wow that stuff hurts (yeah they didn't have to send the Mars rover to Mars to find this kind of terrain) imagine just trying to make a vehicle even just to drive over that yeah beautiful nice day yeah you guys remember my buddy Larry, he's also reigning from Canada and as I said this is his third trip down to San Andres in the last several months, so he enjoys it here also, but Larry is also a sailor and you had a sailboat you said was a Moody (346) you had that in Canada? (oh no I had it in uh Florida and sailed it down to the keys and a little further down, but mostly sailing around Florida but I've had lots of boats before that) yeah I was friends with the Moody 34 years ago it was a nice boat, center cockpit? (yep yep, a nice uh aft berth er aft cabin back there, but for a 34 and a half 35 foot boat it's great, but I'm five foot six and I don't know even me crouching down to get into the aft cabin becomes monotonous after a while it's time to get a bigger boat I think) so you sold that one and now you're on the search for possibly the next boat (yeah) deciding what you're going to do next (yeah) whether it's going to involve San Andres or something here, he's actually even been talking about the Angel B which is kind of cool, but the Angel B is a big fixer-upper project that's a handful to take on, but it is yeah know you can build a boat from scratch and build anything you want you've got a hull to start with (yeah) but what was the power plant in your Moody? like what did you have for engine and that diesel I assume (um what they call it uh I forget now an english make, uh three cylinder um converted from uh well kubota block, um a thorny craft that's what it is) thorny craft? (thorny craft engine) never heard of that (yeah) but it starts out a kubota block (yeah and they marinize it and then all done in england where the boat was built also, but thorny craft is well known in in england and over there as a very reliable engine and it was too I don't know how many hours it had on it but it ran good when it ran) so how many boats have you had in the past? (uh probably... sailboats)
six sailboats, all in around that same size range? (well I've had the 27 cnc I started with which I loved and went to a 30 foot islander and I like that boat, put about 16'000 nautical miles on that sailing everywhere from Fort Lauderdale right down to Venezuela and then back up and around in the St. Martin area back down to Grenada up and down, for a 30-foot boat it took a beating, and so did I in some places like the mona passage you know?) oh yeah Puerto Rico (yeah) and coming out Puerto Rico and Dominican (yeah coming out of there, what a strong boat love that boat, and uh 32-foot islander, uh 36-foot islander obviously I like islander boats) so these were all inboard diesels (yeah) I assume (yeah) so you're familiar with diesels, you've had to do your share of maintenance and work on them and everything, so now you're looking at something different, I mean what is your when it comes to repowering or powering like the diesel that you would like to have in the boat, what would you be looking for now? or if you had a chance to just put in anything you wanted from scratch knowing what's out there whether electric, diesel, hybrid anything like that what would you choose based on you know your expertise and your budget (yep) for the next boat (well even years ago I mean my alternative was diesel or electric, it still is I looked at electric I love the idea of all electric, getting all gas off the boat all diesel off the boat, I love the electric idea, but I was waiting for battery technology to improve, the price of batteries to drop you know just a little improvement in technology, so I could go and depend on electric a little more, you know? and not having to start a generator to recharge my battery bank you know I want it to be self-sufficient on electricity and you know sailing sometimes you there's no wind sometimes you have to turn on the motor or just float around for days, which is a little boring for me I wait for a while, but it's nice to turn on the engine and be able to have you know get somewhere, get out of the weather and that's the thing that scared me the most if I ever depleted my batteries to the point where I actually needed them and there was a front or something coming through and I had to get out of there and there wasn't the proper wind or any wind and I had to actually motor and I didn't have the power to do it, I don't like to be in that position) for this next chapter that you're going to be with your next boat (yeah) would you classify yourself that you're going to be living more at anchor or you know in and out of marines more often? like when you go to different countries or anything where do you plan to spend most of the majority of your time (as far as I'm concerned I never want to go to the marina I just I don't want to go to the dock unless I have to, you know emergencies or whatever, but I'd like to anchor out of course and be self-totally self-sufficient and I think when electricity... when your electric boat systems get to the point and I'm pretty sure they are now real close, where you can install a complete electrical system, you know and depend on it and not even you know have uh internal combustion engine on the boat, just all electric I think that time is pretty well come, so I would look at electric yeah, but at the same time there's some good diesel options, I love the beta engine the system on it it's a good solid engine and setup and uh good quality, so I wouldn't hesitate to go with internal combustion engine again, but ultimately yeah I think I'd like to have the energy the to deliver uh propulsion by electricity of course I mean) but the question is where will you get that electricity from (oh your solar power, wind generation) right but you've seen I've maxed out my solar power on my boat and I can make 10 to 12 kilowatt hours per day, but the average electric engine like the electric engine for our size boat for Sophisticated Lady to replace our onboard diesel it's a 60 kilowatt diesel, so to put a 60 kilowatt electric motor in there (yep). I have 15 kilowatts of
lithium ion or sorry... I have 15 kilowatts of li-pho batteries already, lithium iron phosphate and those batteries would be depleted in less than 15 minutes running that engine at full output (at the same time you know you have a you have a 50 foot boat, and you have systems in the boat that are you know they depend they draw a lot of energy, uh where a smaller boat something a 35-ish in that I wouldn't need all those systems and I might be able to get the wattage from the solar panels...) right but see that's irrelevant because you could actually get rid of all the systems on my boat you still couldn't power the propulsion system without a generator, unless that's why I asked you were you focusing on going to marinas or living at anchor because if you are going back to marina every night or every couple of days you simply plug the boat back in, just like you do your car at your house, you plug it in it charges up and you're ready to go next time, so you can take off and go out and use your electric motor and in and out of the anchorage and you know (yep exactly) you don't have any worries like that, but it's a different case entirely, it's a different scenario when you live on board the boat and you live at anchor, and you know unless you're out sailing indefinitely constantly all the time every day they have their regeneration systems, that's what I've even been testing with the E-propulsion system but even you know I love Uma I watch Uma a lot and I see them I've been patrons of Uma even before but I see them promoting the full electric and I love the concept, but I can tell even from watching them that it's just not there yet because of the battery technology, we don't have the ability not even to store the power, but to regenerate the power, you can put on 100 kilowatts of lithium on the boat if you want, but where are you going to replace it when it's gone after running your engine for three hours this is the issue (exactly) so you still can't do it without putting a diesel behind it as backup, so they always say yeah it's more efficient if you put in an electric motor and run it off your lithium then you start up the diesel when you need to recharge everything yeah because the electric motor is more efficient it makes the diesel run more efficient, but do you know understand what the cost of that is, because you still need a very powerful diesel (diesel yep) to do that in the first place, so you've got this big bank of lithium that you need to recharge you need to run a big capacity generator to do that at least 20 to 30 kilowatts and if you have to put in that big an engine and that big a battery bank in addition to the cost of the electric motor this is where it really put me off, I mean I would love to say I could afford to do it, but I can't afford to do that, I've looked at it and to put in a fully integrated system with electric motor, sized like a suitably sized battery bank, and a backup diesel you're looking at 80 to $100'000 easy (yeah no you're right) that's not in my budget, I mean I'm amazed that it's $30'000 for a diesel engine, $30'000 for a diesel engine can you imagine? I mean we used to spend that you get the truck attached to the diesel engine, now you just get the diesel engine but that's the cost of a marine diesel engine these days and now that makes you really seriously look at what are you getting for your dollar, and it comes down to what you need as well I mean I don't know what... it's like you said if there's a storm coming, I want to get the hell out of the way (any means possible) I got my family on board you know a baby on board anything like that and I see there's a storm coming or I know there's a storm even 100 miles away and I need to boot it I want to be able to boot it yeah that's the safety concern I mean yeah 100 years ago you know what nobody had engines on their boat, they were all 100% sail, but we're not living 100 years ago we're living now we have this technology available and these options available and this is how we choose to live now, there's a lot of people that still live on pocket cruisers less than 30 feet, some people like Lynn and Larry Party they lived for their whole life on a boat with no engine yeah I still remember the episode I love those guys I watched them they were one of the ones you know in addition to the shards and dash you offshore and all that, I always watch Lynn and Larry Party also, and I remember when she was so happy that they took out the engine and put it in a bathtub (yeah, she said she loves her bathtub) yeah underneath the companionway stairs I remember that, a long time ago (and and the thing about electric also is your diesel engine is going to move your boat through the water six seven knots, fairly calm conditions you'll never get that for a sustained period of time if any time with uh electric propulsion you know?) no see that's the issue (it'll kill the batteries) I have a hundred gallon or 400 litre fuel tank for diesel on board and the boat will average about seven knots at an efficient operating speed of the diesel yeah that gives us a 700 mile range, if I tried to do 700 miles with an electric electric engine with a hundred kilowatts of battery power and you have no idea that's a big amount of space required for 100 kilowatts of battery power, you run it even at a quarter throttle or half throttle you know you'll be doing three to four knots, okay, but you're still going to be using 15 to 20 kilowatts on that motor, minimum, that means you have maximum let's say five to six hours even if we're being conservative, generous, five to six hours to use a hundred kilowatts of power at three to four knots yep you got a 20... what, 25 mile range? (yeah 30, 25, 30 mile range) now most people say well we're not gonna motor anyway we're out there to sail, well yeah I get it and I hear you, but that's not always the case in today's situation now we have information available storms approaching stuff like that, if you just want to move you just want to move you don't want to be sitting there thinking oh my gosh my battery's going to die (yeah) am I going to die because I can't get out of the way, because you have this information now that the storm is coming and you can't get out of the way, that's a big difference over where we were 100 years ago (yeah) you know we have this technology now (I mean you can pre-plan ahead like you do with your weather onboard weather charts and the information that you get online of an upcoming storm, maybe three days two, days ahead maybe something like that and you can with the electric start moving but for two or three days believe me you're probably going to be pretty worried about your power and being able to get out of the way where I think with the diesel engine if you got fuel and a good engine you know you're going to get out of the way) well see that's the thing yeah I mean with the fuel in my tank I've got a 700 mile range just to keep going, but even from Uma we learned that you know your range is going to be very short and I watched them in so many videos going oh my god I hope we make it to the next marina because they were just they were basically promoting their lifestyle was going from marina to marina because they needed that electricity (exactly) and that's not what I want from an electric engine if I'm going to spend that much money to get there and even they sooner or later they ended up buying a little portable generator (yeah yeah yeah I saw that) but even that that's like a two kilowatt generator that's not going to power their motor it'll give them a backup power supply which they needed, congrats on that I'm glad you finally at least did something to you know back yourself up a little bit, so you're not going to be putting yourself at risk if you can't make it to the next marina, put it that way (exactly) we all don't need electricity we like to have electricity we have all these things we like to have is it a need to have, or like to have, a want to have? that's personal decision only you can answer (yeah yeah you have to weigh it between you know your safety, and how you cruise and how you want to cruise and the situations you may find yourself in, you know if you want to go on long hauls, long trips, and you know or you're just dropping into bays every night or something, it's it's up to the individual you know, it depends on it what their plans are, but yeah I mean the internal combustion engine is the way to go) and I remember we learned from you from Uma as well yeah that you can regenerate some power yeah the new systems are getting better at that yeah, but I think they proved that the most they could get was 500 maybe 600 watts at full speed, now okay if you... if you continue doing that speed 24 hours a day that means that you can effectively put a maximum of 10 to 12 kilowatt hours into the battery bank in 24 hours, let's randomly say 500 watts (yeah yeah) 500 watt hours per hour means two hours per kilowatt hour (right) so that's 12 per day where it's our best case scenario, that's going to get you about what 10 to 15 minutes of propulsion at the other end of it when you turn the engine back on so I don't really see you know... depending on the speed you're trying to run if you're only trying
to do two three knots and sure you might get three four hours, but you're only going to do two three knots you're gonna get six seven miles, so (yeah so the technology might not be there quite yet) no I love the idea even though, even of having the backup diesel wouldn't bother me so much, but a hundred thousand dollars, you know? eighty thousand dollars, seven seventy I don't care it's just way too much to be putting into a propulsion system for a 45 to 50 foot boat it's not in the budget if not me and certainly I don't think most of you guys I think you would agree that that's a lot of money just for a propulsion system, now that takes us back down you know the two options now are okay well what diesel do you choose or do you go hybrid because they have hybrids that are a combination of electric motor with a diesel engine, and I was looking at those also and that's a very attractive option it's a little bit more reasonably priced but you're looking at a 20 kilowatt motor with about 10 to 12 kilowatts of regeneration power now they say that in ideal conditions which of course you're never going to generate 12 kilowatts no matter what you do unless somebody's dragging you behind a freighter (yeah exactly) it's just not feasible, we're not there yet with the regeneration capabilities (exactly yeah) but the idea is if you power up your diesel, the regeneration capabilities of the electric motor are sufficient that you can put probably 10 kilowatts of direct DC power back into your battery bank now of course nothing comes for free, if you're making power from your diesel you're using extra fuel, so no matter how you look at it even if you're using your motor because you need the motor and it's calm and you'd only do three four knots you still are using more fuel to keep the regeneration capabilities going from the power as well, still increasing fuel consumption about we all know you can't make electricity from nothing, if you're doing it from your engine it's coming from excess fuel consumption, so then again it boils down to the cost because if I can use the 20 kilowatt motor when I want to just to get out of anchorage or anything like that and then we sell long enough and regenerate it, then I'm good, right? (mm-hmm) that's that's an attractive option, but when you need the diesel boom you fire it up and it's there and you go so if for months at a time you never need the diesel that much and then it's going to pay off over a period of time, but how long is that period of time because the investment for my size of boat was between 50 to sixty thousand dollars to take a thirty thousand dollar engine and equip it with electric propulsion in a hybrid configuration not including batteries, you're still looking at batteries okay you still have to do your batteries now you've got a diesel and electric system, so you've got to back up to both, but you still have to have your lithium system installed separately, then you have to look at the cost of the lithium system, I mean on average lithium is coming down fast which is great I really love the fact that lithium is starting to come down but you're still even on a good day and a good deal for reliable equipment like lithium ferrous phosphate, you know lifepro 4 batteries, not lithium ion we don't want lithium ion on our boats, that's it's okay in a tesla you know if it melts down and explodes you can step out of your car and you're safe, but if it melts down and sets fire on your boat you're going down, so we don't want lithium ion, there's just too many issues with that technology it's much smaller lighter cheaper, but it's not safe for our environment so that's why we stick with the lifepo4 but you're looking at about I think we're down to about maybe five thousand dollars, four to five thousand dollars per 10 kilowatts now (for 10 kilowatts) so that means if you want to put in a 50 kilowatt bank yeah you know you're looking at $24-25 000 or something like that but that's a lifetime investment as well so you have to look at the fact that these types of batteries, lithium ion? they're typically rated for about 800 recharge cycles the life before rated for minimum 3000. yeah it's quite a difference, it's more expensive and of course it takes more space, that's the trade-off and a little bit more heavy, not too much lithium is lithium, but yeah the two technologies are still you know a little bit this way in that way, so I don't know I weighed all of those options, but I'm still looking towards a direct diesel replacement and as much as I don't like the fact that we'd still be burning fuel I want to get rid of that I'm just not in a position or in a budgetary position or a safety position to think about the fact that we're there with ready to go with electric yet, I don't know it's just my opinion we all have our opinion guys I know you're to have your own opinion and don't worry tell me what your opinion is put it in the comments below because we'll discuss it in the next video, this is an open forum we're making decisions on the fly here and we're educating you know with information that's available to all of us, so want to know what you guys think also, but in my case I'm boiling down to what diesel I'm going to be looking at, and that's going to be you know a matter of how serviceable is it at sea? mine has been incredibly serviceable I've had instances when I completely hydrolocked it right before a hurricane coming in and I still managed to fix it at sea by myself I'm sure some of you probably remember that that was a video just a few years ago when my son was on board, but yeah I know a lot of these newer systems that's another topic altogether if you were going to consider this a straight diesel what would it be would you go for the ultra modern computerized high efficiency model? or something that you know may not it's a little bit more of a big block boxy thing, but you can fix it (yeah) everybody's different (for me I think Beta's you know for me I like the Beta brand, it's so efficient) but what else is out there, like what have you looked at that you've been considering? (well I look at the regulars like the Yanmar and Volvo and and uh what uh what's the what's the yellow one) yellow one? cat? (no) caterpillar? f(rom Europe anyways, but um I'm haven't had much luck or not a lot of good luck from Myanmar and Volvo and the parts are expensive it would be nice to have an engine in my boat where if I needed parts I could get them you know from a farm store you know? because with the with the beta engine it's a kubota engine right block engine) well that's I've been lucky that way with the Perkins up to now because a lot of the service components have been for tractor engines (yeah) the only parts that aren't that I'm up against now are the aluminum tanks that they marinize the engine with, you know the the the cooling system (like the heat exchangers?) heat exchangers all of that kind of stuff those are very expensive now and those are what keeps rotting out that I have to keep replacing and now they're like a thousand dollars each (oh yeah) that's one of the things that I decided or made me decide no it's time to replace this engine because it's just too expensive to keep replacing those things for long distance travel if I'm in the middle of the pacific, it's not going to be easy to find (yep) when I was in the BVI's well yeah there's a place right there that's Perkins everything you can get all the parts for as long as they still have them in stock, but I decided it was more time to start looking at a full-blown replacement with something newer, but I'm also afraid of the newer technology because they're making stuff a lot lighter and thinner than it used to be yeah I just don't like that you know my engine's like a thousand pounds (4108 perkins isn't it?) 4238 (or 4238 oh yeah, yeah) it's like a thousand pounds and that's you know it's a solid cast block yeah and that's why I got 17, I tell people I got 17'000 hours out of that engine and they're like what? what do you mean? 17'000 hours? (so you maintain it, that's the thing) well you look after it it keeps going, it still runs great we just have some cooling issues, but I've resolved some of those, but again it's just a matter of what's going to be next if we start crossing oceans (yeah) I don't want to be fixing something in the middle of the Pacific and a storm coming at us (yeah the end the lifetime of that engine whether being and being properly maintained is coming to an end, you know eventually and you'll be somewhere in the Pacific somewhere) people say you can rebuild it to brand new and yes I know it costs five six thousand dollars to rebuild it I looked into that that was the first option we looked at, but I'm still going to be left with a 26 year old block that at some point is going to require something else that's going to become harder and harder to find (yeah exactly, you have so many systems on your boat that's one system that you really don't want to take chances on or mickey mouse propulsion system) it's pretty much your backup on all of your security, it's your backup if everything is going to [ __ ] and you need to get away get out of the way of something or you know whatever the reason you need your engine, you need your engine, so no I want to be able to count on it without having to worry about you know what's going to happen next in the middle of the ocean and I've been you guys know I've done my share repairs on that engine in the middle of the ocean yeah and I've been lucky, so far it hasn't conquered me yet but (yeah like I personally don't want to discount the electric propulsion, but I have never had a boat that's 50 foot before, my boat's all been I think the biggest was 35 foot, so you know you look at things differently, you look at maybe I could put an electric system on it where it would be feasible to do it for the sailing that I do but when you have a bigger boat, things change) the cost goes up exponentially because if you're going to go with an under 40 foot boat, yeah you can put in a smaller electric motor a smaller battery bank backed up by a smaller diesel and you're into less than I'd have to pay for just the diesel so for you it's more viable, but you know when you get into these size of boats the most popular size of cruising boats as you can see even in the anchorage here all the time the most popular boats you find in these anchorages are always 44 to 50 feet, that's the most common size catamarans are usually 40 to 44 feet, they're about that same size range internal volume as the when you get into the 48 to 50 footers, but yeah I have not discounted electric I just don't think it's viable, see... (on your boat) it becomes more viable when you get into 60 70 80 90 footers because those are people who have gold cards coming out their a** (exactly) you know they're like, a thousand dollars? give me two in case one breaks (yeah they can take the hundred thousand dollar hit if it doesn't work properly) that's not me, just so you know no I'm very concerned about the budget, we have to analyze the cost of every single thing that goes into this boat because we want as long a term a life span out of it as possible with as few issues as possible, you know electric is going to be less maintenance long run, but if it's so much expensive up front that we can't afford it's just not there, but give it another five years maybe ten, I think we're going to be there entirely (exactly) who knows maybe we'll have fusion reactors on board then you know? that'll make our electricity from just our garbage cans (exactly yeah) who knows (the technology is changing, so fast) well it is (in that energy source) right now our problem is storage, but it's also generation, so there's going to be leaps and bounds made I think in the next five to ten years on storage and generation, I don't doubt that for a minute (I don't doubt that a bit either, well the price of batteries have dropped so significantly since they came out) and they will continue to do, so as more people adopt the technology now that it is dropping in price so that's a good thing for lithium then it just becomes a matter of how much lithium do we have? you know how much planets like how much lithium does the planet have and capabilities that we can use, harvesting what are the cost of the harvesting you know I've seen all these videos too about where they bring the lithium from and the people that work in sweaty caves just like kids working sweatshops in China and stuff like that it's like oh yeah okay, but we have to know this is all information that we all need to know where does this stuff come from, not just that it's available and this is how much it costs where does it come from and is it sustainable also if it's no different than coal or oil or something and it has a very limited lifespan then we're still chasing up the wrong tree (yeah how do you dispose of it? how you know what do you do with it then?) yeah it has a much longer lifespan I mean I think that we're looking at my battery bank on board they told me a minimum 10 years, but I've been monitoring the charge discharge cycles and how the computer watches and everything and I think that we're looking at minimum 15 maybe almost 20 years of lifespan out of those batteries (oh yeah I wouldn't be surprised you you easily get 6'000 recharges on it) yeah I think that the the cases will probably give out before the battery cells do (yeah maybe) you know the plastic might deteriorate faster I don't know, as long as we keep it out of the sun I guess (yeah yeah you got to keep a boat around it so) but yeah anyway I mean this was just meant to start a conversation with you guys about what I've been considering what I know other people are considering, I'm going to talk to other people as well we'll probably do that in the next video because I want to keep a lot of this information here, it's interesting to find out what guys like Larry have in their own minds and you know their own experience as well so we're going to talk to other people the same, but if you guys got questions again write them in the comments below and we'll look at them for sure I guarantee you we'll read the questions and see if we can answer some of the next videos maybe with some of the next people that we talked to about their scenarios, so (exactly) all right thanks Larry (no problem) yeah appreciate the time good and I'm sure we'll see you around again, next beer somewhere (yep cheers!) cheers, cheers guys (cheers) salute stay safe and we'll see you out there ciao for now
2022-03-06 20:34
