Will food shortages reach the United States because of hostility in between Russia and Ukraine?My mother is saying she is hearing in contemporary youtube tv channel stations that it will not reach the United States. We are ill prepared for a food shortage

[Still Alive]

1 hour ago, believeinHim said:

What about electric cars exploding ? Is it true electric cars are more susceptible to exploding............... ?...............

Well, catching on fire, yes. The battery tech is not quite there. Just parking an electric car in your garage brings risk of a house fire. Also, in my state, all electric cars should have a bumper sticker that says, "powered by coal". 

BTW, Electric Vehicle Sparked Fire at Virginia Home, Did $235K in Damage: Officials

I just pulled a random article. There are plenty.

Edited April 14, 2022 by Still Alive

[Starise]

EVs (electric vehicles) are being aggressively promoted here in the US. A new Chevy Bolt gets 253 miles on a charge which costs about $4.00 US if you charge it at home at 8 cents a kwh. You can't fill up a gasoline car for that. There were about 7 fires in Chevy bolts. GM stopped production and offered to replace all old batteries under warranty for Chevy Bolt owners. This is a boon for an owner who has a two or three year old Bolt because it's like getting a new car. EV battery capacity with current technology drops to 70% after 5 years. Production of the Chevy Bolt has resumed.

The interest in EVs here is still not extraordinary compared to Gasoline vehicles. One of the main reasons for that is poor resale value if you keep it longer than 3-5 years as compared to resale value on a gasoline car. The idea to lease instead of buy an EV was said to be a viable option because you get to drive it while it's at the peak and offload it when the batteries start to decline. I don't see any wisdom in this. Isn't some resale value better than NO resale value?  After 10 years an electric car is still a good city car at 50% battery capacity. Not such a good daily long distance commute car. At 33-35,000 and up new electric EVs aren't cheap either.

EV batteries do get hot and makers suggest keeping them away from heat ( hot parking lots in the summer) as much as possible. New EV tech has better ways to cool the batteries. This isn't a safety issue. The heat can lessen the battery's ability to hold the charge.

Hybrid cars are another option, but hybrid cars also loose a lot of resale value, so in many cases the money you saved at the pump could have been made up for in resale of a gasoline car. The Toyota Prius seems to be holding value pretty well because you can replace those batteries reasonably. Unlike the Tesla, where you need their service, a handy person who knows what they are doing can obtain a battery and put it in themselves.

EV batteries are in the neighborhood of 15K right now. Who wants to have one of those replaced?

[angels4u]

1 hour ago, Still Alive said:

Well, catching on fire, yes. The battery tech is not quite there. Just parking an electric car in your garage brings risk of a house fire. Also, in my state, all electric cars should have a bumper sticker that says, "powered by coal". 

BTW, Electric Vehicle Sparked Fire at Virginia Home, Did $235K in Damage: Officials

I just pulled a random article. There are plenty.

What's really going on is that in the near future is that the UN want less cars on the road - think Climate change control..

[Starise]

2 hours ago, Josheb said:

All new technologies are expensive when new. (remember personal computers? DVD players? Flat screen tvs?). The costs decrease as production rises. The Volt gave way to the Bolt for good reason, and in the due course of time the Bolt will give way to something better by Chevy. 

 

And we don't really have much choice. I am an old-school muscle-car kinda guy. Big cars with big blocks that pass everything but gas stations and Motorolas . But I have driven a couple of electric cars, including a Tesla, and I have to reluctantly confess they were impressive. Folks are going to buy them. Why? First and foremost because they can. Luddites like me are going to fade away. 

 

Or race past those guys in our double four-barrel hot rods on our way between gas stations .

The Bolt has 200 hp which in the muscle car world isn't spectacular. For a small car like the Bolt it is. My old 66 Mustang had 200 hp and it would get up and go pretty good with a small v-8. What electric cars DO have though is ample low end starting torque. They can peel off the line with the best of them often surpassing gasoline cars in a quarter mile race..

Another thing electric cars don't have is as many parts to wear out or oil changes. Regenerative braking means less brake wear than a gasoline car. What both cars have is a life expectancy, only with gasoline cars it isn't as apparent. Toyota is working on a new battery. If they can perfect the battery further and bring costs down, so that an EV lasts for 10 years with little or no loss to capacity, or make changing the batteries more economical, I believe the gasoline car will fade away fast.

Who would have thought that even 10 years ago Ford would make a battery powered F-150 that can carry heavy loads for long distances using only electric power? Oh, and there's the new Mustang EV. 

 

[Starise]

On 4/11/2022 at 7:24 PM, believeinHim said:

Will food shortages reach the United States because of hostility in between Russia and Ukraine?My mother is saying she is hearing in contemporary youtube tv channel stations that it will not reach the United States. We are ill prepared for a food shortage. We are starting, But I fear we are still ill prepared. I am encouraging ways of being more prepared, But she {still}, Trusts people in whom are charging her to get her information and news sources. She trusts the people who are charging her to report to her the news. Prayer. 

She really trusts these people as reporting to her the real news. When you say that she trusts them she says she does not trust them. She says she thinks they are reporting the real news. Is are they reporting the real news ? Prayer. I am encouraging for more storage space for food, and other necessities, And make friends with farming and friends with like minded people. This is what I want to do. I do not know how to do so. Prayer. 

I must apologize for taking this thread in a direction you probably didn't intend.

To bring it back on track, I think we need to be very careful when watching anything on YouTube. YouTube is one of my favorite things to watch. This is probably because it is so much more accessible than Vimeo and others. The content is there. Often the videos are not entirely true. Much of it is simply video click bait. How do we tell if it is a true story? I would always assume with YouTube nothing is true unless it can be backed up with more reliable sources. 

My opinions of the US food supply are not as optimistic as others. Yes we usually have access to food from South America even in winter. It is the SUPPLY chain that has potential to fail. There has been some questionable things happening recently in the way goods are transported here. Ships backed up at sea for weeks before they can unload. This should not be happening.

And all of the corn we grow out west could go away quickly. All it takes is some unpredicted unusual weather. We had many weather records set in 2021 and the possibility exists that a sure this might not always be such a sure thing. 

Does the Russian war directly affect US food supply? Probably not to any large degree. Russia is a big land mass, but their economy is probably smaller than Texas economy.

[Still Alive]

16 hours ago, angels4u said:

What's really going on is that in the near future is that the UN want less cars on the road - think Climate change control..

Yep. I've said for the last few decades that if cars were invented "now", they would never allow the average person to drive them. FWIW, I DO think the driver's license skill test should be a LOT tougher. Watch those crash videos some time. Some of them are just a person making a mistake, but many are people that should never, in their lifetime, be given a driver's license. They just don't have the spatial reasoning capability to control a 3,000 lb vehicle out in public. 

I think the goal is to get us into electric, and then regulate the neck out of it to the point that fewer and fewer can afford to drive and are stuck with public transportation or bicycles - even in rural areas. 

And don't even get me started on the climate change farce. 

[Riverwalker]

The US grows enough food for itself and many other countries

So no

But with the vast reduction of domestic oil production and russia's lines being stopped, fuel prices are raising drastically and that raises the price of everything

[Still Alive]

1 hour ago, Riverwalker said:

The US grows enough food for itself and many other countries

So no

But with the vast reduction of domestic oil production and russia's lines being stopped, fuel prices are raising drastically and that raises the price of everything

Yep. It can't be said often enough: Elections have consequences.

[kwikphilly]

On 4/15/2022 at 3:48 PM, Still Alive said:

Yep. It can't be said often enough: Elections have consequences.

Thats a mouthful not hard to swallow" food for thought"!!!!!

So true....

[branchesofHim]

On 4/11/2022 at 4:24 PM, believeinHim said:

Prayer. 

It'll all work out for the child or God regardless. Shalom

Matthew 6:[25] Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?
[26] Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?
[27] Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?
[28] And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
[29] And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
[30] Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
[31] Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
[32] (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
[33] But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
[34] Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.