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Electric Cars Won't Strain the Power Grid
thecarchik writes "Last week's heat wave prompted another eruption of that perennial question: Won't electric cars that recharge from grid power overload the nation's electricity system? The short answer is no. A comprehensive and wide-ranging two-volume study from 2007, Environmental Assessment of Plug-In Hybrid Vehicles, looked at the impact of plug-in vehicles on the US electrical grid. It also analyzed the 'wells-to-wheels' carbon emissions of plug-ins versus gasoline cars. The load of one plug-in recharging (about 2 kilowatts) is roughly the same as that of four or five plasma television sets. Plasma TVs hardly brought worries about grid crashes."
The more uses of electricity we have that can be done "whenever", the better the future looks for power sources like wind and solar. Hopefully power companies will start charging different rates for on-peak and off-peak residential usage (like they already do for major industrial users), and the market will take care of it.
I think there are roughly 2 houses on my block (of about 20 homes) that have a single plasma TV. They do, however, have at least a single car. Many of them have 2 or more. That translates as a lot of "plasma TVs" on that block.
Also, we need to realize that they are limiting their expectations:
Basically they are saying "Electric cars wont bring down the grid -- if they aren't widely adopted". What if, instead of half a million, there's 10-30 million? How many "plasma TVs" does it take to bring down the grid? Add to this that our current administration wants to increase the cost of our energy -- so not only will gas be more expensive, but so will electricity. What's the incentive?
You were being funny, but I think it's important to point out: we produce about 14 exajoules of energy for electric power a year. We use about 28 exajoules for transportation.
This study seemed to overlook something rather important.
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That's a good point. I'm curious to know also if the battery production was taken into account when they decided electric vehicles would be better.
Surely from a pure power plant versus tailpipe emissions, the power plant won out. They scale better than auto gas engines do.
I'm still on the fence about lead. I'm glad it's gone from a lot of industrial and consumer products, but at the same time it did serve a valuable purpose. And when it comes to batteries, lead-acid batteries are dead simple to recycle. Lithium on the other hand isn't.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
Actually... I'll go ahead and do the math. Surface areas:
Superior: 82,400 km^3
Michigan-Huron: 59,600 + 58,000 km^3 = 117,600 km^3
So, if we want to cap off a maximum change of a mere 0.5 meter of height, and assuming that such a small amount has basically no affect on the surface area, that's 41.2 cubic kilometers. There's 4 meters height difference between the lakes; let's assume we average maintaining that difference. That would store about 350 GWh after losses -- more than the total generation of all hydroelectricity in the United States for an entire year.
But want an even crazier one? The Panama Canal is a (proportionally) thin canal that goes over the terrain via locks. But imagine if you had pipes connecting Atlantic to Pacific. It just so happens that the western and eastern coasts of Panama have opposite tides, and the magnitude of the tides is *far* greater on the Pacific tide -- averaging about 3 meters (the Atlantic side averages under half a meter). So you have basically limitless (oscillating) tidal power available.
IF you can harvest it.... ;)
Trump's plan to get rid of Mueller appears to be 'be so guilty of so many things that Mueller works himself to death.'
You have limitless tidal power available at any coast: simply dig a reservoir (a bay connected to the ocean through a small channel) and harvest the energy as water flows in and out. You also get a massive swimming pool/dozen kilometers of beachfront property out of the deal.
Digging those reservoirs would be a useful, unskilled, and labour-intensive project. We have a massive pool of people needing jobs. Hint, hint.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
I am an engineering for a large utility in the US, granted Civil not Electrical, but the principal for generation is:
You produce a little spare power that is grounded to handle increases (your buffer)
There are voltage regulators and capacitor banks at substations to handle small variations in load
Utilize peaking stations when the load on the grid is particularly high
The key for generation: RPM of the turbine, as load on the grid decreases it take less energy to maintain the speed of the turbine; so while a turbine may still be spinning at the same speed during high and low demand it is certainly not consuming as much fuel
With that being said, there is certainly a lag between the consumption of fuel and the utilization of that energy (steam to mechanical motion) that may produce a delay of an hour as load decreases. Utility companies have a great deal of data and they can generally predict when usage will change and adjust the fuel consumption accordingly.
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So who is hotter? Ali or Ali's Sister?