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Japan Wants To Boost the Use of Electric Vehicles as a Power Source During Natural Disasters (qz.com)

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the moving-forward dept.

Japan, a country which frequently suffers natural calamities such as tsunamis, typhoons, and earthquakes is looking to further harness the power of batteries used in electric vehicles (EVs) during such disasters, local media reports. From a report: Nissan, which produces the Leaf, the world's best-selling EV model, plans to hold an event in March to let people stay overnight in their cars and try using the electricity stored in their car batteries to simulate the experience of being in an emergency, according to Japanese newswire Jiji. A fully charged electric vehicle can supply power to a standard home for up to four days, a Nissan official told the news outlet. The company last year came to an agreement with Tokyo's Nerima Ward and the city of Yokosuka to provide EVs for free in emergency situations. Nerima also last year (link in Japanese) implemented a system whereby owners of EVs would be able to loan their vehicles out for free to those in need during a disaster, and also started using EVs for its fleet of police patrol cars.

43 of 74 comments (clear)

  1. So... by psergiu · · Score: 2

    ... implemented a system whereby owners of EVs would be able to loan their vehicles out for free ...

    Mandatory or voluntary ?

    --
    1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
    1. Re:So... by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Considering the statistics on natural disasters, you might get actually paid in lower energy prices. It's all a matter of averages. Get an X % discount for being ready to help someone once every few years? Kind of makes sense.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    2. Re: So... by Comboman · · Score: 1

      Since the alternative is "nothing backing your power grid", I'd have to say yes. BTW, the Model 3 is a single model of a single brand of electric vehicle and not in any way representative of the reliability of electric vehicles as a whole.

      --
      Support Right To Repair Legislation.
    3. Re: So... by blindseer · · Score: 1

      Since the alternative is "nothing backing your power grid", I'd have to say yes.

      In most every part of the world the something backing up wind and solar will be natural gas.

      It will continue to be natural gas until something as inexpensive and reliable comes along. Batteries will never be as inexpensive and reliable because batteries cannot produce electricity, they only store it. The cost of operation includes the electricity to charge them, and with any overhead from maintenance and energy losses. To get cheap electricity from batteries requires even cheaper electricity put into them.

      We'd be far better off "charging" our cars in our garages at night with a natural gas hose than any electrical cord. I see a far brighter future for natural gas vehicles than electric vehicles. They can be filled up at home overnight with a municipal NG supply, or refilled in minutes at a properly equipped roadside filling station. No "range anxiety" because there's plenty of range from tanks in NG vehicles now. They also likely produce less CO2 than burning the natural gas at night in a power plant to charge those electric vehicles, given the losses from the conversion and transmission.

      Make a natural gas-electric hybrid and there's all kinds of advantages and options. That includes using the car as an electricity source for the house during an electrical outage.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    4. Re: So... by Lost+Race · · Score: 1

      Vehicular internal combustion engines are far less efficient than combined cycle gas turbine power plants. Not sure what the overall efficiency is from power plant to car wheel, but it could very well be better than a directly gas powered car.

    5. Re: So... by blindseer · · Score: 1

      Forget natural gas then. Let's consider a "real solution". An electric car charged up from nuclear power would have far less CO2 emissions than an electric car charged from natural gas, coal, wind, solar, or hydro.

      If those behind the Green New Deal were truly interested in reducing CO2 then they would have embraced nuclear power, not demand it be replaced with energy sources with higher CO2 output.

      We aren't going to get to a zero CO2 economy without nuclear. There will be no dominance of wind and solar without natural gas to fill in the gaps.

      If the concern is reducing CO2 then we'd be talking as much about nuclear power as much as we would about BEVs. Leaving nuclear power out of the Green New Deal tells me that these people are ignorant, stupid, or malicious. I'm not sure which is worse in our leadership.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    6. Re:So... by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      It would still make more sense to subsidise solar panels on house roofs and fit them with batteries. They can keep generating electricity and all you need is an extension lead from any house, whose home power system is still running.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    7. Re:So... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Okay, this is weird. Who was triggered by this post? I mean how can someone be upset enough by it to label it "troll"?

      Is this just straight up abuse, a stalking systematically hitting all my posts, or have we found some new species of snowflake?

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  2. More than enough power in an EV to do so by foxalopex · · Score: 2

    Not many people realize how much power EVs are capable of. I own a Chevy Volt which is a mixed battery / gas generator type vehicle and so I have a view of exactly what KWatt's I use when I drive around on my dashboard. Your average house rarely exceeds 10 KWatts at peak power use. Travelling on a straight highway uses about 21 Kwatts of power while slow speed urban driving can be as low as 7 Kwatts. Volt's peak battery output is around 107 Kwatts which could easily cover several houses all at once, it's amazing to think that's how much power is used when a car is accelerating. The Volt's gas engine / generator is about 80hp which is way above any of your camping portable generators which are probably a measly 1-4 hp. The issue is how to hook up the house power safely. Volt's primary power line off the battery is about 360v DC with enough amperage to more than put you in the grave. Unless the car maker safely designed a way to tap the system, it's difficult to do.

    1. Re:More than enough power in an EV to do so by Solandri · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Every time I point this out, the EV advocates mod me down. The Nissan Leaf comes with a 40 kWh battery, approximately 80% of which is usable (32 kWh). Charging efficiency happens to be about 80%, so you need to use about 40 kWh of electricity to top the battery off with 32 kWh.

      The average American home uses 10,399 kWh in a year, or about 28.5 kWh per day. (Apparently a typical Japanese home uses a lot less.) So half-charging a Leaf every day (roughly 50 miles/day use) increases household electricity consumption by (20 kWh / 28.5 kWh) = 0.7 = 70%. Since all that additional electricity consumption happens overnight, if every house has an EV then suddenly the peak electricity consumption period switches from mid-day to overnight. And the lower electricity prices people are expecting to pay to recharge their EV evaporates. Moreso if there's significant solar power generation in the grid. Since solar provides electricity only during the day, the electricity during night to charge all these EVs will have to come from generators the power companies can spool up to meet the overnight demand spike. (Storing solar power in batteries for overnight use is not cost-effective unless solar generation exceeds 100% of daytime consumption. It makes no sense to run other power generators during the day just so you can store solar power in batteries for use during the night, when you can just use the solar power directly during the day (avoiding battery losses) and run the other power generators during the night.)

      Meaning you're going to be paying the highest electricity rates to charge your EV, not the lowest. Modding me down doesn't change this truth. The same truth that lets your EV battery power your home for more than a day, also means the power pricing peak will invert when every home has an EV charging overnight.

    2. Re:More than enough power in an EV to do so by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      The average American home uses 10,399 kWh in a year

      That's because an average American home is crap when it comes to efficiency.

      Since all that additional electricity consumption happens overnight, if every house has an EV then suddenly the peak electricity consumption period switches from mid-day to overnight. And the lower electricity prices people are expecting to pay to recharge their EV evaporates. Moreso if there's significant solar power generation in the grid. Since solar provides electricity only during the day, the electricity during night to charge all these EVs will have to come from generators the power companies can spool up to meet the overnight demand spike.

      Have you considered the possibility of charging *during the day*? It almost makes too much sense to store the surpluses, doesn't it? And consequently it makes too little sense to charge overnight. Thus no "overnight demand spike" is necessarily bound to happen.

      Storing solar power in batteries for overnight use is not cost-effective unless solar generation exceeds 100% of daytime consumption.

      Sooner or later, this excess generation is going to happen if the cost of solar generators becomes so low that using them pays off even despite not using their full output. Even in Germany (which is quite bad for solar power!), for example, the prices auctioned in 2018 for new solar installations where around 45 Euros/MWh. In some other places, the same figure is below $20/MWh already. At these levels, you soon have to ask yourself what to do with the stuff you can't consume around noon in any other way.

      It makes no sense to run other power generators during the day just so you can store solar power in batteries for use during the night, when you can just use the solar power directly during the day (avoiding battery losses) and run the other power generators during the night.

      It makes no sense to make this argument since you have to charge those vehicles *somehow*, and considering that most of the charge will be used for driving anyway, "[using] the solar power directly during the day (avoiding battery losses)" makes no sense since you can't drive directly on solar power, or nuclear power, or whatever source of electricity you're using, unless catenary wires or some other similar infrastructure is involved. (Which it won't be for personal vehicles.)

      Meaning you're going to be paying the highest electricity rates to charge your EV, not the lowest. Modding me down doesn't change this truth. The same truth that lets your EV battery power your home for more than a day, also means the power pricing peak will invert when every home has an EV charging overnight.

      That's assuming that everyone makes the irrational decision to charge during the most expensive period. That's a strange assumption to make.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    3. Re:More than enough power in an EV to do so by aaarrrgggh · · Score: 1

      You make several valid points, but you miss one of the biggest issues: residential energy consumption is much less than all other uses.

      As a simple example, peak electrical demand late at night is about 20GW in California, divided by approximately 12 million households = 1.7kW/household. At that same time, the average household is consuming less than 0.5kW. You can do a similar calculation at different times of day, but residential energy consumption is really only about 1/3 of the total, even in a state with good and long-standing commercial energy codes compared to the majority of the country.

      The other important item missing is the time-of-day portion is variable— 20kWh over 8 hours at night is less of an impact than 20kWh in an hour.

      Ultimately though, if we switch to 100% wind and solar energy, it will be cheapest to charge your car between 11am and about 6pm, when both sources are available and abundant. Throw in some hydroelectric for night only, and you are in business for a sustainable, economical grid.

    4. Re:More than enough power in an EV to do so by JesseMcDonald · · Score: 1

      Since all that additional electricity consumption happens overnight, if every house has an EV then suddenly the peak electricity consumption period switches from mid-day to overnight.

      So charge some of those EVs during the day instead and even out the load. Problem solved. Why do you assume EVs can only be charged overnight? They'll be charged whenever power is cheapest.

      --
      "The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
    5. Re:More than enough power in an EV to do so by jrumney · · Score: 1

      Peak electricity consumption at mid-day comes from industrial use, not houses. The peak for housing areas is evening. Household usage is dwarfed by industrial usage, so even a 70% household increase overnight (when spare capacity is at its highest, as no electrical grid is all solar, and all other forms of generation do not disappear overnight) is easily absorbed by current generating capacity.

    6. Re:More than enough power in an EV to do so by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      How many people drive their car throughout the whole day, every day? Professional drivers, maybe? But those would be taken care of, presumably. A major portion of the population would be served by daytime charging just fine.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    7. Re:More than enough power in an EV to do so by blindseer · · Score: 1

      For a person to charge their car during the day would mean having a place to park all day that was wired for it. A common parking spot is just a 10 foot by 20 foot slab of concrete, very cheap and very low maintenance. Wiring that for charging electric cars means a lot more expense up front and even more to keep it operational, and that (of course) includes the cost of the electricity. Will people be willing to pay for this when they (presumably) already have an operational charger at home?

      EV advocates are going to have to pick a lane at some point. It's either we charge the cars during the day and have to lay out all kinds of infrastructure so we can use solar power, or we use the existing infrastructure and charge at night. With a reliable slow and steady energy supply like coal, combined cycle natural gas, or nuclear we can use the wires we have. If we use the intermittent supply of wind and solar then we need wires and batteries to store and distribute the energy. Maybe EVs can be part of that storage and distribution plan but that would require cooperation from the public. People will want some kind of compensation for the use of their cars for the convenience of the utilities.

      I'm wondering how the economics works on this. Building the chargers into parking lots will cost money, lots of money. To make that worth the cost to build so that people aren't just charging at home will mean electricity is very expensive. What you describe in having people charge their EVs during the day is a world of energy scarcity. That's not a very bright future, in more than one sense of the word.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    8. Re:More than enough power in an EV to do so by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      The 40kWh Leaf has 38kWh usable. 20% is a ridiculous buffer, no car has anything like that.

      Charging efficiency depends on the charge rate. For 6.6kW (typical home/work/destination charger) it's around 90% for the Leaf. 80% is more typical of rapid chargers (40kW+).

      Overnight charging will remain the cheapest option because during the day consumption by industry and business is high. Also we have had remotely controlled off-peak energy for decades now. The power company sends a signal to turn it on when demand is low, and typically it is used to heat water and store it for later, but many people use it to charge their cars. The electricity company guarantees at least X kWh during the night so you have hot water during the day.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    9. Re:More than enough power in an EV to do so by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      It surely isn't completely free, but in a country with $6/US gal. gasoline (and no oil production of our own), $0.1/kWh electricity rate for vehicles, and half the average income compared to the US, it would make perfect sense for our country to subsidize it, as it would pay for itself in energy independence quite quickly. Even Level 1 equipment is perfectly suitable for the V1G application in question; even a bog-standard single phase 230V plug can push 3.5 kW here.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    10. Re:More than enough power in an EV to do so by blindseer · · Score: 1

      No more subsidies!!

      The government cannot legislate energy independence into being. The government cannot change the laws of economics and physics, as much as they might wish it otherwise. If you want electric cars to bring the USA into energy independence then build some better electric cars. There is no other way.

      The USA is well on the path to being energy independent already, and became a net petroleum exporter recently. We can reach and keep that independence by keeping the markets open. If the government interferes too much then the laws of physics and economics will veto everything the government mandates.

      Subsidies cannot help, they only hobble. There is no giving to electric vehicles without taking from somewhere else. The government is too big, fat, and slow, to decide on any real energy policy. They need only act on setting boundaries on the market and let the people doing the real working and thinking find the best path.

      Oh, and where is gas $6/gallon? I took a look at the AAA website and it's under $3/gallon for most of the USA, and under $2.50/gallon for places away from the east and west coasts. I can recall it being around $4.50/gallon once, but that didn't last long.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    11. Re:More than enough power in an EV to do so by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      No more subsidies!! The government cannot legislate energy independence into being.

      Yes, it can.

      If you want electric cars to bring the USA into energy independence then build some better electric cars.

      I don't actually care about the US the tiniest bit, except for the parts that might affect me like foreign policy.

      There is no giving to electric vehicles without taking from somewhere else.

      National economies are not zero sum games, so the statement above is blatantly false.

      Oh, and where is gas $6/gallon? I took a look at the AAA website and it's under $3/gallon for most of the USA, and under $2.50/gallon for places away from the east and west coasts. I can recall it being around $4.50/gallon once, but that didn't last long.

      Most of Europe.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
  3. Fukushima by sims+2 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Back with the fukushima disaster in japan they were raiding the batteries from the cars in the company parking lot to keep the controls and monitor equipment running.

    Also 4 days?! I know a EV holds a lot of juice but if it can really run a home with lights and HVAC for days it should already be being sold as a home backup option.

    --
    Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
    1. Re:Fukushima by foxalopex · · Score: 1

      4 Days admittedly might be pushing it. A Nissan Leaf has about a 24 KwH battery. It means it can run a 1000 watt microwave non-stop for 24 hours. If you're not excessively using power it should last at least 1-2 days thou.

    2. Re:Fukushima by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      Four days is probably based on the average Japanese electricity consumption, not the energy-wasting lifestyle of USAmericans.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    3. Re:Fukushima by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      Average per house consumption in Japan is about 3500kWh/year IIRC, or about 9.5kWh/day. Even the first gen Nissan Leaf can supply that for a couple of days, and the new 62kWh one could easily do 4-5 days. Presumably in an emergency you would try to minimize energy consumption too, so it may actually last a lot longer.

      I know, conversion losses blah blah, it's about right.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    4. Re:Fukushima by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Two days in Spain, three days in Italy, five days in Brazil or Mexico...that's assuming all would be covered from the vehicle. With a residential solar installation, it probably wouldn't.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    5. Re:Fukushima by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      Of course, I wrote my original comment without thinking about the weather... D'oh!

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    6. Re:Fukushima by jrumney · · Score: 1

      Presumably 4 days during an emergency situation, you are not going to be using as much electricity as a normal day. If electricity is out, there's a good chance that water supply is also affected, so hot water isn't going to be needed. And you're probably not going to be spending your time streaming Netflix on your 65" TV. That 4 days is just for minimal LED lighting and basic cooking and maybe keeping the refrigerator running.

    7. Re:Fukushima by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      HVAC? I'm sure if there's a natural disaster you have better things to worry about than your home chilled to 20C.

      In the meantime my home uses ~7kWh / day on average across a given week, more on the weekends for obvious reasons. I can easily run my house for 10 days on a Model 3 battery. My girlfriend wouldn't even need to cut back her binge watching of Netflix.

    8. Re:Fukushima by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      If you have a "15 kW electric backup heat" in your house, you're probably doing something wrong.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    9. Re:Fukushima by blindseer · · Score: 1

      My furnace is rated at about 18kW, and I live in Midwest USA. It's natural gas, not electric, but that doesn't matter for the thermal output. My sister lives in "hill country" in the SE USA and she has electric backup heat for when the heat pump and/or wood stove can't keep up, and based on the size of their heat pump I'm guessing it's in the 15kW range. My brother used to live in a house where the natural gas lines couldn't reach, also in Midwest USA, and his electric backup heat was at least 15kW.

      So, tell me, what would someone be doing wrong in needing 15kW backup heat? You think that their house is far too large? I'm thinking that this is about right for a small house in northern parts of the USA or a larger house in southern parts of the USA.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    10. Re:Fukushima by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      These things are generally symptoms of permissive building codes and extremely cheap energy. Ever heard of Passivhaus?

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    11. Re:Fukushima by blindseer · · Score: 1

      These things are generally symptoms of permissive building codes and extremely cheap energy.

      So you would prefer extremely expensive energy?

      Ever heard of Passivhaus?

      I'll admit I had to look that up. I've seen similar ideas and they are very expensive to build compared to "permissive building codes" we have now.

      There's always a balance here and what I want is energy that is cheap enough that I can keep my open air backyard at a shirtsleeve temp in the middle of a Midwest February snowstorm if I wanted. We can get there if we want. This is nonsense to reach energy efficiency at the cost of all else. Make energy cheap and clean then no one should give a damn on how efficient my house is. Go live your life and I'll live mine.

      Building codes should be about the safety of the neighborhood, not how much I spend on energy. I would expect my neighbors to keep their house from being a fire hazard to my house. That means keeping the furnace or wiring from going up in flames, and if the house does burn that it's far back enough from the property line that firefighters can bring their hoses about. There's certainly other things like managing the flow of rain and snow so my house doesn't get water damage, keeping the roads and walks clear for traffic, keep drinking water flowing in and sewage flowing out, and other such things.

      If I want to keep my front door open and air condition the neighborhood then that's my problem.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    12. Re:Fukushima by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      So you would prefer extremely expensive energy?

      It's hardly a matter of "what I prefer". Right now, your "cheap energy" has significant costs socialized and pushed into the future (recent estimates are I believe equivalent to extra electricity cost of around $0.15/kWh for CCGT generation or $0.3/kWh for coal). Also, in most places, efficiency measures (the "very expensive things" of yours) are actually the most cost-effective way of reducing the impact of human activity.

      Make energy cheap and clean then no one should give a damn on how efficient my house is.

      OK, go build a hundred new nukes. Than you can waste energy to your heart's content, cowboy.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
  4. Might not work as well as they hope by Solandri · · Score: 2

    Most Japanese do not live in single family residences with dedicated garage space. Most live in apartments with shared parking, where is no way to get electricity from "your" EV to "your" home. The buildings are simply not wired up that way. Maybe newer apartments can be wired so an EV charger in your assigned parking slot gets tied in to the meter (and wiring) of your apartment. But that seems like it'd be excessively complicated - I imagine most such chargers will simply tap into the building's main power line, and its dedicated meter is added up with the apartment unit's meter to calculate the monthly power bill.

    Unfortunately, this 1:1 transference of electricity from your EV to your home is necessary if you want people to conserve the power to stretch it out through a multi-day power outage. If you turn the electricity into a shared resource, the tragedy of the commons kicks in. And people start using all the electricity they can giving little thought to conserving it. Japanese culture might help counter that (they place a high emphasis on responsibility to society). But one bad apple in the apartment drawing lots of wattage for an AC, water heater, and playing games on his high-end PC could put a significant dent in the available power across all EVs powering the building.

    1. Re:Might not work as well as they hope by ColaMan · · Score: 2

      If they have the real-time metering you could simply shut off apartments that are over the allocated amount.

      eg. all the charge (+ discharge) bays are connected to the building grid. There's an issue with outside power, and building management checks the charge on all the vehicles and decides to allocate 10% of the available EV power sources that are above 80% to the building supply.

      They then notify the apartment owners that each apartment has X amount of kWh available for the duration of the outage and to limit their consumption accordingly. If the smart meter shows that they're over that, power is cut until the outage is over or building management decide to draw another 10%.

      This is a communal system, but you could also make it an individual system which only allows you to draw what you have available in your EV's battery with, say, 2% skimmed off every connected battery for critical building functions.

      --

      You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
      There is a lot of hype here.
    2. Re:Might not work as well as they hope by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Most Japanese people behave responsibly in the event of an emergency. For example some vending machines automatically switch to free vend and offer a wifi hotspot using their cellular connection (normally used for stock level monitoring and card payments). Obviously in many countries such a machine would be immediately raided, but in Japan it works.

      Having said that, in the event of an earthquake it's usual to evacuate apartment blocks and move to a designated safe area. The risk of collapse is always there and there are usually aftershocks. It also helps emergency services concentrate their resources and help as many people as possible. So any vehicles used for power supply would probably be taken to a centre like that.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  5. Re:It's Japan by psergiu · · Score: 1

    Well ... i would like to be able go to a car rental place and have them loan me out a car for free.
    Also if i owned a such a electric vehicle i would like to be able to loan-it to someone needing it for a amount of money.

    --
    1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
  6. Only if you ration your electricity by Comboman · · Score: 1

    A Nissan Leaf has a 24kWh battery. A refrigerator uses about 2kWh per day. LED bulbs are about 0.015KWh (each) for every hour they are on. A TV is about 0.1kWh for every hours it's on. Central AC uses about 36kWh per day in the summer. So yes to a fridge, some lights, a little TV and keeping your phones/tablets/laptops charged; no to air conditioning (or electric heat, oven, clothes dryer, etc).

    --
    Support Right To Repair Legislation.
    1. Re:Only if you ration your electricity by Ogive17 · · Score: 1

      Central air is very uncommon in Japan. They typically have small units in a few key rooms and then only use sparingly.

      --
      "Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
    2. Re:Only if you ration your electricity by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Air conditioning could plausibly use phase change heat (cold) storage so that you wouldn't have to feed it with electricity all the time (except for heat exchanger pumps).

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
  7. What if you need to get out of dodge? by nwaack · · Score: 1

    This idea is interesting, but worrisome to me. In a disaster there's a good chance you might need to get the heck out of dodge after a couple days. I'd hate to see what happens when 1000's of people need to travel away from the emergency but can't because their car's battery is drained from powering their house's appliances.

    1. Re:What if you need to get out of dodge? by quenda · · Score: 1

      The roads are still impassable to cars, so you get on your petrol-powered scooter or mountain bike.

  8. Re:Hey there neighbor... by Cmdln+Daco · · Score: 1

    National Guard Officer: "We 'borrowed' your car for the emergency."