True, you don't generally need it 'spinning' - wind doesn't normally instantly stop, especially over and entire wind farm, much less a nation.
As for no coal - I said 'carbon neutral', which coal isn't, unless you sequestrate, and by the time you do that, it's not competitive with other sources of power. As a secondary goal, it saves coal for things that it's really useful for, like iron refining.
How do you feel about offshore or Great Lakes wind?
I'm of the opinion that any specific project needs to stand on it's own merits. Do they manage to solve enough problems with off-shore(or lake) power that the project has a lower cost? If so, and it doesn't interfere with other things like shipping, then go for it.
I came up with my ratios because 20% is about the power used by AC, increases during the day by businesses, etc... Wind is fairly variable, can't have too much of it. Nuclear is clean and reliable, but mostly as a baseload - and 40% ensures that you don't have to under-utilize it much. Geothermal isn't a significant source, but biomass and hydro have good peaking potential, so there's that.
That's the trick with your 'overall percentage'. You can't run conventional wind turbines in higher amounts than your backup. Thus the '100% backup' comments - you need a watt of backup for every watt of wind. We just currently have 20% backup capacity.
Of course, I like to say that my 'ideal' carbon-neutral power mix is something like 40% nuclear, 20% solar, 20% wind, and 20% other. 'Other' includes hydro, biomass, geothermal, etc...
The problem with subsidizing just research is there is no guarantee the company won't just set up "research" projects for technology, regardless of how far along the production pathway that "research" is oriented, which they never intend to bring to market, just to cash in on the government cow.
Then set it up in terms of a contest - reach X goals, get the prize.
Cost of electricity: $.10-.20/kwh, grid. Grid Tie Solar kit(NOT INSTALLED!): $8,239.97 Assumptions: Cost of Capital 5%, Capacity Factor: 30%, lifespan 40
*Crunches Numbers*... Welp, wasn't expecting this. Last time it didn't work out...
Okay, at $.10/kwh utility rate - I came up with it producing an estimated $604.44 worth of electricity a year. If it's expected to last 40 years, the annual cost should only be $480.21. At that rate, it should pay for itself in 23.5 years(assuming no repairs needed). Not the greatest of investments, but sound for places like business. The duration imposes a large amount of risk, in my mind.
It makes sense at the cheaper rate? What about if you're stuck with expensive electricity, at $.20 a kwh? Well, now it's displacing $1,208.88 worth of electricity, still only 'costs' you $480/year for the loan payment/opportunity cost, and pays for itself in 8.5 years.
Now, this is just a kit, what if you have to pay money to have it propery installed? Let's say, $1/watt. That raises the cost to $10,540, raises the annual cost for the system to $614, but only saves you $604. No longer worth it. Payoff rises to 11.7 years for the expensive electricity option, so still worth it. Now if only I didn't live in an area where I'd be lucky to get.2 with the system... 22 year payoff = tough decision. Still, at this price point I'd expect to see them popping up all over down south.
Disclaimer: This is a off the cuff estimate. Please do the calcs for your specific situation before spending $10-20k on alternative power.
"If you build it then they will come", is not an economic principal. A lot of people have been burned by green energy, my father put up a wind turbine (on top of windy mountain) that cost him $20k and he saves $20 a month on his power bill.
Solar Panels will need to improve more to a point where their price justifies their cost. Not lower the price where their price justifies their performance, because this method sounds like they are dumping junk on us.
It sounds like I get your statement, but there's a problem - if cost of a square foot of solar panel remains the same, you'd have to bust theoretical efficiency limits before they'd be economical. We're looking at something around a factor of 4 before solar panels make 'stupid sense' even without government subsidization for most of the country. Current panels are around 30% efficient, so they'd need to 'improve' to be 120% efficient to make that price point. Theoretical max for current cells is 37.7%, but for multiple layer(currently $$$), it could be as high as 86%. So if they could improve the process so that multilayer cells became half the cost of current cells, at 60+% efficiency, then it'd be economical. Not to mention you'd need only half the roof space for them. Or you get the extra cells anyways, using the power to charge your EV. Well, more feed it into the grid to power your work, while you use the excess baseload at night to charge your car.
Oh yeah, and we've reached the point that we need to do some serious work on the auxillery equipment like the inverter, it's become a much bigger portion of the expense.
Personally, I'd like to see a 'smart' inverter that doubles as a UPS/backup power supply for the house. Feed locally generated power in one end, grid in the other, and it manages the link to the grid, feeding power to the grid when excess is produced, pulling power when house demand is high(and supply low), and isolating the house and running what circuits it can if the grid is out. Ideally, it'd even be able to handle 'dirty' AC wind power, DC solar, and a 'on demand' stirling engine hooked up to the house heating system.
Yes, the grid can normally compensate from the loss of a 1GW nuclear plant - but normally you only have to worry about losing the one plant, when there's probably a dozen providing power.
The odds of losing EVERY nuclear plant,not to mention nall the coal stations, with your general ability to schedule downtime, is highly unlikely.
The concern with wind is a nation-wide 'calm', which typically happens for a couple days a year.
1. Germany's subsidies ARE NOT on par with the world. In most cases, they're the leader in total subsidization. 2. They have a larger install than most other countries as a result of #1.
1. Bush Jr. 'finishing' what his father started. Also, Iraq isn't a significant oil producer, and if we were doing it for the oil, we would have done it differently. 2. What gifts to Saudi Arabia? They pay to be protected by our military. 3. What about our support for tin-pot dictators outside of oil producing regions? 4. What about our unwillingness to tax pollution that's NOT caused by fossil fuels?
but they're pretty fucking obvious from an economic standpoint.
Maybe, but you didn't list them. Indeed, plug reasonable numbers into the subsidies/tax balance sheet and fossil fuels are generally tax positive. Solar is 50-90% paid for by the government.
Now, it depends on how you count 'subsidies'. If you go whole greenpeace and count the entire US Military, not charging for carbon emissions, extraction leases for $X instead of $10X all as subsidies, yes, we subsidize oil quite a bit.
If you believe that we aren't actually spending all that much money on ensuring the oil supply - IE Afghanistan doesn't produce significant amounts of it, Iraq was Bush Jr 'finishing' Daddy's work, think a lease for $X is a lease for $X, and discount carbon emissions as a cost(perhaps because you have a different scheme in mind), it's a lot less.
On average though, fossil fuel producers tend to pay lots of tax, and solar companies depend heavily up the subsidies that the government allows - with subsidies often paying for between 50-90% of the cost of a solar install, the subsidization is critical to artificially lower cost to drive demand. Any drop in subsidies and their business plumments.
The advantage of a live lecturer (in a smaller class, doesn't work in a 200 seat lecture hall) is that if something isn't clear, you can raise your hand and say "I don't get it. How does..."
The advantage of using video lectures like KhanU, is that you can use an incredible lecturer, one who the vast majority of students don't need to raise their hands - and those who do need extra help, could get it during class. As the one poster mentioned - make the lecture the homework, do the problems that were previously homework in class, where the student can get answers if he doesn't understand something after the lecture.
Hm... My concern is that while we might not need MORE power plants for a while with only night time charging, that article also frequently mentions topping off at work, the mall, etc... The evening would mean that we'd want to transition some plants from peaking operations to baseload, but the extra daytime charging would mean that we'd need to keep the peakers, and build more baseload.
Even 25% works out to a lot of power plants somewhere the size of the USA.
It also doesn't list a source for their estimate, and I'd like to see how they figured that out. Running peaking plants more often isn't cheap. More even power demand is good though.
I made the math work with a bloody Impala. It's come that far.
Putting it up against luxury cars just expands the math. Apparently BMWs of today have around a 5 year lifespan(according to my mechanic uncle) before some HEAVY maintenance is required.
I'm going to stand by my conclusions: If you drive a car as a status symbol(cost is the point), drive what you want. If you're mostly a highway driver, keep the gasoline vehicle. If you drive only a little, stick with gas. If you drive a lot of city miles, stop and go traffic, then get the electric.
Note: 15k miles is 41 a day, every day. 288 a week. I'm currently averaging half that. I'd probably be better off with a cheaper plug-in hybrid.
There's a reason I said 'assumptions'. I currently pay closer to 20 cents a kwh, and don't get any cuts for time of day/off peak billing. There's companies out there promising that they can produce bio-fuels at ~$3 gallon once they get a full size plant built. Electric cars are at the cusp of econability, though I once calced it out that families would use an average of 50% more power if they switched to 100% EV, so we'd need a lot more powerplants.
But anyways, since you listed a specific price point: Annuel fuel cost @15k miles@10 cents = $375. @6.5 = 243.75. Difference of $131.25 per year. Given that you're looking at a $2k difference in car payments over the same time, not necessarily that significant.
Also, is that 6.5 cents your marginal cost? Does it include per kwh charges like 'fuel surcharge'? Would it be like my option, where they'd charge $10/month for the privilage of doing off-peak service, then drop the rate to only 18 cents instead of 20?
As Nethemas said, you start getting into such matters, it quickly gets muddy beyond practical consideration. I was only trying to address microeconomics - what the individual, familiy unit, or small business has control over. When it comes to electricity, are you coal & oil like where I'm at? Are you hydro or natural gas? Do you pay the premium for wind or solar? Don't forget that I penalized gasoline by assuming $4/gallon, when pump prices are averaging closer to $3.60-3.70, and helped electric by figuring on a rate of only 10 cents.
If you want to penalize gasoline further, go right ahead and plug your number in. Some might penalize the grid more, some penalize hybrids for the dirty nickel production. That's beyond my simple 'will it save you money' calculation, and I'm not even attempting to factor in abilities, preferences, etc...
Heck, the insurance alone could be a make/break factor - logically a more expensive vehicle should be a touch more expensive to insure, right? I'm assuming that insurance remains a constant expense. Other things - how can we be sure the vehicle will last 10 years?
BTW, if you figure on 15k miles a year@25mpg for your alternative to the S, it's only a $116 penalty a year to drive the Tesla, at $4 gasoline. Gas shoots above that, you're saving more money.
Per PBS it's an average of 180 miles per 12 hour shift. Given that a medallian runs $1M, I doubt that having to get an extra $50k car is that much of a concern, though battery changes would probably be cheaper.
Per Shaller - average is 80-150 per shift, some 'over 200'. Now, from what I understand, most drivers have to fill up during the shift due to the lousy gas mileage they get with their driving patterns, but that might not be required.
I'll note that for true taxi service, I wouldn't go with anything but the 300 mile battery system. If we figure on a 180 miles a day, 365 days a year, that's 66k miles. At which point you're looking at under $2k for fuel cost for the EV, vs closer to $15k for the gasoline vehicle. Assuming it holds up, of course. Electric motors should have no problem, the frame should be engineered for it, same with the upholstery and such. Tires I figure are a static expense between the two. The only real question is the batteries.
Oh yeah, and NYC might kick them some money in compensation just for the lowered pollution.
Purchase a recycled car. What's that? It's what most people call a used car.
My works greed credo: 'Reduce, Reuse, Recycle'. Reducing usage is preferable. After that, if you can reuse an asset, do so. Only when you can't do those two do you recycle.
I've heard this argument before, but I don't think you're thinking it entirely through - once EV ownership has become common among the (on average) more affluential home owners, apartment owners will start thinking of EV charging points as a 'feature' they can use to more easily attract renters and/or charge more rent. It's not the current tenants they're thinking about - it's the future ones.
I really need to find my EV spreadsheet, or rebuild it.
$50k Tesla car vs $25k Chevy Impala(30 mpg). At $4/gallon, and assuming maintenance savings are offset by you actually having to pay for your electricity, it's 6.25k gallons to make up the difference, or 188k miles.
If you assume you're NOT looking at the base model, and instead a $35k car as the 'equivalent, it's $15k/3,750 gallons/113k miles.
Update: Spreadsheet partially done. Assumptions: $50k Model S vs $25kChevy Impala. 4 miles per kwh, 30 mpg, Insurance is a wash, an extra $320 of maintenance on the gas vehicle, 15k miles driven for each, $.10 electricity, $4 gasoline. 5% interest rate/cost of capital and a 10 year lifespan.
Total Annual Cost: $7,850.23 for the Tesla, $6,557.61 of the Impala. Advantage Impala by $1,292.61
Not quite right - that's for a highway driver using the cheapest available. Upping the cost to $31k for a nicer package, and figuring on a 100% city driver(18mpg), that flips it - the Impala's cost rises to $8,667.98, potentially saving you $817.75/year.
Drive a LOT of city miles, like a taxi driver, if the vehicle has the endurance, use it. Otherwise you might as well plug in your own assumptions.
3. The batteries cost $10,000 to replace today. Their cost in 8 - 10 years is extremely difficult to anticipate, but assuming that the materials involved aren't massively more expensive, the technology will certainly be significantly cheaper and should push those prices down.
Lithium is actually a pretty common element, and I remember seeing a report(years ago now) that said that the theoretical cost of LiIon technology is actually lower than NiMH cells.
Enter into a partnership with Cracker Barrel offer free installation of high speed chargers.
I'd expect this sort of stuff to be a bonanza for sit down restaurants - with high speed chargers, you can get around 90% charge in 1 hour. 270 miles charge on a 300 mile battery. Figuring on 65mph, that's just over 4 hours of highway travel. Drive from 8 to 12, eat. Drive from 1 to 5, eat. etc... Driving more than 8 hours a day? You could ramp it up to 16 hours - Drive 3-7 am, eat breakfast. 8-12, lunch, 1 to 5 dinner, 6-10, then sleep at a motel(with charger).
With gasoline, you don't want it too close to your food, and filling needs to be monitored, but doesn't take long. With electric, the cost of charging is less significant, doesn't need to be monitored, but takes longer. Might as well have them at places you tend to spend around an hour at anyways.
Exactly. A dual income $150k/year family isn't 'rich' in most senses, but they could afford this vehicle if they aren't extravagent elsewhere.
My first thought was to add 'special purpose' to the list. With enough range and the right rebates, these vehicles may be very economical in certain situations - I can see them being used as taxis in pollution-heavy dense cities where the range isn't as important as the performance in-city.
At $50-70k, it's definitely in the 'special purpose' category, either 'non-financially motivated rich person's toy', or 'middle class with unusual driving pattern'.
I'm one for distinguishing between 'needs' and 'wants'. The thing to realize is that if you can afford it, fulfilling your 'wants' is a valid exercise, it's what drives like 90% of our economy today.
I had a simple cell phone for years - now I more want a Pad type device that can also act as a phone via bluetooth. Is it a need? Heck, I technically don't need a cell phone in the first place, though a basic plan today is cheaper than the landlines, especially when you figure all my family are long distance at the moment.
For books, I'd argue that books should be submitted exclusively in a format that is -either- lossless and self-describing (eg: LaTeX, SGML-based formats, Postscript, though there's plenty more) -or- formats that can be directly converted into such a format without human intervention.
Reads up on LaTeX - Interesting, but not completely suitable for all books. I'd say that epub should probably also be allowed; it's the most common ebook format, allowing hyperlinks and a few other things. But yeah. I deliberately stayed away from specifying any given format, because the point isn't about what formats we'd use, but the process for selecting which formats. Ideally speaking, they need to be widespread, open, have a 'good lifespan' ahead for them, and be 'ideally suited' for automated transformation to/from the format.
As for HD's, well, 2 TB runs around $100 today, but simple mirroring isn't going to get you the 99.9999999% reliability I want. So you're probably going to have a server farm with the mirrored HDs, alternate sites(like 5 of them), AND backup sites with the things like glass masters. It's a complicated topic, and I still have trouble wrapping my head around 'keep it in the cloud' ideas, but I think it's the best solution.
Space wise - I wasn't worried about 'space' until the prospect of keeping physical books in the LoC is considered. That's a good way to fill warehouses. Space for a server farm or tape library isn't that big of an issue. Managing that server farm/tape library is the issue, and the expensive part. Making sure the HDs and tapes are replaced as/before they fail, ensuring the items are kept in up to date formats, etc... Thats the big issue with digital records.
The Dozen people for Ebooks isn't just for deciding which format. They're also keeping an eye on changes, testing and picking new formats, testing and verifying machine transcriptions, etc...
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True, you don't generally need it 'spinning' - wind doesn't normally instantly stop, especially over and entire wind farm, much less a nation.
As for no coal - I said 'carbon neutral', which coal isn't, unless you sequestrate, and by the time you do that, it's not competitive with other sources of power. As a secondary goal, it saves coal for things that it's really useful for, like iron refining.
How do you feel about offshore or Great Lakes wind?
I'm of the opinion that any specific project needs to stand on it's own merits. Do they manage to solve enough problems with off-shore(or lake) power that the project has a lower cost? If so, and it doesn't interfere with other things like shipping, then go for it.
I came up with my ratios because 20% is about the power used by AC, increases during the day by businesses, etc... Wind is fairly variable, can't have too much of it. Nuclear is clean and reliable, but mostly as a baseload - and 40% ensures that you don't have to under-utilize it much. Geothermal isn't a significant source, but biomass and hydro have good peaking potential, so there's that.
That's the trick with your 'overall percentage'. You can't run conventional wind turbines in higher amounts than your backup. Thus the '100% backup' comments - you need a watt of backup for every watt of wind. We just currently have 20% backup capacity.
Of course, I like to say that my 'ideal' carbon-neutral power mix is something like 40% nuclear, 20% solar, 20% wind, and 20% other. 'Other' includes hydro, biomass, geothermal, etc...
The problem with subsidizing just research is there is no guarantee the company won't just set up "research" projects for technology, regardless of how far along the production pathway that "research" is oriented, which they never intend to bring to market, just to cash in on the government cow.
Then set it up in terms of a contest - reach X goals, get the prize.
Cost of electricity: $.10-.20/kwh, grid.
Grid Tie Solar kit(NOT INSTALLED!): $8,239.97
Assumptions: Cost of Capital 5%, Capacity Factor: 30%, lifespan 40
*Crunches Numbers*... Welp, wasn't expecting this. Last time it didn't work out...
Okay, at $.10/kwh utility rate - I came up with it producing an estimated $604.44 worth of electricity a year. If it's expected to last 40 years, the annual cost should only be $480.21. At that rate, it should pay for itself in 23.5 years(assuming no repairs needed). Not the greatest of investments, but sound for places like business. The duration imposes a large amount of risk, in my mind.
It makes sense at the cheaper rate? What about if you're stuck with expensive electricity, at $.20 a kwh? Well, now it's displacing $1,208.88 worth of electricity, still only 'costs' you $480/year for the loan payment/opportunity cost, and pays for itself in 8.5 years.
Now, this is just a kit, what if you have to pay money to have it propery installed? Let's say, $1/watt. That raises the cost to $10,540, raises the annual cost for the system to $614, but only saves you $604. No longer worth it. Payoff rises to 11.7 years for the expensive electricity option, so still worth it. Now if only I didn't live in an area where I'd be lucky to get .2 with the system... 22 year payoff = tough decision. Still, at this price point I'd expect to see them popping up all over down south.
Disclaimer: This is a off the cuff estimate. Please do the calcs for your specific situation before spending $10-20k on alternative power.
putting an end to companies that offer products not for their economic value but for their narcissistic value.
Awful lot of jewelry stores still in business if 'narcissistic value' wasn't worth a lot of green.
"If you build it then they will come", is not an economic principal. A lot of people have been burned by green energy, my father put up a wind turbine (on top of windy mountain) that cost him $20k and he saves $20 a month on his power bill.
Solar Panels will need to improve more to a point where their price justifies their cost. Not lower the price where their price justifies their performance, because this method sounds like they are dumping junk on us.
It sounds like I get your statement, but there's a problem - if cost of a square foot of solar panel remains the same, you'd have to bust theoretical efficiency limits before they'd be economical. We're looking at something around a factor of 4 before solar panels make 'stupid sense' even without government subsidization for most of the country. Current panels are around 30% efficient, so they'd need to 'improve' to be 120% efficient to make that price point. Theoretical max for current cells is 37.7%, but for multiple layer(currently $$$), it could be as high as 86%. So if they could improve the process so that multilayer cells became half the cost of current cells, at 60+% efficiency, then it'd be economical. Not to mention you'd need only half the roof space for them. Or you get the extra cells anyways, using the power to charge your EV. Well, more feed it into the grid to power your work, while you use the excess baseload at night to charge your car.
Oh yeah, and we've reached the point that we need to do some serious work on the auxillery equipment like the inverter, it's become a much bigger portion of the expense.
Personally, I'd like to see a 'smart' inverter that doubles as a UPS/backup power supply for the house. Feed locally generated power in one end, grid in the other, and it manages the link to the grid, feeding power to the grid when excess is produced, pulling power when house demand is high(and supply low), and isolating the house and running what circuits it can if the grid is out. Ideally, it'd even be able to handle 'dirty' AC wind power, DC solar, and a 'on demand' stirling engine hooked up to the house heating system.
Yes, the grid can normally compensate from the loss of a 1GW nuclear plant - but normally you only have to worry about losing the one plant, when there's probably a dozen providing power.
The odds of losing EVERY nuclear plant,not to mention nall the coal stations, with your general ability to schedule downtime, is highly unlikely.
The concern with wind is a nation-wide 'calm', which typically happens for a couple days a year.
1. Germany's subsidies ARE NOT on par with the world. In most cases, they're the leader in total subsidization.
2. They have a larger install than most other countries as a result of #1.
1. Bush Jr. 'finishing' what his father started. Also, Iraq isn't a significant oil producer, and if we were doing it for the oil, we would have done it differently.
2. What gifts to Saudi Arabia? They pay to be protected by our military.
3. What about our support for tin-pot dictators outside of oil producing regions?
4. What about our unwillingness to tax pollution that's NOT caused by fossil fuels?
but they're pretty fucking obvious from an economic standpoint.
Maybe, but you didn't list them. Indeed, plug reasonable numbers into the subsidies/tax balance sheet and fossil fuels are generally tax positive. Solar is 50-90% paid for by the government.
Now, it depends on how you count 'subsidies'. If you go whole greenpeace and count the entire US Military, not charging for carbon emissions, extraction leases for $X instead of $10X all as subsidies, yes, we subsidize oil quite a bit.
If you believe that we aren't actually spending all that much money on ensuring the oil supply - IE Afghanistan doesn't produce significant amounts of it, Iraq was Bush Jr 'finishing' Daddy's work, think a lease for $X is a lease for $X, and discount carbon emissions as a cost(perhaps because you have a different scheme in mind), it's a lot less.
On average though, fossil fuel producers tend to pay lots of tax, and solar companies depend heavily up the subsidies that the government allows - with subsidies often paying for between 50-90% of the cost of a solar install, the subsidization is critical to artificially lower cost to drive demand. Any drop in subsidies and their business plumments.
The advantage of a live lecturer (in a smaller class, doesn't work in a 200 seat lecture hall) is that if something isn't clear, you can raise your hand and say "I don't get it. How does..."
The advantage of using video lectures like KhanU, is that you can use an incredible lecturer, one who the vast majority of students don't need to raise their hands - and those who do need extra help, could get it during class. As the one poster mentioned - make the lecture the homework, do the problems that were previously homework in class, where the student can get answers if he doesn't understand something after the lecture.
Hm... My concern is that while we might not need MORE power plants for a while with only night time charging, that article also frequently mentions topping off at work, the mall, etc... The evening would mean that we'd want to transition some plants from peaking operations to baseload, but the extra daytime charging would mean that we'd need to keep the peakers, and build more baseload.
Even 25% works out to a lot of power plants somewhere the size of the USA.
It also doesn't list a source for their estimate, and I'd like to see how they figured that out. Running peaking plants more often isn't cheap. More even power demand is good though.
I made the math work with a bloody Impala. It's come that far.
Putting it up against luxury cars just expands the math. Apparently BMWs of today have around a 5 year lifespan(according to my mechanic uncle) before some HEAVY maintenance is required.
I'm going to stand by my conclusions: If you drive a car as a status symbol(cost is the point), drive what you want. If you're mostly a highway driver, keep the gasoline vehicle. If you drive only a little, stick with gas. If you drive a lot of city miles, stop and go traffic, then get the electric.
Note: 15k miles is 41 a day, every day. 288 a week. I'm currently averaging half that. I'd probably be better off with a cheaper plug-in hybrid.
I'm sure he's as mad as a hatter. ;)
There's a reason I said 'assumptions'. I currently pay closer to 20 cents a kwh, and don't get any cuts for time of day/off peak billing. There's companies out there promising that they can produce bio-fuels at ~$3 gallon once they get a full size plant built. Electric cars are at the cusp of econability, though I once calced it out that families would use an average of 50% more power if they switched to 100% EV, so we'd need a lot more powerplants.
But anyways, since you listed a specific price point: Annuel fuel cost @15k miles@10 cents = $375. @6.5 = 243.75. Difference of $131.25 per year. Given that you're looking at a $2k difference in car payments over the same time, not necessarily that significant.
Also, is that 6.5 cents your marginal cost? Does it include per kwh charges like 'fuel surcharge'? Would it be like my option, where they'd charge $10/month for the privilage of doing off-peak service, then drop the rate to only 18 cents instead of 20?
As Nethemas said, you start getting into such matters, it quickly gets muddy beyond practical consideration. I was only trying to address microeconomics - what the individual, familiy unit, or small business has control over. When it comes to electricity, are you coal & oil like where I'm at? Are you hydro or natural gas? Do you pay the premium for wind or solar? Don't forget that I penalized gasoline by assuming $4/gallon, when pump prices are averaging closer to $3.60-3.70, and helped electric by figuring on a rate of only 10 cents.
If you want to penalize gasoline further, go right ahead and plug your number in. Some might penalize the grid more, some penalize hybrids for the dirty nickel production. That's beyond my simple 'will it save you money' calculation, and I'm not even attempting to factor in abilities, preferences, etc...
Heck, the insurance alone could be a make/break factor - logically a more expensive vehicle should be a touch more expensive to insure, right? I'm assuming that insurance remains a constant expense. Other things - how can we be sure the vehicle will last 10 years?
BTW, if you figure on 15k miles a year@25mpg for your alternative to the S, it's only a $116 penalty a year to drive the Tesla, at $4 gasoline. Gas shoots above that, you're saving more money.
Per PBS it's an average of 180 miles per 12 hour shift. Given that a medallian runs $1M, I doubt that having to get an extra $50k car is that much of a concern, though battery changes would probably be cheaper.
Per Shaller - average is 80-150 per shift, some 'over 200'. Now, from what I understand, most drivers have to fill up during the shift due to the lousy gas mileage they get with their driving patterns, but that might not be required.
I'll note that for true taxi service, I wouldn't go with anything but the 300 mile battery system. If we figure on a 180 miles a day, 365 days a year, that's 66k miles. At which point you're looking at under $2k for fuel cost for the EV, vs closer to $15k for the gasoline vehicle. Assuming it holds up, of course. Electric motors should have no problem, the frame should be engineered for it, same with the upholstery and such. Tires I figure are a static expense between the two. The only real question is the batteries.
Oh yeah, and NYC might kick them some money in compensation just for the lowered pollution.
Purchase a recycled car. What's that? It's what most people call a used car.
My works greed credo: 'Reduce, Reuse, Recycle'. Reducing usage is preferable. After that, if you can reuse an asset, do so. Only when you can't do those two do you recycle.
I've heard this argument before, but I don't think you're thinking it entirely through - once EV ownership has become common among the (on average) more affluential home owners, apartment owners will start thinking of EV charging points as a 'feature' they can use to more easily attract renters and/or charge more rent. It's not the current tenants they're thinking about - it's the future ones.
I really need to find my EV spreadsheet, or rebuild it.
$50k Tesla car vs $25k Chevy Impala(30 mpg). At $4/gallon, and assuming maintenance savings are offset by you actually having to pay for your electricity, it's 6.25k gallons to make up the difference, or 188k miles.
If you assume you're NOT looking at the base model, and instead a $35k car as the 'equivalent, it's $15k/3,750 gallons/113k miles.
Update: Spreadsheet partially done.
Assumptions: $50k Model S vs $25kChevy Impala. 4 miles per kwh, 30 mpg, Insurance is a wash, an extra $320 of maintenance on the gas vehicle, 15k miles driven for each, $.10 electricity, $4 gasoline. 5% interest rate/cost of capital and a 10 year lifespan.
Total Annual Cost: $7,850.23 for the Tesla, $6,557.61 of the Impala. Advantage Impala by $1,292.61
Not quite right - that's for a highway driver using the cheapest available. Upping the cost to $31k for a nicer package, and figuring on a 100% city driver(18mpg), that flips it - the Impala's cost rises to $8,667.98, potentially saving you $817.75/year.
Drive a LOT of city miles, like a taxi driver, if the vehicle has the endurance, use it. Otherwise you might as well plug in your own assumptions.
3. The batteries cost $10,000 to replace today. Their cost in 8 - 10 years is extremely difficult to anticipate, but assuming that the materials involved aren't massively more expensive, the technology will certainly be significantly cheaper and should push those prices down.
Lithium is actually a pretty common element, and I remember seeing a report(years ago now) that said that the theoretical cost of LiIon technology is actually lower than NiMH cells.
Enter into a partnership with Cracker Barrel offer free installation of high speed chargers.
I'd expect this sort of stuff to be a bonanza for sit down restaurants - with high speed chargers, you can get around 90% charge in 1 hour. 270 miles charge on a 300 mile battery. Figuring on 65mph, that's just over 4 hours of highway travel. Drive from 8 to 12, eat. Drive from 1 to 5, eat. etc... Driving more than 8 hours a day? You could ramp it up to 16 hours - Drive 3-7 am, eat breakfast. 8-12, lunch, 1 to 5 dinner, 6-10, then sleep at a motel(with charger).
With gasoline, you don't want it too close to your food, and filling needs to be monitored, but doesn't take long. With electric, the cost of charging is less significant, doesn't need to be monitored, but takes longer. Might as well have them at places you tend to spend around an hour at anyways.
Exactly. A dual income $150k/year family isn't 'rich' in most senses, but they could afford this vehicle if they aren't extravagent elsewhere.
My first thought was to add 'special purpose' to the list. With enough range and the right rebates, these vehicles may be very economical in certain situations - I can see them being used as taxis in pollution-heavy dense cities where the range isn't as important as the performance in-city.
At $50-70k, it's definitely in the 'special purpose' category, either 'non-financially motivated rich person's toy', or 'middle class with unusual driving pattern'.
I'm one for distinguishing between 'needs' and 'wants'. The thing to realize is that if you can afford it, fulfilling your 'wants' is a valid exercise, it's what drives like 90% of our economy today.
I had a simple cell phone for years - now I more want a Pad type device that can also act as a phone via bluetooth. Is it a need? Heck, I technically don't need a cell phone in the first place, though a basic plan today is cheaper than the landlines, especially when you figure all my family are long distance at the moment.
For books, I'd argue that books should be submitted exclusively in a format that is -either- lossless and self-describing (eg: LaTeX, SGML-based formats, Postscript, though there's plenty more) -or- formats that can be directly converted into such a format without human intervention.
Reads up on LaTeX - Interesting, but not completely suitable for all books. I'd say that epub should probably also be allowed; it's the most common ebook format, allowing hyperlinks and a few other things. But yeah. I deliberately stayed away from specifying any given format, because the point isn't about what formats we'd use, but the process for selecting which formats. Ideally speaking, they need to be widespread, open, have a 'good lifespan' ahead for them, and be 'ideally suited' for automated transformation to/from the format.
As for HD's, well, 2 TB runs around $100 today, but simple mirroring isn't going to get you the 99.9999999% reliability I want. So you're probably going to have a server farm with the mirrored HDs, alternate sites(like 5 of them), AND backup sites with the things like glass masters. It's a complicated topic, and I still have trouble wrapping my head around 'keep it in the cloud' ideas, but I think it's the best solution.
Space wise - I wasn't worried about 'space' until the prospect of keeping physical books in the LoC is considered. That's a good way to fill warehouses. Space for a server farm or tape library isn't that big of an issue. Managing that server farm/tape library is the issue, and the expensive part. Making sure the HDs and tapes are replaced as/before they fail, ensuring the items are kept in up to date formats, etc... Thats the big issue with digital records.
The Dozen people for Ebooks isn't just for deciding which format. They're also keeping an eye on changes, testing and picking new formats, testing and verifying machine transcriptions, etc...