United may have a relatively efficient boarding process, but it doesn't help if the plane shows up too late for boarding time to matter.
United's problem is that their gate personnel are sloppy about the boarding procedure. They'll call "boarding group 1", which these days is nominally the rear of the plane, but they aren't strict about who they let through at that point. Then, after 20-or-so passengers board, they'll call group 2, even though there are plenty of 1s still queued up.
If they just followed their own procedure, and if the flight crew was more ruthless about telling people to step out of the aisles, it would be oh-so-much smoother.
Easy: it is much more feasible to lug around huge banks of batteries in a locomotive.
Diesel-electric locomotives don't lug around batteries. The diesel-electric system serves the purpose of a transmission -- a non-trivial problem when distributing that much power.
How do these things handle short trips in freezing weather?
Quite well, actually, speaking as an electric vehicle engineer.
A simple resistive water heater for cabing heating uses about 2000 watts on average, and perhaps 4000 watts worst case. Compared to a typical road load of 20,000 watts, it's obvious that the cabin heat makes a difference, but it's on the order of a 10% reduction in range.
In the future, electric vehicles will use heat pumps (basically a bi-directional air conditioner) that will reduce the cabin heat energy budget by at least a factor of 3. The air conditioner in AC Propulsion's eBox vehicle uses about 700 watts worst case, and less depending on duty cycle.
Heat is a problem with Li-ion batteries. If they get too hot they explode....and ignorance is a problem with armchair engineers. Yes, IAAEVE (I am an electric vehicle engineer). Are you?
Lithium cells do not explode. Cell fires (a la Sony laptops) were a manufacturing defect, and not heat-related. The lithium cells in cars use a different cell chemistry, about which I guarantee you know nothing. Cars, like the aforementioned Tesla, closely control battery temperature to prolong the life of the battery.
Please stop spreading misinformation. Thanks in advance.
I don't see how we can successfully convert people to electric cars without some sort of infrastructure in place. Sure, you can charge your car at home for the daily commute, but what about road trips?
You're absolutely right -- electric cars are only suitable for 97 percent of our driving.
(Oh, and electric infrastructure is more pervasive than any other, *including* gasloline. The infrastructure is called your local utility grid).
What side are you arguing? Those 'tired-old bullshit arguments' DO matter for precisely the amount of time you have stated. It is -after- that time that they don't matter.
No. (Sigh.) I can't tell if the disconnect is that you didn't read carefully, or that you don't understand how the grid works.
We can use all available (grid-tied) solar output in real time, offsetting fossil-fueled generation in the process, and this will be the case approximately forever. There is no reason whatsoever to "store" solar energy with batteries or by any other means until we can produce more solar energy than we can use in real time, which would be a good problem to have.
Dunno what's going on in your neck of the woods. Australia's freshwater fish are still perfectly safe to eat.
Read up on what's happening on the Northeastern United States, if you're interested, and see how coal doesn't scale well without horrifying side effects. (We do have more than 15X your population, unfortunately.) Part of the problem, of course, is the Bush administration's refusal to make the power plants conform to existing emissions regulations.
But you missed the part about Greenpower - which means you're buying wind power, small-scale hydro etc. Even that is way cheaper than whacking solar panels on your roof.
No arguments there. Unsubsidized PV solar (in California) is around 15 cents/kWh (and certainly falling). Wind is somewhere between 6 and 10 cents/kWh (and also falling). Wind, however, isn't well correlated with peak demand, whereas solar is.
Have you done the sums on two alternative courses of action
Have you? And when you did, did you include all the externalized costs of coal-fired grid power that aren't included in your $0.5/kWh energy bill? (You know, like freshwater fish that are no longer safe to eat, and all that good stuff?)
Which essentially means we're not going to shut down a single baseload plant by replacing it with solar power any time in the next 20 years. So remind me again why solar is in any way an alternative to coal?
I never said it was, however: huge amounts of peaking and intermediate generation are done today with coal. I'm not sure where the myth that coal is only for base generation started.
[solar energy is] only available 12 hours a day [...] and battery backup is extremely expensive
Those two tired-old bullshit arguments won't matter until there is more solar capacity online than we can use in real time, which won't happen for two decades under even the most favorable set of assumptions.
Well, if you left it up to private industry to do, the ultimate goal *would* be to reduce cost - the construction of new infrastructure, and the resultant reliability improvement would just be an emergent (and ultimately beneficial) side-effect.
I suspect we mostly agree, but we're talking about slightly different things. The fact that TFA is poorly written and glazes over important details isn't helping things.
Utility companies *are* private industries, and they are plenty motivated to reduce cost, and far and away the best means of doing this is to better-utilize their existing infrastructure. In many locations they already have time-of-use metering schedules and automatic load-shedding programs that do offer financial incentives. Those exist now and work well. TFA hints at mandatory load shedding -- that's crazy and its not what I'm talking about. The programs in question would only be mandatory *if you enrolled* -- anything beyond that would never be accepted, perhaps rightfully so.
More correctly stated, you can't build infrastructure without expending resources. If it's the Government doing it, then, yeah, you'll definitely pay that cost through taxes. But if it's some corporate entity whose goal is profit, that expenditure of resources will be mitigated somehow (maybe dipping into profits or saved capital, maybe taking a loss, maybe borrowing capital), because for-profit companies have to both be mindful of our future needs (and, therefore, expand in ways that best meet those needs), but also be mindful of *today's* bottom line: If they can't provide a given service at a comparable price to their customers, they lose customers.
I'm not getting dragged into a debate over whether private industry is more efficient than govenment. You may be correct, but it's irrelevant here for my purposes, because utility companies *are* private industry, and they overwhelmingly understand the value of load shedding with respect to building infrastructure. Both are necessary, but for differing reasons.
Do you have a backup generator for your house? You're a private entity, so if the grid is unreliable for your taste, you'd compete with it by building your own generator backup. Only a tiny fraction of us do that, becuase the costs are high, especially for something that gets used for perhaps two hours per year.
You're confused about the concept of "incentive." Positive Economic Incentive != Negative Government-Created "Incentive." A positive incentive is some reason to do something that's in your best interests, solely for that reason. The free-market creates those automagically through competition and depending on human nature. The kind of "incentive" you're talking about is actually the same incentive we offer for committing a crime - *don't* do this, or we'll penalize you. This type of incentive requires enforcement and administration (which require additional resources) to ensure it's effective.
I was actually referring to incentives in general, but in this specific example: The utility company is incented to move as much energy as possible through its grid, which means buffering loads, and they do pass this along to customers in the form of TOU (or real-time) pricing and rebates for load-shedding participation. This already happens, but to date, the lowest-hanging fruit has been commercial and industrial customers.
And how is deregulating energy providers which would allow competitors to build infrastructure and provide alternatives to state-run energy providers not going to solve this?
It might, and it might not, but you're confusing two issues. Even if you decide to spend money and build an entire new infrastructure, there will always be incentives to utilize it as efficiently as possible. The more you can avoid having to build generation to handle peaks that occur for 2 hours/year, the better.
A private company who chooses to invest in infrastructure in order to improve their ability to deliver power more cheaply will have to be able to provide cheaper (or comparably-priced) energy to established companies, while growing the necessary infrastructure.
Building infrastructure is part of the solution, but it's to improve reliability, not to reduce cost. Cost reductions come from better utilization of existing resources. You can't build infrastructure without raising cost, and building new infrastructure that's used for a few hours per year is the worst investment of all.
And this is the sort of naive, knee-jerk reaction that makes sense when you don't understand how government works.
Utility companies aren't operated by the government, you know. I realize that TFA (which is serious lacking in technical details) mentions mandatory adoption, but that would be so hopelessly unpopular that I can't seriously believe anyone thinks it will happen. On the other hand, pricing incentives that would necessarily accompany voluntary programs *already do* work well.
Here's another idea: Create some competition to SDGE, and the first time they start turning off my A/C during the summer watch me switch to a new provider who builds an infrastructure that can keep up with demand and is willing to provide the energy I pay for.
This is the sort of naive, knee-jerk reaction that makes sense when you don't understand how the grid works.
Yes, of course we can build more infrastructure, and we may have to, but that's not what TFA is about. TFA is about a solution to high peak loads. Building more infrastructure (generation and transmission) is an expensive solution, especially when you only need it for a few hours per day.
Automatic load shedding, on the other hand (the solution proposed in TFA) moves energy use away from the peaks, allowing greater overall utilization of the existing infrastructure. There are pilot programs in many places already, and you will pay lower rates for your (voluntary) participation. It's very unlikely that you'll ever be forced to participate in such a program against your will.
why don't we build a few more nuclear power plants to handle the excessive load required by modern technology?
Because nuclear is inappropriate for peaking loads. Nuclear is great for baseline generation; it's best utilized by running 24 hours/day.
We may need more generation, but adding generation of any kind is a poor solution to the problem in TFA (high peak loads), because it has high costs: You have to build the additional generation and transmission capacity even though you only need to use it for a few hours per day. Load shifting (automatic load shedding) actually saves you money by moving energy use away from the peaks, meaning the existing infrastructure can have higher overall utilization.
There is no question that we'll need to expand infrastructure, too -- there's no single solution, here -- but that's a different problem that has nothing to do with TFA.
Here's an idea. Instead of the current typical 200amp service, everybody gets a 20amp service that is "always on", and a 200 amp service that's subject to rolling blackouts. That gives consumers the power to choose what loads will be shit down. It would be a little more complex for metering, but, much more effective, and easier to "convince" homeowners to retrofit. (Look... we can give you SOME power that doesn't go out...).
You're just proposing a less-effective version of the solution proposed in TFA. Utility companies will be able to provide optional control of major appliances, e.g. heating/cooling, water heaters, electric vehicles. Consumers will have the power to to decide which of these devices will shed loads. Compared to your solution, this requires no "complex metering", no rewiring of the house, no blackouts (or 90% blackouts), AND you'll get a discount in addition for participating in the program.
but you make a missconception, it's either the way you define efficiency, or better where you apply it and what is in the todays use for generating your AC-Power.
No, I'm talking about a fair, wells-to-wheels energy comparison. EVs are substantially more efficient, even when powered by coal (and coal represents only approximately 50% of the US power mix).
and there are further losses to look at, - transmission - gears - bearing
No, all of those are present in both vehicles, and thus factor out. And this is a red herring anyway, because the 300 watthours/mile figure includes all of the above.
The "Tesla Roadster" as any pure electric driven car today is a special car
a.) limited weight ( it uses special materials ) b.) limited space ( it's a fun car ) c.) limited range ( limited by driving style,(they say) it's a roadster;) )
The Roadster also suffers from non-optimal gearing and "performance" tires. There is nothing remarkable about the Roadster's efficiency. Other EVs (e.g. AC Propulsion's eBox, and Toyota's RAV4 EV) both achieve similar efficiencies.
if you would remove the e-motor and the battery pack by a three/four cylinder turbo charged diesel engine, and fill in the amount of fuel you need to reach a range similar, it's likely that you could achieve, an efficiency very very near to the electric ones, but to be honest not with such an acceleration;)
This is absolutely false. Most EVs achieve a completely fair energy equivalent of over 100 miles per US gallon of gasoline. You will never achieve anywhere near that level of efficiency with a gasoline engine and a 2600 pound car.
many people don't have the money to buy a home solar power system
I don't agree. If you can afford energy, you can afford solar (or other non-polluting) energy. The amortized cost of PV solar is between 16 and 20 cents per kWh -- it doesn't have to be on your own house. Wind energy is feasible at merely 5 cents/kWh, and is well suited to charging EVs.
I have a question, "What does your car run off ?"
Most of the time I bicycle or walk. My car uses 100% pure solar energy.
Also, I'm not against EVs at all. I'm actually just anti-coal.
As am I. Is anyone pro-coal? I mean that seriously. Coal is only part of the power mix (on the order of 50% in the US, I believe) and I'm doing everything I can to make it smaller, but it's pretty well documented that EVs are a step in the right direction even when powered by coal.
I personally love the idea of alternate fuels, but I'm not hypocritical enough think that a Hybrid is actually doing anything to save the environment (as long as we keep burning coal to make electricity).
I would be interested to know if you can disprove the facts that powering hydrogen cells by coal (and all other sources combined) would require roughly twice the amount of power as is burned by gas powered cars in 2000, as cited in the article. I find it to be an interesting claim, from a seemingly credible source, but can't really find any proof beyond that.
I'm definitely not going to defend hybrids or hydrogen. As you probably know, today's conventional hybrid vehicles are 100% gasoline-powered; they're basically gas cars with regenerative braking. They do get some points for being more efficient. Plug-in hybrids (with some electric-only range) are in vogue now, but suffer from some fundamental problems that are non-intuitive to armchair engineers. (They're the worst of both worlds, less efficient than an EV for the first 200 miles, and less efficient than a gas car beyond 200 miles.)
Hydrogen is a total scam -- it's hopelessly inefficient to make the hydrogen[1]. Your 2x figure seems a bit high -- most fair wells-to-wheels analyses I've seen put a hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle at roughly the same efficiency as a gasoline car -- but I don't care, because you'd be crazy not to replace that 25% efficient fuel cell with a battery that's 90% efficient.
[1] If you make hydrogen from natural gas, you'd have been better off burning it in a combustion engine instead. If you make it via electrolysis, you'd be far better off putting that electrical energy into a battery.
Here's something to chew on, and this is just in the context of powering hydrogen cells, which is arguably more efficient than plugging a car straight into an AC outlet.
Such a claim is only arguable by someone woefully ignorant of the facts (and the laws of thermodynamics).
The fuel cycle in that case (electricity -> electrolysis -> hydrogen -> fuel cell -> electricity) is only about 25% efficient. Did you really think that the fuel cycle would have efficiency greater than 100%, and how else would you claim that it is "arguably more efficient than plugging a car straight into an AC outlet"?
What you've actually done is to expose the insanity of the "hydrogen economy" -- also well documented as totally impractical. Most of the smart money realizes this, now. The hydrogen is just an extremely inefficient and expensive battery. We already have much better batteries, with efficiencies better than 90%.
There is no magic bullet for clean cars unless you invent a new type of energy altogether, or if you don't mind driving around with a nuclear reactor under the hood.
Don't be silly. You don't put the nuclear reactor under the hood. You put it at the generation plant, and use the already-existing infrastructure to charge your vehicle. Your Car-and-Driver link is filled with so much misinformation that it's not worth spending much time on. (E.g. PV modules requiring 8 years to reach an energy breakeven point: The well-documented actual figure is closer to 2 years, and even at 8, it's a fantastic win, because PV modules last >40 years.)
Disclaimer: IAAEVE (I am an eletric vehicle engineer). It sounds like you've never even driven an EV.
You've exposed the most fraudulent part of the greenies' movement. Recharging batteries requires electricity, which in the US, is derived primarily from burning coal, which is worse ecologically than burning gasoline.
Burning coal to power EVs is a pretty stupid solution, and I don't think anyone is actually advocating that, but it is absolutely an improvement over burning gasoline. Your assertion is well documented as totally false, yet it's constantly repeated. You really should do your own research on this, but here's a whitepaper from Tesla Motors for starters. It's a pretty fair analysis of the relative efficiencies of various propulsion systems. It does cheat a little by assuming natural gas generation for electricity, but it's obvious from the numbers that--even from coal--EVs are a significant win in terms of reducing pollution and CO2 emissions.
You can substitute just about any EV for Tesla's Roadster -- they're all exceptionally efficient, at under 300 AC watthours per mile. Yes, I'm an electric vehicle engineer.
As long as the Greenies keep pushing fake green agendas on us like electric cars but at the SAME TIME keep protesting nuclear power, this will never be a good solution.
Nuclear power is a fantastic option. Between nuclear, wind, and hydro, more than half of California's energy is pollution- and CO2-free. Electricity is the ultimate flex fuel -- you can generate it from coal, nuclear, or solar panels on your roof.
You spewed some further misinformation further down -- I'll reply to that later on.
An officer opened the laptop, accessed the files without a password or passphrase, and allegedly discovered "thousands of images of adult pornography and animation depicting adult and child pornography."
Like it or not, the "adult pornography" is probably a red herring, so what is this "animation" business? Is that all they have on him? I've seen episodes of South Park that qualify as "animation depicting child pornography". I hope there's more to this case than was explained in TFA. If not, this sounds like a witch hunt.
Clearly you're not an EV driver -- these logical mistakes are common. Allow me to clear them up.
The energy density may be poor, but the fast recharge time may make up for it.
Nope, it won't. The recharge happens while you're doing other things -- like sleeping -- so the time savings are not worth trading 3/4ths of your range. 5-minute charging is also totally unrealistic -- see below.
Let's assume a pure EV using these batteries got a range of 150 miles, which is pretty lousy by most standards. The average commute is about 20 miles each way, or 200 miles a week.
150 miles would be a fantastic range for an EV with a modern battery. With the Toshiba modules in question, your range would be closer to 50 miles, if you're lucky. 150 miles is obviously enough for your own suggested "average commute" numbers of 20 miles each way. Range is expensive though -- you could save a lot of money by making do with a 75 or 100-mile range. Your own numbers suggest this might make sense even for your own case.
If the average commuter has to charge up twice a week instead of once a week, that's probably bearable if the charge time is 5 minutes instead of 30 minutes or overnight.
As you correctly surmise, overnight is how it works. You plug it in when you get home, and it's full every morning. It doesn't matter if it takes 5 minutes or 5 hours. Five-minute charging is a fantasy that's not going to be practical for decades, if ever. Fortunately, as your own numbers imply, it's not necessary for several standard deviations of human transportation.
Yes, it's different from the gasoline model we're used to. Change is scary. But the incredible performance of a modern EV, coupled with the convenience of having a full "tank" every morning and an energy efficiency equivalent to over 100 miles per gallon make for a compelling package.
Where do your numbers come from? Last I heard, NiMH is limited chemically to around 75 Wh / kg at the cell level - the Prius module is closer to 45 from what I recall.
I don't know anything about the Prius battery (or other hybrid batteries); sorry. I'm referring to larger traction batteries that we've installed in high-performance EVs.
State of the art Li-ion modules [from A123] are getting just over 100 Wh / kg at the moment.
A123 cells may be state of the art, and they do indeed appear to have high power density, but they have a rather unimpressive energy density, on the order of your 100 Wh/kg metric, above. Commodity form-factor 18650 cells, as used in AC Propulsion's eBox and Tesla Motors' Roadster have a specific energy of ~200 Wh/kg, and no, they're not dangerous. The batteries in those vehicles are way over 100 Wh/kg as installed in the vehicle, including all packaging, cooling, and monitoring systems.
Bleeding edge cells are approaching 250 Wh/kg, but thus far those have proven difficult to manufacture without defects, leading to the infamous laptop fires.
Disclaimer: IAAEVE (I am an electric vehicle engineer), so my analysis is biased toward vehicle applications.
According to the specs on their own website, the energy density for their modules is about 50 watthours per kilogram (24V * 4.2Ah / 2.0kg). At 50 Wh/kg they're barely competing with lead-acid batteries, and competing quite poorly with Nickel-metal batteries, which are near 100 Wh/kg and have proven safety and durability in vehicle applications.
Modern Li-ion cells (the ones that aren't even remotely pushing the safety envelope) are over 200 Wh/kg.
Slashdot Mirror
a multiplicity of cores optimized for various tasks
I guess I'm okay with it as long as they include the morality core. Too much trouble, otherwise.
United may have a relatively efficient boarding process, but it doesn't help if the plane shows up too late for boarding time to matter.
United's problem is that their gate personnel are sloppy about the boarding procedure. They'll call "boarding group 1", which these days is nominally the rear of the plane, but they aren't strict about who they let through at that point. Then, after 20-or-so passengers board, they'll call group 2, even though there are plenty of 1s still queued up.
If they just followed their own procedure, and if the flight crew was more ruthless about telling people to step out of the aisles, it would be oh-so-much smoother.
Easy: it is much more feasible to lug around huge banks of batteries in a locomotive.
Diesel-electric locomotives don't lug around batteries. The diesel-electric system serves the purpose of a transmission -- a non-trivial problem when distributing that much power.
How do these things handle short trips in freezing weather?
Quite well, actually, speaking as an electric vehicle engineer.
A simple resistive water heater for cabing heating uses about 2000 watts on average, and perhaps 4000 watts worst case. Compared to a typical road load of 20,000 watts, it's obvious that the cabin heat makes a difference, but it's on the order of a 10% reduction in range.
In the future, electric vehicles will use heat pumps (basically a bi-directional air conditioner) that will reduce the cabin heat energy budget by at least a factor of 3. The air conditioner in AC Propulsion's eBox vehicle uses about 700 watts worst case, and less depending on duty cycle.
Heat is a problem with Li-ion batteries. If they get too hot they explode. ...and ignorance is a problem with armchair engineers. Yes, IAAEVE (I am an electric vehicle engineer). Are you?
Lithium cells do not explode. Cell fires (a la Sony laptops) were a manufacturing defect, and not heat-related. The lithium cells in cars use a different cell chemistry, about which I guarantee you know nothing. Cars, like the aforementioned Tesla, closely control battery temperature to prolong the life of the battery.
Please stop spreading misinformation. Thanks in advance.
I don't see how we can successfully convert people to electric cars without some sort of infrastructure in place. Sure, you can charge your car at home for the daily commute, but what about road trips?
You're absolutely right -- electric cars are only suitable for 97 percent of our driving.
(Oh, and electric infrastructure is more pervasive than any other, *including* gasloline. The infrastructure is called your local utility grid).
What side are you arguing? Those 'tired-old bullshit arguments' DO matter for precisely the amount of time you have stated. It is -after- that time that they don't matter.
No. (Sigh.) I can't tell if the disconnect is that you didn't read carefully, or that you don't understand how the grid works.
We can use all available (grid-tied) solar output in real time, offsetting fossil-fueled generation in the process, and this will be the case approximately forever. There is no reason whatsoever to "store" solar energy with batteries or by any other means until we can produce more solar energy than we can use in real time, which would be a good problem to have.
Dunno what's going on in your neck of the woods. Australia's freshwater fish are still perfectly safe to eat.
Read up on what's happening on the Northeastern United States, if you're interested, and see how coal doesn't scale well without horrifying side effects. (We do have more than 15X your population, unfortunately.) Part of the problem, of course, is the Bush administration's refusal to make the power plants conform to existing emissions regulations.
But you missed the part about Greenpower - which means you're buying wind power, small-scale hydro etc. Even that is way cheaper than whacking solar panels on your roof.
No arguments there. Unsubsidized PV solar (in California) is around 15 cents/kWh (and certainly falling). Wind is somewhere between 6 and 10 cents/kWh (and also falling). Wind, however, isn't well correlated with peak demand, whereas solar is.
Have you done the sums on two alternative courses of action
Have you? And when you did, did you include all the externalized costs of coal-fired grid power that aren't included in your $0.5/kWh energy bill? (You know, like freshwater fish that are no longer safe to eat, and all that good stuff?)
Which essentially means we're not going to shut down a single baseload plant by replacing it with solar power any time in the next 20 years. So remind me again why solar is in any way an alternative to coal?
I never said it was, however: huge amounts of peaking and intermediate generation are done today with coal. I'm not sure where the myth that coal is only for base generation started.
[solar energy is] only available 12 hours a day [...] and battery backup is extremely expensive
Those two tired-old bullshit arguments won't matter until there is more solar capacity online than we can use in real time, which won't happen for two decades under even the most favorable set of assumptions.
Well, if you left it up to private industry to do, the ultimate goal *would* be to reduce cost - the construction of new infrastructure, and the resultant reliability improvement would just be an emergent (and ultimately beneficial) side-effect.
I suspect we mostly agree, but we're talking about slightly different things. The fact that TFA is poorly written and glazes over important details isn't helping things.
Utility companies *are* private industries, and they are plenty motivated to reduce cost, and far and away the best means of doing this is to better-utilize their existing infrastructure. In many locations they already have time-of-use metering schedules and automatic load-shedding programs that do offer financial incentives. Those exist now and work well. TFA hints at mandatory load shedding -- that's crazy and its not what I'm talking about. The programs in question would only be mandatory *if you enrolled* -- anything beyond that would never be accepted, perhaps rightfully so.
More correctly stated, you can't build infrastructure without expending resources. If it's the Government doing it, then, yeah, you'll definitely pay that cost through taxes. But if it's some corporate entity whose goal is profit, that expenditure of resources will be mitigated somehow (maybe dipping into profits or saved capital, maybe taking a loss, maybe borrowing capital), because for-profit companies have to both be mindful of our future needs (and, therefore, expand in ways that best meet those needs), but also be mindful of *today's* bottom line: If they can't provide a given service at a comparable price to their customers, they lose customers.
I'm not getting dragged into a debate over whether private industry is more efficient than govenment. You may be correct, but it's irrelevant here for my purposes, because utility companies *are* private industry, and they overwhelmingly understand the value of load shedding with respect to building infrastructure. Both are necessary, but for differing reasons.
Do you have a backup generator for your house? You're a private entity, so if the grid is unreliable for your taste, you'd compete with it by building your own generator backup. Only a tiny fraction of us do that, becuase the costs are high, especially for something that gets used for perhaps two hours per year.
You're confused about the concept of "incentive." Positive Economic Incentive != Negative Government-Created "Incentive." A positive incentive is some reason to do something that's in your best interests, solely for that reason. The free-market creates those automagically through competition and depending on human nature. The kind of "incentive" you're talking about is actually the same incentive we offer for committing a crime - *don't* do this, or we'll penalize you. This type of incentive requires enforcement and administration (which require additional resources) to ensure it's effective.
I was actually referring to incentives in general, but in this specific example: The utility company is incented to move as much energy as possible through its grid, which means buffering loads, and they do pass this along to customers in the form of TOU (or real-time) pricing and rebates for load-shedding participation. This already happens, but to date, the lowest-hanging fruit has been commercial and industrial customers.
And how is deregulating energy providers which would allow competitors to build infrastructure and provide alternatives to state-run energy providers not going to solve this?
It might, and it might not, but you're confusing two issues. Even if you decide to spend money and build an entire new infrastructure, there will always be incentives to utilize it as efficiently as possible. The more you can avoid having to build generation to handle peaks that occur for 2 hours/year, the better.
A private company who chooses to invest in infrastructure in order to improve their ability to deliver power more cheaply will have to be able to provide cheaper (or comparably-priced) energy to established companies, while growing the necessary infrastructure.
Building infrastructure is part of the solution, but it's to improve reliability, not to reduce cost. Cost reductions come from better utilization of existing resources. You can't build infrastructure without raising cost, and building new infrastructure that's used for a few hours per year is the worst investment of all.
And this is the sort of naive, knee-jerk reaction that makes sense when you don't understand how government works.
Utility companies aren't operated by the government, you know. I realize that TFA (which is serious lacking in technical details) mentions mandatory adoption, but that would be so hopelessly unpopular that I can't seriously believe anyone thinks it will happen. On the other hand, pricing incentives that would necessarily accompany voluntary programs *already do* work well.
Here's another idea: Create some competition to SDGE, and the first time they start turning off my A/C during the summer watch me switch to a new provider who builds an infrastructure that can keep up with demand and is willing to provide the energy I pay for.
This is the sort of naive, knee-jerk reaction that makes sense when you don't understand how the grid works.
Yes, of course we can build more infrastructure, and we may have to, but that's not what TFA is about. TFA is about a solution to high peak loads. Building more infrastructure (generation and transmission) is an expensive solution, especially when you only need it for a few hours per day.
Automatic load shedding, on the other hand (the solution proposed in TFA) moves energy use away from the peaks, allowing greater overall utilization of the existing infrastructure. There are pilot programs in many places already, and you will pay lower rates for your (voluntary) participation. It's very unlikely that you'll ever be forced to participate in such a program against your will.
why don't we build a few more nuclear power plants to handle the excessive load required by modern technology?
Because nuclear is inappropriate for peaking loads. Nuclear is great for baseline generation; it's best utilized by running 24 hours/day.
We may need more generation, but adding generation of any kind is a poor solution to the problem in TFA (high peak loads), because it has high costs: You have to build the additional generation and transmission capacity even though you only need to use it for a few hours per day. Load shifting (automatic load shedding) actually saves you money by moving energy use away from the peaks, meaning the existing infrastructure can have higher overall utilization.
There is no question that we'll need to expand infrastructure, too -- there's no single solution, here -- but that's a different problem that has nothing to do with TFA.
Here's an idea. Instead of the current typical 200amp service, everybody gets a 20amp service that is "always on", and a 200 amp service that's subject to rolling blackouts. That gives consumers the power to choose what loads will be shit down. It would be a little more complex for metering, but, much more effective, and easier to "convince" homeowners to retrofit. (Look... we can give you SOME power that doesn't go out...).
You're just proposing a less-effective version of the solution proposed in TFA. Utility companies will be able to provide optional control of major appliances, e.g. heating/cooling, water heaters, electric vehicles. Consumers will have the power to to decide which of these devices will shed loads. Compared to your solution, this requires no "complex metering", no rewiring of the house, no blackouts (or 90% blackouts), AND you'll get a discount in addition for participating in the program.
Anywhere in Europe or Asia ought to work. No "divesting of shoes" anywhere I've traveled outside the USA.
but you make a missconception, it's either the way you define efficiency, or better where you apply it and what is in the todays use for generating your AC-Power.
;) )
;)
No, I'm talking about a fair, wells-to-wheels energy comparison. EVs are substantially more efficient, even when powered by coal (and coal represents only approximately 50% of the US power mix).
and there are further losses to look at,
- transmission
- gears
- bearing
No, all of those are present in both vehicles, and thus factor out. And this is a red herring anyway, because the 300 watthours/mile figure includes all of the above.
The "Tesla Roadster" as any pure electric driven car today is a special car
a.) limited weight ( it uses special materials )
b.) limited space ( it's a fun car )
c.) limited range ( limited by driving style,(they say) it's a roadster
The Roadster also suffers from non-optimal gearing and "performance" tires. There is nothing remarkable about the Roadster's efficiency. Other EVs (e.g. AC Propulsion's eBox, and Toyota's RAV4 EV) both achieve similar efficiencies.
if you would remove the e-motor and the battery pack by a three/four cylinder turbo charged diesel engine, and fill in the amount of fuel you need to reach a range similar, it's likely that you could achieve, an efficiency very very near to the electric ones, but to be honest not with such an acceleration
This is absolutely false. Most EVs achieve a completely fair energy equivalent of over 100 miles per US gallon of gasoline. You will never achieve anywhere near that level of efficiency with a gasoline engine and a 2600 pound car.
many people don't have the money to buy a home solar power system
I don't agree. If you can afford energy, you can afford solar (or other non-polluting) energy. The amortized cost of PV solar is between 16 and 20 cents per kWh -- it doesn't have to be on your own house. Wind energy is feasible at merely 5 cents/kWh, and is well suited to charging EVs.
I have a question, "What does your car run off ?"
Most of the time I bicycle or walk. My car uses 100% pure solar energy.
Also, I'm not against EVs at all. I'm actually just anti-coal.
As am I. Is anyone pro-coal? I mean that seriously. Coal is only part of the power mix (on the order of 50% in the US, I believe) and I'm doing everything I can to make it smaller, but it's pretty well documented that EVs are a step in the right direction even when powered by coal.
I personally love the idea of alternate fuels, but I'm not hypocritical enough think that a Hybrid is actually doing anything to save the environment (as long as we keep burning coal to make electricity).
I would be interested to know if you can disprove the facts that powering hydrogen cells by coal (and all other sources combined) would require roughly twice the amount of power as is burned by gas powered cars in 2000, as cited in the article. I find it to be an interesting claim, from a seemingly credible source, but can't really find any proof beyond that.
I'm definitely not going to defend hybrids or hydrogen. As you probably know, today's conventional hybrid vehicles are 100% gasoline-powered; they're basically gas cars with regenerative braking. They do get some points for being more efficient. Plug-in hybrids (with some electric-only range) are in vogue now, but suffer from some fundamental problems that are non-intuitive to armchair engineers. (They're the worst of both worlds, less efficient than an EV for the first 200 miles, and less efficient than a gas car beyond 200 miles.)
Hydrogen is a total scam -- it's hopelessly inefficient to make the hydrogen[1]. Your 2x figure seems a bit high -- most fair wells-to-wheels analyses I've seen put a hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle at roughly the same efficiency as a gasoline car -- but I don't care, because you'd be crazy not to replace that 25% efficient fuel cell with a battery that's 90% efficient.
[1] If you make hydrogen from natural gas, you'd have been better off burning it in a combustion engine instead. If you make it via electrolysis, you'd be far better off putting that electrical energy into a battery.
Here's something to chew on, and this is just in the context of powering hydrogen cells, which is arguably more efficient than plugging a car straight into an AC outlet.
Such a claim is only arguable by someone woefully ignorant of the facts (and the laws of thermodynamics).
The fuel cycle in that case (electricity -> electrolysis -> hydrogen -> fuel cell -> electricity) is only about 25% efficient. Did you really think that the fuel cycle would have efficiency greater than 100%, and how else would you claim that it is "arguably more efficient than plugging a car straight into an AC outlet"?
What you've actually done is to expose the insanity of the "hydrogen economy" -- also well documented as totally impractical. Most of the smart money realizes this, now. The hydrogen is just an extremely inefficient and expensive battery. We already have much better batteries, with efficiencies better than 90%.
There is no magic bullet for clean cars unless you invent a new type of energy altogether, or if you don't mind driving around with a nuclear reactor under the hood.
Don't be silly. You don't put the nuclear reactor under the hood. You put it at the generation plant, and use the already-existing infrastructure to charge your vehicle. Your Car-and-Driver link is filled with so much misinformation that it's not worth spending much time on. (E.g. PV modules requiring 8 years to reach an energy breakeven point: The well-documented actual figure is closer to 2 years, and even at 8, it's a fantastic win, because PV modules last >40 years.)
Disclaimer: IAAEVE (I am an eletric vehicle engineer). It sounds like you've never even driven an EV.
You've exposed the most fraudulent part of the greenies' movement. Recharging batteries requires electricity, which in the US, is derived primarily from burning coal, which is worse ecologically than burning gasoline.
Burning coal to power EVs is a pretty stupid solution, and I don't think anyone is actually advocating that, but it is absolutely an improvement over burning gasoline. Your assertion is well documented as totally false, yet it's constantly repeated. You really should do your own research on this, but here's a whitepaper from Tesla Motors for starters. It's a pretty fair analysis of the relative efficiencies of various propulsion systems. It does cheat a little by assuming natural gas generation for electricity, but it's obvious from the numbers that--even from coal--EVs are a significant win in terms of reducing pollution and CO2 emissions.
You can substitute just about any EV for Tesla's Roadster -- they're all exceptionally efficient, at under 300 AC watthours per mile. Yes, I'm an electric vehicle engineer.
As long as the Greenies keep pushing fake green agendas on us like electric cars but at the SAME TIME keep protesting nuclear power, this will never be a good solution.
Nuclear power is a fantastic option. Between nuclear, wind, and hydro, more than half of California's energy is pollution- and CO2-free. Electricity is the ultimate flex fuel -- you can generate it from coal, nuclear, or solar panels on your roof.
You spewed some further misinformation further down -- I'll reply to that later on.
From TFA:
An officer opened the laptop, accessed the files without a password or passphrase, and allegedly discovered "thousands of images of adult pornography and animation depicting adult and child pornography."
Like it or not, the "adult pornography" is probably a red herring, so what is this "animation" business? Is that all they have on him? I've seen episodes of South Park that qualify as "animation depicting child pornography". I hope there's more to this case than was explained in TFA. If not, this sounds like a witch hunt.
Clearly you're not an EV driver -- these logical mistakes are common. Allow me to clear them up.
The energy density may be poor, but the fast recharge time may make up for it.
Nope, it won't. The recharge happens while you're doing other things -- like sleeping -- so the time savings are not worth trading 3/4ths of your range. 5-minute charging is also totally unrealistic -- see below.
Let's assume a pure EV using these batteries got a range of 150 miles, which is pretty lousy by most standards. The average commute is about 20 miles each way, or 200 miles a week.
150 miles would be a fantastic range for an EV with a modern battery. With the Toshiba modules in question, your range would be closer to 50 miles, if you're lucky. 150 miles is obviously enough for your own suggested "average commute" numbers of 20 miles each way. Range is expensive though -- you could save a lot of money by making do with a 75 or 100-mile range. Your own numbers suggest this might make sense even for your own case.
If the average commuter has to charge up twice a week instead of once a week, that's probably bearable if the charge time is 5 minutes instead of 30 minutes or overnight.
As you correctly surmise, overnight is how it works. You plug it in when you get home, and it's full every morning. It doesn't matter if it takes 5 minutes or 5 hours. Five-minute charging is a fantasy that's not going to be practical for decades, if ever. Fortunately, as your own numbers imply, it's not necessary for several standard deviations of human transportation.
Yes, it's different from the gasoline model we're used to. Change is scary. But the incredible performance of a modern EV, coupled with the convenience of having a full "tank" every morning and an energy efficiency equivalent to over 100 miles per gallon make for a compelling package.
Where do your numbers come from? Last I heard, NiMH is limited chemically to around 75 Wh / kg at the cell level - the Prius module is closer to 45 from what I recall.
I don't know anything about the Prius battery (or other hybrid batteries); sorry. I'm referring to larger traction batteries that we've installed in high-performance EVs.
State of the art Li-ion modules [from A123] are getting just over 100 Wh / kg at the moment.
A123 cells may be state of the art, and they do indeed appear to have high power density, but they have a rather unimpressive energy density, on the order of your 100 Wh/kg metric, above. Commodity form-factor 18650 cells, as used in AC Propulsion's eBox and Tesla Motors' Roadster have a specific energy of ~200 Wh/kg, and no, they're not dangerous. The batteries in those vehicles are way over 100 Wh/kg as installed in the vehicle, including all packaging, cooling, and monitoring systems.
Bleeding edge cells are approaching 250 Wh/kg, but thus far those have proven difficult to manufacture without defects, leading to the infamous laptop fires.
Disclaimer: IAAEVE (I am an electric vehicle engineer), so my analysis is biased toward vehicle applications.
According to the specs on their own website, the energy density for their modules is about 50 watthours per kilogram (24V * 4.2Ah / 2.0kg). At 50 Wh/kg they're barely competing with lead-acid batteries, and competing quite poorly with Nickel-metal batteries, which are near 100 Wh/kg and have proven safety and durability in vehicle applications.
Modern Li-ion cells (the ones that aren't even remotely pushing the safety envelope) are over 200 Wh/kg.