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The reason that gas is so HIGH is because they're EXPORTING gas and oil!!

scottiedawg66 said:
wrong. electric vehicles will actually lead to a more stable and efficient grid to take advantage of excess generation at night provided by nuclear power plants that cannot throttle back, drawing from the charged plugged in cars during peak, ect.

http://www.isorto.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=jhKQIZPBImE&b=2613997&ct=8107539
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You should read the articles you reference. That one says that one million electrical vehicles in the next ten years won't strain the system. There are around 255,000,000 registered vehicles in the US. :laughing
 
afm199 said:
You should read the articles you reference. That one says that one million electrical vehicles in the next ten years won't strain the system. There are around 255,000,000 registered vehicles in the US. :laughing
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1 million electric vehicles saves up to ~23 million barrels of oil a year, which is <1% of the oil used in the US year. Not a lot but a start. You don't even have to drive a EV, but if your neighbor does, the will be lowering the cost of gas, so be thankful for all the Prius out there, because think of gas prices if the Prius used as much gas as the average car.

Its a lot easier to add power to the grid then to deep water drill for oil.
 
I don't think you've any real concept of the fragility of electrical distribution in the US.

:laughing
 
Killroy1999 said:
1 million electric vehicles saves up to ~23 million barrels of oil a year, which is <1% of the oil used in the US year. Not a lot but a start. You don't even have to drive a EV, but if your neighbor does, the will be lowering the cost of gas, so be thankful for all the Prius out there, because think of gas prices if the Prius used as much gas as the average car.

Its a lot easier to add power to the grid then to deep water drill for oil.
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You said the grid would work. I said it would not. I am right. You are wrong. It has excess capacity for ONE PERCENT of the projected electric vehicles. Please THINK about the scope of the remaining 99%. As I said, the grid is NOT capable of feeding them until it DOUBLES or TRIPLES capacity.


Your analysis of the Prius owner is incorrect. Gas prices are not driven by Prius owners. They are driven by the millions of new cars coming into production and onto the road in China and India. The US has lowered automotive gasoline usage for three or four years.

It is NOT a lot easier to add capacity to the grid. It is a multi TRILLION dollar job. One underwater well can produce a shitload of oil. That's the problem. Right now it is FAR cheaper to drill and produce oil and use coal than any other means of power.

I'm not a fan of drilling and would love to see a solar powered grid, but it won't happen in my lifetime and probably not yours. The extent of the change and the cost of the infrastructure make the Manhattan project a tiny thing.

Seriously. Try and get a feel for the magnitude of the project you are talking about. Remember, we use 10 MILLION BARRELS A DAY of oil for transport. That is a HUGE FUCKING AMOUNT OF ENERGY. It's almost equal to the current capacity of the grid.
 
Marlowe said:
I don't think you've any real concept of the fragility of electrical distribution in the US.

:laughing
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This. It's a funny weird and strangely elastic system, but it can not support much more than its current capacity. It's a multi open ended system, fed into from all over the US. A large solar plant will need a HUGE distribution system built. While several hundred square miles of panels would feed the US, it's not even remotely a possibility, for many reasons. One of which is security.
 
Killroy1999 said:
You don't even have to drive a EV, but if your neighbor does, the will be lowering the cost of gas, so be thankful for all the Prius out there
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:laughing You don't read the news do you. Thanks to the latest, there was a 10% drop in gasoline consumption due to more efficient vehicles. So now the big guys are EXPORTING gas to other countries because of surplus capacity. Notice in change in prices? Didn't think so :x
 
One last titbit about US companies and "our" oil. Exxon and Chevron have turned their backs on the mideast and are actively pursuing supplies in friendly countries like Canada and Australia (largest gas field in the world). Both of them own HUGE amounts of resources in Canada and Australia. Forget the idea of "our" energy.
 
afm199 said:
You should read the articles you reference. That one says that one million electrical vehicles in the next ten years won't strain the system. There are around 255,000,000 registered vehicles in the US. :laughing
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given the current sales of EV vehicles i think a million is alot...

and EV vehicles do make more efficient use of energy than pumping water back into a resivor so it can be "recycled" through a turbine again. or just letting kWh go to waste which happens currently during off peak.

furthermore the peak demand is the problem with our current grid, with EVs charging off peak it builds in more of a baseline demand that can be produced more efficiently and carry over to cover the peak as well.
 
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scottiedawg66 said:
given the current sales of EV vehicles i think a million is alot...

and EV vehicles do make more efficient use of energy than pumping water back into a resivor so it can be "recycled" through a turbine again. or just letting kWh go to waste which happens currently during off peak.

furthermore the peak demand is the problem with our current grid, with EVs charging off peak it builds in more of a baseline demand that can be produced more efficiently and carry over to cover the peak as well.
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Just don't get it, do you? Our grid at peak is sometimes incapable of meeting peak. Thus brownouts and blackouts. At off peak it falls to perhaps half of that. So what's the problem? Peaker plants are used to provide peak power. They are high capacity short duration. They are VERY expensive next to standard plants. The current system is already at the breaking point. Now you want to double the load by running near peak at night. Again, the vehicles use HUGE AMOUNTS OF POWER DAILY. Almost equivalent to the total peak load. We don't have capacity. You can't double the capacity of an already over extended system and expect it to function.
 
Not to derail the EV talk, but just read where the Navy is going to purchase biofuel for the fleet at $16/gal!!!! :wtf

Another "hope and change" project :facepalm
 
afm199 said:
Just don't get it, do you? Our grid at peak is sometimes incapable of meeting peak. Thus brownouts and blackouts. At off peak it falls to perhaps half of that. So what's the problem? Peaker plants are used to provide peak power. They are high capacity short duration. They are VERY expensive next to standard plants. The current system is already at the breaking point. Now you want to double the load by running near peak at night. Again, the vehicles use HUGE AMOUNTS OF POWER DAILY. Almost equivalent to the total peak load. We don't have capacity. You can't double the capacity of an already over extended system and expect it to function.
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i think u are missing my point actually. the time period of the charging is the important detail. The vast majority of EVs will be charged in off peak hours this will balance (reduce delta from peak to off peak) the peak and turn what used to be expensive peaker plants into full time generation that is more cost effective and efficient as you correctly stated.

i understand and agree with your point about the peak already being a problem, but I see EVs as making that problem better since they will improve the fiscal viability of building new generation that is used for more than a few days a year
 
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scottiedawg66 said:
i think u are missing my point actually. the time period of the charging is the important detail. The vast majority of EVs will be charged in off peak hours this will balance (reduce delta from peak to off peak) the peak and turn what used to be expensive peaker plants into full time generation that is more cost effective and efficient as you correctly stated.
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Where's solar fit into your charging cycle? It's as green as an EV but they don't work too good at night.
 
scottiedawg66 said:
i think u are missing my point actually. the time period of the charging is the important detail. The vast majority of EVs will be charged in off peak hours this will balance (reduce delta from peak to off peak) the peak and turn what used to be expensive peaker plants into full time generation that is more cost effective and efficient as you correctly stated.
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Peaker plants are not designed or built for full time generation. They are not nearly as efficient as full time load plants and not designed for full time usage. Nor is the infrastructure in place to supply them with fuel, as the demand will change from a few hours a day to 24 hours a day.
 
Doing anything with the electric grid requires a plan. We don't have one.
 
afm199 said:
Peaker plants are not designed or built for full time generation. They are not nearly as efficient as full time load plants and not designed for full time usage. Nor is the infrastructure in place to supply them with fuel, as the demand will change from a few hours a day to 24 hours a day.
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we are on the same side...this is frustrating. if the demand for energy is flat we can build a very efficient system. the vast fluctuation in demand creates the in efficiency and need for peaker plants. EVs will flatten electric demand and allow a more efficient grid.

i understand and agree with your point about the peak already being a problem, but I see EVs as making that problem better since they will improve the fiscal viability of building new efficient generation that is used for more than a few days a year
 
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scottiedawg66 said:
we are on the same side...this is frustrating. if the demand for energy is flat we can build a very efficient system. the vast fluctuation in demand creates the in efficiency and need for peaker plants. EVs will flatten electric demand and allow a more efficient grid.

i understand and agree with your point about the peak already being a problem, but I see EVs as making that problem better since they will improve the fiscal viability of building new efficient generation that is used for more than a few days a year
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Nobody wants to build those plants. They are too expensive, thus all the peakers, which are so very profitable.

In the long run EV will be important, but the big change that has to come is the eventual realization that privately owned vehicles will be very small and very efficient. Transposing the energy demand from gasoline to electrical does not make it disappear. The longest trains in the US are coal trains. Sometimes three miles long with engines at each end connected via software to allow them to go over hills and speed up and slow down the ends to avoid pulling the entire train apart. Doubling the coal used is not going to be possible in many cases. The rail system is already overloaded. It's not a simple situation. It's a mess built up over generations. You won't rationalize it in one or two or five years. Maybe never.
 
But the reason EVs are impractical - at least current EVs - is because they have such limited range and take entirely too long to recharge. You can drive for 100 miles and then you have to charge for 4-6 hours. What good is that? Maybe for in-town short-range commuting and running errands, but you certainly can't take trip of any length in one. So then you'd have to still have a gas vehicle for that.

And you think gas is really going to go down? No, gas companies are going to see their profits dropping, so they are going to raise prices to compensate.

And like we've already been saying, the grid is not going to be able to support a bunch of EVs. Remember the rolling blackouts of just a few years ago? There'll be even more of them if we add a bunch of sporadic high draw EVs.

EVs are not going to solve all our problems. Not anytime soon. Might reduce our dependence on foreign oil. But it's not going to cause a huge drop in gas prices for the rest of us.
 
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