Possible Futures Of Ev's And-or Fuel Cells.

[CheeseheadEarl]

Someone please tell me where all this excess electric capacity will come from, and at what cost? Our grid system is stretched already in many places..

 

[satx]

We can expect the $Bs in research to produce 100s of PROGRESSIVE technology like this:

New method can make cheaper solar energy storage

http://phys.org/print354926667.html

 

[satx]

Someone please tell me where all this excess electric capacity will come from, and at what cost? Our grid system is stretched already in many places..

Cut $200B+ PER YEAR from the wasteful, bloated, corrupt DoD blackhole and spend some of it on extending the grid and capacity to new wind/solar sites, upgrade the entire grid to be smart, bi-directional, and open to distributed solar.

I'd also like to see all utilities like water and electricity totally removed from for-profit investors and run as no-profit utilities.

It's hilarious to see people whining "we can't make any PROGRESS, fix problems, etc" while believing the myth "USA is Greatest "CAN DO" Country In The Universe".

 

[AriLea]

Someone please tell me where all this excess electric capacity will come from, and at what cost? Our grid system is stretched already in many places..

At the moment 40k KWH are lost from the Phoenix area grid due to low nightly use. (straight from the mouth of an inside man) Once that is consumed, the magic of capitalism begins. Believe me, the utilities would love to have the money from EV charging to improve the grid. At the moment most traditional power companies have a nightly wasted capacity. There may eventually be a requirement for fast-charge vehicles to charge their last 50% on some sort of schedule. That's easy to force adoption into the public via having a lower pricing off hour.

Since EV's are dispersed and new generation is likely to be dispersed too, it's less of a problem than the gross numbers suggest. Even the EV's themselves can act like off line storage systems, reducing the estimate of storage needed from diverse and sometimes intermittent sources.

The whole thing does displace where energy is converted, where sent and when stored. The whole process is likely to be slower than most EV enthusiasts desire, and may press the utilities a bit fast to adjust. But, u can bet they will set rates to allow the cash to do it.

It is not impossible, it's just a price to pay. And that is a valid gripe, some people do not want to pay the price, whether high or low. The utilities griping about it is a means for them to get the leverage to make money at it. They want you to pay for the improvements and then they will profit from the extra capacity.

 

[AriLea]

For example, here's something the utilizes hate, in some areas it may be viable to generate your own EV power from natural gas. Then of course you would power your house too. The utilities in those areas hate that opportunity. They throw every stone in the way of that they can.

Up to now such a thing was too capital expensive to justify, but EV's and even charging stations change that balance. All kinds of entrenched industries would hate that and fight it tooth and nail. Other liquid petroleum products which are piped cross-country maybe suitable for that as well.

Were having a similar fight locally about roof solar installed by SolarCity. Even though my roof top system (and all others like it) has only the capacity for a percentage of my use during the day, SRP wants to charge every solar installation a monthly 'transmission' fee. Honestly? It's not like they don't have plenty of customer density to support their infrastructure, and more everyday, and my solar has zero interface or impact to theirs!

Roof top Solar reduces the requirement for untility infra-structure. We should charge them for saving them the requirement to expand their transmission capacity! Oh SO, don't get me started!

 

[Neal]

outside of the costs. It's just not feasible for most Americans. With Some exceptions, we have sprawling metro areas. In my situation, living on the east tide of Dallas, it would take almost a full charge to get me from my house to say a Rangers or Cowboys game on the other side of Dallas (Arlington) with not much wiggle room to do any driving around. Then several hours to charge. I like the concept, but technology just isn't there yet. It's not so much the range, I don't mind stopping more frequently to "Charge/fill-up" but the time it takes to charge is a deal breaker.

 

[Rickb]

Most charging would take place during overnight hours when energy consumption is at it's lowest demand, except for the daily quick charge needs for long distance travel. It will be years before the numbers of evs will increase to stress the grid and one would think the power companies will be planning for expansion to meet that future demand when needed.

Our local power company just announced that their energy savings programs and advertising campaign is working so well consumers are using less energy which is hurting their bottom line profits. BOOHOO! The power company is now requesting a surcharge to increase cost during those low consumption periods.

 

[Reid3400]

I don't understand many of these comments on "wasted power" and think they are nonsense? If the power comes from hydro, you simply leave the water behind the dam. If it comes from natural gas or coal, you simply don't burn as much. If it comes from wind or solar, it gets wasted, unless you use 100% of it while cutting back on the other sources. Yes, you have to size the grid for peak demand, but the capital cost of the grid is small in relation to the cost of the power. As a long term investor in a company which owns, dams, run of the river, solar and wind, when you manage your resources wisely, you can maximize your profit. New York, where most of this power goes, does not have a clue what the generator is hooked to at any given moment. They pay a premium for uninterruptible power, while clever management feeds them interruptible power. Run of the river water use is regulated at 25% of the flow, but this is an average flow over a 24 hour period. So you can use this and the water behind the dams, as a storage battery.
Last year our local idiots in control of our drinking water resources spent a large portion of their revenue urging people to cut back on water use. We used so little they had to spill the excess supply over the dam and raise our rates to break even.

 

[NSTG8R]

outside of the costs. It's just not feasible for most Americans. With Some exceptions, we have sprawling metro areas. In my situation, living on the east tide of Dallas, it would take almost a full charge to get me from my house to say a Rangers or Cowboys game on the other side of Dallas (Arlington) with not much wiggle room to do any driving around. Then several hours to charge. I like the concept, but technology just isn't there yet. It's not so much the range, I don't mind stopping more frequently to "Charge/fill-up" but the time it takes to charge is a deal breaker.

Until they 'standardize' a battery pack that will fit all EVs (okay...maybe a small, medium, large depending on the vehicle size), so all I have to do is pull over a bay and a robot swaps it out for a fresh battery pack within a few minutes time, I'll stick to my fossil fuels.

 

[JEBar]

Elio will prove to be highly practical in some situations and totally impractical in others .... for now and the foreseeable future, the same is true for electric vehicles .... they are not an end all as some folks want them to be .... they are, in fact, completely useless for many applications .... folks who live in urban areas and drive short distances have much different needs than most folks who live in rural parts of the country where they routinely have to travel long distances .... there is no way, in my lifetime, an electric powered truck that can pull our camper camper cross country will appear on the scene