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No. It's a matter of math. And the math says that low energy density technology like batteries and intermittent electrical generating technologies like solar and wind aren't practical. That's what you have a pie in the sky attitude about. You think this will be easy and there won't be any trade offs. That's not the case. It will be painful.
Intermittent generation. How is solar going to base load the grid if it only generates electricity intermittently?Your "math" is bullshit. Solar panels work. In 1 to 4 years they produce the energy that it took to create them. That is from mining the ore they are made of to the finished product. They last 20 to 40 years. Now THAT is what I call efficiency! Next, you know what will really be painful? Having humans and most of the other life on Earth go extinct.
Next, you know what will really be painful? Having humans and most of the other life on Earth go extinct.
Rumor is, a lot of energy as well as medical remedies never saw the light of day. It's reasonable to expect corporate America to thwart competition , it's tin hat stuff to consider literally killing it
~S~
Intermittent generation. How is solar going to base load the grid if it only generates electricity intermittently?
None. Zero. And with solar panels, we could shut down what nuclear power plants we have.
Go to Chernobyl or Fukushima to find out. If that's too much trouble, try looking up and watching the documentary, "Waste: A nuclear nightmare."
It's more than infrastructure. It's the nature of the technology. By themselves solar and wind can never base load the grid because they are intermittent generating technologies.More bullshit. I already said that we would still need a power grid to transmit more power from places where the sun is shining to places where it isn't. And there are many ways of storing the excess power that solar panels create during the day for night time use.
methinks the 'math' might reveal that just a tad out of reach.......~S~None. Zero. And with solar panels, we could shut down what nuclear power plants we have.
The battery in the latest Volt is 18.4 kWh. Not a huge increase but it seems to indicate this article's numbers might be out of date. And of course the Volt was never intended to be a long distance highway cruiser. It is an everyday car to take you to work-and-back or the store-and-back. The small gasoline engine it contains has, since the car first entered the marked, been considered an emergency backup. It is not a full-up hybrid vehicle. The published full-electric range on them is 38 to 53 miles, depending on model, so, again, not a car to take cross country. Charging times for the latest Volt model are as follows: Charging times are as follows: 120-volt outlet: 13 hours. 240-volt outlet: 2.3 hours. 3.6 kW system: 4.5 hours. The faster charging systems would obviously improve the average travel speed as in the example Sparky worked out but, as the Volt is not intended to travel in that mode, I won't bother with the math. It's not as if anyone at GM is attempting to give you a false impression about the Volt, as Sparky seems to be doing.As an engineer I love electric vehicle technology However, I have been troubled by the fact that the electrical energy to keep the batteries charged has to come from the grid, and that means more power generation and a huge increase in the distribution infrastructure. Whether generated from coal, gas, oil, wind or sun, installed generation capacity is limited.
IF ELECTRIC CARS DO NOT USE GASOLINE, THEY WILL NOT BE PAYING A GASOLINE TAX ON EVERY GALLON SOLD FOR AUTOMOBILES, WHICH WAS ENACTED TO MAINTAIN OUR ROADS AND BRIDGES. THEY WILL USE THE ROADS, BUT WILL NOT PAY FOR THEIR MAINTENANCE!
In case you were thinking of buying hybrid or an electric car...
Ever since the advent of electric cars, the REAL cost per mile of those things has never been discussed. All you ever heard was the mpg in terms of gasoline, with nary a mention of the cost of electricity to run it.
Electricity has to be one of the least efficient ways to power things, yet they're being shoved down our throats. Glad somebody finally put engineering and math to paper.
.
If you really intend to adopt electric vehicles, you will face certain realities. For example, a home charging system for a Tesla requires 75 amp service. The average house is equipped with 100 amp service. On a small street (approximately 25 homes), the electrical infrastructure would be unable to carry more than three houses with a single Tesla each. For even half the homes to have electric vehicles, the system would be wildly over-loaded.
This is the elephant in the room with electric vehicles. Our residential infrastructure cannot bear the load. So, as our genius elected officials promote this nonsense, not only are we being urged to buy these things and replace our reliable, cheap generating systems with expensive new windmills and solar cells, but we will also have to renovate our entire delivery system! This later "investment" will not be revealed until we're so far down this dead end road that it will be presented with an 'OOPS...!' and a shrug.
If you want to argue with a green person over cars that are eco-friendly, just read the following. Note: If you ARE a green person, read it anyway. It's enlightening.
Eric test drove the Chevy Volt at the invitation of General Motors and he writes, "For four days in a row, the fully charged battery lasted only 25 miles before the Volt switched to the reserve gasoline engine." Eric calculated the car got 30 mpg including the 25 miles it ran on the battery. So, the range including the 9-gallon gas tank and the 16 kwh battery is approximately 270 miles.
It will take you 4.5 hours to drive 270 miles at 60 mph. Then add 10 hours to charge the battery and you have a total trip time of 14.5 hours. In a typical road trip your average speed (including charging time) would be 20 mph.
According to General Motors, the Volt battery holds 16 kwh of electricity. It takes a full 10 hours to charge a drained battery. The cost for the electricity to charge the Volt is never mentioned, so I looked up what I pay for electricity.
I pay approximately (it varies with amount used and the seasons) $1.16 per kwh. 16 kwh x $1.16 per kwh = $18.56 to charge the battery. $18.56 per charge divided by 25 miles = $0.74 per mile to operate the Volt using the battery. Compare this to a similar size car with a gasoline engine that gets only 32 mpg. $3.19 per gallon divided by 32 Mpg = $0.10 per mile.
The gasoline powered car costs about $25,000 while the Volt costs $46,000 plus. So the Canadian Government wants loyal Canadians not to do the math, but simply pay twice as much for a car, that costs more than seven times as much to run, and takes three times longer to drive across the country.
WAKE UP NORTH AMERICA!!!!!!!
UPDATE to those critical of the post:
I simply shared something written by someone else because it's food for thought. Arithmetic inaccuracies or not, there is great cause for concern and investigation into the long term effects of decisions re EVs that are being made for us, regarding our energy and our means of transport. It seems many are interested in this. My FB posts usually get either zero reactions, or at best, a mere handful of responses. This one triggered over 1 thousand responses! PS if a war action means an attack on electric grids, ALL of us will be grounded. Stuck in one place with no food. There is some more "food for thought." never mind the $ of kilowats....
You can in HawaiiI don't see a link.
Stored? Storage solutions can't possibly power for more than an hour.
You cannot run a power grid off solar.
Tl;drAs an engineer I love electric vehicle technology However, I have been troubled by the fact that the electrical energy to keep the batteries charged has to come from the grid, and that means more power generation and a huge increase in the distribution infrastructure. Whether generated from coal, gas, oil, wind or sun, installed generation capacity is limited.
IF ELECTRIC CARS DO NOT USE GASOLINE, THEY WILL NOT BE PAYING A GASOLINE TAX ON EVERY GALLON SOLD FOR AUTOMOBILES, WHICH WAS ENACTED TO MAINTAIN OUR ROADS AND BRIDGES. THEY WILL USE THE ROADS, BUT WILL NOT PAY FOR THEIR MAINTENANCE!
In case you were thinking of buying hybrid or an electric car...
Ever since the advent of electric cars, the REAL cost per mile of those things has never been discussed. All you ever heard was the mpg in terms of gasoline, with nary a mention of the cost of electricity to run it.
Electricity has to be one of the least efficient ways to power things, yet they're being shoved down our throats. Glad somebody finally put engineering and math to paper.
.
If you really intend to adopt electric vehicles, you will face certain realities. For example, a home charging system for a Tesla requires 75 amp service. The average house is equipped with 100 amp service. On a small street (approximately 25 homes), the electrical infrastructure would be unable to carry more than three houses with a single Tesla each. For even half the homes to have electric vehicles, the system would be wildly over-loaded.
This is the elephant in the room with electric vehicles. Our residential infrastructure cannot bear the load. So, as our genius elected officials promote this nonsense, not only are we being urged to buy these things and replace our reliable, cheap generating systems with expensive new windmills and solar cells, but we will also have to renovate our entire delivery system! This later "investment" will not be revealed until we're so far down this dead end road that it will be presented with an 'OOPS...!' and a shrug.
If you want to argue with a green person over cars that are eco-friendly, just read the following. Note: If you ARE a green person, read it anyway. It's enlightening.
Eric test drove the Chevy Volt at the invitation of General Motors and he writes, "For four days in a row, the fully charged battery lasted only 25 miles before the Volt switched to the reserve gasoline engine." Eric calculated the car got 30 mpg including the 25 miles it ran on the battery. So, the range including the 9-gallon gas tank and the 16 kwh battery is approximately 270 miles.
It will take you 4.5 hours to drive 270 miles at 60 mph. Then add 10 hours to charge the battery and you have a total trip time of 14.5 hours. In a typical road trip your average speed (including charging time) would be 20 mph.
According to General Motors, the Volt battery holds 16 kwh of electricity. It takes a full 10 hours to charge a drained battery. The cost for the electricity to charge the Volt is never mentioned, so I looked up what I pay for electricity.
I pay approximately (it varies with amount used and the seasons) $1.16 per kwh. 16 kwh x $1.16 per kwh = $18.56 to charge the battery. $18.56 per charge divided by 25 miles = $0.74 per mile to operate the Volt using the battery. Compare this to a similar size car with a gasoline engine that gets only 32 mpg. $3.19 per gallon divided by 32 Mpg = $0.10 per mile.
The gasoline powered car costs about $25,000 while the Volt costs $46,000 plus. So the Canadian Government wants loyal Canadians not to do the math, but simply pay twice as much for a car, that costs more than seven times as much to run, and takes three times longer to drive across the country.
WAKE UP NORTH AMERICA!!!!!!!
UPDATE to those critical of the post:
I simply shared something written by someone else because it's food for thought. Arithmetic inaccuracies or not, there is great cause for concern and investigation into the long term effects of decisions re EVs that are being made for us, regarding our energy and our means of transport. It seems many are interested in this. My FB posts usually get either zero reactions, or at best, a mere handful of responses. This one triggered over 1 thousand responses! PS if a war action means an attack on electric grids, ALL of us will be grounded. Stuck in one place with no food. There is some more "food for thought." never mind the $ of kilowats....
It would cost trillions to build that. And, we don't know if even have the raw materials on the planet to do it.NO?
Ever heard of Follow the Sun?
The earth receives far more solar energy than we need or consume.
If the political will existed we could power the world on solar.
Ever read Ringworld? Heard of a Dyson's Sphere?
Imagine the choking at the Energy companies upon hearing all power would now be free.
