EV thread
- Thread starter Apparition
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Right now transportation is roughly 1/3 of our energy use. Home 1/3. Business and industrial 1/3.
Home and industrial are split between electrical consumption and other fuels, like natural gas heating, fuel oil, etc.
But transportation is mostly gas or diesel. Transitioning 1/3 of the total energy consumption, while also limiting home and business alternatives and generating it by wind or solar is a tall ask. At least double the current grid if everyone also does home and business generation. To charge 4 EVs and home consumption from the grid would require new lines to the house and a new panel. Or my kids can just take the bus. If my whole neighborhood joins, new lines transformers into the neighborhood and new substations and more high voltage lines around the country. The politicians want the kids in a high rise with public transportation. Renewables are the stepping stone to nobody driving.
Industry will simply move to China and other areas without our laws, rules, and regulations. They will use coal and gas then ship the products to us. Industrial can't physically comply with zero carbon. The local foundry here had an electric arc furnace and they scheduled operation with the local utility. When they turned it on, it used as much power as a city of 300,000 people to make molten metal. Then they moved overseas. Same energy use to produce, just not here. More energy to ship materials back and forth around the globe.
So the only way to decarbon industry is to destroy consumption and not make stuff in the first place. A reverse industrial age, but leaving the people in the cities and using corporate and government controlled farming.
Home and industrial are split between electrical consumption and other fuels, like natural gas heating, fuel oil, etc.
But transportation is mostly gas or diesel. Transitioning 1/3 of the total energy consumption, while also limiting home and business alternatives and generating it by wind or solar is a tall ask. At least double the current grid if everyone also does home and business generation. To charge 4 EVs and home consumption from the grid would require new lines to the house and a new panel. Or my kids can just take the bus. If my whole neighborhood joins, new lines transformers into the neighborhood and new substations and more high voltage lines around the country. The politicians want the kids in a high rise with public transportation. Renewables are the stepping stone to nobody driving.
Industry will simply move to China and other areas without our laws, rules, and regulations. They will use coal and gas then ship the products to us. Industrial can't physically comply with zero carbon. The local foundry here had an electric arc furnace and they scheduled operation with the local utility. When they turned it on, it used as much power as a city of 300,000 people to make molten metal. Then they moved overseas. Same energy use to produce, just not here. More energy to ship materials back and forth around the globe.
So the only way to decarbon industry is to destroy consumption and not make stuff in the first place. A reverse industrial age, but leaving the people in the cities and using corporate and government controlled farming.
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TKFX
Member
I worry that we are going to see more deteriorated grid. I live on a very stable grid at the moment, but when I go to the farm I'm probably going off-grid, though I plan to hookup to our natural gas, though in the past there's always been a little bit of instability relying solely on nat gas.
I agree with mostly wanting a baseline amount of battery, except that when using battery to run tools and for mobility like golf carts, I'd rather have more battery, plus I think I can do lead acid for pretty cheap, but Li does have a mobility advantage IMO, especially in the south where it's mostly hot and rarely do we get crazy low temps that I couldn't protect batteries from. Plus I will most likely use "used" and leftover Li stuff at the moment which is priced very similarly to stuff like AGM, though I have a lot of stuff that I will have to actually build to resemble this price. I don't really know if the cost is there, but it's reasonably cheap and IMO it's good practice in understanding a massive Li battery world we're currently in. And the whole time I plan to try and compare it to lead acid for honest assessment and in fact I'm not sure they can't be mixed into a system of sorts for a best of both worlds strategy. Especially when doing stuff on a budget.
Ultimately I would like to be able to do something like this, but EVs are just priced beyond what I think is reasonable at the moment. However I might be looking too much at more expensive models than what I should be, but I really thinking something like EV UTVs might be the sweet spot for me. The closest I really see are used golf carts for the price/utility and I'm worried about not having good enough off-road capabilities for golf carts, though I'm pretty ignorant of golf carts.
At the moment I see more advantage in having a pretty good sized battery bank in my diesel truck that is mobile and can recharge the batteries pretty efficiently while driving, let alone utilizing solar or plugging into the house when parked.
Li cycling can be done so, especially on lighter demands that would last ~ 30 years I don't know the shelf life vs the lead acid shelf life. I see too much BS from all sides to honestly judge this anyway, but to test myself until I find a trusted source. This stuff gets so confusing because of all the different battery types and uses and chemistries, etc and I'm still ignorant on what's the best for my kind of specific situation.
If anyone is really that worried about the environment they should live in a house the size of a 60s family, own one EV, but bike to work anyway. No fast food, no electronics, etc. Skip out on the waste.
But since we own old crappy inefficient Jeeps, I assume most here don't care much other than some token jestures here and there. Toss some fast food wrappers in the recycle bin and call it a day.
But since we own old crappy inefficient Jeeps, I assume most here don't care much other than some token jestures here and there. Toss some fast food wrappers in the recycle bin and call it a day.
This is the part that annoys me. It's the obsession for all electric (I'm not gonna get started on hamstringing diesel). When we could have simpler vehicles based on all electric when there could be more focus on plug-in (diesel) hybrids where the engine is a dedicated on board generator with a substantially smaller battery on board.
I go back to the 3/4 and 1 tons that are not even close to being offered by EV and when they do the range is horrific. Get an on board generator and if you have 4 ~300hp motors, you'd have a pulling beast and you'd get your range from ideally a small diesel generator dedicated to keeping the battery charged during long trips. The darn EVs are already the weight of a pickup truck, let's make them more than a novelty and actually useful for towing. And since we're talking CO2, diesel emits less CO2 for the work it does than gas. Plus it doesn't have the issues with vapors, but hey somebody needs to use the gas, since otherwise it's a waste fuel.
It actually does help plants. Some of the carbon sequestration projects involve pumping it into greenhouses.
We do carbon sequestration projects too. The new bill in CA should help that side of the business.
But do you know how big of a greenhouse you need to reduce CO2? A little bigger than the earth at current consumption levels.
Water vapor is the largest greenhouse gas. So we should make the earth a desert to cool it.
I've worked on carbon sequestration and scrubbers and stuff a little over a decade ago and it took a lot of energy and effort to make this work. I worked mostly on scrubbers, there was a group using CO2 to grow algae and ultimately create bio diesel too. All pretty cool stuff, but on our budget it sucked, but we didn't have the waste heat either that probably could have been utilized to assist the process.
I'm a bit too lazy to do the math on how much plant life we would need to absorb x amount of CO2 and stuff, but I would think more plants might be a good thing in general. The biggest problem with all of this stuff is that we never know what we don't know. We may ultimately find a process where the new crisis is going to be Earth running out of CO2.
TKFX
Member
The problem with hybrids is that they are really hard to do right. You have to have all the hardware for a gas car, along with all the hardware required for a electric car. Then you have to package this all together. Once you figure that out, you need complicated software to manage both systems and have them work in tandem. Also we do have a lot of hybrids currently. It just sucks that most of them look so dam ugly, although my prius has grown on me.
If you decide to put in solar and batteries, the number one method of mitigating cost is not using as much electricity. Negative watts.
You'll save more money tossing out and replacing existing appliances with more efficient versions than building more solar. Put in more insulation, etc. Like I said, it's a rich man's game, not for the poor.
US households spend around 12% of their electrical consumption on "miscellaneous". It's the parasitic draw of all the electronics in the home, internet devices, the internet modems, stereos, appliances, TVs, etc that are never really off. Any device on your wifi when you go to sleep or are away from home is wasting power. Anything in standby or charging is doing the same. Cut down on electronics and put them on a power strip to unplug them. Do you really need a clock on everything in the house. It was the largest load growth category for utilities for a time as electronics and their little brick chargers exploded everywhere. LED lighting has taken some of the edge off, but houses keep getting bigger with more lights. Computers were also doubling the home and business world AC use due to the heat they put off. They acted like another person in every cube heat generation wise.
The EIA has a wealth of information. I submit reports to them monthly. So hopefully it does some good.
This is for home use, but the links on the page take you to different categories discussed.
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/use-of-energy/electricity-use-in-homes.php
You'll save more money tossing out and replacing existing appliances with more efficient versions than building more solar. Put in more insulation, etc. Like I said, it's a rich man's game, not for the poor.
US households spend around 12% of their electrical consumption on "miscellaneous". It's the parasitic draw of all the electronics in the home, internet devices, the internet modems, stereos, appliances, TVs, etc that are never really off. Any device on your wifi when you go to sleep or are away from home is wasting power. Anything in standby or charging is doing the same. Cut down on electronics and put them on a power strip to unplug them. Do you really need a clock on everything in the house. It was the largest load growth category for utilities for a time as electronics and their little brick chargers exploded everywhere. LED lighting has taken some of the edge off, but houses keep getting bigger with more lights. Computers were also doubling the home and business world AC use due to the heat they put off. They acted like another person in every cube heat generation wise.
The EIA has a wealth of information. I submit reports to them monthly. So hopefully it does some good.
This is for home use, but the links on the page take you to different categories discussed.
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/use-of-energy/electricity-use-in-homes.php
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We have a Prius and though it works fairly reliably it's too complicated IMO. We have a really hard time getting anyone to work on it without dealership prices which seem like they're pricing it so we just buy a new one. I want the engine to be there for the batteries and I want the batteries to be the fuel tank for motor(s).
For a small vehicle with limited range before our highways can turn into something resembling a train ie vehicles link together and move and in some form or fashion you hang out and the vehicle charges and you set your exit.
For larger vehicles or longer range vehicles, integrating a small engine and gen set is "simpler" IMO and pretty straightforward. The batteries are so expensive that that little gen set and tank is going to be roughly the same price as the batteries it replaces. If they can't figure out a $10k gen set and tank and wiring to charge the batteries then they need to get out of the auto business and for a large battery in a truck I think you'd need something in the neighborhood of a $30k or larger battery bank on board to get shitty range when towing. I couldn't imagine they couldn't cut $10k from that battery setup to integrate the gen set. Plus we're talking about engines that are going to run at certain RPMs so even emissions equipment can be tailored with specification, though I would prefer ditching some of the emissions stuff, but I know they won't let us. I'd also prefer if this was air cooled or maybe they could integrate all the cooling though maybe that's not a good idea. I don't know that much on batteries of this size and draw that's required.
Not to get too political...if that's still possible. But this is a valid solution most could get behind.
We would need advanced designs and fuel reprocessing. Plus we've been shipping all the nuclear fuel to Japan, Taiwan, and .... Russia, Russia, Russia.
https://www.france24.com/en/france/...nuclear-reactors-by-winter-amid-energy-crunch
It's 67% of their generation mix.
In the US, it should be 70-80%. Then convert trucking to LNG, use oil for plastics, diesel, and fuel oil for farming, construction, and airplanes. Let people chose electric, gas or diesel and hybrids.
Save the coal and oil for future generations. Though we need coke for metals.
Put a 1000-1200 MW nuclear unit in every population center of 1 million people for base load, US self reliant, zero CO2 power. Fill in with small and large scale renewables, and natural gas for fluctuations.
We would need advanced designs and fuel reprocessing. Plus we've been shipping all the nuclear fuel to Japan, Taiwan, and .... Russia, Russia, Russia.
https://www.france24.com/en/france/...nuclear-reactors-by-winter-amid-energy-crunch
It's 67% of their generation mix.
In the US, it should be 70-80%. Then convert trucking to LNG, use oil for plastics, diesel, and fuel oil for farming, construction, and airplanes. Let people chose electric, gas or diesel and hybrids.
Save the coal and oil for future generations. Though we need coke for metals.
Put a 1000-1200 MW nuclear unit in every population center of 1 million people for base load, US self reliant, zero CO2 power. Fill in with small and large scale renewables, and natural gas for fluctuations.
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We definitely need to go nuclear power to actually clean up commonly accepted pollutants, that's a good step in the right direction.
OP
Not the article that goes with the Meme but it still supports what the meme is saying. Not good for the EV truck market.
https://www.westernjournal.com/jour...&utm_content=2022-08-03&utm_campaign=topdaily
Truck on left New Ford Lightning electric truck, full charge pulling a 6,000 lb trailer got only 86 miles even though the Fords computer said in the beginning 167 miles before recharging and was at 9% at the end of 80 miles. Plus, panicking and he was freaking out to find a charging station. Truck on right new GMC ultimate gasoline. Both had exact same tire pressure both had A/C set at 70 the GMC had a range of 280 miles on 24 gallons of fuel, and had hands free driving even pulling trailer, and heads up display. Pulling exact same trailers. The GMC still had a little over 3/4 of a tank at the 86 miles. So, tell me why in the hell would I want an electric vehicle! It takes about 7 min to refill the GMC and hours to charge the Ford. Screw that horse shit!
https://www.westernjournal.com/jour...&utm_content=2022-08-03&utm_campaign=topdaily
Truck on left New Ford Lightning electric truck, full charge pulling a 6,000 lb trailer got only 86 miles even though the Fords computer said in the beginning 167 miles before recharging and was at 9% at the end of 80 miles. Plus, panicking and he was freaking out to find a charging station. Truck on right new GMC ultimate gasoline. Both had exact same tire pressure both had A/C set at 70 the GMC had a range of 280 miles on 24 gallons of fuel, and had hands free driving even pulling trailer, and heads up display. Pulling exact same trailers. The GMC still had a little over 3/4 of a tank at the 86 miles. So, tell me why in the hell would I want an electric vehicle! It takes about 7 min to refill the GMC and hours to charge the Ford. Screw that horse shit!
It's very usage dependent for sure. It's unlikely long haul trucking will go EV any time soon - but that doesn't mean no one else should consider it if it works for what they need.
I'm not a big EV fan as of yet but also don't knock others for having one. My son just got a BMW EV for his commute and if I was commuting to work I might be looking at one also. But I've also been down the road where I was attempting to get a fuel efficient vehicle and bought a smaller sedan. Then the first time I tried to load it up and take the family camping it was a FAIL. So I went out and bought a truck and kept the econbox for the wife.
I'm glad they are working on this technology and hope it one day does become more of a norm. As many have commented I do not like being forced. Same with most things, if you're shoving it down my throat than I'm likely not guunna take to well it & WA is foolish enough to be following in CA footsteps with ICE ban.