New electric vehicles have big fat batteries, which will help solve the problem known as “charge anxiety” (let’s call that the Flat-Bat-Fear).
The new fat-batteries, however, have the small catch that they need two days to trickle charge. Hmm. Then there is the other catch that each slow charger (7kW) is equivalent to adding nearly three houses to the grid. Our Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg predicts there will be one million electric cars on Australian roads by 2030.
You might think this is slow motion train wreck, but we might avoid this if households opt for fast 50kW chargers. In that case we can do the train-wreck at top speed.
Each fast charger will apparently be “like” adding the equivalent of 20, count them, 20 homes.
This is fearmongering obviously — no one is going to want a fast charger when they could leave the car in the garage for 48 hours instead.
New Zealand report claims new generation electric vehicles threaten the power network
Ben Packham, The Australian
New Zealand’s biggest energy distributor, Vector, warned electric vehicle chargers “put a large electrical load on the network”, with even 2.4kW “trickle” chargers adding the equivalent of one additional home to the grid.
Vector’s electric vehicle network integration green paper said the shift to larger batteries would encourage drivers to opt for faster chargers, to avoid a two-day charge. A “slow” 7kW charger would add the equivalent of 2.8 homes to the grid, while a “rapid” 50kW charger would add the equivalent of 20 homes.
It said New Zealand’s power grid could require a $NZ530 million ($500m) upgrade if 7kW chargers were used, and one in four cars on the road were electric vehicles.
Can someone calculate the cost per EV in NZ? Thanks…
https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/tesla-without-any-doubt-is-on-the-verge-of-bankruptcy-23219/
190
Those in the know, have always recognized that Tesla was launched as a concept, backed by the emotional salesmanship of the founder; and continued to operate on emotional credit, thereafter.
Emotional Credits are created, when a diverse group of people latch onto an idea that appears to be new, and extremely cool, and potentially lucrative, all at the same time. Many will get so emotionally involved, that they will continue to invest. What the gamblers refer to as “doubling-down”.
It is an ego thing. Find enough people who are prepared to buy into the dream, then you might get a sufficient ground-swell to attract enough investment to make it fly.
That literally worked for the Wright Brothers, although they were generally one step away from insolvency, and made little or no income from their endeavors.
In the Tesla case, investments were made by financial third parties, based on the concept and the demonstrations of a prototype.
But, although it may be a good idea, and Mr Musk may be a great salesman, it is now starting to appears to be that his idea was at the wrong time, and in the wrong place, and for the wrong reasons.
80
‘Well, Mr Musk,
as the song goes,
‘It’s the wrong time,
and the wrong place,’ ‘
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmMujxJNYj8
20
Sounds like the description of “groupthink”.
10
There were 3.7 million vehicles in NXZ in 2014, so I expect there are about 4 million now. So if 25% were electric,the upgrade of Transpower and the networks alone would cos $530 per vehicle.
111
Anyone know the drain rate on an EV that goes nowhere? I assume it uses power even when turned off. The charging losses would need to be included.
50
Not sure. Depends on the battery design. Rest assured though, even when you remove your lithium battery from your phone, it loses charge AND, will still only be serviceable for a certain number of years (usually 10 max) before it tires and needs replacing. Mine’s now 9 years old and powers my phone for a max of 3 days UNUSED. It used to last 2 weeks when new. It’s the nature of chemical storage.
Has anyone figured out the cost of a replacement EV battery pack? Bet it’s massive and would require that investment every 10 years. By then, all cars would be using the far more effective hydrogen cell.
Transportation powered by battery alone is a pie in the sky and delivery of Amazon products by remote-controlled drone will be grounded.
Anyone that’s spent minimal time messing with battery-powered model cars or planes know the proponents of such grandiose schemes have their heads full of rocks.
70
All electric cars make no sense at all. More CO2 than normal cars. Two days to charge the latest Audi.
Hybrids however are the best of both worlds, but for some reason all electric appeals to the virtue signallers.
Why anyone thinks a car which takes all night, even two days to charge is a good idea is beyond comprehension.
Worse, they are as good for the grid as windmills and now politicians want the people of Australia to subsidize them to the tune of $7,000 a car? Why?
371
And all the
sheeppoliticians marched round bleating 2 batteries bad, 4 batteries good.290
TdeF;
Why do politicians (and their PS advisers) want to subsidize electric cars?
well, firstly electric cars are only good for short distances. Try to think of a compact city with excellent roads and not much traffic problems.
Secondly, at present electric cars are expensive so only those with high incomes can afford to buy them. Now where in Australia would those conditions apply?
Changing? the subject: “The Department of Social Services spends $5,500m every year just in admin costs. Again, an average of over $160,000 per employee – and they’re not even the worst offenders. The Federal Department of Health employs 4500 people, costing $222,000 each. That’s a big number, especially since health spending is largely a state government remit. Then, finally, we have the Department of Foreign Affairs, whose 7000-plus employees cost taxpayers $240,000 each”
331
These are amazing numbers.
91
I have read that there are 10,000 bureaucrats in Brussels who earn more than the British PM. This is madness, public servants the new princes of the realm.
300
Not in Junee:
https://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/Files/Electricity/NEM/Planning_and_Forecasting/ISP/2018/Round-2-Submissions/Dennis-Lambert—AEMO-ISP-response.pdf
This is possibility the most telling submission to the AEMO ISP request for submissions. Read it and weep.
180
“Secondly, at present electric cars are expensive so only those with high incomes can afford to buy them”
Taxpayers subsidizing the wealthy. NOW, WHO WOULD THE SUPPORTERS OF SUCH A POLICY BE.
170
Washington Post comes out against subsidized EVs.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/all-those-fancy-electric-cars-you-helped-pay-for-them/2018/03/25/c3a15490-2623-11e8-b79d-f3d931db7f68_story.html?utm_term=.ed6f2f3182dd
20
$100 million of taxpayer’s monies handed over to private enterprise Macquarie Bank Leasing to promote Electric Vehicles …
https://premium.goauto.com.au/evs-get-cheaper/
62
“The goal, said federal energy minister Josh Frydenberg, was to put Australia one step closer to meeting its Paris Agreement signed in April 2016 to reduce carbon-dioxide levels by 28 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030.”
Has no one told Frydanegg that by the time an EV is charged with coal based electricity and then run flat again it will have caused the discharge of more CO2 than a petrol or diesel car?
No? Thought not!
160
Ah …Socialists…dontcha love ’em…..busy tearing down capitalism….
40
Hybrid cars are good for company car users as they get massive tax breaks (in the UK, anyway). The bigger and more expensive the car, the better. For the rest of us, they’re not so good. We have to pay for their subsidies, the highways suffer from the effects of heavier vehicles and the atmosphere from increased particulate from road and tyre wear.
00
The charge rate is a bit misleading as the total charge required is only what was used since the last charge and would in most cases be less than the total battery capacity. There will certainly be a requirement for significant upgrading of the residential distribution network with the addition of charge scheduling to avoid all the superchargers coming online as everybody arrives home.
So the virtue signalers can join the lottery as to how long before they can use the EV again and how far it will go in a power rationed and scheduled future.
80
Hopefully there will be time-delay dials built into home-based charging cables, to spread out the drain on the grid.
00
Nah, all managed by the smart meter, they can do everything apparently. The retailers are just doing a good job of disguising and hiding the benefits, because sun spots or aliens.
00
Toyota Prius software fix may reduce fuel efficiency, experts say
Just six months after buying the new 2013 Prius, Enger learned that the company was recalling it to fix the car’s hybrid electrical system, which was overheating and frying itself.
http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-fi-toyota-prius-defect-20180218-story.html
50
The charging times are way too long for electric cars to become the norm. One possible solution is the use of super capacitors but they have their limitations. One company is toying with the idea of using both to achieve the best of both worlds. Trouble is the computer management and electronics are so complex the risk of something going dreadfully wrong, such as an explosion is too high. I have little doubt that eventually electric cars will become the norm but not for some time yet. When they do we better have much more base load power generation systems (ie, more coal and/or nuclear).
91
That won’t solve the problem of grid capacity – the faster charge rates it will make it much worse.
190
Not a problem, the Minister is a lawyer.
53
Not if we had more coal fired power stations and nuclear ones to boot distributed throughout the nation as do most other nations of significant population sizes. The ridiculous situation we have now is there are no coal fired power stations in SA and if the trend continues there will be none in Victoria either. The skew in the distribution of base load power here in Australia should be ringing alarm bells but as usual not many people care. Bend over Australia; soon it will be time to be kicked hard to be woken up.
120
As usual, even the anti electric car collective are blatantly unaware of the other huge cost and it is to the environment,…..namely….the waste chemicals left after processing vast quantities of rare earth elements and the like exceed anything that can be imagined.
Electric cars should be banned merely on the basis that the manufacturing process of many of its parts are too toxic for the environment to cope with.
I continue to be skeptical about our ability to weigh up the harmful factors that affect the environment.
210
You understate the problem. My understanding is that we have no practical cost effective way to recycle Lithium and the currently plan is to “just bury it”.
“I continue to be skeptical about our ability to weigh up the harmful factors that affect the environment.” I totally agree. Possibly we need to turn up the thermostat on the sun
70
That reminds me of a time when the HUGE vertically integrated oil and gas company I worked for maintained that methane is a perfect fuel because over teh course of human history the progression of fuels conatined less carbon and more hydrogen. i.e. wood,coal, oil, natural gas; ever closer to pure hydrogen.
I remarked that the solution was therefore simple; we could simply build a pipeline from the sun!
00
I agree with the current problems with batteries and so I’m not interested in current battery technologies since they are for starters too slow to charge. Electric cars are very likely the way of the future, just as electric trains already are. The question is what will be used to store the power to allow cars to be mobile. Time will tell.
10
Prey tell, where is there a connection between cars and trains. One travels on expensive dedicated lines where the driver can’t pull off for a burger and coffee. The other can go to a secluded picnic spot, no worries.
00
I find it hard to get wound up about the charging time thing. Most of these cars will be city runabouts, they will get partially charged and discharged all the time (probably a good thing while the base is Lion). The fact it takes X hours/day to charge will just be an interesting factoid, and only of interest to the brave few who venture outside the metro area.
The fact remains that whatever the charging time there will be mass concurrent recharging required. You can expect the fantasists to come out with the idea that everyone can physically and financially also plump for solar/battery installations to power these things with little or no grid impact. After a few weeks when this dose of reality goes away we will probably again see the stories of how people will actually power their houses from their car batteries. The average punter is going to be lead up the garden path of unrealistic expectations once again.
80
Not to mention that the grid can be boosted by the car batteries when it needs extra, as in the UK. Thus when the wind drops before dawn and everyone wants something hot for breakfast, then it is car batteries to the rescue. Of course when people come out to use their electic car and find it has been discharged they are not likely to be pleased.
50
And with the recent cold weather there, stating an EV on a freezing morning from a partially discharged battery is a big ask.
20
But they will not be hungry …….
01
Thats what we need! more optimism!!
10
The UK National Grid seem to think that mass take-up of electric cars won’t be a problem:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5551725/Ban-new-petrol-diesel-cars-ten-years-earlier-says-National-Grid-boss.html
The comments, so far, are pretty scathing..
120
I often wondered what the Elite would do once there was sufficient penetration of Climate Change Scepticism into the population – now I know. – their old trick of completely upping the ante to a new level – by overturning the games table they have been playing at, and losing.
So, now that the people know climate change is BS, the Elite in sheer panic are now mandating electric vehicles to try and crash our economy, so now the ( night) stick approach is being used, instead of the carrot.
This is desperate stuff, so lets keep exposing the nonsense , and how the grid will not cope and point out its the best way the gummint so far has come up with to trash our economy by creating an impossible requirement.
Maybe its time to just demanding the resignation of any pollie who advocates climate nonsense, in particular anything that will crash our grid and make us vulnerable to *cough* foreign incursion……also called T*****n.
Being a constant source of irritation ( i.e. Truth ) is clearly working.
80
Yesterday’s 500+ comments in The Oz were just as scathing. Seems many folks are getting the message.
81
Thanks Joseph,
Nice to read that sort of news at No 1.
It could lead to a return to sanity sooner than we thought.
60
I did some rough calculations for a US state with fairly high electric use.
If the number of chargers (slow charges at 2.4 kW) on at a given time corresponded to 10% of the population, it would increase the demand by about 10% of the peak value. If vehicles simultaneously charging corresponeded to 50% of the population the addition would be about 50% of peak demand.
But this load would not hit during the peak so a lot of it could be easily accomadated with existing infrastructure. State population includes children and many others would would not have an electric vehicle. 50% of the population is more than one per household.
Secondly the charging will not be 100% coincident. I did seperate calculaitons for the fast charges, but at high speed charging the qoincidence will go down so for rough results the differeces between the two will not likely have significantly different impacts at this rough level of analysis.
The main point is that we are not likely to go from under 1% of the population having electric cars to 50% of the population having them in just a couple years. Planning for 6 to 7% growth in demand a year might be challenging, but its been done and was the normal for many areas for a while in the 90s. Lately efficency had slowed growth tremendously. Aggressive electric car growth “might” bring some area back to normal business in the 90s.
Other areas without significant electric heating or cooling loads may see more dramatic changes, but for many I think if such a trend developed it would not be problematic.
52
I sort of disagree with you on your figuring in that most people with an electric vehicle will plug it in as soon as possible after getting home from the last scheduled driving event. Reason being that they will want the maximum amount of charge possible in their battery when they start out the next day – I know I would. I doubt that others will be that different. We might park a car for the night with an 1/8th of a tank of gas, but we can fill it at anytime after we start up in the morning. In other words, the vehicles will be going on the grid during maximum demand time, not afterwards.
The part that gets me is the comment about a charger that is going to take 2 days to charge the battery is like adding another house to the grid. If the average person is paying $100 a month for electricity, then the minimum cost of the vehicle would be $100 a month to drive. I drive 340 miles a week just on the commute, plus other “around town” miles, and the gasoline costs me less than $100 a month – my light bill also isn’t $100 a month, but I tend to be “frugal” when it comes to electrical usage. It would seem that the cost to the owner of these vehicles, not to mention the subsidies paid and the increase in cost of the electricity as a control to demand, would be enough to make your head spin. Probably wrong in my thinking there.
170
Good point Tom O. I’m not a booster for electric cars and I think they will have many problems to the extent their adoption is “forced”. Forcing without a full consideration of all factors is a dangerous thing to do.
I would take the position that if electric car use is allowed to grow “organically” (without mandates/subsidies) the power grid will not be excessively challanged. If a transition to electric is part of a grand societal push that forces dramatic (unwarranted) change there will be many problems.
With “organic” growth rates if technological changes support considerable expansion of electric vehicles, utilities can employee schemes to “schedule” charging through time or use rates or other methodsthat spread out demand. I think your observation is more important to the degree the transition is forced/accelerated. But overall in the grand scheme of things I don’t think the utilties ability to accomadate the load is as important as many other factors.
90
Since when did the “we are brilliant and take everything into account” planners actually take everything into account. Once, they may have taken everything they knew into account but discovered that they knew only a fraction of what they needed to know. Now, they only take into account the politically correct things to take into account. Some (most) of which are inconsistent with what actually needs to be taken into account.
This is reason 2398 for why the really important decisions MUST be left to the people who will pay for bad decisions and not some distant arrogant unaccountable “expert” who will get paid no matter what the outcome. Especially those who get paid from the, presumed to be unlimited, pile of extorted wealth called taxes and deficit spending.
Heavy handed top down command and control (aka planning) never works even for those who have the power to force the plan to be implemented. Otherwise, why would would “they” keep doing more of the same until the civilization collapses. That is unless the collapse of civilization IS their ultimate goal. Which I believe it is. No matter what they say, they DON’T mean well. It is simply inconsistent with the consequences of their so called planning. It never ever works out as promised. See 1,000,000 years of humanoid political history for instructive detail and particularly look at the 20th century.
I say keep your planning limited to your OWN life and wealth and leave everyone else alone! I don’t plan your life at your expense or even mine so don’t plan my life for any reason whatsoever.
210
Very true. Despite doing an apparently important census periodicaly, and despite armies of public servants analysing and reporting on the data, and despite having long term plans and budgets. We are rarely ahead of the infrastructure curve, with most things being bulit only when the need is dire and construction will cause the most mayhem.
When you roll this natural tendency with the wishful thining and fairy dust surrounding renewables and EVs, it becomes an almost inevitable train wreck sadly.
60
Lionel, that they mean us harm is my thoughts as well. For some years I have held out on this site that the powers that be hold to an Occult religion dedicated to trashing the world and reducing world population. If you study their writings ( they do exist ) its very clear they are happy to force our faces into a trough of dung and tell us to inhale, to protect thier mythical “Gaia”. They are also very clear in that they are happy in “eliminating” those who wont go along with their insane plan and consider it a “benevolent” thing to do.
It is what it is. We have on one hand mankind just wanting to live and let live, and the elite composed of murderous dark-arts practicing psychopaths…..what a mess……
50
Lionell – I agree with the sentiments of your post as regards planning. I’m not sure where you are targeting your criticisms of planning. In planning the grid we often find unanticipated effects and impacts associated with change. We tend not to assume we know it all andn allow conisderable margin. We make our plans, modify and correct and generally “muddle through” as the world changes. My take is that if electric vehicles grow consistent with technological improvments (as opposed to mandates) utility planners will be able to muddle through much as we have in the past to assure a responsive economic and reliable grid. When looking as to whether or not electric cars make sense, fears of grid inadequacy are a lower concern than many other pressing issues.
20
And new TL and generating sources havelong lead times. You had better hope someone is planning to meet the needs of your area.
00
Hope is not a strategy. Wishing is not a tactic. “They” are planning. Of that I am certain. There is no limit to the plans. Plans are stupid easy to make. Setting the right goal for the plan is much more difficult. The implementation and ultimate success of the plan is the really hard part. This is because reality is intimately involved with implementation while only wishing is necessary for plans and goals.
If the plans are according to the present day political correctness, they WILL fail catastrophically at a huge cost of lives and wealth. This is painfully evident, if not admitted, where ever it has been attempted. If the plans are realistic and incremental with the goal of providing reliable low cost electricity, they are likely to be successful. If the goal is to reduce our so called “carbon” footprint, no good will come from them. At least not judged by the standard of human flourishing.
80
My old boss said to me once, when I was expressing concern about the reality of our annual budget vs the work we knew was coming….”dont ever confuse our budgets and plans with what really happens” the whole planing and budgetting process was just management theatre.
80
I think the trick is to expose the “king makers” behind the scenes.
Politicians are like brake pads – they are consumed and then discarded when no longer useful.
The Elite use the same tactic – let the pollie puppets cop the heat by a ( generally ) clueless public, while the real culprits skulk in the shadows, pulling the strings.
Its the king makers we need to shine the sunlight on and show who they are, so the blame is correctly applied…..
80
Large systems that work are built of small systems that work. A large number of small incremental steps are taken to make sure they actually do work. Even then, the transition from less complex to more complex is done with great care and respect for the likelihood of unintended consequences. The steps are intentionally made small to keep the unintended consequences small and acceptable.
Acceptable to whom? It depends. When your plans go wrong, what then? What do you do? Who pays?
Grand Plans and Giant Leaps forward always fail! Even by the judgement of the planners. The switch to an all electric green future is one such Grand Plan and anticipated Giant Leap forward. When it fails, and it will, it will fail catastrophically. The ultimate reason is that it is inconsistent with reality and how things work out in that reality.
If the so called planners are not held personally responsible for every failure along the way. In a “politically correct” environment this NEVER happens. The planners had “good intentions”. The consequences of their plans will be said to be caused by someone or something other than their Grand Plan. The result will be to double down on “The Plan” and do more of the same with ever larger failures until they give up on their “Plan” or the civilization collapses. Since “The Plan” had noble intentions, “The Plan” is among the last few things that collapse. As long as someone else pays, this is what ALWAYS happens.
The major blind spot in our current situation is that everyone has skin in the game but try to pretend as if that isn’t the case. The almost universal claim is “Who am I to know?” and “They know best.” The reality is that if you are alive and want to stay alive, it is your responsibly to know. Further, “they” don’t and can’t know best. Behind it all is a huge game of “let’s pretend”. The major pretense is that reality will follow the game if enough of us wish hard enough.
Reality is what it is and wishes are irrelevant to it. Actions have consequences and the intent behind the action is irrelevant for the consequence. Unless this becomes generally accepted, we will continue with our mass delusions that “they” know what they are doing with catastrophic consequences to one and all.
100
It escapes my why there even needs to be a discussion about this. I’m no engineer at all, really folks, a software engineer engineers nothing, it’s an art if it’s anything, not a science. But I understand the problem better than all the proponents of electric vehicles in the world. I understand the problem better than all the battery experts in the world as well. I even understand it better than all the entrepreneurs who push this stuff in the hope of duping the public and getting rich before the whole thing collapses. And all I ever did was study physics, chemistry and math and manage to pass all 3 subjects.
It is simplicity to understand. 1 + 1 = only 2, not millions of electric cars on the road.
It takes power from the grid to recharge the battery and this is true no matter what the battery technology or what the car is. For every watt of power you get from your power grid there must be a generator turning somewhere to make the current flow and it must be turning at the time you demand the power. I don’t care if it’s AC, DC single phase or 3 phase. I don’t care if the voltage is 1.5, 120, 240 or half a million. And only 3 basic things will turn a generator: falling water; burning some kind of fuel; nuclear energy. You may find some others in limited quantities but they can’t run anything in useful quantity.
So we will have all these electric cars not running on power not generated by burning some kind of fuel because that’s destroying the Earth. Or we will have all these electric cars not running on power not generated by nuclear plants because of course everyone is afraid of nuclear like it was the plague. Or we will have a limited number of them powered by falling water because we have some of that but will not add any new plants because good dam sites are hard to find these days and, opps, they aren’t in favor either.
So maybe your electric car will not run at all because of palin old failure to be able to add 1 + 1 and get the right answer, 2.
120
If I’m wrong and you really can get blood out of a turnip, someone please tell me what my mistake is.
20
Roy, If you were a software engineer in the 1960s, you will remember that old flowchart which was hanging around application development areas. It had a web of joined actions leading to a central activity labelled “THEN A MIRACLE HAPPENS”
It is just history repeating itself.
30
They hope, don’t they? But for sure the truth ain’t gonna change.
20
This one?
https://www.google.com/search?q=project+management+cartoon+miracle&client=firefox-b&sa=X&biw=1337&bih=904&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=AMmWnyLxyYZ8IM%253A%252CHcXv5keEsU4F6M%252C_&usg=__-m_QITC_agpa2m8VrLIUovDkdng%3D&ved=0ahUKEwic4YaN1pLaAhWDfLwKHZ5sBwcQ9QEIMzAE#imgrc=_5t0SP5ypFXQ9M:
10
I will agree to the extent that most things called software engineering are more properly called “winging it by keeping the pieces small” rather than by acting using basic scientific and logical principals to produce a useful and usable work product with minimum resources, cost, time, and effort. While at the same time minimizing the insertion of errors of implementation – aka bugs.
In fact if one uses the perspective that software is fundamentally the same as hardware without the overhead and risk of soldering the wires to connect the components, engineering is possible. You can design the system and the work process to produce it with clarity and intention to produce a working end product that people want to use and are willing to pay for. THIS specifies engineering in any of its many disciplines.
Thus software engineering can exist just as civil engineering exists and the two can have much in common. They are both products of the mind created based upon a clearly understood purpose. Most of the work is equally conceptual. They are different in that the artifact called software is a process while civil engineering creates physical artifacts that are functional parts of a process. Which came first, the process or the physical artifact? In every case, the process!
In either case “winging it” doesn’t work so well and the failures can be similarly catastrophic. Buildings can fall, bridges can collapse, people can die if the software fails just as much as with a failure in wall or wing design.
The basic error is in thinking that the products of the mind are “nothing”. Yet everything that exists that man uses for any purpose, is a product of the mind first. Even if only to the extent that a rock is seen as a usable hammer and is thereby used as a hammer. In a very real sense, hammer engineering was involved and quite amenable to incremental improvement as any engineered artifact.
00
Lionell,
I won’t disagree with you because your argument makes sense. However, go to any bookstore where you would hope to find books telling you how to develop software and look at the different methodologies, the differing opinions about how to do it.
My bet is that you’ll find a number of books and what they’ll have to say on the subject will look like disjoint sets.
I think that if I carefully wrote up, validated and reviewed with the end user, a set of specifications for even a straightforward application and gave that to two different good sound software engineers and specified the language to be used, C++ just as an example, so I could compare the results. At the end I would get two programs that worked but if I looked at the code I would find almost nothing in common between them because there are so many ways to organize and implement the innards of even the straightforward app I’m talking about. Even naming conventions that two programmers would prefer to use might have nothing in common with each other.
I found this over and over when working with another software engineer to implement parts of the same overall system. He was very good at his job and I at mine. But we had to leave ourselves room to do the internal stuff our own way and we specified the interface between our parts of it very carefully so one would talk to the other without trouble. We worked well with each other because we compartmentalised our separate responsibilities leaving only a well defined interface where there could be any problem. And if there was a problem it would be easy to fix. And that’s the world of software development.
If I was building a bridge I could specify the type of bridge I wanted (equivalent to the specs for the software app), let’s say a suspension bridge like the Golden Gate Bridge and gave that to two equally qualified construction companies I would find the results comparable with differences only in small details. But that just doesn’t hold for software.
00
My comment is based more on how I perceive “human nature.” I recognize that the utilities can make it more attractive to “plug in” at different times, but human nature is to want to see that it is done now. If it takes, on average, say, 5 hours to top up the batteries so you leave the house with a full charge, do you really think people are going to set an alarm clock to get up in the middle of the night to “plug in” because they will save 5 cents a kilowatt hour? I don’t think so, they will do it as soon as possible “in case something happens to the power.”
When you have a limited range which is enforced by battery capacity, you can’t afford to say “aw, it’s half charged, I won’t have a problem driving the 30 mile round trip.” After all, there aren’t going to thousands of places to “plug in” should you need a quick hit to get home. There will be an instinctive desire to “play it safe, get a full charge before I leave,” and it will be as soon as possible for peace of mind. And again, that will be in the 4 to 9 hour span when demand is probably as high as it is going to get.
And I don’t see that being an “every other day” sort of thing because battery capacity allows that. I think it will be an everyday thing because 1.) even in the US, you are not guaranteed that the power will be on 24/7/365, and 2.) the lower the initial charge in the battery, the longer it is going to take to top it up, so that “every other day” still requires plugging it in as soon as you get home because it will take twice as long to charge.
10
Tom O:
I can’t help with a pure electric car cost but a Mitsubishi Outlander hybrid used as an electric will run 33 miles (52 kilometres) on one charge. It has a 12.0 kWh Li-ion battery. Assuming that it isn’t discharged more than 80% that is 9.6kWh for the distance.
With the local “World’s most expensive” electricity in SA that is A$0.14 per mile ($A0.09 per kilometre). You would get lower cost with your cheaper electricity, as would apply off-peak ( $0.05 per kilometre).
Recharge time is given as 8.0 hours using 120V – 12 A and 3.5 hours if you have 240V-30A.
By comparison I calculate my Toyota Corolla costs me about $0.04 fuel cost per kilometre, and I fill up at the local service station about 300metres away. I don’t have to worry about the reduced efficiency in cold weather that the battery has.
90
Ouch, never do calculations in the early morning when you can’t sleep, or you’ll mix units.
My Corolla costs me A$0.09 in fuel per kilometre. So is fractionly more expensive than the Outlander in electric mode. Possibly the supposed savings for the electric are offset by it being over twice the weight.
Sorry for the blunder.
40
All good…now what about battery powered Kasselbohrers for snow grooming in the ski resorts?
Could make an amusing sight, the sparks being towed off the mountain by diesels…..
10
That 33 mile range would keep me from using it, along with at what speed can you get that long a drive? We have similar sized areas to live in, unlike the Europeans that live on a “continent” that probably is smaller than Australia, but with a lot more people packed in. Most of the “thinking” that comes out about electric cars come from people that think like Europeans, where everything is next door, and public transportation has been a way of life for a century or more.
An example of that “thinking” was friends of my sister went to Maine to visit her from Germany. They were going to be there for 3 or 4 days, and they thought they could see Niagara Falls and the Grand Canyon in the same day. Of course, it is a day’s drive from Maine to Niagara Falls, and 2000 miles further to the canyon.
People who think in terms of electric cars are thinking in terms of a city sitting on a square mile and everything you need within that block, and you never want to see anything else. You probably can drive from northern Germany to Rome in little more time than it takes to drive across Texas, maybe less.
10
And there is a back story to the Vector report. In NZ there is a low fixed charge regime available to lower electricity users, and even standard tariffs for residential users tend to have fixed charges below the ~50% of actual cost.
That and time of day charging just emerging means the incentives to charge off-peak are limited (and both the apparent cost of EV ownership and the value of PV are exaggerated). However with more cost reflective tariffs the existing distribution system can probably cope for the next decade without significant upgrading, and this is what Vector is seeking to achieve.
I should add that on the generation front there is also sufficient reasonably low cost known geothermal and consented wind in NZ to replace petrol as a fuel in the transport fleet, ~40PJ electricity to replace ~90PJ petrol.
The other thing Vector are concerned about is being able to manage the impact of multiple EVs, and they have a service in the market to solve this.
However most of this doesn’t apply to Oz where both supply and demand characteristics are quite different.
01
Electric cars might be a good thing. They are also of trivial importance. If they have a future it will not be as imported, heavy, expensive, slow-charging, fire-prone drains on the power grid. Like the whirlygigs and solar arrays, they have a place and that place is not the mainstream.
All the money frittered on promoting this trivial niche tech should be spent on mass transit systems which are kept cheap by subsidy, operate with speed and frequency and which do not compete with traffic. Proper metro systems in all cities will reduce demand for imported fuel and make best use of our coal while freeing up the roads for motor vehicles. Such a system is not cheap and does not pay for itself directly. But when something is a) necessary and b) works you don’t fret. You build it. Instead of visionary plans for servicing Western as opposed to foundational Sydney you have a transport system which makes the ten-mile distinction irrelevant.
Mandating troublesome electric cars and building light rail systems which actually obstruct traffic make for a globalist’s dream. Steering commuters to favoured commercial destinations rather than their homes is crony capitalism which increases the frustrations of commuting. Adding energy poverty to all that frustration is a globalist’s wet dream. You may say Josh is a dreamer…and he’s not the only one.
140
Naah! Let’s just build a stadium instead.
Tony.
140
Well it worked for the Romans for a little while. It kept the people happy and dumb.
30
When I last went to the footy in Sydney it was to a game at Kogarah. (God was alert that night and St George beat Brissie, but that’s another subject.) The stadium and grounds were in superb nick, the local atmosphere was intoxicating.
The problem is that if I find myself in Sydney again there is every chance that the home game will be at some big stadium in a remote part of the city, thanks to financial lures which suburban clubs have difficulty refusing. As for jumping on a metro and getting to said stadium with one or two easy changes of line (as one can do in eg Paris from any spot)…forget it! But with so many fun suburban grounds mostly on old train lines why bother with the monster stadiums, especially when you already have a number of such?
Things like public transport do not need to pay for themselves. They just need to fulfil a basic function reliably but with thrift. (Singapore rules apply to abusers.) So much non-transport infrastructure becomes more usable when transport infrastructure is solid. And I’m not talking about destructive toys like Sydney’s light rail or its now dismantled predecessor, Wran’s farcical monorail. I’m talking about fair dinkum systems, mostly underground, with plenty of branches and stops so that people can go where they need to go at any time from any place. Cost a lot? If we can spend 60b and mounting on ready-sunk oiler subs (to compensate France for losing Russian contracts, Mal?) we can find a few bill for something that makes everyone’s life easier and runs on COAL.
Cars are great too. We need to get out of their way, and make them an option, not an obligation.
30
“Proper metro systems in all cities…”
In the 1950s in the city where I live in Northern Ohio in the US, there was a large, electric based mass transit system as well as a robust bus-based mass transit system. As people moved to the suburbs in the 1960s and 1970s, large parts of that system could not make money and closed. It still has a small electric based mass transit system and buses but it is under utilized. I think a lot of cities in the US went through this same transition and unless a lot of people move back to the cities, an expanded metro system will not make much sense for them.
40
Late in 2017 the Premier of New South Wales commented that public transport cost to operate for the Sydney network was double to revenue from passengers.
12
When I was a very young Rereke, living in London, we used to have milk delivered daily, to the door, by a man with a milk-float.
This was a small electrically driven truck, that carried the milk. It had a top speed of about 10 kph, but did have some underfloor cooling to keep the milk from going off.
Perhaps that is the solution. Limit the speed of electric vehicles to around 10 kph, to reduce the power drain of acceleration and the eventual stopping and starting.
This solution would also have the benefit of reducing the number of pedestrians and children (and aged persons) who get killed or injured on the roads each year.
21
Rereke:
Why not have them preceded by a man waving a green flag.
(Changed from the traditional red flag to avoid upsetting the bulls; there must be a lot of bulls wherever Greenies congregate).
20
The obvious problem with this is the resulting supply v demand power bill will still-birth the all-electric ‘revolution’.
I wouldn’t buy anything but hybrid at this point.
40
Analysis done in NZ shows PHEVs are the least attractive investment for 10 – 15k kms p.a. compared with ICEs and EVs. The problem is they are inevitably more expensive because of the duplication. On total cost of ownership with modest emission charges, EVs look the best, followed by ICEs, with PHEVs worst.
21
Back in the 80s it was recognised by lunch-time talk between engineers at the UK Atomic Energy Authority that all-electric cars were impossible due to the excessive weight of lead-acid batteries and the lack of power stations to recharge them. There seemed to be a strong opinion that by 2025 we’d be have highly tuned twin cylinder diesels driving light-weight cars with an electric motor for each wheel.
To-day we have higher tech diesels and better batteries but there’s simply not enough graphite and cobalt in the world to build the required number of Lithium ion batteries ( Li is only about one fifth of a battery). Strangely, a new mega factory is being constructed with some reports saying the cost is $4 billion. My guess is that some new high tech electric motor is about to be unveiled. Robert Adams in NZ and John Bedini in the US both had electric motors that produced power in excess of that calculated by applying Faraday’s Law.
40
Graphite is not rare, very common mineral.
10
Agreed, but high purity graphite is $3000/t and there are only a few mines currently in production. The Chinese have big plans but have run into problems with supply cos Tesla and others have already purchased rights to the existing supplies.
10
Sorry, you can’t use graphite – it is maid of carbon – a forbidden substance, according to the Great Green Blob.
20
Not much to be gained in electric motor development except maybe some weight reduction.
Current EV motors are 90% efficient, and produce 100% torque at 0 rpm eliminating the need for a gearbox.
EV progress is dependent on battery improvement in energy density, and cost reduction..
70
So much live energy packed into a small volume is better called a bomb than a battery. True all environment stability of such systems is very difficult AND costly to achieve and even more so to guarantee the reliability of the fail safe mechanisms. When a fail safe mechanism fails, it isn’t safe.
The Three Laws of Thermodynamics apply no matter how “green” the system nor how useful it would be. One gets work done by transforming energy from a higher energy level to a lower energy level. Much of that energy gets transformed into heat that must be dissipated by something called a “heat sink”. If the energy gets transformed faster than the heat sink can absorb, the result is failure of the transform mechanism. The consequences will be catastrophic for the device and often for anyone who happens to be too near ground zero. See Chernobyl for instructive detail.
To disarm the bomb, cut the red wire. NO… It’s the green wire. No… It’s the other red wire. Don’t touch the third red wire…BOOM….
Hello? Bob? Are you still there? Someone is going to have to tell Bob’s family that he didn’t make it.
80
Lionell:
I’m old enough to remember when people suggested powering cars using flywheels. The idea was you would construct a rotating wheel (a flywheel) out of some magic composite material, place the flywheel in a vacuum, mount the vacuum/flywheel unit in an automobile, get the flywheel spinning at some g0d awful rate, then power the car by converting the kinetic energy of the flywheel into rotational energy of the automobiles tires. Honest to g0d, I’m not making this up. I used to picture what would happen in an automobile crash. If you have enough kinetic energy stored in the flywheel to say drive a car 300 miles, I wouldn’t want to be in the vicinity of that flywheel when the vacuum broke or the flywheel’s axis got bent. With gasoline you have the potential for fire; but at least the fire will burn for a period of time. With a broken flywheel all that kinetic energy is going to quickly be converted to heat. Yeah, that’ll work.
51
Reed Coray:
They’re still thinking about flywheels but they haven’t been able to get enough power density; the new ones aren’t much more than (improved) lead acid types. They do have the advantage of very fast discharge and charge rates and can be discharged without damage.
The flywheels are composite fibre types and shred on puncture so you get lots of (maybe) carbon fibres floating around. No great chunks of steel flying everywhere.
11
And how does the rotational inertia of the flywheel influence a car when you want to change direction?
20
Ahh. Reality rears its ugly head and says, if you do that, this will happen. If the rotational inertia is high enough and that vectored source of energy is not taken into account, the car either keeps moving forward or comes apart. It’s catastrophic failure no matter what. Especially if you are trying to go around a curve or avoid on coming traffic.
Its rather like the so called super capacitor device. If it is both practical and safe to use, it can’t do much. The physical overhead required to make the device safe AND go the distance, likely eliminates the practicality of using it in the first place.
Fundamental rule: you can’t put more potatoes in a 15 lb potato sack than 15 pounds of potatoes. If you want more potatoes, you need to use a larger sack or more sacks.
The only other way is to use the 15 lbs of potatoes to grow more potatoes. That will take a plot of fertile land, good growing weather, a full growing season, a lot of work, AND a larger sack or more sacks. Your choice. The thing you can’t choose is more than 15 lbs of potatoes in a 15 lb potato sack.
Hopes, wishes, and fantasies have no boundaries nor rules. Reality does. Stay inside the boundaries and follow the rules, all is just fine. Otherwise, it is going to be a rough ride. Ignorance of the boundaries or rules offers no protection. The consequences are delivered without delay in unforgiving fullness. This feeds directly into my post above about the making of complex things that work.
Be very careful how you tweak the tail of the tiger. That is if you want to survive the tweaking.
40
‘Fools rush in where angels fear to tread,’ sayeth
Alexander Pope, and he wasn’t wrong.
20
Hey, I thought it was Ricky Nelson who said that!
Tony.
50
Beththeserf, maybe “fools rush in and angels leave instead” is also appropriate – assuming of course that they were “good fools.”
00
Relative to controlling the direction of the car, I believe the angular momentum problem (rotational inertia) can be overcome by using two “almost identical” flywheels placed side-by-side and rotating in opposite directions about a common axis. If the flywheels are close together and rotating in opposite directions about the same axis, then I believe that the angular momentum of a counter-rotating pair of flywheels will be near zero. Forces applied on the rotational axis “outside” of the spinning flywheels (i.e., not applied on the rotational axis between the flywheels) will minimally change the net angular momentum and thus have minimal effect on the ability to steer the car. I don’t have a good feel for the forces a change of direction will exert on the axis of rotation between the two counter rotating flywheels; but I imagine it’s not trivial.
10
Reed,
I like your last sentence.
But I guess there’s a metal strong enough to take the strain.
Maybe.
Cogs and axles and repetitive stressing.
10
Unobtainium would work fine
30
That is part of “taking the vectored energy into account.” Will it work? Perhaps. In all circumstances? I don’t know but I also don’t think it is safe to rely on it being true. One thing is certain, the mechanism becomes much more complex. As a consequence, failure is more more likely
Complex systems fail when they don’t take into account the factors causing the failure or, when the device(s) intended to take the cause into account fail..
10
I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation for a representative angular rotation rate of an automobile flywheel that contained the same energy as a 15 gallon (US) gas tank. According to https://www.convertunits.com/from/joules/to/gallon+%5bU.S.%5d+of+automotive+gasoline
one gallon of gas is can produce 1.3176×10^8 Joules of energy. Thus a 15 gallon gas tank can produce 1.9764×10^9 Joules of energy. Let the flywheel have a mass of 100 kg all located at a distance (radius) of 0.5 meters from the flywheel’s axis of rotation. To possess a kinetic energy of 1.9764×10^9 Joules, the speed of the 100 kg mass must be 6,287 meters per second. At a 0.5 meter radius, the rotational rate needed to provide a 6,287 meter per second “rim velocity” is 12,574 radians per second or equivalently 2,001 revolutions per second. When you park your car for the night, you have a 100 kg mass rotating at 2,001 revolutions per second in your garage. Sleep well. What could possibly go wrong?
10
Precession rules, OK?
Usually dealt with by counter-rotating flywheels. These are quite light units. All you didn’t want to know…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9PPSTczTNE
NOTE: the claimed power density is the same as the top lithium battery type. If true, then they could substitut
00
Late reply to KK above
10
I once went to a night club in Bangkok, where I managed to obtain some first-hand observations of counter-rotating flywheels with light units.
“Quite impressive”, I remember thinking, at the time. But it is probably now old technology, by today’s standards.
10
You can turn in any direction you like, as long as it’s left.
10
Is being developed for larger scale transport applications over here. Not on board, but used to buffer energy for smoothing out the peaks in subways and potentially EV charging stations. http://www.neri.org.nz/superconductivity
00
Might work but it won’t go the distance. It is simply a smoothing device. Perhaps useful enough to justify its cost. Still, I wouldn’t want to be nearby when (not if) a high energy containing flywheel fails. It is likely to be very hazardous to one’s health.
Let’s face it. After well over 100 years, electric automobiles are not yet ready for prime time. Much too soon to force universal usage. We don’t even have the flying car that was so much promised mid last century. Yes, there are a few flying cars but none fit for general use for commuting or weekend trips to the beach.
30
Flywheel energy storage has been used for many applications from F1 car hybrid “battery” substitutes, main drive power for busses, and even in grid storage for frequency control
( Our own King Island hybrid grid project )
Williams power Engineering (UK) are leaders in the field.
00
Flywheel energy storage was used in airport no-break power backup systems for many years. I think they were 15 ton flywheels. At Perth Airport the flywheel once “walked” out through the power station wall when somebody got it wrong. Luckily the direction was away from the terminal building.
50
Chad,
Flywheels have been used since the first steam engines to smooth the delivery of power. None have the energy to keep the system going for more than a few rotations.
Flybus
Flywheel storage can’t go the distance! They are merely short term power delivery smoothing devices. Perhaps useful and perhaps economic to use. Store enough power to go 300 miles through ordinary terrain and weather? No way and no how. Energy density, safety, reliability, and cost matters. Basic physics and the Three Laws of Thermodynamics set the limits. Technology cannot get past those limits.
20
Graeme#4
I don’t think that I will ever be able to erase the image of that flywheel ” walking “.
There was a comment made about a rotor from an electricity plant having a hissy fit on the blog here a few months ago.
Tony might be well placed to remember examples of spinning things that kept spinning in the wrong place.
KK
00
The all electric Rimac Concept One ( 90 kWh Lithium Nickel Manganese Cobalt Oxide ) that Richard Hammond so spectacularly crashed burned for five days afterwards, in a cascade fire. Funny that the battery can burn for around about 50 times longer than it can power the car.
80
A heat source for a steam powered car?
00
Hmm! Wasn’t John Galt working on that?
Tony.
80
Given that using electricity to spin something is similar in principles to spinning something to make electricity, wouldn’t any ‘new high tech electric motor’ also lead to the development of ‘new high tech electric generators’?
Or, to word the question another way, wouldn’t we also get more effective coal fired power plans as well?
We’re not playing a computer game here. Tech Trees branch sideways, interlink and shamelessly steal from their neighbours in real life.
10
A good analogy.
00
Increased demand and increased royalties/taxes by the Congo have seen cobalt soar in price these last three or so years. There’s talk of renationalising all mining in Congo, and there’s talk of Apple, still the biggest consumer of cobalt, negotiating directly with miners. I’m sure the Chinese are having their say also. It’s a lively place these days.
While the Congo has ten times Australia’s production our reserves are thought by some boffins to be second only to Congo. The trouble with this, as with our lithium, is that the mineral is an export, the usable product is an import.
Our coal, on the other hand…
40
“You might think this is slow motion train wreck, but we might avoid this if households opt for fast 50KW chargers. In that case we can do the train-wreck at top speed.
Each fast charger will apparently be “like” adding the equivalent of 20, count them, 20 homes.”
You know, I have this little nagging thought at the back of what passes for my mind – that someone, somewhere really hasn’t thought this thing through
130
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense
— John McCarthy, 1995
10
… which is typical of this so-called “Green” technology/sience/world …
Pseudo-science is never thought through completely; it can’t be because it has no real coherence and no real competence. It is but a figment of imagination.
20
Surely the 50kw chargers would necessitate upgrading the electrical infrastructure to each house/unit if the power draw is 20x the average power draw of the average house. Are these electric car fan boys completely innumerate.
90
I get over 200 Amps at a nominal 220 volt supply. Quite a lot.
10
That is only 44 KW. Yes it is quite a lot but not 50KW at 50% efficiency. Which is roughly the conversion efficiency for electricity to charge a battery. You would need 100KW plus whatever you expect to use in your house while you are charging the battery. You would need a three phase 440 volt 260 amp or more service to be able to deliver that kind if power without blowing a fuse.
There is a fundamental law of the universe that only perfectly reversible energy transformations are 100% efficient. There are no such transformations available for practical use. To do work, you must transform energy. Total working system efficiencies cluster around 50% with a range of approximately 10% to 90% depending upon a large number of details. Wishing and politically correct words have no relevancy here.
100
Not sure where your number of 50% comes from. My number is closer to 95%. Charge absorption efficiency for a Lithium battery is about 99% (there is very little heat generated while charging and discharging), and conversion efficiency of modern EV chargers is typically 96%. 0.99*0.96=0.95.
10
I am looking at total system efficiency rather than a single point transform efficiency. I agree that lithium ion batteries are, by themselves, more efficient than led-acid batteries. That alone does not change the generation, transmission, and voltage transformation efficiencies. Which are the source of the major losses in the system. The other loses will increase as the charging rate goes up.
All it means is you are likely to get closer to the desired goal by using lithium ion batteries than led-acid batteries. However, neither system has the energy density of petroleum in a well designed internal combustion engine. Not even close. Add to that the inconvenience of a prolonged charging period, the cost of the battery and its replacement, and the risk of battery explosions, a battery system is on the margin of being useful for some limited applications.
Traveling 2000 miles over the outback with sparse fueling stations and no charging stations, batteries are a non-starter. They can’t go the distance and are not as convenient, inexpensive, nor as reliable as petroleum based vehicles. The energy density is simply NOT there yet to make it. Not today and not likely for many decades if ever. Even then it would be at a staggering cost eclipsing the cost of the current petroleum based transportation system.
EV’s for playing 18 holes of golf or going to the corner drug store maybe. Going the distance for genuine traveling – not yet by a long shot.
In my mind, going back to windmill power to grind grain and ox carts for transport is not the way to go. That is what battery powered transportation effectively represents.
I don’t know about you but I don’t look forward to the time that I must walk everywhere I go. I want to live and thrive and I can’t do it that way. Especially if I must do so because someone has decreed that I reduce my “carbon” foot print to save the planet. Which, in particular, will not be saved by such action.
You are welcome to go that rout if you wish. Your sacrifice will be pointless.
50
Your comment
is what I am referring to only – that is plain wrong. Not saying EV is good or bad.
11
Yes. They also slept through their high school Physics classes partly because they saw math as “not relevant” to their lives. They thought only nerds were interested in such stupid things as Physics, Chemistry, Math, and Engineering. There interests were more hitting home runs, putting the ball through the hoop, and hitting on pretty cheerleaders. The important stuff that ultimately turns out to be irrelevant. Even for the making of hot cars – electric or otherwise.
130
You dont need Fizziks and Maffs if you can fall back on “but, Elon said it would work”
30
And how. I reside in an outer suburb of Auckland City. The reticulated power is underground 3 phase at nominally 230V +/- 5%. at 50hz +/- 1Hz per phase. Each dwelling is connected (sequentially) to one of the three phases (all 3 or any two can be used if required, for an extra regular charge). Each dwelling has a fusebox at the boundary so the dwelling can be isolated from the network at the street connection, should that be necessary. The fuse is nominally 60Amperes per connected phase. (If you don’t pay your account, the fuse is confiscated and power is restored after you pay the outstanding account plus a $50 reconnection fee … ).
There are neighbourhood transformers to distribute the power. The neighbourhood or street transformers are 3 phase 100KVA/phase units.
Note: KVA is a product of Volts and Amps. In the DC world, that is Watts or power. In the AC world, phase angle (or power factor) has to be accounted for. It is kept as close to zero as is practicable. That way computers and other machinery, particularly load metering machinery, don’t have to use polar or rectangular arithmetic involving the square root of minus 1. (i or j). 🙂
The transformers around my area were replaced about eight years ago. The ones they were replacing were about 45 to 50 years old. That maintenance effort must have been costly. I have also noticed large substations installed at intervals recently, probably to account for in-fill housing and new ubdivisions, with lots of new equipment. I first noticed it happen just before the local arm of the railway was electrified. I think that was coincidence because there has been a lot of work on the local power supply since.
High rate chargers are definitely going to require distribution (or retail) level infrastructure changes and upgrades. Domestic power, locally, is not up to 50KW fast chargers except as 3 phase power, and only for a very few. Trickle chargers (7KVA or less) will be the order of the day. The limit is the underground cables, and the distribution transformers. They would all have to be changed.
The 230V, 60Amp single phase supply is, therefore: 13.8 KVA (max). Now, KVA is subject to phase shift, it is not true power until the phase angle is included and accounted for.
10
fighting back:
27 Mar: Edmonton Journal: Toronto chef butchers, eats deer leg in front of animal rights protesters outside his restaurant
“We were obviously getting to him because we’re impacting his business … I assume — I actually can’t know — this was his way of getting revenge on us’
by Jake Edmiston
A Toronto chef, apparently exasperated at an animal rights protest outside his restaurant, carried what appeared to be a leg of raw venison to the front windows facing the sidewalk. As the protesters watched, he took a knife and began separating the meat from the bone.
As he worked, one of the protesters videoed the scene and gave frantic commentary: “To taunt the activists,” said the man behind the camera in a video posted online and picked up by BlogTO, “he has brought the leg of a recently murdered deer to this dining area.”
Michael Hunter, the chef and owner of Antler Kitchen and Bar, didn’t look at the protesters, didn’t say anything. Some police officers on hand for the protest entered the restaurant to speak with him – though Toronto police deny they asked him to stop what he was doing. “It’s his restaurant he can do what he wants, really,” Sgt. Philip Townley said.
Hunter finished cutting, put the meat in a pan and headed back to the kitchen. In half an hour or so, he returned with an impressively seared steak — perhaps of the same venison he had butchered — on a white plate, unaccompanied. It was the middle of Friday night dinner service, just after 8 p.m., and here was the chef, at the front of the restaurant, sitting alone and eating.
“It shocked me,” said protest organizer Marni Ugar. “It made me feel really sad.”
“For me it’s just an animal and it’s an animal that didn’t want to die.”…
Ugar didn’t know what to make of it. She couldn’t tell whether her string of regular protests had finally taken its toll on the chef. It was about the fifth time protesters had gathered outside Antler on Dundas Street West, chanting slogans like “Antler has blood on their hands” and holding signs that say Murder. (The initial intent was to stage weekly protests starting in December, after a sandwich board reading Venison is the New Kale drew the ire of activists, though cold weather dashed those plans.)
“We were obviously getting to him,” Ugar said, “because we’re impacting his business by standing on the sidewalk. I assume — I actually can’t know — this was his way of getting revenge on us.”
Hunter wouldn’t say why he did it. He declined an interview…
That is the most perplexing part of the whole situation: Antler seems an unlikely target for the animal rights set. The restaurant’s entire concept is about local game and humanely raised livestock. Hunter himself is a forager and a hunter who has publicly criticized factory farming…
But the fact that Antler is a small establishment touting ethical meat is exactly why protesters selected it. First, the bigger chains like McDonald’s don’t listen. “I won’t get through to them,” Ugar said. Second, they believe the concept of humane meat is a myth and see Antler as an opportunity to debunk it. They’re particularly perturbed about Antler’s use of fois gras, the production of which can involve force feeding geese…
Hunter’s addition of vegan dishes to his menu has done little to assuage the activists. Another protest is scheduled for Saturday. They want Hunter to join them at a vigil at a slaughterhouse, held for the animals on their way inside. And ultimately, they want the restaurant, all restaurants, to go totally vegan…
http://edmontonjournal.com/news/toronto/toronto-chef-butchers-eats-deer-leg-in-front-of-animal-rights-protesters-outside-his-restaurant/wcm/57f68106-bfb6-4306-8e86-7493aee848d0
30
More bully boys and girls.
42
Good on him…..why should he kowtow to some bunch of fringe animal libbers who protest outside….who died and made them king?
21
I get it. The protesters were offended. What the protesters don’t get, was the chef was offended by the fact they expected their emotions to cause him to change his behavior. It did change his behavior but not in the way they wanted. Now the protesters are confused and offended by the fact their tender and fragile emotions were held to be so obviously irrelevant to the chef.
I suspect their parents caved into numerous tantrums during their young years. So much so, they remain emotional children rather than understand they were coming from their weak position. They tried to use their weakness to persuade an actual adult of some substance to change what he does. Surprise, it didn’t work the way they expected. The pathetic emotional children need to grow up and learn how to use reason and logic to persuade.
Sadly, the next step after a tantrum is often overt violence. THAT is the even weaker position of a thug. Not only does it not work, it is illegal and triggers the right of self defense on the part of the target. They will be lucky to escape the effort in one piece and unbloodied. Especially so if it were my shop being attacked.
61
Hunter didn’t kill the beast. The protesters brought it there and dumped it did they not? So Hunter didn’t let good food go to waste – what to do ? why cook it and eat it Sounds logical to me
11
The initial intent was to stage weekly protests ….. cold weather dashed those plans.
Yeap. Cold weather will do that. If only they had some, say, Global Warming(tm) they could protest all year round.
Eating in front of vegan protesters is always fun. Here in Sunny Adelaide there is a group of vegans who like to protest in the CBD. They dress in Guy Fawkes masks (hey spoiler, kids, Fawkes was a Catholic wanting to restore the power of the Catholic Church, NOT a freedom fighters) and stand silently holding tablets and laptops showing videos of meat works.
So being someone who self identifies as a Horrible Person, I like to stand in front of them watching their videos while eating meat products. The silent glances of hate and horror in their little eyes is adorable.
51
In Melbourne there are billboard ads with pictures of chickens, or sheep, telling us that “they value their lives as much as we do”. Seriously, are chickens self aware these days? Who’d a thunk?
31
I wish they’d go and tell the foxes to leave my few free-range chooks alone…I’m sure my chickens don’t want to die. They prefer to lay their delicious eggs for our delectation and wander all round the house pooping like billy-o. We have lost three to foxes so far.
21
The outside of the house I hasten to add, not inside, you may be relieved to know!
31
Im a life member of PETA!
People
Eating
Tasty
Animals
Enjoy!
20
What the protesters cannot change is human dietary requirements. We evolved as neither herbivore nor carnivore but omnivore. Restricting our diet to purely vegetarian is unhealthy; ditto for a purely carnivorous diet.
They (the protesters) can argue with their evolutionary heritage as much as they like but, in the end, they will die, quite probably from a disease or illness induced by a dietary deficiency or a surfeit of sugar. End of story.
Good for the chef: don’t waste it, cook it and eat it. 🙂
Those protesters who were “shocked” or “horrified” had a choice: they chose to inflict their opinions and views on others through their protest. If they were “shocked” or “horrified” by someone of an opinion differing from theirs responding to them, or answering them back in kind, then it is purely their problem. I have some words for them:
Gee: tough. Grow up.
Animals raised for human consumption have, comparatively, high quality if shorter lives. They’re never short of food, being well fed and watered, even in droughts. If sick, they’re doctored as soon as it is noticed. For extreme weather, they have shelter. The best are bred from. They don’t need to constantly run away from predators—only protesters. Life is easy until it’s time to pay.
30
For people who claim to be independent thinkers and able to see through the falsehoods of climate change hyperbole, the ignorance and hyperbole on offer in the comments regarding the case for heavily reducing or eliminating our exploitation of other species is breathtaking.
01
Graeme M: that is your opinion, which you have a right to hold.
I totally disagree with you.
10
Certainly. But the point remains. People here respect those who challenge the group-think, those who look beyond simple trite responses and dig for the truth.
They believe that we should think for ourselves. Yet aren’t all of the comments above simply echoing the social norms and knocking those who HAVE thought beyond the bounds? How many of those criticising the vegans and animal advocates have challenged themselves enough to understand both sides of the argument? Doing so might not change one’s mind, but it should encourage one to respect those who HAVE dug beneath the surface to find a different truth.
00
When is groupthink groupthink?
Most people who frequent this site have emerged from the climate groupthink brought about by propaganda, and have found many people who have worked through the same issues they have, and come to similar conclusions as they have. Is that Groupthink? (think about the meaning!) Or is that a group who think similarly?
Respecting the arguments of those you claim have dug beneath the surface to find a different truth has to be earned. If their arguments are presented clearly and politely rather than dogmatically and rudely, they may be listened to. But too often they aren’t. They’re resented as “I’m right and you’re wrong.” Dissect your first post with a critical eye and some thought, and you will/might/maybe see what I mean. That’s why you got the response from me which you got.
My words in my post 15.6 still apply. Or do you want Mankind to return to the Neolithic?
10
sanity prevails:
27 Mar: Reuters: Germany fully approves Russia-built Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline
by Vladimir Soldatkin and Thomas Escritt in BERLIN
Germany has approved the construction and operation of the Russia-built Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, its operator and the German maritime authority said on Tuesday.
The Nord Stream 2 operator said it expected that other four countries along the route of the undersea gas pipeline – Russia, Finland, Sweden and Denmark – will issue permits in the coming months.
The “scheduled construction works are to be implemented in 2018 as planned” it added…
Germany’s maritime authority BSH said in a statement on Tuesday that it had approved the building of the 31-kilometre section that runs through its waters since it posed no danger to shipping or the environment.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-germany-nordstream/germany-fully-approves-russia-built-nord-stream-2-gas-pipeline-idUSKBN1H31IF
media, so far, are in melt-down:
27 Mar: EU Observer: ‘Victory for Kremlin’ as Germany approves gas pipeline
By Andrew Rettman
(Andrew Rettman has been writing on foreign affairs for EUobserver since 2005. He is Polish and has a degree in English literature from Oxford University. He also contributes to The Guardian, The Telegraph and to Intelligence Online)
The Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH) in Berlin said Russia could build the pipeline, called Nord Stream 2, on Tuesday (27 March), one day after Germany and other EU states expelled Russian diplomats over Russia’s use of a chemical weapon to try to kill a former spy in England.
“We are pleased that all necessary permits are now in place for the German route section,” Jens Lange, the head of the Nord Stream 2 consortium, said.
Permits from Denmark, Finland, and Sweden, whose Baltic Sea zones will host pipe segments, were also “expected to be issued in the coming months” and Nord Stream 2 will be built this year “as planned”, the consortium, an offshoot of Russian state firm Gazprom, said.
The BSH analysis showed Nord Stream 2 “will contribute to increasing security of supply and competition in the EU gas market”, the Russian company added…
The US has threatened to impose sanctions on the EU firms – Engie, OMV, Uniper, Shell, and Wintershall – planning to co-finance the pipeline, which could force Russia to find the money elsewhere…
EU leaders might also put pressure on Germany to halt Nord Stream 2 at a summit in June, British prime minister Theresa May told British MPs earlier on Monday.
Meanwhile, the European Parliament is preparing to pass legislation to make offshore pipelines, including Nord Stream 2, subject to EU anti-monopoly rules, weakening Moscow’s grip over the new infrastructure…
The EU commission “has the legal basis to make the proposal” for the new pipeline law, according to a legal opinion by the EU Council, where member states meet, which was drafted on Monday and seen by the Reuters news agency.
***Previous legal opinions said EU states and institutions had no power to force Germany to stop the project or to force Russia to accept the EU anti-monopoly rules, however.
https://euobserver.com/foreign/141471
30
The simple solution for them is to require electric cars to only be powered by “renewable” energy installed on the car meaning only from solar panels and mounted little windmills. It will also reduce their auto insurance rates since traffic will be dramatically reduced as well as keeping loonies off the highway.
60
Best to destroy a grid this way .
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-28/basslink-cable-offline-after-contractor-damage/9598996
Extension cord between tassie and Victoriastan out again .
81
omg … at least they have water this time.
70
Aha!
That’s why there’s been sudden spike in Hydro generation the last three days.
It’s Tasmania, with no fall back to the brown coal fired power from Victoria.
Tony.
120
But where will Victoria get the extra electricity they need to send to SA?
70
I think SA is the one with the need. The main interconnector is maxed out just now at 8:50AM so I am guessing their will be diesel smoke in the air real soon in SA.
40
Check Anero.id. TVCC201 shut down Monday evening. Hence an additional 200 MW hydro.
30
27 Mar: Daily Signal: EPA Chief Puts Science Back Into Environmental Protection
by Steve Milloy
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt may be just a lawyer, but so far he has done more to bring sound science to the EPA than any scientist ever affiliated with the agency.
And, apparently, he’s just getting started…
Pruitt’s first move last fall was to reform the agency’s practice of appointing its own university research grantees to its science advisory boards so they would be in position to rubber-stamp agency actions. This practice contravened federal law that requires these boards to be made up of unbiased scientists.
In one example, a 26-member board had 24 EPA grantees who had received more than $200 million in research grants from the agency. These scientists were “reviewing” either their own research or the research of their colleagues. It was pal review, not peer review.
So, Pruitt changed the EPA’s policy. Researchers now must choose whether they want to receive research grants from the EPA or serve on its advisory boards. But they can’t do both…READ ON
https://www.dailysignal.com/2018/03/27/epa-chief-puts-science-back-environmental-protection/
60
Thanks Pat,
May his success be rapid and complete.
cheers,
Dave B
20
When will most charging happen? At night when there is no solar and little wind. That means more converting fossil fuels to electrons, if the capability remains. Only a tiny fraction of electrons come from greens approved power sources anyway. Demand increases. Costs sky rocket even more. A rich man’s toy, nothing more.
100
Dave:
Remember the old Greenie song:
“When a wind electron meets a solar electron, coming through the lie,
then surely another electron will be coming bye and bye”
21
27 Mar: CNS News: Terence P. Jeffrey: U.S. Energy Exports Hit Record in 2017; Petroleum and Natural Gas Both Hit All-Time Highs
U.S. total energy exports hit a record high in 2017 when measured in British Thermal Units (Btu), according to the Monthly Energy Review (LINK) released today by the Energy Information Administration, which is a part of the U.S. Department of Energy.
U.S. petroleum and natural gas exports (measured in Btu) also both hit all-time highs in 2017, according to Table 1.4b in the report, while the U.S. energy trade deficit (measured in dollars) hit a 20-year low, according to Table 1.5.
During 2017, total U.S. energy exports equaled 17.998711 Quadrillion Btu, according to the report. That was up approximately 27.4 percent from the 14.129837 Quadrillion Btu in total U.S. energy exports in 2016…
The U.S. total energy exports included a record 12.044051 Quadrillion Btu in total petroleum exports (including both crude oil and refined products such as gasoline, kerosene and lubricants). That was up approximately 20.6 percent from the 9.989907 Quadrillion Btu that the U.S. exported in 2016…
U.S. total energy exports in 2017 also included 2.487339 Quadrillion Btu in coal exports. That was up approximately 60.9 percent from the 1.546253 Quadrillion Btu in coal exports the U.S. made in 2016…
https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/us-energy-exports-hit-record-2017-petroleum-and-natural-gas-both-hit
20
Lots of changes happen under the radar. We have, for example, significant numbers of natural gas powered vehicles on the road, with little hoopla. Where they make economic sense, even if only economic sense as the solution to a political problem, they happen. The key word is solution.
Where electric cars are the solution to a problem, they are likely to proliferate.
Talking about the charging issue is, to me, a red herring. Adopters of electric cars are likely to be folks whose pattern of life allows overnight charging to work fine. Thousands of people in a retirement community near me get on with an electric golf cart as a first or second vehicle; it fits the life-style and is cost effective. Many are customized and a bit whimsical as well.
For most of us, the problem will occur because the electric vehicle will let us down at a critical time, or a modest catastrophe will happen to someone we know. At the club: “where’s Charlie?” “Dunno” “Oh he called, his car died”. “well play without him…”
The Next Week: “That @#^%$ Piece of #$%^%&^ said it had 30% charge and 73 miles left, and died in the middle of the $%^^$ freeway. It cost me ^^&* for the tow, and it was dead for 6 hours &^%$$%. I ran out of gas once in my old blipmobile and a fellow with a gas can stopped by, I was fixed in 5 minutes. And my electric bill is ought of site. And Joe had to put a new battery in his and is cost him 10 grand %$%&^&*”
This group is probably not a good market for electric cars in a competitive marketplace. I think the pushers realize this, as there is a strong element of imposition by government fiat in their plans for us.
Both self-driving cars and electric cars will have normal growing pains; and both are likely to occupy that area of the marketplace where they make sense. Over an extended period of time they might win in the marketplace, after years of application engineering in the real world. Cars have actually improved quite a lot with years of customer feedback and real world use.
They’ve gotten sophisticated enough…sound systems, climate control, comfort… you can actually live in them. Oh wait, lets not go there.
Politics can only make things worse, and more expensive, than they need to be. They only real problem the politicians will have to solve long term is their stupid fuel taxes will become obsolete, and they will have a hostile population who bought vehicles based in part on tax savings resisting their new electric vehicle taxes, which are a much more realistic outlook that the chimerical subsidies that now exist.
Here is the real problem:
Politicians want us to move from point A to point B in the most efficient, cost-effective, and controlled fashion possible, and they feel competent to define our point A and point B for us. Mass transit with limited citizen mobility is an intrinsic part of any leftist authoritarian state.
We in the free world have come to see the private automobile as an ultimate expression of personal freedom; mobility as a fundamental right, and “our car” as a personal expression in a variety of ways. Watch what the ads stress.
At its current state of development, and in its political cocoon, the electric car is essentially views as a self-driving, ride sharing, state controlled mode of distributed mass transit. And that dog won’t hunt!
100
Yes, by forcing people ( well, only the weak ones who capitulate….) into electric vehicles and removing the ability to travel widely, you lock people into cities. This is UN Agenda 21 in action, by jamming people into cities and forcing them out of the countryside.
And yes its socialism, so must be rejected outright.
The best solution is finding the king makers and exposing them. Then refusing to taken on EVs and watch them become incandescent with rage….their little plans foiled.
I suspect if we jack up, they will deliberately sabotage the power supply by blowing stuff up and blame it on some shadowy group they have created and then given the explosives to….its how they work. They are sick in the head IMHO and you cant trust them at all…think of crocs in suits and you’re close…..
10
With reference to charging times. I used to have a Saab 9-3 TD estate which had a range of 600 miles. After doing close to that distance it would take around two minutes to fill it up. I can’t see electric cars getting close to this in the foreseeable future. I can’t really see them improving to the point where they are actually practical to use really.
70
Now taking in the cost equal to adding three houses to electrical load guess what is missing, taxes. How will the missing taxes be supplied? Up here in British Columbiastan we have on top of very high fuel taxes a carbon tax. Also our dear leader, Trudeau 2.0, wants to apply a national carbon tax. Soooooo what happens to all these taxes with roads full of electric cars?
70
A mileage tax. A destination tax. A transportation availability tax. A parking tax. A garage tax. A charging tax. A discharging tax. An ownership tax. The list of possible taxes is limitless.
Don’t worry, if there is wealth available to take, they will find a way to take it. From their perspective, we should be grateful that we are allowed to keep and spend some of what we earn. After all “you didn’t do that”. It all really belongs to them. They feel that they are being noble and magnanimous for letting you have some of it for your own use. The fact is the whole charade could not keep going without the productive few paying the bills by keeping things working.
“Who is John Galt?”
70
Has anyone calculated how many coal fired power plants would be required to supply the grid even if it didn’t collapse?!?
40
Oil Companies Don’t Produce CO2, Car and Truck Drivers Do
Reminiscent of the “Guns Don’t Kill People, People Kill People” argument, the SF Judge Alsup presiding over CA vs. Big Oil Lawsuit asked a very interesting, and potentially, very damaging question for either the plaintiff or society at large. In the document titled: Case 3:17-cv-06012-WHA Document 161 Filed 03/27/18, the judge asks: If plaintiffs’ theory is correct, why wouldn’t … Continue reading
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2018/03/28/oil-companies-dont-produce-co2-car-and-truck-drivers-do/
20
Not unless he starts handing them out with every Centrelink concession card.
90
His comment reminds me of a conversation between former Federal Treasurer Costello and former NSW State Treasurer Costa on Bolt Report, Costello commented that he drives a Toyota Prius hybrid and Costa responded: “Pius”.
62
A few incentives here and there, $100 mill to Macquarie, mandates for State and Fed and Council fleet purchases, hire car fleets and taxis and before long you are there. I agree that in a free world it probably wouldnt even get close, but I am guessing it will probably happen .
00
I have mentioned doing this, for Australia a couple of times. The other day I thought I should put “my effort where my mouth was” and look at this energy balance question for NZ.
“If you replace all liquid “fossil fuels” with electricity as the Greens/AGW believers think you can or would like to do, how much extra electricity is required?”
This is what I found (all data from NZ Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment website)
Fuel Consumption (2017 figures):
All fuels =274.42 PJ (petajoules)
Avgas =14.25 PJ (can’t have planes running on batteries)
Balance = 260.17 PJ (Petrol, diesel, Fuel oil, LPG)
Petrol alone = 113.87 PJ
Electricity Production (2016 figures):
Total production = 42,591 GWH (85% from renewables)
(from the MBIE site 1 GWH = 0.0036 PJ )
So to have all fuels replaced with electricity the EXTRA electricity required = 72,269 GWH
For just petrol replacement the EXTRA required = 31,630 GWH
In NZ the Greens/Labour/AGW people don’t want extra hydro dams, do not like nuclear, definitely no coal fired power stations and now are not keen on further oil and gas exploration. So the dream has a problem.
So it is not just the cost of up grading the grid but massive costs to increase electricity generation capacity.
I think it would be great to see similar fingers for Australia, UK, USA, Canada etc. Somehow the basic picture of the dream vs reality has to be painted in terms that the average person can see very clearly.
60
You forget that the losses for electricity distribution storage and conversion are about half that for petrol. See above comments for the availability of reasonably priced renewable electricity in NZ to meet the low duty cycle load (eg petrol).
But it won’t work in Oz.
30
I was just trying to show the big picture. I know there would all sorts of adjustments for efficiency of engines , line losses which you mention etc but that will not change the over all picture.
00
“… but that will not change the over all picture”
It does. Conversion of the NZ low duty cycle fleet to electricity is quite doable, and in fact we’ll head that way over time regardless because it will be the least cost way to do transport provided the international industry supplies EVs in quantity.
12
There appears to be considerable traffic congestion in the main centres in NZ that would waste a lot of fuel in idling engines as well as braking and accelerating. Vehicles that have energy recovery from braking and do not use energy when stopped would save considerable fuel.
Average daily car travel in NZ is reported to be 25km so the electric energy usage on average would be similar to that used for electric hot water in an average household using electric water heating.
If the NZAS smelter shut down it would release enough capacity for 500k cars. The smelter makes an annual loss. So the sums would need to be done to determine if the fuel saving in terms of imported fuel provided a net benefit over the loss of jobs and income from aluminium exports. I expect it would be close on this simple balance. The distribution network in outer suburbs are likely to need extra copper.
10
How is the Tesla battery performing in Australia? That is apparently up and running. Has also made money.True/ false?
30
Apparently profitable, but South Australians are paying premium price for its grid saving energy.
http://www.thecivilengineer.org/news-center/latest-news/item/1545-tesla-s-battery-in-south-australia-made-1-million-in-profit-in-just-a-few-days
42
It’s easy to make a profit when the government forces your customers to buy your product at inflated prices.
90
No energy is produced by a battery. It takes energy to build it, to charge it, and to discharge it (the energy conversion steps are always inefficient). It is nothing but a buy low sell high energy arbitrage. NOTHING is produced especially not electricity!
If the grid had not been all but destroyed by the “renewable energy” craze, The Battery would be useless. At best, The Battery only prolongs the eventual collapse of the whole system. That is unless rational adults take over the task of providing for the future and drop this “sustainability” misdirection!
100
yep, fiscal arbitrage, an artefact of the financier’s circus which has captured energy policy in Australia.
Victorian minister d’Ambroisio repeated her “downward pressure on prices” incantation today rebutting any mutinous talk of the huge increase in wholesale prices post the Hazelwood shutdown. And yes, Victoria has big batteries. I guess all state treasuries want to play that arbitrage wheeze.
20
The SA battery will always be profitable if it only supplies energy when the market price is highest and only recharges when the price is lowest. However, this has nothing to do with its real usefulness to SA’s power problems.
50
Just a way to pick up some loose change while it waits to do something useful
00
Electric cars are certainly not the answer for everyone and all situations, but they are also not as completely useless as many make them out to be.
As a second car in a typical “two car” family, it’s a very economical choice to use for either the daily commute (fixed, predictable travel) and/or the frequent but short “around town” types of trips.
How cost effective it is depends a great deal on the circumstances of your location, but living here in between Philadelphia and Allentown, PA (part of the “northeast” in the United States) I get electricity for $0.12 per kWh delivered without any TOU restrictions. I can also get a 2 or 3 year fixed price contract from a variety of suppliers. Presently in our location gas is $2.79 per gallon.
After driving an electric vehicle for 5+ years now, I can tell you without a doubt, for me, an electric car is by far less expensive to operate.
Here’s the math using real numbers from both my gas powered and electric vehicles:
Daily commute – 36 miles, round trip. Some freeway, but mostly a mix of local roads & stop/go traffic.
Gas Sedan, averages 32 MPG on my commute.
Electric Car, averages 4.2 miles/kWh over the same route.
Gas : 36 miles @ 32 MPG = 1.13 gallons used. So, 1.13 * $2.79 per gallon = $3.14 per day.
Electric: 36 miles @ 4.2 miles/kWh = 8.57 kWh used. Add in 0.77 kWh for charging overhead and you get: 9.34 * $0.12 per kWh = $1.12 per day.
What most folks don’t realize is that they can easily charge from a basic wall outlet – fancy high kW “fast chargers” in the home are not usually necessary.
As you can see from the above, my typical daily recharge can be easily accommodated by 7 to 8 hours (usually done overnight) plugged into a standard wall outlet.
Reliability wise, the electric car has been more reliable than my current or any of the prior traditional gas cars I’ve used, and I have a low threshold of tolerance for unreliable cars.
Wear and tear items – the electric car is a simpler machine than a conventional gas auto, so it costs less (for example, no oil changes needed) for maintenance.
Insurance wise, it’s essentially the same cost as the gas car as it’s the same drivers operating two vehicles of a similar class and replacement price.
Bottom line is that the electric car for my needs in my circumstances is significantly less expensive.
Your needs and circumstances may differ.
40
Most people are not going to buy a Tesla as their second car. You can buy a lot of gasoline or diesel for the cost of a Tesla. Second cars are usually inexpensive used cars. EVs with used up battery packs are not good used cars. Used EVs with new battery packs are not inexpensive used cars.
60
In Australia fuel tax amounts to about half the price of petrol/gas and diesel fuels.
I have no doubt that the government would not be prepared to lose that valuable revenue and would simply add an EV recharging tax.
41
..And the price of electrons will significantly increase due to market forces as the EV demands on the grid increases at the same time the reliable supply shrinks.
21
You’d better believe it ….The taxes on liquid fuels in general and energy in particular are legendary. By the time the Leftist socially narcotised sheeple realise there is no saving to be made, and especially of that damned chestnut the climate, the romance will evaporate as will the ownership. In any case, the NWO goal is to put an end to personal vehicle ownership.
The real question is, when will people realise that?
30
It looks like Tesla has a few financialproblems
https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/tesla-without-any-doubt-is-on-the-verge-of-bankruptcy-23219/
20
Oh dang, you mean Eon won’t be putting another one into space?
30
Might as well get a golf cart for the second vehicle, especially if it’s only used for short jaunts around the neighborhood.
00
Nice summary, the only missing piece is resale valuations (or rate of depreciation) and it probablt a bit early to be dfinitive about EVs
00
Thanks Yarpos,
Resale isn’t a concern for me as I only either buy new and keep it for 15-20 years, or buy a good used vehicle and also keep it until it hits the 15-20 year mark.
The gas sedan is a 1994 Saturn SL1 – bought it new back in the day, but it had worn out beyond reasonable repair after many years of faithful service.
The EV is a 2012 Nissan LEAF. A Tesla is well out of my price range, and I question it’s long-term repairability as well as Teslas ability to remain an ongoing business. The LEAF has been a great commuter – it’s not fancy and some think it looks ugly or weird, but I don’t mind. Bought it used (there are a good number off lease, making it a buyers market) for a good price, about half what a gas car of similar type and age would be.
Battery degradation is indeed an issue, especially for the LEAF, but if you are savvy and aware of the pitfalls it’s really just like buying any used vehicle. In a few years, maybe I’ll put a new battery in if feasible, but with the projected calendar losses, the original battery should provide sufficient commuting range for at least another 7-10 years. By then, probably will just turn it over to the kids for driving (reduced range will keep them from going too far or getting in trouble! LOL).
As an interesting side note, we recently had a severe winter storm that knocked out the power for two days. I used the LEAF to run an inverter that provided for a few critical loads (refrigerator, freezer, some lights & sump pump) during that time, so it has some secondary utility as well.
10
I was thinking more of the leasing market, as its a far bigger deal in the US than it is here.
That latest Leafs and Bolts are becoming quite capable cars. If I was still living in a metro area I may have considered one.
00
All the New Zealand government needs to do is finally allow the Rio Tinto Zinc aluminium smelter at Tiwai Point, Bluff, South Island to be shut down. Were it not for a secret deal with Meridian Energy, the power cost would have put the smelter out of business.
Now, to imagine that NZ PM Comrade Ardern and her losing coalition of Leftist looters could dispense with an entire industry? What’s to imagine? It is perfect double-benefit Leftist ideology in action. The surplus 500MW would go along way to power the e-car, incumbent UN luvvies and the 30% of dead weight toxic battery.
The virtue-signalling would be priceless. NZ seen to be doing its bit for UN defined “climate change” – land usage and atmospheric composition … and e-cars. Oh, and it would only reportedly cost ‘780 direct jobs, 3000 indirect jobs and $600 million of exports’, but what the hell, it’s a fraction of the unravelling in South Australia or W.Virginia and with open borders, the unemployed smelter and related workers can swim or row to China, India, Russia or Africa for their next job.
I’ll wager no one has thought of doing that yet. /sarc
30
NZAS is on life support like all the aluminium smelters in Australia. A single failed rainy period, that limits perched water, will push it over the edge.
20
A closure would be harsh news for Invercargill.
00
Consider that this problem is artificial. A bigger battery does not mean you will drive further, just take longer between charges or drive further. There is no more energy demand. People do not drive further because they can. They just want to be certain to get home.
There are two distinct grid load problems here, more total demand for electricity and very predictable surging which cannot be handled by windmills.
When people get home, they will all plug in their cars. Some will be flat and some reasonably full. The time though is as predictable as breakfast and a grid disaster if people who get this (subsidized by us) also get fast chargers, as they can bring down any system. Also we (the poor people without subsidized but expensive electric cars) have to pay for the massive increase in peak electricity just to accommodate the middle class virtue signallers.
There is a simple solution. A second battery which is on trickle charge all the time, perhaps a higher voltage. This could recharge the car in 20 minutes.
So stop these giant rechargers which collectively could cripple our electricity system.
At the same time, we should not be forced to massively subsidize wind towers, electric cars and our own electricity system just to accomodate people who think fully electric cars somehow will save the planet from destruction. That is past nonsense, greedy, thoughtless, selfish and utterly without foundation in science or reality. The Greens.
However a car like the Toyota Camry Hybrid at $30,000 has none of these problems. An amazing car of fabulous economy and reliability. Why indulge the people who want to go all electric and burn more fossil fuel? Even by self indulgent Green logic it does not make sense.
60
My son has deliberately questioned Sydney taxi drivers of hybrid cars about the vehicle they drive and he has surveyed many over the past few years.
All are enthusiastic supporters of the technology and rate them superior to their earlier ICE, most of which used LPG as fuel.
22
I like any car I am not paying the bills for
30
Thomas Sowell
40
Batteries will never achieve the high energy density of hydrocarbon fuels.
Also, the fuel load in a car is much less than 5% of total vehicle mass and reduces as fuel is consumed but the mass of batteries remains constant and maybe 50% of vehicle mass.
A hydrocarbon powered car can be refuelled in under 5 mins, batteries take hours.
103
Yep, when you consider that the energy of a Tesla car battery can be stored in 4 large Coke bottles of petrol.
60
So , Basslink is broken again, and out of action for several weeks)…
the wind has dies in SA (again) and the Viclink is running hot way above designed capacity,
…Hence Qld and NSW generators are keeping the countries lights on again
Interesting times !
80
The link has not exceeded its 600MW nominal rating so far today. In cool conditions I have recollection of it being as high as 650MW.
Prices are not skyrocketing yet so the NEM is coping.
I does highlight the vulnerability though. Fortunately we are past peak temperature for summer 17/18 so that might be the saviour.
40
I’ll underline something that Tom wrote upthread.
As soon as people come home from work they will plug their car in. They will do that because otherwise they will forget, and then have a flat battery for the commute next morning.
When will they plug their car in? At about 5pm-6:30pm, which is when they get home. Right at the peak.
So EVs are going to not only consume huge amounts of electricity but they will actually make the daily peaking cycle even worse. This is completely logical and predictable but I’ve never seen it discussed by the climatistas.
70
Please see #31. This is exactly the problem addressed. Steam trains had the same problem, having to take on tons of water in minutes. They did not use a garden hose. Basically a second higher voltage recharge battery should be on all the time on trickle and dump power quickly, off grid. There would be no peaking and cars could be charged very quickly, not over 2 days.
10
Frankly I do not care if people want all electric cars, as long as they pay for them, all the real costs, not me. All electric cars are an expensive and pointless indulgence in most cities. Why should we all be charged?
I make an exception here for old and crowded cities like Amsterdam where preserving the city and quality of life in cities is worth the National expense. Then there is the noise. In open and modern cities, all electric are utterly pointless and expensive. Consider also that hybrids can be put in battery only mode if and when required.
30
This was a real problem across the Nullarbor where the water quality was poor and frequent stops were required. I believe these were some of the first trains to switch to diesel-electric.
30
Not going to happen TdeF.
The battery pack is the largest cost item in an EV. That isn’t going to change much because as the cost goes down the size and power will be increased – since range now is too low to be practical (even for Tesla 3s).
So to do the cushion shot thing and have a battery at home to charge up slowly, so that you can plug the battery of your car into it to charge it up quickly, would add 50% to the cost of your car for no real benefit to you.
The other obvious alternative of having giant peak trimming grid batteries is just as silly. Which South Australia is going to find out all about in 8 years time when the batteries have to be replaced. And the car owners in your scenario would have to replace both their batteries each 8 years too. Crazy.
I’ve said all this because if catastropharians were actually sane (something I’ve yet to see any indication of) they would keep ICEs and make green fuel for them instead. I’ve commented several times on “nuclear methanol“. Using a liquid fuel means low cost at the vehicle end of the equation and centralized economies of scale at the production end.
In reality though CO2 is about 99% harmless, so there’s no reason not to keep using fossil fuels, which if you do coal-to-liquids means several millennia before needing something else.
40
Sure in many cars, the engine is the most expensive component. This is the Tesla-S power source. People allege it is half the cost of the car. They come with an 8 year warranty. You also have to consider the cost of fuel, electricity over 8 years.
However Tesla currently sell complete replacement batteries for the Tesla-S in the US at $US12,000. That is their retail price, not cost. I would guess cost then at $6,000 on general principles.
Yes this may be the biggest component in making this expensive car and weigh 500kg but in Australia, the car sells for $120,000. There is no real cost in wiring them to generate a higher voltage for storage. A spare battery is less than the luxury car tax.
So even if a Tesla-S 85Kwhr battery had to be bought, you are looking at $10K in $120K, under 10% if bought at the same time.
Many people would jump at this if it meant recharge at home in 20 minutes. The electricity network would make them mandatory or simply ban the high drain rechargers.
00
US sources quote the Tesla S 75 to 100D from $US74,000 base model to $US135,000.
I would guess that the battery then is less than 10% of the retail price of the car.
I do not see why a second battery is not affordable. You are paying far too much anyway, so
what would you pay to have it recharge in 20 minutes instead of 1-2 days?
10
As for range, Audi just doubled their range. That is why they are quoting two days to charge.
00
Also I am not supporting these silly cars, wasteful and illogical, generating more CO2 than a petrol car. However people have the right to buy them. We do not have an obligation to let them destroy our electricity grid.
21
It’s hard to do a like with like comparison. For example my Mazda 3 cost me $12,500 second hand aged 8 years old. New would’ve been about $25,000. I expect 15 years life out of it with little mechanical cost. It gets 8 L/100 km in the city and 6.5 L/100 km on long trips. But it has a range of about 600-700 km depending. Tesla S with 85 kWh battery has a range maybe 300 km if fairly new. And it can be much lower in real world driving. A comparable range Tesla would have to have a battery around 200 kWh at commensurate extra cost.
So at 18 kWh/100 km I’d be paying about $4.50 in electricity or $10.50 in petrol for 100 km. If I drive 20,000 km per year (which I don’t) that would be $1,200 saving. In 8 years it is $9,600 saving…whereupon I’m now up for a new battery costing $12,000. Add in the difference in capital cost up front and you’d be mad to buy an EV. Unless you want a prestige car like a Maserati. But that is a different market entirely.
Renewable electricity is much more expensive than coal electricity and that $4.50/100 km will double soon based on the electricity prices in Germany and Denmark.
In short there is no way you can get an EV which can compete with a petrol car. Hybrids yes – they do ok as taxis because of the vast distances they travel. But even they make no sense for an ordinary family.
30
There is another aspect to this picture.
At 50 kW / fast charger, every 20 cars plugged in is 1 MW. Instantaneous load.
The grid is a load following machine. That becomes all the more difficult with intermittent supply sources and high impact instantaneous loads. Imagine Jan/Feb in SA with all the AC units online then add in a few hundred MW of fast chargers. Might actually trip the grid. With closure of the coal plants, reserves are non existant for that scale of load. Not unlikely with EV owners returning home after work and wanting to charge their big bat for the morning commute.
Unless, of course, tripping the grid is what was actually intended. If so, one might say : “Excellent, Smithers, Excellent”. Apologies to Homer Simpson.
30
How would you go trying to charge those batteries on 40 degree day?
Cheers,
Dave B
20
That’s only 12 years away, it’s twelve years ago Rudd came down from ‘Brissie’ to “help”.
Poor ol’ Josh, he’s been totally captured by his department, lost touch with reality and taken leave of his senses.
50
One million EVs at 50 kW/EV is 50 GW of load. Take the RMS average. 0.707 x 50 = 35 GW.
Wonder where that power is supposed to come from?
40
Taller tower wind turbines of course.
sarc
22
My basic research indicates that an ‘average’ EV uses 18 kW per 100km (source: https://www.ergon.com.au/network/smarter-energy/electric-vehicles/charging-your-electric-vehicle). If the car is used for an average of 50 km per day (~18,000 km/yr) this requires 9 kW/day. My current average daily power usage (family of 2, no EVs) is 11 kW, so adding the power used by charging just one EV at home every day would increase my daily home power consumption by 80%.
In general terms, this would be the case regardless of when and how fast the EV is charged. However the power distribution system cares about the rate of consumption as well as the total average consumption, and a fast charger will obviously have a much higher power consumption, but for a shorter period compared to a ‘trickle charger’, but both would consume about the same amount of kW per day. The wiring and switchboard etc. in the average domestic house is probably suitable for trickle charging, but would need serious upgrading for a 50kW fast charger – e.g. to support 3 phase power.
Nevertheless, what really matters is the 80% increase in average domestic power consumption that charging an EV will cause. This is not a trivial increase in domestic power use, and IMO would become a major network engineering problem once significant numbers of consumers start buying EVs. In short, if you thought that the network operators were ‘gold plating’ their networks in the past, you ain’t see nothing yet!
80
Hmm. Apparently, others agree with you.
https://csce.ucmss.com/cr/books/2017/LFS/CSREA2017/GCC3443.pdf
“it becomes evident that a large-scale adoption of electric vehicles will substantially affect the current power system operating practices. Several quality parameters including voltage drop, unbalance, harmonic distortion, cable and transformer overloading, and increased energy losses due to additional load of EVs are formulated and quantified in this paper. It is suggested that the network reinforcement for EVs may be designed based on the presented violating figures of power quality indices. It is important to visualize that there might be a situation when the systems does not remain capable of supporting further load of EV charging because of the violation in system’s operating parameters. Thus, definite up-gradation requirements must be investigated before EVs’ charging load is added in the distribution system.”
30
Not wanting to sound too conspiratorial here but the plan of the Elites is to destroy Western Civilisation. Global Warming and expensive “renewable” energy is one way of implementing the plan. The grid can be dealt its final death blow by the forced use of electric cars.
124
Cannot speak to the plans of the Elites as I am not one of them.
Western Civilisation is destroying itself rather well by itself.
The impacts of EVs is only a forced error insofar as it is allowed by the electorate.
I don’t disagree with you, David, in principle. However, in the end, it isn’t an externally forced error, but rather an internally allowed error that is the point of things.
Liberty is rarely taken at the point of a gun. It is most often taken by the apathy or ignorance of voters.
Americans might well be descended from traitors to the Crown. Australians might well be descended from criminals of the Crown. In either case, we still both have the ability to choose our destiny. And it damned well ought not be at the hands of liars and thieves. Vote the bastards out while it is still possible. Take away their legal authority before they do too much damage. Other than that, the choices are grim and historically predictable.
90
There is an alternative to voting them out. Voting hasn’t worked too well for over a century. Stop feeding them. They won’t last a month. They can’t fend for themselves except by taking what is not theirs to take.
If you don’t have it, they can’t take it.
If you don’t make it, they can’t steal it.
If you don’t earn it, they can’t tax it.
If you aren’t there, they can’t find you.
They need us but we don’t need them.
If they do find you, you can say “I am simply minimizing my carbon footprint as requested, Sir”. They will defeated by their own contradictions.
It is a tough way to go but it is a lot better than the collapse of civilization.
50
Voting is now obsolete, 50% of the electorate know they can legally pick other’s pockets through the ballot box. Maggie Thatcher was right.
00
I agree, reading between the lines, e.g. the $100 million gift of taxpayer’s monies to Macquarie Bank Leasing from the Turnbull Government to promote EV to fleet operators, there would be no private ownership of personal transport vehicles in the future.
Fleet operators would continue leasing and the rest of us would be encouraged to use public transportation including EV taxis and maybe EV self drive hire cars or autonomous vehicles that drive for us.
The next step maybe would be travel restrictions, limited to a home district boundary and to travel beyond government permit required.
Consider UN Agenda 30 Sustainability programmes including cities with much higher density high-rise dwellings to replace free standing houses. And Agenda 21 too. We Sheep are being quietly herded into the home paddock.
51
If I am wrong I ask why free enterprise, free market capitalist system, is being replaced with governments picking the winners and losers and even subsidising winners chosen and penalising the losers they target.
61
Recently I viewed a documentary on Communist China gated estates for people who are permitted to enjoy wealth, live in luxury housing, drive sought after vehicles, etc.
Catch 22: They cannot leave the district.
61
They probably don’t want the other animals on the farm to see that some animals are more equal than others
50
They hate the responsibility of being human and, because of that, they seek to destroy the products of man’s mind. This even at the cost of their own extinction.
50
[…] Jo Nova on the joy of electric cars and the push for big spending on infrastructure to support them. Only $3Bill what the heck. Share […]
00
I recently did some worst-case calcs on grid requirements to accommodate electric vehicles. Based on 2016 figures for Australia, we used 32,732Ml of petrol and diesel for road transport. 18,002 petrol and 14,730 diesel. Based on the energy per litre in these fuels, this equates to around 174,618GWh of petrol and 157,600GWh of diesel. The total Australian electricity generation for 2016 was 252,000GWh. So the grid would need to provide an ADDITIONAL 132% of the current generation to meet this need. And that’s not accounting for losses in the grid. It’s much more efficient to carry your raw high-energy-density fuel with you and consume it as required.
171
James, thank you! That’s a very useful analysis.
Jo
70
Thanks James. Immediately posted your figures into a relevant news article’s comment on The Oz, h/t to this website. It’s these basic figures that I consider very important to the general public.
70
Watch out for Peter (not one of ours but the Greenie who makes up figures, or quotes Renewable Energy – same thing).
40
This link on recharging EV using solar panels has been posted before but it is worth reviewing here …
https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/charging-electric-cars/
01
In the EU, May 2017, “The new vacuum cleaner energy label, set to come into effect on 1 September 2017, will reduce the maximum wattage from 1,600 to 900 watts for any vacuum cleaner manufactured or sold in the EU.”
The same with hair dryers, kettles, toasters. This does not mean you use less power, but hundreds of millions of people have to take twice as long to do anything.
Still the same people who want electric cars demand their right to charge them quickly and that we subsidize their power, provide rapid charging points and very expensive infrastructure to enable this, even subsidies for their cars?
Are these the same people demanding everyone else reduce their power consumption? An electric car should have no more right to power than a kettle.
121
Doesn’t a 50Kw charger seem a bit outrageous, considering what ordinary folk have to give up to keep the grid going?
71
Typical Green logic. It’s all about their convenience, no matter what the cost to everyone else. So with CO2. South Australia should now have the lowest CO2 levels in the world.
81
There is classic Green logic in the parallel running of confected outrage at aircons (3-kWs?) and the blithe mention of 50kW EV chargers.
10
I bought a 2.5 KW vacuum cleaner before the ban came in place. I would rather clean the house in one hour than two!
00
Tesla has a long way to go to get their mass production car for the masses up to its target rate:
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tesla-tracker/
10
That may be the least of their worries with $1B debt coming due, credit downgrade, SEC investigations and an NTSB investigation all running. Not sure where the billions they need by year end are coming from, one sure thing is it wont be coming from profits. Looking for the next layer of bigger fools I guess if they get over the SEC hurdle.
00
and I forgot the just announced global recall on the Model S
00
what a perverse economic model!
27 Mar: Phys.org: AFP: Canada to miss 2020 climate target: audit
Canada will likely miss a 2020 interim carbon emissions reduction target and will need to take strong measures if it further hopes to meet its Paris agreement commitment, said an audit released Tuesday.
Canada had set a target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming by 17 percent by 2020, from 2005 levels, and by 30 percent by 2030.
But Environment Commissioner Julie Gelfand said in a report that emissions are expected to be nearly 20 percent above the target for 2020…
Environment Minister Catherine McKenna welcomed the report, but said it is “backwards looking” and does not take into account a federal climate plan unveiled last year.
“We’re already seeing measurable results, but it takes time,” she told reporters.
The minister cited measures including the closing of coal-fired power plants, multi-billion dollar investments in public transit, and the pricing of CO2 emissions at Can$10 (US$7.80) and rising to Can$50 per tonne in 2022…
(FINAL PARA!) US President Donald Trump announced last year that his country would withdraw from the Paris pact.
https://phys.org/news/2018-03-canada-climate.html
27 Mar: Reuters: Vera Eckert: Vehicle pollution still rising in Germany: agency
“While energy-related emissions fell significantly, those in transport and the manufacturing industry went up,” the Umweltbundesamt (UBA) said in a statement.
“Therefore, additional measures are necessary to set Germany on a course toward its targets again.”…
But transport sector emissions rose by 2.3 percent to 170.6 million tonnes, as car ownership expanded and the booming economy meant more heavy vehicles were on the road.
The buoyant economy also drove up emissions from refineries, steelmaking and chemicals.
Germany has already had to abandon a self-imposed target of cutting emissions by 40 percent by the year 2020 from 1990 levels. The current reduction is 27.7 percent with just two years to go…
Instead, government is now aiming for a 55 percent cut by 2030 and has promised to bring in a climate law in 2019 that will demand more from lagging sectors…
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-germany-emissions/vehicle-pollution-still-rising-in-germany-agency-idUKKBN1H31F6
30
27 Mar: AmericanThinker: Trump vindicated on Paris Climate Accord pull-out
By Monica Showalter
Latest news from the International Energy Agency is that Paris Climate Accord nations, which is pretty much all of them, reported not a decline in greenhouse gases, but a 1.7% spike. Here is what New York magazine reported…
(excerpt) There are 195 signatories, of which only the following are considered even “in range” of their Paris targets: Morocco, Gambia, Bhutan, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, India, and the Philippines.
The headline suggests that the whole idea of lowering emissions through an international, Europe-based bureaucracy is increasingly “a fantasy.”
Greenhouse gas emissions go up, not down under this hideous accord, and not just because it gives a pass to rapidly growing third-world countries – pretty much all of them – to pollute away and let cutting emissions be America’s burden. There is also the phenomenon of how the more a place goes “green,” the more fossil fuels it uses. Like those electrical cars? They run on clean, green electricity all right – from plants that burn coal. Downstream, going green is very, very carbon-intensive, and it should surprise no one that sanctimonious western Europe, with all its green pontificating, is the very worst violator of them all…
The New York magazine article also reports that were nations to really adhere to the Paris accord, it would require land use the size of India and a sacrifice of about 250 million people – roughly a Great Leap Forward’s worth, again, courtesy of central planning. The United Nations echoed that finding late last year in a report described here, so it’s not an anomalous forecast. Sound attractive?…
It’s supremely ironic that the Paris Accord is now synonymous with higher emissions and more greenhouse gases. But that’s central planning for you.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/03/trump_vindicated_on_paris_climate_accord_pullout.html
30
too funny:
28 Mar: ScienceAlert: China Has Met Its 2020 Carbon Target Three Years Early
Way ahead of schedule
by STAFF, SCIENCE AF
Last year, after the US withdrawal from the Paris Accord, China’s top climate official Xie Zhenhua assured the world that China’s commitment to fight climate change was unwavering.
Now, Zhenhua has announced that China, the world’s biggest energy consumer, has already met its 2020 carbon intensity target – a whole three years ahead of schedule.
At a forum in Shanghai on Tuesday, Zhenhua reported that the country successfully cut its 2005 carbon intensity level by 46 percent last year…
The achievement is important, but it doesn’t mean that China’s overall carbon emissions have dropped. It just means that the country’s economy is becoming more efficient…
According to The Hill, the country plans to hit their peak carbon emissions by 2030, although if China keeps investing heavily in renewable energy and efficiency measures, it might reach this target ahead of schedule as well…
This article was originally published by Science As Fact (LINK).
Science As Fact is our sister site where we cover politics, debunking, fact checking, and humour. If you want more like this, head over to Science As Fact (LINK).
https://www.sciencealert.com/china-carbon-target-three-years-early
00
26 Mar: Breitbart: James Delingpole: Nothing Unusual Happening in Climate Change, Over 40 New Scientific Papers Confirm
The scare about global warming is overdone (LINK), according to more than 40 scientific papers published in just the first three months of 2018.
What their charts clearly show is that “nothing climatically unusual is happening.” (LINK)
In the chart below from a study by Polovodova et al (LINK), we see that 20th century warming is perfectly normal in a long-term historical context. It was no warmer – indeed, is slightly cooler – than either the Roman Warm Period or the Medieval Warming Period…
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/03/26/nothing-unusual-happening-in-climate-change-over-40-new-scientific-papers-confirm/
30
Pat I don’t know if you know but another site I visit is notrickszone.com with a caption”Not here to worship what is known, but to question it” – Jacob Bronowski. Climate and energy news from Germany in English – by Pierre L. Gosselin
A frequent poster on that site is Kenneth Richard who references 100’s of papers from scientists who are also ‘skeptics’.
Germany under Merkel rule has mandated Renewables big time and they just don’t measure up despite billions of Euro’s
20
not-so-stranded assets’!
fossil fuels “extreme” and “unconventional”!
28 Mar: Guardian: Arthur Neslen: ‘Extreme’ fossil fuel investments have surged under Donald Trump, report reveals
Sharp rise globally in the dirtiest fossil fuel investments reverses progress made after the Paris agreement, with tar sands holdings more than doubling in Trump’s first year in office
Bank holdings in “extreme” fossil fuels skyrocketed globally to $115bn during Donald Trump’s first year as US president, with holdings in tar sands oil more than doubling, a new report (LINK) has found.
A sharp flight from fossil fuels investments after the Paris agreement was reversed last year with a return to energy sources dubbed “extreme” because of their contribution to global emissions. This included an 11% hike in funding for carbon-heavy tar sands, as well as Arctic and ultra-deepwater oil and coal.
US and Canadian banks led a race back into the unconventional energy sector following Trump’s promise to withdraw from Paris, with JPMorgan Chase increasing its coal funding by a factor of 21, and quadrupling its tar sands assets.
Chase’s $5.6bn surge in tar sands holdings added to nearly $47bn of gains for the industry last year, according to the report by NGOs including BankTrack, the Sierra Club and Rainforest Action Network (RAN).
RAN spokeswoman, Alison Kirsch, accused banks such as JPMorgan Chase of “moving backwards in lockstep with their wrongheaded political leaders”…
14 European banks collectively increased their coal financing by more than $2bn last year, with HSBC the worst performer by far.
“Europe’s top banks have got to stop their coal-focused assault on the Paris agreement,” said Johan Frijns, the director of BankTrack. “It is now vital that they move to stamp out their financial support for companies developing new coal-fired power plants around the world.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/28/extreme-fossil-fuel-investments-have-surged-under-donald-trump-report-reveals
00
It’s interesting that as fossil fuel investments surge nuclear generation is being slowly shut down. The closing of one company’s 3 plants in 2 states has just been announced.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/firstenergy-solutions-files-deactivation-notice-for-three-competitive-nuclear-generating-plants-in-ohio-and-pennsylvania-300621346.html
I have no idea what impact the loss of 65% of current (2017) capacity will be.
00
Shocking headline from the Oz.
‘Shutdown of the Hazelwood plant caused record power prices in Victoria and had a “significant” national impact, a report says.’
100
Nothing has changed substantially from my “essay” written in 2009. Except that perhaps Enron Musk is now heavily on the nose.
The problem with EV remains the battery; even 100 years after the electric vehicle was replaced by the IC-engined vehicle.
The energy density of HC fuels is very hard to beat. Hydrogen does but it’s comparatively difficult to handle and even harder to keep in a tank! It’s possible to use fuel cells to generate electrical power, but their power output has high “inertia”; it’s slow to vary without damage to the cells. Mercedes Benz is currently running a pilot series of hybrid fuel cell vehicles, using a large-ish (14 kWh) battery in conjunction with the fuel cell. It could work quite well, perhaps even in hot climates. Time will tell, with general sales scheduled to begin late this year. But it’s very far from a simple system; which puts it out of reach of most of the population.
When one is developing technology, one must never lose sight of the greater problem that is to be solved by the technology; to keep solutions in proportion to the greater problem.
70
You know a technology is no good when consumers reject it, 3D TV, Variable transmissions, electric cars. The first electric buggy was created 174 years ago, the first petrol car 132 years ago, the first aeroplane 115 years ago, the first computer 74 years ago, the first mobile phone 45 years ago.
Only one of these technologies failed and is still failing with less than 3% of market penetration.
It’s never going to work because it’s rubbish.
50
I’m going to make a prediction, I believe in 2044, 26 years from now when the electric car is 200 years old there will be more chemically powered personal flying transport vehicles than electric cars on the road.
30
There isn’t and never will be a willing market for a million EVs in Oz. Single car families will never go for them for starters nor will anyone in regional areas.
I’ve just had an experience where I drove nearly 1.5 thou Ks to pick up my stranded daughter and her two friends from Cairns. There were three legs of high speed travel nearly 200 ks each, each way. There is NOTHING on these legs and one stop is a small roadhouse with a generator which tripped because they were busy pumping gas and cooking burgers at the same time.
My decision was a spur of the moment thing but it only took 10 mins to check my oil, tyres and fill with petrol. If my Tesla was a daily commute I topped up from my 10A GPO at home it would be unlikely to be fully charged at breakfast. Remember a Tesla charges at approx. 7 miles per hour of charge from a 240V, 10A outlet so I would need to charge it before I started and fast charging only goes to 80% so I would have started behind the eight ball. After another three charges, assuming that someone spent the large sum of money to make the high current charging at Greenvale and The Lynd available, it would have been midnight before I got there. And I wouldn’t have fitted three ladies and their luggage in a Tesla anyway. My common and garden Camry did a superb job.
10
I’ve just realised that I have mixed miles and Ks in my mind so the problem would not be as big as I thought BUT a recharge in the middle of nowhere would still be needed and that will not be possible for a looong time. There are always people doing long distances on long, lonely roads. The ICE cars are now reliable enough to allow this. Why stuff things up now?
10
There are easily one million virtue signalling posers and Elon worshippers in Oz. More than a million cars sold every year, so even off a low base it will be easy going with a range of the usual subsidies. Your experience isnt typical and could be covered with a rental.
Not an EV fan BTW, my main hobby is old car tinkering, but I reckon the million EVs will most likely happen.
00
Why own an expensive car and then rent one the moment you want to do some real motoring? And in the provinces people travel long distances that are not serviced by airlines for sports, weddings etc.
10