Electric future

[Slonopotam]

Hi all,

First I hear some republican news host telling oil will be 100+ a barrel at the beginning of the next year, if not at the end of this one. Then I see a dodge commercial offering "drivetrain lifetime limited warranty" for original buyer.

Is the key word "limited", are they sure I will try to get rid of it in 5 years or is it that nobody is going to need that gas-hungry drivetrain in 5-6 years ?

I am paranoid, as always.

Andrey

 

[RichP]

The only two ways to go the way I see it is electric and hydrogen. If every body switched to biodiesel tomorrow MacDonalds would make more selling their used french fry oil than burgers and there is only so much french fry oil no matter how many fast food places there are.
One of the many stock brokers in the building has told me they are investing in the companies that make the batteries and the companies that make the hydrogen converters that split H2O.

 

[Root Moose]

I'm all for electric as long as...

- I still have a ~300+ mile range
- I can be fully charged in less than an hour

So you have to stop for an hour to refuel, eat, take a leak, stretch legs or whatever instead of the normal 20-30 minutes. Big deal.

What sucks about electric for 4x4 though is that it is not portable at all. You can't hang a jerry can off the back as a back up.

Biodiesel is not viable. If you were to do a straight swap of biodiesel to dinojuice practically all arable land would have to be used just to produce fuel. Bye-bye bread basket. It has uses in some applications but as a direct replacement, no.

About 6 months ago there was a "break through" in solar cell tech that increased the amount of energy produced per unit from 8-10% to ~30% (sorry for muddled terms - my brain is out of RAM again).

At the time, the theoretical increase worked out that if you could take a good exposure surface like say Arizona and build a solar cell farm that was about 250 miles per side that could produce enough electricity to power everything on the planet. It's been a while since I read that - not certain if that was also things like automobiles or just the existing power grid.

I don't think electric powered jets will occur any time soon - biodiesel may be the way to go with that - or even better - hydrogren. Gas turbines run fine on hydrogen - better than dinojuice (or so I'm told). With "free", CO2 free solar power, producing large scale hydrgen becomes viable.

At any rate - promising. IMO all it takes now is will to change.

 

[RichP]

Yea, but you also have to look at big business putting the kabosh on any stand alone non dependent source that they can only profit from once, remember the mantra of business is residuals. It would not surprise me at all if many scientific breakthroughs were quietly bought up and shelved somewhere. I know bell labs used to just R&D stuff, had no need for it, patent it in the monthly patent package and then shelve it, much to the chagrin of TI when they announced they had developed bubble memory at which point bell said ahhh, not so fast there.
One example was that hydrogen powered honda last year, the one with the hang on the wall H2 generator, that vanished from the news almost like it wasn't there.
If you were to develop a nice microwave sized box that would split water to hydrogen to electric generator in the say $2000-$4000 range that would generate say 100amps at 220 volts you better have good body guards because there would be many industries that would knock you off and make you and your stuff disappear without a second thought.

 

[old_man]

Coal, powering electric cars since 1976

 

[XJ Dreamin']

Coal, powering electric cars since 1976

No chit. Electric ain't free.
If it's true that a patch of Arizona would power the world, I say what are we waiting for? Lets do it! I wonder what the Maricopa, Pima, Kwapa, Yavapai, Tohono O'odham, Apache, Diné, Mojave, Havasupai, Hopi, Hualapai, Paiute, Yaqui, and Quechan would think of that.

 

[Root Moose]

No chit. Electric ain't free.
If it's true that a patch of Arizona would power the world, I say what are we waiting for? Lets do it! I wonder what the Maricopa, Pima, Kwapa, Yavapai, Tohono O'odham, Apache, Diné, Mojave, Havasupai, Hopi, Hualapai, Paiute, Yaqui, and Quechan would think of that.

Most likely better than dealing with the a$$holes in the middle east.

Being serious, Az is just an example. Over build the system and spread it around so it's "everywhere" like a real grid.

 

[XJ Dreamin']

Most likely better than dealing with the a$$holes in the middle east.

Being serious, Az is just an example. Over build the system and spread it around so it's "everywhere" like a real grid.

I was just pokin' to see what would happen

Every 'solution' has an effect. Pollution from convetional steam generation: dead bats and birds from windmills: siltation and interrupted migration from hydro. The big question with solar (after the tech of eficiency/installation/maintenance and the environmental effect of so much shaded ground) is, where are you getting electricity during low/no sun time (night or clouds). Backup production or storage?

Seriously though, there's approximately 28,000 square miles of reservation in Arizona. They'll have to get with their neighbors in Nevada, Utah, and New Mexico if they want to get a lock on dominating world power supply.

 

[RichP]

Actually they are building a steam powered generator in a tower with mirrors around it and focused on the tower, China got in line first to build the next one.

 

[Slonopotam]

Coal, powering electric cars since 1976

Sure, the problem is that it is not gong to be this way much longer.

I would say nuclear short term, H -> He long term. And some kind of batteries storing energy either chemically or mechanically for mobile applications.

Andrey

 

[XJ Dreamin']

Actually they are building a steam powered generator in a tower with mirrors around it and focused on the tower, China got in line first to build the next one.

Somebody was messing with that 20 years ago! That still leaves the issue of an alternative, or a storage system for when the sun goes down.

 

[karstic]

Actually they are building a steam powered generator in a tower with mirrors around it and focused on the tower, China got in line first to build the next one.

There's two of em out by Barstow.

 

[rightseatsis]

The future is here:

This is my GEM car(all electric) and I commute to work in it (4.4 miles each way), grocery shop and do local errands. My electric bill went up $1 versus $30 bucks a week in the Jeep to do the same thing. It has its limitations but it gets me around the neighborhood and to work. Then I have the extra money to put in the Jeep to go on longer trips.

 

[XJ Dreamin']

The future is here:

This is my GEM car(all electric) and I commute to work in it (4.4 miles each way), grocery shop and do local errands. My electric bill went up $1 versus $30 bucks a week in the Jeep to do the same thing. It has its limitations but it gets me around the neighborhood and to work. Then I have the extra money to put in the Jeep to go on longer trips.

"CHRYSLER-JEEP-GEM" :roflmao: Only in San Francisco - I hope j/k

I wouldn't want to put that on I-45 at 16:30 on a Friday. All those 350 and 3500 deulies wouldn't even notice.

 

[RichP]

Somebody was messing with that 20 years ago! That still leaves the issue of an alternative, or a storage system for when the sun goes down.

That one 20 years ago was in Spain and generated enough power that it turned a profit. That one was shut down after 15 years due to structural issues with the tower itself. The ones in Australia will have a 3000 ft tower and will generate 200 megawatts and operate 24 hours a day. Interesting concept to use solar to heat air and drive 36 turbines in the base, the tower stores heat for nite time operation.
I also have no issues with nukes, slept 30 feet from one for 4 years so to me it's no big deal, trick is to standardize the design and let one company build the reactor itself like the Navy does. Make it modular so that the core itself can be swapped out in a day or so, new one put in it's place and the old one taken back to the shop and refurbed. New Navy reactors are good for 20 years of continuous operation now.

 

[RyanM]

Those cars are just gonna stop up traffic thus slow down economy. It's like the freakin mopeds holding up traffic going 25 in a 45

 

[RichP]

Those cars are just gonna stop up traffic thus slow down economy. It's like the freakin mopeds holding up traffic going 25 in a 45

Depends on the electric car, no
http://www.teslamotors.com/

 

[XJ Dreamin']

That one 20 years ago was in Spain and generated enough power that it turned a profit. That one was shut down after 15 years due to structural issues with the tower itself. The ones in Australia will have a 3000 ft tower and will generate 200 megawatts and operate 24 hours a day. Interesting concept to use solar to heat air and drive 36 turbines in the base, the tower stores heat for nite time operation.
I also have no issues with nukes, slept 30 feet from one for 4 years so to me it's no big deal, trick is to standardize the design and let one company build the reactor itself like the Navy does. Make it modular so that the core itself can be swapped out in a day or so, new one put in it's place and the old one taken back to the shop and refurbed. New Navy reactors are good for 20 years of continuous operation now.

The one I saw was rather small. They were trying to heat water for steam turbines. Obviously, I'm out of the loop on this technology. Time for a bit of research. Thanks for the info.

 

[Powerman]

This subject is a bit jumbled. Transportation and the elctric generation of this country are two different subjects.

As far as transportation, bio-fuels are a complete joke and I won't waste my time on them. Yes hippies and Willie Nelson use them, but it is not a national solution, peroid.

Hydrogen is no miracle cure. Yes we can build the infrastructure, but H2 has a very low energy content. Right now, we get our H2 from natural gas. That is not an infinite supply. It takes more electrical energy to split water, than you gain in H2. So we build more electrical generation. Plants are only 45-60% efficient at turning fuel into electricity. Then we split water for H2, a low energy content fuel. So how efficient is that cycle? How much will that all cost to go 100 miles?

Electricity is an option. It's doable. However, look at the battery problem. What production costs and the toll it takes. Recycling? How much additional electrical generation will the country need to supply our transportation needs? I assume it will cost more for mileage to move all those heavy batteries around. What happens when we have a blackout like in N.Y. and transportation comes to a standstill. Again, what is the efficiency of the whole cycle. Oh ya, it isn't portable. If you ran out of "gas", you would have to call a tow truck to get you to a charging station, or a portable generator would have to be used to juice you up.

I'm all for getting off foreign oil, there are plenty technologies that can accomplish that. Combinations would do well. However, there is nothing that will be as cheap as oil. We are not actually out of oil. We are running out of easily accessed oil.The kind you can just pump out of the ground. Canada has enormous oil sand reserves. The U.S. actually has very large reserves of oil sand, and shale. It will just cost more per barrel to extract it. The days of cheap oil out of the ground are comming to an end. More expensive oil is still better than more expensive hydrogen, or electricity.

Electrical generation for the grid is a whole other subject. There are no easy "cheap" solutions to that problem either. Fossil fuels will remain dominant in that area for decades to come. I'm pro nuke too by the way. Nuke power is great if you don't mind a big pile of nuclear waste in your back yard that will be deadly for 10,000 years. The nuclear energy policy of this country will have to change for that to be a viable solution. I don't see that happening, and nuclear power will never realize it's true potential.

Solar thermal plants are very promising. There are a few prototypes running. The ones I've seen have reflector farms that concentrate solar onto pipes. They circulate sodium or some other medium through them and store thermal energy to generate steam for a conventional steam turbine. They can store enough thermal energy to run through the night. Cool. Nothing at this point can compete with coal. Sorry

 

[Rob Mayercik]

Biodiesel is not viable. If you were to do a straight swap of biodiesel to dinojuice practically all arable land would have to be used just to produce fuel. Bye-bye bread basket. It has uses in some applications but as a direct replacement, no.

I'm not going to suggest that Biodiesel can replace all other fuels completely, but I think you're underestimating it a bit.

For example, the yield from using algae is far higher than other feedstocks. I've read about ideas about using big lakes out in the desert for algae-based biodiesel, and I've also read ideas of growing this algae in the smokestacks of factories/powerplants/etc., where it feeds off the garbage normally spewed into the air. Air filtration and renewable fuel - not a bad combination. Feedstocks like soybeans (U.S.), rapeseed (Europe), and so on are merely first-generation products. They're not the end of the evolution of Biodiesel, they're merely the beginning.

If we start pushing the diesel engine (and furnace) manufacturers to make sure that their engines (furnaces) can run on anything from pure dino to B100, and work out effective antigel agents for cooler climate areas, we should be able to eliminate a fair chunk of our demand for crude, don't you?

Don't count biodiesel out yet - I don't see/hear anything about a practical gasoline/electric hybrid coming out from Mack, Peterbuilt, or White. For now, when there's heavy work to be done, you call on the diesel.

Rob