One prediction on electric cars

[Nutmegger]

"It's hard to make predictions, especially about the future"
- Niels Bohr

Predictions or not, I hope we do find come up with something in the next 20 years or so, be it nuclear, thermonuclear, wind, tides, sun, etc.etc..

 

[Besoeker]

The French prior to WWII had no nuclear generation capacity. What gets built is a matter of economics and regulation. That's how France got to the high level of Atom power.

And to avoid being dependent so on external sources.

There has been an engineering study about installing a broad swath of offshore wind mills along the east coast and the weather reports and the law of large numbers indicate that they could deliver predicable constant power.

You may have heard of the London array, off the coast of Kent, has 175 3.6MW turbines. Yes, about 630MW in total. It was, and maybe still is, the largest off-shore wind farm in the world.
It can, on average, generate under half a percent of total UK capacity. UK has a population of about 60 million. For USA, it is more than 300 million.
You need to understand scale.

Right at this moment UK total wind power from all the wind farms combined is contributing under 2%. Imports from French nuclear is over 7%.
People are engineering storage facilities to smooth out non-fossil fuel variations. Coal, nuclear and CCGT makes up the vast bulk of it - around 90%
Numbers matter. Scale matters.

I had a 700W Solar Panel Installation in Massachusetts around 2000 that generated 1MWh per year.

Accords with the capacity factors I suggested.

LEDs have the possibility of making a large dent in lighting loads.

I agree - especially if replacing incandescent lighting.
Our house has no incandescent lighting. Operating cost is a major incentive.

You may, or may not know, that much no, make that most, of my professional life has been in the variable speed drives field.
Sometimes, for production process requirements, but quite often driven by energy saving potential. It can be huge. One drive alone the savings are around ?40.000 a month - $65.000 in a plant we do business with.

A large portion of the housing stock here can be made more energy efficient at a cost per KWh below the cost of building new generation. It is just a question of providing the proper incentives to the POCOs.

No disagreement with that either. But I also see incentives as bribes. Distorting the market.

It's not easy, but there are significant issues to overcome.

Indeed there are.

 

[GoldDigger]

Two quick comments Besoeker:
1. Sometimes the market does not take into account social or indirect costs.
2. Sometimes to get the ball to roll further downhill you have to push it up over a barrier.

However, believing that it is easy (or even possible?) for a government to get it right the first time is not justified either.

 

[Curious nerd]

Numbers and scale really do matter

Numbers and scale really do matter

There's a book, available as a free download, which puts numbers on demand and supply options. It's http://www.withouthotair.com/, and it's a great example of how much reality you can get out of approximate numbers.

 

[Besoeker]

Two quick comments Besoeker:
1. Sometimes the market does not take into account social or indirect costs.
2. Sometimes to get the ball to roll further downhill you have to push it up over a barrier.

However, believing that it is easy (or even possible?) for a government to get it right the first time is not justified either.

No great disagreement with that.
Maybe I'm a bit of a cynic. Or maybe a lot of a cynic.

Liberal, conservative, socialist, republican, democrat...........
The first objective it gain the upper hand and get into power it seems to me.
Not the most laudable objective in my opinion.

Once elected, members mostly have to toe the party line. Free votes here for our elected representative are rare.
And a hen has more teeth than we have referendums - where the vote on a specific issue is put to the ordinary people - the electorate.

But that will happen in Scotland later this week when the yes or no vote for in or out of the UK takes place.
I can't say that greatly pleases me despite my being a Scot.

Off topic. Sorry mods.

 

[mgookin]

In science it's just what we believe today, or think is correct. That's why everything is a theorem. It's just someone's theory which has not been disproven. It works. We do it.

While to a student he may say "wow as a human race we know a lot about science" but in reality there's much more to come. With the popularity of fast computers, our understanding should be accelerating. Today a kid has more computing power than los Alamos had many decades ago.

Where will technology be in 100 years? Holy cow I can't imagine!

But to think these stupid grids & mega power plants will be here in 100 years is foolish at best. A simple power plant smaller than your a/c unit is very much believable.

 

[FionaZuppa]

EV's are a false-notion technology (currently), their ROI cannot beat oil based vehicles, and all EV's do is move gaseous emissions from tailpipe to energy plant. The emission problem can be solved by requiring all EV charging to be sourced from wind or solar, but fat chance anyone can enforce that.

plenty of other sources of energy, question is, which is cheaper to harvest?

EV's are a by-product of energy harvesting (in basic terms, we manufactured a thingy that uses energy some other way), doesnt really matter what EV it is you still need to source that power. today, that power comes from existing main sources (oil, coal, gas, solar, wind, nuclear).

i know they are looking at ways to harvest the energy from ocean currents (an unlimited amount of energy), but way too pricey currently. but even disrupting ocean currents can in fact cause issues for ocean life, so i am sure we will see environmentalists wanting to stop it. if you want ocean based energy, then start sending your income to XYZ companies.....

 

[ggunn]

No disagreement with that either. But I also see incentives as bribes. Distorting the market.

Sometimes the market needs distorting. The "free market" doesn't exist, anyway; it's already stuffed to the gills with special interest distortions. Corporations are people. Money is speech.

War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.
- George Orwell

I'll stop now.

 

[Besoeker]

In science it's just what we believe today, or think is correct. That's why everything is a theorem. It's just someone's theory which has not been disproven. It works. We do it.

I wouldn't count on gravity being disproved any time soon.

 

[Besoeker]

EV's are a false-notion technology (currently), their ROI cannot beat oil based vehicles, and all EV's do is move gaseous emissions from tailpipe to energy plant. The emission problem can be solved by requiring all EV charging to be sourced from wind or solar, but fat chance anyone can enforce that.

A few points.
There is no ROI on vehicles* - they start depreciating the moment you drive them out of the showroom. At their eventual demise they are worth scrap metal value.
Recoverable oil resources are finite so there is no question that we will have to move away from that as an energy source at some point.
And maybe that is not so far off. US production is 11 million bbl/day.
Known reserves amount to about 29,000 million bbl.
So less than a decade's worth sourced locally. Of course there are imports, about 9 million bbl/day.
But usually from less than stable parts of the world. And, even with that, it is still less than two decades of the black stuff.

On emissions,yes the EV does move them to the energy plant. But IC engines are pretty inefficient energy converters. Maybe 30%-40% tops. We make some electric motors foe EVs. They have a conversion efficiency of upwards of 95%.

i know they are looking at ways to harvest the energy from ocean currents (an unlimited amount of energy), but way too pricey currently. but even disrupting ocean currents can in fact cause issues for ocean life, so i am sure we will see environmentalists wanting to stop it. if you want ocean based energy, then start sending your income to XYZ companies.....

Somewhat related to this point, I did the initial feasibility studies on the first wave power generator. It's off the west coast of Scotland and initially rated at 500kW.
A decent size but peanuts in the context of utility scale power generation.

 

[fmtjfw]

Looking at them 1 at a time,they are all peanuts

Looking at them 1 at a time,they are all peanuts

Mr. Besoeker states that renewables are not the solution to to future power generation. He quotes 4.099 trillion KWh as the yearly load in US. that is 4x10¹⁵Wh which agrees closely with the eia.gov number for generation. The same site gives 3.694x10¹⁵Wh as total load, the difference is .405x10¹⁵ in losses or power consumed at power plants, .... The total "losses" approach 10% rather than 5%.

Now as to largest generation stations in the US:

Capacity	Annual Production	Type	Name
6,809MW	21 TWh	Hydro	Grand Coulee Dam
1,808		geothermal	The Geysers
500		Flat Panel PV	Alamosa
1,064		Wind	Alta
3,499		Coal	Bowen

 

[Besoeker]

Mr. Besoeker states that renewables are not the solution to to future power generation. He quotes 4.099 trillion KWh as the yearly load in US. that is 4x10¹⁵Wh which agrees closely with the eia.gov number for generation. The same site gives 3.694x10¹⁵Wh as total load, the difference is .405x10¹⁵ in losses or power consumed at power plants, .... The total "losses" approach 10% rather than 5%.

From a different site:

Electricity - production:

4.099 trillion kWh (2011 est.)
country comparison to the world: 2
Electricity - consumption:

3.886 trillion kWh (2010 est.)
country comparison to the world: 2

Whatever, it puts a finite limit on the losses you could possibly save with distributed generation.
And you won't save all of either figure.
Small beer.

 

[Besoeker]

Mr. Besoeker states that renewables are not the solution to to future power generation.

I don't think I did.
This from post #18:

Don't misunderstand me. I'm not for a moment suggesting that we shouldn't be looking for solutions. But we should not underestimate the magnitude of the issues.

 

[gadfly56]

Mr. Besoeker states that renewables are not the solution to to future power generation. He quotes 4.099 trillion KWh as the yearly load in US. that is 4x10¹⁵Wh which agrees closely with the eia.gov number for generation. The same site gives 3.694x10¹⁵Wh as total load, the difference is .405x10¹⁵ in losses or power consumed at power plants, .... The total "losses" approach 10% rather than 5%.

Now as to largest generation stations in the US:

Capacity	Annual Production	Type	Name
6,809MW	21 TWh	Hydro	Grand Coulee Dam
1,808		geothermal	The Geysers
500		Flat Panel PV	Alamosa
1,064		Wind	Alta
3,499		Coal	Bowen

Wind and solar will never be more than niche solutions. Two problems; they're not dispatchable, and you need a dispatchable reserve, which is likely natural gas or ancient oil fired units to cover their entire load. So no savings on capital investment. In fact, that dispatchable reserve is going to be hideously expensive based on % uptime. When you get to 20% or so wind and solar, the grid destabilizes because it can't react fast enough to the variable supply. I think two winters ago, Great Britain was in the middle of a freeze AND there was no wind blowing. No juice from the bird shredders to power the electric heaters. Imagine if 20% of the nameplate capacity were wind (forget solar at those latitudes). Freezing in the dark indeed!

 

[Besoeker]

Wind and solar will never be more than niche solutions. Two problems; they're not dispatchable, and you need a dispatchable reserve, which is likely natural gas or ancient oil fired units to cover their entire load. So no savings on capital investment. In fact, that dispatchable reserve is going to be hideously expensive based on % uptime. When you get to 20% or so wind and solar, the grid destabilizes because it can't react fast enough to the variable supply. I think two winters ago, Great Britain was in the middle of a freeze AND there was no wind blowing. No juice from the bird shredders to power the electric heaters. Imagine if 20% of the nameplate capacity were wind (forget solar at those latitudes). Freezing in the dark indeed!

Quite.
Dark calm nights...without storage at utility scale.
Maybe that will change but I don't see it happening at that level in the short term.
And the bird shredder notion is a myth put about by those who object to wind turbines.
Vastly more are killed by domestic cats, automobiles, flying into tall buildings, overhead transmission lines........
I've been up close to a number of wind turbines and have yet to see one dead bird.
On the other hand, it is not particularly unusual to see a few on any one day in my 50-mile round trip to my office.

For the avoidance of doubt, I am not promoting wind turbines and I have no commercial interest in them.

 

[ggunn]

...
And the bird shredder notion is a myth put about by those who object to wind turbines.
...

Chickens are birds, right? How many chickens do humans kill every year?

 

[FionaZuppa]

A few points.
There is no ROI on vehicles* - they start depreciating the moment you drive them out of the showroom. At their eventual demise they are worth scrap metal value.
.

residual value of the object is something very different than ROI.

a simple way to define ROI is $-per-mile, this is a ROI rate, which currently oil based fueled vehicles have a lower $:mile ratio. this accounts for the cost of the object and is looked at over a period of time. i ran the #'s many times, the best Prius (long range, low bling) today will break even with a Corolla in about 7yrs using 12kmi/yr as an input, thus the Corolla (or the like) has a much better ROI for 84k miles (12k * 7).

ROI = how much does it cost per mile (including the cost of the object used to traverse those miles).

 

[Besoeker]

residual value of the object is something very different than ROI.

a simple way to define ROI is $-per-mile, this is a ROI rate, which currently oil based fueled vehicles have a lower $:mile ratio. this accounts for the cost of the object and is looked at over a period of time. i ran the #'s many times, the best Prius (long range, low bling) today will break even with a Corolla in about 7yrs using 12kmi/yr as an input, thus the Corolla (or the like) has a much better ROI for 84k miles (12k * 7).

ROI = how much does it cost per mile (including the cost of the object used to traverse those miles).

ROI is return on investment.
You invest in say $20,000 of shares and sell them three years later for $30,000, you have a return of $10,000.
"Invest" in a car for $20,000, you're not very likely to be able to sell it three years later for $20,000, far less $30,000.

Cars depreciate. They lose value. You don't normally invest in something you KNOW will lose money.

 

[Besoeker]

Chickens are birds, right? How many chickens do humans kill every year?

Lots. Ban humans, eh??

 

[FionaZuppa]

ROI is return on investment.
You invest in say $20,000 of shares and sell them three years later for $30,000, you have a return of $10,000.
"Invest" in a car for $20,000, you're not very likely to be able to sell it three years later for $20,000, far less $30,000.

Cars depreciate. They lose value. You don't normally invest in something you KNOW will lose money.

ROI's have context (they all have some type of return in them). you dont buy a car to sit there hoping for its value to go up, like you do with stock. a car returns you a real service for buying and using it, it moves you from point A to B. in basic analysis the ROI for a vehicle $-per-mile. the equation includes cost of vehicle, maintenance, fuel, comfort, etc etc over its in-service lifespan.

this is basic analysis for freight, how much $-per-mile does it cost me to move 1ton of goods. do you pay $100,000 for XYZ item now that yields $1-per-mile-per-ton, or do you spend $75,000 for ABC that yields $1.25-per-mile-per-ton ?? if the freight company moves 1million ton 156,000 miles per year where is the break-even point? the more costly $1-per-mile-per-ton item is more efficient, but if the break even point is beyond say the accepted time period at which old stuff is swapped out for better/newer stuff than the ROI is not favoring XYZ, etc.

there are other factors in play, like cost of fuels going up over time, but even with that factored in my Prius/Corolla example still favors the std pump gas vehicle.