Destined for failure. The future of electricity.

wheelsmithy (Joe-with-an-L) (Forum Supporter) said:

11GTCS said:

They’re already out there.  We took a trip to Las Vegas in 2018 and saw multiple solar farms that likely covered several thousand acres.  On the Nevada / California border in the Mohave desert there are three heliostat solar plants that power steam generators just off the interstate. 

Unless I'm mistaken, Nevada, with its huge draw from Vegas, is one of the few States (regions?-you get the point), to consistently produce a power surplus. Very green vs. other places, too.

Isn't that mostly hydroelectric from the Hoover Dam?

mad_machine (Forum Supporter) said:

noddaz said:

Slippery (Forum Supporter) said:

BFH_Garage said:

the farmers say they will make more leasing their land for solar, it will be interesting to see if we hit a point where we are taking too much productive farm land out of production for solar and create food supply issues. 

Put the solar farm in the desert. SW. 

Put the solar farm on top of every mall in the country.  Acres of real estate waiting to be used.

Cover the parking lots too.  Keeps the cars cooler in summer and the rain and snow off of them in bad weather while really increasing the acreage of solar cells.

How would that work?

How would the site drainage work when it is all captured and directed by a roof-like structure?  How would you repave the parking lot when it needed maintenance and service?What happens when a dummy in an SUV who is texting and driving runs into a column?Who would pay for a massive structure that has to resist wind, earthquakes in some regions, tornados in others?

I do commercial construction. We frequently add solar panels to commercial roofs because it's cheap real estate that is already paid for and the structural and weather considerations  have been accounted for. Building a NEW structure to support solar panels would be hugely expensive. 
 

There is no point to this. It's much easier to build ground based solar farms. 

Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) said:

wheelsmithy (Joe-with-an-L) (Forum Supporter) said:

11GTCS said:

They’re already out there.  We took a trip to Las Vegas in 2018 and saw multiple solar farms that likely covered several thousand acres.  On the Nevada / California border in the Mohave desert there are three heliostat solar plants that power steam generators just off the interstate. 

Unless I'm mistaken, Nevada, with its huge draw from Vegas, is one of the few States (regions?-you get the point), to consistently produce a power surplus. Very green vs. other places, too.

Isn't that mostly hydroelectric from the Hoover Dam?

Yeah, I think you're right. Still shows what can be done, as long as we have water (apologies for flounder) 

codrus (Forum Supporter) said:

SVreX (Forum Supporter) said:

1- Charging electric cars increases load on the grid.  That's not right (for the most part).  Electric cars BALANCE the grid load.  They are mostly charged at night, which is when the grid is less stressed (because businesses are closed and manufacturing plants are not drawing power).  Very little change would be necessary.

3- Renters must have home chargers to be included in the electric economy.  That's like saying renters can't wash their clothes because they don't own washing machines.  There will be plenty of other ways to get their cars charged.  What do you think all the owners of gas stations are gonna do to make money?  There will also be mobile charging businesses, battery swapping businesses, landlords will begin installing chargers so they can get better tenants and higher rents, etc.  Every problem creates business opportunity.

4- We will always need to have as many cars per household as we do now.  Electric also brings with it vast new opportunities for alternate transportation ideas.  Electric mass transit, autonomous cars, car ownership sharing, electric scooters and single user vehicles, etc. etc.  There are LOTS of alternatives.  And younger generations are already rejecting auto ownership as the necessity their older counterparts have made it.  I'm not convinced the next generations will have multiple hunks of iron collecting rust in the yard.  They may be very content to have a neighborhood rideshare program where they each get timeshares of a neighborhood owned Tesla.

1 and 3 are related.  Today's EVs tend to be owned by wealthier buyers, who are more likely to be homeowners, and thus able to charge overnight (or with their solar panels).  To replace 95% of the vehicle fleet with EVs you need to expand ownership to the people who live in apartments and park on the street.  No city is going to pay to line the streets with chargers for every street parking spot, so those people need to be able to go somewhere to charge, just like they go to a gas station to buy gas today.  This means that we need improvements in charging technology to allow something like 80% charge in 10-15 minutes.  It also means that that 80% charging will mostly be happening during the day, NOT at night, and so it impacts the power grid requirements.

I'm highly dubious about #4.  That may be fine for single people who are in their 20s, but it changes when you're dropping 3 kids off at daycare on the way to work.

 

I also have to question the in-use efficacy of #1.  I agree that most charging will take place during off-peak hours and therefore not overload the grid, but the bottom line is that the grid carries electrons and had a lifespan based on the number of electrons.  It many not be OVER used at any given time, but it will be used to carry much more bulk electricity in total.  If we all switched to electric cars right now, I think the number of infrastructure failures would increase measurably.  Running a grid near capacity during the day and scaling back at night (like right now) is different that running near capacity 24/7 (adding millions of EVs charging at night.)

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

That's not how I understand it at all. 
 

Power generating facilities have to be designed to handle PEAK demand (maximum at any time). No such thing as average. 

Off-peak usage is essentially wasted capacity. 
 It's less costly, because they are trying to encourage people and businesses to use it.

Power plants are most efficient when they run as close to a steady state as possible. 

Haven't read through the entire thread, but here are my thoughts:

1. We will figure it out. We put man on the moon. The first car wasn't as good as a horse or bicycle for many applications, possibly even all applications. For some situations today that is even still true. So to say that something is going to fail because the current infrastructure isn't sufficient is annoying.
2. It has been mentioned already, my big concern is what is required for battery manufacturing. I know right now it is a net benefit vs burning old dinosaurs, but mining for this stuff isn't great for the environment either. I'm sure we will figure this out as well, but to me it is a much greater concern than the current infrastructure. 

93EXCivic said:

My question is do we have enough of the rare earth metals need to do all this. I mean between the batteries in cars, needed to solar setups, normal electronics, etc it seems like a lot of mining to be done. 

"Rare earth elements" (lanthanides) are misnamed, they're not actually all that rare.  They're just difficult (and thus expensive) to refine because the ores are relatively low concentrations and are mixed up with a lot of other stuff.

In reply to SVreX (Forum Supporter) :

The use of solar panels in parking lots may not work everywhere, but it does work in some places. Skinny G’s alma mater BCIT uses them and they are being proposed at Burnaby City Hall - not too far from BCIT.

The parking lot at the USCIS building in Denver has solar panels as shades. Apparently it can be made to work. It's not a monolithic roof so wind and rain are less of an issue. And given the strength of the high altitude summer sun, they're nice to park under.

I don't think it's the number of electrons that go through a piece of electrical equipment that wears it out - it's not an erosion problem. Failures are more likely to be from heat buildup and if you don't build up heat you can keep moving those electrons for decades. From my understanding, it's the variations in load that are the problem all the way around.

Batteries are recycleable and are being recycled. That's a good source of rare earths once we have the fleet starting to turn over. 

Conversations here are way better than FB, but at some level we run into the same thing: post-sized bites of conversation aren't a great format for documenting and referring back to the moderate list of issues/problems/challenges that face EVs. These are good conversations to have, but it's not as though they tend to raise new issues.

Somewhere on the Internet someone must have a pretty good matrix that shows issues and the related info about which ones are already effectively solved, and what's outstanding about the unsolved ones. Not that any one source will be considered trustworthy by all, but if it's bare-bones enough and cites sources without commentary, maybe?

This of course doesn't address all the underlying assumptions that inform whether each of us considers a given course of action reasonable.

In reply to SVreX (Forum Supporter) :

To put some numbers to the power balance idea....

Not sure who makes these numbers up, but the household power usage per day ranges from 20-40 kW-hr (which makes sense).  

Someone did some calculations, and EV's use about 30kwhr/100 miles, and with the average commute being 30mile/day, the average EV would use 10kWhr/day.

So the household usage would go up to 30-50kW-hr/day.  Not sure if that wll need upgrades or not, but for the home user, that would be from about 6pm to 6am for that charge.  A smart system would focus that to 12-6 if the system was powerful enough.

I started doing that using mpge and gasoline energy equivalent- but since the numbers come out the same, I was lucky to find the same in just kW-hr, which is how we are all charged.

Still, we have had delivery issues- from large scale black outs to rolling black and brown outs.  It's not as if the electrical grid is super robust and nothing needs to be done.  Let alone a shift 100% away from coal (since it's emissions suck, and it's CO2 is also very high- I've seen a lot of data where gas cars are better than EVs+coal).  

I don't see fusion as being an answer in the time frame car companies claim to switch over, and there's got to be a lot of power storage development for grid stabilization for solar and wind.  There have been some interesting developments in fission, but who knows if that will happen or not.

In reply to alfadriver (Forum Supporter) :

Jesus, using an online calculator I use 35 kw/h a month

In reply to Antihero (Forum Supporter) :

Here's another page I found with the US average right in the middle at 877kW-hr per month https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=97&t=3#:~:text=In%202019%2C%20the%20average%20annual,about%20877%20kWh%20per%20month.

Give you an idea how much power other people use....

But for the grid scale calculation, it's all about averages vs. a single household.

Since it has already been mentioned a couple times, I want to lay the "but coal!" distraction to rest.

Coal is used for less than 25% of the US's energy production for electricity.   

Transmission loss through the grid is pretty low, but obviously not zero. However, when comparing emissions from an ICE, you also have to include evaporative losses.   Not just from the fuel system itself and refueling, but also along the entire supply chain.  This is far from insignificant, which is why you see so much being done to try to limit those losses.   However, we are reaching diminishing returns in those areas due to complexity and enforcement issues.


Now, back to coal.   That pollution is decreasing, and will continue to decrease, through both decommissioning of coal power plants, as well as holding the existing ones to tighter standards.  Plenty of other power sources are taking the place of coal, and you will continue to see that 23.45% of production decline, so don't use that as an excuse to decry the use of EVs.  Coal is (slowly) going away.  EVs are here to stay. 


If you still want to argue, here is a chart comparing "Well to Wheel" emissions between EVs, HEVs, PHEVs, and ICE gasoline in  West Virginia (A state that derives over 90% of its power from coal), as well as emissions comparisons from the national averages.   West Virginia is an outlier, but it is clear, even in this example, that EVs are far cleaner than ICE.
 

Source- US Department of Energy
 

In reply to alfadriver (Forum Supporter) :

Your numbers reflect my house, during summer it is probably worse. Keep in mind this area relays heavily on electricity, no gas here. 

Also, my house would have 2 cars, 3 in a couple of years once my oldest starts driving. 

wheelsmithy (Joe-with-an-L) (Forum Supporter) said:

Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) said:

wheelsmithy (Joe-with-an-L) (Forum Supporter) said:

11GTCS said:

They’re already out there.  We took a trip to Las Vegas in 2018 and saw multiple solar farms that likely covered several thousand acres.  On the Nevada / California border in the Mohave desert there are three heliostat solar plants that power steam generators just off the interstate. 

Unless I'm mistaken, Nevada, with its huge draw from Vegas, is one of the few States (regions?-you get the point), to consistently produce a power surplus. Very green vs. other places, too.

Isn't that mostly hydroelectric from the Hoover Dam?

Yeah, I think you're right. Still shows what can be done, as long as we have water (apologies for flounder) 

Nevada is just under 6% Hydro.  64% of Nevada's power comes from Natural Gas.  Solar is 12%  Geothermal is surprisingly (to me) third as 9.8%

 

Huh.  I was happy when our usage dropped to just a little over 2700 kwH this month.  Last month was over 3000.

alfadriver (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to Antihero (Forum Supporter) :

Here's another page I found with the US average right in the middle at 877kW-hr per month https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=97&t=3#:~:text=In%202019%2C%20the%20average%20annual,about%20877%20kWh%20per%20month.

Give you an idea how much power other people use....

But for the grid scale calculation, it's all about averages vs. a single household.

Wow....

I mean....I heat with wood and don't have a single electric appliance so I'm obviously an outlier but still....wow. Our power consumption is basically 2 60w led lights near constant and 2 others rarely. TV....maybe 2 hours every other day. A few cell phone chargers thru out the day. Our well pump is on 20 min a day, sometimes every other day as it fills up the pressure tanks.

Even in the city on grid we used nowhere near that much. $120 for gas and electric was a huge bill to us. 

And here's the thing.    I have many vehicles.   Every single one of them ICE.  (Except for my wife's Prius that she inherited when her dad passed away a year ago)   EVs, as I stated some time ago, don't work for me in their current configuration.  I drive too far, and/or with too much of a load to be able to justify a current EV.   Especially since all new cars are more money than I want to spend.     But EVs will continue to evolve, and close the gap in capability.   Which will help to ensure a cleaner, most sustainable future.




I love my old cars and motorcycles.  A LOT...


But I love my daughter more.  

Antihero (Forum Supporter) said:

alfadriver (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to Antihero (Forum Supporter) :

Here's another page I found with the US average right in the middle at 877kW-hr per month https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=97&t=3#:~:text=In%202019%2C%20the%20average%20annual,about%20877%20kWh%20per%20month.

Give you an idea how much power other people use....

But for the grid scale calculation, it's all about averages vs. a single household.

Wow....

 

I mean....I heat with wood and don't have a single electric appliance so I'm obviously an outlier but still....wow.

Even in the city on grid we used nowhere near that much. $120 for gas and electric was a huge bill to us.

You dont have a refrigerator? Are you on the Discovery Channel's "Life below zero" ... love that show lol. 

Electric on at $120 would be impossible for me. 



 

In reply to Slippery (Forum Supporter) :

I have all propane appliances, fridge included

Antihero (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to Slippery (Forum Supporter) :

I have all propane appliances, fridge included

Got it. Propane is pricey down here at around $2+/gallon. 

In reply to Slippery (Forum Supporter) :

It's jumped a lot here, $2.89 is what I paid recently but I'm using small bottles. I use about 25 gallons a month for everything so it's an ok solution but I really need to get a big tank put in.

Then it's a bit over a buck a gallon

I'm a proponent of EVs. I'm thinking about the current crop of cars entering their beater phase, knowing that they have almost no maintenance needs to have been neglected. For the most part, have the battery condition checked, do a functional check, and if the calendar says so, change the gearbox oil, and you're good. They should be cheaper for lower income owners. 

Charging is largely an "at home" practice for day-to-day EV use. 

I see a really challenging population of car owners though.

How do you solve at home parking for people who street park? 

Most of these cars wouldn't be here if they had another place. These cars more or less live their entire lives on the side of the street. They're also not on metered spots - they mostly are parking free with their city/neighborhood registration, or paying on a short term basis via app or city parking pass.

Do you encroach on the open space with permanently installed EVSEs that leave cables? That's an eyesore, an encroachment on places homeowners and landlords have to mow around, and that the city has to plow and clean around. I trust a well designed EVSE not to electrocute kids when the plug is left in a puddle. I don't trust kids to not go around unplugging cars. You can't have cords running out of houses across the sidewalk for personally owned temporary EVSEs, and you don't know whether you'll park right in front of your house anyway.

I've seen the idea of making uncorded EVSEs, and having owners use their own two-ended cord. This may be more viable, but you are making a new theft target.

Mike, that's where you'll see businesses capitalize on a need. Quick charge stations will be further developed, parking garages will add it, coffee houses will offer a charging-and-coffee membership with a monthly payment...

Yes, it is a problem in need of a solution. But the solution will present itself. Someone will make money off of it - maybe it can be you!