There's time to plan for plug-ins, electric vehicles

[jpak]

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/theres_time_to_plan_for_plug-ins_electric_vehicles_102274289.html

As plug-in hybrids and all-electric vehicles become more popular, they'll be added to households already stuffed with power-hungry devices ranging from big-screen TVs to electric dryers.

Are the nation's utilities ready to handle the load?

“Time is on our side,” said Sunil Chhaya, senior project manager at the nonprofit Electric Power Research Institute.

“We have plenty of capacity if we use it right,” he said. “Remember that much of the capacity is not used until there is a summer peak in demand. But we have to plan for the peaks so there are no blackouts.”

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[Warpy]

1. Solar chargers on the second car would seem to be part of the solution

"Second car" meaning the one that is used for all local trips like shopping, kids to school, and other errands. Commuter cars are more problematic and until they can be covered with thin film PVCs to charge while they're parked during the day, they'll need to put a load on the grid.

My own EV, a scooter, draws a whopping 40 watts at full charge, and is great for most local trips when I'm not doing a lot of shopping. I've managed 2 full paper grocery sacks plus 2 cases of soda on the thing, although the latter was not something I'd recommend, done only because the truck was dead that week.

EVs will undoubtedly be part of any solution for personal transport but not the whole solution. The grid will eventually be more renewable than fossil fuel, but that's not going to happen overnight.

This is one problem technology can solve, though. It's just not going to be an easy, one size fits all solution.

[TheWraith]

2. There's not much planning to be done.

Right now we have the excess capacity at night to charge tens of millions of electric vehicles. Beyond that we can invest the money we save by no longer buying gasoline in newer and better power plants.

[NickB79]

3. Of course there's time to plan, there's always time

It's not like we're on the razor's edge of catastrophic climate change or anything :sarcasm:

[Dead_Parrot]

4. Depends how you look at it

There's shitloads of time before people start to act: There's just not a lot of time before it's too late.

If you can ignore it for long enough, the problem will go away.

[Nihil]

5. Ironically true ...

"If you can ignore it for long enough, the problem will go away."

Well, strictly speaking it is the perceiver of the problem that will
go away rather than the problem itself but hey ...

[Dead_Parrot]

6. It's not a problem, it's an opportunity

if you're a cockroach.

[Javaman]

7. And here is the key phrase...

“We have plenty of capacity if we use it right,”

[kristopher]

8. We do.

We can achieve dramatic reductions in carbon emissions in the transportation sector with no increase in emissions from the electric power sector via more efficient utilization of existing generation. That in no way reduces the progress in efforts to replace carbon fuels in the electric power sector. In fact, the spread of plug in hybrid electric and plug in electric vehicles are a key element in the effort to REDUCE electric sector emissions.

Moving just 5% of our personal transportation fleet to EVs will provide a critical pool of very inexpensive storage for regulating power; thus enabling more coal to be displaced with renewables.

[Javaman]

9. But you know as well as I the failure that is human nature.

and the greed that goes along with those who have this bizarre need to control everything.

[kristopher]

21. Can you flesh out this statement?

I don't quite see the point you are making.

[txlibdem]

10. Absolutely

We do have plenty of capacity if we use it right. I read somewhere that with charging only done at night we'd have enough (currently unused, wasted) electric capacity for 80 million electric vehicles with no additional power plants needed. Moving beyond 80M EVs will require more electrical generation plants but it will take at least 20 years to get to 80M electric vehicles. Plenty of time. The utilities will be keeping at least one step ahead of the demand curve.

If every EV owner started charging during the day (peak times) that would be a different story.

Nissan says that the Leaf uses 3kW (three kilowatts) when using a Level 2 EVSE (220 volts charging). As others have posted elsewhere that is less than an electric oven and less than an electric clothes dryer. The scare patrol and FUDsters want you to keep using oil so the latest meme is that EVs will crash the grid. Idiots. Doing laundry doesn't crash the grid and EV charging won't either.

[madokie]

12. The only reason we don't already have EVs is because the oil/car companies don't want us too

simple as that. The car companies have a lot of money and time invested in making the machines that makes the engines and transmissions and they don't want to scrap that technology so they will continue to push internal combustion engines as long as they can.
Years ago they should have started off using a system like the locomotives use today where you have an engine turning a generator turning a motor turning the wheels, Lots of advantages to a system like that as that would have allowed them to have used regenerative braking years ago without having to add much bigger of a battery than they have in the cars now. An electric motor/internal combustion engine drive train is a lot simpler to build too so why they didn't to begin with is anyones guess, but I'd bet it was partly because of the battery technology they had back then. An electric motor has its most torque/power right off stand still so they are well suited to use in an automobile. Thats why they are used in the locomotives because they have the most power near stand still like a steam engine does which is what they replaced.

splchk

[txlibdem]

13. Sounds like the Volt and the Fisker Karma, two very nice vehicles

My situation would enable me to use an electric vehicle like the Nissan Leaf, a BEV that gets up to 100 miles off a single charge, and I prefer that choice (now to work on being able to afford it). But for folks that need to drive farther than that in a single day the Volt works pretty much as you describe, with the exception that it has a large enough battery to go up to 40 miles before the gasoline engine kicks in.

The auto companies should forever remember who was calling loudest for their destruction recently: the oil companies. I am hopeful that they understand the oil companies had zero loyalty to them and deserve none in return.

[madokie]

14. So true what you said about the auto companies and the oily bastids

I think Ford is well on their way to giving us a BEV. Something that would go 40 to 50 miles on a charge would do us for about 95% plus of our driving. Neighbor converted a geo, something or other, over to an EV and it is his primary transportation. I've convinced him that he should check out a ford so he finally did and bought himself a slightly used ranger and simply loves it. Up to this he was a devout TOYota lover but he tells me that his camry is for sale, no takers so far but when it does sale he is going to replace it with a Focus, hopefully a hybrid if he can hold out long enough and really hopes he can hold out long enough to buy the focus EV when they come out.

[NNadir]

11. More gas shilling from the anti-nuke industry. Unused capacity?

It's almost all dangerous fossil fuel generated, predictably using dangerous fossil fuels with no means disposal for the waste.

Why is Gazprom paying Gerhard Schroeder 300,000 Euros per year? Because he's a gas selling pig.

It is predictable that anti-nukes paint a rosy picture of electric cars using "unused capacity." The mentality of all anti-nukes is obliviousness.

The car culture is not sustainable, and never will be sustainable.

[madokie]

15. And how the fuck do you get your ass around

I'd bet money its not bicycling or walking as you're too lazy for that. How do you reckon us people who live far from a city are going to get from here to there if not for an automobile. Go back to the beast of burden type of transportation, I think not. for one thing I won't do that to an animal and for the other I have circulation problems in my legs, I suspect brought on by my exposure to agent orange, due to the fact that my cholesterol numbers are right where the doctors say they should be, so I guess you think I should just stay home. (You know that war some of us had to go fight in because we couldn't afford a deferment nor had better things to do, as the dick and I suspect you also did,)
What a farce you are, so many contradictions that it gives me creaks in my neck trying to keep up with all of them. I have to make sure one day I screw to the left and the next to the right so it doesn't just come right the fuck off.
Maybe (beam me up Scottie) ala Captain Kirk is your idea of transportation, who knows.

have a blessed oblivious day big guy
I plan to have a good one myself :hi:

[Javaman]

16. I wouldn't worry too much

aboutt nnadirs ravings, he's pretty much the side show of this forum, no one really pays much attention to him.

Cheer to you, and props to your post. :)

[madokie]

17. May peace always be by your side

I've visited your blog a few times and am/was impressed. good job.
I'd like to do the same but don't really know how. I'm a creator of sorts and I'd like to share some of the things I've created back through out the years. Things that I've learned from both good and not so good. Good enough is not in my vocabulary, never was and never will be. I make most all of my toys and have since I hit the ground running back in march of '48
:hi:

[Javaman]

18. Thanks :)

I post through blogspot. It's really easy. And since you create your own stuff, I think people would be very interested.

since I started my blog, I get so many questions regarding things that I have made and done. People want to know. My last blog in particular on Stevia.

Once you get going, you will be surprised at yourself and how your writing developes.

I just happened to be of the partly half baked type and that sort of comes through in my posting. Thank goodness for my wife. She does the editing. LOL

If you ever need any help getting started, let me know. I would be glad to help out. :)

Cheers!

[madokie]

19. Don't be surprised when I give you a holler then :-)

[Javaman]

20. No probs. :) nt