In reply to mtn (Forum Supporter) :
True, but windmills also offer increased variety in poultry cuisine options!
In reply to mtn (Forum Supporter) :
True, but windmills also offer increased variety in poultry cuisine options!
It's true that if there were no changes to the grid at all in the next 15 years then there's a likelihood that the increased EV load could cause problems. However, it's not like the only people who've thought of that are the handful of us on this forum. There's a ton of work being done in renewable energy, energy storage and making the current energy production technologies more efficient and less damaging to the environment. Those projects are funded by government agencies, private investors and existing energy producers. Sure there are challenges and compromises but energy companies are in business to provide energy and if there's customer demand for more then the good ones are going to find ways to do that.
I've spent my entire personal and professional life messing with internal combustion engines and I'll certainly miss aspects of them when they're gone but I'm pretty excited about all of the really cool stuff that's going on with EVs and the technology to support them right now.
Great discussion. I suspect the analogy of having a washer-dryer in an apartment is pretty close. When I was apartment hunting in Atlanta back around the millennium I don't remember any apartments that didn't have connections. I'm sure that the architecture for every other space to have a charger or something will come around. It will take time, but if the demand and the dollar is there, it will happen. Hell, half the complexes in this area have enclosed garages available if you want to rent them along with your apartment.
As for the grid, it will come in time. There will be problems, then there will be solutions. I agree with APEowner on that one.
On-street parking is an interesting problem. I wonder what percentage of the car-owning US population lives with that? I can see in-sidewalk, deployable solutions being created, flip open the hatch, plug in your (double ended) cable and then close and lock the hatch to trap the cord. Makes it harder to screw with and less of a tripping hazard. Maybe combine that with a solar-generating sidewalk module where you just lay the thing down in place of the old walk (ok, that's just pie-in-the-sky,lol)
And yeah, I'm fired up about an electric full size 4x4 truck. I suspect the next time I'm in the new market in 5 or 6 years one will be a strong contender.
I read an interesting article this weekend about creating a new climate problem with the addition massive amounts of solar panels. The articles research claimed that solar panels captured a much higher percentage of heat vs the reflection of said heat by the sand when placed in a desert setting. The research was of course based on very large solar farms based in the Sahara desert. The models not only predicted a local increase in temperature, but a global increase in temperature and global weather pattern change.
Antihero (Forum Supporter) said:Mr_Asa said:Antihero (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to Mr_Asa :
If the panel is covered it's not producing electricity so a heater using the electricity it isn't producing won't really work without drawing from the battery bank. You pretty much never ever want to produce heat with a battery bank, it's horrid for them
I was stationed in DC and working for a week at one of our remote facilities one winter. We had a blizzard come through and knock out the power lines. There were generators hooked up to the station, and those generators had trickle chargers on the batteries and block warmers plumbed into the system.
Some damned fool didn't plug either of those into station power, so when the power lines went down I got to sit there in the glow of a backup UPS and listen to the generator try to crank itself over with a frozen battery. Was a cold night, but someone eventually got out there with enough juice to start the system up.
Cold absolutely hurts batteries but that's not my point.
Anything that produces heat draws a lot of power and batteries, especially deep cycles, really don't like huge draws. So if you are totally off grid you couldn't coul to have a solar power heater hooked to a battery bank, a generator would be a vastly better idea.
Or, just brush them off
I think you missed the point of my story; the system I talked about failed because no one hooked it up to the normal power grid. The majority of solar panels are not off the grid, they are in supplement to the grid. If that's the case, why would you run heaters off the battery system?
D2W said:I read an interesting article this weekend about creating a new climate problem...
Link?
FYI, this came through my news feed recently. De-icing solar cells is a problem with commercially available solutions apparently.
https://electrek.co/2021/02/19/how-tesla-solar-roof-automatically-makes-snow-slide-off/
About solar panels absorbing heat and influencing local climate - that already happens in cities with pavement and buildings, so it may not have a significant effect if they're roof mounted. In fact, one of the reasons I'm considering solar for my garage is the decrease in heat coming through the roof.
In reply to Mr_Asa :
Oh, I see what you are saying. We are talking about 2 different scenarios.
I'm not sure that most are connected though, there's a lot of people off grid especially up by me.
Paul_VR6 (Forum Supporter) said:D2W said:I read an interesting article this weekend about creating a new climate problem...
Link?
I was just reading this;
I've got a 2010 Toyota Prius. It's got high miles.
The cost of the some of the parts is pretty ridiculous.
$1300 for brake master cylinder assembly+ABS unit.
Inverters are $2000.
Batteries, if you can't replace a few cells yourself, are $2000-$4000.
Water pump is $200.
I don't even want to think about some of the interior/dash components.
Hybrid/Electric cars are still "premium" in terms of parts availability. They aren't sourced or shared with any other models. They aren't based on 30 year old designs. They are model specific, and being updated every iteration of that model.
I would sooner have a lightweight vehicle with cylinder deactivation or twin charged or whatever that utilizes at least somewhere more "normal" parts than a electric vehicle that has all these specialized parts that the dealer or manufacturer can gouge me on.
I think the bottom line is that we have too many people on the planet.
Too many people. Not enough resources. Price of resources keeps going up. Technology will find ways to use resources more efficiently. Some will do without. Population will continue to increase. More will do without.
It's already happening.
Antihero (Forum Supporter) said:If they are warm enough to melt snow , there is sun on them. What happens sometimes is the snow is melting off and leaves a very small almost condensation level of moisture on them. This freezes making the panel not smooth anymore. Snow falls on it and sticks to it and blocks the panel. It happens rarely but it does happen.
The bigger problem with solar in the winter is that due to things like lower sun angle, shorter days, and generally worse weather, they produce something like 30-40% as much power as they do in the summer (number varies with latitude). Not a huge deal if you live in the south where you don't need much heating (but need a lot of power for AC in the summer), but that reverses as you get further north.
Every Christmas I drive 220 miles to north VT to visit family.
My EV is fully charged in my garage, which is a plus, 20/30 F.
So do I have enough to go the distance, if not, I have to find a charging station.
What do I do to entertain myself while it charges ?
So I get there but does the motel have a charging station ?
With my present ICE, with a full tank I can drive the full distance and almost home, with no anxiety,
iceracer said:Every Christmas I drive 220 miles to north VT to visit family.
My EV is fully charged in my garage, which is a plus, 20/30 F.
So do I have enough to go the distance, if not, I have to find a charging station.
What do I do to entertain myself while it charges ?
So I get there but does the motel have a charging station ?
With my present ICE, with a full tank I can drive the full distance and almost home, with no anxiety,
EVs are all modern cars, so they're all smart enough to know where their favorite types of charging stations are and if they'll need one before you get to your destination.
What can you do? You can pee. You can eat. You can walk around and let your eyes focus on something. You don't need to charge from an empty battery to a full battery, you just have to add enough range to get where you're going and you can do that at just about any point in the trip. On a 220 mile trip, that won't be more than 10 minutes unless you have a severely constrained range car. I know, it's rough to have to take 10 minutes out of a 4 hour drive when grandma has the stopwatch going :)
Does the hotel have Wifi? Does it have free breakfast? Does it have a pool? Does it have free parking? If you can answer these questions, you can answer if it has a destination charger. Hotels.com has "electric vehicle charging point" as a filter.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
People have a comfort in things of the past. My grandmother could handle a horse and buggy like anyone. But when Grandpa tried to teach her to drive the pickup she pulled into the garage pulled back on the steering wheel and yelled whoa. ( forgetting completely that pedal in the middle). After that she never drove again.
Some people are like that. If they are young enough they can adapt. Those that fail to adapt will be left behind.
Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:I think the bottom line is that we have too many people on the planet.
Too many people. Not enough resources. Price of resources keeps going up. Technology will find ways to use resources more efficiently. Some will do without. Population will continue to increase. More will do without.
It's already happening.
While I agree with your premise, does that mean you're willing to give up your place on the planet? Not have any kids?
America is about the same size as China. Yet we have a billion less people than they do. Plenty of empty land and lots of underutilized land.
actually just north of China is massive underutilized land. ( and north of India too.).
Keith Tanner said:Does the hotel have Wifi? Does it have free breakfast? Does it have a pool? Does it have free parking? If you can answer these questions, you can answer if it has a destination charger. Hotels.com has "electric vehicle charging point" as a filter.
Related: Most airports have EV charging stations in them. But there is no guarantee one will be available when you park, and when a car is parked at one, it is often for the day or several days. I wonder if Hotels are the same way? Checking that box on the filter could mean there is one charger plug for 150 rooms, so there is still some gambling aspect there.
That said, thats a problem that hotels will fix quickly and easily as EVs become more popular.
Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:I think the bottom line is that we have too many people on the planet.
Too many people. Not enough resources. Price of resources keeps going up. Technology will find ways to use resources more efficiently. Some will do without. Population will continue to increase. More will do without.
It's already happening.
According to the 70's, we've already paved the entire planet, (Silent Running) and next year we will be eating the new food soylent green.
Of course, the Pontiac Aztec proved that not all of the bad science fiction was wrong... someone actually DID build a car that bad looking!
ultraclyde (Forum Supporter) said:
As for the grid, it will come in time. There will be problems, then there will be solutions. I agree with APEowner on that one.
The problem is that the actual robust grid was built a long time ago, and repairs only happen after an emergency. When those upgrades cost a lot more money.
If the grid had constantly been being upgraded, we would notice that- with a lot fewer issue, especially widespread ones.
We've had various wide spread problems with black and brown outs for many years now, and every year brings something new.
So forgive me for not sharing your optimism that it will get done in time. As I see it, while it will take forever for EV's to be phased in, the lack of response in the power industry takes a lot longer, if ever, to solve problems.
frenchyd said:Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:I think the bottom line is that we have too many people on the planet.
Too many people. Not enough resources. Price of resources keeps going up. Technology will find ways to use resources more efficiently. Some will do without. Population will continue to increase. More will do without.
It's already happening.
While I agree with your premise, does that mean you're willing to give up your place on the planet? Not have any kids?
America is about the same size as China. Yet we have a billion less people than they do. Plenty of empty land and lots of underutilized land.
actually just north of China is massive underutilized land. ( and north of India too.).
I didn't have any kids, nor did I really want any. But that was a personal preference. Not a response to any kind of population problem.
But more population means more energy production. We can switch from coal and natural gas to solar panels, then find out that putting up too many solar panels creates new problems and we invent something else and just keep chasing the rabbit with newer technologies that create newer problems.
We don't have enough single family homes where I live and apartment rent is skyrocketing. There is a shortage of materials to build homes. But people keep coming here. Higher housing costs gives you a lower standard of living. Again more people fighting for fewer resources. Housing is a population problem. Energy production is a population problem. People in poor crowded countries want to move to richer less crowded countries so they can increase their standard of living. Immigration is a population problem.
It's all happening now. I'm not willing to give up my place on the planet, but I can see that at some point in the future people will have to fight for resources and their place on the planet.
In reply to codrus (Forum Supporter) :
Absolutely, mine produce about 25 percent in winter. I also live in thick trees so they don't see anywhere near the sun from summer
frenchyd said:Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:I think the bottom line is that we have too many people on the planet.
Too many people. Not enough resources. Price of resources keeps going up. Technology will find ways to use resources more efficiently. Some will do without. Population will continue to increase. More will do without.
It's already happening.
While I agree with your premise, does that mean you're willing to give up your place on the planet? Not have any kids?
America is about the same size as China. Yet we have a billion less people than they do. Plenty of empty land and lots of underutilized land.
actually just north of China is massive underutilized land. ( and north of India too.).
Australia is roughly the size of America but has less population than the state of California too.
It's not just america
You need more than just land for people to live on. You need resources to build houses. You need food. You need energy to power the houses. You need more energy to live in more extreme climates than in temperate climates. You can't just dump people in North Dakota or the middle of the Mojave Desert just because land is cheap and available.
In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :
We have those. Here in the Midwest farms are only used if big expensive machinery can operate on them efficiently. Even on those big farms there are patches that aren't used for various reasons. Patches that could be used for berry's or livestock of some variety. Maybe a vegetable garden. Grow rhubarb. Onions whatever.
I bought wood to build my house from a wood lot that had never before been harvested. Old growth trees dating from before this was a country were harvested. Barely 50% of the tree was used, the rest went into a brush pile to decompose. That is not unique.
There are granite quarries all over the state where great big blocks of stone are stacked because somebody didn't like the color or grain. Not just granite but all sorts of stone.
Minnesota has over 15,000 lakes and the headwaters of three great river systems. So we aren't a desert. Wisconsin has around 8000 lakes and much of the west and northern parts are just empty. 50 years ago there were small family farms there but not any more.
The further north you go Up in Canada the less dense the population is. Fishing and hunting are seriously the prime revenue.
One thing people need to realize about solar is that in some ways, large adoption of them actually make the grid worse, not better. This is due to their output dropping off as the evening load picks up, making the slope of the "duck" curve steeper. Generation always follows load, and most generation resources have a difficult time changing their output quickly. Also why wind can be difficult to deal with; they may ramp up or down quickly, making other sources respond to that.
Jcamper
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