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321 comments on DrumBeat: October 19, 2006

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Sunspot on October 19, 2006 - 10:02am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Nice to know that the energy situation in the world is "the brightest of circumstances".  Me happy now!
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jim burke on October 19, 2006 - 11:07am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
"most of the EVs will be recharged via onsite renewable energy systems such as wind or Solar."

Why should anybody believe this? As the discussions have shown, most people will plug them in during the night, into the 220 socket in their garages. What sort of PV cells would operate then?

This is like claiming that we can switch from gas clothes dryers to electric, and make the assumption that it will be supplied by roof PV panels.

I live in Arizona, where the sun shines best, and they're slapping up new homes as fast as they can haul in lumber and concrete. And not a one of them has PV panels on the roof. The only PV panels or wind generators belong to a few scattered homesteaders, like myself.  

The vast majority of our electricity in S Arizona comes from coal, strip mined in Southern Utah and on the Indian reservations.

So lets' convert all the cars and trucks in Tucson to run on coal from the Red Rock country of southern Utah. COOL!  

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Nagorak on October 22, 2006 - 6:46am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Running EVs off of coal burning power plants is still cleaner than most cars currently are, and it also solves the potential woes of a shortage of liquid fuels.  It seems to me that you and the other pessimists are trying to keep moving the goal posts in order to prove we are doomed.  Figure out a way that we can run cars when faced with a shortage of oil and all of a sudden we're talking about pollution and how no one has solar panels.  

How is anyone supposed to win this sort of debate when the conditions keep being changed?  Obviously if everyone had PV on their roofs we would be in very good shape and thus wouldn't be talking about how to go about solving our problems.  The fact that we have problems implies that solutions have not already been adequately implemented.  

Also since everyone is worried about the grid.  With more PV we could lower demand during the day, and have higher demand during the night.  Using EVs and PHEVs along with solar PV would balance power grid usage out by a great deal.  Hopefully one day power demanded from power plants would actually be highest at night, rather than during the day as it is now.  

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AlanfromBigEasy on October 22, 2006 - 12:53pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Hopefully one day power demanded from power plants would actually be highest at night, rather than during the day as it is now

See winter in many locations, especially winter weekend nights.

6-7/8 PM is often a secondary or primary peak.  And I expect most PHEV & EV owners to come home, plug in and fix dinner (overriding or ignoring any time of day feature, missing on the Telsa BTW).  Thereby adding to the Peak & grid stress.

Time will, of course, tell.  But the current SUV owners are not likely to become model citizens when they go EV IMHO.

Best Hopes,

Alan

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Hothgor on October 22, 2006 - 10:07pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Keep in mind that most EV users WONT plug in every night in order to preserve and extend the lifetime of their batteries, unless recharging obstacles are overcome and we can recharge 10,000 times or more with no loss :P I would be willing to wager most EVs would be plugged in once every 4-5 days on average.
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