118 comments on Energy Grades and Historic Economic Growth
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GAIA Host Collective
Oilmanbob, you would agree that increases in battery techonlogy such as this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium-sulfur_battery
Adding these to the grid could store this solar power during the day for use at night. I wouldn't count solar out yet, as I say think 3 dimensionally.
theantidoomer
I didn't count out solar, which I wholeheartedly support, along with wind. What I did was criticise a stupid statement for being stupid. How can anyone expect to win an uphill argument against the inertia of America with arguements that don't make sense, or poorly researched data?
Bob Ebersole
I understand where you are coming from, Bob, The first thing I can think of to rectify the discord is called "extra battery pack". That way, the batteries are charged during the day, switched out when you drive into the garage, and you are ready to go for the next day.
If an easily swapped battery tray under the car is too difficult, then think about simply getting 2 cars. One would charge, and one would be driven.
The cheapest solution (and the most sensible to me) is to only work 4 days a week, and charge the car the other 3.
We have to stop thinking that we NEED to replace the current auto-oriented sytem with another wasteful system. Most people aren't driving to jobs where they operate machines any more. They are driving someplace to sit on their arse and punch keys or look at each other in meetings. That can easily be done at home now. Those that do have to go to a particular place can be picked up by their employer if they are so valuable, and be charged a fee by the employer, or coordinated by all local establishments (schools, churches, employers) to create a convenient system, including rental car pools for emergencies and errands.
Meanwhile a lot of cars can be idled to get charged for occasional use.
The cheapest scheme is to move the energy from where it's being produced to where the car happens to be parked, thus eliminating both the need to swap batteries and the capital expense of another set.
I understand that this is possible with a great invention known as the "electrical grid", combined with another really neat product called "extension cords". I'd love to live in a world where everyone has heard of these things.
I could see swappable batteries for fleets, like taxis, which rarely get parked for 10-20 hours per day.
Otherwise, too much trouble. Batteries are charging faster & faster these days.
And indeed the Modec - a commercial delivery van - notes it has easily-swappable batteries.
A 53kWh battery (like in Tesla's car) hooked up to a regular 220V, 20-amp circuit could theoretically recharge from dry in about 13 hours, adding ~18 miles/hr of range. From the sounds of it, it's a little slower than that, but not much.
Considering that the average commute to work in the US is just 16 miles, that's only 2 hours of recharge time per daily commute.
The typical dryer circuit is more like 30 amps.
If you're not afraid of welding cable, it's certainly possible to feed 500 amps or more over reasonably flexible wires. The Tesla Roadster battery pack operates at 375 volts nominal. If you could push 500 amps into it, you could put 53 kWh into the batteries in 17 minutes.