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  #46  
Old 02-07-2020, 03:49 AM
RalphH RalphH is offline
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Originally Posted by TomB'sox View Post
Potentially possibly in a country as small as England of course, much more difficult here.
It's not just the small country factor - it's the population density; more than 4x the US. It is pretty difficult to go more than about 10 miles in any direction before a good-sized (10's of thousands population) town.

In fact, Englands most remote point (according to the internet) is Kielder Forest.

Which is a 40 mile drive to Carlise (city of 75,000) in one direction and 50 mile dive to Newcastle (city of 270,000) in the other.

Hardly 'remote' by US standards.

It's certainly a different dynamic. Does that mean the US can't do it? No, it'll just be harder / more expensive per person to do.

----

Things like leaving a car plugged in on a charger happen here too and it's the height of rude, but it's a problem that could easily be overcome by slapping parking tickets on anyone that says x mins longer than their chrage. The charger could have a red flashing light on the top that lit up 30 mins after charging was complete to let the parking wardens know.

As for the general availability of charging stations around the place - I'm sure it was exactly the same issue when cars replaced horses - "yeah great but the nearest gas station is 100 miles away - grass is everywhere". It's a chicken and egg situation that is easily overcome.
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  #47  
Old 02-07-2020, 05:04 AM
Silurian Silurian is offline
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As for the general availability of charging stations around the place - I'm sure it was exactly the same issue when cars replaced horses - "yeah great but the nearest gas station is 100 miles away - grass is everywhere". It's a chicken and egg situation that is easily overcome.
This is a good point.

Karl Benz patented his motorcar in 1886, but it was not lauded as the transport of the future. In fact it was generally regarded as a technological novelty but not particularly practical. The Benz company was actually close to bankruptcy.

It was Benz's wife, Bertha Ringer who first used the vehicle for a "long" distance trip of 100 km to visit relatives. The journey was highly publicised, and many thought such a trip impossible. She carried carried extra fuel and may have arranged refuelling along the way, had punctures, broke down, etc, etc.

The trip of only 100 km took 14 hours. Much slower than could be achieved by horse, but the trip changed people's minds about the possibilities of the automobile and convinced people that infrastructure was the only stumbling block. Bertha's journey brought Benz worldwide attention and the company's first sales.

In many respects there is a similar mindset today about electrics that Benz had to overcome back in the 1880s.

It is somewhat ironic that it is often argued that the geography and population density of the US presents particular difficulties in terms of electric infrastructure when the US was far ahead of other western economies in adopting the internal combustion engine. The difficulties were the same back then.

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  #48  
Old 02-07-2020, 05:34 AM
RalphH RalphH is offline
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To take it a step further - putting charging stations in is MUCH easier than putting gas stations in. The infrastructure of moving and storing vast quantities of flammable liquid vs plugging into the mains electricity we already have running to almost everywhere there are people is far more complex.

We can plonk charging stations pretty much anywhere you can park a car in urban areas. We can't put petrol pumps along every street and in every carpark and on every drive.

Imagine if petrol cars were invented today and we needed to build out a petrol station infrastructure across the country!
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  #49  
Old 02-07-2020, 07:42 AM
imwjl imwjl is offline
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To take it a step further - putting charging stations in is MUCH easier than putting gas stations in. The infrastructure of moving and storing vast quantities of flammable liquid vs plugging into the mains electricity we already have running to almost everywhere there are people is far more complex.

We can plonk charging stations pretty much anywhere you can park a car in urban areas. We can't put petrol pumps along every street and in every carpark and on every drive.

Imagine if petrol cars were invented today and we needed to build out a petrol station infrastructure across the country!
Yes, on the charge stations being easy to put in. I was in a lot of learning about matters for sustainability and being competitive while on a city council committee tasked with it. Now it is kind of funny to see some who questioned it 10+ years ago. People who cried about two charge stations in a downtown parking lot are whining that 10 there are not enough. It started that presence of two hampered their being entrepreneurs (developers) and now 10 are not enough. A few unfortunate people have to park about 200 feet away where there are more on other side of the railroad tracks.

This topic makes me think of where our cabin is and stories from a local historian. The chicken and egg thing and where people built and did commerce was very much influenced by the river, dams, railroads and then overland roads. Our little shack of cabin is one of the few remaining built there because no one had gasoline or bridges across swaps yet except for the railroad's bridge across swampy area. When the gasoline station and transportation network happened people built and travelled all over.

In earlier times we had electric motors where storage was not a critical issue. As an example, they were and are practical for fork lift trucks and other industrial vehicles. In fork lift trucks they even helped counter balance the lift capacity.

I don't worry about range in the US because we'll still need a long range vehicle for a while but the vehicles I use for work and errands rarely drive more than 200 miles at a time or 8000 miles a year.

It's also easy to envision this future with all the goofy pickup truck ownership in the US. I was glad to go to a car when I didn't need a truck. I rent a truck or van when needed. It's a much better way overall. Maybe I accept and understand it because I don't have any need or desire to play SuperTrucker. I spent more than enough time with real trucks.

Business will help drive the change. Where I work hybrids have worked out well and the owner's replaced one with a Model 3. BEV semis are doing well in port areas. Our metro area has an unusual taxi firm with 35 Tesla 3's. They do more route, scheduled ride and package delivery than conventional cab companies. That firm was just sold. The news said it's a totally viable business in this area with a good charge network.

My boss is totally eying the development of the pickup trucks and utility vehicles as replacements for the Sprinter vans. The charge capacity is already there at 2/3 of our sites and coming to the 3rd.

A lot of people are blind to gaps or they put matters as all or nothing, black or white. Transportation change is here and much more is coming. Societies have had other big goals like these for transportation. Education and public health as good examples. Just partial and almost meeting big goals has been a lot of good for many.
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  #50  
Old 02-07-2020, 11:09 AM
HodgdonExtreme HodgdonExtreme is offline
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To take it a step further - putting charging stations in is MUCH easier than putting gas stations in. The infrastructure of moving and storing vast quantities of flammable liquid vs plugging into the mains electricity we already have running to almost everywhere there are people is far more complex.
I disagree with this. You are not accounting for scale.

According to www.eia.gov, the US consumes 391M gallons of gasoline daily. That's 1.48B liters.

At 9.5 kilowatt watt hours per liter, we're talking 9.5kW*hr/liter * 1.48B liters = 14,060,000,000 kilowatt hours of energy required to fulfill our DAILY personal transportation needs in this country.

That's 5,131,900,000,000 kilowatt hours per year.

^That's 5.1 Trillion kw-hr per year - for our transportation needs.

I couldn't find statistics for our 2019 electrical usage, but in 2018, the USA consumed 3.95 Trillion kw-hr of electricity... According to https://www.statista.com/statistics/...on-since-1975/

So, for the USA to replace gasoline cars with EV's, we'd need to increase our ability to produce, process, convey and transform electricity by 130%. Well more than double what we currently have.

Question: is it really that easy to just "plonk charging stations wherever we want"??

Where is all this electricity going to come from? Our power stations don't have enough headroom to see even a 20% increase in output.

How is all that electricity going to be conveyed? The grid isn't capable of conveying that much juice, even if it were available.
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  #51  
Old 02-07-2020, 11:40 AM
RedJoker RedJoker is offline
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Originally Posted by HodgdonExtreme View Post
I disagree with this. You are not accounting for scale.

According to www.eia.gov, the US consumes 391M gallons of gasoline daily. That's 1.48B liters.

At 9.5 kilowatt watt hours per liter, we're talking 9.5kW*hr/liter * 1.48B liters = 14,060,000,000 kilowatt hours of energy required to fulfill our DAILY personal transportation needs in this country.

That's 5,131,900,000,000 kilowatt hours per year.

^That's 5.1 Trillion kw-hr per year - for our transportation needs.

I couldn't find statistics for our 2019 electrical usage, but in 2018, the USA consumed 3.95 Trillion kw-hr of electricity... According to https://www.statista.com/statistics/...on-since-1975/

So, for the USA to replace gasoline cars with EV's, we'd need to increase our ability to produce, process, convey and transform electricity by 130%. Well more than double what we currently have.

Question: is it really that easy to just "plonk charging stations wherever we want"??

Where is all this electricity going to come from? Our power stations don't have enough headroom to see even a 20% increase in output.

How is all that electricity going to be conveyed? The grid isn't capable of conveying that much juice, even if it were available.
These are all great points but what I love about EVs is that they are power source agnostic. They can literally run on coal, oil, wind, nuclear, biomass, sun, natural gas, water, whatever. I can tell you that I installed solar at my house and now have the ability to generate the power needed for my house and, when I get an EV, my transportation. Solar panels could be put in a ton of different places, like over parking lots. I'm not saying solar panels are the answer, I'm saying there are many different answers all working together.

And you're right, current power infrastructure couldn't handle it if we made the switch today but that's also not going to happen. In the US, the average age of the cars on the road is ~12 years old. There would be 12 years before even half of the cars were replaced if no petroleum car were ever sold again.

(It should be noted that PVs cause pollution in their production and the 'payback' is about 2 years. Financial payback for me has been about 4 years.)
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  #52  
Old 02-07-2020, 12:12 PM
imwjl imwjl is offline
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I don't know this topic and related issues or dependencies like my day job but follow it a bit. I recall learning the electric utility that serves my home and also in my retirement portfolio is growing capacity with solar and wind.

My mother a "greatest generation" or "depression child" points out the transitions she's seen in her life and sees wisdom in what is occurring and proposed. Unlike her more reactionary peers she sees it as sagacious living. Our state only gets oil, natural gas and coal if it's shipped in. My town gets more and more energy from resources we have here or near by.

For me goals like the one being discussed are a lot like when I made the commitment to be a college graduate instead of a truck driver. I set a goal, I had something to aim for, keep working at, and I did it. It didn't happen on time, nor exactly as planned. I didn't get away from the that other chapter in life as fast or as completely as planned but I got it done. About anything I can think of in that process contributed to better and more sustainable life for doing it.
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  #53  
Old 02-07-2020, 12:58 PM
HodgdonExtreme HodgdonExtreme is offline
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For me goals like the one being discussed are a lot like when I made the commitment to be a college graduate instead of a truck driver. I set a goal, I had something to aim for, keep working at, and I did it. It didn't happen on time, nor exactly as planned. I didn't get away from the that other chapter in life as fast or as completely as planned but I got it done. About anything I can think of in that process contributed to better and more sustainable life for doing it.
Great way of looking at it.

Making a goal and working towards it is a totally wholesome and reasonable thing to do.

I don't think it would have been wholesome or reasonable if you committed to quitting truck driving on or by specific date - regardless of whether you had graduated college or found a better job yet.
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  #54  
Old 02-07-2020, 02:14 PM
RalphH RalphH is offline
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Originally Posted by HodgdonExtreme View Post
I disagree with this. You are not accounting for scale.

According to www.eia.gov, the US consumes 391M gallons of gasoline daily. That's 1.48B liters.

At 9.5 kilowatt watt hours per liter, we're talking 9.5kW*hr/liter * 1.48B liters = 14,060,000,000 kilowatt hours of energy required to fulfill our DAILY personal transportation needs in this country.

That's 5,131,900,000,000 kilowatt hours per year.

^That's 5.1 Trillion kw-hr per year - for our transportation needs.

I couldn't find statistics for our 2019 electrical usage, but in 2018, the USA consumed 3.95 Trillion kw-hr of electricity... According to https://www.statista.com/statistics/...on-since-1975/

So, for the USA to replace gasoline cars with EV's, we'd need to increase our ability to produce, process, convey and transform electricity by 130%. Well more than double what we currently have.

Question: is it really that easy to just "plonk charging stations wherever we want"??

Where is all this electricity going to come from? Our power stations don't have enough headroom to see even a 20% increase in output.

How is all that electricity going to be conveyed? The grid isn't capable of conveying that much juice, even if it were available.
I disagree with your disagreement. Did the infrastructure to move, store and sell 1.48B liters of gas per day just spring up out of the ground overnight without any work? No, of course not. It took decades and billions of dollars to put in place. My point was not that we can wave a magic wand and have charging stations everywhere, but that compared to what we've already done for gas, it is clearly doable - easier even. Yes we'll need to build more powerstations but to put petrol in place we needed to build oil fields, oil rigs, oil refineries, pipelines, oil tankers, oil trucks and god knows what else. Take the opportunity to build out all those power stations as solar/wind/hydro/nuclear and you've massively cut emissions compared to burning gas.
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Old 02-07-2020, 02:41 PM
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I disagree with your disagreement. Did the infrastructure to move, store and sell 1.48B liters of gas per day just spring up out of the ground overnight without any work? No, of course not. It took decades and billions of dollars to put in place. My point was not that we can wave a magic wand and have charging stations everywhere, but that compared to what we've already done for gas, it is clearly doable - easier even. Yes we'll need to build more powerstations but to put petrol in place we needed to build oil fields, oil rigs, oil refineries, pipelines, oil tankers, oil trucks and god knows what else. Take the opportunity to build out all those power stations as solar/wind/hydro/nuclear and you've massively cut emissions compared to burning gas.
Not to mention (especially out west) there are wind and solar options for on the spot p scaled installations per charging station location, that would not require long transmission lines etc. and could be relatively cost effective to implement .
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Old 02-07-2020, 02:47 PM
HodgdonExtreme HodgdonExtreme is offline
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I disagree with your disagreement. Did the infrastructure to move, store and sell 1.48B liters of gas per day just spring up out of the ground overnight without any work? No, of course not. It took decades and billions of dollars to put in place. My point was not that we can wave a magic wand and have charging stations everywhere, but that compared to what we've already done for gas, it is clearly doable - easier even. Yes we'll need to build more powerstations but to put petrol in place we needed to build oil fields, oil rigs, oil refineries, pipelines, oil tankers, oil trucks and god knows what else. Take the opportunity to build out all those power stations as solar/wind/hydro/nuclear and you've massively cut emissions compared to burning gas.
Perfectly fair points! Except when considered in the context of putting a deadline on it - especially one that is only 10-15 years away. As you pointed out, the infrastructure used to supply an entire country of people with their daily gasoline needs has taken many many decades and untold money to put in place. That cannot be reasonably replaced in just one or two decades.

Just getting the permissions, land studies, environmental impact studies, etc etc in place to build massive power stations could easily take decades.

I'm not poo-pooing the move to EV's, and cutting emissions. I *am* poo-pooing the pontification of it with unreasonable and unrealistic timelines.

As I mentioned earlier, if the UK doesn't scale back this 15 year deadline, there will be a lot of miserable people sorely missing what gasoline/diesel used to provide them.
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  #57  
Old 02-07-2020, 02:49 PM
HodgdonExtreme HodgdonExtreme is offline
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Not to mention (especially out west) there are wind and solar options for on the spot per location scaled installations that would not require long transmission lines etc. and could be relatively cost effective to implement .
That's legitimately great for those (relatively few) people living in those locations!

However, not helpful for the bulk of the population.
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  #58  
Old 02-07-2020, 02:52 PM
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Originally Posted by HodgdonExtreme View Post
Perfectly fair points! Except when considered in the context of putting a deadline on it - especially one that is only 10-15 years away. As you pointed out, the infrastructure used to supply an entire country of people with their daily gasoline needs has taken many many decades and untold money to put in place. That cannot be reasonably replaced in just one or two decades.

Just getting the permissions, land studies, environmental impact studies, etc etc in place to build massive power stations could easily take decades.

I'm not poo-pooing the move to EV's, and cutting emissions. I *am* poo-pooing the pontification of it with unreasonable and unrealistic timelines.

As I mentioned earlier, if the UK doesn't scale back this 15 year deadline, there will be a lot of miserable people sorely missing what gasoline/diesel used to provide them.
Except the 'deadline" is for new "sales' of new vehicles, not implementation of a new power grid
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Old 02-07-2020, 02:54 PM
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That's legitimately great for those (relatively few) people living in those locations!

However, not helpful for the bulk of the population.
Not true scaled solar is entirely possible for most areas
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  #60  
Old 02-07-2020, 02:58 PM
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...and still no reply to the dilemma of tens of thousands of batteries to be disposed of...
...soon to be hundreds of thousands.
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