If and When Cars become fully electric........

Déjà vu, almost verbatim!

 

The only plastic that will need to be made from fresh petroleum is that which is used for food. Plastic containers for milk, vegetables etc. must be made from 100% virgin plastic and can contain no recycled plastics. Other than that everything else can use recycled plastic, so no matter what, some oil will be needed even if everything ran on the juice.

 

There are many plastics that can't be recycled, and some of them are necessary for certain applications. Thermosets vs thermoplastics, just one example.

 

What is missing in this discussion is that battery powered cars,, or plug in hybrids would provide a huge battery bank that would be available both to buy from the grid,, as well as sell back to the grid 24/7. Remember most cars sit 23 hours a day,, so all the time they are sitting they could be plugged in buying/selling to the grid. This allows solar and wind to even out it's contribution to the grid over time.

As has been said, 300 days a year of sun is hard to argue that it is intermittent. If it is cloudy in Denver, it is probably sunny in Phoenix.

Icarus

 

The first thing that would need to be done to accomplish that would be the infrastructure. The downfall is, people are stupid. I am sure most here know what I mean, those who fall down a sewer because they are too busy with their nose in a phone texting instead of watching where they are going. I know I have done a stupid thing or two, and I am pretty sure everyone here has done so as well.

The infrastructure would need to be idiot proof so some moron doesn't electrocute themselves. It also needs to be vandal proof, some moron is going to do their best to break it and try to make chaos to see what they can blow up.

If a grid system could be designed that no human contact is needed, and the actual components are sealed, that would be great. Using Tesla's theories might be handy, a parking space that has a charging grid buried in it, you drive into the spot, and set the car to charge and it draws energy from the ground.

Another theory I have played with in my mind is a system buried on the highways that takes the energy from passing cars and converts it to electricity. When you pass a magnet through a coil of copper, you get electricity, so why not have some portions under each car magnetic, and have loops of wire under the roadway to generate electricity, to help recover what is used to charge the cars. I was watching a show about maglevs, and thought to myself, what if you could do just the opposite and create energy instead. A car traveling @ 60 MPH over a set of coils spaced evenly apart could generate 60 hz.

 

There is a new study that addresses the potential of wind power - a blurb about it from Time Magazine-

A new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) says yes. A team led by Michael McElroy at Harvard University assessed the global capacity for wind power — the total amount of sheer energy that's being carried on the breeze — and found that current technology could harness enough power to supply more than 40 times the planet's present-day levels of electricity consumption. For the U.S., there's enough wind concentrated in the Midwest prairie states to supply as much as 16 times the current American demand for electricity. The energy is there, on the breeze — it just needs to be tapped.

Link to full Time story

Link to study

 

Even if all cars suddenly became non-petroleum, there would still be plenty of oil used in transportation to keep the oil industry alive -- heavy trucks, heavy equipment, marine, and air transport. All of these require considerable energy, and cannot convert to electric without extreme difficulty.

The non-transport uses of oil are also enormous. Freeing cars from oil may be a financial shock to some investors accustomed to huge profits, but the oil industry itself will remain healthy as long as it can extract oil from the ground.

 

With all due respect folks,, but you don't get it! The reality is the people may be dumb,, but the technology is smart!

None of what I suggest is exotic or (particularly) expensive. Grid tie inverters used in Pv solar are already two way, sending excess current to the gird,, or to the load which ever needs the power.

While the current grid has some limitations, there is very little infrastructure that would need significant modification for these systems to work seamlessly.

As for battery cycling. The reality is,, the there are two uses for plug in vehicles to help the grid. The first it to cut down on the peak demand on the grid which is (usually) a very short term spike. By having a significant number of "batteries" plugged in to power that spike,, the draw down on each individual battery is likely to be quite small. This allow the grid to shut down a potentially significant portion of the generating capacity that is running ONLY to provide power for those spikes. The idle, spinning capacity that is on line only waiting for the peak load is far and away the most wasteful, most polluting energy out there,, because it is almost all wasted. So, in theory, the cycling of the batteries is going to be insignificant relative to the life cycle cycling during "normal" operation.

The second things that vehicles can do for the grid,, is absorb what is potentially excess solar/wind at times of low demand but significant RE production. Time of day/peak pricing power will allow a car/homeowner to program his/her car to buy from the grid when power is cheap (off peak/night typically) and sell power when it is expensive,,late afternoons typically. Other times it can buy or sell as the grid needs the power with no net cost. A scenario like this has the potential for a car owner to have zero or close to zero net fuel cost. If there is some shortening of battery life as a result,, it still is a win/win.

It would be a simple matter to program in the car's ecu "I will sell power when it is $.20 kwh, I will buy power when it is $.10 kwh and above all else,, I need to have enough energy in my battery to go 30 miles to work tomorrow!" Anywhere there is gird power available, cars could be plugged in,, including parking garages, even city meter spaces. You wouldn't have to have an "elaborate" charging/billing network,, as the car's ECU could do the calculation and pay/get paid based on where and when it was plugged in,, much like the easy pass used for the toll roads in the northeast US. So instead of a parking meter on every street, a stanchion with a receptacle. Plug in the car, buy/sell power, pay for the parking cost etc. Not to hard to do,, not too exotic. You could even design cars that didn't need to plug in, but which could receive power inductively when parked in proper locations. (I'm am not an electrical engineer, but there are such thngs for charging small battery devices like toothbrushes).

I am in no way arguing that PEV or Plugin hybrids are the solution to all our energy issues,, and indeed far from it. But the reality is, that if we begin to think outside the box a bit, without exotic changes to our infrastructure or our lifestyle we can make a significant improvement in both our fossil fuel use, as well as our greenhouse gas emissions.

If all cars were 100% PEVs would there be an impact on the price of oil? Absolutely! Would there be an increased demand on the electrical grid? Also true! But the reality is that ICE's are fundamentally WAY less efficient than electric motors, both in net emissions and fuel efficiency. While a central generating station spews forth lots of emissions,, it is net/net way less than a similar horsepower of ICE powered cars. On top of that, ICE cars cannot run on solar or wind power,, PEV's can.

As I suggest, we need to think a bit more outside the box on these issues.

Icarus

 

Two things missing from the discussion:

1. People who talk about a smart grid and electric-only cars all evidently live in single-family homes or in townhouses with garages (or that park directly in front of their townhouse). The rest of us in condos, apartments, and many townhouses, have no grid to plugin to without a LOT of installation expenses.

So, on the whole, it is the people who have adopted an energy inefficient (suburban) lifestyle and location who will be the pioneers in EV's? Less likely than most, I'd say. On top of that, their drives are, on the whole, beyond the capacity of current batteries. Sort of backwards.

2. Batteries. Lots and lots of work needed here before gasoline will go away. Lots. And lots. (I.e. not practical any time soon.)

Hybrids make a LOT of sense and may well be the predominant cars in 15 years, while electric-only cars will be something like first-gen Priuses.

 

I like your idea and it probably would work provided standards were set from the start so every company involved were compatible. It also has to be tamper proof and idiot proof.

 

Rp,

"This will not happen overnight. I own a 8 unit apartment building, if I saw 25% or 50% of my potential tenants driving EVs, I would add charging stations to the parking lot. Also remember that it will be decades before ICE autos are no longer available."

My point is that you wouldn't have to add charging stations. If we develop smart cars and smart grid, all you would have to provide is 120 or 240 vac outlets. The billing system can be contained in the cars themselves. In your case,, 8, 240 vac 50 amp circuits could be had for almost no cost,,, a few $1000 at most. This cost could be subsidized by either the utility because they are going to sell more power or possibly not have to run peak load generating facilities etc. or by tax policy that favours EV at the expense of ICE vehicles.

Like I said,, none of this is exotic or even very expensive net/net.

Icarus

 

Understand. By charging station I meant, a 220 exterior outlet at each parking space. Lack of available outlets is the big obstacle in apartment complexes. My point is landlords and property managers will
fill this need when there is a demand OR a government policy to encourage infrastructure. Restaurants will put outlets in the parking lots, office buildings will provide outlets with parking, even Walmart will have charging available.

 

EVs, smart grids, cheap and ubiquitous renewable power will come quickly. No concerns or issues raised in this thread are insurmountable. Most can be dismissed.

The infrastructure for EVs and renewable energy is a not much of a challenge:

Check out Better Place (Better Place) and this study

UC Berkeley Study Finds Separate Battery Ownership Accelerates Mass-Market Adoption of Electric Cars

 

The shift to solar and wind providing significant power has very powerful, but not often recognized aspects.
1) Power plants can be localized and positioned closer to the loads. There is a rapidly developing business of new utilities locating solar panels on factory and warehouse rooftops, with the utility giving a discount to the locations. Anyone driven past the Denver Airport lately?
2) Present economics make daytime power more expensive. With solar, the shift would be for nighttime power to become more expensive. As a result, appliances would become "greener" by having modes that maximized refrigeration, hot water heating, etc. during the day. This would make the need for night power storage or generation a LOT less than what is needed now.
3) Localized and distributed power allows many more free market options. If I can get electricity at half the price, but with the limitation that I have to withstand at least 2 hour dropouts at anytime in one day, would I do so? Yes. I can engineer either technical solutions or lifestyle changes. Keep in mind that the dropouts would be known well ahead of time.

 

FlaPrius

Like I suggest,,,thinking outside the box. A small UPS would serve critical function (timer devices such as T-stat, or CPU's) for a designed time out. In the real world, most of us could live with our houses off the grid 4-8 hours a day if we planned for it, and our furnaces and appliances were designed for it. Freezer and fridge with proper insulation will hold for several hours,, as will well designed house hvac system.

In truth,, most peak load spikes are very short,, the 7 am coffee pots turning on by the million,, then off again at 7:30. Just by staggering the time people made toast and coffee could have huge effect on load spikes for example.

Point is,, little of this is rocket science, just smart thinking and implementing smart changes to our lifestyles.

Icarus

 

Agree with most of your post, but am not certain that solar will make daytime power cheaper than nightime power. Longterm in locations like Las Vegas this might be true, but nearterm in most locations, the huge capital costs of solar installations and their position as "backup" or "peak" providers, will actually increase the daytime costs. I remember in the 60's when the people pushing nuclear power were telling us that nuclear power would make electricity "too cheap to meter".

I could see power costs (rates) changing may times per day depending on sun/wind and demand. In Colorado we will continue to have base loads provided by coal for some time. Renewables and natural gas will lower baseline and cover peak demand. But coal and natural gas will need to be able to cover peak demand on the cloudy, windless days.

Agree that "peak load reduction" will play as important of a role as renewables. Right now in Colorado you can get rebate or reduced rate by installing device on AC that will shut it down for 2 hours at peak load. I would love to have two EVs in my garage buying cheap power and selling expensive energy, might bring net transportation fuel costs to zero!

 

I certainly cannot see the future, so any of my statements on what the actual prices will end up doing is just speculation. Fortunately, this is a thread where exchanges of speculation can result in a better understanding of how future electric sources may change behaviors. It's very clear that solar and wind power will have different economic pressures than fossil fuel plants.

 

We're building a solar thermal (~200MW) in SW Colorado. The nice thing about solar thermal plants is the storage of heat in molten salts, or interestingly, sand. Being able to provide power for hours or even days with poor sun makes a lot of sense in a state like CO. Since CSP plants are basically NG plants with a different heat source, we can use NG (or Biogas) when needed. CSP with thermal + NG backup seems like the best solution in the short term.