Posted on 11/11/2007 7:54:54 PM PST by T Ruth
Poultney, VT - Imagine collecting a paycheck from your utility company each month simply for plugging your electric vehicle into the power grid and making it available to supply or download power.
"There's a whole new way to look at energy supply and distribution, and our love affair with cars," said Dr. Steven Letendre, professor of management and environmental studies at Green Mountain College. "In the not-so-distant future, electric cars should be viewed both as environmentally-friendly suppliers of services to the power grid and as sources of income for owners."
An article written by Dr. Letendre and Dr. Willett Kempton of the University of Delaware, appearing in the February 15 issue of Public Utilities Fortnightly suggests that this vehicle-to-grid scenario (dubbed "V2G") is not only feasible, but close to reality in some parts of the U.S.
* * *
By the end of this year, the first wave of vehicles able to supply auxiliary power to homes and contractors will hit the market, but with modest modifications, these vehicles also have the potential to "sell" their electricity back to the power grid, increasing reliability and efficiency of the power system and netting a profit for the car owner.
* * *
In the most profitable scenario, the owner charges the vehicle while rates are low and provides services to the grid operators as requested. The study estimates that a properly managed V2G car could net the owner close to $3,000 per year.
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(Excerpt) Read more at greenmtn.edu ...
Not really. Someone may have the statistics handy, but obviously at any given point in time the substantial majority of cars are parked. Even at peak rush hour in a typical American city, I'd guess that less than 10% of the vehicles are actually on the road at a given moment. Meanwhile, the peak hours for power demand are driven by air conditioning -- midday through early evening -- when most of us are sitting in offices.
“Cheap storage is worth exploring.”
How about hydro-electric storage ?
http://www.rise.org.au/info/Tech/hydro/pumped.html
Sure. Price is a wonderful motivator. We are going to be doing a lot of things differently.
Well, as I understand it, a simple flat plate has only an X by Y reaction surface area, whereas making an open cell volume greatly increases the reaction area. Analogy : your lungs wouldn’t work very well(blood-air interface)if they were only flat plates, instead they are sponge-like cells, thus vastly increasing the surface reaction area.
In the same way then, a “lead-foam” battery plate has a much greater reaction surface area over the usual flat plate. That in turn can lead to greater energy density, the “holy grail” of battery technology.
First of all, the grid is not “like a big battery”; what electro magnetic energy is being produced must match that which is being consumed - instantaneously.
Second, only a few really smart people out there have figured out that unreliable energy sources, wind, solar, automobile (I almost fell off my chair with that one) have to be matched with equivalent idle capacity in case someone’s car runs out of juice (or the wind dies down or the sun goes behind the cloud). That’s to say, for all you self anointed geniuses out there who could not find an IQ point with flashlights, road maps, and a pack of hound dogs, you’ve just doubled the cost of electricity to build an idle plant and have gained nothing in the process because you are going to have to rely on the same old generating methods we used to date.
My quest for intelligent life on earth continues!
> Bull****
Can’t be stated any more accurately.
Yeah... Won’t that be fun? Imagine waking up in the morning to find your car turned into a paperweight because the power company tapped it in the middle of the night.
You win the prize! Oh, but the techno geeks love this but let them sit in the basement reading popular mechanics.
It’s the same hysteria such as with ethanol in it’s first stages. Great promises poor performance. Now our government
is invested in a sham and the tax payers went for the ride.
There is no suppy of ethanol which could possibly substitute fuel needs. The entire country would have to be under tillage and there’s not enough water to boot. But that does’nt stop big governmet from plowing billions into this scam The average American though has no clue that they’ve been had!
Now it’s the electric car How are you going to generate that juice more Damns? Not possible. No nuclear for decades if it’s going to ever be.
Wind? May as well pass gas. Ox and cart? Too much methane
Guess we’ll have to build thoudands of coal fired plants...
don’t use natural gas cause you gotta drill for that. By the way those prices are soaring. Coal to run generators but does’nt that defeat the purpose? Global warming.
Most storage batterys use polycarbontes and how do you
get that? Crude oil.
Since we have abundant oil resources there is no need to
panic. The future will bring about the necessary technology
but it’s far off. Show me a 1976 Cadillac on batteries and not some 3 wheel scooter then you got my attention.
This is a return to socialism, the Carter years when we
were told to turn off the heat and wear sweaters. Numerous tax credits were created to spur solar power increased CAFE
standards. Yep that worked. Did’nt solve any energy need.
All government mandates no free market. There is no need
to starve ourselves.
Now the public is paniced agian by the liberals enviornmental elites. Their solutions will bankrupt our econmy and that’s the goal.
Get your bicycle
you don't need to 'overthrow' the laws of Physics, simply elect democRats, and have them pass new ones.
Why doesn’t the utility company buy a bunch of batteries and place them all over the grid and save themselves 3k per year per battery?
Please Freep Mail me if you'd like on/off
He was merely revealing how corn for ethanol can be fertilized without the use of natural gas derived compounds.
Damn, there is intelligent life here after all. Your response was dead nuts on.
With the astonishing advances in electrical motors, capacitors and batteries lately its entirely possible for a car to in certain conditions to use dynamic braking to return home with more energy than when it left for a days commute, with computer aided drive by wire in commuter carlanes, percentages of downgrades or even the combined charging of solar panels while the cars waits through the work day its entirely possible, practical and researchable.
I think i just heard a lot of Arabs groan.
I think you are right. The technological developments are startling.
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