Posted on 01/01/2007 10:44:24 AM PST by Uncledave
An oil and security task force of the Council on Foreign Relations recently opined that "the voices that espouse 'energy independence' are doing the nation a disservice by focusing on a goal that is unachievable over the foreseeable future." Others have also said, essentially, that other nations will control our transportation fuel--get used to it. Yet House Democrats have announced a push for "energy independence in 10 years," and in November General Motors joined Toyota and perhaps other auto makers in a race to produce plug-in hybrid vehicles, hugely reducing the demand for oil. Who's right--those who drive toward independence or those who shrug?
Bet on major progress toward independence, spurred by market forces and a portfolio of rapidly developing oil-replacing technologies.
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All this is likely to change decisively, because electricity is about to become a major partner with alternative liquid fuels in replacing oil.
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Utilities are rapidly becoming quite interested in plug-ins because of the substantial benefit to them of being able to sell off-peak power at night. Because off-peak nighttime charging uses unutilized capacity, DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory estimates that adopting plug-ins will not create a need for new base load electricity generation plants until plug-ins constitute over 84% of the country's 220 million passenger vehicles.
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Once plug-ins start appearing in showrooms it is not only consumers and utility shareholders who will be smiling. If cheap off-peak electricity supplies a portion of our transportation needs, this will help insulate alternative liquid fuels from OPEC market manipulation designed to cripple oil's competitors.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
>Just cause it doesn't exist now, and may not for another 10 years doesn't mean that it won't ever exist. Nor should folks just throw their hands up in the air and say "never mind, we can't get it done next year, so we shouldn't even try".
Some things are much more likely to be practical than others, but I appreciate your attitude.
--Are you nuts, or just bad at math?--
Where is his math nuts?
>Are you nuts, or just bad at math?
If you have followed the thread, where is the math error?
Wouldn't that basically require a "coasting" stop?
City driving would require conventional brakes that could add nothing but dust and heat.
I ranted about the house over this earlier, until leda bonked me with a frying pan.
In fact, there are really GOOD electric cars - some of them, amazing in performance, better than any gas fired thing, etc.
For about six minutes, until the battery dies.
And that is the problem - batteries.
The guy who invents a good battery will be richer than Bill Gates.
Of course, there will be the backlash against these vehicles the minute we have the first accident when battery acid is released into the street, eating away at an otherwise lightly-injured victim, killing her (IF she's lucky) and horribly disfiguring her corpse at the same time.
These vehicles are, at the present time, only a goreon's wet dream. They will NOT be useful for a VERY long time ti come.
Eg, all his math assumes that you get the same energy out of a battery that you put in.
Not in this life.
What is the life cycle cost of a plug-in-hybrid, including disposal of the toxic chemicals in the batteries?
Wouldn't that basically require a "coasting" stop?
City driving would require conventional brakes that could add nothing but dust and heat.
An electric motor turned into a generator (under braking) can take a serious amount of horsepower to turn. Easily enough to lock up the tires if it has any amount of power as a motor at all (And I wouldn't own one that didn't). You can get more braking than you need, especially at around town speeds.
This is one of the reasons why a prius gets better mpg in the city than on the highway.
--Wouldn't that basically require a "coasting" stop? City driving would require conventional brakes that could add nothing but dust and heat.--
Electrical motors can generate tremendous torque; similarly, electrical generators can require tremendous torque to turn. This torque can be used to slow the car in a manner similar to friction brakes.
--What is the life cycle cost of a plug-in-hybrid, including disposal of the toxic chemicals in the batteries?--
Right now, the used batteries have a positive value at end of life.
I agree.
If batteries were so great they would launch the shuttle with them instead of 50 year old technology.
That would be a stack of batteries that would probably reach the stupid near Earth orbit of the "space station".
--Eg, all his math assumes that you get the same energy out of a battery that you put in. Not in this life.--
I never saw him post that. In fact, he addressess efficiencies less than 100%.
>Eg, all his math assumes that you get the same energy out of a battery that you put in.
If it was my math your are talking about, I assumed 80%.
If this is truly viable it will happen.
But when will someone publicly address reality? The US sits on huge reserves of oil which can be tapped sooner and more economically than all of these other schemes combined.
Why does working on future alternatives mean that we do absolutely nothing in the short term? We can't drill more oil at the same time? To reduce out indenturement to OPEC we must produce more energy. There multiple ways to do that that can be done concurrently. The most immediately effective is drilling and pumping. Which US oil companies would love to do if permitted by the socialists in DC.
I didn't say anything about the companies saving money. They're doing their research and coming up with innovations that will make their products more competitive, and encourage people to BUY them, just as any other company would.
The government has the money that they take from us. Some of it is well spent, some not. People will differ in their opinions about which is which. If the government is willing to provide some seed money for research in a project that, if brought to fruition, will benefit many in this country, that's a good thing. There are many things we use each day, and take for granted, that would not be available to us if the government hadn't put up some money to help folks do some R&D on the product, or hadn't spent money on a project from which a product came as an offshoot of the original expenditure.
It was, and I failed to see that. Still, 80% is a pipe dream, unless you are at 1 STD. try it at 40 below. or 120 above.
Look, I am in favor of research on batteries - but until we find one, hybrid cars are an ecological disaster.
Sorry for misreading you statements, not sorry for my analytic opinion of the relative merit of these toys.
The "carbon footprint" of a hybrid owner is many orders of magnitude greater than that of a Suburban owner.
Did you read the entire post to which I was responding? $7000 for a battery, the life of which is 8 years, is roughly $900 a year. Add that to $800 a year for gasoline, and VIOLA! $1700. Nuthin new about that math.
Please do you homework. 80% is NOT a pipe dream.
What makes you think the battery will have acid? Lead acid batteries are so last millinium.
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