The Way off Oil

[Dakatsu]

One thing that worries me about the energy crisis is, lets say we get electric cars tomorrow, with all the technology blah blah blah. There are many problems with the concept of the switchover, simply because:

1. We would have to get enough people to use electric vehicles.
2. We would need enough corporations to sell power (either by recharging batteries in a gas-station format, or buying new batteries.

So, we would have to scale these things simultaneously; we can't have energy stations without cars or else the corporations won't get money and close them down, but we also can't have cars without an ability to refuel.

The only option I could foresee is for the government to get highly involved with changing the vehicle types and fueling areas at the same time. As any logical person knows, however, any government involvement in anything is bad. So, given the proposition that the tech is all possible tomorrow, how would we go about in switching this country from oil to electric or whatever?

[Spidey]

Most electric cars need to be recharged overnight and can be done at home. As far as recharging electric cars at “recharging stations” I don’t know of any batteries that can be recharged in a time frame that would make that feasible. When the time comes when that is possible, we won’t need government because there will be plenty of money to be made.

It would also be very easy to set up recharging stations, the grid is everywhere.

[SuperSheep]

Gonna have to side with Spidey on this one. This isn't the classic chicken & egg problem, this is easier.

The electric cars come first. Recharge at home.

When enough people have electric cars and begin to want to drive farther than work and back, demand will set in for refueling centers for electrics.

[[RIP]Machete_Bug]

Most electric cars need to be recharged overnight and can be done at home. As far as recharging electric cars at “recharging stations” I don’t know of any batteries that can be recharged in a time frame that would make that feasible.

If batteries were made to a universal standard, and easily installed, one might see stations where you swap your battery. Pull into the station, you pay them some money, they take your discharged battery and slap in a new one so you can make it the rest of the way to Grandma's house in time for Thanksgiving dinner. Meanwhile the station charges the battery up so a few hours later they can sell it to another customer.

[Krom]

Of course no matter how great the demand for it, if we don't have the technology to refill a battery to 100% charge in 3-5 minutes than the concept of a electric refueling station still won't fly. There are other things that people are working on in the mean time and every little bit helps. For one, anything we can do to improve the efficiency of the average automobile engine is a step in the right direction (and there is a lot of room for improvement).

[Dakatsu]

You guys forgot about long distance travel, such as inter-state. Me and my family use many tanks of gas to get from St. Petersburg, FL to Grand Island, NE. We would need recharging stations, or very effective batteries.

[Top Wop]

Thats why the Chevy Volt seems to be the most feasible solution. All the benefits of an electric car, but if you need to go far, bang, you have an onboard generator charging up your batteries.

[Cuda68]

Seems to me once the car is running a high output alternator (or two) could take over with the use of gear reduction to cut back on drag while driving.

Edit: Yea - what TopWop said

[Spidey]

Most electric cars need to be recharged overnight and can be done at home. As far as recharging electric cars at “recharging stations” I don’t know of any batteries that can be recharged in a time frame that would make that feasible.

If batteries were made to a universal standard, and easily installed, one might see stations where you swap your battery. Pull into the station, you pay them some money, they take your discharged battery and slap in a new one so you can make it the rest of the way to Grandma's house in time for Thanksgiving dinner. Meanwhile the station charges the battery up so a few hours later they can sell it to another customer.

Swap out 3000 dollar, 700 pound batteries? (prices and weight for dramatic effect only)

[CUDA]

not to mention HIGHLY deadly if miss-handled

[Ferno]

here's a shot of the batteries going into the volt

http://www.fuel-efficient-vehicles.org/ ... y-pack.jpg


It's a new type of battery. they call it Lithium Iorn Phosphate or LiFE for short.

Long story short is you can punch a nail thru these and all they do is emit a whiff of smoke.

I have 6 of their earlier cells. each put out a nominal 3.3v and they've gone through everything, including being crushed by a car.

Even the KillaCycle, built by A123 has their earlier cells. If you've seen the president of the company drive into a car, you'll know how safe these things can be.

[Duper]

Here's a little more that i found on the same site. It makes that Japanese car claim earlier quite believable.

[dissent]

y'know, I've been wondering;

how well do these electric cars perform in really cold weather (say, below 10 F)?

And how do they generate heat for the passenger cabin during cold weather?

[ccb056]

If we want to get off oil the right way it most certainly is not with battery powered electric cars.

The conventional battery is nearing the end of its life, there just arent that many more innovations that can be made to it.

The best solution to decreasing carbon emissions is dumping the oil, gas, and coal power plants replacing them with nukes, using that energy to power our homes, businesses, and industry; and then use hydrogen fuel cells for mobile power.

[Duper]

The problem with nuke power now is that it's \"dirty\" and expensive. Plants have a life of only 20 years.(*edit-mistake fixed) ... then you need to build a new one. And with the horror stories i heard from construction workers that built the one that near where I live, I'd rather not have another one go up anytime soon. Washington state has something like 4 or 5 Fission reactor plants (most with multiple reactors) that have been mothballed for 20 years in various states of construction. It costs a LOT to build those things and no one is wanting to foot the bill. that's the reason they have been mothballed. the corp went bellyup. Google \"WPPSS\" (pronounced \"whoops\") and that's what it was.

[Ford Prefect]

Plants have a life of only 2 years. ... then you need to build a new one

Umm.. no that's not right. Perhaps you are referring to the time the core fuel lasts before you need to change it.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf08.html
There are a lot of nuclear plants around the world that have been working for decades.

[Spidey]

The biggest joke of all concerning Nuclear Power, was the lie the government told the people when they started building the first plants…

“Nuclear Power will be so cheap they won’t even have to meter the usage”

LOL!

[Krom]

Want cheaper cleaner power? Easy! Find a cleaner and cheaper method to boil water.

[MD-1118]

Want cheaper cleaner power? Easy! Find a cleaner and cheaper method to boil water.

That's easy... create a vaccuum around it.

[Krom]

That's easy... create a vaccuum around it.

And while you are at it, create a vacuum around this dork too, save oxygen.

[Dakatsu]

Plants have a life of only 2 years. ... then you need to build a new one

Umm.. no that's not right. Perhaps you are referring to the time the core fuel lasts before you need to change it.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf08.html
There are a lot of nuclear plants around the world that have been working for decades.

Like Chernobyl!

(could not resist!)

[Ford Prefect]

Chernobyll is functioning well even as we speak. It's working as a perfect object lesson on why you shouldn't let total morons run your nuclear facility.

[MD-1118]

Don't forget Three Mile Island.

[Duper]

Plants have a life of only 2 years. ... then you need to build a new one

Umm.. no that's not right. Perhaps you are referring to the time the core fuel lasts before you need to change it.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf08.html
There are a lot of nuclear plants around the world that have been working for decades.

yeah, typo on my part. I meant 20 years. fixed it in the post above. Sry, thx.

[Duper]

Chernobyl is functioning well even as we speak. It's working as a perfect object lesson on why you shouldn't let total morons run your nuclear facility.

really though, that was a fusion reactor and they had a "perfect failure" scenario. Any plant would be in trouble if you have multiple fail safes fail.

[fliptw]

Chernobyl is functioning well even as we speak. It's working as a perfect object lesson on why you shouldn't let total morons run your nuclear facility.

really though, that was a fusion reactor and they had a "perfect failure" scenario. Any plant would be in trouble if you have multiple fail safes fail.

Thats news to me, Chernobyl being a fusion reactor...

[Floyd]

not to mention HIGHLY deadly if miss-handled

aside from what ferno said, imagine fuel. you drive it around all day. you'd also drive around the batteries. i've yet to see a battery shelf that had a no smoking/open fire sign

[Ford Prefect]

The reactor a Chernobyl failed when the operators were screwing around with the system doing a test that was ill advised to say the least.

The test plan called for the power output of reactor 4 to be reduced from its nominal 3.2 GW thermal to 0.7–1.0 GW thermal. For unknown reasons, Toptunov committed an error and inserted the control rods too far, causing the reactor to a near shut down. The exact circumstances will probably never be known as both Akimov and Toptunov died from radiation sickness.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster

[Cuda68]

I see my stomach lining won't be getting a break today.