Electric Cars Continue to Make Inroads

the coal fired plant close to here is ~47% making just electricity, obviously they don't want to make electricity when the price is lower that what they can make it for it doesn't supply but they are not alone in supplying the heating network we also get heating from a plant the burns trash and a cement factory

metering used to be in volume, but has mostly been changed to joules

I believe Apple has plans to use the heat from their big new datacenter to supply heating as well

The second requirement was already met a long time ago, and the first requirement is a silly one, as the only real reason people go to gas stations 99% of the time is because most people don't have a gasoline storage tank under their garage. If you sleep 8 hours in a day, as I assume most people do, then you can fully charge overnight off a standard 220V outlet no problem at all.

And the newer models often come with a DC fast charging option. ~20-30 minutes per hundred miles of range.

As I said, existing installations are still there and are sometimes being extended, but it is not really attractive anymore because a newly built power plant would have to be reduced in efficiency to be able to supply heating to households. It could be better to generate electricity at highest possible efficiency and then use that to power heat pumps close to the houses that pump heat from the environment into the houses.

But does it work well? We have constant discussion about the metering, not the least because the outcome is often a much higher bill than with the alternative way of using natural gas in a highly efficient central heating system locally installed in the houses.

That is a different thing, because here you use heat from systems that already have used the electric energy a second time. That should be better than tapping heat from the power plant that could have been converted to electric energy when it had not been tapped.

The only thing that's a flop is JT's knowledge of the technology, as while he seems to fancy himself the expert on the viability of it, I think it's fairly clear to all that he knows precisely zip about it, and has never even set foot in a vehicle of the type.

Probably afraid his buddies might see him in one and worry that it was time for the geriatric psychiatrist to ask him to draw some more clock faces.

That remains to be seen. Assuming you can take 16A from a standard outlet, you could charge 230x16x8 = 29440 Wh at the best (I have used

With some charger and charging efficiency figures it may be down to

At the current typical consumption of about 30 kWh per 100 miles, you would need 60 kWh of charge to do that. Your 25 kWh and a 80 kWh capacity battery might just cut that, but you would need to drive way less than 100 miles per day on the average with an occasional peak of

it doesn't take much to get a socket wired for the 3x16A that is available almost everywhere here

-Lasse

Then it is not a standard outlet anymore, it is a 3-phase outlet. If I were to get that here, I first would need to have my power changed from 1 phase to 3-phase (houses are wired 3-phase but a 1-phase meter is installed unless you have special power requirements, like heating or high-power cooking and want 3-phase, and it will cost money both one-time and per-month to do that).

Furthermore, when "everyone is doing that", the capacity of the electrical distribution network is not enough. I once made a back-of-the-envelope calculation that indicated that to generate the energy contained in the amount of gasoline sold in the country per year, the capacity of the electric network would have to increase 5-fold. And that is the total capacity, the majority of which is not used by households. So the local delivery to households is impacted even more.

When everyone would drive an electric car, it would have a real impact. I'm not saying it cannot be done, but it isn't a matter of "everyone plugging in their car on a standard outlet to charge it overnight".

here pretty much everyone has a 3-phase behind their stove and washing machine

indeed,

US used 140.43 billion gallons of gasoline in 2015, at ~33kWh/gallon GGE that is 4.62 trillion kWh, total electricity production in the US in

-Lasse

Cool. All we have to do is double our generation and distribution capacity.

(At 10 GPM, a gas station nozzle is equivalent to 330 KW of charging power.)

This shows that such situations can vary a lot by country. Here we have a large supply of natural gas and almost all heating is done by natural gas, and as this has to be fed to the houses anyway it is also popular for use in cooking stoves. Although that is changing because a modern kitchen of course has electric cooking. (mine hasn't)

Washing machines are all single phase here. I think.

Probably in the US electric heating is more popular, and also the US is known for its energy wasting devices, so they use comparatively more electricity. Here in the Netherlands my calculation worked out to a factor of 5.

At the moment, installation of roof solar panels is becoming popular, and although of course most users would want to charge the car during the night, a system could charge a stationary battery during the day and transfer that energy to a car battery during the night.

Such a solution could solve both the generation and transport problem, but of course you need quite some solar panel surface to generate enough electricity this way (in our climate, at least, which should be comparable to Denmark).

Where do you get the info about the efficiency? I don't know what is required to heat homes from a heat source some kms away. I recall when I was in college, they had a central heating facility and piped steam around campus. But that would be low pressure steam and likely wet steam at that. Power plants use dry steam under pressure to generate electricity. It is hard to imagine the waste heat would not be high enough temperature to heat homes.

Yes, the quick charge requirement would only be needed when on trips that exceed the range of the vehicle. Even then the requirement to match the time for filling a gas tank (which seems to be around 5 minutes) is not real. If it takes 30 minutes or less with a range of four hours driving, then this matches pretty well. Drive for four hours, stop for a break and get some food while charging, lather, rinse, repeat. I guess those on a cross country race won't want to waste time eating in a restaurant...

It's not a silly requirement if you don't have another way to meet that need. Today people take cars on long trips. Maybe it is once a year on vacation or something similar, but they do that. If an EV can't meet that requirement, there needs to be an alternate approach. As cars become self driving, it may become more realistic to not own a car at all, but to use what will amount to a cab, even for long distances. Every four hours or so you can switch vehicles and have nearly no down time. This could easily replace passenger rail service as it is more flexible and eliminates the multiple carriers needed, (cab or bus at each end and train for the long haul) taking you from door to door.

I believe it is a longer distance than that even. 80% of full charge in

It's not like EVs are selling so fast that you have to do this by next year.

Well then they have to go nuclear. Actually those tree huggers are going to have to accept it because solar just won't cut it. Nuclear has the smalles t carbon footprint of all available technologies.

After Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and that earthquake in Japan (where they weren't SUPPOSED to be enriching uranium) some people are afraid of it, li ke guns, just having one means it is going to go off. They don't realize th at there are thousand of nuclear power plants around the world and what, ha lf dozen of them ever had any real problems ?

Though nuclear doesn't spew carbon, it still makes heat. The waste is an en vironmental nightmare, but then so are spent batteries for these cars. It w ould be nice to come up with a way to make them easily rebuildable or refur bishable.

Them and only them huh ? We got your number.

Highly efficient power plants use the steam in multiple stages (and of course the steam is produced using the output gases of the gas turbine that is the first stage), so the resulting output from the last stage isn't hot enough to be transported to homes and used for heating there.

In the past, when power plants were not that efficient, it really was possible. Here in the city of Utrecht a heating system like that was built starting in 1923, from a power plant situated in the center of the city. Later, a large plant just outside the city took over from that. However, the latest expansions of this network required separate heating-only plants that supply extra heat when the power plant cannot supply enough. So the system has become more like a big central heating boiler shared by many households, and of course then the lower efficiency of such a system (both operational and in maintenance) kicks in.

eryone else pays"

The government makes more in taxes on every gallon than the oil companies. It is by sheer volume that they get rich.

In no way am I sticking up for oil companies though. Fracking, elcheapo pip es in the gulf giving us that nice slick shrimp, we could burn them too onc e we got the stake up.

But reality is reality. People make a big stink about whatever floats their viewpoint. Like Benghazi, you lmpw I can't stand that autistic bitch but s till you can't turn every embassy into a military base. Oil is almost a uti lity. Like water, gas and electricity.

The fracking is the worst. The dumb s**ts did that to punish Russia but it didn't work and they flooded their own market. It is a gamble, they are pla ying for a piece of the European market.

And maybe they are doing the right thing for this time and circumstance, th ey might as well make it now because when a few more pieces of technology f all into place it's going to be GAME OVER.

You are not in the US, so I guess you are talking about the same outlet you plug your table lamps into. In the US a 220 volt outlet could be 20 amp, but typically are 30 or 50 amp. In reality, we don't typically have 220 volt outlets installed unless there is a specific need for them, such as a clothes dryer or window air conditioner.

It is a given that if you buy an EV, you will have a fast charging unit installed in your home or at very minimum have a 220 volt high current outlet installed. Requiring that the charging be done via the same wiring used to power your cell phone is a bit odd.

Charging rates are typically expressed as mile/hour as that is what they equate to. At home, where you typically spend the majority of your time, you don't need the full blown 20 minute fast charger available elsewhere. A typical rate for a 110 volt outlet is 3 mph. So a 12 hour charge will add 36 miles to your range.

The recommended NEMA 14-50 220 volt outlets will get you both higher voltage and higher current, so the mph rises to 25 depending on your voltage which seems to vary between locations. In 12 hours that would be 250 miles or 200 miles in 8 hours.

I drive a Chevy Volt 2016. Bought in Feb 2016 For my needs the 45 mile battery range is perfect. The only gas I have consumed is when the Volt decides to do maintenance at 500 mile intervals by running the gas engine for about 10 minutes.

I charge at home on 120VAC. I have a power company electric vehicle charging rate that is extremely low starting at 10:00 PM. Live in Southern California. My electric bill had not gone up because my other AC powered device that run all the time now take advantage of the very low night time electric rate.

For many folks the 45 mile range is more than enough. Typically I only go 15 to 20 miles each day.

I like to know that if needed I have an addition 250 mile or so gas engine range.

Drive train is very well done. It take off like a shot and accelerates well at 60 MPH. Ride pretty good like a sports car. I like that. No back seat room if regular size folks are in the front. It is just one big me in the car so it does not matter too much.

Volt needs work though. Handling is good except when accelerating in a turn - it pulls badly. Ergonomically very poor design features. No egress handles. Electric parking brake - no emergency hand brake ! No spare time. So I carry a puncture repair kit with me and a scissor jack (not provided). Volt comes with a can of goo that destroys the tire and the wheel. Who "engineered" that ??? The center display is on all the time. The center display has the worst user interface. Too much to expound on here. The interior materials are terrible. Rub up against any of the black (only available color) surfaces and you skin is sanded off and stick in the material and cannot be easily wiped off. There is more but I am off to lunch now.