Electric Cars?

[Andrew Longman]

I heard a piece on the radio the other day about new promise (again) for an affordable high speed long range electric car that plugs into the wall.

What am I not getting?

Electric cars seem to make sense on golf courses, college campuses, perhaps inner cities, etc. where noise and emmisions are issues and range is not.

But as a general purpose car or commuter I don't see the point. Burning coal or gas and sending volts through transmission lines to charge a battery still releases CO2 and other pollutants, just not where the car drives. Plus all that transmission and charging has to be inherently inefficient, no? It just can't really solve the real problem so why bother?

Fuel cell or other hydrogen power generated from solar, tidal, hydro, etc and seawater or some similar technology seems a much more sound approach if we insist on riding 400 miles at 80mph on highways.

[Gangrel]

Let's not forget the environmental damage done by the manufacture and disposal of all those batteries....

[Sean Malone]

Super-capacitors!

Growing up in the 70's and 80's all the rage regarding fossil fuel alternatives revolved around solar. Solar this, solar that. I'm somewhat surprised that as far as everyday uses are concerned, solar is really only an option for heating your swimming pool, oh and those walkway lights that don't really light anything.:gomer:

Solar energy is abundant (for most of the day) and clean. Is there any progress in solar technology?

[Ankf00]

battery technology == teh suck.

solar, plug into the wall, whatever, that's historically been the brick wall.

super capacitors are all the rage with fuel-cell systems these days, insta-charge/discharge, more efficiency, less loss through heat generation due to rapid charge/discharge

[Sean Malone]

Serious question: How many years of fossil fuel is left taking into consideration the current trends in rising demands.

It's my understanding it depends on who you ask. Some say 50 years tops, others say as long as 300 years.

With the radar technologies and the discovery of large unknown fields becoming a rarity, are the oil companies able to get a good estimate about the remaining supply?

[Andrew Longman]

Serious question: How many years of fossil fuel is left taking into consideration the current trends in rising demands.

It's my understanding it depends on who you ask. Some say 50 years tops, others say as long as 300 years.

With the radar technologies and the discovery of large unknown fields becoming a rarity, are the oil companies able to get a good estimate about the remaining supply?

Hard to say because price will rise as supply decreases. How much will the last gallon of oil cost? Well, if the price rose so much a long time ago to make other energy sources economical then it might not be as much as you think. And as prices rise it makes it more feasible to drill in truly ridiculous places, hence increasing the supply again.

The oil companies have a pretty good idea where all the oil in the world is, just not as sure how big each reserve actually is, especially in the Arctic where they have yet to drill that much.

The oil companies are into gaming theories big time to play out endless scenarios about when oil will run out. Their answers are pretty secret.

[WickerBill]

They can't know for sure how much is left for two reasons... the first is that yes, they are still finding new reserves all the time, and second, there are some documented cases of the earth pushing more oil back up into previously dry fields.... so they go back to a field they supposedly tapped dry in 1988 and find that it has millions of barrels in it again. Of course, that isn't happening everywhere.

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=2987

[Ankf00]

the shale in the western US supposedly has as much energy as Saudi Arabia's proven reserves, the problem is getting to it and processing it, both of which cost, when prices and dwindling reserves justify it, the oil companies wll go after it. you have western canadian tar sands, there's the Orinoco Basin in Venezuela. comes down to prices justifying the processing costs and R&D to improve efficiency

then you have pilot projects for coal gassification and CO2 sequestration around the world offering the potential for cleaner coal byproducts released into the atmosphere, but again, it costs, and it'll happen when prices justify both it and the R&D to further the tech

[Insomniac]

Serious question: How many years of fossil fuel is left taking into consideration the current trends in rising demands.

It's my understanding it depends on who you ask. Some say 50 years tops, others say as long as 300 years.

With the radar technologies and the discovery of large unknown fields becoming a rarity, are the oil companies able to get a good estimate about the remaining supply?

I don't think they can. They still do exploratory digging, which to me means they do not know where the oil is, let alone how much there is.

[G.]

The newest Green trend is that we need MORE nuke reactors. Srsly.

The tree huggers are ready to hug the warm glow of ol' leadbutt reactors. There are pleas from the Greenies to build more nukes.

Makes electric cars a bit more feasible.

I still think hydrogen FC's are the way to go.

[cameraman]

The problem around here is rapidly increasing air pollution from cars as the population grows. It is getting very bad especially during the winter. Any technology that moves the emissions out of the valleys where all the people live would be a very good thing.

[Andrew Longman]

The problem around here is rapidly increasing air pollution from cars as the population grows. It is getting very bad especially during the winter. Any technology that moves the emissions out of the valleys where all the people live would be a very good thing.

So the coal plant in AZ dumping CO2, acid rain and soot in the atmosphere is OK so Californians can add to their sprawl?

Maybe there should be limits put on development and growth instead. Or maybe people should choose to live in a desert in the first place. (spoken like a damn eastern Yankee :gomer: ). Or maybe another solution that doesn't just move the problem is called for.

[chop456]

MSBykAngDpY

[RichK]

The problem around here is rapidly increasing air pollution from cars as the population grows. It is getting very bad especially during the winter. Any technology that moves the emissions out of the valleys where all the people live would be a very good thing.

Me on my way to Snowbird: "Where are the mountains?"
My friend from SLC: "It's not smog, it's an inversion."

[WickerBill]

GM ... General freaking Motors... built a good electric car 11 years ago. It's just mind-boggling to think what a company that can really build cars well, like Honda, Toyota, Mazda... can't equal or greatly surpass that in 2007.

The market for such a car seems like it would be 1000x what it was back then.

[Ankf00]

The newest Green trend is that we need MORE nuke reactors. Srsly.

The tree huggers are ready to hug the warm glow of ol' leadbutt reactors. There are pleas from the Greenies to build more nukes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very-High-Temperature_Reactor

[coolhand]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very-High-Temperature_Reactor


Nothing else can entirely replace coal.

[cameraman]

Me on my way to Snowbird: "Where are the mountains?" The problem is when coming back from Snowbird:
Where the hell did the valley go?

Not seeing the sun for a month or so sucks, especially on an otherwise clear day.

[oddlycalm]

GM ... General freaking Motors... built a good electric car 11 years ago. It's just mind-boggling to think what a company that can really build cars well, like Honda, Toyota, Mazda... can't equal or greatly surpass that in 2007.

The market for such a car seems like it would be 1000x what it was back then. The reason that Honda, Toyota, Mazda couldn't have built an electric car is that GM pioneered and owned the patents on neodymium/iron/boron magnets and had an entire drive-train ready to deploy while those companies had their collective thumbs in their ears. Finally GM is first out of the block on the path to the future, right...? Not quite.

Instead of capitalizing their lead the soap salesman that was running GM decided it was a good idea to shred the electric cars, sell Delco Magnequench to the Chinese, shut down Delco Remy (later Delphi Anderson) then lay off or fired everyone involved (along with thousands of others) and went right on building bigger and bigger SUV's to make the quarterly numbers look good.

If that seems like epic stupidity, consider that Ford is current looking to outsource it's engines. Yup, you read that right. Best guess is that they split them up between Mazda and Linamar with the diesels continuing from Navistar. I'm thinking that this will upset some NASCAR fans...

oc

[oddlycalm]

The newest Green trend is that we need MORE nuke reactors. Srsly.

The tree huggers are ready to hug the warm glow of ol' leadbutt reactors. There are pleas from the Greenies to build more nukes.

Makes electric cars a bit more feasible.

I still think hydrogen FC's are the way to go. There are different shades of green.
Emotional environmentalists = tree huggers
Technical environmentalists = solution

The tree huggers will never embrace nukes in any form and never seem to grasp that if we all "burned wood, not atoms" our cities would look like larger versions of a sooty 1880's London. :gomer:

Technical environmentalists designed stores for Walmart and Texas Instruments that use 30% less energy and cost the same to build.

I don't see it as new tech nukes vs hydrogen FC's vs clean coal but more along the lines of all of that plus a lot more.

oc

[jonovision_man]

Who killed the electric car promo

That documentary was the worst kind of conspiracy theory... it made enough sense that people actually believed it, even though it was absolute nonsense.

If GM had a killer car that it could sell right now, don't you think they'd be doing it?? The fact is that the electric car wasn't practical, it's still not, electricity isn't cheap and there's a very limited audience for a car with such pathetic range.

jono

[nrc]

I'm tellin' ya. It's just like what happened with the fish carburetor. :gomer:

[oddlycalm]

If GM had a killer car that it could sell right now, don't you think they'd be doing it?? The fact is that the electric car wasn't practical, it's still not, electricity isn't cheap and there's a very limited audience for a car with such pathetic range. GM had a first generation car to be proud of, but it was 10yrs early when fuel was cheap and senior management focus was quarterly. They had to start over from scratch with the Chevy Volt because they sold the technology back in the 90's and laid off the people in that knew about it. We supplied active instrumentation to both Delco Magnequench and Delco Remy (both formerly in Anderson, IN) and were privy to the details all the way from the JetCast neodymium to the finished drive train.

The GM electrics did just fine in urban environment they were designed for and they could have been further refined. Their biggest advantage was the 95% efficient high flux density permanent magnet motor. The biggest disadvantage was that the battery technology wasn't as well developed as it is today.

The cost of electricity varies by region as do the issues with air quality, but it's pretty clear that we're going to see a mix of technologies rather than a one size fits all solution. Here in the land of water & gravity with fairly well defined urban areas they would work well. In areas of suburban sprawl and long commutes they won't.

But don't take my word for any of it....

According to GM Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner, the worst decision of his tenure at GM was "axing the EV1 electric-car program and not putting the right resources into hybrids. It didn’t affect profitability, but it did affect image."According to the March 13, 2007, issue of Newsweek, "GM R&D chief Larry Burns . . . now wishes GM hadn't killed the plug-in hybrid EV1 prototype his engineers had on the road a decade ago: 'If we could turn back the hands of time,' says Burns, 'we could have had the Chevy Volt 10 years earlier.'"

[coolhand]

Forget about biofuels :gomer:


Study: Biofuels May Disperse More Greenhouse Gases Than Oil
Saturday, September 22, 2007

E-MAIL STORY PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION
Corn-derived renewable energy sources create more greenhouse gases than fossil fuels, according to a study from an international team of scientists reported in the London Times.

Research findings published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics calculate that corn and rapeseed biodiesels produce up to 70 percent and 50 percent more greenhouse gases respectively than fossil fuels.

Read about the eye-opening fuel alternative study in London Times report.

The study focues on nitrous oxide, which is 296 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Scientists found that the use of biofuels released twice as much as nitrous oxide as previously realised.

The research was performed by scientists from the U.S. Britain, and Germany and it included Professor Paul Crutzen, a Nobel Prize-winning ozone scholar.

Corn-based ethanol is the leading biofuel alternative in the US while rapeseed is used in 80 percent of biofuels created in Europe.

[Spicoli]

Anybody watching the Eco-Tech series in Scince channel? Some cool stuff on there. Virus batteries?

[jonovision_man]

GM had a first generation car to be proud of, but it was 10yrs early when fuel was cheap and senior management focus was quarterly. They had to start over from scratch with the Chevy Volt because they sold the technology back in the 90's and laid off the people in that knew about it. We supplied active instrumentation to both Delco Magnequench and Delco Remy (both formerly in Anderson, IN) and were privy to the details all the way from the JetCast neodymium to the finished drive train.

The GM electrics did just fine in urban environment they were designed for and they could have been further refined. Their biggest advantage was the 95% efficient high flux density permanent magnet motor. The biggest disadvantage was that the battery technology wasn't as well developed as it is today.

The cost of electricity varies by region as do the issues with air quality, but it's pretty clear that we're going to see a mix of technologies rather than a one size fits all solution. Here in the land of water & gravity with fairly well defined urban areas they would work well. In areas of suburban sprawl and long commutes they won't.

But don't take my word for any of it....

I don't have an issue with anything you're saying.

But the premise of this film is that GM was pressured by oil companies to axe a supposedly viable electric car. The reality is that they axed a car they didn't feel was viable at the time. And as you point out, at the time, they weren't wrong.

To this day, with the best battery technology, I don't believe there's a fiscal case for it. Electricity has gone up as much as gas has for most of us. And from an environmental point of view, America still generates so much with coal that it's difficult to see where the savings are.

jono