Electric Vehicle Innovation

[Rmay635703]

Originally Posted by Cujet
Originally Posted by Rmay635703
sadly consumer tastes drive 2 tons of expensive batteries into the design.


I would disagree. We have a massive interstate highway system, regularly used by most Americans. Range is critical. The tow companies around here in south and central FL regularly get dead EV's to transport. That has nothing to do with "consumer taste" and everything to do with real limitations.

I drove by a dozen pickups and minivans dead on the road yesterday going up highway 51 a hundred miles.

I would argue that
1. Having a single charger in a 250 mile radius
2. Poor planning

Have more to do with stranded cars than anything

 

[Rmay635703]

Originally Posted by JHZR2
The PHEV is vastly superior and will be even as new innovations come along in battery and converter tech. You will not beat the energy density of liquid fuels anytime soon,etc.


Agreed, too bad they tax the crap out of them.

In so far as pollution I would disagree, a lot of EV heads are solar, mine is hydro and nuclear

 

[Y_K]

Originally Posted by JeffKeryk
I did my solar project before I decided to get the Tesla.

Good point, capacity utilisation is right there. Still, it remains to be seen if the 25 year mark is too optimistic or realistic. Quite a few of those panels around me went out on year 11 to 12 here. Let's hope, it was simply a bad batch.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted by JeffKeryk
Originally Posted by PimTac

How much electrical power is being generated outside of California for their use? I believe it's quite a bit. That should be considered.

I believe about 10% of our electricity is imported so that part is hard to measure. I have to believe it is not from renewables.
But here are the 2018 numbers:

CA Energy Sources 2018

We are moving towards renewables; the PGE grid infrastructure is a problem.


Looking at that, generated in-state:

- 47% from natural gas
- 21% from wind/solar
- 13% from hydro (large & small)
- 9% from Nuclear
- 6% from Geothermal
- 4% from burning trees/coal/oil

And this accounts for 195TWh of 286TWh; 68%. The remaining 32%; 91TWh is imported, coming from:
- Large hydro: 8.5TWh
- Coal: 9TWh
- Gas: 9TWh
- Nuclear: 7.5TWh
- Solar: 5.5TWh
- Wind: 19TWh
- Geothermal: 1.5TWh
- Unspecified: 30TWh

The "unspecified" source is of particular interest, since it's the single largest segment of the imports section.

This, at present, is yielding a CO2 g/kWh intensity of 140, quite similar to South Australia with their VRE experiment, which is currently at 164g/kWh and Germany, whom you've both modelled after at 136g/kWh. These are all "high renewables" grids.

Ontario is currently at 24g/kWh, France at 25g/kWh and Sweden at 52g/kWh. These are all nuke/hydro grids.

 

[billt460]

Originally Posted by Rmay635703
I would argue that
1. Having a single charger in a 250 mile radius
2. Poor planning

Have more to do with stranded cars than anything

Which brings us right back to square one. Why would anyone purposely choose a vehicle that you have to "plan" your trip around it's batteries, or else you won't make it? That's insane. The car will either make it, or else it won't. If it won't, it's completely useless to it's owner for that purpose.

Until battery technology can match the distance, and more importantly reduce the recharge time to that of filling a gas tank, they are never going to be accepted by the masses, because they're simply not as practical as a gasoline powered vehicle.

Even as a second, "around town only" vehicle. Why would you choose it for that purpose, and limit yourself? When you can purchase a gasoline vehicle of similar size cheaper, with an over 400 mile range, that can be refueled in 5 minutes cheaply, and be on your way for another 400 miles. Where is the advantage?

Even the "green" part of owning electric has been proven to be a falsehood. Fossil fuels are being used everywhere to generate electric power. So in many areas of the country you're not driving electric. Your personal lightning bolt is, in reality, coal powered. That may accomplish many things, but saving the planet sure isn't one of them.

 

[Rmay635703]

Originally Posted by billt460

Even as a second, "around town only" vehicle. Why would you choose it for that purpose, and limit yourself? When you can purchase a gasoline vehicle of similar size cheaper, with an over 400 mile range, that can be refueled in 5 minutes cheaply, and be on your way for


My old EV cost 1 cent a mile TCO including brakes and purchase price (was lower after free charging started)

That is the reason I've owned mine since the dark ages, could care less about the green aspect.


But now that most areas charge a large registration tax that exceeds the annual gas cost for an economy car
I do agree, why own one if all the savings goes to the government?


On the green aspect your "proof" is easily debunked, as stated I live in hydro/nuclear country.

Even in the case of coal, regardless of emissions modern plants generate energy much more efficient than your car (which average around 16%, efficiency, modern coal is over 40% with some over 50%). EVS are generally 90-98% efficient, with most nearing that upper number)

That said coal is becoming rarer every day, natural gas plants emit far less pollution than any gasoline car.


Other green heads really do run their cars off solar making this argument moot since most folks in the fossil fuel group omit the emissions from the 4kwhrs of electricity used to make a gallon of gas alongside the
VOC, lead, cadmium, arsenic emitted from exploration and refining in their metrics.

Spills/spoilage account for 5% of crude production ,
Aka, not everything comes out of the ground or can be stored (yes there still are areas that burn the natural gas). The aliso canyon leak was said to have emitted more pollution than the entire planet generates in a year.
which is an unfathomable quantity of pollution that no one has really tried to factor either.

And yes spills/leaks/spoilage are a steady part of day to day business, they are actually apart of the business plan as expected costs.

If we want to be frank with ourselves and not be myopic trying to make this apples to avocados.

 

[billt460]

And how is any, or all of that going to offset this?

https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2019/03/28/china-new-coal-plants-2030-climate/

Originally Posted by Rmay635703
That said coal is becoming rarer every day, .......

Don't bet on it. Remember, we all share the same planet..... And 150 years is a long time.

https://www.worldcoal.org/coal/where-coal-found

"There are an estimated 1.1 trillion tons of proven coal reserves worldwide. This means that there is enough coal to last us around 150 years at current rates of production."

 

[Rmay635703]

Originally Posted by billt460
And how is any, or all of that going to offset this?

https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2019/03/28/china-new-coal-plants-2030-climate

"There are an estimated 1.1 trillion tons of proven coal reserves worldwide. This means that there is enough coal to last us around 150 years at current rates of production."


China runs coal primarily to operate industry, (much of China's coal isn't even used for electricity)
To answer why we need only look in the mirror, if we are to [censored] lazy and incompetent to find our own way what do we expect?

A very small percentage of chinese energy goes to their people who many times can't count on 24/7 electricity in their flat. Sections of China are still not electrified.

China will eventually burn itself out and even it is placing emissions goals due to horrible consequences on its people.


It is estimated we have over 1000 years of nuclear materials if we use thorium, ocean water and uranium, what happens when the coal runs out?

Because 150 years is a tiny amount of time.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted by Rmay635703



It is estimated we have over 1000 years of nuclear materials if we use thorium, ocean water and uranium, what happens when the coal runs out?

Because 150 years is a tiny amount of time.


We have essentially infinite uranium if we use sea water extraction, the known uranium reserves presently could provide hundreds of years, and that doesn't factor in reprocessing spent fuel, MOX, Thorium hybrid fuels or breeders, the last one of course which torpedoes the whole running out of fuel issue completely.

 

[Rmay635703]

Agreed MSR Thorium uses 99% less fuel than standard fission, China has been experimenting with Thorium and was seeking bidders to build a plant.

The fuel and waste issues become almost a non issue once MSR is back up and running again.


It's unfortunate the original MSR reactors were shut down in the 70's to make more plutonium .

The few remaining older "exotic " reactors make virtually all of the chemo, medical isotopes and cancer drugs worldwide, once they are gone completely we will be in a world of hurt as there is no other source and the research labs won't have new materials to sample.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted by Rmay635703
Agreed MSR Thorium uses 99% less fuel than standard fission, China has been experimenting with Thorium and was seeking bidders to build a plant.

The fuel and waste issues become almost a non issue once MSR is back up and running again.


It's unfortunate the original MSR reactors were shut down in the 70's to make more plutonium .

The few remaining older "exotic " reactors make virtually all of the chemo, medical isotopes and cancer drugs worldwide, once they are gone completely we will be in a world of hurt as there is no other source and the research labs won't have new materials to sample.


You'd be surprised to learn then that our CANDU reactors, primarily Bruce and Darlington, though Pickering participates as well, produce significant volumes of medical isotopes. This became a big deal when our experimental reactor at Chalk River was winding down and so these conventional facilities took up the slack

With respect to thorium of course the issue is that it isn't fissile, thus it needs to be coupled with plutonium or uranium to work. This has been tested (successfully) in CANDU's in the past. China actually has two AFCR (Advanced Fuel CANDU Reactors) at Qinshan, which are setup to run on used LWR fuel, but could just as easily run on a thorium fuel blend if desired. There's a whitepaper I have here somewhere on the the thorium fuel cycle testing that was done by I believe it was AECL.

There have been a number of experimental breeder reactors operated. I believe the US had more than one, France operated one for quite a while and Russia I believe is still operating one. The issue at present is that EBR's aren't economic to operate, whilst a conventional LWR or HWR is significantly moreso. I don't think we'll see significant interest in expanding or even at this juncture, pursuing breeders until supply becomes an issue. With the MSR SMR's coming down the tubes, many of which will run on existing used fuel stores, I think that's a long way out IMHO.

Edit to add:

French Superphenix breeder: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superph%C3%A9nix shuttered in 1996.
French Phenix fast breeder: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ph%C3%A9nix shuttered in 2010
Russian BN-600 fast breeder: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-600_reactor operating presently (uranium)
Russian BN-800 fast breeder: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-800_reactor operating presently (plutonium MOX)

 

[Rmay635703]

The bulk of knowledge lived and died with the folks working at the Oak Ridge MSR reactor

Like space programs it's a use it or loose it scenario, it will be a lot of effort to relearn and very hard to justify the cost in the current environment

Ah well

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted by Rmay635703
The bulk of knowledge lived and died with the folks working at the Oak Ridge MSR reactor

Like space programs it's a use it or loose it scenario, it will be a lot of effort to relearn and very hard to justify the cost in the current environment

Ah well


There's hope, we have a number of MSR SMR's in various stages of the process for being constructed at Chalk River, the site which has been repurposed for our federally funded SMR program: https://smrroadmap.ca/

Global First Power/USNC, in conjunction with public utility OPG (Ontario Power Generation) have passed all three stages and are in the environmental assessment step, which is the final one before construction. Their MSR is a wholly self contained unit that has ~20 years of operating life, designed as a module to power remote communities or mining operations. This is their unit: https://usnc.com/MMR.html

Ontario has two valid EA's for new nuclear builds, one adjacent to Darlington, the 2nd at the Bruce Power site.

One of the more novel MSR SMR's is the Moltex SSR (Stable Salt Reactor) wasteburner, that is slated to be built adjacent to the Point Lepreau nuclear power plant in New Brunswick. It runs on used CANDU fuel, so will literally operate off the waste from the unit beside it. New Brunswick is kind of doing their own thing separate, but loosely tied to the Federal program. NBPower has two designs lined up to potentially be built there.

 

[billt460]

Originally Posted by Rmay635703
China runs coal primarily to operate industry, (much of China's coal isn't even used for electricity).....

"China's power industry calls for hundreds of new coal power plants by 2030."

https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2019/03/28/china-new-coal-plants-2030-climate/

Did you even click on the link?

 

[SteveSRT8]

Not saying anything about this particular link but Greenpeace is wildly politically polarized and unlikely to be unbiased...

 

[billt460]

Originally Posted by SteveSRT8
Not saying anything about this particular link but Greenpeace is wildly politically polarized and unlikely to be unbiased...

I agree with you about Greenpeace, along with some of the other off the wall environmental groups. However there are articles like this everywhere. The fact of the matter is, China is going full bore with coal generated electrical power. Regardless if it meshes with our, "green thinking" or not.

As long as there is coal, there will be countries that will use it for their needs. Especially those that are run by totalitarian governments, who could care less what their people say or think. China is only one of many. Xi Jinping is much like Elon Musk in that regard. He likes to tell people what they want to hear, then do whatever he feels like.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-45640706

https://www.npr.org/2019/04/29/716347646/why-is-china-placing-a-global-bet-on-coal

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted by SteveSRT8
Not saying anything about this particular link but Greenpeace is wildly politically polarized and unlikely to be unbiased...


The paradox of environmental groups like GreenPeace, Fiends of the Earth (lol), The Sierra Club...etc is that they'll rail against the fossil fuel industry with their little shows, but they are even more against the only thing that has ever successfully displaced it: Nuclear. I'd argue these organizations are more anti-nuke than they are anti-fossil fuel. They are a walking, talking contradiction of the highest order.