EV's has anyone given this a thought?

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bernomatic
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#1 EV's has anyone given this a thought?

Post by bernomatic »

Let me preface this post by stating I have nothing against being green (ecologically minded), but think most Greenies need a branch shoved up their nether regions because of their insistence that we all be as sensitive as them. I haven't driven a motor vehicle in almost three years and a lot of my store trips are on my bicycle with a trailer hitched to the back. I often see bumper stickers compelling green initiatives on cars and want to stop them and lecture them harshly on their hypocrisy. :roll:

While I am not adverse to driving an Electric Vehicle (EV), I have to wonder if those hyping these wonders have given any thought to the weaknesses of such a vehicle? There is a lot of talk about the construction of new charging stations across the United States, but what will theses charging stations and individual home stations do in a blackout :?: :?: :?: I can foresee a future event where a major blackout causes a dystopian picture from a futuristic movie where the highway is crowded with abandoned vehicles.

I have spent time during local blackouts listening to ball games with my son in the car, but with an EV, that would be unlikely as I would be concerned about saving the charge in the batteries. Even if I had a gas powered generator to recharge the car, how long would it take with the typical home generator's lower amperage?

In the end, wouldn't our aging power grid be more tempting as a target for terrorist attack if we were all driving EV's?
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Joe Wooten
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#2 Re: EV's has anyone given this a thought?

Post by Joe Wooten »

Total conversion of our trtansportation system to electric will NEVER happen. I took the 2019 American usage of diesel and gasoline in gallons, multiplied each by the heat content of the respective fuels to get the total transport usage in BTU. YOu can then convert this into electric megawatt equivalent by dividing by 3412142.45. Factoring in the efficiencies of IC engines and electric motors, you get that just for the USA , we would have to build over 3000 1200 megawatt nuke plants - 1200 MW is roughly the standard size for a nuke. The true greenies will not like that, so for them you can assume a 4 MW wind turbine, which means we'd need over 6,000,000 wind turbines. Either way, this is beyond the combined industrial capacities of the entire planet.

This will definitely will not happen by 2030 or by 2050. Maybe 2230.
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#3 Re: EV's has anyone given this a thought?

Post by Rocket Babe »

There are several political agendas at the moment, none of which will secure the nation or the planet. Don't waste time wondering how they think any of it work in reality or will help the projected plan. People waste too much time wondering :?: :?: :?: about the smoke and mirrors. It always has and always will, in the end, come down to: follow the $$$.

All the "save the planet" garbage is just that, garbage. :puke: The only thing any politician is about is MONEY! :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

The rest is a lie. :x
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#4 Re: EV's has anyone given this a thought?

Post by luke strawwalker »

Rocket Babe wrote: Sun, 08 Aug 21, 20:49 pm There are several political agendas at the moment, none of which will secure the nation or the planet. Don't waste time wondering how they think any of it work in reality or will help the projected plan. People waste too much time wondering :?: :?: :?: about the smoke and mirrors. It always has and always will, in the end, come down to: follow the $$$.

All the "save the planet" garbage is just that, garbage. :puke: The only thing any politician is about is MONEY! :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

The rest is a lie. :x
ABSOLUTELY!!! Just like he said in the post above, to any person CAPABLE OF COGENT THOUGHT the conversion of motor fuels to electric equivalent simply rules it out... PLUS, as the Valentine's week "Winter Storm Uri" (when the fvck did we start naming winter storms?? LOL:) and how it nearly crashed the Texas power grid shows, our grid (not just in Texas but nationwide) is barely able to cope with demand AS IT IS... we don't have enough generating capacity or distribution capability/infrastructure to distribute all the power required for "everybody in the neighborhood" to run and charge an electric car... all that energy that is being handled now by tanker trucks and gas stations and stored in underground tanks and pumped into vehicles as gasoline and diesel would have to be generated into electricity in power stations and then distributed via the grid to individual charging stations, be they in the home or at work or at commercial recharge stations in parking lots or whatever... The grid simply cannot deliver that much power, nor can we generate that much. It'd be like trying to fill the Grand Canyon with water from a garden hose!

If Texas was nearly laid flat by weather 30 degrees below normal for a week and the extra demand for electrically generated heat in homes, coupled with some of the power plants (like the South Texas Nuclear Generating Station STNP) being caught with their britches down and having to shut down due to frozen pipes and stuff, and of course the windmills and solar farms were all basically worthless in the cold and cloudy conditions, and the grid and remaining generating capacity was simply overtaxed due to all the "imports" moving into Texas as they try to escape the libtard nightmares of places like California (among other places) and the sudden population surge overextending our grid, particularly in bad conditions like the ice storm, well, pushing everybody to switch to electric vehicles is simply going to be a neverending man-made recipe for constant blackouts and power grid problems due to the increased demand and insufficient distribution infrastructure and inadequate generating capacity... in short every summer day and winter night will be struggle to keep up, and the grid is basically at the knife edge of what it can handle NOW... imagine what it will be with millions of EV's plugged into it by day and night.

I'm not anti-EV's, but I'm anti-STUPID... EV's have their place to be sure... commuters dealing with city traffic jams, where regenerative braking and no-idling during periods stuck sitting on a freeway would simply make good sense... local delivery drivers like for the mail and local package delivery, even local short-haul HD trucking from local distribution centers to various stores or malls or whatever short distances away, particularly in the city where regenerative braking can be used to recapture energy that would otherwise end up as waste heat from the brakes of vehicles... school buses would be particularly well suited to electric power, since they typically only drive for about an hour and a half or so each morning and evening on school bus routes, and could recharge in between and overnight. BUT, a school would STILL need to keep a few diesel buses in its fleet, simply for use on long-distance field trips, football or other sports trips, band trips, contests, one-act play, etc... we drove buses as far as a couple hundred miles on trips at times, and electrics simply don't have the range to cope with that, and for a HD vehicle with HD batteries, sitting and charging 8 hours halfway through the trip simply isn't an option. Same goes for long-haul trucking-- it is and will remain the venue of IC engines, diesel or otherwise (hear tell that manufacturers and trucking companies are having SO many issues with diesel emissions equipment and problems resulting from the designs that alternatives like propane (LPG) and methane (CNG) are being looked at seriously as replacements for over-the-road truck powerplants, despite diesel's many advantages! Electric isn't going to be taking IC's place on the farm, either... the energy density and cost of batteries simply is prohibitive, in addition to the weight. Deere and other manufacturers are tinkering with electric tractors, but basically they're simply novelty 'test beds' which are basically only good for very light work for very limited circumstances-- loader tractors used to move hay to feed cattle for instance, where the tractor will only operate at low power requirements for just a few hours at a time once or twice per day, those jobs can be handled with electric powered machines, BUT that is just a small part of the work farm tractors and equipment are required to do... for heavy tillage or or harvesting or working 16 hour days virtually nonstop at planting and harvest time, operating heavy or high-horsepower hungry implements doing heavy loads and heavy jobs, electric simply doesn't have the power density to handle that-- IOW the batteries are dead in an hour or two, and take many hours to recharge, and generate tremendous heat doing both... and heat destroys batteries! You can fill a tractor with 100+ gallons of diesel and work 15 hours straight if you want to or have to, and refilling means simply stopping long enough to pull a pickup with a bed tank and pump close enough to run a hose to the tractor tank and turn it on while you have a pee break and a stretch and maybe grab a sandwich or cup of coffee out of the thermos or ice chest in the pickup... in 10-15 minutes you're back to work for another go. Electrics will NEVER be able to handle that. The only way I could see it possible is if they invented interchangeable battery units much like HD drill drivers or electric impact wrenches use, when the battery is depleted it's swapped out for a charged one while the 'dead' one is returned to a charging station. Of course given the size and weight of the battery packs necessary for an over-the-road (OTR) semi truck or a farm tractor (several thousand pounds and about 3-4 feet square and 5-6 feet long or so) needless to say this entire process would require special equipment on the tractor/semi truck and the ground handling equipment to receive the old battery and install the new one. A rail system with self-guiding ramps or attach points (including auto-couplers for the batteries to the vehicles electrical system since it's a high amperage connection at fairly high voltages) would be required. Not an insurmountable engineering challenge, but not cheap either... and with battery packs for such equipment typically costing about $40,000 on up, not a cheap option either! Deere's prototype electric tractor has a power pack that costs about $40,000 and basically has a life expectancy of about 3-4 years with light but steady use. A similar diesel tractor could operate easily for 5,000-10,000 hours between major overhauls of its diesel engine, which would be far cheaper than replacing a $40,000 battery. Typical in-frame overhauls of diesels, depending on what is replaced, runs from about $5,000 on the low end to about $10,000-15,000 average, to maybe $20,000 on the high end if the engine is really shot and you're doing it in a dealer shop (which nobody in their right mind does). Depending on the use tractors could typically run 5-10 years before accumulating the hours to necessitate a rebuild, even on a busy farm with large acreage, and in similar conditions that's still a 2:1 to 3:1 advantage for the diesel over the electric in terms of battery replacement, just time-wise not even figuring in costs of replacement which are basically 25% of the cost of battery replacement. Deere is basically saying by the time the tractor needs a new battery it'll be cheaper to junk the tractor than get a new battery for it.

SO the internal combustion engine has a long life ahead of it... the energy density of batteries and recharge times simply rule it out for many jobs like farms and OTR trucking, railroads, etc. Rail is actually THE most efficient form of transportation in terms of energy units consumed per ton-mile, because steel wheels rolling on steel rails simply have the lowest friction of any form of transport (including trucks-- it's surprising how much heat is generated and wasted by semi-truck tires... those suckers get HOT hauling at high speed under load! All that heat energy comes ultimately from the fuel burned in the engine, produced to overcome rolling resistance and ultimately shed to the atmosphere as the tires cool). While railroad locomotives have used electric motors to turn their wheels for decades, they're powered by DIESEL engines turning alternators or generators on-board the train locomotive itself. DC power was standard but doesn't do well at low speeds and tends to overheat, so AC power is the current "state of the art". Batteries are only capable of producing DC power, which is NOT good for low-speed, high torque, long duration jobs like OTR trucking, operating heavy farm equipment under heavy loads, etc. Conversion of DC power to AC power is wasteful and expensive. Plus, again, the energy density simply isn't there... SO unless railroads are going to install coast-to-coast catenary lines for overhead electric AC power supply to electric locomotives (which is unfeasible due to cost) or drag locomotive-size battery tenders behind them like the old steam engines with their coal or oil bunker tenders behind them, rail will never turn electric.

Course, never say never, but basically it'll require 'Star Trek' technology to make it happen-- some "magic" battery technology (like the "sarium krellide" self-regenerating power packs in Star Trek hand phasers or some huge breakthrough in cheap/easy fusion power generation making small local fusion plants suddenly realistic (and how many times have we heard promises like that?? I remember going to the nuke plant "visitors day" employee picnic in the late 70's or early 80's, talking about "electricity too cheap to meter" delivered by clean, safe, abundant nuclear power... and we all know how that turned out!) SO I'll believe in cheap abundant easy fusion power when I have my hoverboard and flying Delorean in the carport...

Later! OL J R :)
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#5 Re: EV's has anyone given this a thought?

Post by luke strawwalker »

bernomatic wrote: Sat, 31 Jul 21, 21:17 pm Let me preface this post by stating I have nothing against being green (ecologically minded), but think most Greenies need a branch shoved up their nether regions because of their insistence that we all be as sensitive as them. I haven't driven a motor vehicle in almost three years and a lot of my store trips are on my bicycle with a trailer hitched to the back. I often see bumper stickers compelling green initiatives on cars and want to stop them and lecture them harshly on their hypocrisy. :roll:

While I am not adverse to driving an Electric Vehicle (EV), I have to wonder if those hyping these wonders have given any thought to the weaknesses of such a vehicle? There is a lot of talk about the construction of new charging stations across the United States, but what will theses charging stations and individual home stations do in a blackout :?: :?: :?: I can foresee a future event where a major blackout causes a dystopian picture from a futuristic movie where the highway is crowded with abandoned vehicles.

I have spent time during local blackouts listening to ball games with my son in the car, but with an EV, that would be unlikely as I would be concerned about saving the charge in the batteries. Even if I had a gas powered generator to recharge the car, how long would it take with the typical home generator's lower amperage?

In the end, wouldn't our aging power grid be more tempting as a target for terrorist attack if we were all driving EV's?
EXACTLY...

I for one am D@MN sick and tired of these self-flagellate libtards constantly thumping their chests and telling me I should be ashamed of myself for being a white male, for white privilege, for male toxicity, for "destroying the planet" and "trying to poison everyone". It's all bullsh!t and it needs to be said to be as much!

While they badmouth farmers for "poisoning everyone and destroying the planet" they do so with fat bellies and talking with their mouth full with their mocha cream frozen lattes in one hand and big mac in the other. FVCK THEM ALL! They get little media whores like Greta whateverthefvckhernameis who doesn't know *oops you said word #1 from sherbert sitting there talking out their @sses when they couldn't even feed themselves let alone half the d@mn world! While they wag their fingers "how dare you!" because of diesel smoke from tractors and farm chemicals that keep the crops from being totally overrun by weeds and eaten by pests instead of their fat @sses and cow farts melting the polar caps, I just want to hand the b!tch a shovel and tell her "get to work then!" Oh, people can raise food without tractors and pesticides and animal labor, but it takes SLAVE LABOR essentially to do it! IOW, shut up and take a shovel and start turning over this next 200 acre field! See how long THAT lasts! Of course when storms hit or bugs or disease or something wipes out the crop, you get to starve for the next year! Hope ya make it! (NOT!)

Far as I'm concerned all those types NEED to go one year in dire need... NO power, NO food, NO electrically pumped and purified water, NO transportation, and NO communication. People have had it good for SO LONG they've forgotten that even less than 100 years ago, we still had famines and plagues and shortages, and producing food took about 50-75% of the population just to meet basic needs... and the further back you go in time the higher those numbers got (80-90% of the population) and the more unsteady and basic the supply was, and the probabilities of disasters leading to famines and plagues were that much higher.

I think if someone is going to protest the pipelines or protest the farmers or want to ban IC vehicles, they should get rid of their own FIRST. Go live in a d@mn tent or teepee in the scorching heat or bitterest freezing winter without electric or fossil-fuel heat, WALK or ride a d@mn bike everywhere and do without a car, grow your own food for yourself and at least four other families besides yours and THEN you have SOME RIGHT to spout your bullsh!t... til then you're just a "useful idiot" and a waste of hot air and carbon dioxide source yourself. No "passing the buck" living in a nice electrically heated house with solar panels on the roof, patting yourself on the back like you know something... no buying a Tesla or whatever and passing the buck for the power to operate it onto the power grid, and acting like you're saving the planet... and no growing a few greens and turnips in pots behind the house and thinking you know how to tell lifelong farmers like me how ashamed we should be of ourselves and how we should all 'go organic" because it worked to produce you a few dozen meals of greens and turnips during the summer and a few tomatoes in your backyard with constant care and attention to a handful of plants, and acting like that can be done on thousands of acres to feed millions and billions of people, and done without machinery and chemicals.

There's a reckoning coming... it's just a matter of time. People are getting SO disconnected from reality, so insulated and convinced of their own intelligence in spite of the fact that basically they KNOW NOTHING but consider themselves an EXPERT ON EVERYTHING, and can't trouble themselves to actually LEARN the how's and why's and the lessons of history and how we got here, why we do things the way we do, and how it was BEFORE we had these modern miracles they accuse of destroying the planet and pilfering the people... STUPIDITY HAS CONSEQUENCES! The day is coming (quicker every passing day IMHO) when the system is gonna collapse, and these people are gonna wake up one morning and everything's broke-- the credit cards don't work, no food to be had, no water, no power, no gas, no nothing... no communication and no transport, and then H3LL ON THIS EARTH will ensue. That's why the gubmint's own studies show if we had a Carrington level solar event that wiped out the US power grid for a few years (which it would take that long to restore power since tens of thousands of transformers would be fried and they can only produce a few per year even in an emergency) the gubmint's own studies show that about 90% of the US population would be DEAD within six months to a year... now that's probably really fatalistic, but still, I wouldn't doubt 75% would be easily dead. Just like the ones who sat in New Orleans despite being told to get out ahead of Katrina and sat waiting for the gubmint to evacuate them, just like they sat waiting on their gubmint welfare checks every month, what happens when the GUBMINT GOES TOE UP AND THE GUBMINT DOESN'T COME?? Even in the uproar after the "winter storm Uri" crap when the Texas power grid nearly failed this past Valentine's week due to the unprecedented ice storm, (imagine your area being 30 degrees colder than normal for a WEEK and the worst winter weather you ever see in your area prevailing during that entire time-- that's what we had-- like at my BIL's in northern Indiana it can get down to 20 below at times-- now imagine what a mess it'd be with a week of 50 below, and the worst blizzard they ever get at the same time... or like a farmer I watch on Youtube who got some 50 below weather just before it came down here... now imagine how it'd be if it were 80 below there for a week with record blizzard on top. That's what we had.) People screaming about the failure of the power grid and blackouts and all that, and demanding "ERCOT" "*DO SOMETHING*" about it... relying on the GUBMINT to do something is a fools errand... "God helps those who help themselves". Get a generator, get a kerosene heater and a couple cans full of kerosene to last a week, do POSITIVE THINGS YOURSELF to HELP YOU when the gubmint and "the system" fails... and maybe help a few neighbors and friends at the same time if you can. When I suggested that, I was met by a HAIL of "how DARE you!" type comments... nope they'd rather freeze to death waiting for the gubmint to save them-- the same gubmint that has fvcked it up every time after EVERY storm has put us behind the eight ball and exposed the shortcomings and problems that need fixing-- why our infrastructure in this country is slowly collapsing, not just electric but transport as well, among other things...

Oh well... People aren't going to learn until they are sitting in the dark freezing to death and wondering where their next meal is going to come from or how they'll feed their kids another day, then MAYBE, *JUST MAYBE*, they'll grow a brain and start to figure a few things out... if they live long enough.

Later! OL J R :)
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