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Chevrolet Volt expected to get 230 MPG city!
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Well even if the demand for power increases because of the plug in hybrid you have to remember that most of that demand will be during off peak hours so the grid will easily be able to handle it and extra pollution created by the power planets in producing the extra power during off peak times will still be lower than what those same cars would produce if they ran off there own engines.
The power planets produce power more efficiently than cars and they can do more filtering on any pollution that comes out of the planet therefor reducing it even more.
I don't necessarily disbelieve this, but can you please provide your source with a quantitative analysis? I've only ever seen this assertion made -- never seen it backed up.
How would they be plugged in during off peak hours? People get off work and get home about the same time (hence rush hour) and shortly thereafter are turning on their computers, TV's, cooking dinner, etc. So people get home roughly the same time plug in their cars and turn on their house....
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...rics-graphic.html?scp=3&sq=infographic&st=cse
I guess they could work around this by installing something in peoples houses that would let you say "hey I need my car charged by 7am so do it sometime between now and then" to distribute the load... but still.
Please excuse me, but your comment brought to mind a large parking lot with extension cords run all over the place. Funny scene.
Okay, back to reality. When we transition to this type of system, you would have chargers built into the parking areas. So it would just be a matter of connecting a cord to your car.
Agree. Please provide a source.
Interesting idea.
Maybe each sub area of the grid would have a car recharging scheduling computer. As you say, you put in the specifics and the computer works to level the charging drain on the grid.
Who knows, maybe someday we'll have roads that have some sort of electric charging ability that your car can plug into.
Actually, I've read where the car's computer can do the scheduling for you. Let's say that you come home at 6PM and plug the car in. You don't need it until 6AM. The computer will determine how long the car needs to charge and start charging at the appropriate time, all the while, assigning priority to the time of day. So it determines that it needs 5 hours of charging time (and maybe an hour for the battery to cool off. So at midnight, the charging starts.
It's really a simple algorithm and would probably cost next to nothing to implement. I'm sure the car's computer is powerful enough to calculate the optimal charging schedule.
Well while that part is true 60% of the power demand is all Heating and cooling and of that cooling is a largest power . And peak cooling demand always comes during the hottest part of the day (1-4) which is while people are at work. The grid is designed to handle peak power usage which always happens during the summer months and always during the hottest part of the day. So again not a problem.
Also it is going to be heavy industries that suck up more power than any one living at home which again mainly happens during the work day (8-5). So even everyone coming home and plugging in at 6pm still not going to spike power during the power peak during the middle of the day.
All that cooking TV light on is nothing compared to what lets say commercial companies use and at night there power usage drops.
So even if everyone did that like I said it would be during off peak hours so the grid would have zero problem handling it.
So get a Subaru.
I wonder if Subaru can meet its goal of putting its hybrid on the market in 2012. There need to be more options in the space of more fuel efficient crossover / SUV type vehicles like the Escape hybrid.
which part.
The part about power planet producing less polution, or car charging during off peak hours.
Off peak hours is simple and really should not require proof. Power demand is generally always the highest during the summer months between the hours of 1-4 (hottest part of the day) and plus if you look at commercial billing rates for power they have 2 billing rates, Peak and off peak hours. Off peak is a hell of a lot cheaper.
Also just looking at the laws of thermo dynamics will show you why power planets are much more effenice. It is the fact they run hotter. A lot hotter. than a car so the theoretical max efficiency out of a power planet is going to be better. On top of that power plants waste less of the heat engery that cars because of the multiple turbine set up designed to pull power as the temp. of the steam drops as it moves though the different turbines. That makes them much more effeminacy.
Then compare an electric motor to a combustion motor. Electric motors run at about 90% effeminacy on today's standards with a theoretical max of 99.99% This compared to a cars at roughly 40% with a theoretical max of around 50-60% that and car motors waste a lot of that power. Electric motors do not idle like a combustion motor plus have a much smoother power curve. Lb for lb electric motors produce more power so that means you have less weight for the same power out put so less power is wasted on moving the motor. So again more power savings.
Lastly you can put better air pollution controls at a single point and much easier to control pollution if it comes from a single point.
Wait, you're saying that motors are lacking in masculinity now and will become even more girly in the future?
I understand your theoretical argument, but I don't think it's fair because power plants use neither the same fuel sources nor the same energy conversion cycles as internal combustion engines. Also a lot of work has been done to scrub emissions from cars. There are "clean coal" plants, but AFAIK they don't represent the majority of power production in the US. Theoretical arguments are all fine and good -- what I'm asking for is if anyone has any empirical evidence that switching this fuel consumption from gasoline in cars to coal / whatever (some of "whatever" is renewable and some of the gasoline is made from renewable ethanol too, but I mean in an overall sense) in power plants is actually a net improvement in CO2 emissions, etc.
Wait, you're saying that motors are lacking in masculinity now and will become even more girly in the future?
I understand your theoretical argument, but I don't think it's fair because power plants use neither the same fuel sources nor the same energy conversion cycles as internal combustion engines. Also a lot of work has been done to scrub emissions from cars. There are "clean coal" plants, but AFAIK they don't represent the majority of power production in the US. Theoretical arguments are all fine and good -- what I'm asking for is if anyone has any empirical evidence that switching this fuel consumption from gasoline in cars to coal / whatever (some of "whatever" is renewable and some of the gasoline is made from renewable ethanol too, but I mean in an overall sense) in power plants is actually a net improvement in CO2 emissions, etc.
Ah that what you want. Again goes back to a basic understanding of a power planet. In the US the main types are natural gas and coal power planets.
Natural gas is cleaner burning than gas we put in our car. Coal again you have the scrubbers for the planet and only a single point to deal with. Not the cars on the road. Plus cars are much more limited on what they can do to scrub them. Compared that to a power planet which does not have the same weight restrictions on it. Plus when you factor in all the types of power in the US again problem solve because over time we are going to switch to other types of power.
As for eletric motor part I think you miss understood that. Electric motor are currently 90% efficiency. That means if you put in 100W of electricity you will get out 90W of power with a theoretical max of 99.99W per 100W in. That is a far cry from the combustion motors which you get 40W out today for every 100W in.
The other part is lb for lb electric motors can put out more power.
As for better CO2 it comes down to this, Power planets are greater effeminacy than car engines. That means less CO2 out put per mile. A power planet can and will produce a 100W power for less CO2 than a car.
That, sir, was a quip.
And I got an A+ in thermodynamics, thank you very much. But once again, I clearly asked for quantitative, empirical data, and you keep responding with more logical arguments. I'm not saying the logical arguments are wrong, but I am saying the system is more complicated than you're giving it credit for, and I don't think a logical argument based on second year undergraduate thermodynamic efficiency estimates is really as good as actual data on the full-process environmental impacts comparing when gasoline is made from crude oil and burnt, say, in a PZEV automobile, to produce, say, 1 kWh or 1000 J or whatever unit of energy in comparison to when a modern gas or coal plant is used for the same purpose.Zero if you live near a nuke or hydro plant.
Even if the power comes from coal, the coal plants turn about 80% of the fuel into power where as a gasoline engine turns about 20% of the fuel into power the rest goes into heating air.
One other thing. And this really is a big factor. The electric cars can recover some of the energy used to accelerate and drive up hills. If you drive in a circle always to up hill and down hill evens out to zero. yur acceleration and deceleration will add together to make zero also. in theory the electric car should only have to use enough power to overcome friction. Energy recovery, I'm sure is not even close to this except with the regenerative brakes. But still my point is the overall amount of energy used cal be quite a bit less with electric so there is more to it then just grams of carbon per killowat hour, the number of KWHs is reduced.
Oh, and one more thing... or the most part the electric car is NOT using imported energy most of the money spent is recycled domestically.