When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?

[DougSpindler]

California still has an enormous quantity of untapped fossil fuel.  While wind, solar and bio might provide some relief, there is so much oil still in the ground which can be extracted inexpensively.  Now sure if people are aware but in LA/So Cal there are oil derricks downtown which are discussed as building.   


The SF Bay Area has a rich supply of untapped oil.  When the price of oil drops, the smaller oil companies go out of business and the wells sit idle.


Hydrocarbon fuel is so energy dense the only fuel which can and has repalced it has been nuclear.  The two modes of transportation which nuclear, solar, wind, and bio can not replace hydrocarbon fules are rocekts and airplanes.  We had nuclear powered aircraft, but we found hydrocarbon fuel was far safer for the crew and passenegers.

Bottom line, solar, wind, batteries  and bio just don't have the energy density of hydrocarbons and nuclear.  Only way to chage that is to change the laws of physics.

[nctnico]

The two modes of transportation which nuclear, solar, wind, and bio can not replace hydrocarbon fules are rocekts and airplanes.

Wrong when it comes to airplanes. There have been many test flights already with large airplanes which run on bio fuel (oddly enough each test claims to be the first  ).

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

Gentlemen, we have been the privileged. The fossil fuels era is going to end soon, and it will have been a blip in the history of mankind. Enjoy while it lasts.

[mtdoc]

California still has an enormous quantity of untapped fossil fuel. While wind, solar and bio might provide some relief, there is so much oil still in the ground which can be extracted inexpensively.

Nonsense. Relative to consumption, California's oil reserves are trivial and rapidly declining. If it was fully tapped (unlkely), enough for only about 100 days of US consumption and only 20 days of Worldwide consumption.

Now sure if people are aware but in LA/So Cal there are oil derricks downtown which are discussed as building.   

Sure there's hundreds of ancient wells in So. Cal, some still trickling out wiffs of oil. Those wells were already mostly tapped out 50 years ago when I was a child growing up near them.   

The SF Bay Area has a rich supply of untapped oil.

  More nonsense.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

Biodiesel actually has slightly more energy per gallon than gasoline does.

I didn’t know that. Source?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_content_of_biofuel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density

[mtdoc]

Gentlemen, we have been the privileged. The fossil fuels era is going to end soon, and it will have been a blip in the history of mankind. Enjoy while it lasts.

Yes. 

[mtdoc]

Biodiesel actually has slightly more energy per gallon than gasoline does.

I didn’t know that. Source?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_content_of_biofuel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density

Thanks for the link though according to that gasoline and biodiesel are more or less equivalent.  I wonder what the difference is in net energy, after one accounts for all the energy inputs required for production?   I now that the net energy in gasoline has been falling as the energy needed for oil extraction and refining has been rising.

[nctnico]

Gentlemen, we have been the privileged. The fossil fuels era is going to end soon, and it will have been a blip in the history of mankind. Enjoy while it lasts.

Yes. 

That drawing isn't to scale. The modern homo sapiens has been around for 200000 to 300000 years. It is reasonable to assume the question mark will be filled with nuclear power. Book printing and internet make it possible to work together and share technology as never before.

Besides that many societies have been using wind and water mills. For example the Romans used water mills to cut marble into wall tiles.

[Fungus]

Bottom line, solar, wind, batteries  and bio just don't have the energy density of hydrocarbons and nuclear.

So? Your point is...?


My point is that all the numbers we have at the moment indicate that the future cost of not replacing fossil fuels wherever possible could be immense.

Yes, there's a few places where it will be impossible to replace them (or at least very uneconomical). That doesn't mean there aren't a whole lot of areas where it's relatively cheap/easy to do. For most people, daily commuting is one of those areas.

Electric cars are coming, whether you like it or not. Even if battery tech doesn't improve quickly, renting something a couple of times a year when you plan to drive thousands of miles isn't anywhere near as horrible as you seem to think. It can actually be fun to have a different car for a while.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

All the fanboys sound like broken records. No need to shove the EVs down our throats just yet.

[mtdoc]

[
That drawing isn't to scale.

  Well, yes. I think it is meant to be conceptual, not quantitative.

It is reasonable to assume the question mark will be filled with nuclear power.

Reasonable to you perhaps but not by most knowledgeable scientists and engineers I've read. For example.

Even if one accepts the premise that nuclear power could fully replace fossil fuels, it won't because of economic and political realities.  And there is an enormous amount of embedded fossil fuel energy in every nuclear power plant due to the sheer amount of concrete and other materials needed to build a safe plant.   This is why despite the recognized need and efforts to replace fossil fuels, nuclear power production peaked in 2006. We're in an Energy Trap.

Book printing and internet make it possible to work together and share technology as never before.

  Yes, possible - If only it were so...

[nctnico]

Even if battery tech doesn't improve quickly, renting something a couple of times a year when you plan to drive thousands of miles isn't anywhere near as horrible as you seem to think.

Did you actually check the prices? I just did (similar to the car I own) and it would cost me 1400 euro to rent a car for 2 weeks to go on a holiday. For me it is cheaper to own an ICE based car. The annual depreciation on my car is less.

[nctnico]

It is reasonable to assume the question mark will be filled with nuclear power.

Reasonable to you perhaps but not by most knowledgeable scientists and engineers I've read. For example.

The error in the article is that it assumes nuclear energy is always based on Uranium. That is old technology. New technology is Thorium and later on nuclear fusion. For starters Thorium is as abundant as lead so it doesn't need as much mining effort compared to Uranium.

[Fungus]

All the fanboys sound like a broken record. No need to shove the EVs down our throats just yet.

Somebody's forcing you to read this? Holding a gun to your head to make you buy one...?

There's also no need to be, "Fossils or death!", or, "Nobody should have one!"

Accept that fossil fuels are a generally bad idea. Help to change things where you can. Drive the old gas guzzler as long as your conscience permits.

Also: Accept that some people are genuinely happy with their electric cars. A lot of them have more than one car and still choose the electric one for the daily commute. By choice! Go figure!!

[mtdoc]

It is reasonable to assume the question mark will be filled with nuclear power.

Reasonable to you perhaps but not by most knowledgeable scientists and engineers I've read. For example.

The error in the article is that it assumes nuclear energy is always based on Uranium. That is old technology. New technology is Thorium and later on nuclear fusion. For starters Thorium is as abundant as lead so it doesn't need as much mining effort compared to Uranium.

Clearly you did not read the article. He talks about Thorium  See under "Fuel Options"

[nctnico]

It is reasonable to assume the question mark will be filled with nuclear power.

Reasonable to you perhaps but not by most knowledgeable scientists and engineers I've read. For example.

The error in the article is that it assumes nuclear energy is always based on Uranium. That is old technology. New technology is Thorium and later on nuclear fusion. For starters Thorium is as abundant as lead so it doesn't need as much mining effort compared to Uranium.

Clearly you did not read the article. He talks about Thorium  See under "Fuel Options"

But still in the context of making and using Uranium so thinking old-tech. If you read about Thorium reactors then you'll learn that using Thorium makes more sense than Uranium because the waste doesn't stay radio active very long and the reactors are inherently safer.

[mtdoc]

It is reasonable to assume the question mark will be filled with nuclear power.

Reasonable to you perhaps but not by most knowledgeable scientists and engineers I've read. For example.

The error in the article is that it assumes nuclear energy is always based on Uranium. That is old technology. New technology is Thorium and later on nuclear fusion. For starters Thorium is as abundant as lead so it doesn't need as much mining effort compared to Uranium.

Clearly you did not read the article. He talks about Thorium  See under "Fuel Options"

But still in the context of making and using Uranium so thinking old-tech. If you read about Thorium reactors then you'll learn that using Thorium makes more sense than Uranium because the waste doesn't stay radio active very long and the reactors are inherently safer.

No he has fully considered Thorium

Thorium has been touted as the future of nuclear power since the 1960s.   Decades later it is still in the R and D phase.  Why is that?

[Kjelt]

Yes read about that they can't get the Thorium process under control, but they stopped R&D in favour for Uranium because of the sideproducts needed for nuclear weapons.

[Kjelt]

In short, Thorium is a molten salt process that has yet never been run on a real scale, only small prototype labexperiments.
To exploit it on a nuclear power station level they need at least 40 years (estimation from nuclear power scientists).
Just a few problems:
- The salt is such a corrosive process that corrodes all materials, they need to find a suitable container that can also be easily and fast cleaned.
- To start the proces Uranium is needed but it needs to be evenly distributed in the molten salt something no-one knows how to do (yet).
- Due to the uranium the molten salt will be highly radioactive which complicates cleaning and removing more and still needs to be kept away from human beings for 240000 years, so the statement that Thorium is harmless after 300 years is true but they can't run the station without the Uranium starter so this makes it pointless yet again. 

[coppice]

Thorium has been touted as the future of nuclear power since the 1960s.   Decades later it is still in the R and D phase.  Why is that?

No research on thorium reactors has been done since the 1960, when politics caused the research to be cancelled. That's the complete explanation for why nothing has moved forward. The engineers who worked on Thorium reactor research have now all retired, so if the work is restarted there will surely be a lot of repeated work as a new generation of engineers relearn what has been forgotten. There appears to have been no technical reason for the work being cancelled. Like most things about energy from nuclear sources, if it didn't make plutonium for weapons it was hard to get research funding.

They had a nice tame research reactor with a few remaining issues at the time work was suspended. The reactor was so tame it was shut down every Friday evening and restarted the following Monday morning. From what is documented the key remaining issue seemed to be corrosion. There were proposals to fix that, which were not tested because of the cancellation.

A thorium reactor produces a lot less radioactive waste than a uranium reactor, as most of the thorium is used up. In a uranium reactor only 3% of the material gets used up. Thorium reactors would solve the perceived problem of China being a single source of rare earth metals. Rare earths stopped being mined in most places for an environmental reason - the large amount of thorium waste they would need to deal with. Turning thorium into a valuable resource would make several sources of rare earths because viable.

[Fungus]

In short, Thorium is a molten salt process that has yet never been run on a real scale, only small prototype labexperiments.
To exploit it on a nuclear power station level they need at least 40 years (estimation from nuclear power scientists).

40 years ... at current R&D budget levels.

What we really need is for governments to get involved. I'm sure that the USA could reduce that number a lot if they diverted (eg.) 10% of their military budget into energy research.

The military advantage of owning/running the worlds power generators has been thoroughly explored since at least the 1960s (eg. Asimov's "Foundation" books). That 10% diversion will be money well spent.

[mtdoc]

Thorium has been touted as the future of nuclear power since the 1960s.   Decades later it is still in the R and D phase.  Why is that?

No research on thorium reactors has been done since the 1960, when politics caused the research to be cancelled. That's the complete explanation for why nothing has moved forward.

That's not true at all. Sure there was a period when research was not as extensive as it has been in the last 20 years,  but there has always been ongoing efforts.  See this for a list of the current multiple ongoing Thorium research projects ongoing in multiple countries.  And see here for a more complete history of past research projects.

I've been hearing these same kind of "Hopium" arguments about Thorium for years now.  I'm surprised to see it here.

[JohnnyMalaria]

Thorium power is actually uranium power.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/jun/23/thorium-nuclear-uranium

Thorium cannot in itself power a reactor; unlike natural uranium, it does not contain enough fissile material to initiate a nuclear chain reaction. As a result it must first be bombarded with neutrons to produce the highly radioactive isotope uranium-233 – 'so these are really U-233 reactors,' says Karamoskos.

This isotope is more hazardous than the U-235 used in conventional reactors, he adds, because it produces U-232 as a side effect (half life: 160,000 years), on top of familiar fission by-products such as technetium-99 (half life: up to 300,000 years) and iodine-129 (half life: 15.7 million years).Add in actinides such as protactinium-231 (half life: 33,000 years) and it soon becomes apparent that thorium's superficial cleanliness will still depend on digging some pretty deep holes to bury the highly radioactive waste.

[coppice]

Thorium has been touted as the future of nuclear power since the 1960s.   Decades later it is still in the R and D phase.  Why is that?

No research on thorium reactors has been done since the 1960, when politics caused the research to be cancelled. That's the complete explanation for why nothing has moved forward.

That's not true at all. Sure there was a period when research was not as extensive as it has been in the last 20 years,  but there has always been ongoing efforts.  See this for a list of the current multiple ongoing Thorium research projects ongoing in multiple countries. 

I've been hearing these same kind of "Hopium" arguments about Thorium for years now.  I'm surprised to see it here.

From the late 60s until the mid 2000s there was basically nothing going on. The wikipedia page shows various "activities" since the mid 2000s, but they are mostly tinkering. Some, like the "Canada could put thorium in a CANDU reactor" effort seem to miss the point - its the liquid fluoride salt design which brings most of the attractions in the 1960s thorium research work. Who has had research reactors up and running, really pushing forward with the idea, since the 60s? Who, even now that a lot of fresh interest has been garnered, is seriously on the way to having a reactor up and running?

[Kjelt]

40 years ... at current R&D budget levels.

What we really need is for governments to get involved. I'm sure that the USA could reduce that number a lot if they diverted (eg.) 10% of their military budget into energy research.

You don't know that more money will get quicker or better results just as 9 women can't produce a baby in 1 month.
If you look at technical evolutions real steps are made on lucky discoveries and a sudden invention or insight.
Look at battery research and the capacity increase in Ah per volume over the last fourty years. Lead acid for 100 years then NiCd/NiMH and esp. LiIon were big big steps but after that.... Nothing just a very slow increase over years while very very large sums are invested in R&D. They do make interesting discoveries but before they are ripe for massproduction many years of experiments and failures are needed to sort it out.