Author Topic: The Electric Vehicle Future: Where is all the power going to come from?  (Read 15538 times)

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Offline DundaraveTopic starter

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Possibly I’m a complete idiot, but according to U.S. stats, in 2018 the United States alone used an average of about 391.40 million gallons of refined gasoline (or 9.32 million barrels) per day (https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=23&t=10

According to Wikipedia, 33.7 kilowatt hours of electricity is equivalent to one gallon of gasoline, so the daily equivalent in gas would be 391.4 million x 33.7 kWh = 13,190 million kWh.  That’s many millions of new kWh per day that would be needed to replace all the gas-powered vehicles with electric vehicles.

Even if we take into consideration that gasoline is only 20% efficient in car engines, and we assume electricity in cars is 100% efficient (which it is not), that’s still 2,638 million kWh PER DAY of new electrical generation needed to replace gasoline.  Even at 10% electric vehicle penetration, that’s 263.8 million kWh per day of new generation capacity needed according to my calculations.  And this is just the U.S. alone (since the stats were easily available), let alone the rest of the world.

I haven’t heard of any plans from any governments anywhere about building new capacity for electrical power to replace the energy currently supplied by automobile gasoline, except a few wind generator farms and solar power road experiments (lol).  Am I missing something completely?  What's going to happen to a nation's electrical demand when the adoption of electric vehicles gets beyond the novelty stage?
 

Offline BravoV

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Re: The Electric Vehicle Future: Where is all the power going to come from?
« Reply #1 on: February 14, 2020, 01:40:43 am »
.... Even at 10% electric vehicle penetration, that’s 263.8 million kWh per day of new generation capacity needed according to my calculations.

https://www.power-technology.com/features/the-worlds-biggest-solar-power-plants/

The ten largest solar power plants in the world

    Tengger Desert Solar Park, China – 1,547MW
    Sweihan Photovoltaic Independent Power Project, UAE – 1,177MW
    Yanchi Ningxia Solar Park, China – 1,000MW
    Datong Solar Power Top Runner Base, China – 1,070MW
    Kurnool Ultra Mega Solar Park, India – 1,000MW
    Longyangxia Dam Solar Park, China – 850MW
    Enel Villanueva PV Plant, Mexico – 828MW
    Kamuthi Solar Power Station, India – 648MW
    Solar Star Projects, US – 579MW
    Topaz Solar Farm / Desert Sunlight Solar Farm, US – 550MW


Example of 850 megawatts one.

« Last Edit: February 14, 2020, 01:45:12 am by BravoV »
 

Offline maginnovision

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Re: The Electric Vehicle Future: Where is all the power going to come from?
« Reply #2 on: February 14, 2020, 01:45:26 am »
Quote
The Palo Verde nuclear power plant in Arizona is the largest nuclear power plant in the United States with three reactors and a total net summer electricity generating capacity of about 3,937 MW.
 

Offline edy

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Re: The Electric Vehicle Future: Where is all the power going to come from?
« Reply #3 on: February 14, 2020, 01:57:02 am »
A lot of gas is spent idling in traffic. Ideally the efficiency of an electric will mean little to no electricity usage when standing still. Regenerative breaking should help also provide a bit of boost. Most of the energy will go directly into movement and not lost as heat or just keeping the engine idling. Still it is a lot of electricity but better than burning fossil fuels... it should come from clean energy as much as possible (hydroelectric, wind and solar would be most ideal).

Also one thing we need to change drastically is the size of vehicles and materials used. Smaller cars, lighter materials. A lot of waste in single-occupancy vehicles going to and from work. As much as carpooling helps, most people will still be lone drivers. Yes I know safety and all... but something the size of a smart car for daily commuting and cheap as possible so many people can afford to have one. Then have a larger sedan or mini SUV for family trips.

Then there's Twike:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twike



It is going to take more than just electric cars... we need to solve congestion and parking issues as well, perhaps graduated working schedule start and end times, more telecommuting, changing urban sprawl and development. The future needs better planning and modifying our behaviours.
« Last Edit: February 14, 2020, 02:05:56 am by edy »
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Offline digsys

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Re: The Electric Vehicle Future: Where is all the power going to come from?
« Reply #4 on: February 14, 2020, 02:02:26 am »
"At the upper reaches of our atmosphere, the energy density of solar radiation is approximately 1,368 W/m2 (watts per square meter). At the Earth's surface, the energy density is reduced to approximately 1,000 W/m2 for a surface perpendicular to the Sun's rays at sea level on a clear day."
The future is up to you :-)
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Online nctnico

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Re: The Electric Vehicle Future: Where is all the power going to come from?
« Reply #5 on: February 14, 2020, 02:29:30 am »
The future needs better planning and modifying our behaviours.
When? The problem is right here right now. If you really look at the actual problem closely then there is only one conclusion: electric cars aren't the solution. EVs hinge on the pipe dream that one day (nobody knows when) we have renewable electricity which gets stored overnight in batteries made from unicorn dust. And Toyota already knows that; they have no plans to produce EVs (cars with battery + electric motor) at all. Instead they go for hybrids and (longer term) hydrogen. Toyota had it right when they introduced the hybrid car. At this moment the key is to switch to hybrids ASAP in order to reduce CO2 emissions and harmful pollution. Hybrids are affordable technology which doesn't need a massive investment in new infrastructure. In the EU car manufacturers will get a fine if they don't meet CO2 emissions limits. As a result the car manufacturers are franticly focussing on hybrids (one after another get introduced) and not so much on electric cars. They can't make enough EVs due to battery material shortage even if they could get them sold in large enough numbers. Not to mention there is more and more evidence that EVs cause more polution with the current sources of electricity. A recent German study shows that an EV causes more harmfull polution like Sulphur and NOx (based on the German electricity mix) compared to a hybrid.

All in all: a good & extremely simple step forward would be that more countries make inefficient cars more expensive to buy and to produce. That has a way bigger effect on CO2 emissions compared to putting a few EVs on the road.
« Last Edit: February 14, 2020, 02:33:27 am by nctnico »
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Offline Sal Ammoniac

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Re: The Electric Vehicle Future: Where is all the power going to come from?
« Reply #6 on: February 14, 2020, 03:00:14 am »
I charge my Tesla 100% with my solar electric system.
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Online Miti

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Re: The Electric Vehicle Future: Where is all the power going to come from?
« Reply #7 on: February 14, 2020, 03:32:11 am »
What about all the electric energy to drill, extract, transport and refine a gallon of gasoline? That must be quite a lot and could be used for charging.
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Online 2N3055

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Re: The Electric Vehicle Future: Where is all the power going to come from?
« Reply #8 on: February 14, 2020, 08:10:34 am »
Problem is NOT making it.

Problem is the last mile distribution to the consumer. To ALL and EVERY SINGLE citizen.
Unlike internet access, you cannot use "smarter" signaling and cables (optical) to push more capacity.
You need physical copper and lots of it. And also many many many more transformer stations (or DC converters for DC distribution). In many places you simply wouldn't have place to put it..
Amount of infrastructure needed to be built (generation and distribution) would multiply price of electricity to the point that even expensive gasoline in EU (compared to USA prices) would be cheap.

In Croatia charging is now free. Next year they are planning to start charging for electricity. Few people I know that have EV are trying to get rid of it. You pay price premium for a car, and now you will pay for the mileage too..

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Offline AndyC_772

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Re: The Electric Vehicle Future: Where is all the power going to come from?
« Reply #9 on: February 14, 2020, 09:00:04 am »
A lot of gas is spent idling in traffic.

In a modern car, idling uses less than 10 ml/minute, even without auto start/stop.

Offline peter-h

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Re: The Electric Vehicle Future: Where is all the power going to come from?
« Reply #10 on: February 14, 2020, 09:18:36 am »
The immediate issue is distribution at street level.

A few Teslas on a street, each charging at say 20kW (which itself needs an upgraded feed to the house, probably 3 phase) and the transformer at the end of the street will blow up :) So there is no way EV will work for serious commuters.

EVs will work for little cars doing short journeys, and a lot of people do that. What we don't know is how many people are willing to limit themselves to a little runabout vehicle, with little or no heating or aircon, when everything suggests people want the opposite. They could also run a big car like a Tesla but again only if they don't drive it much.

And modern diesels are really efficient. A VW Golf will do nearly 70mpg on a long run and amazingly averages over 50 in slow moving traffic. I never saw that in my petrol days; 10mpg in traffic was normal. When you get to the stage when you are filling up the tank only once a month, the case for getting rid of it is exactly zero.
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Online nctnico

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Re: The Electric Vehicle Future: Where is all the power going to come from?
« Reply #11 on: February 14, 2020, 09:50:25 am »
Solar, wind, fossil and nuclear.

Even burning coal to make electricity is way more efficient than burning gas in your car.

The state of the art commercially operating coal generator has around 47.6% efficiency, and the average is around 40%, which is way higher than 31% in gas engines.
But it isn't. It is a very common misconception. Coal typically sits at 1000gr/CO2 per kWh electricity. Use that for an EV and the EV will produce about 200gr CO2/km (plus a shitload of NOx and SO which is the stuff that kills you). An efficient hybrid emits less than 100gr/CO2 per km (without taking addition of bio-fuels into account) AND emits almost no SO2 (even in China where <10ppm Sulphur content in fuel is mandatory) and several times less NOx.


BTW: This website has some very interesting numbers on how car makers are (not) on track to meet the EU CO2 emissions targets: https://www.paconsulting.com/insights/2019/co2-emissions-are-increasing/. Toyota is the only manufacturer which is on target. The rest is way off. And to give an idea of how little impact EVs have on CO2 emissions: In 2019 EVs had a 12% market share in the Netherlands and yet the average CO2 emission per new car went up instead of down. In 2015 the average new car (sold in the NL) emitted 105gr CO2 per km; in 2019 that has increased to 117gr CO2/km. And this is under the false assumption EVs don't emit any CO2 so the actual number is much higher. To me it is very clear that car manufacturers have -yet again- been succesful at lobbying to allow a 'solution' which doesn't work out. Fortunately the EU has been clever enough to set emission limits. The Netherlands even went a step further with an extra sales tax based on CO2 emission so inefficient cars are more expensive to buy.
« Last Edit: February 14, 2020, 09:55:33 am by nctnico »
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Offline VK3DRB

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Re: The Electric Vehicle Future: Where is all the power going to come from?
« Reply #12 on: February 14, 2020, 09:52:44 am »
According to Wikipedia, 33.7 kilowatt hours of electricity is equivalent to one gallon of gasoline, so the daily equivalent in gas would be 391.4 million x 33.7 kWh = 13,190 million kWh.  That’s many millions of new kWh per day that would be needed to replace all the gas-powered vehicles with electric vehicles.

"Needed"? How about changing our lifestyle. Start by decentralising and stop consuming so much.
 

Online nctnico

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Re: The Electric Vehicle Future: Where is all the power going to come from?
« Reply #13 on: February 14, 2020, 10:01:16 am »
According to Wikipedia, 33.7 kilowatt hours of electricity is equivalent to one gallon of gasoline, so the daily equivalent in gas would be 391.4 million x 33.7 kWh = 13,190 million kWh.  That’s many millions of new kWh per day that would be needed to replace all the gas-powered vehicles with electric vehicles.

"Needed"? How about changing our lifestyle. Start by decentralising and stop consuming so much.
It is too late for that. The problem is that good jobs are near cities so prices of houses went up astronomically. This means that both partners of a family need to work because you can't afford housing from a single income. In turn this leads to finding a home somewhere close (but never optimal) to both companies where the jobs are so the commute isn't too far. A lot has to do with planning. The city I live in is relatively young (I'm older) and instead of having industry at the edge of the city the industrial/commcercial areas are mixed with the housing areas so -in theory- people can have a short commute.
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Offline Psi

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Re: The Electric Vehicle Future: Where is all the power going to come from?
« Reply #14 on: February 14, 2020, 10:10:47 am »
There has been a lot of new developments in making better and especially cheaper solar panels with acceptable efficiency.
So I imagine it's going to become a no-brainer to put solar panels on the roof of most buildings within the next 10 years.
Even if you don't feed onto the grid, being able to charge your electric car from it makes a ton of sense. (using powerwall or other intermediate storage unit)

Even in situations where solar panels are currently not considered due to not getting a lot of sun.
The economics/feasibility can quickly change if the price drops to 1/3.

Imagine being able to inkjet print solar cells onto a material. The price could potentially fall an order of magnitude once the technology full matures.  That's probably more like 20 years away but 5-10 years is enough for a considerable price drop that makes it normal to have panels on your roof.

There's a reason Tesla is working on their powerwall and solarroof products.
« Last Edit: February 14, 2020, 10:17:11 am by Psi »
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Online jogri

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Re: The Electric Vehicle Future: Where is all the power going to come from?
« Reply #15 on: February 14, 2020, 10:12:49 am »
Most of the energy will go directly into movement and not lost as heat or just keeping the engine idling.

Well, that "lost energy" is the reason why you're not freezing... And since EVs don't provide that kind of losses you have to convert your limited supply of electrical energy into heat, draining your battery even faster. Sure, that problem doesn't occur in california, but here in europe it's a different story.

Or to quote one of my friends who develops eletric heaters for EVs: "You can either park in a warm car or drive a cold one."
« Last Edit: February 14, 2020, 10:14:29 am by jogri »
 

Offline richard.cs

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Re: The Electric Vehicle Future: Where is all the power going to come from?
« Reply #16 on: February 14, 2020, 10:55:50 am »
The immediate issue is distribution at street level.
Agreed. It needs handling, but there is a lot of work in progress on that, specifically on optimising the use of existing infrastructure (cables, transformers, etc.). Some upgrading is inevitable, but there is time to do it.
A few Teslas on a street, each charging at say 20kW (which itself needs an upgraded feed to the house, probably 3 phase) and the transformer at the end of the street will blow up :) So there is no way EV will work for serious commuters.
20 kW home charging is neither necessary nor desirable. Even serious commuters are going to spend at least 12 hours at home, and in the UK are unlikely to be travelling much more than a 200 mile round-trip daily. Something like 60 kWh should be enough for that commute, and a bog standard 7 kW single phase charger will manage that in 9 hours or so. Yes some people travel further regularly, but it is uncommon (here) and there are solutions to do it with EVs.

We did make a mistake in the UK in giving domestic consumers high-current single-phase supplies rather than modest 3-phase ones like most of Europe. That piece of history is going to bite us, but at least we didn't standardise on 110/220 split phase. That brings in all sorts of excitement when you try to combine it with three phase.

EVs will work for little cars doing short journeys, and a lot of people do that. What we don't know is how many people are willing to limit themselves to a little runabout vehicle, with little or no heating or aircon, when everything suggests people want the opposite. They could also run a big car like a Tesla but again only if they don't drive it much.
Vast swathes of UK households own two or more cars, where at least one is only ever used as a short distance runabout. People who never drive far buy long-range vehicles for the corner cases, stuff like long distance holidays and so on. Very few actually need more than one such vehicle. Bear in mind that the 2013/14 average commute distance in the UK was 8.8 miles - much of the car owning population just don't drive very far.

I am not really sure where you've got the idea you can't have much heating or air con. Yes, it impacts range a bit but so what - I have been known to turn the heating/AC off on my EV to eek a few extra miles out but it's the exception rather than the norm (and I have done it on petrol vehicles too, heating might be "free" but AC has a noticeable fuel cost). Heating wise EVs behave like any other modern car with climate control except you don't need the engine running or to wait for 150 kg of cast iron to heat up before you can demist. The only thing you can't do is whack everything up to the max and expect it to blast in 10+ kW of raw heat like you might do in a leaky 1980s car to try and dry out the footwells.

And modern diesels are really efficient. A VW Golf will do nearly 70mpg on a long run and amazingly averages over 50 in slow moving traffic. I never saw that in my petrol days; 10mpg in traffic was normal. When you get to the stage when you are filling up the tank only once a month, the case for getting rid of it is exactly zero.
The financial case maybe, though that depends rather on the price of a tank. The environmental case, both from a local air quality perspective and from a wider CO2 emissions one certainly doesn't drop to zero. Air quality in my city is awful, and modern diesels are a major contributor.
 
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Online nctnico

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Re: The Electric Vehicle Future: Where is all the power going to come from?
« Reply #17 on: February 14, 2020, 11:21:28 am »
The immediate issue is distribution at street level.
Agreed. It needs handling, but there is a lot of work in progress on that, specifically on optimising the use of existing infrastructure (cables, transformers, etc.). Some upgrading is inevitable, but there is time to do it.
There is no time to do an EV transition in order to meet the goals of the Paris agreement. That is the whole kicker!

On average a 100% transition to EVs will need about 25% extra generation capacity. Most countries are already struggling to get to a significant amount of renewable electricity for the current electricity consumption. Let alone that consumption increases by 25%. On top of that there will also be a higher demand for electricity for heating as well in countries which are (traditionally) using natural gas to heat homes and need to switch to heat pumps. Over here politicians bring up nuclear power regulary.

And nobody knows for sure whether the investment in EV infrastructure pays off. What if bio-fuels and/or hydrogen turn out to be better alternatives (Toyota seems to believ they are) or batteries become so good you only need superchargers and 'charging at the doorstep' becomes a thing of the past.
« Last Edit: February 14, 2020, 11:32:50 am by nctnico »
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Offline GeorgeOfTheJungle

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Re: The Electric Vehicle Future: Where is all the power going to come from?
« Reply #18 on: February 14, 2020, 11:42:19 am »
that’s 263.8 million kWh per day of new generation capacity needed according to my calculations.

The generation capacity is there already, but only in off peak hours.
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Offline richard.cs

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Re: The Electric Vehicle Future: Where is all the power going to come from?
« Reply #19 on: February 14, 2020, 12:03:07 pm »
There is no time to do an EV transition in order to meet the goals of the Paris agreement. That is the whole kicker!
The infrastructure has to meet the actual requirements of the cars on the roads, which are growing fairly slowly. Yes we could do with a more rapid transition, but the cables in the street only need to power the cars that actually exist rather than the ones we wish existed.

On average a 100% transition to EVs will need about 25% extra generation capacity. Most countries are already struggling to get to a significant amount of renewable electricity for the current electricity consumption. Let alone that consumption increases by 25%. On top of that there will also be a higher demand for electricity for heating as well in countries which are (traditionally) using natural gas to heat homes and need to switch to heat pumps. Over here politicians bring up nuclear power regulary.
Personally I distribution as the bigger technical challenge but generation is still important. Note the current large different between peak and average demand and corresponding poor utilisation of the generation assets - we have sufficient powerstations to provide peaks at weekdays 5pm in midwinter, and then at all other times we don't run them all. That's good to some extent because some of the ones we use to handle the peaks are very polluting, but there is a significant amount of capacity available outside of peak times.

Nuclear inevitably has to be a part of the generation, especially in the short-medium term. It's main problems are political rather than engineering, something it seems to share with on-shore wind.

And nobody knows for sure whether the investment in EV infrastructure pays off. What if bio-fuels and/or hydrogen turn out to be better alternatives (Toyota seems to believ they are) or batteries become so good you only need superchargers and 'charging at the doorstep' becomes a thing of the past.
These things are possible but in my opinion unlikely. All investment has risks.
Biofuels need land area, fertilisers, etc. and compete with resources for food crops. I suspect they will be part of the solution, but the quantity available will be limited so they will get used on the things most difficult to do without energy dense liquid fuels, aviation perhaps.
Hydrogen is a bugger to store and not that efficient to create. In fact it's such a pain to store and transport that the best approach is probably to stick it to some carbon atoms. Electrolytically produced hydrogen + carbon from biofuels to create synthetic propane for instance, about the most hydrogen-rich thing that will sensibly liquefy.
If batteries became that good, why would people (the subset with driveways at least) not want to charge at home?

 
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Online nctnico

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Re: The Electric Vehicle Future: Where is all the power going to come from?
« Reply #20 on: February 14, 2020, 12:56:29 pm »
There is no time to do an EV transition in order to meet the goals of the Paris agreement. That is the whole kicker!
The infrastructure has to meet the actual requirements of the cars on the roads, which are growing fairly slowly. Yes we could do with a more rapid transition, but the cables in the street only need to power the cars that actually exist rather than the ones we wish existed.
You are missing the point. The goal is to reduce CO2 emissions short term. It is clear EVs aren't going to help with that. By the looks of it there are better ways to achieve the goals quickly. So where does that leave EVs? Some are calling EVs a temporary solution.

Quote
Biofuels need land area, fertilisers, etc. and compete with resources for food crops. I suspect they will be part of the solution, but the quantity available will be limited so they will get used on the things most difficult to do without energy dense liquid fuels, aviation perhaps.
That is old thinking. There is a new breed of bio-fuels slowly but steadily taking over: the kind that is made from the parts of the plants we don't eat. So instead of competing with food production these bio-fuels help make food production cheaper because more of the plants is used. From many plants only the seeds get eaten and the rest of the plant is discarded. The conversion process (even though it basically comes down to brewing beer and distilling it) isn't easy but a few companies have cracked this problem and are currently running industrial scale factories.

And I don't see why hydrogen causes big problems. It is already used widely in the industry so transport and storage are solved problems. Toyota just introduced an updated version of their Mirai hydrogen car. If you compare hydrogen transport and storage to that of electricity then hydrogen is cheaper and easier. Australia with their large deserts and stable political climate would be ideal for a massive solar to hydrogen industry. Hydrogen can be transported using ships around the world. You can't do that with electricity; you need to generate and store that locally. I've seen a report about Germany which states a hydrogen infrastructure is 4 times cheaper compared to that for electric vehicles. Also China is investing a lot in hydrogen lately because EVs aren't cutting it.

Quote
If batteries became that good, why would people (the subset with driveways at least) not want to charge at home?
Depends on where you are but in the Netherlands 70% of the households doesn't have a driveway. 30% of the homes in the west part of Belgium doesn't have a mains connection which is suitable to charge an EV (something to do with split phase). Also why would you want to plug in your car every day if you can fill it up once a week (or even less) at a supercharger? In the end the reason is the same where it comes to putting fuel in your car. Do you want to mess around with it at home? What if you have two cars but only one driveway? You want to go out of bed every night to swap the cars around. And not to forget that batteries may need active cooling/heating while charging which is likely to cause noise due to pumps and fans running. Some Tesla owners are not happy with the noise the car makes while it is charging outside. These are the little details which are often overlooked.
« Last Edit: February 14, 2020, 01:41:57 pm by nctnico »
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Offline richard.cs

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Re: The Electric Vehicle Future: Where is all the power going to come from?
« Reply #21 on: February 14, 2020, 02:36:13 pm »
You are missing the point. The goal is to reduce CO2 emissions short term. It is clear EVs aren't going to help with that. By the looks of it there are better ways to achieve the goals quickly. So where does that leave EVs? Some are calling EVs a temporary solution.
It leaves them as a partial solution to a big problem, a problem that if we manage to solve it will be done by many such partial solutions. They are also quite nice cars to drive, and an excellent solution to local air quality problems.

The real problem is that vast numbers of people have gotten used to a massively energy intensive lifestyle, and trying to change that in a short enough timeframe is doomed to failure. As a result we need to find some way to to support that energy intensive lifestyle with lesser CO2 emissions.

Quote
Biofuels need land area, fertilisers, etc. and compete with resources for food crops. I suspect they will be part of the solution, but the quantity available will be limited so they will get used on the things most difficult to do without energy dense liquid fuels, aviation perhaps.
That is old thinking. There is a new breed of bio-fuels slowly but steadily taking over: the kind that is made from the parts of the plants we don't eat. So instead of competing with food production these bio-fuels help make food production cheaper because more of the plants is used. From many plants only the seeds get eaten and the rest of the plant is discarded. The conversion process (even though it basically comes down to brewing beer and distilling it) isn't easy but a few companies have cracked this problem and are currently running industrial scale factories.
I agree progress is being made but it is far from a solved problem to do on sufficient scale, with acceptable levels of external energy input, and whilst keeping a closed nutrient cycle (waste parts of food crops are normally ploughed back into the soil). Another partial solution just like EVs, and if you are going to have a mix of EVs and biofuels it makes sense to use the biofuels where the energy density is essential.

And I don't see why hydrogen causes big problems. It is already used widely in the industry so transport and storage are solved problems.
High pressure hydrogen has a low energy density and low specific energy when you include the weight of the containers.
Cryogenic hydrogen is much better in that regard but is still a long way off liquid hydrocarbons because even liquid cryogenic H2 isn't very dense. It's clearly the best option for bulk transport but it scales poorly because small tanks have a lot of surface area compared to their volume so boil-off becomes a problem.
Last time I looked most H2 cars were using metal hydrides as storage. That keeps the pressures more sensible but again it eats into specific energy. It is probably the only practical solution for vehicles, but is totally different technology from that used in industry which seems to be high-pressure for small quantities and cryogenic for large ones.

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If batteries became that good, why would people (the subset with driveways at least) not want to charge at home?
Depends on where you are but in the Netherlands 70% of the households doesn't have a driveway. 30% of the homes in the west part of Belgium doesn't have a mains connection which is suitable to charge an EV (something to do with split phase).
Again, it's a partial solution that's not applicable to everyone, that doesn't make it suitable for no-one. Note that the Belgium problem is essentially a solvable mixture of engineering and paperwork - the 220 V phase-phase delta system is just a bit oddball and sufficiently niche that charger standards and car manufacturers don't account for it (many cars would charge from it just fine, but it upsets things like safety interlocks if they're not designed to expect it).

Also why would you want to plug in your car every day if you can fill it up once a week (or even less) at a supercharger? In the end the reason is the same where it comes to putting fuel in your car. Do you want to mess around with it at home? What if you have two cars but only one driveway? You want to go out of bed every night to swap the cars around. And not to forget that batteries may need active cooling/heating while charging which is likely to cause noise due to pumps and fans running. Some Tesla owners are not happy with the noise the car makes while it is charging outside. These are the little details which are often overlooked.
Personally I love that I don't have to go to a petrol station when I drive my girlfriend's EV (our main car), it feels like such a pain now when I have to go out of my way to fill up my petrol car, or queue or worry about petrol station opening times. If we're talking about a car that only needs charging once a week then why would you swap the cars over every night? A need for heating and cooling is associated with high power charging which I am not convinced is needed for home charging.
 
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Online tom66

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Re: The Electric Vehicle Future: Where is all the power going to come from?
« Reply #22 on: February 14, 2020, 03:02:23 pm »
From a UK perspective switching ALL private transport to electric would require approximately 20% more electricity generation.

An EV uses energy about 4~5x more efficiently than a gasoline vehicle.  In addition we have around 15% "spare" capacity at any one time (our electricity usage is dominated by a winter peak which is driven by resistive heating in off grid homes).
 
It will require new power generation but certainly nothing more than a few power plants (but hopefully renewable energy plants).

One benefit that is not often classified is that EVs can draw energy when there is an excess of supply - e.g. a smart charger could supply an EV when renewable plants would otherwise have to shut down to avoid oversupply conditions.  A colleague of mine charges his EV on night time electricity where the price can often be less than 1p/kWh.  He shifts demand away from the evening peak where possible.  Home solar systems can also be configured to send a "start charging" command to a car when more sun is available than can be absorbed by other loads in the home, and the Type2 standard supports variable charge current from 5 ~ 32A single phase, with the car reducing current within 10 seconds of the command being issued, allowing the ebb and flow of solar energy to be precisely tracked.
 

Offline donotdespisethesnake

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Re: The Electric Vehicle Future: Where is all the power going to come from?
« Reply #23 on: February 14, 2020, 03:11:59 pm »
Australia with their large deserts and stable political climate would be ideal for a massive solar to hydrogen industry.

For some weird reason large deserts are not ideal sources of hydrogen.  :palm:

You also completely contradict yourself. You literally just said massive areas for solar are impractical, now they are? As we have seen many times before, the lack of consistency and logic in your arguments seems like trolling.
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Online nctnico

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Re: The Electric Vehicle Future: Where is all the power going to come from?
« Reply #24 on: February 14, 2020, 03:21:16 pm »
Australia with their large deserts and stable political climate would be ideal for a massive solar to hydrogen industry.

For some weird reason large deserts are not ideal sources of hydrogen.  :palm:

You also completely contradict yourself. You literally just said massive areas for solar are impractical, now they are?
Where did I ever state massive areas for solar are impractical? I didn't. In densely populated areas solar is expensive due to land costs (so economic viability becomes an issue) and you'll still need the storage as well. Also solar panels work much better in areas with a lot of sun close to the equator. This automatically translates to areas where they have large deserts. Australia is a very good choice both geographically and politically. Put a solar farm in a desert, transport the electricity to a harbour where it can be converted to hydrogen using sea water and use the same seawater to float a big tanker which can then take the hydrogen whereever it needs to go (the tanker itself can be powered by hydrogen as well). This is not a solution for today but it can be in say 5 to 15 years from now.

You can't deny solar and wind need massive amounts of land area and in some places land is scarce. So a solution which allows to take energy from one place to another may turn out to be more economical compared to generating all electricity locally.
« Last Edit: February 14, 2020, 03:47:14 pm by nctnico »
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