When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?

[Fungus]

Then UC Berkeley buitl somehting called a Damital 30-40 years ago to harvest energy from ocean waves/current.  Just wasn't const effective.

A few places around the world do haverest energy from ocean waves.  But like solar and wind it's unperdicatble and the ocean water is highly corrisove.

Moving things with waves always felt like a bad idea to me. Waves are very inconsistent, it might be calm, it might be storm, Murphy's law says you'll never get it right.

Tidal energy seems much more practical (ie. huge volumes of water being moved around by the moon). On any coastline there's thousands of inlets and coves that fill up with water then empty themselves twice a day. You can generate in both directions so that's four electricity generation cycles/day.

[DougSpindler]

Many of you have posted good ideas, but have you apply the laws of physics to those ideas?
Water has been used to power factories for 100s of years.  There's a excellent video serices on YouTube from one of the colleges in England about the history of water powers.  Well worth watching if you are intersted.

Water power is just the simple formula of PV = mgh Note that in the formula m and g are constants when we talk about wather.  (Okay there is some m difference if we are talking seawater vs. fresh water.)

We really only have two factors to consider when it comes to water power.  The height of the water and the quanitiy of water.

Have any of you done the calcualtion to figure out how much water and at what height it takes to continually produce 800 watts of electricity for one day?  It's a simple math problem. 

The amount of water needed to produce 800 watts of electricity to power an 800 watt light bulb continuously for 24 hours is, (and lets make it 100% efficient so there's no energy loss) with a height difference of 10 feet/3 m is....... ready for this .......  over 600,000 gallons/2271247 liters.  That's the amount of water 25-30 backyard swimming pools.

We would latterly have to build a reservoir the size of the ocean and then move all of the water in the ocean up 10 feet to provide enough power for the world for one year.

Not exactly feasible is it?

But look a the formula again.  PE=mgh    A height increase is directly proportional to the energy.  So increasing the height of the 100 feet/30 meters would allow us to use 100 times less water to produce the same amount of energy.

If you understand this, then you get why hydroelectric dams are 100s of feet/meters tall.  As America was becoming electrofied about 100 years ago we damed every river we could to get "free" power.  It's not 100 years later and every river that could be damed and every reservoir which could be built was built.

And now there are groups of people who want the hydroelectric reservoirs dismantled for environmental reasons.  And don't bash them as the do have a valid point.

So while in theory all of the ideas for getting power from water might sound good, the math and physics just get in the way.  If only there was a way we could break the laws of physics.

Solar and wind sound like good ideas.  But last night on the news here in California we were told to expect power outages this summer.  We have so much solar power being produced here the power companies have cut back in there daily production.  Remember they just can't open a valve in a reservoir and instantly produce all the extra electricity people are using.  It takes time.

So what's happening is if there's no wind, and if clouds suddenly decrease solar output there won't be enough electricity to meet the demand and we will be with out power.

After looking at all the options we have solar/wind/hydro has it's limitations.  The best and only solution we have is next gen nuclear.  Lets' hope Bill Gate's company, Paul Allen's company, the company in Canada, NIF and ITER get it figured out before there are another billion people on this planet. 

Depending on when you were born the population of the word has doubled.  And our energy consumption has increased something like 10 times.  Do the math, we just don't have enough raw materials to produce the number of solar panels the world needs.  Same is true with wind.

Next Gen nuclear is the only viable solution we know of.






 

[DougSpindler]

Then UC Berkeley buitl somehting called a Damital 30-40 years ago to harvest energy from ocean waves/current.  Just wasn't const effective.

A few places around the world do haverest energy from ocean waves.  But like solar and wind it's unperdicatble and the ocean water is highly corrisove.

Moving things with waves always felt like a bad idea to me. Waves are very inconsistent, it might be calm, it might be storm, Murphy's law says you'll never get it right.

Tidal energy seems much more practical (ie. huge volumes of water being moved around by the moon). On any coastline there's thousands of inlets and coves that fill up with water then empty themselves twice a day. You can generate in both directions so that's four electricity generation cycles/day.

Do the math PE=mgh for tidal energy.  There not eneough energy there to make it worthwile.   To produce 800 watts for four hours with a 5 foot /2m change in elevation would take 250,000 gallons of water.  Lot of water for only 800 watts for 4 hours.

[f4eru]

  There not eneough energy there to make it worthwile. 

Works and is worthwile since 1966
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usine_mar%C3%A9motrice_de_la_Rance

Lot of water for only 800 watts for 4 hours.

That's OK, the ocean is filled with a lot of water.

[nctnico]

The amount of water needed to produce 800 watts of electricity to power an 800 watt light bulb continuously for 24 hours is, (and lets make it 100% efficient so there's no energy loss) with a height difference of 10 feet/3 m is....... ready for this .......  over 600,000 gallons/2271247 liters.  That's the amount of water 25-30 backyard swimming pools.

We would latterly have to build a reservoir the size of the ocean and then move all of the water in the ocean up 10 feet to provide enough power for the world for one year.

But you don't have to store the amount of energy for one year. The hydro storage is only there to serve as a temporary buffer to smooth out the differences between supply and demand. Also 3 meters is a bit low. Creating a lake which is 5 to 10 meters above sea level is certainly doable.

[Fungus]

Have any of you done the calcualtion to figure out how much water and at what height it takes to continually produce 800 watts of electricity for one day?  It's a simple math problem. 
...

So while in theory all of the ideas for getting power from water might sound good, the math and physics just get in the way.  If only there was a way we could break the laws of physics.

Next Gen nuclear is the only viable solution we know of.

I sort of agree, bu there's a whole lot of places which are exceptions. eg. There's a whole lot of islands in Scotland with only a few houses and where people are used to controlling their electricity use (ie. They know they can't switch everything on at once, they turn off lights when they leave rooms, etc.). ie. They're not American teenagers.

Some sort of tidal/wind generator with good storage (eg. Tesla batteries) could set them up nicely.

[coppice]

Then UC Berkeley buitl somehting called a Damital 30-40 years ago to harvest energy from ocean waves/current.  Just wasn't const effective.

A few places around the world do haverest energy from ocean waves.  But like solar and wind it's unperdicatble and the ocean water is highly corrisove.

Moving things with waves always felt like a bad idea to me. Waves are very inconsistent, it might be calm, it might be storm, Murphy's law says you'll never get it right.

Tidal energy seems much more practical (ie. huge volumes of water being moved around by the moon). On any coastline there's thousands of inlets and coves that fill up with water then empty themselves twice a day. You can generate in both directions so that's four electricity generation cycles/day.

The problem with tidal energy is its only practical in a handful of places around the planet. The general global tide is only half a metre, and the energy is too spread out to gather effectively. You need special instances above a continental shelf, like the Severn Estuary in the UK, the Rance River in France, or a couple of spots in Korea, where the tides are consistently large.

[DougSpindler]

The amount of water needed to produce 800 watts of electricity to power an 800 watt light bulb continuously for 24 hours is, (and lets make it 100% efficient so there's no energy loss) with a height difference of 10 feet/3 m is....... ready for this .......  over 600,000 gallons/2271247 liters.  That's the amount of water 25-30 backyard swimming pools.

We would latterly have to build a reservoir the size of the ocean and then move all of the water in the ocean up 10 feet to provide enough power for the world for one year.

But you don't have to store the amount of energy for one year. The hydro storage is only there to serve as a temporary buffer to smooth out the differences between supply and demand. Also 3 meters is a bit low. Creating a lake which is 5 to 10 meters above sea level is certainly doable.

It is doable yes, but look at how little elcetricty would be producesd.  The cost to just produce electricity for the tidal system in France for 50 years has been $0.15 (USD).  Do you have any idea how expensiv that is?  It's nearly 10 times the cost of the other methods.  The public would not invest in a system that won't pary for itself until they are nearly dead.

[DougSpindler]

  There not eneough energy there to make it worthwile. 

Works and is worthwile since 1966
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usine_mar%C3%A9motrice_de_la_Rance

Lot of water for only 800 watts for 4 hours.

That's OK, the ocean is filled with a lot of water.

You are correct.  Perfect energy source for Next Gen Nuclear.  No need for tidal, solar, wind or hydro with Next Gen Nuclear.

[IanMacdonald]

A recent news report of a fire in a Tesla which killed two people has highlighted the issue of lithium battery safety. Now, we all know that 18650s have to be treated with some care as shorts can have nasty consequences. However, it occurs to me that the risk of a short in an electric car is hundreds or thousands of times higher than that in a drill, torch or laptop owing to the sheer number of cells used. It only takes one cell to short, and the whole pack can go up.

So, at what number of cells does the shorting risk become unacceptable? 

[Marco]

AFAICS with liquid cooling the risks aren't all that high ... even a small amount of liquid can slow things down considerably. Sure, if you're unconscious after an accident it can eventually kill you, but so can a fossil fuel fire.

[nctnico]

The amount of water needed to produce 800 watts of electricity to power an 800 watt light bulb continuously for 24 hours is, (and lets make it 100% efficient so there's no energy loss) with a height difference of 10 feet/3 m is....... ready for this .......  over 600,000 gallons/2271247 liters.  That's the amount of water 25-30 backyard swimming pools.

We would latterly have to build a reservoir the size of the ocean and then move all of the water in the ocean up 10 feet to provide enough power for the world for one year.

But you don't have to store the amount of energy for one year. The hydro storage is only there to serve as a temporary buffer to smooth out the differences between supply and demand. Also 3 meters is a bit low. Creating a lake which is 5 to 10 meters above sea level is certainly doable.

It is doable yes, but look at how little elcetricty would be producesd. The public would not invest in a system that won't pary for itself until they are nearly dead.

That depends on whether hydro storage is cheaper or more expensive compared to batteries. I'm not talking about production here.

[Fungus]

A recent news report of a fire in a Tesla which killed two people has highlighted the issue of lithium battery safety. Now, we all know that 18650s have to be treated with some care as shorts can have nasty consequences. However, it occurs to me that the risk of a short in an electric car is hundreds or thousands of times higher than that in a drill, torch or laptop owing to the sheer number of cells used. It only takes one cell to short, and the whole pack can go up.

So, at what number of cells does the shorting risk become unacceptable? 

You know that there's 17 automobile fires per hour in the USA, right? That four people die per week as a result?

https://www.nfpa.org/Public-Education/By-topic/Property-type-and-vehicles/Vehicles

[phil from seattle]

A recent news report of a fire in a Tesla which killed two people has highlighted the issue of lithium battery safety. Now, we all know that 18650s have to be treated with some care as shorts can have nasty consequences. However, it occurs to me that the risk of a short in an electric car is hundreds or thousands of times higher than that in a drill, torch or laptop owing to the sheer number of cells used. It only takes one cell to short, and the whole pack can go up.

So, at what number of cells does the shorting risk become unacceptable? 

You know that there's 17 automobile fires per hour in the USA, right? That four people die per week as a result?

https://www.nfpa.org/Public-Education/By-topic/Property-type-and-vehicles/Vehicles

[pile on]
Not only that but battery fires proceed at much slower rates than gasoline/petrol fires.  With a battery fire, you generally have on the order of several minutes before it becomes threatening.  With gasoline/petrol, you have on the order of seconds.  I don't see people freaking out over gasoline safety even though it's a huge problem. By all means, lets focus on something that kills at 1/100 the rate of gas fires.

In the recent crash, it's unclear if the occupants were killed by the fire or by the crash.  They were traveling at 60 mph or higher on a road posted for 25 mph and known locally as "dead man's curve". I'm pretty sure the same result would have happened with any other car in that situation.

And, all EV manufacturers have put a huge amount of safety engineering into their battery packs.  A single cell failure does not cause a runaway situation.  The fires we have seen in Tesla's have occurred after massive damage to the battery structures.

Oh and while I'm at it, there is strong evidence that reported auto fire statistics understate the number of auto fires and related deaths
[/pile on]

[boffin]

Alternative energy is always going to have to be a mix

Solar - lots of places don't have a lot of sunshine (probably not the ideal place for Solar here)
Wind - some places are windy, some aren't
Hydro - some places have rivers, some don't (we're blessed here w/ lots of Hydro power)

and so on

However, initiatives like California's new "New Construction requires Solar Panels" makes sense
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/californian-solar-panels-housing-1.4656813

Let's use the sensible technology where it makes sense.

[DougSpindler]

The amount of water needed to produce 800 watts of electricity to power an 800 watt light bulb continuously for 24 hours is, (and lets make it 100% efficient so there's no energy loss) with a height difference of 10 feet/3 m is....... ready for this .......  over 600,000 gallons/2271247 liters.  That's the amount of water 25-30 backyard swimming pools.

We would latterly have to build a reservoir the size of the ocean and then move all of the water in the ocean up 10 feet to provide enough power for the world for one year.

But you don't have to store the amount of energy for one year. The hydro storage is only there to serve as a temporary buffer to smooth out the differences between supply and demand. Also 3 meters is a bit low. Creating a lake which is 5 to 10 meters above sea level is certainly doable.

It is doable yes, but look at how little elcetricty would be producesd. The public would not invest in a system that won't pary for itself until they are nearly dead.

That depends on whether hydro storage is cheaper or more expensive compared to batteries. I'm not talking about production here.

Using some critical thinking skill one would quickkly realize hydro-strorage is many, many, many times more cost effective that batteries.  THere's a reason we build dams to and not banks of batteries for energy storage.  You do understand how little energy is stored in batteries in comparison to a hydro-electric storage pond.  If you are unsure, it's a simple math calculation anyone could do.

[ahbushnell]

A recent news report of a fire in a Tesla which killed two people has highlighted the issue of lithium battery safety. Now, we all know that 18650s have to be treated with some care as shorts can have nasty consequences. However, it occurs to me that the risk of a short in an electric car is hundreds or thousands of times higher than that in a drill, torch or laptop owing to the sheer number of cells used. It only takes one cell to short, and the whole pack can go up.

So, at what number of cells does the shorting risk become unacceptable? 

I wonder how many people are killed by gasoline fires?

[DougSpindler]

Alternative energy is always going to have to be a mix

Solar - lots of places don't have a lot of sunshine (probably not the ideal place for Solar here)
Wind - some places are windy, some aren't
Hydro - some places have rivers, some don't (we're blessed here w/ lots of Hydro power)

and so on

However, initiatives like California's new "New Construction requires Solar Panels" makes sense
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/californian-solar-panels-housing-1.4656813

Let's use the sensible technology where it makes sense.

You might want to review your math calculations and consider the impart each of these has on the planet.
Hydro - some places have rivers, some don't (we're blessed here w/ lots of Hydro power)  We don't have "lots" of hydro power.  Do a bit of research, very little energy is produced with hydro.  Would hardly call that lots.  And you are not factoring in the environmental impact hydro power has created.  In some areas the impact has been the ability to produce power while wiping out the supply of food.  In some areas they are dismantling hydro to bring back the food supply the hydro eliminated.

Solar - lots of places don't have a lot of sunshine (probably not the ideal place for Solar here)  Even places with have lots of sunshine have problems with solar.  In sunny Nevada solar isn't working out for them.  And where I live in sunny California we've been told becuse so many people have installed solar and with solar productiion being unreliable to expect blackouts. 

Wind - some places are windy, some aren't.  And what happens when the windy places have no wind for weeks as has happened in California, Germany and England?  We either have blackouts or we burn more coal and hydrocarbons.


Why did you not mention Next Gen Nuclear?
Not only do we have an endless supply of fuel, (water) we will be able to produce as much electricity as the world can consume.  And not only that it's clean, green, renewable, cheap, non-polluting, environmentally friendly, no radioactive byproducts or waste, endless supply of fuel with no mining or processing, and should there be a massive nuclear accident in 15-20 years the nuclear fuel will have completely decayed away and the area would be completely safe to inhabit.

Just look at who is working on NextGen Nucelar, ITER, NIF, TerraPower, Alpha Energy, Helion, General Atomics, CFETR, EAST, JET and Google.  We need solar, wind, hydro and battery storage until Next Gen Nuclear comes online.  Once that happens wind, solar, tidal, and hydro will be a thing of the past.

[DougSpindler]

A recent news report of a fire in a Tesla which killed two people has highlighted the issue of lithium battery safety. Now, we all know that 18650s have to be treated with some care as shorts can have nasty consequences. However, it occurs to me that the risk of a short in an electric car is hundreds or thousands of times higher than that in a drill, torch or laptop owing to the sheer number of cells used. It only takes one cell to short, and the whole pack can go up.

So, at what number of cells does the shorting risk become unacceptable? 

I wonder how many people are killed by gasoline fires?

Or at refineries.  But nothing can compare with the 100s of thousand who have been killed as the result of coal mining.

[boffin]

Do a bit of research, very little energy is produced with hydro.  Would hardly call that lots. 

I don't have to do any research; 90% of the electricity produced in this province is via Hydro Electric

So much in fact that the electricity company is called "BC Hydro".

[mtdoc]

Do a bit of research, very little energy is produced with hydro.  Would hardly call that lots. 

I don't have to do any research; 90% of the electricity produced in this province is via Hydro Electric

So much in fact that the electricity company is called "BC Hydro".

It is similar in the pacific northwest US. My utillity's electricity is 87.5 % hydropower generated.  Overall, hydropower supplies about 50% of the entire Pacific NW's power - an area that includes 4 states and 10s of millions of people.

Clearly - hydropower does account for LOTS of power generation in some geographic regions.

[nctnico]

Do a bit of research, very little energy is produced with hydro.  Would hardly call that lots. 

I don't have to do any research; 90% of the electricity produced in this province is via Hydro Electric

So much in fact that the electricity company is called "BC Hydro".

I think what Doug is trying to say is that on a global scale not a lot of electricity is being produced by hydro power plants and that you need to move a large volume of water to generate a substantial amount of energy. Exceptions don't make the rule.

[mtdoc]

I think what Doug is trying to say is that on a global scale not a lot of electricity is being produced by hydro power plants

What boffin said:

Hydro - some places have rivers, some don't (we're blessed here w/ lots of Hydro power)

Doug's response to boffin:

Hydro - some places have rivers, some don't (we're blessed here w/ lots of Hydro power)  We don't have "lots" of hydro power.  Do a bit of research, very little energy is produced with hydro.  Would hardly call that lots. 

[DougSpindler]

The Pacific Norhtwest is just a very small portion of the world we live in.  There’s a great big world out theater with lots of different people.  Many have no electricity or clean drinking water.

Yes the electricty produced from the Northwest is exported to 4 other states.  But then whent he Nortwest need additional electrity any idea where is comes from?  It comes from coal, gas, wind, solar, hydro and nuclear from those 4 other states your grid is a part of.  Can I suggest taking a trip to see how others live?

Any idea how much of the world’s electricity is produced by hydro?  It’s 15%.  We’ve bulit 45,000 large dams worldwide.  In the Us there aren’t anymore river to dam.  We are tapped out when it comes to generating additional electricity from hydro.

As the population of our planet increases and consumes more electricty where is that electricty going to come from?  Right now solar and wind accounts for 2-3%.  The solar industry best estimates are in 40 years solar might be able to supply 12% of the worlds electricty needs.  It’s highly unlikely though.

So as the population increases and we use more electricty how are we going to produce that electrity?

Only one solution that’s scalable that’s not using hydrocarbons and that’s next gen nuclear.

[coppice]

The Pacific Northwest is just a very small portion of the world we live in.

Even in the Paciific NorthWest hydro is only producing a good chunk of the electrical energy. People keep focussing on electricity, when the need is to displace fossil fuels from all their uses. Hydro has a very small part to play in that big picture.