At 1:39 PM 3/29/5, Jed Rothwell wrote: >Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed > >Horace Heffner wrote: > >>This is a significant development provided the price is right. It means >>vehicles can be charged in a manner similar to filling up on gas, and that >>home charging is also feasible. > >Home charging of electric vehicles is already feasible. I cannot imagine an >electric car design that would make it difficult or inconvenient to >recharge at home. At most you would need some sort of external transformer.
Sorry I didn't make the point clear. Noting that home charging is feasible is merely meant to point out an advantage clearly not present as compared to liquid nitrogen, liquid air, home hydrogen filling, or even home methane filling, all of which require expensive equipment and which might be hazardous. > >We had a discussion electric power "filling stations" this some months ago. >When I suggested that rapid recharge batteries would allow something like a >filling station, Mike Carrell pointed out that this would require very >large capacity electric power mains to the gas station. I suppose that if >the rapid recharge batteries are reasonably cheap, a gas station could be >equipped with a bank of the batteries to smooth out demand. You have answered your own objection there. >They would only >have a problem if a solid stream of customers came, without a break, and >there was a car charging at every outlet, every minute, for several hours. >That almost never happens with ordinary gas stations, except during >emergencies such as an evacuation or when the power goes out nearly >everywhere and only one gas station is left open. Gas stations run out of >fuel during these rare events, so an overwhelmed electric charging station >would probably not be much worse than a gas station. During an evacuation, >electric cars could always be charged at emergency charging stations or at >people's houses and offices. You can set up a temporary charging station >much more easily than you can established a temporary gas station. > >The biggest problem with charging stations would be lack of customers. I >think most people would find it more convenient to recharge at home >overnight, rather than interrupt their commute. True, unless residential energy is taxed out of reach. The principle value of recharging stations is that electric vehicles are no longer limited to commuting. Assuming existing filling stations are converted to charging stations, long distance travel can be made with no significant changes to gasoline refuling habits. > >If these batteries are reasonably light, they might allow electric vehicles >with a 200 mile (300 km) range. That would be enough for nearly all travel >and commuting applications. > >There also schemes to use high-capacity capacitors for urban buses. Every >bus stop would be equipped with power mains to recharge the bus while the >passengers get on and off. This seems impractical to me. > > >>It doesn't solve the energy source problem . . . > >I think it would solve the energy source problem, at least in the US. The >US has plenty of fuel suitable for electric power generation, including >coal, uranium and wind. You are suggesting burning coal is the solution to the energy source problem?! It appears we are not talking about the same energy problem. >Also, electric cars are far more efficient than >gasoline powered model, so if all cars and trucks were replaced with >electric powered models, and all electric generators were brought up to >close to state-of-the-art efficiency (40%) overall demand for energy would >drop by ~13 quads out 101 total. Overall demand for oil would drop by ~70%. Electricity is three times as expensive as fossil fuels. A 40 percent increase in generating efficiency will just not cut it. This provides no improvement in distribution and other energy and cost overheads which cause the high price of electricity. Total demand for fossil fuels should actually increase if all vehicles are battery powered. Also, overall transportation costs will rise. They might drop temporarily until the government figures out they have to find a way to convert the gasoline tax to an electric tax. Batteries are not a source of energy. True, some energy is recovered from regenerative breaking, but transportation is only about 1/3 of the energy expenditure of the US, and the US expends only about 1/4 the world energy. Effective batteries do not solve the energy problem, even if they are cheap, light, and rechargeable without a water cooling supply in the charge connector. Regards, Horace Heffner
