The Volt will Jolt our Power Grid....

This is just another scare tactic. The grid has a lot of nighttime capacity to charge electric cars, and the 'technology' to use timers to delay charging until later at night is very simple compared to the electronics in existing cars. And there is no reason the charging has to proceed at the full-bore 3.4kw rate, it can be slowed down to stretch the the process over the whole night.

Estimates elsewhere are that the grid needs no upgrade for electric cars until the total reaches the 10-20 million unit range.

 

I don't think it's a big an issue as some want to make it appear.

Is the Volt going to be cheap... well... not in $$$$$...

The US manufactures need to be forced to make at least a significant percentage of the cars less dependent on foreign oil... and quickly.

With that said...

I don't believe we will see the domestic manufacturers move in earnest until they are compelled.

 

The night time charging is the biggest hole in this type of argument.
The next one is that the Volt is being built in extremely small (for GM) numbers. I believe it was between 10 and 30 thousand the first full year of production?
So as for 'the Volt will Jolt out power grid', that is completely unfounded. As stated before, basically a scare tactic.
The DOE has a report about the added strain on the electric grid plug in hybrids will cause.
In our case, we will soon have a full EV which should get .3-.35KWh/mile.
At 12,000 miles a year, that will be about 3600-4200KWh/year. My solar panels product more than that, so we won't be adding to the strain at all.

 

I think we are in agreement about the absolutely disgraceful state of our "hard" infrastructure. I fully support nuclear development, look at how well it works in France. A lot of folks here don't realize that around 90% of electricity in France comes from their nuclear power program, and they have the lowest power rates in the EU

I find it ironic that the French fully support their nuclear power industry, but we do not. There research center was Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique, first headed by Dr Joliot-Curie, a member of the French Commuinist Party (Another irony, hmmm?) .

Over the years, the French developed world-class and respected agencies like Framatome, Cogema, and CEA Industrie. They merged around 9 years ago into Areva, mostly owned by the French government

A lot of significant technological developments were made right in Canada (Eg: gaseous diffusion, CANDU breeder reactor design, etc) with Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd - now that effort and money appears to have been pissed away and forgotten

The French become actually shocked - even insulted - if visiting dignataries from the US and Canada suggest they abandon their nuclear power program. Perhaps what we need here is more rolling blackouts from our outdated, neglected hard infrastructure, to get folks thinking about other electricity sources

 

Do nothing. With the mandate and phasing out of conventional bulbs to CFLs, about 400 Watts per home is available at night (semi-random guess). This works out to allowing 1 EV per every 10 households with no change in demand. With 100 million households that allows 10 million EVs with nothing added. By the time 10 milliion EVs are on the road, we will have figured out what to do next.

 

It's only far to point out that the French are still getting an initial permanent waste disposal site ready. So while the front end is impressive, the ugly back end still has a lot of warts.

 

I'm really surprised we don't just re-burn the used fuel in CANDU-style breeder reactors. The entire point to the expensive CANDU program in Canada, was to only do initial fueling with uranium. The CANDU doesn't even need enriched uranium, but natural uranium

The Evolution of CANDU Fuel Cycles and Their Potential Contribution to World Peace

Subsequent fueling is done with spent fuel and thorium. Obviously, the plutonium production from such reactors is a concern, but depending on what "exotics" are reburnt, you can take care of the plutonium as well

As far as the French, they have reprocessed spent fuel since 1966

Nuclear Chemistry - Recycling Spent Reactor Fuel

Are there criticisms? Sure there are, but at least the French are doing *something* unlike us

http://www.fissilematerials.org/ipfm/site_down/rr04.pdf

I would like to see a lot more research into this topic. But for whatever reason, even mention of pursuing research, brings out ranting and raving in folks. I guess we're just supposed to keep the spent fuel in olympic size swimming pools - indefinitely

 

The only upgrade needed to the electric grid to support EV / PHEVs is to start time-of-day billing.
Night time rates could be 1/2 to 1/3 of peak daytime rates. It would even be possible to charge up at night at .05/kWh and sell back at peak summer dinner time at .15/kWh.

Adding distributed generation (roof top PV solar) would also solve grid overload, since peak production typically matches peak demand.

Also as pointed out phasing out conventional light bulbs for CFLs and LEDs will reallocate some supply. Evs and PHEVs will take years to be available in large numbers. As we retire our ICE fleet and replace with EVS/PHEVs we will also be retiring our old appliances, air conditioners, etc and replacing with new Energy Star models.

Green Technology should not be set back by the typical "scare tactics" that have slowed anything that threatens the big corporations. The US Auto industry has already blown any chance of leading on this new technology and the only "affordable" cars available in a few years will be EVs bought at Walmart and produced in China. Just another example of our lack of leadership or vision over the last 30 years.

 

The "back end" of fossil fuel waste (CO2) disposal isn't looking any better anymore.

 

Heck, the "front end" (mining) is as ugly as ever as well. If you take a snapshot of what is happening throughout the US, this is what you will find:

1) Utilities and many industry groups pushing the governments (state and national) to support building new nuclear power plants.....and unable to find any financing. Right now this creates a quandry for the utilities. To raise the money themselves, they must really hammer electric rates up front with state government permission or ask the government to provide/insure the loan. (Not a good time to ask.)

2) Utilities wanting to build more coal plants are really being pressured hard to solve the sulfur, CO2, and waste ash aspects as part of the design up front.

3) Natural Gas plants have no assurance that natural gas prices will remain stable.

4) Solar and wind plants are getting quite a bit of private sector money since the plant only take a year or less to build, and the electric cost is very close to utility values now.......and this will only go down while the nuclear and coal cost will only go up. The number of projects in the works is staggering.

Economically, the threshold to renewable energy is being crossed in this decade.....and that's the threshold that matters.

 

Seeing the headline of this thread made me think to myself, "Geee.. It is the EV-1 all over again, the oil-companies must be busy spreading propaganda again!"

First of all, there is very little truth in the statement about our electric grid not being able to handle it..

But more importantly, nobody is suggesting that we'll wake up one morning and suddenly have millions of cars plugged into the grid. I imagine we'll start adding a thousand per month for the first few years, then maybe several thousand. But, that is going to be spread out all over the US, not just in one city. So even if there are 1,000 a month being sold, that might work out to be just a handfull in each city. I'm sure the city's power grid can handle a few electric cars being plugged in.

The electric grid will have plenty of time to grow to support any additional demand.

 

Indeed. After eight years of hybrids being available in the US, there are maybe 2 million in total? These are cars that require no infrastructure changes whatever. There is literally no cost (barring cost of acquisition) to migrate to hybrids. We're supposed to believe that moves to charge-depleting series hybrids will happen overnight?

 

a simple cost effective solution to brown outs would be to have a photovoltaic panels installed on your property ( will lower you bills and provide power for ev charging). I feel like only 40 miles of ev (up to 40 miles) will force everyone to constantly plug it in (meaning everyday) while maybe a 100 mile range, people will wait to charge it when its cheapest.

 

This is one of the more compelling non-issues - as has been pointed out several times. You simply make it cost-advantageous to plug in during off-peak hours. The car will have a charge timer, so you just set it for midnight and plug it in. No draw happens when the AC units are running. If you REALLY want to charge during peak time, then you pay lots of money for it. That's the American way, after all.

Of course this item, and many more, are on my list of "why EVs won't work."
http://evnut.com/docs/evs-wont_work.doc

The bigger question is why are we letting everybody turn on their AC units during peak time with no cost penalty. I dare say that there are more AC units in this country than there will be EVs for many, many years. Let's control the big stuff, not worry about the piddly stuff that already has controls built in!

Oh, and I love the shot on Obama. It is HIS fault that GM is building a loss-leader car to save itself? Nice. this project was started well before Obama was even a twinkle in the democrats' eye.

 

Oh c'mon now. Never waste an opportunity to spread Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.

Much like how a certain pedophile drug using pervert windbag radio talk show host - who does not even dignify having his name mentioned - will poke fun at people with Parkinson's, people who drive "hybreed" cars, etc

 

What?
You mean all 100 million of us aren't going out on the same day to buy a plug in? The grid won't collaps? All that hand wringing for nothing
Hey, maybe those of us who are pumping over 7Kwh of PV back onto the grid can still recharge during the day. I'll charge all of you only HALF of what your local power company charges for daytime charging ... anybody ready to come over w/ their extension cord?

 

I'm abashed.
My extension cord is (far) less than 5.000 miles

But... perhaps I can generate some PV to sell to my neighbours.
Nice idea

 

What you are all missing is the function of smart cars and smart grids.

Remember that PEVs not only have the capacity to buy power from the gird, they also have the capacity to sell back to the grid. It is a (comparatively) simple technology to install to, for example, set up a PEV to buy from the grid at while power is cheap, and sell to the grid when power is expensive, all the while keeping enough charge in the battery to go some given (programmed in) number of miles.

There are several advantages to be had here. The first is, car sit ~23/7, so if they are plugged into the grid most of that 23/7, they become a giant, disaggregated battery bank that can serve two significant functions. The first is by being available to cut the top off of spike/peak demand, it allow utilities to cut the most wasteful generating stations, those idle, spinning units that are spinning just to fuel that spike. The second advantage is this battery "bank" can serve as the 24/7 battery bank for wind/solar, partially solving the sun/no sun, wind/no wind issue, as well as the night time issue.

The technology is not expensive nor exotic. Home scale inverters which allow power to pass in both directions from a source (battery/grid/Solar panel etc are available, common proven technology.

Finally, for those that expound the virtues of Nukes in any fashion, consider this. Until you can convince me that waste can be made inert such that it is not deadly for 1000's of years it is a non starter. The idea of storing it deep in the earth is all well and good, but to think that could be made secure for 1000's of years from every nut job/fanatic who wants to get it and make some sort of statement is nuts. We can't keep anything really safe.

Icarus