Electric Cars and the Environment?
 

I was listening to a radio show talk about a report some one did on Electric cars. Apparently, since they are electric after all, electricity use will go up by 60%

And the more electricity that gets used in California (which is already more expensive than most states), the higher the cost goes up. California has a tiered system where the more you use, the high the rate goes up.

The irony is, the more electricity we use in the nation (coal burning states) the more pollutants go into the atmosphere. California has reduced it's usage to about 1%...so the price for California to go green? Financially it's high. The rest of the nation that uses coal? More pollution. So we would have to pay more money to save more of the earth so other states can produce more emissions? odd

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?sec...een&id=7899519

Re: Electric Cars and the Environment?
 

Prax, my dad works on an oil lease in Santa Barbara County, they have been forced to reduce their emissions by spending millions to convert the pumps to electric while at the same time burning natural gas to get rid of it because it costs more to store it than they can get out of it.

I wonder what happened to T. Boon and his natural gas plans? And why we continue to drive the price of our own oil up because of the cost of all the regulations.

Re: Electric Cars and the Environment?
 

I don't know about natural gas but I have heard that solar and wind are incredibly inefficient sources for electricity. You have to have huge huge huge plots of land all turned into wind farms and solar farms.

It's too bad the greatest sources of energy on the planet are too hard or impossible to harvest...the ocean being one,though I do recall hearing about a project somewhere..

The "green" laws we passed really only go to hurt one big job producing industry and helping one small little to no job industry where someone is getting very rich off of it

Re: Electric Cars and the Environment?
 

Another reason why Liberalism really is a mental disorder and most of California are too stoopid to think for themselves and instead go by commericals featuring ugly polluting smoke stacks, never mind that I've never seen a smoke stack in California for as long as I can remember...all I see is steam

Re: Electric Cars and the Environment?
 

Hey, I do recall seeing in SBC there is a "stack" or some kind of release valve where fire is always burning from. Its like a giant candle you can see every night you drive down the coast...I wonder if that is where your dad works.

yeah it sucks to have to burn off such a precious commodity that is too expensive to store

Re: Electric Cars and the Environment?
 

They are a lot of places in oil fields, I believe they are called flares. It is possible that you could see it because it is between hwy 1 and 101 before you get to Santa Maria.

Re: Electric Cars and the Environment?
 

Prax, you don't need land to build wind farms. A lot of wind farms are out in the ocean.

Re: Electric Cars and the Environment?
 

Highway 1 between Ventura and SB

Re: Electric Cars and the Environment?
 

I've never seen any wind farms on the west coast..where are they? Needless to say, they still have built a lot of inland wind farms

Re: Electric Cars and the Environment?
 

I don't know of any on the west coast. I believe there is some in the gulf and I know there is talk of building in the Atlantic.

America is way behind in harnessing wind power. Europe is way ahead of us in this respect.

Re: Electric Cars and the Environment?
 

Interesting pro vs con site on wind power
http://www.energy-consumers-edge.com...ind_power.html

Re: Electric Cars and the Environment?
 

I don't think wind power alone is the answer to our energy needs. I don't think any single green technology is going to be answer but we should be doing what we can where we can to harness wind, solar, thermal, hydro and so on.

I personally can't wait to purchase an electric car. I've been waiting ever since GM built and scrapped the EV1. I think the my wait is about over.

Re: Electric Cars and the Environment?
 

T Boone Pickenscancelled over 1 billion dollars in his order for GE wind turbines. He knows that success for wind power depends on subsidies. This happened last month after the November election. Natural gas powered turbines are required for generation back up on non windy days. In the winter, many turbines don't turn.

Re: Electric Cars and the Environment?
 

The UK is ahead of North America to closing down coal and going to wind.
They sold 55 units of electric cars in 2009. Is that an awesome trend or what?

Re: Electric Cars and the Environment?
 

Much of those flares came from burning Methane CH4 at refiners are now gone.


Enron wind was the early freeloader in California for wind power. After they went broke and damaged California in many ways, the product was moved and is now GE Wind.

Enron Clinton James Hansen and a couple others started the cap and trade regulation concepts for SOX, NOX, COX and CH4

Re: Electric Cars and the Environment?
 

We should be creating more stuff to run off of natural gas. That was one of T Boone's big pushes besides the wind farm.

We are burning up natural energy because we have limited ways to use it, and we have to remove it to get to the oil below it.

Re: Electric Cars and the Environment?
 

I'm curious, where have you heard or read that?

Re: Electric Cars and the Environment?
 

Prax, who has runs the wind farm in Tehachapi? That has been there for years I remember it being there at least 20 years ago.

Re: Electric Cars and the Environment?
 

It's a start. The pratical electric car isn't quite here yet.

Re: Electric Cars and the Environment?
 

How do you store wind power?

Re: Electric Cars and the Environment?
 

In great big wind-bags. :D

Re: Electric Cars and the Environment?
 

All you need is one of these under the cars hood! Once it started it will literally run forever giving you free energy for as long as the material it is built of holds up!

http://thelibrary.springfield.missou...t/10i4p55a.jpg

And I have a 40 acre plot of land in mid-town Manhattan that I am willing to sell CHEAP!

Re: Electric Cars and the Environment?
 

Pelosi said natural gas was not a fossil fuel.

I can name most of the newer fields for natural gas and most of the gas creates natural gass liquids which are also refined into gasolene and lighter petroleum products. No asphalt nor heavy oil. We ran farm equipment on propane which is a portion of natural gas. It is used for heat and we even converted pick up trucks to propane in the 60's. Propane and butane are separated from the gas. An engine run on propane has non blackened crankase oil for years. Motor oil on gasolene cars turns black quickly.

Gas prices are depressed because we now have the Rockies express pipeline and a couple more that increase gathering and distribution efficiencies.

Peterbilt is rolling out a line of Natural gas trucks. They produce CO2 as does diesel. Just not soot like we hate from old city buses.

Re: Electric Cars and the Environment?
 

Hold your breath?

Inflate a one mile in diameter whoopie cushion?
(there is an experimental car that is powered on highly compressed air.)

If you don't mind, I wiill improve your question. How do you store energy from wind generated electricity. The electricity is A/C and doesn't go into batteries. For it to charge a battery and be stored, it must be converted to direct current. That means a 20% energy loss in conversion. A/C power can't be stored. Electric power loss is great by reason of electrical resistance in powere lines. Like 15% power loss for every 60 miles.
You can't make electric in Kansas and send it to New York.

Re: Electric Cars and the Environment?
 

Thanks for the explanation, Coadie. :thumbsup

Re: Electric Cars and the Environment?
 

Definitely not the answer however if we have area to spare it is a good supplemental source.

Personally Im waiting for our government to admit to the Star Gate program and start building large scale Naquadah generator plants.

I do think we need to focus on hydro more...we have a huge huge ocean out there that is constantly in motion.

I won't be getting one of those cars since electricity is so high here

Re: Electric Cars and the Environment?
 

I have no idea. I should take a tour out there some day since Im only 2 hours away.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._windmills.jpg

Wow, these look really really old compared to the wind turbines Ive seen

These below look modern
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...piWindFarm.jpg

The Tehachapi Wind Farm, with around 5,000 wind turbines, is the second largest collection of wind generators in the world (the largest is at the Altamont pass, near Livermore and the San Francisco Bay area), but is now the largest wind power array in the world in output. The turbines are operated by a dozen private companies, and collectively produce about 800 million kilowatt-hours of electricity, enough to meet the residential needs of 350,000 people every year. With over 15,000 turbines in the state (7,000 at Altamont and 3,000 at San Gorgonio Pass, near Palm Springs), wind power in California makes up about 1% of California's electricity.
http://ludb.clui.org/ex/i/CA4977/

Re: Electric Cars and the Environment?
 

I'm still waiting for cars powered by steam to make their reappearance.

Re: Electric Cars and the Environment?
 

I commentd over a year ago that environmentalists had won litigation and Altamont Pass is shut down several months of the year during bird migration patterns. The golden eagle is a protected bird and the bird is safe and electric is stopped. I forget which part of the wind farms are stopped. Not all if I remember.

Re: Electric Cars and the Environment?
 

Electric cars?

One bit of wisdom from"old age"......don't purchase anything the first year (or two! :laffatu)

Once it has been on the road a few years......maybe :blah

In the midwest I don't think there will be enough charging centers to get you out of town.

Re: Electric Cars and the Environment?
 

it probably goes directly into the grid so power plants can lighten their load

Re: Electric Cars and the Environment?
 

Well, yeah, that's why I am still waiting. :)

I'm not going to depend upon an electric car for traveling long distances. My daily commute of 36 miles to work and back is well within the range of an electric vehicle.

Re: Electric Cars and the Environment?
 

I am waiting till they weigh a few thousand pounds instead of a few hundred lbs...

Re: Electric Cars and the Environment?
 

I've read that the Leaf and the Volt are supposed to weigh around 3,500 pounds.

Re: Electric Cars and the Environment?
 

Wow... that's a heavy leaf. I'd hate to see the tree. :)

Re: Electric Cars and the Environment?
 

And half of that is toxic battery acid? :)

Re: Electric Cars and the Environment?
 

Huh, no.

If the pack were lead acid, which I am pretty sure it isn't, the majority of the weight would be in the lead, not the acid. And the acid isn't that toxic, I've gotten it on me when I converted a car to a pure electirc vehicle back in the early 2000s. Just ruined a sweat shirt is all that happened.

Re: Electric Cars and the Environment?
 

Does insurance coverage cover becoming an albino?

Re: Electric Cars and the Environment?
 

The chinese models are built without heater defroster or a/c. All of them greatly reduce driving range. Drive 36 miles and charge for a couple hours actually doubles and triples trip travel time.
Golf carts are wiped out after 18 holes use. They charge over night.They may go 2 rounds.

Re: Electric Cars and the Environment?
 

Coadie, you know what's funny? Electric cars used to be the norm and acceptable early in the last century. When the new-fangled gasoline car came along, it had acceptance problems becasuse it was noisy, broke down a lot, made a lot of noise, etc.

And yet look at where we are today. We overcame those problems, just like we will with any technology such as battery technology.

BTW, you talking about lead acid batteries which have a very poor energy denisity. You may want to read up on other battery technologies. The Nissan Leaf battery is said to have a range around 100 miles per charge. More than adequate for a lot of daily commuters.