Will this be tomorrow's transportation?

[jerrybob]

Speaking of electric transportation.......check out the new JD tractor.

John Deere’s first fully electric tractor sounds like a jet engine

 

[MultiMow]

Oh, just heard on the news that the American avg life expectancy went down, the population reduction is starting...
If you add in the Baby Boomer end of life reduction, we wont need to do a thing here soon.

Those baby boomers had kids... kids who are breeding and consuming more energy with unprecedented levels of disregard and irresponsibility.

 

[houstonscott]

Report: Costly wind turbines projected to yield $1.39 in daily savings Report: Costly wind turbines projected to yield $1.39 in daily savings | Fox News

HS

 

[vvanders]

"one thing important thing that hasn't been considered is reducing our dependency on foreign energy sources" this would be a blatantly uniformed statement. How much do you think we depend on "foreign" sources and what's your definition of "foreign?" If its Canada, then your close to correct. Our electricity production in 2015 broke out like: Coal: 33% Natural gas = 33% Nuclear = 20% Hydropower = 6% Other renewables = 7% Biomass = 1.6% Geothermal = 0.4% Solar = 0.6% Wind = 4.7% Petroleum = 1% Other gases = <1%. Coal natural gas, nuclear and hydro aren't foreign, unless again Canada is foreign. That makes over 75% of our electrical production domestic. For transportation, oil specifically, less than 20% comes form Persian gulf countries, Africa and tiny countries we've never heard of. The rest comes from the US (~40%) South America (~20%) and again Canada (~15%). ll give you that the south American countries are foreign so why do we buy it from them instead of getting it here? Cause its cheaper that way. Its the make or buy decision. If its cheaper to buy it than do it yourself, you buy it. It has strategic advantage to leaving our natural resource in the ground and buying the foreign stuff at rock bottom prices. wouldn't u rather have a potential future enemy without an oil reserve? Could we cut off foreign inbound oil today? Yep. Would that benefit us economically or strategically? Nope. The foreign energy fear is a scare tactic used by the media, in the words of Chuck D: don't believe the hype.

Note that I said dependency, we currently import 2x the amount of oil that we produce( How much petroleum does the United States import and export? - FAQ - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) ). Just because Canada is our buddy doesn't mean that we are isolated from price spikes and external factors. The advantage of electricity is you can take advantage of low prices if they're available but also give you the options of other forms if they're cheaper.

Right now a full "tank" for me is $6 at current electricity prices for 270mi of range, I don't think any internal combustion engine can come close to that. As battery prices drop(which they will because they're a technology not a resource) you'll see the economic bias switch towards EVs.

 

[vvanders]

The problem with electrics isn't the electrics but where the power to run them comes from. Today that is mostly fossil fueled plants that aren't any more efficient than the internal combustion engines that the electric motors are supposed to replace. Then you have to add in all the losses from transmission and energy conversion. Every time you change energy from one form to another you loose something to conversion loss. In the end electric cars are actually environmental disasters and it's dictated by physics which can't be overcome. Before electrics can make any sense at all you have to begin with something that makes sense. You have to begin at the beginning, not at the end of the chain. Once you have a real source of cheap, clean energy many more things are made possible but not until then.

That's actually not the case, power plants can get better efficiency because they have a couple things that work in their favor vs internal combustion engines.

The biggest issue is waste heat, in a car you have to dump it via your radiator. However in a power plant they can have a massive heat exchanger that can capture it and use it to generate more power. Conservation of energy means that your car cannot be as efficient as a power plant that captures heat(fun fact 1 gallon of gas has ~33.4kWh so most EVs run on 1-3 gallons of gas to 100-300 miles).

Secondly cars need to work across a wide range of power bands, however a generator can sit at a single RPM and optimize for that specific band. So you'll lose some power due having a requirement to function at different speeds.

Those two things combined mean that quite a few plants exceed 50% efficiency where cars top out around 35%.

Also we have a ton of hydro up here in the PNW so we already have a nice source of cheap clean energy .

 

[turnkey4099]

That's actually not the case, power plants can get better efficiency because they have a couple things that work in their favor vs internal combustion engines.

The biggest issue is waste heat, in a car you have to dump it via your radiator. However in a power plant they can have a massive heat exchanger that can capture it and use it to generate more power. Conservation of energy means that your car cannot be as efficient as a power plant that captures heat(fun fact 1 gallon of gas has ~33.4kWh so most EVs run on 1-3 gallons of gas to 100-300 miles).

Secondly cars need to work across a wide range of power bands, however a generator can sit at a single RPM and optimize for that specific band. So you'll lose some power due having a requirement to function at different speeds.

Those two things combined mean that quite a few plants exceed 50% efficiency where cars top out around 35%.

Also we have a ton of hydro up here in the PNW so we already have a nice source of cheap clean energy .

So far. The push is on by the econuts to remove all the Columbia River dams.

 

[houstonscott]

That's actually not the case, power plants can get better efficiency because they have a couple things that work in their favor vs internal combustion engines. The biggest issue is waste heat, in a car you have to dump it via your radiator. However in a power plant they can have a massive heat exchanger that can capture it and use it to generate more power. Conservation of energy means that your car cannot be as efficient as a power plant that captures heat(fun fact 1 gallon of gas has ~33.4kWh so most EVs run on 1-3 gallons of gas to 100-300 miles). Secondly cars need to work across a wide range of power bands, however a generator can sit at a single RPM and optimize for that specific band. So you'll lose some power due having a requirement to function at different speeds. Those two things combined mean that quite a few plants exceed 50% efficiency where cars top out around 35%. Also we have a ton of hydro up here in the PNW so we already have a nice source of cheap clean energy .

Sounds great, now start explaining all the inefficiency with turning that into electricity, transporting that electricity, stepping it up and down, putting it into a battery, taking it out, and converting it back to motion. You'll find the most efficient thing you can do is burn that fuel directly in an internal combustion engine in a car, high pressure diesels, out performing gas by far. Case closed. HS.

 

[Egon]

Sounds great, now start explaining all the inefficiency with turning that into electricity, transporting that electricity, stepping it up and down, putting it into a battery, taking it out, and converting it back to motion. You'll find the most efficient thing you can do is burn that fuel directly in an internal combustion engine in a car, high pressure diesels, out performing gas by far. Case closed. HS.

Dosen't the combustion engine fuel require a few refining/transportation procedures to make it usable?? Case closed!

 

[houstonscott]

Dosen't the combustion engine fuel require a few refining/transportation procedures to make it usable?? Case closed!

That happens before you generate the electricity with it... Think about it... Case closed. All electric does is move the exhaust or emissions and much more of it, to a different location, at gigantic cost, and increased emissions. Case closed. HS

 

[adventure bob]

VV, I think your misreading the report and comparing apples to balloons. The import export report you cited, is a sales report; pure and simple. There's no relationship there that would indicate were dependent on foreign energy. However what we actually consume to generate energy would show dependence, and even if you don't like Canada in the numbers, energy generation, not just gas production, over 50% of power generation in the US is from truly domestic sources. Again the reason we buy oil from others is strategic and in no way should be considered dependency. Dependency would imply no other option. If I'm insulin dependent I cant just stop; I'm dependent. If consider the fact the geological fact that after Russia we have the largest reserves of oil in the world, you may reconsider the word dependent. Again strategic economic decision to use other peoples natural resources before our own.