Battery based electric vehicles of today and tomorrow.

[aczlan]

I have no faith in electric tractors, but electric implements with a high starting torque motor could be handy. You might even ditch the battery pack and power them off the tractor PTO.

Mason Dixon Farms in PA used to have some electric powered implements with a big generator on the crank of the tractor. Not sure if they still do though.

You are a prime candidate for a Tesla Powerwall. Solar is not required. Am told the first Powerwall costs $10,000 installed. Subsequent Powerwalls are $7,000 each. 13 kWh each. They are smart enough to charge during cheap periods and assist during high cost TOU. Meanwhile the Powerwall doubles as backup power during outages.

Very funny. This is at work, we run multiple hundreds of horsepower worth of compressors and our amp draw (at 480VAC) is in the mid hundreds to thousands of amps range.
We would several semi trailer sized powerwalls to even think about putting a dent in our power usage (it has been discussed along with solar, but our offpeak rates are so low that its not worth it).

Aaron Z

 

[MossRoad]

Mason Dixon Farms in PA used to have some electric powered implements with a big generator on the crank of the tractor. Not sure if they still do though.


Very funny. This is at work, we run multiple hundreds of horsepower worth of compressors and our amp draw (at 480VAC) is in the mid hundreds to thousands of amps range.
We would several semi trailer sized powerwalls to even think about putting a dent in our power usage (it has been discussed along with solar, but our offpeak rates are so low that its not worth it).

Aaron Z

We had a massive power outage in our town about 10 years ago when I was working at the newspaper. We brought in a 750,000W generator to run the printing press. We couldn't get our speed up past 20,000 copies per hour (normal is 70,000) without blowing the breakers on the generator. So they brought in a 1,000,000W generator and tied it in parallel with the 750,000W generator. That got us up to around 50,000 copies per hour before it would blow the breakers. So we settled on 45,000 copies per hour. 1.75megawatts wouldn't power the printing press for the 3rd largest newspaper in Indiana.

Something interesting about those generators. They were in long semi trailers. Not knowing better, most of us thought the generators would be huge. They were not. They were only about 10-12' long. The rest of the trailer was diesel fuel tanks.

And they had to stop the generators twice a day for maintenance. Yikes.

 

[California]

We had a massive power outage in our town about 10 years ago when I was working at the newspaper. ...

Something interesting about those generators. They were only about 10-12' long. The rest of the trailer was diesel fuel tanks.

It just occurred to me after thinking about Prius as an inverter source then reading this: I wonder if one or more diesel locomotives could power a factory. 5,000 hp x several locomotives would be a lot of current, but the hard part would be converting their output to high voltage AC.

Anybody know what sort of electricity a locomotive generates? Variable-voltage DC?

 

[MossRoad]

I believe most older diesel locomotives are DC. More modern ones are AC and use frequency drives to drive AC traction motors.

I know that the University of Notre Dame power plant has two diesel electric generators taken from the USS Haddock SS-231 after it was sold for scrap in the early 60s. They're used as backup power.

MC 7.11.19 Utilities Plant 11.JPG | University of Notre Dame Photography

notredame.photoshelter.com

 

[MossRoad]

Those are only 1 megawattt. The submarine had 4 of them.

USS Haddock (SS-231) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Hay Dude]

You're pro nuclear (as am I). What do you think that would do to American energy jobs if they went with 250-300 nuclear plants VS the 20,000+ power plants now in the U.S.?

It all depends on whose ox is getting gored, and apparently, in what year it's getting gored, as per our discussions on past fuel prices.

Sorry I couldn’t discuss with you, but I’m back from your 1 week
”vacation”, now so I can. Bottom line is, I’d rather see the nuclear plants than the wind turbines and solar panels. They are too dependent upon ideal weather for a reliable grid. Nuclear chugs along through all weather anomalies.
I also don’t believe 250-300 nuke plants would be nearly enough to cover the country. There would still be a need for smaller power plants, which could be easily powered by cleaner burning NG. The remaining bountiful NG we produce could have been sold off shore to other countries, like ohhhhh, maybe Germany??? but not anymore! Lol
I don’t think converting to them to nuke would do much to the “liquid” fuel supply jobs and infrastructure as very few power plants run on diesel fuel of gasoline. EVs will have a much more detrimental affect on “liquid” or petrochemical American energy jobs than nuke plants.
So, yeah, I would be good with nuclear replacing coal, but much less satisfied with solar or wind replacing coal as they are far too unreliable and there’s not enough battery storage for cloudy or low-wind days.
So go ahead and cut/paste an article to show how solar is a better choice than nuclear, but it won’t change my mind.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

An EMD locomotive engine produces 1.75 MW of AC power.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

100 Watt Solar Panel Wiring Diagram & Kit List

A Great starting point of ideals if thinking solar at the basic level.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

Gas stations are running out of gas ahead of the holiday weekend

Heads up for ev owners that may be traveling this weekend and need gas for their generators.

 

[MossRoad]

Sorry I couldn’t discuss with you, but I’m back from your 1 week
”vacation”, now so I can. Bottom line is, I’d rather see the nuclear plants than the wind turbines and solar panels. They are too dependent upon ideal weather for a reliable grid. Nuclear chugs along through all weather anomalies.
I also don’t believe 250-300 nuke plants would be nearly enough to cover the country. There would still be a need for smaller power plants, which could be easily powered by cleaner burning NG. The remaining bountiful NG we produce could have been sold off shore to other countries, like ohhhhh, maybe Germany??? but not anymore! Lol
I don’t think converting to them to nuke would do much to the “liquid” fuel supply jobs and infrastructure as very few power plants run on diesel fuel of gasoline. EVs will have a much more detrimental affect on “liquid” or petrochemical American energy jobs than nuke plants.
So, yeah, I would be good with nuclear replacing coal, but much less satisfied with solar or wind replacing coal as they are far too unreliable and there’s not enough battery storage for cloudy or low-wind days.
So go ahead and cut/paste an article to show how solar is a better choice than nuclear, but it won’t change my mind.

I'm in agreement with you on this. I don't think solar or wind is the way to go, as I don't think batteries are a good thing in general. The environmental impact of battery production/recycling/disposal is rearing it's ugly head. I wonder how much environmental damage uranium mining would do to the world VS all of the other mining for all of the other fuel sources and storage batteries combined?