How long before Compact Diesels are obsolete?

[Phil Timmons]

Oh. My beef with electrical engineers hit a head back in 1997 in calif when I was hired on by a contractor I used to work for to remodel a 125 unit hud project damaged by northridge earthquake. Even though I lived in Idaho, the guy wanted me to be site super and he would give me the electrical side.
first meeting with elect engineer they threw this huge set of blueprints at me and I dug down to find electrical. They had us repowering all the buildings. They planned on doing this by sawcutting the he** out of the parking lot and running miles of pipes all over the place. Each building had 12 units and 6 saw cuts. There would be nothing left of the place. Also, each conduit run had maybe 12-20 elbows in the drawings. I pointed out to him that after 4 90s I’d need an exposed j box. He had no idea what I was talking about.

i had to redesign the system myself. I ended up adding soffits in each building to access all units and ran SER cable. I saved the contractor so much money he gave me a complete custom set of kitchen cabinets and appliances as a bonus.

the engineer had charged a heck of a lot of $$ for a plan that would be illegal to install.

See? THIS is why I tend to say it is just better to Smile and Wave.

Really he should have a had a Civil (Civil Engineer) involved if he was really figuring on cutting up the existing site concrete like that.

My favorite approach anymore is to ask folks (like you) how you would like to do things, and if they are sensible -- I tell them we will draw up the plans for your review like that so we can have the City (or other AHJ) approve their work in advance. If they look confused at that approach, I tell them that since they will be the ones doing all the real work, I want to help support them in their activities. Everyone is so relieved that something not fued is coming their way, they just smile back. Takes care of the most the RFIs and Submittals in advance, as well.

 

[wolc123]

527 years from today based on known oil reserves and projected population growth.

 

[MoKelly]

527 years from today based on known oil reserves and projected population growth.

This is why I always thought being an actuary would be a good job.

By the time folks were able unto figure out you were wrong, everyone would be dead!

But - I hope you are right - give or take 50 years!

MoKelly

 

[arrow]

Give me that little nuclear generator about the size of your thumb to drive a tractor.
Electric is again only a stop gap like oil is/was.
Fusion ftw!
We'll all be dead (unless you're a vampire)

 

[Bearsixty7]

I see a lot of the discussion on here about batteries, batteries, batteries.

That may not be the full path ahead.

Anyone look this over? Any thoughts?

Interesting concept. That looks like a maintenance nightmare with the cable and spooling and rewinding. It might work on a flat and square field but many are not.
Then there is the issue of the owner/operator learning the programming. Today's farmers won't, but the farmers of the future (Today's little kids already gaming all the time) could do it.

 

[Snobdds]

This is why I always thought being an actuary would be a good job.

By the time folks were able unto figure out you were wrong, everyone would be dead!

But - I hope you are right - give or take 50 years!

MoKelly

I am an actuary. It is a good job until you have to deal with idoit consultants. Those MF are dumb.

 

[jeffgreef]

Electric tractors will have to work their way into the market gradually, and prove themselves. Every buyer chooses what will work for their needs, and only makes the hard buying decision when they absolutely have to. At that moment an electric has to be a better or competitive choice. Eventually.

 

[Chevca]

I can speak to one obstacle local infrastructure I live in a home that is not equipped for electric vehicle charging, without going into a lot of detail it is basically $2500 whenever or if I ever decide I want a fast charger in my home. The fact is my home is typical for a lot of homes based on what I saw when I bought it just a few years ago, it is older and they never built it expecting to run what is effectively an additional appliance and in the garage or outside. I know this isn't all houses but it is a whole lot of them and if the proposal on selling electric tractors or cars is add-on another $2500 to a transaction I am likely just barely justifying already or perhaps just barely affording, I don't see how this works? Plus I have to ask what is the payback on that $2500 added on to the cost of whatever premium I am paying for an electric whatever?

Another thing I also have concerns about with these things is will they be like gigantic cell phones, basically one day without warning possibly, they just don't work. I know they have arguments for how simple they are and how this makes them more reliable and takes away and reduces maintenance but does that also mean that the battery being an assembly it could just reach its end and be a significant portion of the machine's total cost to replace?

 

[rScotty]

Our old JD is 53 years old this year and works fine. I would expect most of the new compact and utility tractors to last a similar time.

So we do have some time to work with - but not enough to squander.

 

[Stowed4Sea]

What is your back ground in the electric gird? Just curious

Like you suggest coobie: It is amazing how many people are all overnight experts when they have never operated the grid. I'm a NERC certified operator of the grid in Texas and prior Nuclear electrician/operator so I understand things pretty well. The Grid is a complex thing and we had many factors contribute to the problem. We already have regulation, the entire grid is under the federal NERC umbrella.

I won't get too deep into it, but as one specific insight to one of the problems, every year we have already discussed how the natural gas guys prioritize residential because they worry about heating for the people that have gas, and also they don't want grandma's pilot light to blow out and she can't get it restarted because it's an old heater without automatic ignition and to have her die. So generation facilities get the leftovers during shortages. Guess what most of the grid connected generation is in TX? That's right, natural gas. We were also exporting natural gas to other states since we had a surplus, so what, we should have cut them off, ignoring the contract and let their people and generation die? They adhered to the schedule. It also didn't help that Wind Farms are de-rated due to icing during the freezing rain/cold. It also didn't help that it's what we call the shoulder month, and a lot of generation was out for maintenance since it is an off-peak time period where they can take outages for maintenance. Gotta let people do maintenance some time. The storm came too fast to get them pieced back together again and be online for the storm.

And that's just a few of the problems from the higher level grid side. The grid or regulation cannot do anything about lines snapping or galloping due to extreme conditions and wind. Those things take awhile to fix, but admit I don't know anything about that side of the game, that's Distribution, it's a different ballgame, I'm in transmission of high voltage, not distribution.

So, the alternative? Don't have any power lines break during storms by magic, and always have 100 times the amount of generation ready to go more than you need (spinning reserves) and cut off gas to people that would have the ability to heat themselves? There are some things that regulation can improve, some generation went offline because they aren't built to withstand 3 days below freezing temps. NERC requires winterization, but doesn't specifically say insulation needs to be X or stuff like that. So Texas could pass some laws giving ERCOT the power to enforce different winterization standards to be allowed to bid into the market to be allowed to produce power in ERCOT, but that was one very small part of the complex puzzle. It's not an easy answer, so don't just claim: Oh, Texas failed because we are all cowboys with no laws.

An expert in electrical theory or working other jobs in the electrical field does not make you an expert at the innerworkings of operating the power grid and the specific problems that we had.