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Ummm chEVrolet

I think the real turning point is going to be when they figure out a way to solar charge. Basically body panels that act as solar panels.

I was picturing what a charging station might look like in the future when 75% of cars are electric. Can you imagine the transmission lines necessary to provide the power to charge 6 to 10 cars at 1 time? Either that or you're going to have really slow charging times for everyone. But maybe I don't understand the process and it's not such a big deal; I just assume you need a lot of power to charge the batteries in these cars. Meanwhile your parking area is filled with people waiting a minimum 20 minutes to charge on a fast charge.

FWIW, my wife noticed the Super 8 we were staying at in Custer had a changing station. That will probably be something hotels will really need to embrace I think. I wonder if they might get a tax break if they install a charging station.
 
mrk5 said:
I think the real turning point is going to be when they figure out a way to solar charge. Basically body panels that act as solar panels. I was picturing what a charging station might look like in the future when 75% of cars are electric. Can you imagine the transmission lines necessary to provide the power to charge 6 to 10 cars at 1 time? Either that or you're going to have really slow charging times for everyone. But maybe I don't understand the process and it's not such a big deal; I just assume you need a lot of power to charge the batteries in these cars.

FWIW, my wife noticed the Super 8 we were staying at in Custer had a changing station. That will probably be something hotels will really need to embrace I think. I wonder if they might get a tax break if they install a charging station.
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Problem with that hotel charging station is that if you show up at midnight, plug in and go to sleep, you now have to get up at 3 am to move your car so the next guy can charge or you get a surcharge for blocking the charger. Show up at midnight and the chargers are all full, now you are waiting for someone to move so you can plug in and go to sleep. Its going to take an incredible amount of infrastructure to work properly.
 
Perfect for hotels. Since a cross country trip is now going to take twice as long nad people are going to have to stop all the time for charging.... What better place than a hotel lol.
 
The Silverado can take on 100 miles of range in 10 minutes from a dc fast charger.

Until they get to the point that a full charge in the same time it takes to fill up an average fuel tank it’s going to be a pain.

California is already asking ev drivers to throttle back on charging to reduce the demand on the grid. This is going to be commonplace until the grid can scale up to to handle the demand.

Solar recharge rates are too slow to effectively recharge during the day for the size of battery banks they have. No doubt it helps but it’s not going to be the primary charge process.
 
That's what I'm getting at, some serious advancement needs to happen with solar charging so that it can meet the needs. I'm sure it means advancement in other areas of the process too.

The problem with fast charging is that it will more quickly degrade the battery over time. And I'm sure too many people will rely on fast charging for regular use.

Maybe the limited ranges and charge times will bring back the days of Route 66. More roadside attractions to be entertained while waiting for a charge. Maybe even see the rebirth of highway rest areas. Instead we can call them "recharge areas"
 
With coal and natural gas power plants getting phased out they need a more efficient way to generate power. Wind and solar don’t replace power from the grid as fast as it’s removed.

Nuclear would be the way to go. Technology and computing power can make the process safer than decades ago.

Of course that puts the greenies directly at odds with themselves. They want to reduce/eliminate the use of fossil fuels but don’t want to use nuclear because of the fear of a catastrophic event like Chernobyl or Three Mile Island. I’d bet there’s more computing power in my phone right now than either of those places had when they were operating in the 70’s and 80’s. Meaning they can manage to make them much safer than they were then. Hell there are navy ships running clean on that power right now.

If the greenies want all electric powered cars they need to push the solution to allow the grid to function for normal use and charging.
 
I was in the Navy nuclear power program so you're preaching to the choir here. :D There are probably about 100 reactors in operation right now between submarines and aircraft carriers. Carriers have 2 reactors but the Enterprise that was decommissioned in 2012 had 8; a lot of my classmates ended up on that ship. Since the 1950s they estimate over 700 reactors have been used at sea.

In the US Navy, the nuclear power plants are operated by 20 to 25 year-olds with little to no college education. They do receive 2 years training in the nuclear power schools. Granted it's an extremely demanding program with over 50% attrition, but it's about commitment as much as intelligence.

All that being said the Navy has never had a nuclear accident in roughly 70 years of operation. In this case an accident is defined as a release of radiative particles outside of the vessel. IIRC, there is 1 sub that failed and it was suspected there was a reactor incident but there was no release of radioactive material.

A lot of it has to do with reactor design. The design of chernobyl contributed greatly to its failure. Three Mile Island had more to do with operator error and people not believing what there instruments were telling them. Which is also true to some extent with chernobyl. That's why they taught us about this incidents in nuke school.

So yes it's too bad nuclear power gets such a bad rap. It's safer than people realize.

That being said, if we fully embraced nuclear power there would be a big problem with taking care of the spent fuel. We really don't have a good solution for that.

It used to be greenies really pushed natural gas power plants because they burn relatively clean. I guess now it's not cool anymore either. Which is too bad because we can source natural gas domestically.

A lot of times I think the people pushing the clean energy production and electric car use don't care if it fails. I think they may even want it to fail. We're all too selfish wanting our air conditioning and heat. They want to knock us down to the level of the poor countries. We shouldn't have so much more than they do.
 
mrk5 said:
I was in the Navy nuclear power program so you're preaching to the choir here. :D There are probably about 100 reactors in operation right now between submarines and aircraft carriers. Carriers have 2 reactors but the Enterprise that was decommissioned in 2012 had 8; a lot of my classmates ended up on that ship. Since the 1950s they estimate over 700 reactors have been used at sea.

In the US Navy, the nuclear power plants are operated by 20 to 25 year-olds with little to no college education. They do receive 2 years training in the nuclear power schools. Granted it's an extremely demanding program with over 50% attrition, but it's about commitment as much as intelligence.

All that being said the Navy has never had a nuclear accident in roughly 70 years of operation. In this case an accident is defined as a release of radiative particles outside of the vessel. IIRC, there is 1 sub that failed and it was suspected there was a reactor incident but there was no release of radioactive material.

A lot of it has to do with reactor design. The design of chernobyl contributed greatly to its failure. Three Mile Island had more to do with operator error and people not believing what there instruments were telling them. Which is also true to some extent with chernobyl. That's why they taught us about this incidents in nuke school.

So yes it's too bad nuclear power gets such a bad rap. It's safer than people realize.

That being said, if we fully embraced nuclear power there would be a big problem with taking care of the spent fuel. We really don't have a good solution for that.

It used to be greenies really pushed natural gas power plants because they burn relatively clean. I guess now it's not cool anymore either. Which is too bad because we can source natural gas domestically.

A lot of times I think the people pushing the clean energy production and electric car use don't care if it fails. I think they may even want it to fail. We're all too selfish wanting our air conditioning and heat. They want to knock us down to the level of the poor countries. We shouldn't have so much more than they do.
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I never worry about failures in nuclear plants even though it can happen, my only concern is the spent fuel as you mentioned.
Everyone keeps saying that we can bury it, but in reality there's no real solution for the amount that will be generated if we rely solely on it.
 
ZooMad75 said:
With coal and natural gas power plants getting phased out they need a more efficient way to generate power. Wind and solar don’t replace power from the grid as fast as it’s removed.
If the greenies want all electric powered cars they need to push the solution to allow the grid to function for normal use and charging.
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We need roughly double the grid and production we have now to directly replace our IC cars. If anything, they are reducing capacity. I don't hear any plans to achieve this, so what is the plan? Stop selling gas, crank the price of electricity and make us all ride a bus? I think some in power believe everyone on earth lives in a city with access to public transportation.
 
I was hoping for @mrk5 's input on nuclear. One of my techs sons is in nuke school for the Navy and had been assigned to a sub already.

I know the new technology can make it safer. Spent fuel is an issue but like anything else it seems until it's pushed to the front nobody is really working hard on a good solution.


The Idiocracy is they think solely going electric without alternative non fossil fuel power generation that we are truly fixing the problem. We can't have our cake and eat it too. Without nuclear the only way to really generate the power we need is going to have to come from coal or natural gas. No where have I seen the political elite even talk about that.


Just have to wait and see if and when the grid crashes with higher demand and fewer plants.
 
Blue85 said:
We need roughly double the grid and production we have now to directly replace our IC cars. If anything, they are reducing capacity. I don't hear any plans to achieve this, so what is the plan? Stop selling gas, crank the price of electricity and make us all ride a bus? I think some in power believe everyone on earth lives in a city with access to public transportation.
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You are being optimistic if you think double is enough.
It's not just cars, people are constantly doing more with electricity than anything else, even mowing the lawn in California has to be electric.
The people pushing for electric cars know that they need to do more but they don't care, they are getting the kick backs to push the agenda and they will be gone once shit hits the fan, it will be someone else's problem
 
imiceman44 said:
You are being optimistic if you think double is enough.
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Yeah, it's been a while since I did the napkin math, but that was only counting gas, not diesel. And that's just a rough average, not worrying about the high power density needed on freeway corridors and the like.
 
I honestly think they want the system to come up short.

I've always thought it's interesting how much France embraced nuclear power. Currently 70% of their electricity comes from nuclear. Overall they make excess power that they export to other countries earning $3bil a year. They have passed legislation to reduce nuclear to 50% by 2035 but it sounds like they are rethinking that policy shift.

Interestingly 17% of their power production comes from recycled nuclear fuel so they are working on solutions for the waste.

I recently read that Germany will soon be shutting down 3 of their 6 remaining nuclear power plants. I'm curious if they're one of the buyers for France's excess electricity.

My info about France's nuclear power came from here: https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/france.aspx

The US is still the biggest producer of nuclear power worldwide. We have 93 operational reactors versus 56 in France. There a 2 new plants under construction. There have been 40 nuclear plants shutdown which means the US has operated a total of 133 nuclear power plants since about the 50s. How often have you heard of trouble in all of those power plants? Once at Three Mile Island. And that's not counting places where nuclear power plants are operational for testing purposes.

Incidentally, in nuclear school we had training on information security. We were told at that time (early 90s) France spied on the US more than any other country. What I don't remember is if that was solely in regard to nuclear power or just espionage in general.

I thought it was interesting later in my career when we were anchored off the shore of Cannes, France and we were using liberty boats to haul French locals out to the carrier and giving them tours. Since we were anchored offshore we were still steaming with the reactors. Of course we were given strict orders to keep an eye out for people that didn't belong in the power plants.

Another interesting antidote. We had to wear devices to measure radiation exposure. I can't remember now what the interval was for testing, but we received less radiation working in the power plant than the air crew did working on the flight deck. Realistically the only time we were really at any risk of exposure was working in the reactor room when it was shutdown.
 
mrk5 said:
I honestly think they want the system to come up short.

I've always thought it's interesting how much France embraced nuclear power. Currently 70% of their electricity comes from nuclear. Overall they make excess power that they export to other countries earning $3bil a year. They have passed legislation to reduce nuclear to 50% by 2035 but it sounds like they are rethinking that policy shift.

Interestingly 17% of their power production comes from recycled nuclear fuel so they are working on solutions for the waste.

I recently read that Germany will soon be shutting down 3 of their 6 remaining nuclear power plants. I'm curious if they're one of the buyers for France's excess electricity.

My info about France's nuclear power came from here: https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/france.aspx

The US is still the biggest producer of nuclear power worldwide. We have 93 operational reactors versus 56 in France. There a 2 new plants under construction. There have been 40 nuclear plants shutdown which means the US has operated a total of 133 nuclear power plants since about the 50s. How often have you heard of trouble in all of those power plants? Once at Three Mile Island. And that's not counting places where nuclear power plants are operational for testing purposes.

Incidentally, in nuclear school we had training on information security. We were told at that time (early 90s) France spied on the US more than any other country. What I don't remember is if that was solely in regard to nuclear power or just espionage in general.

I thought it was interesting later in my career when we were anchored off the shore of Cannes, France and we were using liberty boats to haul French locals out to the carrier and giving them tours. Since we were anchored offshore we were still steaming with the reactors. Of course we were given strict orders to keep an eye out for people that didn't belong in the power plants.

Another interesting antidote. We had to wear devices to measure radiation exposure. I can't remember now what the interval was for testing, but we received less radiation working in the power plant than the air crew did working on the flight deck. Realistically the only time we were really at any risk of exposure was working in the reactor room when it was shutdown.
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When I was in France in 93 they were pushing nuclear power really hard, signs everywhere saying clean energy go nuclear
 
There have been 5 partial core meltdowns, multiple radioactive leaks to the environment, and a list of other close calls in America's nuke plants.
 
I live 10 miles from one and never worry about em though. Still a pretty good record going.
 
As I stated before I know technology is getting better and safety should only get better, my worry is what we leave for our children.
I know nothing will get done about waste until it's a problem. And by then it's to late
 
imiceman44 said:
As I stated before I know technology is getting better and safety should only get better, my worry is what we leave for our children.
I know nothing will get done about waste until it's a problem. And by then it's to late
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You are right, it certainly isn't the solution. I'm more worried about how it seems to be getting overlooked as a part of the solution. And I'm just a nuclear fanboy. :D
 
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