alfadriver (Forum Supporter) said:
In reply to Keith Tanner :
All things being perfect, 220Vx20A = 4.4kW. 4L of gas (just over 1G) has 126MJ of energy. It takes 28,000 seconds to deliver that energy at that power or 8 hours.
Some EV's are ~100mpge, ideally- so 15min would be about 25 miles. Lower when it's hot, even lower when it's cold. Lower when it's heavy and loaded, too.
But It's not a trivial issue that many seem to take it as. Lining some streets vs half of ones people park at for long times....
Even in my huge garage, I don't have 220V service in it. Biggest thing I have is 120V/30A for a welder.
I'll leave now.
In senior year engineering I had a 'power electronics' class. At the very beginning of the first class the prof holds up a wire and asks "how much current can I put through this wire" and I immediately yelled out "for how long?". He looked at me, and promptly ignored me as he then launched into an explanation which finally reached my conclusion.
However, transferring and storing power safely by transporting gasoline is not without some very non-trivial difficulties either. Society has figured a lot of it out, but it wasn't without significant work and mistakes.
Keith Tanner said:
Solar is getting less expensive all the time, batteries are getting less expensive all the time. It'll get there. I've been flirting with the idea of solar partly because it'll keep my shop cooler and save on AC costs :) I'm not sure home generation is going to be a massive contributor to the grid anytime soon, but I'd like to be wrong. New power plants are expensive, how much home power generation can you install for the cost of one?
Rural farmers with hogs and other live stock could profit from wind generation within the first year. That in spite of 50% of the cost of the unit was profit for the dealers and salesmen.
The prime advantage to the grid now is reduced transmission losses. Rural areas suffer from50% or more transmission loses so if you neighbor is generating surplus energy transmission loses will be trivial.
frenchyd said:
Keith Tanner said:
Solar is getting less expensive all the time, batteries are getting less expensive all the time. It'll get there. I've been flirting with the idea of solar partly because it'll keep my shop cooler and save on AC costs :) I'm not sure home generation is going to be a massive contributor to the grid anytime soon, but I'd like to be wrong. New power plants are expensive, how much home power generation can you install for the cost of one?
Rural farmers with hogs and other live stock could profit from wind generation within the first year. That in spite of 50% of the cost of the unit was profit for the dealers and salesmen.
The prime advantage to the grid now is reduced transmission losses. Rural areas suffer from50% or more transmission loses so if you neighbor is generating surplus energy transmission loses will be trivial.
It's not even close to 50%.
http://insideenergy.org/2015/11/06/lost-in-transmission-how-much-electricity-disappears-between-a-power-plant-and-your-plug/
Not wanting to be an ass, but it seems to come naturally. It's kind of amusing how people are still rolling out the same old arguments against EV's as they have been since early this century when technology finally reached the point where EV's started to get the point of being a real alternative to IC vehicles.
- Range not enough. For a theoretical drive towing a trailer from one end of the country to the other, despite the fact that most people never do that.
- Charge time too long, despite the fact that an EV has done the cannonball run in 50 hours using only publicly accessible charge stations with no special preference.
- Grid can't take it. Despite figures showing that it's already far more capable than we need until we reach well over 25% of all vehicles being EV's.
- But the electricity comes from coal, oil, gas. Ignoring the fact that the amount of energy coming from renewables has gone up 100% in 18 years and that it's getting cheaper, easier and more reliable all the time.
Imagine if the government (sorry, dirty word for some) put as much money into building a reliable renewable infrastructure and grid as they do subsidizing oil, corn for ethanol etc. We could have the power availability and delivery solved long before it becomes an actual issue.
Semi related. Why the hell do we still insist on putting basically all power delivery above ground? Having grown up in the UK, once power reaches a city, all distribution is done underground. I think I remember one single power cut in my whole childhood, as trees, ice, storms etc. can cause as much havoc as they want above ground not effecting the underground lines. Yes it will cost billions to bury everything, but we've got work to do on the grid anyway, and most roads are going to need replacing over the next 25-50 years. Let's move of the oil subsidy money to not only improving the capacity of our infrastructure, but let's make it safer and more reliable at the same time!
I see no downsize to electric over the long term for 99% of people in 99% of situations. Yes, many of us enthusiasts love our IC engines, but this country is never going to outright ban them like in many other places. WE will just become the horse owners of today. People who love the old way of doing things and keep them as toys/pets.
In reply to Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) :
Well, the renewables in Texas are doing great right now. 
In reply to Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) :
I really agree with the statement of why is electricity mostly above ground? If you're worried about rodents etc chewing on wires encase it in tubes. Make them bright colors so diggers stop when they see it.
Do we really need to see tennis shoes dangling from overhead wires? Lose power when a tree branch falls? Have power line poles to run into? Most of the world is way ahead of America in that regard.
Engineering Explained recently had a really good video on impact of EV's on the grid. High level message: issues are not insurmountable and it'll work out
https://youtu.be/7dfyG6FXsUU
<iframe width="640" height="390" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7dfyG6FXsUU" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Edit: can't seem to be able to embed the video
frenchyd said:
In reply to Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) :
I really agree with the statement of why is electricity mostly above ground? If you're worried about rodents etc chewing on wires encase it in tubes. Make them bright colors so diggers stop when they see it.
Do we really need to see tennis shoes dangling from overhead wires? Lose power when a tree branch falls? Have power line poles to run into? Most of the world is way ahead of America in that regard.
Overhead lines are $285k per mile. Underground are $1.5m per mile.
bobzilla said:
In reply to Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) :
Well, the renewables in Texas are doing great right now.
It's not the wind turbines.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/02/texas-power-grid-crumples-under-the-cold/
Keith Tanner said:
bobzilla said:
In reply to Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) :
Well, the renewables in Texas are doing great right now.
It's not the wind turbines.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/02/texas-power-grid-crumples-under-the-cold/
C'mon Keith, you're killin' my jokes here!
Toyman01 (Moderately Supportive Dude) said:
Overhead lines are $285k per mile. Underground are $1.5m per mile.
Yes, installation cost is far and away the main reason, although for new residential development underground lines are more and more common as time goes on. There's also the additional cost for any future maintenance and repair on underground lines.
bobzilla said:
In reply to Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) :
Well, the renewables in Texas are doing great right now.
Texas is a unique situation, since most of the state is not connected into the national grid.
Robbie (Forum Supporter) said:
alfadriver (Forum Supporter) said:
In reply to Keith Tanner :
All things being perfect, 220Vx20A = 4.4kW. 4L of gas (just over 1G) has 126MJ of energy. It takes 28,000 seconds to deliver that energy at that power or 8 hours.
Some EV's are ~100mpge, ideally- so 15min would be about 25 miles. Lower when it's hot, even lower when it's cold. Lower when it's heavy and loaded, too.
But It's not a trivial issue that many seem to take it as. Lining some streets vs half of ones people park at for long times....
Even in my huge garage, I don't have 220V service in it. Biggest thing I have is 120V/30A for a welder.
I'll leave now.
In senior year engineering I had a 'power electronics' class. At the very beginning of the first class the prof holds up a wire and asks "how much current can I put through this wire" and I immediately yelled out "for how long?". He looked at me, and promptly ignored me as he then launched into an explanation which finally reached my conclusion.
However, transferring and storing power safely by transporting gasoline is not without some very non-trivial difficulties either. Society has figured a lot of it out, but it wasn't without significant work and mistakes.
Well said, but your point will be lost on those that will continue to believe They Said.
Toyman01 (Moderately Supportive Dude) said:
frenchyd said:
In reply to Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) :
I really agree with the statement of why is electricity mostly above ground? If you're worried about rodents etc chewing on wires encase it in tubes. Make them bright colors so diggers stop when they see it.
Do we really need to see tennis shoes dangling from overhead wires? Lose power when a tree branch falls? Have power line poles to run into? Most of the world is way ahead of America in that regard.
Overhead lines are $285k per mile. Underground are $1.5m per mile.
Agreed, and you missed pointing out that we're a much bigger country with much lower population density so it's still more per capita. That's not an excusse. Given the fragility of our current grid, and how a storm can leave millions, or even tens of millions of people and businesses without power for days at a time. What is the real cost of a sub par system? How much money is lost due to the poor infrastructure per year? No it's no possible to fix the issue over night, but like it or not, we're going to need more electricity in the future, so outage problems from the poor grid are only going to get worse. Plus imagine how much damage a terrorist could do very easily by targeting all those above ground power lines.
In reply to Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) :
I'm sitting here in a friend's basement working at 9:30p because of the storm-related outages here in Oregon. My power has been out for going on two days now. I live in the biggest city in the state, so it's not a rural thing. I do wonder if I'd have even lost power in the first place if my lines were underground. My guess is "no."
thatsnowinnebago (Forum Supporter) said:
In reply to Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) :
I'm sitting here in a friend's basement working at 9:30p because of the storm-related outages here in Oregon. My power has been out for going on two days now. I live in the biggest city in the state, so it's not a rural thing. I do wonder if I'd have even lost power in the first place if my lines were underground. My guess is "no."
Depends on where the problem is. We have underground power lines in our semi-rural neighborhood but when a big storm hit the middle of town, we went dark.
It's frequently not the power lines that are the problem. It's the trees around them. Transmission lines have huge right of ways so falling trees and limbs never get close to the lines. Distribution lines are another story. Nobody wants the power companies to cut every tree within 100 feet of the lines.
Here's a pretty good article on overhead vs underground transmission lines.
Overhead Vs Underground FactSheet
California has also had this discussion due to wildfires that get started by power lines.
Underground-power-lines-don-t-cause-wildfires
