Fixing Americas car industry

SpaceNut · 2020-12-19 17:02:31

So which of the US big three are production this...answer none

Toyota to unveil solid-state battery EV prototype next year

Here is another not happening here as for those that want a hybrid but not gas powered as This 2000 Honda Insight With a VW Turbo Diesel Swap May Be the Ultimate Fuel Saver

In the Bay Area, a Craigslist seller is looking for $6,000 cash or trade on his modified 2000 Honda Insight with a turbo-diesel engine. It's advertised as smog free (which is perfect for Californians) and gets 60 to 70 miles to the gallon.

Ingenuity ….

SpaceNut · 2020-12-21 18:52:51

America's still not making what we want as this articles even does for the Why would rich rebuilds put a V8 into a Tesla Model S well it has to do with no parts to repair them not even reclaimed damaged vehicles.

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Normally its the gas engine coming out of a vehicle and not the other way around.

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That is sure going to make for a fast beast....

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Car sure is in rough shape but if you are the one with the loan and its work on it yourself or keep paying for a car you can not frive what choices do you have.

In another note there is the people that put a tiny ICE inform of the electric drive train to make it a hybrid rather than a EV only.

Converting a rear wheel drive to a dual motor ev drive
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vCKLC7GBmc

SpaceNut · 2021-01-17 19:18:32

There other technology which I am still waiting to see how its going to be packaged and that is EV Transmissions Are Coming, And It’s A Good Thing

Types of Motors used in Electric Vehicles

Various types of Electric Motors used in Electric Vehicles
DC Series Motor
Brushless DC Motor
Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor (PMSM)
Three Phase AC Induction Motors
Switched Reluctance Motors (SRM)

SpaceNut · 2021-02-02 21:05:18

Auto industry still not getting the consumer want and buying forieng is not the answer...

Apple Car tipped to use Hyundai's EV platform as rumors mount BB1dk8w9.img?h=533&w=799&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f

kbd512 · 2021-02-03 19:49:34

SpaceNut,

People put LS engines into cars and trucks because there are millions of them and they're fantastic engines that have EFI and EI baked into the design, providing the longevity in operation, fuel economy, and ease of starting we've all come to expect from modern engines. Stock / crate engines are available from 300hp to 750hp or so. The aftermarket has more parts for the LS than nearly any other engine design, with the possible exception of the previous Small Block Chevy / Small Block Ford designs, which never went away. Using top-of-the-line aftermarket components and strict adherence to routine maintenance, an LS is easily a quarter million mile engine between overhauls. With an aftermarket iron block that has priority mains oiling, billet crank, billet steel main caps, billet H-beam connecting rods, forged pistons, ARP studs & nuts throughout, if the power level is limited to 500hp or so, it'll run for many years. They can be supercharged or turbocharged, but turbos are still the cheapest and easiest way to upgrade the power output. The aftermarket provides 6, 8, 10, 12, and 16 cylinder variants of the basic LS block design in cast iron, cast Aluminum, and billet Aluminum. After nearly 30 years, the LS is a Swiss Army Knife for shade tree mechanics, hot-rodders, every form of land and marine racing imaginable, as well as a light aircraft engine for experimental aircraft- and at least one company is working on certificating the Aluminum block engine for aircraft running old school big-bore Continental and Lycoming engines to reduce operating costs and fuel consumption. People routinely pull perfectly good engines of every description to swap in an LS.

I think the only other engines with similar track records are SBC/SBF/SBM (the original small blocks), BBC/BBF/BBM (nearly all high-dollar billet Aluminum NHRA drag racing engines or converted marine engines these days), Jeep / AMC Straight 6, Cummins inline six turbo diesels (pulling competitors go buck wild with these things, but in stock form these are million mile engines without even trying), DuraMax diesels (modern day big blocks with much better fuel economy and low-RPM torque), Mercedes OM600 series diesels (same weight and power potential as a mostly stock LS), and the 2JZ (people go nuts with these as well). There's a much smaller but fanatical following for the Mazda Wankel engines as well, making stupid amounts of power using boost levels that would leave pieces of most other gasoline piston engines all over the place. There are dozens of truly excellent inline 4 bangers from Honda / Suzuki / Yamaha, and if you have unlimited funding, then the sky's the limit with these things. Your experience with cheap plastic crap notwithstanding, flax six Subies are also good-to-go. All engines have rinky-dink plastic junk that fails these days, but it can be swapped with an upgraded part as time / money permits.

Any updates on the viability of producing new Lithium-ion batteries from recycled Lithium-ion batteries, or aftermarket parts for Teslas? In the near future, that's going to become increasingly important to support Tesla's vehicles over the long term. That "electric small block" that costs as much as a decent entry level drag racing engine was a start, but it's not enough. If Tesla and others want their vehicles to gain a loyal following amongst gear heads, then they need to "release the hounds", as it relates to aftermarket upgrades. Some large and well-funded racing shops can and have modded out race cars using electric motors and batteries, but the barrier to entry is still far too high.

SpaceNut · 2021-04-19 18:39:32

American EV's and Hybrids are being sold at the 25k plus and up but when most American's need a vehicle less than 10k for day to day use.

Gm is making this and is not being sold in the US
https://jalopnik.com/gm-keeps-making-am … 1846689417
approximate 5k price....

If you’re wondering about specs, this thing tops out at 62 mph with just 17.5 horsepower and can cover 105 miles on a charge even in its longest-range setup with a 13.5 kWh lithium-ion battery pack. You don’t get a lot of electric car for around four grand, but you do get an electric car.

https://singularityhub.com/2020/11/12/y … alifornia/

https://electrek.co/2020/08/20/gm-mini- … ce-orders/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuling_Hongguang_Mini_EV

found it could ship from there on ebay sales for 8300 but no US sales....

Calliban · 2021-04-20 06:47:41

Indeed, SpaceNut. This problem is not unique to the US. In the UK, most cars are now purchased using mortgage type arrangements. The price of new cars has increased dramatically over the past several years. They are becoming less and less affordable to the average man.

I think car companies and politicians that come out with clueless statements like 'all electric by 2030' and 'combustion engines to be banned within 15 years' need to think carefully about what they are trying to achieve. If the goal is to reduce emissions then there needs to be serious thought about the most cost effective way of doing that. There are all sorts of technical solutions that engineers could use to produce an affordable car with lower CO2 emissions. But most of these are now being ignored, because some idiot politico thought that banning IC engines by 2030, sounded like a good piece of virtue signalling. Why are these idiot politicians telling engineers how to do their jobs?

Last edited by Calliban (2021-04-20 06:49:41)

kbd512 · 2021-04-22 00:20:52

The ultimate solution is and always has been a reduction in energy usage. The simple fact of the matter is that you can't reduce energy consumption when you must continually make new things to replace the old things. It also takes power to move weight, and that is another simple aspect of undeniable physical objective reality. To that point, there's such a thing as "good weight" and "bad weight". Good weight increases the lifespan of the product and makes it practical to use in its expected operating environment. Bad weight is excessive "feature creep" that rapidly increases the complexity and weight of the powered vehicle.

To my way of thinking, I want a small 2 or 4 seat electric commuter vehicle, like the Microlino, that has manual windows, manual steering, and no electronics apart from what is minimally necessary to regulate the batteries, electric motor, and required lights. Steel unibody construction is ultimately the correct material and manufacturing method to use for minimal embodied energy. Embellishments that reduce weight but increase cost, such as CFRP doors or body panels and plexiglass windows, are best reserved for race cars and aircraft. Some low-cost and easily recyclable materials like 2024 / 6061 / 7075 Aluminum may be substituted for steel, in order to reduce weight, if absolutely required.

Beyond that, a real hard look at the manufacturing and recycling processes needs to be considered. We simply don't recycle enough high embodied energy materials, such as metals and plastics, to even put a dent in our sky-high energy demands. There would be no shortage of metals right now with near-100% recycling. Basically, all of our "old things" need to be recycled if we want to make "new things". To that end, serious attention to the recyclability of materials should be given.

Automotive interiors should be made with recyclable materials such as hemp fabrics or leather, wood, and metal. There shouldn't be a scrap of plastic in there, even if it superficially seems as if plastics are lighter and cheaper. Motor vehicles are supposed to be durable goods, so they should be fabricated from durable yet easily recyclable materials. Old hemp can be washed, burned for energy, or turned into cushion material for new seats. The wood can be burned for energy, repurposed, or turned into pulp for paper. The metal can be melted back down and turned into new parts for new motor vehicles. A Rolls Royce, for example, has leather seats / dash / door panels, sheepskin carpeting, wood inlays for dash and door panels, and metal air conditioning vents. Their owners clearly don't miss any of the plastic, either. A hard look at replacing paints with potential alternatives such as ion-bonded aerospace coatings should also be considered.

If we fully commit to recycling and repurposing, then our energy demands will plummet. The batteries are great if they last long enough, aren't loaded with hard to come by materials, can be fully recycled, and their practical limitations are respected. Switching back to metals and other more recyclable materials is the other part of our energy use equation. It takes a lot less energy to re-melt existing scrap metals than it does to produce new metal from raw ore.

Beyond that, perhaps more thought should be given to mobile lifestyles whereby people live in vans or motor homes with reduced energy requirements while stationary, as compared to houses. If you live in a steel house on wheels, then you don't have an additional structure that consumes many tons of materials. It also tends to cut down on the amount of clutter you accumulate over time- seldom useful crap that people buy, simply because they can, that also takes more energy to make. When space to put things is strictly limited, then far more thought is given regarding the purchasing of new things.

If I still lived the way I did while I was in the Navy, my personal energy usage would be very minimal. All of my personal belongings I carried on my back, made strong enough to do so by daily PT sessions, with little worry about caloric intake or getting fat, which very seldom happens when daily exercise is mandatory. If I bought new clothes, then I donated my old clothes. Since I owned so little, I took good care of what little I did have. Apart from working coveralls, all of my uniforms are still neatly cleaned and folded. My original pair of dress shoes issued in boot camp lasted about 10 years (6 years of use in the Navy and about 4 in the civilian world) before I finally wore through the sole and replaced them with a similar pair of civilian dress shoes that I still own and wear to work. If I had a shoe repair facility to take them to, I probably could've obtained another 10 years of service, because the leather was immaculate.

Anyway, you pick up your feet when you march, you wipe off dirt and water immediately, keep the leather pliable with polish and a good spit shine, replace laces, etc. It takes some effort, but it's not that hard to do and not a major time imposition. Polishing shoes, ironing clothes, and cleaning / inspecting weapons was also a time for personal reflection. We wrote down everything we learned or did with pen and paper, so we remembered it and could refer back to what we did. Researchers in labs do this on the regular. The MacBook Pro I'm typing this response from is now 10 years old and still going strong. Happy B-day little buddy. I've replaced the RAM and hard drive once, and will probably have to replace the RAM again here pretty soon because it's suffering from the random reboots again. Other than that, it's as solid as the day it left the factory. The IBM Selectric to the left of it is almost 60 years old now. It doesn't see nearly so much use these days, but a proper oiling, a fresh ink ribbon, and little bit of electricity is all that it requires to keep cranking out the memos and diary entries. It will certainly out-live me, and has probably already out-lived its original owner. Anyway, there's something to be said for ultimate durability.

SpaceNut · 2021-04-26 20:24:03

Something to keep in mind as the EV's all age is the batteries…. Electric cars: What will happen to all the dead batteries?

Some have cathode metals like cobalt, nickel, lithium and manganese, much of the substance of a battery is reduced during the recycling process to what is called black mass - a mixture of lithium, manganese, cobalt and nickel - which needs further, energy-intensive processing to recover the materials in a usable form of course with the aluminum and copper given into established recycling streams

louis · 2021-04-27 13:51:16

The most obvious way to reduce the cost of Electric Vehicles is to reduce the cost of batteries and the most obvious way to reduce the cost of the batteries in an EV is to reduce the mass of batteries in an EV - and the easiest way to do that is to have Electric Roads ie induction charging as you drive along. This could be fitted to sections of motorways and A roads so that the vast majority of people would never be more than ten minutes away from an electric road section. The cost of converting roads to induction charging is not prohibitive.

Converting to electric roads is not actually that expensive (even without taking into account savings on EV cost). The technology seems to work.

https://www.intelligenttransport.com/tr … evolution/

If batteries could be reduced to 10% of current size - maybe to give you a range of 30 miles without electric roads - that would have a huge impact on cost. Remember the fuel and maintenance costs of EVs are significantly lower than with fossil fuel cars.

On the question of the cost of cars more generally it has to surely be the case that the life of a car is now much longer .They don't turn into rust buckets after 5 years and seem to be much more reliable.

Calliban wrote:

Indeed, SpaceNut. This problem is not unique to the US. In the UK, most cars are now purchased using mortgage type arrangements. The price of new cars has increased dramatically over the past several years. They are becoming less and less affordable to the average man.
I think car companies and politicians that come out with clueless statements like 'all electric by 2030' and 'combustion engines to be banned within 15 years' need to think carefully about what they are trying to achieve. If the goal is to reduce emissions then there needs to be serious thought about the most cost effective way of doing that. There are all sorts of technical solutions that engineers could use to produce an affordable car with lower CO2 emissions. But most of these are now being ignored, because some idiot politico thought that banning IC engines by 2030, sounded like a good piece of virtue signalling. Why are these idiot politicians telling engineers how to do their jobs?

Calliban · 2021-04-27 14:56:51

Electrified roads. This would appear to me to be a better idea than long-range battery electric, as the materials involved are steel, ferritic iron, aluminium alloy, smaller amounts of copper and power electronics. All quite common materials, already mass produced and relatively cheap. The technology is more easily scalable for this reason. It is quite telling that electric transportation in the form of electric railways, trams and underground systems, has been around for over 100 years. It is already a primary means of transportation in many countries and most large cities. But it is almost exclusively grid-powered. Grid connected vehicles have big advantages over battery powered, in terms power-weight ratio, capital cost and range.

Electrified roads would be mostly confined to motorways and dual carriageways. No one in their right mind crosses these on foot anyway. The cost of electrification for railways was estimated to be about £1 million per track-km back in the late 90s. Not sure about now, but this is a similar concept, so once it is fully developed costs should be similar.

One thing that may make this more costly than its advocates anticipate: transformer stations. Because the electrified strip is attached to the ground, voltage must be kept low in order to avoid earthing faults. I mean no more than a few hundred volts between two phases and no more than a couple of hundred volts above ground. The problem this introduces is that to deliver a reasonable amount of power requires high current, which necessitates either very thick conductors or very regular transformer stations along the road. The UK's DC third rail network suffers similar problems. The track voltage is 750 volts. To deliver a power of 3MW, which is what Eurostar trains draw from the track, requires that the third rail carry currents up to 4000 amps. You will notice that third rails are quite thick. This helps to keep electrical resistance manageable. Even so, to avoid excessive voltage drop, transformer stations must be positioned every mile along the track in urban areas and every three miles on less busy routes. It is the cost of doing this, along with the unsuitability of third rail for powering heavy freight trains, that is leading to the gradual phase out of third rail in the UK.

The Swedish electric strips are much thinner than third rails. This limits their current carrying capacity. The need for low voltage will further limit the power that can be delivered by the system. Let's say we use aluminium alloy strips with three times better conductivity than steel, with one tenth the cross-section of a third rail and voltage between poles of 250v, say. The strip could still deliver a respectable 300KW. Maybe enough to provide full power to an HGV under acceleration conditions 300-400kw), maybe three of them driving at steady speed 60mph.

Transformer stations would need to be spaced depending upon anticipated traffic levels. It is the need for regular transformer stations powering the local track that makes DC third rail relatively expensive and unsuitable for heavy freight. Likewise, the electric road as it is described, would be more suitable for cars than heavy freight vehicles. Rating the road for heavy freight would be more expensive than electrifying it for cars. I don't think electrifying roads will be cheap. But this is probably the only way mass car culture will be sustainable at all in a pure electric system. Batteries just don't have the energy density needed to make the BEV a mass market solution with comparable range to IC vehicles.

Last edited by Calliban (2021-04-27 15:10:26)

louis · 2021-04-27 15:09:04

My understanding of the induction systems is that they react with the vehicle and that it is in fact quite safe to walk on them. I recall trials with them being used at bus stops. So, as far as I am aware, the induction systems can be built into a variety of main roads.

So it's not like an exposed third rail on a rail system.

Calliban wrote:

Electrified roads. This would appear to me to be a better idea than long-range battery electric, as the materials involved are steel, ferritic iron, aluminium alloy, smaller amounts of copper and power electronics. All quite common materials, already mass produced and relatively cheap. The technology is more easily scalable for this reason. It is quite telling that electric transportation in the form of electric railways, trams and underground systems, has been around for over 100 years. It is already a primary means of transportation in many countries and most large cities. But it is almost exclusively grid-powered. Grid connected vehicles have big advantages over battery powered, in terms power-weight ratio, capital cost and range.
Electrified roads would be mostly confined to motorways and dual carriageways. No one in their right mind crosses these on foot anyway. The cost of electrification for railways was estimated to be about £1 million per track-km back in the late 90s. Not sure about now, but this is a similar concept, so once it is fully developed costs should be similar.
One thing that may make this more costly than its advocates anticipate: transformer stations. Because the electrified strip is attached to the ground, voltage must be kept low in order to avoid earthing faults. I mean no more than a few hundred volts between two phases and no more than a couple of hundred volts above ground. The problem this introduces is that to deliver a reasonable amount of power requires high current, which necessitates either very thick conductors or very regular transformer stations along the road. The UK's DC third rail network suffers similar problems. The track voltage is 750 volts. To deliver a power of 3MW, which is what Eurostar trains draw from the track, requires that the third rail carry currents up to 4000 amps. You will notice that third rails are quite thick. This helps to keep electrical resistance manageable. Even so, to avoid excessive voltage drop, transformer stations must be positioned every mile along the track in urban areas and every three miles on less busy routes. The Swedish electric strips are much thinner than third rails. This limits their current carrying capacity. The need for low voltage will further limit the power that can be delivered by the system. Let's say we use aluminium alloy strips with three times better conductivity than steel, with one tenth the cross-section of a third rail and voltage between poles of 250v, say. The strip could still deliver a respectable 300KW. Maybe enough to provide full power to an HGV under acceleration conditions 300-400kw), maybe three of them driving at steady speed 60mph.
Transformer stations would need to be spaced depending upon anticipated traffic levels. It is the need for regular transformer stations powering the local track that makes DC third rail relatively expensive and unsuitable for heavy freight. Likewise, the electric road as it is described, would be more suitable for cars than heavy freight vehicles. Rating the road for heavy freight would be more expensive than electrifying it for cars. I don't think electrifying roads will be cheap. But this is probably the only way mass car culture will be sustainable at all in a pure electric system.

Calliban · 2021-04-27 15:37:45

Inductive coupling? I can't see that being affordable for tens of thousands of km of roadway. It means having copper induction coils embedded in the road.

https://www.traffictechnologytoday.com/ … ystem.html

From this article, they are suggesting $12.5 million for a 1mile section of road. It doesn't tell us if that is in both directions.

For heavy trucks and buses, catenary electrification is established technology. This is how trams are powered for example. Something similar would work for heavy vehicles on trunk roads. I don't see what inductive power transfer adds for these type of vehicles. A catenary will deliver far more power.

Last edited by Calliban (2021-04-27 15:38:10)

SpaceNut · 2021-04-27 18:01:18

With the roads all having different attributes for temperature, moisture, lots of ice and snow, potholes and frost heaves its just not going to be do able.
A better way to save vehicle mass is to stop buying a 5 to 10 passenger when all that ever rides in them is 1 or 2...That saves on motor mass, vehicle mass and battery storage mass as the entire vehicle changes to meet the goal....

louis · 2021-04-27 18:14:37

It does make economic sense!

If you factor in the financial and environmental costs of heavy batteries in EVs then this system's benefits soon become clear. How much cheaper would a car with 10% of the normal battery weight be? I'd say at least 25% cheaper since batteries are such a large component of the cost. The EV would be far less polluting as well due to the reduced weight on the tyres. Not only that but it would be a much better driver experience - never having to worry about running out of fuel on a long journey.

You don't have to cover every mile of road. You have sections of inductive charging every few miles. I don't know how long the sections would be - I would guess something like 10 miles long every 100 miles on a motorway (about 12 mins at 70mph) but more like a top-up for short sections on other main roads.

They are trialling wireless systems where your EV communicates with the induction system and you can be automatically billed for the energy you extract. That would be best sort of system in my view.

Road surface are remade every few years in any case as part of general maintenance so you could combine your induction charging installation with the usual road maintenance - that would help lower cost.

Calliban wrote:

Inductive coupling? I can't see that being affordable for tens of thousands of km of roadway. It means having copper induction coils embedded in the road.
https://www.traffictechnologytoday.com/ … ystem.html
From this article, they are suggesting $12.5 million for a 1mile section of road. It doesn't tell us if that is in both directions.
For heavy trucks and buses, catenary electrification is established technology. This is how trams are powered for example. Something similar would work for heavy vehicles on trunk roads. I don't see what inductive power transfer adds for these type of vehicles. A catenary will deliver far more power.

kbd512 · 2021-04-27 18:15:28

SpaceNut,

All of the dead batteries will be turned into metal alloys because the mix of elements is so complete that it's not economical to separate them in most cases. These long ribbons of human-hair thickness active material in modern Lithium-ion batteries are great for energy density, despite being nowhere near what they need to be to compete with gasoline, but terrible for recyclability. The can is made from one material, the anode and cathode of different alloys, the electrolyte contains another material, and the separators are plastic. You can probably create a machine that can recycle it, but putting one together is intentionally nowhere near as easy as taking one apart. The ultimate solution is to either use much smaller batteries with fewer cells in the pack, in much smaller vehicles intended for daily commuting, such as the Microlino, or to develop very efficient small combustion engines that are also placed into much smaller daily commuters.

As you so often point out, isn't it funny how virtually none of our "energy saving" technological advancements have ultimately saved any energy?

I'm sure they decreased the rate of increase of energy consumption, but that seems to be the limit of what they can do. I've been spending a lot of time on that "Low-Tech Magazine" website you've linked to numerous times. It's really made me think a lot about what we're doing and if we're actually making our energy consumption problems worse. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like a trap.

louis · 2021-04-27 19:27:26

And yet these technologies can deliver energy at below 2 cent per KwHe...

I notice you put in the caveat "it's not economical to separate them in most cases"... how often have we heard these stories over the years.

I've lived through:

"PV power is horrendously expensive and can never compete with fossil fuels or nuclear power". Total bollox. Now often 4 to 7 cents cheaper per KwH.

"Batteries will never be able to part of grid operations. They are too expensive and too weak." Now we regularly see battery installations backing up solar or wind power in order to deliver much more reliable power supply to a grid.

"Green energy can never deliver reliable power 24/7 every day." We are seeing now that this also is false. Denmark has a well developed plan to combine wind energy production with hydrogen (from electrolysis) to provide a 100% reliable energy solution.

kbd512 wrote:

SpaceNut,
All of the dead batteries will be turned into metal alloys because the mix of elements is so complete that it's not economical to separate them in most cases. These long ribbons of human-hair thickness active material in modern Lithium-ion batteries are great for energy density, despite being nowhere near what they need to be to compete with gasoline, but terrible for recyclability. The can is made from one material, the anode and cathode of different alloys, the electrolyte contains another material, and the separators are plastic. You can probably create a machine that can recycle it, but putting one together is intentionally nowhere near as easy as taking one apart. The ultimate solution is to either use much smaller batteries with fewer cells in the pack, in much smaller vehicles intended for daily commuting, such as the Microlino, or to develop very efficient small combustion engines that are also placed into much smaller daily commuters.
As you so often point out, isn't it funny how virtually none of our "energy saving" technological advancements have ultimately saved any energy?
I'm sure they decreased the rate of increase of energy consumption, but that seems to be the limit of what they can do. I've been spending a lot of time on that "Low-Tech Magazine" website you've linked to numerous times. It's really made me think a lot about what we're doing and if we're actually making our energy consumption problems worse. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like a trap.

kbd512 · 2021-04-27 21:29:48

Louis,

Show me a single place in America or Europe where anyone who pays for electricity paid 2 cents per kilowatt-hour for electricity provided by solar power.

PV is horrendously expensive and doesn't compete with coal or nuclear power. That's why the Germans pay 30 cents or more per kilowatt-hour of electricity. All that stuff they purchased can't overturn the laws of physics.

Pointing out how cheap solar power is in Saudi Arabia where the government subsidized more than half of the cost and used their equivalent of indentured servants to install all of it is horrendously disingenuous, though. Look how cheap wind power is in Norway. That must mean that whatever applies to Norway applies to the rest of the planet. Seriously, give the economic sophistry a rest already.

There aren't any batteries that are a part of grid operations. Grid operations run 24/7/365, without end. There are no batteries that store power for 12 hours per day at a national level. None. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

The batteries are necessary because the wind isn't a reliable power source. Tell me how much people are paying for wind turbines backed up by Lithium-ion batteries. Show me a power bill, not a propaganda article written by the company that's economically benefiting from all the deception. It sure as heck isn't 2 cents per kilowatt-hour, unless someone else paid for the entire cost of the batteries.

Green energy doesn't deliver reliable power 24/7. Green energy is wind and solar and batteries, remember?

In 2018, Denmark produced 288PJ of energy from oil, 121PJ from natural gas, 98 PJ from coal, 18PJ from burning waste, and 257PJ from "renewable energy". The 33% that they get from "renewable energy", which includes 20% for burning trash, and that is "somehow" considered "renewable energy".

The more I read and hear from people evangelizing their "green energy" farce, that's clearly nothing of the sort, the less and less I'm inclined to believe a word they say, because they flatly refuse to engage in honest debate. Burning trash and turds isn't "green energy".

You do realize that anyone with internet access and passing curiosity can simply search for and immediately refute all of these claims you make, don't you?

Calliban · 2021-04-28 00:39:18

Regarding battery systems installed in wind and solar power plants. A lot of people seem to have misleading ideas about what these batteries are there to do. Typically, they are rated to store a few hours worth of power output from the plant, typically a few hundred MWh. Their purpose is to reduce the slew rate of these power systems, allowing time for CCGT powerplants to be brought online if they fall off grid. Without them, wind and solar power plants would introduce unacceptable frequency fluctuations that would crash the grid. This actually happened in the south of England a few years back, leading to power cuts that lasted for a couple of days for some people and covering most of South East England.

These systems are by no means cheap. But they are the only storage option that can respond quickly enough. Wind farms are unstable and can drop off the grid fairly instantaneously, taking hundreds of MW of capacity with them. The UK grid no longer has sufficient spinning reserve to be able to tolerate that. So battery banks it must be. It is an expensive addition to these powerplants. It is not there to provide bulk grid level storage. It is more a buffer between the powerplant and grid.

Last edited by Calliban (2021-04-28 00:43:20)

Calliban · 2021-04-28 01:30:17

louis wrote:

If you factor in the financial and environmental costs of heavy batteries in EVs then this system's benefits soon become clear. How much cheaper would a car with 10% of the normal battery weight be? I'd say at least 25% cheaper since batteries are such a large component of the cost. The EV would be far less polluting as well due to the reduced weight on the tyres. Not only that but it would be a much better driver experience - never having to worry about running out of fuel on a long journey.
You don't have to cover every mile of road. You have sections of inductive charging every few miles. I don't know how long the sections would be - I would guess something like 10 miles long every 100 miles on a motorway (about 12 mins at 70mph) but more like a top-up for short sections on other main roads.

The road power supply would need to be continuous on trunk roads, especially if this is intended to power heavy trucks. Those things can draw hundreds of kW each. If you have driven on the M25 or M6 during daylight hours, and I bet you have, you will have seen the traffic levels that this sort of system would need to be rated for. You are taking up to 100 vehicles per km. Total engine power of all those trucks and cars will be more than 1MW.

Regarding Denmark and Netherlands, both have plans to install hydrogen electrolysis stacks at existing gas turbine powerplants. The idea is to use excess power to generate hydrogen that can be stored in tanks and then used to reduce natural gas consumption when demand exceeds supply. It is an effort to reduce the huge cross-border power flows that are now threatening grid stability in Northern Europe. Given the constraints that they face in terms of power supply variability, the high cost of battery storage, shrinking supplies of natural gas; this is an appropriate solution, that mitigates several problems simultaneously using mostly existing power infrastructure. But it has limitations.

It is not possible to use this sort of system to store days or weeks worth of power, because of the low density of hydrogen gas. The idea is for electrolysis to even out some of the short term variability, allowing natural gas to continue providing the bulk of backup energy supply. Round trip efficiency is between 20-40%, depending upon the operating conditions of the CCGTs. But it is better than just throwing the electricity away. And both backup and storage use the same powerplant which reduces capital costs. It isn't quite so simple as just switching between natural gas and hydrogen. Natural gas has three times the energy density of H2 under standard conditions. So hydrogen will probably need to be blended with natural gas to get the flame characteristics right for the burners and for the GT to operate at heavy load. But it is a more integrated system than trying to have separate backup and storage plants. I don't think anyone knows how much it is going to cost yet. It is an effort to reduce, rather than eliminate, European reliance on natural gas. And it will work within its limitations.

My point earlier in this thread was that more cost effective technologies have ended up being sidelined due to political idealism. Idealistic people tend to gravitate towards idealistic solutions. The Dutch hydrogen experiment is an example of using existing technology to mitigate a problem in a way that is affordable given the infrastructure already in place. We need more thinking like that in the years ahead. As fossil fuel ERoEI continues to decline, the effect on Western economies has been a slow erosion of prosperity, which has been papered over by rising levels of debt and currency inflation. Ideas that reduce fossil fuel consumption with the minimum of new capital outlay stand a better chance of success in this situation than expensive solutions that require entirely new technology and a radical redesign of electric grids and transport systems. Very soon, we will find that the money no longer exists for large scale systematic change.

At the moment, zero interest rates and large scale quantitative easing, have distorted the economics of energy supply by making capital cost considerations almost irrelevant. This will end very quickly when inflation picks up and central banks are forced to raise interest rates to bolster the value of currencies. A lot of cherished assumptions about cost reductions in new technology will die at this point. Suddenly, capital costs will matter once again and governments and commercial interests will be attempting to stay afloat servicing debts that have suddenly become very heavy. Idealistic projects, like electric roads, solar power plants, electric charging infrastructure, will disappear off of the political radar. They will be interested in options for keeping the system running, that involve the minimum cost for all involved. I think a lot of idealistic people are going to be disappointed when it turns out that we are still using ICE vehicles in 2040. Very likely, hybrid systems will be used to reduce fuel consumption. But the economic environment ten years from now will not be conducive to massive new infrastructure investment.

Last edited by Calliban (2021-04-28 02:38:35)

Calliban · 2021-04-28 04:55:25

Hyperinflation rears its ugly head. M1 money supply shows a trajectory reminiscent of the Weimar Republic in the 1920s. The US treasury is falling into the same inflationary trap. At first, inflating the money supply appears to provide a means to finance deficits. With interest rates so low, institutional investors end up hoarding cash, as real returns are hopelessly poor. Hence, increasing money supply reduces the velocity of money, so long as interest rates remain close to zero. As soon as velocity of money increases, the much larger money supply leads to rapid increases in prices for all real goods. This would happen if real interest rates were to rise in an attempt to bolster the value of the dollar. A dangerous game to be playing.
http://www.seeitmarket.com/is-inflation … -velocity/

In other news, food prices are rising rapidly. This means that consumer disposable income is being stretched. I predict a riot!
https://austrian.economicblogs.org/zero … inflation/

Brent crude is now at $66/barrel. These prices are not the result of surging demand in a buoyant economy. They are the result of supply constraints. COVID shutdown a large part of the world's oil production due to large reduction in human travel. With most OPEC producers past their peak production and facing long-term decline, the role of swing producer was temporarily filled by US shale. This was a role that could only be fulfilled with the aid of free money policies. The high drilling rates required to maintain oil production make shale very capital intensive compared to conventional onshore production. Unfortunately, the game appears to be up. Even with credit priced beneath inflation, no one can make enough money from shale to pay good returns whilst keeping the company solvent. We are now well and truly living in the Peak Oil era. Don't forget to stock up on Soylent Green. I have lost count of the number of people that spent their so much of their lives arguing that this wasn't going to happen, whilst the energy dynamic deteriorated around them.

Costly BEV vehicles are not going to help. Schemes for mass electrification of roads are going to run out of money. The time to do things like that was the 1990s, when we still had the excess energy needed to pull off massive infrastructure investment. Sensible mitigation needs to focus on options to improve fuel economy with minimal capital cost. This suggests to me hybrid vehicles, able to make use of different fuels and able to recover breaking energy. The focus needs to be on goods transportation. Diesel will be the first fuel to experience supply constraints and is the fuel used to ship goods around the world. Petrol is if anything a wate product from the oil industry. A heavy truck that could burn petrol or LPG in a solid oxide fuel cell and recover breaking energy in a hydraulic cylinder, would be of enormous value in the years ahead. The same with container ships. The emphasis needs to be improving efficiency and making use of fuels whose supply is going to decline less rapidly. People are more flexible than goods. We can walk, cycle and there are small velomobiles that can provide human mobility that rivals that provided by car, if people are prepared to compromise a little. But transportation of goods is a more difficult problem.

When interest rates rise again, as they surely must, the results are going to destroy a lot of cherished delusions about renewable energy. We have been living in an era in which dumped Chinese solar panels, made using cheap coal based electric power and financed as state owned operations, are purchased using low interest rate money, installed using cheap labour and backed up by low cost natural gas powerplants, which are gradually being run into the ground. This sort of thing can be tolerated only as long as money and energy remain cheap enough to support them. When that ceases to be the case, the whole Ponzi scheme is exposed. When that will happen, we cannot know. But happen it will. And when it does, the survival of the western world will hang on its ability to ramp up its only remaining high ERoEI energy source quickly.

Last edited by Calliban (2021-04-28 05:43:38)

louis · 2021-04-28 08:59:16

M6 Toll road at 43.4 Kms long has 50000 vehicles drive on it every day (mostly cars and vans). EVs travel 100 Kms for 15 KwHes of energy. Let's assume the average journey length is say 35 Kms (there are several junctions) That would give an energy demand of 5.25 KwHes per journey which would translate to 262.5 MwHes for 50,000 cars (would be higher the more you add in truck traffic - assuming they were part of such a system). That would give an average of 10.93 MwHes per hour. But traffic varies during the day and so let's assume a peak of x3 - that would give a peak of nearly 33 MwHes.

But of course, vehicles won't arrive at the toll road with empty batteries. They will have been charging en route. So is that amount of power required.

This is a lot more complicated than I thought!

Will the induction system be able to "talk" to the EVs? - so be able to assess whether an EV has a low battery that needs continues charging along a stretch of road? It might be important for the induction system to "ration" power during peak periods in this way.

I've always been wary of hydrogen as a "solution" given the storage issues. I would still like to see some work done on the cost of manufacturing methane from air and water using surplus green energy which has an effective marginal cost of zero when grid operators won't take it. It is currently just earthed. If we used that energy to manufacture methane, how much would it cost? I did look into that once and the best guesstimate I could come up with was maybe something like 25 cents per KwHe of power produced. Sounds high but if you are using that only to cover low wind-solar energy days, that might be only 10% of the year's energy production (about 30 full days) and you don't have to cover 100% of wind and solar, since you can ramp up other energy e.g. energy from waste, hydro, tidal, and bio fuels to close some of the gap. If your wind-solar energy is priced at 2 cents per KwHe and produces 80& of overall energy in one year, 10% comes from other green sources at 8 cents per KwHe and 10% from manufactured methane at 25 cents per KwHe the overall average price would be 4.9 cents per KwHe - a respectable figure, comparable with using natural methane now.

Calliban wrote:

louis wrote:
If you factor in the financial and environmental costs of heavy batteries in EVs then this system's benefits soon become clear. How much cheaper would a car with 10% of the normal battery weight be? I'd say at least 25% cheaper since batteries are such a large component of the cost. The EV would be far less polluting as well due to the reduced weight on the tyres. Not only that but it would be a much better driver experience - never having to worry about running out of fuel on a long journey.
You don't have to cover every mile of road. You have sections of inductive charging every few miles. I don't know how long the sections would be - I would guess something like 10 miles long every 100 miles on a motorway (about 12 mins at 70mph) but more like a top-up for short sections on other main roads.
The road power supply would need to be continuous on trunk roads, especially if this is intended to power heavy trucks. Those things can draw hundreds of kW each. If you have driven on the M25 or M6 during daylight hours, and I bet you have, you will have seen the traffic levels that this sort of system would need to be rated for. You are taking up to 100 vehicles per km. Total engine power of all those trucks and cars will be more than 1MW.
Regarding Denmark and Netherlands, both have plans to install hydrogen electrolysis stacks at existing gas turbine powerplants. The idea is to use excess power to generate hydrogen that can be stored in tanks and then used to reduce natural gas consumption when demand exceeds supply. It is an effort to reduce the huge cross-border power flows that are now threatening grid stability in Northern Europe. Given the constraints that they face in terms of power supply variability, the high cost of battery storage, shrinking supplies of natural gas; this is an appropriate solution, that mitigates several problems simultaneously using mostly existing power infrastructure. But it has limitations.
It is not possible to use this sort of system to store days or weeks worth of power, because of the low density of hydrogen gas. The idea is for electrolysis to even out some of the short term variability, allowing natural gas to continue providing the bulk of backup energy supply. Round trip efficiency is between 20-40%, depending upon the operating conditions of the CCGTs. But it is better than just throwing the electricity away. And both backup and storage use the same powerplant which reduces capital costs. It isn't quite so simple as just switching between natural gas and hydrogen. Natural gas has three times the energy density of H2 under standard conditions. So hydrogen will probably need to be blended with natural gas to get the flame characteristics right for the burners and for the GT to operate at heavy load. But it is a more integrated system than trying to have separate backup and storage plants. I don't think anyone knows how much it is going to cost yet. It is an effort to reduce, rather than eliminate, European reliance on natural gas. And it will work within its limitations.
My point earlier in this thread was that more cost effective technologies have ended up being sidelined due to political idealism. Idealistic people tend to gravitate towards idealistic solutions. The Dutch hydrogen experiment is an example of using existing technology to mitigate a problem in a way that is affordable given the infrastructure already in place. We need more thinking like that in the years ahead. As fossil fuel ERoEI continues to decline, the effect on Western economies has been a slow erosion of prosperity, which has been papered over by rising levels of debt and currency inflation. Ideas that reduce fossil fuel consumption with the minimum of new capital outlay stand a better chance of success in this situation than expensive solutions that require entirely new technology and a radical redesign of electric grids and transport systems. Very soon, we will find that the money no longer exists for large scale systematic change.
At the moment, zero interest rates and large scale quantitative easing, have distorted the economics of energy supply by making capital cost considerations almost irrelevant. This will end very quickly when inflation picks up and central banks are forced to raise interest rates to bolster the value of currencies. A lot of cherished assumptions about cost reductions in new technology will die at this point. Suddenly, capital costs will matter once again and governments and commercial interests will be attempting to stay afloat servicing debts that have suddenly become very heavy. Idealistic projects, like electric roads, solar power plants, electric charging infrastructure, will disappear off of the political radar. They will be interested in options for keeping the system running, that involve the minimum cost for all involved. I think a lot of idealistic people are going to be disappointed when it turns out that we are still using ICE vehicles in 2040. Very likely, hybrid systems will be used to reduce fuel consumption. But the economic environment ten years from now will not be conducive to massive new infrastructure investment.

Calliban · 2021-04-28 09:59:24

There is no such thing as electricity with zero marginal cost. If a power producer is dumping power onto the grid at zero or negative prices some of the time, he will go bankrupt unless he can overcharge for electricity at other times. It is obvious really. The fact that this really happens should be a wake up call to just how unsustainable intermittent energy really is.

Regarding electrolytic hydrogen, one of the largest single cost drivers is the capacity factor of the electrolysis stack. If you invest money in any productive asset, the way to get the best returns (and minimal product cost) is to run that asset 24/7 at full capacity. That is why most factories run 24/7 and many people work night shifts. Running your electrolysis stack on those occasions where you happen to have surplus energy available on a windy night or sunny day, would result in expensive hydrogen.

I have produced links to a study on this board that confirmed exactly that result. And it should be obvious. Anything that only works occasionally, has a high marginal cost. The study showed that to produce ammonia based synthetic fuels at a price that is competitive with oil at $40/barrel, which is about the limit if you want positive value economic growth, electricity price must be no greater than $0.01/kWh and capacity factor must exceed 90%. The authors concluded that even modular light water reactors cannot meet that requirement. It will take mass produced modular high temperature reactors coupled to ammonia synthesis plants, to produce synthetic fuels cheaply enough to replace fossil fuels.

That is what we are up against. It is a stretch for nuclear energy and utterly impossible for RE. When RE plants have to operate under normal range interest rates and have to pay the full cost of backup and storage, I think $0.25/kWh is a more likely electricity price. This shouldn't be surprising. It is about what solar electricity cost back in 2008, before interest rates dropped to zero and governments started pumping the economy with endless new money. We are talking about energy sources with 1-2 orders of magnitude greater energy and materials investments for the same amount of power, compared to nuclear or legacy fossil and then what is essentially an entire extra power station to store and generate power when RE levels are too low. The only reason that these energy sources appear at all competitive at present, is financial gimmicks and energy markets that allow them to dump onto the grid without contributing a penny to backup generators. We face an ugly day of reckoning with this sort of nonsense when interst rates have to rise into positive territory again.

Last edited by Calliban (2021-04-28 10:12:31)

SpaceNut · 2021-04-28 18:15:54

One or more car crashes or slow downs at night would eat the power up for sure and whom is paying for it.....

Calliban · 2021-04-29 03:01:28

Whilst I have poked some holes, I think Louis's idea of an electric road is a good one. Cost and mineral resource limitations stand in the way of a transition from ICE to pure BEV road vehicles. In-transit power transfer is the way that all successful electric transportation has worked up to this point. The alternatives are:

(1) To provide tighter emissions regulations for new vehicles, without specifying what technologies are used to meet them. This would push society in the direction of hybrid vehicles, with increasing inclusions of biofuels, using whatever surplus energy we have for biomass or fossil fuel upgrading. This approach avoids large new infrastructure investments at least in the short term. The problem is that it doesn't eliminate the need for liquid fuels or CO2 emissions, unless we are able to produce carbon free synthetic fuels at low prices. Oil production appears to have passed its peak and decline rates could be as high as 5% per year.

(2) We transition away from car culture, towards rail and bus based mass transit systems. This has its own benefits, but also has limitations in places where population is spread out. It would also require infrastructure investment of its own.

The electric road approach allows a clean break from dependence on large amounts of liquid fossil fuels for transportation. There are of course questions about how it would work, technologically, how best to do it, system reliability, primary energy source, etc. My main concern with such a revolutionary approach is the high systematic capital cost that must be sunk into a road network, before it becomes practically usable. If we had started in the 80s or 90s, something like this would have stood a better chance of success. But we now live in an environment where debt has been used to cover shortfalls in income for too long and debt levels are so high that they threaten systematic collapse. It suggests to me that we may not be able to afford the most desirable options in reducing our dependence on fossil fuels.

Last edited by Calliban (2021-04-29 03:05:29)

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