NY Times: "How to Charge Millions of Electric Cars?"

[Reddy]

Good article. A while back I had the pleasure of hearing Dr. Kintner-Meyer speak about EVs & the Smart Grid at our local library. Also, I also read one of his articles where he estimated that given the US grid and generators that exist today (well, at the time of the article, probably around 2010), about 75% of current vehicles could be replaced with EVs without the addition of any new generation. So to answer the question "How to Charge Millions of Electric Cars?", just plug them in every night. According to Dr. Kintner-Meyer, there is plenty of excess generation capacity at night and most of the rest of the time as well (except summer afternoon to early evening peaks, mostly in the South). He also showed that if we use V2G smart grid technology, about 5-15% of the vehicles should charge during the day while at work to help stabilize the grid (frequency regulation or something like that). Here are a couple of links to more:
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2013/03/pnnl-20130306.html
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=5494&p=274676&hilit=+V2G#p274676
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=11515&p=267565#p267505

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Our Ability Tomanipulate Environment Will Insure That Some Of Us Will Survive But The Greater The Level Of Manipulation, The Lesser The Earth's Ability To Support Us And A Prediction Of A Billion Might Be Reasonable But Unless Its The "Right" Billion That Number Will Rdduce Dramatically Very Quickly.

Luft, that type of talk is what looses people.
The planet will be just fine.
Our society is what is at risk.
Many individuals will suffer. Starvation will occur more often and there will be migrations of humans on a scale we have never seen.
Add to that the many species that will go extinct as a result of our experiment and things do look dire indeed.
But the planet will be just fine.

If by "the planet will be fine" you mean that it will support cockroaches and single cell animals and maybe more complex lifeforms millions of year later then yeah, you could be right. If you think that two hundred years from now there will still be human life on earth then not so much.

I do. As a matter of fact I don't believe GW could possibly make us extinct.
I certainly believe it could bring the population down to 1 Billion.
Again, the planet will be fine. Don't exaggerate, it makes your argument look weak and people will be less likely to be swayed by anything you say.
The facts are bad enough, no need for ridiculous statements of doom.

 

[Luft]

Our Ability Tomanipulate Environment Will Insure That Some Of Us Will Survive But The Greater The Level Of Manipulation, The Lesser The Earth's Ability To Support Us And A Prediction Of A Billion Might Be Reasonable But Unless Its The "Right" Billion That Number Will Rdduce Dramatically Very Quickly.

Let us hope that after the global eco system collapses, enough of our planet's natural CO2 scrubbers and oxygen producers survive to prevent a catastrophic change in the composition of our atmosphere that would make it unbreathable.

The collapse of our eco system will come in waves. Each wave making the survival of another critical part of the eco system impossible. This process will continue until we reach a new stable eco system. The new stable eco point could be void of plant and animal life except for the very small one cell variety. This new stable eco system would have to grow over millions or even billions of years into a new more complex eco system allowing larger life forms. I do not think man will be among them.

 

[nosuchthing]

I am surprised no one mentioned ocean acidification, leading to the loss of green plankton. It's the plankton not the trees that makes the most important contribution to oxygen generation. In other words, we will not have enough oxygen to breathe with the trees alone after plankton disappears. The acidification progresses so fast it will be unable to adapt to the new toxic environment.

PG&E is finally realizing, they'll be the new "Arabs." Thank god for PVs to offset the generators' future monopoly.

 

[Luft]

I am surprised no one mentioned ocean acidification, leading to the loss of green plankton. It's the plankton not the trees that makes the most important contribution to oxygen generation. In other words, we will not have enough oxygen to breathe with the trees alone after plankton disappears. The acidification progresses so fast it will be unable to adapt to the new toxic environment.

PG&E is finally realizing, they'll be the new "Arabs." Thank god for PVs to offset the generators' future monopoly.

That's correct. And the decaying plankton will remove oxygen from the oceans causing huge dead zones.

 

[hill]

With all the hub bub about 'wasting' electricity ... I guess that means we ought not build any more refineries either. Yep ... last time I checked, refineries didn't run on by children's laughter. I hear plenty of folk cry about not building more refineries ... as though that'll some how bring back an oil glut like in the 1960's. Although ... if you watch some of the BP commercials ... you might mistakenly think so. One way or the other ... if we want to grow the world's economy (necessary to reduce our trillion dollar debt as well as the rest of the industrialized world's) then we'll need more fuel for more transportation. It's gona take juice ... either for refineries ... or directly into your plugin.

 

[timhebb]

Climate change has been happening long before man ruled the earth. We might be able to reverse some of the effect but mostly life needs to adapt or perish.

True, but climate change has never been caused by a living species before, and it doesn't seem wise to ignore that and proceed as if it's just another natural cycle to which we need to adjust. We are creating it this time, and have an opportunity to reverse or at least retard it to some degree by modifying our behavior as a species. Shouldn't we?

Trees caused climate change...

Possibly, but not living trees, since they convert CO2 to oxygen while alive. When they die and rot they release the carbon dioxide they've absorbed, but they are no longer a "living species." Now, dinosaur (and cattle) flatulence, that's another story...

 

[nosuchthing]

Yup...400 liters of "flatulence" methane per day per steer that is 20x more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. You do the math...

Me? I'm a vegi.

 

[Luft]

Yup...400 liters of "flatulence" methane per day per steer that is 20x more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. You do the math...

Me? I'm a vegi.

Okay, 400 liters per day is 16.67 liters per hour. Hoowahhh! Somebody needs to cut back on their fiber intake.

 

[nosuchthing]

Fiber is all they eat, unfortunately. Maybe reduce the number of their stomachs from 4 to...say 2? Genetic engineering anyone? No more cuddle chewing?

How about just chucking that stupid beef altogether. It causes cancer anyway. Yo, and hypertension too. :shock: