Your opinion on electric vehicles

[wodin]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Not mega-year. 1k-10K years roughly. Secondary radioactives have much shorter half-lifes than Plutonium (242K year half-life).

One K, ten K, two hundred K years, pretty soon we'll be talking about real geological time.

In terms of me and my foreseeable progeny’s lifetimes we might as well be talking mega-years!

Nuclear power is BAD!

Greenhouse gasses and other chemical pollutions are necessarily self limiting because if they get bad enough to effect civilization, then the polluting civilization will necessarily cut back on production. Our current "green obsession" is a case in point. Air pollution in the US is significantly better than it was thirty years ago. Not good enough yet, but better.

With nuclear power, if it gets bad enough to effect civilization, it’s too late!

But to remain on topic, in order to determine if electric vehicles are good for the environment it is necessary to know the average efficiencies of all of the power generating, power distribution and power consuming processes involved. All that information is available but frankly I am not interested enough to dig it up.

I suspect, however, that in the final analysis electric cars are good for the environment, but not as good as the tree huggers would have us believe.

[Ham88]

Nuclear power is good

Yeah sure you have to put some stuff underground in specially designed containers so that nothing is contaminated, but the point is that the specially designed so they pose no danger to civilization. The only problem people have with nuclear power is the whole chernobyl thing, which was caused by a badly designed reactor, something that wouldn't happen in most countries, unless you happen in live in what was the Soviet Union, then your on your own. For example in France more than 70% of their power comes from nuclear power, and their not dying of radiation poisoning.

Dumb question how did we end up bickering over sources of energy?

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Ham88

For example in France more than 70% of their power comes from nuclear power, and their not dying of radiation poisoning.

Isn't that because France is shipping all of its waste to the former Soviet Union?

(Oops... actually wasn't going to get into this discussion.)

[eumesmo]

Simple, the merits of electric cars are wholly dependent on the form electricity is produced, otherwise electric cars only helps the coal industry, which produces more CO2 than oil.

The only reason US nuclear plants produce so much plutonium is that such method was chosen for strategic reasons, which in turn catapulted said technology ahead of all others. That is NOT the status of nuclear technology. After recycling, waste can be reduced to as much as 5% of previous figures.

I don't understand the nuclear scare, what I see are dangerous substances being produced ALL the time, and we don't have the infrastructure and even if we did, and energy is too expensive to do anything about it.

[Dick]

I test drove one awhile and almost bought one of two different models that I looked into but my big concerns were the battery life (cost to replace them) and distance that you could travel on a charge. I ended up buying a Smart Car for my town car and it does have the capability of highway driving, which none of the NEVs I was looking at could do because of their 35mph speed limitation. The Smart puts out the least CO2 of about any currently available petroleum powered car and gets very good mileage. Mine is the earlier European model, the 450, with the 0.7 liter Mercedes engine, gets 45mpg in town and 55 on the road. Besides, it is fun to drive!

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by Ham88

Nuclear power is good

Yeah sure you have to put some stuff underground in specially designed containers so that nothing is contaminated, but the point is that the specially designed so they pose no danger to civilization. The only problem people have with nuclear power is the whole chernobyl thing, which was caused by a badly designed reactor, something that wouldn't happen in most countries, unless you happen in live in what was the Soviet Union, then your on your own. For example in France more than 70% of their power comes from nuclear power, and their not dying of radiation poisoning.

Dumb question how did we end up bickering over sources of energy?

Nuclear plants were not built to last more than 100 years. Materials failure will force decommission prematurely.

Burrying toxic materials is short sighted an option. The Earth's crust will always be plastic and no one can predict the shifts.

Originally Posted by eumesmo

Simple, the merits of electric cars are wholly dependent on the form electricity is produced, otherwise electric cars only helps the coal industry, which produces more CO2 than oil.

The only reason US nuclear plants produce so much plutonium is that such method was chosen for strategic reasons, which in turn catapulted said technology ahead of all others. That is NOT the status of nuclear technology. After recycling, waste can be reduced to as much as 5% of previous figures.

I don't understand the nuclear scare, what I see are dangerous substances being produced ALL the time, and we don't have the infrastructure and even if we did, and energy is too expensive to do anything about it.

EVs are more efficient than ICEs and need far less energy. If I hear you correctly, you want things to continue the way they are?

Originally Posted by Dick

I test drove one awhile and almost bought one of two different models that I looked into but my big concerns were the battery life (cost to replace them) and distance that you could travel on a charge. I ended up buying a Smart Car for my town car and it does have the capability of highway driving, which none of the NEVs I was looking at could do because of their 35mph speed limitation. The Smart puts out the least CO2 of about any currently available petroleum powered car and gets very good mileage. Mine is the earlier European model, the 450, with the 0.7 liter Mercedes engine, gets 45mpg in town and 55 on the road. Besides, it is fun to drive!

That is exactly the choice I would have done. NEVs suck and they're not really safe unless used in a protected area. If you are mostly alone the Smart is a very good option until they pull their thumbs from their noses and offer the EV choice.

The EV makers know about battery management problems. Some of them will sell you the car and rent you the battery, as better ones come along they will replace it.

May I suggest that you find recycled biodiesel for your Smart, it burns without sulfur emissions, and they smell like food.

[yvanleterrible]

I think the battery issue is irrelevant unless you drive more than 130Kms every day. Even then, if you do it's because your residential area choice is wrong and unless driving is one of your tasks.

A battery with a 100Km range will meet the requirements of 85% of the population's needs 95% of the time.

If one needs to travel or carry payload, car rental centers are everywhere and much cheaper than buying a big vehicle. Does one really need to buy an SUV to go skying twice a year? RENT!

There are promising batteries to come and those of today can be rented.

Laptops have batteries, how do you manage them? Just think out your displacement uses the same way, short and to the point. As soon as you get out of the car, plug it. You don't want to deal with plugging? They offer EM charging devices, drive over one and voila... plugged. Anything else is waste. Do you want to waste because it's your right? Okay, send your checks to me at 49... wait! Giving me your money will not be waste, I just can't get myself to do that!

[GeoffC]

Electric Car Trials in the UK - BBC web-site link

[Greg Anos]

The assumptions being bandied about here are that everybody lives an urban existence. Not everybody does...

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

The assumptions being bandied about here are that everybody lives an urban existence. Not everybody does...

No... statistically, most of the most wasteful driving is carried out by 85% of the country's drivers around urban areas, and these are the people those assumptions are targeting. No one ever said every single vehicle in this country needs to be electric.

Originally Posted by yvanleterrible

I think the battery issue is irrelevant unless you drive more than 130Kms every day. Even then, if you do it's because your residential area choice is wrong and unless driving is one of your tasks.

A battery with a 100Km range will meet the requirements of 85% of the population's needs 95% of the time.

Exactly. And your comments about renting are spot-on. I do that now, whenever I need a larger vehicle for hauling something. Renting will even allow people in Texas to use more electrics, and rent when they need to. Most Americans could do the same... and the old excuse of "what if it's not available exactly when I need it?" is exactly that... an excuse. Americans are very familiar with altering their schedules to deal with other people's timetables, and they can do it here, too. If I can do it, it won't kill you.

People who haul and handle heavy equipment regularly should obviously be using the appropriate vehicles for that... but using those same vehicles for light-duty transportation is inefficient and, in most cases, unnecessary.

Even in Texas.

(Hey, you guys wanted all that land! If it costs you more to drive around on it, who's fault is that? )

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by yvanleterrible

I think the battery issue is irrelevant unless you drive more than 130Kms every day. Even then, if you do it's because your residential area choice is wrong and unless driving is one of your tasks.

A battery with a 100Km range will meet the requirements of 85% of the population's needs 95% of the time.

If one needs to travel or carry payload, car rental centers are everywhere and much cheaper than buying a big vehicle. Does one really need to buy an SUV to go skying twice a year? RENT!

There are promising batteries to come and those of today can be rented.

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

The assumptions being bandied about here are that everybody lives an urban existence. Not everybody does...

I live about 40km away (depending a bit on what route I take) away from town. (which is a long distance for us, Dutch, people!) So, I commute between 60-80km each day. A 100km radius would just be enough. But I also like to hop to Germany once in a while to do some shopping (there's this huge shopping mall about 50km across the border), and then that 100km wouldn't be enough. And renting a car isn't an option then (we often decide in the afternoon we won't be doing our weekly groceries here, but in Germany).

So, either there are "battery" stations just like there are gas-stations, or batteries are a dead-end.

And about buying a car for skiing, I'd rather go by train

[eumesmo]

Yvanleterrible, my opinion is that cheap nuclear energy would make electric cars and all sorts of recycling(batteries) economically viable.

Having electric cars with a thermoelectric based electric grid is insanity, especially when it is coal fired. Keep in mind thermoelectric plants are the quick fixes for demand spikes.

My opinion being that it would be best to first figure out the path for electricity production, of which some 70% of world output is based on thermoelectric plants, and that all this electricity amounts to only some 40% of total energy consumption.

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Isn't that because France is shipping all of its waste to the former Soviet Union?

(Oops... actually wasn't going to get into this discussion.)

No, actually. They're reprocessing a bunch, and vitrifying the (very small amount) that's left over. For political reasons, they're doing small-billet vitrification and dry storage, which is much more expensive (and actually a bit less safe) than the method they originally intended -- large-billet vitrification.

Vitrification of nuclear waste basically involves carefully mixing the waste into molten leaded glass (it's basically lead-crystal like fancy wine glasses). Then you cast the glass into billets. The "small" billets the French are using are cylinders 1.5 meters long and .5 meters in diameter (roughly speaking, I'm working from memory here). They store these billets in a secure dry facility. As cast, they're minimally radioactive, and stable over quite long time-scales. The secure dry storage is overkill even for the small billets, but it makes the public feel safer, so that's what they do. Note that maintaining that dry storage, and providing security for it(!) is a major fraction of their reprocessing cost -- the original big-billet plan would be much cheaper.

The original plan was to take the small billets and cast them inside much larger billets of leaded glass. These larger billets would each be about the size of a large railroad box-car. The reasons for doing this are pretty straight-forward:

• The resulting billets are stable for 20,000+ years. (Really! The French nuclear agency did some super-careful research on ancient Egyptian glass that's over 5K years old in order to learn about the long-term stability of glass. From there, it's cube-square-law on the dimensions with leaching rates and such as measured. Very solid data!)
• Reduced security risk. These things are SO big and heavy that you need truly substantial heavy equipment to move them. And that's going to be noticed! It's not something that can be stolen in secret.
• Radioactivity reaching the outside of the billet is reduced to essentially zero.
• The physical size of the billets and their strength makes them extremely robust. There's not even any need for dry storage -- just bury them below the frost-line and you're fine.
• If you need the material back for some reason, you can get it (at some substantial cost and effort).

Long-term storage of high-level waste really doesn't need to be a problem at all (from an engineering standpoint). And, by volume, there really isn't that much high-level waste. Especially if you reprocess first. Low-level nuclear waste is even less of a problem -- the definition of low-level (in the US, at least) is less radioactive than the bricks in my house! As for the mid-level stuff... I guess I don't know anything about that. Maybe HarryT can jump in on that part.

Really, the whole nuclear waste thing needn't be an issue in terms of engineering and science. Politics, on the other hand, is a whole different story.

Xenophon

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

...But I also like to hop to Germany once in a while to do some shopping (there's this huge shopping mall about 50km across the border), and then that 100km wouldn't be enough.

This is why I've suggested a long-distance battery trailer: When you need more than your usual distance travel, hook the trailer to the back and get those extra miles in. When you don't need it, the trailer stays at home. Or, you could rent the trailer when you need it. (Spontaneity is great, but you could probably do well to plan ahead a bit for efficiency's sake.)

Renting, borrowing and leasing used to be much more common practices before credit made it easy to "buy" and keep what you wanted. Maybe with the reversal of fortune the economy is presently going through, the logic and practicality of renting will see a resurgence.

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

This is why I've suggested a long-distance battery trailer: When you need more than your usual distance travel, hook the trailer to the back and get those extra miles in. When you don't need it, the trailer stays at home. Or, you could rent the trailer when you need it. (Spontaneity is great, but you could probably do well to plan ahead a bit for efficiency's sake.)

Renting, borrowing and leasing used to be much more common practices before credit made it easy to "buy" and keep what you wanted. Maybe with the reversal of fortune the economy is presently going through, the logic and practicality of renting will see a resurgence.

The trailer battery is the perfect thing. It could be picked up at a gas station anywhere and supplement the owmer's revenue loss by the lowering oil sales.