Nuclear Power is not going away.......or is it?

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Originally Posted by SGWilko

I think you will find an electric motor will generate its fair share of heat which can be circulated around the cockpit....

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Til the battery runs dead because it is less efficient in cold weather. No sir, If I have to drive 20 km in -20 C to go to work, I don't want the electric car. I want the gas powered one because I know it wont let me down and it wont force me to come right back home and plug it back in. If I decide to run errands or go to a show or visit friends further afield, I don't have to worry about my charge.

The real problem with any electric car is constantly planning and evalutating your range. You cannot be as spontaneous about where you are going, and if it is really cold, as it is here for about 3 months a year, your range just got THAT much shorter.

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Originally Posted by Mark in Oshawa

Til the battery runs dead because it is less efficient in cold weather. No sir, If I have to drive 20 km in -20 C to go to work, I don't want the electric car. I want the gas powered one because I know it wont let me down and it wont force me to come right back home and plug it back in. If I decide to run errands or go to a show or visit friends further afield, I don't have to worry about my charge.

The real problem with any electric car is constantly planning and evalutating your range. You cannot be as spontaneous about where you are going, and if it is really cold, as it is here for about 3 months a year, your range just got THAT much shorter.

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While there have been some great developments with batteries, I think your right. Thats why my great hope for the future is algae or enzyme based biofuels. Apart from production, it fits into the existing infrastructure. Oh yeah and electric cars have a lot of promise but at the end of the day they sound like crap.

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Originally Posted by Mark in Oshawa

Til the battery runs dead because it is less efficient in cold weather. No sir, If I have to drive 20 km in -20 C to go to work, I don't want the electric car. I want the gas powered one because I know it wont let me down and it wont force me to come right back home and plug it back in. If I decide to run errands or go to a show or visit friends further afield, I don't have to worry about my charge.

The real problem with any electric car is constantly planning and evalutating your range. You cannot be as spontaneous about where you are going, and if it is really cold, as it is here for about 3 months a year, your range just got THAT much shorter.

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Do you not somewhat evaluate your range in your "fossil" vehicle , too , when you glance at the gas gauge ?
It's really no different .

My one friend with a taxi soon to be converted will be heavily insulating his batteries in winter , and will have a second set to swap out so he doesn't miss out on the second half of the night because he made a lot of cash in the first .
And , this is really only necessary because the charging takes some time .

Rather than $100.00 a night in gas , it'll be about $5.00 in electricity .
At that rate , the $15k to change over will pay back in no time .

The Tesla takes 8 hours , or , with an optional speed charger , 4 hours .

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Originally Posted by rah

While there have been some great developments with batteries, I think your right. Thats why my great hope for the future is algae or enzyme based biofuels. Apart from production, it fits into the existing infrastructure. Oh yeah and electric cars have a lot of promise but at the end of the day they sound like crap.

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Every village , town , and city has a sewage treatment plant .
And , every one can , and likely eventually will be turned into a methane gas production facility .
Near me , in Walkerton(the name heard round the world when the sewage met the water system) , they are trying this very idea .

Methane , or natural gas , as it's known , fit's in pretty seamlessly as well , and likely better than algae or bio-fuels .

And , by the way , all that engine noise keeps you from hearing the squeal of the tires .

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Originally Posted by Bagwan

Do you not somewhat evaluate your range in your "fossil" vehicle , too , when you glance at the gas gauge ?
It's really no different .

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Not actually even basically the same.
One can carry a hundred or more miles of screw-up fuel in the trunk, and if one pushes one's fortune too far, one can be back on the road, at times in mere minutes or can walk and get an emergency splash of fuel with time being calculated in minutes, not hours.

While the vehicle is not running the power supply does not drain either.

If methane were such a quick fix, it would not be vented off from waste disposal sites, or burned off from said same and refineries. (Although I find the burning off at refineries is something that should be addressed but fart mouths like Obama seem to ignore.)

How much is it worth , Bob ?
And , how hard is it , really ?
How convenient is that convenience store if it costs five bucks to get to that store for that milk ?
You are likely to react by either buying more there , to spread the cost over more items , or drive the extra miles to the grocery store less often , buying more for less , to again , offset the cost .

At present , you can pull in anywhere and spend your cash for gas .
If that weren't possible , you would , undoubtedly , check before you left , that your tank was full .

Unless you are a career driver , or on a long distance trip , it is unlikely you fill up more than once a day .

So , when you get home , you have to plug in every day . It's ready in the morning , and cost a buck or two a day , rather than $100.00 bucks or so a week .
It's not so hard to conceive of there being a receptcle in which to plug in your vehicle at work , either .
That just doesn't sound so inconvenient to me .



High-tech firm Lucent technologies built a big plant right next to a landfill , where land was cheap as borscht .
They vent gas using two pipes driven under the mass , and use it to heat and light the whole plant .

Methane is natural gas .

It makes sense to be green .
But , when being green makes you some green it really makes sense .

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Originally Posted by Bagwan

Do you not somewhat evaluate your range in your "fossil" vehicle , too , when you glance at the gas gauge ?
It's really no different .

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It's very different as battery recharge time is measured in hours, whereas I can drive 400 miles on a tank of diesel and then spend less than 5 minutes getting another tank of diesel and do the same again - for as long as I like.

With current battery technology once I've done my range, that's pretty much it for the day!

Liquid fuels are ideal, you just need a fuel which can be created using electricity - hydrogen is one such but it's difficult to handle.

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Originally Posted by Mark

It's very different as battery recharge time is measured in hours, whereas I can drive 400 miles on a tank of diesel and then spend less than 5 minutes getting another tank of diesel and do the same again - for as long as I like.

With current battery technology once I've done my range, that's pretty much it for the day!

Liquid fuels are ideal, you just need a fuel which can be created using electricity - hydrogen is one such but it's difficult to handle.

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You're right about taking time to charge , but that need not be such a problem for most of us .

Think of it this way :
With an electric vehicle , presently , you have the same situation you'd have if your fuel tank on that diesel was much smaller .
And , if you had your own fuel source at home , it would be foolish to carry much more than you needed , being that it cuts greatly into your mileage , so a small fuel tank actually makes more sense than a large one .

The idea is to tailor the vehicle to suit the driver .

Now , try thinking about it like your cell phone .
You likely charge it up when at home , and rarely complain about how long it takes because it's been incorporated into your routine as an accepted parameter , charging overnight when you're asleep .

It's a much easier shift to a technology like this , simply because it all already exists .
Home and your workplace could have charging depots .
Hotels , motels and restaurants could easily adapt to this as well .

Batteries could be standardized , so a swap-out might even be possible , if long range was desired .



Of course , you could also have a natural gas conversion done , and head out on the road running on your family's sewage .
That's also doable .

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Originally Posted by Bagwan

Batteries could be standardized , so a swap-out might even be possible , if long range was desired .

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I've said this over and over and over on this forum but no one seems to understand that you could just have standard/modular batteries and the changeover could take minutes to do.

But we are used to cars which are all purpose. e.g. You may just drive 10 miles to work and back every day most of the time so would do fine on a single charge, but most people don't like the idea of paying a lot of money for a car which will do only that. As now and again you might want to drive 300 miles up to the Isle of Skye and back home again, you need to be sure that you aren't going to run out of juice when you're half way up the Bealach Na Ba.