The Times They Are A-Charging

[VoodooBoss]

I don’t think anyone in this thread has called EV’s a perfect solution. Clearly natural gas is cleaner than gasoline or coal. Most of the coal used is East of the Mississippi. There’s almost no coal production West of the Rockies. There is plenty of NG though.

 

[boss302ls]

I don’t think anyone in this thread has called EV’s a perfect solution. Clearly natural gas is cleaner than gasoline or coal. Most of the coal used is East of the Mississippi. There’s almost no coal production West of the Rockies. There is plenty of NG though.

The Powder River Basin in Wyoming is one of the largest coal production areas in the world, even larger than anything in the Eastern US. One reason is the coal there has a much lower sulpher content than found elsewhere.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powder_River_Basin

 

[302BOB]

All energy sources have their shortfalls...I'm just hoping gas prices stay in a manageable range this summer.

 

[TymeSlayer]

The Powder River Basin in Wyoming is one of the largest coal production areas in the world, even larger than anything in the Eastern US. One reason is the coal there has a much lower sulpher content than found elsewhere.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powder_River_Basin

I see these coal rail cars coming down into Colorado from Wyoming every day. I'm always amazed by how long the string of cars run and think I burn a quarter tank of gas in the Boss if I get caught at the crossing. Alright, I'm exaggerating a bit but with an average of over 300 days of sunshine days a year here in Colorado, I can't understand why Solar isn't a bigger player in the area. Perhaps all that coal coming down from up north is going elsewhere. It would be interesting to see the usage broken down by state.

 

[boss302ls]

I see these coal rail cars coming down into Colorado from Wyoming every day. I'm always amazed by how long the string of cars run and think I burn a quarter tank of gas in the Boss if I get caught at the crossing. Alright, I'm exaggerating a bit but with an average of over 300 days of sunshine days a year here in Colorado, I can't understand why Solar isn't a bigger player in the area. Perhaps all that coal coming down from up north is going elsewhere. It would be interesting to see the usage broken down by state.

I doubt you can find data with this level of granularity. Also, keep in mind that a lot of that coal you see is being shipped to the Far East. The Chinese love this stuff as it is abundent, very cheap, easy to move around from location to location, and contains a lot of energy content. Fifteen to 20 years ago our nation's electric output was about 50% generated from coal. Because of Obama it is now about 30%. I expect this number to creep back up with the new administration's push back on coal production and deregulation initiatives. Solar power is not as environmentally clean as you may think it is. It requires large quantities of water as the collectors need to cleaned periodically. There may be other issues related to solar power's environmental footprint.

 

[302BOB]

I see more and more houses around me getting solar panels installed on their roofs.They must be saving money on their electric bill according to the commercials I see on TV. I'm just curious about if the whole neighborhood loses power during a storm or other reason, do those houses with solar still have their lights or are they in the dark with the rest of us?

 

[VoodooBoss]

Only if they have a battery pack.

 

[boss302ls]

you can get a Generac home power system as a backup to an all solar home so that it can run off either lp or natural gas.

 

[JDee]

It depends on how they have their house tied in with the grid. There's more than one way to do that. If they're purely grid tie they might be SOL, but if they're off grid they'd be good to go.

We used to live on our sailboat all summer and ran everything off 240 watts of solar and a 400 watt (in a gale) wind generator. With a decent sized battery bank and every system, especially the fridge/freezer, optimized for low power draw we had no problems. But most of our friends who brought all their 110 volt junk to the boat and powered it through inverters constantly struggled with dead battery banks. It's a whole different mindset to go off grid totally.

I liked that setup on the boat, and if I have the chance to move off grid in future I'd do it.

 

[TMSBOSS]

I have looked into a solar system for my house. Its just not feasible without the government turning a few screws.
Usable lifespan of the system, battery bank included was 15 years. This is with 2 swaps on batteries at 5 and 10 years. With current cost of energy adjusted for inflation I would have to run the system for 15-20 years to break even. Assuming Nothing breaks.
I already have the generac system on the house. Not a great way to make efficient power, just a great instant backup.
On a larger scale, we can Supplement the gird with Solar but you cant replace with solar. There is just no good solution to the night hours issue. And no, batteries are not a Efficient solution. As mentioned earlier, a subsidy has to be made on batteries before they are reasonable.

 

[VoodooBoss]

The home solar systems don’t pencil out for me. The only ones making money are the sellers and installers. Too bad too. The idea of the Tesla integrated solar panels and battery pack charging your Tesla EV sounds great as a concept.

 

[TMSBOSS]

Agree. For a short distance commuter vehicle, this could be the “in” to the market that makes sense.
For widespread common use, a technical breakthrough in either battery tech or power production is still needed. Let’s hope this comes sooner than later and is introduced as a competing technology and Not a government sponsored/forced alternative.

 

[JDee]

You guys need to live in Ontario where they had been paying 80cents per Kwh for roof mounted solar panel grid tie power, it cash flowed really well at that rate. They cut that to 57 cents a few years ago I heard and they still do well at that price. At those prices, there were lots of takers. Those prices, and similar payouts for wind generated power are also part of the reason why our power is about the most expensive on the continent. That's a big reason why a plug in EV is not on my future radar at all. Hybrid maybe, but not plug in.

 

[VoodooBoss]

Yikes. The everage rate in my city is less than $.15.

 

[VoodooBoss]

No surprise here that LaLa land has the highest plug in sales.

https://insideevs.com/top-11-u-s-st...22018&utm_term=image&utm_content=lists-image1

 

[TMSBOSS]

Where are the subsidies?

 

[VoodooBoss]

The future is arriving this Thursday afternoon.

 

[boss302ls]

The future is arriving this Thursday afternoon.

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Here an recent article you might enjoy reading comparing costs to operate Tesla M3 vs Volt.

https://www.torquenews.com/1/chevy-volt-vs-tesla-model-3-charging-cost

 

[VoodooBoss]

Good read. The M3 should be much less to operate than my wife’s 2013 Fusion. Now if you factor in purchase price the M3 is way more expensive.

 

[boss302ls]

Good read. The M3 should be much less to operate than my wife’s 2013 Fusion. Now if you factor in purchase price the M3 is way more expensive.

Would you know Rick if someone is posting up-to-date maps of where all the public charging stations are located statewide, regionally, or nationwide? You would think someone must be posting this somewhere on the net as a public service.