Times they are a changin

I drove by a wind farm the other day, and couldn't help but think, I wish I lived in a time where windmills were still used to pump water.

Why is my electric rate tied to the price of natural gas? Hmmm, more irony to chew on. Pass the salt.

testarossa wrote:

I drove by a wind farm the other day, and couldn't help but think, I wish I lived in a time where windmills were still used to pump water.

Why is my electric rate tied to the price of natural gas? Hmmm, more irony to chew on. Pass the salt.

True, but if you lived in a time when windmills were pumping water then you would only live to the age of 50, work yourself to the bone, have an ugly toothless wife, and not have a motorcycle. We've given up a meager simple life for a longer, more complicated life, why? theres some more irony...for convenience and simplicity.

think he dont

9am53 wrote:

a... toothless wife,

You say that like it was a bad thing? :huh:

I was an engineer at a very large corn milling facility a few years back and worked in the boilerhouse, which was a coal power plant from 50's. I did tons of research, and your most efficient coal boilers are in the neighborhood of 85%. So the steam you make from your coal then goes through turbines. Now, if it's a regular utility (non-cogen plant) your turbine might be 30% effecient because you cannot condense the steam in them because of corrosion, so you have to condense it afterwards in the condenser, which is a huge energy loss. If we're talking about a cogen plant, you can then extract the steam and use it for other things, so they can claim a higher overall effeciency. For example, my plant made steam, some electricity (save some $) and then we used the steam in the corn milling process. So we claimed the boilers were 80% effecient and the turbine was 95% because we sent the steam out for use. Overall effecienty of (95)*(80) = %80.7. The non-cogen version is 85*30=%25.5

So, in reality, the electrical power at the outlet is not very clean or efficient in any way at all. Plus like stated above, add all the co2, SOx (out east), NOx, mercury, soot and thermal pollution on top of the mining and ash disposal.

Testarossa - The reason why (as stated to me by the power companies I've dealt with in my profesion) is that they have natural gas peaking power units. So, they claim them pass the fuel cost through to the consumer and make 0 profit on it. I never believed them one bit, and figured if natural gas ever got cheaper than coal (my company had both boilers) I expected the utility companies to switch their pricing and do some other means of gouging.

sorry, that was long winded, but was my job for about 5 years. BTW, can't imagine how fun a powerwheels for grownups would be....

I hate to just post a link and take off, but I am about to ehad home, so I don't have time to do anything else...so:

www.electric-cars-are-for-girls.com/electric-powered-cars.html

this doesn't unfortunately mention particulates, SOx or NOx or any pollutant other than CO2, but it's interesting anyways.

9am53 wrote:

testarossa wrote:

I drove by a wind farm the other day, and couldn't help but think, I wish I lived in a time where windmills were still used to pump water.

Why is my electric rate tied to the price of natural gas? Hmmm, more irony to chew on. Pass the salt.

True, but if you lived in a time when windmills were pumping water then you would only live to the age of 50, work yourself to the bone, have an ugly toothless wife, and not have a motorcycle. We've given up a meager simple life for a longer, more complicated life, why? theres some more irony...for convenience and simplicity.

Not everyone thinks that having all the modern conveniences is necessarily better. It's all a trade off. My happyness is not tied to my possesion of a motorcycle. Do I enjoy it, yes, but would I even care if I never knew that it existed, no. I value the simple life more each day. I can find endless enjoyment by having actual human conversation while sitting around a campfire. No text messages, or internet necessary here. I haven't made it to 50 yet, who knows if I will. All of the men on my fathers side of the family haven't made it to 60, so lets hope I take after Mom. I try to enjoy my life in the moment. As for toothless ugly wife, well, they all look the same in the dark.

Apbling, thanks for the explanation. I honestly didn't understand that. So what you mean is that we burn natural gas to make up for power shortages when the grid is taxed? Hmmm, sounds like the natural gas companies will be pulling for all the Leafs they can get. It always gets back to burning something to make that electricity, doesn't it?

I really hope that nobody is getting redfaced because of this thread. Apbling is the first person to chime in with direct knowledge of the actual process, but we all seem to be experts based on what we saw on Fox news, or the internet, or heard on NPR. I'll be the first to admit that I have a stake in the oil business. I work at a machine shop in the Houston metro area. No oil = no Houston, and it doesn't matter if you never drive a car or work on a rig, or machine blow out preventers. I don't even make oilfield parts, but if the oilfield shops dry up, then they bid on my work. It's all connected folks.

9am53 wrote:

I hate to just post a link and take off, but I am about to ehad home, so I don't have time to do anything else...so:

www.electric-cars-are-for-girls.com/electric-powered-cars.html

this doesn't unfortunately mention particulates, SOx or NOx or any pollutant other than CO2, but it's interesting anyways.

Interesting, but once again, that article doesn't look at the big picture. It does not even mention the giant coal field craters and their related destruction of wildlife / plantlife / streams. etc., pollution runoff, and other environmental consequences of making those craters; nor does it mention the energy required to do the mining (versus punching a hole in the ground and letting mother nature push the oil up) and transporting the coal (it ain't gonna flow though a pipeline) or other environmental downsides. My point in joining this discussion is that the nice clean power that comes from the receptacle comes at a price to the environment; it's not without drawbacks; but folks pushing electric vehicles never mention the total picture or calculate the environmental impact of the total process behind supplying power at the receptacle. I would love to see such a comprehensive study done, and I'd be thrilled if it proved me wrong on this; but it ain't gonna happen. By the way, I don't think petroleum giants are saints either, but all facts from both sides of the issue should be considered. Now if we were just building more nuclear power plants.....maybe...

testarossa: Essentially, yes, they are saying that they need to make demand with their quick and nimble gas units and just base load the more slow to move coal/nuke plants. Alliant energy used to call it the Energy Adjustment Clause. They gave use base rates/kwh and it looked good, except they have this EAC that they can without regulation move up or down, based on the price of natural gas. We argued all the time about it and that it should be cheaper because in 2008 after the economy crapped out and the midwest saw a very mild July this EAC was still high. Their excuse was they had that in there to supplment the construction of wind farms. If not one thing, it's another. And what you gonna do? Make your own power?

Remember when Ethanol was the rage and the new fuel to get us between petroleum based and the next thing? Well, I did some research in college and it takes something like 4 times the amount of electrical/coal power to create 1 gal of ethanol vs 1 gallon of gasoline. Now figure all the other issues with ethonal from driving food prices up to wrecking your petcock diaphragm! The government backed it, it was a cash cow and now that the fad is over co-ops have for sale signs in front of their ethanol plants and large companies (Cargill, ADM, Bungee etc) are swinging their production away from Ethanol and more towards other products.


Now, I'm thinking this hyrdrogen fuel cell car has a place... or if you could somehow charge your car/bike with solar then you're in luck. However, only OMR would have a chance in hell of pulling this one off since he lives in the sunshine state. A guy like me in WI would only make it a few blocks before having to recharge my solar powered bike. Kinda hard to do burn outs, pull wheelies and pick up girls when you're waiting for your photovolaic cell to warm up and a passing cloud is gonna make you late for your appointment!

650ed wrote:

9am53 wrote:

I hate to just post a link and take off, but I am about to ehad home, so I don't have time to do anything else...so:

www.electric-cars-are-for-girls.com/electric-powered-cars.html

this doesn't unfortunately mention particulates, SOx or NOx or any pollutant other than CO2, but it's interesting anyways.

Interesting, but once again, that article doesn't look at the big picture. It does not even mention the giant coal field craters and their related destruction of wildlife / plantlife / streams. etc., pollution runoff, and other environmental consequences of making those craters; nor does it mention the energy required to do the mining (versus punching a hole in the ground and letting mother nature push the oil up) and transporting the coal (it ain't gonna flow though a pipeline) or other environmental downsides. My point in joining this discussion is that the nice clean power that comes from the receptacle comes at a price to the environment; it's not without drawbacks; but folks pushing electric vehicles never mention the total picture or calculate the environmental impact of the total process behind supplying power at the receptacle. I would love to see such a comprehensive study done, and I'd be thrilled if it proved me wrong on this; but it ain't gonna happen. By the way, I don't think petroleum giants are saints either, but all facts from both sides of the issue should be considered. Now if we were just building more nuclear power plants.....maybe...

Certainly, but we have already stated that we know that. Let me look at it from this angle instead of cockfighting over what's cleaner and what's not. The leaf (for instance) is marketed for people like me, young, "green", "hip", professionals... (would that make me a yghpy instead of a yuppy?) I have my bikes for fun, my truck for truck stuff and longer trips, but I go through retarded amounts of gas just going to and from work, and then around town running errands and getting stuff to fix my old bikes , all single occupancy in my car. If I got this 100% electric car, this work commute would cost me far less money (over night hydro vs. gas costs) cost me very little in the way of service (no oil changes, no tranny replacements, no leaky rad etc) and would directly create no emissions. Certainly the electricity is coming from partially dirty sources (not all the electricity is coming from coal) but that coal would be burning whether I plugged in or not. They would not have to burn more coal to power my car, so looking at it that way it IS a zero emissions vehicle. Fads do come and go, and maybe this is a fad, but if it is, and I have one, then so what, I still won't ever have to fill it up with gas at a dollar a liter. Not to mention that when I get my house I will have some property, and there are many initiatives going on around here to setup solar fields on peoples property. This would feed into the power grid and I get a check every month, this solar power would likely offset much of the power I need to charge the car. Of course this is a hot topic and everybody has opinions and whatnot, the problem is when people think of there being a simple solution. Just plugging an electric car into the plug to charge and thinking is perfectly great and PC is naive...there are drawbacks, but if someone is dedicated to lowering their ecological footprint it can be done.

I have thought about this whole thing from many side over the years, and I think electric cars and bikes are dumb. But they are a necessary evil to get people interested in lowering emissions. The amount of research and change in infrastructure needed to get us to a truly zero emissions society is astronomical, but it has to start somewhere. We're gonna have to move away from centralized power to lots of small power plants. It will be done with a combination of wind, solar, and hydro. And we will need masses of energy in order to store hydrogen from the sea in some way so we can use it (methanol, compression, etc). Thats the only way to keep us mobile and not pollute. Battery electric vehicles are just a stopgap, there isn't enough lithium in the world for everybody to have one even if they were perfect.

T_Dub wrote:

I have thought about this whole thing from many side over the years, and I think electric cars and bikes are dumb. But they are a necessary evil to get people interested in lowering emissions. The amount of research and change in infrastructure needed to get us to a truly zero emissions society is astronomical, but it has to start somewhere. We're gonna have to move away from centralized power to lots of small power plants. It will be done with a combination of wind, solar, and hydro. And we will need masses of energy in order to store hydrogen from the sea in some way so we can use it (methanol, compression, etc). Thats the only way to keep us mobile and not pollute. Battery electric vehicles are just a stopgap, there isn't enough lithium in the world for everybody to have one even if they were perfect.

I don't agree that electric cars and bikes are dumb (cause I want one ) but I do think you are right about the rest. I attended a seminar hosted by the late Geoffrey Ballard of Ballard Power Systems during university (he was a fellow Queens alum) and he, Mr. Fuel Cell himself said that fuel cells alone are not the answer. Fuel cell hybrids he claimed were the way to go, one single form of transportation was not going to work, it had to be an amalgamation of a few. I am a bit sketchy on the specific reasons why he said this, so I won't try to regurgitate them and get it wrong. One point he did mention that really stuck with me was that it was really important to get the transport truck fleet off of fossil fuels. The stat he gave was that transports amount to 6% of the vehicles on the road, but 20% of the pollution! Ballard makes fuel cell lift trucks and other smaller service vehicles for around the workplace, but to have fuel cell vehicles on the roads is hard because among other reasons, people are afraid of them. Anyways...