12-09-2008, 12:06 AM
Charles,
I am sorry if I came off as having an Attitude,
Having an attitude would literally mean I have a biased belief, and that is the furthest thing from the truth.
I am completely agnostic, I have no belief. on any subject of science I only have one of the following, Knowledge, a theory, or ignorance.
Like I mentioned earlier, it is highly probable that if Helco were to get all of its power from some combination of Wind, Solar, and Geothermal, you electric bills would not be lower.
The reason is that there are inherent costs in all technologies..
When you start charging and discharging batteries you will quickly learn how expensive they are. The battery in your car last for years because it is never drained below 10%. As soon as your car starts your alternator tops it right back up.
If you were to let it run down to 90% below capacity, you could only get a few cycles from it.
So in order to have an electric car where the batteries will last, you will need to have allot of extra capacity. We know that battery capacity not only cost money (and enormous energy to initially manufacture and transport to market) batteries weight a lot. This is weight that you have to drive around with, and then ultimately replace as they wear out.
The batteries used for deep cycle applications give much better performance, but they are still subject to a depth of discharge/to number of cycle ratio.
There is a nitch where electric cars fit and perform fairly well and that is small cars that only need to go 20-30 miles between charge. if you augmented it some pv and lived in a very sunny place, all the better.
MarkP,
The problem of leaking hydrocarbons is much less horrible than people imagine.
Firstly the very study and design of hydrocarbons is called "Organic Chemistry". There are few things on Earth more natural, as they are of the earth.
Every day millions of barrels of crude oil seep naturally from cracks in the earth. This oil is naturally remediated by bacteria that thrive on it.
The problem of any concentration of one particular substance in any one place is as bad with gasoline as it is with butter, vinegar or Vitimin-C.
If a truck spilled 10,000 gallons any one of these things in one spot it would be just as polluted as if they spilled gasoline. But a little here or there is quickly consumed by oxidization, evaporation etc.
Back to cars, There is no doubt that the way we build and use cars is crazy.
If cars were built to be just big enough to do the job, we could save tons of fuel. But instead we buy these enormous behemoths with 300 hp engines (It's Nuts). We could have cars that have 25 hp turbo diesel engines with 8 speed transmissions that would burn clean and get amazing fuel economy. If we demanded these things, auto makers woud make them. But they don't because they make cars that will sell to a market of idiots that think style and form is more important than economy and function.
Just as crazy as our cars, is the way we used electricity in our homes. In Hawaii where most people do not need to heat or cool their homes it is possible to cut back to such a small electrical usage that a small .5-1Kw PV system would be plenty. But as long as we can flip a switch and buy small amounts of power from that evil Helco and don't take the responsibility and assume the initial expense of building our own system, we well always be the whipping boy of the public utility.
Conserve, conserve, conserve. Turn everything off except what you absolutly have to use at the time you use it.
Replace all your bulbs with 14 watt cfls, Wash dishes and some laundry buy hand. Do only one load of laundry per week. Get a front load washer. Line dry.
Wash your dishes by hand. Get a small 20-32 inch flat panel TV and only have it on when you use it.
Build your own solar water heater. If you already have an electric water heater, you can convert it for a bout 100 bucks into solar.
Get rid of the front opening refrigerator and replace it with a chest freezer with external thermostat. This will use the equivalent of a 100 watt bulb burned for 1 hour per day. That is less than 5 watts continuous.
Do all your cooking with gas. Throw away your electric rice cooker, toaster, coffee pot etc. use a pressure cooker for things like chicken (8 minutes) roast (fork tender in 40 minutes) Use a whistling tea pot and a French press for coffee. Use microwave only for reheating things.
I am sorry if I came off as having an Attitude,
Having an attitude would literally mean I have a biased belief, and that is the furthest thing from the truth.
I am completely agnostic, I have no belief. on any subject of science I only have one of the following, Knowledge, a theory, or ignorance.
Like I mentioned earlier, it is highly probable that if Helco were to get all of its power from some combination of Wind, Solar, and Geothermal, you electric bills would not be lower.
The reason is that there are inherent costs in all technologies..
When you start charging and discharging batteries you will quickly learn how expensive they are. The battery in your car last for years because it is never drained below 10%. As soon as your car starts your alternator tops it right back up.
If you were to let it run down to 90% below capacity, you could only get a few cycles from it.
So in order to have an electric car where the batteries will last, you will need to have allot of extra capacity. We know that battery capacity not only cost money (and enormous energy to initially manufacture and transport to market) batteries weight a lot. This is weight that you have to drive around with, and then ultimately replace as they wear out.
The batteries used for deep cycle applications give much better performance, but they are still subject to a depth of discharge/to number of cycle ratio.
There is a nitch where electric cars fit and perform fairly well and that is small cars that only need to go 20-30 miles between charge. if you augmented it some pv and lived in a very sunny place, all the better.
MarkP,
The problem of leaking hydrocarbons is much less horrible than people imagine.
Firstly the very study and design of hydrocarbons is called "Organic Chemistry". There are few things on Earth more natural, as they are of the earth.
Every day millions of barrels of crude oil seep naturally from cracks in the earth. This oil is naturally remediated by bacteria that thrive on it.
The problem of any concentration of one particular substance in any one place is as bad with gasoline as it is with butter, vinegar or Vitimin-C.
If a truck spilled 10,000 gallons any one of these things in one spot it would be just as polluted as if they spilled gasoline. But a little here or there is quickly consumed by oxidization, evaporation etc.
Back to cars, There is no doubt that the way we build and use cars is crazy.
If cars were built to be just big enough to do the job, we could save tons of fuel. But instead we buy these enormous behemoths with 300 hp engines (It's Nuts). We could have cars that have 25 hp turbo diesel engines with 8 speed transmissions that would burn clean and get amazing fuel economy. If we demanded these things, auto makers woud make them. But they don't because they make cars that will sell to a market of idiots that think style and form is more important than economy and function.
Just as crazy as our cars, is the way we used electricity in our homes. In Hawaii where most people do not need to heat or cool their homes it is possible to cut back to such a small electrical usage that a small .5-1Kw PV system would be plenty. But as long as we can flip a switch and buy small amounts of power from that evil Helco and don't take the responsibility and assume the initial expense of building our own system, we well always be the whipping boy of the public utility.
Conserve, conserve, conserve. Turn everything off except what you absolutly have to use at the time you use it.
Replace all your bulbs with 14 watt cfls, Wash dishes and some laundry buy hand. Do only one load of laundry per week. Get a front load washer. Line dry.
Wash your dishes by hand. Get a small 20-32 inch flat panel TV and only have it on when you use it.
Build your own solar water heater. If you already have an electric water heater, you can convert it for a bout 100 bucks into solar.
Get rid of the front opening refrigerator and replace it with a chest freezer with external thermostat. This will use the equivalent of a 100 watt bulb burned for 1 hour per day. That is less than 5 watts continuous.
Do all your cooking with gas. Throw away your electric rice cooker, toaster, coffee pot etc. use a pressure cooker for things like chicken (8 minutes) roast (fork tender in 40 minutes) Use a whistling tea pot and a French press for coffee. Use microwave only for reheating things.