Energy, now and in the future.

[Greyowlsl]

Just wondering what computer software savvy people think about Energy sources, now and in the future.

Whats your prediction?
What would you like to see?

 

[PNGBill]

Depends where you are.
I believe future energy will be a mixture of what suits.
Sunny regions will have a lot of PV panels - tied to the grid.
Trade Wind regions will have wind turbines and or PV and again, tied to the grid.

What ever the generating method, electricity is still the cleanest and easiest energy to use. Once it has been produced that is.
Fossil Fuel production will decrease.

Off Grid battery power storage is not for the masses.

Computers do not use anything like the power they were once expected to use with the increase in processing power. Future pc's will have Solid State data storage (no hdd) and more work will be done by Tablets.

Transport ?? Hybred cars ? I like Electric cars but not sure if there will be enough electricty to power the millions of cars.
Hydrogen Cell is going nowhere fast ?

Henry Ford's wife drove an electric car. Imagine if we had gone that path... Batteries would have evolved so much more.
Only the advent of lap top pc's and cordless gadgets have driven battery development since circa 1920.

 

[Lightwave]

Would be great if they could get Solar really up there in terms of efficiency. Think they'll manage it but might take a while. Petroleum likely to be around for a while and in terms of quick storable power its right up there.

Nuclear would be great if it wasn't so damn long term ugly - its pretty impressive when you see nuclear subs and aircraft carrriers that don't need to be refueled for years.

Mars rover's got a nuclear power unit fingers crossed it will get down to the surface in one piece - the landing procedure seems pretty complicated.

 

[Joe8915]

Cost to operate a Chevy Volt


Eric Bolling (Fox Business Channel's, Follow the Money) test drove the Chevy Volt at the invitation of General Motors.
For four days in a row, the fully charged battery lasted only 25 miles before the Volt switched to the reserve gasoline engine. Eric calculated the car got 30 mpg including the 25 miles it ran on the battery. So, the range including the 9 gallon gas tank and the 16 kwh battery is approximately 270 miles. It will take you 4 1/2 hours to drive 270 miles at 60 mph. Then add 10 hours to charge the battery and you have a total trip time of 14.5 hours. In a typical road trip your average speed (including charging time) would be 20 mph.


According to General Motors, the Volt battery will hold 16 kwh of electricity. It takes a full 10 hours to charge a drained battery.
The cost for the electricity to charge the Volt is never mentioned so I looked up what I pay for electricity.
I pay approximately (it varies with amount used and the seasons) $1.16 per kwh.
16 kwh x $1.16 per kwh = $18.56 to charge the battery.
$18.56 per charge divided by 25 miles = $0.74 per mile to operate the Volt using the battery.
Compare this to a similar size car with a gasoline engine only that gets 32 mpg.
$3.19 per gallon divided by 32 mpg = $0.10 per mile.
The gasoline powered car cost about $15,000 while the Volt costs $46,000.


So government wants us to pay 3 times as much for a car that costs more that 7 time as much to run and takes 3 times as long to drive across country?

REALLY? Love that logic...

 

[Adam Caramon]

I know I'm getting between your axe and the grinder, but here goes:

Cost to operate a Chevy Volt

Looks like fuzzy math.

Eric Bolling (Fox Business Channel's, Follow the Money) test drove the Chevy Volt at the invitation of General Motors.

This was my first clue. There was a study put out by a university a few years back that looked at how informed viewers of various news channels were. The results were not surprising - Fox news viewers are the least informed. I believe the caption associated with it was "Are you Smarter than a Fox News Viewer", worth a read if you have the time to Google for it.

It will take you 4 1/2 hours to drive 270 miles at 60 mph. Then add 10 hours to charge the battery and you have a total trip time of 14.5 hours. In a typical road trip your average speed (including charging time) would be 20 mph.

Why would you add charge time into trip time? That seems very misleading (again, reaffirmed by the fact that you're getting your information from Fox).

So government wants us to pay 3 times as much for a car that costs more that 7 time as much to run and takes 3 times as long to drive across country?

When you say "government wants us", what are you referring to? Did the government issue a press release that said "You have to buy a Chevy Volt"?

REALLY? Love that logic...

I don't think that's really logic that you're looking at.

The Chevy Volt is far from perfect, but it is a start. As technology gets better and it becomes possible to produce a more efficient, cheaper electric vehicles, that would seem to be the logical way to go. Unfortunately, to get to that point, it takes time and money.

 

[Joe8915]

I knew when I listed Fox news, I was going to get the anti Fox viewers. So I understand it just depends on who you believe.

 

[Joe8915]

Chevy claims that the Chevy Volt can go a range of 40 miles on one charge, then you have to charge the battery for 10 hrs whech makes the 14.5 hrs.

The government wants us to go green.

Also I read the "Are you Smarter than a Fox News Viewer", now I know where you are coming from. By the way I got all them right except for two. I watch other news and read as well.

 

[Lightwave]

I think it's quite clear at the moment that the electric cars are a bit of luxury feel good item at the moment for those that don't really need to go anywhere.

Givem time they'll sort them out.

In many ways gradually increasing gasoline prices is probably the best way of weaning everyone off the internal combustion engine.

 

[Joe8915]

We are from going electric cars. It will be at least another 20 years before they get all the fixes out. We don't even had a grid system set up to handle the additional electric. Just think if 80% of population who owned at electric car and charged them at the near same time at night, we would have black outs all the time.

The only way to go is natural gas.

 

[Vassago]

Here is a much better explanation of the Chevy Volt argument and it's misleading conclusions. If you go into a topic with proving a specific agenda, it's easy to twist words into "proving" what it is you are researching and the outcome you want.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/chevyvolt.asp

 

[Vassago]

Can you imagine if electricty costed $1.16 per kwh? Yikes!

 

[PNGBill]

I think the electricity price is cents per kwh. Not $ per kwh. Calc out by factor of 10

Electric Cars have proven themselves to be economical in specific situations. Many car users do not drive a 4 hour journey. Most drive 30 mins max per trip and then park for way more then 10 hours at least once per day.

We have a number of cars and could well use an electric car for local shopping which would save a lot of fuel over a year.

I enjoy watching The Five but Eric is not an unbaised source for matters in way related to liberal or left thinking. Not that electric cars have to be driven by lefties.

For some strange reason, the far right of the USA have put energy conservation in the same group as sensible gun regulation.
ie it is un American to not own and use a gun and now it appears you also must drive a gas gussler

 

[Galaxiom]

Our electriity grid makes hot water during the night. Itis a stupid waste when we could be charging batteries in cars and recharging cold storage for daytime air-conditioning.

All modern electric cars have interactive chargers that allow them to export to the grid and their potential to carry the rapid inceases in load is one of their most important contributions to our integrated energy systems.

Since China got serious about photovoltaics, solar has become competitive on spot pricing of mains power. Like any techonology the ultimate delivery price depends almost entirely on demand and photovoltaic power will erventually compete with anything given sufficient demand.

Eventually we will overcome the technological problems with fusion. While these problems are the greatest technological challenges of all time historically we have been shown to be very creative and considerable progress has already been made.

Fusion is the Holy Grail of energy and a prize worth any investment. With fusion technology, ordinary sea water has the same energy potential as the same volume of petrol. Fusion is literally unlimited energy without emissions. It is THE inevitable solution.

 

[Galaxiom]

Solar is outstandingly efficient especially if you consider it has zero moving parts and had near zero maintenance.

Given sufficient demand we will build machines that make solar panels entirely without human intervention and they will cost almost nothing. Rooves will be desinged to incorporaste then at almost zero cost as a substitute for ordinary roofing materials.

How do you think prouducts as sophistiated as televisions and computer montitors are made available to us for almost nothing? It is ALL about demand.

Demand is what the schemes like alternatative energy subsidies and carbon taxes are desingned to influence and those who continually insist that solar will always be too expensive have failed to realise the fundamental econimic principles of the market.

 

[PNGBill]

Yes crazy how an lcd tv with all it's bits and pces is the same cost as two solar pv panels

One issue that will need to be sorted is subdivision covenants. Some of these prevent solar water heaters being visible on a roof
All houses must be red brick with a red tiled roof and cost AUD350 or more and not look the same - typical covenant

 

[Lightwave]

Fusion is the Holy Grail of energy and a prize worth any investment. With fusion technology, ordinary sea water has the same energy potential as the same volume of petrol. Fusion is literally unlimited energy without emissions. It is THE inevitable solution.

Galaxiom I think no emissions is slightly mis-leading. My understanding is that stray neutrons irradiate the surrounding structure, and when the neutron is ultimately absorbed, the absorbing nuclide generally becomes radioactive In this sense, fusion does produce waste products in the form of irradiated structural materials, which ultimately have to be disposed in some appropriate facility.

But yes from my reading of the material the reaction itself has no direct radioactive waste unlike fission.

I still am in support of research into fusion

 

[Anakardian]

In Denmark they have made a housetyp they call energy-plus. Instead of the normal insulation they beefed it up to nearly twice the requirement.
Add in a ground heating unit (Not sure what the english word is for this thing) and 6 kW of solar panels on the roof (max allowed) and you end up with a house that actually provides power tot he grid on sunny days.
The windows are quite large and in the center of the house there is a thick brick wall to absorb and store heat from the sun.
The price for this is about 10% higher than a convential house however there should be n electrical bill.

The solar panels are producing poer enough to charge an electric car with the surplus power the house is not using.
The deal with the power company is that even though you may produce more energy than you use, they will not have to pay for any surplus at the end of the year.

 

[Rabbie]

In the future I am sure Fusion will be the answer.

At present I have Solar Panels on my roof generating electricity which is sold back to the supplier through a feed-in tariff which should give a reasonable return on the cost of the installation.

 

[Adam Caramon]

I knew when I listed Fox news, I was going to get the anti Fox viewers. So I understand it just depends on who you believe.

Every news organization is biased to some degree or another, but Fox takes the cake when it comes to bias. The amount of spin they put on a story to make it into something juicy is awe-inspiring. Fox is essentially a corporate/republican mouth piece, which makes them incredibly unreliable.

Chevy claims that the Chevy Volt can go a range of 40 miles on one charge, then you have to charge the battery for 10 hrs whech makes the 14.5 hrs.

Right, but that is, as I was alluding to and as the Snopes article that Vassago linked deemed, "nonsensical". This is the kind of "fact"-based article that reveals Fox's bias.

Also I read the "Are you Smarter than a Fox News Viewer", now I know where you are coming from. By the way I got all them right except for two. I watch other news and read as well.

I missed one of them myself. If you watch other news and read other news sources, then you must be able to see Fox's bias for yourself. I'm a pretty liberal, but I can clearly see MSNBC's bias, which is why I rarely ever watch or read them.

The commentators on both Fox and MSNBC take a very aggressive, insulting stance when they talk about the other side. Its very immature in my opinion, and target's a base emotion of viewers: anger. It is unfortunate that it is so well-received by its respective audiences.

We are from going electric cars. It will be at least another 20 years before they get all the fixes out.

Possibly, but isn't it a goal worth pursuing? If in 5 or 10 years they perfect a battery that would allow 100 miles of travel on a single charge, that would suffice for most people's daily travel needs.

The only way to go is natural gas.

I don't know about "only", but it certainly sounds like a possible short-term solution. If there is a safe and affordable way to extract and process natural gas into fuel for vehicles, it would seem to be worth pursuing. If it requires subsidies or tax breaks from the government though, it would seem like those dollars should be going to develop green tech instead, IMHO.

 

[Anakardian]

Something called "Better Place" is rolling out both charging stations and battery changing stations in Denmark.
Once they have a good coverage of battery changing stations it might not be so bad with an electric car. They claim it takes less than 5 minutes to change the battery on their cars.