I think the MPGe calculation is supposed to approximate the cost of electricity vis a vis gasoline. I am sure it uses numerous assumptions, and if it were close, it probably isn't worth it... but most of the plug-ins I've seen are around 100MPGe, which is LIGHTYEARS better than even the 40-50 of similar non plug-in Hybrids.

My impression is that if you spend $300/month on gas, that you'd spend around $100/mo on elec. $200/month pays for a lot of car. My concern with plug-ins is the range for my longer trips... and my concern with Hybrids is that there isn't a TON of extra mileage for the extra expense.

For me, a plug in would have to go more than 200 miles... like perhaps closer to 300... or restaurants and gas stations would have to have 30-60 minute full charging stations to solve my problems. A 60 minute 300 mile charge isn't what a 5 minute 400 mile fill-up is, but I think it is manageable. It'd be even better if we had a single battery type and you could just pull into a station with an empty battery and they'd have a collection of fully charged batteries to quickly swap out and a solar panel on the roof of the station... "Free" electricity, nominal charge for the service. You could keep a spare battery in your trunk for long trips/emergencies.

I don't know enough about a fuel cell to comment.

Something like the Volt gets you around the range problem with a plug-in, though GM hasn't executed too well. If Tesla can get a good network of superchargers out there, and the Model S does well, then you can expect a pretty cheap fully electric car with no range issues. Just going to take a while to fully build out a charging network.

Fuel cells are neat, but the problem is you're carrying around a pressurized tank of hydrogen. Think Hindenburg. Plus, the way you recharge a fuel cell is electricity. Fuel cells take hydrogen and oxygen to turn into electricity + water (hence fuel cell cars are really just electric cars). To refuel, most designs for hydrogen refilling stations have simply been the reverse. Pump water and electricity to the "gas" station and hydrogen comes out. Fuel cells fix the energy density problem (ie: range), but generation method problem.

(03-13-2013 02:56 PM)VA49er Wrote:  

(03-13-2013 01:52 PM)mixduptransistor Wrote:  The article makes some good points (still pollutes a lot to build the car, still pollutes to create the electricity) but it's unfair to expect to get all the benefits all of a sudden. It's got to start somewhere. There are pushes to get towards renewable (or at least emissions-free) electric production at the same time as electric cars are being pushed. I'm wholly in favor of expanding nuclear power as a stop gap to get from coal/oil to something else. And, as production rises, and technology improves, the pollution caused by the production of the cars will decrease. You have to bootstrap the process, and it's not going to be perfect. Doesn't mean we shouldn't try, though.

(03-12-2013 06:34 PM)smn1256 Wrote:  

(03-12-2013 05:31 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  I'd LOVE to buy a plug-in. I can't stand paying $4 for gas. Problem is, I can't justify spending $5-10,000 more for "less" of a car.

What's your home electric bill there in Houston? Charging your car would make it rise tremendously.

It wouldn't be more than what you save on gas, though

From what I've ready, the electricity to charge the car wouldn't up the home electricity bill to much.

I'm pretty sure power meters go by current draw, so a lot would depend on the individual charging system utilized by the car and if there are any power sags on the grid like we tend to get in the summer when everyone has their AC on in their homes.

(03-13-2013 03:56 PM)mixduptransistor Wrote:  Something like the Volt gets you around the range problem with a plug-in, though GM hasn't executed too well. If Tesla can get a good network of superchargers out there, and the Model S does well, then you can expect a pretty cheap fully electric car with no range issues. Just going to take a while to fully build out a charging network.

Fuel cells are neat, but the problem is you're carrying around a pressurized tank of hydrogen. Think Hindenburg. Plus, the way you recharge a fuel cell is electricity. Fuel cells take hydrogen and oxygen to turn into electricity + water (hence fuel cell cars are really just electric cars). To refuel, most designs for hydrogen refilling stations have simply been the reverse. Pump water and electricity to the "gas" station and hydrogen comes out. Fuel cells fix the energy density problem (ie: range), but generation method problem.

SO fuel cells are just a different, but not necessarily better answer??

Yeah... the volt sucks, especially when you price it against the Tesla S base. I see the volt as a Prius alternative, 38miles on electric only, and 380 miles on a full tank of gas AND a fully charged battery. I get that most trips are much less than 38 miles, but having driven a prius, I didn't really find lots of times when the "generator" wasn't running. Maybe the volt is better, but it's still not a cool looking car. The Tesla S base goes like 150 miles on a charge, and if you could swap out the battery, it would be amazing.... or turn it into a volt by putting a generator in the trunk.

Maybe THAT is the answer. Sell some kind of battery (or fuel cell) to put in the boot for long trips that will supplement the onboard battery of the Tesla. There's my next business!! lol

Changing batteries has been looked at, though it's labor intensive. Tesla's model is intriguing, put solar powered supercharging stations within driving range of each other, and the stations have batteries and backup power so that they're always available. The upside to making them solar is that Tesla can then afford to give you free electricity with the purchase of the car.

(03-13-2013 04:56 PM)mixduptransistor Wrote:  Changing batteries has been looked at, though it's labor intensive. Tesla's model is intriguing, put solar powered supercharging stations within driving range of each other, and the stations have batteries and backup power so that they're always available. The upside to making them solar is that Tesla can then afford to give you free electricity with the purchase of the car.

That's a decent model.... and I think this is what Tesla is doing, but from a practical standpoint, I'm thinking about being 150 miles from my son in LA, and only having 160 miles of charge... so I have to plan ahead, hope its not too hot and charge up on the freeway, or make sure that I have an extension cord long enough to get to his apartment... or that my hotel has outlets. It requires more planning than should be necessary.

Are you an engineer of any kind? Or is there one on here?

What would be the less obvious pros and cons of having a large, optional secondary battery in the trunk like people have for their cell phones that could either be run concurrently with the "onboard" battery, or used to recharge the "onboard" battery when stopped for lunch or whatever... perhaps to address any heat issues?? By making it removable, you could reduce the labor required to replace it, and also only use it when you know you're going on a long trip.

If you'll look, the Tesla Sedan actually has optional seating for 7, so there is clearly room for something like this.... or put it in the 5.3 CF "Frunk" (front trunk). Could a 5.3cf battery (or "whetever" size in the trunk) hold enough juice to be meaningful, and yet be light enough to imagine someone taking it in and out of the car for trips? Say 30 pounds?

(03-13-2013 05:31 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  

(03-13-2013 04:56 PM)mixduptransistor Wrote:  Changing batteries has been looked at, though it's labor intensive. Tesla's model is intriguing, put solar powered supercharging stations within driving range of each other, and the stations have batteries and backup power so that they're always available. The upside to making them solar is that Tesla can then afford to give you free electricity with the purchase of the car.

That's a decent model.... and I think this is what Tesla is doing, but from a practical standpoint, I'm thinking about being 150 miles from my son in LA, and only having 160 miles of charge... so I have to plan ahead, hope its not too hot and charge up on the freeway, or make sure that I have an extension cord long enough to get to his apartment... or that my hotel has outlets. It requires more planning than should be necessary.

Are you an engineer of any kind? Or is there one on here?

What would be the less obvious pros and cons of having a large, optional secondary battery in the trunk like people have for their cell phones that could either be run concurrently with the "onboard" battery, or used to recharge the "onboard" battery when stopped for lunch or whatever... perhaps to address any heat issues?? By making it removable, you could reduce the labor required to replace it, and also only use it when you know you're going on a long trip.

If you'll look, the Tesla Sedan actually has optional seating for 7, so there is clearly room for something like this.... or put it in the 5.3 CF "Frunk" (front trunk). Could a 5.3cf battery (or "whetever" size in the trunk) hold enough juice to be meaningful, and yet be light enough to imagine someone taking it in and out of the car for trips? Say 30 pounds?

A big down side is your typical car shop might not know how to fix the things and he most certainly won't have parts sitting around, and you know how things seem to break down at the worst time....

Going back to the battery capacity, maybe someone should invent a portable solar cell that you can roll out like a blanket, place it on your roof (or where ever), and have a plug that fits into the cigarette lighter or some other outlet and this charges the batteries.

Better yet, build the roof and front and rear hoods of solar panels.

Even better still - develop our own GD oil resources and some refineries, too, and let's get the price of gasoline down, after all, gas prices have a great deal to do with the price of everything else in the country, including the cost of delivering an electric car to a dealer.

(03-13-2013 05:31 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  

(03-13-2013 04:56 PM)mixduptransistor Wrote:  Changing batteries has been looked at, though it's labor intensive. Tesla's model is intriguing, put solar powered supercharging stations within driving range of each other, and the stations have batteries and backup power so that they're always available. The upside to making them solar is that Tesla can then afford to give you free electricity with the purchase of the car.

That's a decent model.... and I think this is what Tesla is doing, but from a practical standpoint, I'm thinking about being 150 miles from my son in LA, and only having 160 miles of charge... so I have to plan ahead, hope its not too hot and charge up on the freeway, or make sure that I have an extension cord long enough to get to his apartment... or that my hotel has outlets. It requires more planning than should be necessary.

Are you an engineer of any kind? Or is there one on here?

What would be the less obvious pros and cons of having a large, optional secondary battery in the trunk like people have for their cell phones that could either be run concurrently with the "onboard" battery, or used to recharge the "onboard" battery when stopped for lunch or whatever... perhaps to address any heat issues?? By making it removable, you could reduce the labor required to replace it, and also only use it when you know you're going on a long trip.

If you'll look, the Tesla Sedan actually has optional seating for 7, so there is clearly room for something like this.... or put it in the 5.3 CF "Frunk" (front trunk). Could a 5.3cf battery (or "whetever" size in the trunk) hold enough juice to be meaningful, and yet be light enough to imagine someone taking it in and out of the car for trips? Say 30 pounds?

In terms of density, I couldn't answer you. The problem with "spare" batteries and extra batteries is the weight. Your car would weigh what a dump truck does by the time you're done, and then you need more batteries to power the additional car needed to carry the additional batteries, and on and on.

Like I said, some companies have looked at doing interchangeable batteries, so you'd drive into a recharging station that drops the batteries out of the bottom of your car, puts in some charged ones, and then you go on your way. It's just super expensive and not practical for many different manufacturers and car designs.

You can fully charge a Tesla with a fast charger in an hour or less. That's 300+ miles. For free fuel, that's not a bad tradeoff. The trick is they need to get the network built up so that you're always within range of one, even when using comfortable A/C or heat.

(03-13-2013 07:21 PM)smn1256 Wrote:  

(03-13-2013 05:31 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  

(03-13-2013 04:56 PM)mixduptransistor Wrote:  Changing batteries has been looked at, though it's labor intensive. Tesla's model is intriguing, put solar powered supercharging stations within driving range of each other, and the stations have batteries and backup power so that they're always available. The upside to making them solar is that Tesla can then afford to give you free electricity with the purchase of the car.

That's a decent model.... and I think this is what Tesla is doing, but from a practical standpoint, I'm thinking about being 150 miles from my son in LA, and only having 160 miles of charge... so I have to plan ahead, hope its not too hot and charge up on the freeway, or make sure that I have an extension cord long enough to get to his apartment... or that my hotel has outlets. It requires more planning than should be necessary.

Are you an engineer of any kind? Or is there one on here?

What would be the less obvious pros and cons of having a large, optional secondary battery in the trunk like people have for their cell phones that could either be run concurrently with the "onboard" battery, or used to recharge the "onboard" battery when stopped for lunch or whatever... perhaps to address any heat issues?? By making it removable, you could reduce the labor required to replace it, and also only use it when you know you're going on a long trip.

If you'll look, the Tesla Sedan actually has optional seating for 7, so there is clearly room for something like this.... or put it in the 5.3 CF "Frunk" (front trunk). Could a 5.3cf battery (or "whetever" size in the trunk) hold enough juice to be meaningful, and yet be light enough to imagine someone taking it in and out of the car for trips? Say 30 pounds?

A big down side is your typical car shop might not know how to fix the things and he most certainly won't have parts sitting around, and you know how things seem to break down at the worst time....

Going back to the battery capacity, maybe someone should invent a portable solar cell that you can roll out like a blanket, place it on your roof (or where ever), and have a plug that fits into the cigarette lighter or some other outlet and this charges the batteries.

Better yet, build the roof and front and rear hoods of solar panels.

Even better still - develop our own GD oil resources and some refineries, too, and let's get the price of gasoline down, after all, gas prices have a great deal to do with the price of everything else in the country, including the cost of delivering an electric car to a dealer.

At the current efficiency of solar panels, you couldn't charge the car very fast with that much surface area of panels.

And oil yes, great, wonderful, but it's never ever ever going to be cheaper than it is now. Get over it. We're producing more oil domestically than we have in 20 years, and what has happened to gas prices? There is no incentive to the oil companies to build any refineries. Why would they invest money to drive down prices?

One promising stepping stone is natural gas. BNSF railroad is looking at natural gas locomotives and Ford like doubled or tripled the number of CNG cars they sold last year (it was a still a pretty small number though). At any rate, natural gas is super cheap (in the $1-2 per gasoline gallon equivalent range) and we have like 300 years of it. Oh, and it's cleaner than gas. Get trucks and trains on natural gas and you fix a lot of the oil cost in the economy, do a lot towards cleaning up the environment, and we're truly independent on energy.

(03-13-2013 10:15 PM)mixduptransistor Wrote:  At the current efficiency of solar panels, you couldn't charge the car very fast with that much surface area of panels.

One reason why solar is not an alternative to oil. Maybe someday, but no time soon.

Quote:And oil yes, great, wonderful, but it's never ever ever going to be cheaper than it is now. Get over it.

ENERGY is never going to be cheaper than it is now. Solving our energy problem is always going to be expensive.

Quote:We're producing more oil domestically than we have in 20 years, and what has happened to gas prices? There is no incentive to the oil companies to build any refineries. Why would they invest money to drive down prices?

The bigger problem is the extreme difficulty jumping through all the environmental approvals. And there's no guarantee that new refineries would drive down costs. As for why oil companies would be incentivized to drive down prices, very simple, that makes oil more competitive with coal, solar, wind, you name it. And that means selling more oil and refined products.

Quote:One promising stepping stone is natural gas. BNSF railroad is looking at natural gas locomotives and Ford like doubled or tripled the number of CNG cars they sold last year (it was a still a pretty small number though). At any rate, natural gas is super cheap (in the $1-2 per gasoline gallon equivalent range) and we have like 300 years of it. Oh, and it's cleaner than gas. Get trucks and trains on natural gas and you fix a lot of the oil cost in the economy, do a lot towards cleaning up the environment, and we're truly independent on energy.

Natural gas makes sense where the infrastructure is there to support it, but widespread use potentially requires huge capital costs.

OK - don't make fun of me if I am wrong, but isn't one of the worst things about natural gas is having to compact it into a small area and the possibilities of it puncturing in a wreck or exploding some other way?

(03-13-2013 10:33 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(03-13-2013 10:15 PM)mixduptransistor Wrote:  At the current efficiency of solar panels, you couldn't charge the car very fast with that much surface area of panels.

One reason why solar is not an alternative to oil. Maybe someday, but no time soon.

Quote:And oil yes, great, wonderful, but it's never ever ever going to be cheaper than it is now. Get over it.

ENERGY is never going to be cheaper than it is now. Solving our energy problem is always going to be expensive.

Quote:We're producing more oil domestically than we have in 20 years, and what has happened to gas prices? There is no incentive to the oil companies to build any refineries. Why would they invest money to drive down prices?

The bigger problem is the extreme difficulty jumping through all the environmental approvals. And there's no guarantee that new refineries would drive down costs. As for why oil companies would be incentivized to drive down prices, very simple, that makes oil more competitive with coal, solar, wind, you name it. And that means selling more oil and refined products.

Quote:One promising stepping stone is natural gas. BNSF railroad is looking at natural gas locomotives and Ford like doubled or tripled the number of CNG cars they sold last year (it was a still a pretty small number though). At any rate, natural gas is super cheap (in the $1-2 per gasoline gallon equivalent range) and we have like 300 years of it. Oh, and it's cleaner than gas. Get trucks and trains on natural gas and you fix a lot of the oil cost in the economy, do a lot towards cleaning up the environment, and we're truly independent on energy.

Natural gas makes sense where the infrastructure is there to support it, but widespread use potentially requires huge capital costs.

Solar: I agree. Eventually it will be the only way we power our society. Enough energy hits a square mile of the Earth to power human civilization from the dawn of the Industrial Revolution (or something crazy like that, the scale may be off). But, it's not there yet, sure.

I have not heard of any oil companies wanting to build any refineries. I'm not sure how building a refinery has anything to do with coal, solar, or wind. We only get 1% or less of electricity from petroleum, and we should not encourage petroleum going to electricity anyway. If we're going to burn something dirty it ought to be coal or natural gas, since we have tons of it here in the US, and don't use it for food production. That argument just doesn't make sense. The reason none have been built is because oil companies love the high prices of refined products and have zero incentive to build any.

And on natural gas, I agree. That infrastructure is being built out, though. A natural gas fueling station just opened in Birmingham on the freeway between Memphis and Atlanta and New Orleans. I'm sure it's happening in other cities. For trucks, the infrastructure doesn't have to be nearly as extensive as if we were trying to move cars over. And railroads are even easier.

(03-14-2013 07:33 AM)mixduptransistor Wrote:  Solar: I agree. Eventually it will be the only way we power our society. Enough energy hits a square mile of the Earth to power human civilization from the dawn of the Industrial Revolution (or something crazy like that, the scale may be off). But, it's not there yet, sure.

Yes, the energy hits the earth. And that part's cheap (free) and easy. But converting it to usable form is expensive and difficult. In particular, getting it to a form that will power a car down a highway is particularly difficult. And even best case, will remain so for quite some time to come.

Quote:I have not heard of any oil companies wanting to build any refineries... The reason none have been built is because oil companies love the high prices of refined products and have zero incentive to build any.

If you've not heard of oil companies wanting to build or expand refineries, you're simply not paying attention. There probably is no oil company that would not want to expand/update every refinery that it owns. The idea that you withhold building refineries to drive prices up is absurd. For one thing, the profit margins for refined products are on the order of just a very few pennies per gallon, so there's no price gouging going on. And if I were getting absurdly high prices for any products, then I would have every incentive to expand and take away market share from others. You are engaging in a line of thinking here that makes no sense to anyone who understands the economics of the situation. Take the extremely thin profit margins on refined products, factor in the cost and delays of regulatory and other compliance, and a new refinery does not make economic sense.

Quote:I'm not sure how building a refinery has anything to do with coal, solar, or wind. We only get 1% or less of electricity from petroleum, and we should not encourage petroleum going to electricity anyway. If we're going to burn something dirty it ought to be coal or natural gas, since we have tons of it here in the US, and don't use it for food production. That argument just doesn't make sense.

Nobody is saying use petroleum for electricity. What I'm saying is that the substitution is to use electricity as a prime mover instead of a gasoline/diesel engine. And the cheaper refined products are, the more they can take uses away from electricity--by however means generated--and other alternatives.

Quote:And on natural gas, I agree. That infrastructure is being built out, though. A natural gas fueling station just opened in Birmingham on the freeway between Memphis and Atlanta and New Orleans. I'm sure it's happening in other cities. For trucks, the infrastructure doesn't have to be nearly as extensive as if we were trying to move cars over. And railroads are even easier.

The infrastructure would have to be built out tremendously before gas can become a widespread option. So you have one station being built out in Birmingham. How many cars can that serve on an ongoing basis? How many more stations would have to be built out to support significant usage in the metro area?

One problem that leftists seem unable to grasp is scale. For many applications, particularly in the alternative energy area, the scale problems are more difficult to solve than any other aspect.

CNG-

It is our future. It will be my next car.

(03-14-2013 09:00 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(03-14-2013 07:33 AM)mixduptransistor Wrote:  Solar: I agree. Eventually it will be the only way we power our society. Enough energy hits a square mile of the Earth to power human civilization from the dawn of the Industrial Revolution (or something crazy like that, the scale may be off). But, it's not there yet, sure.

Yes, the energy hits the earth. And that part's cheap (free) and easy. But converting it to usable form is expensive and difficult. In particular, getting it to a form that will power a car down a highway is particularly difficult. And even best case, will remain so for quite some time to come.

Quote:I have not heard of any oil companies wanting to build any refineries... The reason none have been built is because oil companies love the high prices of refined products and have zero incentive to build any.

If you've not heard of oil companies wanting to build or expand refineries, you're simply not paying attention. There probably is no oil company that would not want to expand/update every refinery that it owns. The idea that you withhold building refineries to drive prices up is absurd. For one thing, the profit margins for refined products are on the order of just a very few pennies per gallon, so there's no price gouging going on. And if I were getting absurdly high prices for any products, then I would have every incentive to expand and take away market share from others. You are engaging in a line of thinking here that makes no sense to anyone who understands the economics of the situation. Take the extremely thin profit margins on refined products, factor in the cost and delays of regulatory and other compliance, and a new refinery does not make economic sense.

Quote:I'm not sure how building a refinery has anything to do with coal, solar, or wind. We only get 1% or less of electricity from petroleum, and we should not encourage petroleum going to electricity anyway. If we're going to burn something dirty it ought to be coal or natural gas, since we have tons of it here in the US, and don't use it for food production. That argument just doesn't make sense.

Nobody is saying use petroleum for electricity. What I'm saying is that the substitution is to use electricity as a prime mover instead of a gasoline/diesel engine. And the cheaper refined products are, the more they can take uses away from electricity--by however means generated--and other alternatives.

Quote:And on natural gas, I agree. That infrastructure is being built out, though. A natural gas fueling station just opened in Birmingham on the freeway between Memphis and Atlanta and New Orleans. I'm sure it's happening in other cities. For trucks, the infrastructure doesn't have to be nearly as extensive as if we were trying to move cars over. And railroads are even easier.

The infrastructure would have to be built out tremendously before gas can become a widespread option. So you have one station being built out in Birmingham. How many cars can that serve on an ongoing basis? How many more stations would have to be built out to support significant usage in the metro area?

One problem that leftists seem unable to grasp is scale. For many applications, particularly in the alternative energy area, the scale problems are more difficult to solve than any other aspect.

Well, since I was talking about trucks and not cars, it's not nearly as bad as you make it out to be. I don't think we'd ever be able to completely switch from gasoline to natural gas. Trucks and trains, however, could easily switch. You only need a couple of stations in each metro area, along major freeway routes, to allow significant numbers of trucks to switch from diesel to natural gas. Not sure why you're anti-natgas, since we drill 100% of what we use here instead of buying it from Canada or Saudi Arabia

(03-14-2013 09:22 AM)mixduptransistor Wrote:  Well, since I was talking about trucks and not cars, it's not nearly as bad as you make it out to be. I don't think we'd ever be able to completely switch from gasoline to natural gas. Trucks and trains, however, could easily switch. You only need a couple of stations in each metro area, along major freeway routes, to allow significant numbers of trucks to switch from diesel to natural gas. Not sure why you're anti-natgas, since we drill 100% of what we use here instead of buying it from Canada or Saudi Arabia

Number one, I'm not anti-gas in the slightest. We just have to use it where it makes the most sense. It was Jimmy Carter's anti-gas stance that caused a lot of the problems we have today. But for Carter and his energy policy, a lot of what you want would likely already be here.

What really makes sense for trains is electric, like Europe. Gas would require frequent refueling stops, plus my own considerable experience with natural gas engines is that they are at least marginally less powerful and less torquey, which would be drawbacks for trains.

The best application for natural gas is local fleet operations--like Fed Ex delivery operations. Fuel overnight at a central depot, then run all day the next day. You'd need way more than a couple of stations per major metro area to support significant over-the-road truck operations. Basically everywhere you see a truck stop today would have to add the natural gas infrastructure.

Gasifying local truck fleets and electrifying trains could save us about 3 million barrels of oil per day. That's a huge impact.

Of course, start doing that and those 300 years worth of natural gas aren't 300 years any more. The 300 years is at current usage levels, and when you increase the denominator the fraction gets smaller.

(03-14-2013 10:01 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(03-14-2013 09:22 AM)mixduptransistor Wrote:  Well, since I was talking about trucks and not cars, it's not nearly as bad as you make it out to be. I don't think we'd ever be able to completely switch from gasoline to natural gas. Trucks and trains, however, could easily switch. You only need a couple of stations in each metro area, along major freeway routes, to allow significant numbers of trucks to switch from diesel to natural gas. Not sure why you're anti-natgas, since we drill 100% of what we use here instead of buying it from Canada or Saudi Arabia

Number one, I'm not anti-gas in the slightest. We just have to use it where it makes the most sense. It was Jimmy Carter's anti-gas stance that caused a lot of the problems we have today. But for Carter and his energy policy, a lot of what you want would likely already be here.

What really makes sense for trains is electric, like Europe. Gas would require frequent refueling stops, plus my own considerable experience with natural gas engines is that they are at least marginally less powerful and less torquey, which would be drawbacks for trains.

The best application for natural gas is local fleet operations--like Fed Ex delivery operations. Fuel overnight at a central depot, then run all day the next day. You'd need way more than a couple of stations per major metro area to support significant over-the-road truck operations. Basically everywhere you see a truck stop today would have to add the natural gas infrastructure.

Gasifying local truck fleets and electrifying trains could save us about 3 million barrels of oil per day. That's a huge impact.

Of course, start doing that and those 300 years worth of natural gas aren't 300 years any more. The 300 years is at current usage levels, and when you increase the denominator the fraction gets smaller.

We use LP gas in our forklifts at our plant. I like them. They sure do make the air quality indoors better than the former gas ones. I think the engines last longer also. We have about 15 years on several of our units with minimal engine repairs.

Owl..Did you hear about the new NG field found in Qatar? 2.8 trillion cubic feet.

They sell a CNG fill station that ties into your home in your garage. You just plug in when you come home and it fills up during the night.

(03-12-2013 04:53 PM)Brookes Owl Wrote:  Article from WSJ yesterday. We've seen similar discussion previously but it's good to have the numbers in one spot so you can do your own math (weak on sources though). No surprise: Batteries are NOT green.

I don't have a problem with poking holes in the "electric cars will save us from AGW" argument, but it's not fair to imply these cars might not be green. So much focus has been placed on CO2 and warming, there seems to be much less thought given to those emitted compounds that we all agree are harmful. As a resident of the most air-polluted metroplex in the US, I absolutely appreciate the non-CO2-related benefits of an electric (or even hybrid) car. We don't have the volume of smog alerts we had when I was a kid but the air here still sucks through much of the summer. And lets face it: There are PLENTY of peer-reviewed and credible studies of the adverse health affects of smog. Of course, we haven't figured out how to rig the system so that smog abatement can be monetized...

Interesting, I would prefer most electricity come from nuclear power plants. That is really clean energy, as long as the radioactive wastes are disposed off properly. Nuclear energy really has no peer in this regard. Nuclear enery will really control CO2, and sea levels will stop rising. Coastal areas will be at less risk of flooding. Polar ice caps are expected to be fully melted by 30 years.