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[John Roberts {JR}]

As to the need, during a civic emergency to drive somewhere in order to get access to the Internet, (rather than staying at home in the dark w/o telecom) it seems obvious that an EV owner would simply drive their car to a place with power service (as Bob described), then charge it up, then drive back home and have another day of electricity in their own house.

My understanding is that one major issue still with battery powered EV is the difficulty to quickly charge them.  Imagine how long the wait would be in those lines. 

Perhaps drive your EV to a station to fill up a gas can to carry home.

If you're the sole occupant, the house can stay dark while you're away, and it matters little.  If there are other occupants, it's likely they'd be glad for the chance to have power 18 or 20 hours out of 24.

+1... while we have become habituated to need electricity, we can survive nicely without for a while.

Lastly, many see the use of H2 fuel cells as the future of small-scale emergency power generation for these sorts of black-outs - hardly a 3rd world scenario.

Yup, I already mentioned hydrogen, but fuel cell technology is not very new either, invented in 1839. I recall my older brother building one for a science fair project back in the early 60's. I don't recall the exact context but I recall my brother talking about working on some hydrogen power land based turbine or something like that (either Pratt and Whitney or GE), and he reported that Hydrogen is difficult to work with. It has a tendency to degrade metal and cause leaks. Then it burns with a clear flame you can't easily see. He says to find burning leaks, they would use a straw broom, to search for any leaks with open flames that were occurring as the broom straw would catch fire very visibly.

The government can wish and hope, and put both thumbs on the scale but it won't make things happen when the broader market, and the technology isn't ready. Green job A123 car battery company recently went belly up, no doubt because EV sales refused to blossom on cue. The Chinese tried to buy them out of bankruptcy, but that would be insult on top of injury, for the Chinese to get the benefit of all the US taxpayer dollars invested into developing MIT patents, so the government nixed that and a different US company bought the assets on the cheap.

Electric cars dominated before cheap oil and gasoline showed up and provided superior performance from IC engines. IMO pure EV still don't quite cut it. Hybrids that can run on gasoline, are acceptable, because they can run on gasoline, but you are paying for some duplication of motive machinery. I like my idea of directly supplying power to the roadway so EV don't need to carry heavy back up energy storage, of course this would be limited to densely populated areas that could support the high infrastructure cost of powered roadways.

Using EV to back up home energy needs is a throw back to tractors with a power take off to run accessories like a fancy automatic washing machine or whatever.
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One tidbit that is falling into place for EV as residential back up energy reservoir is relatively low cost DC to DC switching convertors so it would be easier to draw power from car batteries, while maybe the EV need to model themselves after trains that use a diesel engine to turn a generator, then drive electric motors from that to move the trains.

JR

[Shane Ervin]

My understanding is that one major issue still with battery powered EV is the difficulty to quickly charge them.  Imagine how long the wait would be in those lines.

Waiting in lines?  I thought Bob said he'd driven over to his sister's house for access to electric power. 

But I don't doubt there'd be a lineup to see him shower!  A line-up of people waiting to shower there?   ... Not so much.

Anyway, lots of people with whom I've spoken about EV's, seem to fail to take into consideration the power receptacles available in 99.99% of 1st world residences (offices, warehouses, hotels,...) when imagining the day-to-day routine in the near-future of charging cars.

And in that near future, many EV owners will have opted for the fast charger (my brother did for his LEAF - and I hear the Geek Squad already offers the installation service), and so at Bob's sister's place, the charge time would be acceptably fast in these civic emergency scenarios.

As to H2 for vehicle energy storage, I think batteries and in-road provisioning systems are superior and things will unfold accordingly.  For an extended-time UPS at home, though, it sure seems worth pursuing, even if the darned tiny molecules tend to find their way into - and through - the storage tank walls.  I do believe the technology will advance, but never to the point where it becomes mainstream for transportation use.

[Martin Morris]

And you are on the bad side of the storm, pushing all that water. Stay safe!

[Martin Morris]

And you are on the bad side of the storm, pushing all that water. Stay safe!

[Ned Ward]

You know that is a bad photoshop image, right? Unfortunately, clueless people have been posting this all around the internet believing it's real. I like the one with Godzilla, sharktopus and a few other invented monsters added in.

[Martin Morris]

You know that is a bad photoshop image, right? Unfortunately, clueless people have been posting this all around the internet believing it's real. I like the one with Godzilla, sharktopus and a few other invented monsters added in.

not too far from the truth ...

[Ned Ward]

3+ inches of snow in northern NJ from the nor'easter; hope that folks are safe and warm.

[Mac Kerr]

3+ inches of snow in northern NJ from the nor'easter; hope that folks are safe and warm.

We have about 8" now and it's still snowing. I think all my friends got their power back before this storm. I'm glad I'm not experiencing this with no heat, I hope those who are have been able to find shelter. At least the promised 50mph winds have not materialized.

Mac

[Bob Leonard]

Stay safe Mac.

[ProSoundWeb Community]