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Author Topic: Battery-electric Road Vehicles and Energy Infrastructure  (Read 8730 times)

Frank Koenig

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Re: Battery-electric Road Vehicles and Energy Infrastructure
« Reply #20 on: June 04, 2021, 01:17:50 PM »

Then there's hydrogen cell vehicles. Toyota seems to be betting big on that technology. Longer range but the infrastructure would be so much more expensive to establish.

It would seem like EV's have a huge advantage over hydrogen but seeing Toyota investing in it really makes me wonder. And longer range, shorter pit stops may be the deciding factor.

Here's a short article

https://driving.ca/auto-news/news/hydrogen-vs-electric-which-is-actually-more-efficient?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=driving_make-model&utm_content=ontario_toronto&cid=SEARCH%7CGOOGLE%7CTORONTO-DYN%7CPPC&gclid=Cj0KCQjwnueFBhChARIsAPu3YkQ9RB8DiqEXpI9akCGAzFwopeQtCUJVUAUQDlf7Nau6gRXHP0aaSY4aArO8EALw_wcB

Right. But unless we find a more efficient way to electrolyze water and compress, or otherwise compactly store (adsorption), the hydrogen the overall system efficiency, starting with electricity, is bad. Getting hydrogen from natural gas, as we do now, is worse than burning the natural gas directly in an IC or EC engine, so far as I know. Hydrogen technology definitely is worth perusing but in its current form is looking weak compared with BEV for road transport. It may find use in aviation if we can find a good way to store it. On the other hand, even a factor of 2 improvement in battery energy density, in combination with advanced electric propulsion, would open up a lot of aviation applications, maybe just not long-haul jet transport.

Further, I don't trust Toyota on this. Their engineers aren't stupid. I suspect their foundering hydrogen vehicle program was in large part a marketing effort to throw dirt on BEVs while they played catch-up. You know they've got BEVs in the lab and even have a history of BEVs -- the RAV4 EV that was developed in collaboration with Tesla.

Gotta go now. --Frank
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Steve-White

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Re: Battery-electric Road Vehicles and Energy Infrastructure
« Reply #21 on: June 04, 2021, 01:37:58 PM »

^^^ Definitely mud slinging going on Frank.  All the way back to Thomas Alva Edison brutally electrocuting animals in public displays in his personal campaign against Nikola Tesla and Alternating Current electricity.

Today we have the Enviroweenies and their recent "triumph" over the Keystone XL pipeline.  they just shot themselves and everyone else in the foot and don't even know what they did.

Now instead of the tar sand from Alberta moving in a more efficient pipeline system, as some already does, the XL would have streamlined transportation.

Now it's being moved by rail:  https://e360.yale.edu/features/shipping_crude_oil_by_rail_new_front_in_tar_sands_wars

Now ask yourself, who profits from this?  Not the consumer, definitely not the environment as moving it by rail is the worst way - much more pollution.

Hmmmmm......who owns the railroads?  They would profit.

The "environmentalists" in this "battle" are being used as pawns in a very dirty slight of hand game and aren't smart enough to realize it.  The MSM keeps the "debate" miles and miles away from the truth.  Ask Warren Buffet who's quietly pulling the strings of this battle.
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Russell Ault

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Re: Battery-electric Road Vehicles and Energy Infrastructure
« Reply #22 on: June 04, 2021, 01:39:33 PM »

{...}
The biggest obstacle to widespread adoption of EVs is the cost of replacement batteries. Most cars sold are used vehicles, and the people who prefer to buy used vehicles are going to shy away from EVs that will soon need major service (battery replacement). Consumers that are selling or trading in 4-year-old EVs aren't going to invest in a new battery for something they are about to get rid of, just so they can sell it. Will putting a new battery in an old EV raise the value enough to recoup the cost of the battery? I don't know -- I don't think we have enough data yet to know, but in the IC world, repairs almost never raise the value enough to cover the cost of repairs.

I'll be really interested to see the data on this, too. I see two big differences between IC and BEV cars that might impact this.

First is the number of moving parts (i.e. the number of things that can wear out). Owning an IC car (especially an older model) is basically just waiting around to see what fails next, and the repair/replace decision is complicated by the fact that fixing today's failure won't necessarily prevent tomorrow's. With fewer things that can fail, BEVs may avoid this to some extent.

The second difference, and perhaps more important, is the parts-to-labour cost ratio, especially for something like a new battery. Replacing a broken widget on a car (IC or BEV) will basically only increase (or, rather, restore) the value of the car by the cost of the widget (give or take), which means that the owner is left to eat the cost labour. If the widget in question is, say, a timing belt, then the amount of labour cost that needs to be eaten will be at least an order of magnitude more than the cost of the part (and therefore the resale value of the repair). Conversely, if the widget in question is a $10k battery, suddenly the relative cost of the labour moves into a realm that could be covered by a reasonable retail markup.

My hunch is that we're not going to see a lot of "used" BEVs on the market, but sooner or later there will be a market for "refurbished" models.

-Russ
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Steve-White

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Re: Battery-electric Road Vehicles and Energy Infrastructure
« Reply #23 on: June 04, 2021, 02:05:15 PM »

^^^ Same logic can be applied to a $3K transmission overhaul or $5K engine.
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Russell Ault

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Re: Battery-electric Road Vehicles and Energy Infrastructure
« Reply #24 on: June 04, 2021, 03:13:44 PM »

^^^ Definitely mud slinging going on Frank.  All the way back to Thomas Alva Edison brutally electrocuting animals in public displays in his personal campaign against Nikola Tesla and Alternating Current electricity.

Today we have the Enviroweenies and their recent "triumph" over the Keystone XL pipeline.  they just shot themselves and everyone else in the foot and don't even know what they did.

Now instead of the tar sand from Alberta moving in a more efficient pipeline system, as some already does, the XL would have streamlined transportation.

Now it's being moved by rail:  https://e360.yale.edu/features/shipping_crude_oil_by_rail_new_front_in_tar_sands_wars

Now ask yourself, who profits from this?  Not the consumer, definitely not the environment as moving it by rail is the worst way - much more pollution.

Hmmmmm......who owns the railroads?  They would profit.

The "environmentalists" in this "battle" are being used as pawns in a very dirty slight of hand game and aren't smart enough to realize it.  The MSM keeps the "debate" miles and miles away from the truth.  Ask Warren Buffet who's quietly pulling the strings of this battle.

Speaking as an Albertan (i.e. someone whose education and healthcare have been partially subsidized by the royalties paid on bitumen extraction) I can promise you that the question of how best to transport bitumen isn't nearly as simple as that.

Here's one example: unlike with light crude (which is somewhat dangerous to transport regardless mode), raw bitumen is nearly inert (to the point that, in Canada, it isn't even covered by hazardous goods transportation regulations). Before you can pump bitumen through a pipeline, though, it has to be substantially diluted, which has the effect of making it both more volatile and more environmentally-hazardous (the cleanup costs on dilbit spills can easily run into the billions of dollars). Conversely, raw bitumen in a tank car is barely a liquid (the cars themselves have to be heated to keep the stuff from literally freezing solid); in a derailment it doesn't spill so much as ooze, it can't explode, and it's very hard to light on fire. Plus, by removing the requirement for a diluent (which can more costly to acquire than the value of the bitumen its being mixed with, but has almost not value at the other end of the pipeline) the cost-per-barrel of rawbit-by-rail is basically comparable to pipeline transport, with the added benefit that, outside of terminals, it can use existing infrastructure and regulatory approvals.

There also continue to be questions about the business case for bitumen-oriented pipelines like Keystone XL, since it's hard to justify those kinds of upfront costs if there isn't a great deal of long-term certainty in the bitumen market. Bitumen costs significantly more per barrel than any other kind of oil to both produce and to transport, and the recent flood of shale oil coming on the market (to say nothing of OPEC-related fun times) have made the economic case for long-term bitumen extraction somewhat less certain (and, therefore, the likelihood of asset-stranding higher). And that's all before you get into the details that bitumen isn't just heavy, it's also sour, so a lot of the refineries in North America aren't currently equipped to refine it, anyway.

And on, an on...

^^^ Same logic can be applied to a $3K transmission overhaul or $5K engine.

Not quite, though. Both of those jobs are quite a bit more mechanically complex (and therefore labour-intensive) than a battery swap (8-10 shop hours vs 3-5), and you'd really have to do them both to get similar benefits to a battery swap in an EV (so more like 16-20 shop hours vs 3-5). Put another way, the parts-to-labour ratio of replacing a car's transmission and engine is ~3:1, while a battery swap would be closer to 10:1, and my guess is that the market might be willing to bear the latter even though it won't currently bear the former.

-Russ
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Steve-White

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Re: Battery-electric Road Vehicles and Energy Infrastructure
« Reply #25 on: June 04, 2021, 03:32:22 PM »

Well, I suppose the entire Keystone pipeline system and concept could have been done without a business case - not likely, but anything's possible these days.  If the government was involved in paying for it then very likely no business case to support it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystone_Pipeline

I still smell a rat in this whole thing.  Too many conflicting things.  It's not a question of Keystone or no Keystone.  Keystone XL is an enhancement to already in service system.

Ratio of parts to labor -vs- condition and value of a used vehicle - I respectfully disagree - money in > overall condition = value.
« Last Edit: June 04, 2021, 03:55:38 PM by Steve-White »
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Riley Casey

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Re: Battery-electric Road Vehicles and Energy Infrastructure
« Reply #26 on: June 04, 2021, 03:56:26 PM »

Lots of talk about non-starters and unreliable sources compared to traditional fuels, short ranges, all kinds of complaints and all discussed in a way that sort of makes it seem like we have a choice in this endeavor. The certified smart people and the evidence thus far indicate strongly that we don't have a choice or if we do it's that we continue to live as we always have and flush our grand children's lives down the drain. Bottom line thinking needs to come to the fore and that is very likely means ,  baring some fundamental shift in basic energy technology ( anyone heard from desk top cold fusion recently? ) , significant changes in energy consuming lifestyles. Things like private cars disappearing in urban areas, distributed energy generation like roof top solar on every roof, small scale localized windmills, lots less international and long distance travel except by much more efficient transport such as rail. Changes even in diet. Inefficient forms of travel, food, living spaces, industrial production all need to change to make this work. We've only really lived in this energy intensive economy for 150 years or so and that has only been westerners for that period. The rest of the world didn't buy in til after 1945. In that short period of time we've managed to start the process that will make the world uninhabitable.

It's going to mean a different world one way or the other. One version in which we make choices to change behavior substantially to head off the worst case scenarios and one in which the choices are imposed on us by radical changes in climate and we slip slowly toward most of the world living a 15th century existence and a tiny few living in climate controlled environments constantly at war with the people outside the remaining but ever dwindling green places.

Steve-White

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Re: Battery-electric Road Vehicles and Energy Infrastructure
« Reply #27 on: June 04, 2021, 04:15:43 PM »

Agreed Riley.  However, it's where the focus is being placed and how that chaps my drawers.

Climate change may be an issue - ok, let's apply technology to correct/prevent/mitigate bad things from happening - great!

But do so in a sane manner, and not shackle entire economies in the process, let alone a few select countries carry the burden while others do nothing.

Honestly, IMO de-forestation and over-population are far more urgent problems than fossil fuels.  Over a billion people in India today and COVID is having devastating effects.  IMO over-population will take the earth over the tipping point way ahead of climate change.  That's not even talked about - I don't mean here guys.

There's big money to be made in the "Green Movement" and none to rally against de-forestation and the population explosion - there will come a day when we just can't feed them anymore.  Why over time are there "under developed" countries?  Why?
« Last Edit: June 04, 2021, 07:40:20 PM by Steve-White »
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Russell Ault

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Re: Battery-electric Road Vehicles and Energy Infrastructure
« Reply #28 on: June 04, 2021, 08:21:57 PM »

Well, I suppose the entire Keystone pipeline system and concept could have been done without a business case - not likely, but anything's possible these days.  If the government was involved in paying for it then very likely no business case to support it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystone_Pipeline

I still smell a rat in this whole thing.  Too many conflicting things.  It's not a question of Keystone or no Keystone.  Keystone XL is an enhancement to already in service system.
{...}

Business cases change, though. The business case for Keystone XL was great in 2005 when it was announced (and WTI was trading at ~$80/barrel), and it was still great in 2012 when construction was supposed to have started (and WTI was trading at ~$100/barrel), but since 2015 WTI has been hovering around $60/barrel. Worse still, while the original Keystone was built to move a mix of both light sweet crude and heavy sour crude (Alberta produces the former conventionally and the latter in both conventional and non-conventional ways), Keystone XL was largely designed to service growing bitumen production (since light sweet crude production in the province has basically reached maturation) which, because of its high cost, is more price-sensitive than any other form of oil production while also being less in-demand. Add to this some significant social changes (with many major oil companies working hard to diversify themselves out of oil and the increasing prevalence of carbon levies of one form or another) and what seemed like a totally sure thing in 2005 or even 2012 looks much less certain in 2021.

Now, don't get me wrong, there are billions of dollars riding on both sides of the equation, and neither side has a spotlessly-clean record when it comes to swaying public influence. All I'm suggesting is that the situation more complicated than just billionaires trying to screw each other.

{...}
Climate change may be an issue - ok, let's apply technology to correct/prevent/mitigate bad things from happening - great!

But do so in a sane manner, and not shackle entire economies in the process, let alone a few select countries carry the burden while others do nothing.

Honestly, IMO de-forestation and over-population are far more urgent problems than fossil fuels.  Over a billion people in India today and COVID is having devastating effects.  IMO over-population will take the earth over the tipping point way ahead of climate change.  That's not even talked about - I don't mean here guys.

There's big money to be made in the "Green Movement" and none to rally against de-forestation and the population explosion - there will come a day when we just can't feed them anymore.  Why over time are there "under developed" countries?  Why?

The annual rate of population increase has been on the decline for decades, with current predictions from the UN suggesting that Earth's population will likely stabilize at ~10-11 billion people around the end of the century. Of course, historically, industrialization was one of the biggest drivers of decreasing birthrates, so as economies around the world grow and quality of life improves it's possible that stabilization will happen sooner, and naturally there's big money to made in doing so (since, if nothing else, people with a better quality of life make better consumers). Any suggestions for population control beyond "make people have more stuff so they'll want fewer kids" tend to be, uh, controversial, to say the least.

Deforestation is certainly a problem (although it is only one of several drivers of climate change), but there's little that a business or government can do about it beyond careful stewardship of its own trees.

As for making "a few select countries carry the burden", the Paris Agreement (ratified by 190 countries including China and India) requires concrete reductions in greenhouse gas emission from all countries (not just wealthy ones).

Pollution reduction of any kind can be seen as "shackling" in economic terms, but the best science (and the smartest money) right now is betting that the economic cost of reducing greenhouse gas emissions will be more than offset by future gains made possible through the reduction of future externalities. Any choices made today carry risk, but there is greater international consensus (190 is a shocking number of countries) about greenhouse gas reduction than there is about almost anything else.

-Russ
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Dave Garoutte

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Re: Battery-electric Road Vehicles and Energy Infrastructure
« Reply #29 on: June 04, 2021, 09:58:09 PM »

The annual rate of population increase has been on the decline for decades, with current predictions from the UN suggesting that Earth's population will likely stabilize at ~10-11 billion people around the end of the century. Of course, historically, industrialization was one of the biggest drivers of decreasing birthrates, so as economies around the world grow and quality of life improves it's possible that stabilization will happen sooner, and naturally there's big money to made in doing so (since, if nothing else, people with a better quality of life make better consumers). Any suggestions for population control beyond "make people have more stuff so they'll want fewer kids" tend to be, uh, controversial, to say the least.

China just increased their kids limit per couple from 2 to 3.  The declining birth rate there is aging the population quickly.
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Re: Battery-electric Road Vehicles and Energy Infrastructure
« Reply #29 on: June 04, 2021, 09:58:09 PM »


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