jjrbus wrote:

Darn, I read that wrong that is in China who is also buying US coal by the boat load.

jjrbus wrote:

What are you guys talking about no new power plants? Lots of them being built or in the planning or permitting stage! Darn, I read that wrong that is in China who is also buying US coal by the boat load.

Thermoguy wrote:

How many people on this site that own an ICE go to the gas station every time they leave the house? My guess is an owner of an EV doesn't need to either. In fact, they probably only charge their cars once a week. So, why are we so concerned about the grid. If everyone charged a fraction of the time, then the grid would only need to be upgraded slowly to supply that demand. The same goes for fast charging station, a EV owner would only use one if in a hurry or on a trip where they needed some quick juice. Mostly, an EV owner would charge at a regular charging station at night or while stopping for a meal. There is a need for higher capacity, but it isn't an every day experience. I think it is actually not recommended to use a fast charger but infrequently due to the battery.

Related to the grid - the biggest problem with energy production is storage. There is no energy storage. Now, if everyone owned an EV, we would create massive amounts of storage. Think of the batteries in your drawer... If you can reverse the charge, to a discharge, now you can discharge your batteries back to the grid. This is the future of EV's. Charge you car at night while rates are low, go to work (assuming you have a job where you go to the same place everyday) plug in and sell some of your storage back to the company or grid at a lower price than what the high day rates are from the utility. Repeat every day. Brown outs solved.

I can't take credit for this, I attended a transportation conference recently and this is what they were talking about. The only issue is that your Li-Ion battery is only good for something like 25000-30000 charges. If you are recharging every day, you are going to get shocked when you hit that number and you need to replace your batteries. But, maybe if you are making money selling power, that will be a wash. I guess that is an unknown today. But seems like a future. We also don't know what the next battery will be, a super conductor, or sodium ion or some other material that can charge and recharge better than Lithium. But, could be a solution.

Thermoguy wrote:

The only issue is that your Li-Ion battery is only good for something like 25000-30000 charges. If you are recharging every day, you are going to get shocked when you hit that number and you need to replace your batteries.

Thermoguy wrote:

But saying that, if you charge every night, how much power are you using?

2oldman wrote:

The Li in my RV can supposedly last a lot longer if it's not run down to 10-20% or so before charging. Maybe a car is different.

I have no doubt battery technology will improve, the grid will improve, and all these doomsday predictions will fade away. And then there'll be some other new technology to complain about.