The Truth About Batteries and Clean Energy!

[saflyer]

2 hours ago, Chuck B 2004 Windsor said:

The future is bright until one drives across Texas on I 10 in a all electric vehicle.  Around 300 miles you will have depleted the battery bank.  You end up on the side of the road in the dead cold of winter.  I pray that you have enough blankets to stay warm until help arrives.  Wonder how many charging stations you passed up if any.  

Solution?

Edited December 4, 2021 by saflyer

[Ivan K]

We go weeks boondocking without running the genny with our solar. So I do have a lot of appreciation for that source of energy. Unfortunately I can't point to any part of the system that I know has been made from domestic materials. Just need to be in places where sunny days are the norm. And that's not everywhere. But we take places like this any day over crowded FHU.

[Guest Ray Davis]

47 minutes ago, saflyer said:

Solution?

        Hey anybody got some gas?   What do ya mean all the stations have closed

Edited December 4, 2021 by Ray Davis

[Chuck B 2004 Windsor]

Good reply Ray.  Works great unless you are in the middle of no where.

[RoadTripper2084]

4 hours ago, Chuck B 2004 Windsor said:

The future is bright until one drives across Texas on I 10 in a all electric vehicle.  Around 300 miles you will have depleted the battery bank.  You end up on the side of the road in the dead cold of winter.  I pray that you have enough blankets to stay warm until help arrives.  Wonder how many charging stations you passed up if any.  

You mean THIS I-10?  Seems like a lot of EV charging stations all along that road. lol. 

 

Edited December 4, 2021 by RoadTripper2084

[jimc99999]

You can tell the "story" in the first post is pretty much bull**** because there's no direct comparisons. Sure, an 8MW wind turbine is pretty big, and the manufacture and installation has some environmental cost. 

But how does that compare to an equivalent amount of coal-powered generation, in terms of construction of the plant itself and the fuel extraction and transportation? How much of an old coal plant is recycled? How much of the old coal extraction machinery is recycled? We've all traveled somewhat, and have probably all seen things like this just rotting away. Is the concern really about recycling wind turbine blades? 

How many birds does the OP (and those agreeing with that "story") think that coal strip mines like this might have killed? How many fish killed from acidic mine runoff? 

 

The OP may not know this, but coal power plants require millions of tons of concrete and steel for construction. It's hard to find specifics but a couple references indicate around 400 tons/MW; the numbers from the "story" would indicate about 100-200 tons/MW goes into a wind turbine (those numbers seem to be pretty close to the weight of an 8MW wind turbine). By the time you take into account the fact that the wind turbine may not last quite as long as the coal power plant, the kg of concrete/steel per lifetime MW/hr produced are pretty close.

And after a coal plant is constructed, it requires about 1200 tons of coal per day per 100 MW. From http://www.iaeng.org/publication/WCE2013/WCE2013_pp532-541.pdf

Quote

Solid waste created by a typical 500-megawatt coal plant includes more than 125,000 tons of ash and 193,000 tons of sludge from the smokestack scrubber each year. The waste is usually disposed of in unlined, unmonitored onsite landfills and surface impoundments. Toxic substances in the waste, including arsenic, mercury, chromium, and cadmium can contaminate drinking water supplies and damage vital human organs and the nervous system.

But sure, talk about some unrecycled wind turbine blades and toss out some large-sounding numbers about how much material it takes to construct a wind turbine and try to make that the story.

And here's some facts and context on wind turbine recycling, for those who are interested. They can also be turned into useful things.

[jimc99999]

The most interesting thing about this topic is that we have here an obviously one-sided "story", presented in a particular way to make a specific impression, with no comparisons or supporting evidence.

And in order to have acquired a Monaco diesel motorhome of any vintage, most of us here have had to have at least a small amount of success in some kind of career. Almost all careers involve specialized knowledge, an ability to learn and process information. And yet, this unsupported story has many otherwise relatively not-stupid people nodding along and agreeing.

It's not even about whether the numbers presented in the story are accurate; it's that they aren't compared/contrasted to the alternatives. Or a lifecycle cost is presented as if it's a big thing, when compared to the lifecycle cost of alternatives it may not be.

Take rooftop solar on an RV, for example. Ivylog DIY'd 1KW of solar for $1200. Sounds like a lot of diesel fuel, right? It probably generates 8KWhr on a relatively average sunny day while dry camping. Assuming that the entire 8WK/hr can be used, it would take the generator at least 2 hours to push an equivalent amount into the batteries, since they charge slower as they fill. So we'll go with 1g of diesel used by the generator. At $3/g, that's 400 days. At 60 days dry camping per year, that's 6.6 years to essentially break even only comparing to diesel that would have been used to generate that power while dry camping. Extend the dry camping to 90 days and that drops to 4.4 years. That's a pretty short life expectancy if you still don't expect to break even.  And that's also not accounting for other benefits of having normal power in the coach when it's not in use. 

[cbr046]

6 hours ago, Ivylog said:

Would be interesting to see how many dry campers we have on here??? Not sure how you’d do a poll on here?

90% dry camp here, usually in a cow pasture with 400 of my buddies.  If I get reeeeeal lucky there might be an outlet.  Ironically I usually run an outside gas generator for the quiet.  Not enough to run on solar (100W stock panel feeding a 72W controller).  I turn everything off when I go to bed. 

- bob

[Bob Nodine]

When someone says something is not political you know right away it is. This whole thread is political. If we are being honest we know we will never produce anything without using energy from at least one source. Most folks who are against electric vehicles are because they think their diesel motorhome will be taken away, or they want be able to hear the rumble of a big V8, or they don't like the politicians who are pushing them, etc. Electric vehicles have their place just like internal combustion engines have their place. We need all the energy sources we can get. Anything we can do to reduce our dependency on foreign oil is a good thing. Take the environmental aspect out of the equation and think about how we can reduce our consumption of crude oil without giving up our motorhome or that big earth mover that needs a lot of power. Wouldn't you like to tell OPEC to go jump in the lake. By the way, you could build another interstate along side of I-10 that does not allow trucks and has an imbedded inductive charging system that would charge your passenger vehicle as you moved down the highway.

[Ivylog]

Where do you think the electricity to charge the batteries in a EV comes from??? Mainly from a 50% efficient fossil fuel power plant… you can forget solar as most are charged at night. Take another 15% off for the inefficiency of electric motors (better than any other motor) puts a EV at 35% total efficiency making it less efficient than a modern Diesel engine.

I think it’s amazing that our 40,000 lb, aerodynamic bricks, can get 7 mpg. I would hope a 4000 lb aerodynamic car would get 70 mpg but it hasn’t happened yet with a gas engine.

[cbr046]

As far as politics is concerned, I think we've done a good job of leaving the politics out of these discussions. 

This is one article written by Dave Searle for Motorcycle Consumer News (May? 2019).  While not a world renown scientist, Dave is a motorcycle journalist (and former editor of MCN) who wrote several articles on lithium batteries (including mining in 3rd world countries), battery charging, economics of wind power, mechanics of wind power (with benefits and pitfalls), motor energy efficiency and the one below about EV "efficiency".  Each article did a great job of looking at both sides of the topic.  Yes, 50% efficiency from power plant to moving your EV is about right.  Toyota has introduced a 2.0L turbo powered engine that's 41% efficient, the first time over 40% for a gasoline engine.  I perplexed why we don't have more diesel power.  Maybe $8 gas will bring it. 

Sadly, the publisher of MCN, Lumina Media, decided this subscriber-sustained / no advertiser niche periodical wasn't making money and terminated it's existence.

Enjoy.

 

Dave Searle Zero Emissions a.pdf Dave Searle Zero Emissions b.pdf

[vegaman19760]

Chuck B 2004......  Your thoughts on the effects of the Exxon oil spill in Alaska of "not finding any evidence of that spill today" in your opinion are not correct.  You can refer to the article below and maybe try to reflect on the lives of all the thousands of people that lost their jobs and their possessions to the impact of the closed fishing industries involved.

https://e360.yale.edu/features/twenty_years_later_impacts__of_the_exxon_valdez_linger

 

Stay safe, Satay well

[cbr046]

Same for the Gulf oil spill . . .

That's just the point.  When we think of "no evidence of impact" we forget the vast web those consequences reach and how long they last . . . . generations even. 

Which is also true for the Fossil vs Green Movement.  The idea that electricity is the answer isn't well thought out (or ignored by those with an agenda).

Who knows, maybe Edison was right after all and we'll end up with community DC power plants.  😉

- bob

[jimc99999]

On 12/5/2021 at 9:48 AM, Ivylog said:

Where do you think the electricity to charge the batteries in a EV comes from??? Mainly from a 50% efficient fossil fuel power plant… you can forget solar as most are charged at night. Take another 15% off for the inefficiency of electric motors (better than any other motor) puts a EV at 35% total efficiency making it less efficient than a modern Diesel engine.

I think it’s amazing that our 40,000 lb, aerodynamic bricks, can get 7 mpg. I would hope a 4000 lb aerodynamic car would get 70 mpg but it hasn’t happened yet with a gas engine.

The Teslas get about 100mpg-equivalent, comparing the amount of energy in a gallon of gas to KW/hrs. The reason gas cars don't get 70 mpg is because the effective efficiency is around 25% for most driving. So that already puts most EVs ahead of gas cars on efficiency, even if all charging power came from coal. The reality is coal power is decreasing and is only around 20% of the power supply at this point. Gas turbine plants are pushing 70% efficiency, a level that will never be achieved by an internal combustion engine in a car. And since wind and solar are now cost-effective to install and generate electricity basically for free, wind and solar installations will continue to increase as well.

As for innovative uses for solar, some friends stayed in an RV park somewhere in CA's central valley last summer (travel nurses). The RV park had erected solar panels over the RV parking spots. So the panels were both providing shade and power which I thought was kind of cool. Despite the 100+F days, their electric bill was pretty low.

[clarksark]

All the info is great. However let's do the same for gasoline, diesel, Natural gas, vehicles, motorhomes, etc. All have at least one battery, some have four or  more for cranking and starting. Then you have the aluminum, steel, copper, and other metals, and let's not forget the tires, brake pad materials, etc. Then there are the oil and gas wells, the oil shale, etc, which pump pollution into our atmosphere, fro the diesel engines that power the well, mining, equipment, etc. Fracking leaves voids in the Earth, which will eventually come back to bite us in the butts!  All degrade our planet.

Then there all the chemicals used to add to the "modern" Diesel engines and the emissions equipment on all late model vehicles. Diesel engines are not modern: they just have pollution equipment added to help clean up their emissions. Manufactures just keep adding equipment and redesigning old technology! 

We have to quit building roads and highways, too much pollution form the machines that build them. Let's go back to dirt roads

If you do the stats you will find the only true green transportation are horses and buggies as the Amish and some Quakers use; all natural God made travel providers! Maybe we should just hook up 500 horse or so, and pull our motorhomes around the country, but you had better have a trailer behind for all the horse manure that those ponies will drop along the way!

Indians use to walk thousands of miles to Winter, or go to another hunting ground etc.

Bluntly put: Building anything, to create any kind of energy pollutes or tears up the planet!

Edited December 6, 2021 by clarksark
added info

[vanwill52]

Tempest in a tea cup...or perhaps even an imaginary, undocumented tempest in an undefined, theoretical tea cup.  There is no end to discussions like these...NONE...EVER.  They can go on endlessly until someone becomes nasty and moderators have to shut down the whole subject.  Even the very youngest among us will never see the end of fossil fuels.

Might I humbly suggest we save our energy and stick to helping one another solve our real-world coach problems?  We are a community founded on the idea of helping one another, not arguing theoretical questions.

[cbr046]

We should all get virtual Monacos and take virtual trips.  😄

- bob