Rechargable cars are coming out but they're not very "green" if they get their power from burning coal, putting the electricity through hundreds of miles of power lines then into a battery with it's inherent inefficiency.
For these to make sense, they need to use power from non-polluting sources like hydro-electric and the charging stations should say where the power comes from.
I understand that power coming from different sources often gets mixed up in the grid but if the power is coming mostly from sources that make sense for recharing cars, the charging station should say so.
By the way, I'm not saying that electric cars in their present design make as much sense as hybrids, but at least this would keep them from being absurd.-- doctorremulac3, Nov 24 2010 wind powered... http://blog.makezin...d_electric_car.html [xandram, Nov 24 2010] Eigg http://news.bbc.co....agazine/7220610.stm [calum, Nov 25 2010] How about alt versions... Such as "the power available here is entirely derived from 10,000 hamsters running in wheels” or perhaps “fuelled by burning books”? Naturally burning books is bad, unless they’re the type the wife reads, then that’d be OK.-- saedi, Nov 24 2010 So, should we make windmill cars? oh shucks, [see link] they said you can't put the windmill on top of the car! :(-- xandram, Nov 24 2010 difficult to get into a sight-bite until they come up with a short buzzword for "energy from non-polluting resources": "green" also encompasses renewable (alcohol, biowhatsis) as well as "free"(solar, hydroelectric, geothermal).
Electric cars aren't absurd though: a NG power plant is 50% efficient: even with all the losses I still think you could be looking at 35% net efficiency at the wheel, as opposed to 25% for an ICE engined vehicle.-- FlyingToaster, Nov 24 2010 // power coming from different sources often gets mixed up in the grid but if the power is coming mostly from ...//
In the UK at least, this would be impossible as far as I can see. The National Grid is so interconnected that it makes no sense to say that power at point X comes from point Y. When you sign up for "green energy", it just means that your money goes to a green generation company who, in turn, put an appropriate number of kilowatt hours into the grid.
The electrons themselves aren't going anywhere either, if it's AC...-- MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 24 2010 Maybe "Organic Power" would catch on and demand a premium price.-- cudgel, Nov 24 2010 Actually, given that the electrons just jiggle back and forth in an AC circuit, you just need the last few millimetres of cable to your house to be made of Organic Copper, and you're sorted.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 24 2010 "Organic Copper". I think I have some of that left over from a previous project. Let me see......-- cudgel, Nov 24 2010 //The National Grid is so interconnected that it makes no sense to say that power at point X comes from point Y.//
Well, yes and no, if you live next door to Hoover Dam in Arizona, your electricity comes from Hoover Dam. They don't send electricity any further than they have to. I looked it up and it looks like about 2/3ds of England's power comes from burning stuff so you probably wouldn't see many of these things, but people within throwing distance of a windfarm might see a couple.
Pure electrics are a great idea if you're getting your power from something that's not kicking lots of pollution into the air like a coal fired plant. I think being able to say your car is getting charged by that non-polluting source down the road might be a good selling point but yes, in some areas it wouldn't make much sense. You might get half from a nuclear power plant and half from a coal plant. However, in some areas you could safely say "This station's juice comes from green power, you're a good person for buying it, your life has validity, you're not a total waste of perfectly good organic compounds."
I wouldn't be impressed but some people would.
By the way, I post this idea full knowing that the tag of "green" is subject to interpretation at best and outright fraud at worst. Let me put it this way, you want a green certification for your business from some environmental agency and you've got a suitcase full of dough, you're green baby. "Takes green to be green" seems to be the order of the day. Speaking of which: carbon credits? How about bank robbery credits? You want to keep robbing banks so you buy honesty points (through me, the broker) from all those honest people out there that don't rob banks. Puulease.-- doctorremulac3, Nov 24 2010 //if you live next door to Hoover Dam in Arizona, your electricity comes from Hoover Dam.//
On the other hand, if you live next door to the Hoover Dam, you probably don't live in the UK. In the UK, all major power producers and consumers are linked by a national grid.
Also, the fact that you Americans have a massive hydroelectric generator simply to power vacuum cleaners is a sign of gross decadence.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 24 2010 Hey, what makes you think we sit around all day playing with our vacuum cleaners? What have you heard? It's not what you think, we're... cleaning our carpets a lot. Yes, sometimes at 3 in the morning, what's wrong with that?
(Well, that conversation took an unexpected sharp turn into wank-joke land)-- doctorremulac3, Nov 24 2010 We're all master bakers here, doc.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 24 2010 // Fossile Fuel //
Is that anything like fissile fuel ?
Is it possible to extract weapons-grade Plutonium from it ? if so, bun.
// We're all master bakers //
It's all in the wrist action, we understand.-- 8th of 7, Nov 24 2010 Fossile? Oopsiedoodle. Corrected. Not sure how I missed that.
Maybe I should keep both hands on the keyboard when I'm typing.-- doctorremulac3, Nov 24 2010 No, just try to keep your brane (if any) connected.-- 8th of 7, Nov 24 2010 It's spelled with an "i". Braine.
There, we're evin.-- doctorremulac3, Nov 24 2010 So... taking a short break from the trans-Atlantic sniping, this idea is unworkable in a part of the world where electricity can be regarded as fungible. The presence of the National Grid in the UK indicates that it is unworkable in the UK. The collapse of Enron in the US may indicate that it is not unworkable in the US, at least, not for this reason. However, it only indicates this in so far as the collapse of Enron was caused by the discovery that electricity in the US was less fungible than Enron originally hoped it could be.
Would anyone like to speculate about the fungibility of electricity in other parts of the world?
In Australia, I'm fairly sure that "green energy" means something similar to what [MaxwellBuchanan] said. That is, the premium you pay for "green electricity" makes no difference at all until the total amount of electricity consumed by premium-paying customers looks likely to exceed the amount produced by green energy sources already in existence. Only then is there any reason for the power company to spend anything on building extra green-energy capacity. I have no idea how close this tipping-point might be. This might suggest that Oz, like UKland, is in the "too fungible for this idea" group - but other countries might not be.-- pertinax, Nov 25 2010 [pert] I imagine that if the kWh consumed by premium-rate customers exceeds the amount of kWh produced by green-powerplants, then the overage would be billed at the standard rate.-- FlyingToaster, Nov 25 2010 This could, but for market-size restrictions, be quite happily used on Eigg, which is part of the UK.-- calum, Nov 25 2010 You could put some kind of designated trace signal on power stations when they all put their juice into the grid. Then at the point where you tap out of that grid, you can read the strengths of the various signal signatures and determine what percentage of the power is from which source at any given time.
So in other words, at this particular charger, 60% of my trace signal is from X kind of power source, 30% is from Y and 10% is from Z. The percentage of trace signal would match the percentage of power I'm getting from that source.
Getting the signal through the various transformers might be tricky. Might need to read it as it comes in and repeat it as it goes out but it could probably be done.
A better option would just be to put these close to clean energy generation sources where, for the most part, the power at that point is non- polluting. Look at it as advertising and good publicity for that geothermal plant down the road.
And to any spell checkers who may be lurking, remember: At the intellectual banquet of free exchange and debate, spell checkers are the buss- boys. (insert winking smiley face)-- doctorremulac3, Nov 25 2010 "Sure, where would you like it inserted?"
Just so 8 doesn't say it first.-- doctorremulac3, Nov 25 2010 Houston, Texas Of all places Has been selected To have numerous electrical car charging stations. (I Just used a voice to text converter to enter half of this text!) I heard on npr that green mountain energy will supply am home charging station but they will charge 85 dollars a month 4 the charging unit. I have green mountain energy for my electricity provider, but 85 dollars a month is nearly what I pay in gasoline charges right now. I take it back I did most of this text with voice to text. Am I too old for the future this is blowing my mind-- Zimmy, Dec 03 2010 Off topic, is the voice to text input faster or slower than typing? I assume you need to go back and do some editing on which/witch scenarios?
What kind of software are you using?-- doctorremulac3, Dec 03 2010 Voice to Texas grate.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Dec 03 2010 There is no reason these stations couldn't work exactly the way that all other grid based green power plans do. That is for every kWh supplied by them a green generator puts a kWh into the grid. It's not exactly the same power, any more than what you sign up for at home is, but it does cancel out.-- MechE, Dec 03 2010 I see what you're saying, but it just seems like an accountant's solution to an engineering problem: "How to use green power only to power electric vehicles." which is think is a good goal.
It's a good sales point if nothing else. I'm personally not interested in driving an electric car that's powered to any extent by a coal fired plant and I think others would probably feel the same. If you do that it's still a fossil fuel powered car so what's the point? When it gets convoluted like that next thing you know, you're swapping green certifications for this or that reason and you're open to all sorts of problems.
For instance, I don't want to power my car from a "Certified Green (tm)" station that gets it's power from a coal plant that paid Al Gore and his cronies a million bucks a year to be able to call it something other than what it is, a dirty power source.-- doctorremulac3, Dec 03 2010 Earth is solar powered.-- cudgel, Dec 04 2010 If you get right down to it, fossil fuels are actually solar power, just solar power from a long time ago.-- doctorremulac3, Dec 04 2010 For me the voice to text input is faster because I cannot type very quickly on such a small keyboard on my phone. To be honest I don't know what software is it's a droid is so I know.
In very limited experience I did have to go back in re type things
I'm still old enough that i think this is 1 of the coolest thing since sliced bread though-- Zimmy, Dec 05 2010 random, halfbakery