Electric Car Economics

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Points taken.
What's, perhaps, most notable about the stories, is that almost nobody knows (or remembers) them. The world’s first nuclear reactor meltdown, and it remains (mostly) unknown.

It remains unknown exactly because, while it was bad, and should never be repeated, it was actually not any kind of catastrophe. No one was killed; it was a big nothing compared to any kind of normal disaster.


This the measure of how extremely safe nuclear power really is -- even a total meltdown, pace The China Syndrome, is not necessarily the end of the world. Not that we should ever countenance something like that again -- these accidents can be prevented, and must be.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Hydrogen can be produced using a number of different processes.
Thermochemical processes use heat and chemical reactions to release hydrogen from organic materials such as fossil fuels and biomass.
But, water (H2O) can also be split into hydrogen (H2) and oxygen (O2) using electrolysis, or solar energy.
And, microorganisms such as bacteria and algae can produce hydrogen through biological processes.
Hydrogen production, via electrolysis, may offer opportunities for synergy with variable power generation, which is characteristic of some renewable energy technologies.

For example, though the cost of wind power has continued to drop, the inherent variability of wind is an impediment to the extensive use of wind power. Hydrogen fuel and electric power generation could be integrated at a wind farm, allowing flexibility to shift production, to best match resource availability with system operational needs, and market factors. Also, in times of excess electricity production from wind farms, instead of curtailing the electricity as is commonly done, it is possible to use this excess electricity to produce hydrogen through electrolysis.

Direct solar water splitting, or photolytic, processes use light energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. These processes are currently in the very early stages of research but offer long-term potential for sustainable hydrogen production with low environmental impact.

Yes, certainly, and all this fascinating technology is surely worth investing in and pushing forward.



Wind power is looking to be even cheaper than nuclear, if present trends continue just bit more. Hydrogen, as an extremely efficient storage battery (and not, as I said, a primary energy source), can go very well with that.


A lot of current gloomy thinking assumes that everything always remains the same. But life on earth is not like that. The whale oil crisis which freaked everybody out in the 1850's, was smoothly rendered obsolete by technology. We no more fundamentally depend on fossil fuels in 2019 than we really depended on whale oil in 1853. Fossil fuels will remain a quaint memory like whale oil, within even my lifetime, I am absolutely sure.

[Buzzman]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Nuclear power is incredibly safe compared to coal, oil, or even natural gas. Nuclear power -- even with Chernobyl and Fukushima -- is almost twice as safe as even wind power, and 5 times safer than solar.

What utter codswallop! Nuclear 5 times safer than solar???

Citation please, or I call BS.

Aluminium frame, silica glass PV cells, bit of copper wiring, mounted on a roof or a pole. Nothing moves. Nothing emits harmful radiation. It can't overheat and explode or meltdown.

Am I supposed to be blinded by the light reflecting off the array?

Lifetime emissions of a solar panel are so close to zip it isn't worth measuring. Yet every lump of coal burned adds CO2 to the atmosphere.

And each lump of coal only adds to the sum of usable energy on the planet once. The first time it's burned. Solar PV goes on converting the sun's rays into electricity for years. No emissions. No by products, no waste.

OK, so it's not "creating" energy, but then, strictly speaking, nor was the coal. It's just held onto the sun's energy a few million years longer, is all.

So better explain/justify that "5 times" remark...!!

[a64pilot]

A very real issue with quoting nuclear accident rates is that they were all with 1050’s technology, which works, but it’s not 1950 anymore.
A very real issue with new technology is that anything that the government oversees, they love the old way, that they know and it’s easiest for them, so government oversight tends to kill innovation, look no further than the FAA to see that. Piston engines haven’t changed in over 50 years due to government oversight.

So will new technology plants be built or will we continue wait water cooled ones that have been proven to fail, and to fail spectacularly.
High pressure water cooling is if anything less safe.

Manufacturing of bomb materials is what drove nuclear plant design, and there are a few designs that apparently can’t melt down, and produce much less waste.

[Buzzman]

Dunno if I 100% agree with you, a64.

US has specific 'innovation' classes for Experimental aircraft that actually encourage thinking outside the box. Bert Rutan, anyone..??

Airframes and skins switching from aluminium to carbon-fibre composites, that's innovation.

Jet engines in smaller aircraft, especially freight sector, see Piper et al.

Sure, the piston engine has been around since Methuselah was in short pants, but it's a long bow to say the FAA is hindering improvements.

Fuel injection? Electronic ignition? Diesel-powered aircraft engines (once thought impossible)...???

I think your blanket criticism needs refining and/or explanation.

[a64pilot]

In a 14 year period from 2003 to 2017 I believe I Certified 6 different aircraft, they were all single engine turbines, and only one under FAR23, the rest were Cam 8 / CAR 3 airplanes.
The FAA has become increasingly heavy in Administrators and loses Engineers more so year after year, and they are not replaced, but more Admin is.
Propellor manufacturer’s self Certify as does all engine manufacturers, and all major aircraft manufacturers, only the little guys don’t, and then we rely very heavily on DER’s which are non FAA personnel that have been given limited authority over the Certification process.
I can state with authority and experience that the FAA is a Government agency that is heavy with layers of Administrators and that they have learned that the easiest answer is always no, so to get anything done you go the DER route and if your a major operation with BIG bucks, you self Certify.

That is how the 737 Max happened, because anyone with even half a brain would not have let that through, Although it would be an easy fix, redundant AOA sensors, software that would kick off the stability augmentation in the event of an AOA disagree and not much pilot training, and yet that fleet still sits grounded, that should be explained.
It should have never happened, but it should have been pretty quickly fixed, but wasn’t.
My opinion of why the aircraft isn’t flying is that the FAA with its understaffing of Engineers are now actually going through the Certification like they were supposed to to begin with, but didn’t and that takes time.

Heads should roll in the FAA, but they won’t, it is all blamed on Boeing which it should be, but where was the oversight that allowed a flight control component with no back-up?

What happened was in my opinion the Boeing bean counters got too powerful, castrated the Engineers and just like NASA something that became to be called normalization of deviation caught up with them.

FAA has been broken for a long time, just as I assume the IRS is too. To find out why look up what is called the Peter principle, which is a very old book but you see it in Government Jobs.

[a64pilot]

I could pick your post apart like there is no Piper Jet, fuel injection predates the FAA by many decades and the Germans built and flew aircraft Diesels in WWII and as far as I know electronic ignition is of course over 50 yrs old and isn’t on Certified engines but it’s an STC that can be applied as long as you leave one Magneto operational.

A better question would be why wasn’t electronic ignition adopted back in the 1960’ as opposed to why it’s still not in the 21st Century.

You may want to look up why a small German car Company named Porsche really dropped out of aircraft engine production, and why Toyota after spending Millions dropped their idea of producing an aircraft.

On edit add to that why is it that almost all small aircraft being produced are 1950’s designs with fancy paint jobs and leather seats.
The idea of us driving around in 55 Chevys is ridiculous but if you go buy a new Cessna or Piper that is what you will be doing.
And the engines under the cowl are identical to those 1950 engines too, down to fuel control, ignition systems zero electronic controls etc.
I used to say we all fly behind our Grandfathers engines and we still do.

[Buzzman]

You make good points, and I won't argue the Piper question. Might have been Cessna. One of them major makers, anyways.

Fuel-injection, diesels. Both disappeared until recently resurrected.

My point was you claim the FAA is stifling innovation, drawing attention to the piston-engined aircraft as a case in point.

My *point* was that piston engines have been around since the first steam-powered whatever, long before the FAA was even a twinkle in some technobureacrats eye.

What I'm saying is that you haven't in any way adequatley explained how the FAA, in your view, has held back the desing and/or innovation in piston-engines for aircraft (or piston-engined aircraft, if that's not splitting hairs).

You clearly have broad experience but you are not communicating that adequately. IOW, I'm not seeing it from the 'examples' you quoted, none of which have piston engines AFAIK.

There's been a huge growth (relatively speaking) in Rotorcraft over the past 30 years, to the exnt that there are now legit manufacturers of them, all of which use piston engines.

How has the existence of the FAA limited that innovation?

Not saying bureaucrats aren't a waste of space, but, your examples don't "prove" your statements about them.

[a64pilot]

The Cessna jet was first flown in 1969.
You can’t prove attitude, But general aviation is dyeing, and it’s dyeing a slow death, it’s being choked to death by regulations.
Pilot side too.

[Buzzman]

Yeah, we've got CASA to deal with. I hear ya.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Buzzman

What utter codswallop! Nuclear 5 times safer than solar???

Citation please, or I call BS.. .

You need to take a deep breath before flying off the handle like that.



The citation was posted already by Lake Effect in Post 481 in this thread:


https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesco.../#4eb43287709b


Nuclear (worldwide, including Chernobyl and Fukishima, and including long term deaths from cancer) causes 90 deaths per trillion kWh, whereas solar causes 440. Which is still pretty good compared to coal at 100,000 deaths per trillion kWh. This is called the comparative "deathprint" of different energy sources, a very useful metric. Check it out.

[RaymondR]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

You need to take a deep breath before flying off the handle like that.



The citation was posted already by Lake Effect in Post 481 in this thread:


https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesco.../#4eb43287709b


Nuclear (worldwide, including Chernobyl and Fukishima, and including long term deaths from cancer) causes 90 deaths per trillion kWh, whereas solar causes 440. Which is still pretty good compared to coal at 100,000 deaths per trillion kWh. This is called the comparative "deathprint" of different energy sources, a very useful metric. Check it out.

Safest and least poluting way to generate electrical power. Would also be the cheapest if the massive over regulation could be removed.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

A very real issue with quoting nuclear accident rates is that they were all with 1050’s technology, which works, but it’s not 1950 anymore.
A very real issue with new technology is that anything that the government oversees, they love the old way, that they know and it’s easiest for them, so government oversight tends to kill innovation, look no further than the FAA to see that. Piston engines haven’t changed in over 50 years due to government oversight.

So will new technology plants be built or will we continue wait water cooled ones that have been proven to fail, and to fail spectacularly.
High pressure water cooling is if anything less safe.

Manufacturing of bomb materials is what drove nuclear plant design, and there are a few designs that apparently can’t melt down, and produce much less waste.

Well, but they don't indeed "fail, and fail spectacularly". 10% of the world's power is produced by nuclear energy and we've had 2 significant accidents in 60 years? That is "spectacular failure"? I wouldn't say so -- just look at the numbers.



Chernobyl was a boiling water reactor without a containment vessel, of 1950's design. Fukushima was in the path of a freak 50 foot tsunami. Ironically that accident might not have occurred had the reactors not automatically shut down when the earthquake started -- loss of power to the cooling pumps when the tsunami flooded the emergency generators is what caused the accident . We've learned from these accidents and the technology has improved.


There's nothing wrong with pressurized water reactors. Cars are pressurized water cooled -- it's not an exotic or unreliable technology. Molten salt reactors look like the future (see: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/6...nuclear-power/), but it seems we are a good 15 years away from seeing practical commercial reactors built on this principle, although successful experimental molten salt reactors were operated at Oak Ridge back in the 1960's. We can't wait 15 years for this technology to come on.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by RaymondR

[Nuclear is the] Safest and least poluting way to generate electrical power. Would also be the cheapest if the massive over regulation could be removed.

What massive over-regulation? What would you let them do that they are prohibited from doing now?

Nuclear will always be a partnership between government and private industry. When there's that much at stake, and the waste product is a 10,000 year commitment... you don't want your nuclear provider in the hands of an entity that could go bankrupt.

[Buzzman]

Yeah, so I read the article and I'm still calling BS.

I get the nukes radiation issue.

I get the coal dust and CO2 issue.

But how *exactly and precisely* does a solar panel "kill" any one or any thing.

That bit has not been examined or explained.