Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2008 21:42:05 -0500
Reply-To: John Rodgers <inua@CHARTER.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: John Rodgers <inua@CHARTER.NET>
Subject: Re: 500 miles per gallon
In-Reply-To: <087478BB-AA05-452F-979C-57F70080FC78@dragonhome.org>
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I think it would be relatively easy to increase electrical generating
capacity at the present level of technology. It is simply going to get
better with the passage of item. I saw some figures last year that
showed that fields of wind generators and solar panel fields can be
built in the western states sufficient to meet all the power needs of
the eastern half of the USA. If this generation capacity were
distributed nation wide along with other electrical sources electrical
energy would not be any kind of problem at all. The problem then becomes
one of fuels for vehicular traffic. That is a whole 'nother matter, and
is going to take much longer to resolve.
When I lived in Alaska there was a man and wife that came into my shop
from the Netherlands. They were world travelers - both retired after
long careers with BP - and they were looking for a place to settle. They
were going to build a home that was a traditional Dutch Windmill. The
showed me that plans and the sails were to be used to drive a big
generator on top, which would supply power for the house, as well as
backfeed into the power grid. Smart move.
In this country we should initiate immediately a massive solarization
system program for power on all buildings. It would bring a major
turning of the corner on energy.
John Rodgers
88 GL Driver
Ron Tipton wrote:
> On Jun 16, 2008, at 6:36 PM, Jake de Villiers wrote:
>
>> And what do you think the price of electricity is going to do when
>> you plug
>> a million cars into the grid overnight?!
>
> actually, not much. for two reasons. first and by far the most
> important is that
> electricity isn't like gas or oil or water. with those, you have a
> certain amount,
> store what you're not currently using and sell in the future.
>
> electricity isn't stored or saved. it is used or discarded as it is
> generated. and
> the generation process takes days or weeks to start up. and so
> utilities have
> to have the on-line capacity to generate the maximum amount of
> electricity
> they will ever need. now this is mitigated somewhat by the various
> grids we
> now have, but in general that's how it works.
>
> and since most electricity is used durning the day time, for most of
> the night
> utilities are discarding electricity... which could be used to charge
> millions
> of cars overnight with NO new capacity needed.
>
> the second reason is that the load of adding a million cars is a drop
> in the
> bucket.
>
> r
>
>
> Ron Tipton
> uther@dragonhome.org
>
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