On Mon, 26 Nov 2007 23:54:41 -0500, "Peter Dohm"
wrote:


"Ted Striker" wrote in message
.. .
On Mon, 26 Nov 2007 22:12:51 -0500, "Roger (K8RI)"
wrote:

Hmmm...That message does not come up on the server I'm using.

At any rate and in order.

Blah blah blah, now why is it your entire dissertation is all about the
negatives of

All about the negatives of the electric car? It wasn't. It addressed
both positives and negatives for now and the future. Unfortunately
when looked at as a whole with the impact on society, the negatives
outweigh the positives by a wide margin.

driving an electric car. The obvious is that you worry if electric car use
becomes more
widespread, you might have to pay more for your electricity. Too bad. I
live in an area

I'm trying to figure if this is for real of just trolling:-)) it
comes on just a bit heavy to be real, but??

You are taking what I see over all as being a personal impact
statement and it's not. My statement was as to how "in general" it
would affect our society, not me as an individual. I happen to be in
an area with relatively cheap electricity and tend to be an "early
adopter" of technology.

where the cost is 7cents a kwh, and is generated by a nuke plant. So goes
your coal

Isn't this kinda centrist thinking?
I'm talking about the general population and you are talking about ...
you.

fired worries. And why do you think anyone else is so concerned about
which fuel makes a

Stop and read the papers. The general population is up in arms about
the price of gas. Wait until their electric bills are scaled up
proportionally. I still pay (per month) for electricity about what I
paid in 1976. Actually for a while I had an all electric home heated
with ceiling cable where the bills were about $290 a month and that
was somewhere in the 77-78 range. It's also several times what I pay
now. Remember too, that all alternative energy sources come with some
side effects. Alcohol/corn/food supply. Electric car/cost of
electricity/overall cost of living "nation wide"


certian amount of polution. You think whether or not it makes you happy or
not is going

Again, I'm talking about the general population and what they consider
acceptable. Unless you believe conspiracy stories about the press and
news in general, the population in general appears to be unhappy about
the cost of energy and pollution. At least there are a lot of stories
on the news about some one complaining.

to have any bearing on the decision to use an electric car? I'm going to
get one anyway,

Go for it. I'm not trying to influence any ones car buying.

strain the power grid charging it up, don't care how much the power
company polutes

Which is unfortunate as the bigger the mess we make now the more
expensive it'll be to clean up and the bigger the impact on the
overall economy when it's done. Sooner or later the clean up will have
to be done. Resistance to conventional, coal powered plants has been
high nation wide. Just in the last year plans for a big expansion of
new plants was abandoned down in Texas. Resistance to running new
transmission lines has been even higher. Even the governors of some
Eastern states are fighting the planed "Eastern Transmission Corridor"
making the juice to charge it up either. Not everyone is so big
picture
minded about the

Not everyone, but it's a substantial number and growing. It's also
this kind of thinking that has gas prices where they are now and what
in a few years may be considered "the good old days. It's also more
than likely to affect those who are now isolated and feel protected.
Centrist thinking is why gas costs as much as it does.

I do happen to believe in Nuke power as one of the alternatives, but
it takes about 20 years to get any new plants on line and there are
none proposed that I know of. So you could probably add about another
5 to 10 years of paper work to get one started to that 20 year build
time.

whole affair as you are. I would love to be able to get around my local
area and never
pull into the gas station and pay the current price of gas.

So would I, but you are unlikely to do that very far into the future
as other areas start pulling more power from your area and prices
reflect supply and demand. Also, like a good hybrid you will probably
pay enough more for a good all electric car that even if power remains
cheap for you the over all cost of driving that car will likely be
higher than it would have been using the expensive gas.
However as demand goes up the power grid will start drawing power from
your area into other areas. They did that to us in Michigan with
natural gas a couple years back when California screwed up. They sent
our reserves of cheap gas to California where they could make much
more money which resulted in higher prices here. When the power
companies can make more money by shipping your electricity to other
areas you will be seeing new, high voltage transmission lines running
out of the plant.


IMHO, Roger's points were well taken. Most of the "solutions" we see
bandied about are scams.

And the ones that aren't come with "side effects",don't scale well, or
are regionally dependent. Many of those side effects are unlikely to
be anticipated. Rarely does anything come with less side effects than
expected.


OTOH, this is a great time to play around with both electrics and
hybrids--before the limitations and problems become well known and also
before both money and permits are required to turn the batteries back in.

Even now the cheapest way to get rid of a big battery pack it to take
it to an auto dealer. Notice how auto parts dealers now also serve as
used oil collection places.


BTW, there is another form of hybrid that works quite well--using an
internal combustion engine and an electric drive system. The railroads have
been using them quite successfully for the past half of a century. They have
tremendous pulling power at low speeds, but don't have the high speed
acceleration and hill climbing power that we currently demand from our cars.
So, some infrastructure changes would be needed--mostly in the form of
longer acceleration ramps on the expressways.

Peter

Roger (K8RI)