Watching all these hyped alternative energy systems finally start to come to reality is pretty cool to see. It may take 20 years, but changes are coming very rapidly to the energy landscape. Utilities are already being forced to deal with the rapid rise of rooftop solar systems due to panel prices dropping as well as cheaper installation costs. The quantum leap that will deal a major blow to fossil fuel energy consumption will be when battery technology takes significant steps forward over the next 5 years. Homes with batteries attached to them would allow for near self sufficiency from fossil fuels. http://phys.org/news/2013-01-energy-tech-infernal-battery.html One example of very promising new battery technology http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2013/12/lithium-sulfur-batteries-ready-go-distance http://www.gizmag.com/lithium-sulfur-battery-energy-density/29907/ http://cleantechnica.com/2014/01/08/ca-installed-solar-2013-last-30-combined-years/ http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-...g-rooftop-solar-heat-start-fighting-back.html On top of that you have major car companies recognizing the future is with electric cars. Tesla is clearly the current leader in this area, but all the major car companies know electric is the future. Electric cars are simply better than internal combustion engine cars. Electric cars plus solar powered homes means you can have clean low cost transportation too. http://www.cnbc.com/id/100780809 IMO, fossil fuel based energy production will become obsolete quicker than people are thinking. Some people may think fossil fuels will rule the world for our lifetimes, but to me it seems very obvious that changes are coming quick. I think the reality is that we have reached a tipping point and fossil fuels are going the way of the dinosaur in the next 2 decades. Just my take.
It's a nice idea but here are a couple of problems. 1. The oil and gas industry is one of the larger purchasers and users of solar panels. 2. Electricity used in electric cars is created by burning fossil fuels currently. 3. Batteries and the chemicals in them are far more dangerous to the environment than fossil fuels. 4. Batteries in most solar power systems have a 3 to 5 year life expectancy currently. When you start seeing capacitors being used instead of batteries we might have something. We will get there eventually because we will have to but I'm not sure about the timing. We do have certain things going for us. One is that cellular and hand-held devices are proliferating everything and they need more power for longer so we have a HUGE market that is driving electric energy storage solutions. I think storage technology will lead us to solar energy breakthroughs in the future because currently our solar is good enough for the batteries we have. If they could come up with a photovoltaic wrap for your Tesla that would charge it while your driving or sitting during the day that would be kinda sweet. Of course the roof top parking spots would become the first to go instead of the last.
I'm in the electricity business, and I think it's pretty exciting stuff as well. Even now, some companies are installing solar panels with batteries. It doesn't make the house completely self-sufficient, but the battery can take you through the evening peak, and you only need fossil fuels for maybe a quarter of your usage. With a Bloom Box, you can do that at the house too. A couple of states already have solar cost parity with the utility, and much of the country is expected to get there in the next decade. And, the recent development that's really going to get legs under it is some financing innovation. Solar installers are now doing lease or purchase-of-power arrangements so that homeowners can get solar panels without putting any money down. They get immediate savings on their power bills. The other thing SolarCity has recently done is securitized their leased solar assets. With leasing and securitization, there's plenty of capital available to install distributed generation. It's going to be traumatic for utilities though. After some tipping point, it won't make economic sense to pay for a vast infrastructure of distribution of what amounts to backup generation to residences. And then what do the people and businesses that are not wholly self-powered do to get affordable reliable power delivery? It won't be the end of fossil fuels because there's some C&I applications for which DG doesn't make sense. Do you run a power plant just for those guys? What does that do to the economics?
As long as this is the case, how much good do electric cars really do? In fact, there is transmission and energy conversion loss from burning fossil fuels to generate electricity. Emissions would be worse, but I suppose the power plants do a better job of capturing those than burning directly in cars.
I really liked your post overall and agreed with most of it, but this comparison is pretty tough. It's like comparing smoking to working with organic solvents. Neither is that good for you. And you're right that a lot of these batteries are super-nasty to deal with after you're done with them.
Even separate from the capture, there is the efficiency argument. I think most power plants can operate near 40% efficiency, while an auto-engine's top efficiency (and only in ideal conditions, not going up a hill or using the air conditioning, etc) is between 25-30%. The more efficiency you can achieve the less carbon you put in the atmosphere for every useful kiloWatt hour you get out of the burn.
When you burn gasoline to power a car, you're stuck with fossil fuels. When you use electricity, you can change the mix of how you've generated that electricity. As more renewables get built, the less your car is powered by fossil fuels. And then you consider the other part of the OP about having rooftop solar to power your house at which you charge your electric vehicle. If you get 75% of your electricity from the PVs on your roof, your car is actually running pretty damn clean.
Of course there are problems, but I think it is pretty clear we are moving away from fossil fuels rapidly. To point #2, if you have a home that is solar powered and you plug your car into your home then you aren't using fossil fuels. Your only cost is maintenance and installation. Yes current technology is not sufficient for large scale use and battery recycling would be very important. I think that would be neat as well. Ford just came out with a concept car that has solar on the roof. http://www.csmonitor.com/Environmen...i-Ford-goes-off-grid-with-new-solar-car-video You wouldn't really have to worry about where you park it because the car would be recharging as you were driving if it is sunny out, but the recharge times are very slow. What they really need is to develop the battery exchange networks like they are developing in Europe. That would pretty much end any range issues. Additionally, you don't need your car charged at 100% all the time. Also, to get the battery to an 80% charge takes half the time of a full 100% charge.
Which is why the potential of those long life Li/S batteries is so huge. You could potentially get 500,000+ miles off a battery at MUCH cheaper prices. One of the articles estimated close to $100/kWh. Even if it double that price then it is still much cheaper than today's price.
This is what happens when an emphasis is placed on something with seed capital from our government. Well done USA ! DD
I agree that Okierock brings up a lot of good points and I like your comparison. It is the use of the fossil fuels that is harmful but the manufacture and disposal of batteries is the problem. I think the latter problems can be overcome. That said I hope the OP is right but I think there is a lot of inertia built into the fossil fuels and it will be more than 20 years before we see the end of fossil fuels. My own feeling is that with current technology, increased conservation, and changes in planning we could almost do away with the fossil fuel era now but there is far too much resistance. I do think though a 100 years from now people are going to look back and wonder why we continued to use fossil fuels for so long.
Range - Internal Combustion Performance - Internal Combustion Cost - Internal Combustion Endurance - Internal Combustion
Electric cars outperform combustion. Tesla is getting ready to release an AWD Model S that goes 0-60 in 3.3 seconds. Electric cars have much fewer parts so maintenance is much lower. Currerntly range and cost is a factor where electric cars clearly underperform. However, the cost of gas and minimal maintenance should be factored into cost. What do you mean by endurance? Do you mean the life of the battery?
The fastest 1/4 mile time for Tesla I could find is 12.4 seconds, do you want a list of cars faster than that? Internal combustion is faster in straight line and corners. Endurance - Expected life battery vs expected life of engine and transmission. Also gas tanks don't shrink over time for an internal combustion engine, so range and performance criteria are a factor here. Not to mention charging times, maximum discharge rates, AND charging efficiency go down with battery usage AND age. Electric cars have more parts, they have fewer MOVING parts. ie an electric motor has one moving part. That doesn't mean maintenance is lower. You have to maintain the battery for hours everyday.
Name the 4 door sedans that cost around the same price as a tesla that can beat 12.4 seconds. There aren't very many.
It would be easier to name the ~100K performance saloons that don't outperform it. M5, Audi S6, Jaguar XFR-S, are all faster or competitive in 1/4 mile times. Plus they all have a significantly higher top speed (Tesla is done at 130mph) and can destroy it around corners.
Good, but its important that the people don't let petroleum be replaced with another energy source thats harms us and the enviorment. That means no battery's. Really, because the big oil has all the money, i can almost garuntee that the companys will switch to another non natural, toxic non renewable energy. These companys aren't going to just go out of business, the rich men aren't going to stop making money or stop controlling the world. The whole world just needs to drop energy until we figure out how to use completetly renewable, natural, environmentally friendly energy like the sun, the wind, maybe thermal energy, water etc.
