Energy production, storage, and future technologies

[GRtak]

 

[GRtak]

When the power went out, Texas oil and gas regulators rushed to defend the industry’s image

Members of the Texas Railroad Commission were quick to blame renewable energy for power outages across the state. All sources of energy struggled to produce power during the storm.

www.texastribune.org

Good to see that the politicians and regulators know their place and respond when the whip is cracked... /end sarcasm

 

[gaasc]

EU establishes what we already knew: Nuclear power is sustainable and does no significant harm. Clean, cheap, free of harm.

Official paper there, sensational title by someone on Reddit. Atomkraft, Ja Bitte, when?

 

[marcos_eirik]

I know these videos are made very sharp to exaggerate the point, but they are making some very good points here:

 

[jack_christie]

#ElectroFuels


Zero Petroleum

Zero Petroleum

Zero Petroleum is dedicated to the production of "net-zero" petroleum-based products (fuels and petrochemicals), synthesised by the recycling of water and carbon-dioxide using renewable energy. Society has gained immeasurably from the unique advantages of hydrocarbons; Zero Petroleum's vision is...

www.zeropetroleum.com

 

[jack_christie]

Sandy on next gen EV tech:

 

[marcos_eirik]

I must say that "electrofuels" does remind me a bit too much of "digital film", which was proposed as a way to turn 36x24mm SLR cameras digital back in the early days of digital photography. While the idea and principle was noble, giving lots of old camera gear a new lease of life, it didn't make it into a main stream marketable product though. Some went a bit extra and made a full digital back for analog camera bodies, such as the Leica R8/R9, and some Nikon F5s with Fujifilm sensor backs etc., but these offerings didn't see much widespread use for long, as digital sensors got cheaper.

In short, "electrofuels" does smell a bit too much of the Kodak thinking, so to speak. And we all know where that went...

 

[jack_christie]

Peter Carlsson of NorthVolt

 

[marcos_eirik]

Over here, Circle K is leading the way among the gas station companies:

 

[jack_christie]

Shmee would probably kill for one of those in London. Took over three hours to get about 40% :

 

[marcos_eirik]

^The other manufacturers should have taken a leaf out of Tesla's book and built a dedicated fast charger network scaled to the amount of cars they have on the road. Ionity is a good step, but it's too few of them and they are kind of expensive.

Alternatively, they should have swallowed their pride and joined Tesla's Supercharger network.

 

[DanRoM]

^The other manufacturers should have taken a leaf out of Tesla's book and built a dedicated fast charger network

No, Tesla should have never gotten away with building a brand-exclusive charging station network in the first place.

 

[gaasc]

Alternatively, they should have swallowed their pride and joined Tesla's Supercharger network.

Then they would be at the mercy of Tesla.

This is one of those times in which continent-wide legislation with strict guidelines about compatibility, interoperability, and standardized plugs is a good idea. WIth any luck it gets adopted worldwide. Worst case scenario, we end up with a lesser version of the current power plug nonsense.

 

[eizbaer]

No, Tesla should have never gotten away with building a brand-exclusive charging station network in the first place.

Why not, they pay for it after all only partly serious ofc…

I don’t think there’s necessarily a right way. If the network is in the hands of one or some OEMs, you end up with the crap that is IONITY: participating makers have subsidized rates and prohibitively expensive access for all other losers. In comparison to that, I feel the Tesla model is actually better… while I do acknowledge that this can’t work if everyone decides to build their own exclusive chargers. Tesla „wins“ here, simply because they were first, act very fast and properly expand and secure locations…

I’m with gaasc: probably best to separate car from infrastructure strictly to make any discrimination impossible.

re standardization: EU is de facto standardized regarding plug and charger communication - only access/roaming is a huge clusterfuck.

edit: stolen from reddit, what do we think of this? Sounds like good stuff to me, although I’m not sure of the effect on Norwegian electricity prices (ger dominated by taxes anyway and there’s nearly no dynamic tariffs anyway).

 

[jack_christie]

No, Tesla should have never gotten away with building a brand-exclusive charging station network in the first place.

Not to late to tax the exclusiveness out of it

 

[marcos_eirik]

No, Tesla should have never gotten away with building a brand-exclusive charging station network in the first place.

Why?

I think the Tesla Supercharger network is the best and most influential thing to happen to the car industry for several decades. The Model S essentially turned out to be an "iPhone-moment" in therms of how disruptive it turned out to be. The automotive industry badly needed that huge kick in the back to get out of the endless cycle of selling the same thing year-after-year with as incremental little development as customers would allow them to get away with. Dieselgate also helped, as that busted the myth of "clean diesel".

At the time there was nothing planned by anyone, so Tesla essentially stepped out the path for whoever would come after them. Also, it's only brand exclusive because no others were willing to join them in the construction of the Supercharger network. Remember, this was at the time where the rest of the industry was busy being about as arrogant as Nokia was in 2007, and were mocking Tesla and labelling it as "pipe dreams".

As for legislation, I'm afraid we could have been stuck with the status quo in perpetuity. This would have opened the possibility for big oil sponsored legislators (who are numerous even here) to stifle progress and kill the solution to long range EV driving in its infancy.

Then they would be at the mercy of Tesla.

This is one of those times in which continent-wide legislation with strict guidelines about compatibility, interoperability, and standardized plugs is a good idea. WIth any luck it gets adopted worldwide. Worst case scenario, we end up with a lesser version of the current power plug nonsense.

Not if they went onboard from the beginning as a founding member, then they would have had equal control over the network. However, since they were dragging their feet, they would be at the mercy of Tesla.

I'm still positively surprised that the EU managed to be quick enough to mandate the CCS charing standard. Sadly, the Japanese and Chinese cars that are on sale here uses the ChaDeMo, which is limited to 50kw.

edit: stolen from reddit, what do we think of this? Sounds like good stuff to me, although I’m not sure of the effect on Norwegian electricity prices (ger dominated by taxes anyway and there’s nearly no dynamic tariffs anyway).

Our isolationists are loosing their shits over it, of course, they are rambling about it as if it was 1940 and the sky was full of Heinkel. But, I'm not worried about it. You have to see it in long therm, maybe, we'll get more expensive electricity for a shorter period of time every now and then, but on the flip side we greatly improve our power supply redundancy by adding more possible power sources to the mix, as Germany is getting more and more renewables online. This also means we can export a lot of our hydro power when we have a surplus, which is most of the time.

The opposite of cables like this is a very, very bad idea, as demonstrated by Texas this winter.

 

[DanRoM]

Tesla's supercharger network is just an illustration of the main point that @eizbaer and @gaasc also made: Charging infrastructure must not be tied with the car manufacturers. There has to be standardized plugs, and equal prices for every customer independent of what car they drive.

Of course you got a point saying that Tesla jumpstarted the whole thing, I admit that.

 

[marcos_eirik]

Tesla's supercharger network is just an illustration of the main point that @eizbaer and @gaasc also made: Charging infrastructure must not be tied with the car manufacturers. There has to be standardized plugs, and equal prices for every customer independent of what car they drive.

Of course you got a point saying that Tesla jumpstarted the whole thing, I admit that.

Potentially you could use legislation to force Tesla to open up their Supercharger network. However, that may turn it into something like the Ionity-situation where Teslas charge for free/cheap, and they make it expensive for others to charge there.

Still, the fuel & retail business should be all over DC fast charging. I mean, compared to fossils who spend like five minutes there, people who stop for fast charging spends 20-40 minutes at the charger, giving you much more time to sell them fast food, which is what gas stations make most money from these days anyways. As shown in Tesla-Bjørn's video, Circle K is leading the pack here, but Shell-7/11 are also starting to offer fast chargers.

 

[93Flareside]

Potentially you could use legislation to force Tesla to open up their Supercharger network. However, that may turn it into something like the Ionity-situation where Teslas charge for free/cheap, and they make it expensive for others to charge there.

Still, the fuel & retail business should be all over DC fast charging. I mean, compared to fossils who spend like five minutes there, people who stop for fast charging spends 20-40 minutes at the charger, giving you much more time to sell them fast food, which is what gas stations make most money from these days anyways. As shown in Tesla-Bjørn's video, Circle K is leading the pack here, but Shell-7/11 are also starting to offer fast chargers.

Didn’t the EU do that??

 

[GRtak]

No, Tesla should have never gotten away with building a brand-exclusive charging station network in the first place.

Who else was the network for? When the Telsa network was started there were 2 other EVs available in the U.S.. The Toyota RAV was an inductive charger, and the Nissan Leaf was a far lower charging rate.