GM announces transition to all-electric future

Nobody is running the AC in German January.

We're talking about power grids being able to handle the extra load of millions of BEVs. Do Germans not drive in January?
 
"we" running it our power is no biggy
we just pick up the phone and call one of the neighbouring countries "we need power!"
problem solved...

the other way around, as in having too much power, is financially worse.
then we have to pay one of our neighbouring countries to take it off our hands...
 
Well, right now that's fine where the percentage of electric cars is low enough to hardly make a dent in the increased power consumption. If you multiply the kWh for charging everyone's cars at once overnight or when (if charging stations are at your chosen parking lot) everybody gets to work, with the amount of cars on the road today, do you really think yours or any country's grid can support that load? Even if you share from somebody else? It's fun to beat on the US' aging and undersized power grid but, it's not all sunshine and roses everywhere else. They don't build powerplants with a ton of surplus because it costs money to maintain equipment. Hence why your home's circuit breaker panel isn't a floor to ceiling long panel. Size for some expansion but not too much to where it becomes cost prohibitive. At this point, we're not ready for that. Will we in 10 years? Hell no. Closer than today? Maybe. It really doesn't seem like governments are looking at this. Realistically, you'd have to provide individual power generators of some sort to offset that massive load for the time being.

Most power generated (excusing wind, solar, and hydroelectric) uses steam boilers of some sort to create high pressure steam to rotate a turbine. When you have boilers of that size, it's really hard to have the heat turn down to allow for constant steam being produced but, at an extremely low rate and an then jump to an extremely high demand. An example I would liken it to is, steam boilers in a high rise condo. In the morning when everyone's waking up, getting ready for work, there's a high demand for steam because you're either, turning up heat in your condo/apartment or, taking shower which uses hot water. Water is heated via a steam to water heat exchanger. When this process starts, higher demand is required of course and you need to heat the water in the boiler at a much more rapid pace than previous. In large boilers, this takes time. Then, once everybody finishes, steam usage almost grinds to a halt. You can't stop steam production on a dime, it takes time to settle out. So, in those instances, you're blowing off steam to the atmosphere which means you're wasting energy.
 
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Well, right now that's fine where the percentage of electric cars is low enough to hardly make a dent in the increased power consumption. If you multiply the kWh for charging everyone's cars at once overnight or when (if charging stations are at your chosen parking lot) everybody gets to work, with the amount of cars on the road today, do you really think yours or any country's grid can support that load? Even if you share from somebody else? It's fun to beat on the US' aging and undersized power grid but, it's not all sunshine and roses everywhere else. They don't build powerplants with a ton of surplus because it costs money to maintain equipment. Hence why your home's circuit breaker panel isn't a floor to ceiling long panel. Size for some expansion but not too much to where it becomes cost prohibitive. At this point, we're not ready for that. Will we in 10 years? Hell no. Closer than today? Maybe. It really doesn't seem like governments are looking at this. Realistically, you'd have to provide individual power generators of some sort to offset that massive load for the time being.

Most power generated (excusing wind, solar, and hydroelectric) uses steam boilers of some sort to create high pressure steam to rotate a turbine. When you have boilers of that size, it's really hard to have the heat turn down to allow for constant steam being produced but, at an extremely low rate and an then jump to an extremely high demand. An example I would liken it to is, steam boilers in a high rise condo. In the morning when everyone's waking up, getting ready for work, there's a high demand for steam because you're either, turning up heat in your condo/apartment or, taking shower which uses hot water. Water is heated via a steam to water heat exchanger. When this process starts, higher demand is required of course and you need to heat the water in the boiler at a much more rapid pace than previous. In large boilers, this takes time. Then, once everybody finishes, steam usage almost grinds to a halt. You can't stop steam production on a dime, it takes time to settle out. So, in those instances, you're blowing off steam to the atmosphere which means you're wasting energy.

With a significant number of BEVs around and the appropriate smartness of their charging infrastructure, those BEVs actually solve some of the problems they appear to cause by providing a fraction of the battery to the grid.
Most cars are stationary most of the time, so most BEVs would be plugged in most of the time - especially at home and at work. As a result, the fleet of BEVs enables more widespread use of renewable power by providing a massive buffer to the grid. Similarly, instead of blowing off steam in traditional plants they can just push that into the BEV fleet instead.

This won't work if all cars go on the road at the same time (they don't), arrive at a charger at the same time (they don't), and all have to be immediately fast-charged from empty to full (they don't).
Obviously, today's infrastructure isn't entirely ready yet. The amount of renewable generation is high enough around here, we often have surplus wind but no BEV fleet to dump it into - but many places don't have such surplus yet. The sufficiently smart charging infrastructure isn't here yet, especially with a single network of brains to control plugged-in BEVs from the grid. The business model for either use of a fraction of your battery for the grid at a price paid to you, or the lease of a fraction of the grid's battery for use in your car at a price paid to the grid operator isn't fully here yet - on a tiny scale it is though: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...cars-earn-1-530-feeding-power-grids-in-europe
 
With a significant number of BEVs around and the appropriate smartness of their charging infrastructure, those BEVs actually solve some of the problems they appear to cause by providing a fraction of the battery to the grid.
Most cars are stationary most of the time, so most BEVs would be plugged in most of the time - especially at home and at work. As a result, the fleet of BEVs enables more widespread use of renewable power by providing a massive buffer to the grid. Similarly, instead of blowing off steam in traditional plants they can just push that into the BEV fleet instead.

This won't work if all cars go on the road at the same time (they don't), arrive at a charger at the same time (they don't), and all have to be immediately fast-charged from empty to full (they don't).
Obviously, today's infrastructure isn't entirely ready yet. The amount of renewable generation is high enough around here, we often have surplus wind but no BEV fleet to dump it into - but many places don't have such surplus yet. The sufficiently smart charging infrastructure isn't here yet, especially with a single network of brains to control plugged-in BEVs from the grid. The business model for either use of a fraction of your battery for the grid at a price paid to you, or the lease of a fraction of the grid's battery for use in your car at a price paid to the grid operator isn't fully here yet - on a tiny scale it is though: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...cars-earn-1-530-feeding-power-grids-in-europe

We been over this, expecting people to be ok with allowing their cars to feed the power grid is a pretty idealistic proposition.
Also it?s very realistic that many people (I would say most) aren?t going to be keeping them plugged in all the time. You don?t keep your phone plugged in all the time even when not in use
 
.... if I?m not going anywhere for a while and have a chance to, I will... but, I?m not the status quo on that aspect. Batteries suck right now.
 
keep yelling that, it will make them better :rolleyes:
 
.... if I?m not going anywhere for a while and have a chance to, I will... but, I?m not the status quo on that aspect. Batteries suck right now.

I tend to charge only when needed, among other things it preserves the life of your battery. I even have some somewhat anecdotal data, wife and I always get same phone, I charge mine when its pretty low, typically plug it in before I go to bed and it sits there overnight. She plugs and unplugs hers all the time to get a little bit of juice and use it. After 2 years when it's typically time for a new one, her battery dies extremely fast while mine still has about 80% of original left.

- - - Updated - - -

keep yelling that, it will make them better :rolleyes:

Basic physics and chemistry put a hard limit on how good batteries can get.
 
I tend to charge only when needed, among other things it preserves the life of your battery. I even have some somewhat anecdotal data, wife and I always get same phone, I charge mine when its pretty low, typically plug it in before I go to bed and it sits there overnight. She plugs and unplugs hers all the time to get a little bit of juice and use it. After 2 years when it's typically time for a new one, her battery dies extremely fast while mine still has about 80% of original left.


There was a study that showed that using the batteries as Narf describes extends the life of the batteries. I have posted it before and can't be arsed to find it at the moment. If you would like to look for it, I believe it was somewhere in England where the study was done.


Basic physics and chemistry put a hard limit on how good batteries can get.



And that hard limit is not yet here, we keep finding new ways to make the batteries better.


Asphalt helps lithium batteries charge faster

Rice University lab finds asphalt-nanoribbon anode more efficient, resistant to dendrites

HOUSTON ? (Oct. 2, 2017) ? A touch of asphalt may be the secret to high-capacity lithium metal batteries that charge 10 to 20 times faster than commercial lithium-ion batteries, according to Rice University scientists.

The Rice lab of chemist James Tour developed anodes comprising porous carbon made from asphalt that showed exceptional stability after more than 500 charge-discharge cycles. A high-current density of 20 milliamps per square centimeter demonstrated the material?s promise for use in rapid charge and discharge devices that require high-power density. The finding is reported in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Nano.

?The capacity of these batteries is enormous, but what is equally remarkable is that we can bring them from zero charge to full charge in five minutes, rather than the typical two hours or more needed with other batteries,? Tour said.

The Tour lab previously used a derivative of asphalt ? specifically, untreated gilsonite, the same type used for the battery ? to capture greenhouse gases from natural gas. This time, the researchers mixed asphalt with conductive graphene nanoribbons and coated the composite with lithium metal through electrochemical deposition.

The lab combined the anode with a sulfurized-carbon cathode to make full batteries for testing. The batteries showed a high-power density of 1,322 watts per kilogram and high-energy density of 943 watt-hours per kilogram.

Testing revealed another significant benefit: The carbon mitigated the formation of lithium dendrites. These mossy deposits invade a battery?s electrolyte. If they extend far enough, they short-circuit the anode and cathode and can cause the battery to fail, catch fire or explode. But the asphalt-derived carbon prevents any dendrite formation.

An earlier project by the lab found that an anode of graphene and carbon nanotubes also prevented the formation of dendrites. Tour said the new composite is simpler.

?While the capacity between the former and this new battery is similar, approaching the theoretical limit of lithium metal, the new asphalt-derived carbon can take up more lithium metal per unit area, and it is much simpler and cheaper to make,? he said. ?There is no chemical vapor deposition step, no e-beam deposition step and no need to grow nanotubes from graphene, so manufacturing is greatly simplified.?

Rice graduate student Tuo Wang is lead author of the paper. Co-authors are Rice postdoctoral researcher Rodrigo Villegas Salvatierra, former postdoctoral researcher Almaz Jalilov, now an assistant professor at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, and former Rice research scientist Jian Tian, now a professor at Wuhan University, China. Tour is the T.T. and W.F. Chao Chair in Chemistry as well as a professor of computer science and of materials science and nanoengineering at Rice.

The Air Force Office of Scientific Research, EMD-Merck and Prince Energy supported the research.



I realize this is a few years off yet for consumer use, but it is one example of new twists we are putting on batteries as we become more reliant on them.
 
Asphalt? You mean the same stuff that has the crude oil were trying to get away from?
 
No. Gilsonite, which is one of many asphaults, including ones from corn, sugar, etc.
 
There was a study that showed that using the batteries as Narf describes extends the life of the batteries. I have posted it before and can't be arsed to find it at the moment. If you would like to look for it, I believe it was somewhere in England where the study was done.






And that hard limit is not yet here, we keep finding new ways to make the batteries better.


Asphalt helps lithium batteries charge faster





I realize this is a few years off yet for consumer use, but it is one example of new twists we are putting on batteries as we become more reliant on them.

That's interesting but the main reason I'm sceptical about news stories like this is that I been hearing about batteries that will charge in un under 10 minutes and last for decades being about "10 years away" since mid-90s. There are many interesting technologies like graphene nanotubes, glass batteries and Li-Air which all has been "in development" since I been in high school (well maybe not glass batteries).

I'm not at all against moving to electric self driving pods of misery for general transportation but I will not accept going backwards in convenience.
 
We been over this, expecting people to be ok with allowing their cars to feed the power grid is a pretty idealistic proposition.

Two things - first, if it's actually your car/battery you'd get paid for doing so... people like getting paid. Second, you're assuming "their cars (=batteries)", while I'm not so sure the majority of batteries will actually be owned by the driver, depending on business model you might just lease a certain capacity for a certain price.

Also it?s very realistic that many people (I would say most) aren?t going to be keeping them plugged in all the time. You don?t keep your phone plugged in all the time even when not in use

Again two things :)
Right now, it's not realistic to keep a BEV plugged in all the time because you're not always stopped where there is at least a low-power plug. Given wider spread of BEVs AND an incentive for net operators to keep you connected will drive that opportunity up.
Second, there is no incentive today to plug in a nearly-full car for an hour of shopping or whatever. If you're getting paid for part of your capacity and can determine how much, it'd be great to plug in at that mall 5 miles from your house and grant 75% of your battery to the grid, ca-ching!



I tend to charge only when needed, among other things it preserves the life of your battery. I even have some somewhat anecdotal data, wife and I always get same phone, I charge mine when its pretty low, typically plug it in before I go to bed and it sits there overnight. She plugs and unplugs hers all the time to get a little bit of juice and use it. After 2 years when it's typically time for a new one, her battery dies extremely fast while mine still has about 80% of original left.

That may be misleading - do you have (anecdotal) usage data? The stereotype for cell phone use, at least based on anecdotal data around me, suggests she's putting much more load through her battery and therefore requires every top-up she can get. That extra load means there's more total charge/discharge happening, contributing to wearing down the battery.

As for long-term storage, 100% all the time isn't great for lithium batteries iirc. Having them at, say, 80% should extend storage-related life and provide room to move for the grid.



It's not just a wild fantasy of mine - feel free to read up on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-to-grid
 
I think we?re talking about homes..
 
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