Electric Power

[idlerboat 116]

Australia has one point one million houses with solar panels on their roofs.

It should have happened a long time ago.

The uptake suprised both the government and existing power generators. It still does.

Australia in its "wisdom" is trying to slow this influx down.

Rather than grab a perfect opportunity, it is beyond doubt trying to desperately lock in and sell its "mineral wealth".

A clasic example of this is the very quiet way that Victoria is trying to set up coal loading facilities at Western Port Bay. This requires a wet pipe line from the Latrobe valley, and drying facilities at Westernport.

To export the worst polluting of all coal sources.

A typical ploy is to sign very long contracts with enormous penalties if the contract is stopped.

 

Take the money and ship the problem overseas.

 

The argument that solar does not take the night time base load off, so therefore is not a good way to go is corporate rubbish....it may not, but to use it as an excuse to not use solar to the fullest potential is a recognition that a lot of power generation cannot compete on the triple bottom line.

The privatisation of electricity is a very bad idea.

It does not allow for a non profit model.

That is these base generators operate only to top up the grid.

It would make their operations more expensive granted, but if a large amount of "local" electricity was available, this would offset that.

 

Dont forget that the pressures of the reality of an ever increasing global pollution problem will force increases in the worst polluting industries costs.

 

Humans act after the fact but they do act !

It would be way smarter to act sooner.......

 

As to the Greenie thing ?

If that is a label attached to me...I wear it with pride .

I have yet to find that people under that banner have caused massive deaths, the instability of countries or a range of other "stuff"

That cannot be said for the great many other groups that run under their own banners, doing "good".

 

I have noted over many years that the loudest greenie bashers are the ones who simply dont want to change their status quo....The very people who need to change for major change to be done.

 

And for what its worth...those dreadlocked, unemployed, dole bludginging tree hugging ...zealots.....

I admire !

What they are fighting for........cant be replaced.

A simple static important , irreplaceable part of what it means to be human on this planet.

 

We have always said "but its only a few percent" and now we have almost nothing left.

 

What are you willing to fight for and why ?

[wheels 543]

The privatisation of electricity is a very bad idea.

It does not allow for a non profit model.

Non-profit means you only shift the cost to a different kind of funding. SOE (That has always equaled inefficient and wasteful.) = tax payer funded, plus monthly purchase. Monthly purchase may be lower than the following.

Private means tax payer is buying the power each month. Monthly cost will be higher, but your taxes are not used to run the company. Private usually means more efficient running of company model.

There are benefits and negatives in each model. I am not saying one is better or worse.

 

As to the Greenie thing ?

If that is a label attached to me...I wear it with pride .

I think we are all green. We are sailors. Why would we want to sail in a world of garbage, what ever form that takes. To label anyone of us as not being green just because one may have a particular view, is ?!?!?!?! (can't find the word I want).

[AJ Oliver 154]

One of the teckie guys in our club repowered his CAL 29 with a battery pack and transmission from an old fork lift. Seems to work pretty well - but he uses it mostly for day sailing and bouy racing - not cruising.

Gotta say, however, that it sure is mighty stealthy (quiet)!!

If any of you folks would like more information, I'll try to get it for you.

[Guest]

What did you just say about battery technology Wheels.......

 

http://www.gizmag.com/lithium-sulfur-ba ... ity/29907/

[wheels 543]

What did you just say about battery technology Wheels......

What did I say? or what did you "read" I said? I think they may be two different things.

[Guest]

Wheels "Personally I don't think Battery power will ever "get there". I think technology is fast approaching the limits of this technology."

[wheels 543]

Yep pretty much as I thought, it was what you wished to read. So let me repost what you missed. I have highlighted my comment on lithium.

Back to Batteries, I think the only thing sitting in the pipeline so to speak that can take battery technology further forward, is Nano technology. Still very new and so possibilities and potentials are as big as the Horizon on a clear day. We are even going to see Nano technology in rope in the not too distant future. Nanotubes are opening up some exciting ideas, but many are still far away from being delivered to the Public as of yet. The only downside that I see, is that Scientists seem to be stuck in the Lithium battery area and are only looking at ways of improving charge time and capacity. The danger I see in this is that China is holding the strings on Lithium production and I think that puts the rest of the world in a tricky place.

[wheels 543]

I do need to make one correction though. I thought China held the production of Lithium, but I am wrong. It is available from several different countries and Chile holds the biggest reserve.

[Guest]

If this comes to market it will change things in a big way.

[wheels 543]

Sulfur is just one of about a dozen different advances being introduced to Lithium Battery technology. Most all of them will dramatically increase charge capacity and speed up charge times and improve current delivery. The nano technology is looking like it will achieve the greatest advances.

Yes those improvements are a good thing, But you have to understand that even if you do all these things, an issue still remains and the issue is not with the battery itself. If you improve charge time, you need to be able to supply and whack in that current. If you improve the capacity, you have to be able to whack in that current for a longer period. That comes at a cost in other ways. If you can improve that current delivery, that means more powerful motors, but they will use more current and thus the improvements of the battery are negated. Kind of like our PC's becoming ever more powerful, but the OS's get so huge, we don't always see a performance improvement.

[Guest]

The motors seem powerful enough at the moment Wheels. These new sulphur containing batteries are meant to be a lot cheaper and with twice the capacity or energy density they could possibly be a game changer. I've no doubt there's an huge investment in developing better batteries as they would be the golden goose.

[banaari 27]

Something else to consider - you don't need to solve the ENTIRE problem in one hit.

The overwhelming majority of car trips are short-hop single-person exercises for which range isn't such a big issue... and for which methinks maybe lower capacity but longer-lifetime batteries are suited.

Do most of those trips in electric vehicles ultimately powered by renewables and you make a big dent in fossil fuel consumption.

Most families maintain two vehicles anyway... keep one of those on dinosaur fuel and you have the best of both worlds.

[wheels 543]

Twice the capacity is a small gain compared to some of the new developments being worked on. One improvement to Lithium currently being worked on will be looking at a gain of 2000 times.

But if you want to find out more about a real game changer on the Horizon, take a look at Aluminium/air technology currently in development. Hopefully something will be ready for release in 2017'ish. That will take battery to about the level of current Fuel cell ability.

 

and for which methinks maybe lower capacity but longer-lifetime batteries are suited.

Certainly longer life-time. Of course it is going to differ for every country in what the consumer will be prepared to accept, but for NZ'ers, we tend to want something that lasts and something that is not expensive when replacement time comes and something that is easy to replace/dispose of at that time.

[Guest]

I think for urban transport the technology is good enough as it is. Just going to be a while before people get their heads around it. Electric around town would be ample for us. We could actually get by with an electric bike or two, maybe a 3 wheeler for shopping groceries. 50 klm of range would be ample here.

[Guest]

Get a couple of these bbay

 

http://www.treehugger.com/cars/vectrix- ... ember.html

[wheels 543]

Electric motors are a very mature technology, if you want a more powerful motor you can have it now.

Sure, I was meaning things like powering transport vehicles like a Bus etc. More current available opens up other area's of transport. I was referring to the ability to drive the motor, not the motor in itself. I already said that in an earlier post, that the motor can not be improved much more.

The bigger issue is getting the power into the increased battery size. That means gruntier charging technology and greater current drain on the Grid system due to the batteries ability to take a charge faster and so on and so on. Many of us with decent power systems on our boat already know, it's not really about what you use, it's about getting the power back into the bank afterwards that tends to be the biggest issue.

[Guest]

This is more my thung Ogre....http://www.gizmag.com/superpedestrian-m ... eel/29994/

Even a bit of Danish in the name.

With the battery technology likely to change the vehicles ought to be able to be more long term devices than internal combustion devices. I imagine the batteries could be changed to the current (pun) technology maybe with an increase in range.

Would be great if this philosophy became the norm, rather than changing vehicles every 2 years.

[Guest]

or this

 

http://www.twike.com/

[Guest]

As Dan in europe says, there's no room for them on our roads!

[Guest]

He's right that nearly all of NZ's urban areas were built during the life of cheap oil and that makes living here without a car nealry impossible But the change is coming and it will be exciting to see which way it goes.