Re: 90 amps for electric car charge!

On 2/17/2010 7:40 AM Bob F spake thus:

Except that this is the wrong comparison: the methane is being used to
power garbage trucks, so the proper comparison would be with gasoline,
diesel or propane.

So the only carbon that's being kept out of the atmosphere is the
marginal difference between the carbon emitted by burning one of these
fuels and the carbon emitted by burning methane. Not at all what the TV
news report said.

Try to write more carefully then.

"this would reduce carbon dioxide emissions" is what you said. And it clearly
will, by reducing the production of the equivalent power burning coal. Less CO2
is produced with the methane.

On 2/16/2010 4:23 PM Bob F spake thus:

Totally beside the point; the news report said specifically that
capturing the methane and burning it would mean that the carbon in the
methane wouldn't be released into the atmosphere. The CO2 released when
the methane is burned is most definitely a greenhouse gas. (Remember the
formula from high school chemistry?  CH4 + 02 --> CO2 + H20)

Try to read more carefully.

Nope. Just you.

Methane produces less CO2 per unit of energy produced than coal or gasoline.

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/co2-emission-fuels-d_1085.html

Plus, recovering methane and using it to create energy prevents the methane from
escaping to become a greenhouse gas. The energy produced is a bonus.

On 2/15/2010 7:16 AM trader4@optonline.net spake thus:

This point can't be emphasized enough, as it's true that the pinhead
media always seems to get this one wrong and leaves the mistaken
impression that "green" electric cars run on pixie dust or some such.

Just last night I heard a local news report about recovering methane
from landfills for use as fuel. While this is a good thing overall, the
stupid reporter (or editor) got away with saying that this would reduce
carbon dioxide emissions! Of course this is totally untrue: while the
methane would be captured instead of simply venting to the atmosphere,
the carbon dioxide would be released later when it was burned. All
that's being done is delaying the release of the CO2. Sheesh; are we
*really* that much a nation of idiots?

Now, you and I are on opposite sides of this debate in lots of ways
concerning the overall viability of renewable energy, nuclear power,
etc. But I agree 100% with you here. Such stupid oversights on the part
of the media (and even on the part of some who promote green energy) can
only set things back.

Yeah, what you have to plug it into is one of the key facts the green
folks promoting electric cars as a big solution fail to mention.
Aside from the installation cost of an appropriate circuit, it's not
exactly that awful either.   True, it takes a 90A circuit to fully
charge the car in 4 hours.   But if you look at the table there are
other very viable options:

90A    4 hours
60A    5 hours
40A    7.5
30A    10

That gets you to fully charged with a range I guess of about 225
miles.  If you use the car mainly as a second car for short drives
around town, driving to a commuter lot, etc., it sounds viable.

The second big omission is that you always hear the media gushing over
this cars as "zero emissions".    Which is true only if you
conveniently ignore that all this power still has to be generated
someplace.  In some small amount of cases today, it could be green, eg
where the car is charged at night using excess hydroelectric.   But
for most of the country, the power today still has to come from
conventional fuels and all you're doing is moving the pollution from
one place to another.   And possible introducing more, as I'm not sure
what the total energy/emissions balance looks like, ie burning a
gallon of gasoline in a car vs burning say coal to generate the
electricity, then sending it over a transmission system with losses,
etc.

Is your garage electric car ready?

Seems these cars can be charged with a regular 15 amp outlet, any 240 volt
outlet (50 amps best), or a 90 amp "4 hour charge" connection...
http://www.teslamotors.com/electric/charging.php

Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) describes a system in which electric or plug-in hybrid
vehicles communicate with the power grid to sell demand response services by
either delivering electricity into the grid or by throttling their charging
rate...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-to-grid

Cities Prepare for Life With the Electric Car...
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/15/business/15electric.html