The Cat Ate My Steam Tables

[Bret Cahill]

Last summer power from the grid was a fraction of the cost of liquid
fuel -- now it's about the same -- yet every time any shift from
petroleum to the grid was proposed the response was often something to
the effect that it was nearly impossible to build a power plant.

"I dunno, you _really_ think we can build more power plants?"

OK, time for a break.

We know two things for sure:

1. the petroleum is running out and it will be impossible to keep the
price from increasing exponentially, and

2. we have built hundreds or thousands of non oil power plants in the
past.

There may be some discussion as to what kind of power plant you want
to build but don't try to claim that it is nearly impossible to build
more plants.

What's impossible is to find enough oil to keep the price of oil from
spiraling on world markets.


Bret Cahill

 

[tadchem@comcast.net]

On May 1, 11:22 pm, Bret Cahill <BretCah...@peoplepc.com> wrote:

Last summer power from the grid was a fraction of the cost of liquid
fuel -- now it's about the same -- yet every time any shift from
petroleum to the grid was proposed the response was often something to
the effect that it was nearly impossible to build a power plant.

"I dunno, you _really_ think we can  build more power plants?"

OK, time for a break.

We know two things for sure:

1.  the petroleum is running out and it will be impossible to keep the
price from increasing exponentially, and

2.  we have built hundreds or thousands of non oil power plants in the
past.

There may be some discussion as to what kind of power plant you want
to build but don't try to claim that it is nearly impossible to build
more plants.

Building new power plants has become *political* impossibility,
despite the fact that there are anough fuel reserves (oil, oil shale,
gas, coal, clathrates, nuclear) to keep things going for a long time.
*Elected* officials, whose main priority is to get RE-elected, have
caved to pressure from special interest groups who want to stop all
development of power and industry, at least until THEY can take over
the government.

What's impossible is to find enough oil to keep the price of oil from
spiraling on world markets.

Oil prices are no longer tied to the market laws of supply and
demand. That lesson was driven home with the Arab Oil Embargo almost
30 years ago. Hurricane Katrina was just a reminder that free market
economics is being held hostage by special interests who resisted the
development of domestic oil sources and the construction of refineries
in other places than along the Gulf coast.

Bret Cahill

Tom Davidson
Richmodn, VA

 

[BobG]

On May 1, 11:22 pm, Bret Cahill <BretCah...@peoplepc.com> wrote:

Last summer power from the grid was a fraction of the cost of liquid
fuel -- now it's about the same --
===========================================A gallon of gas is 36.6 KWhrs... around here electricity is about 15

cents a KWhr retail, 4 cents wholesale to large users. Lets compare
retail prices when gas was $3.66 a gallon... that would be about 10
cents per KWhr...
not surprisingly, I pay about 15 cents per KWhr for electricity from
the local coal plant near Orlando. This is upside down from your
assertion, so does that make your argument moot?

 

In sci.physics BobG <bobgardner@aol.com> wrote:

On May 1, 11:22 pm, Bret Cahill <BretCah...@peoplepc.com> wrote:
Last summer power from the grid was a fraction of the cost of liquid
fuel -- now it's about the same --
============================================
A gallon of gas is 36.6 KWhrs... around here electricity is about 15
cents a KWhr retail, 4 cents wholesale to large users. Lets compare
retail prices when gas was $3.66 a gallon... that would be about 10
cents per KWhr...
not surprisingly, I pay about 15 cents per KWhr for electricity from
the local coal plant near Orlando. This is upside down from your
assertion, so does that make your argument moot?

Around here the price is more like $.22/KWhr.

If you allow for the lower conversion efficiency of a gas engine,
and the electrical conversion effiencies, that would make my cost
about $3/gal equivilant to run an electric car, so the cost to run
an electric car is not a particular issue either way.

What is an issue is the ENORMOUS infrastructure cost to electrify
all the roads to make it work.

Around here just adding a car pool lane to an existing road costs
$2.5 million per mile.

So, if electrification cost a mere $3 million per mile per lane,
and you assume the Interstate Highway System's 50,000 miles has
an average of 5 lanes, the cost would be over $2 trillion.

And that does nothing for the majority of the roads, which are not
part of the Interstate Highway System.

--
Jim Pennino

Remove .spam.sux to reply.

 

In sci.physics Bret Cahill <BretCahill@peoplepc.com> wrote:

In three years the price of diesel will be $10/gallon and the cost of
electricity will be such a tiny fraction of the cost of fuel that it
can be ignored in back of envelope calculations.

If that happens, it will be because of the enormous carbon taxes to
"save the planet" and not because of the cost of crude oil.

Expect the same thing to happen to electricity even if it goes nuclear,
which can't possibly happen within 10 years simply because of the time
it takes to get a plant approved and built.

--
Jim Pennino

Remove .spam.sux to reply.

 

[Bret Cahill]

Last summer power from the grid was a fraction of the cost of liquid
fuel -- now it's about the same --

===========================================> A gallon of gas is 36.6 KWhrs...

Heat energy.

At the typical 25% - 30% conversion efficiency of an ICE you only get
about 12 kW-hrs of mechanical energy.

In contrast an electric motor is 95% efficient so 36.6 kW-hr of
electricity gets converted to about 35 kW-hr mechanical energy.

If you just want heat energy to stay warm you can always install a
wood stove and burn solid bio fuel [wood] which won't be spiraling for
quite some time so obviously the subject is about _mechanical_ energy.

I'll do whatever I can to get a 50 cent/watt consumer ready Stirling
but that's another matter altogether.

around here electricity is about 15
cents a KWhr retail, 4 cents wholesale to large users. Lets compare
retail prices when gas was $3.66 a gallon... that would be about 10
cents �per KWhr...
not surprisingly, I pay about 15 cents per KWhr for �electricity from
the local coal plant near Orlando. This is upside down from your
assertion, so does that make your argument moot?

Recalculate the costs of mechanical energy.


Bret Cahill

 

[Bret Cahill]

Last summer power from the grid was a fraction of the cost of liquid
fuel -- now it's about the same -- yet every time any shift from
petroleum to the grid was proposed the response was often something to
the effect that it was nearly impossible to build a power plant.

"I dunno, you _really_ think we can �build more power plants?"

OK, time for a break.

We know two things for sure:

1. �the petroleum is running out and it will be impossible to keep the
price from increasing exponentially, and

2. �we have built hundreds or thousands of non oil power plants in the
past.

There may be some discussion as to what kind of power plant you want
to build but don't try to claim that it is nearly impossible to build
more plants.

Building new power plants has become ďż˝*political* impossibility,

Everyone already agrees that Malthus was correct?

despite the fact that there are anough fuel reserves (oil, oil shale,
gas, coal, clathrates, nuclear) to keep things going for a long time.
*Elected* officials, whose main priority is to get RE-elected, have
caved to pressure from special interest groups who want to stop all
development of power and industry, at least until THEY can take over
the government.

Funny how pro growth folks cannot get organized into a pressure group.

What's impossible is to find enough oil to keep the price of oil from
spiraling on world markets.

Oil prices are no longer tied to the market laws of supply and
demand. ďż˝

You are bat crap crazy.


Bret Cahill

 

[BobG]

On May 2, 11:11 am, Bret Cahill <BretCah...@peoplepc.com> wrote:

Recalculate the costs of mechanical energy.
===========================================bzzzt...obfuscating evasion detected.. you claimed "Last summer power

from the grid was a fraction of the cost of liquid fuel -- now it's
about the same -". I compared my cost of power from the grid to the
cost of liquid fuel... Power from the grid was not 'a fraction' of
the cost of liquid fuel on a per KWhr basis. Your claim did not
specify comparision after conversion to mechanical energy. I assume
when you say 'a fraction', the cost would be 1/2, 1/3, or 1/4th the
cost of the liquid fuel?

 

[Benj]

On May 1, 11:22 pm, Bret Cahill <BretCah...@peoplepc.com> wrote:

We know two things for sure:

1. the petroleum is running out and it will be impossible to keep the
price from increasing exponentially, and

2. we have built hundreds or thousands of non oil power plants in the
past.

There may be some discussion as to what kind of power plant you want
to build but don't try to claim that it is nearly impossible to build
more plants.

What's impossible is to find enough oil to keep the price of oil from
spiraling on world markets.

1. Petroleum isn't quite running out yet, but one must remember that
human businessmen are smart and the fights over who will own the last
drops begin LONG before the supply gets low. In fact they are starting
NOW.

2. Coal as an energy source gives civilization about a 300 year
breathing space, but it's dirty and unless we clean it up we'll all be
dying of heavy metal and other poisoning.

3. This means that the energy solution will demand heavy taxes (or
other price premiums) at first to develop the technology to clean up
coal emissions.

4. As politics enters the situation Pie in the Sky liberal dreamers
are all off in never-never land believing that 19th century technology
like dams and windmills are the "answer". Back of the envelope
calculations show these people are all ignorant beyond belief (but all
mean well, of course).

5. Liberal dreamers not understanding science in the least but
understanding art and literature to an amazing degree all end up as
media propagandists and are doing an excellent job convincing the rest
of humanity that their ignorant solutions to energy somehow make
sense.

6. Then as REAL politics then enters the situation, we have the
invention of the "carbon footprint" complete with taxes and sale of
indulgences designed to increase political control and make certain
people rich.

7. This means that thus for political reasons, new power plants will
be required to somehow remove CO2 and store it, while not bothering to
strip poisonous chemicals from stacks. It means that the huge sums of
money desperately needed to develop cleaning technology will be wasted
on CO2 storage. It will be like bouncing a basketball to cure cancer:
lots of show and wasted work being done but no real results.

8. Which gets us all to the 'bottom line": If all this crap is allowed
to proceed as currently planned, in the end we will all be doomed, and
that even includes those who got VERY rich from the scheme. I don't
know where they got the idea that they don't live on the same planet
the rest of us do.

 

[Bret Cahill]

Recalculate the costs of mechanical energy.

===========================================> bzzzt...obfuscating evasion detected..

And defeated by reinserting what the obfuscating evading cut snipper
deleted w/o comment:

<beginning of deleted material>

Last summer power from the grid was a fraction of the cost of liquid
fuel -- now it's about the same --
===========================================> A gallon of gas is 36.6 KWhrs...

Heat energy.

At the typical 25% - 30% conversion efficiency of an ICE you only get
about 12 kW-hrs of mechanical energy.

In contrast an electric motor is 95% efficient so 36.6 kW-hr of
electricity gets converted to about 35 kW-hr mechanical energy.

<end of deleted material>

you claimed "Last summer power
from the grid was a fraction of the cost of liquid fuel -- now it's
about the same -". I compared my cost of power from the grid to the
cost of liquid fuel... ďż˝

No engineer calls heat energy "power."

They call it "waste."

Power from the grid was not 'a fraction' of
the cost of liquid fuel on a per KWhr basis. Your claim did not
specify comparision after conversion to mechanical energy.

What do/did you think is the goal of power plants?

Heat energy?

Again, if you just want heat bio fuel works just great.

I assume
when you say 'a fraction', the cost would be 1/2, 1/3, or 1/4th the
cost of the liquid fuel?

Powering an electric motor at 15 cents/ kW-hr grid costs is equivalent
to $1.50/gallon diesel burned in a new properly tuned diesel engine.

$1.50/gallon diesel equivalent electricity is a fraction of last
summer's $5/gallon cost of diesel, roughly 1/3rd.

In three years the price of diesel will be $10/gallon and the cost of
electricity will be such a tiny fraction of the cost of fuel that it
can be ignored in back of envelope calculations.


Bret Cahill

 

In sci.physics Bret Cahill <BretCahill@peoplepc.com> wrote:

In three years the price of diesel will be $10/gallon and the cost of
electricity will be such a tiny fraction of the cost of fuel that it
can be ignored in back of envelope calculations.

If that happens, it will be because of the enormous carbon taxes to
"save the planet" and not because of the cost of crude oil.

Was carbon taxation running up the price of fuel last summer?

Nope, and running out of oil didn't cause the price of fuel to plummet
over that past several months.

Expect the same thing to happen to electricity even if it goes nuclear,
which can't possibly happen within 10 years simply because of the time
it takes to get a plant approved and built.

The price of photovoltaic just keeps dropping.

And taxes keep rising.

See "United Kingdom".

--
Jim Pennino

Remove .spam.sux to reply.

 

[Bret Cahill]

We know two things for sure:

1. �the petroleum is running out and it will be impossible to keep the
price from increasing exponentially, and

2. �we have built hundreds or thousands of non oil power plants in the
past.

There may be some discussion as to what kind of power plant you want
to build but don't try to claim that it is nearly impossible to build
more plants.

What's impossible is to find enough oil to keep the price of oil from
spiraling on world markets.

1. Petroleum isn't quite running out yet, but one must remember that
human businessmen are smart and the fights over who will own the last
drops begin LONG before the supply gets low. In fact they are starting
NOW.

Are you openly advocating just taking the oil from the owners of the
oil, the Iranians and Saudis?

2. Coal as an energy source gives civilization about a 300 year
breathing space,

That brings us back to the OP. What's really curious is even those
who support any source of heat for grid energy i.e., coal, nuke,
solar, natural gas, geothermal, etc. seem to have problems with
shifting transportation from oil to the grid.

They sometimes seem to be suggesting that it's _technologically_
impossible to build another power plant, coal, nuke, solar, natural
gas or otherwise.

You might expect them to support something they would grow their
business.

The only conclusion is they want some dough. After that then they'll
be able to find their steam tables.

In just a few years diesel will be over $10/gallon and if people start
having trouble moving food for themselves then politicians aren't
going to be too concerned about tropical bears or polar frogs.


Bret Cahill

 

In sci.physics Bret Cahill <BretCahill@peoplepc.com> wrote:

Last summer power from the grid was a fraction of the cost of liquid
fuel -- now it's about the same --
============================================
A gallon of gas is 36.6 KWhrs... around here electricity is about 15
cents a KWhr retail, 4 cents wholesale to large users. Lets compare
retail prices when gas was $3.66 a gallon... that would be about 10
cents �per KWhr...
not surprisingly, I pay about 15 cents per KWhr for �electricity from
the local coal plant near Orlando. This is upside down from your
assertion, so does that make your argument moot?

Around here the price is more like $.22/KWhr.

TVA has 6 gigawatts available at night @ 7 cents/ kW-hr.

A fact that is totally irrelevant in the real world.

If you allow for the lower conversion efficiency of a gas engine,
and the electrical conversion effiencies, that would make my cost
about $3/gal equivilant to run an electric car,

At 22 cents/kWhr it would come out to be about $2.20 for the energy
itself and another $2/gal equivalent for the battery cost, that is, no
road bed electrification, which is still cheaper than last summer's
gas.

36.6 KWhr in a gallon of gas.

36.6 x .3 = 10.98 KWhr to the wheels.

10.98 KWhr / .8 charge and conversion efficiency = 13.725 KWhr electricity in.

$.22/KWhr retail consumer cost x 13.725 KWhr = $3.0195

<snip remaining arm waving>



--
Jim Pennino

Remove .spam.sux to reply.

 

[Bret Cahill]

Last summer power from the grid was a fraction of the cost of liquid
fuel -- now it's about the same --
===========================================> > A gallon of gas is 36.6 KWhrs... around here electricity is about 15
cents a KWhr retail, 4 cents wholesale to large users. Lets compare
retail prices when gas was $3.66 a gallon... that would be about 10
cents �per KWhr...
not surprisingly, I pay about 15 cents per KWhr for �electricity from
the local coal plant near Orlando. This is upside down from your
assertion, so does that make your argument moot?

Around here the price is more like $.22/KWhr.

TVA has 6 gigawatts available at night @ 7 cents/ kW-hr.

If you allow for the lower conversion efficiency of a gas engine,
and the electrical conversion effiencies, that would make my cost
about $3/gal equivilant to run an electric car,

At 22 cents/kWhr it would come out to be about $2.20 for the energy
itself and another $2/gal equivalent for the battery cost, that is, no
road bed electrification, which is still cheaper than last summer's
gas.

The real cost in most places of battery only electric vehicles is the
battery.

so the cost to run
an electric car is not a particular issue either way.

What is an issue is the ENORMOUS infrastructure cost to electrify
all the roads to make it work.

Where does the word ENORMOUS go in the spread sheet to compare the
cost of fuel only to electrification?

And do you have to enter the term in capital letters?

Around here just adding a car pool lane to an existing road costs
$2.5 million per mile.

The savings in battery costs with road bed electrification come out to
be $20 million/mile and it's a one time charge.

Clearly you haven't done any work on excel.

So, if electrification cost a mere $3 million per mile per lane,
and you assume the Interstate Highway System's 50,000 miles has
an average of 5 lanes, the cost would be over $2 trillion.

Last summer half a $ trillion/year was flowing out of the U. S. to oil
rich despotisms.

So your argument is it would pay for itself in 4 years.

As T. B. Pickens has pointed out in his multi million dollar campaign,
staying on oil has resulted in the largest transfer of wealth in the
history of civilization.

For another comparison the cost of the transcontinental railroad was
projected to be 4 times the entire federal budget of that era.

They built it anyway.

And that does nothing for the majority of the roads, which are not
part of the Interstate Highway System.

Every road doesn't need to be electrified since you can charge up your
battery on the freeway. Get off the freeway and your Volt will take
you another 40 miles to your house where you can plug in.

Do you know what percent of ground transportation fuel is burned on
freeways as opposed to residential, urban or country roads? Heavy
long haul trucks spend almost all their fuel on freeways.

We don't need to eliminate all consumption of liquid fuel. Bio fuel
can be useful for remote trips.

Just reducing liquid fuel consumption significantly will save many
lives.

It's human nature to believe nothing bad will happen through inaction.

Anyone can get rich quick with the Gipster. Anyone can ignore Soros
and not lose half half his money in the stock market.

It's human nature to believe that the price of oil won't increase
exponentially to the point of causing a "reequilibration" of human
populations.

Ten or 20 trillion dollars for road bed electrification will then seem
like quite a deal.


Bret Cahill

 

[Bret Cahill]

In three years the price of diesel will be $10/gallon and the cost of
electricity will be such a tiny fraction of the cost of fuel that it
can be ignored in back of envelope calculations.

If that happens, it will be because of the enormous carbon taxes to
"save the planet" and not because of the cost of crude oil.

Was carbon taxation running up the price of fuel last summer?

Expect the same thing to happen to electricity even if it goes nuclear,
which can't possibly happen within 10 years simply because of the time
it takes to get a plant approved and built.

The price of photovoltaic just keeps dropping.


Bret Cahill

 

[stan]

On May 2, 3:36 pm, Bret Cahill <BretCah...@peoplepc.com> wrote:

In three years the price of diesel will be $10/gallon and the cost of
electricity will be such a tiny fraction of the cost of fuel that it
can be ignored in back of envelope calculations.
If that happens, it will be because of the enormous carbon taxes to
"save the planet" and not because of the cost of crude oil.

Was carbon taxation running up the price of fuel last summer?

Expect the same thing to happen to electricity even if it goes nuclear,
which can't possibly happen within 10 years simply because of the time
it takes to get a plant approved and built.

The price of photovoltaic just keeps dropping.

Bret Cahill

Well here, we still have most of the population of this Canadian
province not yet directly connected to the North American electrical
grid but we do have standard province wide generation and distribution
and increasing industry. Also we have a small population for the
geographic area involved. So the cost will be higher than for densely
populated areas!
The cost of household/domestic electricity, mostly generated by hydro
average is already around 10 cents per kilowatt hour. And wind
generation and photovoltaic haven't yet kicked in.
Coal is not used here at all now.
This has meant that the use of fuel oils, (there is no gas except
bottled propane here) with all the attendant problems of oil
pollution, oil tank leakage, chimney and furnace maintenance is or
already has mostly disappeared.
And electrcity as a fuel is 'delivered' continuously; by wires not by
oil delivery truck!
So the writing IS on the wall.
Electricity coupled with rechargeable electric transportation and
electrical light railway etc. is the way to go.
And that will help combat the pollution problem.
It will also reduce the industrially caused acid rain problem we are
experiencing. So that will improve the quality of our drinking water
and also, maybe allow fish stocks to recover!
It's been interesting living within this degree of change for the last
50+ years. Back then, the most standard heating sytem for the rapidly
improving housing then being built some ten years after WWII was the
oil fired hot air furnace. Inefficient, noisy, maintenance or
replacement prone after say 15 years. Many oil tank leakages. Needs
electrcity anyway to operate and depends on oil deliveries sometime
over snow clogged roads! required (then anyway) a masonry or stainless
steel chimney. Also not very efficient at using the oil fuel.

 

[Dan Major]

On May 1, 10:22 pm, Bret Cahill <BretCah...@peoplepc.com> wrote:

Last summer power from the grid was a fraction of the cost of liquid
fuel -- now it's about the same -- yet every time any shift from
petroleum to the grid was proposed the response was often something to
the effect that it was nearly impossible to build a power plant.

"I dunno, you _really_ think we can  build more power plants?"

Yes, why not, especially with url at bottom...
OK, time for a break.

We know two things for sure:

1.  the petroleum is running out and it will be impossible to keep the
price from increasing exponentially, and

No, you make this statement with no citation, and no basis in fact.

Oil is NOT running out. Natural gas (a main source of energy for
power plants) is NOT running out.

2.  we have built hundreds or thousands of non oil power plants in the
past.

Who is "we", and again, I think you're pulling numbers out of your

nether region.

There may be some discussion as to what kind of power plant you want
to build but don't try to claim that it is nearly impossible to build
more plants.

What's impossible is to find enough oil to keep the price of oil from
spiraling on world markets.

There are excellent alternatives. I'm working on research right now

on an alternative, switchgrass. Ask me in a year how it turned out.
We're in the preliminary phases of construction. It will take a year
at leasy to get the apparatus built and begin to get valid scientific
data.
One use right now of switchgrass:http://www.ia.nrcs.usda.gov/News/
newsreleases/2006/switchgrass.html

 

[jmfbahciv]

jimp@specsol.spam.sux.com wrote:

In sci.physics BobG <bobgardner@aol.com> wrote:
On May 1, 11:22 pm, Bret Cahill <BretCah...@peoplepc.com> wrote:
Last summer power from the grid was a fraction of the cost of liquid
fuel -- now it's about the same --
============================================
A gallon of gas is 36.6 KWhrs... around here electricity is about 15
cents a KWhr retail, 4 cents wholesale to large users. Lets compare
retail prices when gas was $3.66 a gallon... that would be about 10
cents per KWhr...
not surprisingly, I pay about 15 cents per KWhr for electricity from
the local coal plant near Orlando. This is upside down from your
assertion, so does that make your argument moot?

Around here the price is more like $.22/KWhr.

If you allow for the lower conversion efficiency of a gas engine,
and the electrical conversion effiencies, that would make my cost
about $3/gal equivilant to run an electric car, so the cost to run
an electric car is not a particular issue either way.

What is an issue is the ENORMOUS infrastructure cost to electrify
all the roads to make it work.

Around here just adding a car pool lane to an existing road costs
$2.5 million per mile.

So, if electrification cost a mere $3 million per mile per lane,
and you assume the Interstate Highway System's 50,000 miles has
an average of 5 lanes, the cost would be over $2 trillion.

And that does nothing for the majority of the roads, which are not
part of the Interstate Highway System.

Now think about all the salt that is dumped on those roads.

/BAH

 

[Bret Cahill]

Last summer power from the grid was a fraction of the cost of liquid
fuel -- now it's about the same -- yet every time any shift from
petroleum to the grid was proposed the response was often something to
the effect that it was nearly impossible to build a power plant.

"I dunno, you _really_ think we can �build more power plants?"

Yes, why not, especially with url at bottom...> OK, time for a break.

We know two things for sure:

1. �the petroleum is running out and it will be impossible to keep the
price from increasing exponentially, and

No, you make this statement with no citation, and no basis in fact.

Except for some fundies and looneytarianated folk -- even many AGW
deniers will admit Peak Oil as a fact -- it's general knowledge.

Oil is NOT running out. �Natural gas (a main source of energy for
power plants) is NOT running out.

The OP issue wasn't what would fire power plants -- solar would do
well as most traffic is during the day anyway -- but building more
power plants to power ground transportation.

2. �we have built hundreds or thousands of non oil power plants in the
past.

Who is "we",

Humans in industrial countries.

and again, I think you're pulling numbers out of your
nether region.

There may be some discussion as to what kind of power plant you want
to build but don't try to claim that it is nearly impossible to build
more plants.

What's impossible is to find enough oil to keep the price of oil from
spiraling on world markets.

There are excellent alternatives. �I'm working on research right now
on an alternative, switchgrass. �Ask me in a year how it turned out.
We're in the preliminary phases of construction. �It will take a year
at leasy to get the apparatus built and begin to get valid scientific
data.
One use right now of switchgrass:http://www.ia.nrcs.usda.gov/News/
newsreleases/2006/switchgrass.html

Bio fuel does not conflict with electrification. We need to fund
credible EtOH and bio diesel projects because some driving will always
be off the freeway and out of battery only range.

So we'll always need _some_ liquid bio fuel.

In the meantime do what is "design ready." Slot car the freeways.

Food distribution is critical to national security so funding can be
from DoD and DARPA . Start out with I-80 and 99 in the Central Valley
so that people in NY City will be guaranteed to get low cost lettuce
and carrots no mater what happens to the price of liquid fuel.

Heavily dedicated routes like I-80 can be independent of the rest of
the system and can continue to operate even if politicians don't want
to continue slot car the entire interstate highway system. Peterbilt
has a hybrid electric diesel tractor in full production.


Bret Cahill

 

[Bill Ward]

On Sun, 03 May 2009 06:48:15 -0400, jmfbahciv wrote:

jimp@specsol.spam.sux.com wrote:
In sci.physics BobG <bobgardner@aol.com> wrote:
On May 1, 11:22 pm, Bret Cahill <BretCah...@peoplepc.com> wrote:
Last summer power from the grid was a fraction of the cost of liquid
fuel -- now it's about the same --
============================================ A gallon of gas is 36.6
KWhrs... around here electricity is about 15 cents a KWhr retail, 4
cents wholesale to large users. Lets compare retail prices when gas
was $3.66 a gallon... that would be about 10 cents per KWhr...
not surprisingly, I pay about 15 cents per KWhr for electricity from
the local coal plant near Orlando. This is upside down from your
assertion, so does that make your argument moot?

Around here the price is more like $.22/KWhr.

If you allow for the lower conversion efficiency of a gas engine, and
the electrical conversion effiencies, that would make my cost about
$3/gal equivilant to run an electric car, so the cost to run an
electric car is not a particular issue either way.

What is an issue is the ENORMOUS infrastructure cost to electrify all
the roads to make it work.

Around here just adding a car pool lane to an existing road costs $2.5
million per mile.

So, if electrification cost a mere $3 million per mile per lane, and
you assume the Interstate Highway System's 50,000 miles has an average
of 5 lanes, the cost would be over $2 trillion.

And that does nothing for the majority of the roads, which are not part
of the Interstate Highway System.

Now think about all the salt that is dumped on those roads.

No problem. Just use resistance heating instead. ;-)