Can Our Infrastructure Handle An All-Electric World?
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- Опубликовано: 13 май 2024
- Can the grid handle a 100% electric world? Neil deGrasse Tyson and comedian Chuck Nice explore the carbon impacts of electric vehicles and achieving zero emissions with chemical engineer for Union of Concerned Scientists, David Reichmuth.
Thanks to our partners at Ford for sponsoring this episode. Learn more about the all-electric Ford Mustang Mach-E® SUV at www.ford.com/suvs/mach-e/
What fraction of the overall carbon footprint comes from transportation? We break down air pollutants, particulate matter, and how the electric grid isn’t fully green yet. How do
we achieve true zero emissions? David tells us about the Union of Concerned Scientists and their work trying to bring the voice of science to policy making.
Is it more emissions to create an electric vehicle versus a regular car? We discuss the emissions of manufacturing and breakdown the idea of a strategic commodity. Can we stop relying on gasoline in the same way we stopped relying on horses?
Learn about changes in our energy sources in the last century.
Find out how long EV’s can go on one charge and the logistics of setting up infrastructure for electric vehicles. Why is no one “taking a drive” for pleasure anymore? We ask whether or not the grid could handle if everyone had electric cars.
Would there be brownouts and blackouts from everyone charging their car all night? Are there ways we can make the entire electric grid smarter?
Thanks to our Patrons Eric, Charles Hagin, Jan Willem Smit, Emily Baldrige, smantha r, Jen, and Sylvain Gautier for supporting us this week.
NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons can listen to this entire episode commercial-free.
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Science meets pop culture on StarTalk! Astrophysicist & Hayden Planetarium director Neil deGrasse Tyson, his comic co-hosts, guest celebrities & scientists discuss astronomy, physics, and everything else about life in the universe. Keep Looking Up!
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00:00 - Introduction: Electrified Future
04:00 - The Carbon Footprint of Transportation
10:17 - How Green Are Electric Vehicles?
14:18 - Why Did It Take So Long to Get Airplanes?
15:26 - The Emissions for Building EVs
19:13 - Strategic Commodities & Gasoline Cars
22:40 - From Horses to Cars: Moving into the Future
29:23 - Range Anxiety: Can You Make It to the Charging Station?
36:38 - Are Electric Vehicles Only for the Rich?
38:46 - Waiting for the Car to Charge
42:32 - Can the Power Grid Handle All These Electric Cars?
48:48 - Closing 
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What was your greatest takeaway from this episode?
@StarTalk That in only 15 years, U.S. cities switched nearly completely from horses to cars. It was _that fast!_
Second takeaway, over half of U.S. transportation emissions are from personal vehicles. So -- (I looked up this part) in the U.S. we have around 110 million personal vehicles (cars, SUVs, pickup trucks, motorcycles), to switch to EV!
I ride a motorcycle, so the discussion on cars is not very relevant, and electric motorcycles will not be a viable alternative in the foreseeable future, so I would like to see more attention given to green fuels. Also, an all electric society and achieving Net Zero will require many other changes to the way we live, such as population concentration, and for the majority of the populace the elimination of personal vehicles and single family houses. I am all for achieving Net Zero, but I want to own my own house, as far as possible from any urban centre or neighbours and I want to be able to travel any distance on my motorcycle (currently I can, and have, ridden 1,000km in a day) into some truly remote areas (my hobby is wildlife photography).
Adding some more details as people keep asking me for easily available information:
An electric motorcycle requires a very large and heavy battery pack in order to offer similar power and speed performance to an ICE motorcycle but with far greater limitations on range. Electrics typically weigh about 100lbs more than a comparable ICE bike. For the sake of comparison:
ICE motorcycle:
Yamaha MT-09:
Wet weight 182.2kg / 417lbs.
Power & torque: 119hp & 93.0 Nm (68.6 ft.lbs). Top speed: 147.9mph
Refuel time: less than 2 minutes.
Infrastructure: petrol stations EVERYWHERE. You can pay in cash if you want to.
Price: $9,799 USD.
Comparable electric motorcycles:
Zero SR-S: weight 229kg/518lbs. Power & torque: 110hp & 140.0 Nm (103.3 ft.lbs). Top speed: 124mph. Range: 171 miles (city) or 116 miles (50% stop-and-go/50% at 70mph). Charge time: 11.6 hours to 100%. 11.1 hours to 95%. Infrastructure (recharging points): Good luck. Price: $20,995.
Livewire One weight: 254.9kg/562lbs. Power & torque: 100hp & 84ft lbs. Top speed: 110mph. Charge time: 11 hours to 100% (1 hour with DC Fast Charge). Infrastructure (recharging points): Best of luck. Price: $22,799.
I could not ride Vancouver to Bella Coola in a single day on these electric bikes like I could on an ICE motorcycle, and I don’t even know if it would be possible given the great expanses of rural areas and wilderness along that 965km route with nowhere to charge. Electric bikes are of extremely limited utility outside of urban areas. There are a multitude of small electric bikes that are beginning to fill the niche previously occupied by 50cc mopeds and scooters, but that will be of no use to riders on large capacity highway going motorcycles. We could also discuss the frequency and cost of battery replacements and the limitations on battery warranties, and there are also environmental and political and sociological issues associated with resourcing the materials to manufacture and dispose of the batteries, but that would really entail more data and time than I currently available.
While I am not opposed to the aims of NetZero (in fact I am supportive), it is important to understand how Net Zero will change the ways we live. These are conversations our governments should be having with all of us now. The general direction is a continued lowering of expectations for what we can expect to attain. Expected legal and/or financial restrictions on personal vehicle ownership will impact where most of us can live. The below references are a good starting point to get an idea of what is coming and what is already in progress.
Home Ownership, and Urban Concentration:
United Nations 15 Minute City: unfccc.int/news/the-15-minute-city
The End of the Single Family House (Vancouver): viewpointvancouver.ca/2021/03/25/the-end-of-the-single-family-house-is-underway/
Big VS Small Environmental Impact Report:
global.ctbuh.org/resources/papers/download/2354-the-environmental-impact-of-tall-vs-small-a-comparative-study.pdf
Future Restrictions on ownership and use of personal Motor Vehicles:
Forbes Magazine: The days of personal car ownership could be numbered
www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmorris/2021/06/19/the-days-of-personal-car-ownership-could-be-numbered/?sh=53fe91ea5902
Oxfordshire council: Local Transport and Connectivity Plan
www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/residents/roads-and-transport/connecting-oxfordshire/ltcp
Hackney Council motor vehicle bans: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11677629/Council-BAN-cars-75-roads-enormous-crackdown-traffic-pollution.html
Economic impacts of the 2030 - 2040 bans on the sale of fossil fuel vehicles:
wiki.mag-uk.org/images/f/fc/Cebr_Analysis_of_2030_Ban.pdf
RAC Magazine: how long do electric car batteries last?
www.rac.co.uk/drive/electric-cars/charging/how-long-do-electric-car-batteries-last/
Volvo Carbon Footprint Report:
www.volvocars.com/images/v/-/media/Market-Assets/INTL/Applications/DotCom/PDF/C40/Volvo-C40-Recharge-LCA-report.pdf
Technology Review: why we still don’t have better batteries
www.technologyreview.com/2016/08/29/7310/why-we-still-dont-have-better-batteries/
Who will pay for the transition to NetZero and how?
US Federal Reserve: Us distribution of wealth
www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distribute/chart/#range:2008.3,2023.3;quarter:136;series:Net%20worth;demographic:networth;population:all;units:levels
Definitely informative, but for a real decrease in CO2 emissions will have to come from top down policy. Until the climate activists have enough momentum to abolish unavailing industries (the cruise ship industry for example) I'm not going to care what I drive.
That the US needs to embrace change. We could switch to nuclear-based city power very soon (considering the development of things like Toshiba's 4S small modular reactor), but we need a Congress, grounded in science, that is less concerned with their pocketbooks and more concerned with its citizens and their future. Heck, the cool thing about the US is, we don't even need ALL of Congress to change, just enough to make it happen!
That you don't have a viable solution.
We need a Global Postal Service.
This is the road for the next 2000 years.
Set in large circular circuits to remain tangent to the earth: this is for ease of electrical conduction, and the flow of water.
The international lines are a high-speed system. Rail provides only slight guidance unless you are a larger locomotive or multilane vehicle. The rail has a glass core, is surrounded in a 3 meter long sheet of conductive metal, and every 3 meters an insulation coupler is installed. A wheel base is 3M standard. The larger vehicles use a truck to maintain connectivity. Even larger vehicles will couple with the rail, and magnetic impulse will both stabilize and assist the vehicle. A slight gap between the rail and bracket is provided for this coupler.
The wall of the line has sensors to detect vehicle location, alongside Triangulation, GPS, vehicle to vehicle, and rail communication itself, alongside the driver: their should not be accidents. Emergency drivers are on stand-by at traffic control centers to step in for a driver if the emergency control release is pulled.
The vehicles often have kinetic energy flywheels combined with torque converters, and stator to provide an easy storage bank for energy, while capacitor banks provide the phase needed to return massive breaking energy to the line.
The line is powered by sequestering volcanoes, capturing lightning in the brine lines of the roadway, and from nuclear or hydroelectricity generated between seas.
The road is built over two fused helical pipelines that pump water. The turbines are powered by the breaking energy, otherwise grounded nuclear in off peak times, and drain Deluge to deliver the draught to a drought. Water is often stored in high reservoir for both irrigation and power recapture in hydroelectric dams. Volcanic Sequestering has lava bricks, fresh water, salt, steam turbine electricity, molten carbon power as bi-products to the fertilizer production, and often iron, glass, and kiln(brick) works set up on site for energy.
A Global Postal Service that delivers world peace.
We will need a Global Council of Science and at least 1 representative for every 30000 people to negotiate the annex of imminent domain in the federal right of way to install this by treaty and UN security council resolution numbers.
Paying for it is a new industrial revolution. Made from mundane materials: both the material and personnel needed to install it are available. It is building Global equity. Each nation will own and operate their own sections: it will generate 200 Million new jobs in operations and 2 billion people in its construction as supported trades (we only have 47 years to install it globally!)
Housing the new backbone of the electrical grid, and enabling both power and water exchange internationally: thus rush-hour peaks in energy consuption often just flows around the globe, as breaking powers the one down the line now accelerating.
The vehicle can leave this rail. If is most often build slightly raised over the land, while sometimes it flows under: it attempts to maintain a level flow for its base waterlines. A cistern finishes the foundations as set with a slump: this floods to be pumped in any surge or high water period.
The brine lines are set between the turbines of the main water line. One is slightly more salty than the other. Used to de-ice the road, it is collected back into the brine system for reconcentration. During storms, the rail is protected by its light standards from lightning: when struck the energy flows into the brine lines and static discharge then demands action from the turbines. Lightning can also be phase captured in a large series of stepping down capacitors running in series' and parallels.
The main buses or rail cars will connect to moving trains, and will split apart in later stages. This allows non-stop transit, and transference of both cargo and passengers while in motion. Thus you transfer from buscar 12 past Milwaukee, to go to buscar 36 bound for Phoenix, then Buscar 44 to L.A.
The North Altantic Bridge will require the material found in every dump in Europe and the American continents.
Bigger, faster, more efficient: a new TBM to dig it underground so large herds can return.
The irrigation of the Sahara will end both Famine and climate change.
Gasoline is then only for performance enhancements or remote range extension: as a four lane vehicle can transport a football field sized object: heavy equipment plugs into this new grid as domestic rails are replaced, interstates and highways are updated, and cities are burrowed out underneath to extend connections. Federally owned and operated: it is never to be privatized.
Valid representation and democracy,
New Camelot,
A Confederation of Global Religions,
and a Global Council of Science are required to provide the best final product.
A design speed of 2000km/h. This is for the 4 lane vehicles, but also for the future, we will not have the speed limit that high: unless the road is cleared and New Camelot forces are responding to a natural disaster with overland air craft carriers and mobile clinics and entire mobile hospitals.
Clean, effective, cool, the next NASCAR, and is prevents the horrible impending doom of exhaustion of depleting crude oil stocks.
The new delivery methods puts and end to useless packaging, and makes many containers returned for cleaning and refilling, sanitary sleeves and liners the only things recycled.
Type 1 Civilization anyone?
I did 2000 mile road trip over Thanksgiving in my EV (Tesla Model X) from FL to TX and back. I had 5 charging stops each way, with each stop taking about 20 minutes. That's enough time for a bathroom break, get a snack, and have a short walk to stretch my legs. The car is usually ready to go before I am.
Enjoy the present, it won't last. Today, less than 1% of the cars on the road are EVs. As soon as mainstream adoption occurs (i.e. as little as 10% of the vehicles on the road), your wait times are going to triple or higher as you quickly realize you need many more charging stations than gas stations due to the charge times (actual fillup for gas is 2-4 mins), and since they haven't 10x'd the number of charging stations (b/c the grid can't handle it & it takes many years to upgrade the grid) you are left waiting for 3 cars ahead of yours to finish charging (15-20 mins each) at each of your stops. Then it'll finally dawn on you what a pack of lies you've been sold.
@@RT-mv7dfDon’t you believe in the free market? In American ingenuity?? In the future???
@@retireearly7223 yes I do believe in those, when it manifests organically without govt manipulation. I don't believe in ingenuity or efficiency from our gov't, the most wasteful organization out there, catering to special interests & captured by greedy groups jockeying for power & looking to promote their agendas (usually to acquire more power & money via monopolies made legal thru regulation to insulate their business from competition which is what provides the most benefit to consumers).
@@retireearly7223 He is a Russian socialist 😂😂😂
Free market is always the way …
Sweet
OMG!!! I'm an electrical engineer working in the utility industry, distribution in particular. I see a tsunami of improvements coming, no idea how we'll double capacity in such a short span of time! We need more engineers!
I'm an IBEW 01 Electrician in WA. I'm with you on this! Lots of improvements on the horizon but so much work required to get us there. We have the means and methods, we just have to commit!
you know what ive never understood is why the labor unions don't work with the public schools to let kids know about high paying opportunities after college. we had the military and even for-profit scam schools come in but never trade unions. maybe the government is afraid of collectivization? but either way we need people who know how to build stuff!@@lukeanderson439
16:09 Re: F Mach-E. Total "nowhere" EV vs Teslas. Pumping them just undermines your (& associates') credibility. Shameful! Try doing a little homework to avoid being a sellout!
And 20 years. Research history, look up the REA.
I think the short answer is that we wont, especially places like california, where bureaucracy and red tape makes it difficult and expensive to add capacity. I think his comment about brownouts and blackouts is on point. Without massive investment in generation and transmission its going to fail.
a big one that EVs also helps on is regen braking, brake pad dust is a huge particle polutant
Absolutely besides brake pad dust is the insurmountable amount of Asbestos and other particulate that make it into landfills. Electric cars in full regenerative braking mode can over 100,000 miles plus, at the same time converting that kinetic energy into propulsion. I'm amazed at how many people are clueless about regenerative braking and all of its positive implications!
Sometimes I wish Neil and Chuck will just let the guest speak without interruptions.
When I was teaching criminal justice, I would have guest speakers for some class sessions. Cops, judges, social workers, etc. Some could handle just being let go to just talk. However, at times, there were guests I wanted to learn certain things from. So, I would turn it into an interview to elicit information I wanted the class to get out of the experience. Picture a Phil Donahue show. My other goal was to help them with networking opportunities.
44 minutes to get to the real question "name of the video"!
NDT is a terrible podcast guest and host.
How come so few people know about Aptera? Even the so-called EV expert doesn't know that Apteras can add 20-40 miles of range from embedded solar per sunny day.
@@darkrangertelescopetours9601because it's a small unassuming company. Their products are pretty generic as well.
When Dr. David was telling his story about his daughter learning on electric vs. gasoline vehicle, it reminded me about a time (2006) when the USA had changed the look of it’s paper currency, and I had an older bill that some kid at a 7/11 wouldn’t accept because he had never seen it before.😂
That's like trying to get someone to take that dollar coin that the stamp machine at the post office gave you as change, or that $2 bill you found in your grand parents attic (or picture frame).
They were changing the bills sooo often at that time I told a customer "at this point I would accept monopoly money. When you change the bill 3 times in one year you are temporarily helping counterfeiters."
Intelligence has plummeted in this nation. They now want more mentally disturbed pilots and blind air traffic controllers with learning disabilities. I refuse to play this sick game.
I visited the USA 6 years ago, and I tell you now, your currency is 200 years out of date. Your coins are a mess, and your paper notes need updating, seriously. It's so bad, you don't know how bad it is.
I saw Waterworld. It was one of my favorites growing up. 😂
I was going to say the same! Mad max on water, extra cheese
Kevin Costner was actually in multiple post apocalyptic films.
I sail a trimaran and have flown float planes...Waterworld it is and electric vehicles scare the bejesus out of me. Have you driven one thru flooded roads before?
My greatest takeaway is, that I will be converting from a gas powered Chevy Camero guy to an electric Ford Mustang guy. But seriously, this video, stand alone, has helped me be more open minded to an electric vehicle.
After owning my Tesla for less than 2 years I already know I will never go back to gas cars. It's the best car I have ever owned and cheapest to fuel.
And impossible for 75% of people to afford. Thanks for the tip Jackie.@@That-Guy_
Just some thought. Most of my travel is less than 10 miles on local (slow) roads. I've put 1200 miles on an ebike using it solely for local transportation. No anxiety and same time (avoiding traffic and parking not included).
Good for those who can...also not as great in Snow or Traffic / Highways. But I have friends with some that use Normal Bikes or E-bikes for shorter commutes up to 30 miles.
Why cant we use all the moving parts (wheels, driveshafts etc.) as points of self electrical generation as the vehicles are being driven. Simple engineering project??
@@johnpoppenhusen4178 That's impossible. You would lose more energy in friction than you would gain from the generators. EVs actually do something like this, but it's called "regenerative braking" because it slows the car down.
Solar engineer here, specialized in large plant contols and transmission grid Interconnection. Great conversation here, but would greatly benefit from discussing the major obstacles to making the grid more reliable and sustainable! Hit me up
The biggest obstacle is the Republican Party.
@@lrvogt1257 The biggest obstacle is reality
Funny to listen to this. We have most of this grid technology already here in Norway, and much of our power infrastructure is old. Power is already charged by the hour, so we have incentives to charge our cars when the price is low. Almost anyone with a homecharger have an app that controls it, and that app talks to the power companies. So you just tell it when you'll be departing next time, and it automatically turns the charger on and off based on the price, making sure you're ready to go at the predetermined time while getting the lowest price for the power consumed.
We also have examples of people using their car as a powerbank during poweroutages, to keep key parts of their house powered until regular power is returned.
Yep. Silly people acting like this hasn't already been solved in several places. Good on you Norway!
@@davidc2838 Just wait till an underground carpark has 1 of these chemical heaps short circuit causing a domino effect of 100+ EV's on fire, you wouldn't want to be in that carpark, complete stupidity
In Denmark we already have staggered pricing depending on time of day to reduce grid load. Sometimes the power is free or you`ll even get a refund. Future plans are to include option for reverse power from all the plugged-in batteries in EV's for a more stable grid and avoid frequency drops leading to blackouts.
@@cjrock4096 who cares, and what is your point and what does it have to do with the price of fruity loops?
So I could go to plug in my EV to get to work and expect to have an increased charge, but the grid may have had to "balance" out so I actually donated 15% of my current charge to the grid and now I don't have enough charge to get to work... And this seems acceptable to you?
Go kick rocks.
@@mencantbewomen Not very smart, are we? Peak demand is generally 6 pm to 7 pm. At that time most commuters have already arrived at home. The smart ones will take advantage of discharge their batteries for prak compensation and let it recharge at night, while the not so smart will start charging their car at max price/kWh. Also, you assume commuters drive so far that they will nearly discharge batteries. Besides, this is all done by smart devices, where you surely can opt out bit at the car level and at the grid level, or opt in for only certain hours of the day, or based on the price per kWh you would get. If additionally you have solar panels and house batteries, it gets even better. You don't sound like you will ever drive am EV, so pretty sure nobody is losing any sleep or feel compelled to kick rocks because you poopooed a mitigation if the problem.
@@mencantbewomenWho said that??? Did you read where he said “option for reverse power?”
Precisely.
31:02 - but with some new EVs (including mine) you can roll out a cord and use V2L to charge up somebody else's EV at 12 amps, to get them back on the road and driving to a charging station. It may take an hour or two, but it IS possible to get a low-charge EV back and driving.
For most EV owners you charge at home (at a much lower rate), and for longer road trips you will simply charge the car when you stop, rather than the other way around (stopping to fuel up). Stop for a coffee, stop for a meal, stop to take a break, stop for sightseeing etc. At any such point drivers will look to charge the car while they (and family) are doing other stuff.
Another one who likes to quote the whole home charge crap, suburb living only, if the EV becomes mainstream we will need charging points everywhere as home charging will not be available to most urban dwellers due to flats or terrace properties, a charging point every car length would be needed, (and all cars would need the plug point at one end or the other to stop someone taking more than one space), sounds fine but who pays and will they all be standardised, (a car fuel filler is a round hole, the pump nozzle is a round pipe, a one size fits all solution) , do the math on how much a charging station costs, how often one on the street outside your house will be used, then pay for it over a five year timescale, then add to that the cost of the fuel, plus the operators profit and you will find the cost of being green is not as cheap as you had been lead to believe. Evs may be the future but let's have the full picture before everyone is committed.
@@CrusaderSports250 77% of people in the US live in houses, duplexes, or mobile homes, and most of those could charge at home.
@jmodified and the other 23%how would they manage?, that's still a lot of people, here in the UK that percentage is significantly larger, probably to about half the population, and .most of Europe will be the same, there are issues around charging which have yet to be resolved or even discussed but we seem to be being forced into it unprepared.
@@CrusaderSports250 I expect the UK and Europe to be a lot faster at providing charging infrastructure. Either way, access to power won't slow down adoption in the US much. At the current 0.6% level of electric car ownership, there is a long way to go before it becomes an issue. Of course there are problems to be resolved, but we are nowhere close to the level of adoption that provides much incentive, except in a few countries.
@jmodified here in Britain its the same with available power at the moment, the problem is increasing this output takes a considerable time from planning to supply, and currently everyone seems to be burying their head in the sand over it. The infrastructure grew as the number of cars grew, supply paced demand, in this case we are being forced into the supply without the supporting infrastructure, evs may well fail as they choke themselves by lack of support, and it won't matter what technology is on the horizon as the demand will have died, playing it safe I won't be giving up my 60 to the gallon (UK) diesel anytime soon.
Really good show, AND I was a bit irritated that oftentimes when David was asked a question, he was immediately interrupted!
Ah, so you mean a typical episode of StarTalk😂😂😂 Love the show, but I do like hearing the guests speak so that I can learn from the experts.
I don’t know, he does it more than usual but also if you count, he frequently lets others talk over him as well, the conversation never is very linear and it’s kinda back and forth between them. My guess is just Neil has a very… distinct voice. Not that it’s bad at all but I certainly don’t think it helps.
Edit: also I think he likes to make distinctions on information being shared.
Good or bad...That is absolutely normal Neil #adhd lol
@@AnthonySomes true..😁
Yeah, Chuck was constantly getting interrupted mid sentence also…absolutely annoying and selfish.
Here in the Netherlands, Shell and Exxon and BP gas stations are all putting in electric chargers. They know their gas stations are going to disappear if they don't provide charging for electric cars.
And no one in NL will be able to charge them if they don't massively expand the grid and get much more nuclear energy.
@@ForbiddTVA nuclear power plant takes 30 years to build and bring online, and costs several billion Euros.
In the same time, for less money, you could have an equal amount of energy from a combination of off shore and on shore wind and solar power generation with battery storage.
Some of the components could be recycled and some could not. But, none of them would be radioactive.
Cute.
@@davidmenasco5743 Solar and off shore wind costs more than nuclear when battery storage and other items the Greenies forget to tell you about are factored in.
Many countries have been building and using small nodular reactors for many decades built in two years or less for millions not billions. China builds full scale ones in four years.
@@ForbiddTV There's a guy from Oxford and the University of Copenhagen, with a funny name, Bent Flyvbjerg, who specializes in the study of large infrastructure projects.
He produced a study analyzing a large number of major projects around the world. Some of the main points of interest were time to completion, delays, and cost overruns. The projects were ranked.
Which projects were consistently the very worst for very lengthy delays and massive cost overruns? Nuclear plants. Which projects were consistently the best in these areas, coming in consistently on time and under budget? Both wind and solar projects.
Maybe there are different ways to do nuclear, that will produce a different result someday in the future. But right now, we need clean energy ASAP, not expensive boondoggles. Wind and solar have proven they can provide it, on time and under budget.
Amazing Team & Subject! ❤ David is desperately trying to keep the conversation as serious as possible 😅
Just got an F150 Lightning that I'll be using to run a mowing route with all electric equipment. I love the truck and between tax credits and fuel savings it's effectively free to own over 5 years
Wow! Good luck leading the way. 😀
Yeah right... needed the tax credits to make it work... no road tax on your fuel, so I pay more for you? & the ridiculous cost of the vehicle....
@@grandpuba3831 it didn't need the tax credit to make it work. It just makes it faster. I also pay an additional amount during registration to make up for the lack of fuel tax. Look up how much the oil industry gets in subsidies if you want an actual problem to get mad at
@@intensedanOh go up against the deep pockets... but ignore the average car buyer... love your logic.
@@grandpuba3831 lol what even is your point? Mad about ev tax credits but not oil industry subsidies? I should continue running my routes with my 3/4 ton that gets 7 mpg so your worldview doesn't get threatened? You just want a boogeyman to shake your fist at?
21:47 there are 30 different commodities, it's just that in the USA they are illegal, because car lobby, namely:
Walking, Mixed zone buildings and suburban mid sized building complexes, Biking, telepresence, trams, trolleys, trains for long distance, sail boats, public libraries (for driving meditation before the invention of cars).
Funny story, I am from NJ and Jersey girls don't know how to refuel gas vehicles because we are now the only state where the attendants refuel our cars. On the first long-distance trip I took I was somewhere in Virginia maybe and needed to refuel and thank goodness there was a very nice lady who was also refueling who showed me how to do it. It was very humbling.
thats just a seriously low IQ
NY city & San Francisco people don't even know how to drive
Yes. That’s a thing! 😆
It's a skill you should never need to learn, because when you drive your Tesla, you will just plug it in, and go get a coffee.
@@aufornvicit's not rocket surgery I don't need to spend $10,000 more for simpler charging
You should talk to David Suzuki about this. Some years ago he and a group of others did a comparison of the cost of private transportation as opposed to a massive mass transportation system. The results were astonishing. Check it out.
I’d be curious about this, I really wish that NDT had asked more about public transit! It seems like such a big missed opportunity and I really think it deserves a bigger place in the transportation emissions reduction conversation
PM2.5 particles also transit your skin, not just lungs. If you wore a respirator that filtered out the PM2.5 particles, that would not be enough.
One source of pollution is also tire wear products - most latex.
In India, we already have an online solar system, where you sell overflow of your solar output to the grid during high production times and get credits for the low production times. Because we are so sunny mostly, many of our EV owners who have solar roofs basically drive around for free.
Again with the confusion sheesh!
Nothing is free in this case, they have to spend a little fortune for both of those things.
@@WhiteGearedActually, in the US, solar users typically cover the cost of their installation within about 7 years. Equivalent to about 7 years of paying their old electric bill. After that 7 years, then they get the next 13 to 23 years of energy for free.
You can say, nothing is "free." But in reality, some things cost a lot more than others.
Fossil fuels are very expensive. We have been fooled into thinking otherwise and just paying that small fortune one monthly payment at a time, year after year after year, for our entire lives.
@@davidmenasco5743 Exactly users have to maintain and protect their power station and panels from external menaces for 30 years on top of paying a fortune today. I don't ever recall maintaining or protecting anything after my house is built except few small socket upgrades here and there.
So my issue is with the decentralization not solar power. I'd prefer the government to build, maintain and protect the infrastructure as users aren't capable enough to do so in most cases.
@@WhiteGeared Wait, you said you don't maintain your house??
You think that wiping off or spraying down solar panels once or twice a year (which is totally optional in many cases) is a big deal, but mowing the lawn every other week is not?
And then you said that you don't like decentralization? You prefer the government to control the energy?
It doesn't sound as if you live in the US. If you did, you might know that large and very wealthy corporations control most of the energy utilities here, and they have so much power and influence, they pretty much tell the government how to regulate them, and they tell you when and how much to pay them. And you pay them, or else!
This is exactly the system we need to get away from, and solar panels with battery storage is the way to do it.
@@davidmenasco5743 Some people don't have a few thousand for solar panels, or 50 thousand for an EV.
Its amazing to get to learn about all the metrics that were introduced. It gives me a much clearer picture. One food for thought is a lot of people who live in apartments, EV options are still a nightmare. Hopefully that gets resolved quickly as part of the mass infrastructural change.
yes, this is something people tend to forget to mention. many apartments, studios, condos don't have charging options. and even if there is, it's limited.
Don’t expect a mass infrastructure change anytime soon.
@@kj385The infrastructure is changing pretty rapidly. Fast charging stations are going in all across the country. Several RUclips channels are chronicling their progress.
Slower AC chargers are also increasing, with a lower profile.
As EV adoption grows, there will be pressure to update state laws and local codes to ensure provisions for EV charging at apartments and on city streets. There has already been some progress in this area, but there's a lot more to come.
Ultimately, the whole energy system is going to be transformed into something very different from what we've become accustomed to.
I stand by my previous statement. Most have already stopped buying EV. I think it’s great to have an EV option. But government trying to force it have turned off a lot people along with the high initial cost.
@@kj385 That's funny, EV sales are actually still going up.
In the US, sales are up 37% in 2023 compared to 2022.
In California, which tends to be the nation's trend setter, auto sales are over 25% BEV. That stands for Battery Electric Vehicle, or pure EV.
33:00 - "Let's just go for. a drive". Yeah, that was a thing, but not so much any more. BUT the new EV (Hyundai Ioniq 6) is so lovely to drive that I am now doing just that again. Even as a die-hard bicycle-tourer, the new EV is just such a joy to drive!
41:20 - Mine will do 10% to 80% in 18 minutes on a 350kW charger. Sadly not too many of those anywhere I live, but even a 50kW charger will get me 30% to 80% in under an hour, a lunch stop.
Remember we used to have emergency phones on the side of interstate? We need to turn that into charging stations 😂
Nope. Don't know anyone that drives 340 miles between stops inan ICE.
You've done comparisons and talked strategies, and it was great information. Can you guys do a follow-up video discussing the technologies being put in place to reach those goals. I'll like to hear David on that matter.
There's a YT channel, called "Let's Have a Think" that looks at lots of technologies. He's very sustanability oriented.
If we want to tackle climate change realistically it's about getting more from less not changing systems to keep using more taxing vehicles by weight would be the best way to tackle climate change the lighter the vehicle the less it wears it's componentry reducing life cycle cost of the vehicle and all component shipping cost. With the added bonus of better road mileage and handling and better safety lower road surface repairs quicker refueling times .....
@@leonmusk1040 Yes. let's do that, and as EV's usually weigh 1000+ pounds MORE than the similar ICE vehicle, those people can be charged MORE!
@@jeffbaviera3693lol, there have been massive monster trucks on our roads running kids to school, without any moral panic about charging them more for the wear on our roads. I'm quite sure that my 3 weighs less than most of them. But thirty-some states do charge EVs extra, above usual registration fees, including my state.
@@jeffbaviera3693 my Bolt EUV weights far less than the pickup trucks so many seem to "need."
There are still folks in the car community that like to drive for fun including myself. Cars are more than just a appliance to get from one place to another for us. Back roads seeing beauty and things you don’t normally see is wonderful. I have electric Nissan leaf and many other gas cars. My leaf is great to go to work and around town. With my other cars they all drive differently and have their own use and fun. Trips across the world are a thing and electric car ranges and access to charging really matters to me and other enthusiasts. Cheers and great show.
The way I see it, the best way to go about it is to limit the number of personal use cars on the roads as much as possible. And by that I mean maximizing public transportation so that all of the essential functions of society(transportation to workplaces, hospitals, schools, inter-city travel, inter-state travel, etc.) are covered by busses and trains. Meanwhile the individual car can be kept for the fun stuff. Better still, we should work on making our cities as pedestrian friendly and walkable/bikable as possible.
The key is to reduce the need for large numbers of vehicles as much as possible. Electric vehicles are necessary, but they are just one piece in a larger puzzle.
@@AsobiMedio Sadly, people are rather willing to invest trillions into the electric grid and (hopefully) nuclear powerplants to make the mostly electric future dream a reality 20-30 years down the line, than investing a fraction of that cost in public transport which could reduce CO2 emissions quite effectively and much faster. At least that's the state in the USofA, for some reason Americans just can't stand the idea of not being fully dependent on their vehicles...
Gas cars will never competely disappear. Horses are still around, even though we don't use it as a farm utility and transportation. Now people are just using horses for fun.
Yes I totally agree@@simonp37
For me, we need to use more cars so we can exhaust all the oil and be forced to transition to a full electric world.
Everyone should take a look at Aptera. They are projected to start producing a SEV solar electric vehicle that gets up to 40 miles a day, with batteries ranging form 250 to 1000 miles. There Launch additions is a 400 mile battery pack. Aptera’s exterior design draws inspiration from the research of Professor Morelli, the same engineer behind the Pininfarina Wind Tunnel.
Aptera has bonna-fides, but the low-slung 3-wheeler form factor is really niche. It could very well be the first commercially-viable EV in its class, though. There is a lot of interest. But at the same time the Aptera is very much at risk from rapidly-improving battery chemistries that make regular BEVs a whole lot more convenient despite not being as efficient.
I want electric vehicles to be a thing. It seems like a great alternative for most suburban vehicle owners, who have a garage and commute less than 100 miles in a day. I recently rented a non-Tesla EV for holiday travel. The charging was really painful. Very few charging stations in NJ, and when I got to the charging locations the lines were ~2 hours long. Some machines were out of commission. It was not the right vehicle for that kind of trip, unfortunately, until rapid charging location buildouts happen along all highways.
The new infrastructure bill will provide funding for deployment of EV chargers along highway corridors to facilitate long-distance travel and within communities to provide convenient charging where people live, work, and shop. This investment will provide a nationwide network of 500,000 EV chargers.
As they touched on, everyone's going to Tesla's connector in ~2025, after which it will be a non-issue.
We bought a Tesla MY and a Bolt in 2023. Story: Upon picking up the Tesla at delivery I had to directly roll into a 350 mile road trip to get it home. I didn't know anything and was nervous, but it Could. Not. Have. Been. Easier. In the first year I've put 23,000 miles on the MY, including several 3000 mile road trips. The Tesla supercharger system is flawless. It works. The charging system integration with the Tesla EV is absolutely brilliant. Period.
The Bolt CCS system? Not so much. The Bolt is a pretty decent EV for the money (ours has 24,000 miles on it from daily commuting, regional trips), but it's lousy as a road-tripping car because the CCS system is so awful, unreliable. I so look forward to all vehicles and chargers in North America transition to the Tesla standard ("NACS") in 2025. The charger reliability issues should be over, all the while the charger build-out will be massive, putting chargers everywhere.
"Gas" stations (if they're smart) will slowly phase out fossil sales while phasing in charging services. It's a perfect scenario, because drivers getting a charge will have 10-15 minutes to hang out and buy stuff. Win-win.
Go Tesla, no pain.
Shuda gotta Tesla
I'm on the list to get an Aptera SEV if/when they come out. Aptera charges itself and it has a small battery so it will charge 150 mi on 120v overnight.
Speak with a physicist before you invest your money in that scam.
@@zwerko What good would a physicist do. I'm a big fan of space and astrophysics but this is a revolutionary vehicle. And no, I didn't invest any money. I'd be willing to bet a hundred dollars that it'll be built. That's my betting limit. Why would I take advice from an idiot like you?
Awesome
@@zwerkoThe physics isn't the problem. Aptera has never claimed any capabilities that aren't obviously possible.
The problem is financing and marketing. If they get the capital and the customers, they will succeed.
Three other very promising solar EV startups have failed in the past two years. I'm doubtful of Aptera's chances, but I hope very much that they succeed.
@@davidmenasco5743 Physics is most definitely a problem. A typical car roof for a large passenger car is about 2 m². The best solar panels have less than 20% conversion efficiency. At the closest point to the Sun for a given season and time (say on Equinox, at noon, at the Equator) the Earth surface gets hit by ~1kW/m². Hence, ignoring curving factor of the roof (which is around 0.7-0.8 for pretty much any car than Cyberdump), angled at the most perpendicular angle to the Sun (which cars never are), under most ideal conditions (which do not exist), you'll get at most 0.4kW/h charge out of those panels. At the moment, the most efficient commercial EV is Tesla Model 3 at 137Wh/km under ideal conditions, so assuming OP is not lying and this Aptera scam will do 150 miles with at least such efficiency, you'll 'only' need 83 hours under the most ideal conditions for a full charge. Ergo, it's a pipe dream, put the solar panels on your roof, and a lot more of them, angle them properly and you at least might get somewhere with charging your EV. SEVs are a gimmick at best, scam at worst, it's 'Solar Freaking Roadways' all over again...
Thanks. Soon you'll have PV EVs in the market (Audi, Aptera, Fisker). The PV might not replace plug charging yet (maybe in Aptera, if you live in a sunny area and don't drive a lot), but it can add 10-50% reange.
I recently bought a new car and did the math on an EV. Unfortunately, it didn't work out. I live in Calgary and often drive to the mountains or other rural areas. It's currently -25C outside which lowers EV range significantly and the poor availability to chargers (especially level 3) makes this far too impractical. Hopefully with increasing battery technology and fast charging infrastructure I'll be able to switch to EV when this car passes it life expectancy.
Hopefully future generations fully understands that an ev (for you) was 'impractical' in 2024. Grow up please.
@@andersn8547 They re impractical for most, grow up please.
@@kengillis632 The opposite is true. Waking up with a full 'tank' every day is not impractical.
@@andersn8547 I wake up with a practical truck that works in all weather and conditions, see how that works.
@@andersn8547 I can buy a brand new f 250 that is WAY more practical, then the cost of a sedan EV, once again see how that works. Spend money foolishly go ahead
About running out of battery I saw someone who had made a truck with batteries which could drive to a location and give fast charging to an electric vehicle. I don't remember where, it might have been here in Sweden. But such a great idea, because there is always someone who will forget to charge as people forget to refuel, even if the whole interior of the car is blinking red..
Excellent episode and thank you David for all your research in this highly contested area of Science.
Question for StarTalk...
The Earth has had 3 major iterations of atmosphere over time. We are living with the 3rd version of our atmosphere with the familiar numbers of 78% Nitrogen, 21% Oxygen and Argon taking a large portion of the remaining 1%.
What caused the major transition to the current atmosphere, how long did that take and are we heading towards a 4th?
Thanks guys, your show ROCKS!
Best Regards,
Mike Turber
PS Chuck provides the perfect balance of comedy and combined with Neil's awesome sense of humor you have a chemistry that truly works.
Thank You Both For Making Learning Science Fun!
@5X5NEWSUS Climate science & global warming are not a "contested area of Science".
Most qualified researchers in this field agree that humans for 100 years caused our environment/climate to rapidly heat up, posing serious risks to future people & life. These scientists also agree on the set of solutions - they slightly disagree on which solution should be implemented/funded first.
Only people who rely on non-scientists for their "news" would believe this is "contested". The situation is identical to the manipulative behaviors behind cancer risks from smoking. All qualified scientists said it was a major risk -- but a few disreputable "scientists" who worked for (or were funded by) the cigarette companies "contested" the strong facts (and they helped to lie to & lobby politicians, for decades). Same in climate science. Only charlatans are "contesting" the facts.
Scientifically, there is very little disagreement behind the risks or anthropomorphic cause of climate change.
@@keep-ukraine-free528 Nice spam post as your response has nothing to do with anything I said. Perhaps you are a BOT or thought you were answering some other post?
Really good show this time! I like the practical shows even more than the totally theoretical ones about Universe origins. You gave me a few talking points for the "It'll never be practical" friends I have who simply can't visualize a mostly electrical future. Fifteen years from horses to all automobiles is exactly the way I picture the final switchover when electric gets firmly established.
Only because they got a chemical engineer to talk about the electric grid - and ignore all the critical issues. Note his answer was "if we do what it takes." He really is ignoring critical issues - generation, distribution, storage and resources. He's relying on magic to get to his answer.
The problem you have is assuming those "friends" you have can't visualize a mostly electric future. They can, but they are likely intelligent enough to see the hurdles that you, this panel, and so many others are ignoring. It would be wonderful to have an all electric world, but as someone working in the electric utility planning world for 30+ years, we're not doing what it takes to get even close.
You don't just slap a few more transformers and cables on the existing lines and call it good. Most of the existing grid is incompatible with the needs of that future point. It will require a complete replacement - and we have lines operating that are 80+ years old. And existing generation doesn't even exist today. Without implementing nuclear, we will not get anywhere close. Even traditional generating plants can take 10-20 years to get into full production.
More importantly, we're gutting our engineering education in favor of social concerns. And we don't have training paths into the utility technician space - outside of the utilities' own training programs. The electric utilities (like all utilities) are struggling with an ageing workforce without replenishment.
All of the subsidies to get people to buy EVs is putting the cart before the horse. The current administration thinks that by making a mandate, the building blocks will automagically happen.
@@jmann9413 Get a horse!
This is such an important and relevant topic, I’m really glad that you had a guest from the Union of Concerned Scientists on to discuss their expertise of the subject.
One thing that I’d love to hear about more that I think really should also be a piece of the conversation is the use of public transit and electrification of public transit services like buses, trains, etc. The U.S. is a bit of an outlier globally when it comes to how we have decided to use land, most other places in the world have not tried to artificially limit the density of building in most other places, and therefore it’s been easier in those places to implement public transit, but with that being said there seem to be major climate, environmental, and social benefits to developing more public mass transit.
Could we learn more about the impacts of things like electrifying buses, trains, and high speed rail? Where would it make the greatest impact and be most practical to more significantly implement these technologies? What hurdles would we have to overcome and what would the risks and benefits of doing so be? Beside electrification, would hydrogen power be useful and in what areas would it be most significantly helpful? I’d love to hear more about blue vs green hydrogen and what the risks and benefits to using that may be or in what areas of transportation that form of energy may be useful or not and what the deciding factors for that may be.
I’d love to see a separate video on this, but what would be even better is to see public transit infrastructure included more in the same conversation about transportation - if consumer vehicles like cars and trucks are responsible for an eighth of U.S. carbon emissions, what would the impact of more people using alternative forms of transit and is electrifying and developing those be? Would there be benefits to reducing the amount of minerals and other resources we would need to use? Are there any costs or obstacles we may not have considered? I’m fascinated by that and really hope it can be more of a topic of conversation as we talk about fighting climate change by addressing emissions from transportation.
I worked in the construction of a battery plant for general motors. We had a 12" natural gas like fueling the heaters in the plant. The flow was so high the gas line whistled at all times through the check valve in the warehouse. I don't know how much flow it takes to make a 12" check valve whistle but it's a lot.
The trend is away from home ownership for a significant part of the population. The charge at home option is not available for renters.
Apartment renters are among the least important demographic to transition to EV. Let them stay on fuel cars for a few more years and focus on transition users that put on serious mileage.
In a few years we will have better vehicle options and more retail charging locations for those apartment dwellers.
AFTER we have already converted people with long commutes, short haul commercial vehicles, industrial machines and such which are all higher priority in this transition.
@@5353JumperYour point is well made. The suburbanites are the main priority due their relatively very high emissions.
But apartment charging will be addressed, at least in part, by new laws and local codes that will incentivize installation of chargers -- in apartment buildings and shopping centers and workplaces, as well as on city streets.
All of this will come in time.
Oh yes. I can't wait for my local power grid to completely collapse when the 5 cars I have at my address all charge at the same time at night lol I only have 1 garage so am I suppose to also drape power cables over my front lawn to all my other cars? Lol... And won't I need like 5 of those 3 phase chargers so I don't have to charge for 27 hours? Lol switching to electric vehicles is such a drop in the ocean compared to the infrastructural changes needed globally.
@rooboy69 the infrastructure changes are a drop in the ocean compared to the fuel based infrastructure it is replacing.
Oh yeah...also you do not need to charge EVs every night, just like you do not need to fill a gas car every night.
And if you do because it is some kind of business where you have multiple vehicles running all day, sorry you may need to go to some business location and put energy in your car before bringing them home. I know, sounds inconvenient cannot believe anyone would ever do that.
The amount of software/hardware ideas in this episode that have already existed for years is outstanding. Pretty good update on emissions overall.
I mean....Metal gear?!
I'm an American living in Mainland China. I have driven a Tesla Model 3 here since 2019 and have made multi-day road trips with it and have had absolutely no issues finding charging stations like the Tesla Superchargers that are very fast for it and this is in a country that I came to in 1998. And in Beijing at that time the majority of vehicles I saw in downtown Beijing was still the Bicycle. They've made the change from Bikes to Cars and to Electrics at lightning speed relative to most of the west.
On a side note regarding what you were talking about, the time of day you could plan to charge your care to take a load of the grid usage, Tesla has a planning function so that you can schedule when you want your charge done by. You tell it what time you plan to leave and it will have your car charged by that time. It also tracks your usage and suggests charging your battery less if you aren't using so much every day.
I would say 加油 but that’s actually no longer accurate
E Cars are great. I wish I had one, but I am a Full-time RVer, and the technology is not yet there to tow a trailer electrically. Yes, it is being developed and will grow out of commercial trucking but it will be a long time until vehicle and trailer manufacturers synchronize with each other on standards by which a powered tow vehicle is connected electronically to a powered trailer which is roofed entirely in solar collection with enough density to keep the system(truck and trailer) at least at a net zero charging status during typical cruising conditions.
You keep a truck/trailer going down a flat road at a fixed velocity on a windless day at zero charge current and you've largely solved the problem. You're only consuming current while accelerating the load while recovering under dynamic braking.
You guys might want to look into a company called Aptera. If nobody else has talked about it in the comment section, they are a company trying to produce a commercially viable solar vehicle that would do exactly what Chuck was talking about there at the end.
That's just not practical. The size of the solar panels needed to produce that much electricity far exceeds the size of a car. Today the peak solar radiance at my house in Iowa was 300W/sq meter so even with a 100% efficient solar panel (and none are even remotely close) and a 100% efficient means of converting the voltage a 1 sq. meter panel would provide less than 3 amps @ 110 volts and in practice would likely produce less than 1 amp
Aptera is a great company! I'm hoping to see their car going into production later next year.
Neil and Chuck please have them on the show.
@@longjohn526that will evolve. Cell phones used to weigh five pounds and chips in computers have gotten smaller and more powerful every year. The cars they use are 3-D printed and light weight material. A team from MIT used solar panels on a car
I'm so glad you mentioned that aptera. Because I was going to mention it too, they are an awesome company I invested money into it. I can't wait till I'll see it on the road
@@longjohn526you are right it is not practical. IF you put it on these giant bricks people like to drive.
If you follow the engineering of nature and pursue aerodynamics and efficiency then it does become practical. Also everyone acts like if you put solar on a car it needs to run the car exclusively. BATTERIES exist. Even if you are only getting half the miles of your daily commute back in solar charging that is greatly reducing your expenses and impact on the grid. Plus the lighter more aerodynamic and efficient the vehicle the more perks you get. Fewer batteries are needed to go as far or farther. Which then means you fill it up faster and it is cheaper to produce.
Great episode, I’d like know your thoughts to the fact that the sum of all ships (cargo, bulk, cruise, etc.) equate to about half of the world wide transportation emissions. What’s the plan for them and which organization keeps that industry in check? As well, wouldn’t it be more emission efficient to keep and retrofit or modify existing vehicles? The initial pollution has already been made. What is the emission difference between producing an electric car and it’s use for 5 years versus retro fitting an already produced car for 5 years? It seems as though our over consumption and want for the newest “thing” is a major problem. I agree that something needs to change, it seems as though we are exchanging air pollution to land and water pollution.
I get what you’re asking, but the reality is that the retrofit would actually mean completely tearing the car apart at every level. ICE cars are engineered, from the ground up, around the requirements of that engine. They have a gas gauge, they don’t have the need for the electrical monitoring. They have different suspensions and different wheels and a different structure that’s specifically designed for the engine in use. An EV is designed to be more aerodynamic, and it has a place for the battery to go, and that battery location is protected to help prevent shorts and fires. The engine compartment area is designed completely differently, because there is no engine. The wiring ends up being different.
The idea is nice, but it isn’t realistic because of the level of actual work involved to make it happen. It is far less money, and a much better product, to take the old worn out car, recycle as much of it as you can, then build a properly designed EV from the ground up. Keep in mind, the additional CO2 emissions in building an EV largely stem from battery production, which isn’t something which we will resolve overnight.
Great point about the shipping impact. (Basically nobody keeps the international shipping industry in check because they can do whatever they want once in international waters - and they use the cheapest, dirtiest fuel once out of port) As for retrofit, it would be wonderful but there's not way you could retrofit a gasoline vehicle to be a practical EV. It's a *completely* different animal. It's more energy efficient to just keep driving the old car.
International shipping is being worked on... Problem is that gaseous hydrogen isn't dense enough... So companies like en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballard_Power_Systems are looking into liquefied hydrogen, ammonia storage of hydrogen, etc. I'm afraid they're not as far along as automobiles...
Core Power is looking at the maritime industry and their plan is to have nuclear power cargo ships in the near future. You can easily google this, a few countries have shown interest but until the U.S. adopts it, it's a hard sell. The technology is there, the regulatory is not. It's coming
While I listened to the entire video and enjoyed most of it, it wasn't until about 44 min into the video that you actually, directly, talked about whether or not the grid could handle an all EV future. And even then, it was a discussion using, mostly, generalities.
Frankly, when I started, I was expecting to hear the nitty-gritty about how "we" are planning on getting the grid ready for that future. 🥴🥺
I hope y'all will do another video that discussed the details of such a future energy grid.
Thanks for the video!
I have always said that the survey people keep referencing that says that an EV has to drive 200km+ to break even with a regular combustion car was flawed. as they did not add the CO² emission from the gasoline production and distribution to the combustion car, when they added the CO² from the electricity production to the EV...
Its So nice to hear the numbers when its added!
Another great thing is that EV batteries are starting to be recycled in large scale. This process will reduce a lot of the need for mining leading to the EV becoming cleaner as time moves forwards. I do not have a EV yet because an affordable one that meets our needs has not been built yet but they are getting close. We do a lot of off highway driving on roads that can get very rough. We need off road capability with 350-400 miles of range. Very few charging stations in the wilderness. The Subaru Solterra would likely work if it had more range. But I think EVs will get there in the not too distant future. :)
@@chrisjacobs8153 Thats fantastic news!
@@chrisjacobs8153 Batteries are being recycled economically? Do you have a source?
Another great episode of star talk! Hopefully we start to see some practical vehicles in the US like the Sono Motors Sion (not available for presale in US) which offers hybrid charging capabilities (plug in/solar cells in body) for ~$25000 USD equivalent MSRP.
We also need to build decent electric public transportation infrastructure in major metropolitan areas…
And what about those of us in the rural areas that seem to be largely either ignored by the 'law-makers' and all but treated as nonexistent by the urban population when it comes to 'inclusive', effective and functional transportation infrastructure?
That’s a great point - everyone needs accessible and affordable transportation. Perhaps long range electric busses would be an option. Also, creating hybrid fueling stations (gas/diesel/electric) would make sense during the transition period as many people can’t currently afford an EV. I would imagine that rural communities where EV isn’t a reasonable option right away can vote to keep conventional fueling until there is a more affordable alternative.
What do you think a good solution might look like for where you live?
@@happyhotspring3501 EVs work in Rural areas too...I live in a Rural Area...100% likely you're typing this on an Electrical / Battery Powered Device you need to charge.
@@personism I live in a Rural Area...even easier for EVs, since everyone has a Driveway or garage or carport. Every house in rural areas has electricity pretty much. Many also have Solar or can use a generator or battery storage for power outage protection.
@@davidc2838 Re:
" EVs work in Rural areas too"
I did not say Ev's don't "work in Rural areas"
Re what you said:
"I live in a Rural Area"
That does not disprove what I have been saying about the lack of availability and quality of fast/rapid-charging in many rural locations, nor does it address the all too often historical fact that many rural communities get ignored when it comes to limited resources, particularly when it comes to high-tech; Case in point is the lack of broadband internet access in much of rural America; In particular, locations in mountainous geography is just one prime example of that.
Adequate amount of Grid Power has to be in-place before the vast majority of people in the Rural USA would even consider spending large amounts of money on an electric car, truck, farm tractor etc.
I have mentioned that I am not against EV's and what I am against is being, coerced, manipulated, dictated to or in any other way forced into something that I know for sure is not currently functional for either myself and very many others...
...Simply put, EV's for all is not viable and won't be viable for decades, if at all.
Great episode guys.... much enjoyed it
Love that Logic Pic in the back. Loved that album and the interludes.
Great conversation, thank you!
about to take delivery of our first EV, so this is perfectly timed. Reference your comments around time 51+00, we are getting a capability with our Lucid called "Range Exchange," which will allow us to charge another EV, or even our home (in the event of a power outage). Thank you!!
Another great video! At 20:32 you commented on the book "Turning Oil Into Salt". I agree, it's a great book.
Right now I cannot afford to buy an EV Car, I cheer every time I see one because someday we'll reach the tipping point where the economics of Oil will follow the same path as Salt, and gasoline prices will finally plummet to a reasonable level..
Another opportunity would be for municipalities to electrify their infrastructure to charge vehicles as they drive or are parked. The roadways charging their vehicles. It would really help with commercial shipping as well, but I think it would be down to each municipality. So you would have to have a partnership between an energy company, car company, and a city. But once a good trial is down it might be a good base.
Re having municipalities electrify their infrastructure to charge EVs as they drive: My city would prefer to spend its tax revenue on fixing potholes and plowing snow. Do you know those items also benefit EVs?
I can't believe none of you brought up the start-up car company Aptera. They've developed an electric car that has solar cells on the larger surfaces. And while most traditional cars would not benefit from solar cells on the car itself, the Aptera does because of how efficient they made their car. Aptera focused their efforts on making their vehicle as aerodynamic and light weight as possible, while keeping safety in mind, so the trickle charge from the sun actually gives you miles you can use (instead of an insignificant amount for a traditional car).
They need to get production to volume scale. Until then, they're a side order or an Amuse Bouche.
They are also under investigation by multiple governments for fraudulent claims
Aptera is truly ahead of everything with electric propulsion when it comes to drag coefficient, hopefully it will set a precedence for other car companies to follow👍
Of course, that presumes that we simply must drive 5,000 pound vehicles to work. When you start building cities for people, rather than building for cars, all sorts of good results fall out of the equation. Delft, Oslo, and multiple cities are showing that by shifting transport away from so many individual car/truck trips, you get positive results.
Smart cities huh? Isn’t that why they burned down lahana allegedly?
@@Jay-om8gr - It's really great to see you branching out and applying your anti-vax "logic" and "reasoning" to other arenas. Allegedly.
@@47f0 you enjoy thosw covid vaccines. And keep watching and believing the propaganda spewed by the media on behalf of the corrupt leadership we have. Enjoy being a sheep 🐑
A thumbs-up to the person who selected the sponsor.
Actually using some kind of skin or glass that works similar to solar panels would actually still be something pretty viable for maybe not necessarily charging the car but at the very least having the need to recharge it as frequently extending the distance you can travel
Perkovskites are the next solar PV tech and they can be printed or sprayed on almost anything. They require about 99% less material than silicon cells and can be made to pick up different wavelengths.
All very nice, but won´t work in Mexico. House connection to the grid is 120 V, i phase, main fuse 40 amps. makes it 4.8 KW. how long would I need to charge a common EV? 🤔
My concern is that, no sooner than the charging stations start getting built, the "free market" will have worked fees into using them that makes it just as expensive as gasoline.
Charging on the road is sometimes more expensive than gas. But, most users charge at home
Beeeeg difference. Petroleum is a world-priced commodity subject to the vagaries of Commodity Markets, shipping-route choke points & a handful of petro-tyrants. Electricity is provided steady-state with extra capacity available from other sources. Local price tailor-made from local sources ..from a single isolated dwelling, to a neighborhood, a city or a country. The trick is keeping a utility restricted to 'The Public's Best Interests'.
Charge at home or work like 90% of people
@@threetuns8474prices on electricity will skyrocket as soon as EVs are the majority of vehicles
You mean cronyism?
We went on a family trip up and down the East Coast. Hertz only had the Kia Niro EV available and it was a huge headache. Charging to 80% took an hour. Our hotels didn't have charging stations. So I would be out in the middle of the night driving 30 minutes to a changing station and then sitting for an hour to get the car partially charged each night during the road trip. It soured us on EVs. There is definitely work still needing to be done to make EVs desirable.
Yeah, the early Kia Niro had a dismally slow charging speed. Tesla has by far the best and most widespread charging network in the US. Too bad you didn't try a Tesla.
You are supposed book motels that have charging stations and reserve the charger for a block of hours ahead of time ⌚.
The experience is very different with a Tesla. Rent a Tesla from Hertz and give it another go. Charging is typically pretty fast (80% in 20 minutes) which is basically how long it takes my family to take care of business at most stops. Even on super long road trips, it is rare that I find myself waiting on the car more than 5 minutes after I’m ready to leave.
@@JasonTaylor-po5xc I am renting a testa this week. However the first charger it navigated me to is only a 72kW charger. Now I know to look for the 250kW chargers otherwise it will still be slow.
@@DuckStorms Yeah, the navigation system isn’t perfect. I often have to look around for better chargers. I run in to this all the time when it wants to select 150kWh chargers instead of 250kWh. Also, sometimes the route it picks can be a little off at times (routing through town instead of interstate exit).
FYI, here in Delaware, many of the gas station WaWa stores have charging stations. One in particular that I can think of close to me has two charging stations (oddly on opposite sides of the parking lot as if they've drawn up their battle lines), one Tesla and the other non-Tesla.
Living in the Netherlands, these charging options are a reality now. I was able to do a 2200 km, 9 day trip through Belgium, Germany, Paris and deep rural France, camping, on a standard range model 3. Only having to actively wait for charging a few times.
Oh and at home, there are about 10 public charging points within 500m of my house, installed on request for free in conjunction with the municipality. In my area about 30% of grocery stores have changing poles as well.
The Australian The World Solar Challenge is a race that began in 1987 and is held bianually from Darwin Northern Territory in Australia to Adelaide South Australia its a roughly 3000 kilometer trip in 2005 they had to change the rules because the cars still have to follow traffic regulations and by that point they were powerful enough to break the speed limit so the new challenge became to build a car that with relatively little modification could be used as practical transport.
And the European teams win it every single year
Universities in USA have a 'Sun Car' challenge that is run every year somewhere in the desert southwest. I know my alma mater University of Missouri has entered a solar powered car for several years.
There was the North American Solar Car Challenge running a few years back but it looks to be the American Solar Car Challenge now. I worked on McMaster University's Phoenix 2 in about 2004, building carbon fiber body panels using some vacuum process in moulds we hand built. Also did some debug on software for the battery system. I didn't attend the race that year but it was from Austin Texas to Winnipeg to Vancouver or something like that (a big L shape but maybe not as far as Vancouver).
I saw a great movie about a Hawaii school that competed in that race years ago. They had very slow flat cars. 🙂👍🇨🇦
@@brianscott3392 yeah when the race started the cars were quite slow and it was more a race of endurance than anything (more like a sail boat race held in a desert) these days the cars are quite a lot faster than they used to be (not like supercar/race car fast) with regular top speeds of 110km/h+ (the top speed limit in Australia) which is why they've had to change the rules from whoever could go the fastest to who could build what was closest to a viable commercial vehicle that'd still make the trip.
My daughter and her SO have an electric car and a gasoline car. The electric car is great for commuting and when they need to go farther they take the gas car.
Same here, but we take the electric car on the longer trips because it is much cheaper to fuel
NDT suggests there’s standardization in ICE car filling. I disagree. Yes, the plug is the same but that’s not a feature, that’s a bug: if you’re not careful you might put diesel in a gas tank (or vice-versa).
This is a GREAT video with numerous excellent positions and counter arguments for implementing electric cars, however, it does have two issues.
First, for the typical American range concern is real. Many of us drive our cars to far destinations for many reasons. My wife and I just got back from a road trip from essentially Philadelphia to Chicago. We decided to see the sights in between in both directions. So we put nearly 2,000 miles on the car in that one trip that took about a week. Obviously we couldn't charge at our house each night. We often drive 700 miles for hiking trips as well.
Second, the video doesn't tackle one of the major impacts: disposal of the batteries and impact of those on the environment. It's glossed over momentarily, but remains a major problem until we find new types of batteries.
Our infrastructure is already strained. Here in NYC one substation over in Brooklyn lost one feeder cable last night. Caused all lights in NYC to blink out twice. The current load we put on the system is hefty. More electric usage will only compromise the system even more!
That is not the peoples fault, but the electric companies and city planning.
Plus all the saving from modern electronics/lights/tech and heating/cooling can help allot with that.
NYCs current electrical infrastructure is about 142 years old. When updated it would be much more efficient.
@@jerryandersson4873 I never said it was our fault! In some instances it actually is our fault. Look at how much energy we waste daily. Right now while you type I bet you have lights and other electronics running in your home that do not need to be on! Simple things like turning those off and unplugging them can reduce a giant percentage of the energy we use daily! They definitely need to upgrade cables and so on. Just know that will come at a cost to the consumer. Such is life I guess!
@@nyc220guy it isn’t as simple as update. There are 3 feeder cables that can never be turned off. We can’t add new ones then switch out. This will cause a blackout across the midwest and northeast. The energy NYC gets is from that direction. Their load is also hefty right now. Any added load from us will trip the system. Simple. So the entire infrastructure needs to be rebuilt from the ground up nationwide! Not just NYC!
@@DJXcalibur No no, I agree, what I mainly meant was it was the owners of the companies and city planners who need to step up/fix stuff.
Sure we all waste energy, but there are lots more that can be done from the grid and planning side.
Heck, having subsidies (is that the right word?) to help replacing old tech/infrastructure people have to something that is both better and less energy draining is pretty simple, but do cost.
But brown outs cost more, so it is a matter of deciding to be smart spending and planning.
I think rooftop solar will offset electric cars. So most power will not go over long distance transmission lines but will be made locally.
As long as you live in the southern states, you may be correct. Not so much if you live in a state like Washington. We need 24/7 supplies of energy like hydro and nuclear. Solar doesn't work when the sun doesn't shine and wind turbines don't work when the wind doesn't blow. A calm evening doesn't charge a thing.
@@frankfaubert1927 that is why we have megapacks.. battery storage.
My modest 5kW rooftop solar in northern latitude produces 25,000 miles worth of electricity per year
@@frankfaubert1927 Absolutely right. The cost of using renewables + battery exclusively is highly dependent on your location. Low capacity factors of renewable generation or huge seasonal swings can cause the "overbuild" to compensate to be extremely expensive. The math has to be done specific to the region to make it work and in some cases, it will be cheaper over the life of the infrastructure to have a higher component of non solar/wind in the mix (e.g. hydro/nuclear).
Nice to hear rational discussions about EVs.
Loved Chuck's parking meter comment!
Same because it does not need to be about court fees for parking “wrong” but a great way to spread the cost of going green and who says they will always cost anyway. Eventually they won’t cost anything.
Lets hope there are some major breakthroughs in fusion technology in the next decade!
Too little too late.
We need it NOW!
You can get huge improvement in impact by other methods, such as car sharing, better planning, using cars for more years for those who do limited milage.
Enjoyed your pod cast electric vehicle. I live in Alberta Canada and we have just went through a period of -40c to -20c for 3 weeks. Also our distances are large between Cities and towns. What are people thinking for us to switch to electric? During this cold period we received a warning from our electric provided to reduce our consumption. Our solar and wind both were unable to produce much power.
Hard to see where the electric vehicle will be able to meet out northern needs.
I agree that solar panels on most cars are not all that efficient, but specifically the "Aptera" is being developed to be ultra efficient with its use of electricity, so much so that the solar panels on it deliver a significant contribution. It is designed with ultra low air resistance and ultra efficient electric motors, the solar panels will add 20-40 miles to your range every day and it will be built, depending on the battery you choose, with a range from 400 miles all the way up to 1000 miles. Depending on how much you drive every day, they calculated that the average driving person will only have to charge a few times per year.
Also, that solar race in Australia was first organized in 1987 and ran every three years. From 2001 it was organized every 2 years with the exception of 2021 when it was cancelled due to covid. Of the last eleven events, the Dutch "Nuna team and cars" of the Delft University of Technology won 7 times, the "Tokai Challenger", built by the Tokai University of Japan won in 2009 and 2011, and the Belgian "Agoria Solar Team" from KU Leuven University won the last two editions.
Agreed.
I am an Invester of the Aptera and a Reservation Holder of the Aptera for the 1st 2,000 Launch Edition 400 Mile, with 3 powered wheels with Full Solar. Currently sitting at position #305 of 2,000 of the Aptera Leaderboard
Aptera's efforts are amazin, but the math doesn't lie. At *best* you can get 10% of a charge in optimum sunny conditions. Aptera trades safety and features (reduced weight and space) to achieve their goals. It's a motorcycle, not a car. If you can live with those compromises, it's a fantastic vehicle concept.
And how much would a gas aptera consume? Apples to apples
@@dcktater7847 that is not apples to apples.
Better comparison is how much does it cost to drive 20 miles on gasoline with an ICE as compared to driving 10 miles on gasoline .... thru city traffic.
For me, charging at home costs me 1/4 of the cost of using my Ice.
I have a 2022 Outlander PHEV 13.8kWh which ways about 10% more than my 2004 Nissan Maxima.
First step. DOE says we have 300 centrally located coal-fired power plants that should be operated for the next 100 years. They only need one small change. They need a high temperature Milton salt nuclear reactor to replace the coal part of the power plant. This is quite trivial to do. You don't need a large building. You don't need a containment structure because there's no explosive steam involved.
Then we convert all the gas plants to run on hot air from a high temperature gas cooled nuclear reactor. And then we've almost eliminated emissions.
I never expected to hear so much sense from these guys!
I love how Neil explains the thesis of the book "Turning Oil into Salt" by Gal Luft and Anne Korin. In the late 1970s, I took a college course titled "Energy Future." I can see how far we've gone, increasingly trying to address our concerns about oil like the salt we were so concerned about generations earlier for our survival, now almost 50 years later. Fascinating discussion filled with humor, too.
He did give a good Cliff's notes of it. I like the electric vehicle running on 20+ types of fuel statement. Just plug it in, and on the other end of that is the competition of fuel sources. For me, I am part of that competition. I have solar for my entire house that pretty much provides 100% of my electrical needs. Therefore, my EVs are powered by the sun.
@@jeffs6090 Good to hear.
There's another big problem.
90% of miles driven is under 200 miles. That effectively means 90% of energy demand will be met at home. Building out recharging network has much lower utilization than gas stations. The solve for me is to incentivize all restaurants & coffee shops along highways & tourists route to include chargers. It invites customers to your door while getting charging infrastructure where you need it
@@aneeshmenon3379Good idea. There would be no need to get lengthy charges away from home if chargers were available in more parking places. People could add charge somewhere in the 50-90% range by connecting for 10 to 15 minutes. Very little or no time spent waiting if doing errands or a snack.
@@aneeshmenon3379how do provide such incentives with out forcing taxpayers to foot the bill?
I see a big issue with how we are likely to roll out charging infrastructure in remote areas. It's natural to expect this infrastructure to be placed in more populated areas where you'd expect greater demand. That's fine, but think about places like West Texas and the Southwest. Population centers are spread out, but you still see a large volume of traffic along interstate highways. I suspect we may need more charging stations than what folks might expect.
Not just the Southwest, but all of the middle of the country. All the Mountain time zone, plus the west side of the Central time zone, and the eastern side of the Pacific time zone. When you break down out here, for whatever reason, it easily takes half a day just to get a tow truck to you, then takes hours to get it anywhere to be fixed. There's no way there's going to be an infrastructure to handle this part of the country going all electric anytime in the near future. Gas stations are even seriously far apart and you have to plan carefully on that as well, and can still run out with the slightest hiccup in your plans. Walmart here is abandoning (for the time being at least) their electric fleet because they don't even last the day and take too long to charge, requiring double the vehicles to be owned.
@@Moraenil All excellent points. I personally think PHEVs are a better solution for most. I rarely go more than 3 miles from my house during the week and generally stay within 15-20 miles from home on the weekends. An EV would probably work well for my usage, but it's nice being able to jump in the car and drive 200 miles from home and not worry about where I need to charge.
@@aaronbehindbars Wow! That's definitely staying close to home. I commute 30 miles one way to work, and we often take a long weekend whenever possible 800 miles to Yellowstone National Park, drive around the park for a few days then back home again. Sometimes it's Grand Teton National which is a little bit closer, and sometimes it's Rocky Mountain National Park which even closer, but still. Lots of long distance driving. Doesn't even count the 5 miles to the grocery store, the 15 miles to the barn, or the occasional other trips to other places that are easily 20 miles away in all different directions. Many people in my area commute 100 miles to work. And it's normal to have long commutes in this area.
@@MoraenilIt’s actually easier to provide charging stations in very remote locations than fuel stations. Just have a solar farm plus a wind turbine and batteries and generate and store your own electricity. The mix of solar and wind turbines adjusted to suit the climate in each location. No need for power lines or petrol and diesel deliveries. Remote communities have been doing this for their electricity requirements for a long time it just needs ramping up.
@@johnharvey1786 What are you smoking? Spend ~150k to install a station (Panels, Wind Turbine, Battery, Charger, Point of Sale processing) with little traffic and that everyone expects to pay prices cheaper than gas...... LMAO, sure that time-til-ROI sounds appealing. Also, the main routes through the midwest that MANY people travel will need tons of electric power (many new subs and transmission lines built (which typically require 5-10 years to design & build)) to accommodate the ever increasing power demands.
I've had a thought in my mind for a long time and don't know if it's possible. I'm thinking have liquid battery that you pump into the car and when the charge runs out you go to a station and like when doing an oil change something comes up, takes off the cap, drains the battery puts it back on, then puts in new battery. The uncharged battery then goes into a big container (like the ones that hold gas) and gets recharged by the liquid battery around it.
Is this possible? If it's not, how come and if it is is someone working on it?
It is called a flow battery, and yes indeed they are working on it. It may or may not work out. It would make "refueling" stations awfully complicated.
@@evtinker1814 How so? It seems more complicated to take out the battery and put in a new one like musk wanted to do. If this happens then more people might buy electric cars because it'll be as easy as pumping gas.
@@HellcatM Pumping strange potentially corrosive chemicals in and out a vehicle hardly sounds like something most car drivers could handle. Then there is the infrastructure to process and "recharge" the liquid for the next car. They are also bulky, with limited energy density so fitting one in a car might be an issue. My personal suspicion is between improvements to battery tech and charging infrastructure the question will rapidly become moot.
Love all your shows. You live in New York Neil and if I lived there I would not want to drive. However I live in Oklahoma and love going on drives in the country on back roads.
My only improvement to this video would be twice as long . I love star talk . Thanks all who make it possible . ❤❤❤
yeah, there's so much more they could have discussed, hope they bring him back.
Chuck is so funny while somehow bring serious .
Same this topic deserves like PSA bonus time to educate us like the old edu channels did in the 1970s on public channel. Oh yeh like the show called The Electric Company. 😂
Or half as many interruptions 😮
Or half as many interruptions 😮
10 years ago the electricity grid in the USA could not hope to supply the electricity we use now, but now it does ...
If everyone bought an EV today, the grid could not cope, but there are not enough available to buy to do that, and by the time there is the grid capacity will have grown
Exactly this. People going all Chicken Little seem to think that environmentalists want 100% of all vehicles on the road to instantly become EVs overnight. That is just physically impossible. Even *BEST CASE* it will take a decade for all *NEW* vehicles to be EVs, with plenty of older non-EVs still on the roads for decades.
And one huge benefit of EVs is that they can _HELP_ shift load. If by some miracle, every home and workplace got bidirectional (V2G) charging infrastructure, then all those parked EVs could _help_ the electrical grid, rather than hurt it.
Lots of people believe this, but it's even better than that. The electricity it takes to operate an electric car today is very close to the amount of electricity it takes to refine the gasoline for a gasoline-powered car. This means that the grid doesn't even have to add capacity to replace gasoline cars with electrics.
@@BrightBlueJimI've heard it said that much of that electricity is generated at the refinery. I don't know if there's any truth to the claim.
But it does seem to be true that it takes a ton of energy, and CO2 emissions, to run refineries, and pipelines too.
@@davidmenasco5743yes the oil and gas fields pumping this black gold have powerlines running all over the place.
The refinery makes it own power thus not for sale or distribution to the grid. A lot is not electric Toyotas heat to make fuel.
Forgive my spelling but i had a thought/question....concerning the talk about photovoltaic skin on an electric car...could you not design a retractable one from the trunk that could come out while parked and unfold and position itself with the sunlight then when you get in the car it retracts back in the trunk?
What about the personal jet users? How does thst figure into the equation or just airlines in general?
One thing you failed to mention was government subsidies for solar panels and batteries on every home where possible. Then you could charge your car and power your home off grid, then when feasible, send power to the grid when needed. There needs to be more emphasis moving towards this in the near future.
Hopefully this happens:
Solar panels would be mandatory on all new buildings in the European Union under a new proposal aimed at ending its reliance on Russian fossil fuels by 2027 and supercharging its transition to green energy.
The “solar rooftop initiative” in the European Commission’s REPowerEU plan would introduce a phased-in legal obligation to install solar panels on new public and commercial buildings, as well as new residential buildings.
I agree 100% with having a source of power that also allows you to become a distributor when you are generating more than you need.
Subsidies doesn't make much difference for people who can't afford to have them installed initially. Then convincing them that their power bill increase will be offset by the money saved from not buying gas, oil changes etc. 😊
Neil actually touched on this from the book mentioned. mandating solar panels on new residential buildings is a flawed concept due to the need for maintenance. If your roof collapses or solar panels ripped off in a storm etc it could be very expensive to repair...home owners will weigh the costs and decide to just use the grid. One solution is to use sub stations that already exist and put a solar array on-top etc and let the whole area use it
@@Lostinathens Not to mention that the cars cost as much as a house up front as well. People can't afford that either. I know getting an electric vehicle would cost me at least as much, or more than my last house cost to buy.
There are topics not covered in this talk:
- The amount of energy it takes to obtain and refine oil and only used at 30% efficiency in ICE cars
- Battery technology switching to salt based chemistry for even less emissions (no mining), greater ranges and capacity
- There are cars that have solar panels for recharging and others with solar as it’s only fuel, with no or very small battery.
Please name one. Also, If you do, does it comply with American safety requirements?... ...Or is it a NEV?
Actually, I look at my production charts at least weekly. I know that even during the best months of production, I have inverter room to add to my system without experiencing clipping. It will be a very economical way to increase my production and cost savings. But you are correct about one thing-my original panels are slowly degrading.
I truly think that the hybrid vehicle is the way to go because you can get that 50 to 80 miles on battery that’s going to take care of most of your needs going about town and then when you get out on the highway you’re OK but probably 70% of your driving would be done on that battery going around town
Just not in winter?
I'd say 90% of my trips are all electric. My Wrangler 4xe only has 22-27 miles of range, but when you live in the suburbs that's all you need.
@@stanswarts1939what do you mean, range drop or frozen chargers in the North?
Wow! What an excellent video. I really love your videos. Many thanks!
This will be interesting. I drive an electric car since 2017 and I get very mixed reactions. Looking forward to this discussion.
To the point of oil companies making the transition: they better be prepared. The biggest oil refinery in my country is involved with one of the public charging companies. At first this seemed not very appealing to me, I don’t really want to feed oil companies. But if it means that they exit out of their oil business and slowly transition towards clean energy as their business model, well that would be great. But we‘ll see. Public charging is at the moment not affordable on a daily basis (in my country), so there are less people willing to buy electric cars. It has to become cheaper.
can't solar be able to charge your electric car ?
Point of use power production at the residential level is the path we should move towards. It would lower the strain on the grid and have the ability to contrition overall peer production
Not discussed but relevant to Chuck's anecdote given at 42:00 - some charging etiquette for EV owners/drivers:
1) Be aware of your vehicle's max charging speed. If you drive, say, a Chevy Bolt (Max charging speed 55kw), you will never charge faster than 55kw. Ever. Plugging your Bolt into a 350kw charger when there are 150kw spots available will not help you and can only waste someone else's time. Always use the lowest rated charger that is at or above your vehicle's capability unless all other spots are taken, and everyone will get in and out as quickly as possible.
2) Don't charge to over 80% unless you have to, as a general rule. The exact curve varies but all vehicles charge more slowly as they approach full, so unless you NEED 90%+ to get where you're going (and sometimes you do!) you are wasting everyone's time including your own. Best practice for road tripping is to charge only as much as you need to comfortably get to the next charger, since charging speeds at low battery tend to be faster (you save time) and you spend less time at any particular charging station (making it available for others).
This was one of the few talks that I was frustrated with Neil needing to share what he knew (or likely prepped) for this discussion rather than letting the expert talk. When it’s Astro Physics, we want to hear you Neil, when it’s something else, let them talk.
Loves his own opinions, unfortunately.
One of the few times...? Lucky you. He way too often interrupts his guests and experts that I'm genuinely interested in hearing a full complete explanation from simply to give an unnecessary anecdote or otherwise unimportant quip. Still love this show though😊 One of my favorites!
@idh9395 nobody is perfect, and that's just part of who he is.
Our government subsidized every gas station along the highways because range anxieties was a thing back then too, that's why building gas stations was part of the highway bill
Socialism for me but not for thee
It still does. Oil and Gas companies have their own insane tax breaks, deferrals and a myriad of other loopholes that even other massive industries do not have.
Because we dismantled rail! In our hurry to sell the highway system, which has been a net loss in terms of budgeting. So now we’re not multimodal anymore. We’re so dependent on the car! So I think if we moved to EV‘s, then we can start talking about going multimodal a lot more than we already are. And we should’ve been staying with multimodal all along and the reason is even going to EV’s is not gonna make life high-quality. We’re still gonna have road rage, traffic jams, wrecks, loss of life, too many cars on the road. We’re still gonna need to be multimodal. And I think we can do that if we go EV because it gives us more breathing room to get out of the gas market, which is a high amount. The dollar amount for that multigroup of subsidies is incredible… in the billions every year.
@katherandefy what rail in the late 40's was as expansive as the highways? What rails were dismantled before they were even planned? Do railways have exit ramps to every town or is it just major city to major city?
@@chaosmarklar Having learned a little of local history, railroads in the 40s were neither as expansive as the highway system nor just major city to major city. A regional line, the Missouri and North Arkansas, passed through this county. It connected very small cities, with stops at small towns along its route. Two towns here that were within a couple of miles of the main line, had spur lines. Their populations were about 1500 each. These spurs shut down right after WW II, but I think the main line continued. By the time I moved here about 1980 the railroad was long gone, and it was years before I learned that it ever existed.
For me, I’ve never really had ranging anxiety, more so as range desire. I had a turbo diesel Volkswagen Jetta that I could get 500 miles on easily and one of our current vehicles, we can get 500to 600 miles (mostly due to gas tank size). We kind of live in a remote area of California now and the price of gas is crazy, but also by having that extended range and using something like Gas Buddy, I could always save quite a bit of money by being able to make it to cheaper stations/areas. And when I lived in Alaska, I did drive to and from the lower 48 enough where you really have to plan if your vehicle only gets 300 to 350 miles of range. For me, by the time we’re ready to actually want to afford a new car, I think the number of charging station issue will be a mostly moot point to worry about, and I imagine the range should increase on most models by then. We have two ageing gas power vehicles that will both get replaced probably in the next five years, but our next is going to be a plug-in hybrid just to help bridge that gap. But for the last decade, I prefer a vehicle that can get a 500 mile range, regardless of how it’s powered (that’s mostly driven because I’ve lived in places like Montana and Alaska, whereas that kind of thing is important). If all the gas stations and oil companies will realize they are going to get replaced for the most part, and should install charging stations very soon, then our worry of running out of juice won’t be much of an issue anymore.
Utilities will not install charging stations that they can't feed adequately. You are trying to put the cart before the horse. Our grid needs upgrading and expanding if the Greenies go through with their diabolical plan.
My Mercedes e250 BlueTec got 44mpg and would do 880 miles on a 20 gal tank! Now, I just stop for a meal, walk or read every three hours. I arrive feeling much better too!
@@johnrothgeb5782 My VW Rabbit pickup gets 50mpg and takes 5 mins to go another 800 miles. Can even haul a half ton of cargo. I generally never have to wait in line for more than a few minutes, you on the other hand might wait for hours for a charging station to open up in the future as the Greenies keep forcing us into EV's.
@@ForbiddTV Nope, because I can read and plan and I can ensure I get to an open charger whenever I need to do so. Also, I plan to take leisurely trips and enjoy the countryside and sights like we used to do in the 60s rather than rush everywhere all the time. If i EVER have to wait on a charger, I can work, read, eat or walk while I patiently wait. Patience (and planning)....it's a virtue. I practice it so I lower my carbon footprint to respect future generations.
@@johnrothgeb5782 Well some people actually need cars, you obviously do not.
Excellent episode, loved it
Distributed generation means you don't need to send the power everywhere, just make it where you use it. It means micro nuclear (or fusion) needs to be further developed.
And or we need to maximize our solar and wind production. Putting panels in every reasonable piece of extra space possible. The tops of buildings, energy producing windows, parking lots, etc. We shouldn't rely on any single energy source, its best to keep a varied portfolio.
Sounds good but it's still more energy controlled by the powers that be, I'd rather have solar and not rely on a company being honest and charging a fair price
@@igotzeldaAbsolutely. Why go "micro nuclear" when it would be cheaper and quicker to go solar with batteries?
It also means youre gonna need to effectively change every single municipal, city, county, district and state ordinance which prevents the construction of utility scale generation in areas not segmented for energy production. This is quite literally MILLIONS of laws to be changed, and idk if you noticed the US legal system or legislative system isnt exactly known for its speed in passing on new rulings and laws.
This is something that needs to be addressed with this approach.
@@davidmenasco5743Because it's not cheaper.
Nuclear only costs more because of the lying environmental movement over the last 50 years.
I priced one and the City of Denver changed their zoning code to not allow any nuclear in the city when I brought up installing one in an industrial site I own.
I just got my Model Y on Wednesday (and also have a 2007 MDX). It’s a dream car and EVERYONE that I know loves their Tesla or MachE. Sorry about your friends but do suggest taking one for a test drive, MIGHT change your mind.
is Tesla using batteries tofly his rockets, when he is let me know, otherwise ev is a scam
@@PazLeBon indeed, how did you know?! SpaceX does use exact same batteries it uses on Model S to drive controls on Starship!!!! Not a scam after all?
LOL
Here is another question: if we want to stick to the ease of individual transport, then when the cheap/affordable EV-conversition of existing vehicles will come up to be able to stick to elder beheavior?
A very nice and interessting episode.
One thing I don't get, when people are talking about the emission of cars, they always forget the emmissions of the brakes and tires.
These emmit a lot of the mentioned particles below 2.5 mikrons.
That's why an electric car still hast local emissions. Not really relevant for climate change, but for the health of people.
There is one thing that I hear down played a lot, and again I heard it on this episode. Range anxiety and how it is often argued that no one drives long distances very often may very well be true if you live in or close to an urban area. This is definitely not the case for many of us where a 8 hours of driving is a usual thing at least once usually twice a week and when that driving currently may only have 2 gas stations on the route you are taking range anxiety is real (I always have a 5 gallon tank of gas in the back of the truck in just in case). I do hope that in the next 20 years or so battery technology will improve to a level that this will not be as much of an issue (and I hope that they will be better in -30 degree weather for weeks at a time. I'm also hoping as was briefly pointed out that batteries will at some point be removable and you can just stop at a battery station and submit your empty one and grab a new charged one much like stores do with propane tanks. We could also carry a spare that way if the battery weight and volume has decreased as well.
Renewable power at the grid level is the future, and I think for urban dwellers the future is mostly now. Can't wait for the point where an electric car makes sense for me.
These are times I do wish I was back in research, as 25 years ago I was working on fusion technology and methods for storing/extracting hydrogen in materials and many of those areas are also starting to mature.
I'd be thrilled if we could get to a place where hybrid assist on your vehicles can let you run gas at 50+ MPG and still get around while city boys like me can putter on pure electric... I don't think we have to ban one to get the other across the line.
In 2020, about 82.66 percent of the total population in the United States lived in cities and urban areas. Yes for a small percentage of Americans this is a problem but we can't let that be an excuse for the 80+% where that isn't a problem to not move forward ...... More efficient batteries are coming if for no other reason than the inventors will become filthy rich ... Even 25 years ago lithium batteries were a novelty used only to power watches and other small devices ..... Look at a cell phone from 1990, cripes it looked like a WWII walkie talkie and most of that was just the batteries needed to power it for a few hours and compare that to the size of a modern cell phone
@@longjohn526 I'm glad that urban people are getting to use electric cars now, if there wasn't any case in which they were a good fit it would take a lot longer for improvements to be made and for prices to come down to a point that not just the rich can afford them. I just know that it is going to be a while before it is a useful solution for me and people like me. I also don't have any need for buses or subways that doesn't mean it isn't a good solution for many people. Having worked in basic physics research I am well aware of the long timeframes for any new tech or solution to make it to everyone.
@@andspenrob that would be great, I would also like to see other options continue to be explored including things like hydrogen fuel cells.
There is the option of removable batteries too. So you don't charge along your route; you change to a new battery.