Drill Baby Drill

[Al Husa]

Did he say "cells he received from CHINA"?????? Just wondering and thinking out loud----------

[Lugnut]

Yep, nothing like buying "outside" of the U.S. of A. My question is this...while you are protecting the "environment" what happens to all those "spent" batteries? What will they do to the environment when they begin showing up at the landfills?

I will NEVER own an electric automobile. Period!

Lugnut

[Bob Lemke]

Yep, nothing like buying "outside" of the U.S. of A. My question is this...while you are protecting the "environment" what happens to all those "spent" batteries? What will they do to the environment when they begin showing up at the landfills?

I will NEVER own an electric automobile. Period!

Lugnut

I had no choice but to buy outside the US because when the oil man Bush was president, all federal funding for battery advancements was ended and China is 8 years ahead of us. As to these batteries in landfills, we re-cycle cheap old lead acids, why do you think it would be different with lithium?

[Krovette]

They say if you don't embrace change you get left behind. I know a lot of people won't run fuel injection just because they don't know or maybe understand the programing involved. I'm slow like that also but I know electric vehicles are coming and are only going to get better and more reliable. How many of you are using solar lights in your yard or solar battery chargers ? 10 to 15 years ago did you think you would ? I'm biased because I make wind turbine blades and we think renewable energy all the time.
Just my two cents worth. Take it however you want.

[Bob Lemke]

Good to hear wind turbine blades are made here.

The Tesla S goes hand in hand with the Smart Grid that is so important. Electricity costs what it does because a very expensive infrastructure has to be built to handle peak demands. These cars offer a means of storage, you charge when demand and rates are low, commute to work and return home when demand and rates are the highest. All the home charging stations are set up as a bi-directional units, you take from the grid at 11:00PM to 5:00 AM at say 0.09 per kw-hr charging your batteries and at 6:00 PM when demand is high you help the power company by selling at 0.18 per kw-hr. This is a win-win, the power company gets to flatten out demand and not have to build so many peaking plants and you get your power for your car and part of your home usage for free.

This is how the new Smart Grid will work. Instead of cyclic highs and lows throughout a 24 hour period, it will be a more even and constant demand.

Plus, it prevents blackouts for the power company and should one occur due to weather, you have 84 kw-hr stored for quietly powering your home for a week.

[Ron Pope]

Let me understand this. The electric car, has to be plugged into house current to recharge. The house current is produced at a coal fired steam plant. So the power for this car actually comes from the coal! Why bother with all the electric stuff

[Bob Lemke]

Let me understand this. The electric car, has to be plugged into house current to recharge. The house current is produced at a coal fired steam plant. So the power for this car actually comes from the coal! Why bother with all the electric stuff

Yes, if your electricity comes from a coal fired steam turbine. But even with coal, the net CO2 produced is much less with the electric car that got its charge from the coal power plant, than for the gas/diesel engine that has such poor thermal efficiency, propelling the vehicle. Simple physics.

[Steve Stock]

This reminds me a number of my solar powered yard lights quit working
But on a brighter note, I rebuilt my carb for 8 hp brigg and stratten generator, old reliable has never let me down when the power (electricity ) goes out due to a tree blowing over the power lines. You see we have a bunch of tree huggers up here (land of the taughted protected spotted owl) and we are not yet advanced enough to get the power lines under the ground yet, go figure.

[Lee in KC]

I wonder if we'll ever get back to nuclear. Seems to me that it is the most cost-efficient. We've been running Navy subs and aircraft carriers for decades on the stuff with no catastrophes. Yeah, so we had a little scare at Three Mile island... but nothing bad happened did it? Well and, we had that little earthquake issue in Japan.. but again, what's the worst that happened. I say go for it... nuke 'em!

[Lee in KC]

I got curious about how many operating nuke plants there are in the US...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_po ... ted_States