Quote:
Originally Posted by subiemech85
saw a tesla on the way out of chicago-land
too bad the tesla transmission system wasn't perfected :frown:
WIND is where the $$ is  |
Yeah, lots of independent generators hundreds of feet in the air, a fair number of them in tornado alley... Great for maintenance costs, too...
They don't work in no wind... and they don't work in wind greater than 25-30mph gusts, due to too much shearing.
There are dozens, if not hundreds of new turbines in Iowa... and a new manufacturing plant...
A single blade requires a special over-sized truck... I am sure that is cost effective, with hundreds of those turbines spread all over the place... Lots of new power lines and electrical grid infrastructure, too...
I have never been convinced of wind being more than a subsidy-darling, and a hobby-grade technology that has been pushed despite it's drawbacks.
But heaven forbid anyone build nuclear power... we just give that tech to North Korea, (we gave them heavy-water reactors in the 90s, IIRC... now Billy-bob is back over there again this week buying back people from a dictator... and nobody knows the price tag...) And then North Korea and Pakistan give nuclear tech to Iran, so that they can all build bombs.
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but anyway... the problem with electric cars has never been the motor issue... it is an energy storage issue. Batteries just can't compare at this point, to a fuel tank, in terms of ease, safety, and energy density.
Drive 40 miles and charge for 8 hours just isn't practical. And most fast charge tech doesn't say how they get reliable fast charging capability into the batteries (which should only be charged at their nominal discharge rate, not drastically above it, for safety reasons, especially Lithium Ion...)
And they don't mention that fast charging requires more electrical current than most homes currently have available, both voltage and amperage. You don't get a huge, fast charge from 120VAC @ 15 amps from your kitchen electrical outlets, or whatever... Even 240 usually is only 30-50 amps, in a household setting, with 100-200 amps TOTAL available service for the whole panel that serves a typical residential home.