Tow Vehicles - Toyota Goes Turbo

Originally posted by offgrid Recharge time is solved as far as I'm concerned. The new generation of 800V cars and DC chargers charge at 250+kw. So a Porsche Taycan for example can charge from 5 to 80 percent in under 25 minutes.

My point was that materials extraction, processing, and transport causes environmental harm. The two most heavily extracte materials are oil and coal. Of course, because they are consumed immediately, one time use only. If we can reduce those then not only have we reduced CO2 but also the environmental costs of obtaining, processing, and transporting the fuels.

While Li extraction has issues (mostly water use in desert areas), it is a one time environmental impact for a product that will be used for decades. So much less material is needed.

As I said earlier, I agree that the benefit of EVs, while there even when charged on dirty grids, is much better when the grid is cleaned up. We need to do both, and get away from assuming the status quo in energy production when considering EVs That status quo is rapidly changing.

BTW, the same is true the other direction. EVs will be part of the renewable storage solution once we can get past our confused and complex regulatory system and certify bi directional chargers. They are already being implemented in other countries with a more centralized regulatory approach, but you can't buy one here yet. That is the main thing that is keeping me from buying an EV right now. Which ones will bi directional chargers be available for. As for aggregating nd managing those storage resources on the grid, that is already being done Our friend Elon has a whole division of Tesla doing just that with other storage resources (not the cars yet). Others are doing it too.

I agree with you on pursuing Thorium reactors. I'm willing to consider any technology that can be quickly implemented that reduces carbon and breaks the stranglehold on the global economy that big oil and the oil exporting countries has had for a century. But Thorium reactors are a long way from being on line. One reason renewables have been so successful recently is because they are fast to implement. You can go from concept to an operating plant in 6-9 months. Usually the thing that takes the longest is the financing. Sadly with all the roadblocks, nukes take decades to reach completion, if ever. In my opinion, need to stop that, treat this whole energy transition as we did industrial production in WW2 or the Apollo program, and git er done. The Chinese know that very well, that's why they already dominate global production of solar and lithium batteries.

Let's stipulate that towing trailers long distances is not a viable use case for EVs today, but let's also recognize that for the majority of motor vehicle use they are fine, and in many cases better.

Storage of nuclear waste in the desert?  You may want to ask the people affected by the Yucca Mt., NV, nuclear storage site how they feel about it.  On the other hand, Norway seems to have come up with a viable nuclear storage solution that may make nuclear reactors more practical.  

Recharge time is solved as far as I'm concerned. The new generation of 800V cars and DC chargers charge at 250+kw. So a Porsche Taycan for example can charge from 5 to 80 percent in under 25 minutes.

It is understandable when comparing a new technology to an old one to single out the areas where the new one is less competitive, but in reality it is not the right metric. Look at charging time for example, from the perspective of a typical EV owner. He or she charges at home over 90% of the time (yep, 90 plus, thats the statistic). If you asked him or her to trade that every day convenience to save 15-20 minutes on the occasional road trip what do you think the response would be?

Another example is smartphones. They are after all terrible phones. If you asked someone 20 years ago if he would want to have to hold a big rectangular brick up against his face to talk to someone he'd say forget it, I'll keep my nice little Nokia or Motorola Razor. But perspectives changed and the benefits of the new tech outweigh the negatives, and Nokia and Motorola disappeared

I understand the need for storage integrated with renewables very well. Rght now there are only a few electricity markets where renewable penetration is high enough that that is a constraint (HI, CA) so renewable deployment should focus on the other mmarkets, that gets low cost renewables deployed qas quickly and widely as possible .

There are multiple solutions for grid storage. Pumped hydro has the largest capacity today. If fact any heavy stuff can be moved up and down in elevation to do the same thing, doesn't have to be water. For example trainloads of concrete on a mountain railway grade will work fine. Also, grid storage via batteries don't have to be lithium based, Lithium gives you high energy density so it's great for vehicles but unnecessary in a stationary grid application where weight and volume are not very significant. Many of those alternative battery technologies use very common and benign materials. Lithium is just first to the table because of heavy investment for use in laptops and smartphones.

When you think about environmental damage from extraction operations consider the scales involved. There is a good reason why petroleum extraction, transportation, and refining has so much impact. Consider a typical ICE vehicle. It will require around 25 tons of gasoline over it's lifetime. An equivalent EV will have about a 600 lb battery. So while everything anyone does has an environmental impact the oil sector has the largest because of it's enormous scale. We have an example in Socal just this weekend.

You can't do anything without causing some kind of environmental impact. The fossil fuel lobby knows this well, and uses the environmental movement's desire to do no harm against it. But we have to look at what causes the least damage for the most benefit. That's one reason I favor aggressive deployment of nuclear power. Better to have to build and manage some long term radioactive waste storage facilities in remote deserts somewhere than all our coastal cities flooded.

Yep, we can't believe the petroleum industry's propaganda.  But we also have to be skeptical of everyone else's too.