The Coming Electric Vehicle Transformation: Impact on House Values

[RCA]

What new dam will be built? How much renewable energy is produced by hydroelectricity? 6.1% in US...but that is more than one-third of all "renewable" energy in the US. So about 80% of electricity is produced by fossil fuels or nukes...So your electric car is 80% non-renewable. OTOH, the darn thing should last 30 years...I have a Bang & Olsen receiver that is 40 years old this year and functions fine. Electronics can be made to last.

Terrel, you don't keep up on technology. Green energy is a multifaceted technology that has a long ways to go. Even if it were available today to replace oil, coal and gas, it would probably be to disruptive to implement it immediately. These things simply take time. The question is whether progress is being made and whether there are good indications of significant progress in the future. The answer is definitely YES.

The contingent of environmentalists who want green energy implemented immediately at any economic cost, or at least with little regard to harming the economy are one side of the equation. The other side is people like you who are just as emotional in their dislike of green energy, likely because they associate it with other things they don't like, that really have nothing to do with green energy. Or perhaps, more simply, they just don't like change. - Kind of like that neo-luddite Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, who rejected technology, holed up in the forest: "He built himself a small cabin near Lincoln, where he lived in near-total isolation, hunting rabbits, growing vegetables and spending much of his time reading. While living this remote, survivalist lifestyle, Kaczynski developed his own anti-government and anti-technology philosophy. " https://www.biography.com/crime-figure/ted-kaczynski

Are you a Neo-Luddite? No, of course not. What are you? I would love to hear you state your opinion of the direction we should take on energy, and the environment. I don't think I would even have to respond. -- See it is much easier to come out and say you don't like all kinds of things and everyone elses ideas. But for you to come out and propose policies, you need to be prepared to put up a good defense.

You might claim your position is, and this is the best I can come up with from all of your posts: "There is no problem. Things are as they should be. Fires are normal. Yada yada yada." Really? Oh, yes the expert says: "Trees actually didn't appear until about 385 million years ago. During the prior 4 billion years, there ACTUALLY weren't any trees at all on earth."

I would counter from http://www.earth-policy.org/indicators/C56/ that in 1990 we had 4,168,000,000 hectares of forest and in 2010 4,033,000,000 hectares, a decrease of about 6,750,000 hectares per year; so, at that rate, the forests will be depleted in about 598 years. Oh, but wait, we have 7,000 square miles currently burning in Brazil alone, that is 1,813,000 hectares. And scientists have concluded that the more forest we loose, the faster it goes. Maybe it won't take anything close to 600 years ....

Map: See how much of the Amazon forest is burning, how it compares to other years

Deforestation rates across the Amazon have spiked this year, driving the devastating blazes. Our maps show the story.

www.nationalgeographic.com

 

[RCA]

Texas Luring Jobs Away From California With Promises Of Electricity

U.S.—New billboards have been popping up in California with the slogan “Move to Texas: We have electricity!” Many see this as a play to lure jobs away from California, as many jobs rely on electricity, especially in the modern economy. This could especially be attractive to jobs in the tech sector.

babylonbee.com

Yea, Texas and its windmills. Big business out there. And, you were saying?

Roscoe Wind Farm - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

How Conservative Texas Took The Lead in U.S. Wind Power

Innovative government policies have helped propel Texas into the forefront of wind energy generation in the U.S. But the main impetus for the Lone Star State’s flourishing wind sector is the revenue it has generated for landowners and local communities.

e360.yale.edu

 

[James Micozzi]

1. I never said hydropower is the answer. What do you see when you inspect a house? Apparitions. Get hold of your senses.
2. There may be treehuggers, as you call them. Some may be my "fellows" as you call them. But they are not necessarily "liberal".
3. WTF do you get that PETA members are my fellows.

We have an inkling of what is wrong with New York.

Well Bert. Then why did you put down hydropower? I see that you edited your post about Hydropower, etc. taking out a whole host of information you had previously. Hmm. Seems strange.

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

you were saying?

You do understand that this was a spoof post, right? Babylon Bee is a kind of Onion on steriods

Texas and its windmills

It also led to a series of brownouts about six or seven years ago when the entire west Texas region was becalmed during a summer of drought.

 

[RCA]

Well Bert. Then why did you put down hydropower? I see that you edited your post about Hydropower, etc. taking out a whole host of information you had previously. Hmm. Seems strange.

You made the categorical statement that electrical power only comes form oil, gas and coal. Hydropower, wind farms, geothermal are some of many examples of green energy. Hydropower is not "the" answer, it is part of the solution.

 

[Elliott]

There is a current TV commercial that shows a chemist with a beaker sloshing around a bright green solution and the narration talks about the promise of making jet fuel from algae. Like so many promises trying to attract capital. The reality of the promise usually falls short. The economics of energy always get in the way of the promise.

So I did a 2-minutes of research on the state of algae energy:

"From 2005 to 2012, dozens of companies managed to extract hundreds of millions in cash from VCs in hopes of ultimately extracting fuel oil from algae. CEOs, entrepreneurs and investors were making huge claims about the promise of algae-based biofuels; the U.S. Department of Energy was also making big bets through its bioenergy technologies office; industry advocates claimed that commercial algae fuels were within near-term reach.

Jim Lane of Biofuels Digest authored what was possibly history's least accurate market forecast, projecting that algal biofuel capacity would reach 1 billion gallons by 2014. In 2009, Solazyme promised competitively priced fuel from algae by 2012. Algenol planned to make 100 million gallons of ethanol annually in Mexico’s Sonoran Desert by the end of 2009 and 1 billion gallons by the end of 2012 at a production rate of 10,000 gallons per acre. PetroSun looked to develop an algae farm network of 1,100 acres of saltwater ponds that could produce 4.4 million gallons of algal oil and 110 million pounds of biomass per year.

Nothing close to 1 billion (or even 1 million) gallons has yet been achieved -- nor has competitive pricing. Today, the few surviving algae companies have had no choice but to adopt new business plans that focus on the more expensive algae byproducts such as cosmetic supplements, nutraceuticals, pet food additives, animal feed, pigments and specialty oils. The rest have gone bankrupt or moved on to other markets. The promise of algae is tantalizing. Some algal species contain up to 40 percent lipids by weight, a figure that could be boosted further through selective breeding and genetic modification. That basic lipid can be converted into diesel, synthetic petroleum, butanol or industrial chemicals."


My point is the hype is always way ahead of the reality and there is no free lunch when it comes to energy. Let the market figure it out on a level playing field without subsidies

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

Fossil fuel use continues to expand even as "green" energy expands. Nuclear energy is the only energy that can be upscaled to meet future demand and additionally is the only one that can expand base load requirements. For every new Wind turbine or solar panel, comes a requirement to duplicate that capacity with something to guarantee the base grid requirements can be instantaneously met. The problem with the grid is, like green energy itself, you cannot store electricity in sufficient quantity to cover the times the wind dies or the sun does not shine. The only instantaneous source is gas, coal, or nuclear....and, when the conditions are right, hydroelectric, which again, cannot provide more a few percent of our needs.

 

[James Micozzi]

You made the categorical statement that electrical power only comes form oil, gas and coal. Hydropower, wind farms, geothermal are some of many examples of green energy. Hydropower is not "the" answer, it is part of the solution.

I see you are twisting my word to suit your agenda. Here is my prior quote exactly as I wrote it earlier

And how do you generate the electricity for those "non polluting" electrical cars? by burning more fuel, like oil, gas, coal, etc., to meet the demand.

So you obviously want to twist my words to fit your agenda. Weak, weak, weak.

 

[Randolph Kinney]

For every new Wind turbine or solar panel, comes a requirement to duplicate that capacity with something to guarantee the base grid requirements can be instantaneously met.

Transformers and other older equipment are sensitive to the power surge of switching instantaneously to gas fired generation and base generation as the supply of solar dips precipitously as the sun goes down. Grid stability is compromised.

Baseload generation specifically excludes power from intermittent sources of energy such as solar and wind because electricity cannot be reliably generated from them when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing. Because natural gas is also used for heating needs, extreme cold conditions can sometimes prompt an increase in natural gas use by regional gas utilities that can result in little to no gas pipeline capacity available for use by electric generators, reducing their ability to provide baseload generation in these circumstances.



The first question is whether the electrical grid will have enough dispatchable energy resources to cover the energy needs when emergencies cut off parts of the natural gas pipeline system or when the weather is unreliable and cannot ensure sufficient natural gas, solar power, and wind energy to meet the grid’s needs:

Another issue relating to baseload generation in this new U.S. energy mix is the inefficiencies in the market that are being created:

• For example, when solar generators are working at peak capacity during the middle of the day, baseload generation plants must continue to maintain a minimum level of operation, resulting in situations where there is an overabundance of energy on the electric grid that cannot be used by its customers and cannot yet affordably or efficiently be stored for later use.
• Not only is this scenario inefficient in terms of wasted energy, but much of this power generated during the day ends up priced at zero or even negative prices, so baseload generators must sell their power at a loss during those hours.

The question of how to treat baseload power in a grid filled increasingly with non-dispatchable energy sources has been at the center of recent government debates. Last Fall, the Department of Energy (DOE) released a study of the U.S. grid that found that cheap natural gas and growing renewable resources are among the reasons that baseload plants are being retired at an increasing rate, recommending that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) study ways to ensure long-term reliability and resilience of the grid and baseload generation.

Market Failures, Inefficiencies, and Other Issues with Baseload Generation in ISO Markets

The debate surrounding baseload generation compared with non-dispatchable energy resources has become increasingly prevalent due to market forces flipping the script from decades past. The new normal is that the non-baseload fuels are accounting for an increased portion of the U.S. energy mix.

www.onlocationinc.com

 

[Terrel L. Shields]