Shell opens America's first pipelined hydrogen-fueling station in Southern California

[sudszy]

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

There was an experimental hydrogen 7-series BMW that did very well...but because of the low energy content of hydrogen it needed a v12 engine to produce the performance of a six. .

Yes, energy content of hydrogen gas per volume isnt as good as petrol vapor, that's why a bigger combustion space is needed, but it is not as you imply that hydrogen outputs are half of those of petrol engines. Direct injection using hydrogen and a combustion engine purposely built to cope with it can have the same displacement engine producing more power.
At the end of the day, the engine displacement is just academic, it justs need to be bigger than a petrol engine, it wont have to be built as heavy as a conventional petrol engine because the forces exerted on it wont be the same as for petrol.

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

Not to mention they are being sold as a "performance car"...however if you use it as such you'll drain the batteries in a very short time (as Top Gear did a while back after only 89km of heavy use).

Not to mention, but you have! So this is where you get your research, from a team of script writers working for an entertainment show whose major objective in pulling ratings is to produce a package that makes petrol heads feel good about themselves.

Would you like to give us the range of the other performance cars doing only quarter mile testing? or do you have no idea about that either.

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

Don't get me wrong...hydrogen shows promise as it allows normal internal combustion engines to be used. It's jus the gas they should be concentrating on it natural gas and LPG

Ultimately we are looking for a green and renewable source of energy. So while gas has the potential to extend fossil fuel usage for a while yet, it certainly isnt renewable nor does it solve the problem of co2 emissions, which are only about 5% less than for petrol on a well tuned conversion.

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

.
The one line I notice in that article is "government funded"...once again to even make it slightly economically viable, as with ethanol and E10 here, the government must expend large amounts of taxpayers dollars to subsidise the stuff. People forget what will happen to prices when subsidies end. We are already seeing rumblings here from some politicians about the amount of subsidies paid to keep E10 artificially lower than normal unleaded. If and when the subsidies are dropped, and the true price of production is shown, E10 would be about 10 to 20 cents more expensive than ordinary unleaded.

Conspiracy theory? if governments dont fund research into alternatives, who else is going to get full scale turn arounds? oil companies.....rofl.

You are failing to see the big picture here. The idea of alternative fuels is not to provide a cheaper or more convenient to petrol(too hard, petrol is the ultimate fuel in that regard), but to have a fuel that doesnt add co2 to the atmosphere. Not all research and ideas will come to fruition, research doesnt work that way, never has, never will, but if you do nothing, one outcome is guaranteed, nothing will be achieved.

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

I am quite certain one day a low-energy method of production will be invented...the easiest way to fix it at the moment is to source the huge amounts of electricity needed to crack the hydrogen out of water is to use atomic energy (which Australia steadfastly refuses to use despite out massive uranium deposits)...but that won't happen with our gutless governments of all persuasions.
But until those new techniques and catalysts are discovered, we have to just accept that if we are going to use hydrogen, we also have to happily accept "tailpipe emission shifting"...what used to come out the car exhaust is now coming out of a power station smokestack somewhere, thus negating any "green" benefit.

Oh hangon, you are quite happy for all this to take place if we use nuclear,? all we need is a government with balls? how well do you think the balls of those fukishima workers who mopped up there are going to be functioning? or indeed all of us since the food chain is going to be absorbing fission products from Fukishima via the ocean for quite a while to come.

[sudszy]

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

City use only? Perfect.

Anywhere else in the country? Nope. Useless.

Why, you ask?

Ruminate a bit on the areas outside capital cities...hell, even areas surrounding regional cities.
Say the proponents of purely electric cars get thier way and electric vehicles are "widely taken up by the public".
How far apart do you propose these high capacity filling stations be located? Probably at every single service station in the country for a start. And a lot in between many will have to be built, because of some of the distances involved. Probably between 50 and 70km apart would be a good distance...you have to allow for people who "forget to fill up" and drive past a station, and have to get to the next one. It happens now with petrol cars that get 600+ km out of a tank of fuel...how much more often would it happen with cars that only get less than 200km out of a "tank".

Now, say I was to buy one. All of a sudden the luxury of being able to go where I want, when I want. I will have to start planning my trips carefully, and make double sure the car has a "full tank" before leaving...too bad if I forget to plug it in and it's only got a half charge when I really have to leave.
It's 100km in one direction to Emerald where we do our shopping...it's 180 in the other direction to Rockhampton where we also shop and visit major stores.

Again, you are not seeing the big picture. Hydrogen is not being touted as an alternative for people that have a need to be able to travel 1000kms on a tank of fuel or indeed 4 or 500km. Id hazard a guess that even in this country most of would only need to use a range of that distance once in a lifetime, and if we cant travel those sort of distances then we wont, its not going to be life breaker.

For those that need drive big distances in the country all of the time, its probably not for you, but you usage is in the minority of how vehicles are used in this country and everywhere else in the world, and liquid fuel that doesnt need to be stored under pressure could be continued to be supplied just as it will most likely need to continue for aviation
Again at the end of the day, nothing is as convenient or as cheap as liquid fossil fuels, no one is arguing that the alternatives will be cheaper or more convenient, the change is necessary to reduce the further accumulation of co2 in the atmosphere .

[pottery beige]

nuclear energy rocks...it truly does...i've personally met mrs radons daughters.......

[2011G6E]

Originally Posted by sudszy

Again at the end of the day, nothing is as convenient or as cheap as liquid fossil fuels, [/I]no one is arguing that the alternatives will be cheaper or more convenient,[/I] the change is necessary to reduce the further accumulation of co2 in the atmosphere .

(my bold)

That's the problem with "green fuels" and "green energy". It can't stand on it's own two feet without massive subsidies and pouring taxpayers dollars into keeping it rolling along. The other problem is that this taxpayer support doesn't seem to have an end in sight.

Why should people be inconvenienced when there's a perfectly good alternative already: LPG? Why do hundreds of millions to billions of dollars have to be spent on a flawed technology like Hydrogen and Ethanol blends?

Too many people remember school science experiments of hydrogen bubbling out of a water beaker with a couple of wires from a car battery in it, or seeing how easy it is to distill a small amount of alcohol from sugar or corn, and thinks that large scale commercial production must be easy. It certainly isn't.
Brazil does it on a largish scale...however, they don't really care about what the production of it does to the environment, and thier cars aren't exactly the height of technology. Doing it all in a clean and green way in this country would cost all of us a lot of money in extra taxes.
Don't worry though...Bob Brown is already the defacto Prime Minister of this country, and when the Greens take the balance of power in the Senate in July, there'll be all sorts of whacky proposals come forward that will bankrupt half the country.

"No one said it would be easy or cheap" seems to be the catchcry of green groups and supporters of this stuff. No cost appears to be too high to pay so someone, somewhere, can have a warm fuzzy glow about the environment, no matter how much everyone else is paying to support thier lifestyle choice...which is pretty much what fully electric cars are.

It isn't "turning a blind eye to alternatives", it's facing the harsh reality that someone has to pay the price of doing things in a different and expensive way.

Oh, a couple of figures about the evil CO2...
Earths atmosphere is made up of various gases.
* CO2 is 0.039% of the atmosphere.
* 3% of that 0.039% of the Earths atmosphere is estimated to be contributed by all human industrial activity.
* 0.001% of that 3% is contributed by Australia.
The simple fact is that if Australia shut down all industry, scrapped all cars and vehicles of all kind, shut off all power stations, and went back to living in caves (as long as we didn't have fires), it wouldn't make one bit of difference to world carbon emissions. The only way they can attempt to make Australians look evil is to always...always...quote emissions as "per capita", or per head of population. This is easily done and makes us look bad because our tiny population of 21 million is far less than a lot of major cities in other countries.

Gillard and Brown telling us we have to be "first" with things like carbon taxes and "the rest of the world will follow our lead" always reminds me of a little kid in the playground surrounded by big bullies urging him to eat a worm, and that if he does, they'll eat one next...promise...*snicker*...

[sudszy]

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

That's the problem with "green fuels" and "green energy". It can't stand on it's own two feet without massive subsidies and pouring taxpayers dollars into keeping it rolling along. The other problem is that this taxpayer support doesn't seem to have an end in sight.

How are we going to get the population to use greener energy otherwise, unfortunately not many people see further than their hip pocket and only see their immediate needs as important, we could always ban fossil fuels, prefer that? No end in sight, mate is a problem that needs to be addressed, or you think when we've spent x everything will be fine?

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

Why should people be inconvenienced when there's a perfectly good alternative already: LPG? Why do hundreds of millions to billions of dollars have to be spent on a flawed technology like Hydrogen and Ethanol blends?

You must have skipped over what I wrote here:

Originally Posted by sudszy

Ultimately we are looking for a green and renewable source of energy. So while gas has the potential to extend fossil fuel usage for a while yet, it certainly isnt renewable nor does it solve the problem of co2 emissions, which are only about 5% less than for petrol on a well tuned conversion

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

( Oh, a couple of figures about the evil CO2...
Earths atmosphere is made up of various gases.
* CO2 is 0.039% of the atmosphere.
* 3% of that 0.039% of the Earths atmosphere is estimated to be contributed by all human industrial activity.
* 0.001% of that 3% is contributed by Australia.

Your point about the figures? you have dispute scientific evidence that co2 even at 390ppm wont cause increase temperatures, you have conducted basic experiments at high school to show they are wrong?

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

* 3% of that 0.039% of the Earths atmosphere is estimated to be contributed by all human industrial activity

Emm, not its not!
CO2 levels have increased by 40% in the last 100 years. 40% of the co2 in the atmosphere is there due to man burning fossil fuels, simple as that, or you have another logical explanation that the world's best scientists have overlooked?.

Your 3%, figure, either deception or ignorance? 3% is the current annual extra amount of man made emissions versus natural production of CO2.
Natural emissions are part of a cycle where the co2 produced by plant and animal matter is reasorbed by plant matter by photosynthesis, there is not net gain or loss of co2 in the process.
There is no natural process by which to absorb all the extra co2 that man adds to the biosphere, the extra amount accumulates, that's why the co2 is increasing at the rate at by which man puts it there.(not all of it ends up being airborne, some ends up soaked into the water ways which causes problems there too)

I dont want to get into a discussion about whether we need alternative fuels, most thinking people have already moved past that stage.

[z80]

sudszy-you get my vote as best poster of the thread,

(followed closely by yzfr101)

[SpoolMan]

A friendly robust debate can be achieved without the insults, OR THREAD WILL CLOSE.

[2011G6E]

Yes indeed...the 3% is the contribution of man to the total of natural emissions of CO2 each year. Australia contributes 0.001% of that 3%.

So how is anything...literally anything at all Australia does going to make one scrap of difference to emissions overall, especially when China and India have no intention of doing anything meaningful. China is often quoted as "showing its green credentials" by shutting down 200 megawatts of old coal fired power stations. Yes they are...and they're replacing them with 600 megawatts of new coal fired stations.

Electric cars are a perfectly acceptable "solution" for the cities and should be sold as such. You cannot however ignore thier severe limitations of these cars, not to mention the envirnmental damage done mining, transporting around the world, and processing the rare earth minerals needed for the batteries, something which would go through the roof if they were suddenly "widely taken up".

anyone else noticed that the bright shining world of the future seems to be turning into a crapstorm where people tutt-tutt the basic freedom to just hop in your car and go where you want when you want, and that we'll have to "just be happy with less"?

[sudszy]

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

Yes indeed...the 3% is the contribution of man to the total of natural emissions of CO2 each year. Australia contributes 0.001% of that 3%.

Oh dear, you are only out by three orders of magnitude! I gather you just threw some numbers together of the top of your head. Perhaps you'd like to look up the actual figures for australia's per capita consumption figures, reducing those to a level that even shows up on the same scale as India and China is about where leadership begins on this issue.

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

Electric cars are a perfectly acceptable "solution" for the cities and should be sold as such. You cannot however ignore thier severe limitations of these cars, not to mention the envirnmental damage done mining, transporting around the world, and processing the rare earth minerals needed for the batteries, something which would go through the roof if they were suddenly "widely taken up".

The thread was about hydrogen refuelling stations, you want to make a point about the value of electric cars, climate change is bs, chinese dont give a ...., start a thread on that.

[z80]

It's not about which fuel is superior to another...

It's about which one will be available at all.

Crying about impingements on your civil liberties is unnecessary,you will always be able to buy fuel and run a hydrocarbon fossil fuel based engine...but when it costs you 400 dollars to fill the tank many attitudes will change.

Try running a 6 Litre V8 in Europe and you'll get the idea....

here is a comparison of London prices today...

Price to fill up a 6 cyl falcon this week on european petrol prices?
about AUD$175 (75 litres@$2.30/L)

Price for a 4hr charge on a Tesla from 240/90A plug in European prices?
about AUD$12.60 (36kwh@35c/Kw)

[flappist]

I missed one before.

Are you saying you want to draw 90 amps @ 240 volts in a residence?

YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHATSOEVER.

What do you do for a living?
Let me guess......student....

[2011G6E]

Let's get off the CO2 is evil stuff then...

One of the reasons I said "electric cars" is that the most successful hydrogen fuelled car is an electric fuel cell vehicle.
They are amazing, using a proven technology, and like that Honda in the first photo, they at least look good.

The only problem is the hydrogen, especially outside major cities.
Pure electric cars are far more likely to be adopted, as hydrogen is just too hard.

The production of hydrogen is problematic at the moment...it's hugely expensive, it's hard to transport, it's hard to store, it's dangerous to store in the vehicle it's fuelling, and requires refrigeration to keep it at the proper temperature for storage as a liquid. LPG merely has to be pressurised and it liquifies...hydrogen needs to be kept cold.

I have no doubt that in the future a catalyst will be discovered that will mean we can crack water at a low energy level in commercial quantities. But that's a long way off.
At the moment, it's a heavily subsidised fuel that is energy negative.

You can't ignore that the only way it's useable at the moment is with vast amounts of taxpayers money, or that using it merely shifts the emissions to a power station somewhere else (out of sight, out of mind). it's no use expecting people to just cop increased taxes to pay for the stuff or to pay large amounts of money for cars to use it, when it does no good for the environment, while just praying that some time in the future a catalyst will be found to make it in some way profitable on it's own.

A prefect replacement fuel for oil is one that is energy rich (hydrogen and ethanol are not), which is easily transported, stored, and pumped into vehicles (hydrogen isn't, yet), and which can be substituted for the fuel that everyone uses already with minimal modifications. Ethanol and alcohol fuels show promise, but once again like hydrogen they need a better and more efficient way of producing it.

[2011G6E]

Originally Posted by flappist

I missed one before.

Are you saying you want to draw 90 amps @ 240 volts in a residence?

YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHATSOEVER.

What do you do for a living?
Let me guess......student....

Well it would certainly make turning on a light switch a little more interesting...

i don't think hydrogen will be a replacement fuel. Electricity might...possibly.
You also have to remember that once electric cars like the Tesla are "widely in use" you won't be paying normal tariffs. If you think they are going to do without another possible form of revenue, you've never had anything to do with a government department.
Filling up at home will be from a dedicated socket giving out suitable power. I imagine they won't put that into your house for free, much less let you "fill up" for the normal household tariff, as the drain on the neighborhood electricity system will be much higher while everyone is filling up and the power grid will have to upgraded to suit. Someone has to pay for all this, and the public as a whole won't agree with everyone being charged equally when it's only ever going to be a minority of people causing the increased costs.
The costs involved will quickly become staggering, even putting aside the intial cost of the car.

Sure, with the excellent GM electric car (as in "Who Killed The Electric Car?" documentary), the company put in thye charging points at your house, and also put in the ones in various public areas at thier own cost, as it was all a big experiment.
Watch what would happen if people had to put it in at thier own expense...bet the cars won't be so popular then.

[ray38l]

Originally Posted by sudszy

Oh hangon, you are quite happy for all this to take place if we use nuclear,? all we need is a government with balls? how well do you think the balls of those fukishima workers who mopped up there are going to be functioning? or indeed all of us since the food chain is going to be absorbing fission products from Fukishima via the ocean for quite a while to come.

off topic but how many people die a year mining for coal and how many die from nuclear power?
I would bet alot more people die from coal mining.

[sudszy]

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

Well it would certainly make turning on a light switch a little more interesting....

why would upgrading the supply wiring to cope with currents of 90A affect your light switch? Many new houses now come with 100A+ supplies.

[Buntz]

Originally Posted by z80

For a product that's been developed for about the price that the big car makers spend on designing windscreen wipers, it's a damn good achievement in fact it's most likely an embarassment for a lot of them.

The big car makers are struggling to get 150km between recharges.

Tesla have upset plenty of people and some here by the looks of it.

Wow... they took what is basically the money spent and hard labour of another company, and fitted it with some batteries and an electric motor...


I'm stunned.

It would be equally as cheap to take a Falcon and put some batteries in it. Or even a Commodore like one company is doing I believe. But then it has to be viable, and marketed and sold. And most companies that build cars for real people... aren't in the habit of making fools of themselves for ***** and giggles.

This is a tree hugging millionaires toy thing. Nothing more. But when he goes on international business ventures.... he's still burning fossil fuels. Let alone how much nasties are produced to build his new green car.... or the mining operations to make his batteries.

[z80]

Originally Posted by flappist

I missed one before.....

I've noticed you miss more than my 2 stroke Victa.

Originally Posted by flappist

Are you saying you want to draw 90 amps @ 240 volts in a residence?....

yawn.......

Originally Posted by flappist

YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHATSOEVER.....

Duhhh...read the Tesla brochure...3 phase power needed for 90A at 30A per phase...duhhhhh

Originally Posted by flappist

What do you do for a living?
Let me guess......student....

I guarantee you I earn more than you before I get out of bed.

[2011G6E]

Oh well...whether people in Australia start using useless little purely electric cars, or the government stumps up billions of taxpayers bucks to setup a hydrogen system nation-wide (you think the NBN is expensive...just wait), it'll keep me in a job driving the trains transporting the hundreds of thousands of tons of coal a month around the country (10,000 tonnes a day, or one full loaded coal train, in Stanwell power station alone, the one my area supplies) needed to keep those power stations burning ! Bring it on!!!

Originally Posted by ray38l

off topic but how many people die a year mining for coal and how many die from nuclear power?
I would bet alot more people die from coal mining.

Yes they do unfortunately...far more people die every months from coal mining around the world than have ever died in all nuclear accidents. Mostly poor sods in China. Roughly 6000 per year die worlwide, and of that total China reports 4700 deaths a year..."reports"...no idea what the real figure is.

[flappist]

Originally Posted by z80

I've noticed you miss more than my 2 stroke Victa.





yawn.......




Duhhh...read the Tesla brochure...3 phase power needed for 90A at 30A per phase...duhhhhh





I guarantee you I earn more than you before I get out of bed.

Yep another secret squirrel.

It is so easy to be a keyboard warrior when you don't let anyone know anything about you.

What are you afraid of?

And apart from that can you show us all a picture of your Tesla. I can afford to buy one so obviously you can afford lots of them.

http://www.fordforums.com.au/showpos...60&postcount=3

Did you trade your magna on it?

[Buntz]

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

Oh well...whether people in Australia start using useless little purely electric cars, or the government stumps up billions of taxpayers bucks to setup a hydrogen system nation-wide (you think the NBN is expensive...just wait), it'll keep me in a job driving the trains transporting the hundreds of thousands of tons of coal a month around the country (10,000 tonnes a day, or one full loaded coal train, in Stanwell power station alone, the one my area supplies) needed to keep those power stations burning ! Bring it on!!!



Yes they do unfortunately...far more people die every months from coal mining around the world than have ever died in all nuclear accidents. Mostly poor sods in China. Roughly 6000 per year die worlwide, and of that total China reports 4700 deaths a year..."reports"...no idea what the real figure is.

Don't forget our own Hazelwood power station in Victoria... which spews out more nasties then some 160 nations (small I'll grant you) and is made out of asbestos.

We need nuclear... but it needs to be a good setup. Needs a well planned recycling of spent fission materials. Or MOX as it's known. Or we can start our nuclear journey with a thorium reactor. Which is much safer than uranium... and far more abundant.

Then we need a Hydrogen infrastructure so that the day of the internal combustion engine never ends.

[aussie muscle]

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

How far apart do you propose these high capacity filling stations be located? Probably at every single service station in the country for a start. And a lot in between many will have to be built, because of some of the distances involved. Probably between 50 and 70km apart would be a good distance...

Doesn't sound very likely. perhaps a better option around the city is an overhead live wire like a dodgem car/tram?



Originally Posted by 2011G6E
Not to mention they are being sold as a "performance car"...however if you use it as such you'll drain the batteries in a very short time (as Top Gear did a while back after only 89km of heavy use).
didn't the dodge viper get 45miles before the tank was empty?

[ray38l]

Originally Posted by Buntz93ED

Don't forget our own Hazelwood power station in Victoria... which spews out more nasties then some 160 nations (small I'll grant you) and is made out of asbestos.

We need nuclear... but it needs to be a good setup. Needs a well planned recycling of spent fission materials. Or MOX as it's known. Or we can start our nuclear journey with a thorium reactor. Which is much safer than uranium... and far more abundant.

Then we need a Hydrogen infrastructure so that the day of the internal combustion engine never ends.

when i worked in a mine in the hunter valley we were told that that one mine polluted more then all the cars in Australia combined. I don't know if they worked it out on the coal being burnt from that mine or of it actually directly come from that mine due to production. Kind of makes the argument of polluting cars being a problem a bit stupid.
Cars like tesla are good little toy cars but that's all they will ever be. Hydrogen is the long term solution once they sort out the problems with it.

[xtremerus]

Originally Posted by sudszy

why would upgrading the supply wiring to cope with currents of 90A affect your light switch? Many new houses now come with 100A+ supplies.

!00A is the norm to domestic, here.
While you are charging you car using the 90A, don't think of watch your plasma in air-conditioned comfort, while it is charging.
I think thats that 2010G6E is getting at.

[2011G6E]

Originally Posted by xtremerus

!00A is the norm to domestic, here.
While you are charging you car using the 90A, don't think of watch your plasma in air-conditioned comfort, while it is charging.
I think thats that 2010G6E is getting at.

More or less. You've put it better than I did.

I was just wondering what happens, not only on an individual house level, but on a nieghbourhood level when everyone plugs in thier cars to charge them up.
Hell, in a lot of areas people already notice a difference in power (especially things like ovens) around late afternoon/evening when everyone goes home and turns everything on. I imagine brown-outs, as suffered in some larger overseas cities at certain times of the day, would become rather common.

[sudszy]

Originally Posted by xtremerus

!00A is the norm to domestic, here.
While you are charging you car using the 90A, don't think of watch your plasma in air-conditioned comfort, while it is charging.
I think thats that 2010G6E is getting at.

Rather a long bow to draw when he said this:

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

Well it would certainly make turning on a light switch a little more interesting....

Cant see that turning on the light which is only going to draw another 1/4 of an amp at the most is going to make anything interesting happen at all, and do wonder about 2011G6E's understanding of elementary electricity.

No argument from me: the grid certainly wouldnt survive every household using 90A to charge up a Tesla for a couple of hours every 2nd day(can they be charged at a lower current draw?), but this thread was about hydrogen refuelling stations, not the viability of electric cars, or indeed whether the chinese give a stuff about the workers it sends down its coal mines.
It seems to some to think that putting down one alternative by default rejects another, relevant to the discussion or not.

[vztrt]

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

More or less. You've put it better than I did.

I was just wondering what happens, not only on an individual house level, but on a nieghbourhood level when everyone plugs in thier cars to charge them up.
Hell, in a lot of areas people already notice a difference in power (especially things like ovens) around late afternoon/evening when everyone goes home and turns everything on. I imagine brown-outs, as suffered in some larger overseas cities at certain times of the day, would become rather common.

It would all depend on how intelligent the charging system was. The unit that would draw 90A would not be like a light switch as the draw would cause issues to the grid. It would need to 'ramp' its power draw up. Maybe have a built in feature where it won't work at full draw until most of the power is turned off in the house.

A 3-phase system would be much much better but seeing 99% house don't have 3-phase that stuffs that up.

[xtremerus]

Sudszy
Not a long bow.
Just ordinary scenarios.

[2011G6E]

Originally Posted by vztrt

It would all depend on how intelligent the charging system was. The unit that would draw 90A would not be like a light switch as the draw would cause issues to the grid. It would need to 'ramp' its power draw up. Maybe have a built in feature where it won't work at full draw until most of the power is turned off in the house.

A 3-phase system would be much much better but seeing 99% house don't have 3-phase that stuffs that up.

Dedicated environmentalists might accept a "slower charge" system that, in a situation where there are a large number of people with electric cars, would not cause brownouts and power problems.
The average user will want a system that covers all eventualities...say when he wants to take the car out the next day but forgets to plug it in until midnight, or who gets home from work and notices its charge is low and wants to take it out that night and wants it charged now.

The vast majority of people, in short, won't accept a vehicle with less useability than a petrol powered vehicle. It has to meet some basic requirements:
* "Jump in and drive without thinking and planning" ability.
* Impulsively hop in and go for a long country drive somewhere.
* "Turn off and forget" functionality. That means just turning up at home, getting out, and walking away. Without having to think and consider whether it needs charging, whether there is enough charge to go out that night to the movies, whether it's the right time of day to get cheap tariffs on power, etc.
* No need for careful planning of a journey. On a trip you should be able to expect to drive at least a few hundred kilometers without worrying about where to "fill up".
* It has to cater for the sloppy owner. With a petrol powered car, your main concern the next day before going to work is "bugger, I left the headlights on and teh battery is flat!"..a rare occurance. Call the RACQ and get it jump started, no huge problem. Forget to plug in the battery powered car though when you came home tired from work...

A hydrogen powered car would solve most of those problems...except for the "worrying about where to refuel" part.

Electric cars are a dream or at best a toy anywhere but in the city centers.
Hydrogen fuel cell cars are a definite possibility, in the cities...widespread use would just cost the country too much.
Hydrogen fuel for internal combustion engines is another possibility...but again for the city.

That's an awful lot of limitations being foisted on car owners there, which people are just expected to accept to appear to be clean and green...at large costs which people are simplistically told they just "have to accept" to "save the planet"...

[vztrt]

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

Dedicated environmentalists might accept a "slower charge" system that, in a situation where there are a large number of people with electric cars, would not cause brownouts and power problems.
The average user will want a system that covers all eventualities...say when he wants to take the car out the next day but forgets to plug it in until midnight, or who gets home from work and notices its charge is low and wants to take it out that night and wants it charged now.

The vast majority of people, in short, won't accept a vehicle with less useability than a petrol powered vehicle. It has to meet some basic requirements:
* "Jump in and drive without thinking and planning" ability.
* Impulsively hop in and go for a long country drive somewhere.
* "Turn off and forget" functionality. That means just turning up at home, getting out, and walking away. Without having to think and consider whether it needs charging, whether there is enough charge to go out that night to the movies, whether it's the right time of day to get cheap tariffs on power, etc.
* No need for careful planning of a journey. On a trip you should be able to expect to drive at least a few hundred kilometers without worrying about where to "fill up".
* It has to cater for the sloppy owner. With a petrol powered car, your main concern the next day before going to work is "bugger, I left the headlights on and teh battery is flat!"..a rare occurance. Call the RACQ and get it jump started, no huge problem. Forget to plug in the battery powered car though when you came home tired from work...

A hydrogen powered car would solve most of those problems...except for the "worrying about where to refuel" part.

Electric cars are a dream or at best a toy anywhere but in the city centers.
Hydrogen fuel cell cars are a definite possibility, in the cities...widespread use would just cost the country too much.
Hydrogen fuel for internal combustion engines is another possibility...but again for the city.

That's an awful lot of limitations being foisted on car owners there, which people are just expected to accept to appear to be clean and green...at large costs which people are simplistically told they just "have to accept" to "save the planet"...

I'm just trying to give you ideas on how a charger can be made to run and not destroy our infrastructure.

As for electric cars they are not there yet, the battery storage isn't there. But as the technology gets better and you get better range and quicker charging they will not be the toy that they are now. IMO once they get 600k's out of a charge then they will become more desirable to more of the population...that is if the running cost can be justified over its internal combustion counterpart.

[Carby]

Originally Posted by sudszy

Oh dear, you are only out by three orders of magnitude! I gather you just threw some numbers together of the top of your head. Perhaps you'd like to look up the actual figures for australia's per capita consumption figures, reducing those to a level that even shows up on the same scale as India and China is about where leadership begins on this issue.


The thread was about hydrogen refuelling stations, you want to make a point about the value of electric cars, climate change is bs, chinese dont give a ...., start a thread on that.

Hmm nice deflection trying to use the per capita rate - yes we may be heaps higher on this aspect but when they have over a billion and we have 23million 2011G6E is probably right in what he says -Australia has virtually no impact on these matters.