ABB Wins Contract for Dutch EV Charging Stations

[Tyyr]

We're not streched at peak hours. Not as tightly as you might think. However that peak is generally from about 4pm to 9pm, that's only five hours. The entire rest of the day we operate at a greatly reduced demand on the grid, typically about 60% of the peak demand. There's another spike in the morning between about 6 am and 9am but it's only about 80% of peak. Plus, true peak demand is the hottest day of the summer. Peak in the middle of July is higher than peak in late November. Grid sizing is usually done off the highest point as that's where the law mandates we have our reserve margins set to.

So the worst time to try and charge a car is also the point in time when most people will be driving them anyways. The typical time to charge them would be at night when demand is at it's lowest.

Not only that but if everyone charges their car at night then the plants or sections of the power plants that are shut down at night will have to remain on to maintain that increased energy demand.

Which is a very good thing. First off, powerplants are better at controling pollution than your car regardless. They are also easier to regulate and enforce those regulations on and so long as your lights are on where the energy is coming from is irrelevant making a switch to another power source something your average driver won't have to worry about. Secondly, at night most plants are not operating at peak, so there's margin to spare, but pollution is worse pound for pound, when the plants aren't run at their best efficency point. Ideally you'd use various means to encourage charging EV's during lulls in the power cycle maximizing the use of existing assets and minimizing the pollution they emit.

IMO nuke is the way to go and the only untapped option is the wave machines that generate power from waves but I have no clue how much power can be supplied from that.

Nukes are the way to go. Zero CO2 emissions, cut the fossil fuesl cord entirely.

Wave machines are... bleh. I've seen some wave power rigs they were deploying in the North Sea. It was a long string of modules, each the size of a bus designed to oscillate back and forth in the waves. Ha! Found it right off the bat: http://www.pelamiswave.com/

Anyways, five city buses strung together, wiggling in the North sea, making about 750kw with a capacity factor of 25 to 40% (they claim). That's not that bad honestly. They've got some good ideas no how to maintain the things but time will tell what kind of maintenance costs they incur and how long they last in the North Sea. They downside is that the farther out to sea you go the more they're going to cost to install and maintain. Powerbuoys are another interesting technology that's pretty scalable but pretty much any place you want to build a wave farm is likely going to be used for recreation, commercial fishing, or a sanctuary so getting one of these installations set up is going to be a fight.

[kostmayer]

The best idea I heard regarding electric cars was to make the batteries standard, and have stations where you could drop off your depleted battery and swap it out for a charged one. Not sure how practical it would be in real life but it would solve the problem of charging time.

Frankly, I'd like to see cars get used a lot less. I understand some people have no choice. Also the way things are priced now, if theres more than one of you then most journeys are cheaper by car than by public transport. IMO public transport should always be the cheaper option, and it should be reliable enough to be a real alternative for most journeys,

[Tyyr]

The best idea I heard regarding electric cars was to make the batteries standard, and have stations where you could drop off your depleted battery and swap it out for a charged one. Not sure how practical it would be in real life but it would solve the problem of charging time.

Utterly impractical. Car makers aren't going to give up something like the battery to standardization. And really, when you can fast charge a car to full capacity in half an hour what's the benefit really?

Frankly, I'd like to see cars get used a lot less. I understand some people have no choice. Also the way things are priced now, if theres more than one of you then most journeys are cheaper by car than by public transport. IMO public transport should always be the cheaper option, and it should be reliable enough to be a real alternative for most journeys,

The only way to make it cheaper would be subsidization, which just means you pay for the journey in your taxes instead of at the bus itself, and public transport isn't going to be able to be made ubiquitous or convenient in a lot of areas. Not without massive amounts of spending. And really, if you go to EVs what difference does it make if people own a car or not?

[kostmayer]

In the UK the roads are getting more and more congested every year. With the rate our population is rising, the roads simply can't handle all the extra vehicles. I know all journeys can't be replaced by public transport currently, but certainly many of the trips people make in cars are done so for convenience, rather then necessity.

Can't say I blame people, I much preferred getting about by car but I couldn't justify the cost of keeping it.

[McAvoy]

United States still has large areas where it would uneconomical to have public transport yo pick up a single person in the middle of nowhere for example. Even in my area in East Windsor New Jersey, buses are not that useful because it gets heavily forested or farmland within a couple of miles of Hightstown.

[Tyyr]

I can't speak for the UK but I did use public transit for a while in college. It sucked. Buses ran once an hour which makes fitting a trip into your schedule problematic. If you miss one, sucks to be you because you're now killing an hour waiting on the bus and in the Florida heat that blows. What would be a twenty minute errand for someone with a car they can do on the spur of the moment was a carefully planned and at a minimum hour long effort via public transport. I eventually just got a bike.

Public transportation in the US isn't going to be feasible in most areas. The US isn't hurting for space so most cities grew outwards, not upwards. Orlando covers over 300 square miles and if you count the smaller suburbs around it that grows to nearly 500 square miles for a single city. From a purely square milage standpoint Orlando is bigger than London yet in the metro area has about a 1/6th the population.

There's just no way to feasibly cover the entire city with a truly useful public transport system when the population is so thinly spread, not and it not cost a fortune to use. I won't even get into the cultural reasons why public transport is a non-starter in the US.

Speaking purely for myself, the bus could be absolutely free and I'd still buy a car. It's too useful (today I'm going to go pick up a bed for my girls in my truck) and it's too convenient.

[Teaos]

My partner and I currently dont have a car, we either bike or walk, or if the weather is really shitty, take the tram, but it is convenienty located to us. As a family, we would always have at least one car.

[Reliant121]

I can't speak for the UK but I did use public transit for a while in college. It sucked. Buses ran once an hour which makes fitting a trip into your schedule problematic. If you miss one, sucks to be you because you're now killing an hour waiting on the bus and in the Florida heat that blows. What would be a twenty minute errand for someone with a car they can do on the spur of the moment was a carefully planned and at a minimum hour long effort via public transport. I eventually just got a bike.

Public transportation in the US isn't going to be feasible in most areas. The US isn't hurting for space so most cities grew outwards, not upwards. Orlando covers over 300 square miles and if you count the smaller suburbs around it that grows to nearly 500 square miles for a single city. From a purely square milage standpoint Orlando is bigger than London yet in the metro area has about a 1/6th the population.

There's just no way to feasibly cover the entire city with a truly useful public transport system when the population is so thinly spread, not and it not cost a fortune to use. I won't even get into the cultural reasons why public transport is a non-starter in the US.

Speaking purely for myself, the bus could be absolutely free and I'd still buy a car. It's too useful (today I'm going to go pick up a bed for my girls in my truck) and it's too convenient.

In contrast, my local bus service is served every 7 minutes and is reasonably on time. Its expensive though. I counted up all my current journeys and average mileage and it'd cost me well over a £1500 a year to make the journeys I do. With my insurance, tax and fuel costs on the bike I pay roughly about £1200 (and thats only cause im a youth and therefore I'm utterly frightening to insurance companies).

[McAvoy]

Youths are frightening to all drivers on the road too. It always gets me that men are the ones who get higher insurance but it seems that women are the ones who drive stupid. End of mini rant.

European countries and the UK have effective mass transit systems due to your size and how much you need them. The US is very spread out. Mass transit works for cities like New York due to it being a huge city with a billion cars going the same way.

[Mikey]

Men pay higher premiums than women until age 25. And yes, I hate to betray my gender but boys under 25 ARE less responsible and more... well, idiotic then women of the same age.

[kostmayer]

Gonna have to agree with Mikey here. Also, the insurance companies obviously think so too which is why they charge them higher premiums.

[Captain Seafort]

Also, the insurance companies obviously think so too which is why they charge them higher premiums.

They don't over here. Because the EU is fucking stupid.

[Mikey]

Yeah, it sounds sexist but insurance companies don't do ANYTHING without defined actuarial evidence.

[Reliant121]

I can only offer anecdotal experience but I have never been in a near accident with a male; it is universally inattentive females that cause me issues. I don't particularly argue with the fact males pay more insurance, or are statistically more likely to be dangerous, I'm a single individual. It's just not exactly joyful being screwed for something you do not do.

Such is life.

[McAvoy]

Men pay higher premiums than women until age 25. And yes, I hate to betray my gender but boys under 25 ARE less responsible and more... well, idiotic then women of the same age.

Males drive stupidly because they are playing around. Females drive stupid because they drive stupid regardless of age. To many times I have seen women drivers nearly cause an accident because of makeup or phone or in one case eating a bowl of cereal.

*edited because my phone thinks female means fences.