Bent crude tops 60 a barrel

Then Moonbeam comes along and mandates ALL cars and private vehicles in California MUST be electric. I'm not grousing about electric vehicle, I'm grousing about the mentality that strongly suggests they forgot to EXhale.

DIG THE PHOTO CREDIT OF THE CHAIRMAN OF THE PEOPLE's REPUBLIC



"You WILL drive an electric vehicle or WALK!"

Most cars are parked most of the time. Look it up. Most cars are parked a majority of the daylight hours too. The only EV owner I know personally arrives at work around 7:30 AM and plugs in all day until his shift is over.

We're at the point already where a fully off grid PV home is a realistic financial alternative to monthly utility bills. If I were building a new stick home today in an area with good sun and moderate climate I'd never pay an electric utility again.

That said, I would hold off on switching to EV myself until range issues are sorted. If I wanted one tomorrow it would be the Volt, so I'd have the option of using grid power or gasoline.

Some commercial fleets have gone to NG on a limited basis and all the commercial engine builders offer NG engines, Cummins, Detroit Diesel, Volvo-Mack and I think Cat for their off road series (Cat no longer builds an on road engine).

The problem lies with fueling, not the engines themselves, fueling and containment. You cannot pull into a fuel stop and fill the LNG tank. Takes a special nozzle and it's not quick either.

Heck of a lot cleaner and no emissions garbage like the Tier 4 final diesels have today.

Probably some sort of exchange cylinder would be the answer but again, not in my lifetime.

I remember the UPS hybrid electric delivery trucks coming in the shop for work. Interesting vehicles.

Honda had a natural gas Accord for a while. Never really took off.

Still stuck going to an inconvenient fuel station. Home refueling did not pan out very well. Just higher cost almost like the Mirai.

Natural gas might work well in a motorhome to get off crude oil.

pnichols wrote:
Wouldn't it make more sense to use natural gas directly to power transportation vehicles - instead of using electricity as the in-between middle man between natural gas powered generation plants and the final powering of a vehicle?Wouldn't it make more sense to use natural gas directly to power transportation vehicles - instead of using electricity as the in-between middle man between natural gas powered generation plants and the final powering of a vehicle?

If they could get the high pressure natural gas storage tanks for vehicles small enough, light enough, and safe/strong enough - plus at the same time large enough to provide a 400-500 mile range in cold/hot weather - then I vote for on-vehicle natural gas directly powering of our personal vehicles ..... until hydrogen powered fuel cells and their hydrogen storage tanks for vehicles become viable.

Electric motors are superb for turning axles - but I question the hope of ever producing the long life, ultra-high energy density per cubic inch, inexpensive, and light enough batteries necessary for this for all of us at good refueling ranges in all weather - even if the electrical energy creation and distribution challenges for recharging are solved for the entire world.

I love science and engineering - but so far they haven't come close to figuring out how to match the energy creation capacity of fusion here on Earth and how to match here on Earth anywhere near the energy storage capability of a mini-sun held in a gravity bottle.

Natural gas carried in the vehicle seems like a great interim solution for both cleaner air and adequate on-board energy storage.

It would actually. The problem with operating any vehicle on NG (LNG actually) is the fueling issue and the containment issue.

3 tons wrote:

pnichols wrote:

time2roll wrote:
And all this time I thought they pumped at night and generate in the afternoon.

That's reversed if the need is to provide a water battery for solar energy storage: Use the electric motors to pump the reservoir full when the sun is available so you have pump motor power ... and then whenever the sun isn't available or the reservoir is full enough, let the water drain from a higher level reservoir into a lower level reservoir through the reversed rotation pump motors to make electricity.

The anti-reservoir crowd shouldn't care - in fact they should endorse the method, being that a lot of them are sustainable/renewable energy types anyway - because the "reservoirs" are only used for the temporary storage of water in two locations that can be very close to each other. The only water "used up" would be that through evaporation and leakage, which could be replaced from outside sources periodically as needed. The reservoirs would be very access and use controlled and have nothing to do with boating, fishing, swimming, or the sustaining of wildlife ... just like with "drinking water supply" reservoirs that can't be accessed or used for anything else. Of course a couple of huge tanks could serve the same technical purpose ... but I'm assuming that earthen reservoirs could be constructed to hold way, way more water for energy storage than any man-made tanks.

IMHO, water movement between two high-low reservoirs to act as temporary storage of vast energy from the sun is a perfect solution to the sun's fickleness impact on widespread solar energy use. Let's get on with it everywhere possible ... the large solar farms need not even be physically close to the water batteries.

From most of the previous postings it seems some of the posters have yet to perceive or acknowledge that any real need even exist!!.... either way, it cost lots of money to procure, build and maintain these dams, eh..... Yet we’re still responding to a perceived need without FIRST understanding if EV’s are a better transportation choice than converting our fleets to a widely available, clean burning, long lasting supply of Natural gas, without attempting to determine the true net pollution gain??.... For the answer, just follow the money of those invested in the EV transportation solution...

3 tons

Good evening 3 tons. I agree the jury may be out for awhile on what is the best way to go but to some extent the consumer will decide. I don't know much about natural gas powered autos. Do they use the same internal combustion engines with transmissions and differentials and oil and plugs and filters etc. If so I think they would be a hard sell against an electric vehicle in say 10 years. Drive an electric vehicle and drive an ICE vehicle and there is really no comparison...in my opinion. But others as well. Many EV drivers couldn't imagine going back to something as awful feeling as an ICE after spending even a week with an EV. It really is a game changer for many. Maybe they'll fix some of the shortfalls of the ICE vehicles in the meantime but I would think many next generation drivers that have driven an EV won't even look at a ICE regardless if its gas or natural gas propelling it. But like I said, I have no idea how a natural gas vehicle works.

JMHO. Interesting discussion though.

John

Wouldn't it make more sense to use natural gas directly to power transportation vehicles - instead of using electricity as the in-between middle man between natural gas powered generation plants and the final powering of a vehicle?

If they could get the high pressure natural gas storage tanks for vehicles small enough, light enough, and safe/strong enough - plus at the same time large enough to provide a 400-500 mile range in cold/hot weather - then I vote for on-vehicle natural gas directly powering of our personal vehicles ..... until hydrogen powered fuel cells and their hydrogen storage tanks for vehicles become viable.

Electric motors are superb for turning axles - but I question the hope of ever producing the long life, ultra-high energy density per cubic inch, inexpensive, and light enough batteries necessary for this for all of us at good refueling ranges in all weather - even if the electrical energy creation and distribution challenges for recharging are solved for the entire world.

I love science and engineering - but so far they haven't come close to figuring out how to match the energy creation capacity of fusion here on Earth and how to match here on Earth anywhere near the energy storage capability of a mini-sun held in a gravity bottle.

Natural gas carried in the vehicle seems like a great interim solution for both cleaner air and adequate on-board energy storage.

Didn't they just have an almost dam disaster near California. I remember seeing it on the news, something about the Feather River.....

Closest we have to hydro power here is Niagara Falls and some paltry generating plants on rivers here in Michigan. Basically nuclear around here or NG Peakers units with some coal plants, most notably DTE Energy in Monroe, Michigan.

Was talk of windmills on the Lake Erie shoreline but when the powers to be realized they would need windmills from Trenton, Michigan to the Ohio line to equal the output of DTE Monroe, that plan was shelved.

pnichols wrote:

time2roll wrote:
And all this time I thought they pumped at night and generate in the afternoon.

That's reversed if the need is to provide a water battery for solar energy storage: Use the electric motors to pump the reservoir full when the sun is available so you have pump motor power ... and then whenever the sun isn't available or the reservoir is full enough, let the water drain from a higher level reservoir into a lower level reservoir through the reversed rotation pump motors to make electricity.

The anti-reservoir crowd shouldn't care - in fact they should endorse the method, being that a lot of them are sustainable/renewable energy types anyway - because the "reservoirs" are only used for the temporary storage of water in two locations that can be very close to each other. The only water "used up" would be that through evaporation and leakage, which could be replaced from outside sources periodically as needed. The reservoirs would be very access and use controlled and have nothing to do with boating, fishing, swimming, or the sustaining of wildlife ... just like with "drinking water supply" reservoirs that can't be accessed or used for anything else. Of course a couple of huge tanks could serve the same technical purpose ... but I'm assuming that earthen reservoirs could be constructed to hold way, way more water for energy storage than any man-made tanks.

IMHO, water movement between two high-low reservoirs to act as temporary storage of vast energy from the sun is a perfect solution to the sun's fickleness impact on widespread solar energy use. Let's get on with it everywhere possible ... the large solar farms need not even be physically close to the water batteries.

From most of the previous postings it seems some of the posters have yet to perceive or acknowledge that any real need even exist!!.... either way, it cost lots of money to procure, build and maintain these dams, eh..... Yet we’re still responding to a perceived need without FIRST understanding if EV’s are a better transportation choice than converting our fleets to a widely available, clean burning, long lasting supply of Natural gas, without attempting to determine the true net pollution gain??.... For the answer, just follow the money of those invested in the EV transportation solution...

3 tons

But most people do not care about net energy consumption, they care about having energy available when they need it at the lowest possible cost.

Do an online audit of California's gWh production and then deduct extraneous power from both Nevada's Hoover Dam and the Trans Nevada DC power line.

How much do you have? Then deduct nuclear generated power - that's a real crowd boo. Coal? No way. Petroleum power? Hiss?

Ah! dams! No, there's the Sierra Club.

Solar panels! Let's launch a ten thousand square mile mylar reflector to allow solar power at night. Aim it at at at Fresno, or Barstool (Barstow), and..and...use tidal generators, maybe buoys across the Sacramento river, recess for children in giant squirrel cage generators.

Someone isn't thinking this through - especially when, not if, a large Winter storm covers much of Northern California for days on end.

There is zero value in building oil burning generating plants that consume half again the petroleum to power the same number of electric versus petroleum cars. Stack scrubbers alone would cost hundreds of billions of dollars to end up with very clean generating plants.

Nuclear is the only viable alternative. But California's eco-crowd treats nuclear on par with Ebola.

Titanic coal burning plants in the middle of Nevada would only serve to ###-off Coloradans.

Someone is going to be in for many many rude surprises. But like in any generational change over, they have to learn the hard way. First order of the day - ignore warnings from people who have seen visions of utopia come, then get dashed. Those warnings are issued by senile cynics.