[extropy-chat] Fuel cell vehicles arriving in 2005

[Dan Clemmensen]

Eugen Leitl wrote:

>On Sun, Jan 09, 2005 at 03:51:48PM -0500, Dan Clemmensen wrote:
>  
>
>>if so, then those vehicles are in effect being powered by whatever new 
>>electrical generation
>>    
>>
>
>Even if it's just EVs, they're ZEV locally (energy plant is high-efficiency,
>and exhaust scrubbed), and are more efficient than ICE overall, if properly
>designed (a large if, admittedly, if one considers what today passes for an
>EV on the road, yecch).
>
>I'm not sure anything could beat a composite-frame Li-ion EV for daily short
>commutes, right now. You'd recharge them overnight, or when parking at work
>(could be from a PV array, or from night nuke power, which is cheap).
>
>  
>
OK, this finally begins to make qualitative sense. I don't know when/if 
it will make
quantitative sense.

Forget the "hydrogen economy" because there are far too many technical 
hurdles and
there is far to high an infrastructure investment. Use "battery" powered 
EVs, which can be
developed with no major new fuel infrastructure. Charge them up from the 
power grid,
but use off-peak power. The real cost of off-peak power is a lot lower 
than peak power,
and the real problem with using off-peak power has always been storage. 
But to use an
EV, you already had to purchase storage.

Where base power is provided by nukes or hydro, this is a huge win. 
Where base power
is fossil fuel, it's less of a win, but still a win.

In addition to all of the above, we have the possibility of shifting a 
higher percentage of
the power from "base" generators to "peak" generators. As an increasing 
percentage of the
power goes to EVs, the power company can depend on the ability to shut 
off the EV chargers
temporarily to meet peak loads. This also allows the power companies to 
make better use
of unreliable sources such as wind or solar, at least to some extent.

This has little to do with fuel cells, except to the extent that a fuel 
cell might be a rechargeable
battery.

With this arrangement, the running cost of EV is driven by the cost of 
new base power, not
new peak power.

There is one piece of required fuel infrastructure: the ability to 
purchase "off-peak only" power
in the home. But most of this infrastructure already exists. It's 
basically a really cheap computer
that needs to be added to the home charging station. Many power 
companies already place signals
on their power lines to temporarily deactivate equipment (hot water 
heaters and air conditioners)
on a rotating based to lower the peaks. This signalling infrastructure 
can be used, probably without
modification, to control the off-peak charging stations.