Quote:
Originally Posted by Darwins Child
1. How will the electricity that will be required to manufacture the EV vehicles, as well as charge the batteries of perhaps billions of EVs, going to be produced and what electrical infrastructure is going to be required to bring that electricity into homes?
|
Generating the electricity is technically fairly easy to do using nuclear - but the NIMBY crowd will probably continue to make it difficult/impossible to construct new capacity.
Transmission, on the other hand, is a
big problem. Many parts of the grid - especially those parts around major metropolitan areas, were EVs would do the most good - are already operating above design capacity.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Darwins Child
2. Will EVs be practical for those who live in snowy, very cold climates where, for just one example, those EVs' interiors must be constantly heated?
|
While electric heat would definitely decrease range, newer batteries have an incredible amount of storage capacity. In really cold areas, LPG (readily available, reasonably cheap, as safe to store/carry as gasoline) heating could be used.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Darwins Child
3. Which would be "better" -- to burn natural gas in a "clean" power plant that will produce electricity to charge an EV's battery, or to burn that natural gas in a vehicle that has a well-designed internal combustion engine?
|
A central plant is more efficient and cleaner than distributed generation. If for no other reason than maintenance on the pollution control systems - the plants are constantly monitored and adjustments/repairs made when needed.
But you run into the transmission problems mentioned above.
Ie, neither solution is better.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Darwins Child
All of the political and technical obstacles to EVs can be overcome with political (mostly propaganda) and technological solutions, especially if the electricity is going to be generated with wind turbines, solar panels, etc., but the surface of the planet and residential roofs in an EV-only world will almost certainly look far different than they do now.
|
All those alternatives come at a price. Wind takes up a lot of space and produces a lot of noise. The areas where there is enough wind on a regular basis are very limited. Solar panel production is very "dirty" and disposal of panels that run their life span (or are broken) will be a problem.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Darwins Child
To be as brief as possible, if centralized fossil-fuel or nuclear power plants generate the electricity for EVs, there will be a whole raft of political and technological problems that will have to be dealt with for literally hundreds of years (if the environmental conditions of the planet remain habitable for humans, that is).
|
As far as I can tell, the only real, long-term solution is to reduce the demand for energy in all forms. More generation is, at best, a stop-gap measure.