Tech Won't Save Us

[Nearings Fault]

A Chevy bolt will do 4 miles per lWHr... 1 kw of solar array will produce roughly 1200-1400 kWHrs per year...

[RE]

How long does it take your 2kw array to charge your EV, and how do you run your house while the car is chatging?

RE

as I'm sure you realize that is not a system for an electric car household.

Understood.  The question is, how big an array do you need to BOTH power a house and charge an EV?  That is what is necessary for the model being promoted here of using EV Batts as part of the total power storage system for the grid and to convert the current fleet of ICE vehicles to EVs.  Every suburban house would need an EV also to maintain the suburban living model.

RE

OK, answering my own question.

According to Google charging a Tesla off a standard 120V home outlet takes 20-40 hours.  Let's split the difference and call it avg 30 hours.  A standard circuit is 20 amps for 2400 watts. How many hours/day do you get enough sunlight to generate 2400 watts?  On a good sunny day 5?  So call it 6 days to charge up with a 2.4 kw solar array, during which time said electricity is not available to run the house or charge the home batt.  Obviously you need a substantially larger solar PV array to handle this task.

To bring it within reason, you probably have to increase your array size by a factor of 10 to generate 24 kw. You'll need 10X the number of panels and  wiring and inverters capable of handling the load.  So if your basic 2400 kw array cost $10K, an array for the Tesla costs $100K, plus of course you still need the original array to power the house.

This setup charges the Tesla in 3 hours, reasonable as long as you are charging it during the hours the sun is shining.  If not, you would need a 2nd batt pack to charge while you are driving.

Since your array is so much larger, you need substantially more property on which to drop it, increasing the cost of your McMansion and your annual property taxes.

All in all, I would say $100K for the setup is an underestimate, and that's just to buy it.  It doesn't include the annual property tax bill, insurance or maintenance.

Then there is the cost of the Tesla itself, burrently around $30K for the cheapest ones I think.  More than 1 car needed, multiply those cost again for a still larger array, unless you can be charging one car while the other is driving.

Now of course as long as you don't completely drain the batt every day and only need to partially charge it, you can get away with a smaller setup.  Also, as long as there is a commercial charging station nearby you would not need to fully charge at home.  However, commercial charging stations would require a grid connection, which brings us back round to needing to upgrade the grid to carry higher loads out to the boonies.

Cloudy days also a problem.  lol.

RE

[Nearings Fault]

Not bad for a guess

How long does it take your 2kw array to charge your EV, and how do you run your house while the car is chatging?

RE

as I'm sure you realize that is not a system for an electric car household.

Understood.  The question is, how big an array do you need to BOTH power a house and charge an EV?  That is what is necessary for the model being promoted here of using EV Batts as part of the total power storage system for the grid and to convert the current fleet of ICE vehicles to EVs.  Every suburban house would need an EV also to maintain the suburban living model.

RE

OK, answering my own question.

According to Google charging a Tesla off a standard 120V home outlet takes 20-40 hours.  Let's split the difference and call it avg 30 hours.  A standard circuit is 20 amps for 2400 watts. How many hours/day do you get enough sunlight to generate 2400 watts?  On a good sunny day 5?  So call it 6 days to charge up with a 2.4 kw solar array, during which time said electricity is not available to run the house or charge the home batt.  Obviously you need a substantially larger solar PV array to handle this task.

To bring it within reason, you probably have to increase your array size by a factor of 10 to generate 24 kw. You'll need 10X the number of panels and  wiring and inverters capable of handling the load.  So if your basic 2400 kw array cost $10K, an array for the Tesla costs $100K, plus of course you still need the original array to power the house.

This setup charges the Tesla in 3 hours, reasonable as long as you are charging it during the hours the sun is shining.  If not, you would need a 2nd batt pack to charge while you are driving.

Since your array is so much larger, you need substantially more property on which to drop it, increasing the cost of your McMansion and your annual property taxes.

All in all, I would say $100K for the setup is an underestimate, and that's just to buy it.  It doesn't include the annual property tax bill, insurance or maintenance.

Then there is the cost of the Tesla itself, burrently around $30K for the cheapest ones I think.  More than 1 car needed, multiply those cost again for a still larger array, unless you can be charging one car while the other is driving.

Now of course as long as you don't completely drain the batt every day and only need to partially charge it, you can get away with a smaller setup.  Also, as long as there is a commercial charging station nearby you would not need to fully charge at home.  However, commercial charging stations would require a grid connection, which brings us back round to needing to upgrade the grid to carry higher loads out to the boonies.

Cloudy days also a problem.  lol.

RE

. Not bad for a guess but your numbers are way off. The level 1 charger on a Tesla is roughly 1200 watts or 4 to 5 miles per hour. You would not use a level one charger on solar with a large array you would use a level 2 at 30 amps at 240 volts for roughly 25 to 30 miles of charge per hour. If I was designing it I would do a 3kw array feeding to the grid for an electric car driving roughly 10000 miles a year. If the were off grid I would want to boost the array size to 5000 watts just for the car portion. I end up charging about 3 dollars Canadian per watt so roughly 15000 for the array required to run the car

[RE]

Not bad for a guess but your numbers are way off. The level 1 charger on a Tesla is roughly 1200 watts or 4 to 5 miles per hour. You would not use a level one charger on solar with a large array you would use a level 2 at 30 amps at 240 volts for roughly 25 to 30 miles of charge per hour. If I was designing it I would do a 3kw array feeding to the grid for an electric car driving roughly 10000 miles a year. If the were off grid I would want to boost the array size to 5000 watts just for the car portion. I end up charging about 3 dollars Canadian per watt so roughly 15000 for the array required to run the car

Just had the numbers provided by Google,  I figured you would come back with a more accurate figure. 30A 240V is 7200W, how much do those inverters go for?  How much for the wiring from the array to the garage?  How much for the installation on roof and off roof on scaffolding?  How many sq feet does it take up?  How much for the grid tie in  and licensing?  How much to set it on motors to track the sun?

In any event, it is cheaper than my Google estimate, and for 25-30 mi/hr of charging, time is 2 5 hour days of charging for a 250-300 mi range.  Still need the sunny days, still can't use the car during the time of day you need to be charging it.

As I see it, EVs make great commuter cars as long as the workplace parking has plug-ins.  However, this then puts the charging load on the grid unless said workplace has an array big enough to charge all the employee Teslas simultaneously.  I wonder if even Tesla HQ has an array that big?

RE

Edit:  You're proposing 3kw  of power, not 7200w.  So the charging time is more than twice as long, about the 5 days I originally calculated.]

[Nearings Fault]

You start getting into units there; Watts versus Watt Hours. The level 2 charger is 7200 watts. The proposed grid connected array was 3000 watts. The numbers are not power just peak draw or production... So average per hour array production is roughly 3 hours per day so 9000 watt hours per day everyday,So roughly 30-50 miles per day of production. Grid connected that means it doesn't matter if you are there or not. That is why the off-grid array would be larger since you want more bang for your buck while the car is there. If you are driving more than 50 miles a day you need a lifestyle change.

[RE]

If you are driving more than 50 miles a day you need a lifestyle change.

Agreed 100% there.  All I am really trying to demonstrate is how unrealistic the fantasy model is that we can transition over to EVs and power them with renewables and maintain the suburban model of living.  It's not just the pricetag, it uses too much energy.  A typical New York commuter who lives on Long Island or in NJ drives 50 mile each way into Manhattan every day.  People who live around cities like Austin or Atlanta drive even further.

After that you have the kids being shipped back and forth to school, all the soccer moms playing chauffer  and UPS trucks driving to everybody's McMansion to drop off the latest online impulse buy from Amazon.

The techno solution crowd sell the idea we can keep all this going with zero emissions by 2035 if we just expand and upgrade the grid and drop solar pv arrays on every subdivision in Connecticut.  People believe this and will keep believing it right up till the brownouts hit every day and they start rotating blackouts to ration the juice.

Nothing short of a complete lifestyle change will suffice, but there's no housing model to replace the suburban dwellings.  Can't move all those people back to the city, they're already short of housing.  Can't move them out to the boonies, there isn't enough work out there.

Rock, meet Hard Place.

RE

[Nearings Fault]

Hard to argue with any of that. I decided that I would work on the solutions which work and I want to see in the world. Just because people are being sold the green business as usual model does not mean that that model emerges or even should emerge. If 10 years from now millions of people have solar arrays with battery backup and electric cars that is a good thing. What they do with them at that point is up to them.aybe they create a world for themselves involving less stuff and commuting and waste. We do not know what happens next.

[RE]

Hard to argue with any of that. I decided that I would work on the solutions which work and I want to see in the world. Just because people are being sold the green business as usual model does not mean that that model emerges or even should emerge. If 10 years from now millions of people have solar arrays with battery backup and electric cars that is a good thing. What they do with them at that point is up to them.aybe they create a world for themselves involving less stuff and commuting and waste. We do not know what happens next.

I'm all for prepping up best you can of course, and if you are amongst the lucky few with income enough to afford these techno marvels and have a type of work you can pursue within 25 miles of your home in a rural location, that's great.  The problem of course is one of numbers, and because such a limited subset of the population is in a position to achieve this level of resilience you end up with the social problems that upset the apple cart.

Just as a rising tide will lift all boats, so an ebbing tide will bring them all down.  At the risk of laying on the metaphors too thick, no man is an island.    Once a critical mass within a given country no longer has regular access to the energy that allows them to access and store food, to have lights to read by and keep the streets safe, to transport themselves to the workplace, one domino after the other begins to fall.  The businesses that relied on people who commuted to them fail from lack of personnel, the products and services they provided no longer are available, the economy collapses and even if you're out in the boonies with a charged up EV, there's no place to drive to still open for bizness.  Nowhere to buy the supplies you need to run your own bizness, no food superstores with anything on the shelf, no money that works to buy anything.

What percentage of the population has to be without sufficient energy for these basics of lights, food acquisition and storage and transportation for the cascade failure begins to spread through the society?  I'd wager less than 50%, but I would be surprised if we could even get 20% of the population up to your level, which at the moment doesn't include an EV car.  As I recall, your plan is to use Wood Gas for the transportation energy needs.

So, you and other Doomers with an equivalent level of preparation should do better than most, but the real question is what happens to the society surrounding you?  How does that reform and reconfigure, and can you stay insulated and removed from the chaos surrounding you?  What comes after?

Unanswerable questions of course, but still worth considering what part you would play, since your goal here is to survive the Zero Point.

RE

[RE]

Now why don't they buy?

https://www.axios.com/2023/07/10/unsold-electric-cars-are-piling-up-on-dealer-lots

Unsold electric cars are piling up on dealer lots

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uvp71LGVISs

RE

[RE]

Here's where the tech was incubated.  Now better known as "Layoff Valley".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xvrKW2H_hA

RE

[K-Dog]

Here's where the tech was incubated.  Now better known as "Layoff Valley".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xvrKW2H_hA

RE

There was an overflow into Seattle.  There was an existing talent pool, and costs were competitive for small companies compared to the bay area.  The 80's and 90's supported a pool of about 150 electrical engineers in the Seattle Area serving small companies.  I am one of them.  I stopped the video to comprehend the VU tube meter circuit shown in the textbook.

Then things went overseas. 

Microsoft became a big player at the end.

If they heyday of Silicon Valley was like the Cambrian Era, then Microsoft and others who moved things to China constitute a Permian Extinction.

[K-Dog]

This puppy is short so I'll let the urban philosopher do the talking.

[RE]

If these guys think the job market for code jockeys is bad now, wait until the lights go out.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5y37j/thousands-of-software-engineers-say-the-job-market-is-getting-much-worse

Thousands of Software Engineers Say the Job Market Is Getting Much Worse

RE

[RE]

More small EVs currently mostly available in Europe or China, but you can get the ones that are in production shipped here.

The average price on them is about $15K, but some are as cheap as $3K.  They mostly CAN be charged up in a reasonable amount of time with a small home solar PV installation.  Range varies from about 30 miles to 100 on a charge, and top speed average about 30mph.  Quite a few do highway speeds though and 1 does over 100 and 0-60 faster than a porche.  There are 60 different models shown in this vid!

There's even a mini quad-copter which is an oversize drone.  Only 20min flying time, but if I had a nice 45' yacht to live on, it would be perfect to anchor offshore and hop inland to a taverna for a few bottles of retsina and ouzo.  24min in to the vid

RE

[RE]

Even better than Cold Fusion!  Forget the colonies on Mars!  Liquidate your investments in AI!  We're going BACK TO THE FUTURE!



Do you think this guy will get some Venture Capitalist to give him some start-up cash?  Will Goldman underwrite an IPO for $100B for the new DejaVu Corporation (DJV) on the NYSE?  It's gotta be worth at least as much as Facebook, right?

This shit actually gets reported and makes it onto the Google Newz page.  Meanwhile details of the Moscow attack remain murky.  Juliane Assange did however continue to avoid extradition to the FSoA for a while longer.

https://bgr.com/science/an-astrophysicist-claims-he-finally-figured-out-time-travel/

An astrophysicist claims he finally figured out time travel

RE