Making Electric Vehicles work!

Magoo, interesting to hear about your project with MIT

On the whole we definitely have to get a lot more realistic with efficiencies if we are serious about moving away from the black gold. Regardless of means of propulsion cars need to get smaller, lighter, more aerodynamic and have less rolling friction. Clive Sinclair will be proven right in the end, he just got his timing wrong ;) Once oil hits $2/3/400s a barrel we won't have a choice but go electric but then the price of electric will go up at the same time due to demand on the electric grid increasing.

At the current rate of increase since 2009 oil will be $300 a barrel by 2022. This would make petrol not far off £5 a litre in the UK ($36/gallon) assuming fuel prices increase at a similar rate to oil. The inadequacies of electric cars will start to look a hell of a lot more palatable in a climate where fuel costs for someone commuting 2 hours a day will cost them close to £1000 a month, ie twice most people's mortgages.

Well...if the price of oil is driven by supply and demand (which I don't completely believe), then we simply need to reduce demand. The easiest, fastest way to reduce demand is to blitz some developing / developed nations back into the stone age. No infrastructure, hapless government, wide-spread poverty, disease and death will do wonders for our energy prices if applied in the right spot. Relax, I'm kidding. For that to work we'd also have to eliminate speculators and their ilk - Goldman-Sachs, World Bank, IMF et al, and then who would be left to finance the war?

I guess that plan only works when you're "acquiring" energy security from "tyrannical despots", not "wilfully enforcing an involuntary shift to green energy" or "foreign energy consumption reduction (which is "helping" foreign nation to reduce the consumption of "your" fossil fuels, rather than reducing your own consumption of imported energy)

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But if you look at 11 kWh in a more objective way, it's a hell of a lot of energy. Enough to operate a family-sized refrigerator for more than a month, for example.

In case you can find a family-sized refrigerator that runs on 15 Watts, then I guess your right. But on the other hand, your lap-top needs far more than that.

Your toaster asks for at least 500 Watts and a modern vacuum-cleaner demands 2000 W, run the latter for 30 minutes and 1 kWh is wasted right there.

A modern car needs about 15 000 W to cruise at 100 Km/h (62 mph), with an efficiency of 80%, that's 20 kW, cruise for half an hour and your 11 kWh are gone.

But if you use all of the 200 kW, or whatever it is, in a Tesla S, the standard 40 kWh battery is empty in 12 minutes.

In case you can find a family-sized refrigerator that runs on 15 Watts, then I guess your right. But on the other hand, your lap-top needs far more than that.

Your toaster asks for at least 500 Watts and a modern vacuum-cleaner demands 2000 W, run the latter for 30 minutes and 1 kWh is wasted right there.

A modern car needs about 15 000 W to cruise at 100 Km/h (62 mph), with an efficiency of 80%, that's 20 kW, cruise for half an hour and your 11 kWh are gone.

But if you use all of the 200 kW, or whatever it is, in a Tesla S, the standard 40 kWh battery is empty in 12 minutes.

As has been pointed out - it takes a shift in assumption of what we expect from our transportation - this is probably as hard , if not harder to achieve than the technological development

Yes it is.

What is so hard about it?

Yes it is.

Something similar

What is so hard about it?

To arrange with a slotcar pick-up on a car in scale 1:1, conveying 100 kW, that will indeed be difficult.

In particular out-doors.

Edited by Rasputin, 26 November 2012 - 20:15.

To arrange with a slotcar pick-up on a car in scale 1:1, conveying 100 kW, that will indeed be difficult.

In particular out-doors.

And I thought I was literal minded!

To arrange with a slotcar pick-up on a car in scale 1:1, conveying 100 kW, that will indeed be difficult.

The trick is to dab a little isopropyl alcohol on the pickup brushes. However, in your application you are going to need a very large Q-Tip.

Edited by Magoo, 26 November 2012 - 21:54.

Yes, I was waiting for the difficulties associated with the braids to be picked up. Quite how we deal with the joins betwen track sections is going to be tricky, giant robots walking along the freeways flexing the sections back together perhaps.

More seriously, you don't need 100 kW, because you only need to supply the average demand for the vehicle, plus any recharging you shoose to do, so 20 kW should do it for a normal size car. We know this stuff can be done, because trains do it. We have the huge advantage with EVs in that contact only has to be intermittent, due to the batteries.

The general idea must be to get rid of half a ton worth of batteries, while most trains moves in one dimension only with the power from above, which simplifies a bit.

The general idea must be to get rid of half a ton worth of batteries, while most trains moves in one dimension only with the power from above, which simplifies a bit.

Actually, if a bus can run on trolley part of the time and battery part of the time, that's a very attractive urban mass transit vehicle. Imagine a trolley that isn't permanently tied to the wires. A number of cities are after it right now.

Rule of thumb is that the energy consumption penalty for additional mass for a vehicle with regenerative braking is about 40% of that for a vehicle with conventional brakes. So carrying batteries is not a deal breaker for an EV.

... that's a very attractive urban mass transit vehicle...

So not very attractive then...

I suspect that if the world is ever able to generate enough electricity to allow all road transport to be electric - this vast amount of electricity will be used in some electrochemical process which synthesizes a liquid or gaseous hydrocarbon fuel of some kind.

I can see no solution (now or in the future) to the power grid distribution and recharging problems that electric cars would require.

On a slight tangent, i do feel that motorised transportation may not be the way forward in the future. In most cases i personally only use my car to get to work and back and to do shopping (plus probably a few erands here and there).

With the way technology is evolving i suspect that there will probably be more people working from home, an increase in online/home delivery shopping and better inter person comunication (like skype, facebook etc). I would hate cite a film as insperation (and especially a kids film) but look at the people from the film wall-e! Sat in those lovely comfortable chairs with the real life equivalent of a generic tablet.

Why travel all that way to work, in all that traffic (creating all that pollution) to sit in an office block all day to sit in more traffic to get back home again? when you could have a company laptop and mobile at home, wake up 10 mins before work and jobs a good 'un. Why would you want to wander around a large shop floor trying to find where there have hidden salt, whilst being surronded by screaming kids, people in your way and spilt milk every where, only to join a 10minute queue at the end of all this?

I was in on a project led by MIT involving inductive charging at stop lights and parking lots. It's do-able but not very efficient at this moment.

I think a lot of the electric car problem depends on which end of the telescope you choose to look through. The 11 kWh in a Chevy Volt's battery pack seems like a puny quantity of energy if you have been spoiled by gasoline and have become accustomed to the luxury of doing everything in the grandest, sloppiest, and least efficient way possible, which is the history of the auto industry to date, more or less. How else do you describe a 4000 lb, 400 hp monster to take one 90 lb lady to work. Gasoline is wonderful, magical stuff, to be sure. It makes this silliness appear to make sense from some angles.

But if you look at 11 kWh in a more objective way, it's a hell of a lot of energy. Enough to operate a family-sized refrigerator for more than a month, for example.

Induction should be fairly efficient, for the systems used on trams I've seen claims about 95% and higher. The cost on the other hand will be a problem, since we're essentially talking about putting the primary side of a transformer in the road and secondary side in the vehicles.

Also, 11 kW will only power a refrigerator for a little less than a month if it's available as electricity. If it's available as heat, a week is more likely.

Magoo, interesting to hear about your project with MIT

On the whole we definitely have to get a lot more realistic with efficiencies if we are serious about moving away from the black gold. Regardless of means of propulsion cars need to get smaller, lighter, more aerodynamic and have less rolling friction. Clive Sinclair will be proven right in the end, he just got his timing wrong ;) Once oil hits $2/3/400s a barrel we won't have a choice but go electric but then the price of electric will go up at the same time due to demand on the electric grid increasing.

At the current rate of increase since 2009 oil will be $300 a barrel by 2022. This would make petrol not far off £5 a litre in the UK ($36/gallon) assuming fuel prices increase at a similar rate to oil. The inadequacies of electric cars will start to look a hell of a lot more palatable in a climate where fuel costs for someone commuting 2 hours a day will cost them close to £1000 a month, ie twice most people's mortgages.

If oil goes to $200/300/400 a barrel, how to fuel our cars isn't our only concern. Oil supplies about a third of the energy used in the world, combined all fossil fuels supply two thirds. With oil at those prices, NG and coal will follow, and with that the prices of pretty much everything will climb to levels not seen in the modern day. Fossil fuels also supply about two thirds of the electricity in the world.

But no, $300 a barrel won't mean £5/liter in the UK. More like $2 (£1.3) per liter plus taxes.

Actually, if a bus can run on trolley part of the time and battery part of the time, that's a very attractive urban mass transit vehicle. Imagine a trolley that isn't permanently tied to the wires. A number of cities are after it right now.

Battery wear is a significant issue in such an application. Expect battery replacements every few years.

Rule of thumb is that the energy consumption penalty for additional mass for a vehicle with regenerative braking is about 40% of that for a vehicle with conventional brakes. So carrying batteries is not a deal breaker for an EV.

If 40% is not a deal beaker, then I wonder what is?

If 40% is not a deal beaker, then I wonder what is?

No you don't wonder. You post one line questions and let everyone else do the thinking. Byee!!!!!!!!

Edited by Greg Locock, 29 November 2012 - 21:59.

No you don't wonder. You post one line questions and let everyone else do the thinking. Byee!!!!!!!!

Thing is, I actually try to post numbers and calculations once in a while, all in order to support my point, how about you?

You do know that you're questioning and putting to task one of the most respected and knowledgeable members of this forum, right? You do realize he's one of the most helpful ones, too- sharing a wealth of information and knowledge, and even his own experiences in the field we're all interested in.

You do know that you're questioning and putting to task one of the most respected and knowledgeable members of this forum, right? You do realize he's one of the most helpful ones, too- sharing a wealth of information and knowledge, and even his own experiences in the field we're all interested in.

Actually I don't, but thanks for sharing, I could never have guessed.

You do know that you're questioning and putting to task one of the most respected and knowledgeable members of this forum, right? You do realize he's one of the most helpful ones, too- sharing a wealth of information and knowledge, and even his own experiences in the field we're all interested in.

+1

Why not base it on model railways rather than slot cars and pick up the power through the wheels.
We could have metal stripes in the road that when the wheels ,with metal mixed in the rubber, were touching these could provide power.

Care would be needed that vehicles did not short circuit these power stripes. I do not see this as a major problem if all vehicles obey simple design rules.

Even if only positioned at traffic lights it could still be useful.

Why not base it on model railways rather than slot cars and pick up the power through the wheels.
We could have metal stripes in the road that when the wheels ,with metal mixed in the rubber, were touching these could provide power.

Care would be needed that vehicles did not short circuit these power stripes. I do not see this as a major problem if all vehicles obey simple design rules.

Even if only positioned at traffic lights it could still be useful.

The reason that the slot car/trolley bus system works for freeways is that basically the path is defined, for vehicles where most of the energy consumption is along those paths. That's not to say a sufficiently clever system couldn't be used around town, but then around town a dedicated EV such as the Leaf has no particular need for external power. Having said that the design of the pickup system is, as Shen Taguchi said to me about something else,' just engineering'.

...
Having said that the design of the pickup system is, as Shen Taguchi said to me about something else,' just engineering'.

"Just engineering"? O'boy, no wonder you are so respected and admired on this forum.

But seriously, the technical challenges with conveying electrical power to a vehicle with two degrees of freedom, that is of course something a number of engineers have been working on.

...I could never have guessed.

At least you got that right! Seems to be a major, or even fundamental, characteristic in most of your participation in this discussion.

The point is, if FF-consumption continues at the present rate (and, of course, it will increase for at least a while) it'll be finished in about 60 years (give or take a decade or two). Before then oil, coal and gas will cost more than diamonds and gold do now, because - amongst other things - all those refinery and oil-field owners don't want to go broke all at once, do they.
So, if not now, then absolutely by then, they'll be spending heaps to develop other energy sources and energy-storage devices - just for the businesses to survive...

Development NEEDS imagination and guesswork (as well as a lot of work, of course).

technological research can come up with really clever **** like this just for the consumer market
http://www.bbc.co.uk...nology-20526577


Hopefully the clever types can come up with equally good solutions to our future energy and transport problems
but probably only when its worth their while

meanwhile we get toys
http://www.bbc.co.uk...nology-18329974
http://www.bbc.co.uk...nology-13308452

To be honest until the Peak HC boys acknowledge that fracking isn't a one-off then I'm inclined to ignore their alarmist prognostications. In the medium term (10 years) HC prices will actually drop as a general trend. In the longer term as it recovers to $100 per barrel equivalent, slowly more technologies will develop, capping the price. To me, professionally, this is annoying - at $400 per barrel ($8 per US gallon before tax and $1 per gallon in processing cost and 17% wastage) things start to get interesting in car design, up til then you just get the European car market.

Even at $10 per US gallon at the pump, running costs for a 15mpg mum's blingy $30k truck only just equal the fixed costs (assume 5 year turnaround), so there is no great incentive for even the mum's taxis of the world to switch to minivans or reduce the amount driven.

Should help covering all cars in this tech. Put it on all building roofs whilst at it.

At least you got that right! Seems to be a major, or even fundamental, characteristic in most of your participation in this discussion.

---

Development NEEDS imagination and guesswork (as well as a lot of work, of course).

Oh my, blessed are the meek I, again, guess?

If oil goes to $200/300/400 a barrel, how to fuel our cars isn't our only concern. Oil supplies about a third of the energy used in the world, combined all fossil fuels supply two thirds. With oil at those prices, NG and coal will follow, and with that the prices of pretty much everything will climb to levels not seen in the modern day. Fossil fuels also supply about two thirds of the electricity in the world.

But no, $300 a barrel won't mean £5/liter in the UK. More like $2 (£1.3) per liter plus taxes.

How did you work this out and why leave off the taxes? You do realise fuel duty in the UK is over 50%? And then VAT at 22.5% is on top of that! Fuel is currently already £1.40 a litre in the UK which means the untaxed cost is around 48p when oil is $100 a barrel. Times this by 3 = £1.5/l pre tax hence around £4.50 with duty and tax added back on.

You were saying?

Edited by Tenmantaylor, 07 December 2012 - 22:39.

How did you work this out and why leave off the taxes? You do realise fuel duty in the UK is over 50%? And then VAT at 22.5% is on top of that! Fuel is currently already £1.40 a litre in the UK which means the untaxed cost is around 48p when oil is $100 a barrel. Times this by 3 = £1.5/l pre tax hence around £4.50 with duty and tax added back on.

You were saying?

I think you are furiously making the same point A barrel of oil has 200 litres in it, of which 170 reach the customer. At the moment then the raw material of the stuff at the pump is about pounds 2 per gallon So the price of oil would have to increase by a stratospheric multiplier before it matches the taxes you voted for.

I drive a Nissan LEAF at work. The nominal range of this car is 200 km but we've only just managed to squeak 130 km out of it before going into Turtle mode, in perfect weather with no electrical consumers turned on.

In winter, it's good for 80-90 km tops. This is in a mild climate, Vancouver Island; in snow and winter it'd be worse still.

In hot weather areas (Arizona, for example) scores of the LEAFs have had premature battery degradation due to overheating (the battery pack is not actively cooled), so some who bought it expecting to commute 100 miles a day have found it'll do maybe 50-60 after they've lost two or three capacity bars (permanent loss).

It's a nice car to drive, but it's annoying to get into it when fully charged and have the equivalent range of my diesel smart when the dash is screaming at me that it has 4 litres left in the tank.

With an oil-price at 300 USD per barrel things will change of course, but only if the price for electricity doesn't follow, why the world has to go nuclear.

There's simply no other way and hey, that's not guesswork.

I drive a Nissan LEAF at work. The nominal range of this car is 200 km but we've only just managed to squeak 130 km out of it before going into Turtle mode, in perfect weather with no electrical consumers turned on.

In winter, it's good for 80-90 km tops. This is in a mild climate, Vancouver Island; in snow and winter it'd be worse still.

In hot weather areas (Arizona, for example) scores of the LEAFs have had premature battery degradation due to overheating (the battery pack is not actively cooled), so some who bought it expecting to commute 100 miles a day have found it'll do maybe 50-60 after they've lost two or three capacity bars (permanent loss).

It's a nice car to drive, but it's annoying to get into it when fully charged and have the equivalent range of my diesel smart when the dash is screaming at me that it has 4 litres left in the tank.

Nissan should be commended for making the only real electric car from scratch, and not a conversion, out of the traditional carmakers. Still I feel it is a halfhearted attempt and they where too cought in market thinking to make it as good as it could be. They have in a sense shoot themselfes in the foot by trying to squeeze the technology into a certain price range and going for the "eco-car" market dominated by the Prius. Look at what Tesla has done with the Model S. By going for the premium market they have managed to make an electric car that is sexy and that have a much, much more usable range. You can say it's the only BEV that is a "real" car. Interestingly, while the Leaf is expensive compared to say a VW Golf, the Model S is competitivly prices compared to say a BMW 5-series.

I have read a road test of the Tesla in , IIRC, MotorTtrend.

It is a seriously impressive car - 0 -100mph in just over 10 seconds is BMW M5 territory. It can do 200 miles range - not at that performance I know but in LA style crawl traffic its competitive.

Best of all, it costs only 10% more than a Merc or BMW equivalent which is nothing in that market.


I don't know if Tesla will be viable financially in the longer term , and the reliabilty vs Germany Inc. but if it is OK I would rate what they've done as up there with Steve Jobs

It's a process. There's a learning curve, and it includes strategic product planning and marketing.

Giant oil field found...

It's not like it's going to kill electric cars anytime soon, but I was amused by imagining oil companies rubbing their hands (Shylock style), only to find out it's not quite within their reach.

Giant oil field found...

It's not like it's going to kill electric cars anytime soon, but I was amused by imagining oil companies rubbing their hands (Shylock style), only to find out it's not quite within their reach.

wait for the rush of funding requests to develop 'light speed vacuum cleaners'

How did you work this out and why leave off the taxes? You do realise fuel duty in the UK is over 50%? And then VAT at 22.5% is on top of that! Fuel is currently already £1.40 a litre in the UK which means the untaxed cost is around 48p when oil is $100 a barrel. Times this by 3 = £1.5/l pre tax hence around £4.50 with duty and tax added back on.

You were saying?

Here in Sweden gasoline is currently 14.92 kr/liter (£1 is currently 10.8 kr), so the cost of gasoline is fairly similar to the UK. Those 14.92 kr consist of:

Product cost: 5.24 kr
Sales margin: 1.33 kr
CO2 + energy tax: 5.37 kr
VAT (25%): 2.98 kr

A barrel is 159 liters, so the product cost is 833 kr/barrel or $125/barrel (with Brent currently at about $110). This includes the cost of crude oil, transport, refining costs and refiners sales margin. If the price of oil would increase threefold, the product cost would be about $375 or 2500 kr/barrel. At the pump that would mean a product cost of 15.7 kr/liter. To that we must add the sales margin of 1.33 kr and the taxes of 5.37 kr to a total of 22.4 kr. To this we add VAT of 25% to a total of 28 kr/liter or £2.6.

In other words, increase the oil price threefold and the cost of gasoline at the pump will nearly double. Unlike VAT, CO2 and energy taxes are not percentages of the sales price.

I don't know where the problem is but your price at the pump before taxes is higher than the street price in the USA. Also cost of refining and profit per litre are not directly linked to the cost of oil. All three of those effects skew your analysis towards overemphasising the sensitivity of street price to oil price per barrel.

Edited by Greg Locock, 16 December 2012 - 23:47.

I don't know where the problem is but your price at the pump before taxes is higher than the street price in the USA. Also cost of refining and profit per litre are not directly linked to the cost of oil. All three of those effects skew your analysis towards overemphasising the sensitivity of street price to oil price per barrel.

Greg Locock,

You are correct. There is a disconnect between wholesale gasoline prices and commodity oil prices at any given point in time. Everyone in the supply chain, such as oil producers, oil brokers, oil shippers, and oil refiners, must be able to accurately predict what their future cost/price of oil purchase/sales will be. Otherwise they can potentially lose huge amounts of money. Here in California where I live, the refinery profit on a $3.75 sale of a gallon of gasoline is about $0.19, the federal and state taxes are currently around $0.58, and the retailer's profit is about $0.08. There is typically a lag of 1 or 2 months between the change in the price of crude oil and the change in retail gasoline prices.

Battery technology has improved. Cell phones 20 years ago stayed charged for a few hours, much less if you actually used them

Top Gear: the test was bogus, a Prius was not designed to be driven as they "tested" it. Friends and relatives I know with Prius' routinely get 50+ mpg. Who do you know that can get that out of a 318?

Subsidies: the oil industry gets ridiculous tax breaks worth billions. Electric investment is effectively non-existent.

Energy density doesn't matter if it costs more, and the drive train is more inefficient. Ultimately you can't beat the potential efficiencies of an electric motor+KERS mounted at the wheel, eliminating mechanical losses of a transmission and it's weight.

Battery technology continues to be buried, either the oil industry buys the patents up or it "disappears". Something tells me that the batteries that have run in the U.S. sub fleet are probably more advanced than "we know".

Just wait until the Chinese start dumping cheap solar panels on the west. Opinions may change when you can power your whole home from a set of $1,000 panels from WalMart, and you start looking out the
window and wondering why your car costs money to drive.

Edited by Rubens Hakkamacher, 27 December 2012 - 13:48.

Subsidies: the oil industry gets ridiculous tax breaks worth billions. Electric investment is effectively non-existent.

Are you seriously suggesting that the ludicrous, ugly, cripplingly expensive wind-farms are not subsidized? The only reason they are being built is for the subsidy.

I didn't hear him say that; he said oil companies get paid ridiculous tax subsidies. If I buy a pack of gum, I pay more tax on that than Exxon did in corporate tax on its entire US operations. Americans also pay something like a trillion dollars a year to subsidize a giant security force that has little actual purpose beyond protecting the profit streams-- as well as being the world's largest single customer-- of stateless tax dodging multinational oil companies. That's one HELL of a subsidy.

Battery technology has improved. Cell phones 20 years ago stayed charged for a few hours, much less if you actually used them

Yes, cell phones can stay charged for much longer today. But this is not because of larger capacity batteries, but more energy efficient cell phones.

Subsidies: the oil industry gets ridiculous tax breaks worth billions. Electric investment is effectively non-existent.

The subsidies given to the oil industry per produced barrel of oil is very small.

Electricity production is also subsidized. Solar and wind are typically are given the highest subsidies per produced kWh, but also other forms of electricity are subsidized - both directly and indirectly. If electricity production were to carry its own costs it would be significantly more expensive than today.

Energy density doesn't matter if it costs more, and the drive train is more inefficient. Ultimately you can't beat the potential efficiencies of an electric motor+KERS mounted at the wheel, eliminating mechanical losses of a transmission and it's weight.

The efficiency of electric cars aren't so impressive when you take a look at it from a cradle to grave perspective. You have to add the inefficiency of the drivetrain to the inefficiencies of electricity production and tranmission. Then you need to account for the fact that electric cars are more energy consuming to make.

To mount electric motors at the wheels is generally not a good idea. It certainly isn't more efficient or lighter. If you use a mechanical drivetrain you can use a more compact high speed motor instead.

Battery technology continues to be buried, either the oil industry buys the patents up or it "disappears". Something tells me that the batteries that have run in the U.S. sub fleet are probably more advanced than "we know".

Patents are public, so no, they don't "disappear".

U.S. submarines are powered by pressurized light water reactors, so there is no need for advanced batteries. Most submarines use nothing more fancy than flooded lead acid batteries, this include diesel electric submarines. More "advanced" submarine batteries can include the valve regulated lead acid battery.

Just wait until the Chinese start dumping cheap solar panels on the west. Opinions may change when you can power your whole home from a set of $1,000 panels from WalMart, and you start looking out the
window and wondering why your car costs money to drive.

The chinese are already dumping solar panels in the west, still photovoltaic electricity production costs are several times the cost of conventional electricity production. This exclude the costs to deal with the irregular electricity production from photovoltaics.

I didn't hear him say that; he said oil companies get paid ridiculous tax subsidies. If I buy a pack of gum, I pay more tax on that than Exxon did in corporate tax on its entire US operations. Americans also pay something like a trillion dollars a year to subsidize a giant security force that has little actual purpose beyond protecting the profit streams-- as well as being the world's largest single customer-- of stateless tax dodging multinational oil companies. That's one HELL of a subsidy.

That must be some really expensive gum then! While the tax rates may be low, oil companies like ExxonMobil still pay a lot in taxes. Infact, they pay more than any other U.S. corporation. 27.3 billion dollars to be more specific. That is more than three times the taxes payed by JP Morgan Chase (the biggest tax paying non-oil corporation), over four times the taxes payed by Wal-Mart, five times more than what Microsofts pays and almost seven times more what Apple pays.

The main reason for their low tax rates is because a large part of the profits are earned abroad and they can defer taxes on these profits until the cash is brought home. So they simply hide this cash abroad. It is nothing unique for oil companies, infact other industries are worse.

Are you seriously suggesting that the ludicrous, ugly, cripplingly expensive wind-farms are not subsidized? The only reason they are being built is for the subsidy.

And they produce electricity that is considerably more expensive and less reliable than coal or gas fired or nuclear.
And the so called GREEN energy from solar panels is hardly that, the amount of greenhouse to produce the panels is considerable, some say making them dirtier than coal.And the failure rate is quite high. Oh and they are heaviuly subsidised or they are totally uneconomical.
I live in the state with the worlds most expensive electricity, South Australia where the current governments 'GREEN" credentials and just plain gross incompetence has made this so.That and a inefficient desal plant and converting diesel train network to electric. The desal plant has been mothballed effectivly and the train network is on hold!!!
Wind farms a plenty, but not even producing until the power is at peak prices, and worse often not used in heatwaves as they are too unreliable.And in some cases a fire hazard. And the total populace is subsidising the minority who can afford solar panels, again very heavily subsidised, until recently actually at more than the core price of electricity.
And the icing on the cake, the Adelaide museum with a heavy government grant has solar panels, and in their reports they have been fudging saying they are saving with solar, in fact the inverters have broken and they cannot get them fixed economically so they are not using solar at all.
TRake this as a warning to all potential solar users, YOU have to pay for the maintenance of your electricity generation. often with equipment that is out of date with no parts advailalbility. And ofcourse all solar panels do break down in time, meaning again YOU have to replace tem at your cost,
Thousands of small electricity generators will NEVER be economically viable. It is something that can only be done on a large scale.

And electric cars will never be more than expensive urbamn commuter cars.
And whatever peoples take, the Top Gear test was very relevant. Hybrids are inneficient and stunningly so.
As much as I dislike them a small diesel car uses less fuel, though again the maintenace costs exceed any real savings.
And surprisingly as a friend [in a diesel Landcruiser] found out diesel fuel is sometimes decidely hard to get as he spent 24 hours in a regional centre waiting on fuel to arrive. Premium petrol users face similar situations, though you can at least 'misfuel' your vehicle to get away.
LPG only drivers are in a far worse situation. In fact the reason here in Oz Ford are not selling many LPG only cars.Especially in the country where they do sell a lot of cars.
Hence South Australias worlds most expensive electricity

Edited by Lee Nicolle, 01 January 2013 - 23:03.

Thousands of small electricity generators will NEVER be economically viable. It is something that can only be done on a large scale. . . .
And electric cars will never be more than expensive urbamn commuter cars.

Don't be too quick to use the "never" word.
http://rense.com/general81/dw.htm

Edited by gruntguru, 02 January 2013 - 06:27.

I'm not sure its fair to say that "green" generation systems aren't competitive because they need subsidies. Part of the problem is that they are competing with plant and infrastructure that has been around for years. How many new power generation plants, of any description, have been built in recent times without government subsidies?

Would any private company, for instance, contemplate building a new nuclear power plant without any subsidy/government assistance?