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No, what you say doesn't make sense. I will point out one thing that requires renewables and electric cars to be encouraged together: electric cars that charge

No, what you say doesn't make sense. I will point out one thing that requires renewables and electric cars to be encouraged together: electric cars that charge when solar or wind energy is available can help smooth consumption to match output. This works easiest when cars are long-range (i.e. don't have to charge every day) and can plug in at both the solar peak and wind peak (day and night, respectively.)

wallace_f 10y ago
Well if something doesn't make sense, I'd appreciate if you were able to point out exactly what it is that doesn't, since I took the time to write you a detailed response. Otherwise it just comes across as dismissive and honestly a little bit insulting. What you are talking about here is what is called vehicle-to-grid (V2G) load balancing. That is actually a technology that is really interesting and exciting possibility for the future, but is just that. So I guess that irony is that you're requirement that these two things be encouraged together is the one thing I can see that doesn't make sense at the moment - V2G is still honestly in development. There is a lot of scepticism about how practical it will be in practice, i.e. IIRC the efficiency of each grid->car->grid cycle is only about 60%.
- greglindahl 10y ago
  I am not talking about grid->car->grid, I'm talking about a slightly more advanced version of time-of-day charging for cars: grid->car. That's a smartphone app, not rocket science. Tesla's API is already capable of supporting it. All studies of "what happens when electric cars are a significant % of electricity consumption?" involve this. It's super-useful because it's storage with no cost: it only cycles batteries that would have been cycled already, just at a different time of day or day of week. The key thing is that a long-range car doesn't have to be charged to 100% by morning, every morning. As for your complaint that I didn't respond to your entire rant, sorry. You started by claiming that "no one" was doing something, which really isn't true except for some bizarre combination of things that appears to only exist for you. You seem to think that the German government is wrong for pointing out to German car-makers that it's stupid to ignore California's mandate, even though you admit that California has a reasonable smog-based reason for having a mandate. Next time that you think that "no one" is doing the right thing, consider that you don't agree with most people about what the right thing is.
  - wallace_f 10y ago
    Your misdirection of this topic to discuss a moot point (renewables and EVs being encouraged together) is interesting. I don't think anyone is arguing that both aren't good, but it doesn't have much to say about the question I posed..? It's great if you're willing to charge your vehicle at off-peak. That's not much of a game-changer, though. The rest of your post is unnecessarily inflammatory, i.e. dismissing my explanation as a rant. I'm not sure what your problem is but you haven't addressed what at all was incorrect, and all you've done is ignore the question raised and as for a matter of fact, rant on a tangent about something we already agree on. Your final argument makes no sense. Here was my problem: > no one address the problem of the supply side of renewables before moving towards a larger consumer base of electric cars. You don't think increasing renewable energy production is an issue, at all? Oh wait, but you just did! In fact, you actually tried to argue with me about something to do with renewables and EVs being encouraged together. Why..? The fact is you're clearly confused and going in circles, which doesn't add anything to the conversation. All you've accomplished in this post is to show that you're disagreeable in terms of facts and attitude -- you've posted blatantly wrong information (some nonsense about Tesla's battery production, which many corrected you on immediately), and you write this crap with a condescending attitude. > You seem to think that the German government is wrong for pointing out to German car-makers that it's stupid to ignore California's mandate, even though you admit that California has a reasonable smog-based reason for having a mandate. Are you sure you are thinking clearly right now? What I said had to do with localized pollution, and do you see the irony in your post -- you're accusing me of being naive for disagreeing with what (ostensibly, at best) "most people" think is the right thing, yet you're over, and over again suggesting that you know better than the German automakers how to run their business. Further, you're not taking the time to think about what it is I am addressing as a problem: it's not that EVs are bad, but that we need renewables capacity to support EVs (again, why did you seem to want to argue with me on this???). I don't think you really read what I wrote -- I think you skimmed it and some words aroused your emotions and you are responding emotionally. Anyways, since you didn't respond to my question, I have another one for you: Why do you need to respond like such a smug jerk? Not just here, but in your post history as well. My favourites are the smug hints that you own a Tesla. The fact is you can disagree with someone without insulting them, and I don't think you even took the time to read what I wrote and understand where I'm coming from (afterall, there are a great number of economists saying these same very things, you can start reading here: http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/12/economist-explains-18 http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/12/ec...).

wallace_f 10y ago

Well if something doesn't make sense, I'd appreciate if you were able to point out exactly what it is that doesn't, since I took the time to write you a detailed response. Otherwise it just comes across as dismissive and honestly a little bit insulting. What you are talking about here is what is called vehicle-to-grid (V2G) load balancing. That is actually a technology that is really interesting and exciting possibility for the future, but is just that. So I guess that irony is that you're requirement that these two things be encouraged together is the one thing I can see that doesn't make sense at the moment - V2G is still honestly in development. There is a lot of scepticism about how practical it will be in practice, i.e. IIRC the efficiency of each grid->car->grid cycle is only about 60%.

greglindahl 10y ago
I am not talking about grid->car->grid, I'm talking about a slightly more advanced version of time-of-day charging for cars: grid->car. That's a smartphone app, not rocket science. Tesla's API is already capable of supporting it. All studies of "what happens when electric cars are a significant % of electricity consumption?" involve this. It's super-useful because it's storage with no cost: it only cycles batteries that would have been cycled already, just at a different time of day or day of week. The key thing is that a long-range car doesn't have to be charged to 100% by morning, every morning. As for your complaint that I didn't respond to your entire rant, sorry. You started by claiming that "no one" was doing something, which really isn't true except for some bizarre combination of things that appears to only exist for you. You seem to think that the German government is wrong for pointing out to German car-makers that it's stupid to ignore California's mandate, even though you admit that California has a reasonable smog-based reason for having a mandate. Next time that you think that "no one" is doing the right thing, consider that you don't agree with most people about what the right thing is.
- wallace_f 10y ago
  Your misdirection of this topic to discuss a moot point (renewables and EVs being encouraged together) is interesting. I don't think anyone is arguing that both aren't good, but it doesn't have much to say about the question I posed..? It's great if you're willing to charge your vehicle at off-peak. That's not much of a game-changer, though. The rest of your post is unnecessarily inflammatory, i.e. dismissing my explanation as a rant. I'm not sure what your problem is but you haven't addressed what at all was incorrect, and all you've done is ignore the question raised and as for a matter of fact, rant on a tangent about something we already agree on. Your final argument makes no sense. Here was my problem: > no one address the problem of the supply side of renewables before moving towards a larger consumer base of electric cars. You don't think increasing renewable energy production is an issue, at all? Oh wait, but you just did! In fact, you actually tried to argue with me about something to do with renewables and EVs being encouraged together. Why..? The fact is you're clearly confused and going in circles, which doesn't add anything to the conversation. All you've accomplished in this post is to show that you're disagreeable in terms of facts and attitude -- you've posted blatantly wrong information (some nonsense about Tesla's battery production, which many corrected you on immediately), and you write this crap with a condescending attitude. > You seem to think that the German government is wrong for pointing out to German car-makers that it's stupid to ignore California's mandate, even though you admit that California has a reasonable smog-based reason for having a mandate. Are you sure you are thinking clearly right now? What I said had to do with localized pollution, and do you see the irony in your post -- you're accusing me of being naive for disagreeing with what (ostensibly, at best) "most people" think is the right thing, yet you're over, and over again suggesting that you know better than the German automakers how to run their business. Further, you're not taking the time to think about what it is I am addressing as a problem: it's not that EVs are bad, but that we need renewables capacity to support EVs (again, why did you seem to want to argue with me on this???). I don't think you really read what I wrote -- I think you skimmed it and some words aroused your emotions and you are responding emotionally. Anyways, since you didn't respond to my question, I have another one for you: Why do you need to respond like such a smug jerk? Not just here, but in your post history as well. My favourites are the smug hints that you own a Tesla. The fact is you can disagree with someone without insulting them, and I don't think you even took the time to read what I wrote and understand where I'm coming from (afterall, there are a great number of economists saying these same very things, you can start reading here: http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/12/economist-explains-18 http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/12/ec...).