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If the cars are mostly charged overnight, it won't be a big deal. The biggest strain on the power grid and generation capacity comes in the late afternoon, when
by jacquesgt 15y ago
If the cars are mostly charged overnight, it won't be a big deal. The biggest strain on the power grid and generation capacity comes in the late afternoon, when people's air conditioners are cranking at full blast. That's when the most expensive and dirtiest energy is generated (coal energy is great at ramping up to meet peaks in demand, and power companies will obviously keep their most expensive generators in reserve for peak loads). Adding more consumption at night is actually a great thing, because it lets power companies get more use out of the big capital expenditure on their power plants. Obviously this depends on people actually charging at night, but that can be handled through financial incentives.
And, of course, centralizing the generation of emissions can be a good thing in that you just need to upgrade a few generators to improve efficiency/reduce emissions vs upgrading millions of cars.
- wisty 15y agoI don't think that's really true. I though coal is quite slow at ramp-up. Gas (sorry, UK English, I mean gaseous hydrocarbons like propane) is much more responsive. Coal is cheap (especially if you already have the infrastructure, built when labor was cheaper), that's its advantage. Anyway, even coal is more efficient than car engines. IIRC, coal is something like 60% efficient (and it really can't get better, due to the laws of physics), cars are more like 30% efficient. OK, coal power still needs to be distributed and then there's some loss in the electric engine, but it's minimal, and petrol also needs distribution. Thus, coal creates less carbon emissions than petrol.
- ams6110 15y agoCoal in a modern generating plant is burned quite efficiently. It's pulverized into a powder, then blown into the combustion chamber with a lot of high pressure air. The burning coal is literally a fireball under the boiler. The old image of heavy black smoke pouring out of the stacks is not the way it is anymore. http://www.canadiancleanpowercoalition.com/index.php/download_file/-/view/46/ http://www.canadiancleanpowercoalition.com/index.php/downloa...