Electric Cars

Agree some what ,we are all in this evolution process together,some buck and some kick,some do both and scream as well
I see some poor inefficient things around town,one of them is the large 45 seat public transport bus that roars around town with one passenger in it
Maybe things will go the full circle again.


cheers   moredeep

Well there you go and powered by one carrot a day, with some free goat milk & cheese upon stops. Surely one can't ask for any cheaper, more efficient powered vehicle than that above.

Kon.

Blimey Kon. Do ya reckon that in the end (so to speak) that the Amish might be right.

Why not Adrian, sometimes we might have to go backwards, in order to go forwards. Now where did I place down that last carrot?

So PC want "evidence" but he only throws around a few links that are so called peer reviewed. I guess he hasn't yet worked out that almost all the peers who do the reviewing are good friends and all have their snouts in the same taxpayer funded trough. No way are they going to give their mate a poor review as it may mean too many will lose their funding. I read this written by a scientists who exposed the Peer Review scam. That is why I am so sceptical about any Peer Reviewed papers.

PC still hasn't read up on SMR's and still believes it will take ten years and billions of dollars to build just one. The truth is, if and when they get the go ahead, and they have already jumped most hurdles, and have the factories up and running it will take less than a year from go to wo to have a SMR up and running. Further modules can then be added as required with a very short lead time.

As for SMRs already out there, one is powering a Russian Arctic base but I forget where the others are and can't be bothered looking as I'm not out to "prove" anything.

But poor old PC wants everyone to believe he is the messiah and like sheep we must all follow his lead and let him do the thinking. The only problem there is that he doesn't think for himself but simply follows what misguided propaganda the anti coal, anti oil, anti gas others write to further the ends of the over funded RE mob.

I write this as my opinion and unlike PC I don't try to influence others with my opinion and I refuse to throw links around like confetti to try and prove my point. If I wanted to I could find plenty of links that would refute everything PC believes is gospel but one wise bloke, or sheila once said: you can fool anyone very easily but it is almost impossible to convince the fooled that they have indeed been fooled.

Fellas we can dispute/debate any facts/figures presented, together with their accompanying rights & wrongs, but one thing we must not forget, is that its neither in our hands, nor in our power, to do what each believes should be done. This power of authority/control, concerning which future path we take, belongs to the government, as well as the mega rich.

Cheers Kon.

Hey Kon, I don't worry about facts and figures too much, except when I'm razzing PC. He should be named shark he bites so hard. I just give my opinion. I know it has no value other than to amuse people but that's OK.

So does planetcare Granite (give an opinion that is). As long as one keeps it civil & in perspective, nothing wrong with debating some things with a passion.

Cheers Kon.

granite2 wrote:
As for SMRs already out there, one is powering a Russian Arctic base but I forget where the others are and can't be bothered looking as I'm not out to "prove" anything.

The fact is other than the Russian nuclear titanic i am not aware of any commercially operating SMR's. In the USA for example only one design has got regulatory approval and its considered that no SMRs will be in commercial operation before 2030 if ever. They have the same problems as other reactors and in fact are worse in some regards eg they produce twice the amount of radioactive waste per unit of electricity generated compared to conventional reactors.Their are major concerns about their safety and their vulnerability to terrorist attacks.
EXPERT REPORT: UAMPS MUNICIPALITIES’ INVESTMENT IN NUSCALE SMR NUCLEAR PROJECT “NOT PRUDENT” IN VIEW OF RISING COSTS, OTHER RISKS & CHEAPER ALTERNATIVES
More than 30 UT, ID, NV, NM & CA Towns in UAMPS System “Could Be on the Hook for Extreme Cost Overruns & Project Cancellation”; Renewables Combined With Energy Storage Seen As Far Cheaper, Safer & Faster Route.
SALT LAKE CITY – September 2, 2020 -- A leading world expert on small modular reactors (SMRs) issued a report today warning that more than 30 municipalities in Utah, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico and California participating in the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) small modular nuclear project promoted by Oregon-based NuScale Power could end up being left holding the bag due to runaway costs, uncertain regulatory review, fickle taxpayer subsidies, and a host of other risks.
The report, titled “Eyes Wide Shut,” was issued by Dr. M.V. Ramana, who is the Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security and Director of the Liu Institute for Global Issues at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. He is the author of several reports, articles and peer-reviewed papers on small modular nuclear reactors in journals such as Nuclear Technology, Energy, Science, Technology, & Human Values, Energy Policy, IEEE Spectrum, and Energy Research and Social Science. Dr. Ramana is a member of the International Panel on Fissile Materials, the International Nuclear Risk Assessment Group, and the team that produces the annual World Nuclear Industry Status Report.
The Ramana report concludes: “As has been true with other recent nuclear power projects in the US and in Europe, UAMPS members could be on the hook for extreme cost overruns and project cancellation, making it a risky proposition for them to continue investing in an untested, first-of-its-kind nuclear power facility. With nuclear power becoming more expensive in general, the dramatic increase in the construction costs of the NuScale project, the uncertainty in the outlook for electricity demand, and renewables and storage becoming increasingly cheaper, investment in the NuScale project is simply not prudent.”
Key report findings include the following:
• PROJECT COST. The estimated costs of the NuScale reactor design have been consistently going up. Just in the last five years, the estimated construction cost has gone up from around $3 billion in 2015 to $6.1 billion in 2020. And there are several reasons to expect that the NuScale reactor system, when transferred from paper to the real world, would cost even more than the currently doubled figure.

• SCHEDULE DELAYS. NuScale Power was supposed to deliver its first working small modular reactor in 2015. After a series of delays, it is now forecasting the first UAMPS reactors in 2029-2030 – unless there are further delays, which are likely.

• COST OF ELECTRICITY. UAMPS power costs were originally projected at $65 per megawatt hour and then reduced to $55 per megawatt hour. But other utilities have indicated that NuScale SMRs would cost $94-$121 per megawatt hour. Even if the UAMPS/NuScale electricity production costs are correct, they would still far exceed the cost of renewables, which are moving in the opposite direction. A renewables portfolio could be up to 60 percent less expensive than the UAMPS/NuScale project. Even with the cost of battery-based energy storage added in, renewables would still be considerably cheaper at $39 per megawatt hour.

• NUCLEAR WASTE. The problems of nuclear waste—its long life and the challenge of stewarding it for hundreds of thousands of years—are well known. This will be a problem for NuScale too because just like large reactors, the proposed NuScale reactor design will produce radioactive wastes of many


kinds. The problem could even be a bit more acute; proposed reactor designs like NuScale will produce more, not less, nuclear waste per unit of electricity they generate.

Dr. Ramana said: “UAMPS members may wish to consider ending their pursuit of small modular nuclear reactors and avoid the sunk costs of a project that is very unlikely to achieve its target price or produce electricity at a cost competitive with proven alternatives. Pursuing cheaper, currently available solar, wind, energy storage (batteries), and energy efficiency would be a more reliable path for UAMPS to shift to a carbon-free energy future.”
Dr. Edwin Lyman, Director of Nuclear Power Safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, pointed out that the NuScale reactor has serious design flaws that contradict the company’s claim that the reactor is inherently and passively safe, as documented by recent concerns raised by a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission technical staff member. Dr. Lyman added: “NuScale has aggressively sought exemptions from critical safety and security requirements to try to reduce the reactor’s high price tag. But as Dr. Ramana has demonstrated, cutting corners has only increased NuScale’s safety risk without making it affordable.”
Dr. Lyman is an internationally recognized expert on nuclear power safety and security. He is a member of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, and has testified numerous times before Congress and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Dr. Lyman also co-authored the critically acclaimed book, Fukushima: The Story of a Nuclear Disaster (New Press), published in February 2014.
Other key issues highlighted in the Ramana report are:
• SAFETY ISSUES. NuScale is not planning to build just one small reactor; it is planning to build a group of 12 at the same site. As a result, an accident at one unit might either induce accidents at others or make it harder to take preventive actions at others. Further, if the underlying reason for the accident is a common one that affects all of the reactors, such as an earthquake, it is possible that many, or even all, units could undergo accidents. In that case, the combined radioactive inventories are sizable, even in comparison with a large reactor. Some of these issues were observed in the Fukushima multiple reactor meltdown disaster.

• REGULATORY UNCERTAINTY. Despite what NuScale might claim, there is no guarantee that the reactor system will receive all necessary regulatory approvals. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and its Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards have flagged unresolved issues with the NuScale design that will have to be resolved at a future stage of licensing.

• FUNDING ISSUES. The UAMPS/NuScale project is heavily dependent on federal power purchase agreements and a steeply rising amount of tax-dollar-supported subsidies. Contrary to NuScale/UAMPS assurances, there is no way to guarantee the future flow of such subsidy funds. As the on-again, off-again Yucca Mountain project illustrates, federal support for nuclear energy can be fickle and is subject to withdrawal at any time.

• PARENT COMPANY. Another problem with the UAMPS proposal is uncertainty about the future of NuScale’s parent company: Fluor Corporation. Between October 2018 and August 2020, the company lost 80 percent of its value on the New York Stock Exchange. These losses are, in large part, the result of bidding too low on fixed price contracts and not accurately revealing their financial status to stockholders, triggering an SEC investigation this year. The company also disclosed that the Justice Department has subpoenaed documents concerning a fixed-price federal project.

The proposed NuScale reactor design is being considered for possible construction at the expense of Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems, “a political subdivision of the State of Utah that provides comprehensive wholesale electric-energy, transmission, and other energy services, on a nonprofit basis, to community-owned power systems… [in] Utah, California, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico and Wyoming”. The proposed NuScale design is to be a pressurized water reactor that is currently supposed to produce 60 megawatts (MW) of electrical power, although it is more correct to describe it as a 720 MW nuclear power plant since it is intended to be built only in a cluster of 12 units.
The “Eyes Wide Shut” report was supported by Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility. Dr. Ramana was given complete editorial freedom and is solely responsible for the content of the report.
MEDIA CONTACT:
Whitney Dunlap, (703) 229-1489 or wdunlap@hastingsgroup.com.
EDITOR’S NOTE:
The Ramana report and streaming video for today’s news event are available at http://bit.ly/UAMPSNuScale.


Seven reasons why small modular nuclear reactors are a bad idea for Australia
https://independentaustralia.net/environment/environment-display/seven-reasons-why-small-modular-nuclear-reactors-are-a-bad-idea-for-australia,13010

Wow, more peer reviewed rubbish.

granite2 wrote:Wow, more peer reviewed rubbish.

Is this best you can do?
Where are your facts to prove its rubbish?  You have come up with nothing to prove your case. All you can do to throw doubt on the credibility of some expert nuclear scientists who have a massive list of publications including nuclear journals and to rubbish the peer review process which is the gold standard for scientific publications. The facts are that SMR's are an unproven pipe dream with a multitude of safety concerns, waste management and waste storage problems, huge cost blowouts,security concerns, nuclear proliferation concerns and  very expensive electricity that will never be competitive with solar or wind!
Small isn't always beautiful!
https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/2019-10/small-isnt-always-beautiful.pdf
https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/small-modular-reactors
https://www.oregonpsr.org/faqs-uamps-nuscale-smrs
Smaller, cheaper reactor aims to revive nuclear industry, but design problems raise safety concerns
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/08/smaller-cheaper-reactor-aims-revive-nuclear-industry-design-problems-raise-safety

C'mon fellas, take a break & let it go. Lets not upset the goat, for It might stop giving out free cheese & milk.

Kon.

Yep, right on Kon, whoops which goat is that again? Billy, I hope.

No Granite, I were referring to mrs Billy, for Billy himself won't take kind into being milked.  

Kon

cheers   moredeep

Saw this on the other site. PC sounds like a Chinese activist pushing windmills and solar panels. He uses lots of random numbers and buzzwords.
Who are you really PC???

So I guess in Australia those charge stations would be pumping 240vac 50hz.
I see no shelters over those chargers.
Wonder how long it will be before they electrocute somebody filling up the battery during a lightning storm.

According to the ceo of Toyota, even if all vehicles became electric by 2036, there would not be near enough electric grid to support charging all those vehicles. This seems to be why Toyota is concentrating on hybrids and gas engines for the near future. Ev is not the best answer that is for sure. Perhaps a better way to capture the sun's power will be developed in the near future. And much better batteries.

I am not about to buy a new EV truck and head out to the outback of gold country in that. Empty EV's seem to have decent range, but a new EV truck towing a 3500 lb travel trailer would have at most 85 miles range before needing charging. That counts me out on EV trucks.

It seems that every week we are hearing about a new solar farm or wind farm going up somewhere but now I hear that there is too much Solar. Putting panels on your roof used to pay dividends, now they are saying if you put panels on your roof you may not be able to export to the grid at all, or if you are lucky maybe a little bit. This won't help your electricity bill AT ALL. A grid I might add that was designed for energy going only one way. This comes about because too much solar is causing our national grid to become unstable during the day and the entire national grid will have to be rebuilt to handle large amounts of energy coming into it from every direction instead of the old Hub and Spoke design that enabled us to build this amazing country.

And in SA the new you beaut Inverters are now allowing energy companies to switch off your solar input whenever they wish. It seems the days of solar delivering a return to house holders is unfortunately numbered.

But the new idea is for every house on the block to have solar and batteries and share the batteries. Of course human nature will make that difficult if you have one house using far more power than the others.

Now wait for it.... wait... it won't be long

If I ever buy a place out of the city in the country with some land, I would be tempted to go totally off grid and have a top line solar system built. I never did like the fact that the electric company has their finger in the pie with your solar power systems.

That is strange Granite as I have solar on the house and originally was getting about 66c/kWh when installed, then after about 10 years or so they cut the charge in rate to 32c/kWh. But again several years ago for some reason, they upped the rate to 70c kWh which makes me happy of course. Even though my modest 12 panels are ok to offset base load during the day, there is no way that my solar can cope with any big users such as Stove, oven, electric kettle, dehydrator, and especially AC. I have been using a small device attached to the power meter from Powerpal, to monitor and graph my use and it sure has made me more aware of what eats the power.

Pablo, this is new, and some of what I have said are plans that come from the energy companies themselves. You may not feel it because you are locked in but new purchasers of solar panels are going to be disappointed.

Gold Bug, I have son who lives in a very remote area where there is no grid. He uses solar and batteries and is completely off the grid. He has a diesel generator for those times when he need to run two air conditioners but otherwise his solar set up works extremely well. He built it himself from second hand panels and batteries, all tossed out by Telstra.

There is a movement by some people, mostly those with a business, in his area to get power but most of the people in his area are like him, they are comfortable off the grid and do not want a huge bill to get the power connected. He has a family of four, they have television, (Sat) and are on-line with at least four different devices including smart phones, everything normal homes have so their power usage is about average.

He would never go to power bills and if I was to go solar that is what I'd do, go right off grid but its a bit late at my age to worry about it now.

granite2 wrote:
But the new idea is for every house on the block to have solar and batteries and share the batteries. Of course human nature will make that difficult if you have one house using far more power than the others.

Now wait for it.... wait... it won't be long

Yes micro grids are the way to go !

granite2 wrote:I would like n electric car but it's a bit late for me. What really worries me is that the renewable zealots are going to push too hard and we will have no gas or coal power to fill the gap when renewables aren't working. At the moment there is talk of shutting down the SA gas generator to allow more RE, but RE cannot do the job. I reckon if there was a candle factory being built I'd buy shares in it:bom: . We also have two more oil refineries closing down ensuring we cannot get any fuel should there be a problem with supply, when, not if. Then we have two more of the countries biggest coal fired power stations closing soon with nothing that can take up the slack. Solar only works efficiently for about 8 hours a day meaning power to take up the slack has to come from somewhere. And when the evening comes the wind usually dies off, just when we get home switch on the stove and the tele demanding a great deal of power when there may be not enough.  Batteries cannot help too much as the technology is many years away from coming up with something better than what we have. Adelaide's big batteries can only power Adelaide for about 4 minutes and bugger the rest of the state. New  batteries 4 times bigger than Adelaide's are mooted for Sydney but Sidney is 5 times bigger than Adelaide so they wont help for storage. I know they aren't for storage but the green zealots think they are. All I see are more and more RE companies raking in billions of dollars without benefitting the ordinary family. But hey, I'd still like an EV. I'd cover the roof with solar panels and stick a petrol genny in the boot. . But Think the power supplies we still have may see me out but just in case I do have a genny waiting for when the power goes off

Depends how much petrol the genny uses.
You might uncover perpetual motion mate...don't stop now.

planetcare wrote:

granite2 wrote:
But the new idea is for every house on the block to have solar and batteries and share the batteries. Of course human nature will make that difficult if you have one house using far more power than the others.

Now wait for it.... wait... it won't be long

Yes micro grids are the way to go !

I'll sit back and follow the money.

Jim re (And in SA the new you beaut Inverters are now allowing energy companies to switch off your solar input whenever they wish. It seems the days of solar delivering a return to house holders is unfortunately numbered.)

Agree, and... Son has 2 sets of solar panels one with a battery that the Power company charges for free at various times during the day that runs his pool pump and heater and parts of the house... the the Power company if needed can take power from his battery. The other set of solar panels ( no battery) runs the rest of his house, so I understand he is covered for blackouts etc.

adrian ss wrote:Just Googled this bit of spectacular BS.

Australia’ per capita CO2 emissions are among world’s highest. On a per capita basis, Australia’s carbon footprint, including exports, is nine times higher than China’s, four times that of the US, and 37 times that of India.

Including our coal and gas exports to our pollution contributions is totally incorrect.
Once these exports are in the purchasing countries any pollution they may cause is the result of those countries using these exports. It is their problem how they utilize these commodities.

If Australia is such a large  contributor, why is the air over this country so wonderfully clean.
It is blatantly obvious from this Air Quality map which countries are the main offenders.

https://www.npr.org/2019/04/29/716347646/why-is-china-placing-a-global-bet-on-coal      

02/03/21
Notice how that pollution from North Africa & Europe/Asia is slowly stretching towards South America.

New battery technology is just around the corner fellas. Lithium Ion will soon become a thing of the past.

Cheers Kon.

If we were all to use EVs like we use petrol cars today the increase in the drain on the electricity grid would be massive. Wind and solar power could not cope.
For every advantage there is an equiv disadvantage and the new solid state batteries would place an even greater drain on the mains grid because they do a fast charge that will requires a huge almost instantaneous power draw by the battery, this will be an even greater power necessity than the EVs of today.

The only way Evs will be successful is for the world to have a huge decrease in driver hours on the road. .
Work out how much average power is used by cars in Australia in petrol usage each year and then convert that to electricity generation to drive cars and trucks etc the same distances in the same time frame and you will see how much extra electricity will be required to match the petrol power of today.....Good luck.