Wake Up Call for Green Energy

[peakbagger]

I have had solar hot water for 25 years that I installed myself. It has a DC pump fed by a solar panel. It just runs and gives me all the hot water I need 9 months a year. In the winter it preheats my well water before it goes into my boilermate (heated with wood). I designed and installed a small grid tied solar system about 22 years ago, the electric payback was lousy but it was one of reasons I could switch careers out of the dying paper industry to the energy field so the payback to my new career was "priceless". I designed and installed 2 more grid tied systems using panels from companies that went out of business, so the cost was far lower. That got me to a yearly zero net electric use about 10 years ago. I pay $13 a month to be connected up to the grid and I offset that by selling SRECs. I have extra power production so I run a mini split, that I installed myself to heat my house in the fall and the spring to reduce the number of months I heat with my wood boiler (it was free to remove and I installed it myself). I bought a plug in hybrid Rav 4 Prime two and half years ago. It has got 50 miles electric range in the summer about 35 in the winter (in northern NH). I have used a public charger twice, mostly to try it out, the rest of the time I just charge off excess solar production from the house. When the engine kicks on I get 40 MPG highway after the battery charge has run out. Its AWD and has a receiver hitch on it. It has got 2500 pound towing capacity (3500 if the trailer has trailer brakes).

I am in the first full year of retirement and it nice not having heating or electric bills, if I plan my trips, I rarely use gas and most of time I add gas its less than 3 gallons as I like to keep the tank topped off. If I do a long trip I have about 550 miles of range on a full tank plus another 50 battery miles fully charge  

The latest project is a solar trailer, it could easily run an electric sawmill (240 volts 50 amps continuous 200 amp surge)off two very large batteries or run the house for a couple of days before the backup diesel kicks on if the sun is not out (the solar charges the batteries). It even is smart enough to get my other grid tied solar systems to operate as a microgrid if the grid is down for multiple days. Add one more inverter and it can put out 240 VAC 3 phase. Its going to be used to build a new house and then it will be broken down into a backup power system. They can be picked up in the $15 to 20K range despite costing about $150K new (they were tied into big fraud case and sold off cheap).



 

[nativewolf]

$90,000 for the lightning is about $30,000 over the F150. That's 11 years  worth of fuel I claim for work up here on taxes, for which I am reembursed. The lightning would never save me a *DanG thing, end up costing me. And most math I've seen, it's at least 5 or even 7 years to offset CO2 from ICE. A battery with 5-7 years life.

Mine was the early $48k before they kicked the price up, it's been moving back down now unless you are the sort of guy that goes for fancy stuff.  A fancier version than mine is about $54k if you are looking at the top of the line fancy leather fancy everything than maybe there is one at 90k - I am on the other end of the buying spectrum.  A gas version would be $48k (edited- i had the wrong pricing) but a little less fancy than the EV ones.  I guess if you got tax credits and things it would be about $44k.  Mine was "used" by the dealer so I didn't get tax credits.  It's the "pro" version which is..basic.  Expensive but I like it and I might even come out ahead based on fuel savings after several years, it's about 20% cheaper than gas...a lot cheaper than the diesel.  Course it has tradeoffs but so far I'm happy.  

No recalls on mine but I had a dozen open recalls on the F350 when I bought it used.  You want to bring up recalls you are bringing up the entire vehicle fleet in NA.  Heck my Kubota skid steer had 3 recalls due to the crappy def system.   Its sitting at the dealer with 2 bad nox sensors and something else, $10k in repairs under warranty with 800 hours.  Warranty pays but I've put more hours on this truck and no issues.  

I never had great luck taking trucks on really tough off road sites, river crossings, etc.  Ripped the rear axle apart once, etc etc.  So my policy now is mostly walk if the road gets nasty, if things get nasty here it is rock and slopes.  Anyways if the road is that bad our logging trucks won't touch it either, they are highway princesses and my Ford Lightning goes much further into the woods than those guys do.   I have clients with tricentennial farms (300 years same family) and data centers and 12 lane highways far too close to me.   It's long settled highly developed.  

[nativewolf]

SD is absolutely spot on, "logging roads" here in Virginia are absolutely nothing like up north, in terms of condition and length. I have never seen washboard around here, it was a ritual up there.

I don't doubt that they may have some washboard in canada.  I'm not in canada and there is no way I could get a logging truck to drive down a washboard road here.  Highway princesses.  I'm lucky to get most to drive across a flat hay field, freshly mowed.

[SwampDonkey]

Most don't like the bushes swatting the mirrors up here, but they'll ride over rocks. :D Pay isn't that great either when you have to drive for 80 hrs. It's not a job I envy.

[Southside]

"some washboard"? 😆 I wasn't talking about only Canada. On some roads the washboard is a welcome improvement. 

[sharp edge]

Wisconsin could put "the grand canyon state" on there license plate, if they add up all the pot-holes in the spring.

SE

[SwampDonkey]

OTTAWA — Two different federal infrastructure programs have provided funding for more than 43,000 electric vehicle chargers since 2016, but fewer than one in five of them are actually operational, new data show.

Data supplied by Natural Resources Canada upon request say 43,046 chargers have been funded, but only 7,644 are working.

Another $25 million is to fund an additional 1,500 EV chargers in Quebec. Nearly $1B has been spent so far or earmarked into 2025.

[The Canadian Press]

[rusticretreater]

Throwin away more money on electric vehicles.

I recently read an article where the CEO of Ford drove one of their electric F150s from Silicone Valley to Las Vegas and got a reality check.

On a road trip across California, Ford CEO Jim Farley charged his Ford F-150 Lightning at a Level 2 charger. He spent 40 minutes charging the vehicle and was only able to get up to a 40% charge, which would give him about 90-130 miles of range until he'd be calling a tow truck.

Farley called it a "reality check."

Energy watchdog Robert Bryce told Cowboy State Daily that Farley's experience with his own product "sets the new bar for corporate cluelessness." "What PR genius thought of that stunt?" Bryce said.

As Bryce reported on his Substack, Ford reported a $1.08 billion operating loss on its EV business during the second quarter of this year. The company sold 14,843 EVs in that time, meaning it lost more than $70,000 on each vehicle it sold.  

Genius.

[Southside]

That has the making of a genuine "Real Men of Genius" ad for those who remember the ads. 

[SwampDonkey]

Reality check.

If you're an electric vehicle owner vacationing on Prince Edward Island, you'll want to do your homework and plan ahead. That's according to Derek Burnett of Gaetz Brook, N.S., who says he struggled to find a charger for his vehicle during a recent family visit to the province.

Burnett said the car was charged before the family hit the road, planning to stay at a Charlottetown hotel that had three Level 2 chargers, which can take upwards of five hours to fully power a vehicle. The family thought they could leave their car powering up overnight during their stay and have plenty of power during the day. But when they arrived, they found two of the hotel's chargers were not working, and the third was perpetually in use.

OK, we're gonna go look around and see if we can find a fast charger, Burnett said. The family went to the first one, but it had been converted to a Level 2. Then moved on to the provincially owned charger near Canadian Tire, but it was out of service. They visited an auto dealership, but the charger was being used by the dealership's own vehicles. On to another dealership, where there was a lineup. Everybody was in the same situation — and as we were waiting there, more people showed up after us, so it was a continuous stream of people joining the queue for that one Level 3 charger in Charlottetown.

The charging woes continued after the family left Charlottetown.
Their car's charge got them to Borden-Carleton where there was — once again — a lineup. They decided to press on to Aulac in New Brunswick. Another lineup.

[CBC news]

[Southside]

If only science could develop a way to store energy the average consumer could transport and keep a reserve of on hand.  Something that could be used in a variety of engines, easy to transfer from a small storage tank into the vehicle, liquid at room temperature, widely available.  Too bad they can't come up with such a fuel. 

[Old Greenhorn]

Gee yeah, that would be cool. Do you suppose there could be such a thing?  :D

[sharp edge]

Impossible... we have to go to a different nature to get the stuff. When you mix two things together you get a third thing. Mother nature is fast becoming a third thing. :(


SE

[SwampDonkey]

The human cost

Canada's Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault's department yesterday praised China for environmental leadership without mentioning its use of slave labour to make solar panels. A member of Guilbeault's own caucus earlier noted China used slaves to export renewable energy products: "41.7 percent of polysilicon used to produce solar panels, for all the environmentalists in the House, comes from Xinjiang."

[Blacklock's Reporter]

Nearly half of the world’s solar-grade polysilicon, a key component in most panels, is produced in the Xinjiang region of China where more than 2.6 million people, mostly of the Uighur ethnic group, have been subjected to forced labour in detention camps.
The trade body for the solar industry in the UK admitted that it cannot rule out panels containing minerals from the region being sold in this country and has developed a code of practice that would require companies to audit their supply chains more thoroughly.
However, critics claimed that this would remain voluntary and failed to directly tackle.

[The Times UK]

[Sod saw]

.   


Southside,  Your observation is spot on.  Your thoughts are the same as mine were when he told (bragged) me about the fuel costs of his electric car.  His claim didn't make sense, , ,  therefore all of my questions.

But, apparently his time is not as valuable as his need to fluff up his claim and trick every one into believing that his new car is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

My story, in previous post # 286, about that gentleman's fuel costs go towards the ease of mis representing the actual costs of operating any machine, be it a vehicle or tool or even a business.  It's easy to manipulate the numbers.


.

[Ianab]

If only science could develop a way to store energy the average consumer could transport and keep a reserve of on hand.  Something that could be used in a variety of engines, easy to transfer from a small storage tank into the vehicle, liquid at room temperature, widely available.  Too bad they can't come up with such a fuel.

Actually completely "possible". Biodiesel, alcohol, even synthetic gasoline (from methane digesters etc). BUT, they cost more than simply pumping more out of the ground. But they are the reason that ICE vehicles wont go away completly. The processes needed to convert sunshine, wind, geothermal or hydro power into synthetic gasoline already exist, in the lab. No one does it commercially, because the gas might cost 3X as much as the traditional stuff. 
Converting waste wood into basically crude oil has already been done in experimental plants, basically bypassing the X Million years it usually takes, to produce some flammable concoction that can be fed into a refinery. 
The guys experimenting with wood powered vehicles are effectively running "solar" energy. The tree was the energy collector, the wood is the storage, the gasifier is the process to turn it into fuel. 

[Ianab]

Southside,  Your observation is spot on.  Your thoughts are the same as mine were when he told (bragged) me about the fuel costs of his electric car.  His claim didn't make sense, , ,  therefore all of my questions.

Local number suggest that if you had to rely on commercial chargers, your fuel costs will probably work out about 50% of a gasoline vehicle. That makes the maths look less appealing. You are paying for both the electricity, and the fast charger, and rent for the parking space. But they also say that 80% of the time, people charge at home, with a domestic size "overnight" charger. Then your fuel bill is only ~20% of a gasoline vehicle. Then it's a $20 recharge vs $100 at the pump.  


Friend of ours drives a Tesla, and justified it as his commute is a 100 mile round trip. No problem for the car, it can do it 2 times without a charge if needed. But 10 hours on a home charger each night keeps it topped up, and he seldom ever uses a public charger. But he's realistic about his costs, and would rather spend $40 in electricity vs $200 in gas each week. 

[stavebuyer]

And how much does it cost to replace the battery or calculate the increased depreciation of the EV vs its IC counterpart? Free lunch is never really free. And what would the actual cost of dino fuel be if the powers that be weren't trying to tax and regulate it out of existence whilst proving subsidies for EVS and solar?

[SwampDonkey]

Besides more than 8/10 of the public chargers have not been reliable, admitted by government subsidizing them, obtained from their own data. One can assume the private ones have the same reliability. You have a a very high up front cost, and 5-7 year life, and another big chunk of change to replace them. When all factored in  the reality sets in. The illusion of a $40 charge versus $80-100 tank of gas was the same kind of flim flam used with a lot of things I seen come on the market that was suppose to save money. 

[Southside]

Anyone else see where the Secretary of Energy had to send ICE vehicles ahead of her EV convoy to physically block chargers so her highness would have access to them during her show tour recently? Even with that stunt they could not get enough chargers. 

Rules for thee....

[Stephen1]

A friend of ours lives in a 200 unit condo building. they just installed EV chargers, 6, outside as you can not charge ev in the underground parking due to the fire hazard. My question is what do 200-400 EV vehicles do to charge at night? Impossible with just 6 chargers installed, as at some point are going to go down to your ev vehicle and move it in and out of the charging station? 

[Hilltop366]

And what would the actual cost of dino fuel be if the powers that be weren't trying to tax and regulate it out of existence whilst proving subsidies for EVS and solar?

Don't forget to factor in the large subsidies that oil producers get, a quick search shows 20 billion a year in the USA and 1 trillion per year world wide, then factor in the price lowering by releasing reserves.

[doc henderson]

the reserves need to be replaced, and not used to adjust cost.  we need to produce our own.  We need coal and natural gas to produce the electricity to power the electric cars.

[Hilltop366]

To be clear I was speaking of the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve not oil still in the ground.

It's my understanding that the reserves were used to lower price spikes by releasing oil purchased at a lower price when the oil cost escalated rapidly and is to be replenished when the cost drops.

From Wikipedia (checking my work :D)

On March 31, 2022, President Joe Biden announced that his administration would release 1 million barrels of oil per day from the reserve for the next 180 days, selling it at an average price of $96 per barrel. After oil prices declined during the second half of the year, in December the administration announced it would begin replenishing the SPR in early 2023, expecting to purchase oil at a lower price than it was sold, a process that would take months or years to complete.^[10][11][12]

[Hilltop366]

More checking.....

link

According to an analysis from the Department of the Treasury from July, the release of oil from the SPR helped lower the price of gasoline in the US by an estimated range of 13 to 31 cents per gallon. This report covers the period from March to July of 2022.[2] This means that, without the release of crude oil from the SPR, gasoline prices could be anywhere between 13 to 31 cents higher per gallon

Disclaimer !

I read it on the internet.