[quote]Unaware wrote:
stokedporcupine8 wrote:
Unaware wrote:
No its not meaningless, its just simplified. Obviously they are all not plugged in at the same time. But maybe they are all plugged in when they get home after rush hour. You could reduce that by spreading out when people charge, but then theres way more than 2.5 million cars in LA. Either way you are talking about a huge strain on the power grid.
If you prefer:
The US uses 378,000,000 gallons of gasoline a day.
One gallon of gasoline 121 MJ
= 4.5 x 10^16 joules per day
Now 1 GW reactor running 24hours a day produces
1 x 10^9(3600)(24) = 8.64 x 10^14
Or you need ~529 large nuclear reactors to produce the same amount of energy that the US consumes in gasoline everyday. Not going to happen in the next 20 years.
Now you could say that eclectic cars are more efficient, or whatever other mitigating factors that might lead our eclectic cars to use less energy than they do in gas.
I will admit my calculations are crude, but there is no way this portable nuclear reactor is goign to give us $4 oil or let us all use electric cars.
Edit: math
Your point is well taken that switching to all electric cars provides huge infrastructure hurtles, but I still don’t think it’s as bad as you are trying to make out. Consider, for example, your new calculation. Even ignoring things like a difference in efficiency, do you really think we would need the 500+ new stations? Couldn’t much of the extra load just be shifted to existing stations during the night (since most people would power their cars at night anyway).
While I’m certainly no expert on our large scale distribution and use of electric, it seems that between management of the systems we already have and more efficient vehicles that the extra stations needed wouldn’t be nearly the 500+ figure you quote. Add in new alternative generating methods like those being discussed in this thread, and it seems like it at least is feasible as a 20 year project or something.
What I am saying is a lot of people think that someone will invent a cool electric car and then we will all just start driving them one day. I’m sure the US could provide the necessary power if it planned ahead, but when was the last time you saw a new power plant. They are just getting round to planning to replace our old plants.
The OP is not any kind of revelation with regards to mass energy production. Its just existing tech made portable.
Were not going to see $4 barrel anytime soon, if ever. You can’t even get a meal at McDonalds for $4. [/quote]
ha, well, we’re on the same page then. I’m not quite sure I see porta potty-sized nuclear reactors under every street corner in the future either.