On Friday I had the opportunity to attend a technical conference on electric vehicles hosted by the the Maryland Public Service Commission. There were representatives from Ford, DOE, PJM, Delaware University, and several regional utilities speaking on the future impact of electric vehicles on the grid. Really the presentations were quite layman in my opinion; not nearly as technical as it might sound.
For those of you who don't know, battery electric vehicles are cars that run on a battery that will generally allow you to travel 40 miles per charge. That charge could cost you as little as a dollar on your electric bill versus the 1.5 gallons of gas you'd use which right now would probably cost you $4 or $5. Plus you're not blowing emissions out of your tailpipe. Of course the trade off in emissions is that they are produced at the power plant and losses are afforded through the wires, but energy produced and delivered at a power plant is many, many times more efficient than a combustion generation process in your car. Think of all that excess heat your engine generates.
So electric vehicles are awesome and the way of the future. There are many ancillary applications in the grand scheme of EV's, such as how they support the growth of wind and solar generation or how they will effect the prices in the energy market, but those are more complex concepts and you are welcome to ask me about them in detail if you'd like.
2 comments:
Have you seen Who Killed the Electric Car or heard anything about that whole fiasco? I don't remember enough to say anything intelligent, but it was really interesting and upsetting.
I had not heard of this documentory, but the history is somewhat familiar. The idea of battery electric vehicles has certainly been around for a while, but not it seems three factors are coming together to create the right environment for them to thrive:
1. Environmental issues have enough of a public following that they are beginning to trump oil lobbyists.
2. Energy markets for oil and nonconventional sources are trending in the right directions. Natural gas markets remain to be seen.
3. Battery technology has had some strong breakthroughs and has received significant research, development, and production funding.
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