Tesla Powerwall battery vs. inverter bank

I don't think we will see everyone driving electric cars for quite some time. Most electric cars have a worse carbon footprint than most gasoline driven cars because they're being recharged from coal and gas powerplants.

I really think diesel and natural gas cars should be explored more and used more. I see no reason why any fleet of cars/trucks that goes to a common depot everynight such as the post office, city vehicles,buses and vehicles of that nature cannot use natural gas. Some already are here in South Florida such as garbage trucks and city buses.

Diesel and Gas have been popular in many parts of the world for many years, it has just not been taken up very well in the US because you have always had such ridiculously low fuel costs

Actually the main problem with Diesel anyways, is the EPA and it's regulations on diesel cars and trucks. So many of the diesel cars you get in Europe and elsewhere are the same cars offered here with no diesel option. Here you have to run UREA fluid that the computer mixes with the diesel to keep the emmissions down to make it pass EPA.

Most personal cars used for driving to and from work, travel less than 50 miles a day. This type of urban driving could very well be done by fully electric cars with todays technology. The main reason they are not accepted is, the procurement costs are to high and yes, they have a very bad carbon footprint, if recharged with electrical power from power stations using fossil fuel. And yes again, because petrol and diesel fuels are still far to inexpensive for the success of electric cars.

The first large fully electric large car ferry has been developed in Norway. It is using only electrical power and only produced by hydro power stations (Norway produces 100 % of its electricity with hydro power stations).

The ferry has an average range of about 45 min and crossing the Fjord takes only about 20 min. On both sides of the Fjord, the ferry automatically hooks up to high voltage shore power and recharges (within its 10 to 15 min de- and reloading of cars and people) the batteries long enough to cross the Fjord again.



That is pollution free shipping and a really low carbon footprint. Only sailing a fully wooden boat with sails made of linen would be better. And holding your breath while doing it .

Coal and gas powerplants operate far more efficiently that gasoline or diesel cars, making electric cars far more greener no mater where they get the power. As has been said, the ridiculously cheap fuel in North America is preventing further uptake of battery cars.
If gas taxes were increased to actually fund the repairs and maintenance of roads and highways, we'd get more electric cars

Coal and gas powerplants create a larger carbon footprint to recharge electric cars than an efficient gasoline or diesel car because of transmission losses to get the power to the charging station as well as the charging loss of the batteries. You also have the energy and natural resources needed to build the car as well as to manufacture all of the batteries compared to say building a diesel Volkswagon jetta that gets an average of 50+ mpg. It does not come out better in the majority of cases at this time. There are many articles on it. As solar and battery technology gets much more efficient and it will in the next 5-10 years, that equation may change. I could see cars with a solar panel roof that could regenerate most of their energy themselves if parked outside in the near future, without plugging into the grid.

In the passenger car ferry it's a unique case because all of their energy (electricity) used to charge the ferry is hydrodynamic and creates no carbon footprint. But the majority of electricity is produced from fossil fuels.

Might be time to take some comprehension lessons or clean the glasses again.

I grew up in NZ where a lot of the Power is Hydro Electric , whilst the generation of the power might be a low carbon footprint thing the construction of the dams and powerhouses certainly wasn't

Maybe not, but it is still greener than a coal/uranium mine or tar sands.

I believe this "vessel" would be acceptable as far as the carbon footprint is concerned. Both for its production and its operation.



I hope, Mr. Heyerdahl used tools made of stone, cutting the wood .

Perhaps, but they've already been built and are already there. So it is utilizing hydro electric power made from them.

No carbon footprint, really. Who smelted the iron ore into steel (coke is produced from meteorological coal) for the hydro turbines? Same goes for copper and aluminum. Tremendous amonts of energy are needed for these process. someone made cement, concrete & rebar for the dams?

Here in California which is run by a bunch of old San Franciso hippies, we've done nothing over the past forty years about increasing water infrastructure or an increase in generating electric energy. So, we're running out of water and high temperatures means electrical service brown outs. But the Snail Darter and the Delta Smelt are safe.

When dried can these be burnt in sufficient numbers to generate electricity?

Sure, you just eat a 5 gallon bucket full of them and then capture the methane gas you produce, which can then be burned for energy.

That's a good plan, should fit well with the hippy life stylers out there then.

LOL ...I'd be willing to give it a try.

Years back I'd come home to find that family had put regular batteries in recharging stations. Swollen and bubbling, I yanked the entire unit from the wall mount. It happened more than once, but no explosions.

Years prior to that I was in an advanced chemistry class, and our teacher was showing us how to make a battery with acid and zinc. He further went to show how that the by product could be harnessed as an energy source.

Regrettably the resulting hydrogen exposed to a Bunsen burner did not yield a steady blue flame, but popped the top portion (mouth) of the flask nearly all the way up to the ceiling.

I've got loads of stories like that. House batteries are relatively safe. However, I do wonder if maybe a little education at the grade school level on electricity wouldn't be a bad thing.

Back to Tesla. As I stated in my previous post, I think Tesla may have caught onto something not so much on the chemistry level of electrical storage, but on the "chemical engineering", or more rather pure mechanical engineering on a very small scale to maximize capacitance. What kind of electrical trickery they've figured out I can't say, but for a wall station to be able to do what it does, it would require a significant breakthrough in electrical engineering.

There's something on the tip of my tongue about electricity ... but it's escaping me right now.

Either way, when I saw the news piece about the Power Wall, my first inclination was to think how it might be applied to a vessel that was electrically powered, and not so much as a battery for a diesel or sail powered vessel.