Infrastructure Investing

No one goes into business “charging batteries” or anything else unless the service in place ahead of time. You seem to have the idea that charging batteries for electric cars uses more electricity then any other manufacturing plant. It doesn’t. Providing power for electric motors is economical overall because electric motors are so efficient. Now, using that same electricity to drill for oil to power gas powered cars is much less efficient overall and uses more electricity and is less cost effective.

 

We don't do septic.

 

I member putting oakum in pipes and putting lead to seal them. This happened just about everywhere in the eighties.

 

The chemicals we use to treat water can leach the lead into the water. This was less of a problem back then because we used less chemicals to treat the water. I filter any of my tap water prior to drinking, to protect both from lead and from the chemical treatments.

 

You sound like a battery replacement is the only option. Funny. Electric cars can use several modalities. That’s their advantage.

 

How is driving an automobile less and less in line with our biological needs??? While maybe just coincidental it is perfectly in line with Agenda 21 and Degrowth.

Maybe, Probably, but that is not the AOC/Biden/Gore/Obama/Markey/etc plan.

 

Interesting, but in no way address my post. I was addressing the suggestion that instead of charging their car battery every 3 or 4 days they simply take it to a battery exchange shop, turn in their uncharged battery and get a freshly charged one (for maybe $50-100 or so???). My question was who would want to spend and hour or two at a mechanic shop in lieu of plugging it into a garage outlet for 8 to 12 hours or so, and where is the service provider going to get the massive amount of electricity needed to recharge all of those batteries.

 

Of course it does...it’s a fallacy to think you need massive amounts for two reasons.
And your comment was, ‘what happens when everyone needs a new fresh battery all at once.’ I addressed that first, that batteries are much less demanding to charge then the electricity needed for oil drilling and oil processing. Secondly, the assumption that all cars electric cars will have replaceable batteries at the same time. That’s false. The vast majority of the time you’ll charge them at home for commuting and only use replaceable batteries for trips. You could keep that battery for days or weeks at home in your car and on your own charger and replace it while driving on your next trip. Plus, hydrogen fuels cells will also be available to run your electric car. Electricity is the ideal multi source generation option.

seriously, do gas stations run out of gas ?
The amount of energy by cost is 1/3 for an electric car then for gasoline.
It’s then much easier and cheaper to charge batteries the pump gas for cars.

 

You are still missing the point of the thread. Hydrogen fuel cells or the cost to run an oil pump are not pertinent. I never said nor assumed that everyone would all charge their battery at the same time; that would be ridiculous. The basic points here are 1. Changing (exchanging) batteries is a process more like changing an alternator than it is filling the gas tank. And if you went to a battery exchange there would have to be many such exchanges in a city since, assuming a well run exchange has 20 workers and it would take an hour to make an exchange, that would be 24 x 20 = 480 exchanges in a day (assuming the demand is evenly spread out), or about 1000 if it can be done in 30 minutes. Travis Co. (Austin) has about 80 million vehicles; if half were EVs that would require 10,000 battery exchanges. One can play with the numbers and get different results, but in any case many many charging stations will be required and at places where........ -- see #2, and 2. Charging car batteries (for a nigh percentage (if not 100% per the plan) of total vehicles requires much more electricity than is produced today. I roughly calculated that charging a 50kWhr battery every three days would almost double a household's current electric bill, but more critical, its distribution system (the grid) has to be totally revamped because it does not go to the 500,000 very high power/charging stations Biden wants to install nor to the 5000-10,000 battery exchanges required for just Austin, TX..

 

For the umpteenth time, battery exchanges in cities or any where other then. Interstate long rang travel is a wrong concept. City electric cars are at their most efficient. You're still under this wrong that commuters don’t work. Few will need battery exchange. It’s only a minority and those who are traveling distances of 300 miles plus per day. Everyone else just charges at night. Do you travel more then 300 miles every day ? Energy wise, charging batteries is very inexpensive compared to using the same electricity to run most manufacturing. Jeepers , it’s CHEAP. It’s one third the energy consumption. A business can easily tap into the existing grid... in the city he’d go broke looking for customers.

an hour to make an exchange ? Good grief. It’s a five minute job for a car set up for it. Now, THERE IS NO MARKET. We are less than five. years away from 20 minute charge times at home and 300 mile ranges.

 

Battery range is figure at 70 mph. So battery exchanges where mileage is at its minimum will only be around expressways. You can slug through a city for 8 hours and never lose a charge,

the idea is to have them available to reduce range anxiety to drive up purchase power if EVs. That’s because EVERYONE WILL mess up and need a fill up. Guaranteed, it will be quicker and take less energy to change and replace a battery then to fill up your car with gas.

You had better check your calculations. Have you ever heard of electric heat ? Just running a simple area electric heater is two to three times the energy need to charge a car in one day. An electric oven baking a dinner will change a care easily. You do this sht all the time. The reason it takes time is thev battery storage waiting for the batteries to accept the charge. Youre delusional. Fewer then 10% of the EVs will ever use a battery change any one day. The rest will compute and charge at home.

 

All conservative fear is based upon waking up tomorrow and suddenly there will be millions of additional electric cars on the road. This is a ten to 20 year plan boys. The change over to EVs happens gradually. The demands will easily be accommodated. Just adding insulation to a home that’s heated electrical,y will eliminate any increase in charging a car....without even breathing hard.

 

I agree. My posts were in response to Bowerbird's suggestion.

Good grief yourself. One cannot change the battery in today's cars in five minutes!

 

To recharge a 50kWhr EV battery in 8 hours requires 6250 watts. That's 3 times the average oven that is on for less than one hour and about 6 times the average room heater.

 

The speed and ease is in the mind of the beholder. Biden wants his 500,000 charging installed and 20% of the school buses electrified (down from 100% in his platform statement) in 8 years. Granted that will only handle a small percentage of the vehicles on the road, but the AOC/Biden/Gore/Obama/Markey plan is to have 100% EVs as fast as they can dream. Practicallity and physics don't have much of a part in political agendas.

That is nonsense. Charging a 50kWhr battery 10 times a month is 25% to 50% of the average household's monthly usage now and would cost $50 to $75 a month.

 

$50 a month ? The average commuter can pay that much per week in gasoline. That’s hilarious. So you’re getting your gasoline for free which cost three to four times as much per mile.? Ha ha
Tell me, how are you managing that ?

You do realize the only maintenance of EVs is washer fluid and tire pressure. Ha ha




Conservatives luv pissing your money away

 

Yes, the cost of automobile fuel will move from paying big oil to paying electricity bills.

Your comment on economics is obviously sadly lacking. It says nothing at all about dollars per mile. And, that's really the only way to make a valid comparison.

With the advent of solar power, individuals can reduce their electric bills by producing some or all of their own electricity - whether they use that for electric vehicles or not. There is no way to take similar steps for oil based car fuels.

 

I guess you’re not into engineering. You don’t exchange batteries every charge cycle in cars aren’t meant for it. Only in those developed that way,,...they will all be automated.....
Seriously, this may be way over the head of the average republican.

 

I guess he doesn’t realize electric motors are maintenance free, can run continuously for years and are over 90% efficient. The right is so afraid of the Saudis, they’re willing to burn oil instead of use sunlight.

 

On WHAT SPECIFICS could you possibly be basing that statement, as few of the SPECIFICS are even yet known?

These are not typical times, it seems I should not need to point out. So the term, "ridiculous," without justifying explanation, seems a nothing more than gratuitous description. At least give us, readers, a context for the person's judgement who expects us to credit his assessment with, "value," for our expenditure of trust. Did/do you credit Trump's tax cuts, which overwhelmingly benefitted the wealthiest in our society-- I'm happy to look up the exact figures, if you dispute that factual appraisal-- and which had the SAME COST as the spending for Covid relief (both economic stimulus as well as help for states in organizing their immunization initiatives), as being of MORE,
"VALUE for the expenditure?"

Comparing the U.S. economy with that of Zimbabwe, is a blatant advertisement that you are not presenting an argument worthy of serious consideration (no offense, just FYI).

 

Then, clearly, you must support the idea of reversing Trump's tax cuts, which would, therefore, pay for the state immunization assistance, citizen financial relief, national economic stimulus, & school upgrades required to safely get kids back in class & parents back to work. Yes?

While I am going to assume that you will say that the Covid funds should still not have been approved, I will speculate that you are in agreement that the Trump tax cuts were also an unnecessary increasing of the public debt, which is of such great concern to you because, as the Trump Administration's recognizably unrealistic predictions for how these cuts would so spur business activity (by which paying for themselves) came nowhere near to fruition-- to no economist's surprise-- it would utterly demolish all your credibility as a deficit-hawk, were you not to apply your position, likewise, to the Trump tax cuts.

I would, in fact, also imagine you'd have been whole-heartedly against our Troops' involvement in Iraq, perhaps even in Afganistan, at least subsequent to our killing of Osama bin Laden (who turned out to have long-escaped that country, living comfortably, & securely, since then, in Pakistan).

Therefore, to verify for any readers who might doubt the sincerity of your objections to the debt burdens placed upon us all, or who may suspect your debt argument to be only a handy veil for partisan attacks, I will afford you the opportunity, here, to validate your own consistency on this issue, by inviting you to post links to your previous posts against both the Trump revenue cuts, and the exorbitantly expensive Mid East military adventures begun by President George W. Bush which ran taxpayer costs, for each of the invaded countries, well exceeding the cost of Biden's addressing of the twin health & economic exigencies created by Covid. Though you make no mention of it, these things were large contributors to a very big debt hanging over us all, even before Biden took office.

To give you a heads-up-- AFTER I see these past, anti-deficit posts of yours, it will naturally lead to the question of what government spending you do see as valid. But my contention will be that there are certain circumstances which warrant the government (& so, the People) taking on debt. The havoc wreaked upon our population, & our nation's systems, by this pandemic, certainly qualifies IMO, as a situation for which, long term, it would be far more costly to FAIL to act, than to try to save a buck, now.

 

Um, have you read the OP, or any of the posts from our members on the right? That's the mainTHEME of this thread & the right's most salient target: that what has been included as infrastructure vastly exceeds what is typically included under that term. And you're going to cite someone pushing back on that false narrative* as the one who is focusing on semantics? That's both a laugh-riot, and utterly pathetic.

For the record, *the numbers being quoted, from GOP leaders-- hardly an impartial source-- are only about half of the things that would typically fall under that qualification, according to an accredited, reliable news source I read, which has asked why the other items were not included in that artificially-low number; they have received no explanation, or even response. Secondly, just because we have never addressed things like child care, here, as infrastructure, does not mean that they don't fit the general definition, and the central idea, of infrastructure.

 

I wasn't debating and don't disagree with the cost efficiency of EVs over IC engines. 100 car trains are propelled with electric power even though locomotives have powerful diesel IC engines (though for other reasons than cost). The debate is over the generation and distribution of electricity being woefully deficient to handle millions of EVs.