Over at the CBC website they are having a gabfest on their comments regarding this Magna story. Funny how people don't like the idea of "Big Oil" (which, by the way is really "Government Oil" in most of the world), but seem okay with the idea of "Big Lithium". What idiots.

I'm getting a charge out of this neo-pagan folly.

I'm sure Gaia can zap some sense into these maroons.

I don't even think the reverse will be true: in 30 years 12% of the cars will be electric. Where do people (especially the environmentalists) expect the electricity is going to come from?

I am an engineer with some contacts that deal with electricity transmission and infrastructure. They laugh at the notion of green power and the electric car because the system can barely supply our current needs. There needs to be massive investment in electricity transmission and delivery infrastructure for this to be feasible. Another glaring omission by the drive by media.

I'd actually listen to stuff like this if the same people who were telling me that I have to wait until 9PM to run my dishwasher weren't the same people telling me that electric cars are the answer...

If the system can't handle a few thousand dishwashers, how can it handle tens of thousands of cars being plugged in at 6PM every night?

Bang on, John. The only thing that can explain it - religious zeal. As if two wrongs make a right, kinda thing.

Any good movement needs a villain - Big oil. (even though it is mostly state and socialistic owned)

The big hate for religion is countered with their own religion - AGW.

My belief, your belief. My god, your god. The perfect, non-provable controversy. (at least initially) A media perpetual motion machine news story.

Amazing, they must think that electricity just appears like magic out of the holes in the wall, effortlessly, without thought or work, and limitless.

And every attempt at increasing capacity is met with howls of protests by the same group wanting electric cars. Can't build new transmission lines through 'environmentally sensitive areas'. Can't build nuclear, nor coal or gas fired because of C02 (boogeyman) fears. Can't build wind turbines because they're ridiculously expensive. And kill birds. And look and sound ugly.

Future TV ads

"I have enough juice for my air conditioner or my car, but not both. Why won't the government do something !"

Burtz,

You are right about the current electrical infrastructure except proponents know this, that is why the SMART GRID technology that allows the Government to ration Electricity by controlling your home's maximum consumption via the meter is an essential building block of the great green electric car makeover.

Obama trumpted its testing in Denver.

So at midnight your meter will shut off your house power and charge your car, think of it as an energy curfew. Do not set your TIVO for 2am!

You know the price of gas would go down considerably if we allowed more refineries to be built in this country (there are only 18 currently). Since there is a huge amount of non-arable land in the northen parts of most provinces, these would be the most obvious places for these new refineries (which would also mean good-paying, technical jobs for a lot of our Inuit and Northern Indians). Furthermore, if the gov't opened refining to anyone willing to find the capital and meet all the regulatory requirements...we'd really have a competition.

~~favill~~

More windmills???

I recently saw a picture of a protester carrying a sign that said, "Who needs oil? I ride the bus". I guess they will need to update that to, "Who needs coal/nuclear/natural gas? I drive an electric car".

So at midnight your meter will shut off your house power and charge your car, think of it as an energy curfew.
~Illiquid Assets at June 3, 2009 2:45 PM

And good luck finding the commode at 1am, plus remember not to step on your dog.

I predict home invasions will be a growth industry.

An assignment for the Electrical Engineers out there. You know, the people who actually bring electricity into our homes and power our work places.

By what percentage would our home electrical consumption go up in order to feed our EVs ?? Double ? Triple ?

Electricity
1 KW = 3,413 Btu/hr

Gasoline
1 Gal Gasoline (mid grade) = 125,000 Btu's

A thousand watts for 36 hours to replace one gal of gas !?

But say the gas job is only 25% efficient and assume elect recharge is a 100% (which it surely is not)

Would it still take about 9 hours, at a thousand watts (two canuck block heaters), to replace just 4.5 liters ??

I work for Honda in Canada and my bet is that in 12 years there will be less then one percent of cars on the road fully electric. Three years ago rumours were floating around that the next generation Prius would be a plug in hybrid and that did not materialize in the recent release of the 2010 Prius, instead Prius has a bigger gasoline engine (1.8L) combined with an electric motor. Honda currently has no plans for a pure electric road safe car that I know of, but has recently reintroduced the Insight hybrid.

My biggest concern in Electrical production is we are not even building to match our attrition rates in North America. We have power stations way past their lifecycle both coal and nuclear, with no plans to replace their capacity.

Environmental regulations have scuttled or delayed nearly all new plants, and have added 5-10 years onto timetables and hundreds of billions of dollars in assessment and engineering costs.

We are in for a world of hurt if we pull profits from utilities via cap and trade and invest in Wind and Solar and "Dumb" Smart Grid technologies that will make the grid less safe and less reliable. We need even more localized grids with loal production and we need to mediate pricing with SUPPLY.

Just sent a link of this to Business News Network, who just finished a live interview with Frank Stronach.

LOL! They had to put their electric car on a truck to get it to Toronto's Queen's Park because it only had a 160km range. Good idea, to have these wonderful things in the second largest country in the world.

Thankfully, Stronach only mentioned the smog in the major cities around the world, and didn't really yabber on about Globaloney Warming. (I'm running out of things to claw my eardrums out with... I mean, come on! I already had to pluck my eyeballs out after recently reading in the Reader's Digest that Dr. David "Fruitfly" Suzuki is the most trusted person in Canada.)

Well, what do you expect from a guy who raises a daughter who wants to become the Head Cheeso, and then shows up in Vancouver going, "W-wh-what do you mean, Western Alienation?"

Electric cars would mainly be charged at night, after midnight I expect, when electricity demand goes way down. In BC they have to shut some of the generators down at this time, can't waste water. We do need smart electricity networks.

"And good luck finding the commode at 1am, plus remember not to step on your dog.

I predict home invasions will be a growth industry.
Posted by: Oz at June 3, 2009 2:57 PM"

And I predict a lot of frozen engine blocks.

Let's all enjoy winter.

I could see maybe 30% of new cars being sold in 12 years being electric, of some type. This include Hybrids.

But plug ins being 30% of the fleet?

Even at the more conservative number I mentioned there will be a strain. Thats doesn mean you dont do it, but these things take time. It will take time for the engineering and production to catchup with the dreams.

These things are possible but it takes time and money to make them useful and seamless to people's expectations. Look at the reviews the Insight got...horrendous. But the volt is getting good driving reviews, so far.

The Fusinon Hybrid is getting rave reviews for driveability....this urban street and urban highway driving.

I am actually more excited about the ecoboost technology. Turbocharged direct injected gasoline. apparently getting 5 L/100 km.

There is more to to be wring out of the gasline internal combustion engine yet. This is good because the grid and generation capacity all need investments and planning.

I drive a diesel TDI jetta and love it. Love the torque. Would gladly use an Ecoboost or TSI engine to get similar mileage.

The Fusion Hybrid is intriguing but I dont know if the internal size will help. As for a plug in. Well, my electric bill is more than I want anyway. Think about times you might need a car and how they might correspond with a power outage.

Can you imagine Montreal in the ice storm if the place was running on plug ins? Especially if they are stoopid enough to put emergency vehicles on that technology? Or Toronto during the blackout in 2005. Hybrids or Direct Inject Turbo gas engines are better technology bets in the short run. Plug Ins are niche second cars for suburbs to get gorceries, take kids to soccer and hockey games etc.

You need greater range, smaller batteries, faster charge times. All possible, just takes more time.

Doubling the mpg on the domestic car fleet will have more effect on making everyone more energy secure than will going all electric too quickly.

But hey the market can decide. I fear the volt, under government motors wont be the saviour. Ford has a better product path. Shame, because I think the volt has some really good engineering and design in it. Lets hope it doesnt get parcelled off to the wrong people if GM ultimately fails.

Post at "Dust my Broom", note truckin' "Update":

"Charge it"

Mark
Ottawa

Where do people (especially the environmentalists) expect the electricity is going to come from?

Unicorns, rainbows, hope, and a wave of Obama's hand.

All the valid concerns by the technically educated folks in this thread can be summed up with a simple sentence: with business going to India and China there is no f4cking way on Earth we can pay for drastic changes in technology that the green left is demanding. Period.

given that half the electricity in NAmerica is generated by "dirty coal" this is a non starter.

and the grid makes an electron an electron anywhere at any price.

Yesterday I heard on the radio that Alberta power consumers can expect about a $8/month increase in their power bills in order to pay for upgrading of the power transmission system that has trouble keeping up with our current conventional usage.

Well today, the price has gone up already. I see in the paper that the increase is now expected to be on the order of $14.50/month.

Alberta's $14.5B power system upgrade to jolt residents' bills

The extra $14.50-per-month charge on a homeowner's bill sparked backlash from consumer advocates and opposition parties, while the head of city utility Enmax questioned whether some of the power lines are even necessary.

Albertans now pay about $7 a month in transmission charges on an average $100 bill.

That tab would increase to about $21.50 as the additional power line projects proceed over the coming years.

And as I asked yestrerday, how much more on top of that will we each have to pay to appease the Green Gods?

Gaia is a very thirsty god of the neo-pagans.

No cost is too high to appease Gaia, even the sacrifice of future humanity may be unable to quell her anger.

a couple of years back i read that if there were 500 thousand electric cars plugged into the grid the grid would collapse under the current load plus the cars.

Well, here is a glorious chance for those who worship Gaia to make pantloads of money AND save Gaia at the same time. The "believers"(known as or Stronachites) to demonstrate their belief, should mortgage everything they own and invest it entirely in shares in this Frankie Stronach's Incredible Electric Chariot. I mean lots of people did it for Jim Jones....why not Frank? But then that would mean they would have to put their money where there considerable mouths are....and that would mean risk, and that would mean....well...forget it. Easier if they just profess to be believers and have others fund their belief.

The problem with getting a viable electric car has always been the batteries. They do not hold enough charge to travel very far and they degrade fairly quickly needing to be replaced. Assuming these problems are resolved does anyone know the environmental impact of millions of old car batteries?

Check out Iowahawk for the car of the future.
The Pelosi GTxi. ;-)

A single generating plant in Eastlake, Ohio (a suburb of Cleveland) went offline amid high electrical demand, and that strained high-voltage power lines (located in a distant rural setting) later went out of service when they came in contact with "overgrown trees"(while they were "melting like popsicles") as the Phantom would say. The cascading effect that resulted ultimately forced the shutdown of more than 100 power plants.

This is what they called The Northeast Blackout of 2003.
The blackout affected an estimated 10 million people in the Canadian province of Ontario and 45 million people in eight U.S. states.

somewhat basically FROM:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_North_America_blackout#Background

Do not be a denier or a doubter;Dalton can do anything.

John Luft,

Do you mean to tell me that you think Dr. David "You Should All Be Living in a Box in the Sky" Suzuki wouldn't sell his second home in the Gulf Islands to invest in my beach-front condo project in Inuvik?

Surely you jest.

It's as if people expected him to bike across Canada rather than drive a big carcinogen spewing bus. (Coughs)

Lol! I won't even touch a 4-stroke snowmobile or dirtbike... good luck getting me into an electric car.

On a side note, I heard that some cities still have old by-laws on the books requiring hitching posts in front of businesses and such, which I think would be great. Not only could I leave crap all over the place for the Gaia worshippers to soil their posh loafers in, but if I could get an old horse who knows his own way home, along with a nice covered wagon... well, me thinks I could stumble out of the pub, pass out in the back of the wagon, and wake up back at home - all completely responsible and living as one with the earth goddess.

But, what do I know, eh? I'm just a poor lonesome country boy with nothing but chicken wire to sit on and this rusty old marble to play with.

On the radio today, there was one of those ads. A guy talking about natural gas and windmills. He was saying that the big project in Southern Sask, Cypress Wind Power I think, operated at 40% capacity. So there is your answer right there, all we need is windmills, and people will be able to drive 100% of the time!

When I fart, it smells like rainbows.

Another question: would occupants of electric cars be exposed to any electro-magnetic field? If, then what are the health concerns?

It takes a lot of energy to make electricity. Most through coal or gas burning or (gasp) 'nukeular' power.

There is a rapidly growing number of cars and trucks being sold all over the world now. And how about all that ash-vault to make the roads? That's not cotton candy y'all, it's oil.

These are all dots that no Liberal is capable of connecting.

The only dot I see them attempt connect is ... pollution = global warming.

Everything else is processed through their feelings about each individual item. No connection is possible other than to their anger that not everyone 'feel's' the way do about these burning issues.

Leftists are stuck in what the late Harry Browne defines as the "Identity Trap". That is where one thinks that all others think and feel as they do. It is the primary mistake that nearly all humans make. Once explained and understood, thinking will logically change and the idea that all people are alike with the same needs and desires vaporizes.

I have noted that this works with the conservative, or libertarian mind, but the built in defect in the Liberal minds prevents it from groking this piece of human nature.

The wrap is that Liberalism is a mental disorder.

For more on Harry Browne's great book "How I Found Freedom In An Unfree World, Google Harry Brown and check it out. It's a great and easy read.

Too bad about Tiller, I think he was aborting mostly Liberal fetuses. I know that's not a nice thing to say, but we all know that most conservatives will more likely keep their babies. We are outnumbered you know.

When I fart, it smells like rainbows.
~Kevin Lafayette

Remind me not to invite you to a picnic on a rainy day.

xiat...not only will there be health problems due to the EMF, first responders are very concerned about the threat of electrocution when responding to an accident.....but, oh ya, stupid me....in chimpy mcwindmill's Ontario, no electric cars will ever be in an accident.........and the chemicals entering the landfills(you cannot store energy on a plate without a physical stimulant acting on that plate)will be horrendous.....

once again, the envirojerkoffs are wrong, wrong, wrong

wrong on DDT
wrong on nuclear power
wrong on incineration
wrong on recycling

GET YER DAMN HANDS OUT OF MY POCKET, YOU ENVIROIDIOTS!

John Luft You are right about the CBC. They were going on about not giving money to GM and it should have gone to Stronach. Lot of support for that but the Ceeb is restricting any common sense as in rare earth minerals, electricity and those niggling details. I gave up and sent one last point 'What do 18 wheelers call electric cars? Speed bumps.' I don't bother to check after the sane stuff doesn't make it. I just play with the censor.

I am eagerly awaiting market release of teh Government Motors (TM) Volt. Thousands will be crushed in the rush not to buy it.

I also look forward to the schadenfreude of those who actually bnuy it and realise that electric cars are currently impracticle.

There is no "electricity shortage" in Onterio.

There is no "water shortage" either.

Ontario is gifted with almost infinate hydro electrical generating resources and vast generating capacity. Ontario is surrounded by the most fresh water on earth and has the largest aquifers on the planet.

Talk of "shorateges" is a fabricated politically expedient "crisis".

No doubt the gangsters in Queen's park need a patsy to cover up how they starved the water and electrical distribution and delivery systems all these years - letting the transmission and delivery infrastructures decay while skimming utility revenues for their own purposes.

Ask Moe Strong. He knows where the hydro skeletons are buried.

Go green, be responsible. But hey...don't you dare run a clothesline to dry your clothes. In most towns and cities now there are by-laws that say no clotheslines 'cause they be a blight on the landscape, unsightly doncha know. Ya right. So hundreds of miles of transmission lines and hundreds on windmills are esthetically pleasing? And I can't hang my bedding and towels (no ginch!)? The by-law says I must use my electric dryer. Go figure.

[quote]Another question: would occupants of electric cars be exposed to any electro-magnetic field? If, then what are the health concerns?[/quote] Xiat

There is one thing for sure... all those scientists that where paying around High Energy DC Pulses in the N/W US in ~1988 won't tell you.. they are dead. I almost got caught up in the management side of that Project and I was “Fully” briefed and didn’t see the problem. I do stupid for free......

Actually Winston, you are a bit mistaken on the "unlimited" hydro power available( in Ontario). The major sources have already been dammed and the only way to tap the rest is for smaller generators and super efficient transmission lines to bring it out of the deep boonies. Imagine watering you lawn with a 500' hose from the guy down the street. Possible, maybe but economically viable, not likely. And I didn't even mention the environmental/human costs associated with damming vast quantities of land and perhaps flooding someone's trap line. Think James Bay and all the legalities, lawsuits, environmental impact studies, ... Remember, Ontario still uses coal to generate power too.

A few well placed nukes across Canada would do a lot to easing the electrical issues, but then again, power is a provincial thing so the chances of everyone getting onboard the same wagon is virtually nil.

*disclaimer* I have two family members in the business and a century of family ties to Ontario Hydro or whatever they call themselves.

" neo-pagan folly." It's not neo-pagan, it is neo-Christian, or more properly post Judeo-Christian. Think of the story of "The Fall", and substitute technology for the apple of knowledge...

no_irony: actually, you are closer to the truth than you imagine. The Toronto Transit Commission advertises its subways as being run on "clean, non-smoggy" energy. I.e, electricity. I.e., some of which comes from coal. Etc.

Call me crazy, but I have come to the conclusion that the new GM is basically going to be the Tennessee Valley Authority, except with cars.

The difference is, Kevin, that it is pretty easy to make people buy your electricity since they don't have a real choice. We shall see how they treat the purchase of cars in the future.

The biggest threat to the USA is physically running out of electricity.

Or having some of their grid go down due to the inability to keep it maintained.

State govts are running out money big time.

Electric cars don't appear to really solve anything.
Good bluster though.

I think I will get one of those rear PTO generators for my tractor, so I can run the diesel engine overnight to charge the electric car they make me buy when there is no electricity for it. And the greenies are trying to shut down Vermont Yankee, the nuclear plant here, and replace it with... wait for it... windmills.

Why do you right wing nutters hate the environment so much?

Dilithium crystals... aye laddie, there's the answer.