alt.energy.renewable

On Feb 19, 11:29=A0pm, Anthony Matonak
wrote:
> Roland M=F6sl wrote:
> > "Anthony Matonak" schrieb im
> > Newsbeitragnews:47bb303d$0$30702$4c368faf@...
> >> calderh...@ wrote:
> >> So it's the evil Americans and not the high oil prices,
>
> > And what causes the high oil price?
>
> The Arabs and Chinese of course. The one for selling at such a high
> price and the other for buying so much of it. :)
>
> >> hurricanes,
> > And what cauese more often and more powerfull hurricans?
>
> Who says there are more often and more powerful hurricanes?
> Global warming alarmists said this would happen but, to the
> best of my knowledge, it hasn't.
>
> Even if hurricanes did happen more often and more powerfully,
> it's the sun that causes it all. Should we stop the sun?
>
> > Oil has to be replaced, here a first overview how much
> > electric power is necessary to replace one litre of an oil product
>
> I've been told that a great deal of gasoline (an oil product)
> is used to power cars. I've also been told that the GM EV1 got
> at least 3 miles/kWh and some of the newer model electric cars
> that are soon to be on the market get over 4 miles/kWh.
>
> If you replace a typical car getting 25 mpg with an electric
> car that gets 4 miles/kWh then you need kWh to replace
> one gallon of gasoline.
>
> If we used a really efficient electric powered mass transit
> system, such as a PRT (personal rapid transit) then it's quite
> likely we would need even less electricity to do the same job.
>
> Anthony

Anthony, I spent 10 years working in the rail transportation
industry. So, being an engineer (no, I don't drive a train), here are
a few thoughts for your consideration.

First, the most efficient transportation systems achieve their
efficiency by having steel wheeled trains operate on steel rail in
dedicate tunnels.

Second, I know of NO PRT system that runs steel wheels on steel rail,
although there may be a few rare exceptions to that. Most PRT systems
run on rubber tires on concrete within a guidway of some sort. Becasue
of this, they don't share the same level of energy efficiency as rail
transportation. I did work on the Airtrans system at DFW airport and
the PRT system in Denver. Both operate rubber tire vehicles, with the
associated energy inefficiency.
While I've ridden the PRT system at Atlanta's airport and not worked
on its design, I'm not familiar with its traction design.

That said, it is my opionion that no car can achieve anything close to
3-miles/KWH on public surface roads, simply because of the energy
disipated in the rubber wheels and the frictional retardation when
running on concrete or asphalt surfaces. That's not even taking into
account the retardation experienced by air resistance when traveling
at even a moderate speed. This figure is not even close to the actual
electrical consumption that would be experienced even under the most
theoretically ideal conditions. This figure is actually lower than
that experienced by rail vechicles under ideal tunnel conditions with
regenerative braking.

Finally, consider what constitues the cost of 1-KWH of electricity.
When fossil or nuclear fuel prices increase, the price of electricity
increases (hopefully only proportionally). I've seen the cost of 1-KWH
grow from $ (in Fairport, NY around 1978 to $ (here in the
Boston area, today). Deregulation and fuel charges have driven the
cost of electricity sky high, and are likely to continue. Here in the
Boston area, due to deregulation, we now pay more for distribution
charge (power lines, transformers, etc.) than we do for the actual
generated energy. Please take this into account before purchasing any
electric vehicle, because you could end up paying more for the
electricity to charge your batteries than for gas at the fuel pump.

There is no free lunch.

Still, something worth watching is the federal IVHS program, which
unfortunately years away from seeing practical implementation. This
largely focuses on automatic traffic control systems, but also include
research into providing motive power to vehicles via some transmission
mechanism in the roadway. I really can't say that this cannot be done,
but would estimate it to be something that could happen 50 years
hence.

Harry C.