TinyTim

Postal Service Set to Lead the Way in Deploying Electric Fleet

In a word-
This project builds electric vehicle momentum.

While it may resemble another govt cash for clunkers, it builds the technology and helps progress along the learning and cost curves.

Lead Acid Batteries: How Cheap Beat Cool at Google

Don-
LOL. Since my current car is an 88 Civic with 275K miles, that shouldn't be a problem. Inn fact, the last time I checked the Web, there are alot of DIY kits out there for converting cars like this to all electric.

Lead Acid Batteries: How Cheap Beat Cool at Google

Sure seems to be a lot of interest in batteries these days.

Every chemistry has it's niche. For a stationary application where weight doesn't matter and the discharge cycles are infrequent and not deep, guess what - VRLA is very cost effective. From a reliability standpoint, they require periodic monitoring / maintenance for mission critical applications like nuclear power plants where they power up the control room after a cold start. They're as big as a small school bus. Surprisingly, they don't crank the very big diesel electric generators to boot up the rest of the plant, compressed air into the cylinders does that in seconds.
Reminiscent of the starter battery in a car without the cranking need.

I recently took a tour through a major metropolitan Internet server farm sitting right on a major trunk. They had a similar setup. Large VRLA bank with many monitors and a small CAT diesel-gen setup out back.

What do these applications have in common? The VRLA batteries are watched extremely closely. I can't tell you how many buildings I've been in with many backup LA battery emergency lites that are dead when the power goes out. Excellent way to check maintenance priority.

How would the high discharge frequency of a large utility load leveling application would affect battery life? The discharge depth is a function of the size of the battery bank. Any idea what the economics are?

So I wonder what Google has incorporated into their patented server backup VRLA technology to monitor and warn users that the promised power is still available.

What I'm really waiting for is energy storage technology for all electric cars. Hybrids are too expensive and complex with an aux IC engine. My next car will be an around town all electric commuter.

Smart Grid's Enabler - Alternative Energy Storage

Don't want to pop this smart grid bubble. But breakdown the DOE nameplate capacity of 1.09MMW into three parts. About 210MW are baseload generation (always online), 372MW are online in less than 24hrs, 512MW are online in 30 minutes.

So tell me again, what's the advantage of energy storage?
Why store it when you can turn it off in the first place? Much of the quick start generation is relatively low capital, but high fuel cost jet turbine powered generators.

I would like to see more load leveling to improve the ROI of expensive steam plants. Ideally, this would be done recharging electric cars during off peak night hours.

Also, why isn't pumped storage regen double counting capacity?