Former IEA Econmist: Peak Oil within the decade | 48 comments (48 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Peak, smeak. (none / 1)

Yeah, I don't think regular gas stations in an urban environment will disappear. I still expect them to be converted. And you don't have to have a fast charger at your home parking spot, but a service station would sell the service of fast chargin for which you need a high tension line which would not be suitable for residential use.

tens of millions of people stand to see their lives ruined because the bureaucrats at the ECB don't understand introductory economics -- Dean Baker

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Tue Jan 3rd, 2012 at 07:34:38 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Peak, smeak. (none / 1)

Thing is, I really dont think they would get enough custom to survive, unless their actual income base is as an convenience store/place to get your car washed. Phones, laptops, ect, have all trained us to plug our gizmos into the outlet before we go to bed. That would carry over to just consistently plugging the car in when we get home. - a tiny bit internet connected electronics in that charger means it is going to wait to actually charge until the city has gone to bed or 3 am or whenever during the night power is cheapest (and power market forcasting on that timescale is pretty good) - but as a question of human behavior I really do not think any significant fraction of the car owning public is going to start any given day with less than a full charge on their car.
So any charging infrastructure is going to be a part of the amenities for travelers (hotel parking lots absolutely need them. And so on) or go nearly completely unused. - The return on investment for building a public charge station on a random city corner is going to be as near zero as makes no diffrence.

by Thomas on Tue Jan 3rd, 2012 at 08:21:45 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Peak, smeak. (4.00 / 2)

as a question of human behavior I really do not think any significant fraction of the car owning public is going to start any given day with less than a full charge on their car.

They will if it saves them substantial money in a way they can understand - note the effort the likes of mobile phone companies go to obscure the details of their plans so that people can't easily optimise. You only need nukes to solve this problem if you decide to structure the problem so that nukes are the opitimal solution.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Tue Jan 3rd, 2012 at 08:42:32 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Peak, smeak. (none / 0)

In addition, running out of battery on one's mobile is not exactly an unusual occurrence.

tens of millions of people stand to see their lives ruined because the bureaucrats at the ECB don't understand introductory economics -- Dean Baker

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Tue Jan 3rd, 2012 at 10:19:42 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Peak, smeak. (none / 1)

you are wastly overestimating how much money could be saved in this manner - The primary reason I expect the changeover to electric to follow very hot on the heels of the first reasonable electric car to hit the market is that electricity is much, much cheaper than gas.

Math: Let us assume that you are a foster parent in France, take care of nine kids, and thus you drive a monster of a people mover with a onehundred kwh battery, and you go through one charge per week. Top it off to full each night during generic offpeak hours, and you are out 8.75 euros /week. Most of which is, in fact, taxes. Which you cannot avoid by messing about trying to time the electricity market. So, at most, if you watch the weather reports like a hawk, and plan your driving very carefully around them, you save.. 2 euros per week. 104 euros per year. And this assumes that you are driving the electric equivalent of a SUV. For a smaller car, it is going to be half that.
Nobody is going to actually do this - it is far too much work for far too little return - Certainly it will not be common enough to affect overall demand at all. The day/night demandshifting works because it is automated and transparent to the consumer - Plug in at night, charged by dawn.

by Thomas on Tue Jan 3rd, 2012 at 10:23:46 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Peak, smeak. (none / 0)

I was rather expecting the charging structure to be revisited. And for the system to be automated: specify your criteria and off you go.

And if we move demand onto electricity, we'll push the price up anyway.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Tue Jan 3rd, 2012 at 10:30:59 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Peak, smeak. (none / 0)

Spain already started tweaking the night price discount on electricity in 2007. There were complaints from people who had replaced their gas heating systems with electric heaters and were going to lose much of the economic benefit of being able to charge accummulators at night.

When people start charging their cars massively at home, demand will equalize and so will price.

tens of millions of people stand to see their lives ruined because the bureaucrats at the ECB don't understand introductory economics -- Dean Baker

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Tue Jan 3rd, 2012 at 10:42:35 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Peak, smeak. (none / 0)

Depends. Pile a bunch of extra nighttime electricity demand into the french grid, and the cost per KWH will go down a bit, not up.

by Thomas on Tue Jan 3rd, 2012 at 10:44:19 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Peak, smeak. (none / 1)

The cost, yes, but not the price, as it is set by marginal pricing, remember?

Wind power

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Wed Jan 4th, 2012 at 07:56:03 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Peak, smeak. (none / 0)

Yes, but the point is that the price advantage of picking low price days over low price hours is a small fraction of an already low cost, and the convenience cost is high. Or put simply : having a fully charged car each morning will cost you mere cents extra compared to picking the setting that tries to get you the very best deals possible on electricity. Just about everyone will elect to pay. Utilities will expect them to elect to pay, and invest accordingly.

by Thomas on Tue Jan 3rd, 2012 at 11:22:54 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Peak, smeak. (none / 0)

Top it off to full each night during generic offpeak hours, and you are out 8.75 euros /week. Most of which is, in fact, taxes. Which you cannot avoid by messing about trying to time the electricity market.

You're assuming that the tax is flat-rate pr. kWh, rather than, say, proportional to the bill. In a smart grid, this is a stupid way to tax electricity, for precisely the reason you stress.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Tue Jan 3rd, 2012 at 12:04:26 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Peak, smeak. (none / 0)

Thomas:

Thing is, I really dont think they would get enough custom to survive, unless their actual income base is as an convenience store/place to get your car washed.

In Sweden at least, they are already mainly convenience stores geared towards drivers. This causes some problems today in the countryside where filling up gas on long routes can be useful.

Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se

by A swedish kind of death on Wed Jan 4th, 2012 at 10:32:11 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Former IEA Econmist: Peak Oil within the decade | 48 comments (48 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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