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<p>Well, our backup is Hydro-Quebec which is a lot further away than remote parts of NH. Hydro itself has issues with fish not being able to return home to spawn (the hydro plant installed fish ladders which is a partial solution).</p>
<p>Electricity can be stored: I believe that worldwide pumped storage is somewhere north of 100 GW.</p>
<p>according to that font of all knowledge, wiki, the process hydro-electric storage is net user of energy. It only works by buying low and selling high, i.e., pumping water up when demand is low, and then selling at the high prices when demand is high. But while it may make money, net-net, it loses energy since the energy recovered is only 75% of the power used to pump the water back up the hill.</p>
<p>^^ Yes, there are always losses in practical power conversions in the motors, electrical transmission, opening/closing of gateways, friction, etc. It just isn’t possible to pump the water up high and recoup all of that energy when the water’s released back through the power generating equipment.</p>
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<p>No, electricity cannot be stored. Energy can be stored in the form of potential energy by spinning a flywheel or pumping water to a higher elevation or a number of options, but you are not storing electricity, you are increasing the potential energy of something that can be converted back into electricty later.</p>
<p>Electricity itself generally cannot be stored in its form as electricity.</p>
<p>I have a Prius, which I love. I could use an all electric because I live in Boston and usually drive fewer than 20 miles. But it would need to be a 2nd car. </p>
<p>Couple of thoughts:</p>
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<li><p>I’m skeptical of the analyses I read that add in the cost of mining rare earth materials. I think it’s not trivial to calculate accurately the amount of marginal cost related to an activity that would be happening anyway and where the major costs are incurred anyway. But warring cost analyses are common and have become a staple of economics arguments, particularly those related to political bias.</p></li>
<li><p>I think about how the world might be different. Imagine if we didn’t drive from city to city but instead used the kind of inter-urban mass transit that was common until the freeway system destroyed it. Electric trolleys connected much of the east coast. We could have had local use cars, maybe a garaging system like Zip Car. These electrics raise that as a future possibility: local use cars made generally available supplanting over time more individual cars. Maybe we’d have 1 car that goes far and 1 that is for local.</p></li>
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<p>Yes, engineers can be annoyingly pedantic.</p>
<p>I should know.</p>
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<p>Did I say that it could?</p>
<p>In the argument on rare earths: first it’s a one-time hit rather than an on-going hit. Second, Tesla’s latest car doesn’t depend on rare earths. Perhaps other manufacturers will migrate to approaches the don’t require a lot of rare earths.</p>
<p>Q: Rare earth elements prices go up significantly theses day, how they affect final price of model s marginal or important effect?</p>
<p>A: Not significant. The AC induction motor used in Tesla vehicles doesn’t contain permanent magnets, so no rare earths. Rare earths are required in some quantity for NiMH batteries, but Tesla uses Li-ion.</p>
<p>[Rare</a> earth elements vs model s price | Forums | Tesla Motors](<a href=“http://www.teslamotors.com/it_IT/forum/forums/rare-earth-elements-vs-model-s-price]Rare”>http://www.teslamotors.com/it_IT/forum/forums/rare-earth-elements-vs-model-s-price)</p>
<p>Regarding the issue of transmission and storage: there is a cost to what we have now.</p>
<p>We have to get the oil out of the ground, transport it to refineries by various means, refine it, transport chemicals to mix in with it, transport it to fuel depots, perhaps combine it with other chemicals that are transported (like ethanol), and then transport it by tanker truck to our local gas stations. There can be spills and accidents at any point along the transportation system.</p>
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I think there’s a significant qualitative difference between “environmental damage” and aesthetic “blight.” The undeniable consequences of environmental pollution include causing people to get sick and die. If the real scientists aren’t all wrong and global warming does follow from excess carbon emissions the consequence is death, destruction and economic losses in the quadrillions from sea level rise and increased numbers of extreme weather events. The consequences of “blight” from wind or solar farms in pristine desert and mountains passes is that they’re not as pretty for the few people who look at them. </p>
<p>I agree that sensitivity to appropriate settings for alternative energy production is warranted. I just don’t see it as an equivalent to the consequences of failing to replace as much fossil fuel-based energy production as possible as soon as practical.</p>
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I’m not an engineer, so I could be wrong - but isn’t that what capacitors do?</p>
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Don’t forget about the desert tortoises!</p>
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A capacitor stores energy in the form of an electrical field.</p>
<p>You likely already know that I don’t agree with all of the leaps by some of particular immediate short term impacts due to global climate change, change which is something that’s always happened and will continue to regardless of what mankind does, (and the idea that somehow we just happened to be in the perfect global climate until 20 or 50 or 100 years ago) but that’s not worth rehashing here again.</p>