Grid efficiency verses gasoline engine to power a car

[tboult]

See my link above in post #33.

Wow you are connected if you know where ClarksonCote's uncle works.. wow.

Just incase that's not the location, there is a list of pumped storage plants on wikipedia (for that that is worth).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...power_stations
thought its incomplete since one of the few I had heard of

Lewiston (at Niagara falls)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewisto...nerating_Plant

is not in that list.

(Maybe its just pure pumped, not mixed hydro+pumped)

[JMatt]

Wow you are connected if you know where ClarksonCote's uncle works.. wow.

LOL. I was clearly replying to the first two sentences of his post. Not the third.

[ChasSidwa]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_Co...torage_Station

[ClarksonCote]

No. Spinning reserves operate 24/7/365. They currently account for about 0.7% of generation at any given time. The amount they generate is still hooked to the grid. They are basically generation that is throttled way down and can ramp up very quickly on demand. But the electricity they generate isn't dumped into nowhere.

At this point it seems like a semantic argument. The question was whether or not power plants are ever burning fuel but not generating electricity, and the answer appears to be yes, when they are in this "spinning standby" state. Every website I can find claims spinning standby is producing very little or no electricity for the amount of fuel being put into the plant.

[ClarksonCote]

LOL. I was clearly replying to the first two sentences of his post. Not the third.

LOL tboult and JMatt, tha would be a little scary. ;-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear_Sw...rating_Station is what I was thinking of, and they use reversible turbines. When electricity is cheap at night, they pump water in, and when it is in high demand, they generate electricity... Up to 600 megawatts for several hours, quite an operation.

[JMatt]

At this point it seems like a semantic argument. The question was whether or not power plants are ever burning fuel but not generating electricity, and the answer appears to be yes, when they are in this "spinning standby" state. Every website I can find claims spinning standby is producing very little or no electricity for the amount of fuel being put into the plant.

Here's the difference I was trying to point out: People often believe there is excess electricity being generated and going unused at night. That part is never true. Spinning reserves burn fuel without generating electricity - and they do it 24/7/365 so they can quickly get online if something else trips on the system somewhere. Spinning reserves have nothing to do with low demand at night causing power plants to waste electricity.

People often tie the myth of wasted electricity at night to electric cars, saying "we are just charging up with electricity at night that would otherwise be wasted." (Which is of course false).

[ClarksonCote]

Here's the difference I was trying to point out: People often believe there is excess electricity being generated and going unused at night. That part is never true. Spinning reserves burn fuel without generating electricity - and they do it 24/7/365 so they can quickly get online if something else trips on the system somewhere. Spinning reserves have nothing to do with low demand at night causing power plants to waste electricity.

People often tie the myth of wasted electricity at night to electric cars, saying "we are just charging up with electricity at night that would otherwise be wasted." (Which is of course false).

That's reasonable. But I think that electric cars could play an important role in balancing out demand over a day's 24 hour period, thereby helping to increase overall grid efficiency and reliability.

[JMatt]

That's reasonable. But I think that electric cars could play an important role in balancing out demand over a day's 24 hour period, thereby helping to increase overall grid efficiency and reliability.

I agree a million times over. Ultimately I think we can let those windmills spin at night and recharge all of our electric vehicles. The problem will be people like me who plug in when we get to work and charge during the day as well. What we really need is 200 mile range and 6.6kwh home-based chargers to make sure we all charge from midnight to 6am instead of work-based charging from 8am until noon or later.