Actually, to be precise, we have two problems: Energy capture, and energy storage.  And the energy capture problem is really a matter of capturing high quality energy (electricity or high-temperature heat) that is useful for something.  Capturing low-grade heat is, of course, so easy as to be unavoidable.

The rather interesting thing is that plugins have a variety of different types :P

Motor Tech:
DC Physical Magnet
AC Electro Magnet

Energy Storage:
Batteries
UltraCapacitors

Drivetrain:
Parrallel
Serial

_

The best type of plugins are going to be:

AC Motors, with UltraCapacitors, using a Serial drivetrain.

Since these promise the lowest cost, for the most performance, in the longrun timeframe.

Actually Adam is right. We have (maybe) an energy storage problem. You can argue over whether wind electricity is slightly more expensive or slightly cheaper than natural gas. But it certainly is not largely different. So the key really is storage.

I've made the argument before: add a long distance grid to wind farms and you reduce the need for storage. Because you reduce the need for storage, we can use the least expensive but most environmentally intense form of storage pumped storage without serious environmental consequences because you won't need much of it.  With a long distance grid you would need only a ten to twelve hour storage capability. That translates into less than 50 square miles of pumped storage for the whole U.S. (upper and lower reservoir combined) with 800 feet of head. Certainly most regions can find two or three square miles of 800 foot elevation somewhere. Some states are pretty flat of course, but they have neighbors.

Given that 6% of our power mix is "renewables", and that's almost entirely big hydro and burning biomass, I would say that we have an energy capture problem that we need to address.  But solving the storage issue (by building the storage or eliminating the need for it) does make the capture problem much more tractable.

With a long distance grid you would need only a ten to twelve hour storage capability. That translates into less than 50 square miles of pumped storage for the whole U.S. (upper and lower reservoir combined) with 800 feet of head.

So did you make these numbers, or did you get them from some report?

Jabailo,

I have been thinking the exact same thing. I think it would make especially good sense for Class-8 long-haul trucking.

Why go through the massive hassle of infrastructure.

When you got batteries which can recharge in under 10 minutes?

At very least, longhaul might be better suited toward diesel-hybrid technology.
Since that can be completely self sufficient.

Mining equipment and trains already use this.

Busy atm

But I believe I've heard that our electric grid needs something like 2,700GW of electricity a day.

While all the cars in the US use up 29,000GW of energy a day.

_

This is why plugins make so much sense.
Since 90% of the time, they are parked.

Offering an amazing electric holding capacity.

Watts are not units of energy, GreyFlcn.

GreyFlcn wrote: Why go through the massive hassle of infrastructure [...] When you [have] batteries which can recharge in under 10 minutes?

Charging on-the-fly allows the investment in batteries to be smaller and/or reduces vehicle weight.

In order to equal this performance, windpower (or other solar power) would need to either 1) store energy for a lot longer than 12 hours; or 2) have extra capacity that would lie dormant for the rest of the year, burning investment-capital

As pointed out in the articles I linked once you have links across different climate zones this is no longer a problem. Some climates have summer peaks; some winter. Connecting the too reduces differences in seasonal demand. The study I linked to looked specifically at firm capacity, and the number of hours when a firm capacity could not be met. With no storage wind could meet a firm capacity with 80% reliability. But the number of hours when it could not meet a target at a time is the important figure. Three hours of storage would meet that target 90% of the time, ten hours storage let it meet that target 95%, 12 hours storage let it meet that target 96% of the time. (22 hours btw would let wind meet a firm capacity with 99% reliability.)Hydro provides 4%-6% of our kWh consumed. But hydro represents 25% of nameplate capacity; this makes existing hydro extremely suitable for shaping wind power. So wind power + 12 hours of pumped storage + existing hydr could provide 100% of our electricity. New pumped storage plus existing hydro would provide capacity for daily peaks. And the twelve hours storage would provide enough time shifting ability to ensure we did not have to discard much power.

What about seasonal peaks? Well seasonal peaks mainly come from heating and cooling loads. First this is one of the areas we can most reduce demand. New buildings can reduce this by 90% or more, existing by 40% to 75%.

What about remaining demand? Low temperature heat or cold is cheaper to store than either electricity or high temperature heat. Build storage into both new and existing buildings - plain old thermal mass where practical, Phase Change Materials or natural zeolites where space was at a premium - about 36 hours worth. If a climate was cold enough that the seasonal peak was at night (as it is in Scotland) you could provide electric heat during the day. In cooling climates you could provide air conditioning at night.

So you have three things reducing seasonal peaks: connections between climates with summer and winter seasonal peaks, reduction of climate control loads,  and storage within buildings of climate control energy - allowing them to shift demand by at least 24 hours.

Of course I would never suggest that wind and water provide 100% of our power. Solar is tremendously complementary to wind. Their peaks differ both daily and seasonally. The figures are pretty solid: wind and sun could provide extremely reliable firm power, wind at a price not differing much from that of our current grid, sun with current technology at a significantly higher price. For the sake of not making this comment longer I'm neglecting other sources such as geothermal and ocean current.

Given that 6% of our power mix is "renewables", and that's almost entirely big hydro and burning biomass, I would say that we have an energy capture problem that we need to address.  But solving the storage issue (by building the storage or eliminating the need for it) does make the capture problem much more tractable.

semantics. I don't think we have an "ability to capture" problem. We have a "willingness to capture" problem.

>Making things easy on electrical-service providers is probably way down on the typical homebuyer's list of priorities.

That's what regulations are for.

GreyFlcn wrote:
Why go through the massive hassle of infrastructure [...] When you [have] batteries which can recharge in under 10 minutes?
Charging on-the-fly allows the investment in batteries to be smaller and/or reduces vehicle weight.

Kind of a silly angle to take, since the cost of batteries is largely a function of economics of scale.

Where as infrastructure, it gets more expensive as time goes on.

Furthermore, it'd be just like traintracks.
It'd be mostly useless for most driving.
And if it were that limited, then they'd be better off putting it on a train.

_

But lastly, nanolithium/ultracapacitors are reaching the volume/weight density of oil.
And surpassing it.

So they "excess weight" arguement doesn't hold up much.

A plug in hybrid also can provide a backup source of household electricity, as well as a source during ourdoor activities such as camping.

Chargers in cars could be programmed to charge only during off peak hours to make the full use of clean off peak energy.  

Parking lots operated by employers or public agencies could contract with small solar energy providers who provide credit card operated charging stations in each stall for recharging during the day.

Cheers, Gary Gifford