Quote:
Originally Posted by cfg83
Arminius and Ryland -
Wow, I didn't know that there was that much energy being wasted/lying around at night. I thought the power plants would lower their output to save $$$. It's a crime not to store it/use it the next day!
CarloSW2
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Yeah, but I always read articles from green sites with a grain of salt handy. Too many don't understand basic (by "basic" I mean junior high level) science or even semantics. Here's a quote from the original article that link is referencing, which is discussing the state of the grid at night (emphasis mine):
"According to a recent U.S. Department of Energy study, there is so much excess capacity that if every light-duty car and truck in America today used plug-in hybrid technology, 73 percent of them could be plugged in and "fueled" without constructing a single new power plant. Not a bad thing these days."
"Excess capacity" is not the same as "excess production." What the author of that link did was confuse the two. The system has the
capacity to produce more electricity than is used at night, so no more electric plants need to be built. That's a far cry from saying that excess electricity is going to waste, which is false.
However, the main point that vehicles that run on electricity are the cause of less pollution per unit remains true. In addition, the future looks bright for alternative sources of electricity, which would make the point even more true.