Tag Archives: #ClimateChange

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We’re from the Government and we know better than you what you should drive If you live in a Philadelphia row house, just where will you charge your electric car?

Oh, goody! Pennsylvania is about to waste more money . . . again! From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Pa. to install electric vehicle chargers in Philly, Ridley Twp., and Quakertown

The Pennsylvania DEP issued nearly $1 million in grants to install fast chargers on West Oregon Ave. in Philadelphia, as well as locations in Ridley Township and Quakertown.

by Frank Kummer | February 19, 2021

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has announced nearly $1 million in grants to install fast chargers on West Oregon Avenue in Philadelphia, as well as locations in Ridley Township, Delaware County; and Quakertown, Bucks County, as part of a larger effort to expand electric vehicle use statewide.

Overall, the $936,000 will pay for 12 fast chargers installed in those locations, as well as four in Allegheny County.

“DEP is committed to supporting this choice by increasing public knowledge of electric vehicles, making it easier for consumers to find electric models, and helping to expand charging infrastructure,” said DEP Secretary Patrick McDonnell.

Funding for the project comes from the commonwealth’s share of the national settlement with Volkswagen for cheating on emissions tests.

The author, Frank Kummer, “cover(s) local environmental issues, from the Poconos to the New Jersey Shore.”  His article provides us with the statistics about where the Pennsylvania DEP plans on building the fast chargers:

DEP awarded $750,000 for the three local projects:

  • $250,000 for six fast chargers to be installed by EVgo, the largest public fast-charging network for electric vehicles, at Cedar Realty Trust in Quartermaster Plaza at 2300 West Oregon Ave. in Philadelphia, a site that’s located within an environmental justice community — defined as an area with certain socioeconomic challenges — and within a half-mile of I-76.
  • $250,000 for four fast chargers to be installed by EVgo at Albertsons Acme Market at 124 Morton Ave. in Ridley Township. The location is within two miles of I-95 and I-476.
  • $186,619 for two fast chargers to be installed by EV Build in a mall parking lot at 100 N.W. End Boulevard in Quakertown. The project is located along high-traffic Route 309.

Officials said the chargers will be located in community hubs to serve local residents of single homes and apartments. They are part of a network the DEP and PennDOT hope to build to help drivers traveling longer distances from their homes. The goal is to have chargers every 50 miles along highways and no more than five miles from the road. Interstates 76, 95, 376, and 476 are key.

I will admit to shaking my head at the notion of investing in fast charging stations in an “area with certain socioeconomic challenges,” given that such would be an area which will see a slower adoption of plug-in electric vehicles, because the residents are less able to pay for them. That was a point which Mr Kummer did not mention.

But, with all of the statistics and documentary hyperlinks Mr Kummer included, he omitted the one that most people don’t know about: how long it takes to charge your plug-in electric vehicle! While I cannot read Mr Kummer’s mind, I know why I wouldn’t mention that in an article of the nature of the one he wrote: because it would totally turn off people to the idea of plug-in electrics!

How long does it take to charge an electric car?

Charging an electric car can take a matter of minutes or days, depending on what method you use. Here, we take a look at the ins and outs of the process…

by Martin Saarinen | 28 January 2021

The time it takes to charge an electric car can be as little as 30 minutes or more than 12 hours. This depends on the size of the battery and the speed of the charging point.

  • A typical electric car (60kWh battery) takes just under 8 hours to charge from empty-to-full with a 7kW charging point.
  • Most drivers top up charge rather than waiting for their battery to recharge from empty-to-full.
  • For many electric cars, you can add up to 100 miles of range in ~35 minutes with a 50kW rapid charger.
  • The bigger your car’s battery and the slower the charging point, the longer it takes to charge from empty to full.

Tip: Charging an electric car is similar to charging a mobile phone; you top it up during the day if you need to and give it a full charge at home overnight.

Emphases in the original.

The first bullet point is for an at-home charging unit; the third is for a “fast charging station,” such as the type mentioned in Mr Kummer’s article.

Most people don’t know how long it takes to charge an electric vehicle.

Think about that: if you can add roughly 100 miles of driving range in about 35 minutes, but your gasoline-powered car gets 300 miles of range on a single tank of fuel, the article is saying that to match your gasoline powered vehicle’s one-tank range would require roughly 105 minutes at the “fast charging station.”[1]The 36 gallon tank on my 2010 Ford F-150 gives me about 625 miles of range!

Do you want to replace 5 to 10 minutes at the gas station with one hour and 45 minutes?

Philadelphia has more row houses than any other city.

The article suggests “topping off” during the day, and fully charging overnight at home. That’s a great idea . . . if you have a garage or secure, dedicated parking space at home where you can install an at-home charger. If you don’t, that means complete dependence on public charging stations. If you live in a Philadelphia row house, something fairly common — though often in poorer shape than the ones pictured at the left — in what Mr Kummer described as “an environmental justice community, defined as an area with certain socioeconomic challenges,” just where are you going to put that at home charging unit? Are you going to be running an electric cable out your basement window to your car parked on the street?

Think about that. You might be able to get away with just the 35-minute 100 mile range topping off, but it will also mean stopping at the charging station thrice as often as you have to pump gasoline now.

Car and Driver has a good article on the basics of charging up your vehicle. When using a fast charging station, the article notes that:

A certifiably lethal current of DC power is pumped into the car’s battery, and miles of range are added in short order. Tesla’s V3 superchargers pump out up to 250 kW, and Electrify America’s automotive defibrillators fire out up to 350 kW of heart-stopping power.

“Certifiably lethal”, huh? Yeah, that’s what I want to see, 17-year-olds using 240 volt three-phase power cables!

In the rain and the snow of the City of Brotherly Love.

Am I the only one who sees this as maybe not the greatest idea ever?

If you have a good garage with sufficient electric service, an electric car might not be that bad an idea for you, depending upon your other circumstances. In our current home, out in the country, with a garage with separate electric service, we are as well-situated as anyone to replace one car with a plug-in electric, as long as I can keep my F-150 powered by gasoline. But in our previous home? It would not have worked. If you live in rental property, it might not work, and I can easily see a landlord increasing the rent by $50 or $100 a month for the installation of an vehicle charging station if he did allow it.

The climate change activists, whose numbers now, sadly, include the President of the United States, have no conception of what regular people live like, and how much they are trying to impose on people. But you will do what you are told, won’t you?

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↑1 The 36 gallon tank on my 2010 Ford F-150 gives me about 625 miles of range!
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About that getting rid of fossil fuels?

As Joltin’ Joe Biden and the rest of the #ClimateChange alarmists want you to end your dependency on fossil fuels, perhaps this story from the Austin American-Statesman ought to be in the backs of your minds:

Frozen wind turbines hamper Texas power output, state’s electric grid operator says

Brandon Mulder | Austin American-Statesman | February 14, 2021 | 4:30 PM CST | Updated: February 15, 2021 | 10:11 AM CST

Frozen wind turbine in Texas.

Nearly half of Texas’ installed wind power generation capacity has been offline because of frozen wind turbines in West Texas, according to Texas grid operators.

Wind farms across the state generate up to a combined 25,100 megawatts of energy. But unusually moist winter conditions in West Texas brought on by the weekend’s freezing rain and historically low temperatures have iced many of those wind turbines to a halt.

As of Sunday morning, those iced turbines comprise 12,000 megawatts of Texas’ installed wind generation capacity, although those West Texas turbines don’t typically spin to their full generation capacity this time of year.

Fortunately for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the state’s electric grid, the storm’s gusty winds are spinning the state’s unfrozen coastal turbines at a higher rate than expected, helping to offset some of the power generation losses because of the icy conditions

“Some of,” I note. There’s more at the original.

The story continues to tell us that wind generated sparktricity was 23% of the Lone Star State’s generation capacity, but it has to be asked: if the Climate Change policies that President Biden wants to put in place, to transition us to 100% ‘renewable’ carbon-free sources were actually in place, in this miserable February with it’s strong Arctic air mass having borne down upon the Midwest plains states, just how many people would be shivering in their homes right now?

Gas fireplace in my computer room/den.

When we moved to our retirement fixer-upper in July of 2017, it was total electric. In January of 2018, a snow and ice storm hit, and knocked out the electricity. Since we’re out in the country, at pretty much the far end of Jackson Electric Cooperative’s service area, we’re among the last people to get power back, and it took 4½ days. My wife went to Lexington, and stayed at our daughter’s apartment, but I had to stay here, to care for the critters, and the plumbing.

It got down to 38º F in the house.

As I said, our house is an eastern Kentucky fixer-upper, and it certainly isn’t done yet, but we decided that we would have gas in the remodel, because Mrs Pico wanted a gas range. Thus we now have a new gas (propane) range, water heater and the fireplace installed. If we lose power again, we’ll still be able to keep the house warm, cook and take showers.

Without that fossil fuel, the place would become a not-very-much-fun place in the winter when the electricity goes out.

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Thank the Lord for fossil fuels!

During our first winter back in the Bluegrass State, we had only electric heat. When what the Weather Channel called Winter Storm Hunter hit, we lost sparktricity . . . for 4½ days. My wife went to stay with our daughter, in Lexington, but I had to stay on the farm to take care of the critters.

The coldest it got in the house was 38º F!

But it sure wasn’t pleasant. While the water was still on, there was no hot water. There was just enough warm water that first morning to take a quick, sort-of OK shower, but that was it.

Our house is an eastern Kentucky fixer-upper, and the kitchen was the first thing to be redone. Mrs Pico wanted a gas range, and that was planned all along. We knew our electric water heater was near the end of its service life, so we planned on replacing that with gas as well. Then, remembering the unheated house, we decided to add a gas fireplace as well. The fan won’t work without electricity, and while the range top will work, the oven will not.

So, will we lose power again?

It’s a little hard to see the county lines, in the red area, but that’s where we are, kind of in between the Berea and Jackson city names.

At any rate, what my, sadly, late, best friend used to call the Lexington Herald-Liberal is telling me that we’re due for another ice storm. The forecast is a bit iffy: we could get snow as well as freezing rain, probably light tomorrow morning but getting worst Wednesday afternoon.

Alas! Mrs Pico has to work Thursday and Friday, and as a hospital nurse there’s no ‘work from home’ for her. My F-150 does have four-wheel drive, but four-wheel drive works far better in snow than it does on ice; nothing works well on ice. The county has pretreated the road, and while we live in relatively flat river-bottom farmland, there are a couple of not-nice places on the way to the hospital.

At any rate, I have asked William Teach of The Pirate’s Cove to watch this site, in case I’m out of communication for a few days.

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Out of juice What happens when you can't find a working charging station for your plug in electric vehicle?

My good blogging friend, William Teach, has pinch hit for me in the past, and while I haven’t needed his help since I was forced to reconstitute this site, he just published one I have to steal reference:

Who’s Up For A 130 Mile Trip In An Electric Car That Takes 9 Hours?

By William Teach | November 28, 2020 | 3:00 PM EST

The climate cultists at the UK Guardian try to put a rosy face on this, but, ‘taint working

‘Why did it take nine hours to go 130 miles in our new electric Porsche?’

A Kent couple love their new car – but their experience suggests there are problems with the charging network

Miles Brignall | Saturday, 28 November 2020 | 3.30 EST

A couple from Kent have described how it took them more than nine hours to drive 130 miles home from Bournemouth as they struggled to find a working charger capable of producing enough power to their electric car.

Linda Barnes and her husband had to visit six charging stations as one after another they were either out of order, already had a queue or were the slow, older versions that would never be able to provide a fast enough charge in the time.

While the couple seem to have been “incredibly unlucky”, according to the president of the AA, Edmund King, their case highlights some of the problems that need ironing out before electric car owners can rely on the UK’s charging infrastructure.

The couple, who love their new fully electric Porsche Taycan 4S, which has a range of about 250 miles, contacted the Guardian to describe how difficult it is to recharge a car away from home. Their journey would have taken two and a half hours in a conventional car, they say.

In a portion that Mr Teach did not quote, the couple stated that they left Bournemouth on the return trio with 45 miles of charge remaining, so they must have burned through some electrons while in Bournemouth. Perhaps electric car owners need to be a little bit more conservative in planning their travels.[1]As I have pointed out previously, electric cars have far lower ranges when the weather is cold.

Must be nice. That car starts at $185,000. See, these very rich people don’t worry about giving up fossil fuels like the peons

“Electric vehicle consumers want more interoperability, more chargers, greater reliability and a contactless experience. To really help the revolution get to full power before 2030 we need a concerted effort from local authorities to take up the charging point grants – only one in six do, according to AA research, and for those premises providing chargers to ensure they work. Driving an electric vehicle is great fun and can save you money and save emissions. Let’s make sure the future network can help save range anxiety,” he says.

See, we need Government to really build all these charging stations and stuff, so the rich folks aren’t inconvenienced with their expensive toys

The Guardian’s story said that the Taycan Turbo 4S has a range of about 250 miles, but that’s significantly higher than EPA ratings, which state the range to be 192 to 201 miles. The Taycan 4s (not the Turbo 4S), with the upgraded Performance Battery Plus, has a slightly longer listed range of 203 miles, and is actually less expensive, at $103,800 MSRP. Note that The Guardian article wasn’t really very specific about exactly which model the Barneses owned.

A parishioner at my church has a plug in Chevy Dolt Bolt. Given that there are no electric car charging stations in our rural county, he has to have a charging station at his home. If I had a plug in electric, I do have an easy and convenient place in which I could install a 50 amp, 240 volt charging station, something within my skill set, but many, and perhaps most, people do not have a dedicated and secure garage in which they could install such a charger. And, of course, if they don’t have the knowledge and the skills and the tools to install one themselves, they’d have to shell out a couple hundred bucks to a sparktrician to do it for them.

The Guardian article noted that there are more than 11,600 public charging sites in the United Kingdom, but, as the Barneses found out, far too many of them are out-of-service at times, and it can take a long, long time to recharge the vehicle. On Black Friday of 2019, Tesla drivers in the Pyrite State found themselves stuck in hours-long lines trying to recharge.

Plug in electric vehicles might be OK for tooling around town, but if you are like most Americans and at least occasionally take longer trips in your automobile, you had better have a second, gasoline powered vehicle. The Barneses have learned that the hard way.
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