That depends on how much you drive. Given my commute, I would only need to charge a few times a week. And there are charging stations popping up all over the place around here in south central PA. The hospital I work for is looking at installing some in the employee parking garage.
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Ford dealer promoting electric cars in Minnesota: a story from Minnesota Public Radio…
Electric car sales pitch heads to northern Minnesota to drive up interest | MPR News
This can easily be quantified…and it is. LED prices are way down and they last several magnitudes longer then standard bulbs or CFL’s. The electricity each bulb used can be calculated also. This isn’t rocket science. I started replacing bulbs with LED’s years ago. I started with the most used lights (Kitchen, Living Room…etc). Our electric rates are among the highest in the country ($0.21/kwh). The higher the kwh rate the higher the savings on switching to LED’s.
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I think that’s true for most areas, except for rural locations.
I don’t (yet) have an EV, but if I did I could charge it at the adjacent Panera resto when I go to Costco. The shopping malls in my area all have several charging stations, and there are other locations, as well.
Last week, the local planning board approved the construction of a self-storage facility near me, but its construction is contingent upon the installation of an EV charging station on that property.
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Even rural locations are starting to get them. They’re popping up in tiny farm towns all over Minnesota, for one.
We have 5 Curio cabinets full of glass items and I can’t remember how long a go we put LED lights in them . Before the 50 watt Halogen bulbs would last 2 months a best . Out door Cristmas lights ( lots of them ) before coverting to all LED we planned on 2.00 a day for them . Now it is 1.00 a day .
So yes they save money no matter what some people say.
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They got a bad rap because early LED bulbs were often expensive and had poor quality controller boards, which would die and the bulb wouldn’t work. The first LED bulbs I put in are all dead, but the ones I replaced them with have been going for years without issue.
A couple years ago I replaced all my shop lights with LED strip lights from Rockler. They’re great. Bright, even light with no flicker, and if I forget to shut them off they don’t use much electricity before I go back in there and discover I was a dope.
LED bulbs may not show a higher savings of energy in the winter months in indoor applications over incandescent bulbs as they do in the summer months. In the winter months, incandescent bulbs add more heat to the space than LED bulbs so the system supplying the heat is supplemented by the incandescent bulbs. However, in the warm months, when air-conditioning is in use, the heat generated by the incandescent bulbs must be removed, placing an added load on the air conditioning system.
I’ve got one locally (that I know of). I’m sure more supply will come with more demand. Ford’s 50% of new sales in 9 years sounds a little optimistic unless EV’s are mandated. I think mandating it is a mistake until infrastructure is a little more upgraded, at least in my area.
Do charging stations currently “charge” for a charge? Would help fund infrastructure, pay for repairs from the nut jobs that’ll inevitably tear up the equipment, and would seem to make sense to me to charge a lil something for use of the facility / equipment.
Like every thing else they had to go thru growing pains and get the bugs worked out.
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True, but it’s like adding a resistance heater, which is typically the more expensive way to heat. But it is a benefit, just like using my oven during the winter vs. during the summer.
The other problem with light bulbs as heat is that if the light bulb is in a ceiling light, unless you have a ceiling fan circulating that heat downward, it’s just going to stay up by the ceiling where it doesn’t do you much good.
Some do, some don’t.
There is a glut of methane in the US, especially in the Eastern US. That, of course, makes it less expensive than other fuels, like coal. Environmental concerns aren’t killing coal, natural gas is.
Natural gas has another advantage. As power companies add more wind and solar capacity, they will need an alternate source for power when Sun don’t shine or wind speeds are low. Methane is the best choice since they are almost instant on systems, unlike coal, which needs a lot longer to reach steady state operating conditions. I use natural gas for heat, cooking, water heating, and clothes drying.
I remember going on a field trip when I was in 6th grade. One site we visited was the sewage treatment plant. Much of the equipment was run on sewer gas which is essentially methane. I remember seeing a big tower with a tank where the gas was collected. I don’t know whether or not the system is still.in use today.
Or vice-versa. In December, Tesla’s market capitalization was more than the next 9 car companies-combined!
Could be. But if the big boys start churning out EV’s, I’m assuming they can do it cheaper, faster, and probably better than the smaller companies like Tesla. My assumption may be backassward, though.
I wonder why no one has made the connection between the increased use of florescent lights in schools and behavioral issues from ADHD and autism. Older single pin tubes would flicker at 60hz which has been found to disrupt the nervious system.
LEDs flicker as well, some at 60hz but most use a diode array that has half the LEDs light up on each half cycle so they flicker at 120hz.
@keith I have friends who had to wear special glasses to keep from getting headaches when spending their working day in offices and areas with fluorescent lights.
I was bothered more by the 60 hz buzz of the ballast transformers in the fluorescent fixtures.
I think natural gas is indeed the biggest source of power for generating electricity here in the SF Bay Area, but nuclear, wind, solar, and hydro aren’t that far behind. I expect the idea of banning natural gas in new construction is to create a market incentive to cause producers to begin the switch to the other types.
Creating the incentive for alternative sources of power isn’t an end in itself. IMO, it is to reduce the use of fossil fuels. I’m all for nuclear energy, but the crazies have made it too expensive. I can understand their assertion that it can be dangerous, but only if reactors are poorly constructed. Spending extra money to make them more reliable when built would work. There is a lot of experience in Europe that could be used to build plants that can be reliable, safe, and cost efficient.