Month: October 2019

Public Charge Points per Million Population

Public Charge Points per Million Population

10/26/19

“How can we measure electric vehicle charging penetration per-capita of the population?”

The more electric vehicles come on the road, the more places to charge will be necessary. One way to measure the success of this will be to see the number of spots per person. This can be done by taking the number of public charging points and dividing it by the millions of people in the area as the Public Charge Points per Million Population.

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Electric Vehicles per Million Population

Electric Vehicles per Million Population

10/25/19

“What is one of the most important metrics to measure electric vehicle adoption?”

One of the primary energy goals of governments around the world is to increase the penetration of electric vehicle adoption in their fleet mix. However, in order to accomplish this, metrics will need to be developed to measure the level of success that their policies are having. One of these is measuring the number of Electric Vehicles per Million Population, or dividing the number of electric vehicles per million people in a designated area. This is useful to measure how much electric vehicles are selling but may be distorted for countries with low vehicle ownership rates.

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Urban Electric Vehicle Charger Placement Metrics

Urban Electric Vehicle Charger Placement Metrics

10/24/19

“What are the best ways to implement electric vehicle charging stations in an urban area?”

Electric vehicles are one of the hottest topics in the automotive and energy world. Given their current and projected rate of adoption, they’re expected to overtake petroleum vehicles by 2038. However, in order to ensure that they can still be readily adopted, infrastructure needs to be in place to support them. One of these factors will be making sure that vehicle users in urban areas will always have quick and easy access to a charging station. By developing Urban Electric Vehicle Charger Placement Metrics, municipal planners rely on quantitative data on how best to serve communities in need.

Grid Sectionalizers

Grid Sectionalizers

10/23/19

“How can we isolate a section of the grid when a fault is detected?”

Faults happen in grids all the time. Whether if its from a branch falling on a transmission line or an over surge of current. However, if these faults are not contained, then it can spread to the rest of the system and cause a cascading failure. To prevent this from happening, one proactive method is to isolate a portion of the grid with the failure. This can be accomplished through appliances called Grid Sectionalizers, which can detect when too much current is going the wires they’re attached to. Grid sectionalizers are being deployed by PG&E in Northern California to build resilience against wildfires.

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How to Properly Dispose of Batteries in the United States

How to Properly Dispose of Batteries in the United States

10/22/19

“How should one properly dispose of batteries in the United States?”

Although incredibly commonplace, batteries are also some of the most toxic devices manufactured today. Their corrosive electrolytes and elements make them dangerous to throw away without any consideration. For this reason, some batteries must be disposed of in a special manner. If you live in the U.S in a state that is not California, all batteries except for watch batteries can be disposed of in the trash. If you would like to recycle a single-use battery, you must contact a local solid waste district to learn if there is a nearby collection program or upcoming event, find a battery recycling center, or find a mail-in battery recycling program. This is How to Properly Dispose of Batteries in the United States.

Battery Leakage

Battery Leakage

10/21/19

“What causes a battery to leak and what are the repercussions?”

Batteries are usually formed by storing potential energy in an electrolyte. But if there’s a rupture on the external structure, then the electrolyte can leak out. If this liquid comes in contact with the human skin before it reacts with oxygen in the atmosphere, then the Battery Leakage can cause great harm.

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Resilience Drills

Resilience Drills

10/20/19

“How can we prepare emergency response teams against drastic events?”

With the advent of climate change, weather disasters are becoming not only more common but also more severe. As a result, emergency response teams need to become prepared to take action at any moment. This can be accomplished using having them go through Resilience Drills, in which they act out potential scenes of disasters and finding a quick solution.

Flood Resilience

Flood Resilience

10/19/19

“How can we build resilience against floods?”

With the advent of the changing climate, floods are becoming much more commonplace, whether it be as a result from hurricanes, rainstorms, or overflowing rivers. As a result, humanity will need to build resilience against these issues using Flood Resilience.

The Carbon Footprint of Wind Energy

The Carbon Footprint of Wind Energy

10/18/19

“What is the carbon footprint of wind energy?”

As we discussed earlier in the carbon footprint of solar energy, even the greenest of technologies have an environmental impact. Wind energy is no exception to this rule. During manufacturing, rare-earth minerals have to be scavenged up and forged to produce the technology, creating CO2 emissions in the process. Although these problems are caused by the creation of wind turbines, research has shown that their operate produces only a 90th of greenhouse gases of coal plants and a 40th of natural gas plants (Dolan et. al 2012), making their energy payback period as quick as six months in some areas! (Haapala and Prempreeda 2014). As a result, when discussing The Carbon Footprint of Wind Energy, one must realize that most of it is simply concentrated in the manufacturing phase.

References

Dolan, S. L., & Heath, G. A. (2012). Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Utility-Scale Wind Power. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 16(s1), S136–S154. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1530-9290.2012.00464.x

Karl R. Haapala; Preedanood Prempreeda. Comparative life cycle assessment of 2.0 MW wind turbines. International Journal of Sustainable Manufacturing, 2014 DOI: 10.1504/IJSM.2014.062496