No, I agree there is no way we could convert to electric today...we would have to have years of restructuring and redoing our entire network of grids.

Yes, sorry for hijacking the thread....now back to your regularly scheduled programing!

 

Not necessarily, demand during the small hours drops to about 60% of peak, requiring some generation to be brought online in the morning, then dropped off at the end of each day, and most plant doesn't have that sort of response, so a fair amount of energy is wasted. The British system came up with a couple of ideas to use that power, including storage heaters, that consisted of a heaters in a few hundred pounds of thermal bricks in a cabinet, that ran off a special meter that powered them up midnight to 7am on a low tariff. Dinorwig is a hydro installation that pumps the water back uphill overnight.
Since most plug-ins would be left to charge overnight, the additional load may not be significant, and may be beneficial to load planning for the grid.
http://entropyproduction.blogspot.co...with-plug.html
http://www.simplyswitch.com/economy7.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_power_station

 

Using more electricity generated by conventional and nuclear plants is only delaying the inevitable. Unless we find ways to create electricity by environmentally sound generation devices all we're doing is kidding ourselves. The grids are stretched to the max during peak hours and simply extending peak hours into the night isn't solving anything, it's just shuffling the core problems around.

Anyone who's been around long enough knows that we never react to problems until they become critical and as soon as things become tolerable we're right back to the ways that got us in trouble in the first place.

Case in point... anyone remember "ecology"?

 

It is true we as a nation and as a world need to get serious about energy savings, and looking at new ways to conserve what we have. Europeans are so much further along then us in this aspect. Why aren't we keeping diesel cheap and gas higher like they do? Why aren't we demanding tankless water heaters in our homes? Why can't GM put a small diesel engine running a generator powering an electric motor at each wheel in a HHR panel - and selling it to the government for the US Postal service, florists, and other deliveries? Why! Why?

I would be the first person in line to buy a home that was totally green and affordable. I would purchase a diesel / electric convertible tomorrow if it were available.

Getting back to the original subject. Can I run E85 in my 2007 2.4 that doesn't have a flex fuel badge?

 

No!