EarlOfCarrick
Active Member
- First Name
- William
- Joined
- Nov 18, 2020
- Threads
- 5
- Messages
- 27
- Reaction score
- 28
- Location
- Washington State
- Vehicles
- 2021 Taycan 4S
- Thread starter
- #1
<NERD ALERT. Please forgive my idle musings.>
I don’t have my Taycan yet, but I’ve been thinking a lot the electricity it uses. I live in the Pacific Northwest (upper left corner of the US), so I think of the range of the Taycan as the distance between Seattle, Washington, and Portland, Oregon. Driving the Taycan just transforms electrical energy into kinetic energy to move the mass from one place to another.
Our electricity comes from hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River. Generating power from a river happens when the mass of a turbine (blade) is moved from one place to another, and the energy is transformed into electric energy.
Moving mass is transformed into electricity which is then transformed into moving mass.
I have a good sense for what it means to move a car from one place to another. (Anyone who has ever push-started a car gets this.) But what’s the best way to get a sense for what that means for the turbine, where the electricity is generated?
A couple of days ago, my (very smart) son and I put our heads together and did some simple calculations. My Taycan will have the larger 93 kWh battery. Grand Coulee Dam, the largest dam on the Columbia River, and one of the largest dams in the world, generates a total of 7079 MW (that’s megawatts) of electricity.
That means that the electricity needed to charge my car completely is generated by the entire Grand Coulee Dam in only 47 milliseconds. That’s 0.047 seconds. So in only 47 milliseconds, the dam produces enough electricity to move a 5000-pound car from Seattle to Portland, heat the seats, play the radio, adjust the air suspension, raise the spoiler, etc.
Along the same lines, a single average turbine at the dam generates a full charge of electricity in only 1.28 seconds.
Conclusions: Wow the turbine blades must be super heavy. And that water has an enormous amount of potential (gravitational) energy stored in it.
How is your electricity made? How can you quantify it?
I don’t have my Taycan yet, but I’ve been thinking a lot the electricity it uses. I live in the Pacific Northwest (upper left corner of the US), so I think of the range of the Taycan as the distance between Seattle, Washington, and Portland, Oregon. Driving the Taycan just transforms electrical energy into kinetic energy to move the mass from one place to another.
Our electricity comes from hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River. Generating power from a river happens when the mass of a turbine (blade) is moved from one place to another, and the energy is transformed into electric energy.
Moving mass is transformed into electricity which is then transformed into moving mass.
I have a good sense for what it means to move a car from one place to another. (Anyone who has ever push-started a car gets this.) But what’s the best way to get a sense for what that means for the turbine, where the electricity is generated?
A couple of days ago, my (very smart) son and I put our heads together and did some simple calculations. My Taycan will have the larger 93 kWh battery. Grand Coulee Dam, the largest dam on the Columbia River, and one of the largest dams in the world, generates a total of 7079 MW (that’s megawatts) of electricity.
That means that the electricity needed to charge my car completely is generated by the entire Grand Coulee Dam in only 47 milliseconds. That’s 0.047 seconds. So in only 47 milliseconds, the dam produces enough electricity to move a 5000-pound car from Seattle to Portland, heat the seats, play the radio, adjust the air suspension, raise the spoiler, etc.
Along the same lines, a single average turbine at the dam generates a full charge of electricity in only 1.28 seconds.
Conclusions: Wow the turbine blades must be super heavy. And that water has an enormous amount of potential (gravitational) energy stored in it.
How is your electricity made? How can you quantify it?
Sponsored