Kevin my plan which started this entire discussion is to setup off grid solar for my farm. I need 15 kWh a day to cover my current electric consumption. I also plan on having 30 kWh of storage for 2 days power.
The numbers I have run show that I can install this system with aquion batteries and the system will pay for itself without any tax incentives in 15 years just based on the power bill I have today. I already have a big enough genorator to cover all my power needs so I don’t need to buy a backup genorator. This is based on me buying the components and installing them myself. But I got to thinking the solar part of my system is based on 2.5 hours of sun for the winter months. That means in the summer the array has alot of excess power since it isn’t on the grid. So I ran numbers to convert my old farmall h to electric. I would have enough power to do it and if I run it 8 0 days a year at 5 hours a day the gas I will save haying will reduce the payoff of the solar system to 7 years. Then if you factor in the tax incentives it will pay off in 5.5 years. So to answer your question the original concept I have is to go off grid because I am sick of the fact that my line mantance fees and other fees are more then half my power bill and going up all the time. Meaning half the bill here is already costs I can’t control just a fee to hook up to the system.
So the electric tractor is an idea of how do I get the most of an investment I want to make anyway as I have summer time haying loads and excess sometime power if I go off grid. Also if I do the conversation right the tractor becomes additional wintertime battery storage.
Off the top of my head I don’t remember the power consumption of the tractor but I figured running a 10hp 3 phase electric motor.
The Tesla model S and the Chevy Bolt have 60kwh(min for the model S) battery packs, and go around 200+ miles so a safe bet is 60,000w. Bigger, less aerodynamic cars will need more, etc. At 15c/kwh, which is probably about how much you pay with transmission fees, and such. It is about 9 dollars for electric or 4.5c/mile
Reminds me of a story Strawman.
Story of Mouseland.
In short us mice need to stop electing governments full of fat cats
That was a good clip lol! I let my wife watch it as she’s a big NDP’er, I had no idea that K Sutherland was his grandson. That story is more true now than ever, the mouse hole is more like a garage door these days. That is part of the reason I’m here at DOW. I’m pretty much apathetic about government of any stripe really working for the average folks anymore. Doesn’t seem to matter who is running the show:weary:. But, with any luck, I’ll be shrinking that hole down considerably before too long. 
I like your idea about off grid and the electric tractor. I wonder about the 3phase motor though. I think it would need an inverter that would use 5 to 10 percent of your battery’s power to operate. You might think about a DC motor from an old indoor forklift or the motor from a wrecked electric car that could run from your battery’s power without converting to 3phase.
There are vfd (variable frequency drives) which will run on common bus voltage allowing you to input dc directly into the drive for a 3 phase motor. This is common in industrial controls it allows you to run one bigger dc power supply and load share the regeneration power between motors during deceleration.
This is the same basic design used on the Tesla cars. It gives you better low end torque and a higher overall efficiency then a dc motor with speed control. If you want to run a motor straight at a constant speed then a dc motor will win on effective but as soon as you want to chance speed a vfd that will accept dc input will give better torque efficency.
Most EVs uses permanent magnet AC (PMAC) synchronous motors. The real issue for AC motors is getting the back EMF under control on the controller so your controller has to be matched to the motor. GM actually said in “certain” cases (they didn’t elaborate) the Bolt’s motor is 97% efficient.
A lot of times they like to use AC or at the very least pulsed DC because you can get away with thinner wire due to less resistance. (it is the same reason why the electric grid is AC, or High Voltage DC (which is actually pulsed))
Here is a nice article on AC motors:
http://machinedesign.com/motorsdrives/whats-difference-between-ac-induction-permanent-magnet-and-servomotor-technologies
If you build this I WANT SPECS! This has always been the end point of my gasification planning; Ijust never knew how to complete it.
Honestly, I think it would be far easier to do with the newer hydrostatic drives. you just swap out the engine for the electric motor, and you are pretty much done. Most of what the motor is doing is just driving the hydraulic pump.
Sean PMAC motors are nice but I am looking at a tight budget on an old tractor. I think a simple ac 3 phase induction motor makes since in this case because it is cheap and the tractor runs pretty much at pto speed most all the time. So in reality it is almost a constant speed operation. If I had access to my old job and servos we scrapped out I could think of some really nice solutions but they are massive over kill for what I want to do. If I was building from scratch with a big budget I would go with servo motors for sure I have thought or taking an allis chalmers and putting a motor into each final drive and separate motor for the pto and hydraulics. But the issue there is that it would require major mechanical redesign. My concept is simple low budge conversation. The thing about 3 phase inductive motors that I like is that they match up almost exactly with the speed of the motor in my old farmall. If I convert the pasquali it would be 3000 rpm and alot more reversing and stopping so I would probably go pmac on that one.
By the way Delta Tau Motion Control has a product called a pmac programmable machine automaton controller that I used for years so when ever people talk about pmac motors I just have to laugh.
You are good. I know what you are trying to do. I was more referring to the “general” case. 
Are you just planning on running the tractor off the PTO then?
The AC motor controls have been around for quite a while now. They are just trickier to work with. My point was really supposed to be that they use PMACs in cars not DC motors.
Well good DanNH that you have brought this topic back to today, practical applications.
Going off grid in your $'s case and those property obtaining with no grid connect without a $$,$$$ buy-in does have an appeal.
In mine with only a $12.00 a month per meter head (3 meters), plus a 6% local use tax surcharge on the actual consumption. Our big-hydro (still two nuke plants , now some wind farms, and NG peaker plants supplemented) is still just still $.0875 k/Wh USD. Most distribution here is done by local, very closely watched Public Until Districts. Their commissioners subject to local vote in/out. It really make no economical scene to do other than just mail them off monthly checks.
Problem. I have lost grid power six times since the third week of November. 20 minutes to 24 hours. Not a problem set that they can ever solve past the year around continuous road side trees trimming contracts.
We used to have fewer, but longer, annual outages when our corner of the service district area was served with one feed-in line set.
In the late 1980/s early 1990’s this improved with a second feed-in line, then looped, redundant. We got actually spoiled with only one event created power outage a year.
It degraded to the current 6-9 time a year ~5 years ago with the system wide change over to remote, radio “cell” isolation interrupters installed. Very frustrating to be powered out unexpectedly and car hop just five mile in most directions and see lights and power. Prevue of the total loss of personal control have to given up to a true Smart-Grid.
So currently . . . nothing really a small personal gasoline/propane inveter generator cannot see us through.
Still. Wood for heat, for decades. More limbs, trees wind/ice/age coming down then we use. Just rotting.
So it is the power FREEDOM aspect that I pursue.
Not cost savings. Their “addictions” offered up will always be easier, cheaper. Egges always will be cheaper from a Big-Ag investment 100,000-1,000,000 “hen” egg-factory supported store.
Since FREEDOM is my goal why would I ever want to put myself under their thumb selling my made power back to then at ANY price? See the suck-you-back-in trap of that?
Adjacent neighbor just south gets 3-4X of my retail paid for his FED 15 year loan subsidized roof-top PV array for his measly 100-150 days a year of net excess. Mandatory: he must be grid connected WITHOUT any onsite storage for his highly subsidized PV array. Grid power goes down, and he has no power. They do not woodheat. Propane fireplace.
Out local PUD sell his PV and others and any wind farm Kw’s as “green power” to subcribers for 2X of the regualr big-hydro/nuke rate.
Yes still a net loss out/versus in.
They make out by FED in-system generated Green-Power credits allowing then the lowest big-hydro wholesale rates.
Games, within games, within games.
Opt-out. Means in my case I will buy their normal Grid. Make my own when they fail me. Ha! Hope for the day they would fail completely. (only way my wife would not divorce me)
The real easy way to understand the true impact of each and every 15,000 mile a year driving plug-in EV vehicle is to know that is ONE whole four person, all electric household’s annual use’s worth of electrical energy.
You just used up one lower/middle class families whole energy budget in your green-spinning around.
NO solution to this but to dramatically decrease current grid electrically useages over and above the past three decades of per household reductions to be able to divert into increasing transportation usage then.
Or . . . Increase overall grid capacity proportionally to the increase in transportation diversion usage.
Why many of us 1970’s/80’s lead-acid battery electric vehicle enthusiast call electric cars as NUKE-cars, COAL-cars. Threaten to start sticky bumper-sticker slapping these new-shallow-thinking plug-in folk’s vehicles with “NUKE-Powered”, COAL-Powered", “ELITE Power Robber”
Batteries, indeed have gotten better. Motors, and controls gotten very Much better and energy use efficient…
STILL takes the same k/WHer’s to replace the same gallon of gasoline, propane, diesel fuel. And these fuel power tech’s and vehicles using these tech’s have been continuously evolving better and better. A stretching out, moving target.
Light and medium hybrids NOT PLUGGED-IN have been the best advancement boon in the last 17 years.
No longer bleed off the slowing down and stopping energies as just waste brake heat. But recover, store, reuse.
Hydrogen talk just the RightElist’s spin distraction until all the possible fossil fuel profits can be made.
J-I-C Steve Unruh
Nope planing on making an adaptor plate where the clutch is and driving it right at the input shaft of the torque tube. I need the pto for the farm equipment to attach to. My point on speed is that the factory motor is i think 1500 rpm maybe 1700 rpm on that tractor so a 3 phase ac motor will want to run at the right speed or close at the pto at 1750 rpm.
Just realized you where probably asking about the pto because of my comment that the tractor runs at pto speed most of the time. That expression means you have the tractor motor cranked up to just about full rpms so the pto is actually spinning at 540 rpm. You pick the gear that allows you to have the correct ground speed for the implement. If you use a tractor to plow or haul a trailer you don’t run at pto speed but rather at the highest gear that will hold the ground speed you want at the lowest engine speed for fuel economy. In that case the PM motor would be much more efficient.
Steve if I had your power bill I wouldn’t be looking at off grid or solar it would cost too much. What I would probably do is get an ac version of the tesla powerwall 2 stuck in the basement and forget about it. You are one of their target markets for that product. It is expensive but if you didn’t already own a genorator it wouldn’t be that bad. The thing I like about it is that it would be mantance free the power goes out before you know it the powerwall would kick in and you would never know how unreliable your grid had become. But as I said it is a ton of money even tesla admits it doesn’t pay for itself as a peak power trimmer for people in CA. But it would be the cheapest form of backup storage you could get. Maybe in about 2 or 5 years the price will be low enough to make since. But it would take alot of power outage for me to spend thousands of dollars.
As to the electric cars I think they should be coupled with some sort of off grid power. But to be honest I think I would rather have my car powered by domestic coal nuclear or hydro over middle eastern oil. Too much evil is involved with oil.
Ha! Ha! I stepped off of the cost-per-killowatt merry-go-round spin chasing years ago.
This was no difnert than the r.r. hardcoal, versus fuel oil, versus propane, versus electric heating meery-go-round I watch beat down my father as I was growing up. Buying out we did use all of those.
Only heating fuel cost relief for him was when I got big and strong enough to be able split and feed a woodstove when he was away out long-haul truck driving. Him home. Pull my weight out log bucking, coarse splitting, toting and stacking.
Only wood is the true freedom fuel. Domestic coal an even weapons converted Nuke and the top-down control Elite’s still own your soul.
What is an Elite? Anyone who is making decisions based on the stocks, commodities and bonds markets, interest rates, exchange rates. Money making money cannot have human scaled ethics.
Wood-for-personal-use power can. Can have human scale ethics. Just like home grown eggs, meats and such.
Personal ethical independence and freedom is not easy, or cheap. Ask Jesus Christ. Ask Mahatma Gandi.
Usually though just a bit sweating, hoeing, maybe even bleeding a little. Makes your healthier anyways up and about doing useful needful things.
S.U.
Yup but it is a case of the devil you know I guess. But the middle east oil is worse of all in my book. Too much of that price is paid in blood and I hate that we have been over there for the better part of 2 decades to keep cheap oil.
That said if I had a wood gas 100 hp tractor so it would pull my mower and baler accumulator combo I would use it for sure to be independent.
This could get political very quick, and I don’t intend it as that.
My suggestion would be that the violence over oil hasn’t been about north America getting it, we have good supplies, (at least for a while), and can better afford to buy it than any people on earth. The bad business around oil has more to do with regulating who else in the world has access to it. A bad scene, but even less ethical I feel.
I just figure the only way I know I wasn’t part of it is not to buy it. And yes I agree too close to political I probably shouldn’t have mentioned it.
This analysis was done for the Energy Savings Trust in the UK. Though it studies hydrogen, roughly the same efficiencies will apply. Referring to page 35 and 36, they concluded that using renewables for vehicle purposes as compared to offsetting FF grid generation would be only 60% as beneficial. It would be more beneficial over all to power automobiles on FF meanwhile, best of all natural gas.
They ignore wood gas entirely, but consider biomass, apparently biodiesel and alcohol fuels, and show very favourable projections for carbon emissions that way, gasification should be more favourable than their projections.
If there was an excess of renewable generation then it is beneficial, but even optimistic estimates put that a long way off.
This isn’t the perfect comparison, comparing hydrogen to electric battery, but roughly the comparison should hold.
It gets interesting in a case such as what Dan lays out, excess peak summer power to dedicate to farming efforts may tip the equation. But for electric cars more generally, I’ll accept their analysis.
Another good movie to tell your wife about on Youtube called “Prairie Giant”.
They should make every kid watch it and learn a thing or two about how hard and mean it was in this country and how good and fair we have it.
And it’s a warning too do not let your democracy down or you will get governments that do not care about the people but only themselves.( many of Tommy last speeches were a warning to the future to be on guard for our rights and freedoms as well as our cherished social programs and pensions ).
He was spot on all counts…
( leaving it off there before I drag this good thread off topic )