Nashville Bits and Pieces

[SoundScan]

3 hours ago, Pdt2f said:

If the government subsidies hold out. That’s the only reason they keep making them now. 

Laughably inaccurate.

[Pdt2f]

1 hour ago, SoundScan said:

Laughably inaccurate.

What, that there are subsidies or that they wouldn’t make them if there weren’t subsidies? You honestly think that GM would continuously make electric cars that they don’t profit on (they hope to turn a profit on electric cars by 2021) if it wasn’t for massive Obama-era tax breaks for consumers and subsidies for manufacturers? Especially considering how far sales of electric cars plummet every time a tax incentive ends? You can say “I want more ecologically friendly and environmentally conscious vehicles on the road so incentives for companies to make them and tax breaks for consumers who buy them are worth it” and that’s a reasonable position to take, but to completely deny that these projects are being held together by government funds is just being so partisan that it blinds you to reality.   

https://www.energy.gov/eere/electricvehicles/electric-vehicles-tax-credits-and-other-incentives

https://www.investors.com/politics/commentary/are-electric-car-subsidies-just-giveaways-to-the-wealthy/

http://www.plugincars.com/federal-and-local-incentives-plug-hybrids-and-electric-cars.html

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2018-04-29/after-tesla-debacle-denmark-reconsiders-electric-car-subsidies

https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN1EY0GG

[SoundScan]

Do you really want to get into a debate about subsidies? Shall I post articles listing all the subsidies oil and gas companies receive? I'm sure we're both capable of using Google.

The fact remains that electric vehicles are here to stay, and the previous posters' position of the 2020s being a decade of mass adoption is accurate. We will likely see EVs overtake traditional ICE vehicles in year-to-year market share by 2030. Electric propulsion is superior in every way to the internal combustion engine, which has essentially reached the realistic limits of thermal efficiency when cost and complexity are considered. Electric drivetrains can be powered by nearly any energy source, while gas prices are hilariously volatile. They are 4 times more efficient at turning energy into mechanical motion. They have far fewer parts, have longer service intervals, and allow for simplified and innovative packaging within the vehicle. They are technological step forward. Horse and buggy > ICE > EV.

Global automobile manufacturers aren't pouring billions of dollars of R&D into reshaping their entire line-ups to use electric propulsion just because of some limited (and expiring) tax credits.

And while I appreciate your arrogance and your assertion that I'm somehow "so partisan" and " blind to reality," I'll go you one better and assert that I know far more about this subject than you do without having ever met you.

[samsonh]

6 hours ago, Pdt2f said:

If the government subsidies hold out. That’s the only reason they keep making them now. 

I encourage to research this. I know you hate my politics, but look at the math. Electric vehicles are cheaper in 5-7years. ICE vehicles have too many parts to break. Don’t ask me, look into any automotive 10k’s. Or even look at something like oil price.com 

And this is without Trump’s tariffs, lol.

 

Just saw you post, would you care to bet on electric adoption over the next ten years? Over or under 25% of new sales in 2028?

Edited May 31, 2018 by samsonh

[AronG]

Electric vehicles are definitely the future, but there's still some truth to the point that subsidies are a significant factor driving current demand (and the car companys' short-term decisions). If we were to drop the subsidies, it's entirely possible that American companies would decrease their investment and then get left behind when the transition picks up steam.

The sad part of it is that this has become a partisan issue when it should be a skate-where-the-puck-is-going issue that we can all agree about. Electric vehicles are already cheaper when you factor in total cost of ownership, because of the issues listed above (cheaper fuel, simpler, lower maintenance, etc), and they get cheaper and better every year. It's not rocket science to look at the graphs and realize that early movers on this will have a huge leg up 10 years from now. The dynamic is very similar to solar & wind energy vs. coal & gas. Smart countries are  aggressively subsidizing them, and will reap the rewards. China is paying a bit more up front to replace hundreds of thousands of diesel buses with electric ones (https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/05/how-china-charged-into-the-electric-bus-revolution/559571/). As a result they're building a huge head start in manufacturing them at scale and will be in a great position to dominate the industry and export them throughout the world in 2025 when the math has played out and every city is trying to buy them. If they get a similar head start on light vehicles, it will not be to our advantage.

As with several current issues, the engineer in me really wishes we could set aside the politics on this one. Fat chance, I know, but putting this one through the ole trusty partisan grinder is going to cost us long term.

[grilled_cheese]

Another day wasted at the permit office with nothing to show for it.

[samsonh]

15 hours ago, AronG said:

Electric vehicles are definitely the future, but there's still some truth to the point that subsidies are a significant factor driving current demand (and the car companys' short-term decisions). If we were to drop the subsidies, it's entirely possible that American companies would decrease their investment and then get left behind when the transition picks up steam.

The sad part of it is that this has become a partisan issue when it should be a skate-where-the-puck-is-going issue that we can all agree about. Electric vehicles are already cheaper when you factor in total cost of ownership, because of the issues listed above (cheaper fuel, simpler, lower maintenance, etc), and they get cheaper and better every year. It's not rocket science to look at the graphs and realize that early movers on this will have a huge leg up 10 years from now. The dynamic is very similar to solar & wind energy vs. coal & gas. Smart countries are  aggressively subsidizing them, and will reap the rewards. China is paying a bit more up front to replace hundreds of thousands of diesel buses with electric ones (https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/05/how-china-charged-into-the-electric-bus-revolution/559571/). As a result they're building a huge head start in manufacturing them at scale and will be in a great position to dominate the industry and export them throughout the world in 2025 when the math has played out and every city is trying to buy them. If they get a similar head start on light vehicles, it will not be to our advantage.

As with several current issues, the engineer in me really wishes we could set aside the politics on this one. Fat chance, I know, but putting this one through the ole trusty partisan grinder is going to cost us long term.

The money the Chinese are putting towards electrification is impressive. They are still consuming more oil because of economic growth, but the electrification wil start to hurt that demand in a few years.

[titanhog]

Has anyone run the numbers on what the energy consumption will look like once we reach a tipping point worldwide and more people are driving electric vehicles than ICE?  It will be wonderful to diminish fossil fuel usage...but is there a chance we create an energy shortage when more than a billion electric cars are in use one day?  (serious question, btw...not political)

[donNdonelson2]

If many of these electric vehicles are of the plug in variety, consider where our electricity comes from-over 60% from fossil fuels!

[titanhog]

40 minutes ago, donNdonelson2 said:

If many of these electric vehicles are of the plug in variety, consider where our electricity comes from-over 60% from fossil fuels!

So does that mean that solar / wind / hydro is so small it doesn't even register?

[CenterHill]

13 minutes ago, titanhog said:

So does that mean that solar / wind / hydro is so small it doesn't even register?

No.    Don’t know the source of that, but what is shown is a portion of a chart (2017) that shows the fossil fuel breakdown.   Fossil fuels are 62.7% of all sources.    The other 37.3% are non-fossil sources of electricity like wind, solar, hydro and nuclear.   

[titanhog]

5 minutes ago, CenterHill said:

No.    Don’t know the source of that, but what is shown is a portion of a chart (2017) that shows the fossil fuel breakdown.   Fossil fuels are 62.7% of all sources.    The other 37.3% are non-fossil sources of electricity like wind, solar, hydro and nuclear.   

Thank you.

[donNdonelson2]

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3

[Hey_Hey]

5 hours ago, titanhog said:

Has anyone run the numbers on what the energy consumption will look like once we reach a tipping point worldwide and more people are driving electric vehicles than ICE?  It will be wonderful to diminish fossil fuel usage...but is there a chance we create an energy shortage when more than a billion electric cars are in use one day?  (serious question, btw...not political)

No, not at all.  I drive an electric car and average ~1500 miles per month. My total energy usage for driving is around 400kWh which equates to $35-$40 per month in electricity cost.  My total house electrical cost averages another $200 (depending on the month and temperature), so my energy usage only increases by  20-25%.  20-25% increase in electrical use is substantial, but we're also seeing solar grow incredibly quickly which will help make up for that, and oil refining has tremendous electrical needs which will go down over time.  Residential electricity only accounts for 33% of total US electricity usage, so a 25% increase of a 33% share only increases total US electrical usage by around 8%. 8% spread over a 10-20 year adoption curve isn't that much to overcome. 

From an energy conservation perspective, electric motors blow Internal combustion engines away. Electric motors are >80% efficient while ICE engines are in the 10-20% efficiency range. For every additional electric car on the road, we are using roughly 75% less energy to create the same amount of work. 

[PruneTracy]

16 hours ago, titanhog said:

Has anyone run the numbers on what the energy consumption will look like once we reach a tipping point worldwide and more people are driving electric vehicles than ICE?  It will be wonderful to diminish fossil fuel usage...but is there a chance we create an energy shortage when more than a billion electric cars are in use one day?  (serious question, btw...not political)

The problem isn't so much that they are used so much as when they get charged.

There's generally plenty of electricity available in the early morning in the non-winter months, so much so that energy providers with generating sources that can't be shut down (e.g., nuclear) are practically giving the electricity away to utilities just to get it distributed. (As an aside, many utilities deal with this by offering electricity at reduced prices during off-peak times, which is why your dishwasher, washer/dryer, etc. have timers to delay their start, and why you should use those timers.)

If people are charging their cars overnight at home, then it doesn't matter, providers would just ramp up their unused potential for generation. If offices, etc. are offering on-site charging during the day, either as a perk or because commuters are exceeding the range of their cars for a round trip, then it's going to be an issue, especially in the summer months when that early-afternoon generation is needed for air conditioning loads.

[titanhog]

39 minutes ago, PruneTracy said:

The problem isn't so much that they are used so much as when they get charged.

There's generally plenty of electricity available in the early morning in the non-winter months, so much so that energy providers with generating sources that can't be shut down (e.g., nuclear) are practically giving the electricity away to utilities just to get it distributed. (As an aside, many utilities deal with this by offering electricity at reduced prices during off-peak times, which is why your dishwasher, washer/dryer, etc. have timers to delay their start, and why you should use those timers.)

If people are charging their cars overnight at home, then it doesn't matter, providers would just ramp up their unused potential for generation. If offices, etc. are offering on-site charging during the day, either as a perk or because commuters are exceeding the range of their cars for a round trip, then it's going to be an issue, especially in the summer months when that early-afternoon generation is needed for air conditioning loads.

Very interesting.  

[PruneTracy]

1 hour ago, titanhog said:

Very interesting.  

Moving further off-topic... Grid balancing is a major issue for energy providers; it doesn't make a lot of economic sense to build capacity for peak usage when it goes unused for the vast majority of the time. Some generation methods also have to produce at certain times, the aforementioned nuclear reactor for example, or hydroelectric power when reservoirs are nearing capacity (dumping water over spillways is almost-literally flushing money down the toilet; TVA says that providing recreation flows on the Ocoee River costs them $2 million per year in lost potential for generation).

So how do we match demand to generation? One way is to level out the load. That's where appliance timers come in, or connection to a smart grid. As far as electric cars go, they can be timed to charge during the periods of lowest demand at night. Say one takes six hours to charge. You come home from work and plug it in at 6:00 PM, finishing at 12:00 AM, it's drawing power during a high-demand time, competing with lights and TVs and such. If it knows to wait until 12:00 AM to start, it will charge during a low-demand period and still be ready to go at 6:00 in the morning.

Another way to balance the grid is just to store electricity at night and release it during the day. In other words, use batteries. But electrochemical batteries are expensive, and don't have a lot of capacity, which is why electric cars are expensive and have relatively short ranges. We need something cheaper, and much bigger, to handle balancing across an entire electric grid.

Which raises the question, where's the largest battery in Tennessee? Just over near Chattanooga:

TVA uses their excess generation capacity during low-demand periods to pump water up over a thousand feet to a reservoir located on Raccoon Mountain, where it can be stored at over 75% efficiency (pending seepage and evaporation losses as well as pump inefficiencies) and then released back down to turbines located on the Tennessee River. At full power it is TVA's largest hydroelectric facility, and with a thousand feet of head behind it, can generate about as much as the ten largest TVA dams, combined, for 22 hours.

Or about 1.1 billion AA batteries.

[titanhog]

^^Wow!  Some great info!  So...there will most definitely be a major effect if there were suddenly a billion EVs coming online...but there are ways to help even out the electrical demand by leveling out the load.  Sounds like it will be a new "normal" someday where we all know to only use certain items during off-times.  Either that, or we'll figure out a way to increase energy output greatly between now and then.

[MLBrumby]

Raccoon Mountain. That is a great place to jog around the reservoir early on a summer morning. 

[SoundScan]

Local/microgrid solar will help with peak daytime demand above the baseload generating capacity, at least in regions where mean daily sunshine hours make it cost effective. Those regions continue to expand as panel efficiency and costs come down. Also consider that simply refining a single gallon of gas requires anywhere from 0.2-0.6 kW/h, depending on refinery efficiency and distillate production. Total well-to-pump electricity use for a single gallon can reach 8 kWh, which for the most efficient BEVs (~5 mi/kWh) is equivalent to 40 miles of driving before gas even hits the tank of an ICE vehicle. Given these statistics, and assuming even very conservative efficiency improvements over time, it’s easy to project a scenario where we are using less energy overall and little or no gasoline (for automobiles).

[dragonfly]

On 5/30/2018 at 9:42 PM, SoundScan said:

Do you really want to get into a debate about subsidies? Shall I post articles listing all the subsidies oil and gas companies receive? I'm sure we're both capable of using Google.

I have to jump in here. I can answer this one much better than a lot of people because  the energy sector paid my salary for a long time as a designer of automation equipment and devices for the energy sector in Houston.  Almost every old wives tale about the sector can be answered by one fact. Which is the fact of the shear size and scope of the world hydrocarbon energy market sector.  Almost everything you read about the sector in the popular press is incorrect, as is the assertion that the sector recieves tangible subsidies from the U.S. government beyond the use of eminent domain in pipeline development, or licensing of public lands for exploration and production, which actually brings cash to the government instead of costs.  I want  the contributor to post about those subisdies and it is interesting how contributor dodged the  obligation to elaborate.  The fact of the shear size of the sector renders any proposed tangible subsidy to be almost worthless by comparison.  Imagine  an elephant hoping for some ants to eat, that is the absurdity of government tax subsidies for the sector. 

And the fact of the monstrous presence of foreign based major vertically integrated companies doing business in this coountry raises all kinds of questions about the contributor's assertions. Does contributor  believe that  U.S. subsidies are going to BP or Citgo, based outside the U.S.? I've been in Texas since '75, Houston since '89 and I've, never heard, among all of the people here that I've known, any talk of the government coming in to help their employer. I've never heard of anyone  in the job market assert that maybe it would be better to work for Conoco-Phillips than BP because the job would be more secure working for a company with its hands in the public till. 

OK I must mention that as an electrical engineer, nobody wanted to see electric vehicles come into wide use more than yours truly.  I recieved a BEEE from Vanderbilt and we had some guys in one class there that actually electrified a Carmen Ghia with lead acid batteries.  I recieved the MSEE from UT Austin and remember reading about the  Tesla development I think it was more than 15 years ago. But after 45 years of watching this endeavor turn up failure after failure, and my  cautious optimism about Tesla, I have abandoned any hope for this. All you have to do is read some of the technical papers on the effort to heat or cool the vehicle cabin and you will see that it is pretty bleak. Expensive batteries with a lifetime of 6 years and costing $thousands to replace. Running AC in Houston from battery, or heating the cabin from battery power in upstate NY.  Running out of charge on a trip with no way to replenish. But maybe the most relevant reality from the Tesla experience is the behavior of the founder and the reactions of the major stakholders to the current situation which does not look good at all - read up here: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/03/business/tesla-elon-musk.html

Below is the BP U.S. headquarters in the Houston Energy Corridor about 17 miles west of downtown.

 

x

Edited June 4, 2018 by dragonfly

[dragonfly]

On 6/2/2018 at 6:44 PM, SoundScan said:

Local/microgrid solar will help with peak daytime demand above the baseload generating capacity, at least in regions where mean daily sunshine hours make it cost effective. Those regions continue to expand as panel efficiency and costs come down. Also consider that simply refining a single gallon of gas requires anywhere from 0.2-0.6 kW/h, depending on refinery efficiency and distillate production. Total well-to-pump electricity use for a single gallon can reach 8 kWh, which for the most efficient BEVs (~5 mi/kWh) is equivalent to 40 miles of driving before gas even hits the tank of an ICE vehicle. Given these statistics, and assuming even very conservative efficiency improvements over time, it’s easy to project a scenario where we are using less energy overall and little or no gasoline (for automobiles).

Electrical energy is measured in kW-h.  The energy cost reservoir to wellhead on average would be calculated by assuming an 8 KW motor, say 10 strokes per minute or  600 strokes per hour.  At 2 gallons  crude per stroke average that is  1200 gallons per KW-hr energy  to  get it out of the ground, or .0075 KW-h per gallon crude in this example which may or may not be average. To say that it costs  several kW-h to move a gallon of fuel to the pump seems quite extreme and I would be interested to see how it was arrived at

Edited June 4, 2018 by dragonfly

[SoundScan]

4 hours ago, dragonfly said:

I have to jump in here. I can answer this one much better than a lot of people because  the energy sector paid my salary for a long time as a designer of automation equipment and devices for the energy sector in Houston.  Almost every old wives tale about the sector can be answered by one fact. Which is the fact of the shear size and scope of the world hydrocarbon energy market sector.  Almost everything you read about the sector in the popular press is incorrect, as is the assertion that the sector recieves tangible subsidies from the U.S. government beyond the use of eminent domain in pipeline development, or licensing of public lands for exploration and production, which actually brings cash to the government instead of costs.  I want  the contributor to post about those subisdies and it is interesting how contributor dodged the  obligation to elaborate.  The fact of the shear size of the sector renders any proposed tangible subsidy to be almost worthless by comparison.  Imagine  an elephant hoping for some ants to eat, that is the absurdity of government tax subsidies for the sector. 

And the fact of the monstrous presence of foreign based major vertically integrated companies doing business in this coountry raises all kinds of questions about the contributor's assertions. Does contributor  believe that  U.S. subsidies are going to BP or Citgo, based outside the U.S.? I've been in Texas since '75, Houston since '89 and I've, never heard, among all of the people here that I've known, any talk of the government coming in to help their employer. I've never heard of anyone  in the job market assert that maybe it would be better to work for Conoco-Phillips than BP because the job would be more secure working for a company with its hands in the public till. 

Hello, fellow "Contributor" and engineer. My point is that if all energy sectors (oil, gas, ethanol, nuclear, bio, wind, solar, etc.) receive some form of subsidy--because energy independence is critical to the national security of the United States--then why is it all okay for some but not others? Because they existed first? Two of the oldest active tax exemptions and deductions for the oil industry date back over 100 years, and energy subsidies have existed for as long as we've been a nation, but now all of a sudden these are bad ideas for stimulating action within newer energy sectors. Why? I don't need to post a list of publications and reports because the information is readily available for anyone that's interested, but I will oblige with one: https://cen.acs.org/articles/89/i51/Long-History-US-Energy-Subsidies.html

 

Quote

OK I must mention that as an electrical engineer, nobody wanted to see electric vehicles come into wide use more than yours truly.  I recieved a BEEE from Vanderbilt and we had some guys in one class there that actually electrified a Carmen Ghia with lead acid batteries.  I recieved the MSEE from UT Austin and remember reading about the  Tesla development I think it was more than 15 years ago. But after 45 years of watching this endeavor turn up failure after failure, and my  cautious optimism about Tesla, I have abandoned any hope for this. All you have to do is read some of the technical papers on the effort to heat or cool the vehicle cabin and you will see that it is pretty bleak. Expensive batteries with a lifetime of 6 years and costing $thousands to replace. Running AC in Houston from battery, or heating the cabin from battery power in upstate NY.  Running out of charge on a trip with no way to replenish. But maybe the most relevant reality from the Tesla experience is the behavior of the founder and the reactions of the major stakholders to the current situation which does not look good at all - read up here: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/03/business/tesla-elon-musk.html

That's great that your excited about the proliferation of electric vehicles--you're about to get your wish. Tesla will soon become a small fish in the electric vehicle space, but will likely remain a significant player in energy storage (batteries). And thanks, but you may want to read some more recent technical papers on vehicle HVAC systems, with advanced heat pump designs that utilize the battery thermal management loops. And they will only get better as they iterate with new materials and further miniaturization. Traditional lithium ion cell costs have dropped almost 90% in 7 years (>$1000 kWh to ~$150 kWh, although Audi claims $119 kWh), with technologies like solid-state batteries and advanced chemistries (Lithium-sulfur, lithium-titanate, LiFePO) entering near- and mid-term production pipelines. Cost break-even with traditional ICE vehicles is around $100 kWh, with most manufactures expecting EV parity and then lower cost vs ICE by 2025.

Your "lifetime of 6 years" assertion is silly considering every electric and hybrid vehicle offered in the U.S. has a pack warranty of 8 years or longer, and larger pack capacities will reduce cycle rates and therefore extend lifespans even further--up to 20 years for standard Li-ion chemistries. Driving ranges continue to improve with massive increases in fast DC charging locations, battery energy density, charge rates, pack design, motor/controller design, regenerative braking efficiency, etc. I encourage you to read up more on how rapidly things are advancing in these areas as a lot has changed in 15 years.

Global automakers are committing more than $100 billion towards EV development over the next 10 years, with VW Group alone planning EV versions of over 300 models worldwide. Tesla is a tiny part of this movement. Just follow the money.

[SoundScan]

6 hours ago, dragonfly said:

Electrical energy is measured in kW-h.  The energy cost reservoir to wellhead on average would be calculated by assuming an 8 KW motor, say 10 strokes per minute or  600 strokes per hour.  At 2 gallons  crude per stroke average that is  1200 gallons per KW-hr energy  to  get it out of the ground, or .0075 KW-h per gallon crude in this example which may or may not be average. To say that it costs  several kW-h to move a gallon of fuel to the pump seems quite extreme and I would be interested to see how it was arrived at

The up to 8 kWh per gallon figure takes into account the entire fuel life-cycle: exploration/discovery, feedstock production, storage, transportation, refining energy consumption (which is massive) and distillate production efficiency, and distribution. There are other ancillary costs that are difficule to factor like transportation/shipment security, etc. As you are no doubt aware the oil and gas industries are extremely resource intensive on a global scale.

P.S. these will be my last posts on this subject as it has steered wayyyyy off-topic. My apologies to the moderators and annoyed members of the board but hopefulyl some useful knowledge was shared.

[markhollin]

Found these metro area population charts fascinating, especially the metro sizes in 1950. I've highlighted metro populations that would either be considered peer cities to us now, or that are of geographical interest to us regionally.  Fascinating how so many northeastern and midwest cities have stagnated or even shrunk (hard to imagine now that Pittsburgh was once the #8 metro in America). Also, that areas like Buffalo, Milwaukee, Providence, Louisville, Birmingham, Worcester, Youngstown, Albany, Rochester, Memphis, Dayton, Springfield (MA), Allentown, Akron, Toledo, Wilkes-Barre, New Bedford, Omaha, Wheeling, Syracuse, Knoxville, Richmond, and Charleston (WV) could be ahead of Nashville. 

Metropolitan Areas -- 1950
1.New York -- 12,911,994 
2.Chicago -- 5,495,364
3.Los Angeles -- 4,367,911 
4.Philadelphia -- 3,671,048 
5.Detroit -- 3,016,197 
6.Boston -- 2,875,876 
7.San Francisco -- 2,240,767 
8.Pittsburgh -- 2,213,236 
9.St. Louis -- 1,681,281 
10.Cleveland -- 1,465,511
11.Washington -- 1,464,089
12.Baltimore -- 1,337,373 
13.Minneapolis -- 1,116,509
14.Buffalo -- 1,089,230 
15.Cincinnati -- 904,402 
16.Milwaukee -- 871,047 
17.Kansas City -- 814,357 
18.Houston -- 806,701 
19.Seattle -- 732,992 
20.Portland -- 704,829 
21.New Orleans -- 685,405 
22.Providence -- 681,815 
23.Atlanta -- 671,797 
24.Dallas -- 614,799 
25.Louisville -- 576,900
26.Denver -- 563,832
27.Birmingham -- 558,928
28.San Diego -- 556,808 
29.Indianapolis -- 551,777
30.Worcester -- 546,401
31.New Haven -- 545,784
32.Hartford -- 539,661
33.Youngstown -- 528,498 
34.Albany -- 514,490 
35.Bridgeport -- 504,342
36.Columbus -- 503,410
37.San Antonio -- 500,460
38.Miami -- 495,084
39.Rochester -- 487,632
40.Memphis -- 482,393
41.Dayton -- 457,333
42.Springfield -- 455,565
43.Norfolk -- 446,200 
44.Allentown -- 437,824
45.Akron -- 410,032
46.Tampa -- 409,143 
47.Toledo -- 395,551
48.Wilkes-Barre -- 392,241 
49.New Bedford -- 381,569
50.Omaha -- 366,395
51.Fort Worth -- 361,253
52.Wheeling -- 354,092
53.Honolulu -- 353,020
54.Syracuse -- 341,719
55.Knoxville -- 337,105
56.Phoenix -- 331,770
57.Richmond -- 328,050
58.Oklahoma City -- 325,352
59.Charleston -- 322,072
60.Nashville -- 321,758
61.Jacksonville -- 304,029
62.Harrisburg -- 292,241
63.Johnstown -- 291,354
64.San Jose -- 290,547 
65.Grand Rapids -- 288,292
66.Utica -- 284,262
67.Canton -- 283,194
68.San Bernardino -- 281,642 
69.Sacramento -- 277,140 
70.Fresno -- 276,515 
71.Tacoma -- 275,876 
72.Salt Lake City -- 274,895 
73.Flint -- 270,963
74.Wilmington -- 268,387
75.Scranton -- 257,396
76.Reading -- 255,740
77.Duluth -- 252,777
78.Tulsa -- 251,686
79.Peoria -- 250,512
80.Chattanooga -- 246,453
81.Huntington -- 245,795
82.Lancaster -- 234,717 
83.Davenport -- 234,256 
84.Mobile -- 231,105 
85.Trenton -- 229,781 
86.Des Moines -- 226,010 
87.Wichita -- 222,290 
88.Spokane -- 221,561 
89.Erie -- 219,388 
90.South Bend -- 205,058 
91.York -- 202,737
92.Stockton -- 200,750
93.Charlotte -- 197,052 
94.Little Rock -- 196,685
95.Beaumont -- 195,083
96.El Paso -- 194,968 
97.Greensboro -- 191,057
98.Brockton -- 189,468
99.Binghamton -- 184,698
100.Fort Wayne -- 183,722
101.Shreveport -- 176,547
102.Lansing -- 172,941
103.Columbus -- 170,541
104.Madison -- 169,357
105.Portland -- 169,201
106.Greenville -- 168,152
107.Corpus Christi -- 165,471
108.Charleston -- 164,856
109.Augusta -- 162,013
110.Austin -- 160,980
111.Evansville -- 160,422
112.Baton Rouge -- 158,236
113.Manchester -- 156,987
114.Saginaw -- 153,515
115.Rockford -- 152,385
116.Savannah -- 151,481
117.Lorain -- 148,162
118.Hamilton -- 147,203
119.Albuquerque -- 145,673
120.Winston-Salem -- 146,135
121.Columbia -- 142,565
122.Jackson -- 142,164
123.Altoona -- 139,514
124.Montgomery -- 138,965
125.Raleigh -- 136,450
126.Macon -- 135,043
127.Roanoke -- 133,407
128.Pittsfield -- 132,966
129.Atlantic City -- 132,399
130.Springfield -- 131,484
131.Waco -- 130,194
132.Kalamazoo -- 126,707
133.Asheville -- 124,403
134.Lincoln -- 119,742
135.Orlando -- 114,950
136.Galveston -- 113,066
137.Springfield -- 111,661
138.Racine -- 109,585
139.Jackson -- 107,925
140.Topeka -- 105,418
141.Terre Haute -- 105,160
142.Springfield -- 104,823
143.Cedar Rapids -- 104,274
144.Sioux City -- 103,917
145.Durham -- 101,639
146.Lubbock -- 101,048
147.Lexington -- 100,746
148.Waterloo -- 100,448

Nashville's metro population in:
1900 was 122,815 (#55)
1910 was 149,478 (#56)
1920 was  167,815 (#62)
1930 was  222,854 (#59)
1940 was 257,267 (#59)
1950 was 321,758 (#60)

As of 2017 we are at 1,903,027 (#36)

As amazing as our growth has been, the Orlando, Raleigh, Austin, and Charlotte stories are even more so. 

http://www.demographia.com/dm-usmet-fr50.htm