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What Does the Future Hold for Low Emission Vehicles?
Bryan Andersen asks: "While searching for information on electric vehicles to make an EV Hot Rod I came across this Op Ed piece at EV World about James Cameron's Dark Angel series for fall. It got me thinking just what would it take to get low or zero emission vehicles common place? What has to change? What do people think is the future of low or zero emission vehicles? And just what is the state of the art in both manufactured and home built ones? What cool technologies are down the pike? Electric vehicles are something that I very much like the concept of. Every year or two I get the crazy idea of building an electric vehicle. Last time it was doing a motorcycle. This time it's a street rod. A few years before that it was for a hybrid/electric drive for an RV."
I am personally getting sick of people who say "we should all move to electrical vehicles." The main problem is the the answer to, 'where does the electricity they use come from?' And the answer surely does not come out of thin air like many "wantabe" environmentalists think it does!
Electric cars use upto 5 times as much fossil fuels than ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicles.
How and why? First off, the electricity is produced at a power plant, of which, the nation still relies on 70-80% of fossil fuels to generate. Secondly, the efficiency of first generating the electricity from fossil fuels to drive a motor by electricity, rather than via an ICE is much, much lower. And, finally, there is a lot of transmission loss between the power plant, relay stations to your home (the most likely location where you will charge your vehicle). And there is the fact that the current power generation infrastructure could not meet the power generation needs to support home charging of electrical cars if 1/4th of America was driven them. In addition, I think most Americans would take exception to a $400-500 "electrical bill" even if they did not have to fuel their vehicles elsewhere.
In addition, because the elctricity is still generated from fossil fuels 70-80% of the time, the belief that it is "zero emissions" is just untrue. Now on the flip-side I will admit that power generation from fossil fuels at a power plant is less of a polutant than generation from fossil fuels in an ICE -- probably by an order of magnitude. So even if it takes 5 times as much gas to power the electric vehicle and, therefore 5 times as much fossil fuels are used, the total number of pollutants are probably cut in half. I.e. 5 (times as much fuel) x 1/10 (the pollution per unit fuel) = 1/2 (the total pollution).
So, at best, the "zero emissions electric vehicle" is a flight of fantasy, at least until we either develop direct heat to electricity generation (by passing the traditional steam turbine/generator system of today), possibly in combination with commodity fusion power generation (until which, we will be dependent on fossil fuels).
And if you are even thinking of solar power, don't bother. Solar cells would have to be 25 times as efficient as they exist now. Putting solar panels atop of your hood, top and trunk would not even yield enough power to go a few miles after several hours of charge. Wind power is in the same boat, although it it is more efficent than solar.
The reality of reduced fossil fuel dependence comes not from its total elimination. No. The best solutions come in "hybrid" electric vehicles where an ICE is used in combination with electric systems. Everything from alternators to flywheels are used to generate and charge the batteries while the ICE is running. Hybrid vehicles can almost double the MPG (miles per gallon) rating of vehicles over their ICE-only components.
Looking beyond just they ICE-electric hybrid, we can look at one petroleum replacement, and another one electrical source (other than direct battery storage and recharge). CNG (compressed natural gas) is one since it burns much cleaner than petroleum, and is in limited used in largely application-specific commercial vehicles (like various commercial utility trucks, etc...). Hydrogen fuel cells are a promising technology that will make electric cars much more efficient than charged and discharged batteries. But, both CNG and fuel cells have serious safety issues in their on-board storage in that massive explosions can result in rupture of their tanks (much larger than possible with petroleum-based ones because of the pressure and density of CNG, and the volitity of hydrogen in fuel cells).
Lastly, some may remember "gasohol", an ICE fuel replacement for petroleum. Gasohol is a reality, and can be used to power ICE. In fact, the US' total agriculture capability could meet the world's total demand for gasahol at least two times over if petroleum did not exist tomorrow. The reason it does not today is because of the cost of its refining into an end-user product. Not so much in the refining process itself, but in the massive and quite useless by-products and waste as a result of the refining process. As such, until petroleum resources start to dry up and drive costs of a crude barrel at least 5 times more than the cost today, gasohol will remain a relatively untapped technology.
I seriously hope I educated some individuals here. I don't work the petroleum industry nor do I defend them -- I'm actually quite critical, especially in light of the little effort by everyone in the US to push for the development and maturity of economical fusion power generation (which I believe is possible). I'm just an engineer who is sick of reading various comments on "electrical cars" or "renewable energies/fuels." Let's talk reality people or not talk at all!
-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
Independent Author, Consultant and Trainer
As an owner of a pure electric car (GM EV1), let me answer those questions:
: 1. what if it breaks
What if any car breaks? I don't quite get why this is a problem. In fact, with my car, all maintenance is included in the lease, so at least if it breaks I won't be paying to fix it.
: 2. Do I have to plug it in.
How about "can I plug it in?". Quite frankly, I find it a hell of a lot more convenient to spend 30 seconds plugging my car in when I get home than 15 minutes at the gas station once or twice a week, inhaling fumes and having to interrupt my drive home because I'm running low. With 120 miles range, I can go just about anywhere in the SF Bay Area (where I live) and back without a recharge. The only place range is really a problem is on long trips like to LA, and if we weren't a two car household (my husband has a normal car) we could just rent a car for those really rare times we take really long trips.
Personally, I'd like to see more hybrids, but not the hybrids out there now- they're barely an improvement at all. You can get those low emissions out of ICE cars too if you build em right. I want to see the hybrids that you can plug in! Give it 25-60 miles of electric range and use gas to back it up when that runs low. That way the vast majority of people's daily commutes could be handled without even using gas, and you'd always have a gas backup if you had to make a long trip.
In the meantime, I'm perfectly happy with my EV1. Hybrids are good because they're cheaper to buy and they're getting people used to the idea of alternative fuel, but they still aren't taking full advantage of what can be done emissionswise. And I still would much rather be able to plug my car in at home, than to be dependent on the gas infrastructure alone. Pure EVs aren't for everyone, but the current generation ones are suitable for a lot more people than you'd think.
I believe that the pollution problem stems more from accepted lifestyles in our society than anything else. Look at all the SUV's out there today!
I don't think it's so much "lifestyle" as government interference steering people towards vehicles that are inefficient.
A major reason people are driving SUVs is due to government legislation. The CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy, if memory serves) standards added thousands of dollars to the costs of big car - the kind of car a growing family would want to cart themselves around in.
So given a choice between a $18k station wagon or $12k mini-van, the average family doesn't need a slide rule to figure that one out.
Your claims are rife with inaccuracies and misleading statements. Look at just a few of the real doozies.
Modern oil-fired and coal-fired plants are getting 35-40% efficiency ratings. This compares wonderfully with the 25% efficiency of petrol engines or 30% efficiency of diesel engines. Even with ridiculously inefficient transmission, storage, and final conversion, electric cars are still more efficient in terms of quantity of fuel used. An ICE also produces far more toxic emissions due to not having the benefits of high-quality scrubbers and catalytic convertors (though you did comment on the reduced quantity of emissions, you didn't mention that the gasses produced by ICE are thousands of times more toxic to plant and animal life than power plant emissions).
This is just an outright lie. Even factoring in ridiculously high transmission losses from plant to car (say 40%), and even given a highly inefficient electric motor (say 75%), an entirely electrically powered car is still going to be more efficient and result in fewer emissions to the air. The quality of air produced by fossil fuel plants is amazingly good compared to an ICE so there's simply no comparison here.
Solar Power Plants don't ever rely on solar photovoltaic cells or panels. Not only are they far too expensive, the cells "wear out" after only 10 years usage. Modern solar plants use the tried and true heliocentric model. Mirrors or chromed surfaces reflect large areas of sunlight into a single point (either a tower with a collection point at the top, or using new trough technology with a copper pipe running down the centre of the reflective trough). These plants are in operation RIGHT NOW in Australia, and are turning 6c/kWh which is very favourable compared to the 4c/kWh of coal (currently the cheapest source of electricity).
I also see no mention of true, realistic, and even commercially viable zero-emission plants. They do exist but your rant seems to imply every person pushing for zero emissions is living in fantasy land and none of this is possible. Let's take a look at some of the zero emission plants in operation right now.
Hot-rock power is a new finding in a joint Australian-American investigation. You send water pipes 2km into the crust then use the temperature difference between surface and bedrock to drive a steam turbine. Estimates are that a single 2km cube of rock in the Australian desert could power the entire of Australia's power needs. Still in the experimental stage.
Wind power, currently the best bet for future zero-emission plants. Currently pushing 5c/kWh which is better value even than nuclear. It's in the running for beating oil/coal plants in the near future. People are concerned about the ugly nature of wind farms, but these same people never seem to complain about open-cut mines or tailings dams or the unsightly fossil fuel power plants.
Dam power, such as found in the hydro-electric power plants in Australia. Uses the natural water cycle (evaporation, condensation, water flow) to produce vast amounts of power. These plants have no emissions, are very cheap to maintain, and the high construction costs are easily offset by the long running lifetime.
This argument is ridiculous. By the same token nobody should ever have built modems, because at one stage there weren't enough ISPs to dial into. Power plants take a while to build (the typical estimate is 10 years per plant) but electric cars won't magically appear overnight. They'll slowly phase in alongside normal cars and power plants can be built to meet demand. The people who build and run the plants already know how to figure in rising demand: they've been doing it for decades.
I agree electric cars aren't a magical panacea but there's no reason to be a cynic just because they aren't 100% perfect. Electric powered vehicles are an incremental evolutionary improvement. Crying "I won't consider anything that isn't 100% emission free and costs nothing to run and has all the infrastructure already in place" is the attitude the oil barons want you to have.
There is a real audio interview with Ed Begley, Jr. over on EVworld and he brings up some things I found to be very interesting.
First, EV is a lot like the early VCRs, CD players etc. Everyone worried "are they going to stick around?" EV is in that stage right now. He pointed out that things like ebike.com are going to help turn consumers onto the idea of plugging in your vehicle when you get it home.
I am preparing to build an electric bike (note this is not going to be electric-assist). There is a cool one here.
Another place to check out is Esarati. They look pretty damn cool.