Most Comprehensive Study Yet On Environmental Impact of Electric Vehicles

An anonymous reader writes: A few articles came out Thursday talking about the recently released report from the National Bureau of Economic Research on the environmental benefits of electric cars. The general consensus is kind of obvious -- that it depends on the ratio of coal vs. clean electrical generation that is used to charge your car. What is interesting is the extent to which it makes a difference, and that when viewed on a regional basis, there are cases where the EV doesn't do so well. And when it comes to policy decisions, it seems the central focus needs to be on the replacement of large-scale coal generation, and the rest will fall in to place. Here is one cover story from Ars Technica. Google others for varying perspectives.

Comments

"Most comprehensive" first post

[Anonymous Coward]

damn, look how comprehensive i am!

Re:"Most comprehensive" first post

[fyngyrz]

lol... this study is squarely in the class of "we've determined that most water is wet" or for a more complex example, "statistics clearly indicate that the majority component of the contents of a glass packed full of water ice, is water ice,. *(But this is only true until or unless it melts)"

FFS, yes, there are environmental costs to making vehicles and renewable power systems, and those are further impacted by lifetime and reliability factors, and there are huge environmental costs to burning fossil fuels, and the less we do of that, the better.

Thanks, I'll take my million dollar NSF grant as a cashier's check. I hope to have another study ready tomorrow; I plan to definitively, once and for all, determine if most humans are air breathers. Stay tuned. But don't hold your breath. I'm going to be out spending today's million tonight on strippers and fine whiskey. I may take a... breather... tomorrow. As the Italians say, "Alveoli, amici miei!"

I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[Anonymous Coward]

"... the replacement of large-scale coal generation, and the rest will fall in to place"

Just like communism works "in theory".

What a crock. But, we have Musk on the front page again, so Slashdice gets its money.

Re:I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[JoshuaZ]

Actually, replacing coal is happening already. The percentage of plants that are coal has been going down. Moreover, the plants which are coal have been getting progressively cleaner. And as electric-plugins become more common, that means there will be more on-grid storage which will help make solar and wind more common (since one of their big problems is the intermittent nature of the power they supply). Moreover, the study uses the current crop of electric cars, where they are getting more and more efficient, and as electric cars get more efficient they'll compare more favorably in more locations.

Re:I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[Crashmarik]

Sure

All you have to do is quadruple your electricity prices, put in a battery system in your home to capture the "clean energy", pay more for the electric car and there you are.

lets see

http://shrinkthatfootprint.com...

Want to talk about a war on poverty, you might as well start dropping bombs on them.

Re:I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[Rei]

Why are we dignifying it by calling it a "study"? It's not published in a journal. It's not undergone peer-review. It's a "working paper" on the NBER website. It's not the same thing. If it was legitimate, they would have submitted it to a legitimate journal and gotten it published. They have not, as it stands.

How long is it going to take for news sources to bother to check whether something has undergone peer-review before they start citing it as "science"? Let alone the "most comprehensive study yet"?

Re:I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[Ol Olsoc]

"Study" does not mean peer reviewed science research.

Re:I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[PopeRatzo]

All you have to do is quadruple your electricity prices, put in a battery system in your home to capture the "clean energy", pay more for the electric car and there you are.

Whereas with coal, all you have to do is tear great big holes in the ground, destroy the water supply, kill thousands of miners with black lung disease and untold thousands more with pollution, contribute to climate change and have the government subsidize the whole thing.

And there you are.

Re: I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[Anonymous Coward]

But, where do you get the energy to keep the battery charged? Wind don't always blow when you need it, the sun isn't always shining, and you cannot control lightning. But the refrigerator and TV need power. And your rechargeable pacemaker, is dying, time to eat some beans?

Re:I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[Anonymous Coward]

The free market works "in theory" too...

Re:I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[Crashmarik]

Oh zap you have me

It isn't like "Green Energy" does any of those things

Chinese Rare earth mine
http://images.china.cn/attache...
Water Supply looks good

https://agmetalminer.com/mmwp/...
http://www.wantchinatimes.com/...
Nope no big honking holes in the ground there

Re:I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[michelcolman]

Yes, just a few weeks ago an article was posted here on Slashdot saying that the amount of electricity needed to pump up, refine and transport gasoline is about the same as that consumed by an electric vehicle for the same distance. So when you have finished filling up your gas tank, you have already used the same amount of electricity as the electric car and you haven't even started burning the fuel yet. Did this "study" take that into account?

Add to that the fact that pollution for electricity generation normally happens outside population centers. You should see the smog produced by cars in front of my kids' school on a foggy morning. I can't wait for all cars to be electric.

Re:I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[ArcadeMan]

Electricity can be produced by multiple methods, your links are only relevant to some methods. Furthermore, those methods could be completely different in a few years/decades.

Re:I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[BlackPignouf]

Actually, replacing coal is happening already.

No. What are your sources? Here are mine, from BP 2015 :
http://lecentiemesinge.blog.le...

Re:I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[ShanghaiBill]

All you have to do is quadruple your electricity prices

No. Coal is mostly being replaced with natural gas, which is cheaper than coal, and generates half the CO2. Gas moves in pipelines, which are cheaper and safer than the trains that carry coal. Gas turbines are more efficient than the steam turbines that coal plants use. Gas burns clean, and doesn't require the expensive pollution abatement equipment required by coal.

It no longer makes economic sense to build coal plants in America. Most new projects have been cancelled or suspended. Gas is cheaper and cleaner.

Re: I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[O('_')O_Bush]

It isn't like coal fired power plants have a magic mystery electricity fairy inside them.... they need rare earths as well. Coal just has tons of problems ON TOP of the problems that green energy has.

Re: I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[Anonymous Coward]

It is true that america's coal plants are being shut down quickly. However, both Australia and China are not. In fact, china's % is around 80 and still climbing. Worst yet, they do not turn on their pollution controls.

Re: I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[WindBourne]

And yet, wind, natural gas, and nukes are much cheaper than coal, which is why coal is being shut down.

Re:I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[mspohr]

The NBER is a conservative funded "think tank". It gets most of its money from large corporations and people with an interest in the oil and gas industries.
This "study" is just a hit piece against electric cars funded by the oil and gas industries... it's worthless.
One example of its bias: It uses a "well to wheels" analysis of electric car energy use but for fossil fueled vehicles, it only uses the "pump to wheels" emissions, leaving out all of the energy impacts of extraction, refining and transportation of fossil fuels.

Re:I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[Mr D from 63]

I'm sure the same people that are claiming this NBER study doesn't deserve consideration because it is not peer reviewed will at the same time embrace the information you reference which appears to be just patched together by a reporter. The NBER at least has a history of credible work and noble prize winning contributors.

This study appears to be very clear on what it takes into account, with the core data.

I don't understand some of the criticism. The results come out to what any reasonable person with an engineering background would expect. FWIW, extracting petroleum is much easier per BTU than extracting coal, so I actually am more skeptical of the conclusions of the reporter you reference. The "amount of electricity" used is really not even important, as much of the energy used is not electrical.

Re:I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[Mr D from 63]

One example of its bias: It uses a "well to wheels" analysis of electric car energy use but for fossil fueled vehicles, it only uses the "pump to wheels" emissions, leaving out all of the energy impacts of extraction, refining and transportation of fossil fuels.

Apply your skepticism objectively, and you may get a different take. You clearly don't like the conclusions of the study. It seems reasonable to be.

Evidently, they are very clear that they did not include the price of energy extraction and transportation for the coal that powers the EV, the gas for the ICEs, nor the gas or coal for the Hybrids.

It seems open and reasonable. Extraction and distribution of a BTU of petroleum is much easier energy-wise than 1 BTU of coal. Due to a much lower energy density, transportation of a BTU of coal is likely more costly than petroleum as well. I doubt counting all those factors would have a bit impact on the results.

Re:I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[michelcolman]

FWIW, extracting petroleum is much easier per BTU than extracting coal, so I actually am more skeptical of the conclusions of the reporter you reference.

Are you saying they should use gasoline rather than coal to produce electricity?

Re:I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[Mr D from 63]

No, I am not saying that. Why would you think I was?

Re:I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever looked at the process for making lithium batteries? Digging all those minerals out of the ground is very damaging to the environment and water supplies. Funny how when it is something we like we ignore the damaging effects in the process.

Re:I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[mspohr]

Extraction and distribution of coal and oil are probably about equal. However, refining oil takes about as much energy as cars get out of the gas or diesel. In fact, if you took the electricity that oil refineries use and put that into an electric car, it would drive the car as far as the gas and diesel that the refinery produces (without all that nasty pollution).
Either way, its a major flaw in the study when they don't include major costs of fossil fuel but do include those costs for electricity. Flagrant bias.

Re:I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[Mr D from 63]

Either way, its a major flaw in the study when they don't include major costs of fossil fuel but do include those costs for electricity. Flagrant bias.

No, they don't include those costs for either. You are just viewing it through a flagrantly biased lens.

Re:I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[mspohr]

They don't include refining costs for fossil fuel... major flaw.

Re:I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[Mr D from 63]

The study is not a cost comparison. The study is not even an energy use comparison. The study is a pollution comparison.

Once again, they also do no include the sourcing and transportation contributions of coal either. And they are very transparent regarding what is included.

They also don't include the impacts from lithium extraction and distribution for batteries. Nor the impacts of battery replacement/recycling.

Re: I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[Crashmarik]

It also has tons of advantages
Which is why in any country that isn't taxed the hell out of, it's the preferred power source.

Re:I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[JoshuaZ]

Your source is for worldwide. The study in question was US specific, and for the US it is going down. See this graph: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re: I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[Anonymous Coward]

If oil were cheaper per btu than coal for electricity generation, there would be no coal fired power plants. The coal industry is facing a storm of artificially low natural gas which is hurting it (as well as an administration hostile to its existence). Consumption of natural gas will increase, driving up prices greatly to the point that coal is much cheaper. Gas companies in most cases are beneficiaries of heavily hedged positions for their core volumes, so they're still happily pumping away. Once higher hedged prices drop off poof goes some of your production.

Re:I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[Cyberax]

Electric cars don't mandate the use of rare earths (apart from minute amounts in LCDs and microelectronics). It's totally possible to use AC motors that don't require anything more exotic than copper. Tesla does this, for example.

Re:I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[Crashmarik]

Would you like pictures of Lithium and Nickel mines ?

Re: I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[tbannist]

It also has tons of advantages Which is why in any country that isn't taxed the hell out of, it's the preferred power source.

It has one advantage, it's cheap, and it's the preferred power source when coal isn't taxed (or more commonly where it's actually subsidized), because it's cheap. Additionaly, since most of the disadvantages are either invisible (for example, cancers caused by radioactive coal soot) or are somebody else's problem (like coal sludge dumped in someone else's water supply), those costs are not factored into the average user's decisions.

Re:I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[worldthinker]

In case you haven't noticed, wind and solar spot rates are a fraction of oil and gas generated electricity and competitive with coal not counting coal's externalities which if fully accounted for would make using coal much more expensive.

To me, what is so interesting about Tesla's home/industrial battery offering (and other storage vendors) is the potential for off grid storage and creating micro-grids of neighbors. The ultimate F-you to the power companies that have refused to modernize their grids, refuse connecting solar panels to the grids and cling to fossil fuels.

Re:I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[Crashmarik]

Solar is pretty expensive at night.
Wind still has the problem that turning on the lights doesn't make the wind blow.

Please take a look at the electricity costs in nations that "Have modernized their grids" Hell the proposed epa rule changes are going to be raising electric rates in the west and northwest by 40% by god the Republicans should just let those go through.

Re:I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[michelcolman]

Well, if people are complaining about electricity being dirty because in many places it's still produced using coal, and you say that extracting petroleum is so much easier than extracting coal, a logical conclusion would be that we should ditch coal and just burn petroleum to make electricity. OK, you didn't actual "say" that, but it would be a logical conclusion. And if it was a wrong conclusion (which I think it is), there must be something wrong with one of the premises.

Anyway, we've got plenty of clean energy in Europe and getting more and more, so at least over here in the developed world the choice for electric cars should be clear.

Re:I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[BlackPignouf]

Okay, thanks for the explanation.
From the title, I thought it's a global study.
It's not like the atmosphere care about the nationality of CO2.

Re:I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[Mr D from 63]

Well, if people are complaining about electricity being dirty because in many places it's still produced using coal, and you say that extracting petroleum is so much easier than extracting coal, a logical conclusion would be that we should ditch coal and just burn petroleum to make electricity. OK, you didn't actual "say" that, but it would be a logical conclusion.

It would only be a logical conclusion for someone that really knows very little about energy production and delivery, and doesn't think hard. There are reasons different sources are chosen for different applications. Cost per BTU extraction is really only a small part. And when you mix prices vs extraction energy in your logic, you confuse yourself, they are two very different things, even if though there is a relationship.

Other things that matter are... value of energy density, storage needs and methods (power plants need a 90 day supply and don't care about volume and large tanks are expensive, cars need very high energy density and small tanks are cheap.... , pollution for given application (ICE can burn petro a lot cleaner and more efficiently than a boiler), Those are just a few off the top of my head, there are more if you think it through. But even with that, you may have not realized that burning oil was the popular form of electrical production in the early days.

And if it was a wrong conclusion (which I think it is), there must be something wrong with one of the premises

No, there was something wrong with your application of the premise, mixing of price and energy extraction, and lack of understanding of the many factor at play. Or it was simply you trying to be clever but not really achieving it.

Anyway, we've got plenty of clean energy in Europe and getting more and more, so at least over here in the developed world the choice for electric cars should be clear.

Don't kid yourself. You have invested a lot in renewables, mostly by Germany, but you still have a lot of coal burning. Your overall CO2 output has not really dropped, at least not in any amount enough to make any difference. If the goal is to have a lot of solar panels and windmills, you are doing well. If the goal is solve the CO2 problem, nobody is really getting anywhere.

Re:I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[Anonymous Coward]

Extracting petroleum makes us deal with questionable characters. Last time I heard it cost us never ending war and over 2 trillion dollars.

Re:I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[idji]

you also forgot releasing sulfur, mercury and uranium into the atmosphere....

Re:I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[dave420]

Seeing as lithium can be produced without any mining what so ever, I'd say your question is entirely nonsensical.

Re:I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[dave420]

Don't kid yourself - you are looking at the present and are completely unaware of what's being planned for the future. Big shock.

Re:I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[dave420]

So the study is just a bunch of half-baked bullshit, never once approaching an accurate view of the reality it purports to lay bare. And you love it.

Re:I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[Mr D from 63]

I don't love it, nor hate it. I just analyze it. You are happy to find excuses to dismiss it entirely. How wonderful an approach to learning.

Re:I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[Crashmarik]

http://images.dailytech.com/ni...

tell it to this guy

Re:I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[samwichse]

Sorry, remind me please, which of these two is a rare earth?

Re:I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[samwichse]

That guy's chipping at evaporites from a concentrating pond.

Re:I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[Crashmarik]

Sorry remind me how it has to be a rare earth ?

Re:I see theyre using the Step 2 profit model

[worldthinker]

Battery storage in houses, neighborhoods and at Grid substations will store Solar so that it is perfectly usable when the sun isn't shining.

Windmills in a large enough grid will always provide power. And when connected to Battery Storage, will always provide power when needed.

If modernizing the grid requires higher operating costs (or more correctly, capital recovery costs) then that is the cost of the externalities of using coal or other fossil fuels. e.g. it would be the correct cost to pay for electricity. If anything, if we fully account for the externalities of carbon and tax/price accordingly, then switching to renewables would likely save you money.

Economic factors are my priority

[ranton]

Its a good thing my reason for wanting hybrid and electric vehicles is purely economical. Environmental benefits are a nice side effect in many cases, but the reason I want my country less dependent on oil is almost purely to reduce foreign dependency. Money spent buying coal from West Virginia stays in our economy, while oil bought abroad does not. Also electricity produced by coal is less expensive per mile driven than gasoline, so that allows money to be spent on more productive areas than natural resources.

The environmental benefits are still important, but dealing with dirty coal is a separate issue from electric cars IMHO.

Re:Economic factors are my priority

[Anonymous Coward]

lousy logic

Re:Economic factors are my priority

[AmiMoJo]

Having the pollution emitted away from populated areas, with the possibly of capture, is also a major advantage.

Re:Economic factors are my priority

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually this is sound logic.
You must decouple the systems to judge them separate.
I don't know for the love of god that this bunch of electrons have being "pushed" on feeding line by water ,nuclear or coal.
What I care is the price I paid at that moment.

Power generating mix can be changed every minute.
Then the power generating system will have the independence to judge for itself how to create that energy supply.

Re: Economic factors are my priority

[Anonymous Coward]

"Its a good thing my reason for wanting hybrid and electric vehicles is purely economical."

Guess you've never driven a Tesla then.

Re:Economic factors are my priority

[beanpoppa]

Even if our electricity today doesn't come from predominantly green sources, moving to an electric automobile fleet allows us to more flexibly power our cars. ICE engines confine you to fossil fuels, methane (which can be green), and hydrogen (in the most inefficient way to use it...) Electric cars can use any of these power sources in the most efficient way, as well as solar, wind, geothermal, whatever. We need to overcome energy storage, recharge time, and cost disparities to meet performance parity with fossil fuel ICE's, but having an electric automotive fleet is good for society, even if only 13% of our electricity currently comes from renewables.

Re:Economic factors are my priority

[mjm1231]

Money spent buying coal from West Virginia stays in our economy, while oil bought abroad does not.

Well, sure, assuming the person you pay for the coal doesn't buy any clothing, electronics, or cars. The world economy just doesn't work this way any more.

Re: Economic factors are my priority

[Anonymous Coward]

Your eyes are not very sensitive to light, are they? You see all the flashes, in the lights coming from the feed circuits? That's from power switching. For the safety of your electronics, power companies, are recommending buffer circuits, so they can sell that upcoming brownout in your area to a higher bidder. You are not included in this process to fill the power line, but to act as a constant load to keep the circuit stable. Now you are talking of a computer controlled battery, plugging into that circuit? Without upgrades or citizen safety circuits?

Re:Economic factors are my priority

[lgw]

Environmental benefits are a nice side effect in many cases, but the reason I want my country less dependent on oil is almost purely to reduce foreign dependency. Money spent buying coal from West Virginia stays in our economy, while oil bought abroad does not.

It's not the 1970s any more. America is close to being a net exporter of oil now, and is a net exporter of energy overall. I believe it's still illegal at the federal level for the US to export oil, but there have already been calls to repeal that, as it's starting to matter.

The environmental benefits are still important, but dealing with dirty coal is a separate issue from electric cars IMHO.

Is it news to anyone really that "electric" cars are really coal cars, or natural gas cars, or nuclear cars? Natural gas is a huge improvement over oil, coal not so much. Eventually solar will dominate power production and then electric cars will really be clean, but the (battery) technology for base load solar and practical affordable electric cars isn't quite here yet, and infrastructure changes take a generation or two anyway.

Re:Economic factors are my priority

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no way an electric vehicle makes economic sense for an individual unless the subsidies are sky high. I have looked into TCO of a gas vehicle vs electric and I cannot even come close to breaking even, even when I put in some absurdly optimistic assumptions.

Re:Economic factors are my priority

[ranton]

Money spent buying coal from West Virginia stays in our economy, while oil bought abroad does not.

Well, sure, assuming the person you pay for the coal doesn't buy any clothing, electronics, or cars. The world economy just doesn't work this way any more.

The goal is not to halt commerce with other countries. I am of the opinion that a globalized economy is good for all nations. But countries still need to weigh the impact of how different economic activities and trade practices affect their economy differently.

Comparing buying clothing and electronics with buying gasoline at the pump is a fair comparison. The price of gasoline has many other factors like taxes, gas attendant salaries, trucking costs, real estate, etc. factored in. Just like for consumer goods. But as long as you look at the total US imports of oil, then you can see exactly what is leaving the country that wouldn't need to be if we had energy independence. I am not talking about protectionist measures such as creating tariffs or preventing companies from buying foreign oil. I am talking about simply reducing our need for the oil so that more of our oil is obtained locally.

The US imports around 500 thousand barrels of oil per day (the amount fluctuates a lot even week by week). That is $9 billion leaving our economy each year. Its not that much money when compared to our total GDP, but it isn't inconsequential either. Even if we just used it to increase NASA's budget by 50% it would be put to better use.

Re:Economic factors are my priority

[Barsteward]

i presume you took into account the subsidies/tax breaks/"politicians in pockets" paid to fossil fuel companies before you did your "comparison"

Re:Economic factors are my priority

[phantomfive]

I have looked into TCO of a gas vehicle vs electric and I cannot even come close to breaking even, even when I put in some absurdly optimistic assumptions.

This chart seems to disagree with you.

Re:Economic factors are my priority

[owski]

That is $9 billion leaving our economy each year.

It's amazing how much staying power this myth has, even after Adam Smith tore it down in 1776.

What do you think happens to that $9 billion? Does it sit in a mattress somewhere? No, it's only uses are to buy things produced in the US or invest in the US economy.

Re: Economic factors are my priority

[WindBourne]

Actually, hybrid and low MC vehicles are economic disasters. Since they hold such a small amount of electricty, many owners charge in the daytime. For now, no big deal. BUT, as their volume increases, more will increase daytime demand, which will mean more expensive plants.

Re:Economic factors are my priority

[Anonymous Coward]

You say that like the US dollar isn't the most-used currency of exchange in the world...

Re:Economic factors are my priority

[Solandri]

Its a good thing my reason for wanting hybrid and electric vehicles is purely economical.

That's something I think a lot of people are missing about EVs, and which TFA touches upon. They look at the economic price per mile, and conclude that EVs must be vastly more efficient than ICE cars. In terms of energy consumed, they're actually almost the same.

ICE car gets 30 mpg. A gallon of gasoline has 120 MJ/gal. So (forgive the mixed units) you're consuming about 4 MJ/mile.

A Tesla S has a 85 kWh battery, and can go 253 miles. That's 1.2 MJ/mile. The EV is a lot more energy efficient!

But wait, what about energy production costs? Mining, refining, and transport adds about 15% to the energy consumption of gasoline. So the ICE vehicle is up around 4.6 MJ/mile.

The Tesla S has a charging efficiency of about 80%. It also has a discharge efficiency, but that is built into the EPA mileage figures which are calculated using battery capacity, not energy pulled out of the battery.

Electrical power lines have a transport efficiency of about 98%.

Coal power plants have an efficiency of about 40%

Coal mining and transport adds about 10% to the energy consumption cost.

The actual energy consumption of the Tesla then is 1.2 * 1.1 / (.8*.98*.4) = 4.2 MJ/mile (assuming 100% coal). Not much different from an ICE car. In fact if you converted these back to MPG, the ICE car actually gets 26 MPGe, the Tesla gets 28.6 MPGe (though obviously the latter would vary based on electricity generation source).

As it turns out, almost the entirety of the reason EVs are cheaper to operate than ICE cars is not because of energy efficiency - both use almost the same amount of energy per mile traveled. The EV is cheaper because coal is so much cheaper than gasoline. Coal costs about $55 per ton, and a ton of coal produces about 21 GJ of energy, for a final cost of 0.26 cents per MJ. Gasoline at $3/gal is about 2.5 cents per MJ. An order of magnitude more expensive than coal.

The only reason distilled petroleum is used as an energy source for transportation is that this huge cost disadvantage is more than offset by the high energy density - 42 MJ/kg for gasoline, 0.55 MJ/kg for the Tesla S battery (and 21 MJ/kg for coal if you're curious). You can carry more of it around (greater range), and you can load it up more quickly and easily (faster refueling). Those are the primary hurdles EVs have to jump to achieve widespread adoption, not economic. Gasoline was already a very poor economic choice in the first place, but that wasn't a big enough drawback to prevent it from being widely adopted in transportation.

Re: Economic factors are my priority

[Anonymous Coward]

Guess you've never driven a Tesla then.

lousy logic.

Re:Economic factors are my priority

[ranton]

That is $9 billion leaving our economy each year.

It's amazing how much staying power this myth has, even after Adam Smith tore it down in 1776.

What do you think happens to that $9 billion? Does it sit in a mattress somewhere? No, it's only uses are to buy things produced in the US or invest in the US economy.

I am not sure what you think Adam Smith tore down in 1776. Are you saying the only thing OPEC countries can spend money on are goods produced in the US or investments in the US?

Re:Economic factors are my priority

[ranton]

As it turns out, almost the entirety of the reason EVs are cheaper to operate than ICE cars is not because of energy efficiency - both use almost the same amount of energy per mile traveled. The EV is cheaper because coal is so much cheaper than gasoline. Coal costs about $55 per ton, and a ton of coal produces about 21 GJ of energy, for a final cost of 0.26 cents per MJ. Gasoline at $3/gal is about 2.5 cents per MJ. An order of magnitude more expensive than coal.

I'm confused. You spend the first half of your post talking about energy efficiency, and then in the paragraph I'm quoting you explain why energy efficiency is irrelevant. Obviously electric cars are only cheaper to power because electricity is cheaper to generate than distilled petroleum. Why would efficiency need to even be discussed?

Re:Economic factors are my priority

[im_thatoneguy]

Yeah, I'm surprised that computer geeks don't more broadly embrace electric vehicles based solely on the principle of flexibility.

Electric cars far better embody the Unix philosophy of atomization and portability than ICEs do. If you're in the woods you could trickle charge your car off of solar. Or you could put a turbine in a stream and power your car from a creek, or you could hire a few people on bicycles to pedal away for a couple days to charge it up, or you could setup a wind turbine, or you could have a small ICE generator burning gasoline, or you could have a generator run from nuclear power, or you could have a generator run from a wood fire or coal or anything.

The beauty of electricity is that it's a common currency just like text is to a unix application. You don't mandate an energy source you can mix and match and switch power sources dynamically.

Electric vehicles are also simple and easy to understand. Electric motors have pretty much the one single moving part. Even battery technology is modular, you could have an electric car that has no batteries, just an ICE generator in the trunk providing electricity.

From a form factor perspective it should also appeal to computer geeks' ideals of Aesthetics. A design in which you might need wheels, but otherwise the sky is the limit on where you place critical components.

Re:Economic factors are my priority

[CrimsonAvenger]

Yeah, I'm surprised that computer geeks don't more broadly embrace electric vehicles based solely on the principle of flexibility.

Well, one reason is that they're not all that flexible in terms of long-range travel. Driving more than the distance of a charge in a day is...difficult. And time-consuming.

This is not true of gasoline cars. Note, by the by, that it WAS true back in the day when gasoline was bought in drug stores....

Re:Economic factors are my priority

[Anonymous Coward]

You're focused on coal. I'm in California, where coal is about 6% of electricity generation here, in 15 years it will be none as utilities are bared from purchasing out of state electricity generated by coal. In comparison, 10% is nuclear, 18% of electricity is renewables. 40% is natural gas. Of that 60% is now high efficiency combined cycle or co-generation plants. Combined cycle efficiency is about 60%. Co-generation, 20%, the power is basically 'free', AKA 100%.

Over the next two decades power from nuclear and natural gas will fall as solar plants relentlessly come online. And there will be no electric power from coal in a very short time in CA.

One other quibble, there is a strong tendency to compare lifetime ownership of various types of cars based on the same end mileage, 150,000 miles or so. This ignores the very real fact that in the future electric cars will depreciate in real terms about half as fast as gasoline or hybrid cars. Both maintenance and depreciation costs per mile will be half that of gasoline cars.

Consider depreciation. Say a electric car a Leaf costs $35,000 and lasts 150,000 miles. Then the depreciation cost per mile is 23 cents a mile. But realistically unlike say an F150 truck, it will last 300,000 miles, depreciation cost of 12 cents per mile. Add that to the reduced maintenance costs, no need to replace oil, coolant, clutches, or transmissions. Brakes last much longer due to regenerative braking.

One can bitch about the high cost of batteries, but the cost of those are falling and will continue to fall. Environmental impacts from producing modern batteries are much lass than previously, especially since the recent advent of lithium iron phosphate batteries. These don't require any scarce or conflict resource materials.

Other environmental impact based on longer depreciation times is the need to build and recycle fewer cars per year. Producing steel isn't cheap and has a high carbon foot print currently.

Re:Economic factors are my priority

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel the same way. There are a lot of things that will change in the future and if we can start moving even 1% of cars to electric now that will allow the technology to develop and charging stations and repair shops to become more common. Then down the road say maybe solar panels will become very inexpensive due to some breakthrough they could be installed on roofs everywhere and we'd be able to quickly move towards a mostly renewable power.

Re:Economic factors are my priority

[tbannist]

It's not the 1970s any more. America is close to being a net exporter of oil now, and is a net exporter of energy overall.

Not according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, U.S. energy exports are only 43% of your imports. Crude exports are a mere 5% of your imports. The total amount of exports is also overstated because the U.S. imports crude oil from Canada, refines it and then exports it to other countries, thus inflating your export total as a percentage. So, America has a 5 million barrel a day deficit between imports and exports. Total U.S. production is about 8.7 million barrels a day, so you'd need to increase U.S. production by about 60% before you could become a net exporter of energy, which would put your production target at about 4 million barrels a day more than the U.S produced at it's previous peak production.

Re:Economic factors are my priority

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly yet another "comprehensive study" that doesn't seem to be very comprehensive at all... What about the environmental cost of manufacturing 2 types of cars, when is that going to be factored in to a comprehensive study?

Re:Economic factors are my priority

[DrVxD]

as well as solar, wind, geothermal, whatever.

You forgot nuclear. Never forget the nukes.

Re:Economic factors are my priority

[burtosis]

That's only partially true. The average lifespan of a car is around 10-15 years and changes to the grid also take around that long. Buying a coal powered car now and believing it's solar powered is like driving a conventional diesel and believing it's powered by biofuel.

Re:Economic factors are my priority

[dave420]

Apart from all the superchargers being built out, the battery swap technology in the works, and the fact that the vast majority of drivers don't want to drive more than a full charge per day, you are absolutely correct in your appraisal.

Re:Economic factors are my priority

[CrimsonAvenger]

If I were to buy an electric tomorrow (I'm mowing grass today, so it'll have to wait), I would not be able to find a supercharger near me.

Nor would I be able to do a quick battery swap.

And while I *do* drive fewer than 150 miles most days, having to have another car (or rent one) the times I do want to go more than 150 miles would be a strike or two against an electric.

Note that "next year's big new improvements" aren't enough to make me consider a product that doesn't meet my needs THIS YEAR.

Yeah, things may change in a few years. When they do, I may buy an electric. Note, by the by, that gasoline automobiles could not reliably drive across the USA (due to limitations on availability of gas stations) for perhaps 20 years after their introduction. If electrics follow that pattern (and they require even more significant infrastructure than gas cars, which didn't really need gas pumps, just availability of gasoline), then the electric might be generally useful as a drop-in replacement for a gas car by 2030 or so.

Re:Economic factors are my priority

[burbilog]

And while I *do* drive fewer than 150 miles most days, having to have another car (or rent one) the times I do want to go more than 150 miles would be a strike or two against an electric.

You need PHEV, not all-electric car. PHEV will use electricity for 40-50 miles 95% of time and gasoline engine will kick in if you need to travel more than your battery can store. THIS is the future of electric cars for nearest 20-30 years.

Best Idea EVER!

[Anonymous Coward]

Outsource power from ... CHINA! It don't care about waste at all. First to think of this am I? Big power cable across the oceans. BIG! Pay penis on the dollar. RADICAL!

First Poop!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I gots first poop!

Commit to puchasing 100% green energy when buying

[archer, the]

If you buy an EV for the renewable aspect, commit to switching your electrical supplier to one that produces all electricity from green sources. For me, that's a $0.024/kwh increase.

Exactly I've made this point here many times

[burtosis]

There is no bypassing entropy. Every car has a tailpipe. Yes centralizing the system can simplify some pollution problems but it introduces others such as electrical transmission losses, battery voltage conditioning losses, battery charging losses, etc. Yes you may pay less money per mile but when you factor in the heavily subsidized battery sold way beneath cost needed at around 8-10 years it often comes back to around the same price only worse - many wont replace the 3k battery in an old hybrid, 7-8k in a leaf or 8-12k (30k+ production cost) for the larger tesla.

I'm all for electric cars, they are great! But I'm pro science and pro facts and when people run around half informed and when media spouts half truths it bothers me quite a bit. It should bother you as well.

The tesla is a great sports car. But if you want an electric for enviornmental reasons find out where your regional power comes from and do the math. It's not likely to change much for the life of your car - any changes are definitely also public record. If you need a solar instal to actually make the difference large then factor in that cost benefit too.

Never under estimate the ability of an efficient economy car to nearly get the enviornmental savings of what anelectric gets at 1/2 to 1/5 the price.

Re:Exactly I've made this point here many times

[Anonymous Coward]

centralizing the system can simplify some pollution problems

That is a pretty huge understatement. ICE has come a long way, but the context and the constraints make it impossible to match what larger, non-moving power plants can do. Additionally, there is actually the ability to recapture a greater deal of energy on deceleration (it's pretty much either electrical or flywheel, and electrical works out in many ways).

Our ability to move, store, and use electrical power is remarkable. You mention transmission losses, but it costs a lot of energy to move gasoline around as well. Battery tech has come a long way, but it does have further to go yet. Keep in mind though that the motor components of an electric vehicle drive require *far* less maintenance than an ICE.

find out where your regional power comes from and do the math

Correct that the regional power makes a difference, but that is pretty orthogonal to the vehicle specific use of that power. If that power plant is problematic, it's problematic whether its power is used for vehicles or not.

Re:Exactly I've made this point here many times

[Rei]

If you're pro-science and pro-facts then why are you citing a non-peer-reviewed paper?

Some people over on reddit are tearing into it just based on the preview.... I'm still looking for a fully copy.

Re:Exactly I've made this point here many times

[burtosis]

This one is paywalled but if you go off pretty much any report full electrics in America get around 60 mpg co2 equivelant. Hybrids are just about as good. Really efficient gas and diesels can get nearly 50. So I'm going to go and say that, particulates aside for another discussion, co2 wise no electrics barely do better due to coal. In my specific region it's pretty bad electrics do about the same as efficient gas cars.

Re:Exactly I've made this point here many times

[Anonymous Coward]

but it introduces others such as electrical transmission losses, battery voltage conditioning losses, battery charging losses, etc.

It is a bit strange to list this for electric cars and not mention the much worse energy efficiency of gasoline. Electric vehicles convert about 59%–62% of the electrical energy from the grid to power at the wheels—conventional gasoline vehicles only convert about 17%–21% of the energy stored in gasoline to power at the wheels. And requires energy consuming transportation out to the pumps ("transmission losses").

Yes, the source of the electrical power makes a big difference to the environmental impact (fx. one of the countries with highest penetration of electric cars, Norway, gets most of its power from clean and renewable hydro power), but also production of gasoline requires energy. But even disregarding environmental impact completely, electricity as energy eco system makes a lot of sense. Also because it can be augmented locally with additional sources, fx solar panels. The reason most people have chosen it to power their homes and not their cars is the lack of technology suitable for cars, until now.

Re:Exactly I've made this point here many times

[Rei]

Haven't found a copy of the study yet but I did find this map supposedly from the paper, which already right there doesn't just wave red flags, it applies for a zoning permit to make a factory for automated red-flag-waving robots. Compare it to a map of coal power generation - they don't match up at all.

Without having the paper, I don't know what screwy thing they're doing with the data, but there's clearly something they're doing screwy with the data.

Re:Exactly I've made this point here many times

[Anonymous Coward]

My regional power plant is my roof with PV cells.
No on going coal issues at all.

Re:Exactly I've made this point here many times

[PopeRatzo]

Really efficient gas and diesels can get nearly 50.

You mean the ones nobody drives?

The average fuel economy for existing non-hybrid, non-electric cars and light trucks is still about 20-25 mpg.

Re:Exactly I've made this point here many times

[Demonoid-Penguin]

Never under estimate the ability of an efficient economy car to nearly get the enviornmental savings of what anelectric gets at 1/2 to 1/5 the price.

Did you factor health costs into that economic rationalisation? Out of sight might be out of mind but all it does it delay the impact - even with entrapment schemes.

I know it's a whacky idea - but maybe costing transmission losses is partially redundant given that the generation source is already located away from cities - in location that would also see more electricity consumed if there were more electric cars. So maybe additional transmission capacity may only be required in cities. Then there's the fact that the highest demand for power to recharge batteries is at the time consumers use the least - at night.

Reduced petroleum requirements would also reduce the power required to produce it. About 4-7.5 Kwh per gallon.

Reduced petroleum consumption means reduced road maintenance costs.

To be fair I've also considered the impact on the medical system - and though the health effects of battery production don't come anywhere near those of burning coal, oil, and petrol - there's still plenty of unsatisfied demand for medical treatment.

Re:Exactly I've made this point here many times

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's not forget that if you drive in a city your mileage is >20% less of EPA estimates. At least that's what Subaru dealer told me refusing to even look into the issue.

Re:Exactly I've made this point here many times

[Rei]

I don't know where you're getting your "59-62%" figure from, it's usually higher than that. The US grid is about 93% efficient, generator-to-socket. Grid losses are far lower than most people give them credit for. Chargers are typically 92-94% efficient, depending on how fast the charge is. beyond the charger, charging is usually 90-99% efficient, depending on how fast the charge is and what sort of pack the vehicle has and pack management the vehicle does. Powertrains during operation (including battery losses) are usually 65-95% efficient, depending on torque and RPM conditions and the vehicle, with a usual operational average of 85%-ish. A small portion of the energy, depending on the type of driving, is returned via regenerative braking, which on li-ion EVs is usually 60-70% round trip efficiency (lower on NiMH hybrids). Ignoring regen, the whole picture is usually 70%-ish.

You're right about the efficiency of gasoline cars, but to be clear, it's not that the engine can't achieve higher - it's that maximum efficiency (usually 35%-ish) is confined to a narrow torque / rpm band. Gearshifting helps you pick your RPM / torque combination but you don't have control over power (the combination of the two) - that's dictated by the driving conditions. And then of course on top of that you have idling and no regen potential.

Concerning the production of electricity, it's important to note trends. Electricity is in most countries in the world, including the US, trending toward cleaner, both in regards to CO2 and to health-related pollutants. Gasoline, however, is trending toward dirtier - it involves more energy to extract and/or refine. There's no reason to expect these trends to reverse in the forseable future.

Re:Exactly I've made this point here many times

[drinkypoo]

Really efficient gas and diesels can get nearly 50.

You mean the ones nobody drives?

While the numbers are still low, there's been a veritable flood of diesel models recently in comparison to what has been available in passenger-car land, and over in trucksville Nissan has finally got a diesel in the US of A. So in spite of temporarily reduced gas prices, and the federal government long crapping on the oil burner parade, diesel adoption continues to rise.

Re:Exactly I've made this point here many times

[tompaulco]

There is no bypassing entropy.

That's for sure. What we keep missing about "renewable" energy is that energy is not renewable. Humankind removes 155,000 Terawatt hours per year of energy from the universal supply. Right now, the vast majority of that comes from energy that has been stored in liquid batteries called oil over hundreds of millions of years. At some point that is going to run out and we will have to get that same amount of energy out of immediate availability sources. The sun pelts us with 1.5 million Terawatt hours per year of energy.
I can only imagine what impact using 10% of the sun's energy would have on the environment, but I don't have to imagine that because by the time we run out of oil (and nuclear, let's not forget that), we will be using much more energy than that. And our solar harvesting rate will still not be anywhere near 100% efficient. We will probably have to have solar collectors nearly the size of Earth out in space collecting energy and beaming it down.
Patiently waiting and hoping for someone to blow a hole in my figures. One hopes that I was off by a factor of a thousand or a million somewhere in there.

Re:Exactly I've made this point here many times

[tompaulco]

There is no bypassing entropy.

That's for sure. What we keep missing about "renewable" energy is that energy is not renewable. Humankind removes 155,000 Terawatt hours per year of energy from the universal supply. Right now, the vast majority of that comes from energy that has been stored in liquid batteries called oil over hundreds of millions of years. At some point that is going to run out and we will have to get that same amount of energy out of immediate availability sources. The sun pelts us with 1.5 million Terawatt hours per year of energy. I can only imagine what impact using 10% of the sun's energy would have on the environment, but I don't have to imagine that because by the time we run out of oil (and nuclear, let's not forget that), we will be using much more energy than that. And our solar harvesting rate will still not be anywhere near 100% efficient. We will probably have to have solar collectors nearly the size of Earth out in space collecting energy and beaming it down. Patiently waiting and hoping for someone to blow a hole in my figures. One hopes that I was off by a factor of a thousand or a million somewhere in there.

After recalculating, I'll blow a hole in my own numbers. It looks like we get 56 million terawatt hours per year from the sun. So, we use only 1/4 of a percent of that. Which is probably still too much.

Re:Exactly I've made this point here many times

[burtosis]

You mean the ones nobody drives like electrics? Lol. Just as many people drive high efficiency conventional economy cars, if not more, than electrics. Don't let reality spoil your opinion.

Re:Exactly I've made this point here many times

[burtosis]

Where did i cite anything? I said this one is paywalled and as such was intending to not use it as a reference. In general I'm not in favor of paywalled science. At least make a thorough summary of the research non-paywalled.

Re:Exactly I've made this point here many times

[Anonymous Coward]

My regional power plant is my roof with PV cells.
No on going coal issues at all.

Yeah, right. I want to see you charge an electric car with the output of your PV cells. At night. So you can get to work the next morning.

Oh, and how often do you plan on replacing them?

Re:Exactly I've made this point here many times

[burtosis]

If you are talking enviornment it is more informative/intuitive to talk about the co2 per mile. In Norway electrics can get upto and exceed 150 equivelant miles per gallon co2. In the USA, due to coal, it's more like 60 and in India it's more like 20. Particulates are another story but most people seem concerned over co2 and yet don't realize their 100k tesla used in the USA may be only 15% better for the enviornment than a 22k econobox diesel - they are misled to think its far far better.

You can have a diesel vehicle and use a biofuel or regular diesel. But to use regular fuel and claim you are reaping the benefit (if any) of biodiesel is just plain fantasy. For the exact same reasons you need to know where the power for your electric comes from and not claim what isn't real.

Re:Exactly I've made this point here many times

[Ecks]

That 93% efficiency is the ratio of watts arriving at the socket over watts generated at the plant. The watts "lost" between those two places are lost heating up the transmission lines. The 59 ~ 62% figure is the ratio of watts of electricity generated at the plant over BTUs of heat generated by burning fuel to heat water and create steam. Systematically, the 59 ~ 62% is more important.

Key to the discussion is the fact that energy comes in two forms: "heat" and "work". Heat is thermal energy. Work is the energy of motion or electricity. In layman's terms we usually don't differentiate between a "motor" and an "engine" but that difference is also very important here. Technically, a "motor" converts work into motion and an "engine" converts heat into work.

In the system that is an electric car powered by a remote power plant:

• The heat comes from burning fuel at a power plant to create steam;
• Passing the steam through an engine, a turbine causes the turbine to spin; this creates work;
• The spinning turbine drives a generator converting work of motion to work of electricity;
• The electricity travels over power lines to batteries in a car;
• Later, we throttle the stored electricity from the battery through an electric motor to create motion.

Thus the overall fuel-to-motion efficiency of an electric motored car is: (59 ~ 62%) * 93% * battery_efficiency. Battery efficiency of Li-Ion batteries is well above 90% if I recall correctly. But assuming the worst, electric cars are at least 49% fuel-to-motion efficient.

In contrast, the fuel-to-motion efficiency of a car powered by an internal combustion engine hovers in the 35% range today due to market constraints on cars.

Note well that this analysis is generous to internal combustion engine automobiles because it does not account for the difference in energy cost for refining crude oil into typical automotive fuels like gasoline or diesel.

Re:Exactly I've made this point here many times

[mspohr]

The NBER is a conservative think tank with an climate change denier agenda and this "study" is deeply flawed and intended to disseminate misinformation about electric cars which are a threat to the fossil fuel industry.
My electric car is solar powered and costs about $0.04/mile for electricity so much better for the environment (and my wallet) than any fossil fuel or hybrid vehicle.

Re: Exactly I've made this point here many times

[WindBourne]

So, you only charge in the daytime ?

Re:Exactly I've made this point here many times

[PopeRatzo]

You mean the ones nobody drives like electrics?

Yet, enough people drive electrics and hybrids that when they're figured into to total vehicle average mileage, it goes up by nearly 70%.

Re:Exactly I've made this point here many times

[Anonymous Coward]

My regional power plant is my roof with PV cells.
No on going coal issues at all.

In this context, your post sounds like something a douchbag would say.

If we had near 100% efficient PV and small dense battery packs that were affordable and not subsidized, I'd be on board with inexpensive EVs in a heartbeat. Let one battery pack charge during the day while I'm at work, come home and swap batteries. Use the grid as a backup for cloudy days.

Re:Exactly I've made this point here many times

[Mr D from 63]

The NBER says that your car is much cleaner in their study, so I guess you agree with them.

BTW, what do you base NBER labeling as a conservative think tank on? Is that just and excuse to dismiss information you don't like? They have plenty of study conclusions that support liberal & environmentalist agendas.

Re:Exactly I've made this point here many times

[burtosis]

What are you even talking about? You make zero sense. The co2 saved by driving efficient fossil fuel cars exceeds that by electrics. Because so much electricity comes from coal, electrics are only slightly better for co2 emissions in America, and almost one drives electrics due to the cost and reduction in performance of most models. The best solution, given limited money, is to move people to efficient fossil fuel cars now, then electrics when the cost comes down and we move away from fossil fuel production of electricity.

Re:Exactly I've made this point here many times

[mspohr]

You could have Googled this yourself but here are a few references:
http://winephysicssong.com/201...
http://www.sourcewatch.org/ind...

The fact that they agree with me on one point about my car has nothing to do with the quality of their study or whether or not "I agree with them".

Re:Exactly I've made this point here many times

[Mr D from 63]

Your sources are not so 'objective' themselves.

Re:Exactly I've made this point here many times

[FirstOne]

huh?? Per your link, Earth receives 1.74E+17 watts from the sun.

Math time
1.74E+17 watts *365.24*24(hours in a year) == 1.21E+21 watt hours per year.
1.55E+17 Watt/hr/year(Humanity's Raw Energy Consumption) / 1.21E+21 Watt/hr/year (Sol's gift to earth) == 1.02E-4 .
You're still on the high side by a factor of ~25x

Percent wise harvesting 0.01% of the sun's solar flux would more than service humanity energy requirements. Reminder, for the most part, we waste ~85% of RAW energy content. I.E. deduct ~33% digging up/mining/transporting/refining/etc. Then another ~75% converting fossil chemical into thermal energy first, then into kinetic, then optionally electrical energy(then back to kinetic) before it does any useful work.

Even of that 15% we don't waste directly, how much of that is dedicated to manufacturing infrastructure for all those non-renewable energy industries and military assets to defend them? Let's say we knock off another 33%, Humanity get's 10% useful work from all of our current energy harvesting efforts, thus shift that 0.01% solar harvest number down another order of magnitude to 0.001% to replace that 10%.

I.E. Directly harvesting 1/10,000th of the Sol's bounty directed towards earth will free humanity of a lot bad habits, and it will set the world toward a much more peaceful path in to the future.

Re:Exactly I've made this point here many times

[FirstOne]

Correction, fraction of Sol's output to replace Humanities raw energy consumption should be 1.28e-4 (Not 1.02E-4).

Re:Exactly I've made this point here many times

[Anonymous Coward]

In California only about 6-7% of the electricity used in California comes from coal. Once current contracts expire it will be nil. As more solar is installed at some point there will be a critical need for electric cars just to soak up excess peek production.

Re:Exactly I've made this point here many times

[rhubarb42]

and how do you think the cost of EV's will come down if "we" move people to more efficient ICE? i don't think anyone moves anyone in a market.

Re:Exactly I've made this point here many times

[burtosis]

I hate to burst your bubble but the coal hungry parts of the USA do not drive world markets nor world technology trends. If you live in a specific region of California, or California for example - or better yet Norway then electrics may make sense now. For the overwhelming majority of America they do not and will not for what will likely be at least a decade. Where i live in the upper Midwest without purchasing solar im no better off with a tesla than an efficient diesel for co2 per mile and that's not an uncommon story. Moreover the cost of the technology will come down because it is used in many other areas besides automotive

Re:Exactly I've made this point here many times

[rhubarb42]

of course. my bubble isn't really defined by the behavior of those coal hungry parts of the US. They are status quo, no one is debating that. But they will continue to decline as this trend has already started. Your "overwhelming majority" who are no more CO2 efficient may be correct TODAY but that is not the point. the point is will we ever move away from diesel or gas by simply arguing that there's no difference, thus stay the course. No. It's impossible by definition of your proposition, efficiently burning petroleum will never get to zero CO2 or transportation independence. In fact Jevon's paradox implies the opposite, that we'll just burn the same amount and go further. That is the difference. and using these "studies" to misinform the general discourse is a disservice. I guess we can agree to disagree. btw, the exact theory you propose about the cost of diesel technology applies to EV, the cost of an EV is already competitive with ICE. my 2013 Leaf was ~25000 out of pocket. it compares in quality to somewhere between a honda civic and accord. that "costs" about ~25000. EV costs are going down and range is going up. And when you consider that i've visited the dealer for service exactly zero time's and my cost per mile is about 1/3 of gasoline/mile, my TCO is actually lower, if you insist to compare dollars to dollars. It's really not informative to quibble about the differences. they aren't relevant and only serve to perpetuate incorrect policy. And in the end, the CO2 potential of an EV world dwarfs any efficiency argument by diesel/gas.

Cheap fission power today

[silas_moeckel]

Make it happen.

Actually EV are one of the few loads that could work well with pv and wind, they are nearly all smart as in have significant computing power. So getting them to start/stop charging as directed by the utility companies and still be charged in time is feasible. Reversing the process is also rather interesting, as in allowing full battery to drain 10-20% back into the grid to avoid firing up peaking plants and recharge that before it's expected to be needed again.

The legal hurdles are pretty big, insuring that the data is not accessible by anybody ever for starters.

Now there isn't even an article to read ?

[Crashmarik]

Seriously a paywalled report and a jackass going google it ?

Re:Now there isn't even an article to read ?

[burtosis]

Umm this is slashdot. Maybe they figured no one would miss the article. I for one am not paying 5 bucks for something as obvious as coal powered electric cars could have a net negative effect or subsidized electric cars could have a bad net negative effect.

Re:Now there isn't even an article to read ?

[dave420]

You should, as then you could read just how flawed the study is.

To the Grandparent...

[gerald.edward.butler]

Aren't you glad this guy proved how you are wrong and how your world view is so flawed. Man, you just got "Served"! "Lousy Logic" indeed! Faced!

Re:To the Grandparent...

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, you just got "Served"! "

I too saw that episode of South Park.

"Lousy Logic"

The GPs belief that this constitutes an argument .. just blows the mind.

Flawed research, garbage in garbage out

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not a new study and it's already been thoroughly rebuked. Here are few major flaws:

o Study considers coal plant pollution data from 2010-12. Since then a lot of coal plants were shut down (replaced by cleaner NG plants) or were equipped with filters (per EPA mandate which was recently deemed invalid by the courts but replacement mandate is forthcoming)

o Study 'forgets' to consider pollution from processing and transporting fuel.

o Some who are in the know pointed out that study fumbled the data on how green and dirty electricity is distributed throughout the grid. What study did is similar to gerrymandering where they lumped clean energy to specific areas making other ares less clean as a result.
 

Re:Flawed research, garbage in garbage out

[Mr D from 63]

There has not been much change in coal plant output since 2010/2012, or at least not enough to significantly change the conclusions, the data was clearly referenced so that anyone can adjust if they have better data. Nothing to hide.

The study does not 'forget' fuel extraction and transportation. They specifically, and right up front, state that they do not include the extraction and transportation of the coal fueling the EVs and Hybrids, nor the petrol fueling the ICE's and Hyrbids. It certainly takes more energy to extract 1 BTU of coal vs 1 BTU of petrol, so I doubt those factors would influence the results as much as you might hope.

"some in the know"..... might as well say, "anonymous people posting on reddit or similar".

Re:Flawed research, garbage in garbage out

[stomv]

There has not been much change in coal plant output since 2010/2012

"Some in the know" -- like the Energy Information Administration -- disagree. Have a look at Electricity Generation by Fuel Type, 2000-2013, and know that coal generation has fallen since then -- in April 2015, natural gas fired plants generated more electricity than coal fired plants since, well, since ever.

or at least not enough to significantly change the conclusions

Nonsense. The decline in coal-fired generation comes in two ways. In the first way, all plants reduce their output some. For "average" coal plants, that's what's happened everywhere in the country, and it might not be enough to significantly change the conclusions. For a number of coal plants, however, they were generating electricity in 2010 and they have since retired. For the region in which those particular plants operated, the conclusions may be very different now.

The trend will continue for a while. Another 20 percent of coal-fired electric generating capacity is scheduled to retire in the next few years, to be replaced by renewables, natural gas, energy efficiency, and in Tennessee, South Carolina, and Georgia, nuclear power (in the early 2020s).

Re:Flawed research, garbage in garbage out

[Anonymous Coward]

Rebuking a report is actually a pretty stupid thing to do

Debunking the report would be a lot more helpful for your case

"Replace large-scale coal generation"? With WHAT?

[Anonymous Coward]

And it's not just replacing current electrical generation - there would probably have to be a two or three ORDER OF MAGNITUDE expansion of electrical generation capacity.

Can you say "Two or three nuclear power plants in each and every state"?

I knew you could.

Emissions not the full story

[Anonymous Coward]

Sort of, By switching from gasoline to electricity, you can then change electricity generation to be more green. But if you leave the car on gasoline, then making electricity generation more green won't help. Not all steps in a chain contribute DIRECTLY to the end result, but it doesn't mean they're not necessary to enable other steps in the chain.

Then there's the car battery, i.e. storage, so you can turn intermittent electricity into stored energy, making wind and solar more viable which always suffer from their intermittent nature.

So simply doing the emissions calc on the car alone won't tell you the benefits/losses. You need the demand for intermittent electricity to be there to justify building the solar and wind plants. Which in turn justifies more electric cars, which justifies more solar+wind and so on.

Boats too

[tomhath]

I'm looking forward to boat motors (either outboard or inboard) becoming to electric. There are some good ones available already, just need better batteries and prices for them to take over

Re:Boats too

[swb]

I was thinking about that the other day.

It'd be interesting to see a Tesla powertrain used to replace the engine on a stern drive. If you were willing to accept some limitations in top speed and cruising range, it might be viable. A lot of inland lakes boats don't actually go very far and return to a slip with power connections.

I think it would be a weight savings which might be used to add battery capacity. Boats often have big-block engines and large gas tanks -- 120 gallons of fuel is half a Tesla battery pack and the electric motors are likely lighter than the ancient GM blocks Mercury uses.

The only thing that would have to be kind of thoughtfully designed would be protection from water. An engine compartment flooded with water is a headache, but not always a disaster. An electric system like that would be a problem.

Re:Boats too

[Solandri]

Boats and especially planes are much more weight-sensitive than cars. Consequently, you will not see electric boat and plane motors becoming practical as primary propulsion until battery energy density increases substantially. Boats also suffer from much higher energy consumption per distance traveled, e.g. The battery that pushes a Tesla 300 miles would only push a boat for about 30 miles.

Where electric boat motors can make sense today is as a secondary motor. Unlike cars where the wheels have direct contact with solid ground, boat propellers have to gain traction from a yielding liquid. Consequently, the "gearing" of the propeller (pitch vs rpm) matters, and it's most efficient at one point. A propeller designed for full speed may be inefficient at trolling or maneuvering speed. Many boats use a second, smaller motor for this purpose. Depending on how much it weighs and how often it's used, this could potentially be replaced by an electric motor.

Re:Boats too

[mspohr]

I guess these electric boats don't exist, then:

http://www.duffyboats.com/

http://www.electracraft.com/el...

http://www.elcomotoryachts.com...

Re: Boats too

[WindBourne]

Google ski Nautique and electric drive. It will be out later this year.

Re:Boats too

[swb]

I think the weight thing might be a wash. There's a metric ton of stern drives out there with one and, over about 30', two V8 engines, often big blocks. With large fuel tanks, 100 gallons and sometimes more isn't uncommon. I think if you swapped a couple of Tesla power trains for a pair of 496 cu in gas engines and their gas tanks you might even be lighter than you started.

For the use case of a lot of freshwater recreational boating, 30 miles range might be perfect. A lot of people don't go very far or run their engines for long -- they run to a cove to anchor for the day, then back to a slip where there is often a 30A outlet. If all they need is 10-15 miles per day and 15 knots will do, I could see this working.

Even if you made it Chevy Volt style with a small generator capable of providing a partial recovery charge, it'd still be less gas intensive than a pair of big block V8s.

Electric motors would also make for some interesting propulsion options, like pod drives with the motor in the pod (basically scaling down what a lot of big diesel-electric ships use now) and without a lot of the mechanical linkage losses of a mechanical pod drive.

Marinas with covered slips could cover the slips with solar panels and make the electric generation a lot greener. 75 300 sq ft slips in a marina should be capable of a couple hundred killawatts of power.

You'd have to accept the more limited cruising ranges and speeds, but honestly I don't see a ton of Sea Ray express cruisers on inland lakes going wide open. I see most of them doing 10-15 knots for a couple of hours -- there simply isn't that far to go period due to the size of the body of water and a lot of boaters just go anchor anyway.

Huh, I thought you had already said

[Anonymous Coward]

Since every politician is talking about how they are making the air cleaner and wasting less energy, and hence you used gas because it was lower CO2 per energy, surely this means that using electric cars IS using less CO2, and that this is already getting more and more effective.

Or that talk of gas being cleaner is bollocks.

Re:"Replace large-scale coal generation"? With WHA

[PPH]

California: "Two or three nuclear power plants in someone else's state".

And then they can go forth in all of their environmental smugness.

dicedot

[Anonymous Coward]

just when you think slashdot editors cannot degrade themselves any further.

in the new world, slashdot suggests what you google! brilliant!

Re:"Replace large-scale coal generation"? With WHA

[Smidge204]

And it's not just replacing current electrical generation - there would probably have to be a two or three ORDER OF MAGNITUDE expansion of electrical generation capacity.

100 to 1000 times more electricity? Really?

2014: 136.78 billion gallons of gasoline consumed.

At 33 kWhr/gallon, that's 4,514 billion kWh if you completely ignore any differences in efficiency.

2014: 4,093 billion kWh of electricity produced.

So at the absolute WORST case, it's a little more than double. But when you figure that an electric vehicle uses that energy nearly three times more efficiently, it's under 50% more.

And that's if you go ahead and replace *everything* that burns gasoline with electric, which of course you wouldn't.

Then after all that, producing ~50% more kWh does not translate into needing ~50% more power plants. You would need to factor in some diversity factor as not all power plants are running all the time nor at full capacity.
=Smidge=

Re:Commit to puchasing 100% green energy when buyi

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the point of overpaying? There are already subsidies and loans available that address start-up costs. Paying more for 'green' electricity slows down the progress to make it competitive.

as always no mention of lithium mining

[Anonymous Coward]

and it's wonderful effects on the environment, the sources (hello Afghanistan, we are never leaving now! Look forward to never ending wars), and why maintaining an old car has far less impact than junking a car, and making a new one.

BUY NEW USELESS CRAP FOR THE ENVIRONMENT... LMFAO.

Re:as always no mention of lithium mining

[Rei]

1) Most lithium isn't "mined". It's produced from playas where you have a salt crust with briny water underneath. Evaporation ponds are set up on the surface (where it should be added no life more complicated than extremophile bacteria live, and whose surface is identical over vast stretches of land). The brine is pumped into the evaporation ponds to concentrate it and then the lithium salts are selectively crystalized out. The playas are seasonally flooded so there's no year-to-year water loss, and on some the entire top surface gets flooded out, resurfacing it. If you took down your hardware one year, all signs that you were ever there would be gone the next.

2) Lithium salts are relatively nontoxic. Some places actually bottle natural lithium-rich mineral waters and sell them as a health drink. The symptoms of consumption of lithium at below a toxic (high) level are feelings of calm and a reduced risk of suicide. Long-term consumption of lithium-rich water has been linked in one study to longer lifespan.

3) Contrary to popular myth, there are many places on Earth to get lithium. Afghanistan is not a major player, and is not likely to become a major player for a long, long time.

4) Contrary to popular myth, lithium salts are not expensive. They're so cheap that among the biggest consumers of lithium are glassware/glazing and greases.

5) Contrary to the name, lithium is not the largest, nor most expensive, component of lithium-ion batteries.

6) That "it's better not to junk an old guzzler" car is - you guessed it - also a myth. Which you should be able to figure out just from some extremely rudimentary analysis. The average US driver drives over 12k miles per year. If your car gets 24mpg then that's 500 gallons of gasoline, or 1400kg per year. Forget that most of a car's mass gets recycled at end of life, forget about the consequences of all of the oil leaks and the like caused by old decrepid cars - you burn your car's weight in gasoline every year. And the average car on the road is about 10 years old, meaning an average lifespan of 20 years.

Maybe someone here can figure this out...

[doug141]

If I pay an extra 10% premium to the power company for my electricity to "come from 100% renewables," and the power company claims its total mix (all customers) is 30% renewables, and I replace my ICE car (at end of life) with an electric, that I charge at night, is that any good for the environment?

Re:Commit to puchasing 100% green energy when buyi

[archer, the]

To be responsible for your actions and for the condition in which you leave the world. To me, letting CO2 (and other pollutants) out unnecessarily is similar to raking your leaves onto your neighbor's yard. It's solving your problem by making it someone else's, someone who might not actually be able to overcome the problem, such as residents of a disappearing small island or sealife being poisoned.

I'm looking at switching to a heat pump. An air source heat pump might be $13K. A ground source heat pump is $40K before subsidies/grants. The ASHP uses more electricity, but saves almost the same amount of CO2 as the GSHP. (Yes, both would be powered from green electricity.) Since society could buy 3 ASHPs for the cost of 1 GSHP, the ASHP is more effective with respect to pollution savings.

How much electricity do refineries use??

[Zobeid]

I have to wonder if this study took into account the vast amounts of electrical power used to refine gasoline? Those refineries are some of the biggest users of grid power in the country. I've even heard it suggested (though I haven't seen a by-the-numbers breakdown) that it takes, on average, as much electrical power to refine a gallon of gasoline as it would take to power a BEV the same distance driven. If that's true -- or even in the ballpark -- then it could turn the conclusions of this study upside-down.

Re:How much electricity do refineries use??

[Ecks]

I would bet that they use hardly any. Distillation of crude oil into component fuels like gasoline or diesel mainly requires controlled heat. In the best case a refinery would use natural gas or propane heaters to drive crude oil to the liquid-vapor transition temperature of whatever product they want and then use a tall column and a condenser and a condenser to capture their desired output. In the worst case the heater would be powered by the crude oil itself. It's quite likely that they just siphon off some of the diesel, which burns pretty clean, as a fuel for their heat source.

Re:How much electricity do refineries use??

[mspohr]

You are right. The study did not take the costs of extraction, refining and transportation of fossil fuels into account. Major flaw.
The NBER is a right wing think tank (climate change deniers) and this is a biased hit piece against electric cars.

decouple from petroleum is the point

[rhubarb42]

these coal vs petroleum studies distract from the real transformative nature of EV: the transportation sector will NEVER transition to clean energy if you never change the fuel powering the vehicle. Arguing that somehow ICE and EV are "equivalent" in certain areas of the country simply allows (lazy thinking) people to falsely continue their current patterns with seemingly "analytical" justification. this also means they will NEVER be able to decouple from the world geopolitical energy dependencies either. Since if i can't drive to work because i am utterly dependent on my car having gasoline because i CHOSE to buy a new ICE instead of an EV, that means i am likely utterly supporting some evil empire somewhere. if you don't really care about these bigger issues, then nothing anyone can say will convince you. But EV is vastly more pleasurable experience than ICE for both the driver and passenger. Most of the people posting negative EV opinions have never actually experienced one so their ICE-only vision of the world limits them. For the few who've put or find themselves in a life position of having to drive 100's of miles a day or live in an apartment with no easy charging, obviously EV is not your choice, yet. But for many people, they are a great choice. if you purchase green energy on your power bill, you are 1) supporting the transition of the grid infrastructure to cleaner energy which is happening faster than expected, whining about it not being sufficient to power ALL of the needs is similarly shortsighted. 2) completely undermining the thesis of this study. You can purchase green energy at parity to conventional if you care to look. And where it's not parity, it generally not much more than a penny higher per kilowatt. Many energy markets are deregulated now so it's very likely most parts of the US can purchase green energy from a supplier in their section of the grid.the price per kilowatt/mile still dwarfs the price of btu/mile. my Leaf adds maybe $15 a month to my electric bill. that's just one visit out of several to the gas station for our other ICE car. if you are a high electric user and you decide to install solar panels, it's trivial and cheap to add a few more to accommodate the extra energy consumed by an EV. There's a compelling economic story emerging that should further shut up the EV nay sayers. what's interesting to observe too is the coal industry is actually dying in this country. the thesis of coal vs petroleum would be valid if the electric grid stayed constant. it's not. it's moving to a greener place.thus the point of the study is lost on me. there's a deeper point to all of this and that's to drive less period, EV or ICE, neither is good. Until we can accept and live like that, much of this discussion will continue to wallow in circles.

Re:decouple from petroleum is the point

[burtosis]

Nice idea but power plants change by the decade. Buying a car now locks you to the current grid unless you purchase a solar or wind installation. For a greater impact you probably should have just donated $$$ to research.

Re:decouple from petroleum is the point

[WindBourne]

buying a car now, locks you into the current AND FUTURE grid. Basically, the grid is cleaning up all the time.
By 2020, Coal will be less than 1/3 of the electricity in America. In fact, it might be less than 25% since Wind is quite a bit cheaper than coal.
Now, all that is needed, is for America to re-do Nukes so that they are cheap, small and safe and can replace the remaining coal plants.

Re:decouple from petroleum is the point

[burtosis]

Good luck getting people behind nuclear when France and Germany, leaders in nuclear, are pulling out over public opinion. Facts and evidence never convinced a significant fraction of the populace of anything they didn't want to hear already.

As for your rosy outlook the EIA has a 100% completely different story saying we are going to stay the course and keep using fossil fuels : http://instituteforenergyresea...

Do you have a source for this we aren't using any coal in the next four years argument when something like 70% of our nation depends on it for power?

Re: decouple from petroleum is the point

[WindBourne]

Never said that we are not using coal. That was you putting words in my mouth.

but ignoring your attack, here is just some of what eia is ignoring.
and here is more that eia ignored.

Re:decouple from petroleum is the point

[rhubarb42]

coal and fossils will remain a predominant power source for the near future. however, this http://thinkprogress.org/clima... might help you understand more about the unreliability of EIA predictions.

Re: decouple from petroleum is the point

[burtosis]

Ok I read the links but there is no evidence in them the EIA is ignoring them. Nor is there evidence to support we are moving to this extremely low use of coal in almost no time considering these installations would need to be built now to be put in service by 2020. I'm all for renewables but I'm realistic as to the cost and timeframe. I don't expect us to magically move to 25% coal in the us for power generation even by 2040. Did you have any evidence of that claim? I'm actually interested not trying to be adversarial.

Re:decouple from petroleum is the point

[burtosis]

Ok so it seems the biggest complaint is they don't take possible future policy changes into account. That's partally understandable and it's good to see them say that every prediction is likely wrong in some way. At least solar and wind seem to be quicker to implement than gas and coal - sadly nuclear is the slowest to implement. I'd expect any prediction to be off every year as that what predictions are. I'm not sure it's unreasonable to expect cronyism with fossil fuels and expect minimal action on renewables. I'm for renewables I just don't have billions to make my opinion matter.

Re: decouple from petroleum is the point

[WindBourne]

And here is more.
Basically, more coal plants will continue to close, and at a faster rate than EIA plans.

Fundamentally flawed

[JDG1980]

If you're going to take into account the whole supply chain for electric cars, you have to do the same thing for gasoline cars. This study doesn't do that. It calculates the CO2 cost of electricity generation for electric cars, but assumes that gasoline just magically shows up at the pump and doesn't incur any environmental costs in getting there. The CO2 emissions resulting from extraction, refining, etc. are completely ignored.

Re:Fundamentally flawed

[Anonymous Coward]

And they assume that the coal, uranium, and natural gas just magically show up at the power plant.

Re:Fundamentally flawed

[jklovanc]

It also ignores the impact of of the production and disposal of batteries and their components.

This study only analyzes one part of the equation and is far from comprehensive. A full "cradle to grave" analysis needs to be done.

Re:Fundamentally flawed

[Rei]

I find it amazing how much people obsess over the cost of production and disposal of a couple hundred pounds of the mass of an EV, and ignore the environmental cost of production and disposal of the rest of the bloody vehicle, both in the case of gasoline cars and EVs. Really, you think that ICE just popped out of the ground preformed? You think mining platinum for a catalytic converter or lead for a lead-acid starter battery is a harmless process? Lead is far more toxic than lithium.

Re:Fundamentally flawed

[jklovanc]

I am ignoring nothing. I just gave an example of something missing in the analysis. My point is that any analysis that is incomplete unless it takes into account all aspects of an object. Did you even read my last statement?

This study only analyzes one part of the equation and is far from comprehensive. A full "cradle to grave" [wikipedia.org] analysis needs to be done.

I am advocating analyzing everything. It is too easy to skew a report by if one picks and chooses what to analyze.

Re:Fundamentally flawed

[WindBourne]

except that the batteries are recycled, not disposed of.

Re:Fundamentally flawed

[jklovanc]

Recycling batteries is not a clean process.

Re:Fundamentally flawed

[rhubarb42]

i suspect it's a lot cleaner than cleaning up oil drilling sites, or oil spill (e.g. BP in the gulf)...

Re:Fundamentally flawed

[rhubarb42]

i would think the production/disposal cost of the rest of either an ICE or EV would be about the same, a car body is a car body, as to not be instructive.

Re:Fundamentally flawed

[jklovanc]

"Suspect" is not good enough. You are also talking about different things. If you want comparisons with oil drilling sites try lithium mines. For oil spills try tailings pond disasters. You still will not get a complete picture

The whole point is that this study only looks at a small part of the comparison between electric and fossil fuel vehicles. To be accurate, the whole life cycle of the products must be compared and not just the parts that make your favorite look good.

Re:Fundamentally flawed

[WindBourne]

Recycling batteries is not a clean process.

Really? Show me real studies that back up what you claim.

Re:Fundamentally flawed

[rhubarb42]

yes, the study is flawed and incomplete in many ways. i hope no one really takes it seriously, though people are. one thing that is clear without needing explicit cost modeling however is both petroleum and lithium mining are dirty. So assume they are equally dirty. (why do we need to know the precise dirtiness, which is never going to be known) Can you recycle the petroleum that has been burned? no. lithium or whatever the new batteries get made can be recycled. Yes, recycling can be dirty. but at least it's recovering some value thus bringing down the negative value of mining it. thus comparing the 2 lifecycles, batteries are "cleaner" overall.

Re:Fundamentally flawed

[jklovanc]

So assume they are equally dirty.

thus comparing the 2 lifecycles, batteries are "cleaner" overall.

Once one makes an assumption and subsequent comparisons are invalid.

why do we need to know the precise dirtiness, which is never going to be known

If mining for lithium and other battery components is much dirtier than extracting oil then overall batteries may still be dirtier even after recycling is taken into account.

Re:Fundamentally flawed

[rhubarb42]

what's your ultimate point? trying to be a logic professor? a language critic? a pedagogue on the proper terms for arguing? or do you have something useful to contribute to the topic. do you think mining for anything is going to be cleaner than mining for something else? who cares on actual precise apples to oranges. An assumption is good enough. the reality is you can't re-use coal. You can reuse the metals. so i'll take the dirty metal mines over the dirty coal mines. coal lifecycle can be 2 times cleaner than copper/lithium. that's erased the minute one recycles the minerals. 4 times cleaner? then recycle the material a few more times. etc. the stuff is too valuable to just throw away.

Re:Fundamentally flawed

[rhubarb42]

i meant to say petroleum vs. coal but the argument is still valid. you can't recycle "sort of dirty" petroleum out of a tail pipe either.

Re:Fundamentally flawed

[rhubarb42]

petroleum instead of coal.

Re:Fundamentally flawed

[jklovanc]

that's erased the minute one recycles the minerals.

That assumes that the recycling process is completely clean and retrieves 100% of the material. That is an assumption as you do not have the numbers. Many recycling processes use nasty solvents and lots of water. How do you know that the recycling process is not ten times as bad as oil extraction and only retrieves part of the material? You don't and I don't.

My ultimate point is that it is useless arguing based on assumptions. I want real numbers. Do a real cradle to grave analysis of both technologies and then we can have a valid discussion. Until then discussion is useless as whoever wants to make a point will select the numbers to use to "prove" their slanted view.

By the way, calling people names just shows you have a weak argument.

Re: Commit to puchasing 100% green energy when buy

[WindBourne]

Huh. And exactly HOW did your electrons get separated from the polluted source electrons?

Quantifying the Nissan Leaf

[Anonymous Coward]

My wife and I purchased a Leaf for the following practical reasons:

-The purchase price was less than a similarly size and year of used car.
-The monthly payments are actually less than filling the gas tank on our old SUV (which we still have).
-Routine maintenance is almost unnecessary (no oil to change, no spark plugs, no alternator, no belts, no muffler, no transmission, reduced use of brakes).
-It is a quiet pleasure to drive.
-It is a very powerful, maneuverable car in city driving.
-It can easily handle highway speeds up to 90 mph.
-We have other vehicles to use for long trips.
-It charges to 100% on 110v overnight, every night.
-With 100 miles between charges, and work 25 miles away, we NEVER need to stop at a charging station for daily use.
-The cost of driving this car is not tied to the price of a barrel of oil.
-We live in a house (an apartment would change our power options).
-The car is fine in the winter (although the eco-tires will have to go).

Now for the environmental benefits:
-It is easier to change power plants than all of the engines in all of the cars.
-About 20% of our electricity comes from renewals (wind). Another chunk from nuclear.
-Even the power coming from coal and natural gas is made at peak efficiency.
-There is very little energy loss from the car due to heat and friction.
-At 24 Kw, the car can be driven 100 miles on the energy equivalent of one gallon of gasoline.

For the naysayers:

-If you work over 50 miles from where you live this car may not be for you (or perhaps your lifestyle is an issue).
-Nobody is going to make you sell your ICE car (I have three others).
-The car has never left us stranded.
-The battery can be recycled.
-The battery will be upgradeable.
-The cost of a new battery will be significantly less than paying for gasoline ($5000 at the moment).
-The battery is warranted to 2018.
-Nissan has only had to replace 3 batteries so far ( http://cleantechnica.com/2015/03/25/99-99-nissan-leaf-batteries-still-operation/ ).
-I can charge for free at a Nissan dealership (but only did so once during a warranty software update over 50 miles from home).
-Buying gasoline sends wealth out of most countries (and possibly funds terrorists).

Re:Quantifying the Nissan Leaf

[Anonymous Coward]

A BEV charged at night has NO net CO2 emissions, and saves a ton of money.

I am also driving a LEAF for the same reasons mentioned in this post, and I work 30 miles from home.

When you charge at night, you are using power that would otherwise be wasted, because steam turbines, such as those used by Coal and Nuclear power plants, cannot be shut down at night, when the power load decreases. This is because they take 24 hours to turn off and another 24 hours to turn back on. Enough power is wasted every night to charge up 100 million BEVs. Those tons of Coal will be burned even if nobody is using the power, so charging a BEV at night is causing no net increase in CO2 emissions. This is the reason why electricity is so cheap late at night - it is surplus power.

The LEAF already has enough range for 90% of commuters to get to work every day. In a couple years, that percentage will increase as lower-priced higher-range BEVs become available (200 mile range is a common target).

Even if you don't believe that CO2 emissions are a problem, you can save a significant amount of money by driving a BEV, even when compared to driving a 50MPG hybrid. BEVs are practical for many commuters right now.

Re: Commit to puchasing 100% green energy when buy

[Solandri]

That's the way electricity is sold in the U.S. The utility company maintains and charges for the wires. The electricity is sold by another company, and you get to pick which company you're buying it from. If you choose to get it from renewable sources, the cost is higher but the energy part of your bill gets sent to them. The individual electrons are not sorted, but the sum balance of them are.

That said, this is like diesel vs. gasoline, where the crude oil wants to break down into a certain fraction of diesel vs gasoline. As long as your demand for those two products equals the supplied amount, prices remain low. If demand gets skewed in one direction, then you end up having to do inefficient refining to convert diesel to gasoline (or vice versa), and the price goes up. Same thing here - as long as electrical demand for conventional vs. renewable sources remains about the same as the supply, the marginal price for renewables will remain rather low. But if you start pushing for 100% renewables, the price will skyrocket due to the inefficiency of matching renewable power generation profiles to power demand profiles.

Re: Commit to puchasing 100% green energy when buy

[WindBourne]

actually, no. Basically, those 'clean' companies sell their electricity regardless if you 'buy' from them or not. Think back about 10-15 years ago when every ISP was selling you DSL. They would claim that it was THEIR DSL, and not the RBOCs. Of course, it was a lie. Basically, the electrons ran through RBOC's systems.

The ppl that 'pay' for clean energy from other sources are no different than my solar system. I have 43 panels on our roof. We generate 9.8KWs. And when we buy our Tesla shortly, it will HELP charge it. BUT, the reality is, that most of the electrons charging it will be from nighttime, not daytime. As such, my solar system lowered my costs and helped with daytime electricity, but my charge will still be coming mostly from the grid, which is still around 36% coal, 27% Nat Gas, less than 1% oil, and then the rest is clean. So, only around 40% is REALLY clean.

A BEV charged at night has NO net CO2 emissions

[evenbetternb5214]

When you charge a BEV at night, you are using power that would otherwise be wasted, because steam turbines, such as those used by Coal and Nuclear power plants, cannot be shut down fully at night, when the power load decreases. Enough power is generated and wasted every night to charge up 100 million BEVs. Those tons of Coal will be burned even if nobody is using the power, so charging a BEV at night is causing no net increase in CO2 emissions. This is the reason why electricity is so cheap late at night - it is surplus power.

I have driven a LEAF to work for over two years, and I work 30 miles from home. The LEAF already has enough range for 90% of commuters to get to work every day. In a couple years, that percentage will increase as lower-priced higher-range BEVs become available (200 mile range is a common target). Even if you don't believe that CO2 emissions are a problem, you can save a significant amount of money by driving a BEV, even when compared to driving a 50MPG hybrid. BEVs are practical for many commuters right now.

Re:A BEV charged at night has NO net CO2 emissions

[burtosis]

You save money untill the end of the 8-10 year battery life and someone has to foot the 8 thousand dollars (with a projected real cost of around 17 thousand just sold below cost so as not to ruin the entire viability of the pricing model). It pretty much zeros out the difference between a leaf and an economy gas car for mileage cost. You could argue maintance is cheaper but then again the leaf costs a ton more than efficient economy cars. In the future the costs will be lower, no doubt, but right now, dollar for dollar, the best savings for limited money and the enviornment is still the much cheaper efficient gas and diesels. Too bad no one wants either the electrics or efficent cars.

Re:A BEV charged at night has NO net CO2 emissions

[rhubarb42]

funny, here's the first google'd article on the cost of leaf battery http://www.greencarreports.com... and it's $5500 TODAY. When Tesla battery production gets into gear and other manufacturing follows, the price of a replacement battery will be cheaper and the range will likely be more. I don't expect my current leaf battery will be dying anytime soon, so i suspect TCO actually is cheaper than an efficient ICE economy car.

Re:A BEV charged at night has NO net CO2 emissions

[burtosis]

Did you read the article? It's 5500 with a 1000 credit you may or may not be able to get. Further that's the battery not the cost of replacement. That pushes it to 7k+ easy. And i do believe i said 7-8k which is realistic. No the cost of ownership may be slightly less - or not depending on the resale value of a vehicle that needs a multi thousand dollar repair to work. It's Definately not as low as the media would like you to believe. Please though I don't mind reading sources if you would like to source some more.

Re:A BEV charged at night has NO net CO2 emissions

[rhubarb42]

yes i skimmed the article. the difference isn't that significant. There are other articles purporting that batteries are NOT decaying at nearly the rate predicted so the 8 year warranty model is fairly risk free for the manufacturers. And you said 8k with an actual 17K cost which i don't know how that matters to my wallet.8 years from now, when the warranty for my Leaf battery runs out and i have to pay out of pocket, the cost will be less than an equivalent 2015 $7K. how much does it cost to replace a motor in an ICE today ~5-6K??? I can replace a battery and get a "new" motor just the same when the time comes. resale of a junker ICE has the same dynamics. it's really a guesstimate what will be the market dynamics 10 years from. However there's nothing that we know today that would lead one to conclude EV technology is doomed to be a much worse value than ICE. It's already pretty cost competitive and there's a huge gearing up of the electric infrastructure and industry which implies a positive outcome more than a negative outcome.

Re:A BEV charged at night has NO net CO2 emissions

[burtosis]

You may have to replace items in a conventional car you would not in an electric, brakes, brake components such as master cylinders or brake system flushes, timing belts, spark plugs, starter motor, etc. these are numerous small repairs that can add up do significant amounts yes. But unless the engine is abused, such as not changing the oil, 99.7% of modern engines will last 10 years no problem. I'm trying to point out that the cost of gas in an efficient car balances the battery cost which is approximately true. And that the cost of the small repairs balances the increased reliability of electrics which is also approximately true.

Re:A BEV charged at night has NO net CO2 emissions

[rhubarb42]

yes. i think we are sort of in agreement. i suspect the average battery, unabused after 10 years will still be sufficient as well. at a minimum, it will be as sufficient as the worn ICE motor at least. what you have then is replacing the motor vs. replacing the battery to get a "new" car. 10 years from now motors will still likely be similar in complexity to manufacture, thus remain as costly as today. Batteries will only diminish in cost and are vastly simpler. the cost of gas vs. the cost of kilowatts to go the same distance is much more. I get approximately 5 miles to the kilowatt, a little worse in the winter and a little better in the summer. That's .03/mile at .15/KW. generally speaking ICE's are easily .10/mi. my work reimburses at .50/mile. i don't know how they compute it but obviously they are accounting for all the nitnoids you mentioned. remember we are talking averages so of course the most efficient ICE will do better. but the average ICE won't. it's also easy to compute a comparison baseline from scratch. above average 40 mpg ICE @ ~$3/gal is .075/mile, which doesn't include the maintenance that you mention. considering if the cost of petroleum goes up or down, the cost of electricity will be somewhere following that ball park too, it's one big energy market. So assuming things generally go up in cost, 10 years from now you'll still have the same low TCO for EV and higher TCO for ICE. now how much more did you spend per year in ICE vs. EV? (to keep the discussion easy) assume 10K miles driven per year. 100K miles. EV: 100K * .03 == $3K. ICE: 100K miles * .10 (which is low) == $10000. At 10 years the EV SAVED $7K to pay for that $7K battery (which likely won't cost 7k by then). The ICE has nothing to show for it and will have to pay more to get back to "new". i don't want to argue with people but we seem to be playing ourselves for chumps by parroting all of this antii-EV stuff. there really is an economic case to be made for them, today. and an environmental one. and a geo-political one. 10 years (the time it will take to make a serious turn in the transportation infrastructure) is going to go by in a flash. I hope we aren't still debating this then.

Solar rocks

[fyngyrz]

The sun is always shining. What you mean to say is that the sun is not always visible due to clouds or fog, or on the side of the planet that would be optimum for power generation when the sky is clear. I'm not just being pedantic. Because:

Although that is all factual, the idea that solar does not generate power when when not in direct sunlight (cloudy, foggy, shaded, etc.) is wholly incorrect.

Solar works all day, every day, no exceptions. Rather than "not work", it varies in efficiency, and not so much that it doesn't remain useful when it is cloudy; efficiency of a well aimed system on cloudy days varies from about 20% to 50%, depending on the tech in the panel and just how dense the occlusion is. Here's a back-yard demonstration of exactly that. (TL;DW -- he gets about .6 amps out of his 4-amp panel on a cloudy day, without aiming: about 15 % efficiency.)

The more exposure and better angle you have, of course, the better it all works. But clouds and fog... facts of life. Yet you can still get all the energy you need from a solar system on days that aren't perfectly clear. You can even plan for it, and build in enough overcapacity (with full sunlight in mind) so that you always have enough power.

Concrete example: I have a small trailer that I have some 12 vdc ham gear in. It has lights, a refrigerator, and a 100-watt HF transmitter that pulls about 200 watts, worst-case. On the 10x6 roof, I have 6, (nominally) 100 watt solar panels. Minimum I've *ever* seen out of them at midday, on a cloudy winter day, is about 6 amperes. That's about 90 watts of continuous charge. I never, ever run out of power. Sunny days I have ridiculous amounts of excess power available, and I run an air conditioner or a heater with it.

I have an (unfortunately large, this tech isn't really where it needs to be yet) bank of ultracaps in the trailer. No batteries. I also run LED lighting and a very efficient small refrigerator. Surge power to start the compressor is no problem - the ultracaps can deliver far more than is required. Once running, the fridge's power draw is negligible. The charge and supply electronics are of my own design (ultracap discharge slopes aren't like batteries, so you need something significantly more complex than a wire and a fuse) and no doubt they could be improved, but I have never run out of power and I transmit quite a bit at times.

I've also gone out at night and done many hours of shortwave dx'ing (in the country, away from the town's copious RFI), lights on, opening the frig once about every half hour, and not run out of power.

My home's main roof area is 60x45. That's room for about 360, 100-watt panels, or about 36,000 watts of peak capacity. At 80% derating -- what we can anticipate on a really, really overcast day -- peak output is still about 7,000 watts. Quite usable for lighting and light duty loads. the pacemaker will get charged. :)

My house is very well insulated, too, so that's a bonus, heating- and cooling-wise.

Solar is the way to go. Period. All those rooftops, all those square miles of empty space, just waiting for us to get in gear.

Currently, individual ready-to-mount 100-watt solar panels are about $135 on Ebay, with a 25-year warranty. less in quantity. The math is quite compelling, even with the major shortcomings of battery lifetime. Set up a small system to run something. Learn the basics and work through it so you understand it. Batteries, charge controllers, panels, aiming and auto-aiming and either low voltage client devices like my trailer system, or an inverter and the usual type of 120 vac power clients. If you do, I suspect your enthusiasm level will change dramatically for the positive. There's something ultimately satisfying about spending money on YOUR infrastructure and giving the bird, even if it's a very small bird, to the power company.

Lithium, schmifium.

[fyngyrz]

Lithium batteries are one way to store energy. They are not the only way at this time, nor is it reasonable to presume that there will not be new ways available in the future. Don't mistake media and/or manufacturer hype for a technology as an indication that it is your only option. That's often not the case, and it certainly isn't with energy storage.

Clean diesel

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want an energy efficient car, consider clean diesel. 55 mpg all day, VW has been doing it for years without the complication of hybrid or electric.