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Some Electric Car Drivers Might Spew More CO2 Than Diesel Cars, New Research Shows (bloomberg.com)
bricko shares a report from Bloomberg with the caption, "Making batteries is a mess": Beneath the hoods of millions of the clean electric cars rolling onto the world's roads in the next few years will be a dirty battery. Every major carmaker has plans for electric vehicles to cut greenhouse gas emissions, yet their manufacturers are, by and large, making lithium-ion batteries in places with some of the most polluting grids in the world. By 2021, capacity will exist to build batteries for more than 10 million cars running on 60 kilowatt-hour packs, according to data of Bloomberg NEF. Most supply will come from places like China, Thailand, Germany and Poland that rely on non-renewable sources like coal for electricity.
An electric vehicle in Germany would take more than 10 years to break even with an efficient combustion engine's emissions. "We're facing a bow wave of additional CO2 emissions," said Andreas Radics, a managing partner at Munich-based automotive consultancy Berylls Strategy Advisors, which argues that for now, drivers in Germany or Poland may still be better off with an efficient diesel engine. The findings, among the more bearish ones around, show that while electric cars are emission-free on the road, they still discharge a lot of the carbon-dioxide that conventional cars do. Just to build each car battery -- weighing upwards of 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds) in size for sport-utility vehicles -- would emit up to 74 percent more C02 than producing an efficient conventional car if it's made in a factory powered by fossil fuels in a place like Germany, according to Berylls' findings. Yet regulators haven't set out clear guidelines on acceptable carbon emissions over the life cycle of electric cars, even as the likes of China, France and the U.K. move toward outright bans of combustion engines. It all has to do with manufacturing. According to estimates of Mercedes-Benz's electric-drive system integration department, manufacturing an electric car pumps out "significantly" more climate-warming gases than a conventional car, which releases only 20 percent of its lifetime CO2 at this stage. "Just switching to renewable energy for manufacturing would slash emissions by 65 percent, according to Transport & Environment," reports Bloomberg. "In Norway, where hydro-electric energy powers practically the entire grid, the Berylls study showed electric cars generate nearly 60 percent less CO2 over their lifetime, compared with even the most efficient fuel-powered vehicles."
An electric vehicle in Germany would take more than 10 years to break even with an efficient combustion engine's emissions. "We're facing a bow wave of additional CO2 emissions," said Andreas Radics, a managing partner at Munich-based automotive consultancy Berylls Strategy Advisors, which argues that for now, drivers in Germany or Poland may still be better off with an efficient diesel engine. The findings, among the more bearish ones around, show that while electric cars are emission-free on the road, they still discharge a lot of the carbon-dioxide that conventional cars do. Just to build each car battery -- weighing upwards of 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds) in size for sport-utility vehicles -- would emit up to 74 percent more C02 than producing an efficient conventional car if it's made in a factory powered by fossil fuels in a place like Germany, according to Berylls' findings. Yet regulators haven't set out clear guidelines on acceptable carbon emissions over the life cycle of electric cars, even as the likes of China, France and the U.K. move toward outright bans of combustion engines. It all has to do with manufacturing. According to estimates of Mercedes-Benz's electric-drive system integration department, manufacturing an electric car pumps out "significantly" more climate-warming gases than a conventional car, which releases only 20 percent of its lifetime CO2 at this stage. "Just switching to renewable energy for manufacturing would slash emissions by 65 percent, according to Transport & Environment," reports Bloomberg. "In Norway, where hydro-electric energy powers practically the entire grid, the Berylls study showed electric cars generate nearly 60 percent less CO2 over their lifetime, compared with even the most efficient fuel-powered vehicles."
This doesn't seem to take into account that many grids are rapidly improving in terms of how much solar and wind they have in the grids. If an electric car hits breakeven compared to a highly efficient diesel car given 5 years given current rates for example, then in practice we should expect that to happen even earlier. Moreover, electric cars have very long potential lifespans since they contain few moving parts (there's correspondingly less maintenance on an electric car than on an ICE car). Of course, the most efficient thing to do is still to not have a car, and use public transport; unfortunately for many people that isn't a practical option.
Just goes to show you how frightened some people are regarding electric cars. I don't see why so many people (that are not in the gas-powered car industry) are scared of them.
Obviously it's better to concentrate all the emissions at the factories that produce batteries and mitigate the pollution concerns there, rather than at the tail pipe of all the cars that are coming out of the factories.
ObXKCD: https://xkcd.com/437/
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDWEjSDYfxc
According to the co-founder of Green Peace, Dr. Patrick Moore, the environment does not have enough CO2. The planet has been starved of CO2 in recent geological history, to the point that all plant life was on the verge of dying off. If we had not been burning coal like we had then we may have run into the problem of not having enough CO2 in the air to sustain life.
CO2 is plant food, with more in the air plants can grow more quickly, produce more food, and therefore support a large human population. We need more CO2 in the air, so keep buying those electric cars!!
All the internal combustion engines and any other combustion-based whatever generate CO2. The more they burn, the more CO2 they generate. Under equivalent conditions, diesel engines are more efficient than gasoline ones and, consequently, generate lower CO2 emissions. Other than that, all the IC engines should be considered similarly bad for the environment. Both diesel and gasoline engines output pretty nasty stuff.
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
For a diesel Volvo vs a Tesla model S, assuming the average 2015 power mix in Europe the break even point is about 28.000Km.
I did take some big shortcuts tho. I compared 100kwh worth of Panasonic LiPo batteries + power to the diesel fuel needed to drive the volvo the same distance using Tesla Model S power usage figures.
There are way to slew this in one or the other direction - for instance I did also add CO2 Equivalent for refining the diesel.
Considering where Berylls Strategy Advisors is located and the fact that the German car companies still have no mass-market ready electric car my guess is that this is fake news and can be disregarded.
I'm admitting that I just looked at the summary. So assuming it's accurate...
Why is it that so many people misunderstand the purpose of electric cars? I don't know why for years now on Slashdot we keep getting posts about articles that nitpick about electric car manufacturing. "Ooh, at one place in your manufacturing chain for 1 second you involved coal, so the whole idea is trash." No it's not. First of all, electric cars don't burn gasoline. Big win there. Reducing petroleum use is a Good Thing. Second, with time electricity sources to both charge said vehicles and produce the batteries could come from renewable sources. The fact that we aren't there today doesn't mean we won't be there soon enough. Having production lines in place to make these vehicles is smart and when the production sources are from renewable energy, what will they complain about next?
Hasn't it been known for some time that most CO2 is produced during a vehical's manufacturing rather than during use
Except that's not correct. The average car emits six tons of carbon dioxide per year. A medium-sized car produces 17 tons of carbon dioxide in manufacturing. That is not negligible! But once you've kept your car for three years, then no, more carbon dioxide is produced in driving the car than in making the car.
and the most low carbon approach is to keep trying the same vehicle for as long as possible rather than buying a new electric car.
Maybe. This site https://www.greencarreports.co... says not, but it depends on how you analyze the numbers.
You mean like from nuclear power? Lowest CO2 energy source we know of, safest energy source we know of, and as "renewable" as solar power because there is enough thorium and uranium on Earth that we'd never be able to burn it all before the sun consumes the planet.
Germany is going all in on renewable sources, you see solar power all over. Which is strange for a fairly cloudy country. It certainly worked this year, since the had the hottest, driest summer on record. But after the Fukushima disaster, they closed down all their nuclear power plants. To make up for it, they have to expand the use of coal and buy electricity from nuclear power plants in France, which has plants right across from the German border.
This is standard FUD. Of course you can do twisted calculations where you penalize battery production for the fact that existing electricity and transportation systems burn coal and hydrocarbons and claim that we can't build new electric transportation infrastructure because it requires energy. But their option of sticking with hydrocarbons is a long term disaster, both because of CO2 and because it keeps getting more expensive and energy intensive to extract hydrocarbons. If you also penalize hydrocarbon burning for the waste and pollution produced by oil extraction, batteries still end up ahead in the current US or European economies (on emissions, not yet on cost). If we as a global society plan to shift to sustainable CO2 emissions, we have to switch to driving less, and using renewable electricity for the driving we do.
The solution is relatively obvious; manufacture electric cars using energy from solar arrays or other renewable sources. The cost of solar arrays has dropped so much in the last decade that this is practical now; it does mean you'll want to site car manufacturing plants (and more notably, battery manufacturing plants) in locations with abundant solar energy, but that seems doable-- stay out of Seattle, go for Las Vegas. Wait, that's where Tesla's battery plant is sited.
OK, I read this article and it seems like the definition of FUD. The headline is "The Dirt on Clean Electric Cars", and there's a lot of largely-irrelevant charts and statistics. The most damning statement they make is:
An electric vehicle in Germany would take more than 10 years to break even with an efficient combustion engine’s emissions
Yet further down, they have to admit:
To be sure, other studies show that even in coal-dominant Poland, using an electric car would emit 25 percent less carbon dioxide than a diesel car
So basically, on the worst emitting grids, today, an EV might have about the same emissions as the cleanest diesel; everywhere else they are clearly lower. And the grid in most places is getting steadily cleaner; a diesel made today will not be getting better emissions in 10 years.
Isn't this the same Bloomberg that hasn't shown any evidence that SuperMicro boards were hacked?
https://www.businessinsider.co...
If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
U should have read the article and listened. It all depends on Where and how the battery is made. For example, we own a model S. The cells came from Japan. Ok clean. Not great, not bad. However, the model is in not just in Nevada, BUT Tesla is adding massive solar to power the manufacturing of the cells and batteries, and about 1/2 of the drive train. Supposedly, they have added batteries to run the plant at night ( also get cheap charge and help in daytime ). The model 3 is not only the cleanest made car, but likely one of the cleanest made product.
And yes, most of the rest are produced in China in some of the worst locations. To make matters worst, all the lead-acid and li-ion batteries made in China is some of the most polluted on the planet. As such, wind and solar do not play a part for them. So when Tesla goes to China, those batteries will be made/used in China. Compared to a new clean ice vehicle, the Tesla may never fully recoup the massive co2 added
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
"Every major carmaker has plans for electric vehicles to cut greenhouse gas emissions". Not because the market demands it or because their customers want it.
For people who want electric cars, they have their Priuses, Volts, Teslas, etc. That market is served by several manufacturers and it expands as the demand grows. However *every* manufacturer has to comply with government regulations like CAFE and such. So everyone makes at least one "compliance" model to reduce the average fleet emissions to within regulations. Otherwise - fines, more expensive cars, consumers pay more or the company can't compete and goes bankrupt.
Even a driver-friendly company like Mazda, recently had to kiss the ring and announce "compliance" models. Which no customer of their usual fast-and-fun-to-drive cars wants. So these models fill fail in the market and the costs will be paid by the customers.
You mean like from nuclear power? Lowest CO2 energy source we know of, safest energy source we know of, and as "renewable" as solar power because there is enough thorium and uranium on Earth that we'd never be able to burn it all before the sun consumes the planet.
I'd like to see somebody start making thorium-fueled nuclear power plants; the hype sure makes it sound like a good solution. But so far it's not being done.
Uranium fueled plants, on the other hand, actually have a pretty limited amount of fuel available-- not a problem with the world currently using only about 2% of its power from nuclear sources (*), but if we went to 100%, there's only about 5 years (!!) of fuel.
Some data:
https://phys.org/news/2011-05-...
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-global-uranium-deposits-last/
https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/Pub1104_scr.pdf
This can be solved by reprocessing spent fuel, and by going to breeder reactors. But governments don't want to do that because of fear of nuclear terrorism.
*(nuclear generates 14% of the world electrical production, but electricity is only a small fraction of the world energy use)
Didn't I read on Slashdot that Germany was a world leader in renewable energy? So why does this article seem to indicate that Germany is particularly bad for producing cars using fossil fuels?
Incipiamus, fratres, servire Domino Deo, quia hucusque vix vel parum in nullo profecimus.
That is why science does actual studies, while you are just making up BS. Real studies are showing that co2 from the diesel production is still much lower than using 80+% coal for electricity.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
BNEF has access to good research and should have written a better article. Instead they've constructed a clickbait article full of gibberish that obscures rather than illuminates what data they do deign to present:
1. An average EV is less polluting, per mile, than even the best gasoline or diesel vehicle.
2. If that EV were built with dirty power, and charged throughout its life with dirty power, it would still be a net win, albeit a small one verging on a tie, on lifetime emissions.
3. We're projected to be be building a whole lot of new EVs.
And there's no mention of the obvious objections to this sort of facile analysis:
1. The average new EV probably displaces a purchase of an average new gasmobile, so the comparison with the most-efficient gasmobile is unrealistic. If the average new EV driver is particularly eco-conscious, and would otherwise be buying a highly-efficient gasmobile, that new driver is probably also sourcing the power from cleaner-than-average supplies, so calculating as if it were charged from the average local grid is unrealistic.
2. Grid carbon intensities are dropping worldwide, and the speed of this drop is accelerating as renewables get cheaper and cheaper relative to fossil-fueled plants. New renewables are cheaper than new thermal power plants almost everywhere, and we're only a few years away from new renewables being cheaper than continuing to fuel an already-built thermal plant in some parts of the world. Over a 15-year lifespan, EVs will keep getting cleaner per-mile, whereas gasmobiles will wear out and become less efficient.
3. While the article focuses on manufacturing emissions, their own graphs show that these correspond to only about 2 years worth of tailpipe emissions. A worthwhile target for reduction, for sure (and one that will happen naturally, as large manufacturers consistently seek to reduce their power costs by buying cheap renewable energy), but not the big target that we should be focusing on. The running costs dominate lifetime emissions, so we should tackle them first (especially as cleaning up electricity generation world-wide would also significantly reduce manufacturing emissions).
BNEF usually produces much better analysis than this. I'm disappointed in them.
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
All the article is saying is if you make dirty batteries, you get a dirty product. The spin on it was impressive saying fuck electric cars. (disclosure - telsa owner)
After some google and linked in stalking, all the partners at the firm Berylls Strategic Advisors are a mouthpiece for the big oil think tank part of the Oliver Wyman firm.
However the partner of Berylls (whom came from Audi and OW) is saying buy diesel cars instead.
We all know German diesel cars are totally very much extremely only the best people clean. re: audi, vw
Just to build each car battery -- weighing upwards of 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds) in size for sport-utility vehicles -- would emit up to 74 percent more C02 than producing an efficient conventional car
10 years to break even Meaning that you know since cars last more than 10 years..... electric cars would beat ICEs under even the most pro ICE environment......
.
Yeah, I think that vehicular homicide is not something to brag about.
Battery pack and cells manufactured at the Nevada gigafactory. Power from solar panels on roof plus plans to add geothermal. Their goal is to be completely powered by renewables. Anyway, ignoring the Elon hype, why would anyone buy an electric car from an ICE vendor. Tesla is so far ahead of them with worldwide supercharger deployment. Will take at least ten years to catch up.
You assume 100% coal, and old plants. A NEW coal plants from china actually gets around 55%. Transmission lose is around 7%. Everybody charging to wheels lose is less than 10%. So 38% and that is based on 100% new coal plant. Note that other emissions from plant , lead, Mercury, etc are much higher, but in China ...
As to grid in most of west, less than 60% from fossil fuels. In America, coal is less than 30%. So with 40% clean energy ( and growing ), and 30% Nat gas ( was growing, is slowing down ), and 30% coal ( dropping ), an ev fully made and ran here will be much much cleaner.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The problem is in some ways worse than stated since they are front loading the CO2 emissions now rather than later.
However, the same is true of corn ethanol. That too doesn't actually reduce CO2 since about as much petroleum energy goes into raising and drying corn as you get out of it.
The argument for Corn Ethanol is NOT that is it less polluting but that it is the leading edge of a transition to other sources of ethanol that are not yet on the market but consume less petroleum. For example, cellulosic ethanol from switchgrass or poplar.
You need to start transitioning a fleet about 30 years before you want the full transition because that's how long it takes to build the infrastructure, economics benefits to accrue, and to replace the vehicles.
So starting out with Lithium and Ethanol made inefficiently but competitively isn't a terrible idea. And since the numbers of units sold is also low at the start it also isn't a big impact on total CO2.
On the otherhand, Ethanol is probably a lousy idea compared to either Algal fuels or Electric cars. But alagal fuels are not ready for mass production yet.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
But buying and using a used car is so anti American!
Says someone that is obviously not from America.
It's a long living trope in American culture of a young man or woman declaring that they are now an adult by buying a cheap rusty piece of shit used car. This usually coincides with another milestone of being an adult, like getting a job, going off to university, or getting married.
Of course the next milestone is being able to buy their first new car, or rather having paid off the loan on the new car.
The least American thing to do is not own a car.
Way more complicated then what people think.
When we think global warming we normally think about our Car. Because we have to pay for around 10-20 gallons a week we regularly see thousands of cars, and when the weather get cold we see the exhaust coming from the pipe. The automobile is the symbol of pollution.
However it is a major polluter it isn't the biggest one. Even for your personal carbon count. Normally your home is #1 if you are using Oil heat (using that because it is a popular form of heat that is most similar to gasoline) You car may use 1000 gallons a year, while if you live in the north east with oil heat you can burn 1400 gallons of oil a year. Then combine your home electricity your home which most people only use 1/3 of the time. is spewing more carbon then your car.
I have switch my home to wood pellets, and to keep my home warm for the winter I need 4 tons of pellets. Over the year at best I probably have 10 lbs of Ash. the rest is exhausted out of my home and polluting the air.
Now all that said. Moving cars to Electric will not stop global warming or even slow it down, because the extra carbon needed to make them, will offset the normal life of the car. However we have begin to shift the pollution hard to regulate areas (your own stuff) to centralized locations, which can be better regulated, and upgraded over time to more green methods.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
"According to estimates of Mercedes-Benz..."
Well, well, well, if that isn't one of those companies who defrauded their clients and killed thousands of people and still only a handful managers are in jail.
Shouldn't they better shut the fuck up?
That is why science does actual studies
In fact, science does do actual studies... but this isn't one of them. This is an article in a business magazine, which cites a study from Berylls Strategy Advisors, which they list as "a Munich-based automotive consultancy".
So, no, this isn't a scientific study; this is an advocacy piece disguised as a scientific study.
The idea is that long term the factories that make the batteries should be powered by renewables. Yes, there is a transition period and not every facility can do this overnight. It doesn't invalidate the technology or the long term necessity. Just an ICE industry piece to sow doubt.
It's also only looking at CO2, and ignoring the other pollution. Diesels put out a lot of harmful particulate matter right where people live and breathe.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
He didn't. Where did he assume that?
Ezekiel 23:20
This really depends on which emission standard are we talking about. If you compare EURO6 diesel car with similarly sized electric car in Germany, you might end up with more harmful emissions (NOx, HC, PM) from coal portion of the electricity needed. Yes, it's being produced somewhere else than city centre, but still it's far from ideal.
However if you really get into it, the entire continent is connected. So even though BC, Washington, Idaho and Oregon might be green, they are connected to states in the Western Energy Grid that are not, and there are interconnects to the rest of the continent.
They are connected, yes, but in fact you don't wheel power over distances of more than a thousand kilometers or two; transmission losses are just too high.
Superconducting transmission could solve that, but it's not implemented yet.
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/182278-the-worlds-first-superconducting-power-line-paves-the-way-for-billions-of-dollars-in-savings
Battery pack replacements may not be as common as people expected them to be. When you have a Nissan Leaf dropping to a top range of 60 miles, then you do need to replace the battery pack. However, if your Chevrolet Bolt EV drops to only 60% of its original range, you still have more than 140 miles of range. Might not be your choice for a cross country trip, but you still have 50 more miles of range than most of the Leafs on the road today.
I donâ(TM)t see myself replacing the battery pack in my Bolt EV for a very long time, if ever. I make sure to not leave it at high State of Charge, which damages the battery more than recharging it often. By the time capacity drops enough to be a bother, I expect there to be many more DC fast charge stations available. Iâ(TM)ll just fill up as needed. Even if it only had a range of 140 miles, it would fit my daily driving needs,
That is not negligible! But once you've kept your car for three years, then no, more carbon dioxide is produced in driving the car than in making the car.
It's likely better to have all of the energy generation for electric cars done in a central location, even if it's all done with coal power, but simply having an electric car doesn't meant that running it is CO2 free. You wouldn't claim that having an electric car is a good green alternative if the person who owned was charging it with a diesel generator every day.
Don't be disappointed. Hydro power requires flooding an entire valley of oxygen-producing, CO2-sequestering trees. Nuclear is better, at least in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Having an electric car is not CO2 free, but even the current mix of electricity in the US ensures it's about 50% cleaner in total. See figure ES-2 in this document. With low-carbon sources spreading, it's going to get even better.
Ezekiel 23:20
This usually coincides with another milestone of being an adult, like getting a job, going off to university, or getting married.
Or an alien robot invasion?
Ezekiel 23:20
That's extremely unlikely, especially considering that Germany has been replacing coal plants with newer, less polluting ones. Plus with the huge amount of solar installed in Germany it's quite likely that if you wanted an electric car for emissions reasons you could get solar PV to charge it too.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Did they even take into account that 40% of CO2 from ICE cars comes from pumping/refining/transporting the fuel. Tailpipe emissions are only a part of it. And did they really compare an electric SUV with a fuel efficient car? This article is a joke.
I always found it fascinating that CO2 levels moving from 200ppm (0.0002) to 400ppm (0.0004), a change of 0.0002, is the cause of all this warming.
"Some ... might ..."
Just more FUD from the petro and ICE mfgs showing how EVs are bad for everything. Sigh.
A slightly better read:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/e...
(disclaimer: I've only driven an EV for almost 5 years. We've got over 60K combined miles on our LEAF and Model S)
It's the short sellers!!!!!
The biggest advantage of electric cars is not the 3x efficiency, it's not the incredible acceleration, and it's only partly the lack of post-purchase carbon emissions. It's that everything is much more fungible. I do not delude myself that my electric car is not polluting, I get my power from the texas power grid, which is 34% natural gas and 30% coal . The 3x efficiency combined with getting 28% from less polluting sources is a big step forward, but ultimately just part of the solution.
The main advantage is that it is easier to pressure ERCOT to change their ways than it is to cause millions of texans to change their ways (and buy new vehicles, which itself is pretty nasty for the environment). If the major source of carbon emissions for electric cars is the manufacturers, we can get after them. These entities are capable of working with their governments to come up with a timeline, and a way of managing the expenses to make change happen. Joe Sixpack in his 1967 pickup is unreachable, possibly couldn't afford to fix it if he wanted to, and might not comply if he didn't.
As long as people are driving around with combustion engines, we can pass laws and scream and yell and nothing will change.
An ICE tops out around 30% when it's running at it's peak efficiency. That requires an immaculately maintained engine and operating it within a very narrow part of its functional range. Whenever your ICE vehicle is doing anything other than cruise control at its most efficient speed it is way off that efficiency number. Power plants will spend much more of their lifetime operating at or near peak efficiency than an ICE in a car will. Electric motors are also far more efficient with a much broader functional power band than any ICE. Of course we use transmissions in ICE vehicles to try and get more use out of the narrow operating range, but that adds more moving parts that need maintaining as well as more power losses.
There is also the matter of the amount of energy that goes into processing petroleum so that it can be used as a fuel in a car. The fossil fuels used in most power plants, coal and natural gas, don't require nearly as much processing. There is also a lot of value in centralizing, or outsourcing as you say, the CO2 production. Because the CO2 is being generated at one place instead of thousands of individually maintained tailpipes, it is much easier to control and maintain.
Which brings up the fact that most people don't do much for maintenance on their cars. They might get the oil changed regularly. I knew one guy that had never changed the oil in his Taurus that had over 150K miles, just added a quart here and there. For the most part people only take their cars to a mechanic for a tuneup if something is obviously wrong and interfering with their daily use.
Germany and Poland that rely on non-renewable sources like coal for electricity. ... how many other countries manage that?
Germany does not rely on coal.
We produce 40% of our electricity with renewable and ~10% with nuclear power.
So coal and gas is less than 50%
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Being that we need to thoroughly clean up our energy production regardless of how that electricity is used!
This is a terrible argument, and a poorly written article over on Bloomberg. The writer got themselves so flustered that they couldn't be bothered to proof-read, or make a coherent point that doesn't stretch credulity. I would call this, "panic journalism."
You can't do statistics this way because methods of generating power are shifting. Coal plants are dying off across the world. Part of the problem with this article, not to defend coal, is that there is no one way to measure coal emissions. It depends largely on when the power plants were constructed, what the local regulations are, and the size of the plant. You can't just run an average on it, and hope to be close to the truth of the matter. Even comparing Poland to Belarus is silly. And it gets sillier when you start talking about Germany and France.
But even that is mundane when you put it in the terms stated. Europe, as we all know is working hard to solve the power problem. They're doing it in ways that are a lot more radical than anything we've seen in the US. To start talking about carbon footprints, as they stand today, before the industry has even taken hold is throwing away the baby with the bathwater.
Of course, when it comes to panic journalism, that's kinda the point, so I can't fault them for that.
This signature has Super Cow Powers
This doesn't address the fact that they are raping the earth for the minerals to build these batteries.
Huh? Lithium comes mostly from evaporite deposits. Don't see why you would "rape the Earth" to get at evaporites, which generally don't require deep mining. You want to see what "raping the Earth" means, look at coal mining: https://grist.org/business-tec...
Steel and Aluminum now are some of the most recycled materials there are. And there is plenty of the product left to recycle.
Well, lithium is one of the most easily recycled materials there is. And, of course, not just internal combustion cars, but electric cars are also made out of steel and aluminum.
Not saying Electric is bad, I just prefer honesty when promoting them.
Diesels put out a lot of harmful particulate matter right where people live and breathe.
No more than diesels do. And if they're cars without a catalyst, like my 1982 300SD or my lady's 2006 Sprinter, then the soot they DO emit is much larger than the soot that gassers spew out. In fact, nearly all of it is large enough for cilia to sweep it out of pockets in your lungs, and for it to be removed during normal sputum production and expectoration. It's only diesels with catalysts which emit primarily PM2.5 and smaller.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
So what? Less than a third of a vehicle's lifetime CO2 emissions occur during production. If I'm doing the math right on the back of this envelope here, that means that EVs are still way out ahead of everything else.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Second the improvements in the grid often take place on the decades scale,
Not really, the US went from 58% coal to 23% coal in the last decade, so the improvement is pretty rapid and with wind, solar, and battery tech really hitting the ramp phase in the mass production cost reduction scale it's likely to accelerate globally. As far as replacement battery cost, Tesla is already down to ~$100/kWh at the pack level so future replacement packs aren't going to be anywhere near $30k unless you're talking a medium duty truck. Also, other than the Leaf which lacks active thermal management almost every EV has way better battery degradation than originally feared.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I always found it fascinating that CO2 levels moving from 200ppm (0.0002) to 400ppm (0.0004), a change of 0.0002, is the cause of all this warming.
Yes, isn't it fascinating? The fact that small fractions of trace gasses can dominate the atmospheric infrared absorption was discovered by John Tyndall in 1859. https://earthobservatory.nasa....
We now know that this is because the tightly-bound diatomic molecules don't have vibrational modes in the infrared energy range, of course, but at the time, it was indeed quite fascinating that miniscule amounts of water and carbon dioxide could absorb more than the vastly larger concentration of oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere.
Tyndall was quite an amazing man. He's also the person credited with coming up with the first reasonable answer to the question "why is the sky blue"? https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/e...
(his answer was "scattering", which is right as far as it goes, but of course it took the mathematics of Rayleigh scattering fifty years later to understand the actual details.)
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
The point has never been total reduction of emissions. You can't do that by putting dirty power in a battery. What you can do is centralize the emissions so that capture and cleaning are effective solutions.
"Every so often" is a bit non-specific.
Kia and Hyundai are offering unlimited mileage warranties on their batteries in the US, or 200k km in other regions. Leaf batteries have proven to be good for 350k km+.
Consumer Reports puts the average lifespan of a car at 250k km (150k miles). Obviously there will be outliers either side. So realistically few people will be wearing out their batteries, and for them the most economical and green option will be to get a used pack from a written off car.
The used packs are also highly recyclable.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Are you factoring in the energy losses from extracting, refining and transporting the ICE fuel?
Or the costs involved in digging the coal out of the ground.
Personally, I think this whole argument misses the point. Manufacturing cars of any sort costs a lot of energy and resources. Having everybody owning cars costs a lot in various ways. Hundreds of people die every day thanks to our obsession with personal transport. We sit for hundreds of hours in traffic jams because everybody else won't get out of our way. All this leads to stress, frustration and in some cases violence. None of these downsides change very much if the cars are electric. We should be concentrating on finding ways to reduce the need for people to own and use cars at all.
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
Prius is not an electric car, you fucking idiot.
The Prius Prime (aka "Plug-in Prius") is.
It has an internal combustion back-up for long trips, but unless you do long road trips, it's pure electric.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Electric cars are REALLY powered by coal. Especially in California. California just imports the electricity made from coal in many plants in UTAH.
Even accounting for imports, California electrical power is only 4% from coal. In fact, California electricity is mostly natural gas. Figures are here
https://www.energy.ca.gov/.
Then they just smuggly think they are green. Those solar plants don't REALLY make that much energy.
About 10% solar, and another 9.4% wind generation. Actually, now that I look up the numbers, I'm impressed-- that's more than I'd expected. Graph here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_California#/media/File:California_Electricity_Generation_Sources_Pie_Chart.svg/a?
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
This should be clear propaganda to you readers!
Next step is to discuss the SOURCES! You can't trust sources that are either incompetent or corrupt that they feed you this rather simple scam! The original author has to be seriously examined because I can't see how they are not just a scammer. The news repeaters hardly do any serious editing and review so you can put them down for incompetence.
We need some kind of reputation system to rank the sources and repeaters of information. Like a facebook like system but not so stupid; and we really need to weigh experts higher somehow because popular shouldn't beat informed.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
We've all driven behind a diesel car, and even the newest diesel cars once in while blow out a hefty black cloud. That cloud might not contain CO2, but it's a dust of fine particles that's not good for your health, and contains other pollutans..
Also it might that those batteries are created with polluting electricitygrids, those big plants are easier to replace than all those small cars.
And I'm pretty sure if you dive into the funding of this 'research', you'll find it was backed by a few big oil companies and others that have an interest for keeping diesels on the road for the time being..When I look at the name of the company that did the research, it all smells like BS..
When it gets too hot just have a few Tsar bomba go off in Siberia and you will have a nuclear winer. Problem solved
**Life is too short to be serious**
"This site https://www.greencarreports.co... [greencarreports.com] says not, but it depends on how you analyze the numbers."
See, my 2002 car gets 55mpg on long runs; 45 on short. But his numbers start with "say your old car gets 30mpg". What heap of shit gets 30mpg?
Based on family size, I need a larger vehicle for when we all go together. Based on where I live and work, I need a vehicle with a certain range. Because of my economic situation I cannot afford one vehicle for work and another for family use. I ended up with a van which uses gets approximately 25-30 mpg and has a 450 mile range per tank of gas. Once a year or so we do a 1000+ mile road trip (each way), but on a near-weekly basis we do a 100-200 mile (each way) roadtrip. Everyone's situation is different so do your own comparisons. Based on my numbers, a single van getting 30mpg would be better than taking 2 cars getting 50mpg.
Parent nailed it! I can't believe they overtly used the worst battery SUV against the best car forgetting to call them both cars... what kind of propagandist are they?
They ignore that dirty grid power is on the way out. In 10 years it'll be a whole lot cleaner as well. Recycling batteries will become a much bigger thing too (and re-purposing worn batteries.) New battery tech--- we're sold plenty of hype on next gen power that never happens for OLD tech like nuclear and coal; but batteries are actually delivering ... going from 100 years of no progress to huge leaps within the last 25 years - it has only recently began to get large investments. The whole industry is going to change with rental services thanks to internet, AI and a generation who can't afford to waste time/money on car ownership... lower cost and higher profit alternatives are coming.
It's HARD to compare something new and evolving to something old and dead where they are trying to squeeze the last bit out of the concept after 100+ years.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
This is for shitty cars by traditional companies that are based in those places where the grid is shit.
Tesla's, no matter what you have to say about them, make their batteries in Reno. That's where the gigs factory is, where solar is king. So, this argument doesn't apply to them. They are also the largest installer of batteries on the planet, so this makes me think this article is oil company FUD.
This is the ultimate result of going down the rabbit hole of, "externalities".
While that statement in itself may be true, they do need the battery pack replaced every so often. And the production of those batteries is actually one of the most polluting aspects.
While this is true (the electrolyte is non-recyclable in virtually all cases, though the metals are aggressively recovered) this will actually improve over time as both manufacturing methods and battery chemistries advance.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Regardless of the validity of TFA, there are steps we need to take, as a species, if we want any hope of not continuing to create our own extinction-level event.
1. Phase out all fossil fuel use. Do what you have to, to develop alternatives for all forms of transportation.
2. Develop safe nuclear power plant design. In parallel, continue to develop and refine battery technologies.
3. Tell the NIMBYs to STFU, and make that stick. (Yes, I'm saying: shove it down their throats. Too fucking bad for them, our species is at stake here.)
4. While 2 and 3 are in progress, continue to develop and deploy 'renewables' (solar, wind, etc). Mandate rooftop solar on new homes, provide incentives for existing homes.
5. While 4 is in progress: tell power companies who whine and cry about it to STFU, and make it stick. Yes, shove it down their throats, too.
6. Stay calm, and carry on.
7. Human race survives (i.e., profit!)
I have no doubt the above will pain many and produce all sorts of hate and complaints. Tough shit, I say. A little pain now is much easier to deal with than the wars over resources and liveable land later, when it's too fucking late to do anything about the mess we've made for ourselves.
Likelihood of this all happening according to my rough outline? Not gods-be-damned likely. But many of you know I'm right. Unless someone comes up with a way for me to survive to be several hundred years old, I'll never know if we, as a species, wises up soon enough to save itself. But I have to say it all anyway. Good luck, humans, you're going to need it.
LOL, NO. Shipping contributes about 4% of total GHG emissions annually, it's a non-trivial percentage but transportation is 14% in total so non-shipping is 10% or 250% of the shipping emissions. Now if you were talking about acid rain, then yes, currently due to dirty fuel shipping is a huge contributor but starting next year bunker fuel is being restricted to .5% sulfur content (down from 5% today) which will greatly decrease their contribution to acidification.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Second the improvements in the grid often take place on the decades scale, not necessarily in time to make a large change to vehicles bought today.
The longer we wait to start those improvements the longer it will take to complete.
I remember having a conversation where oil drilling in ANWR came up. I argued that we know that there is oil there, lots of it, and if we went to go get it that would lower energy prices. The person I was conversing with said that drilling in ANWR was pointless because it would take years for oil to flow and make prices go down. Five years later oil price reached record highs. Would oil have still peaked at that point if we drilled in ANWR five years prior? We can't know for sure but it is unlikely to have made it worse.
You want to see CO2 emissions lower in 20 years? Then start building lots of nuclear power plants today. I don't care if it takes 10 years to build a reactor because by not building them we are placing all our faith in solar and wind to save us. That's waiting at port for a ship that might not come. We know we can build a nuclear power plant in less than 5 years because we did this regularly decades ago. The reason it takes so long to build a nuclear power plant today is politics, not technology. Get rid of the politics and make it happen.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
I always found it fascinating that CO2 levels moving from 200ppm (0.0002) to 400ppm (0.0004), a change of 0.0002, is the cause of all this warming.
If you compressed the atmosphere to a layer of equal density, it would be about 8 km thick. If you're walking outside in the sun, wearing 2mm thick sunglasses, the ratio of sunglass to atmosphere is 0.25ppm.
Do you find it fascinating that 0.25ppm worth of sunglasses blocks most of the light ?
If we moved all the CO2 from the atmosphere to a single pure layer, then 200 ppm would mean a layer of 5 feet, and 400 ppm would be 10 feet. IR works as a "sunglass" for IR.
I have switch my home to wood pellets, and to keep my home warm for the winter I need 4 tons of pellets. Over the year at best I probably have 10 lbs of Ash. the rest is exhausted out of my home and polluting the air.
In terms of CO2 from your pellet stove/furnace, it isn't pollution.
The CO2 was in the air a year or so ago, became part of a tree, and you released it back into the air. Net result: A slight reduction in atmospheric CO2 from the carbon in the ash.
Incorrect and misleading headline:
1) Drivers do not "spew more c02" than any car.
"Oh, ha ha" you say...
2) Electric cars do not "spew more c02" than diesels. It's during the manufacturing process.
This has been well known for a while. You've got to start somewhere. Batteries will get more efficient, manufacturing processes will be refined. Why complain about the attempt to improve a globally dire situation? Would sitting on your thumbs and complaining that your beachfront house is underwater be a better option?
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
I remember when South Park accused the drivers themselves of creating "smug", but what is the basis behind the drivers actually spewing more CO2? Are they hyperventilating? They might want to see a doctor about that ...
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
You just inferred that all electric cars use dirty energy to recharge, which is not the case.
What a fun game, putting words in other people's mouths!
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
The diesel generator is likely to be more efficient per unit of volume, due to being able to run the diesel engine at the optimum RPM for extracting the most energy from the fuel. Varying RPMs and running all the other crap that runs off a car's engine (power steering, air conditioning compressor, losses from gearbox, etc.) all represent energy being lost.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
About the same amount of CO2 is released from the wood if it decomposes on the surface as if it is burned. Much of it comes from waste, or fast growing hybrid poplar trees.
And there's no way that your 2002 whatever (funny that you posted anonymous and didn't include the make / model to back up your claim) might be an outlier to the average MPG of the in-use vehicle fleet?
Hint: average MPG of vehicles in use is
Also, your car probably got 55 MPG brand new, 16 years ago. Likely not to be the case today due to reduced efficiency of worn parts, etc. That's my unsubstantiated claim that counters your unsubstantiated claim.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
"so this makes me think this article is oil company FUD." - certainly is, its the manufacture that's the problem not the cars themselves.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Unless I'm misreading the summary, the statistics here are kind of dodgy too. It seems like they're saying that the percentage reduction of CO2 won't be so impressive if the car is manufactured using dirty energy. That's not to say that an electric car won't produce way less CO2 in operation than a diesel one - only that operation is only part of the CO2 footprint of a car. So what? Sure, we need to clean up our power generation grids too. But that's no reason not to be reducing the actual CO2 emissions of the car itself.
And, at the risk of sounding like I'm mixing my liberal rationales, dirty power generation doesn't render us 'powerless' to criticize Saudi Crown Princes who assassinate and dismember their critics willy-nilly. There are other reasons than carbon reduction to wean transportation off of oil...
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
Not oil company FUD. Conservative voter thinking FUD. There are people out there that cling to old ways. Plenty of proof to go around and that way of thinking won the republicans the last election. Coal, de-regulation, closing free trade. These are old ways of thinking way past our current time but it still gets pushes by individuals that don't care to dig into issues and take guys like Tucker Carlson at face value.
Really. My old cars get around 20 to 26 mpg, and got 30 when brand new only in ideal conditions.
So you obviously do both. Switch to EVs and decarbonize the electricity supply.
If you have to do (A and B) to succeed, dissing A, and trying to slow the momentum of A is not helpful.
Instead, be an advocate of A and of B.
As they say, lead, follow, or get out of the way.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
The report might be self-serving, but it does serve to illustrate the difference between "zero emissions" and "zero point emissions".
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
so does water...which holds more IR and would be 1000 feet thick in the atmosphere using the same analogy...and is miles thick as a liquid currently.
The article is more click bait than actual science. The science behind the article is also flawed. Their biggest assumption is false that the diesel fuel used by the cars is magically transported to the gas station
By doing this they assume
1. There is no CO2 involved in getting the oil out of the ground
2. there is no CO2 involved in getting the oil to the refinery
3. there is no CO2 in refining the oil to diesel
4. there is no CO2 in getting the diesel to the gas station
The article also states that people take three and a half years to drive 30,000 miles? I live 5 miles from work and I drive more than 30,000 miles every year.
Calvin:Do you believe in the devil? Hobbes:I'm not sure man needs the help.
This line of thinking can be applied to the manufacture of just about everything in the world. To apply it to electric vehicles, and more specifically lithium ion batteries, then twist it to say it makes them more polluting than ICE vehicles, is utter nonsense. You can apply the same logic to the manufacture if ICE vehicles, as those parts are also made in the very same places in the world. Stick that in your exhaust pipe and smoke it.
The problem is that the warranties don't kick in before the batteries have deteriorated enough to significantly affect range. For at least some users who require the range, that means they will have to swap out the batteries before then.
It's also only looking at CO2, and ignoring the other pollution. Diesels put out a lot of harmful particulate matter right where people live and breathe.
And the cobalt in Li-Ion batteries isn't exactly healthy either, not to mention the strip-mining in Congo where most of it comes from.
I'm not sure where you are getting your data, but we went from 1045 million short tons for electricity in 2006 to 664 in 2016, a reduction of 1/3 and we had a corresponding rise in natural gas for electrical generation which offsets some of these losses. The CO2 per kwh has not dropped by much in the last decade. Secondly, the Tesla battery is sold at a loss and is not anywhere near 100 usd/kwh yet. They are on track for the cells to hit that price this year and maybe packs by 2020. The only thing keeping the costs down are the fact Tesla uses and advanced smart battery architecture with long lifespan cells and carefully controls the temperature and charge cycles at all times making them viable for use as storage after they are no longer useful in cars. Sorry if the facts aren't as rosy as you like them to be, but that's reality.
Wind and solar are already hitting some very real limits already on replacing coal. Any national grid is a delicate balance of supply and demand, and unreliable energy sources like wind and solar interfere with this balance.
Wind and solar are legally protected energy sources. Kind of like the law "thou shall not kill a bald eagle" there's "thou shall not refuse energy from wind power". Well, that is you will be punished for killing a bald eagle unless you did so with a windmill. It's apparently okay to kill a protected species of bird with a windmill, because reasons.
So utilities must treat wind power like a "negative load", something that shows up on their demand side of the equation with a negative sign in front. They have to work the control levers on the supply they can control, like their coal and natural gas, but only with larger swings given the wind and solar power they cannot control or refuse service. As more wind and solar is added to the grid then these swings get larger. This comes with a cost. Part of that cost is fuel, because turning fossil fuel generators on and off takes fuel and there's no electricity generated at these times.
Ah, but you mentioned batteries. Well, unless there is some requirement that these people that put up the windmills and solar collectors also bring the batteries with them then we will continue to see rising costs.
The problem is that the laws dictate a method and ignore the result. The goal should be reductions in CO2, not a contest on how quickly people can put up windmills. Nuclear power is a low CO2 energy source but it is not recognized as such in any CO2 reduction calculations I've seen. If a windmill goes up but produces no power then that is counted as a "win". A new nuclear power plant, or upgrades on an existing plant, is not counted as a "win". It's not counted as a "loss" either but that's of little consolation because when a nuclear power plant gets no zero emissions credits, and has to reduce output when the wind blows strong, then it's simply priced out of the market even though the unsubsidized costs are half that of wind power.
Wind and solar are not going to get a ramp up like it has in the past. The laws on the books might make it beneficial for now but the laws of physics will make it clear sooner or later that growth will fall off quickly.
Batteries won't save wind and solar because the batteries don't care where the electricity comes from. Pair a battery bank with a nuclear power plant and just watch your demand for natural gas turbines fall off a cliff. We can build nuclear power plants very quickly if we want. We saw more nuclear power come online in 2016 than all of wind and solar, because of just one nuclear reactor. Let's build just 10 reactors per year, I know we can if we just tried in the least bit.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
The whole argument "Just producing $TECHNOLOGY_I_DON'T_LIKE already involves large amounts of carbon" is another fake static argument based on the amount of carbon released by industrial processes (mining trucks, say) and materials (concrete) at the time the argument is made. By playing with nations of origin and production numbers, it is possible to make any technology look like a bad choice based on carbon emitted during manufacture. By cherry-picking nations and processes, you could make the same argument against PV cells.
In the real world, a steady effort to reduce carbon throughout industry means that production carbon numbers will shrink over time as carbon is wrung out of the economy. The mining trucks will at some point be electric and powered by a local dam, diesel-chugging ships from Filthystan might be replaced by trains bringing product from some cleaner place, snd so on.
Actually, [...] with nukes, hydro, and Geothermal, would be the best places to locate battery plants. They are already clean.
Their current clenliness doesn't matter.
What matters is the clenliness of the power supply capacity they ADD to run the new loads.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Battery pack replacements may not be as common as people expected them to be. When you have a Nissan Leaf dropping to a top range of 60 miles, then you do need to replace the battery pack. However, if your Chevrolet Bolt EV drops to only 60% of its original range, you still have more than 140 miles of range.
I think this is the result of two things
(1) range not being big enough to start with. People who bought an EV where 230 miles was "enough" range for their specific use case probably won't replace the battery if it drops from 230 to 140, because they're both "enough" for the purpose they bought that vehicle for - i.e. if 140 miles isn't enough, 230 miles probably doesn't move the needle enough for many people. If range started at 600 miles and dropped to 360 miles, I suspect there'd be a greater replacement rate.
(2) You can easily finance a new car but not a repair. So people would rather replace the car than the battery because the upfront cost is much more manageable.
And all modern cars - petrol, hybrid, diesel, EV, etc result in quite a lot of particulates being produced in the form of rubber wear from the tyres. I think this is probably underappreciated in terms of human health impact but unfortunately there isn't a huge amount of research into this.
the engine hasn't required any work in 300K miles
You're lying. Full stop.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
Kind of like solar cells needing more energy to manufacture than they will ever output. Or thinking corn derived ethanol has any business in a car engine. Or... I know what we need: A war on nuclear fusion! Not because it's easy but because its hard.
> Sure, we need to clean up our power generation grids too. But that's no reason not to be reducing the actual CO2 emissions of the car itself.
And this is a double-whammy. If we clean up the grid, it lowers the CO2 in the manufacturing AND the operation. And it cleans the operation for cars already on the road.
But hey, I'm all for building the batteries in Quebec too. I'm not at all sure why they don't already (FYI, it's all hydro and its CHEAP).
Come on! If you want to you can charge a electric car by burning used tires.
This does not change their potential for lower emissions vs gas/diesel!
I am sure someone can come up with a way to run a diesel car on rendered penguins if they so wanted, it doesn't make it news.
> It's also only looking at CO2, and ignoring the other pollution
Take a look at Greenercars.org which measures a car's entire pollution from manufacturer to disposal. They have found a modern Chevrolet Cruze Diesel with NOx neutralization and Soot filters is just as clean as a Tesla Model S (but not as clean as smaller EVs like the Leaf or BMW i3).
> Diesels put out a lot of harmful particulate matter
They USED to do that, but since 2010 the EPA has required diesel cars to have NOx neutralizers and PM filters that bring the output to near zero. (Except of course for Volkswagen which refused to install the NOx filter and got caught.)
Some bureaucrats now want to use the same technology on Gasoline cars, for the same goal (drop NOx and PM to zero).
.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
so this makes me think this article is oil company FUD.
The last gasp by the oil companies IMO
We here in Australia, are grappling with the problem of what to do with all the excess solar power https://www.abc.net.au/news/20... as so many people have put solar panels on their roofs that it is becoming a problem when they are at work and not using this energy.
Simple - use it to charge up cars.
The batteries, whilst still expensive, are getting cheaper, will fill this gap.
In the new electricity grid, all homes will have a battery and probably solar. These batteries will all be charged up during the day and the energy drawn on at night. It will take time to get there.
This kind of trade-off may not be something you'll have to consider in the relatively near future. There are already some hybrid-electric vehicles available which do precisely what you're suggesting here (e.g. Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid). They'll typically get much better gas mileage than a similar gas-only vehicle, and if they're a plug-in hybrid like the Pacifica, they'll also have enough range to use little to no gas for shorter trips.
To provide a personal example, I have a 2017 Chevy Volt. It gets 40mpg when running in hybrid mode (almost independent of driving conditions), and has about 400 mile total range. On a full battery it gets between 40-60 mile range (it depends upon the weather: more in summer, less in winter, as the heating system eats up the battery). Most days, I'm able to use electric-only, as my work commute is well within the battery range. Depending upon how many longer trips I take, I can often go 1,000-2,000 miles between refills of the gas tank. Also, because it has a fully-electric drive system (the gas motor is an electric generator and isn't connected to the wheels in any way), the car has tremendous torque making for a very fun driving experience.
Hybrids like this are still fairly expensive. But I probably won't ever want to go back to a gas-only vehicle again. I doubt I'll shed the hybrid for electric-only, either, as electric-only vehicles seem like serious headaches on longer trips. Maybe someday, but not with current technology.
I've had to replace the battery in my Honda Insight 3 times in 180,000 miles (I eventually jury-rigged the car to run on 12 volt without hybrid assist). They simply are not lasting as long as promised.
> Leaf batteries have proven to be good for 350k km+.
No they have not. In fact Nissan *bought back* many Leafs due to their batteries not lasting as long as promised. I'm kinda surprised you never heard of this issue:
Note this is just article of many. I don't have time or room to list all ~100 of them: https://www.greencarreports.co...
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
manufacturing an electric car pumps out "significantly" more climate-warming gases than a conventional car, which releases only 20 percent of its lifetime CO2 at this stage.
Is the article trying to spin this as a good thing? What this is basically saying is that over the lifetime of a conventional car, it emits 80% of its emissions just from driving
I'd expect an electric car to have higher manufacturing emissions as a ration of its lifetime emissions -- that's rather the point -- they are zero emission vehicles. Emissions during manufacturing should be extremely high, as emissions during the rest of the lifetime of the vehicle are comparatively low (particularly in countries with a high percentage of renewable and nuclear energy)
Yaz
I'm glad to see high school interns at Bloomberg, Niclas Rolander, Jesper Starn, and Elisabeth Behrmann reporting only half a story. Maybe their supervising team lead would let them report on the current emissions of gasoline and drive train systems and usages for over 3 years? Maybe they can report this next year when they're in the 10th grade.
Power plants will spend much more of their lifetime operating at or near peak efficiency than an ICE in a car will.
No they won't. Only the base load plants, if you still have some, are like that.
And: it is irrelevant anyway. The load has basically no influence on plant efficiency.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
So realistically few people will be wearing out their batteries, and for them the most economical and green option will be to get a used pack from a written off car.
Reusing a battery from a car that was in an accident may present safety issues.
Certainly they can be recycled though.
There was a specific issue with the Honda hybrid system. They tried to correct it with a software update that practically disabled the hybrid power, and people sued them over it.
The early Leafs had some issues (note that your article is from 6 years ago). They were fixed. There are taxi companies in the UK using them hard, at least one rapid charge per day and 100% charge overnight, 200k miles on the clock and still >80% capacity left.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Should not they be comparing total emissions = during the making of the car + during operating the car for 10 years?
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
That's correct, and water is also a greenhouse gas. Current estimates are that it accounts for about half of the temperature rise that we are seeing.
https://www.giss.nasa.gov/rese...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/m...
Also, regarding how such a small amount of CO2 can make a big difference, here's a great article about it.
https://www.scientificamerican...
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
I've had to replace the battery in my Honda Insight 3 times in 180,000 miles
I'll counter your anecdote with my anecdata: My family has owned 3 HEVs (Prius) and they lasted 5, 7 and 13 years. One had it's battery replaced (for free) at 9 years. It seemed to be doing great, I suspect Toyota wanted test data for their battery program.
All of our Priuses died due to being totaled in a crash (mom was never a good driver) None had MPG lower than 48 avg (and that's because the usage pattern was for short, local trips).
I now own an EV (Ford Focus EV 2017) which accelerates faster than a Boxter, and has had near-zero battery degradation in the ~2 years I've owned it. Oh and it cost me $17k out the door with discounts, state and federal incentives. Oh and no oil changes, smog tests, or even going to the dirty-as-sin gas station. I just plug in @home.
If the usage pattern is light, a used EV can be had for $6k. These make great grocery grabbers, and with the reduced usage you can just plug them into your an unmodified 110v charger.
About the only problem I see is that while EVs are on the cusp of dominating, the parking garages / carports /etc often don't even have the 110v (ie, level1) chargers. We need a wave of renewed interest in mass-charging (not free, to make it sustainable) to spur the revolution.
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Hey I support Nuclear and Solar and Wind.
We need to diversify our energy portfolio, and coal is dirtier than all of them (coal puts out more radioactives - in the air where you will breathe them - than nuclear reactors per MW).
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Most car trips are under 6 miles. 75% of all car trips are under 10 miles.
https://247wallst.com/autos/20...
So, a car that does short trips all-electric but has a gas engine for back-up is, for most trips, an all electric car, but one that also works for longer trips.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com