Electric cars, unclean at any speed
This was written by someone who both designed and championed plug in cars before he looked at the facts.
Unclean at Any Speed - IEEE Spectrum |
I do not understand why we cannot find solutions to the issues with manufacturing electric cars instead of making the perfect the enemy of the good, just like every other specious argument used against renewable fuels.
The issue is simple for me. How else are we going to get away from fossil fuels unless we develop electric technologies? What alternatives do we have? |
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I agree completely.
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Not many other transportation alternatives allow you the option of generating the "fuel" you need to "fill the tank" right there where you live. Biofuels (esp biodiesel) are close, but you still have to go out & get the ingredients for each gallon you end up needing to put into the tank. But once you have enough solar panels to generate the power needed to fill your electric car, the feedstock (sun) is delivered to you "for free"
Yes, there's the initial cost of the panels, and there are periods of time that the sun doesn't shine, etc, but I can't think of any other transportation option (except human power!) that can make it as easy as the combo of solar plus electric cars for self-sufficiency. |
Just like we have to generate electricity, we have to make fuel. Gas has to be refined from crude; it takes a lot of drilling, transportation, management, trade, war, lobbying etc. to make it all happen.
You cannot criticize the pollution from generating electricity (at least in some ways of that) and ignore the pollution generated by making gas. The Norwegian study the article refers to has fallen under harsh criticism itself, being funded by Statoil (the Follow the money argument backfiring) and making all sorts of false assumptions. The batteries get recycled, not like 70% of them but over 99%. Electric cars are mechanically simple and can do way more than 150.000 km. They are expensive, that's true. But once the batteries get either twice as cheap, twice as durable or twice as powerful than now there is no holding back the EV's anymore. |
It's amazing how people will not look at the forest because they're too drawn into the individual tress.
Sorry, but pound-for-pound, nothing beats the energy density of gasoline or diesel fuel, at the cost of said fuels. Unless and until some way can be found to beat this energy density, electric vehicles are going to continue to be expensive playthings. |
Just the energy it takes to produce a gallon of gasoline can power my electric car over 27 miles, so right there I'm displacing the pollution that is often not counted to produce gasoline, then you look at the pollution produced to burn gasoline! but gasoline refineries have huge natural gas pipe lines and high tension power lines going to them to power the refining, so as we demand less gasoline the electrical load is going to shift from powering oil refineries to recharging cars, most cars recharge at night as well so it's going to even out peek electrical loads, something oil refineries don't do.
The other argument in that link is that EV's use large amounts of rare metals... sure, but so do gasoline cars! gasoline cars use about as much aluminum in the engine block as the Leaf has in aluminum body panels, the copper in the motor for the Leaf is about as much copper as a single run of outlets in your house, but you don't have an issue with having outlets in your house, do you??? There is also a few pounds of copper in the starter and alternator of your gasoline car... why is that copper ok but the copper in an electric motor in an EV is bad! Rare Earth magnets... the 2014 Leaf uses smaller and lighter rare earth magnets in a better designed motor that uses less electricity as well, so not perfect but better! Computer hard drives have rare earth magnets in them as well but no one is up in arms about those going to the landfill. I knew right off tho that the author was jaded, he started out talking about $100,000+ cars owned by people who want to push a look, you don't buy a $100,000 car to save anything. |
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Who says EVERY home will have an EV charging?
If households cut their non-EV charging electricity use down, that leaves room for plenty of EV charging to do at the current (pun!) level. The title reminds me of another douche- Nader- singling out a perfectly good automobile for dissing when one of his big hang-ups, the non-collapsible steering column, was common throughout the industry. |
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Put simply, if electric cars are the problem as the author states, would we be better off without them? Just look at the last 100 years of human history without electric cars! Have gas cars, the production of gas cars, and the distribution and refining of gasoline helped the environment one bit? The problems he sees with electric cars is mis-attributed from the infrastructure of everything we make. From energy use to mass production.
I just think he came to a very unimaginative conclusion really. So will riding bikes and walking while still burning gas be the solution to save the environment? It's not exactly the most informed opinion. |
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How much electricity does an American home use? - FAQ - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) So driving an electric car for about one hour a day will double a household's energy usage. How do you propose to increase electrical efficiency in home to cover that? |
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Like I said... Nobody bothered to look past the trees, to see the forest. |
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A compact gas car with reasonable efficiency gets 35mpg average. A gallon of gas contains 36.6kwh, and the car would use 2 gallons for the 71 miles. Thats a gas use of 73.1 kw + 31 kwh of the house = 104.1 kw hours of energy use, a 335% increase from the energy used to power your home, and a 76% increase in energy use from the combined energy of driving an electric car and powering a house! Gas and Coal are both finite fossil fuel power sources. Where will the efficiency come from? from not burning twice as much energy in gasoline as can be obtained from the electrical grid. From using half as much fossil fuels from a coal plant, polluting half as much as a gas car. There are valid arguments against Electric Vehicles that i agree with, even being an advocate for EV's. Price, battery pack lifespan, better use of pure EV batteries in many hybrids with small packs to displace the most gasoline used. |
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That's not to say it shouldn't be done... we ought to have as many alternatives to non-renewable fuels available as possible. Not everybody has to have an EV; in many cases, for many people, it wouldn't make sense. By the same token, not everyone has to have an ICE, nor does everyone have to have a hybrid. I don't even know why people argue so fiercely about it... there are definitely distinct advantages to EVs but they aren't (yet, and may never be) right for everyone. |
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A lot of people who buy EV's seem to also ad solar at some point or cut back their electrical use in other ways, I noticed my electric bill go up by about $10 per month with my EV, then I switched to a gas water heater and my whole utility bill it went down, my parents bought an electric car then installed more solar panels and are selling back the surplus, of course neither of us are rich so we bought some of those lower cost EV's that were not picked on by that writer. |
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Electrics should soon become the economic choice as fossil fuel prices rise, considering there is much less complication and fabrication that goes into their manufacture. All they consist of is an electric motor, controller, and battery. Very simple when compared to an ICE. |
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That's 4.1 kwh/day. If I had a Leaf and a commute... well my commute wouldn't be stupid long either, let's say I'd go 35 miles/day for 12 kwh AND that would be five days/week besides, for 16.1 kwh/day during the week and 4.1 kwh for weekend days, averaging 12.67 kwh/day, STILL less than the average Uhmerican slob by 60%! :eek: Let's say I run that poor Leaf down to 0 every day; at 28.1 kwh I STILL have the slobs beat. What was that about seeing trees and forests and stuff? I run a full-sized fridge, chest freezer, all electric kitchen, old computer tower, mostly incandescent lighting, I even have a well pump to run whenever I want water, etc. too so no I'm not sitting here by candlelight with nothing electric running. |
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As sheepdog points out, the average person doesn't drive anywhere near enough to consume an additional 31 kWh per day. Additionally, electric cars won't replace 100% of the passenger vehicles on the road any time soon. If we're being honest, we clearly aren't talking about doubling the demand of electricity due to EV use. But we are talking about increasing electricity demand by some amount. One way the increased demand for electricity can be met at minimal monetary and environmental cost is to time EVs to recharge at off-peak periods of the day. Electricity pricing should be structured to give incentive for consuming at off-peak hours. Running electrical production facilities at more consistent output increases efficiency and reduces the need for additional production capacity to be built. (As an aside, the kWh meter at my parent's house was changed to digital and I believe it self-reports now. Strangely, there is no distinction between peak and off-peak pricing.) Another thing to offset the burden to the electricity infrastructure is to offer consumers an incentive to use their grid connected vehicles as an auxiliary source of power during peak times of electricity demand. At last, the most likely way that the problem of increased electricity demand will be met is to gradually increase production capacity. Our vehicle fleet isn't going to convert to EV overnight, so the expansion of production capacity will take place over time, keeping relative pace with demand. |
The future will be decided by our ability to harvest energy from solar, either directly or indirectly. We also must find a way to store that energy for load levelling and peak demand.
Direct solar heating is definitely on the verge of economical practicality. Evaporation, which is another form of solar, has been used for power for centuries and it should be further developed, especially since reservoirs can store electrical power for load levelling. Ocean currents are another source of energy, as well as geothermal. All of these sources are basically carbon free, and as petroleum becomes more scarce and costly, these "alternatives" will become economically feasible. While battery technology is the chokepoint for electric cars right now, eventually that technology will become practical and economically viable. All of these different technologies will, without exception, be enhanced by capacitive energy capture and reapplication, almost without exception, which is why my focus has been on that part of the total systematic application of carbon free energy sources. It may be at some time in the future we actually go in the opposite direction and atmospheric carbon levels drop, expecially if we can economically create liquid fuels using atmospheric carbon. The demise of the petroleum power vehicle will be a gradual process that takes many decades to complete, but it will happen but probably not in most of our lifetimes. To force the issue with draconian regulations that destroy economic prosperity will only prolong the evolution of transportation. Ignorance and Agendas are both mutually dangerous. regards Mech |
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ETA: In fact, that person apparently DOES own a Ferrari, too. |
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...of course, there wouldn't be enough oxygen left in the atmosphere to allow the combustion of all that gasoline & diesel fuel (wink,wink). |
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The science behind the idea is sound.
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It all comes down to options. As in the video someone posted about the actor Ed Bagley Jr., the actor gives a good answer - multiple renewable sources will be needed, not just a single silver bullet. |
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Somebody here mentioned aluminum and copper as "rare earth metals", for instance (I'll quote, this time, so that the quotation doesn't mysteriously disappear) Quote:
And what about motors? The EV motor approaches 90% efficiency, true. But that has to rely on a power plant which will typically get about 35% efficiency from burning petroleum. Oh, and let's count the distribution grid, which will zap out another 5%. Charging? Say buh-bye to another 10%. All of a sudden, EVs aren't that much more efficient than ICEs. |
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Renewable sources will depend on where, who, what and how much. Hydro IS limited, due to ecological, economic and etceteric concerns, and what we have already tapped is probably what we will still be tapping thirty years from now (as long as the reservoirs haven't silted up). Solar is getting cheaper, but supply and the ability to create large scale solar is not there, not quite yet. And Solar panels don't last forever. About 30-35 years at decent efficiency. Wind has myriad problems. Wave power we've been fiddling with for decades, but it is proving nearly as troublesome as wind. Geothermal... ooh. I like geothermal. But it's limited in scope.
Not that we should stop pursuing these, but EROEI and plain $RO$I for these different types of plants should also be considered. So far, hydroelectric is the best, but it is difficult to implement in the face of the need to create more great reservoirs to power it. I like electric. I hope we can approach a point where most of our inner-city transport is electric. (levelling out the pollution, yeah). But tomorrow's fleet will have to be an eclectic mix to service our civilization. And, in the end, as the article stated, the more important matter may be changing that civilization in order to minimize the need for personal mechanical transportation, in the first place. Something which I wholeheartedly agree with. |
I like electric too. The electric engine is at least 3 times as efficient as the ICE, while gas production is less than 3 times as efficient as electricity production; way less in fact. It is that simple. Going full cycle it is better even if you power the electricity plants with crude oil.
Production capacity and storage are the real problems, and there is where the ICE wins hands down. If only we could combine the two, maybe make the car generate electricity under braking or when the load is too light on the ICE to run efficiently; and store that in a relatively small battery, to aid acceleration or be able to drive slow on just electricity. It would use less gas than an ICE on its own and not use the grid at all. I must be dreaming... |
If electricity is more inefficient than gasoline, why is it several times cheaper per mile?
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