Let's be fair on the high-mileage EVs

[tasdrouille]

I don't think I've seen someone mention the impact of getting the oil out of the ground in the first place. With wells it might not be all that significant, but tar sands in Canada are extremely dirty sources of oil, lots of CO2 emissions and huge amounts of fresh water are used in the process.

Here over 90% of our power is hydro, so the EV easily wins.

[theunchosen]

Originally Posted by tasdrouille

I don't think I've seen someone mention the impact of getting the oil out of the ground in the first place. With wells it might not be all that significant, but tar sands in Canada are extremely dirty sources of oil, lots of CO2 emissions and huge amounts of fresh water are used in the process.

Here over 90% of our power is hydro, so the EV easily wins.

Mm good point tas. I hadn't really thought of it because most of our sources are pretty. . .convenient. Offshore wells are at high pressure and allowing them to relieve themselves saves some pumping losses. But in the long run its definitely easier to pump water than it is to haul solids. solids have to be brought to the lift whereas fluids will follow the flow to the pump.

I think ignoring the coal delivery to help power 50% of our grid is pretty even with the well drilling to get the oil up.

In my area its heavily hydro as well so its moot here, back home there is more nuclear than most of the united states so its moot there as well.

[dcb]

Jim, some things you may not be considering:

Small car engines heat up and cool down every day, multiplied by millions. I take this as self evident. Powerplants do not.

Petrol has to be shipped, and occasionally guarded, and craked, etc. I've never heard of a coal train (or the sun) being pirated.

We cannot compare the current status of the grid with the future possibilities of ICEs. There have been improvements in grid technology too (i.e. HVDC).

Also you are comparing the fuel in a prius tank to a powerplant, ignoring the most painful "and stupid" parts of the ICE equation.

And trebuchet did give us a breakdown which had coal at 50%, natural gas %20, nukes %20, and ~%10 renewable. so while half the electrons are %33 efficient (from a simplistic viewpoint), %10 are infinitely efficient (more if you are the type to put nuclear in the mix, but lets not).

Less color words and more facts please. Lets keep it apples to oranges and not apples to juicy peeled and skinned sections of an orange arranged nicely on a plate with maybe a little powdered sugar sprinkled on them

P.S.

Originally Posted by Jim Bullis

There are many who are saying the Hummer or Fisker or the Bright van gets 100 MPG where they are simply ignoring the electric energy part.

I don't agree with those people either. Electricity (energy) aint free, at least not these days. I don't even like ignoring block heaters.

[theunchosen]

should use a heat pump for a block heater. . . 2x more efficient than joule heating but you can't get as hot.

I bet ryland can get further than 45 miles on 33 kwhrs. In which case he is more FE than my del sol measured from the car alone. chain included he easily gets 3x what I get.

I'm sticking with the idea of allowing electric an additional(or substitutional measure of miles/KWhr) because everyone here can understand those numbers and they are easily comparable to mpg.

Jim, you can't decide to punish EVs because ICEs do something stupid(combustion event is efficiently stupid, but its the best thing we have ATM). You can't just arbitrarily throw away half the electrical energy because its not converting to heat and using it, just the same as it would be unfair to say that gasoline created movement has to be run through an alternator and then run electric motors. electric motors are 80% fuel efficient which dominates 30-33% efficiency of the BEST gas-ICErs.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by bennelson

Neither wind generators nor solar panels are heat engines.

Nor are hydroelectric generators. Nuclear, geothermal, and solar thermal are heat engines, but don't generate any CO2.

And the person who pays an extra $10K for the batteries in a plug-in Prius could also spend a few thousand more for his own solar panels, and still be spending only about as much as he'd spend on a similar-sized BMW or Lexus.

[Jim Bullis]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Nor are hydroelectric generators. Nuclear, geothermal, and solar thermal are heat engines, but don't generate any CO2.

And the person who pays an extra $10K for the batteries in a plug-in Prius could also spend a few thousand more for his own solar panels, and still be spending only about as much as he'd spend on a similar-sized BMW or Lexus.

Ok, but be sure not to take a rebate. Otherwise the rest of us own the right to allocate the power. Then when you get done putting up the solar panels, stop and think. "Should I also convert my Prius?"

I think these are separate decisions. If the rest of us get to allocate the power you produce during the day, we will use it to cut out natural gas use in peaking plants that handle the hot afternoon load peaks, when the sun is hot. Then the night time loads will be filled by cranking up the coal plants, which are in general the cheapest way to meet the load.

Maybe this is why the utilities sometimes offer night time charging rate discounts, which they can afford to do if the power comes from coal. Otherwise, they have to get their money back using government rules that all them to charge the rest of us extra.

[trebuchet03]

Originally Posted by Jim Bullis

I think these are separate decisions. If the rest of us get to allocate the power you produce during the day, we will use it to cut out natural gas use in peaking plants that handle the hot afternoon load peaks, when the sun is hot. Then the night time loads will be filled by cranking up the coal plants, which are in general the cheapest way to meet the load.

I see no problem with that... peaker plants have terribly low efficiency - it's too expensive to build a plant that gets high efficiency with a relatively low up time ratio. Besides, night time base loads are generally turning off the peakers, and turning down the base load plants

It'd be better to take the rebate - use the power when you need it, sell back whatever you don't use to benefit all... For me, that's a no brainier

Maybe this is why the utilities sometimes offer night time charging rate discounts, which they can afford to do if the power comes from coal. Otherwise, they have to get their money back using government rules that all them to charge the rest of us extra.

I see it the other way around... The night time rate is the base rate, the day time rate is more of a premium penalty due to high demand (necessitating less efficient power generation)...

-----
Someone mentioned energy consumed in refining... Here's that data

U.S. Fuel Consumed at Refineries

[theunchosen]

Everyone.

You are getting lulled in to another OT argument not relevant to this discussion in any fashion.

EV is more CO2 and energy efficient chain-included and looking strictly at whats in the tank and batteries.

I'll say that again. EV is more efficient period. Even if all the electricity came from Coal its still more CO2 and electricity efficient, period.

Arguing its better because you run solar is moot. Better is better period. If it starts off better as long as you don't power it using a home-made crappy coal-fired generator it will never not be better.

Anyone and everyone can ignore that as much as you like. If I convert a prius or an insight to EV I save CO2 and energy and money on fuel, if I then jump and make my own home power system from wind and solar then comparison is nothing short of meaningless. Sure you can compare somewhat expensive, somewhat CO2 laden fuel chains, and inefficient processes to "free"(legacy), CO2 free, and efficient processes. . .but Mathematicians will tell you comparing any finite number to an infinite one is pretty asinine.

[elhigh]

Originally Posted by theunchosen

I bet ryland can get further than 45 miles on 33 kwhrs. In which case he is more FE than my del sol measured from the car alone. chain included he easily gets 3x what I get.

I don't remember where I read it but it was about ten years ago that I first saw someone had covered a mile on less than 100Wh. I think it may have been a solar racer, so it's pretty tough to compare that to the shadetree conversion. I can't remember how fast the vehicle was going either, so it might have been going at Warp Factor Mosey. But still, that's not bad. Now scale it up and add some speed!

[theunchosen]

thanks for reminding me elhigh, I meant to look up Ryland's numbers because he posted them in post like 6.

Ryland gets 3-4 miles per kwhr. . .so. . .99 mpg equivalent in his batteries compared to my pretty good 45. . .Then if you wanna talk chain efficiency I'm only getting about a 4% efficient chain while he is getting about 15% efficient or better(CO2 the ratio is more scaled to electric because refining produces vast amounts of CO2 and other things and it requires electricity from the grid).

So if you want to include chain Ryland is actually pulling closer to 300 mpg to my 45(assuming gas is the 1 baseline everything gets compared to) in energy efficiency and CO2 efficiency.