Plug-in cars are not necessarily greener than conventional cars

[NachtRitter]

Hmmm... I may have misunderstood the point that the OP was trying to make. It sounded like the OP was saying that the Plugin Hybrid EV generated more GreenHouse Gasses (GHGs) than a conventional ICE vehicle. However, that wasn't what I got out of the linked article. Instead, the linked article seemed to be saying that PHEVs would only marginally reduce the life cycle GreenHouse Gasses (GHGs) when compared to non-Plugin HEVs.

When charging PHEVs with electricity that has a GHG intensity equal to or greater than our current system, our results indicate that PHEVs would considerably reduce gasoline consumption but only marginally reduce life cycle GHGs, when compared to gasoline–electric hybrids or other fuel-efficient engine technologies. With a low-carbon electricity system, however, plug-in hybrids could substantially reduce GHGs as well as oil dependence.

...With the slow rate of capital turnover in the electricity sector, a low-carbon system may require many years to materialize. Considerable reductions in greenhouse gas emissions using plug-in hybrids in the coming decades will likely require decisions within the next ten years to develop a robust low-carbon electricity supply.

That seems to make sense... the PHEV is not going to have a significant impact on GHGs compared to HEVs unless the source of electricity is low carbon.

Summary of the findings in graphical form below. Interesting to see how much E85 improves GHGs on a conventional ICE.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by captainslug

No, no it's not. At least not in the causation chain that is commonly suggested. The temperature records do not in any way show a causation between industrialization, global CO2 emissions, and temperatures records.

You're flat-out wrong about that. Part of the problem is that you're looking at it backwards, seeking evidence of warming and trying to correlate that to CO2. (Or not, as the case may be :-)) The science works the other way around, though: we know (because it's been measured & computed in umpteen different ways) what adding CO2 to the atmosphere will do. If we keep on doing it until the effects are undeniable, it will be too late to stop, and we'll all be in trouble.

For a simple analogy, say you've got your home furnace on a timer, so that it runs 12 hours a day and keeps your house at a comfortable temperature. Then you add a layer of insulation to the roof: don't you suppose the house is going to get warmer? Do you have to wait around until it gets uncomfortably warm before you think you have "proof"?

[Big Dave]

Where on earth did you hear power plants are 50% efficient? The best of the gas turbine combined cycle plants are 43% efficient. To get 50% you'd need a Carnot engine - which nobody has ever figured out how to make. Most simple Rankine-cycle plant are about 37% efficient.

Transmission efficencies decrease with distance, but generally vary between 15% and 40%.

Here in Indiana, an electric car is a coal-fueled car as our electricity portfolio is 98% coal.

If you believe the Global Warming thing you must offer people a workable alternative and right now the only workable large-scale zero carbon alternative is nuclear. If you believe in the Global Warming thing the only feasible response is to build and commission thirty new nukes each year for the next forty years.

[captainslug]

Originally Posted by cfg83

Hmmm, I wouldn't call it "high-impact land-clearing". I think Coyote X was referring to "strip mining". Also, that doesn't sound true to what you wrote earlier :

And my previous statement was talking about the power plants themselves, not coal mines.
Coal is used for more than just fuel. The same is true with petroleum.

Originally Posted by aerohead

and there is no climatologist or head of state who would today argue against its reality,and its association to anthropogenic CO2.

The scientific community does not function on consensus. Theories require testing with a published methodology, and the results of the test have to be interpreted. Science is about testing and retesting. Not about arbitrarily deciding what is right or wrong.

There are PLENTY of scientists that disagree. Which is good considering it was only a handful that decided for the world that Global Warming was "a reality".
.: U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works :: Minority Page :.
http://www.dailytech.com/Sea+Ice+End...ticle13834.htm

There's a prevalence towards fear-mongering and poorly conducted research that does nothing to increase understanding of climate science.

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Do you have to wait around until it gets uncomfortably warm before you think you have "proof"?

No, but you would have to be measuring more variables than simply atmospheric temperatures and you would need to measure over a wider period of time.
While CO2 levels have increased between 1960 and 2005, we can't say with any certainty that we're the cause, because forests have also been increasing in size in the past 150 years.

Ocean temperatures disagree with atmospheric temperature records. But at the same time the acidity levels of the oceans has been increasing. And magnetic pole is shifting. And sun spot and solar wind activity have been increasing.
And cloud coverage percentages have a much more direct impact on global surface temperatures than greenhouse effects.

Global Warming is an oversimplification of what is a much more fascinatingly complicated system. While the greenhouse effect is real, there's presently no real certainty as to how directly anthropogenic CO2 production affects climate change over time.

Am I saying pollution is good? No.
I'm just not inclined to believe that the Global Ecosystem is so incredibly delicate that everything that happens within it is somehow our fault. It's wiped out entire populations without our intervention in the past, and is capable of doing so on it's own. It's adaptive and an extra few degrees won't bring the whole system crashing to a halt.

The world didn't end during the Holocene period. Nor did it end during the little ice age.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by captainslug

While CO2 levels have increased between 1960 and 2005, we can't say with any certainty that we're the cause, because forests have also been increasing in size in the past 150 years.

Where the heck do you get this BS? There are many threads of evidence that prove beyond any shadow of doubt that the excess CO2 comes from fossil fuels. Some of them, such as isotope ratios, take a little science to understand, but the simplest one just takes basic math and a little web searching. You can quite easily find figures for the amount of coal & oil extracted over the last century, Figure out how much CO2 burning them creates, and how much that would increase atmospheric CO2 concentration. Then compare your number to the actual measured increase.

As for that baloney about forests increasing, I think that- if you're being honest - you're confusing a small, localized increase in the northeastern US (due to changing population patterns as people moved west) with the entire world, which as a whole is undergoing severe, ongoing deforestation.

Ocean temperatures disagree with atmospheric temperature records. But at the same time the acidity levels of the oceans has been increasing. And magnetic pole is shifting. And sun spot and solar wind activity have been increasing.
And cloud coverage percentages have a much more direct impact on global surface temperatures than greenhouse effects.

Most of those either have no effect, or one too small to measure, but in any case they're irrelevant: their effects will only add or subtract a tiny bit from the effect of CO2. It's rather like asking whether the geese that brought down that airliner had fleas or not, and then claiming that the fleas were really responsible.

Global Warming is an oversimplification of what is a much more fascinatingly complicated system. While the greenhouse effect is real, there's presently no real certainty as to how directly anthropogenic CO2 production affects climate change over time.

Depends on what you mean by certainty. Send a boulder bouncing down the side of a mountain: it's not certain where it's going to land, whether it'll set off a landslide, or how big the slide might be, but it's damned sure not going to roll uphill. All the anti-AGW arguments amount to various ways of claiming that the boulder's not going to roll, or if it does, it's going to roll uphill.

[captainslug]

Global severe deforestation? Nope. Only the countries that are undergoing land-clearing have recorded high losses of forestation in the past 10 years.
http://ifs.nic.in/rt/misc/fwstats04/table16.pdf
The United States and Canada have more forest land than they did 150 years ago. Partly because of Theodore Roosevelt and the Park service, but also because the logging industry at the same time shifted to tree farming instead of clearing natural forests.
Today, none of the wood or paper products you buy are made from natural forestation. They're made entirely from trees grown specifically for producing wood products.

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Most of those either have no effect, or one too small to measure

Really? Volcanoes worldwide have and continue to have the power to directly alter cloud coverage percentages. In 1883 the Krakatoa eruption was large enough to directly alter global average temperatures by just over 1C.
Volcanic winter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
And historically, solar activity directly tracks with global temperature averages.
Has man caused climate change? - physicsworld.com

The vast bulk of Global Warming research I've seen in the past 4 years has worked very hard to hinge itself on only one or two variables, while ignoring the contributions of everything that goes into the system. No individual factor is all-powerful. You have to view them as a combined whole.
Not all of the research is hooey. But many climatologists have complained that a great deal of climate research has been left on the wayside because only research that includes "Global Warming" or "Climate Change" in it will get funding.

40 years ago the scientific "consensus" was that we were slipping into an Ice Age. And that was the prevailing politically popular opinion then.

If you want to paint me as a pariah or a luddite, fine. That's what's happening in the scientific community right now. What I want to make clear is that it's not practical or even sensible to assume that THE WHOLE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY unanimously agrees with such a young and inadequately tested theory.

All I'm guilty of is having a subscription to NewScientist, which has had many articles discussing both the merits and demerits of modern global climatology.

For your consideration

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onDbT...8B0F7&index=54

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by captainslug

Global severe deforestation? Nope. Only the countries that are undergoing land-clearing have recorded high losses of forestation in the past 10 years.

And what percentage of the planet is that? Most of it, excepting small parts of the US and Europe.

The United States and Canada have more forest land than they did 150 years ago.

This is an example of cherry-picking, taking two selected data points, drawing a line through them, and calling it a trend. You pick the starting point 150 years ago, when most of the Northeast had been deforested, and claim that the increase since represents the growing forests. Why not start from a century or two earlier, before all the forests were cut down?

Today, none of the wood or paper products you buy are made from natural forestation. They're made entirely from trees grown specifically for producing wood products.

This is a flat-out lie. Any summer you're in this area (the Sierra Nevada), I can take you out and find some ongoing logging operations in natural forests. And if it were true, I'd hardly think that converting the county into tree farms counts for much. It will take many centuries to get some of the previously-logged areas, such as the upper midwest (Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, etc) back to something resembling their natural state, even though some parts now have scrub growth replacing original forest.

Volcanoes worldwide have and continue to have the power to directly alter cloud coverage percentages. In 1883 the Krakatoa eruption was large enough to directly alter global average temperatures by just over 1C.

And who said otherwise? But two things you need to remember about volcanos. First, they're pretty hard to overlook, so we'd know if one or more affected climate. (And their effects are predictable: see for instance climate model predictions of the effects of the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo.) Second, their effect are transient on the timescale of climate. A major eruption can change things for a year or two, then the dust & sulfates settle out, and things go back to normal.

40 years ago the scientific "consensus" was that we were slipping into an Ice Age. And that was the prevailing politically popular opinion then.

Another lie. As has been pointed out many times, there was one scientific paper (soon refuted) that raised the possibility, and a few scare-type articles in the popular press as a result. Nowhere near either a scientific consensus or a prevalent popular opinion - and I was there at the time :-)

[bbbunting]

NEW BOOK PRESS RELEASE

In the 1960s the U.S. Congress created the Department of Transportation (DOT), with authority to control many aspects of the transportation. One of the new Department's first acts was to develop legislation supporting urban transport. But basic problems remained, and indeed grew faster than the population, and faster than the gross national product. More families became multi-car families, driving more trips each, and less alternative transports were available to greater portions of our population.
President Clinton, to improve urban travel, agreed in 1991 to support $-billions for yet another program of development. His introduction of funding of magnetically-propelled transport systems came at a time when it had become apparent that further development of the road-only traffic systems would lead to catastrophic climatic damages, as well as increasing world land use, with its accompanying social disruption.
The test center in Pueblo, Colorado set out to develop a vehicular system that made use of magnetism. The system made use of magnetically elevated mass-transit vehicles. But they were then propelled by mighty aircraft-like IC. engines! Other work produced wheel-less vehicles that maintained a separation from the road with an air cushion. All these developments were taken into use, providing mass-transits that left the internal engine supreme for the car.
The pollution problem continued unabated.
By the start of the 21st century, another problem of global proportions was gaining public attention, caused by the emanation of sundry pollutants into the atmosphere and commonly named Global warming.
As the third world develops, and scramble to join the automobile rat-race, the damage done universally to the Earth has dramatically increased. Probably the major source of the damage today is atmospheric reflection, Global warming, more accurately, Global Climate Change.
Making some use of the upper limits has become (relatively) simple with photovoltaic generation of electrical power. And because the Linear motor – the work-horse of the Amcar system – drives vehicles using direct current electrical power, this system is intrinsically more efficient than AC uses of the power generated from solar sources (about 30% more efficient). Global leaders called for a variety of half-measures including the ‘carbon tax,’ but
The pollution problem continued, unabated.
Not only do present cars release greenhouse gases, but the dust from tires, typically hydrocarbon and silica pollutants, remain in the lower atmosphere for indefinite periods.
Other health-related problems, of carcinogens and agricultural losses are also improved by Amcars. This system eliminates them as it is a wheel-less vehicle, taking the Linear Motor from its common use on the factory floor. Amcars offer a different practical use for it, as the ‘Guideway.’ A second patent from the 1920s, the ‘Merger,’ allows the wheel-less vehicles to glide smoothly from their course on one Guideway to another, use electro-magnetism to speed their vehicle on. Riders can choose their path, time and destination.
Finally, with developments in major solar power, of up to 6kWh/square meter/hour, from Photovoltaics of the end of the 20th Century, the whole system can be powered by renewable energy. Amcars requires no roads, very little carbon fuels and works best when the vehicles are not quickly obsolescent. Read ‘The Power Play to End the Car.’[ISBN 978-1-60693-139-4]

[Big Dave]

Paraphrasing the poet.

KTUU.com | Alaska's news and information source | Gore ice sculpture unveiled in Fairbanks

I met a traveler from a frozen land,
Who said: Two vast and trunkless carbon legs
Stand in a glacier. Near them, on the snow,
Half sunk, a shatter visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Al Gore, Warmer of Warmers;
Look on my works Ye Mighty and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level snows stretch far away.

My apologies to Shelley for haggling his iambic pentameter but the opportunity was too delicious.

[Christ]

I'm pretty sure I watched that episode when it was on showtime (right channel?)

Oddly enough, I just watched all three clips of it... (it was an hour long show, with about 29 minutes of footage.. damn commercials.)

While I agree with several points in the show there are other things that I don't necessarily agree with. One of which is that recycling is worthless... what they're actually saying there is that MASS recycling is worthless. That might be true, and I'm not prepared to test the validity of the claims against anything else.

What is not "bull ****", as they so eloquently put it (several times), is that PERSONAL recycling actually does save money. If you're recycling things on your own, not using a mass recycling agency to do it for you, you are saving money which would otherwise be spent on those same things. This is the EXACT reason I've mostly limited my pet thread to techniques for the re-use of every day items.

As far as you guys arguing back and forth - the world is going to end in 2012 anyway... why bother wasting the average 2 minutes to post each time?