Ieee Article: Electric Cars Unclean at any Speed?

That's the key. The grid can and will become cleaner. There is no other place to go. While there is no question that EVs are only as clean as the electricity generation, there is now the option to pick the source of electricity, including your own rooftop. When it comes to gas, how does one pick a fossil fuel free gas station?

 

The problem is that to have a fair study you have to take absolutely every last variable to the process or it completely skews the entire study and provides bad results. Its nearly impossible to find a study that takes all factors into account for electric generation vs oil and combustion.

For example, does the coal production have filters dubbed 'clean coal' that captures a significant portion of the CO2? Is it primarily hydroelectric or renewable? Do they take into account most coal is transported by train and ship, far more efficient than the mass trucking industry that has to push oil around to local filling stations.

One of electric's biggest efficiencies is that the transmission system is static. Once the infrastructure is built, you don't have to rebuild it often. How often do you see large transmission lines have to be replaced? Not often. If we built out electric infrastructure with fast charging stations nationwide, once its done you have the infrastructure in place to where you don't have to truck the energy on a daily basis to little stations dotting the landscape, you just plug in wherever you are. Your car essentially replaces that transport need.

Coal is a dirty fuel, I'm not a fan of it, but its slightly cleaner than oil. And it doesn't have to be shipped as far. Much of the oil we use is shipped in from the Middle East and Africa. Huge proportions, not just a tiny amount. How much carbon is being burned to ship it from ports in the Persian Gulf or Africa? How much carbon is being used to refine it? How much carbon is being used in the diesel trucks that burn so much oil just getting oil from the depot to the local gas station? Gasoline is so inefficient its not funny.

Every single diesel burning truck that transports gasoline and diesel products to the station is like having to rebuild an electric transmission line on a daily basis. This is a NO BRAINER and it is a huge carbon cost to gasoline that is never implemented in these "studies".

This is virtually never taken into account in these studies, or if they try the numbers get skewed (i.e. they pretend all generation is coal based and ignore the reality that the grid can certainly be cleaned up and improved, and that some areas rely almost entirely on hydro as opposed to coal).

Its kind of sad seeing so many "studies" pretend to be based on science, when they are really not scientific, they're just opinions wrapped in datasets that are half complete.

Sure, electric technology isn't suitable for construction trucks and large transport (unless you are talking about DMU trains that are electric with diesel generators), but for 90%+ of daily commutes, where most carbon is burned, electric technology is far, far more suitable than gasoline or a dreaded conversion to natural gas, which is just trading one fossil fuel for another fossil fuel that will eventually run out.

 

I like the general post, but I don't know of anything other than a handful of experimental test facilities trying to capture and sequester CO2. Is that what you are referring to?

 

^I'm not into coal, I don't think its an industry that we should focus on for electric generation growth, but there is potential to clean up the production we do have and will continue to rely on through new technologies. I don't consider coal clean, but on the totem pole its cleaner than oil. Mostly because its easier to capture and sequester the harmful gases and substances that burn at the factory, even if its not being done at present.

I'm not aware of many coal generation plants that implement "clean coal" technologies, so the point almost gets useless. Why invest into cleaner coal plants (it does cost a tremendous amount to upgrade those old plants) when you can just build out solar, wind, geothermal, hydro, and other technologies?

I am really only making the point that coal - as bad as it is - is better than oil when it comes to carbon emissions if you use newer technology. I'm not defending or advocating the increased use of coal.

In terms of electricity's potential, most people think natural gas or burning some fossil fuel is required in colder climates, but it simply isn't the case. Quebec has huge hydro programs, I've toured some Hydro Quebec facilities. The province gets almost all of its generation from green hydroelectric generation because northern Quebec has a lot of water and a lot of generation potential.

Quebec's climate in the winter is bitter cold, but do you know how most homes are heated in Montreal or Quebec City? Electric heat elements burning clean hydro energy. They don't use natural gas or other means by majority. They still have enough excess power to export to Massachusetts (there is a huge Hydro Quebec transmission line that goes from the Radisson, QC generation plant near the 54th parallel along the La Grande River all the way down across the border to Boston, some 800+ miles to the southeast). This method works great in a climate where January high temperatures could be 20F, and the evening lows near 0F for days or even weeks on end.

There's a lot about electric generation that people don't realize, a lot of potential for clean transport. We need to start building solar farms in Arizona for export to other markets hundreds or even thousands of miles away.

I'm using Quebec as a model since its a large province, and it has probably the cleanest grid in North America as its almost entirely carbon neutral, and they make enough of it to export. These were decisions made many decades ago to build out the infrastructure, just like America could build out solar in Arizona and the southwestern US and transmit it elsewhere.

 

Volt is not an EV. It is a PHEV. That makes GM not really in EV leadership/community (Spark not available yet), Toyota (RAV4EV), Nissan (Leaf) and Tesla are.

 

If you mean BEV, a pure battery electric vehicle, then I would agree volt is not a BEV.

Using the proposed H1715 SAE terminology
Volt is EREV isa PHEV isa HEV isa EV.. Even if you don't like the EREV Term, a PHEV is still an EV..

As an EREV the volt drives primarily on EV until its battery is depleted then it drives as a hybrid. It has all the elements of a BEV's drive train and battery plus the engine.


GM has sold 42990 Volts in the US, which is more than the combined 27329 Nissan Leafs and Tesla 11500 ModelS and about 600 Rav4EVs. (And in the last week of June they sold 27 sparks EVs).

Volts have logged more than 213,353,000 EV miles in the US which is likely more than Leaf, ModelS and The Tesla/Toyota Rav4EV combined. Various analyses have found that despite the lower overall EV range Volt owners average more EV miles per day than Leaf owners.

Volts sold in the US total about 698,631 kWh of Batteries with no reported problems
Compare that with the Nissan Leaf which has deployed 655,896 kWh of batteries, and had problem in hot climates (AZ, CA, TZ), largely because they did not include a thermal management system.

With respect to this weak IEEE magazine (not technical) article, which is about Electricity based propulsion, I'll stand by my statement that the Volt is an EV and GM is a market leader. More to the point, the article was not BY GM or anyone recently associated with GM.

 

So Prius is a EV?

 

Absolutely. No pole intended.

 

While purists may so no, the SAE say yes.
The Prius is an HEV isa EV. Toyota has lots of experience in electrified vehicle.

It has the issues of battery management, electric motors etc of any EV.
It does not provide much pure EV driving experience, and it does not offer a shift of energy sources, just using EV to improve efficiency, so some purists like to say its not EV (by which they really mean BEV. I guess they want to seem special in their on frame of reference).

The prius is not a PHEV (though the PiP is), so with respect to the article its not related to grid energy.

The whole "battery fires" was just a witch hunt by any volt politicians and GM provided the enhancements more for its customers piece of mind than anything else. They had to crash multiple batteries, and not properly discharge them, to get the problem to show up. No real world fires/problems.

 

I was not going against SAE definition, just clarifying.
Plug-in share (includes BEV and PHEV) does have Volt leading in US sales...But not EV share.

 

I stand corrected, Volt is leading plug-in sales. We can only hope that in a few years plug-ins can approach the impressive sales of the prius family. (Ideally by owners buying renewable energy).
GM is still probably in top 3 manufactures for overall EVs, including HEVs, maybe even #2 (maybe I'll compute that some day).

 

One thing not mentioned is an EV displaces whatever 'pollution' it makes to the manufacturing and power generation sites. This improves the local climate of the owners and lets experts handle the point-source problem(s).

Bob Wilson

 

This article is COMPLETE B.S.

I love how the trolls out there -who obviously have an anti-EV agenda- always portray EVs and Hybrids in "environmental" terms.

And unfortunately, those of us who are pro-EV/Hybrid always take the bait and go on the defensive. WE NEED TO WAKE UP.

How many times was the word OPEC mentioned? NOT ONCE. Trade deficit? Nope. National Security? Don't think so. American-made energy? Nada. Any stats on exactly how much oil we import, vs. how much electricity we import (hint, its >1%)? How many troops died and dollars spent in Iraq? Well......I think you get the picture here.

I implore all readers here at Priuschat.com to stop letting the anti-EV crowd FRAME THE DEBATE.
EV adoption is about MUCH, MUCH more than being "green".

And bout that - just because EVs are not "perfect" for the environment doesn't mean they aren't better than the current gas/diesel paradigm.......as others have mentioned, EVs get cleaner as the grid improves, while ICE cars typically get dirtier as they age.

 

It is also practice for when our co-workers or neighbors or the jerk at the store tries to 'ditto-head' the same nonsense. As we discuss the flaws, we gain vocabulary, having a ready answer at hand.

"Oh yea, I heard about that totally bogus report. We know . . . <insert favorite PriusChat rejoinder.>"

This accomplishes:

1. The person you are speaking with suddenly realizes Prius folks are 'brighter than the average bear.'
2. Causes them to doubt their source (no not really the anti-hybrid folks live in their own reality bubble.)

Bob Wilson

 

I went into what I said about electric generation because we haven't even tapped the surface of what is possible in the field of clean electric energy. And I wanted to make the statement about heating in a winter climate because so many people think electricity isn't suitable for certain purposes, when it absolutely is, and its efficient to use it for those purposes.

As others here have said, the problem with the anti-EV movement is that they try and paint an impossible picture. They pretend that EV's are being advertised to have no environmental impact, but that is impossible. The argument always has been that EV's produce LESS environmental impact. And they can provide significantly less impact when energy sources are renewable. You simply cannot get more green than absorbing solar energy and wind energy, then transporting that into vehicles through a static transmission system (as electricity has) where you absorb the energy in your home or at an office or store (or wherever you go) instead of having to truck energy to a silly gas station. Gasoline doesn't travel at the speed of light through static pipelines to the pump at your gas station or a virtual pump in your garage.

Batteries are recyclable, batteries are not constant mining and extraction of fossil fuel resources. They are mining, extracting, and manufacturing during a one time process that lasts hundreds of thousands of miles before you have to recycle the material.

The pro-fossil fuel arguments are empty.

 

Don't forget that when we import electric generation, its most likely from Canada, and they have a lot of green energy potential through hydro projects since so much of the world freshwater supply is located in Canada. I think they have over a quarter of the world's freshwater supply if my memory serves correct.

 

I tend to agree with the spirit of Zehner's article.
Couple of glaring mistakes in his article:
(1) WV stopped their crazy $7500 state tax credit on 4/15/2013 (and even flex fuel vehicles got it)
(2) He says Plug_ins are expensive, but a $200/month lease is cheap wheels, so the statement is just not true

To me, Congress and Pres. Bush at first subsidized Plug_ins due to bi-partisan fears about running out of petroleum from reliable sources. Pres. Obama later expanded the program as part of the stimulus package to create jobs and to "go green". Meanwhile the original justification (bi-partisan fear of running out of oil) has weakened considerably with advent of fracking and much more oil & gas found in North and South America. That leaves us with "create jobs" and "go green" as the not-quite-so-bipartisan rationale.

I feel it is best to view Plug_ins as fuel switching technology, not cleaner technology.

 

Well said.

The tar sands oil has also diluted the anti-OPEC argument of EV advocates. Well, at least for those who do not understand that international oil is a fungible market.

 

That's not quite accurate....when you say "fears about running out of petroleum from reliable sources", this goes against what SageBrush said next -which is true- that oil is a completely fungible commodity. In other words, oil is priced on the global market, so it does not matter whether it's drilled in Texas or Turkmenistan (with marginal exceptions for oil quality, transport costs and refinery capabilities)
But by and large, the main driver of oil price is TOTAL supply and TOTAL demand, globally.

The Bushies were quite concerned with Peak Oil - which has nothing to do with "running out".....I will define it below. But we know that during Dick Cheney's summer 2001 energy task force, he mentioned that China and India were about to reach per-capita incomes where car-buying takes off, within a decade. He asked "Where is all that oil going to come from?" Clearly, Iraq, with its vast undeveloped resources, was on their mind even before 9/11. But the questioning was valid.....someone - it didn't matter if it was Iran, Iraq, Canada, Russia or even us - would have to step up production.....Iraq just 'happened' to be the best candidate.
Yes, that was before the fracking revolution, but it doesn't matter who is producing, just as long as there is enough oil to go around to satisfy global demand (China and India) without causing Americans major pain at the pump.
When Obama came along, we had just witnessed $147 oil, and the economy was in the tank, which is the only reason the oil prices later fell. Peak Oil fears haven't gone away though, (OPEC would love to be able to get $147 today, but knows that would put us back in recession...the dope dealer only wants to push as much onto his 'customer' without killing him). Obama may have put a "green sheen" on the EV debate, but the powers-that-be (Big Oil, Wall St.) are still concerned about Peak Oil (even though they may not say so). It is no coincidence the EV1 was "killed" back when oil was $10 but that the Volt is "allowed" now that we're at $100.

Peak Oil is the maximum point in global oil production, after which it enters terminal decline. We've been at a 'plateau' since about 2004-5. There exists some maximum price that buyers of oil are willing & able to pay....beyond which they are forced to cut back and the economy enters recession. Right now, the limit is probably around $125/bbl. The problem is that all this fracked tight oil coming online is not enough to offset depletion of older giant fields (Alaska's Prudhoe, Mexico's Cantarell, North Sea, etc.). So the fracking can't save us because if we want to frack enough oil to replace those dying giants, it would require super-high prices ($200/bbl), and that means recession. So, we're pretty much at or near the peak now, stuck between a slow-growing economy with sky-high oil prices, or a deep, global recession with low oil prices. The ONLY way out is more efficient oil use (EVs, etc.). Otherwise, Big Oil will be only be too happy to suck us dry for the last drop of oil.

Customer: "How much is that oil going to cost me?"
Big Oil: "How much you got?"

 

The problem with the tar sands, however, is that it doesn't produce sweet light crude oil. Its a heavy, dirty, thicker oil that takes a lot of resources to mine. First of all, the carbon impact of having to dig up sand with lots of heavy machinery, truck it to a "pre-refinery" to squeeze this thick, tar like, heavy crude oil out of the sands takes a huge amount of resources and energy, and its far dirtier than any other form of extraction for oil.

After all that energy is spent "pre-refining" the oil out of the sand, this thick, tar like oil is then sent to a normal refinery by train, ship, or pipeline and refined as normal sweet crude is just by tapping and pumping it out of the ground.

We are getting to the point where we're expending so much energy on this new supply of oil in the tar sands that its questionable whether its really a net benefit. You have to spend so many carbons of diesel for powering the heavy machinery just to dig the sand mines up, then you have these huge, massive cesspools of water and chemicals left over from pre-refining the product that get into the water systems and just damage the entire ecology of northern Alberta right on into the Arctic region.

At a certain point, we have to question how much environmental damage that is worth vs throwing up solar farms in Arizona or wind farms in the plains and transferring that energy at the speed of light out to electric vehicles at convenient charging stations. Even if its "domestic," the argument isn't there to keep building out the tar sands oil patch (Canada is certainly a great friend, and a wonderful North American partner, but its not technically domestic). Its fine to keep it at similar levels to where it is now, but that is a very big debate, and its why the Keystone XL pipeline is so heated. Sure, it'd provide us with more oil, but is it really a solution to the problem, or does it really just extend the problem out as we avoid better technology?

AND, another issue the previous post brought up, oil is priced on a world market. Even though we have more supply of it, it still gets priced and traded everywhere. There is no proof the oil from Keystone XL or the Alberta oil sands will lower oil prices. I could easily see tankers being filled in Houston or British Columbia with the new pipelines being discussed, and the oil ends up in India or China. The larger supply doesn't solve the overall oil problem.

America's best policy for the future is investing into a huge electric infrastructure rebuild, something equally as impressive as if we were building a new Interstate highway system. We need a public works project that basically takes subsidy away from oil 100%, rebuilds our generation capabilities, and incorporates massive transmission systems with huge investments in renewables combined with traditional supplies. I'm not advocating a particular kind of investment over another, but in a general sense this is a better pathway over just importing more tar sands oil. There's more than enough railroad capacity to keep oil in tankers on rail from Alberta to Texas. We don't really need to invest into a Keystone XL pipeline when it just exacerbates the problem we need to move away from rather than solve anything.