Bloomberg: Electric Cars Said to `Plunder' Governments, Stifle Carbon Cuts

I think today's diesel is an excellent choice. It's clean
and gets great mileage.

The problem is, there's hardly any choice. Audi/VW offers
diesel, but nothing from Ford/GM/Chrysler. If you contrast
that with Europe, where diesels are all over the place, they
have many models to choose from. If I could bet on this,
I'd bet that a Ford Fusion with the equivalent of VW's TDI
Diesel technology would get about the same mileage as
the Fusion Hybrid, for a lot less cost.

 

Diesel mpg competes with hybrid mpg on the highway, but has 50% more CO2 production/distance on urban routes. Second, so far as I know, *no* diesel engine is as clean as the Prius, and fuel economy suffers when diesel exhaust is cleaned up.

Diesel is no panacea; and if Europe did not subsidize its use, the market would be quite different than what you currently read about.

 

As for CO2 - I don't see any stats on which would release more. You'd have to factor out the electricity used for heating lighting cooking etc - then see what % goes to EV's. THEN, you'd have the REAL arguement. Look in PC's 'Environmental' thread. Some of those folks go round and round a bout whether CO2 is increasing warming, or whether warming is at the pace it'd be anyway. Glaciers have melted off 1/2 the united states for 1,000's of years, and that's why there's a great debate. I ain't opening THAT can 'o worms.

 

http://www.eaaev.org/Flyers/eaaflyer-autoemissions.pdf

Obviously not entirely unbiased, but I think they make some good points. Coal and natural gas travel by rail and pipeline. Both are pretty efficient in the creation of electricity even if neither is "clean" energy.

 

Not likely - because the load/demand will also have changed. If the entire country switches to EV's, thereby increasing total load by 50-75% (NOT counting normal growth), there won't be enough windmills production to keep up.

Guess what will be built instead?...

 

For grins, I tried a Google translation of the original German:

Near as I can tell, they simply quoted some folks who were speaking 'off the cuff.' No real facts and data or a formal paper. The source group is just quoting others. We might as well discuss what is said at <tin-foil political group> meeting.

Bob Wilson

 

I may not be following your point. Mine is that currently, and for a long time into the future, any marginal increase in electrical demand from each EV will be met entirely with fossil fuel, approximately equal to the amount that would have been burned by an efficient petrol car like the Prius.

Electricity is the ultimate fungible resource, and so long as coal is the cheapest way to produce it, making EVs will not change the production chain. When I buy 'green', it is with conservation or increasing clean production in mind. An EV is neither.

Am I being clear ?
Does anybody dispute the argument ?

 

No disputation here, but renewables are also being added to the grid.

The problem is, if we give subsidies to EV's, and DON'T give subsidies to renewables, then we'll be adding more load on the grid than we add renewables. Therefore more coal is added to the grid to make up the difference.

If we put the horse before the cart and subsidize renewables, then they will become a larger percentage of the grid and will be able to absorb the load from EV's - and EV's will actually be clean instead of dirty.

It's not enough to simply "buy green" - where that money goes is far more important.

 

Your oil lobby at work.

 

The problem is the original article cited some Germans whose report does not include credible numbers. Too little, optimistic data was claimed without any in depth analysis. In fact, it looks like the German group simply used quotes from others without data tables or a credible analysis. There are organizations whose raison d'etra is to spread FUD.

There is a concept called "well-to-wheel" or if coal, "mine-to-wheel," which accounts for the cost of energy to achieve a given 'wheel' of service. It is thermodynamics extended from the fossil fuel to end service. Cite the reports or studies that show these energy relationships and I'll be happy to read them and comment. But that is the same problem I have with German group. In contrast and contradicting this hypothesis is this:

Alternative Fuels and Advanced Vehicles Data Center: Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle Benefits

Here we have a credible source showing a practical model, which sees PHEVs as an extension of and valuable contribution to our electrical grid.

Asked and answered with facts and data from a credible source. But one source should not be considered definitive:

Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles | Overview: Pollutants and Programs | US EPA

IEEE Spectrum: How Green Is My Plug-In?

At least IEEE Spectrum made an attempt to point out what is needed in a through analysis.

My concern is the original article cited an exceptionally weak source whose own data, in spite of the German to English translation, clearly shows the pattern of citing quotes and not a fact-based analysis. Go with caution when using such sources.

Bob Wilson

 

Germany have the same proportion of coal as the USA. They don't have large domestic natural gas supplies (imported from Russia) so increases in electricity consumption will likely be coal for the foreseeable future.

The environmental groups are looking for immediate carbon cuts. Given that EV penetration is likely to be a small part of the whole market, more efficient diesels would have a bigger immediate impact so it makes sense to direct the incentives to those.

Long term, of course, more EVs make sense.

 

plunder the government? i want one!

 

Germany plans significant changes in their mix for electricity generation by 2020. World Energy Council basically cutting coal usage by about 40% from their current 45%, or to less than 30%. I don't know if they will stick with it but they plan to phase down their nuclear power generation using Russian gas (not smart really IMO, ask Ukraine), and upping their wind power generation to 25% of the total.

As for "clean" diesel, while there is a significant savings in fuel mileage and transportation, it isn't really all that clean: HowStuffWorks "Clean Diesel Fuel Overview"

 

Yes, you are clear and I believe that you are wrong.

EVs:
1) EVs will consume most of their electricity off peak.
2) EVs will increase the production of batteries.
3) EVs are very efficient where ICE vehicles are inefficient.
4) Increased generation capacity would be more efficient.
5) Health costs are high

That is:
1) There is a significant amount of wasted off-peak generation. EVs charging off-peak would actually make generation more efficient. Beyond the waste there is such significant off-peak capacity that a significant number of EVs would be able to charge off-peak without requiring additional plants. So older plants could be substituted rather than having to have life extended.
2) The biggest problem for renewable sources is that they are intermittent. With the ability to store generated electricity the generation can be balanced and spread. With a sufficient buffer conventional power generation can be reduced since the power plants have enough time to respond. More batteries means cheaper batteries, cheaper batteries means more storage, more storage means more buffer, more buffer means less conventional generation. This can happen for home generation, local generation and larger-scale commercial generation. (I don't believe in vehicle-to-grid.).
3) ICE vehicles are inefficient for short trips and when moving slowly. The Prius, while more efficient than others, still suffers from inefficiency at startup. And while the Prius is efficient in slow moving traffic it is not as efficient as a pure EV. I also believe that there is significant potential for taxis and other urban commercial uses: high mileage uses which would dramatically cut energy use. The replacement of thousands of USPS postal vans with EVs is a great example of the potential.
4) Even if EV use becomes widespread and demands additional capacity it will not all be coal, that will depend on the locale. Even if it is coal, any new plants would be more efficient than the older plants.
5) Zero tailpipe emissions means reduced urban pollution. That should translate into a reduction in respiratory diseases and other conditions. Perhaps that's already been factored into energy calculations.

 

You did change the goalpost here. I said 20%. I doubt it ever gets much higher and certainly not within 10 years. And I don't think anyone suggests that wind power can take up the slack. Of course, geothermal, solar, nuclear, biomass, natural gas- they're all cleaner than coal. And we need to look at how to reduce our demand for electricity overall. [ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electricity_consumption]List of countries by electricity consumption - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
Of course if you look at the chart its clear air conditioning is a big issue vs. the EU for example. I assume Sweden's hydroelectric accounts for their consumption...

 

Inatm and Bob,
I'd like to restrict my discussion to the question of whether EVs cut CO2 production today, compared to a Prius; and once we have some clarity on that question, discuss whether EVs add benefit to a future cleaner energy mix.

Bob seems to skip the question of whether an EV today is running on anything but coal, and argues that coal is cleaner than petrol in a full ground to wheel analysis. I didn't find his links persuasive (I don't think he did, either); in the past I have read reports from the good folks at CalCars, and from the mucho respected Wayne Brown. I'll dig up Wayne's report later, but for now I'll suffice in saying that my recollection was that the analysis is damned hard to do, and to date one fossil fuel was not an obvious winner.

Inatm, in his bullet points, says that energy is wasted at night. If that is true, then to the extent that the EV's are charged at night, he has a winning argument. Any links to follow ? I am aware that *capacity* is underused at night, but that is different than saying that electricity was made and discharged into the night for lack of use.

His other point is that an EV is more efficient than a Prius. We have been speculating that an EV will consume 250 wh/mile on average in these forums; I think that is a fair guess. If average generation at a power plant is 36% efficient, it takes 34.7 kwh of coal to travel 50 miles -- the same as one gallon of petrol, which also has 35 kwh of energy prior to combustion. Note that I have ignored distribution, transmission, and charging costs here, although I am willing to guess those costs favor petrol.

Lastly, the point that future EV demands will not be met completely by fossil fuel misses my earlier point: ALL clean energy (and a large amount of extra fossil fuel based energy) is already consumed by the non-personal transport sectors. If we claim the clean energy for EV use, that just requires in equal amounts more dirty energy elsewhere. It will be years, if not decades, before any marginal increase in electricity demand is not 100% supplied by dirty energy. Perhaps it is clearer to say, that if the ground - wheel CO2 production is the same in an EV as a Prius, then EV use will not decrease our carbon footprint until all electricity use outside of transport is clean energy sourced.

Addendum:
http://www.memagazine.org/supparch/mepower03/gauging/gauging.html
is a well to wheel analysis starting from NG, that does not favor conversion into electricity over direct use in a ICE hybrid.

 

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TheForce has posted that he gets between 150wh/mile (flat) and 250wh/mile (hills). But he's also posted that winter operation gives a 25% drop in performance. Then batteries will decline over several years by 20%, according to Nissan. Calculation of an average is left as an exercise for the reader. That could put things close, but I think that the initial EV usage profile would tip things in favor of the EV. Commercial EV would be particularly favorable.

To be honest I wouldn't expect other energy inputs to favor gasoline over coal for the simple fact that you're already using the coal for electricity and already have a grid so the additional "EV energy cost" is:
dig extra coal + extra coal to plant + send electricity to car battery

For HEV the gasoline is just a part of something also desirable, petroleum. If we assume we refine it anyway the energy cost is:
process gasoline + tankers + gas stations + drive to gas station

As for night-time charging, the question is why is time-of-use electricity cheaper off-peak?


I found a blog post from somebody (if true) who worked for a utility. The blog is actually about time-of-use pricing. It explains they want to run at optimum efficiency but they have to run based on demand (they can't dump enough electricity into storage). Might not be really accurate.

Reading elsewhere , it could be that spreading EV charging would simply increase base load so you're burning more coal. But it's reasonable to assume that if you're using a coal plant more of the time then the inefficiencies of the "start and stop time" (several hours for coal plants) are decreased in the same way that combining your errands in your Prius improves your fuel economy.

For coal plants you could also argue that increased use of capacity means that energy consumption of burning extra coal for EV is partially offset by spreading the high fixed costs (which represent an energy input) over more coal.

For locations with nuclear plants with spare capacity for base load then it's a whole different matter.

 

<ahem>I brought the links to the discussion. Whether anyone finds them credible is less important than treating readers with the respect to say,"Here are mine" with implied question, "Where are yours?" It is why the Bloomberg article of folks quoting 3d parties is so unfair to the reader. Let's start with source material with engineering data.

In terms of power plant efficiencies and emissions, I'd recommend starting with the Wiki article:

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel_power_station"]Fossil fuel power station - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]


There has been an eight year gap in application of advances in power plant technology but it looks like the engineering solutions exist. Unlike our Prius engines that suffer a significant performance loss during warm-up, these plants stay up 24x7 and avoid the effects of an equivalent number of Prius engines starting. But we can each perform a 'cold Prius' energy study:

• reset the mileage
• drive a flat route (no hill cheating or block heaters)
• start the car and record the mileage every half-minute (use an audio recorder)
• on any standard day, the stock Prius mileage follows an asymptotic curve

In contrast, EVs have essentially flat efficiency per mile. They don't have to pay the individual, vehicle, 'warm-up' energy cost. But this is the direct feedback to the buyer.

The second advantage that requires a government imposed standard is co-generation and/or using the EVs as energy storage. Sad to say, not enough work has been done in this area. However, it has the ability to provide load-leveling across our country.

Last week, high winds cause a couple of brief power outage at work. With a well designed plug-in infrastructure, the loss of base power, as far as our office is concerned, would not have happened. Our cars would have provided the power needed to ride through such outages. But there is a chicken and egg issue. Regardless, our Prius UPS is a start.

Understand I have no problem with claims and assertions that are backed by some engineering data. The Bloomberg article cited Germans who failed to provide backup data. That is my objection to the original article. As for the thread drift to the question of "EVs", the simple experiment of quantifying warm-up costs is the simple answer that anyone can perform.

Bob Wilson

 

Government needs less money and power, not more. To hell with taxing CO2. It's ludicrous. There's nothing wrong with CO2 at these levels or at historically higher levels. Tax CO2 and they'll be banning carbonated soft drinks and limiting YOUR exhaled breath in ways you can't even imagine now.

We have 100s of years of KNOWN reserves of natural gas equivalent to our oil consumption.

It just doesn't matter how the energy is converted into kinetic energy to move your metal to work. Either it's going to come from hydrocarbon reserves (not biofuel) or nuclear. Period. Engineers will ultimately refine the whole system to where whatever is choses is as thermodynamically efficient as possible.

We should have taken the trillions spent on bailing out banksters and immediately saturated every nuclear plant in the country with the originally designed number of reactors. Nearly all of them were designed for more reactors than they currently carry. Then we should have built greenfield nuclear plants. 300 additional plants would have ELIMINATED the need to burn oil, coal, or natural gas for electricity generation. It would have put millions to work at good paying technical and trade jobs. It would have propelled the USA back to the top of productivity and technical superiority. A true Renaissance.

Worried about nuclear? Put the largest reactor you could every imagine in one of the safest places to put it while being is close enough proximity to LA as to be useful. Put it at the base of the Hoover dam. If the thing ever goes crazy, well there's certainly enough water to completely dilute any problem whatsoever. Further, you still get to grab the hydro power off the dam too.

Next, with all that natural gas that's not being burned in power plants now, use it for transportation. Tonight, Obama could sign an executive order stating that within 18 months EVERY single car the federal government buys must be CNG capable in addition to whatever fuel it currently runs on. This would cost practically nothing to do. You could even leave the fuel tank off but leave space for one or two 8 gallon forklift tanks in the event you quickly wanted to implement CNG in any given vehicle. It would provide the incentive to make every privately purchased vehicle in the country CNG ready much in the same way much of the new private fleet is E85 ready.

Almost immediately, the infrastructure would crop up to support CNG refueling. Also, the few thousand dollar house compressors would quickly drop in price (how cheap is a tire compressor or an air compressor at Pep Boys these days?). Nearly 80% of America lives in communities with piped natural gas. It's ubiquitous. This means that you could refuel your car at night right in your own garage or driveway.

This is a bridge solution. The huge investment in the Livermore National Laser Ignition Lab will eventually replace fission technology with much cleaner fusion power. The natural gas feedstock could be better used for plastics, fertilizer, and pharmaceuticals so this needs to be replaced.

Use the excess nocturnal electrical capacity of the nukes to crack water into hydrogen. Once the containment issues regarding the storage and transportation of hydrogen on a consumer use/widespread basis are engineered, then burn the hydrogen in your ICE or use it to power your fuel cell EV... whichever turns out the be the more efficient way to go when you consider all the production and transmission/transportation losses.

It's all a very do-able and simple solution. Oh, by the way, notice that there will be ZERO dependency on foreign oil from OPEC, Mexico, Nigeria, Russia or Canada for that matter? None. Nothing. No reason to EVER send a colonial warrior into the middle east to secure oil.

Why won't this happen? Because the government is inhabited by vermin who despise a sovereign, non-dependent, powerful USA. The believe in global governance and breaking the backs of the once prosperous Americans who they believe are wasteful, lazy, arrogant and not deserving of what we have. That's why Obama saddled our children with trillions of dollars of debt; so that we would not have the resources to build ourselves into a great nation again.

 

Good morning, all

<ahem> back, Bob. The link promised is at the end of my earlier post. As you will see when you read it, it is not specifically a ground - to wheel comparo of coal at a central plant vs petrol in a Prius, but it has some efficiency numbers along the chain that are helpful. Your comment that central combustion suffers from less start-up inefficiencies makes sense, but since everything else is far from equal, that difference is not the final result we are seeking. (ground -> tank) + (tank -> wheel) efficiencies are how the data I have seen are tabulated.

Your Wiki article mentions that coal combustion on average produces 34% more CO2 per Kwh than oil combustion. Then electricity distribution removes some 7 - 10%, and I gather charging costs another 3 - 5%. These loss numbers have to be verified, but if correct, then in conjunction with the combustion differences, coal is 50% more costly in terms of CO2/Kwh than petrol, before we consider the combustion efficiency of an ICE Prius vs a central turbine, and the energy costs of converting oil into petrol, and distribution of the petrol. Wayne Brown says that (ground -> tank) for petrol is 88% efficient. That is a lot of difference to make up, to make coal a GHG winner. I have to go to work now, but I'll convert these steps into something easier read if I have time later today.

iNabtm, I noticed that I have written 'costs' in earlier posts. I should clarify that I meant efficiency costs, not money. I am only questioning the assertion that an EV run on coal emits less GHG than a Prius run on petrol.