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Laurent

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Re: Cars, cars and more cars. And trucks, and....
« Reply #150 on: June 23, 2014, 08:04:10 PM »
Ouahou very impressive, that's a real american, hard worker...n'est ce pas ?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/23/cadillac-tree-hugger-tesla-rival_n_5521891.html?utm_hp_ref=green&
ir=Green

Sigmetnow

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Re: Cars, cars and more cars. And trucks, and....
« Reply #151 on: July 03, 2014, 09:53:38 PM »
Capturing the waste heat from braking a train to a halt; storing it in a battery, and using it to charge a fleet of electric buses.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/07/03/3452870/trains-power-buses/
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

Sigmetnow

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Re: Cars, cars and more cars. And trucks, and....
« Reply #152 on: July 08, 2014, 02:42:31 PM »
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

Sigmetnow

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Re: Cars, cars and more cars. And trucks, and....
« Reply #153 on: August 10, 2014, 02:37:40 AM »
Joe Romm argues hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) are less green, and less efficient, than pure electric cars:

”There are two huge problems with FCVs for those who worry about global warming and hence net greenhouse gas emissions:
- In general, some 95% of our hydrogen is currently produced from natural gas, or, rather, from the methane (CH4) that compromises most of natural gas.
- Making hydrogen from renewable resources like carbon-free electricity is expensive and an incredibly wasteful use of that valuable resource.”

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/08/05/3467115/tesla-toyota-hydrogen-cars-batteries/
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

SATire

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Re: Cars, cars and more cars. And trucks, and....
« Reply #154 on: August 10, 2014, 11:08:24 AM »
Joe Romm argues hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) are less green, and less efficient, than pure electric cars:

”There are two huge problems with FCVs for those who worry about global warming and hence net greenhouse gas emissions:
- In general, some 95% of our hydrogen is currently produced from natural gas, or, rather, from the methane (CH4) that compromises most of natural gas.
- Making hydrogen from renewable resources like carbon-free electricity is expensive and an incredibly wasteful use of that valuable resource.”

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/08/05/3467115/tesla-toyota-hydrogen-cars-batteries/
Sigmetnow, thank you very much for sharing studies like this. It helps me to learn, that things can be different at different places, sometimes even the opposite of a local fact is true at a distant location.

So I would like to try to interprete the study you cited for example:

If a country decided not to use renewable electricity from wind or PV and if that country has fossil gas resources it decided to explore extensively, then (and only then) the arguments of the study may hold. So that study may work in parts of USA, Russia and maybe a bit in Netherlands. Anywhere else? 

But if a country decided to use reneables from wind and PV, then there are a lot of windy/sunny days, when prices for electricity are zero or even negative. Instead of switching of the wind turbines it makes sense to produce hydrogen instead of wasting it - we call that wind gas. If such a country allready exploited all its natural gas in the past and now has to buy it from e.g. Russia, it makes sense today even to mix up to 5% electrolysis hydrogen into the gas delivered to the homes for heating.

The use of hydrogen for cars was explored for such reasons in Germany. too. But hydrogen storage today is considered to heavy/dangerous/expensive. So it makes more sense to process that hydrogen with CO2 to produce "wind methanol", which can be used as fuel with high energy density. But that is still a pilote thing today - probably even behind Teslas efforts to make efficient batteries. The benefit would be of course the smaller mass and that the value of the energy stored and the value of the storage (tank) are similar and not 1:1000 like with electrical batteries. And if the electricty comes from the renewables for both electrical cars and methanol cars it comes down to the effeciency of the storage solely - after how many cycles your battery pays of the lower efficiency of the double chemical conversion. I would guess the future is an electrical car with a methanol "range extender"...

But to conclude: The outcome of a study like the one you cited is clearly dependent on politics of the poeple solely. If poeple decide to avoid electricity wind/PV and pay a lot to exploit fossils (by letting their children pay for it, because they have to burry the char coal in future to reduce AGW) like in some states in USA - the results are different than in coutries where nuclear is subsidized (also by letting their children pay for the removal of the plants and the care-taking for the wast) or in countries paying now to build PV & wind (and let their poeple pay for 20 more years the loans, but their children will have the power for free...). The study is of local value only.

Shared Humanity

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Re: Cars, cars and more cars. And trucks, and....
« Reply #155 on: August 10, 2014, 03:38:49 PM »
"If a country decided not to use renewable electricity from wind or PV and if that country has fossil gas resources it decided to explore extensively, then (and only then) the arguments of the study may hold. So that study may work in parts of USA, Russia and maybe a bit in Netherlands. Anywhere else?"

While your discussion about the viability of hydrogen powered cars is accurate, (where renewables are used than hydrogen power is green) buried in your comment is a hopelessly inaccurate and/or optimistic view of the world. Below is a current breakdown of sources of electricity in the U.S. If there are parts of the U.S. using renewables, they are very itty bitty parts and that is not going to change soon.

Hydro power is absolutely tapped out, has not grown in decades, and will likely shrink due to the ongoing droughts in the American West. Other renewables, at their current growth rates, are many decades away from supplanting fossil fuels.

Shared Humanity

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Re: Cars, cars and more cars. And trucks, and....
« Reply #156 on: August 10, 2014, 03:46:43 PM »
Russia  is not much  better although hydro power represents a far larger piece of total generation. The most encouraging part  of this chart is the very low growth in electricity generation.

Bob Wallace

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Re: Cars, cars and more cars. And trucks, and....
« Reply #157 on: August 10, 2014, 06:07:59 PM »
US hydro power is definitely not tapped out.  We've identified a large number of existing dams which can be converted to producers and we're installing "run of the river" generation.  There's a lot more hydro which can be brought on line.

"Other renewables, at their current growth rates, are many decades away from supplanting fossil fuels."

That depends on your definition of the word "many".  If many, to you, means more than three then you are probably wrong.

Wind and solar installation in the US are growing very rapidly.  We should have no problem replacing 2% of current levels of fossil fuel use per year with renewables (electricity).  At that rate we'd be able to replace coal and NG in 30 years.  And there's no reason to think that we can't move faster than 2% per year.

(Yes, I know you said "current", but we're in the rapid ramp-up phase.  We're likely to do a 1% replacement in 2014 and rates will likely continue to rise until we hit a fairly stable annual installation rate in a few years.)

Bob Wallace

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« Reply #158 on: August 10, 2014, 06:16:37 PM »
Run of the river -

A new assessment conducted by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has identified more than 65 gigawatts of untapped hydropower potential in US rivers and streams. The greatest hydropower potential was found in western US states, including Alaska, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington. Kansas, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Wyoming led the rest of the country in new stream-reach hydropower potential.

The highest potential was identified in the Pacific Northwest Region (32%), followed by the Missouri Region (15%) and the California Region (9%). In total, the undeveloped NSD capacity is 84.7 GW, and the undeveloped NSD generation is estimated to be 460 TWh/year. When areas protected by federal legislation limiting the development of new hydropower (national parks, wild and scenic rivers, and wilderness areas) were excluded from the analysis, the estimated NSD capacity falls to 65.5 GW, slightly lower than the current existing U.S. conventional hydropower nameplate capacity (79.5 GW; NHAAP, 2013).

Undeveloped NSD generation with these areas excluded is estimated to be 347.3 TWh/year, roughly 128% of the average 2002–2011 net annual generation from existing plants (272 TWh/year; EIA, 2013). Since the assessment was designed to identify potential run-of-river projects, NSD stream-reaches have higher capacity factors (53%–71%), especially compared with conventional larger-storage peaking-operation projects that usually have capacity factors of around 30%.


http://www.greencarcongress.com/2014/04/20140430-ornlnsd.html

Converting existing dams -

In 2007 the US Departments of Interior, Army and Energy released a review of 871 dams on federal land which are not currently used to produce electricity.  Of the 871 they found that 195 (22%) had a adequate elevation (head) and were reasonably close to existing power transmission lines.  Of that 195 a total of 71 (8% of the original 871) were located outside of protected areas (national parks, wilderness areas, etc.) and had adequate generating capacity (enough year around flow) based on actual hydrological records to make them good candidates for power generation.  The 14% which had enough head but not adequate year round flow should be good candidates for pump-up storage.

http://www.usbr.gov/power/data/1834/Sec1834_EPA.pdf

In the US we have approximately 80,000 dams with about 2,400 (3%) used for power generation. We get 6%-7% of all our electricity from those 2,400 dams.

If we use the federal findings as an indicator we might suspect that over 6,300 dams might be available to supply power to the grid and another 10,800 might serve pump-up storage purposes.

SATire

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Re: Cars, cars and more cars. And trucks, and....
« Reply #159 on: August 10, 2014, 06:59:45 PM »
While your discussion about the viability of hydrogen powered cars is accurate, (where renewables are used than hydrogen power is green) buried in your comment is a hopelessly inaccurate and/or optimistic view of the world. Below is a current breakdown of sources of electricity in the U.S. If there are parts of the U.S. using renewables, they are very itty bitty parts and that is not going to change soon.
Shared Humanity, I can not see much of a difference between what I posted and what you showed. So I have no idea what is buried in my comment, that seems to be "hopelessly inaccurate and/or optimistic view".

To be more specific: I do not see most of the states of USA or Russia to start the transition to renewables anytime soon. I see some effort in California, Nevada, Arizona - but nothing which would make a concept like "wind gas" or "wind methanol" necessary in the foreseeable future. There is just not enough PV or wind installed for that. So for such places (like Russia and USA) the study presented by Sigmetnow above maybe is not totally wrong. But for countries with >20% electricity from PV & wind allready now and with a clear roadmap to 50-80% that study is totally wrong. E.g. with an average of 50% of electricty from PV and wind it is clear, that very often production of electricty is way larger than 100% of demand. In the near future (25-50% PV&wind) that can be compensated by hydro pump & hydro abroad (therefore, new power lines are the key today) but later power to gas is one of the possibilities to make use of all that "excess electricity". I did explain that with detailed numbers in the renewables thread. Hydro should be considered a battery and not a primary electricity source, simply because of efficiency of the total system. Just because the primary energies we can not tune are PV and wind. So hydro must be 100% spared for the frequent times without wind and sun. After that all excess energy is available at zero costs for hydrolysis. Batteries in electrical cars can be neglected for that point - that capacity will allways be incredible small even with 100% electrical cars.

But for countries not starting the transition to renewables at all (like Russia and USA), all that technologies make no sense. At that places there is no demand for PV and wind and power-to-gas technologies. So we can ignore that places from an economical perspective of the transition and the scaling completely.

I wondered often why there is such a hype about electrical cars in California. I can see no good reason with relationship to global emission - if you know one, I would be happy to learn about that. I believe, electrical cars and hyprid cars are subsidized in California to move the emissions from the cities to the power plants in some distant to the cities with 0 global impact. Maybe it is just hippster-bullshit or maybe they really want to help the technology - this last one would be an optimistic point of view. All others are quite realistic.

Bob Wallace

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Re: Cars, cars and more cars. And trucks, and....
« Reply #160 on: August 10, 2014, 09:23:52 PM »
"Hydro should be considered a battery and not a primary electricity source, simply because of efficiency of the total system."

Hydro is both and more. 

Run of river hydro is 'always on' generation.  Stream-fed hydro is dispatchable generation.  Pump-up hydro is storage, and potentially our lowest long term storage (along with flow batteries).

Bob Wallace

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« Reply #161 on: August 10, 2014, 09:39:18 PM »
"I wondered often why there is such a hype about electrical cars in California. I can see no good reason with relationship to global emission - if you know one, I would be happy to learn about that."

The relationship should be obvious.  EVs can be operated on 100% renewable, carbon free electricity. 

Yes, if they are run on 100% coal powered grids they are slightly worse than a high efficiency ICEV, but there are no 100% coal powered grids. 

Do remember that we are in a transition period during which we are replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy.  There's no way to make that transition happen overnight, it will take a couple of decades to get most of the fossil fuels off most grids.  And it may take up to  four decades to get almost all fossil fuel off all grids.

EVs are the route to getting fossil fuels off our highways.  Again, that transition will not happen over night.  Over the next 3-5 years we should see ranges increase and purchase prices fall.  Given that we are able to purchase ~200 mile range EVs for under $30k within five years, within ten years we should see a rapid movement away from ICEVs with a gradual disappearance of ICEVs over the following 20 years as the existing stock ages out.

EVs will play an important role in greening our grids.  They will form a very large dispatchable load which utilities can use to help match supply to demand.  Given that the average EV will need to charge less than 3 hours per day and many will be able to skip multiple days of charging they will be extremely useful for the incorporation of larger amounts of wind and solar generation.  They will make the cost of electricity cheaper because they will reduce the amount of storage and dispatchable generation needed.

SATire

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Re: Cars, cars and more cars. And trucks, and....
« Reply #162 on: August 10, 2014, 10:20:42 PM »
EVs will play an important role in greening our grids.  They will form a very large dispatchable load which utilities can use to help match supply to demand.  Given that the average EV will need to charge less than 3 hours per day and many will be able to skip multiple days of charging they will be extremely useful for the incorporation of larger amounts of wind and solar generation.  They will make the cost of electricity cheaper because they will reduce the amount of storage and dispatchable generation needed.
The same is true for wind-gas - but orders of magnitude larger. Even if 100% of cars where electrical, their batteries would help us over 6 dark hours until they are all empty. Existing gas storage would do that for weeks-month. The same scale is doable with river hydro (pump storage of course, too. That where they were build for), if they are run in "battery mode", as explained in the renewable thread https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,256.msg18176.html#msg18176.

So - I can see no argument rating electrical cars over power-gas-driven cars. Of course they are better than combustion. And of course both are future things - as mentioned above, perhaps due in the 2030th, when we will have 50% renewables in the grid. That would fit well.

In the mean time I appreciate how Calfifornia drives the develepment of electric cars to get the prices down in 10-20 years. That is a generous investment helping the whole world. That way it did work also for wind and PV in the last years and that is the way to go. Politics has to drive the market to renewables, since the market as it is today has still no knowledge about AGW.

ghoti

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Re: Cars, cars and more cars. And trucks, and....
« Reply #163 on: August 10, 2014, 10:36:22 PM »
It seems as if people are assuming that EVs are not overwhelmingly better than ICEVs because of coal electricity generation used to charge batteries. Actually the numbers used for these comparisons are almost completely driven by the assumptions of the amount of carbon used to produce the batteries used in the EVs.

These assumptions are old and were based on the notion that the batteries are all produced in China. This is not the reality. Nissan leaf batteries are made in TN which produces most of its electricity from hydro, nuclear and natural gas. The carbon component of EV batteries will continue to drop as renewal energy will be used by Tesla to produce more batteries than anyone else.

Remove the battery carbon component and EVs are massively more carbon efficient even on 100% coal generated electricity.

Note that an EV uses less electricity to drive 25 miles than is needed to refine 1 gallon of gasoline. Why do we never hear about the carbon cost of using coal power to refine gasoline?

Bob Wallace

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« Reply #164 on: August 10, 2014, 10:38:40 PM »
I really don't think we'll see significant use of EVs as grid storage.  EV batteries are likely to be much more expensive than large scale utility storage solutions simply because EV batteries need to minimize weight and size.

EVs can be, probably will be, very significant dispatchable loads.  That will minimize the need for storage and will allow "overbuilding" of wind and solar for grid use without curtailing generation.  Supply peaks will have a home.

Wind-gas is a very inefficient storage technology.  More than 50% of the input energy is lost.  Compare that with PuHS (85% to 95% efficient) and flow batteries (65% to 75% efficient).  The capital cost of wind-gas would have to be very much lower than PuHS or flow to make it a player.  Remember, long term storage with PuHS is simply a matter of making the reservoirs larger and for flow batteries it requires more tanks and inexpensive chemicals.

"So - I can see no argument rating electrical cars over power-gas-driven cars."

Cost per mile.  Very simple math.  It takes over 2x as much renewable electricity per mile for a FCEV.  If you want to go renewable electricity -> synthetic gas -> ICEV then the energy loss is tremendous.

Then add in infrastructure costs over and above the 2+x generation cost.  The distribution infrastructure for EVs is largely in place.  About 50% of all US drivers already have a place to plug in when they park.  Adding outlets for the other 50% will not be a major expense.

If we choose the liquid fuel/H2 route then we basically have to replace every refinery and every fuel station (over 125,000 @ $1 million to $2 million each). 

The extra solar panel/wind farm and the extra infrastructure costs would get added to the fuel price.

If/when we get ~200 mile EVs for under $30k (the average new car price in the US is over $30k) then look for EVs to take off.   The cost per mile savings will drive buyer choice.  As will lower maintenance costs and higher convenience.

Bob Wallace

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« Reply #165 on: August 10, 2014, 10:50:20 PM »
"Politics has to drive the market to renewables, since the market as it is today has still no knowledge about AGW."

No, I think we're entering the phase where market forces take over from government kick-starting.

Onshore wind (non-subsidized) in the US has apparently fallen to about 3.5 cents per kWh.  (We should get confirmation on that price within the month.)

3.5 c/kWh is cheaper than the current price of electricity from natural gas and considerably cheaper than electricity from new coal and new nuclear.  NG prices are not likely to drop back to where they were during our drilling investment bubble which created a surplus and brought prices very low.

Wind becomes a very attractive hedge against rising NG prices.  Locking in a fixed <4c price for the next 20, 25 years will drive lots of new contracts and builds. 

Solar is now selling for 5 cents/kWh in the sunny places of the US.  That translates to about 6.5c without subsidy and subsidies are legislated for the next two years, dropping to 10% for a couple more years before disappearing.  Look for the non-subsidized price of solar to be below 5c, possibly below 4c by 2018.

We're getting ready to close about 200 coal plants.  And we've got a couple dozen nuclear plants close to bankruptcy.  Utilities are likely to purchase as much wind and solar as possible to fill those vacancies and to use NG only as fill-in while we develop cheaper storage.

AGW won't drive many 'what to purchase' decisions.  Costs per kWh will be the driver.  Wind and solar are moving into the driver's seat.

Bob Wallace

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Re: Cars, cars and more cars. And trucks, and....
« Reply #166 on: August 10, 2014, 11:00:57 PM »
"Remove the battery carbon component and EVs are massively more carbon efficient even on 100% coal generated electricity.

Note that an EV uses less electricity to drive 25 miles than is needed to refine 1 gallon of gasoline. Why do we never hear about the carbon cost of using coal power to refine gasoline?"

I'm largely in agreement with you but I'm going to take issue with these two statements.

I've read two studies which found that the carbon footprint for an electric car charged on 100% coal-produced electricity would be slightly higher than that of a efficient ICEV burning gasoline.  That's charging/fuel only, no battery carbon included.

I've worked through the electricity used to refine oil in California (2010 numbers).  The amount of purchased grid electricity per gallon of gasoline is low.  About 0.16 kWh per gallon.  The total energy input for refining is around 3.14 kWh but that is a combination of heat and electricity generated inside the refinery. 

In 2010 refineries in CA purchased 46,227,000,000 kWh of electricity.  They produced 286,517,700,000 gallons of gasoline.  0.16 kWh/gallon.

I've seen claims that it takes 6 kWh of energy per gallon of gasoline from the well to the vehicle tank but only a portion of that seems to be grid electricity. 

SATire

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Re: Cars, cars and more cars. And trucks, and....
« Reply #167 on: August 10, 2014, 11:42:08 PM »
"Politics has to drive the market to renewables, since the market as it is today has still no knowledge about AGW."

No, I think we're entering the phase where market forces take over from government kick-starting.
Hm - I would doubt that one point (most of your other points were in-line). It depends on your politics, they could continue to help fossils against PV and wind or they could make the current success of PV & wind also possible in USA. That will be important for the future of the poeple in USA. It would also help poeple elsewhere a bit, since every scaling helps to drive the costs further down and every g CO2 saved in USA would also help here in the end. So I really hope the best.

And concerning the race pure electric vs. wind-gas I am really open. As mentioned above - my guess would be electrical with a wind-methanol range extender. But a new idea like swaping the empty battery against a full one at the station could also do the trick for the long distance. We will continue to try harder and we will see.

Nevertheless, the critics against that study remains valid - that study does not fit here and will not do. That was my point if you missed that.

Bob Wallace

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« Reply #168 on: August 10, 2014, 11:59:45 PM »
"It depends on your politics, they could continue to help fossils against PV and wind or they could make the current success of PV & wind also possible in USA."

Speaking only about the US and renewables (situations vary wildly around the globe) politics seem to be driving wind.  The onshore wind-rich parts of the US are generally our most conservative.  We've seen legislation designed to hamper the growth of wind fail in Republican dominated legislatures and Republican governors traveling to Washington to lobby for wind subsidies.

Wind is bringing good jobs along with sweet local and state tax revenues to places where small towns were dying and populations shrinking.

Solar is now being supported by many conservatives.  Saving money is more important to many than is hating on people unlike themselves.  They're putting hippie panels on their roofs in order to lower their electricity bills.  The Georgia Tea Party came out in support of more solar power in Georgia.

The battle will continue for some time longer, but wind and solar industries are now large enough that they are getting respect.  IIRC, there are something like 127,000 people employed by the wind industry (solar jobs are booming) while the coal industry employees only 90,000 and the oil industry  60,000.  That's with wind and solar providing less than 5% of our electricity and replace an insignificant amount of oil at this point.  We're short years from the number of people working for renewables greatly outnumber the number of fossil fuel jobs.

Bob Wallace

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« Reply #169 on: August 11, 2014, 12:14:41 AM »
"my guess would be electrical with a wind-methanol range extender"

I ran across this interesting graph a few days ago.  It shows PHEVs and hybrids being forced off the market as battery prices drop.



As far as swappable batteries, 'superchargers' along with higher range EVs are likely where we are heading.

Right now you can leave home in a Tesla Model S and drive ~260 miles, stop for 30 minutes and grab another 176 miles.  That's 436 with a lunch break.  600 miles with two meal breaks.

Tesla is talking a 200 mile range EV for ~$35k in the next couple of years (Model III or 3 or backwards E to complete the SEX run).

200 miles, 30 minutes for 160, 30 min, 160 and you've gone over 500 miles with two modest breaks.  Probably not any longer than one would stop with a current ICEV.  (One fuel stop, one meal stop, a pee/drink/check message stop.)

Since very few of our driving days are longer than 150 miles (less than 5%) few people are likely to be concerned about arriving ten minutes later if it means saving major money all year long.

SATire

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Re: Cars, cars and more cars. And trucks, and....
« Reply #170 on: August 11, 2014, 12:03:19 PM »
"my guess would be electrical with a wind-methanol range extender"

I ran across this interesting graph a few days ago.  It shows PHEVs and hybrids being forced off the market as battery prices drop.


Great graph. So electrical cars should be competetive here today, as we pay about 9 US $ per gallone (of course we use SI units in fact...). OK, electrical energy is also heavy taxed (~30 €ct/kWh = 40 $ct/kWh), but that is way less than petrol. Energy is expensive here for the purpose to educate the private poeple AGW ;-)

OK - the hybrid you may skip here, since they make no sense on the Autobahn, since you do not brake at all. More expensive and still more consumption than most combustion cars here as most test have shown...

So today the problems hindering electrical here are infrastructure (2 superchargers in northern Germany...), kind of cars (only tiny cars or super-duper sports cars are available - what about the Ford Focus?) and the mind set: Poeple got used to 800 km range and at 160 km/h a Tesla S goes 220 km -> time for driving = time for charging.
But times for change are here... the next years will become very interesting, because Tesla forced our car manufactures to take electrical seriously now. So perhaps we will see some electrical VW and BMW on the streets soon.

Edit: Here some info about situation here: After about 27,000 km an electrical car pays of ecological (in terms of CO2). And after 160,000 km it pays of economical. The difference is part of the problem today.  Attached picture from here: http://www.zeit.de/2014/29/elektroautos-anzahl

But that comparison might not be fair, since they compare an electrical car with a combustion car emitting 200 g CO2/km - that is a very old dirty car. The average polution from last years new cars was about 130 g CO2/km, so it would take 90,000 km for ecological tie or much more renewables in the electricity mix than our 25%. A Blue motion Diesel Polo (82 g/km) would be hard to beat anytime soon. So some effort is still necessary but the tipping point will come for sure one day - after 50% renewables? After doubling capacity of the battery at same price? After doubling of the prices for petrol - more taxes maybe?
« Last Edit: August 11, 2014, 07:27:00 PM by SATire »

ghoti

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Re: Cars, cars and more cars. And trucks, and....
« Reply #171 on: August 11, 2014, 07:44:06 PM »
Fascinating talk about batteries for cars and more and more for grid storage. J B Straubel is inspiring. (and I thought Tesla was all about cars...little did I know)



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Re: Cars, cars and more cars. And trucks, and....
« Reply #172 on: August 11, 2014, 10:12:25 PM »
Sale of Tesla S in Norway through July have risen a staggering 64860% this year...from 5 to 3248 cars, the 2. most sold model overall in 2014. Pretty impressive considering the populatition of Norway, just above 5 million.  Nissan Leaf is BTW number 4...the less pricey model for the common man in the street. Starting price for a "simple" Tesla S in Norway: Above $100.000!

Why so sucessfull in Norway? Much less taxes, free to drive in the Bus/Taxi-lanes into towns, free passing through the many tollroads etc. So only the government loose Income so far...So changes less favorable for Electric cars may take Place in a year or two.
My fancy for ice & glaciers started in 1995:-).

Bob Wallace

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Re: Cars, cars and more cars. And trucks, and....
« Reply #173 on: August 12, 2014, 07:24:32 AM »
Norway doesn't charge import tax on EVs.  That's a very heavy subsidy and has driven sales very high.

retiredbill

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Re: Cars, cars and more cars. And trucks, and....
« Reply #174 on: August 30, 2014, 12:54:49 AM »
Cars and trucks, as well as boats and other forms of personal transportation have been mentioned
in several threads. However, internal combustion engines using fossil fuel have only been
around for a hundred years or so. Prior to that, horses (and mules, donkeys, etc.) were the
main means people used to get around.

When the collapse of civilization occurs, what happens to personal transportation? Today there are
only a small number of horses around. How long will it take to increase their numbers? And since
hunger will be a major problem, will draft animals instead be killed for food? Up until collapse, fertile land
will be used for human food, not for the feed necessary to raise horses.

I wonder if any form of agriculture will be possible without the use of animals. Another reason to think
 that life post-collapse may be subsistence-based.

Sigmetnow

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Re: Cars, cars and more cars. And trucks, and....
« Reply #175 on: August 30, 2014, 01:15:12 AM »
...snip...

I wonder if any form of agriculture will be possible without the use of animals. Another reason to think
 that life post-collapse may be subsistence-based.
Two words:  electric tractor.  :-)

"If an electric tractor is combined with photovoltaic (PV) charging, whether on the tractor itself in the form of a solar panel shade canopy or on the roof of a building, no other fuel source is necessary. .... Photovoltaics provide an ideal energy source for agriculture because the growing season coincides with the availability of solar energy."

http://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/solar-powered-electric-tractors-zmaz02amzgoe.aspx#ixzz3BpEdz9E6

http://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/electric-lawn-mowers-electric-tractors-zmaz06aszraw.aspx#axzz3BpE8FZXr
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

Bruce Steele

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Re: Cars, cars and more cars. And trucks, and....
« Reply #176 on: August 30, 2014, 03:03:29 AM »
https://cartsandtools.com/product/tillie/
Here is an electric tiller that can be recharged with a small solar panel. In the field if you wish.
I have been using a tiller and an electric wheel hoe for a year now. As might be expected I have had a couple issues with my new tools but customer service and fed-ex are current luxuries.( good thing too ) Supply lines might not hold over time ? Spare parts or redundancy like buying extra tillers might buy somebody a few extra years but the advantage to horses or oxen as beasts of burden is that they self replicate, or more accurately propagate without needing supply lines. Horses are currently a luxury as they demand a large amount of land to keep fed.in the long run it may be population declines free up some spare land. Bottom line is since we can't forecast the speed or starting point for potential population declines or collapse in general it might be wise to include electric, biofuels( animal fat or vegetable oils ) and beasts of burden in your farming equipment barn. I have experimented with all these options. Fryer grease- methanol - sodium hydroxide- biofuels for my old diesel tractor,electric tillers in some areas ( like my greenhouse ) sans all liquid fuels, and without much success driving my wife's welch pony. The pony was willing and trained to a buggy  but we made anything but straight lines. We could  master this I suppose but in order to really think of animals as self replicating you do have to maintain a breeding program or depend on someone nearby who maintains a herd.   

Bob Wallace

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Re: Cars, cars and more cars. And trucks, and....
« Reply #177 on: August 30, 2014, 03:11:43 AM »
"When the collapse of civilization occurs"    ;D

The near future could play out two way. 

A) Oil supplies tighten.  We put measures in place to require more efficiency (car pooling, even fuel rationing) in order to keep adequate fuel for critical uses such as emergency responders and agriculture.  Oh, and executive limos.  While we move drivers into EVs and PHEVs.

or-

B) We move drivers into EVs and PHEVs and put off tightening oil supplies for a couple hundred years or more.

I'm betting on B.





Bruce Steele

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Re: Cars, cars and more cars. And trucks, and....
« Reply #178 on: August 30, 2014, 06:11:18 AM »
Bob Wallace, 
 Putting off tightening oil supplies for a couple hundred years might be closer to my personal nightmare
 I don't know what we will do over the next twenty but it will be our contribution. The last ten have been very disappointing from a Co2 emission trend line.
 I was ,in my last post, trying to make a point about investigating many potential tools for many potential outcomes. An electric car would be good of course but if our  Co2 emissions growth rate is in the 2% range we are not fixing the problem.

Bob Wallace

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« Reply #179 on: August 30, 2014, 06:43:03 AM »

I really don't think we'll quit using oil because oil disappears.  I think we'll quit using (very much) oil because we're developing cheaper alternatives.  Personal vehicles and rail travel/freight will be much cheaper with electricity than with oil. 

As far as CO2, emissions in both Europe and the US have been declining.  It looks like China might not be far from peak CO2, they may have hit peak coal and China has very aggressive programs to install renewables and  to get people into EVs.

I can't predict with any certainty, but it looks to me that CO2 growth  will be slowing soon and then reversing. 

And CO2 growth may already be slowing.  I know very well that one data point does not a trend show, but year to year July CO2 in 2014 was 1.8 ppm.  The 2004 to 2013 annual average was 2.07.  We'll have to watch for a while to see if this the beginning of the slowing or just noise. 

With so many countries moving to renewables I will not be surprised if we look back to see 2014 as the year the Great Slowing began to show.




Bruce Steele

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Re: Cars, cars and more cars. And trucks, and....
« Reply #180 on: August 30, 2014, 07:35:15 AM »
Bob Wallace, A 1.8 percent increase ,year overall, would be a nice downturn. And next year something also < 2%.  All the worst of acidifications effects are dependent upon total emissions and if the increase rates decline so too will the timeline to the worst of the  biological impacts. Actual declines in annual emissions would be something to see. 
Crossed fingers and constant focus     NOT / BAU   

Shared Humanity

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Re: Cars, cars and more cars. And trucks, and....
« Reply #181 on: August 30, 2014, 03:26:14 PM »
Slowing growth of CO2 emissions is encouraging but it does not come close to what we need.

Bob Wallace

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Re: Cars, cars and more cars. And trucks, and....
« Reply #182 on: August 30, 2014, 06:24:17 PM »
Seems like it shouldn't be necessary to point out that before a very large system can be put in reverse it first needs to be slowed, then stopped, and then it can be reversed.


Shared Humanity

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Re: Cars, cars and more cars. And trucks, and....
« Reply #183 on: August 30, 2014, 06:32:08 PM »
Seems like it shouldn't be necessary to point out that before a very large system can be put in reverse it first needs to be slowed, then stopped, and then it can be reversed.

Absolutely.

wili

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Re: Cars, cars and more cars. And trucks, and....
« Reply #184 on: August 30, 2014, 06:34:09 PM »
"before a very large system can be put in reverse it first needs to be slowed, then stopped, and then it can be reversed."

Sometimes.
Sometimes not.

Since this is the "Cars..." thread, recall that the production of cars was immediately stopped completely in the US at the onset of WWII. No slowdown. Just immediately halted.

When the need is correctly perceived to be immediate and the threat existential, massive sudden alterations in basic behavior can happen.

http://www.teachinghistory.org/history-content/ask-a-historian/24088

....

Apologies if this has already been posted:

Helsinki Wants To Make Privately-Owned Cars Obsolete


Quote
nstead of continually improving the efficiency of cars, might it be better to replace them entirely?

A few cities encourageresidents to eschew car use for public transit, cycling, or car-sharing services--but now one is trying to eliminate privately-owned cars altogether.

Helsinki, Finland, is planning an ambitious public ridesharing service that could make privately-owned cars obsolete, according to a recent Navigant Research blog post.

The Finnish capital wants to create a subscriber service that would give residents on-demand access to several transportation options, including carsharing, bikesharing, ferries, and the minibus service the city launched last year.
« Last Edit: August 30, 2014, 07:01:24 PM by wili »
"A force de chercher de bonnes raisons, on en trouve; on les dit; et après on y tient, non pas tant parce qu'elles sont bonnes que pour ne pas se démentir." Choderlos de Laclos "You struggle to come up with some valid reasons, then cling to them, not because they're good, but just to not back down."

Bob Wallace

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Re: Cars, cars and more cars. And trucks, and....
« Reply #185 on: August 30, 2014, 08:07:55 PM »
Quote
Since this is the "Cars..." thread, recall that the production of cars was immediately stopped completely in the US at the onset of WWII. No slowdown. Just immediately halted.

That is true.  It only took a world war to bring that about.

Well, it's partly true.  I really doubt that car companies halted assembly lines, pushed all the incomplete cars off to the side and immediately inserted tanks. 

Look, if there was enough of a perception of emergency we could cut the use of oil to a tiny percentage of what is now in very few years. 

We could require all new autos and light trucks sold to be either EVs or PHEVs starting in 3 to 5 years.  Then use a combination of carrots and sticks to get the most inefficient vehicles off the road.

We could change regulations to give passenger trains priority on rail tracks and put a lot of passenger cars on line for moderate length travel while stopping most moderate length flights. 

We could put carbon prices on shipping, creating more local manufacturing and less trans ocean shipping.

Personally, I think we should do some of those things. But I realize that only a tiny part of the populace agrees with me so we won't move that fast unless things get a lot worse quickly. 

But I'm not despondent,  I'm watching things change and I'm happy that they are changing.  I'm looking at rates of change and expecting the transition to clean energy to follow the same trajectory we've seen in many other technology transitions.  A slow start, gradual but exponential growth, and the a rapid growth rate until the transition nears completion.


Bob Wallace

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« Reply #186 on: August 30, 2014, 08:34:33 PM »
Bob Wallace, A 1.8 percent increase ,year overall, would be a nice downturn. And next year something also < 2%.  All the worst of acidifications effects are dependent upon total emissions and if the increase rates decline so too will the timeline to the worst of the  biological impacts. Actual declines in annual emissions would be something to see. 
Crossed fingers and constant focus     NOT / BAU

After downloading annual CO2 levels, an 1.8 pmm is not unusual.  Year to year variation is fairly large. 

During the last 10  years the amount of growth has ranged from 0.89 ppm (2004) to 3.17 ppm (2005).

wili

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Re: Cars, cars and more cars. And trucks, and....
« Reply #187 on: August 31, 2014, 12:53:06 AM »
" if there was enough of a perception of emergency "

Thank you for admitting that this is the prime, sole, and ultimate objective.

Any talk of incrementalism is then absolutely contrary to that goal.

Please cease and desist from said incrementalism immediately.

Oh, never mind. I see from your response on the coal thread that you are an insincere, cherry-picking troll.

No use playing chess with pidgeons.

Goodbye.
"A force de chercher de bonnes raisons, on en trouve; on les dit; et après on y tient, non pas tant parce qu'elles sont bonnes que pour ne pas se démentir." Choderlos de Laclos "You struggle to come up with some valid reasons, then cling to them, not because they're good, but just to not back down."

Bob Wallace

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Re: Cars, cars and more cars. And trucks, and....
« Reply #188 on: August 31, 2014, 01:26:35 AM »
In what way is " if there was enough of a perception of emergency " an objective?

It's an observation.

As for the rest of your post, are you drunk?

wili

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Re: Cars, cars and more cars. And trucks, and....
« Reply #189 on: August 31, 2014, 04:53:47 AM »
And what, pray tell, is wrong with being drunk??  :P
"A force de chercher de bonnes raisons, on en trouve; on les dit; et après on y tient, non pas tant parce qu'elles sont bonnes que pour ne pas se démentir." Choderlos de Laclos "You struggle to come up with some valid reasons, then cling to them, not because they're good, but just to not back down."

Bruce Steele

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Re: Cars, cars and more cars. And trucks, and....
« Reply #190 on: August 31, 2014, 07:11:01 AM »
Bob Wallace, If i would like to see actual declines in emissions it would seem obvious declines in percentage increases would be a first sign I might get my wish. Only counts however if those 3% increases are forever relegated to history. It will mean we are on the other side of Hubbert's Peak and everything you and I
have ever known
 how that turns out is anyones guess.

Cars cars cars and horses?
« Last Edit: August 31, 2014, 07:25:31 AM by Bruce Steele »

Bob Wallace

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« Reply #191 on: August 31, 2014, 07:34:16 AM »
The Nissan Leaf has an MSRP of $28,980 which puts it a few thousand below the average purchase price of a new car in the US (~$32,000).  With gas savings of about $1,500 a year over the price of charging with grid power that puts the Leaf (without subsidies) within the reach of almost all new car buyers.  (I'll take time to flesh out those numbers if you like.)

EV prices should come down quickly as production volumes increase.  Within a few years we should be able to offer an EV 'econobox' for $15k or less.  Perhaps only a 40 mile range, but that would work for a lot of people.

It would cost only a few hundred dollars to install charge outlets where people park during the day which would mean a very sold 120 mile daily range in a Leaf-type with home and work charging.

We have spare capacity and transmission to charge 70% of all US cars and light trucks were they to become electric overnight.

For somewhere in the $5k to $7k range (and German/Australian/UK installed prices) one could put solar on their roof that would produce all the electricity they need for 13,000 miles a year for the next 40+ years.

Now, that leaves only a few people who couldn't do their normal, necessary daily driving with a Leaf or other sub-100 mile range EV.   We could fuel a small percentage with biofuels, even if it was straight ethanol.

Our cramp would be the long distance stuff and for that we might need to put a lot of people on rail rather than the road.  And electrify our rail like Russia did.

If we found out that the Middle Eastern oil folks have been shucking us and they're actually out of oil we could, with some concerted effort, switch over to EVs very rapidly.  Ramp up car pooling, use fuel rationing, and put a lot more buses on the road during the transition.

We're not going back to horses.  We're not going to have to quit driving. 


Bob Wallace

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« Reply #192 on: August 31, 2014, 07:50:29 AM »
" i would like to see actual declines in emissions"

US emissions going down since 2005.




Europe going down since 1990.





The World's cars going down since 2000.



What we don't have yet is a picture of China's emissions going down.  But it looks like we might have a picture of China hitting peak coal consumption.  It will take a couple more years to be sure that this isn't just a lull of some sort, but there was a definite slope change about six years back.


wili

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Re: Cars, cars and more cars. And trucks, and....
« Reply #193 on: August 31, 2014, 10:37:55 AM »
" i would like to see actual declines in emissions"

I assume Bruce meant net global emissions, which is the only figure that ultimately matters as far as GW goes, so graphs of national and regional are essentially meaningless for this.

IEA says: "Global coal consumption grew from 4,762 million tonnes in 2000 up to 7,697 million tonnes in 2012. This is 60% growth, or 4% average growth per year.

(And note: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-28942403

"Full extent of global coal 'binge' is hidden")

Global oil and gas production have also increased over the same period (though not at quite that break-neck pace).
« Last Edit: August 31, 2014, 10:56:01 AM by wili »
"A force de chercher de bonnes raisons, on en trouve; on les dit; et après on y tient, non pas tant parce qu'elles sont bonnes que pour ne pas se démentir." Choderlos de Laclos "You struggle to come up with some valid reasons, then cling to them, not because they're good, but just to not back down."

SATire

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Re: Cars, cars and more cars. And trucks, and....
« Reply #194 on: August 31, 2014, 11:06:41 AM »
We could require all new autos and light trucks sold to be either EVs or PHEVs starting in 3 to 5 years.  Then use a combination of carrots and sticks to get the most inefficient vehicles off the road.
Bob, that would not help much, since electrical cars are still not better in terms of CO2 than efficient combustions cars (as posted above: https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,438.msg34060.html#msg34060).

It would help much more/easier/faster if poeple would switch to efficient existing (<100 g/km cars are way cheaper than EV or the big senseless SUVs) cars or quit driving at all. EV will beat combustion after the transistion of electric power generation to renewables is 50% completed. Since some countries did not start that transition yet, the path to CO2 efficient EVs is blocked there...

There is no other way: All countries must start the transition to renewables - the sooner the better also for the US of A. Until that happens electrical cars are only a life-style hype as usual in the car business (but helping a bit to get prices down for some countries in Europe, where EV's will start making sense in 5-10 years). And that Tesla-talking about batteries helping the power grid is purely marketing bullshit. Its effect may be  measurable in a country with <1% solar - but in a real renewable scenario you easily can neglect the impact of all mobile batteries on the power grid. 

wili

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« Reply #195 on: August 31, 2014, 12:52:33 PM »
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/committed_carbon_emissions_are_rising_fast_20140830?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%253A+Truthdig+Truthdig%253A+Drilling+Beneath+the+Headlines

Committed Carbon Emissions Are Rising Fast

Quote
...existing power plants will emit 300 billion tons of additional carbon dioxide into the atmosphere during their lifetimes. In this century alone, emissions have grown by 4% per year.

...once a power station is built, how much carbon dioxide will it emit, and for how long?

...The fossil fuel-burning stations built worldwide in 2012 alone will produce 19 bn tons of carbon dioxide over their lifetimes. The entire world production of the greenhouse gas from all the world’s working fossil fuel power stations in 2012 was 14 billion tons.

    “Far from solving the problem of climate change, we’re investing heavily in technologies that make the problem worse

...“Bringing down carbon emissions means retiring more fossil fuel-burning facilities than we build,” Dr Davis said. “But worldwide we’ve built more coal-burning power plants in the past decade than in any previous decade, and closures of old plants aren’t keeping pace with this expansion.

...Professor Socolow said: “We’ve been hiding what’s going on from ourselves.

A high-carbon future is being locked in by the world’s capital investments..."

"A force de chercher de bonnes raisons, on en trouve; on les dit; et après on y tient, non pas tant parce qu'elles sont bonnes que pour ne pas se démentir." Choderlos de Laclos "You struggle to come up with some valid reasons, then cling to them, not because they're good, but just to not back down."

Bob Wallace

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« Reply #196 on: August 31, 2014, 04:45:30 PM »
" i would like to see actual declines in emissions"

I assume Bruce meant net global emissions, which is the only figure that ultimately matters as far as GW goes, so graphs of national and regional are essentially meaningless for this.

IEA says: "Global coal consumption grew from 4,762 million tonnes in 2000 up to 7,697 million tonnes in 2012. This is 60% growth, or 4% average growth per year.

(And note: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-28942403

"Full extent of global coal 'binge' is hidden")

Global oil and gas production have also increased over the same period (though not at quite that break-neck pace).

wili - you link 2012 data.  I gave you 2013 and 2014 data that shows no growth of coal use in China past 2012.  In fact, a slight reduction in the first half of 2014.

How about we all leave 2012 behind and look at what is happening in the world in 2014?

Bob Wallace

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« Reply #197 on: August 31, 2014, 04:54:01 PM »
We could require all new autos and light trucks sold to be either EVs or PHEVs starting in 3 to 5 years.  Then use a combination of carrots and sticks to get the most inefficient vehicles off the road.
Bob, that would not help much, since electrical cars are still not better in terms of CO2 than efficient combustions cars (as posted above: https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,438.msg34060.html#msg34060).


Switching very quickly to EVs/PHEVs was a response to Bruce's "Cars cars cars and horses?".  I made no claim that moving quickly to EVs/PHEVs would immediately lower CO2 emissions.  It probably wouldn't since we'd likely use more NG and coal to charge at nights.

But that period would likely be short.  Lots of electric vehicles on the road would create a new market for late night wind.  Late night hours experience low demand, large thermal pants can't/don't want to turn off, and sell their power cheap. 

Bring more demand on line and the price of late night electricity goes up a bit.  Profits for wind farms rise.  Investment is attracted.  The rate of building wind farms increases.  We have not only carbon-free electricity for charging our cars at night but also more carbon-free electricity during the day which will supplant fossil fuel generation.


wili

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« Reply #198 on: August 31, 2014, 06:34:25 PM »
I thought that gains in efficiency actually do mean EV's show a marked reduction in CO2 production, even if they get their electricity from coal. Am I just way off on that? Do embedded energy costs outweigh those savings?
"A force de chercher de bonnes raisons, on en trouve; on les dit; et après on y tient, non pas tant parce qu'elles sont bonnes que pour ne pas se démentir." Choderlos de Laclos "You struggle to come up with some valid reasons, then cling to them, not because they're good, but just to not back down."

Bob Wallace

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« Reply #199 on: August 31, 2014, 06:46:49 PM »
I've read three studies.  Two found that if we charged electric cars from a grid that was 100% coal-fed the CO2 from the electrics would be slightly more than from an efficient ICEV.  (Don't recall if they were using hybrids for their comparison.)  One found slightly less.  So depending on the parameters chosen we wouldn't gain anything by switching to EVs if we got all our electricity from coal.

But we have no 100% coal grids in the US.  And I don't know of any in the world.  On a state basis, our heaviest coal using state, IIRC, gets about 90% from coal and at least one state gets less than 10% of its electricity from coal.  So it depends on where you plug in right now.

Of course grids almost everywhere are getting cleaner.