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In the months after Nissan’s announcement last year that it would soon introduce the Leaf, the world’s first mass-market electric vehicle, the company embarked on a 24-city “zero-emission tour” to show off the technology. The Leaf’s electric motor draws its energy from a battery pack that plugs into an outlet in your garage. It has no engine, no gas tank and no tailpipe. And during the time the car is on the road, it is truly a zero-emission machine. But at night, in your garage, that battery pack must refill the energy lost to the day’s driving with fresh electrons culled from a nearby power plant. And zero emission it ain’t.
The Leaf should be the first all-electric car off the starting grid, but followers are whirring hot behind it. Chevrolet is introducing the Volt, an electric car supplemented with a small internal-combustion engine that keeps the battery charged. Ford will come out with an electric version of its Focus in 2011, followed by models from Toyota, Volvo, Audi and Hyundai.
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66 Comments
Add CommentThis article needs work. Hydroelectric power was omitted.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYet, over 14% is hydro for the nation & 16.5% for California
http://www.consumerenergycenter.org/renewables/hydro/index.html
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisreferece for my previous comment.
I find it interesting that hydroelectric power was omitted from this study. Hydroelectric power does exist, it is significant in the West and it is a green energy. Too bad that hydropower has become such a negative thing that it is no longer recognized.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHi kea111 - I cannot be certain, but perhaps hydro electric power was omitted because with it's rapid start up and shut down times it is mainly used to regulate the peaks and troughs of daily electricity demand and would thus not be available for off peak supply.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf increasing numbers of people plug in their cars to charge at night, "off-peak" won't be quite so "off" and power generation schedules would be adjusted to suit.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis article answers the question: "Since I already own a conventional hybrid, should I consider a plug-in, or full electrics vehicle?" A better question to answer would be:"As an owner of a TYPICAL VEHICLE (which would not be a hybrid), should I consider a hybrid, a plug-in or full electric vehicle?" One cannot answer the second question with information from the article, since all the comparisons are with an "ordinary hybrid", which I guess is a Toyota Prius. This a seriously flawed article and muddies the debate about hybrids and pure electric vehicles. Was that it's intent?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHi L2B - I agree that the way the information was presented was confusing and didn't help answer the question of whether or not to go hybrid. The motor manufacturers don't show that they are really committed to the hybrid concept and efficient fuel use. If they were they would be producing two stroke diesel hybrids with two stage exhaust turbines after a catalytic matrix and BOTH engine and turbine powering dynamos. The compressor that feeds air to both the engine and the passenger compartment would be driven electrically.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes this article took the most negative and extreme viewpoint and statistics possible.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat most people really care about is how an electric car performs carbonwise compared to an all gasoline car. The editors should have made it clearer (somewhere in the article title? not the small print of the graphic legend) that this graphic was electric cars compared to HYBRIDS.
And I love how the author just ignores ALL non carbon energy sources by saying the power from them is already spoken for...and only considers coal and nat-gas for Illinois, where at least half of our power comes from nuclear. (not that I'm a fan of nuclear, but sheesh.)
Omitting/ignoring hydropower is bizarre. A quick check shows the majority of electricity in Pacific Northwest is from hydro. Dams certainly have negative environmental consequences, but greenhouse gas production isn't one of them. Also, the area identified as the northwest in the article has significant solar and wind resources, which are now beginning to be utilized.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor the "dirty truth" warned of to become reality, the use of all-electrics and plug-in hybrids would have to soar, without any significant change in the ways electricity is produced. Is that really likely?
The article also failed to mention solar. Solar is making leaps in advancements and you can line the roof of your garage with solar panels and store the energy in a battery to charge your car at night. And with the super charger Japan just came out with, you can charge your car in 15 minutes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis article was written by someone with heavy investments in fossil fuels and they are greatly misleading the people.
Actually, I believe omitting hydro power was appropriate. Electicity demand for powering automobiles is additive to the existing demand. So, the question is where that additional power will come from. Production of power from hydro is not going to increase significantly in the U.S., if at all, over the next decades. And, one would assume the power companies are already using all the water available to them in the existing reservoirs. So the relevent question is where will the additional power come from. Certainly not from hydro.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt isn't clear how the study takes into account fuel economy. If all of the comparisons are against a full hybrid (T. prius, H. insight), then in all cases a plug-in or electric vehicle would be better than most other hybrids (T. camry, F. escape, etc.).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt would be very wrong to conclude that a 30 mpg hybrid would be better than a 60 mpg plug-in, carbon- and oil-wise.
Refinement of petroleum isn't emission free when they distill it either. The homogenization of energy into the grid is, in my view, a step in the right direction.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe real point is, if you have a vehicle that is zero emissions when it does it's job, that's one part of the system that's operating with improved environmental friendliness. It's a step forward. Of course we still need to keep moving in the zero emission direction for the base energy source. This also includes renewable bio fuels used at the generating plants and in the remaining combustion engines - though bio fuels produce emissions, they reabsorbs emissions upon new growth.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHydroelectric power is not practical for vehicles. The weight of a tank of water to run through a turbine to generate electricity for an electric motor to power a car is both impractical and inefficient.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUsing the grid will always be better than gasoline. Air pollutants as well as the efficiency of a traditional combustible engine will never compare to the efficiencies generated at a large scale power plant.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEven the worse possible comparison....coal to gasoline combustible engine wouldn't even compare to the impact on the environment.
Both wind and solar were neglected to be mentioned here. Both on the large scale as well as home solar arrays that offset consumption generated at the home...
Having a Leaf coupled with a nice large array onto of your home would be the best possible combination in helping the environment, and living with the least amount of negative change / discomfort.
Mass produced peak nuclear power is less than 1.5 cents a kwh.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOff peak nuclear power mass produced or not is basically free - perfect for or liquid fuel production, desalination, heating and cooling storage systems, vehicle charging and other time insensitive apps.
hydropower damages free flowing streams and permanently floods valuable wildlands and agricultural land
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt seems that the only real "take away" from the article is that the production of electricity from coal-powered sources is bad. Is this really news?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisuhm, this article seems to make the electric cars the bad guys when we all know the facts point to eliminating carbon emission causing power plants. and we all know that isn't going to happen so long as the coal and oil companies have their way. These cars are actually Zero emission the power companies are not. We need facts people not propaganda filled papers making these technologies seem bad just because they are different.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNothing secret about the source of energy for plug-in car. The energy has to be produce somewhere else, most of the time by coal. Because coal is the major source of energy in the USA today. Hydro energy has the problem of direct environmental horrors associated with it. Sun and wind will never be enough, just an addition. Only two sources will help our dire situation: Nuclear and less consumption. I vote for both. Not many people will vote for the real energy saving we have to make: One child per couple. TMP! Too many people! Less people equal less energy consumption.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@tigglet: Are you serious? Where do you think the power for the electric car is going to come from? Are you planning to get a magic electric car that gets its charge from pixie dust?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe article omits the fact that solar panels on one's roof, or collapsible type that can be carried in the car trunk, are still zero emission while recharging this vehicle. solar power relies on nuclear fusion reactions from the sun and leave zero emisisons here while in operation. Taking the collapsible panel to work where it can recharge the car during the day is the sensible way to run these autos.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDr. Richard Sauerheber
@rsauerheber: And the best part is the solar panels are made on Mars and their manufacturing, the supporting infrastructure, utilities, raw materials mining and refining, waste product handling, etc. have no carbon footprint whatsoever!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis article discusses a comparison of the relative enviromental impact of operating all-electirc, plug-in hybrids, and hybrid cars. There is no mention of the relative environmental impact from the manufacturing of these vehicles, which use significantly different types and amounts of raw materials . How does the cradle-to-grave evaluation of these different vehicle types compare with each other and with standard-fuel powered cars?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn the 2nd paragraph, the article says:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"But at night, in your garage, that battery pack must refill the energy lost to the days driving with fresh electrons culled from a nearby power plant."
Batteries do NOT need fresh electrons to be recharged! Please: a writer purporting to understand enough science to write for Sci Am ought not be making this mistake. Is the rest of the article as sloppy? Batteries store energy in the form of chemical bonds and provide a potential difference for free electrons in the conducting wire. The associated electric field does WORK on the charges and that is the energy that directly leads to car motion.
Hydro power is hardly "green". The GHG emissions from the organic material piling up as well as the loss of carbon capture from land that has been flooded upstream makes it "not green" in any way.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis doesn't even account for the massive amounts of concrete needed for construction of the actual structure (look up the CO2 emissions from the production of that!)
But the key point of this article is not electricity production distribution but it is the amount of energy produced to charge the plug in car. Major amount of energy is produced from coal, which has a high carbon emission. A "read between the line" comparision has been made between a gas powered car emission and emission from the grid to charge the plug in hybrid, which according to the research is marginal.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHi sethdayal - you may well be able to justify figures such as 1.5cents per kilowatt hour, but the history of the nuclear power industry invites caution. All of the "accidents" that have so scared the public have been down to human error, complaisancy and hubris. If you could devise a foolproof way of averting these human failings when building and running nuclear plant, then you would have acheived a great deal. As it is, much of the energy liberated goes away in the cooling system because it is dangerous to run reactors at very high temperatures. Logically nuclear power stations should be placed deep underground near the main market for the power so that district heating systems are feasible. A combined heat and power nuclear plant makes a lot of sense - but when it comes to public perception of risk, reason and sense often have to take a back seat. Another aspect about all electric vehicles which does not get aired much is how is the heating powered. In Scotland, for most of the year, cars and other road vehicles require heating for comfort. In a normal vehicle this is easily covered by the waste heat from the engine, but in a battery powered vehicle heating would be an additional drain on the stored charge - and that charge would have the emissions from the original power station
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@scots engineer
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe modern nuclear plant shuts down when it overheats as it is designed with a negative coefficient of reactivity. Automated fail safe mechanisms will flood the reactor if human and other mechanical error caused overheating.
TMI was the last big accident on an ancient sixties tech attorney operated reactor - nobody even injured. Nuclear safety issues are well in hand.
How about a terrorist missile hitting a nuclear bomb sized LNG tanker and killing a million, or this just in a tiny terrist missile wiping out New York City.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/philip-radford/new-york-chemical-plant-p_b_620849.html
We have bigger fish to fry than nuclear power my friend when worrying about disasters waiting to happen.
Every year this silly preoccupation with fairlyland not so renewables defers the conversion from fossils to nuclear three million more people die from the effects of coal pollution.
Now that is a disaster!!!!
I agree with other commenters that this article is deeply flawed in logic, and presents skewed information.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA car built with a gas engine must always use gas for fuel. An all-electric car uses mass-produced power off the grid, which can be sourced from any type of plant available. The disconnection of the auto industry from a single fuel source would introduce a great flexibility into the system, whereby a new nuclear plant in Iowa, for example, could be providing the energy to power an electric car in Nevada. Yes, I realize that power transmission over longer distances becomes less efficient, but up to a certain distance, these losses are far outweighed by increased efficiencies of large power plants.
With electric vehicles, a great possibility is opened up that dirty coal plants could eventually be supplanted by renewables at any location and scale in the country, and the transition would be seamless for the driver, with a net benefit in CO2 emissions for the COUNTRY as a whole.
Gasoline engines in cars are very inefficient creatures, which is why hybrid drivetrains, diesels, and turbochargers can so easily get more efficiency in the same car than a normal gas engine. When you talk about a large utility, even a coal-fired plant is more thermally efficient than an automobile due to economies of scale - a coal plant doesn't have to drive around all day and use some of its coal supply in just moving the mass of the plant and the coal around the city, for one.
The idea that electric vehicles are somehow a bad idea, as is vaguely implied by this article, is absurd. Advances in power storage, whether better batteries or ultracapacitors or fuel cells, will only serve to tip the energy/emissions balance in favor of electric vehicles. In the short term, maybe you could have vehicles with modular battery packs where you could use a much smaller and lighter battery if you are only going to use the vehicle to commute short distances, thereby reducing the weight of the vehicle and the amount of energy required and thus emissions produced.
SciAm, if you make the editorial decision to publish articles like this, it would be more becoming of a scientific magazine to require more backing evidence to the claims within - there are no numbers or charts or statistics provided that would make me inclined to take any of it at face value.
To add to my previous post, using the nations remaining hydrocarbon resources in large, efficient, well-designed power plants instead of millions of individual, less-efficient car engines is a much more prudent and conservative way to manage the nation's energy supply and get the most efficiency overall.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisElectric cars don't need an extra electric starter motor for the gas engine, have brakes that last much longer because the motors do much of the braking, and can be built with lower centers of gravity, making them safer-handling on the road.
On the power production end, all power required for the entire national fleet can be efficiently mass-produced, and the plants can be modularly replaced as new technology and fuel sources become available, without any individual vehicle having to be modified or replaced to take advantage of the improvements.
Wow, I wonder what the effect of producing all that concrete
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisfor a dam has on the environment, but typically most "greenies" only see the end result of their particular
favourite energy source, not how you get there
This article missed the boat completely. Coal and nuclear power plants are kept hot consuming fuel 24/7 to keep the water hot to produce the steam. Most of the fuel is wasted during off peak hours. Use the power or waste the fuel.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am not as knowledgeable as every one else here so Iwant to know. What does the Leaf emitt at night?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHi Onager & sethdayal - much agreement, though nobody seems to want to talk about combined heat and power from nuclear sources. Arguably the most efficient way to convert chemical bond energy in hydrocarbons is to run large multi cylinder two stroke diesels ( like they do on ships ) feeding the exhaust to a multi stage turbine. The gaseous mixture entering the system has no nitrogen in it and the insulated cylinder walls are maintained at a safe running temperature by occasional injection of water instead of fuel, all controlled by a management computer. I realise that separating the oxygen from the air has an energy cost, but this may be more than covered by the increase in efficiency and easier co2 collection at the end of the process. Another way of powering electric vehicles for most of the time would be in the road contacts which fed current directly to the vehicle, but were only live under authorized vehicles and at their requst. It is technically possible and can be made every bit as fail safe as the newer nuclear power plant designs. I am also a bit disappointed that no one wants to pick up on the substantial power load keeping an electric vehicle comfortably warm in a north east US winter.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI had to write a blog commenting on this article by SciAm. In it I mention why they omitted hydropower (no more room for extending supply) but I was very critical of the report itself. Why such a negative tone? Why not discuss solutions (how to green supply) instead of focusing on current limitations (we have a dirty grid).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://blog.mapawatt.com/2010/06/24/dirty-truth-about-plug-ins-not-so-fast/
This article is very unclear, misleading and just plain poorly written. All the clean electricity is already spoken for? When I plug in an electric car, somehow the grid only sends power from a coal generator to my car? In actuality, after midnight there is excess capacity that no one is using. Much of that comes from nuclear which does not produce CO2.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWow, I've been reading Scientific American since the 70's and this magazine has always had the highest standards, until now.
It is not clear from the article, but it seems that while electric power has to be accounted for all the way back to its dirtiest possible source, gasoline springs up magically, fully refined, right at the local filling station. The refining step alone is enough to make electrics come out cleaner than any gasoline vehicle.
In general, electric cars are charged are night, after midnight. The grid has excess capacity at that time.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat is when the "always on" generation facilities are not being utilized 100%. The argument that additional power sources will be brought online for cars is a false one.
Where do you think gasoline comes from? Among other things, gasoline has to be refined. Refineries use huge amounts of electric power. It takes about 2.7 KWH of electric power to refine a gallon of gasoline. An electric car can go 25 miles on that much energy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo, your average gasoline vehicle is actually consuming just as much electric power as an electric car, and then burning gasoline on top of that!
I have no detailed figures but would guess that to combat condensation on the inside of the windsheild ( we call it windscreen ) and keep the driver reasonably comfortable the heater would need to supply about a kilowatt, most of the time in winter. How much this detracts from the convenience of battery powered cars I leave to others to explain.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHi BBHY - back of envelope calculations on the fuel efficiency of a small diesel saloon getting about 16 miles per litre would translate to about 3.6 miles per kilowatt hour if the diesel was about 40% efficient. These are rough figures, but still well short of the 10+ per kilowatt hour you quote. I think battery vehicles are coming, but perhaps with readily replaced units , including ICE modules for longer sustained journeys in places where there are not many recharge / replacement outlets
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am confused by the data provided concerning gasoline consumed compared to a hybrid. Why would that value vary with the fuel source for electricity? If a hybrid gets 40 mpg and an all-electric uses no gasoline how was this number calculated?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHello everyone, and thank you for the many thoughtful and passionate comments. Because we did not have the space in the magazine to detail the analysis, allow me to include a bit more information here:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFirst off, we used the data on regional power generation provided by this Department of Energy study:
http://www.afdc.energy.gov/afdc/progs/view_citation.php?10439/PHEV
In it, the authors attempted to model what effects a fleet of plug-in vehicles would have on regional power generation in the years 2020 and 2030. Their method was to model the power supply assuming there were no plug-in vehicles, then model the power supply assuming that there were a number of plug-in vehicles attached to the grid. The researchers controlled for seasonal changes in energy loads, and looked at a variety of charging scenarios.
Because the researchers modeled the electricity going to the plug-in vehicles as a difference—the plug-in scenario minus the no-plug-in scenario—most of the "always on" sources such as nuclear power cancel themselves out. In fact, all sources with very low or zero fuel costs (nuclear, wind and solar) are operated at all times. Yet they still do not equal total demand, even at night when demand is lowest. A number of you have mentioned hydroelectric power. The researchers note that because this power is limited, it is most likely to be used during peak hours when demand is greatest. Thus, additional demand must come on line to meet the needs of the plug-in vehicles. In most cases, the researchers found that this marginal demand will be provided by natural gas turbines or coal facilities.
For our story, we utilized the study's middle-of-the-road analysis, assuming that people would be encouraged to charge their vehicles at night, when overall demand was lowest, and that they would have moderately advanced charging stations at home, such as are planned for the introduction of the Nissan Leaf early next year (in the paper this is the "2kW night" scenario). We then plugged in the power sources by region into the DOE's GREET model, which you can find here:
http://www.transportation.anl.gov/modeling_simulation/GREET/index.html
We used this software to compare the greenhouse gas emissions and oil consumption of the plug-in vehicles in each region. As many of you note, this is a projection and a hypothetical, and only time will tell if it proves accurate. Let us hope that additional renewable supply will come online to power these next gen vehicles, but current inaction does not inspire confidence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think the article takes a very simplistic approach to the analysis. The impact of plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles must consider at least two parameters: source and time of day. The article addresses only the former, while brushing off the latter in order to exclude nuclear from the analysis.
Electric power is generated for base load (relatively constant) and peak load (variable, highest in mid afternoon on a hot day). Some sources are much better at base load, especially nuclear and coal, some can be used for either (particularly gas-fired combustion turbines), and some are used only for peak due to a combination of fast dispatch and lower efficiency (e.g., diesel). Solar and wind are not predictable enough for either without a much better transmission grid than we have. Hydro can actually be used in reverse too, to store unused energy for later use.
Using this backdrop, we see that charging a car in off-peak hours is actually "free" if base load (which can't be turned off) exceeds other demand. That's true regardless of what generated the base. Thus, load shifting -- charging the cars at night to be used during the day -- actually may act as a disincentive to replacing coal plants.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI appreciate your explanation, but I think the analysis is still naive. The problem is that the analysis does not take into account the feedback into the planning of base load generation that would take place during the deployment of a fleet of electric vehicles. Specifically, if the power producers see more demand at night, they will increase their investment in base load generation (nuclear, coal, wind). Thus, modeling the difference between two demand scenarios... without any modeling of supply's response... renders the analysis invalid.
I recommend that the analysts read up on Systems Dynamics. Start with Peter Senge's books. Thereby, they might avoid naive conclusions and unintended consequences in the future.
I'm shocked by the number of people here who don't understand this article. The author's point is that we will have to add generating capability to power electric cars - so he analyzed not what power sources exist but what can practically be added. Are we going to build more dams? No. More nuclear reactors? Iffy. More wind and solar? We'll need a LOT and it'll be very expensive. The only power sources we can add quickly and at low cost are fossil fuel-based.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat isn't stated in the article is that there is no high-tech solution that will allow us to continue using 3,000-pound conveyances to travel a few blocks to pick up a quart of milk. The good news is, we don't have to. There are simple solutions available: public transit, biking, walking, etc.
Hi Scots Engineer. This is all back of the envelope--please correct me if I've made errors of math or logic.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet's assume an efficient ICE powered car, using 1 gallon of gasoline to travel 50 miles in 1 hour (50 mph is a bit slow, but makes the math easier). 1 gallon of gas ~ 130 megajoules, with somewhat less than half of that moving the car forward and the rest (> 65 megajoules) being converted to heat.
Your guess of 1 kilowatt needed to heat the inside of the car seems pretty good--that's the output of a small hair dryer, and we can assume electric vehicles will be insulated, since heat is no longer "free." Running for 1 hour, the heater will use 3.6 megajoules of electricity.
Since electric motors are much more efficient that ICEs (maybe 85-90% vs. 35-40%), it's reasonable to assume an electric vehicle traveling 50 miles in one hour will use about half the energy of the ICE-powered car above, or 65-70 megajoules. Add the 3.6 megajoules for heating, and the total energy consumption for an electric vehicle is still well below that of a gasoline or diesel vehicle.
Actually, thinking a bit more, if an electric motor is "only" 85-90% efficient, the waste heat from the motor alone should cover heating needs, if those needs are in the 1-2 kilowatt range, and if the motor is using 10-20 kWh per hour travelled.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm a little confused by the data presented. For example, I know that about a third of the electricity generated in Texas comes from coal but the chart shows that *all* of the electricity comes from natural gas. I realize that this makes the figures worse for Texas because coal is dirter than natural gas and this will create more pollution and carbon. For reference see:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.eia.doe.gov/state/state_energy_profiles.cfm?sid=TX
Slide down about half way down the page, look for "Reserves and Supply" and look for fifth tab on "Net Electricity Generation". Notice that about a third of Texas electricity comes from coal, another third from natural gas and the final third is a mix of nuclear, hydroelectric, petroleum and renewables.
I think this would alter the analysis and make Texas one of the worst states. Please let me know if (and how) I have misunderstood the analysis. Thanks!
Surly an important point is the battery. Making and disposing of them is a major problem.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHi David Drake - I think the point of the article is that the "greenness" of the plug in hybrid can be tarnished by the provenance of the power it is supplied when it is plugged in. Where the utility is mostly coal powered then the co2 emissions atributable to the vehicle will be higher. I cannot fault your analysis except where you conclude that the electric vehicle must use less energy. I hope you have not forgotten the waste heat from the power stastion that supplied the electricitity. When you add in transmission losses, for every kilowatt hour supplied to the vehicle battery another has been lost as heat if the power comes from a coal fired power station. I am a bit cautious about the amount of thermal insulation that can be builtinto a modern automobile with such a large glazed area. I dare say that double glazing is possible,but neither easy or cheap. In this regard at least the hybrid has advantages over the purely battery driven car. Some are rightly concerned about where theextra generating capacity is to come from. This could in part be solved if the hybrids were able to sell power to the grid at night using their ICE's. If they could also pump some of their waste heat into storage for domestic use they would be acting as combined heat and power stations. This is of course a non starter when road fuel is heavily taxed ( present price of gasoline in UK $6.60 per US gallon of which more than 50% is tax )
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think this is an important point to make. While significantly moving to a plug-in transportation infrastructure would require further infrastructure investment, it would not, initially, be in the form of additional generation capacity. The flattening of the demand profile would allow us to extract more from each existing mega-watt. There is good synergy between vehicle charging and night-time wind power production. And let's not forget the potential from "smart" charging timing, or even grid support coming from the distributed and connected batteries.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNote that a significant amount of electricity is consumed by the refinery to convert oil into gasoline. In their information for the Leaf Nissan states that it takes 7.5 kw of electricity to refine one gallon of gasoline and just that electricity alone will power a Leaf for 30 miles. That doesn't count extraction of the oil, transportation to market, electricity to power the gas station, etc.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf your refinery is fed by the same power requirements as your grid is, then just getting the gasoline *TO* the cars in that region is at least as much 'dirtier' per mile driven as the equivalent plug-in vehicle. Again, that's before you even consume the gasoline.
Please, let's compare apples to apples!
Sorry folks, Solar is pretty much useless when it comes to charging a car. The Tesla needs 60,ooo watt hours to drive for about 4 hours. Making some pretty generous assumptions it would require at least 75 panels ($33,000). If today is cloudy you just have to walk to work tomorrow. Then after 5 years you get to replace the $36,000 battery set. 1 panel charging 1 day will move the car about 1.5 miles round trip or 0.75 miles if you have 2 cars. Pretty worthless.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe key (and correct) point that the article attempts to make is that the marginal electric load added to the grid (e.g. plug-in hybrid or full electric car) will be met by the marginal generating unit (in most geographies a unit that creates carbon emissions). The fact that there are low or no carbon units (solar, wind, nuclear, hydro) feeding the grid does not mean they can be deemed to be meeting the new demand.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere in Colorado the constitution requires that major electricity producers have a minimum of 10% percent of the electricity be produced from renewable sources. Most of the states in the Southwest region have similar laws. To say that electric cars in 2020 will only get 0.3% of their electricity from renewable sources is just plain wrong.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe marginal use of electric cars will require a marginal investment in renewable energy by the producers. This energy cannot be dismissed as "spoken for". This renewable energy will be created by the fact that people use electric cars.
seriously do this auhor even consider solor pannels?...i mean if a person really want to be green would he/she want solor panels as well? most of the people i know has both.....because they are smart enough to know that it isnt green unless u have ur own energy supply.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisElectric cars are also far more expensive than fuel-powered ones, because of the high initial expense of the batteries.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI keep my gasoline-powered car for long runs or else locally use my electric bicycle for short runs. Even better I still use my bicycle or just simply walk.
But if I must use my car, I make sure it is full. Four passengers plus trailor keep gasoline costs per capita to a minimum.
Enviormentalists want to dismantle all of the dams in the west because of the damage dams to the river's ecosystem and spawning fish life. So when that happens all of this 14%energy produced by dams will have to be made up by something. But wait, California does not want any new power plant of any type. California, were illogical ideas are king.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe article assumes that nuclear power plants are nationally base-loaded for electrical power demand and therefore do not contribute to the overnight charging of hybrid cars. The study does allow for nuclear power to make a contribution in the Northwest(13). If somehow that same allowance for the Northwest could be applied to the rest of the country, the situation would change dramatically. This is because the vast of majority of nuclear power plants are in the Midwest, the Northeast, and the Southeast.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOlder analysis with assumptions of 100% coal and mix of different efficiencies of coal plants as found on the grid showed lower total life cycle carbon emissions for the battery electric when compared to standard ICE powered cars. They used just the carbon inherent in the gasoline, not total emissions for extracting, transport, refining and distribution.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA critical point was made that for the same amount of battery production capacity more carbon would be saved with more current design hybrids... More current hybrids could be produced out of the same battery production capacity then either battery electric or plug in hybrids. The total emissions for the fleet of vehicles would be much lower even though the individual hybrids were higher as that many more hybrids could be produced.
I am not impressed by this article at all it is very misleading. Yes carbon offset will depend on the region, but according to current use in New York I think less than 2% of power comes from oil and in most cases EV plugin will occur offpeak and therefore no excess generation capacity will be needed for the near or medium term. In most cases Utilities are planing on or pushing offpeak usage for all things esp EVs - you should listen to some of the interviews on the Podcast "What Drives Us" including a utility directly and they clearly embrace EVs and have zero plans for new generation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis article needs work
Also I bet they did not account for the transportation costs of oil to cars that are std ICE
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSorry dude!...I am seem to be missing the "science content" of this article. If you are telling me that a 4 stroke power plant in every car is more efficient than a centralized power plant then I misunderstood the meaning of efficiency. My personal experience with friends that have plug-ins is that they are experiencing over 100 MPG equivalent(when comparing the cost of electric to cost of gas). If you are not working for an oil company or an auto company, you should be....at least until the Chinese start supplying their plugins to the US market!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCorrect, Sir
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDr.Kamlander@aon.at