Electric cars are a pipe dream

I have seen a lot written about peak oil. There is clearly no consensus. I have, indeed, read estimates that we have already reached peak oil. And other estimates that it is many years off.

I suspect that traditional oil has peaked, but non traditional oil from shale has not. Fossil fuels as a broader based resource will not peak for a long time.

 

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We will only know in retrospect, so it doesn't really matter if it's here or not, it's coming, that's for sure, and the production peak of shale is irrelevant. Here's a good summary of the situation:

All of today’s planning efforts take place based on today’s energy delivery systems. We add some renewables to the current mix and see how we can manage. When we see that this causes problems, we respond by adding highly complex and costly bells and whistles. Alternatively, we start introducing new technologies that will never be able to truly scale up, are in fact heavily dependent on fossil fuel inputs, or both. We would go so far as to say that we can safely prove that more than 90% of energy system alternatives discussed and introduced today have no potential of helping us to secure a longer term energy future.

We are thus not sure if it is a good idea to put all of society’s efforts into fixes and add-ons to today’s energy delivery and consumption systems, but instead we strongly recommend the development of approaches and technologies that radically break with a fossil fuel base. The only meaningful way of looking at the future of energy delivery and application technologies would be to build energy systems based on an assumption that renewable technologies have to provide the entire amount required by our societies, and then to reshape societies so they are in line with what and how these technologies can deliver.

Only when applying this (what is probably considered radical) view, we would be able to model a sustainable and reliable energy future. Once we have figured out how this can work, we may still consider how to make the best use of our remaining fossil fuels, but going the other way will just fool us into believing that we have solutions, until we recognize we don't. And today, to be frank, this is exactly where we are. A lot of fake firemen are standing around a fire that is right now openly breaking out.​

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6641#more

See the article for examples of why the electric car is no solution to the energy crisis.

 

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Spider

I read your reference and was utterly unimpressed. Such reports strongly activate my bullsh!t alarm.

It is very similar to an equivalent study by the Club of Rome published in the early 1970's, called Limits to Growth. Full of alarmism and doom and gloom. Only problem, the deadlines passed and no doom and gloom.

Why not?
Simple. Such studies are based on existing techniques and technology. However, anything that is operating in 20 years plus is no longer using existing techniques and technology. Progress! What was not possible 20 years earlier is then eminently possible.

I agree with them on wind power, which I have always said must be just part of a range of new energy sources. However, there are energy sources yet untapped that have enormous potential. Ocean wave power, for example, could comfortably generate ten times the electricity all current power generating plants put out...that is - once the technology is better developed, which it will be. Ditto for hot rock geothermal. Ditto for hybrid nuclear.

And the grandaddy of them all - nuclear fusion. When that comes on, and it will, there is enough deuterium fuel in the ocean to provide electricity for the whole world at current rates of use for a billion years.

 

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Just to show what we are up against, I would show the world's auto statistics and to understand why I think the 1 million EVs per year would be a big stepstone:

"In 2007, worldwide production reached a peak at a total of 73.3 million new motorvehicles produced worldwide.In 2009, worldwide motorvehicle production dropped 13.5 percent to 61 million. Sales in the U.S. dropped 21.2 percent to 10.4 million units, sales in the European Union (supported by scrapping incentives in many markets) dropped 1.3 percent to 14.1 million units. China became the world's largest motorvehicles market, both by sales as by production. Sales in China rose 45 percent in 2009 to 13.6 million units.

About 250 million vehicles are in use in the United States. Around the world, there were about 806 million cars and light trucks on the road in 2007..."

-------------------------------

So if we have just about 10 million new cars just in the US alone, making 1 million EVs would still mean a very small 10% user share. My guess that reaching a decent 30-50% marketshare would need another decade, unless the oilproduction suddenly tanks, which is still a possibility...

 

Offtopic, so just quickly...

Well, there is, just there are more then 1 definition. Crude oil PRODUCTION has peaked (until there is a higher peak) and definitely plateauing...

The problem is not really the size of reservoirs, but the RATE of production and the PROFITABILITY of it.

Your lakehouse can burn to the ground inspite of having a large body of water next to it, if you can not get the water fast enough to the fire....

 

They were right. What they didn't take into account were advances in genetics which created an agricultural revolution. We are coming to the limits of that presently. Also, Jimmy Carter was right. What prevented an energy crisis after the one in the 70's was discovery of North Sea oil, and agreements with Saudi Arabia for their oil. Both of which are coming to an end. Population problems were not solved, they were just delayed.

There is a difference between technology and energy. What technology is even on the horizon that will allow us to continue our patterns of growth? Nothing.

Wave power can't react to demand, so storage is necessary, which involves energy loss. It's the same problem as with wind. Also, the ocean is not a forgiving place for machines. Geothermal exists only in certain spot on the planet, not necessarily those places where people live. Nuclear depends on fossil fuels for mining and building plants, plus there is a limited amount fuel.

No money to build the advanced plants necessary (again fossil fuel intensive), even if they were invented, which they haven't been, only experimental ones. And powering electric cars means maintaining asphalt roads.

I feel the conclusion of that article was sound, let's figure out what energy we can make, and design our societies around that. The other way around is shortsighted and based on a faith in technology as the ultimate savior.


Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update

 

Spider

Limits to growth was wrong. They did not take into account a lot of stuff, such as the fact that population growth is slowing and will plateau within 30 years (www.un.org/popin). They also predicted oil would run out by the year 2000. I am not trying to criticise them. They did their best, but lacked knowledge of how things would change in 30 years.

The same applies today with people trying to predict the future. Predicting the future has a long history of ignominious errors. Those who try today will, like their predecessors, fall flat on their faces.

On energy. Yes, wave power is variable. The answer is not storage of electricity, which is an inherently wasteful process. A better solution is broader based networks of electrical transmission. Thus, when the sea is calm in one place, wave power is strong in another. Right now, continent wide transmission grids exist. We need transmission grids linking continents. There is no technical problems doing this - just politics and economics.

Geothermal? You made an error in your statement of limited geothermal resource. I was talking of hot rock geothermal, which is available anywhere an underlying granite base exists, which is everywhere. A drill goes down deep enough to reach the 200 C hot rock. Water is pumped down, turns to steam, and generates electricity. Essentially unlimited.

In Australia, a pilot plant already exists and has generated power.
http://www.aussiehotrocks.com/

You say no money to build nuclear fusion. Yet the first nuclear fusion reactors have already been built, and the first one to generate surplus energy is due to be commissioned in 2018. Fusion will not happen overnight, but it is already under way.

We cannot accurately predict the future, but the best way to get it totally wrong is to assume that the future will be like the present, which is what most predictors do. That is why they are made to look such fools when it all happens.

 

As far as Limits to Growth, they did a 30 year update based on new information. Did you recognize that?

There are numerous technical problems to a theoretical smart grid. Some of these were addressed in the oil drum article. In any case it's at least 20 years off.

The geothermal energy is interesting, but likely to remain small-scale. We won't be powering all our cars on it.

The fusion reactor you mention might come on line in 2016, but it is not a commercial reactor.

If fusion reactors are to proliferate, then probably near the start, and certainly after the first few, each new reactor will be relying on the small surplus tritium production from existing reactors to provide the start-up charge of tritium. This is likely to be some tens of kilograms. When I asked him, Dr Briscoe said that it will probably take two-and-a-half to three years from the start of one reactor for it to supply enough surplus tritium to start up another. The estimate he gave was that even if the only obstacles were technical ones it will be 2100 before fusion can supply more than 30% of Europe’s electricity.​

Will Nuclear Fusion Fill the Gap Left by Peak Oil?​

So, basically, electric cars are technically feasible, and would be practical if our present sources of energy allowed for continued growth, but no combination of alternative energy will make this possible. At least until 2100.

 

Spider

You are correct in saying that big energy output will not happen soon. However, 2100 is a hopelessly pessimistic forecast. If you look at the history of technology, nothing has taken that long in the past, and it will not take that long in the future. Again, this kind of forecast is based on the assumption that well not develop better technologies, and such forecasts never work out. There are always better ways, and these arrive rather often sooner than we expect.

Hot rock geothermal is not just small scale. Initial pilot plants are small scale, of course. But the longer term potential (20 to 50 years) is anything but small scale.

Hybrid nuclear fusion/fission plants are new technology, but are likely to be practical well before pure fusion.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090127131654.htm

In the mean time, we still have shale natural gas able to supply natural gas power plants for at least 50 years, even with a major increase in their number. We still have nuclear fission power, with enormous scope for expansion.

Pessimism is usually based on a lack of confidence in human ability to innovate. History has proven, again and again, how wrong that attitude is.

 

Yeah, well, the easiest things are discovered first, aren't they? The problem isn't innovation, not if we can figure out alternatives, it's if the supply can meet the demand. If it can't, then the economy stops growing and dies, and then even the funds for innovation dry up.

All the sources of energy we have used in the past were easy to get. Wind for sails is ubiquitous, wood grows all over, coal comes in seams, oil shoots out of the ground under pressure...

 

Humans are always capable of innovation, but that in no way implies that innovation is always "good". Take DDT for instance (no, wait, don't).

It is possible that innovation will be impossible at some point, either because the whole of humanity is innovating (so nothing is new, or everything is, e.g. you need a "new" computer every 2 years or so), or perhaps because "too many" humans exploiting resources will mean a natural limit--you need raw materials to then be innovative with them...

 

Noodler

Everything has a limit. Crude oil, for example, is one that we know is running out and our debates are simply about when.

However, most resources are a great deal more abundant than we normally choose to recognise. Take Uranium for example. Currently, we mine uranium in ores that are as low in uranium metal as 80 parts per million by weight.

However, the total tonnage of uranium in ores of 20 to 80 ppm purity are more than ten fold greater than all the ores of 80 ppm plus put together. And the amount of Uranium in rocks at less than 20 ppm purity are in the millions of tonnes.

It is only a matter of time before we learn to extract uranium at levels a lot less than 80 ppm.

We have seen this process with gold. Originally gold was available only as nuggets. Then humanity discovered panning, and the resource increased 1000 fold. Then we discovered gold in quartz rock, and another massive increase occurred. Then people invented the cyanide process and the available gold increased again. Currently, researchers are working out how to extract microcrystalline gold from quartz rock, which will massively increase the resource once more.

It is amazing how far beyond once predicted limits a little innovation will take us.

 

But mining requires huge inputs of energy in the form of fossil fuels. As the ore becomes less concentrated, more energy is required to extract the same amount. Tritium, used in fusion reactors, is in very short supply.

 

It doesn't seem so crazy to believe that electric cars could replace modern gas ones within 50 years, not to me anyway.

 

Tesla Shares Jump on Their First Day

 

popular toad

its not a dream that the car can be run by the help of water. i am en mechanical engineering student and i think the improved technology will show us the cur which will run only by water within 2020.
its not very complex idea. just have to divide the h2o and separate the hydrogen and mix it with the carbon in the air. and it will create the bio fuel.

 

To green

The very thing! Just what green plants have been doing for 3 billion years!

 

A very astute observation:

" No product to this point in history has become successful by intially selling an inferior product at a premium price in the hopes that it will eventually be as good as what was already available--I wouldn't bet on the Volt becoming the first."

Otherwise the current news after Obama drove 10 feet the Volt, that it will be selling fot 41K dollars...A criticism from Slate:

"How rarefied is the electric-car demographic? When Deloitte Consulting interviewed industry experts and 2,000 potential buyers, it found that from now until 2020, only "young, very high income individuals"—those from households making more than $200,000 a year—would even be interested in plug-in hybrids or all-electric cars. This "small number" of people will provide "nowhere near the volume needed for mass adoption." They will be concentrated in Southern California, where weather, state regulations, and infrastructure are all favorable to electric vehicles—"adoption is already being popularized by high-profile celebrities."

Eventually, Deloitte argues, a somewhat wider market may emerge: 1.3 million people with annual household incomes above $114,000 (double the national median). Of these, however, many will not actually buy, because of the electrics' shortcomings in size, range, and comfort. "For E.V.s to become popular, they must mimic the experience and performance that drivers have become accustomed to," Deloitte notes. Today's models, and those of the foreseeable future, can't do that.

Annual sales will hit no more than 465,000 by 2020, according to Deloitte—a mere rounding error in a 250-million-car national fleet. This projection is consistent with others by Boston Consulting Group, Resources for the Future, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, and Honda Motor Corp., whose head of research and development recently declared that "we lack confidence" in the electric-vehicle business."

http://www.slate.com/id/2262229/

read the comment section for personal experiences with EVs....

 

Algae fuel is the future, they now have an algae fuelled plane flying. I hve seen it fly.

http://www.inhabitat.com/2010/06/04/eads-develops-first-algae-fuel-powered-aircraft/

Carbon nuetral and renewable..

 

This thread is about EVs and not other alternative energy sources, but I bet there is one main problem with algae:

It CAN NOT be produced in sufficient quantities so it could quickly replace petroleum based vehicles.