Electric cars are a pipe dream

EMPA [the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology] calculates that the contribution of the battery manufacture, use, and disposal contributed a mere 15% to the life cycle impact of the electric vehicle over a 150,000 km (93,000 mile) life span. Half of this is due to refining the copper and aluminum used in the batteries; the lithium contributes only 2.3 percent.

As one would expect, the lifetime fuel use of the vehicle dominates the footprint. EMPA evaluated several sources for the power used to recharge the electric vehicle, and reports the results in a user-friendly comparison to the equivalent fuel efficiency of a gas-powered vehicle. Their findings prove that electric vehicles offer a better lifetime impact than currently available combustion engine technology, but perhaps by a smaller margin than one would like to think:

* An electric car charged with power from a coal-fired plant is roughly equivalent to a gas powered vehicle that gets 5.2L/100 km (45.2 mpg).
* If charged on the typical mix of European power, derived from renewables and nuclear power as well as combustion platns, the gas-powered vehicle needs to achive a fuel consumption of 3-4 L/100 km (78.4 to 58.8 mpg) to compete with electric.
* An electric car charged solely by renewable energy competes with a fuel efficiency of 2L/100 km (117.6 mpg).

--- http://www.treehugger.com/cars/life...print-of-gas-and-electric-passenger-cars.html

"That is the in use advantage, considering only CO2 release. The Norwegian Study was a life cycle one, considering many other forms of pollution, even acid rain etc. EVs had double the IC engine car pollution in the making and disposal, so it would depend on how many years of use, without battery exchange, etc.

--- http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...ye_RsBbROPuoqqQ&bvm=bv.42965579,d.b2I&cad=rja

"“Electric and hybrid cars create more carbon emissions during their production than standard vehicles – but are still greener overall.”"

--- http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/06...c-cars-compares-co2-impact-conventional-cars/

Top results of just one google search for "Electric cars life cycle analysis" ... swag.

 

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Might be just what Boeing needs as they don´t want to learn from Musk who put same chemisty big capacity battery in his "space X" rockets and many also well separated cells (>100) in his electric cars, which have several times the range of most other EVs. Musk did this despite the fact that small cells do have worse weight to capacity ratio. Boeing is losing millions each day to save a little weight (less than one typical suit case weight reduction) in the 787!

This quote is part of the quote in the OP here: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread...any-millions&p=3041392&viewfull=1#post3041392

 

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Toyota iRoad just coming out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=ScsDvRYyitc&NR=1

It is a Personal Mobility Vehicle... The ad looks futuristic...

 

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... New cadillac made in China.

For several years China has been the world´s largest market for new cars. Every car maker is trying to gain market share there and the high end market is about twice that of the US as many Chinese have recently become very rich.* I doubt GM can gain 10% of it but the good news for GM is that they may sell more than 100,000 cadillacs in China before 2020.

* Many more than officially counted. China may now have more billionaires than any other country.

 

As long time readers of this thread know, I favor either tropical sugar cane alcohol or natural gas for transport, except electricity where a fixed route has energy delivery from wire contacts, but not batteries carried in the vehicle or train. For the more distant future, especially in urban buses the super-flywheel will be the best (lowest pollution and most efficient with braking energy recovered, (urban buses do a lot of breaking) and later used as driving power with only 5% loss only, or less. Here is someone else telling the same:

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Given that I have a 10kW solar power system on my roof that provides all the power I need for both my house and my battery-based electric vehicles - those are the kind of "failed distractions" I am happy to support!

 

Yes I have supported some too - I did not go to 4th grade, but spent that year on very isolated (No electric power and dirt access road so eroded that using them was limited to horse back riders.) With an old generator from car and tiny water wheel with ~6 foot high dam´s over flow turning it we could hear the radio once per week before taking the car battery back down to the creek.

We, like you, made insignificant energy compared to the nation´s needs and like yours was more expensive than grid power when all cost are added up (loss of income from capital investment, government subsidies, added to taxes, the increased cost of grid power if many don´t use on sunny days as the lowers the net demand factor of the power company, but not the peak generation capacity needed - that is were the main cost of grid power is - the cost of capital, not fuel.

People who use the grid very rarely are "free loading" on others and not paying their share of the capital cost of the peak generation capacity of the power company. If solar PV generation ever did produce even 1/4 of the power needed, then the cost per KWhour would sky rocket as the capital of installed generation capacity of at the power company still must be amortized by now fewer users.

Enjoy your “free ride” but pray that solar PV never is 25% of the generation capacity as it will end when the 75% non- solar PV users understand they are paying for your “free ride” on the grid, instead of real batteries as you week of cloudy rain days back up.

 

Actually the power company is "free loading" on me. I effectively donate my power during peak demand times and charge my car during the time they have surplus power, thus reducing their peak loads, reducing their need for peaker plants and increasing the efficiency of their baseline plants. During the day I am effectively powering my neighbors.

Nonsense. Peak loads would decrease, thus requiring less peaker operation - and peakers are their most expensive power they have.

Why wouldn't the power company want to sell me power and make $$$ when it's cloudy and rainy? Especially since most of my load comes exactly when they want it to?

 

Who is your power company? Do you have hourly curves of their peak demand for both summer and winter upon which you base these statements? If you live where even one summer day is quite hot, I bet the peak (airconditioning) is in summer and late in the evening, after people come home from work, turn both their lights and air conditioners on and your PV system is producing "zilch." What time of day the peak demand in 15 years occurs is what is sizing their generation capacity.

I will agree they want to sell you power but not that your and more like you will improve their load factors. I think that at least once per year, after long cloudy spell, they will need to fire up every NG peaking unit they have and buy power, with energy losses from companies far way.

With wide adoption of solar PV, the current billing of residential customers must change to be more like that of factories - I.e. a fixed "connection service" charge based on how much you could demand plus and per KWH or energy use charge. If you have 300Amp service, your fixed chage is 50% more than home with 200Amp connections even if you rarely use any energy. Something like 80% of the electric bill is only to cover the cost of capital installed and on a per kwh used, capital cost is much higher in suburbia with lots of long distrubution wires and local transformers covering a 2D area to pay for per KWH sold. Factories tend to be along major roads and only 1D, not 2D, distrubution wiring is needed with few, realtively large, transformers needed, not one on ever fifth power pole.

Get the damand by hour curves and the break down of your company´s fuel vs. capital cost and we can understand the facts better but an exteme case (every body´s damand for one hour each year is equal to the power plants generation capacity, but for all other hours they use the PV system -their annual bill will have less than $3 of fuel charge and more than 10,000 of capital charge as power company must get money to pay the loans that built the plant since they made negligible profit on power they sold. It normally pays most of the loan interest etc.

 

SDG+E. Yes, in the summer the CAL-ISO demand curve is pretty interesting. The main peak happens at around 3pm when A/C loads are highest. There is a second lower peak around 7pm when people get home and turn on A/C's at home, stoves, lights etc. My array peaks out at around 1pm (east array at about 11:30, west array at 2:30) in the summer.

Probably true, although the case you mention (very hot day during a long cloudy spell) almost never occurs here.

That's what we have here. We have a 200 amp service which is fairly standard, and we pay a "fixed" amount a month, between $5 and $10 (seems to vary based on various new laws being passed and old laws expiring.)

 

Not good enough even if it occurs on once every 20 years, unless rollong black outs are OK with you.

Yes that too is common, but ~$100 per year is not nearly high enough to pay even the interest on the power company´s borrowed billions. Even that small charge seems unfair to most people, if they don´t use any power when not at home for a month on vacation etc. They think they are paying for electrical energy, not the capital cost charges that dominate the bill.

I.e. you paying only ~$150/ year with 200Amp service is "free loading" as you are not paying your fair share of the capital installed for the few occassion you use it, compared to the neighbor with $150 bills each month (~$105 of which is paying for the installed capital).

Look at it this way: You have large capital invested in your PV array etc. PLUS the full benefits of the power company´s capital sitting idle except for the few hours each year you use it too. The current billing structure does not collect from you even 10% of the capital cost charged to your neighbor and he does not yet complain as he falsely thinks he is paying for electrical energy, not mainly (~80%) a capital charge.

I was once a share holder of AEP and saw how huge the cost of their plants and distribution systems were compared to their cost of coal.

 

No, but load shedding is (i.e. interruptible loads that people identify as sheddable are disconnected.) Our entire campus, for example, can be dropped and run on its own generators in times of high demand.

Ah well. Foolish of them to borrow billions that they could not pay back. Perhaps in the future, wider use of distributed generation and intelligent loads will allow them to avoid such massive loans.

Doesn't seem unfair to me; they are providing a useful service.

That was not installation cost; installation was on the order of $10K.

And my neighbor is not paying me for the power I am sending to his house. I'm OK with that.

 

When the government is throwing money out the window, it would be stupid not to go catch it. While that makes it a good idea for you, that doesn't make it a good idea for the government.

 

I live in PA and have done a little work on peak load contribution reduction for some industrial clients. The grid in this area peaks between 3 and 5 PM (with most of the peaks happening between 4 and 5) unless there is a late afternoon thunderstorm (common), in which case it peaks earlier.

You overestimate the effect of residential power consumption: it is a small portion of power used, particularly since houses don't have fresh air ventilation, unlike businesses.

 

I did not make any estimate of the energy use by non-residential vs. residental. I expect you are correct, unless "work at home with computers etc. on grows more and is counted as business energy use.

What I said that may have been mis-read by you was my guess that the installed capital per kwH of energy used was higher for 2D spread out residential users than for the more linear (along highways) factories (and business), in part because there are so many more small transformers needed on "every fifth pole" vs. relatively few big ones used for non-residental instalations. Same is true of the distrution wire (and copper is costly, nowdays). My guess is probably correct if you are very correct - I.e. if residental use is small compared to factories and businesses.

I think Billvon´s point about load sheading helping keep higher load factors is valid. In fact I had, unfortunately, once electric heating hot water tank and signed up for the discount if I let the power company turn it off for a few hours (by some sort of radio command as I recall.)

Also your earlier peak when thunder storm comment tends to make me think there is some confusion about what I mean by "peak" - I am speaking of the highest single power demand in say as 15 year period as that is what sets the total installed generation requirement and total capital invested. The company´s least efficient NG peaking unit may only run for 3 hours every decade, but its interest cost is continuous.

That is a small part of why your "electric" bill is really mainly (>80%) a charge to cover and pay back the company´s loans, and not for fuel. Anything that lowers the utilization rate (long term average load factor) increases the charge they must make for "electricity." PV solar cell houses can certainly do that and make the non-PV houses pay more for their "electricity" - I.e. a subsidy from them to the homes with PV and little battery back up in most cases. There is no free lunch - someone must pay so the PV home can avoid buying its own adequate battery back up and go "off line."

The home in a usually sunny area with a big PV array and only the gird as cloudy period back up is usually paying very little for that expensive power company investment he uses a few hours each year. He is just like that least efficient NG unit, i.e. a continuous interest cost, but user and payer perhaps only ~1% of the time. Unfortunately, most big PV arrays are in usually sunny areas. Fortunately, they still make a tiny fraction of the total electrical energy so don´t cost the system too much, YET.

Easy to see this in the extreme case: Assume eveyone but one guy has a big PV system and uses the grid for back up once per year for an hour. What do you think that one full-time user´s monthly electic bill is? (Round your answer to the nearest $100,000) He is paying 99+% of the electric company interest cost. - That is why I put the "YET" at end of my paragraph just above.

He does save the company some fuel costs if he feeds his excess energy into the grid, but that is not very important, especially in the extreme case with 50,000+ PV systems trying to supply that one non-PV user power. The cost is mainly capital and usually greater because the PV guys are rarely wanting power but are a continuous interest cost. - I.e. if once every five or so years, near time of peak demand PV guys adds to that demand, as whole area has been with rain and clouds for a week so even PV owners with big battery back up want power too.

 

Overall a greater level of independence from carbon based power sources is a good thing for the world, so in that sense it's good for the government. From a more narrow perspective it is generally good for a utility to reduce its peak loads and increase load during minimal loading times. That allows them to better utilize their baseline power sources and reduces the need for peakers. Solar helps with our primary peak here in San Diego, and offset EV charging times (which most EV drivers use for cost reasons) helps increase minimum load while not increasing peak loads.

 

Perhaps, but governments should do cost-benefit analyses and spend their money based on what can give them the most bang for the buck. The way I see it, sending you money to build a solar array took money away from building a nuclear plant that could have benefited us more.

 

I don't think there is only one solution to every problem. Solar is great for distributed peaking power; nuclear is great for baseline generation. Both are subsidized.

The nuclear plant 50 miles from me isn't benefiting anyone right now. They're good power sources but they are certainly not ideal.

 

I like the way VA power gets charged. First, the is a billing fee. Next the are two connection fees, one for the basics, one for capacity. Then there are the TOD energy and peak power fees. Basically, every variable is covered by an appropriate fee so no one gets TOO much of a free ride.