electric cars

[DRBOB]

I read a lot now about electric cars. Let’s suppose everyone in America buys an electric car Friday (let’s just suppose they do). Now at 7:00 p.m. Friday 200 million people plug their car into their household current (think 200 million clothes dryers coming on at the same time). Where does that energy come from? We have already shut down nuclear energy. Hydroelectric is tapped out. Don’t we have to burn more fossil fuel to create that amount of electricity? What is the upside to this??

[GorillaMan]

If everyone in America put their clothes driers on at the same time, there’d be a big problem. But people don’t do that. So it’s not a concern.

As for your other assumptions: you’ve shut down nuclear? That’s clearly a major change from the stats I found on Google, for 2001, which showed over a fifth of America’s electricity from nuclear sources. And 10% from hydro.

[beltbuckle]

The general concensus is that the power companies (oil, coal, hydro, etc.) can make power cleaner than your car engine can. So for every watt your car engine makes, your power company can make that watt, but with a cleaner process.

So, yes, if everyone had an electric car, it would put an increased load on the electricity infrastructure. But it is just like your ISP, in that they use statistical multiplexing… knowing that not everyone will use all the power they can use at one time. They already know the heavy demand periods (mornings, etc), and plan accordingly.

However, if the majority does go electric, it will happen very gradually, and this would give plenty of time for the power companies to do what they needed to meet demand (except California… they would probably screw it up no matter how long they had to prepare).

[DRBOB]

Now don’t be mean to me. If everyone plugged in their car at once (as they
would do every evening) it would be the equivalent of turning on their clothes dryers at the same time. Get it? (220 volts). My question is where would the electricity come from and if we make it with fossil fuel how are we better off?

Now I know you know we haven’t built a nuclear power plant since 1979 and all will go offline within 15 years (RE: Jimmy Carter) vs. say France where 70% of energy is produced by nuclear fission. And there are no significant hydroelectric plants under construction at the present time. By the way, how many nuclear power plant disasters have occured in France in the past 20 years ( answer: 0).

Sooooo… If we are going to burn oil to produce electricity to replace oil powered cars, how are we better off??

[DRBOB]

Sooooo… Oil and coal fired plants are the ultimate in clean energy production in the world today… Have you ever stood outside a coal powered plant and looked up??

My car is tested for emissions every year.

[danceswithcats]

“Evening” is a variable. Stu in New York gets home at 6PM and plugs in his Voltsmobile. Debbie in Chicago won’t be home at 6 until it is 7 in New York, and on and on across the time zones. So, from a practical standpoint, it isn’t gonna happen.

[aahala]

I’m not an expert on this matter, but I believe it’s safe to state the immediate effect of 200 million cars plugging in at 7.00 tomorrow, is that virtually no one could read this board at 7:01.(And perhaps months later)

The total electrical production capacity of the US as of the end of 2002 was on the order of 900,000MW. My WAG is the cars alone would demand usage 10-20 times this figure.

[Mangetout]

@DRBOB

Sooooo… Oil and coal fired plants are the ultimate in clean energy production in the world today… Have you ever stood outside a coal powered plant and looked up??

My car is tested for emissions every year.

I think what beltbuckle was suggesting is that generating power in bulk can be more efficient and cleaner than doing it piecemeal; with a bulk system, you have a single, constant output (no warm-up times before catalytic converters kick in), you also have enough exhaust to make it worthwhile installing a really efficient scrubber.

[DRBOB]

OOO… kay… Let me take a step backward… Lets suppose everyone has an allotted time to plug in their car ( from 000 hours to 2400 hours). Now the surge of demand is evened out, but the same amount of energy is required. Now we have agreed that every time we convert one form of energy to another (kinetic to electrical, for instance) some energy is lost. So it seems reasonable to assume that the production of electricity from oil to power a car is significantly less efficient than simply using the oil to power the car. So… how are we better off. Actually, aren’t we wasting energy in the conversion process??

[DRBOB]

There should have been a “?” after “better off”.
:smack:

[danceswithcats]

The losses in the conversion process are better managed on a larger scale. A utility is willing to invest significant $ in monitoring a generating station, as a minor percentage of inefficiency makes a big difference in their bottom line. Joe Average screams bloody hell when he has to have his vehicle pass an emissions inspection and pay $30 for the test and sticker, even though his losses owing to inefficiency are many times that of the generating station.

[kanicbird]

The general concensus is that the power companies (oil, coal, hydro, etc.) can make power cleaner than your car engine can.

I don’t beleive this is true, but think it’s more like you are just not polluting in already polluted areas.

[Rick]

@DRBOB

Sooooo… Oil and coal fired plants are the ultimate in clean energy production in the world today… Have you ever stood outside a coal powered plant and looked up??

My car is tested for emissions every year.

FWIW I have a PZEV certifed 2004 Volvo V70. When I went for training on this engine managemment system, one of the Swedish engineers mentioned to me that depending on how the electricy was generated, that this car would have a lower overall impact on air quality than a full electric due to the fact that under certain conditions, the tailpipe emissions might be negative numbers. Also the PremAir radiator up to 80% of the ground level ozone that passes through the radiator is converted to good ole O2.

In January 2000 Volvo Car Corporation became the first automaker to offer PremAir on their vehicles. Most Volvo car models sold around the world feature the catalyst on their radiators. The company’s XC90 sport utility vehicle also features PremAir

[DRBOB]

Then electric cars don’t increase efficency or reduce pollution but simply “spread out” the same amount of pollution diffusely across America? Is that their appeal?

[Exapno_Mapcase]

@DRBOB

Sooooo… Oil and coal fired plants are the ultimate in clean energy production in the world today… Have you ever stood outside a coal powered plant and looked up??

Yes. It’s called steam.

Modern plants do pollute, but that’s not the stuff you see coming out of the stacks. Scrubbers remove most of the particulate material and the other gases are not visible. (Yes, oversimplified, I know.)

As for the rest of your posts, you’re committing the usual error of extrapolating one thing into the future without commensurately extrapolating every parallel process that must accompany it.

Electric cars will be introduced over decades. New electric sources will be introduced over decades. There will be huge numbers of intervening events, like an increase in hybrid vehicles or other types of autos.

If you want to debate the future of vehicles, take it to GD. Nobody in GQ cazn possibly answer the question.

[aaelghat]

This site states that it’s more efficient and cleaner to have electric vehicles (EV’s) powered by fossil fuel plants vs operating internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles.

EVs recharging from fossil-fueled power plants such as coal and oil have unique efficiency advantages over ICE vehicles. As a system, EVs and power plants are twice as efficient as ICE vehicles and the system that refines gasoline (See Table 4). Although there are losses associated with generating electricity from fossil-based fuels, EVs are significantly more efficient in converting their energy into mechanical power.

Also…

In a study conducted by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, EVs were significantly cleaner over the course of 100,000 miles than ICE cars. The electricity generation process produces less than 100 pounds of pollutants for EVs compared to 3000 pounds for ICE vehicles. CO2 emissions are also significantly lower. Over the course of 100,000 miles, CO2 emissions from EVs are projected to be 10 tons versus 35 tons for ICE vehicles

and

A study conducted by the Union of Concerned Scientists found that EVs in the Northeast would reduce CO emissions by 99.8 percent, volatile organic compounds (VOC) by 90 percent, NOx by 80 percent, and CO2 by as much as 60 percent (7).

Finally…

Controlling emissions from several hundred power plants is much easier than controlling the emissions from 187 million ICE vehicles. In fact, electric utilities go through considerable efforts to monitor and remove emissions from their facilities. Teams of engineers carefully maintain the plants at peak operating efficiency. State-of-the-art equipment such as scrubbers are installed to remove emissions. Electrostatic precipitators (ESPs) between the boilers and smokestacks remove up to 9g - 75 percent of the ash emitted by power plants. Coal-fired plants in Texas using ESPs remove up to 13.4 million tons of ash each year, releasing only 3000 tons into the atmosphere (24). The amount released falls below U.S. EPA regulations for ash emissions.

[Musicat]

@DRBOB

Then electric cars don’t increase efficency or reduce pollution but simply “spread out” the same amount of pollution diffusely across America? Is that their appeal?

Somehow, you seem to be missing the point that others have made in this thread. Let me give it a whack.

To oversimplify, let us say that a single, small power generating device like an automobile engine generates P amount of pollution. A large electric generating plant may provide power for 1,000,000 electric cars but only produce 100 times P of pollution, since it is more efficient (due to size) and easier to keep clean (also due to size).

So you take away 1,000,000P and replace it with only 100P. Pretty good, no? Less pollution, yes?

So if everyone instantly, simultaneously, converted from gas cars to electric cars and plugged them in at once, yes, the pollution-causing source would not only shift from many points to a just a few (the opposite of “spread out”), but it would be less in the aggregate. That is, the total amount of pollution of all kinds would be less for the closed system of the Earth.

At least that’s the theory.

[DRBOB]

Thank you. Excellent discussion! Great site, aaelghat. I enjoyed it. Rick is correct: since 2000 Volvo has held the patent on the PremAir system which converts 80%of ozone passing throught the radiator to O2 via catalytic conversion (no external energy required). Think how much air 200 million cars could scrub each day.

Let me leave you with one last thought: the way of the future is hydrogen.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@DRBOB

Let me leave you with one last thought: the way of the future is hydrogen.

That last thought requires a bunch of follow-up thoughts, though. Producing elemental hydrogen ain’t cheap or easy. Personally, I think somebody in the U.S. is just gonna have to risk the wrath of the enviro-weenies and start building new fission plants.

[DRBOB]

Jimmy Carter says “wash your mouth out with soap. We’ll have no clean renewable energy sources in America”. You’ve heard of all the carnage in France from their nuclear power generating system, I presume.

Actually it’s pretty easy to generate hydrogen. You take a 9 volt battery, stick 2 wires in the Gulf of Mexico (what’s left after hurricane Ivan), and up bubbles hydrogen (and oxygen, if you are so inclined).