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Can anyone verify that oil refineries require 4-6 kilowatts of power to refine each gallon of gasoline.

It came from an interview between Business Insider, Chris Paine, and Elon Musk
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/10/26/businessinsi...

BI: At least in the U.S., most electricity is generated using fossil fuels. Mostly natural gas and coal. What's the relative carbon footprint of a Roadster or Model S, against a gasoline car? I've heard that argument from people who worked in the oil industry.

Chris: It's funny they make that argument, because they're one of the largest users of electricity in the country, to refine gasoline. That's why the power cords go into refineries. Something like 4 to 6 kilowatt hours of electricity to refine every gallon of gasoline. They're pulling that electricity from the same source as they're critiquing on electric cars and they get much less result out of it.

Elon: Exactly. Chris has a nice way of saying it which is, you have enough electricity to power all the cars in the country if you stop refining gasoline. You take an average of 5 kilowatt hours to refine gasoline, something like the Model S can go 20 miles on 5 kilowatt hours. You basically have the energy needed to power electric vehicles if you stop refining.
 
I covered that above. It's 6kWh of energy equivalent, mostly in the form of heat. Refining oil takes heat, which is created mostly by burning petroleum byproducts.

The Three Stages of Refining
But that's the point isn't it? Those byproducts are usually byproducts that have little to no other value than as being burned in a process that creates heat. Hence they refine petroleum and instead of dumping those byproducts outside the refinery walls (or some other dump) they burn them to produce heat. That way you increase the CO2 emmisions and other pollutants by doing the refinery. If they would have have to pay hefty fees for the CO2 emmisions they would have used renewable electricity and stored the byproducts instead. And then the amount electricity would be around the 5-6kWh mark anyway.

So the way I see it this is a worse solution then if the electricity consumption would have been higher for the refineries.

Cobos
 
2013USEnergy.png
 
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But that's the point isn't it? Those byproducts are usually byproducts that have little to no other value than as being burned in a process that creates heat. Hence they refine petroleum and instead of dumping those byproducts outside the refinery walls (or some other dump) they burn them to produce heat. That way you increase the CO2 emmisions and other pollutants by doing the refinery. If they would have have to pay hefty fees for the CO2 emmisions they would have used renewable electricity and stored the byproducts instead. And then the amount electricity would be around the 5-6kWh mark anyway.

Well no, creating heat indirectly from electricity would be much less efficient than directly burning those byproducts, and the amount of electricity used would be far higher. That fact remains that the statement "6kWh's of electricity per gallon" is false. It gives the impression that not refining that gallon of gas would leave 6kWh's of electricity availble for use in the grid, specifically in an EV. That's not true.
 
Well no, creating heat indirectly from electricity would be much less efficient than directly burning those byproducts, and the amount of electricity used would be far higher. That fact remains that the statement "6kWh's of electricity per gallon" is false. It gives the impression that not refining that gallon of gas would leave 6kWh's of electricity availble for use in the grid, specifically in an EV. That's not true.
I saw 4.5kWh somewhere, and I thought it was a reputable source. What you're saying makes sense, but if you have a link I can hold onto, I'd appreciate it. I'm still looking for a solid, non-partisan, defensible position on full well-to-wheel costs, and I can't imagine that the entire oil supply chain is as efficient as they claim...
 
OK. You see that grey bar coming off of transportation? That's waste from the incredibly inefficient gasoline-burning engines. That's what electric cars eliminate. Point that out to people.

Now, you see that grey bar coming off electricity generation? That's waste from the very inefficient process of generation of electricity from burning stuff. That's what solar power and wind power eliminate. Point that out to people.
 
I saw 4.5kWh somewhere, and I thought it was a reputable source. What you're saying makes sense, but if you have a link I can hold onto, I'd appreciate it. I'm still looking for a solid, non-partisan, defensible position on full well-to-wheel costs, and I can't imagine that the entire oil supply chain is as efficient as they claim...


In a 2008 report, Argonne National Lab estimated that the efficiency for producing gasoline of an “average” U.S. petroleum refinery is between 84% and 88% (Wang, 2008), and Oak Ridge National Lab reports that the net energy content of oil is approximately 132,000 Btu per gallon (Davis, 2009). It is commonly known that a barrel of crude oil generate approximately 45 gallons of refined product (refer to NAS, 2009, Table 3-4 for a publication stating so). Thus, using an 85% refinery efficiency and the aforementioned conversion factors, it can be estimated that about 21,000 Btu—the equivalent of 6 kWh—of energy are lost per gallon of gasoline refined

Note the use of "Btu" and "energy", not electricity. The link below with the source of the quote actually misinterprets that as 6kWh of electricity.

How much electricity is used refine a gallon of Gasoline?-video added! « Gateway Electric Vehicle Club
 
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Well no, creating heat indirectly from electricity would be much less efficient than directly burning those byproducts, and the amount of electricity used would be far higher. That fact remains that the statement "6kWh's of electricity per gallon" is false. It gives the impression that not refining that gallon of gas would leave 6kWh's of electricity availble for use in the grid, specifically in an EV. That's not true.
Well creating heat from electricity is pretty much around 100% efficient, where else would the energy go :)
Though I'm guessing you meant using that heat to create electricity and then using that electricity to create heat again and then I would definately agree. I agree that those 6kWh of energy doesn't exist as electricity but if we instead of using energy uses CO2 as the currency then not burning those 6kWh of energy, not creating that heat, and hence not refine that gallon of gasoline will mean we can use that CO2 somewhere else. To build stuff f.inst.
In that sense you will probably save CO2 by using energy from mixed grid to fuel an EV compared to refining that gallon of gas.

Cobos
 
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Can anyone verify that oil refineries require 4-6 kilowatts of power to refine each gallon of gasoline.

It came from an interview between Business Insider, Chris Paine, and Elon Musk
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/10/26/businessinsi...

BI: At least in the U.S., most electricity is generated using fossil fuels. Mostly natural gas and coal. What's the relative carbon footprint of a Roadster or Model S, against a gasoline car? I've heard that argument from people who worked in the oil industry.

Chris: It's funny they make that argument, because they're one of the largest users of electricity in the country, to refine gasoline. That's why the power cords go into refineries. Something like 4 to 6 kilowatt hours of electricity to refine every gallon of gasoline. They're pulling that electricity from the same source as they're critiquing on electric cars and they get much less result out of it.

Elon: Exactly. Chris has a nice way of saying it which is, you have enough electricity to power all the cars in the country if you stop refining gasoline. You take an average of 5 kilowatt hours to refine gasoline, something like the Model S can go 20 miles on 5 kilowatt hours. You basically have the energy needed to power electric vehicles if you stop refining.

I did find this:
Estimation of Energy Efficiencies of U.S. Petroleum Refineries

They list how many equivalent barrels of oil go into the process via electricity, but there are many input products.

Refining gasoline is about 88% efficient. That is the end product has 88% of the energy that went into making it. A gallon of gasoline has between 32 and 35 KWh of energy per gallon and the EPA uses 33.7 KWh for it's calculations of MPGe.

The people who are arguing that electric vehicles are worse for the environment are comparing apples and oranges. In thermodynamics, to accurately compare two systems, you need to draw the boundaries around the two systems the same. There is a diagram of the energy efficiency from power generation to turning the wheels comparing an EV to fuel cell vehicles. There is a version here:
Toyoto vs Tesla - hydrogen fuel cell vehicles vs electric cars

For 100 KWh of electricity generated, about 69 KWh turns the wheels in an EV vs 19-23 for a fuel cell vehicle. The diagram assumes some sort of renewable as the input. The energy lost in generation varies from one source to another. With wind, solar, and hydro, the raw material doesn't cost you anything (the input energy) so losses in generation don't cost you anything materially.

For fossil fuel plants, you have to pay for the input product, so the losses are a factor. The EIA gives efficiency numbers in terms of BTU per KWh heat rate. They say to calculate the efficiency you need to divide the heat rate into the BTU equivalent of 1 KWh which is 3412 BTU. Coal, nuclear, petroleum, and natural gas all have a heat rate between 10,059 and 10,458 to boil steam. That makes the efficiency around 33%.

They also list combined cycle for fossil fuels, which I assume is doing something more with the energy than just boiling water. For petroleum that's 9676 and natural gas that's 7655. They don't list it for coal saying they are withholding individual company data.

For non-newables, the best you can get is 7655 BTU/Kwh which just shy of 45% efficient.

To fuel an ICE, the refining process is 88% efficient, and the engine is around 20% efficient. That means about 17.6% of the energy into the system gets to the wheels of the car. And that doesn't account for the energy lost transporting the finished fuel and delivering it to the car.

In an EV about 68% of the energy generated gets to the wheels. For a renewable source, the losses in generation exist, but are economically inconsequential because the fuel is free. With natural gas, about 45% gets from the raw product into the power lines. That makes an EV overall 30.6% efficient when running on natural gas. The combined cycle numbers aren't available for coal, but if they are the same as natural gas, you get the same numbers. If you just use the coal to generate steam and nothing else it's 33% efficient, which makes the EV 22.4% efficient overall.

When an EV is fueled with renewables, it's 68% efficient overall and renewables are the fastest growing segment of the power generating mix.

But even assuming the worst possible scenario for electricity generation and ignoring energy lost in distribution for gasoline, EVs are still better best case for ICE and worst case for EVs.

If people draw the boxes in different ways, say ignoring the energy lost in making gasoline, or assuming the average efficiency of ICEs are better, you can get numbers that are more efficient than an EV fueled by coal or natural gas, but fueling an EV with fossil fuel electricity is still the worst case scenario. All future scenarios show EVs being fueled more and more through renewables, which just improves the picture.
 
The following definitely belongs under the "Fact or Fiction?" rubric, although it does not deal specifically with Tesla.

How is it that General Motors can spend cash out of its treasury for share buybacks, as it reported moments ago ($5bn now; $9bn under a 2015 plan), when US taxpayers lost $9.3bn under the TARP bailout & repayments? I'm disgusted that GM shareholders can be handed golden cookies that appear, to me, to belong to all of us.

Now, that $9.3bn can be demonstrated to have been lost between both GM and FCA; the logic of my post does, however, stand.

So think I.
 
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I did find this:
Estimation of Energy Efficiencies of U.S. Petroleum Refineries

They list how many equivalent barrels of oil go into the process via electricity, but there are many input products.

Refining gasoline is about 88% efficient. That is the end product has 88% of the energy that went into making it. A gallon of gasoline has between 32 and 35 KWh of energy per gallon and the EPA uses 33.7 KWh for it's calculations of MPGe.

The people who are arguing that electric vehicles are worse for the environment are comparing apples and oranges. In thermodynamics, to accurately compare two systems, you need to draw the boundaries around the two systems the same. There is a diagram of the energy efficiency from power generation to turning the wheels comparing an EV to fuel cell vehicles. There is a version here:
Toyoto vs Tesla - hydrogen fuel cell vehicles vs electric cars

...

This is very helpful. From a carbon standpoint for ICE I would think you would also need to somehow account for the carbon emitted by the various drilling processes and transportation from well to refinery, no?

Then there's the whole matter of cleanup costs for spills during the production and transportation stages.
 
there is a bunch of "hoohah" from Santos on SA about the gigafactory AND seriously dissing a ?Mechanical Engineer Randy Carlson's articles on the gigafactory

Unfortunately Randy's premise of in module cell aging was a complete flight of fancy which was never going to happen, which I told him at the time he published the article. Of course it will not have the effect that Paulo is claiming because it was never a real means for cost savings to begin with. Randy has gone off the rails with some of his speculative articles creating completely unlikely scenarios that really fail some basic engineering concepts.
 
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Unfortunately Randy's premise of in module cell aging was a complete flight of fancy which was never going to happen, which I told him at the time he published the article. Of course it will not have the effect that Paulo is claiming because it was never a real means for cost savings to begin with. Randy has gone off the rails with some of his speculative articles creating completely unlikely scenarios that really fail some basic engineering concepts.
you got a kind "shout out" from Montana "potemkin village" Skeptic praising you for that ?exact? point. a dubious honor to some, praise from a ?lawyer?
you may want, or not, to read Randy's comment on the article
 
you got a kind "shout out" from Montana "potemkin village" Skeptic praising you for that ?exact? point. a dubious honor to some, praise from a ?lawyer?
you may want, or not, to read Randy's comment on the article
Nonsense from bulls is no better than nonsense from bears and I'll call out both when appropriate. I have no problem if a bear credits me with speaking the truth. Randy's response further proves he doesn't know much at all about cell production.

Rather than accomplishing cell cycling and capacity measurement / sorting within assembled battery packs, they have apparently eliminated these steps entirely.

Cells are charged and most likely measured before going into the aging room, there is no point in aging a bad cell. They are likely tested again after aging to make sure they are up to spec because you don't want to put a bad cell into a module. My speculation is that the measuring technology developed by Prof. Jeff Dahn using coulombic efficiency is used to measure and grade cells.
 
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