coal EV -vs- petrol car

[Serge]

Not strictly true, but it's a bit less practical...

I meant within the realm of "accessible" options. :smile:

 

[vfx]

Trying to drill this down to a simple statement:

We need to be able to say,

"For every gallon of gasoline produced.

We could drive our electric car XX miles
The refinery put of XX pounds of Co2
The refinery uses XX gallons of water.

So if we stop making gasoline we are already ahead because the grid is freed up from XX..."

 

[richkae]

well to tank number for gasoline

According to this EV WORLD: America's Irrational Petroleum Dependence it takes 8 to 12% of the energy in crude oil to refine it.
Thats 140 kWhr to refine. If that electricity comes from coal then thats 310 pounds of CO2.
A barrel of crude yields 19.5 gallons of gasoline.
I would argue that for the purposes of comparing an EV to a gar car we can count all of that CO2 against the gasoline.
Burning a gallon of gasoline creates 20 pounds of CO2.
Thus the refining cost is another 16 pounds of CO2.

Gasoline is the cleanest thing that comes out of crude. Burning diesel generates 15% more CO2 and bunker oil 60% more by weight.
I think you could further argue that the CO2 that came from burning all the other dirtier products of refining the oil ( diesel, kerosene, bunker oil ) that is more than the CO2 from burning gasoline should be piled on the gasoline, because if we didnt burn the gasoline in our cars it would be available for that other use. Ships burn bunker oil because it is a cheap byproduct of gasoline, they could be built to use efficient gasoline burning turbines and use the primary product, not the waste.
Call that another 4 pounds of CO2.
Now we are up to 40 pounds of CO2 per gallon of gas burned.
So when you factor in well to tank, the total is 2 times worse than tank to wheel.

 

[dpeilow]

Coal plants could emit 90% less CO2 thanks to chilled ammonia — Autoblog Green

 

[johnr]

From What is the Real Cost of Power Production?: Scientific American (emphasis supplied by me):

Market prices don't reflect hundreds of billions of dollars in hidden costs of energy production to human health and the environment, a National Research Council panel said in a report released today....The report estimates $120 billion in hidden damages not related to climate change in the United States in 2005, the primary year used in the study, which was requested by Congress. The tally mainly reflects hidden costs of health problems from air pollution in electricity generation and transportation.

Electricity generation accounted for $63 billion....Coal-fired power plants accounted for $62 billion of that amount, the report says.

"In vehicle operation ... what comes out of the tailpipe accounted for less than one-third of damages from transportation," Cohon said. "Vehicle manufacturing made up a significant portion of the other damages."

Corn-based ethanol resulted in similar or slightly higher non-climate damages than gasoline, the report says, because of the energy needed to produce the corn and convert it into fuel. Cellulosic ethanol, however, had lower damages.

Electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles resulted in higher non-climate damages than other technologies, in both 2005 and in 2030 projections. While operating the vehicles produces few emissions, production of the electricity to power them currently relies on fossil fuels. And energy used to create the batteries and electric motors accounts for 20 percent of the manufacturing portion of life-cycle damages.

Sounds to me like the researchers expect the majority of the electricity used by EVs in the foreseeable future to come from dirty coal-fired power plants, and to carry with it the related health issues - making them even more detrimental to public health than gasoline. Although there will be some who will purchase green power for their EVs, they think the majority will stick with their current utility company which will likely result in a net increase in pollution from coal.

 

[AntronX]

Link to NRC study in the article: Hidden Costs of Energy: Unpriced Consequences of Energy Production and Use

 

[dpeilow]

By the way, the osmotic power idea was interesting.

Harnessing the power of sea water, Norway unveils world's first salt power generator | Mail Online