How Green is EV ownership

[Dborn]

Slightly off topic, but why is all renewable in this country either sun or wind? I mean the east Australian current is a steady 3-4 knots and not really all that far offshore. Virtually no one is talking about wave/sea/tidal energy. How about geothermal. Yes, this is a geologically stable country, but drill down deep enough and it is damn hot permanently.
Being a bit more adventurous, using solar one could pump seawater over the dividing range, harvest hydro on the way down, create reservoirs that desal plants (using solar power) could make fresh water from and drought proof the country. Too ambitious? Probably. No vision from anyone in Canberra.

 

[nwdiver]

Slightly off topic, but why is all renewable in this country either sun or wind?

Because those are the only renewables that are cost effective;

 

[raynewman]

Because those are the only renewables that are cost effective;

So hydro isn't cast effective? Ha!

 

[nwdiver]

So hydro isn't cast effective? Ha!

Depending on location hydro has other issues... and it's much more limited.

Here in the Pac NW we're losing our resident orcas and hydro is largely the reason...

 

[wdolson]

Hydro is very tough on fish that are ocean going buy lay their eggs in fresh water (mostly salmon and steel head trout). There are also a limited number of rivers you can dam for hydro and once that's done, there isn't much more expansion you can do.

My (now ex) brother-in-law was a Geologist for Southern Cal Edison for a while in the 70s and his job was to find geothermal sites in California. There are plenty of places where hot ground water can be found around California, but the vast majority of them are heavily laden with dissolved minerals. Most are corrosive too. Trying to run a geothermal plant with that kind of steam tends to erode the turbine blades very quickly, or at minimum mineral scale will build up on the blades very quickly and the plant will be offline often to clean the equipment.

As for anything that involves pumps will incur energy losses and it will probably cost you more energy in than you get out.

Tidal energy is something that is being investigated, but the problem with anything submerged under water is marine life either gets stuck in it or it grows marine life like barnacles. Again the biggest headache is keeping the equipment clean.

Before solar panels got so cheap there was some momentum towards building solar farms in orbit and beaming the energy back to Earth. The danger there is if the beam loses focus on the Earth receiver it could barbecue the countryside. Solar panels outside the atmosphere are much more efficient than earthbound because the atmosphere attenuates sunlight.

The Chinese were getting serious about building a system, but the price of solar panels dropped and terrestrial solar got so cheap it wasn't that cost effective. They may still be considering it, but I haven't heard anything about it in about 10 years.

There are other solar ideas that concentrate the sun's energy in giant mirror array that gather more energy per sq meter than solar panels, but these would have to be industrial scale installations to be cost effective.

There is constant research into all sorts of ideas for renewable energy sources as well as renewable energy storage systems. At the moment hydro has expanded about as much as it can, geothermal is very limited geologically, and solar and wind are the most cost effective solutions.

 

[raynewman]

Hydro does not need to run into the ocean - see Snowy Hydro scheme.
For tidal see Tidal Energy | The Canadian Encyclopedia

 

[wdolson]

The Colorado River in the US no longer sees the ocean. Los Angeles and Phoenix, AZ drink most of it. But some of it gets used in California's Imperial Valley too.

The Kern River has been a land locked river since the end of the last ice age. There is only one dam on that river. The water gets used up for agriculture in Kern County. Kern, Tulare, and Fresno counties compete every year to see which county will have the highest dollar value for its agricultural output. The winner can claim the highest dollar value output for a single county in the world. The other two are usually #2 and #3 in the world. The agricultural output of the San Joaquin Valley is staggering. Most Californians don't realize that California is the #1 agricultural output state by more than double #2 (Texas). It accounts for something like 13% of all US agricultural output.

Most of California's agricultural water starts as snow in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and runs through at least one power plant before getting used up watering crops.

California has a few peaking units that pump water uphill into reservoirs when electricity is cheap and then let it out when demand is high. The largest of these is the Helms Pumped Storage facility near Fresno.

California, Oregon, and Washington are the three US states with more than 5 GW of hydro generation capability. Washington State generates more than 25% of all the hydro power in the US (21 GW capacity). Washington has enough water that it does allow most of it to flow into the Pacific. The largest river from the western slopes of the Rockies also passes through Washington and makes up the Oregon/Washington border for about half the length of the states (east to west).

There was some talk of shipping water to California from the Northwest. California already does that within the state. Los Angeles can only exist because it draws massive amounts of water from the Colorado River, the Owens Valley (east of the Sierra Nevada) and the California Water Project that ships water from the more abundant north to the south in a giant aqueduct. The idea was to extend that to Washington, but Oregon and Washington wanted nothing to do with it.

 

[Shock-On-T]

Even if EV v ICE is borderline as far as CO2 your still playing a part in reducing local air pollution, build up areas in Australia may not be as bad as some parts of Europe and Asia but are still adding a huge cost to our citizens health, if we added $800 to every yearly ICE car rego to cover the the message may get across quicker.

Agreed. The lack of local pollution is the big advantage of EVs in Australia at the moment.
Although we could reduce pollution 100X faster with some simple mandatory emissions testing at annual registration checks. Every “chipped” Navara emits 10X the pollution of a Toyota Camry. Sydney is swimming in pollution lately, so many crappy diesels.

 

[Shock-On-T]

The myth that electric cars are more polluting over the lifetime of the car because of coal-produced electricity has been thoroughly debunked several times. Here is a paper that is as good as any https://www.afdc.energy.gov/uploads/publication/ev_emissions_impact.pdf . This includes a scenario of a 93% coal powered grid.

In that report EV emissions was 12 vs 13 in conventional ICE vehicles.
(Between 11.7 and 12.2 lbs/CO2 per day vs 13.0 for a conventional ICE. Figure 18, page 19).

That’s very similar to the results I got from my own back of the envelope calculation, and is hardly a ringing endorsement for EVs in a coal powered society like Australia’s.

Like I said before, I am pro-EV. I own a Tesla. But I’m also pro-fact (however inconvenient). The solution to CO2 emissions reduction is EV + renewables, not EV alone.

 

[nwdiver]

Even if EV v ICE is borderline as far as CO2 your still playing a part in reducing local air pollution, build up areas in Australia may not be as bad as some parts of Europe and Asia but are still adding a huge cost to our citizens health, if we added $800 to every yearly ICE car rego to cover the the message may get across quicker.

Only if you're looking at the average grid mix... EVs are generally charged at night during periods of low demand and high wind. That was one of the more absurd comments in his rambling non-sensical rant. Not only do you not NEED to store energy from solar instead of exporting it... you probably SHOULDN'T store it. Displace fossil fuel generation during the day, use surplus wind at night. win-win.

 

[Shock-On-T]

@ShockOnT
You can change your retailer. Just pick the one that owns only, or mostly renewable assets:
Homepage - The Green Electricity Guide

That’s where the real moral conundrum lies.
I did a quote through powershop, which is 100% renewable. My car would cost about $1600 a year, whereas I’m on AGLs $1/day plan now.
Are my convictions worth $1300/yr?

 

[Blue heaven]

That’s where the real moral conundrum lies.
I did a quote through powershop, which is 100% renewable. My car would cost about $1600 a year, whereas I’m on AGLs $1/day plan now.
Are my convictions worth $1300/yr?

Go for the $1.00 a day AGL plan keeping in mind that AGL are transitioning to renewables because they can see the financial benefits, secondly invest the $1300 a year saving into some other renewable program.

 

[Shock-On-T]

Go for the $1.00 a day AGL plan keeping in mind that AGL are transitioning to renewables because they can see the financial benefits, secondly invest the $1300 a year saving into some other renewable program.

Sounds good, particularly if "renewal program" is code for a wine plan.
Grapes are a carbon sink, no?

 

[EcoCloudIT]

Each time I've done the figures of comparing AGL $1 per day along with the extra cost they charge for the general supply of electricity compared to PowerShow for the lot PowerShop has come out near dead on...

One had to do pretty close to 20KW per day in to the car on AGL and not be a big house electricity provider in order for AGL to be cheaper....I guess it varies by state (I'm in Victoria)....

 

[Shock-On-T]

In my post code, 2074:
Daily supply charge 87.96¢
Flat /kw inc gst 25.68¢

I do 20.6kWh per day in the car on average...

 

[EcoCloudIT]

Few errors in that message sorry, I really should refrain from posting messages from my mobile without my glasses

 

[Vostok]

I did a quote through powershop, which is 100% renewable. My car would cost about $1600 a year, whereas I’m on AGLs $1/day plan now.

Powershop is NOT 100% renewable. They carbon-offset their fossil fuel grid purchases from the generators. Big BIG difference.

Carbon offsetting is kind of the least-worst option if there’s nothing else you can do, e.g. if you have gas water heating or take a plane flight, then carbon offset it.

But electricity can be generated emissions-free, so that should always be the goal. Carbon offsetting is trying to neutralise the damage after the horse has already bolted.

GetUp! frequently spruik Powershop and I had a big argument with them over it, because their emails about it were laden with vitriol against the “big 3 dirty polluters” and yet they never disclosed that Powershop bought a lot of their electricity from... you guessed it... the “big 3 dirty polluters”. Yeah, kinda important to disclose that, don’t you think?

They eventually conceded the point, but argued that taking business away from “the big 3 dirty polluters” (by churning to PowerShop) was more effective in changing the behaviour of the “big 3 dirty polluters” than buying 100% GreenPower from the “big 3 dirty polluters”.

I argued that approach was wrong, because the goal is to move to 100% emissions free electricity generation, which carbon offsetting does not achieve. The goal is not to engage in some kind of vendetta against companies, especially when Powershop is probably one of the biggest customers of the “big 3 dirty polluters”. Irony does not begin to describe that situation.

You can buy 100% GreenPower from Powershop, but in NSW I found their GreenPower surcharges to be extremely uncompetitive compared to the “big 3 dirty polluters” own 100% GreenPower plans.

So that’s what I do. End of rant.

 

[Dborn]

You actually tried to win a logical argument with lefty greenies? Wow. The lefty’s are all brain-dead. You don’t stand a chance!
You want green power? We need to go nuclear, now. Side benefits will include massive amounts of power for desal plants to drought proof this nation which should be a top priority.
Meantime, I am happy shifting my pollution out of the city to the bush, reducing smog and not feeding my enemies on the other side of the globe. My solar/Tesla battery install at home offsets about 35% of my consumption and I use the solar farm in Chatswood quite often. So, I am doing my bit.

 

[Blue heaven]

You actually tried to win a logical argument with lefty greenies? Wow. The lefty’s are all brain-dead. You don’t stand a chance!
You want green power? We need to go nuclear, now. Side benefits will include massive amounts of power for desal plants to drought proof this nation which should be a top priority.
Meantime, I am happy shifting my pollution out of the city to the bush, reducing smog and not feeding my enemies on the other side of the globe. My solar/Tesla battery install at home offsets about 35% of my consumption and I use the solar farm in Chatswood quite often. So, I am doing my bit.

Nuclear powered electricity generation can be viable in countries such as China, high population, far less red tape, lower construction costs due to multiple reasons, but in Australia it's NEVER going to happen, over the past few years, and partly due to Fukishima, the cost of constructing nuclear power has blown out, in 1960s era UK building Nuclear power was affordable because the clean up cost was someone else's problem, roll forward to 2018 and Hinckley point C is an ever cost increasing burden on the public, if it ever does get completed it will be producing electricity at a cost higher than renewables. I noticed our esteemed Prime Ministerial back stabbers Abbott and Hastie have recently been promoting nuclear energy in Australia,it really does reinforce that those two muppets are clueless. Nuclear powered electricity will NEVER be produced in Australia, it's too expensive and it's not needed.

 

[Shock-On-T]

I would prefer to see nuclear power than another coal plant to replace Liddell.
Australia is well suited to nuclear, because we have very stable tectonics, vast areas of remote land, and domestic uranium reserves.
We were cheerfully detonating above-ground atomic bombs not too long ago in this country, yet we are scared to build a modern nuclear power plant now. It’s irrational.

Of course, we will never stop mining coal, whether it’s burned here or elsewhere. There’s too much money to be made, and our system of government doesn’t have the capacity to unilaterally do the right thing. Hell, we can’t even keep our elected prime ministers full-term anymore. I’m not sure who’s running this country, but it’s not being run from Canberra.