How Green is EV ownership

[Dborn]

The main problem in Australia is that we don't have any fiscal incentive towards renewables.
In the real world, things don't happen because it's the right thing to do. Things happen because they are the cheapest and easiest thing to do.

This is even more true when the decisions are being made my publicly listed companies, rather than governments.

Coal power and petrol transport do not have to pay for their negative externalities. The cost of dumping exhaust gases in cities and tunnels is deemed to be zero. The cost of pumping megatons of CO2 out the chimney is deemed to be zero.

The simplest way to price these externalities correctly would have been a carbon tax. Much simpler than trying to micro-regulate all emitting industries. Sadly our country has too many people susceptible to carbon industry propaganda, and our political system is too weak to enforce an unpopular action.

The slogan for the carbon tax should have been "Tax emissions not incomes!".

And that would inevitably lead to higher prices still on electricity, which would have been passed on leading on to higher prices for everything else. When I look at what things cost in say the USA compared to here, I weep. I mean let’s just take Tesla cars. The price is the same around the world, but look at what we pay for them compared to the USA. Yes, I know about shipping and marine insurance. But for the rest? All various taxes. We have 25 million people here now. It is clear many are leeches not pulling their weight and a major drain on the economy.
Take Iceland again. The only things cheap there is electric power and heating. They are a big island too, with a total population of 300000 requiring most everything to be imported. Everything else there is very costly. They don’t have the tax base there. Here we do. No real excuse.
We are making almost nothing here. Not even petrol! Geez, how dumb is that? Strategically a disaster! We export iron ore. Why? Why are we not exporting finished steel! I am not sure about bauxite, but we probably export that too without refining it to aluminium. Exhobitant labour costs is a major reason as are many of our trade unions. Just too hard for employers to have to deal with them. Much easier just to bypass them. I am sure that is why the car industry died here. Input costs way over the top. So, wonderful terms and conditions extorted by the unions, but now no jobs available, so what did they achieve? Same goes for aviation servicing and on it goes.
And you want to push external pressures higher? Man no wonder it was politically unacceptable to keep up a carbon tax. The only real cost benefit to Australia for all this pain, is reduction of smog in our cities. It would make near zero difference to global climate outcome. Where you have billions of people pouring out pollution like India or China reduction there might make a difference. Ditto the USA, Europe and Russia. None of them is killing themselves to the same extent we are.
Every country is different and it natural resources are different. New Zealand can largely go renewable because of all its natural resources, water for hydro and ample geothermal, plus some sun. With Australia, yep we have heaps of sun, but really far from population centres if you want daily consistency, and then to pipe it long distances to population centres is prohibitive, not to mention losses along the way, and then, on top of that, massive battery storage required. Overall costs of that scenario? We might just as well migrate somewhere where the cost of living becomes more reasonable.
Distributed solar with battery backup? Alone it too can’t guarantee unbroken supply. So, it is a choice. You want to slip back towards a more primitive type country like many in Africa, or you want to remain first world.
Sure I am not quoting facts and figures. Just logic as I see it.

 

[wdolson]

To refine bauxite into aluminum efficiently requires access to abundant, cheap electricity. It's really only economical in places with lots of hydro. That's probably why it isn't refined in Australia.

The United States has many high power transmission lines that move electricity from one part of the country to another. For efficiency it's best to use the electricity as close as possible to the source, but for example Washington State exports hydro electricity to California. Most of Australia's major cities have lots of open land inland from them where solar farms could be built. Most if not all could be less than 100 Km away. You would need storage for nighttime, but a large percentage of the city's needs could be met with solar.

Li-ion are not really the best cell type for large scale stationary storage. There are much cheaper battery chemistries that are fairly low charge density, but stationary facilities can usually take up a lot of space for batteries if they want.

Iceland is fairly short of resources, though they both have the largest per capita banana consumption in the world and produce more than they can eat. They have large greenhouses filled with banana trees heated with geothermal. It takes twice as long to grow them, but it works. I believe they are expanding to other foods that way too. Their native soil being volcanic is loaded with nutrients and makes good growing soil.

Australia has some of the same problems Canada has, they are both advanced countries with lots of land, but small populations. Canada shares a land border with a large, heavily populated country though. So Canada has an easily reached market for its goods. Australia is a long haul from or to anywhere.

 

[Shock-On-T]

And that would inevitably lead to higher prices still on electricity, which would have been passed on leading on to higher prices for everything else. When I look at what things cost in say the USA compared to here, I weep. I mean let’s just take Tesla cars. The price is the same around the world, but look at what we pay for them compared to the USA. Yes, I know about shipping and marine insurance. But for the rest? All various taxes. We have 25 million people here now. It is clear many are leeches not pulling their weight and a major drain on the economy.
Take Iceland again. The only things cheap there is electric power and heating. They are a big island too, with a total population of 300000 requiring most everything to be imported. Everything else there is very costly. They don’t have the tax base there. Here we do. No real excuse.
We are making almost nothing here. Not even petrol! Geez, how dumb is that? Strategically a disaster! We export iron ore. Why? Why are we not exporting finished steel! I am not sure about bauxite, but we probably export that too without refining it to aluminium. Exhobitant labour costs is a major reason as are many of our trade unions. Just too hard for employers to have to deal with them. Much easier just to bypass them. I am sure that is why the car industry died here. Input costs way over the top. So, wonderful terms and conditions extorted by the unions, but now no jobs available, so what did they achieve? Same goes for aviation servicing and on it goes.
And you want to push external pressures higher? Man no wonder it was politically unacceptable to keep up a carbon tax. The only real cost benefit to Australia for all this pain, is reduction of smog in our cities. It would make near zero difference to global climate outcome. Where you have billions of people pouring out pollution like India or China reduction there might make a difference. Ditto the USA, Europe and Russia. None of them is killing themselves to the same extent we are.
Every country is different and it natural resources are different. New Zealand can largely go renewable because of all its natural resources, water for hydro and ample geothermal, plus some sun. With Australia, yep we have heaps of sun, but really far from population centres if you want daily consistency, and then to pipe it long distances to population centres is prohibitive, not to mention losses along the way, and then, on top of that, massive battery storage required. Overall costs of that scenario? We might just as well migrate somewhere where the cost of living becomes more reasonable.
Distributed solar with battery backup? Alone it too can’t guarantee unbroken supply. So, it is a choice. You want to slip back towards a more primitive type country like many in Africa, or you want to remain first world.
Sure I am not quoting facts and figures. Just logic as I see it.

A carbon tax doesn’t increase the tax burden on the country, at least it’s not supposed to.

It’s similar to a tobacco tax. It disincentives unwanted behaviour, but the money generated is used to reduce other taxes.

 

[EcoCloudIT]

I agree with a carbon tax also, however I also know it will mean high prices as we all/want electric (unlike avoiding tobacco) and we are locked in to a grid supplier (zero competition)....however as the tax on carbon goes up it will become vastly cheaper to invest in renewables etc.

In the meantime, go PowerShop, at least they push your extra $'s one pays on "green energy" back to the renewable farms etc.

 

[renim]

To refine bauxite into aluminum efficiently requires access to abundant, cheap electricity. It's really only economical in places with lots of hydro. That's probably why it isn't refined in Australia.

.....

historically aluminum refining was one of Australia's major semi 'manufacturing exports'.

https://publications.industry.gov.a...tember-2017-Aluminium-alumina-and-bauxite.pdf

2008 Rudd's labor commits to a (CPRS) cap-and-trade scheme which it wanted to start by July 2010.
actually the Gillard carbon tax was circa 2011-2013. anyway, it set the peak for Austalian aluminium, which is in approximate decline since then. A key reason is that the aluminium refineries had a captive transmission pricing to the power plant, so they had our wholesale price of electricity, is it electorally fair for a company to get electricity at say US 3cents per kWh when everybody else pays about US 15cents per kWh? when electricity was not politicized it was OK, but not anymore.

 

[WilburGreen]

Have a listen to Origin Energy’s head of energy trading and operations Greg Jarvis on the Renew Economy Energy Insiders podcast, and listen to his discussion about the price of new generation in Australia.
Whatever you though the cost of generation was 6 or 12 months ago, its now all changed.

 

[meloccom]

The Tomago Aluminium Smelter is on your right just before you get to the Heatherbrae Supercharger when heading north.

Courtesy Wikipedia:
"The Tomago plant was started in 1983 using Pechiney AP18 technology. Two potlines with 240 pots each were built and operated at 181 kiloamperes (kA) for a production of 240,000 tonnes per year. In 1993, a third AP18 potline with 280 pots was commissioned. After potline 3 start up, current on the three potlines was 182 kA for a production of 385,000 tonnes per year. In 1998, the potlines 1 and 2 were extended with 20 pots at the end of each room, making 280 cell per line. The production of Tomago was increased by 50,000 tonnes to 435,000 tonnes per year. In 2002 the plant commenced the AP22 project to reach the a line current of 226 kA in 2007.[3]

As at 2017, it is the largest consumer of electricity in New South Wales accounting for 12% of total capacity."

So despite High wages we do produce Aluminium and many other things here and it must be profitable as they kept expanding the business all through periods of expanding wages, and since the last expansion wages are largely stagnant, so are our problems really Unions and wages?
Using black coal to make Aluminium and other energy intensive products is crazy expensive in terms of Dollars and CO2 and more recently has come under threat from our old unreliable Coal fired power, which frequently fail and cause AEMO to ask Tomago to turn off some pot lines from time to time. They can't be turned back on again if they cool down too far and Tomago yells loudly every time this happens. Most recently NSW was saved by the Hornsdale Power reserve or we would have suffered rolling blackouts.
The point is with clear energy policy supported by science perhaps we can fix many of the current issues we face. Unfortunately what we seem to do is more like what 'Makes sense' but is not backed up by proper scientific analysis and is often actually wrong; or its what the Minerals Council of Australia or Rupert Murdoch want.
Back to topic, Renewable energy is now the cheapest to produce, now even cheaper than old coal in some cases and that trend will likely continue. So NSW needs to pull its finger out and set policies that encourage this and we New South Welshmen and women will be driving greener EVs.

 

[wdolson]

It sounds like aluminum production was subsidized with artificially low electricity rates for the smelters.

 

[WilburGreen]

Remember Sanjeev Gupta is going to power his steelworks around Australia by renewable sources as he says its cheaper and more reliable.

 

[paulp]

The Tomago Aluminium Smelter is on your right just before you get to the Heatherbrae Supercharger when heading north.
View attachment 341737
Courtesy Wikipedia:
"The Tomago plant was started in 1983 using Pechiney AP18 technology. Two potlines with 240 pots each were built and operated at 181 kiloamperes (kA) for a production of 240,000 tonnes per year. In 1993, a third AP18 potline with 280 pots was commissioned. After potline 3 start up, current on the three potlines was 182 kA for a production of 385,000 tonnes per year. In 1998, the potlines 1 and 2 were extended with 20 pots at the end of each room, making 280 cell per line. The production of Tomago was increased by 50,000 tonnes to 435,000 tonnes per year. In 2002 the plant commenced the AP22 project to reach the a line current of 226 kA in 2007.[3]

As at 2017, it is the largest consumer of electricity in New South Wales accounting for 12% of total capacity."

So despite High wages we do produce Aluminium and many other things here and it must be profitable as they kept expanding the business all through periods of expanding wages, and since the last expansion wages are largely stagnant, so are our problems really Unions and wages?
Using black coal to make Aluminium and other energy intensive products is crazy expensive in terms of Dollars and CO2 and more recently has come under threat from our old unreliable Coal fired power, which frequently fail and cause AEMO to ask Tomago to turn off some pot lines from time to time. They can't be turned back on again if they cool down too far and Tomago yells loudly every time this happens. Most recently NSW was saved by the Hornsdale Power reserve or we would have suffered rolling blackouts.
The point is with clear energy policy supported by science perhaps we can fix many of the current issues we face. Unfortunately what we seem to do is more like what 'Makes sense' but is not backed up by proper scientific analysis and is often actually wrong; or its what the Minerals Council of Australia or Rupert Murdoch want.
Back to topic, Renewable energy is now the cheapest to produce, now even cheaper than old coal in some cases and that trend will likely continue. So NSW needs to pull its finger out and set policies that encourage this and we New South Welshmen and women will be driving greener EVs.

Yes our problems are unions and wages. Aluminium is in massive demand at the moment (have a look at the AWC share price), so inflated sales prices mask inflated production costs.

 

[WhiteStar]

...I am not quoting facts...

I'll quote somebody who is...as Wilbur mentioned above...Origin Energy’s head of energy trading and operations Greg Jarvis.

I have been in this game for so long … the one thing I have seen is just the cost of renewables really change the game. It is amazing what we have been seeing.

Renewables are cheaper than the marginal cost of black coal at the moment. They are very cheap.

Jarvis puts the cost of solar in the mid $40s/MWh and the cost of wind at the low $50s/MWh. That cost of solar is around half the average price of wholesale electricity in most states this year.

Asked if Origin Energy had moved beyond the idea – promoted by the federal government and many in mainstream media – that reliability depended on 24/7 base-load power, Jarvis said:

Oh, a Long time ago. The idea of base-load power stations is well and truly gone.

 

[WilburGreen]

I'll quote somebody who is...as Wilbur mentioned above...Origin Energy’s head of energy trading and operations Greg Jarvis.



Jarvis puts the cost of solar in the mid $40s/MWh and the cost of wind at the low $50s/MWh. That cost of solar is around half the average price of wholesale electricity in most states this year.

Asked if Origin Energy had moved beyond the idea – promoted by the federal government and many in mainstream media – that reliability depended on 24/7 base-load power, Jarvis said:

Well said. We just need the Australian government to listen to what is actually happening in the market rather than listening to the minerals council which is 10 years behind.

 

[WhiteStar]

Well said. We just need the Australian government to listen to what is actually happening in the market rather than listening to the minerals council which is 10 years behind.

Yeah he couldn’t have been more clear and relevant to future living standards in Australia.

That particular unholy alliance between governments & big mining interests represented by the Minerals Council will resonate into the future if we realise that we have been left behind with large scale, super redundant, economic catastrophes whether they be clean coal or safe nuclear along with a devastatingly white Barrier Reef.

 

[Shock-On-T]

There are a lot of industries that have no need of base-load power.
The industry itself is like a battery, inasmuch as it can take any power and make product (value-add) at any time.

Aluminium smelting is much like this. When the sun is shining you can smelt aluminium. When it stops shining, you stop smelting. You are effectively storing the power in the higher cost of aluminium vs bauxite.

Solar production is far cheaper than (non-taxpayer-subsidised) coal, and in industries where intermittancy is not an issue, it should be prioritised.

However, if coal power is subsidised (eg. by keeping emissions zero cost) then solar is less enticing.

 

[raynewman]

Please consider

Refining oil requires more electricity than EVs

and stop with the dribble...

 

[wdolson]

Here is another run at the math which comes to only 0.2 KWh/gal in total.

Do Gasoline Based Cars Really Use More Electricity than Electric Vehicles Do?

 

[raynewman]

Here is another run at the math which comes to only 0.2 KWh/gal in total.

Do Gasoline Based Cars Really Use More Electricity than Electric Vehicles Do?

and a few years prior to that date, the refiners themselves were claiming that they were the greatest customers the power wholesalers had with numbers closer to 6 kwh per gallon. I notice now those claims (often in the form of adverts for how good a corporate citizen the refiners were) have now totally disappeared.

 

[wdolson]

If they do consume 6 KWh of electricity per gallon and refining is 90% efficient (I've seen ranges from 83-90%). They waste 3.37 KWh of energy from the oil for every gallon of gasoline produced. The EPA uses 33.7 KWH/gal of gasoline, though that varies by grade and measure. For every gallon of fuel put in a car, that represents 33.7 + 6 + 3.37 = 43.07 KWh of energy.

Most of the data out there on fuel economy of fleets is about model years. 2016 and 2017 hovered around 25 MPG average. That works out to 25 Mi/Gal / 43.7 KWh/Gal = 0.572 Mi/KWh or 1.75 KWh/Mi.

A Tesla Model S 100D is around 0.285 KWh/Mi (though that is without charging and transmission losses). 6.13 X more efficient.

To burn 1 gallon of gas in the average car, you consume 43.07 KWh of energy and go 25 miles. 43.07 KWh of energy will get you 151 miles in an S 100D. Now just the 6 KWh/gal of electricity consumed will get you about 21 miles in the Model S. The Model 3 is more efficient and will probably get you closer to the full 25 miles the average US ICE gets on one gallon of gas. They come very close to equivalent sized cars for energy efficiency (though doesn't beat them).

Ultimately putting the electricity into cars directly is way cheaper. There are some losses in transmission and charging I'm not taking into account, but you make up for it by not needing trains, trucks, ships, and pipelines to transport the oil to refineries and then out again to it's destination. Most of the North American oil being produced today is heavy oil which requires heated pipelines to transport and that energy has to come from somewhere. Heavy oil also requires catalytic crackers to make into gasoline. Which also takes energy.

It does demonstrate that the amount of electricity production expansion we need to convert to electric vehicles is not that massive. If the majority of those EVs charged off peak, we'd have almost no problems with the existing generating capacity.

 

[WA-T3sla]

With a bit of googling to try to verify the above quoted power consumption for refining fuel, I found some stats on BP's Kwinana refinery
- They contracted to take 40MW of power from a co-gen power plant located on site (they also take steam from the same plant)
- In 2009 they refined 600,000t of oil so approx 750 million litres
- 750 million litres pa = 86,000 litres/hr average
- 86,000litres/hr for 40MW power draw = 0.47kWh/ltr. Way less than the quoted 6kwh/gallon

Looking at it from an emissions perspective, BP also report CO2 emissions, which should capture the CO2 from power generated, plus fuel and byproducts burned in the refining process and other sources of CO2 release.
That tells us their emissions are about 700,000tonnes of CO2 emitted for 600,000t of refined oil
This works out to be about 0.9kg of CO2 per refined litre.
If you charged your tesla from a coal fired power station you could travel about 5km and produce the same emissions as that needed to refine a litre of oil, including CO2 produced in burning a litre of petrol (2.3kg) your tesla would produce the same emissions in about 16km of travel. Equivalent to a petrol car consumption of 6.25l/100km (37mpg). If you compare to a diesel (2.7kg/l) then you can get about 18km for the equivalent CO2 output of a litre of diesel, equivalent to a diesel using 5.6l/100km (42mpg).
Charging from a gas fired power station would add about 5km to the teslas range for equivalent CO2 output so it would compare to a petrol car getting 4.8l/100km (49mpg) or a diesel getting 4.3l/100km (55mpg).

The above figures are approximate and calculated after a beer (or 3, complete with CO2 emissions) so I'll leave it to the forum to critique, correct and calculate to 100 decimal places as they see fit.

 

[raynewman]

With a bit of googling to try to verify the above quoted power consumption for refining fuel, I found some stats on BP's Kwinana refinery
- They contracted to take 40MW of power from a co-gen power plant located on site (they also take steam from the same plant)
- In 2009 they refined 600,000t of oil so approx 750 million litres
- 750 million litres pa = 86,000 litres/hr average
- 86,000litres/hr for 40MW power draw = 0.47kWh/ltr. Way less than the quoted 6kwh/gallon

Looking at it from an emissions perspective, BP also report CO2 emissions, which should capture the CO2 from power generated, plus fuel and byproducts burned in the refining process and other sources of CO2 release.
That tells us their emissions are about 700,000tonnes of CO2 emitted for 600,000t of refined oil
This works out to be about 0.9kg of CO2 per refined litre.
If you charged your tesla from a coal fired power station you could travel about 5km and produce the same emissions as that needed to refine a litre of oil, including CO2 produced in burning a litre of petrol (2.3kg) your tesla would produce the same emissions in about 16km of travel. Equivalent to a petrol car consumption of 6.25l/100km (37mpg). If you compare to a diesel (2.7kg/l) then you can get about 18km for the equivalent CO2 output of a litre of diesel, equivalent to a diesel using 5.6l/100km (42mpg).
Charging from a gas fired power station would add about 5km to the teslas range for equivalent CO2 output so it would compare to a petrol car getting 4.8l/100km (49mpg) or a diesel getting 4.3l/100km (55mpg).

The above figures are approximate and calculated after a beer (or 3, complete with CO2 emissions) so I'll leave it to the forum to critique, correct and calculate to 100 decimal places as they see fit.

and now for something completely different...