More anti-ev gibberish

[widodh]

The question that I always ask myself: "Do EV-haters really think we have unlimited oil and keep running our cars on it for ever?"

I've only seen EV-haters say that their diesel/gasoline car is cheaper, cleaner, etc, etc, but what when we run out of oil? That is something they never talk about, do they?

That might be a interesting question to ask.

He also doesn't recognize the benefits of moving the tailpipe (local smog, easier control, etc.) Every article he writes is trying to move people away from plug-ins. And I notice all anti-plug-in people assume people who support it are not aware that powerplants have emissions.

Indeed, we get cleaner city's and we only have to 'replace' (It sounds easy...) the source of the electricity rather than replacing 1.000.000.000 cars.

 

[vfx]

Some just think there is an unlimited supply of oil. And some also don't believe that burning oil or gasoline has any effect on the environmental.
They may concede that smog in a city like LA comes from cars but that burning coal will make the same result.

 

[JRP3]

I've been battling with Mr Peterson on Seeking Alpha for a few months now, ever since I've discovered his nonsense, it's become part of my morning ritual. He is a master of FUD, his favorite technique is to make points by linking to his own articles and using half "facts" to back his claims. He is a lawyer after all, truth is less important than winning the case. The only reason I bother is because he is widely read and often quoted by other sources, somehow he developed the air of credibility. He's tried to have me banned from SA but so far has failed, probably because I've done nothing wrong other than show him up for the fraud he is. He claims to write articles about investing but all he really does is constantly bash EV's using the same weak arguments over and over.

 

[dpeilow]

Electric cars not as 'green' as advertised • reghardware

Quelle surprise indeed.

Pile in...

 

[Nik]

Electric cars not as 'green' as advertised • reghardware

Quelle surprise indeed.

Pile in...

To be fair, comments should be sent to [email protected] too.

 

[zack]

My Mercedes G55 holds 21 gallons (800kWh) and has a 200 mile range. My Tesla Roadster 2.5 holds 56kWh and has a 200 mile range. 15 Tesla Roadsters could travel 200 mikes each using the exact same carbon footprint as my Mercedes. The efficiency of EVs is what makes them so magic. This author is completely out of his mind.

 

[dpeilow]

What's quite encouraging is that a very large amount of pro-EV commenters have turned up on the register forum this time, and they seem to be getting the long tailpipe thing. Sure there are Clarksonites, but in nowhere near the numbers of before. Progress, maybe.

 

[JRP3]

What's the breakdown of the UK grid? I know the US is 45% coal as of 2010.

 

[JRP3]

If anyone needs ammo for the "emissions from battery manufacturing" argument:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-08/sflf-te083010.php

 

[Adm]

http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/statistics/fuel_mix/fuel_mix.aspx

33,7% Coal

 

[Norbert]

What's the breakdown of the UK grid? I know the US is 45% coal as of 2010.

The number is probably better if you weigh each state in the US according to the number of EVs actually being driven in that state.

 

[dpeilow]

http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/statistics/fuel_mix/fuel_mix.aspx

33,7% Coal

Thanks for that. Interestingly it differs slightly from a similar set of stats on the former BERR Departmental pages.

Now, if anyone can explain the difference between the residual mix and UK average mix, I'd be very grateful.

 

[Norbert]

The number is probably better if you weigh each state in the US according to the number of EVs actually being driven in that state.

Using a quick search, I found these two documents:

http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/documents/egridzips/eGRID2010V1_0_year07_SummaryTables.pdf
CAR Forecasts 469,000 U.S. EVs By 2015 - Auto Observer

Not necessarily the best sources, but also probably not the worst either. From the second one, I used the last column ("Aggregated Electric Vehicles on Road", 2015) (a forecast). From the first document, I used the "Coal" column from the table "Year 2007 State Resource Mix".

Then I used a spreadsheet to calculate the product of both columns for each state, and divided the total sum of these products by the total sum of EVs predicted for 2015. This result is the average coal percentage for an EV, when using the coal percentage for each EV from its "home" state.

This average is 32.5 %. This is quite a bit less than the 45% percent above (for the table from 2007 used in this calculation, the average was 48.5%). Those higher averages are (I think) the result from weighing each state according to its total power generation, and of course do not take into account how many EVs are (or will be) used in each state.

 

[JRP3]

Now, if anyone can explain the difference between the residual mix and UK average mix, I'd be very grateful.

Wondering the same thing myself.

 

[JRP3]

I find this to be a useful tool: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=110997398
If you click on "sources of power" and then click the drop down menu under "major power sources" and choose "coal" you get a nice visual representation. You can see that along the coasts and the southern border there is much less coal use, and these areas are likely to have higher early EV adoption, and a greater percentage of the population.

 

[Nik]

Wondering the same thing myself.

I'm wondering where the long explanation I thought I'd posted about two hours ago has gone.

In essence, the page that David linked to gives the rules that energy suppliers must use when informing the customers about the energy that has been supplied to them.

The "UK residual mix" is the numbers that are to be used for any electricity for which the supplier is unable to quote a source. I'm not sure how this would arise - perhaps imports (although these are mainly French, and hence nuclear) or some such.

The UK Fuel Mix is the actual mix of fuel for the period in question (FY09-10).

HTH

 

[JRP3]

So then it's really only 25.8% coal for the UK, I had no idea it was that low. That makes the coal argument even more ridiculous, and would mean that the LEAF would beat the Honda GX on the green scale in the UK, as would a Roadster.

 

[dpeilow]

Can someone check my sums here because I think we have been vastly over estimating EV emissions on a like-for-like basis.

We have all been taking figures of 250 or 300 Wh/mile because that is typical highway speed consumption, but I decided to check how they calculate the emissions data for ICEs. Turns out it is based on the combined number for mpg as here: What is Combined mpg and Calculating a car's CO2 emissions from its mpg | ETA


To make a fair comparison, we should look at what the EV uses at the same speeds as the ICE consumption is calculated.

The Urban cycle averages 12 mph over 2.5 miles. The extra-Urban part averages 39 mph over 4.3 miles. The combined is the average consumption of these, weighted by distance.

So from Tesla's data http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/roadster-efficiency-and-range:

- at 12mph it is using 140 wh/mile

- at 39mph it is using 175 wh/mile

- combined is therefore 162 wh/mile


The 2010 UK grid CO2 emission average (Fuel Mix Disclosure data table - Department of Energy and Climate Change) was 410 g/kWh with a 10% transmission loss. Battery charging losses are 20%.

Thus emissions (in metric because that is how the auto industry has chosen to communicate this data - it looks better) will be 54.8 g/km - nearly half what I'd said before using the higher energy consumption figure.

 

[Norbert]

I find this to be a useful tool: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=110997398
If you click on "sources of power" and then click the drop down menu under "major power sources" and choose "coal" you get a nice visual representation. You can see that along the coasts and the southern border there is much less coal use, and these areas are likely to have higher early EV adoption, and a greater percentage of the population.

Those numbers seem to be about the same I used in the calculation above, +/- 1-2 %, which results in an EV-relative US average of 32.5% coal (when using that forecast for per-state EVs).

 

[Norbert]

Perhaps in the US, the EPA cycle used to test the range would be a good basis for comparison to ICEs? I'm not sure if the usual mpg figures are derived from the same EPA cycle.