More anti-ev gibberish

[Norbert]

The problem with those programs is it really doesn't change the actual emissions.

My assumption would be that the extra cost of such programs, plus the usual portion of the fees used for investments, will be used towards investments in wind and solar, for example. Otherwise it wouldn't make sense.

You can pay extra for all the green energy you want, but if you're in an area where coal ramps down at night then when you plug in they'll toss in a few extra lumps to compensate for the increased load. Similarly if you buy a PV array and pump electrons into the grid during the day then plug your EV in at night. Yes you are adding clean power to the grid during the day, but you could have done that without buying an EV, so plugging in the EV at night is still increasing emissions. I do agree with your earlier premise that early EV adoption will occur in areas that are greener than grid average, but the actual numbers of night charging won't be as good as you projected.

There should be a way to keep them from ramping up coal at night, and use at least NG instead. I'm still reading the above text, but so far haven't found a convincing reason why it needs to be coal, yet. I like SByer's post on that subject.

In any case, I checked my "local" supplier in San Francisco, PG&E, and since PG&E claims to serve 5% of the US population, I thought this would be worth posting:

Clean Energy Solutions

PG&E serves 5 percent of the country's population, yet we emit less than 1 percent of the total carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions associated with the nation's electricity production. On average, approximately half of the electricity PG&E delivers to its customers comes from a combination of renewable and greenhouse gas-free resources.

PG&E customers benefit from more than 90 MW of wind energy generated from an Iberdrola Renewables site in Sherman County, Oregon. Photo courtesy of Iberdrola Renewables.
The power mix we provided to our customers in 2009 consisted of non-emitting nuclear generation (20.5 percent), large hydroelectric facilities (13.0 percent) and renewable resources (14.4 percent), such as wind, geothermal, biomass and small hydro. The remaining portion came from natural gas (34.6 percent), coal (1.3 percent), unspecified sources (15.0 percent), and other fossil-based resources (1.2 percent).

So a large area here (5% of the US population) is using only 1.3% coal, after all. Not sure what that says about the rest of California, though.

 

[JRP3]

My assumption would be that the extra cost of such programs, plus the usual portion of the fees used for investments, will be used towards investments in wind and solar, for example. Otherwise it wouldn't make sense.

Right but it doesn't change the emissions profile while you are charging now, it's more an investment in the future.

There should be a way to keep them from ramping up coal at night, and use at least NG instead. I'm still reading the above text, but so far haven't found a convincing reason why it needs to be coal, yet. I like SByer's post on that subject.

I think it needs to be coal because coal can't be used as a peaker plant during high load times. Coal can ramp up and down but slowly, NG can fire up and down quickly. If you use NG as baseload at night you can't quickly ramp up the coal to fill in the peak demands during the day and the coal plant needs to keep running at a certain level all night anyway. You can't shut down coal the way you can NG. The only answer is to replace coal generating plants with more NG plants, or nuclear. I don't think we can really do much without looking seriously at nuclear, specifically LFTR, liquid fluoride thorium reactors. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHdRJqi__Z8

 

[dsm363]

I agree that the 'green energy' I pay extra for (wind here in Texas) probably doesn't have a big environmental impact but it's more of a show of support. The more people willing to pay for green energy allows them to deploy these sources more widely which hopefully helps drive the cost down to the point where the cost difference isn't significant.
Yes, the subsidizes to the oil and coal industries need to stop. Also, I think that if gas goes up to over $4 a gallon this summer, I think anyone who bought a large truck or SUV or any car with crappy gas mileage for personal use (not required for work) should have no right to complain.

 

[Norbert]

Right but it doesn't change the emissions profile while you are charging now, it's more an investment in the future.

I know that on Seeking Alpha, they are always trying to keep the discussion limited to the current energy mix, but the CO2 problem is not a problem we have coming Monday, CO2 is a long-term problem (even if short- and mid-term improvements are most welcome). Therefore investments in the future is what we need.

I think it needs to be coal because coal can't be used as a peaker plant during high load times. Coal can ramp up and down but slowly, NG can fire up and down quickly. If you use NG as baseload at night you can't quickly ramp up the coal to fill in the peak demands during the day and the coal plant needs to keep running at a certain level all night anyway. You can't shut down coal the way you can NG. The only answer is to replace coal generating plants with more NG plants, or nuclear. I don't think we can really do much without looking seriously at nuclear, specifically LFTR, liquid fluoride thorium reactors. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHdRJqi__Z8

Are you sure you haven't been misled by tricky polemics?

The document you pointed to seems quite vague on this point:

In this work, it is assumed that these plants will be operated at constant capacity utilization, equal to their daytime maximum, and that the excess power generation at night will be used for PHEV charging. It was assumed that the generation from non-coal EGUs would not change.

"It is assumed", "It was assumed" ? Why? No reason is given why the coal plants would not keep their "diurnal profile", and why Natural Gas would not be increased instead.

Of the traditional fuel sources used for electricity, coal- fired power plants without controls release the most CO2, NOx, and SO2 throughout the life cycle [18] and so using coal generated electricity to charge PHEVs would represent a worst-case scenario for EGU emissions, assuming only existing capacity is utilized, and only at night.

One can easily get the impression that the authors simply wanted to calculate the "worst-case" scenario, not knowing that others would use their study to suggest that such a scenario would be a given consequence. It seems to be an assumption the study is based on, not a result that the study would have shown to be actually true.

The graph in Figure 3(a) shows that the coal plants are able to increase and decrease their level of activity. In Figure 3(b), the "valley" is filled with coal, instead it should be very possible to fill it with Natural Gas. If someone wants to use this as a big argument against EVs, then a very convincing reason would have to be given, not just pure speculation.

 

[dpeilow]

A similar discussion kicked off on Bobbyllew's blog where I made this point:

I am on a green tariff with SSE. Every kWh I take from the grid has to be matched by SSE putting one in from a renewable source (on my plan, it's hydro). This is audited by Ofgem.

Thus the money I pay them has to be spent on renewable sources. If all customers signed up for this tariff, they'd have to make a lot of investment in renewable sources. Maybe that is one reason why SSE just opened the country's first new full-size hydro station for 50 years and have so many new hydro and wind schemes coming online soon: SSE - Project portfolio


So while green and brown electrons mix in the grid, if you are paying for green ones to be put in, you are entitled to say that you are taking green ones out. If more customers vote with their wallets, the proportion of green ones will rise.


However there is another way we can power our cars that is often overlooked in these discussions and that is domestic solar.

A 3kW peak system costing around £10,000 is about 20 sq metres of panels - enough to fit on a typical 4x5 metre garage. Such a system will generate enough juice for 10,000 miles of EV driving a year, even in sunny ol' Britain (in the south of England it's about 11,000 miles and in Scotland about 9,000 miles per annum). You can check results for your location here: PVGIS home

As the EV would most likely be plugged in at night, you'd need to store the energy generated in the daytime. Some people would use the grid as the battery, but to be more independent you can store the energy in static batteries at home. 10,000 miles a year is under 28 miles per day - which is typically under 7kWh of electricity use in an EV. That would require 5 boat/caravan 130Ah "leisure" batteries costing £95 each for daytime storage. In the winter you'd still have to top some up from the grid (or another local source like wind), but you'd put it back in the summer.

Furthermore, in the 25 years that a solar panel is normally guaranteed for, a 50 mpg diesel car will burn over £30,000 of fuel to cover the same distance (at 2011 prices), so your initial £10500 outlay really pays for itself.

So everyone with a garage or house roof that does average mileage (according to the AA) in this country could be driving net emissions free and at significantly reduced cost per mile than they are now. The difficulty is getting over that "hump" of having to pay £10,000 before you enjoy decades of free motoring. Sounds like we need a new class of bank loan or mortgage extension to enable people to do this and perhaps legislate that all new-builds should have it as standard.

 

[JRP3]

I know that on Seeking Alpha, they are always trying to keep the discussion limited to the current energy mix, but the CO2 problem is not a problem we have coming Monday, CO2 is a long-term problem (even if short- and mid-term improvements are most welcome). Therefore investments in the future is what we need.

Without a doubt, and frankly even the fastest possible uptake of EV's even if all charging is done with coal would produce no more emissions than the "noise" in the current system for quite a few years.

"It is assumed", "It was assumed" ? Why? No reason is given why the coal plants would not keep their "diurnal profile", and why Natural Gas would not be increased instead.

One can easily get the impression that the authors simply wanted to calculate the "worst-case" scenario, not knowing that others would use their study to suggest that such a scenario would be a given consequence. It seems to be an assumption the study is based on, not a result that the study would have shown to be actually true.

The graph in Figure 3(a) shows that the coal plants are able to increase and decrease their level of activity. In Figure 3(b), the "valley" is filled with coal, instead it should be very possible to fill it with Natural Gas. If someone wants to use this as a big argument against EVs, then a very convincing reason would have to be given, not just pure speculation.

It may be the simple economics of power generation that create those assumptions. It's probably cheaper to shut down the NG plants and fill in with the already running coal plants instead of keeping two separate systems running. Efficiencies of each system are probably higher when they are running closer to peak, so running both at reduced loads would hurt the efficiencies of both. Maybe

 

[JRP3]

A similar discussion kicked off on Bobbyllew's blog where I made this point: I am on a green tariff with SSE. Every kWh I take from the grid has to be matched by SSE putting one in from a renewable source (on my plan, it's hydro). This is audited by Ofgem.

Do they have excess generating capacity that they are holding back until you plug in, or turn on a light? If so why are they not simply putting everything they have available into the grid at all times, allowing coal and NG plants to reduce output?

 

[dpeilow]

Yes in effect they do - it's called pumped storage and they are developing hundreds more MW, perhaps even a GW of it at the moment. Many of the new schemes are being developed in conjunction with nearby large windfarms.

 

[stopcrazypp]

Do they have excess generating capacity that they are holding back until you plug in, or turn on a light? If so why are they not simply putting everything they have available into the grid at all times, allowing coal and NG plants to reduce output?

Coal plants can't be easily ramped up or down, which is why they keep them on even at night. NG plants are more flexible, which is why they use them for peak hours.

 

[JRP3]

Coal plants do ramp down at night, but stay running. Check the link I provided a few posts back.

 

[Norbert]

It may be the simple economics of power generation that create those assumptions. It's probably cheaper to shut down the NG plants and fill in with the already running coal plants instead of keeping two separate systems running. Efficiencies of each system are probably higher when they are running closer to peak, so running both at reduced loads would hurt the efficiencies of both. Maybe

Yes, I could easily imagine it's just some sort of "cheap-ness". But do we know it's not just a myth? Do we have a reliable source that says "they" would actually use a higher proportion of coal at night? Maybe it is just one specific utility, or just one "official person" who was speculating they might do that, or not even that?

 

[Norbert]

I mean, one has to be careful: Perhaps someone has just extrapolated the fact that coal plants are not shut down completely. It may just increase the proportion of coal at the point where demand is very low at night, but then coal would proportionally decrease again as perhaps natural gas is increased to cover over-night charging of EVs.

Or we may just have to say "please use NG instead". (In a sense.)

 

[Kevin Sharpe]

another small time blog;

Crispin Jones | EV Electric cars - a bit of an issue - Crispin Jones

 

[benji4]

another small time blog;

Crispin Jones | EV Electric cars - a bit of an issue - Crispin Jones

His whole point is that most people in the UK don't park in their own garage where an electrical outlet would be available, but as I live in Japan I've really thought a lot about this problem as well... by far the majority of people here park in places where it will be difficult to get a charge-- tower parking is pretty popular here due to lack of space, and there really would be no simple way I can see at all to charge inside such structures.

At the end of the day though it's all about economics, and the problem will work itself out naturally when the alternatives get too pricey. The more expensive gasoline gets compared to electricity, the more people will sacrifice and be willing so to park in a place they can charge, and the more garages will install charging capabilities to attract more users and charge them for the service. Let's hope gas prices keep rising so it can happen sooner rather than later!

 

[Kevin Sharpe]

His whole point is that most people in the UK don't park in their own garage where an electrical outlet would be available, but as I live in Japan I've really thought a lot about this problem as well... by far the majority of people here park in places where it will be difficult to get a charge-- tower parking is pretty popular here due to lack of space, and there really would be no simple way I can see at all to charge inside such structures.

In the UK we do have plenty of alternative places to charge including when at work (which I suspect he could do because he avoids answering any questions about his driving habits or requirements). We all know that EV's are not for everyone but suspect he's looking for a drop-in replacement for the gas that he's used to.

 

[JRP3]

Yes, I could easily imagine it's just some sort of "cheap-ness". But do we know it's not just a myth? Do we have a reliable source that says "they" would actually use a higher proportion of coal at night? Maybe it is just one specific utility, or just one "official person" who was speculating they might do that, or not even that?

Here's a new study that looks at emissions impact in relation to time of charging. They use "Home Charging" to mean plugging in when you come home from work and "Smart Charging" to mean delayed over night charging. Depending on location Home Charging at peak load times is cleaner than charging later at night when coal is a larger percentage of the grid. http://www.greencarcongress.com/2011/02/cmu-20110227.html

Home charging occurs near peak system load, smart charging near minimum system load, and work charging occurs both near peak system load (at the same time as home charging) and earlier in the day when most vehicles are arriving at work. These differences in timing result in changes in generator mix and thus emissions. In PJM, home charging results in the greatest CO2 reductions with no CO2 price and relies more on natural gas generation. In NYISO, smart charging results in greater CO2 reductions because of the large number of natural gas generators predicted to be used to meet demand.

 

[dpeilow]

another small time blog;

Crispin Jones | EV Electric cars - a bit of an issue - Crispin Jones

I can't access his blog here or I'd have posted a response already. Basically his premise is "Many people have to park on the street, I don't want to see posts all over streets, installing induction loops is too expensive, therefore we need hydrogen." He thinks all R&D funds should divert to hydrogen funding.

It's obviously troll-bait as he starts the blog with a picture of some blinkers and claims the entire EV scene hasn't been talking about this and he's so smart cause he's the first one to spot the problem.

People like this are so far from getting it that you have to start from their position. Thank goodness for Lithium Titanate batteries and Better Place. Once you've got their attention with the rapid charge / battery swap stuff, you can start talking about how many times you actually need that.

 

[Norbert]

Too clever for me... his sister doesn't want to upgrade her wind turbine and lives on a hill with a 10 min walk from her parking spot...

 

[Norbert]

Here's a new study that looks at emissions impact in relation to time of charging. They use "Home Charging" to mean plugging in when you come home from work and "Smart Charging" to mean delayed over night charging. Depending on location Home Charging at peak load times is cleaner than charging later at night when coal is a larger percentage of the grid. http://www.greencarcongress.com/2011/02/cmu-20110227.html

Here a link to the source article: Net Air Emissions from Electric Vehicles: The Effect of Carbon Price and Charging Strategies

The study seems to depend on very specific conditions at each of the two utilities they examined, which in itself is an interesting result.

Although the study also computes an "all natural gas" scenario, and in a few cases reflects on the question of which generator type would be used to meet additional demand, it is not clear whether it otherwise distinguishes sharply between the existing mix at a certain time of day, and the mix which would be used to meet additional demand.

Apart from new technologies (such as CO2 capture and sequestration (CCS) on coal plants, and wind energy), it seems that the "all natural gas" scenario is by far the best. Although it seems the authors do not expect a $50/ton CO2 price to have the desired effect, it is not clear whether the all-NG scenario (for the additional demand) would be practically possible, and what it would take to achieve it.

 

[JRP3]

Although the study also computes an "all natural gas" scenario, and in a few cases reflects on the question of which generator type would be used to meet additional demand, it is not clear whether it otherwise distinguishes sharply between the existing mix at a certain time of day, and the mix which would be used to meet additional demand.

Not sure I follow. It seems to me they directly address what types of generating plants would be used at what time of day to meet the additional demand:

In NYISO home charging does not decrease CO2 emissions as much as smart or work charging because it is displacing gasoline with plants near the peak, often using oil (discussed below). Smart charging relies on 86% natural gas in NYISO, whereas home charging uses only 44% natural gas. In NYISO work and smart charging have similar CO2 emissions. PJM shows nearly the opposite result with smart charging having significantly lower reductions in CO2 emissions (relying on 98% coal). Home and work charging in PJM exhibit similar levels of CO2 emissions.