More anti-ev gibberish

[Norbert]

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:

How would it become clear to you that these sentences (which you quoted) are not simply referring to the existing mix at that time of day?

The paragraph which appears the most relevant to this question is "Generator Dispatch" in the introduction. It seems to explain everything in terms of cost structures, but doesn't really answer my primary questions:
Would the utilities be able to use mostly natural gas?
How much would it cost them?
Would a higher price on CO2 (higher than $50/tonne) have any effect? How high would it have to be, and which effect would it have?
Are there any other measures (other than new technology) which could have an effect?
If there was a program for EVs to purchase NG-made electricity specifically, how much would it cost the utilities to provide such a program?
Which questions would you have, and do you see them answered?
The differences between the two utilities are apparently based on the different mix of generators. What would change if they bought a small number of additional NG generators? (If they don't want to buy wind, that is.)

That paragraph suggests (to me) that it is all determined by given-as-fact SRMC curves, and not even a $50/tonne CO2 price can do anything about it.

In general, I find it an interesting study, but it doesn't (yet) go far enough. Another limitation is, of course, it models PHEVs with a limited battery capacity which use gas when the battery is empty, not pure EVs.

I did enjoy reading these sentences:

It is reasonable to expect that recent shale gas exploitation will keep oil use low in New York in the next decade. Thus, our “all natural gas” scenario is likely to better represent future NYISO emissions from charging PHEVs than the 2005 data.

When compared to 2020 CAFE standards, net CO2 emissions in New York are reduced by switching from gasoline to electricity; coal-heavy PJM shows somewhat smaller benefits unless coal units are fitted with CCS or replaced with lower CO2 generation.

 

[JRP3]

How would it become clear to you that these sentences (which you quoted) are not simply referring to the existing mix at that time of day?

They specifically refer to the existing mix at that time of day and what type of fuel is used to meet additional demand. I'm not understanding your point for some reason.

Would the utilities be able to use mostly natural gas?

You mean as the grid stands right now? I assume it's technically possible but not cost effective.

How much would it cost them?

That's the question, there must be a way to compare the cost of NG vs coal generation.

Would a higher price on CO2 (higher than $50/tonne) have any effect? How high would it have to be, and which effect would it have?

Hard to tell since NG also has CO2 emissions so higher CO2 costs would also increase the costs of NG, which I'm assuming already costs more than coal.

In general, I find it an interesting study, but it doesn't (yet) go far enough. Another limitation is, of course, it models PHEVs with a limited battery capacity which use gas when the battery is empty, not pure EVs.

I agree but considering normal driving habits I'd think the effects of going above a 16kwh PHEV with a pure EV would have small impacts in the over all picture.

 

[Norbert]

They specifically refer to the existing mix at that time of day and what type of fuel is used to meet additional demand. I'm not understanding your point for some reason.

Well, aside from details, I was basically looking for a sentence like "Using a higher portion of NG for charging would require...". Didn't find such a sentence yet.

You mean as the grid stands right now? I assume it's technically possible but not cost effective.

That is my assumption as well. But the study doesn't really confirm it, although it does point in that direction by saying it (the study) is based on the "bidding" system and the SRMC curves.

That's the question, there must be a way to compare the cost of NG vs coal generation.

I would hope that the SRMC curves mentioned in the study would be able to answer this question. I'm not sure why that was not investigated.

Hard to tell since NG also has CO2 emissions so higher CO2 costs would also increase the costs of NG, which I'm assuming already costs more than coal.

Yes, I was thinking one doesn't really want to incur higher costs on the utilities. One just wants them to use as much NG (vs coal) as possible. I'm wondering whether the utilities could offer a low-CO2 program for charging at off-peak times, and if that could accomplish the switch from coal to NG without forcing higher costs other than just the direct difference between NG and coal.

 

[Norbert]

As mentioned in the "Environmentalists and Electric Vehicles" thread, since we are also discussing NG vs coal, a reference to a Harvard study on coal:
Full cost accounting for the life cycle of coal - Epstein - 2011 - Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences - Wiley Online Library

These costs are external to the coal industry and are thus often considered “externalities.” We estimate that the life cycle effects of coal and the waste stream generated are costing the U.S. public a third to over one-half of a trillion dollars annually.

 

[dpeilow]

Electric cars pollute more than petrol cars: report | Car Advice | Reviews

 

[stopcrazypp]

Electric cars pollute more than petrol cars: report | Car Advice | Reviews

Same report that I pointed out all the errors in the approach here:
http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/3910-Lies-about-Electric-Cars?p=42886&highlight=Dog+Lemon+Guide#post42886

 

[dpeilow]

Yeah not sure why these guys just published it. I commented, let's see if they approve it.

 

[benji4]

Electric cars pollute more than petrol cars: report | Car Advice | Reviews

Let's crunch a few numbers and see if this is true. We'll compare the Roadster to the average gasoline-powered vehicle and see first how much energy each consumes, and then decide which one really pollutes more.

1) Tesla Roadster....200 miles / 53 kWh = 3.77 mile per kWh
2) Avg. ICE vehicle..200 miles / 25mpg = 8 gal. x 33.4 kWh = 267.2 kWh / 200 = 1.34 mile per kWh

The Roadster uses about 64% less energy to drive the same distance. But does the Roadster still pollute more? I think that probably it ends up polluting even less than the 64% energy savings. Gasoline is always gasoline. It always pollutes when you burn it, and it takes further energy to drill for oil, refine it, package it, transport it, and distribute it. Electricity is a generated from a combination of dirty and clean sources, but in aggregate is much cleaner since at least some of it is actually "clean".

So even in the worst case scenario where 100% of the electricity used in the EV was generated by burning gasoline of all things, the Roadster still appears to both consume way less energy and pollute far less than ICE vehicles. It's not even close in fact. Maybe I'm just too simple minded... am I missing something here?

 

[strider]

Here's what I've told people when they ask about the "long tailpipe" thing. I have 2 different tracks I take depending on how combative the person is.

Option 1 (nice): Yes, burning coal and natural gas to generate the electricity to power EVs still contributes to greenhouse gas emissions. However, EV's are much more efficient at using power than ICE's since so much energy in an ICE is lost to heat (I then give them math similar to Benji's above using 36kWh per gallon and the mpg of their car). But the main point is that the long term trend for generating electricity is cleaner and cleaner as more renewables come online and more technology is created. On the other hand, the long term trend for gasoline and diesel is dirtier and dirtier. All the easy oil is gone. Oil in the future will be much harder to get (I sometimes mention how tar sands are energy negative - it takes more energy to separate the oil from the sands as you get out of the oil), the quality will be worse requiring more energy to refine it, and we'll have to go into scarier places both politically and environmentally to get it.

Option 2 (combative): So, how do you think that unleaded gasoline gets to your corner station? Does the gasoline fairy visit every night and refill it? No. The oil from which that gas comes has to be found, drilled for, pumped out, placed on a boat which is then sailed halfway around the world, refined, and finally trucked to your local station. And THEN it get's burned by your ICE where most of the energy is lost to heat. So if you want to talk about long tailpipes you have to include your own long tailpipe that extends to the other side of the earth.

I haven't actually been that combative to anyone yet but I mutter it under my breath when I read stupid magazine articles

 

[vfx]

... you have to include your own long tailpipe that extends to the other side of the earth.

I like this. Gasoline's long tailpipe.

 

[zack]

... Maybe I'm just too simple minded... am I missing something here?

You certainly are! You left out the total of all the petroleum used by the military in our "oil wars" overseas, as well as the oil taken to manufacture all of the equipment for those wars and to transport it all there (as well as the troops.)

As an aside, we don't have to fight overseas battles to drive electric cars. NONE. NOBODY HAS TO DIE. The death toll alone... hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, thousands of Americans, god knows how many Afghans... not a single one died to fuel an electric car. And if we had all electric cars we'd have plenty of local oil to build them right here in the States.

We need to stay on message about electric cars. If it isn't about reducing CO2 emissions yet, it will be, and it has to be eventually. The sooner we clean up our power the better, but electric cars MUST be a part of that. The true cost of using foreign oil to our nation and our nation's future is incalculabe! Electric cars guarantee independence and economic prosperity for our country. Oil dependence only guarantees profits for a short time for a very small group of people who are already intensely wealthy. Riding peak oil all the way down assures the end of the American Dream. We have to begin changing the entire way we do things. I propose wind/solar/geothermal/alternative on-site power generation with decentralization (on-site energy storage) to protect the grid from being overloaded and everything, and I mean everything, electric.

There is the issue of massive solar flares. We've got to come up with hardening to protect sensitive electronics from future solar flares... we may have a major one within our lifetimes. I've read the next big one is overdue. Certainly, systems should be designed to immediately decouple our homes from the grid if an event like that happens. There was a solar flare so big in the 1800s that the telegraph lines picked up so much power they stopped working, and there's a documented case where two telegraph operators were only able to continue communicating by disconnecting their own batteries and relying only on the power being generated in the line by the massive magnetic field. Experts predict that if such a flare happened today it could have devastating consequences. We watch the sun very intensely now... I believe we'll see a day where they purposefully shut down the grid to save it (but will it protect our homes? We'll likely receive instructions to pull our main breakers... but will that save everything?) The situation in Japan has got me thinking about "unknown unknowns" a lot more lately.

 

[zack]

...The oil from which that gas comes has to be found, drilled for, pumped out, placed on a boat which is then sailed halfway around the world, refined, and finally trucked to your local station...

I couldn't agree more, but remember this little detail:

"The oil from which that gas comes has to be found, drilled for, killed for, pumped out, placed on a boat which is then sailed halfway around the world, refined, and finally trucked to your local station."

As an aside from the discussion of CO2:

ICEs are immoral. Nobody ever died for electricity. Fueling an EV is death-free. Fueling an ICE is done on the bodies of hundreds of thousands of recently-killed Iraqis. The argument can be made that the Roadster can't be built without using oil. True, but we have plenty of local oil here to use for plastics and lubricants and whatnot to make cars. We certainly don't need to kill anybody for it. It's the desperation of the oil companies to guarantee their profits that leads to all of this immoral killing, when if we switched over completely to EVs we wouldn't need to kill anybody for the ability to drive.

EVs have a moral edge RIGHT NOW. Whether or not they reduce CO2 at this very moment is immaterial. We can't reduce CO2 unless we fully embrace the technology, but every single EV we put on the road immediately reduces the death count overseas and reduces terrorism overall. Remember, the cost of oil includes the cost of "homeland security". We would never have needed that term without our dependence on foreign oil.

EVs. The patriotic thing to do. The future economy thing to do. The moral thing to do. Screw the whole CO2 argument... it's nothing but a distraction.

 

[strider]

ICEs are immoral. Nobody ever died for electricity. Fueling an EV is death-free.

I understand where you're going but your statement is far from true. Plenty of coal miners, nat gas drillers/pipeline workers/refiners/etc, dam builders/operators, nuke plant builders/operators, etc have died to produce electricity. Also a lot of electricity generation has environmental problems of their own - dams cause environment problems, burning coal isn't the best thing, etc.

Don't get me wrong, I'm completely on board w/ a move to EVs and away from fossil fuels (you'll note I used "politically scarier" in my post - this was to bring up the current and future oil wars) but we have to be careful about using absolutes in our arguments - it tends to come off as shrill and the other side will tune you out.

 

[Eberhard]

Nobody ever died for electricity.

Whats the hell are you telling. remember Tschernobyl and watch whats is just happening in Japan. Thousands of people died for electricity made from nuclear power. electricity is very big business. few make awesome money, most of us have to pay for the profit. and many, many pay with their health - silicon lungs or cancer caused by radiation. We have to move the production from a few people profit to the welcare of everyone - with everyone having his own energy plant on his roof. thats real democracy.

 

[vfx]

Industrial accidents are not the same as wars.

How about this?

"No one has ever politically died from electricity."

or
"Fueling an EV is politically death-free."

 

[dpeilow]

Let's have some sourced numbers on the "thousands" in relation to Chernobyl please...

 

[qwk]

Let's have some sourced numbers on the "thousands" in relation to Chernobyl please...

Actually Chernobyl caused millions of premature deaths. There were over 500k "liquidators" alone, of which half are now dead before the age of 55. The others have severe health problems and will likely die too soon.

 

[zack]

Industrial accidents are not the same as wars.

How about this?

"No one has ever politically died from electricity."

or
"Fueling an EV is politically death-free."

You get my point. I should have made clear that there are no electric wars. Although I'm not sure what we've done to get uranium.

 

[zack]

Whats the hell are you telling. remember Tschernobyl and watch whats is just happening in Japan. Thousands of people died for electricity made from nuclear power. electricity is very big business. few make awesome money, most of us have to pay for the profit. and many, many pay with their health - silicon lungs or cancer caused by radiation. We have to move the production from a few people profit to the welcare of everyone - with everyone having his own energy plant on his roof. thats real democracy.

I agree completely with your last statement. I believe electricity should be decentralized and stored on-site. I'm sure you understand that my point was nobody dies at war over electricity. And I was being a bit nationalistic there... In the US we have our own "peaceful" sources of natural gas, coal, and hydro power.

 

[Doug_G]

Although I'm not sure what we've done to get uranium.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf75.html

You'd probably prefer to get it from us (Canada) instead of Kazakhstan. :wink: