My wife is beating me over the head with Ozzie Zehner

[stopcrazypp]

Actually his agenda is not necessarily from the old car companies or oil connections, but rather he sees walking, bikes, and public transport as the better way to address transportation pollution. The idea is that EVs provide a solution for people to keep driving which reduces the interest in non-car options.

 

[jeff_adams]

Actually his agenda is not necessarily from the old car companies or oil connections, but rather he sees walking, bikes, and public transport as the better way to address transportation pollution. The idea is that EVs provide a solution for people to keep driving which reduces the interest in non-car options.

Which works okay in a major city, but not so hot everywhere else.

 

[ModelS4Taos]

The "long tail pipe" idea always seems to forget that it take the equivalent of 7 kWh of energy to produce one gallon of gas at the refinery. 7 kWh will run a Model S for 25 miles. This is before a single drop of gas is burnt and before you can even compare the use of either. So minus 7 KWh off gas side of the comparison. If a gallon of gas is equivalent to 33 kWh of electricity. Minus 7 KWh from that and you get 21 kWh. 75% of each gallon of gas is wasted on heat. Now 21 kWh becomes 5.25 KWh. So yes gasoline has an amazing energy density, but almost all of it is wasted. Only 16% can be utilized to drive the car. Oil is a very useful substance and should not be wasted in a combustion process.

That 7 kWh used by the refinery is never green energy. It is almost always using coal or natural gas (depends on the state it is being processed).

Thanks for letting me rant. :wink:

 

[CalDreamin]

The "long tail pipe" idea always seems to forget that it take the equivalent of 7 kWh of energy to produce one gallon of gas at the refinery.

The claim that oil refineries use 7 (or 7.5) kWh per gallon has been repeated in many forums. I'm not sure where that claim got started, but it's not even close. I work in the oil refining business* and it's actually 0.15-0.30 kWh per gallon.

* Yep, and I just bought a Tesla Model S :smile:

 

[rolosrevenge]

When Sherry Boschert was with Plug In America, she did a meta-study of a few dozen reports. She had a quick look at this; here is her take:



As she notes, most people don't READ the studies; and even if they do they don't have enough context to evaluate them. This is why somebody with an agenda attacks the most complicated angle - the "greenness" of EVs - even though it doesn't influence many buying decisions. It's easy to say something that sounds smart and can influence some of the millions of people that are not experts, but doesn't stand up under the scrutiny of the few people that have studied the issue in depth. As jeff_adams notes, Ozzie definitely has an agenda.

The DOE, Sierra Club, Union of Concerned Scientists and other groups have been going over the real studies for many years, and they firmly back the environmental benefits of EVs. But we'll see lots more rehashing "studies" like this one for the simple reason that they work, as Jointguy's post makes clear.

The problem is that he doesn't give any references so it's harder to find the studies he's talking about.

 

[Foleson]

The problem is that he doesn't give any references so it's harder to find the studies he's talking about.

He wrote in the article:

The National Academies’ study stood out for its comprehensiveness, but it’s not the only one to make such grim assessments. A Norwegian study published last October in the Journal of Industrial Ecology compared life-cycle impacts of electric vehicles. The researchers considered acid rain, airborne particulates, water pollution, smog, and toxicity to humans, as well as depletion of fossil fuel and mineral resources. According to coauthor Anders Stromman, “electric vehicles consistently perform worse or on par with modern internal combustion engine vehicles, despite virtually zero direct emissions during operation.”

I am not familiar with any of the other studies referred to, but I know this one very well, and a lot of assumptions are being made in order to be able to make a comparison between fossil and EVs. One of the factors which quite unsurprisingly has the most to say in this comparison is the driving distance of the car. On the premises laid out in this study, diesel (not gasoline, which is still worse) and EV global warming potential are comparatively on par at a vehicle life time of 100.000 km. Increasing this life time range benefits EVs by a big margin, but it is of course not interesting for Mr. Zehner to highlight this when his angle is to make an argument against electric vehicles. I don't know what the average life time range of cars are, but I am sure it is far more than 100.000 km.

 

[ChrisgG]

The claim that oil refineries use 7 (or 7.5) kWh per gallon has been repeated in many forums. I'm not sure where that claim got started, but it's not even close. I work in the oil refining business* and it's actually 0.15-0.30 kWh per gallon.

Articles like:
Electric Mini: It takes a lot of coal to make gasoline

How much electricity is used refine a gallon of Gasoline? - Green Transportation

 

[Zythryn]

The claim that oil refineries use 7 (or 7.5) kWh per gallon has been repeated in many forums. I'm not sure where that claim got started, but it's not even close. I work in the oil refining business* and it's actually 0.15-0.30 kWh per gallon.

* Yep, and I just bought a Tesla Model S :smile:

I'm still curious about that.
I fully accept that much less electricity is pulled from the grid by refineries.
However, as I recall, it was mentioned that rather than drawing more electricity from the grid, refineries burn some of the product, be it oil or Natural gas?
So while not much electricity from the grid is used, GHGs are emitted as a result? Are those included in the numbers we have seen?

 

[dsm363]

The claim that oil refineries use 7 (or 7.5) kWh per gallon has been repeated in many forums. I'm not sure where that claim got started, but it's not even close. I work in the oil refining business* and it's actually 0.15-0.30 kWh per gallon.

* Yep, and I just bought a Tesla Model S :smile:

Congrats on the new car. Must be fun driving that to work=)

Can you point to a source article with that number? I understand there is co-generation going on so much of the energy to refine comes from that. Thanks.

 

[Foleson]

The claim that oil refineries use 7 (or 7.5) kWh per gallon has been repeated in many forums. I'm not sure where that claim got started, but it's not even close. I work in the oil refining business* and it's actually 0.15-0.30 kWh per gallon.

* Yep, and I just bought a Tesla Model S :smile:

0.15-0.30 kWh to produce one gallon of gasoline can not possibly be correct. Good old fractional distillation of one gallon of gasoline require some 4-5 kWh simply for heating the crude oil (the thermodynamics in this process can not be denied...).Not to mention that the efficiency in heating the crude oil for distilling is far from 100%. In addition there are other processes in a refinery that require energy and should be added on top of this so 7-7.5 kWh per gallon seem very likely just by doing a quick estimate. If you add cracking into the process, I am sure it could well be even more energy usage for gasoline than this.

 

[JRP3]

CalDreamin is mixing energy with electricity. So 0.30kWh per gallon of electricity is probably correct, but each gallon takes about 7kWh of energy to produce. This includes energy used for extraction, as well as heat in refining. A simple way of calculating that is the entire process of gasoline production, from extraction to refining, is considered to be about 80% efficient, so 33kWh of potential energy per gallon times 20% loss equals 6.6kWh of energy used.

 

[CalDreamin]

I'm still curious about that.
I fully accept that much less electricity is pulled from the grid by refineries.
However, as I recall, it was mentioned that rather than drawing more electricity from the grid, refineries burn some of the product, be it oil or Natural gas?
So while not much electricity from the grid is used, GHGs are emitted as a result? Are those included in the numbers we have seen?

Table 3-3 of this source shows that 732,397 kWh/d of electricity is used in a 100,000 b/d (4,200,000 gal/d) refinery. That works out to 0.17 kWh of electricity per gallon.
http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/steo/special/pdf/california.pdf

Refineries also consume natural gas as a fuel. One could convert this to an equivalent kWh of energy, 0.30 kWh per ft3. In 2012, US refineries consumed 843,228 million ft3 of natural gas as fuel while processing 5,580,035,000 b of crude. That works out to 1.1 kWh/gal; around half of this value could be produced as electricity if the natural gas was used in power plants instead of fuel in oil refineries.
U.S. Fuel Consumed at Refineries
U.S. Refinery Receipts of Crude Oil by Method of Transportation

 

[dhrivnak]

Here is the response I posted.

It appears you did not do ANY detailed research. If you did you would find serious flaws in the studies you cited. The one from the University of Tennessee compared an electric car, charged on 100% coal powered electricity from a plant with NO filtration or pollution controls. For the gasoline car they used the European 2016 standard that no current shipping automobile meets. And amazingly if you only look at small particulates the not yet shipping car had lower particulates. For this to happen the gasoline magically appeared in the car as they did not factor in extraction, refining or transportation of gasoline while the electricity was delivered to the EV. The study went on to show that even though particulates were slightly worse, CO2, NOX and other pollution was lower in the EV. In a nutshell while electric vehicles are not emission free they do represent a significant reduction in pollution over a similar gasoline powered car.

 

[Dan5]

Yes, and the Norwegian study, may be splitting hairs, but when the article was published no mas market EV actually used iron phosphate, so the eutrophication citing it is wrong. Same goes with the NCM, no one used NCM, until the Chevy Spark (only EV that actually uses NCM, and that was released in the past month and no one knew they were using NCM until 3 months ago). If you are going to publish a paper, fictitious made up chemistry and rumors doesn't fly. If we want to do that, I'll say that transmission oil in the Lamborghini is made from North Atlantic right whale blubber (that's why the cars are so expensive)

He wrote in the article:

The National Academies’ study stood out for its comprehensiveness, but it’s not the only one to make such grim assessments. A Norwegian study published last October in the Journal of Industrial Ecology compared life-cycle impacts of electric vehicles. The researchers considered acid rain, airborne particulates, water pollution, smog, and toxicity to humans, as well as depletion of fossil fuel and mineral resources. According to coauthor Anders Stromman, “electric vehicles consistently perform worse or on par with modern internal combustion engine vehicles, despite virtually zero direct emissions during operation.”

I am not familiar with any of the other studies referred to, but I know this one very well, and a lot of assumptions are being made in order to be able to make a comparison between fossil and EVs. One of the factors which quite unsurprisingly has the most to say in this comparison is the driving distance of the car. On the premises laid out in this study, diesel (not gasoline, which is still worse) and EV global warming potential are comparatively on par at a vehicle life time of 100.000 km. Increasing this life time range benefits EVs by a big margin, but it is of course not interesting for Mr. Zehner to highlight this when his angle is to make an argument against electric vehicles. I don't know what the average life time range of cars are, but I am sure it is far more than 100.000 km.

 

[wycolo]

> rather than drawing more electricity from the grid, refineries burn some of the product [Zythryn]

Our local refinery (Sinclair) has one honkin' big electric power feed connecting it to nearby Seminoe & Pathfinder Dams, run by Reclamation/DOE. Wonder how much of their annual energy used comes from this green source? If they were energy independent they would not need this connection at all, just burn their own products. Possibly when Dams cannot store any more they need a big load dump real quick. Beneficial synergy?

> We should all pedal bikes [OzzieZ]

Ideally workers would all live in stackable modules within biking distance of their employ. When they change jobs the modules can be moved quickly and easily to a new location. The Japanese model. In hilly country, yes, electric bikes. :smile:
--

 

[Dan5]

Here's a few responses- my head hurts

1. First off let’s play Devil’s advocate with the sulfur hexafluoride. 23,000 more GWP than CO2, my that’s a lot isn’t it. BUT if you really sit down and do the math, even despite releases of the sulfur hexafluoride, in a worst case scenario for solar, it still does not cause as much emissions as a regular car.
2. Yes, you can include the infrastructure and whatnot in order to make the powerplants, but it is academically dishonest to not include the infrastructure to make gasoline also. Same goes for decommissioning. While we are on that, remind me about the MTBE fuel additive clean-ups?
3. Most studies do consider a full life cycle assessement. That’s what you see if the use EIOLCA or Simapro.
4. Your picture is outdated. Currently there are very few EVs that use rare earths as magnets. Tesla does not. Even the Prius is getting away from rare earths. While we are complaining about rare earths, I notice there was not that huge outcry when the Sony walkman came out
5. While true EVs may have slightly more copper than a regular car, remember copper is generally recycled 100% of the time, it’s valuable! If copper is your concern, perhaps you should be writing to the governments about getting rid of pennies and copper piping in your house, and forbid people from getting copper roofs (look nice, but slate is better). Here’s a fun fact, a typical home’s plumbing contains many more times the amount of copper in an EV that can readily be replaced with other materials. Also electric wiring could also be replaced with more benign materials, and has been in the 1960’s
6. Again, same with aluminum. You do know most cars have these pesky little things called engines which are typically, in modern cars aluminum blocks. You are also aware that aluminum is a highly recycled material and recycled aluminum only uses 5% the energy to recycle as it would take to make virgin aluminum. Another fun fact, a good amount of aluminum is made via hydropower (because it’s cheap that way). I’ll point again, you really want to get mad at EVs for using aluminum when you could easily find more aluminum waste from other manufacturers. Ever see a soda or beer can on the side of the road?
7. Lithium production is pretty benign, ancient brine solution, pump it up, let it dry, dissolve the salt, through in calcium/sodium carbonate and run electricity to get lithium, problem solved. Copper and nickel are mined together, it’s the nature of the beast, again, recycled mostly. But you failed to mention platinum and palladium mining/refining and that these are used in regular cars in the catalytic convertors. I’ll enlighten the readers. You strip mine the earth get a little bit out, process it by baking to some high temp, process it with insanely strong acids (nitric, hydrochloric, and aqua regia (the stuff the dissolves gold)), make an emulsion, and paint in on a porous surface.
8. Useful battery life- You expect people to buy into the belief that you have an object made of copper, nickel and lithium; copper and nickel are expensive and has value as scrap metal. You expect someone to dump it in a lake or woods? Really?? Yep, who in their right mind would not recycle it? Would you trash something worth thousands of dollars? And if you do, you don’t think someone will not come and snag it out of the trash. Here’s an experiment, bang up some aluminum car rims and place them on the curb. I bet they will be gone in a day or two- heck, I’d take them.
9. The Norwegian study- you really want to hang your hat on a study that used 150,000 km cut off, made data up (severely screwed up their calculations) and used battery chemistry that no EV used when the study was published. Really, that’s what you want to cite?
10. Again, you want to use a study that focused on China, a country who was exempt from signing the KYOTO agreement. China is not a pillar of ecology and is an outlier

 

[JRP3]

Yes, and the Norwegian study, may be splitting hairs, but when the article was published no mas market EV actually used iron phosphate, so the eutrophication citing it is wrong. Same goes with the NCM, no one used NCM, until the Chevy Spark (only EV that actually uses NCM, and that was released in the past month and no one knew they were using NCM until 3 months ago).

I thought the Spark was using A123 cells, which are LiFePO4 based.

 

[Dan5]

Yeah, that's what i originally thought, but apparently GM changed their minds, i think they went with LG or Samsung for the Spark.

GM likes to keep its battery a secret sauce. A123 was in the running, but didnt get the contract

 

[Jointguy]

Thank you to all that responded
good stuff (ammo) for the wife
Sorry if the post was a bit redundant

 

[JRP3]

Yeah, that's what i originally thought, but apparently GM changed their minds, i think they went with LG or Samsung for the Spark.

GM likes to keep its battery a secret sauce. A123 was in the running, but didnt get the contract

Do you have any links? As of April they were still talking about A123: http://www.greencarreports.com/news...t-spark-ev-on-time-unaffected-by-a123-failure

But the littlest plug-in electric Chevy also uses lithium-ion cells from A123 Systems.
Does that mean that A123's bankruptcy filing.and subsequent sale to Chinese auto-parts maker Wanxiang has delayed the Spark EV's launch?
Not at all, says General Motors [NYSE:G].
There is "no change" in the little electric car's launch schedule, says Kevin M. Kelly, who's the Manager of Electrification Technology Communications for GM.
"The 2014 Chevrolet Spark EV," Kelly says, "will launch this summer in California and Oregon."

Also:

http://www.mlive.com/auto/index.ssf/2012/10/gm_a123_bankruptcy_will_not_im.html

A123 was contracted to supply advanced nanophosphate lithium-ion battery packs to the Detroit-based automaker to power the all-electric minicar.
“We are monitoring the situation, but we do not expect any timing changes,” Kevin Kelly, a GM spokesman, told MLive.com.