Hopefully this will stay as it is. Environmentally BEVs don’t make much sense. And there is not enough electricity capacity (fossil or regenerative) to cover the need of millions of electric cars.
Teslie: EVs make no sense
- Thread starter Teslie
- Start date
Hopefully this will stay as it is. Environmentally BEVs don’t make much sense. And there is not enough electricity capacity (fossil or regenerative) to cover the need of millions of electric cars.
Of course they do. I'd recommend reading up on the subject. Most studies show a reduction of around 40% for green house gas emissions, if you swap a gas or diesel car with an equivalent BEV, and run it on EU grid average electricity. And it also cuts local emissions (NOx, VOCs, PM) close to zero. The only thing that doesn't go all the way to zero is particulate emissions.
And electricity is only getting cleaner. More and more solar and wind is put into the system, while the dirtier coal plants are shutting down. As the electricity gets cleaner, every BEV sold gets cleaner. While oil is only getting dirtier, as we need to go into deeper and deeper waters to get the oil, and use increasing amounts of shale oil and oil sands.
Not today, but it's a gradual process. Even if car sales went to 100% BEV today, it would take 10-20 years to phase out all the existing ICE vehicles. That gives us a lot of time to set up more solar and wind.
There isn't enough Fossil Fuel to last more than a couple of decades if we don't have alternatives, and if rest of world wants an American lifestyle(dream) with 2 cars in the garage.
Solar is Free, Wind is Free, (after upfront investment) .. other Alternatives (like tapping waves etc also coming) Also Nuclear option is there but we wouldn;t want a Chernobyll in our own backyard
Synthetic fuel produced by wind/solar would be a sensible solution. No heavy battery pacs needed. Better than the fuel cells. They are working on it...
If you really think that, it's no wonder you're such a strong bear.
As well as moving emissions upstream, BEVs are _synergistic_ with efforts to clean up the energy supply because they need lots and lots and lots of large, cheap batteries, which is something that would be _extremely_ useful to electricity grids. Frequency management is already going battery.
First off, going uphill in terms of energy is inefficient, so it will take more electricity to make the fuel (ie conversion inefficiency). Then the consumption of fuel in ICE engines is inefficient. So you end up needing >3x the energy to produce the same result. If you are claiming there isn't enough electricity to charge the cars, how can you suggest that a system needing triple the energy input is viable?
And all that ignores the transportation and storage aspects/costs of a liquid/ gas fuel.A HV electric line is lower cost, easier to maintain, and more environmentally friendly than a pipeline or tanker trucks...
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
Basic physics failure on your part. Highly inefficient well to wheels and not scaleable.
Hmm... Sounds like this Hydrogen Fuel Cell nonsense to me. When you convert electricity from one form to another, there are losses. I don't see how it can possibly be more efficient or "green" to convert electricity into synthetic fuel and then burn/convert that back into electricity. Than simply use the electricity to juice up a battery.
And yes, back to Market Action. Didn't even realise that was this thread reading/replying to some of the nonsense here.
Why visit the gas station to pay for the synthetic fuels of the future and pay monies, when I can charge my battery at home
bambam4171
Member
You very clearly have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Please educate yourself before making a fool out of you. As you are german the next few bits will in german:
Die Raffinierie Burghausen, eine gemäss Eigenangaben höchst moderne Raffinerie in DE (siehe auch https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der ... eutschland )
Gemäss ihrem Bericht hier http://www.emas.de/fileadmin/user_uploa ... d-GmbH.pdf
Hat 2016 20 770 007 GJ verbraucht, das wären dann 6 231 002 MWh (Siehe seite 28)
Damit hat sie 4 037 536 t Erdöl Produkte hergestellt, sprich pro t brauchen die 1.54 MWh. Wenn das jetzt reiner Diesel wär (Diesel macht keinen viertel der Produkte aus), würde das bedeuten, dass die Produktion von 1L Diesel 1.2KWh Strom benötigt. Sagen wir mal 6L verbraucht ein Diesel-Auto auf 100km. Sprich 7.2KWh elektrische Energie sind schon in der Raffinerie verbraten. Da ist der Diesel noch nicht an der Tankstelle und schon gar nicht im Tank.
Zum Vergleich: Der Renault Zoe verbraucht nach NEFZ 14.6KWh auf 100km.
Das hab ich vor ner Weile mal so berechnet.
bambam4171
Member
Its a daft solution. Wind/Solar beats Synthetic fuel production efficiencies by order of magnitude.
As has been mentioned, it has absolutely terrible efficiency.
Gasoline has around 8.8 kWh/liter, and assuming you can make gasoline at 13 kWh/liter, at 0.05 liters/km, you're effectively using 650 Wh/km. A Model 3 will on average over the year probably use around 200 Wh/km, including charging losses. With over three times higher energy usage, you need that much more solar panels and wind turbines.
That said, I do think synthetic fuels have a future. Just not in passenger vehicles. Synthetic fuel is good for long distance airplanes, rockets and shipping.
In this case, inefficiency is just a cost multiplier.
A key advantage of non-dispatchable renewable electricity (especially solar) is that it's abundant.
The key disadvantage is that you have to do something to capture and store that energy so that it can be used when it's needed.
Given that there's already excess generation that leads to negative pricing, even inefficient uses costs less than nothing. So it's actually a question of the cost of the conversion process and fuel usage itself, compared to the cost of alternatives. Given the diurnal and seasonal challenges of intermittent renewables, _some_ conversion seems inevitable. I feel that methane synthesis is an obvious one, given that it's relatively efficient as far as synthesis goes, we already have an extensive system that uses it, it burns cleanly and efficiently, and because it could be combined with biogas production.
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SabrToothSqrl
Active Member
The internet doesn't make much sense. We don't have enough computers to cover the needs of millions of users. Ohh wait... it doesn't happen over night? idjits.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
But we were discussing transportation usage, not grid storage.
T34ME
Active Member
Battery technology is improving rapidly and batteries are becoming lighter and smaller. One day, not in the too far distant future, a battery the size of a sugar cube will power a car for 1000 kilometers. Don't Panic.
(from an old German folk song)
Du, du kannst auf mich bauen
ya, ya, ya, ya, Sie wissen nicht, wie gut Solar ist für Sie!
roblab
Active Member
Electric battery to motor is two to four times more efficient than the fuel to fuel cell to battery to motor, plus you're making the fuel with electric. Doesn't make much sense.
Batteries don't make sense for seasonal grid storage, so you will need some other mechanism for storing and using energy. But you do have the factor that A/C use is highest when you have abundant solar energy, which helps reduce the seasonal imbalance between supply and demand. And a workable storage solution today is pumped hydro - Norway alone stores around 86.5 TWh in our hydro reservoirs, and a meaningful amount of this can be used for pumped hydro.
But I see validity in the argument that some energy will be stored in chemical fuels. Short term, that will likely be hydrogen, which is then added to the natural gas network. (Something like 5% can be added without much problems with hydrogen embrittlement.) Longer term I assume the natural gas network will be gone, and some other chemical storage will be needed. Making fuel for the BFR is one mechanism for putting the energy to good use. Short range airplanes will likely be battery electric, but I think long range airplanes are unsolvable for the foreseeable future. Same with long range shipping.
So yes, we will likely have synthetic transportation fuel. But not for road going vehicles. Road going vehicles use so much energy that there isn't enough "surplus energy" to meet the demand, and road transportation is low hanging fruit for electrification.
Plus there is plenty of excess electricity generating capacity at night when the bulk of EV charging will take place. There are places currently paying people to take electricity at night. It won't be that hard for Electricity generation to keep up. By the time it is needed, clean sources will be the cheapest options to build, so it's a win-win.
Have you ever tried to respond to a statement that was so far off base in all areas that you didn't know where to begin?
Yeah.... that.
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