Will plug-in-hybrid vehicles solve anything?

[Sati1984]

Ever since I've seen the commercial for the Chevrolet Volt, I'm wondering what effects could these cars have in the long run for gas prices, electricity prices and the energy crisis in general.

And while the Volt is an early bird (although the EV1 was fully functional in 1996...) and costs about $40k, it will not be the only one. Will these Plug-in-hybrids gain ground? Do they mean more or less pollution than using regular gasoline or diesel cars?

What do you think?

(Also, my first thread on JREF, hoo-ray!!! )

 

[lionking]

If you plug into a coal fired power station, I can't see any less pollution.

 

[Sati1984]

If you plug into a coal fired power station, I can't see any less pollution.

No power station needed, you can plug it in at home and charge your car from a regular outlet.

Which means that the electricity can come from multiple sources (nuclear, coal, oil, even renewables, in a small percent), and this is what I was asking. If the electricity is coming 50% from say a nuclear reactor and 50% from a coal fired reactor, then is it more or less pollution than a regular car?

 

[lionking]

No power station needed, you can plug it in at home and charge your car from a regular outlet.

Which means that the electricity can come from multiple sources (nuclear, coal, oil, even renewables, in a small percent), and this is what I was asking. If the electricity is coming 50% from say a nuclear reactor and 50% from a coal fired reactor, then is it more or less pollution than a regular car?

Fair enough. In Australia (and much of the world because coal is the cheapest and most abundent source of power) you are hardly getting clean electricity to power your "green" car.

 

[Quinn]

Fair enough. In Australia (and much of the world because coal is the cheapest and most abundent source of power) you are hardly getting clean electricity to power your "green" car.

Or as I saw one standup comic put it: "Because gasoline comes from fossil fuels, but electricity comes from a magic jellybean field!"

 

[JoelKatz]

It comes down to efficiency. Large power plants are much more efficient at getting energy out of oil than small cars are and have much more elaborate pollution controls. But for a plug-in hybrid, you have to consider the efficiency of the vehicle and the efficiency of the power plant.

With the US power grid of today, today's plug-in hybrids have approximately the same environmental impact as a conventional vehicle that gets 50mpg. However, as the conventional vehicle gets worse with age, the hope is that the plug-in hybrid will get better with a cleaner grid.

 

[lionking]

It comes down to efficiency. Large power plants are much more efficient at getting energy out of oil than small cars are and have much more elaborate pollution controls. But for a plug-in hybrid, you have to consider the efficiency of the vehicle and the efficiency of the power plant.

With the US power grid of today, today's plug-in hybrids have approximately the same environmental impact as a conventional vehicle that gets 50mpg. However, as the conventional vehicle gets worse with age, the hope is that the plug-in hybrid will get better with a cleaner grid.

I understand that, and a very good point. I just get annoyed with people who think battery power=clean energy.

 

[Sati1984]

I understand that, and a very good point. I just get annoyed with people who think battery power=clean energy.

Agreed. I just wanted to know if these cars make any difference. Considering, that we may get electricity from more clean sources in the future, it seems that they are the first step in a better direction for me. But I could be wrong...

 

[LTC8K6]

The problem with plug-in hybrids is the cost, of course. It doesn't make any sense to purchase a Volt over a Cruze or 2012 Focus here in the US. The cost difference is too large.

Unless you have the spare money to look trendy...that is, you are well off.

Not that they won't sell a lot of Volts anyway...

 

[gnome]

...or if you have the spare money because you actually do prefer greater efficiency, regardless of trends.

...or if you think the calculations that show it isn't cost effective are based on gas price numbers that may not remain stable.

...or if you're just a technophile

 

[steve s]

Do they mean more or less pollution than using regular gasoline or diesel cars?

It should be easier to reduce CO2 and pollution if there are a limited number of polluters (i.e. power plants) as opposed to having millions of little polluters out there. Give the power plants some tax breaks to implement more stringent emission controls.

And if it gets us off foreign oil and onto domestic sources of energy, I'm all for that. I'd love to see the OPEC countries desperate for someone to buy their product.

Steve S

 

[davefoc]

I think this is a good topic, but I don't know the answer.

Scientific American ran a small article a few years ago that suggested that plug-in hybrids could reduce US oil consumption by 70%. If that is true, there are at least four potential benefits to the US just because of that:
1. Reduced possibility of disruption of US economy by interruption of fuel supplies from overseas suppliers.
2. Economic benefit by the use of US produced instead of foreign produced fuels.
3. Most fuels that are used to power electric plants are cheaper per joule than gasoline.
4. Increased reliability of US transportation fleet because of the diversification of transportation fuels.

And even without the plug-in aspect of hybrids, hybrids are somewhat fuel efficient so just changing over to hybrids reduces fuel consumption somewhat.

An important question in all this is whether there would be a net environmental benefit as a result of the change. In large cities, there would be a significant improvement in quality of life because of reduced noise and reduced pollution in the city itself. But would there be an overall environmental advantage as a result of the changeover? That seems like the most difficult question to answer.

One idea that is put forth is that the unused capacity of nuclear power plants at night could supply the electricity so the added electric demand would be particularly clean. I suspect this argument is wrong because nuclear power plants generally run flat out and at night output from non-nuclear plants is reduced. I am not sure about this however.

In the end the only way to get a good idea about the environmental question is to do analysis using facts and math and then make a guess about how the future changes the analysis. I look forward to reading links or analysis posted by others on this.

 

[theprestige]

Well, electric cars are only part of the picture. Cleaning up the power grid is another part of the picture. A few electric cars today don't do much, but we really do want everybody to have an electric car by tomorrow. So why wait? If you can afford one today, why not get started down that path?

Meanwhile, shifting to electric cars even before the grid is clean has the benefit of conserving oil for applications where it can be used more efficiently and cleanly (such as powerplants), or where its ridiculously high energy density is more critically needed (such as the military).

Electric cars mean more oil for other uses, and they mean that when the grid is cleaned, the automobile pollution problem will have already been solved.

 

[DavidS]

If you plug into a coal fired power station, I can't see any less pollution.

You can't see how one big, potentially messy but stationary and centralized combustion operation might be more economically compatible with pollution mitigation addenda than thousands of little, private, mobile, intermittent combustion operations each maintained -- or not -- by independent operators whose primary interest is almost completely decoupled from the quality of their exhaust?

Really?

 

[thaiboxerken]

The volt seems rather poor compared to the Nissan leaf.

 

[davefoc]

You can't see how one big, potentially messy but stationary and centralized combustion operation might be more economically compatible with pollution mitigation addenda than thousands of little, private, mobile, intermittent combustion operations each maintained -- or not -- by independent operators whose primary interest is almost completely decoupled from the quality of their exhaust?

Really?

It might be and it might not be. Math and guessing are required. How far away is the power station? How big are the electrical line losses? What fuel is firing the electrical plant? Is it coal, then the amount of CO2 produced per joule is greater than the amount of CO2 per joule of gasoline. Were you thinking that carbon sequestration is the answer? How much energy is used up for that? What value do you place on the mountain tops being shaved away to get the coal. Is it wind? What value do you put on the dead birds and bats? How much did you value the capital used to build the wind generators? Did you include in some kind of storage mechanism so that when the wind isn't blowing you still have power? Maybe you were thinking about nuclear? How did you decide to deal with the nuclear waste? What was the risk factor of a terrorist attack on the nuclear power plant and a resultant nuclear disaster that you used when you were figuring out what the environmental impact of nuclear produced electricity is? Etc.

The point is that its real easy to figure out some qualitative benefit of a particular approach. It's real hard to come up with a quantitative idea about whether a particular approach is better or worse than some other approach when it comes to deciding what fuel is most beneficial environmentally to use for cars.

 

[Puppycow]

Supposedly if you charge it overnight, it uses energy that would have just been wasted otherwise.

So even if the energy is coming from coal, it's cleaner if you charge it in the "off-peak" hours in the dead of night.

ETA: One could imagine however that if plug-in hybrids ever become really popular, those off-peak hours might no longer be off-peak hours if everyone is charging their cars during those hours.

 

[Sati1984]

The volt seems rather poor compared to the Nissan leaf.

It does indeed, but I highlighted the Volt for the reason that that is the first mass produced, commercially available plug-in-hybrid vehicle (if you don't count the EV1 of course).

 

[Sati1984]

Well, electric cars are only part of the picture. Cleaning up the power grid is another part of the picture. A few electric cars today don't do much, but we really do want everybody to have an electric car by tomorrow. So why wait? If you can afford one today, why not get started down that path?

Meanwhile, shifting to electric cars even before the grid is clean has the benefit of conserving oil for applications where it can be used more efficiently and cleanly (such as powerplants), or where its ridiculously high energy density is more critically needed (such as the military).

Electric cars mean more oil for other uses, and they mean that when the grid is cleaned, the automobile pollution problem will have already been solved.

Haven't thought of this aspect before, and that's why I opened this thread, to get new perspective on these things.

The thing that bothers me about these cars is that while their environmental aspect seems to be fine and the user experience is way better (a regular car has hundreds of moving parts, a plug-in-hybrid has 6), the price tag is too high now... How long do you think will it take for it to go down to $5-10k?

 

[Jack by the hedge]

When we all have plug-in hybrids, the problem they'll solve is what to do with the massive overcapacity in power generation we expect to have in the near future.

Oh. Wait.