Environmentally unfriendly electric cars?

[aleCcowaN]

You keep talking about car inspection in the USA, but how does it relate with GHG? As far as I know them locally, yearly car inspections are intended to test the safety of the vehicle (tires, brake system, etc), and secondarily to test the level of emissions from a local point of view and not the global one. Of course that problems with ignition and carburettor will tend to waste some small % of gasoline which in the end will increase the GHG pool, besides the accelerated wear off of the vehicle. But any bit of smoke is probably going to add to the negative side of the equation.

The paper in the OP surely is biased against electrical vehicles and not for this omission of inspections. Adding up the environmental cost of the final recycling of a battery to the environmental cost of manufacturing the battery without recycled elements is a double count. Assuming short life cycles for all vehicles is ignoring how the universe of vehicles is, and simultaneously taking the efficiency of vehicles at 95 km/h, is ignoring that most short life cycle vehicles are used most of the time in urban traffic, a case with electrical vehicles having clear advantages. Taking into account the GHG generated at the power plants is charging electrical vehicles with every inefficiency the power distribution system has, while taking the fuel at the gas station thus failing in accounting for energy wasted from extraction, distilling -including cracking- to distribution and driving with a full tank is simply sloping the play-field in order to score by the ball rolling by itself into the goal. The fact that electrical vehicles don't run with cables plugged to the net and roads don't have "third rails" like trains, so the recharge is not necessary attached to the act of consumption, as most of the electrical power is, that seems to be factor that nobody is interested in.

By distorting the play field in a biased way, the paper cuts 2% here, 5% there, 3% over there, and so on, the paper has EV being just a 20% better than conventional vehicles when I wouldn't be surprised if a more comprehensive and balanced analysis finds them to be some 60% better, even with a power generation structure like that of the USA.

It's not accidental that the paper has being related with an oil company. To our relief, its authors have declared that such oil company is an institutional contributor but the paper was developed using other funding.

 

[Dinwar]

Lowering air pollution levels is the only definite advantage of electric cars IMO.

Not really reading the thread, are you?

Some people just tend to focus on large smokestacks. You have to see the whole picture, the systems that support each vehicle from cradle to grave. And frankly, at this point it isn't a slam dunk and both are moving targets.

Exactly. It's the same issue with renewable energy sources: most people only focus on polution generated by the actual components during operation, and miss the huge environmental impacts (including toxic chemical releases in some cases, and ecological devistation in others) involved in the construction, maintenance, and decomissioning.

And even then, the numbers are moving. Byt the time you finish your study there will be a new car available that is 20% more efficient, or has 20% more range, or uses less damaging battery tech. These things are in the pipeline, but the pipeline is moving quickly.

Well, the point of such a study isn't to give specific data on what's going on right now; any such study is obsolete before it's printed. The main impact would be an emphasis on environmental impacts of the various available technologies, in order to highlight where each is strongest and where each is weakest. In other words, right now much of the environmental cost of electric cars is hidden; a study like I'm proposing would make the costs much more easily accessible to people. Sure, it's not going to be 100% accurate, but it'll get this type of thing into the public discourse on the topic to a degree that's conspicuously lacking at the moment (see the comments in this thread for proof).

 

[Dinwar]

You keep talking about car inspection in the USA, but how does it relate with GHG? As far as I know them locally, yearly car inspections are intended to test the safety of the vehicle (tires, brake system, etc), and secondarily to test the level of emissions from a local point of view and not the global one.

Well, first and foremost it should be obvious by now that there's great variation in inspections. Some DO examine the environmental impacts of cas. Second, how exactly are local releases of GHGs not going to get into the global pool?

Adding up the environmental cost of the final recycling of a battery to the environmental cost of manufacturing the battery without recycled elements is a double count.

Depends on how they do it. Since not all batteries are new, there's going to be a mixture of new and recycled components that needs to be addressed.

By distorting the play field in a biased way, the paper cuts 2% here, 5% there, 3% over there, and so on, the paper has EV being just a 20% better than conventional vehicles when I wouldn't be surprised if a more comprehensive and balanced analysis finds them to be some 60% better, even with a power generation structure like that of the USA.

Every post of mine in this thread boils down to me asking for this data you simply assume. The only real data in this thread thus far are the papers in the OP. If you have better, I for one would honestly love to see it.

I am not, however, going to take your word for it. My second point is that intuition fails us in this regard. We need to carefuly and rigorously examine the data, not simply guess. I don't take ANYONE'S intuition as a valid argument here; it's no offense against you, it's simply that this is too complex and the answer differs too widely depending on who answers the question. There are too many hidden issues, and the data are far too easy to skew, even accidently.

It's not accidental that the paper has being related with an oil company. To our relief, its authors have declared that such oil company is an institutional contributor but the paper was developed using other funding.

This is an attack against the authors, not the reasoning or data, and is therefore irrelevant.

 

[Nessie]

Not really reading the thread, are you?

.....

To clarify, I mean lowering air pollution levels in cities with a pollution problem.

 

[quarky]

certainly, the environmental costs of production and replacement of batteries needs to be taken into account...as does the cost of lugging around the extra weight..and more obscure factors, such as wars in places that have ample lithium ores.

still, the exercise of using electric cars, at this silly level, might lend itself well to future breakthroughs in technology.

i see it as a practice round.
a dress rehearsal, at best.

 

[Dinwar]

To clarify, I mean lowering air pollution levels in cities with a pollution problem.

Even this is questionable, in that it depends on where the power plants are located.

 

[aleCcowaN]

Well, first and foremost it should be obvious by now that there's great variation in inspections. Some DO examine the environmental impacts of cas. Second, how exactly are local releases of GHGs not going to get into the global pool?

Exhaust analysis is for carbon monoxide -which is not worse GHG than the carbon dioxide it will quickly be turned into- and incomplete combustion, for traditional cars, opacity for diesel. Nobody analyses CO2 content here, and I really doubt such a thing is measured in any of 50 states + 1 + 1 + dependencies. Hence my question, why on Earth are all of you talking so much about car inspections?

Every post of mine in this thread boils down to me asking for this data you simply assume. The only real data in this thread thus far are the papers in the OP. If you have better, I for one would honestly love to see it.

I don't assume. Sometimes I read, sometimes I infer. Have you read or even browsed the large spreadsheets attached to the paper?

I am not, however, going to take your word for it...

Sure, read those and help me to analyse it. One thing about the (...) part: complexity and incompleteness doesn't mean a clear bias can't be spotted. There's also a matter of laziness: you have publicly available the specifications of Mercedes class A, the efficiency in kilometres per litre in different conditions, and the 100 to 200,000 km life cycle. Do your own calculations as I've done mine -use hexane in it if you want -to get the lowest GHG yield possible- and only then tell me if the numbers -or other expressive representations- in the paper make room to include driving in cities or cracking fuel oil into light alkanes to then transport the fuel where your tank is. Also, pay attention to those mileages in vehicles and what additional load they use besides a slim driver and a quarter of tank to almost empty.

This is an attack against the authors, not the reasoning or data, and is therefore irrelevant.

The obvious biases in the paper are hard data. What they replied to that is hard datum. Altogether is highly relevant. What are you talking about? Are you mixing up relevancy with "I don't like the direction this is taking" and "I don't like you"? According to your sentence a woman testifying against her rapist is attacking, and "therefore being irrelevant"? C'mon!

 

[Dinwar]

One thing about the (...) part: complexity and incompleteness doesn't mean a clear bias can't be spotted.

I think you're reading more into my posts than is there. I'm not saying these reports aren't biased; in fact, I'm accepting the idea. In that regard, you and I are largely in agreement. I'm going a step further, however, and saying that ALL such reports are biased, and then pondering what it would take to get a coherent view of this question.

If you wish to bash on a single report, go ahead. It's fun and very useful concepts can come from it. However, I think it would be more useful in this case to examine what it would take to view the situation more objectively, and to attempt to do so.

What are you talking about? Are you mixing up relevancy with "I don't like the direction this is taking" and "I don't like you"? According to your sentence a woman testifying against her rapist is attacking, and "therefore being irrelevant"? C'mon!

Context is your friend. You said

It's not accidental that the paper has being related with an oil company. To our relief, its authors have declared that such oil company is an institutional contributor but the paper was developed using other funding.

The only rational interpretation of this is that you're implying that because oil companies are involved, the research is therefore biased. This may be true; however, the mere fact that someone pays for something in no way proves that it is biased. It's also my least favorite argument style, Argument from Implication.

If you choose to consider my criticism invalid, have fun. But there IS a record of it, and I stand by my criticism. You want to accuse researchers of fraud (which is what you're doing) you need to do better than simply point out that they were funded.

 

[aleCcowaN]

I think you're reading more into my posts than is there.

You start to become a little too much rhetoric-only in a subject that's highly numeric, then I'm reading less and not more into your posts.

I'm not saying these reports aren't biased; in fact, I'm accepting the idea. In that regard, you and I are largely in agreement. I'm going a step further, however, and saying that ALL such reports are biased, and then pondering what it would take to get a coherent view of this question.

If you wish to bash on a single report, go ahead. It's fun and very useful concepts can come from it. However, I think it would be more useful in this case to examine what it would take to view the situation more objectively, and to attempt to do so.

I understand your whole paragraphs as: everything is biased then looking into one only paper is, in addition, kind of a waste of time if the objective is tell true from wrong, though it may be fun . Yeah, promoting scepticism and its intellectual methods may be time wasted in fora like these, sure bet. The fact is that the rethorimatic is turned on and it's me the only one who seems to be calculator in hand trying to test standards and data on this subject, in the paper and around the paper. You are treating the result of those tests like fancy unmeditated opinion without even knowing what's behind.

Context is your friend. You said

The only rational interpretation of this is that you're implying that because oil companies are involved, the research is therefore biased. This may be true; however, the mere fact that someone pays for something in no way proves that it is biased. It's also my least favorite argument style, Argument from Implication.

If you choose to consider my criticism invalid, have fun. But there IS a record of it, and I stand by my criticism. You want to accuse researchers of fraud (which is what you're doing) you need to do better than simply point out that they were funded.

Knock it off. If I had implied "oil companies are involved THEREFORE the paper is biased" I would have said it in the very beginning. But contrary to your caricaturization of my intentions here, I stated the facts you quoted after describing some of the many biases I have encountered in the paper, and I came across that piece of information about funding while looking for other analysis on the same subject.

Your black and white vision of my person prevented you from reading what I truly implied: the more you analyse the paper, the more biases appear, and look, it also might be a matter of affiliation, according to this piece of information I got recently.

Only you could suppose that the whole thread and my three posts were intended to slowly reveal "the ad-hom that secretly was harboured in my heart from the very beginning", so to speak. And you're using the same old same old "I'm gonna tell you what you really meant". Ridiculous! Again, knock it off. Come back to me only if you have a piece of information about the topic which includes calculations -and not just figures- and you want to discuss it.

 

[Dinwar]

You start to become a little too much rhetoric-only in a subject that's highly numeric, then I'm reading less and not more into your posts.

In other words, you're not going to listen to anything I have to say anyway. Thank you for at least being honest; I won't waste any more of your time or mine.

 

[aleCcowaN]

In other words, you're not going to listen to anything I have to say anyway. Thank you for at least being honest; I won't waste any more of your time or mine.

Was that a slammed door? If you have something to contribute about the topic, why don't you contribute it and forget about me. Provided you can cut all this business of "I'm gonna tell you what you meant" plus this new "I'm gonna tell you what are you being now (honest, pink, powerful, mean)", and all the 12-year old like quarrels.

Electric vehicles, diesel vehicles, gasoline vehicles, compressed natural gas vehicles and hybrid vehicles, and their GHG emissions are a convergent problem -not a divergent one- so, provide hard data useful to everyone and not verborhea addressed to me.

Between posts I could confirm that the Mercedes-Benz class A eco-credentials of 27.9 T of CO2 in 150,000 km, are calculated for mostly highway driving, and the Nissan Leaf batteries, taken as a sunk cost in 100 and 150,000 km life-cycles, they are sold with guarantee up to 8 years or 100,000 miles, and at least a charge level of 70% (low value if you don't charge them full in a daily basis), when the typical value is 80%. What did you get?

The battery in the paper is known to keep a 70 to 80% level after 10 years (typically 125,000 miles, more than 200,000 km). You can keep using it for a long time, but you could make less than 100 miles between charges. Anyway a used battery has still many 10,000s kWh in potential storage cycles it can manage, so it could be used for solar panels or other applications, as the battery can hold at least 17 kw-h when it is replaced in the car. This changes everything in the paper, as the battery is supposed to have a carbon footprint similar to that of the electricity consumed from mixed sources.

 

[quarky]

cool.

two good members, both a bit arrogant, in a struggle, on the science forum.
this is where a lot of the juicy bits come from.

hopefully, it won't degrade into name calling.

 

[Dr. Keith]

cool.

two good members, both a bit arrogant, in a struggle, on the science forum.
this is where a lot of the juicy bits come from.

hopefully, it won't degrade into name calling.

I'm sure they can come up with some good names. :opcorn::

 

[Zeph]

Inductive reasoning is at heart largely probabalistic; in most complex real world situations of this sort we have no one piece of unambiguously conclusive evidence. Instead we marshal a variety of pieces of evidence, using the heuristic that if each piece of the evidence is relatively (even if not absolutely) trustworthy, the more of it there is the more likely the conclusion it supports is to be true. This imperfect pattern making as an attempt to discover the best horse to bet on has worked well enough for our survival to be an ingrained capability of our brains by now (at least culturally if not physiologically).

Among the pieces of information which we naturally weigh it the funding sources, not because it's a fully reliable stand-alone predictor reliability, but because experience and analysis has taught us that it has enough predictive value to be given some weight in the mixture, without being taken as conclusive in itself.

So it does not automatically and entirely discredit the paper if it was provided by a source which has motivation to please the petroleum industry; but such potential bias is also not entirely irrelevant as one component of our assessment.

Of course, we probably all agree that a comprehensive, objective and well implemented apples-to-apples analysis of cradle to grave costs of EVs, gasoline, diesel, natural gas, and other technologies would be the gold standard. I see nobody arguing against the value of somebody finding or creating that. And I don't think I've heard anyone here claim that the article in question IS that gold standard. So the question seems to be how much weight to give the article PENDING that discovery or creation of that gold standard.

I would tend not to over emphasize the evidence of potential bias related to funding, and focus more on other evidence of bias or objectivity (or simple error vs accuracy) in the analysis based on factual and numeric checking. But funding is not completely irrelevant to evaluating the trust we should give to that paper, either. If it was going to be mentioned at all, it should be at the end of a response, as tertiary evidence rather than the "star witness". Which I think was the case here.

 

[quarky]

Inductive reasoning is at heart largely probabalistic; in most complex real world situations of this sort we have no one piece of unambiguously conclusive evidence. Instead we marshal a variety of pieces of evidence, using the heuristic that if each piece of the evidence is relatively (even if not absolutely) trustworthy, the more of it there is the more likely the conclusion it supports is to be true. This imperfect pattern making as an attempt to discover the best horse to bet on has worked well enough for our survival to be an ingrained capability of our brains by now (at least culturally if not physiologically).

Among the pieces of information which we naturally weigh it the funding sources, not because it's a fully reliable stand-alone predictor reliability, but because experience and analysis has taught us that it has enough predictive value to be given some weight in the mixture, without being taken as conclusive in itself.

So it does not automatically and entirely discredit the paper if it was provided by a source which has motivation to please the petroleum industry; but such potential bias is also not entirely irrelevant as one component of our assessment.

Of course, we probably all agree that a comprehensive, objective and well implemented apples-to-apples analysis of cradle to grave costs of EVs, gasoline, diesel, natural gas, and other technologies would be the gold standard. I see nobody arguing against the value of somebody finding or creating that. And I don't think I've heard anyone here claim that the article in question IS that gold standard. So the question seems to be how much weight to give the article PENDING that discovery or creation of that gold standard.

I would tend not to over emphasize the evidence of potential bias related to funding, and focus more on other evidence of bias or objectivity (or simple error vs accuracy) in the analysis based on factual and numeric checking. But funding is not completely irrelevant to evaluating the trust we should give to that paper, either. If it was going to be mentioned at all, it should be at the end of a response, as tertiary evidence rather than the "star witness". Which I think was the case here.

holy smokes.

that was some intense writing.

it reminded me of me, slightly, in its nebulousness and willingness to see all sides, but much better written. i welcome this.

kudos

 

[aleCcowaN]

holy smokes.

that was some intense writing.

it reminded me of me, slightly, in its nebulousness and willingness to see all sides, but much better written. i welcome this.

kudos

Do you see, quarky? That's how it looks a person who stays on topic and tries to contribute data, insights and perspectives. Regarding to that specific subject, in my case it was more just of an instance of "This, I have seen before" (perceiving a consistent bias towards some kind of conclusion THEN finding out a confirmed funding which can be pleased with such a conclusion) and not an element to get because of some analysis design.

Anyway, those kind of patterns are not to be discarded (that blatant "THEREFORE irrelevant") not in general, nor in particular. For instance, these fora, there's a high correlation between trolling and bans, and there's also a high correlation between high post counts and time-losing frivolity.

 

[Dinwar]

I understand that funding can be a potential source of bias, Zeph. I probably understand it better than most. I've actually experienced the internal pressure a company can apply to try to convince a researcher to change their interpretation. I've never argued that it's not a valid concern. It's just that far too many people simply assume "You're getting paid by a company, your results are faulty". Just as it's appropriate to point out potential biases in the research, it's appropriate to point out potential biases in the analysis of the research. It's not like analysis of a report can't be biased (had that happen to me too).

Frankly, accusations of bias due to funding sources are almost always accusations of fraud in my experience. I like a tad more evidence before such accusations are tossed out. My posting history pretty clearly demonstrates that.

So the question seems to be how much weight to give the article PENDING that discovery or creation of that gold standard.

Agreed. And I didn't argue with aleCcowaN's assessment of most of the article. The reason--which has thus far been ignored--is that the analysis is pretty good. This report demonstrably misrepresents the relative value of electric cars vs. gasoline cars. Honestly, I rather considered that a done deal; I saw no point in continuing that line of conversation, because it can only lead to masterbatory self-congratulations about how awesome we all are because we saw the paper's errors. I had enough of that in grad school. The INTERESTING question, at least to me, is how to improve the study. Where do we go from here? Okay, we have a list of biases--how do we remove them?

Obviously others aren't interested in carrying the discussion in that direction. And that's perfectly fine--I don't assume I get to dictate how discussions meander. But I did want to set the record straight about why I posted what I posted.

 

[Zeph]

I understand that funding can be a potential source of bias, Zeph. I probably understand it better than most. I've actually experienced the internal pressure a company can apply to try to convince a researcher to change their interpretation. I've never argued that it's not a valid concern. It's just that far too many people simply assume "You're getting paid by a company, your results are faulty".

Point taken. I was trying for a middle ground, that it's potentially relevant, but should not be over-emphasized - and we seem to agree on that.

Frankly, accusations of bias due to funding sources are almost always accusations of fraud in my experience. I like a tad more evidence before such accusations are tossed out.

I think unconscious bias is probably far more common than outright deliberate fraud. It's easy to select sources or approaches that lead more in the direction we wish to demonstrate - all of us do it to some degree. An easy example to choose to use one of a range of values which a source provides. That usually would not be considered "fraud". We all know there are many, many other opportunities.

Personally, I would rarely suggest fraud per se - I agree with you that such a strong allegation needs more evidence (compared to evidence of possible bias). I think we are on the same wavelength here.

The INTERESTING question, at least to me, is how to improve the study. Where do we go from here? Okay, we have a list of biases--how do we remove them?

We are definitely on the same wavelength.

So what I hear is not that you dispute that funding can cause bias, but you find it frustrating if that becomes the end of the conversation - if, having established likely bias in one analysis, we then just go back to comfortably assuming that whatever we want to believe if probably true, rather than doing the analysis right, to find out. I think you stated it well in this last pass.

So starting afresh, are there any more ideas (from anybody) on how to do the analysis right? Or is thinking that out too much work for this venue?

 

[aleCcowaN]

You mean, besides the ideas I've already contributed. You mean ideas attached to figures immediately, something very rare in forums.randi.com. Otherwise it looks like attorneys in law appointed by the political power to manage a scientific agency, who came up saying that they led the scientific team in such and such achievement when in fact the team led itself through a jungle of hurdles created by the ignorant attorneys.

In fact, I refrained myself of contributing such ideas because my experience with many threads, including that thread about compressed natural gas vehicles, the one that most resembles this thread. The fact was people with assertions born in assumptions versus I with figures collected from fact sheets that contradicted those assertions. They counterattacked with more unsupported assertions, I replied with more figures and technical information. They vacated the thread. They don't like to be contradicted in their fancy ideations nor expose as people who talks about what they don't know and without any recognizable methodology.

The same pattern repeated here, in this case with Dinwar, who only contributed an outdated mix of USA's power production that is gettable one click away of Google, and then started kind of a soap opera twisting what I said and declaring that the thread was in no condition to pursue a noble goal in spite of his predisposition to ... writing in parlance retreat manoeuvres where he explains why currently the circumstances are not right for the thread to evolve positively in spite of him contributing his best will to do so. Of course, no contribution nor real positive will is found there.