How much better for the environment are electric cars?

[cwalner]

While I have no doubt that converting the majority of our automobiles to electric from Internal Combustion (IC) will result in an improvement in the environment, I am not certain how great that improvement will be or if that move by itself will be enough.

To explain where I am coming from, I would like to discuss the conversion to electricity in our homes. As we have now seen, this caused a major reduction in local pollution in the population centers, but we now are still facing an environmental crisis because the majority of our electricity is still coming from fossil fuels. Now instead of buring coal and kerosene in our homes, we are burning coal (mostly) in large power plants outside the urban centers.

Similarly, if we are looking to convert our automobiles from IC to electric power, we are not removing fossil fuels from the equation, we are simply changing the type of fuel (from petroleum to coal) and consolidating the burning process from billions of IC engines to (I am guessing) thousands of power plants worldwide.

My instincts tell me that this would be an improvement initially, but not as strong of one as we would need. This is based on the fact that not all power plants are coal-fired and my assumption that due to economies of scale, a coal-fired power plant would produce less pollution per joule than an IC engine. I encourage anybody who actually does know about this to either confirm or refute this assumption.

I also think (again based on some assumptions that I would like those who know to either confirm or refute) that this is also a good long term solution. The assumptions I am making are as follows:

* electric cars are a much more 'ready now' option than other
environmental choices. The drawback is a major initial infrastructure
investment to convert gas/petrol stations to electrc (see below for what
I think may be mitigating factors to justify this cost)

* By consolidating automobile power usage to our electricity system we can
focus on 'going green' and increasing capacity of our electricity production
This can help reduce research costs by removing one variable from the
equation allowing tighter focus in other options.

To sum up, I do think that converting to electric automobiles is the best long term option for the enviroment, although the benefit will not be as dramatic as first. This is because this will essentially reduce the issues of clean cars to the same overall issue of clean power and we can then move forward addressing both. Any initial improvement will be the result of economies of scale from larger centralized power plants over billions of individual power plants.

I appreciate any insights you all will bring to this issue.

 

[Egil]

I think it'd make it worse considering currently most of America's power generation is coal...

 

[casebro]

Today's cars are so clean that I just can't see any real improvement to the environment. Especially if the electricity is generated in one of the obsolete, comparatively filthy plants.

Besides, we don't have any generating capacity to spare, or we wouldn't still have those obsolete plants smoking up the place now. Nuclear, maybe so. But how many new nuke plants would need to be built to replace oh...50% of our internal combustion auto engines?

 

[Egil]

Today's cars are so clean that I just can't see any real improvement to the environment. Especially if the electricity is generated in one of the obsolete, comparatively filthy plants.

Besides, we don't have any generating capacity to spare, or we wouldn't still have those obsolete plants smoking up the place now. Nuclear, maybe so. But how many new nuke plants would need to be built to replace oh...50% of our internal combustion auto engines?

It takes ten years to build a nuke plant and that is a conservative estimate. If we went balls to the wall and the Enviroextremists didn't lawsuit the building up, we could possibly build a few within five years of the go order. The real problem is building the turbines and the reactor vessels and such. The Navy has to give the reactor-builders a few years headstart for a nuclear submarine.

Plus there is the infrastructure necessary to support an increase in our nuclear power and its associated risks.

According to wikipeida, there was as of 2004 104 Nuclear Power Generation Plants producing 20 percent of total power in America. Producing a total of 94,000 Megawatts.

Coal produces 52 percent of our electricity, that was in 2000. Say about 250,000 Megawatts

So, Watts Bar Nuclear Generating Station has a dependable generating capability of around 1100 megawatts.

Figure around two hundred nuclear plants just to replace Coal. I got no clue how many more we'd have to build to support electric cars.

Now, here is where it gets interesting. ORNL has a reactor that produces hydrogen from the water-vapor.

 

[shadron]

Today's cars are so clean that I just can't see any real improvement to the environment. Especially if the electricity is generated in one of the obsolete, comparatively filthy plants.

Perhaps pollution is not the only problem. CO2 is also a problem; in that case, nuclear is a lot better than coal or gasoline or ethanol.

One of the real advantages is that collecting pollutants or CO2 (if we had a way of sequestering it) is a whole lot easier when it's all created at a single plant rather than being created all over, say, the LA basin. The technology for removing pollutants from flue gas is well known. Removing nitrates and sulfates is more difficult, but still much easier in a single place than in several million tailpipes.

I also don't think it would require ten years to build a nuke if a common design could be worked out, instead of every one being a one-off.

 

[Egil]

Perhaps pollution is not the only problem. CO2 is also a problem; in that case, nuclear is a lot better than coal or gasoline or ethanol.

One of the real advantages is that collecting pollutants or CO2 (if we had a way of sequestering it) is a whole lot easier when it's all created at a single plant rather than being created all over, say, the LA basin. The technology for removing pollutants from flue gas is well known. Removing nitrates and sulfates is more difficult, but still much easier in a single place than in several million tailpipes.

I also don't think it would require ten years to build a nuke if a common design could be worked out, instead of every one being a one-off.

Commonality already exists and it still takes on average a decade. That is with the current red-tape such as environmental impact statements and dealing with the occasional litigation. I think Japan built one in 3 years but I do not know the specifics of the design or their environmental laws. And I am fairly sure that Japan doesn't have to deal with Unions.

 

[arthwollipot]

I had an argument with a good friend about plug-in hybrids.

I drive a series 1 Toyota Prius. For those who aren't familiar with it, it has a dual power plant - electric and internal combustion. The IC engine is for when power is needed - accelerating, driving uphill or at highway speeds - and when it is not needed, it switches off and the car can travel on the electric. The IC engine also recharges the battery that powers the electric, and it also uses "regenerative braking" which takes advantage of the fact that if you run an electric motor backwards, it's a dynamo. Coasting and decelerating, the rotational energy of the wheels recharges the battery.

Essentially, this arrangement means that I can go twice as far on a given amount of fuel as a similarly-sized non-hybrid vehicle.

My friend was arguing that plug-in hybrids, which draw energy from the grid, are better because you're not using your car's internal combustion engine to recharge the battery. My contention was that you are still using fossil fuels, because the grid runs on coal.

The non-plug-in hybrid simply gives you more bang for your buck. It uses half as much fuel as a similarly-sized non-hybrid. The plug-in hybrid uses more fossil fuel (although still less than a non-hybrid), when you count the contribution of electricity from the grid.

I'm sure I've missed something in my argument, or the next generation of Prius wouldn't be a plug-in.

 

[Giraffe107]

There was an IEEE article about this very thing:
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/mar09/7928/

Basically it's bad if you use coal to generate your electricity. Plus, depending on where you live, the line losses (in rural Queensland where I work this can be 8% or more). Why is the next Prius a plug-in? Consumers like your friend, who don't think of the whole-energy cycle.

 

[Egil]

I can imagine a massive rush on electric cars and plug-in hybrids and then seeing brown or black outs due to a sudden rush of energy demand. And then they all pull the plug at the same time. More blackouts and brownouts due to a sudden drop in demand. Our energy grid would need an overhaul to deal with the power surges as well.

You are looking at a massive industrial project akin to all the stuff of the Great Depression and WWII to get us off Coal and Petroleum.

The better thing IMHO would build Nuclear power plants that also desalinate ocean water and then use that water for Biopetroleum production which is compatible with refineries and current engines. Though I wonder if Biopetroleum is efficient enough to warrant it. It'd be very close to carbon neutral.

 

[rjh01]

One advantage of using coal in a power plant (or elsewhere) over petrol (in a car engine or elsewhere) is that coal is dug up locally rather than imported.

 

[cwalner]

Today's cars are so clean that I just can't see any real improvement to the environment. Especially if the electricity is generated in one of the obsolete, comparatively filthy plants.

Besides, we don't have any generating capacity to spare, or we wouldn't still have those obsolete plants smoking up the place now. Nuclear, maybe so. But how many new nuke plants would need to be built to replace oh...50% of our internal combustion auto engines?

Yes, but building the infrastructure to replace petrol stations with electric stations would not be overnight. The conversion would take time on both ends. we can build new power plants to meet the demand while building the electric auto infrastructure.

Also how comparitively filthy are the coal-filed plants compared to an IC engine. does anybody know what the pollutant/joule ratio is on either? I don't

Perhaps pollution is not the only problem. CO2 is also a problem; in that case, nuclear is a lot better than coal or gasoline or ethanol

.
I was using pollution in a general term. I didn't want to get the thread sidetracked into an argument over AGW. If we all agree to accept AGW as reality for the purposes of this thread, than excess CO2 would be considered a pollutant for this discussion.

I can imagine a massive rush on electric cars and plug-in hybrids and then seeing brown or black outs due to a sudden rush of energy demand. And then they all pull the plug at the same time. More blackouts and brownouts due to a sudden drop in demand. Our energy grid would need an overhaul to deal with the power surges as well.

I thought of this issue after I made the OP. This is an issue that would have to be addressed as part of unified, energy-environmental policy. I know that this is pie-in-the-sky thinking based on current politics, but I don't think it is insurmountable. If we had the political will, we could have a policy that built new, cleaner energy plants as we built the electric infrastructure to feed the automobiles.

One advantage of using coal in a power plant (or elsewhere) over petrol (in a car engine or elsewhere) is that coal is dug up locally rather than imported.

This makes sense if you are talking about energy independence and national security, but just in relation to a clean environment, this is a global issue, so I don't see those as relevant to the overall problem.

 

[Egil]

Okay, I am figuring 10 million Tesla roadsters traveling an average of 10,000 miles a year. I am going on their range per 1 battery charge which is 53 kw-H for 200 miles. For 10,000 miles you would need 50 charges or 2650 kW·h per car.

I times that by ten million and get 26,500,000,000 kw-h that be necessary to support that many electric cars or 26,500 gW-h.

Total power generation in 2007 for Watts Bar was 10,000 gW-h. So you'd need three Watts Bar plants to support ten million Tesla Roadsters?

Let us up the number of Tesla Roadsters a great deal. With 40 million Teslas
you would need to build ten Watts Bar type reactor plants.

Now, there are nearly 300 million passenger cars out there and we wanna replace half of them with electric vehicles. We would need to build 45 nuclear power plants or more to support turning half of our vehicles to Electric...

This would be in addition to replacing our coal fired plants. So total building program would be close to 400 nuclear reactors. A proposed pair of nuclear plants in Florida would have cost a combined 14 billion. Multiply that by 400 and I get 5,600,000,000,000 dollars in just the building of nuclear reactors...

Wow, with all the money the Democrats have tossed out we could have financed half the operation already.

 

[ZirconBlue]

I had an argument with a good friend about plug-in hybrids.

I drive a series 1 Toyota Prius. For those who aren't familiar with it, it has a dual power plant - electric and internal combustion. The IC engine is for when power is needed - accelerating, driving uphill or at highway speeds - and when it is not needed, it switches off and the car can travel on the electric. The IC engine also recharges the battery that powers the electric, and it also uses "regenerative braking" which takes advantage of the fact that if you run an electric motor backwards, it's a dynamo. Coasting and decelerating, the rotational energy of the wheels recharges the battery.

Essentially, this arrangement means that I can go twice as far on a given amount of fuel as a similarly-sized non-hybrid vehicle.

My friend was arguing that plug-in hybrids, which draw energy from the grid, are better because you're not using your car's internal combustion engine to recharge the battery. My contention was that you are still using fossil fuels, because the grid runs on coal.

The non-plug-in hybrid simply gives you more bang for your buck. It uses half as much fuel as a similarly-sized non-hybrid. The plug-in hybrid uses more fossil fuel (although still less than a non-hybrid), when you count the contribution of electricity from the grid.

I'm sure I've missed something in my argument, or the next generation of Prius wouldn't be a plug-in.

But, presumably even the coal-fired power plant produces electricity more efficiently than the internal combustion engine. Otherwise we'd all run our houses off gasoline generators, or have gasoline-fired power plants.

And the fossil fuel used to recharge a plug-in isn't in addition to the fossil fuel burned in your car. Rather, it displaces that fossil fuel.

 

[Egil]

But, presumably even the coal-fired power plant produces electricity more efficiently than the internal combustion engine. Otherwise we'd all run our houses off gasoline generators, or have gasoline-fired power plants.

And the fossil fuel used to recharge a plug-in isn't in addition to the fossil fuel burned in your car. Rather, it displaces that fossil fuel.

But Coal has worse health effects all around, carbon black is a probably carcinogen. And coal is dirtier, there was a spill of coal fly ash near Kingston, TN into the waterways which is potentially toxic.

 

[TraneWreck]

Two things need to happen fast:
1) Move to alternative energy sources for our electricity. This means passing emergency bills to get nuclear plants up and running. Nuclear plants will buy us time until solar, wind, and other methods become more reasonable. Use that energy to fuel electric cars.
2) Change over the oil infrastructure to support natural gas fueled cars.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas_car
Natural gas must still be extracted from the ground, but it's significantly cleaner than oil, and, like nuclear, it's a bridge to better solutions with improved technology.

Both these things need to happen in a space race, gear up for WWII emergency like way. Jobs will be created, technology will become cheaper, and it will finally get this lazy country off its fat ass.

Edit: I should add a third related issue: trains. Much more fuel efficient than airplanes for travel and semi-trucks for shipping freight. Investement in that infrastructure would make a huge difference in emissions.

 

[Egil]

Converison to Natural Gas is going to require to change over gas stations and such.

It may infact be better to switch to a carbon neutral replacement that doesn't require a massive change to our infrastructure, such as Biocrude. All you need for biopetroleum is carbon dioxide, sunlight, water and a blue-green algae. It is compatible with current refineries and current internal combusion cars.

 

[Kestrel]

There was an IEEE article about this very thing:
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/mar09/7928/

Basically it's bad if you use coal to generate your electricity. Plus, depending on where you live, the line losses (in rural Queensland where I work this can be 8% or more). Why is the next Prius a plug-in? Consumers like your friend, who don't think of the whole-energy cycle.

If you live somewhere where coal is not the prime source of electric power, plugging in your Prius would result in a lower carbon footprint. A plug-in hybrid gives consumers more options at little additional cost.

Hybrids are optimized for urban stop and go traffic. If you live in a rural area you should probably be looking at turbo diesel cars instead.

I have heard that the Prius was originally designed as a plug-in hybrid, but the plug was deleted at the request of marketing. Without a plug, it was a lot easier to explain that the Prius didn't have to be plugged in every night.

 

[Cainkane1]

I think it'd make it worse considering currently most of America's power generation is coal...

To make it even worse yet I read where there is a cheaper way to make coal into gasoline.

 

[Egil]

To make it even worse yet I read where there is a cheaper way to make coal into gasoline.

Yech. It may very well happen until green energy becomes a viable competitor.

I think third gen biofuel using algae is the most attractive replacement to current biofuels and fossil oil. You can use salt water or waste water. It is carbon neutral. It is seperate from the power grid. It is environmentally friendly. Its yield is better than current biofuels, still not as efficient as pumping crude out of the ground and refining it.

I also heard they are investigating a way to use crude oil like a fuel-cell.

Unfortunately, hydrogen fuel cells are not currently viable due to the cost of certain metals in the cell.

 

[TraneWreck]

Converison to Natural Gas is going to require to change over gas stations and such.

It may infact be better to switch to a carbon neutral replacement that doesn't require a massive change to our infrastructure, such as Biocrude. All you need for biopetroleum is carbon dioxide, sunlight, water and a blue-green algae. It is compatible with current refineries and current internal combusion cars.

I'm up for that, but one of the benefits of natural gas is that you can add a little meter to everyone's home, tied into the existing gas lines, and they can simply fuel up at home every night. Given that 99% of car travel won't exceed a tank of gas a day, that would be a simple way to cut a huge percentage of CO2 emissions.