Fri 29 May 2009
Why is an electric car good for the enviroment? We never look at impacts of production or on electric grid?
Posted by admin under Alternative Fuel Vehicles
thebcsblows13 asked:
For battery materials the impact of mining for battery materials the ramification of electricity generation ie damming rivers burning coal nuclear waste visual pollution from solar panels not look at the impact of electricity generation ie damming rivers burning.
For battery materials the impact of mining for battery materials the ramification of electricity generation ie damming rivers burning coal nuclear waste visual pollution from solar panels not look at the impact of electricity generation ie damming rivers burning.
i think it helps reduce the air polllution more than anything, and if safety measures can be applied at other areas like mines, dams, coal burning plants then the people who would be exposed to pollution would be a lot less compared to now, when every car gives a little bit of smoke, amounting to a level where it can turn hazardous, but electric cars will have cleaner roads, if not for cleaner mines or dams, where i am sure there are far less people than in the roads or in the neighbourhood
People making electric cars do look at these issues very seriously.
electric cars can actually improve the efficiency of the grid by providing distributed storage eg a car with a range of 300 miles that only does a typical 30 mile commute has a lot of spare capacity that can be sold back to supply peak demand. this is used in the BMW mini
the mining for Lithium is less destructive than all the high temperature exotic alloys required for infernal combustion, the Daily Mail had to retract it’s scare story about how bad the Prius batteries were.
power companies have no monopoly; anyone can generate enough energy for their personal transport needs from a combined heat and power boiler (90% efficiency), or a community owned wind farm if they wish…
Compare to the global oil cartels, and the onset of peak oil that will shortly price most fossil fuel cars off the road.
If we want personal transport then the best option is electric - quiet, smooth, smell free, high torque, low maintenance, refuel at home or work - just a much more pleasent driving experience and possible now
These things have been considered in various ‘life cycle assessments’, but they’re technical so they don’t really get out of the academic media. You can look them up on google scholar or web of science if you’re really interested (you generally need subscriptions to get into scientific journals though).
Even accounting for power production, electric cars are generally a lot cleaner than combustion engine ones.
1) they don’t release pollution near to where people are, it’s released out in the countryside so fewer people have their health affected by it.
2) it’s much easier to make ‘clean’ electricity than it is to make ‘clean’ petrol. (you can create almost zero carbon electricity, but not zero carbon petrol)
3) electric cars are seen as a way to help increase the efficiency of the grid by using up electricity in times of low demand (ie at night). They could let us use more renewable power, or let power stations run within their most efficient bands.
4) Power stations and electric motors have a higher thermodynamic efficiency than combustion engines, and you can recapture energy with regenerative breaking.
5) CO2 emissions from an electric car powered by a new coal power station are lower than the average US or EU car, but higher than expected EU efficiency by 2015. If powered by the UK grid (Coal, gas and nuclear) they’re significantly below any normal petrol car that’s available today. If the UK grid cleans up as predicted (a good 20-40% cut in emissions is expected by 2020) then emissions from an electric car would be well under half of expected petrol cars by that time.
This is based on the Chevrolet Volt which uses 0.2kWh/km.
Come on, we must look at the big picture here. Nothing beats being able to reduce the amount of noxious emissions when you cruise down easy street, right? True, your question has a point, but using batteries is all we can do. That is the current limit of our ‘green technology’.
Or the energy required to build them.
If we look at a Prius, it takes 113 million BTU’s of energy to manufacture one Prius. The consequence is that you would have to drive it 100,000 miles before it’s less damaging to the environment than a second hand Tercel.
Electric vehicles, and hydrogen fuel cell cars are just the tail fins of today. Just like Flex Fuel, Hybrids, SUV’s, mini-vans, station wagons, tail fins and model years, they are just designed obsolescence to try and get people to buy more cars. It’s about economic growth, not being environmentally friendly. So long as our free market economy does not take into account the total cost to society and the ecosystem, and so long as it’s possible to mislead, misdirect and misinform the consumer, we will always over consume, over produce and we will structure our demographics in unsustainable configurations (too many people in cities dependent on factory jobs vs in the country…). It’s the parable of the commons, such behaviour will lead to a tragic collapse such as we are experiencing now.
Perhaps you have never looked at the impact of EVs on the grid.
However the government has looked at it twice.
Both reports, developed independently by separate agencies, say the same thing: No problem.
People use a lot less power at night. Power doesn’t store, so the power system must have enough generating capacity to answer peak load. Therefore they have a lot of idle, unused generating capacity at night. That’s more than enough.
All things considered, electric cars get you from point A to point B about 4 times more efficiently than Internal Combustion engines do.
It takes 75 kw/h to charge the 53 kw/h battery in a tesla. notice the second paragraph in the second letter. This is from a tesla salesman - not mentioned on tesla’s website. 75 kw/h is equivalent to five fifteen hundred watt heaters running CONTINUOUSLY for ten hours. The waste during discharge would be similar. True, the drivetrain may well be 95% efficient, but….. Will off-peak rates apply, jf everyone is charging a tesla at night?
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There’s always waste converting energy from one form to another. electric cars require a double conversion. electrical to chemical, then back. Waste depends, mostly on how fast you charge it.
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In that letter, notice they mention using the AC to keep the batteries cool - thats waste heat. Also, those lithium-ion batteries are kept cool by the AC, if above half charge - even when the car is parked.
Since the energy is stored as chemical energy, the batteries will be affected by cold. Lead acid batteries can lose half their power in cold weather. Most people would require a second car, for winter use.
Battery power may be realistic for smaller, slower vehicles. The electrobikes seem a good idea - electric assist to pedal power.
It’s foolish to expect the people selling stuff to mention the bad points. Too bad we don’t have some kind of news media, checking up on BS claims, and reporting, so that each person doesn’t have to do their own search.
BTW hydrogen is totally laughable as a vehicle fuel.
Natural gas costs about half of gasoline, and soon pays for the higher initial cost.
Even if after you factor in ALL of those miscellaneous concerns, e.g., mining of battery materials, coal fired electrical generators, etc. an Electric Car is still substantially less polluting over its entire lifetime than a gasoline fueled car when you factor in Carbon Dioxide emissions.
Granted what you say what technology are you going to size up. The field of battery technology is changing rapidly. What would seem to have an impact today will be obsolete tomorrow. Today we are looking at chemical batteries of various compositions. Tomorrow it may be capacitors that are completely recycle able or “batteries of flywheels” to store energy for electric vehicles.
The world is changing. We can be like the boy with his finger in the **** or we can work to find solutions.