Emissions measurement - a non-hippy view

[Kuuuurija]

In 2011 the oil shale powerplants emitted 18200000 tonnes of CO2, and produced total 10894585000 kWh (84,50% of total 12893000000 kWh produced in 2011; source: https://valitsus.ee/UserFiles/valitsus/et/valitsus/arengukavad/keskkonnaministeerium/P%C3%B5levkivi%20kasutamise%20riikliku%20arengukava%20t%C3%A4itmise%20aruanne%202011.pdf).
This makes 1.670554684 kg of CO2 per kWh produced.

Ca 10% of produced electricity goes to self consumption of the power plant. Another 10% is lost in transmission in the grid. Battery charger has ca 90% efficiency. Charging process has some losses too (also around 10%). Self discharging happens if EV stands unused. Warming up of the battery and the car from mains in wintertime consumes electricity. We have here long winter season. The average distance per charging of iMiev here in Estonia is ca 70 km.

Put those figures together and you will get ca 50 kg of CO2 per 100 km.

 

[NeilBlanchard]

Does gasoline appear out of thin air?

It takes about 7.5-8.5kWh of electricity to produce a gallon of gasoline. It also takes a lot of natural gas to produce a gallon of gasoline. And it takes a lot of water to frack oil and gas, and a lot of electricity to get the water, too.

This "long tailpipe" argument needs to be applied equally to all energy sources. What's fair is fair - and fossil fuels are far dirtier than anything else, and yes these are used for electricity, but power plants are far more efficient than car engines, and gasoline represents far more energy than electricity at the plug.

It takes more electricity to run a gasoline car than it does to run an electric car.

 

[Kuuuurija]

I even did not took into account any CO2 that is emitted during mining, processing (enrichment) and transportation of the oil shale. Also dumping ashes. Most of oil shale is produced by underground mining, that is definitely tens of times more energy consuming than pumping out oil.
This 50 kg of CO2 per 100 km is only for pure fuel to delivered useful energy cycle.
And production of the batteries for EV-s are also extremely energy consuming.
It is for shure, that at least in Esttonia ICE cars have smaller CO2 footprint than EV-s. I am pretty sure, that this is true also for most of countries. At leat for those, where big share of electricity is produced in coal plants.

It takes more electricity to run a gasoline car than it does to run an electric car.

Any proofing sources, please?

Estonian oil shale power plants have 30% efficiency (fuel to produced energy) in old blocks and 40% efficiency in the new block. ICE cars are not so much different from this.

 

[aarond12]

If I was going to argue with anyone on this board, it would NOT be Neil Blanchard. He knows what he's talking about.

 

[HParkEV]

...
Most of oil shale is produced by underground mining, that is definitely tens of times more energy consuming than pumping out oil. ...

Better check where your crude oil comes from for refining into gasoline or diesel. If any of it comes from Canada, I can tell you about 30% of our oil is consumed during the mining and production of synthetic crude from the tar sands bitumen, although I think all of it is used in the US and Canada.

I can definitely sleep easy here with my choice of EV vs. ICE, knowing that in the population-dense provinces of Ontario, Quebec and BC most of the electrical energy comes from hydro and nuclear, while most of Canada's oil production comes from incredibly inefficient tar sands. Canada's case for EV's is probably one of the clearest in the world, too bad so very few people see it that way. Most people I engage in this type of discussion with come up with arguments like yours, because that's what they like to read in the media. Its more convenient for them I guess.
Last month (June 2013), 11 i-MiEV sales and 13 Leaf sales - the only pure EV's available here. This is out of over 170k ICE sales for the month.

 

[Kuuuurija]

To: aarond12
I like facts, numbers. Not bluff.
If production of gasoline consumes so much electricity, that ICE cars use more electricity than EV-s, then I wonder how it is cheaper to use ICE car than EV for driving from Tallinn to Tartu? How big share of gasoline price is from electricity consumed for production of the gasoline?
I think 7.5-8.5kWh energy is much more than it is needed to completely evaporate a gallon. Underground mining means 24/7 running huge vents and pumps, big areas of underground artificial lightning, etc.
I think our fast charging stations waste more energy for their standby mode than it is used for fast charging EV-s. I see 5-7 fast charging stations every day, but never saw that anybody is charging there. See map! (blue = standby, orange = charging, red = under construction) Total waste!


To: HParkEV
As far as I know, here in Estonia gasoline comes from Russian crude oil.
Canada has pretty low avrage cost for extracting crude oil, if this EIA info is correct

 

[aarond12]

I like facts, numbers. Not bluff.

Agreed. :lol: However, I've never found Neil's facts to be in err whether it is on this site or other sites that we both visit.

 

[Don]

I like facts, numbers. Not bluff.

Don't we all, but 'facts' (especially on this subject) seem quite conflicting - No matter which side of the argument you wish to present, 15 minutes on Google will get you all the 'facts' you need

Here's an interesting article - http://www.electric-cars-are-for-girls.com/electric-powered-cars.html
As you can see, "According to the World Resources Institute, electric powered cars recharging from coal-fired plants will reduce CO2 emissions by at least 17 to 22 percent."

Since we use coal to generate about 50% of our electric power here in the USA, those figures should be considerably better than the quoted 17 to 22 percent

Since 'facts' are so hard to come by, I'd opt for a little common sense - Efficiency usually relates pretty well to scale. It makes lots of sense (at least to me) that most any large power producing plant would be more efficient at converting one form of energy to another than any fossil fuel burning car. I've read many times that an ICE powered vehicle only converts 15 to 20 percent of the energy in it's gasoline fuel into motion. Most of it is wasted as heat, not to mention all of the energy it's wasting when sitting still or moving very slowly. Power plants, no matter what form of energy they use, recover and reuse much of that wasted heat. Also, all of the kinetic energy an ICE powered car wastes when slowing and stopping, only to expend all over again when getting back up to speed. This is one reason why hybrid vehicles get better fuel economy than similar all gasoline vehicles . . . . they can recover much of that wasted energy

If you drive an ICE powered car and your 'facts' prove to you that you're generating less carbon than the average EV'er, I'm happy for you - I'm sure it helps you to sleep well at night and that's the important thing

Don

 

[Kuuuurija]

There was no facts in the referred article. Just a bluff from a passioned EV fan.
Person, who claims, that ICE cars consume more electricity for propulsion than EV-s, should know how mutch kWhs both consume. I'm afraid, that such comparisions by the EV fans are made based on wrong assumptions. They compare EVs battery to propulsion ratio with ICE cars oil well to propulsion ratio.

Here in Estonia we have one fast charging station per every 3 EVs. A fast charging station consumes at least some 100 W when standing idle. Plus those stations are lighted at nighttime. Only occasionally someone charges there his EV. But every hour tens of kwh-s are wasted only by those fast charging stations at standby. And so 365 days a year, 24 h a day!

In our climate the heat generated by the ICE is not wasted most of the time. It is used for heating and drying the cars interior.

 

[danpatgal]

I think the figure of 5-7kwh of wasted energy for refining a gallon of gasoline is in the realm of the reasonable. It is not, however, electricity from the grid as implied but mostly co-generation (by-production burning of the non-useful byproducts to run the refining).

I made a claim that EVs can travel on the electricity to refine gasoline ... just as far as the used gasoline could take you. Well, I discovered with some digging that the facts are more complicated. Here's a bit of the thread from the EVDL site from a couple years ago with some government/industry statistics on oil refining:

http://electric-vehicle-discussion-list.413529.n4.nabble.com/EVLN-Nissan-labels-dirty-power-claims-bs-tp4159325p4162460.html

But, EVs are still way more efficient, cheaper (it's still equivalent to between 1-2$/gal of gasoline even with battery replacement costs), and lower polluting. Just not miraculous. Miraculous would be the CarBen5 with pedal power! Neil - when will you offer that - or sell the design to Tesla for their Model "E" to come out in 2020?

 

[Don]

There was no facts in the referred article. Just a bluff from a passioned EV fan.

The WRI is 'bluff from an impassioned EV fan????
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Resources_Institute
I'm beginning to think the only 'facts' you think are authentic are the ones you generate yourself

Here in Estonia we have one fast charging station per every 3 EVs. A fast charging station consumes at least some 100 W when standing idle. Plus those stations are lighted at nighttime. Only occasionally someone charges there his EV. But every hour tens of kwh-s are wasted only by those fast charging stations at standby. And so 365 days a year, 24 h a day!

I'm wondering how that compares to the energy wasted here by our 125,000 gasoline stations, most of which are lighted all night as well and all of which waste electricity pumping the fuel out of underground tanks to refuel ICE's?

I think it's wonderful that Estonia has one quick charge station for every three EV's - Someone had the foresight to set up the proper infrastructure to support a new, clean method of transportation before many of the cars were in use. Sure wish we had that here. I'll bet we don't have one QC station for every hundred EV's

In our climate the heat generated by the ICE is not wasted most of the time. It is used for heating and drying the cars interior.

Now, THERE is an errant 'fact' if ever I read one!! MOST of the heat is still wasted, no matter your climate. The radiator which cools the engine is many times larger than the one which heats the car's interior which should give you a clue as to where the heat is actually going . . . . and we haven't even mentioned yet all the wasted heat coming directly out the tailpipe, along with all those hydrocarbons produced by the engine inefficiently burning fossil fuel

As inefficient as an EV heater is, it's still many time more efficient at turning one form of energy into another when compared to your gasoline powered heater

Don

 

[aarond12]

That would make the car's interior incredibly hot if all the heat generated from the engine was used to heat it. Engine temperatures are well over 100°C. Using all that heat would definitely cook us! :evil:

 

[Don]

Engine temperatures are well over 100°C.

. . . . and that's AFTER the cars cooling system has radiated most of the heat into the atmosphere

Don

 

[NeilBlanchard]

The 7.5kWh / gallon number came from Nissan. For tar sands bitumen, it takes the equivalent of one barrel of oil to get two barrels of oil.

The energy overhead for oil is enormous and it grows as time goes on, as we see with tar sands bitumen. They have to dilute it with low grade gasoline to even be able to pump it through a pipeline. And pipelines that are designed to last 40+ years fail in 5 or 6 years with tar sands bitumen. That is a lot of energy overhead.

Deep water drilling (like 25,000+ feet under the surface of the water) is also incredibly energy intensive. Finding the oil today takes a lot more effort. Building the test drilling rig and powering it into place and holding it there for months takes a lot of energy. Making all the materials like the highly specialized casing "mud" is all very energy intensive.

Fracking for oil and gas requires lots of water - and drilling well for water and then pumping water back underground to do the fracking takes lots of energy. For heavy crudes, they have to heat the water to boiling and then pump it underground *just to loosen the oil* so they can then pump it out of the ground. They then have to re-inject the waste water back underground.

In California, the second largest use of electricity is for *oil extraction* - pumping it out of the ground is a non-trivial task.

None of this even considers the natural gas used at multiple stages during the well-to-tank processing of oil. All that natural gas has similar overhead - that all has to be counted for the gasoline.

All the electricity and all the water and all the natural gas and all the energy overhead that these represent MUST be added to the gasoline. Gasoline has FAR MORE carbon in it than just in the petrochemical.

Even if we take just the 7.5kWh per gallon - we can leave ALL the carbon represented by the gasoline and leave it in the ground.

Electricity can and must come from renewable energy sources. It will get cleaner and cleaner over time.

 

[Don]

Deep water drilling (like 25,000+ feet under the surface of the water) is also incredibly energy intensive. Finding the oil today takes a lot more effort. Building the test drilling rig and powering it into place and holding it there for months takes a lot of energy. Making all the materials like the highly specialized casing "mud" is all very energy intensive.

Not to mention expensive, life threatening and environmentally unsustainable. BP's deep water disaster in 2010 dumped more than 200,000,000 gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico, killed 11 workers, cost them upwards of $50B, killed all sorts of wildlife, had a huge impact on the Gulf fishing industry . . . . and they didn't even get any oil

Anything we can do to minimize and one day eliminate the need for a fuel so difficult and costly to obtain and so environmentally unfriendly can only be a good thing. Hopefully our grandchildren will live to see the last new ICE powered car sold in the world

Don

 

[Kuuuurija]

I think the figure of 5-7kwh of wasted energy for refining a gallon of gasoline is in the realm of the reasonable. It is not, however, electricity from the grid as implied but mostly co-generation (by-production burning of the non-useful byproducts to run the refining).

That sounds already reasonable. 7 kWh of electricity per gallon is grazy! This corresponds to more than 15 kWh of fuel energy at power plant. Gasoline itself contains about 36.6 kWh/US gal (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline)

 

[Kuuuurija]

The WRI is 'bluff from an impassioned EV fan????
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Resources_Institute
I'm beginning to think the only 'facts' you think are authentic are the ones you generate yourself

I was referring this (from your article):

I got the help of a friend, Steve Ewings, whose passion and expertise is in alternative and renewable energies.

I am happy to provide you detailed sources for any fact that you consider as generated by myself. Just ask!

I'm wondering how that compares to the energy wasted here by our 125,000 gasoline stations, most of which are lighted all night as well and all of which waste electricity pumping the fuel out of underground tanks to refuel ICE's?

Here, in Estonia, gasoline stations have hundreds of clients a day. If to divide this energy spent for lighting with the number of clients, then per client the consumed electricity is marginal. Don't you understand that primary school math?
So far EVs here are much dirtier than ICE cars, so the new infrastructure supports pollusion and environmental damage.

Now, THERE is an errant 'fact' if ever I read one!! MOST of the heat is still wasted, no matter your climate.

Maybe my English is not so good, but I was saying that most part of the year here is so cold and moist, that the heat (for morons: of course not all of it!) produced by ICE is useful. In wintertime, when there is -20 degrees Celsius outside (that may here happen from November to March, 5 months), iMiev can move only up to 30 km per charging as without heater there would be freezing cold inside the EV and the windows would freeze.

 

[Kuuuurija]

That would make the car's interior incredibly hot if all the heat generated from the engine was used to heat it. Engine temperatures are well over 100°C. Using all that heat would definitely cook us! :evil:

Joke?
Of course not ALL the heat is used. But I think you know it...
Temperature of engine does not matter, by the way. We have here saunas, where owen has several hundreds degrees Celsius, but sauna is still suitable for people. Even if the air temperature is above 100°C nobody fries there.
In the car air is venting in and out all the time. In wintertime if there is enough ventilation, then it is no problem at all to keep air temperature in cozy range even if all the residual heat from the engine gets inside.

Lets do some math:
My ICE car consumes less than 5 Litres per 100 km at 90 km/h (highway), and ca 8 litres per 100 km in the city (average speed below 30 km/h).
That makes 4.5 and 2.4 litres per hour correspondingly.
Let say, that 20% of energy goes to propulsion, then 3.6 and 1.92 litres per hour correspondingly is converted into heat.
Energy density of gasoline is 10 kWh/L.
Then heating power is 36 kW and 19,2 kW correspondingly.

My kitchen owen has total electric power 11,5 kW and my electric boiler has 20 kW. So driving in the city has less heating power than my electric boiler and driving on highway produces roughly the same amount of heat as my kitchen owen at full power together with my electric boiler. I have not noticed that my kitchen is too hot, when my boiler and my owen are working at the same time. Small hood ventilator above the owen can handle the excessive heat.

Black humor: It is not advised to run your ICE car in your garage when doors are closed, because otherwise you will not get suffocated by exhaust gases, but will be fried by the heat generated by ICE.

 

[Kuuuurija]

The 7.5kWh / gallon number came from Nissan. For tar sands bitumen, it takes the equivalent of one barrel of oil to get two barrels of oil.

Quote from http://gatewayev.org/how-much-electricity-is-used-refine-a-gallon-of-gasoline

In a 2008 report, Argonne National Lab estimated that the efficiency for producing gasoline of an “average” U.S. petroleum refinery is between 84% and 88% (Wang, 2008), and Oak Ridge National Lab reports that the net energy content of oil is approximately 132,000 Btu per gallon (Davis, 2009). It is commonly known that a barrel of crude oil generate approximately 45 gallons of refined product (refer to NAS, 2009, Table 3-4 for a publication stating so). Thus, using an 85% refinery efficiency and the aforementioned conversion factors, it can be estimated that about 21,000 Btu—the equivalent of 6 kWh—of energy are lost per gallon of gasoline refined.

But please note, that this 6kWh is energy, not electricity!

I already shared this link: http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=367&t=5
According to the EIA, the offshore lifting is cheaper than the onshore lifting. Lifting costs 6-13$ per barrel (159L) is not so bad.

Why renewable energy sources produce several times higher price than fossile fuels? I think it is because the huge amount of energy and resources, that are needed for "renewable" generation. And of course low efficiency of "renewable" generation. Some windmill will never produce as much energy, that was wasted constructing it. They operate only for draining subsidies for owners. Here in Estonia the electricity generated by "renewable" sources has ca 10 times higer price than electricity from the oil shale plant. And every consumer is forced to pay for renewable proportionally to the share of the "renewable" energy sources.

 

[Don]

My kitchen owen has total electric power 11,5 kW and my electric boiler has 20 kW. So driving in the city has less heating power than my electric boiler and driving on highway produces roughly the same amount of heat as my kitchen owen at full power together with my electric boiler. I have not noticed that my kitchen is too hot, when my boiler and my owen are working at the same time. Small hood ventilator above the owen can handle the excessive heat.

Hopefully, your oven is well insulated and is keeping most of it's heat inside, cooking something

As everyone knows, those appliances are operated with thermostats and draw significantly less power than that when in operation. The heating elements spend much more time de-energized than they do with power applied - The actual power usage is about 2KW per hour for your oven when used at 175C
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Appliances-Promotions/How-much-energy-does-the-average-range/oven-use%3F-/pcmcat160300050011.c?id=pcmcat160300050011
My wife has an electric kiln for firing ceramics at 1,000C and even it uses much less electricity than 11Kw

Don