Environmental Question

[HParkEV]

Many people I've met in Canada that are opposed to EV's make arguments much like Kuuuurija, mostly based on what they read or hear from the US media, at least the part of the media that seems to be in the pockets of the oil industry.

They completely ignore the fact that in Canada we have the vast majority of the population living in Ontario and Quebec, where coal generation has been already phased out (Ontario just in the last week shut down the last coal power plant), about 80% of power in Ontario comes from hydro and nuclear sources, while Quebec is well over 90% hydroelectric power generation! All those arguments about how inefficient the grid is, or how you're just shifting the source of pollution, make completely no sense in Canada, but we get just as many of these wackos here! By now, I just shake my head and ignore.

 

[Kuuuurija]

You wrote, that EV has 90% efficiency. And you claim, that in Canada you use only "clean" nuclear and hydro energy.

In cold climate up to 50% of electricity from batteries goes for heating of the EV. Only fool compares ICE cars fuel to traction with efficiency of EV-s electical engine. Those things are not comparable!
Charging has its losses.
Batteries self discharge.
Charger has losses.
Distribution net has losses.
Building and maintenance of transmition lines consume lot of energy and natural resources.
Even hydro and nuclear power plants have its self consumption.
It takes lot of resources and energy to build a hydro or nuclear plant. Nuclear plant consumes enriched uranium or other isotopes, that need huge amount of energy for mining and purification.
Nuclear wastes need long storage, and consume energy after depleted for reactor.
In case of catastrophy tremendous amount of energy is needed to clear pollution and lot of land will be unusable for several thousands of years.

ICE car can move without any electricity. You can press vegetable oil manually and use it in diesel engines.

Tankers are very efficient for transporting energy over long distances. Much more efficient than transporting electricity over long distance.
Cracking of gasoline does not demand much electricity at all.
How could you tell that EV is more energy efficient than ICE car? ICE car can be adjusted to consume generator gas. All you need is to feed some wood...

Clear indication of efficiency is that ICE cars usually do not need any government support for selling. But EV-s barely sell even with considerable aid from governments.

 

[PV1]

An ICE vehicle that gets 25 mpg burning gasoline uses 1,400 Wh per mile (35 kWh contained in one gallon of gasoline, traveling 25 miles on that gallon). Even at 50 mpg, an ICE still uses 700 Wh per mile.

An EV getting 100 MPGe uses 350 Wh per mile. In order to achieve the rated 62 miles in the i-MiEV, it achieves 136 MPGe, using 258 Wh per mile. Most of us easily exceed the 62 mile range estimate, so the i-MiEV in practice is even more efficient.

Even in the winter, using half of a charge to heat the vehicle, an EV uses 600 Wh per mile, still better than a 50 mpg ICE vehicle.

These figures are for onboard energy only, not including charging, BUT:

From the wall, I measure total energy consumed by the vehicle, including losses from charging, balancing, and even consumption from the EVSE itself. With these losses factored in, I still only use between 250 and 300 Wh per mile.

I generate my own solar energy, so the energy used by my i-MiEV only travels through 250 feet of wire as electricity. ZERO emissions generated from driving. Very minimal losses through transmission. This is something no ICE vehicle can claim.

 

[RobertC]

Nonsense.

Please ignore.

 

[Kuuuurija]

An ICE vehicle that gets 25 mpg burning gasoline uses 1,400 Wh per mile (35 kWh contained in one gallon of gasoline, traveling 25 miles on that gallon). Even at 50 mpg, an ICE still uses 700 Wh per mile.

An EV getting 100 MPGe uses 350 Wh per mile. In order to achieve the rated 62 miles in the i-MiEV, it achieves 136 MPGe, using 258 Wh per mile. Most of us easily exceed the 62 mile range estimate, so the i-MiEV in practice is even more efficient.

Even in the winter, using half of a charge to heat the vehicle, an EV uses 600 Wh per mile, still better than a 50 mpg ICE vehicle.

These figures are for onboard energy only, not including charging, BUT:

From the wall, I measure total energy consumed by the vehicle, including losses from charging, balancing, and even consumption from the EVSE itself. With these losses factored in, I still only use between 250 and 300 Wh per mile.

I generate my own solar energy, so the energy used by my i-MiEV only travels through 250 feet of wire as electricity. ZERO emissions generated from driving. Very minimal losses through transmission. This is something no ICE vehicle can claim.

You still forgot, that there are considerable power losses (losses in grid, self consumption of the power plant etc) before the electricity gets into your wall, and most combustion power plants have power production efficientćy less than 40%!
For nuclear energy please calculate, what cost Chernobyl and Fukushima etc.

You forgot, that for providing you power, the grid is neccessary, and huge amount of energy is wasted for building and maintaining the grid.

Zero emissions from driving? At least tires and road will wear, as you drive. For building soolar panel there has to be wasted more energy than the panel will ever give.

 

[alohart]

Kuuuurija, you're acting as if electricity generating facilities and transmission networks would not be necessary if EV's didn't exist. However, this infrastructure was already available prior to the first sale of a mass-produced EV. The additional electricity needed by EV's costs very little because of this. Studies have indicated that no additional generation or distribution capacity will be needed even when the number of EV's increases considerably.

This is totally different from the situation with the gasoline and diesel needed by ICE vehicles. Petroleum refineries would still exist to produce petrochemicals for use in plastics, etc., but far less petroleum would be needed, so the considerable ecological damage petroleum causes would be minimized. But the huge, expensive, polluting (many leaks) gasoline and diesel distribution system would not exist, so its costs need to be allocated to ICE vehicles. As a result, there's just no way that ICE vehicles can compete with BEV's in terms of overall efficiency.

 

[Kuuuurija]

Kuuuurija, you're acting as if electricity generating facilities and transmission networks would not be necessary if EV's didn't exist. However, this infrastructure was already available prior to the first sale of a mass-produced EV. The additional electricity needed by EV's costs very little because of this. Studies have indicated that no additional generation or distribution capacity will be needed even when the number of EV's increases considerably.

This is totally different from the situation with the gasoline and diesel needed by ICE vehicles. Petroleum refineries would still exist to produce petrochemicals for use in plastics, etc., but far less petroleum would be needed, so the considerable ecological damage petroleum causes would be minimized. But the huge, expensive, polluting (many leaks) gasoline and diesel distribution system would not exist, so its costs need to be allocated to ICE vehicles. As a result, there's just no way that ICE vehicles can compete with BEV's in terms of overall efficiency.

Do you understand, that power lines have its capacity and it must be much higher if many EV-s are charged?
No additional generation or distribution capacity will be needed? Think again! EV is not a Perpetuum mobile!
The same logic was if I say, that Gasoline stations are there even if I do not consume gasoline at all, so my consumption does not add any additional oil consumption.

 

[RobertC]

Kuuuurija, you're acting as if electricity generating facilities and transmission networks would not be necessary if EV's didn't exist. However, this infrastructure was already available prior to the first sale of a mass-produced EV. The additional electricity needed by EV's costs very little because of this. Studies have indicated that no additional generation or distribution capacity will be needed even when the number of EV's increases considerably.

You are absolutely correct. The University of Delaware (my alma mater) has built a working model using vehicle-to-grid technology (V2G) to connect 15 electric vehicles to the power grid and supply power back to the grid from the vehicles batteries during peak load. The majority of electric vehicle charging can be done during off-peak hours when the existing electrical grid has plenty of capacity and will not need to be upgraded.
http://www.udel.edu/udaily/2013/may/vehicles-grid-050213.html

Additionally, electric vehicle batteries can be repurposed to supply power back to the grid once the batteries have reached the end of their life in an automotive application (at about 70 percent of the battery's original capacity). GM and ABB have demonstrated a working model using Volt batteries.
http://media.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/news.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2012/Nov/electrification/1114_reuse.html

As an electrical power engineer I find these new technologies very exciting.

 

[benswing]

There are quite a few research papers that have looked at this problem and all of them come to the conclusion that electric vehicles eventually are better for the environment over the lifetime of the car when powered by coal fired power plants. This benefit is greater and happens sooner if power is provided by renewable energy.

The assumptions made by Kuuuurija are vastly out of proportion with real data available from reliable sources.

Here is one of the research papers written on the subject:

http://www.environment.ucla.edu/media_IOE/files/BatteryElectricVehicleLCA2012-rh-ptd.pdf

"After our base case, sensitivity analysis, and uncertainty analysis, all of our results point to one main finding: a BEV is more energy efficient, and less polluting than a CV."

 

[Don]

Your comments that EV's in cold climates use 50% of their power to heat the car just proves that you don't own one . . . . and that you're going to ridiculous lengths to try to justify your use of fossil fuels to power your own gas burner!

Do you understand, that power lines have its capacity and it must be much higher if many EV-s are charged? No additional generation or distribution capacity will be needed? Think again! EV is not a Perpetuum mobile!

Power plants adjust their capacity downward for evening and nights when most businesses are not using the power they do during the day and when air conditioning loads are less and that's when most EV's are charging - Overnight. If we had 50 million EV's charging overnight, we wouldn't be overloading the existing grid . . . . we'd actually be doing the power plants a favor, as they operate most efficiently nearer their optimum capacity than they currently do at night scaled back to half throttle

The same logic was if I say, that Gasoline stations are there even if I do not consume gasoline at all, so my consumption does not add any additional oil consumption.

Sorry, but that's not 'logic' at all. When you consume a gallon of gasoline, it's one less gallon left in the world - It's GONE

When you use off-peak electricity and that causes the power plant to operate in a more efficient manner, you really are getting something nearly for nothing, with nothing consumed. Many hydro plants now use this excess power to pump water back up behind the dam so they can use it again to generate power during the day - They'd much rather sell it to someone, anyone overnight, off-peak than to use it to the way they are now

Don

 

[Kuuuurija]

Here in Estonia, night time power is somewhat cheaper, so many households are programmed home appliances to use night time cheaper power. But due to this nighttime power consumption has been increased. It is still not as high as day time consumption, but the gap is not big. My household, for instance, consumes 55% of power nighttime and only 45% daytime.

We have here 1.3 million people consuming altogether near to 0.6...0.7 GW as an average. This is almost without input from EV-s.
If to replace 300 000 (less than half) ICE cars with EV-s, then daily power consumption will increase by ca 5 000 000 kWh.
Here the off peak time is from 23:00 to 7:00 (8 hours). If to assume, that all those 300000 EV-s will charge only off peak time, then 0.625 GW would be an average power consumption only by those EV-s. And please note, that this is just less than half of cars!

Many households have grid limited power supply that does not allow to use level 2 charging. How many hours is needed to full charge a battery pack with Level 1 charging?

Please, be realistic! EV is not able to produce enough power to supply the grid. If you use your EV to speculate with power prices, then you just waste ca 20%...40% of power generated by somebody else. You can win some money, but environmentally this is not wise.

Every single kWh consumed by EV for driving, is permanently wasted, just like gasoline in case of ICE cars.
Many European countries have power deficit even without EV-s. They have to buy power abroad.

Here in Estonia an average EV burns 50 kg of oil shale per 100 km. Compared with 3.5 kg of gasoline or diesel fuel consumed by economic ICE car, those EVs are much more polluting.

 

[alohart]

Many households have grid limited power supply that does not allow to use level 2 charging. How many hours is needed to full charge a battery pack with Level 1 charging?

How is Level 1 charging defined in Estonia where household voltage is 230 v.? In the U.S., Level 1 is charging at 120 v. which you don't have.

If I assume that Estonia's Level 1 charging is 230 v. at 10 amps, a common household circuit capacity, that's 2.3 kW. Assuming no charging losses, to fully charge our 16 kWh battery pack would take 7 hours which would leave you 1 extra off-peak hour. But it is rare to charge from totally empty to totally full, so even with some charging losses, almost all i-MiEV's could be fully charged at 10 amps during off-peak hours in Estonia.

Every single kWh consumed by EV for driving, is permanently wasted, just like gasoline in case of ICE cars.

That's not correct. If charging occurs during off-peak hours when power plants are wasting energy due to low demand, then the additional power generated during off-peak hours to charge EV's prevents energy from being wasted. There is no such parallel with the refining of gasoline.

Many European countries have power deficit even without EV-s. They have to buy power abroad.

This power deficit almost certainly doesn't occur during non-peak hours when most EV's would be charging. So this would not increase the peak hour deficit and, in the future, could actually reduce the peak hour deficit when power is fed back into the grid from EV battery packs. ICE vehicles have no such advantage.

Here in Estonia an average EV burns 50 kg of oil shale per 100 km. Compared with 3.5 kg of gasoline or diesel fuel consumed by economic ICE car, those EVs are much more polluting.

You don't seem to acknowledge that this shale oil would be wasted during non-peak hours because boiler output cannot be reduced quickly when demand drops and increased quickly when demand increases. So the electricity used by EV's during non-peak hours would not substantially increase the use of shale oil or any other fuel used for electricity generation.

 

[NeilBlanchard]

I can make electricity on the roof of my house.

How's that oil rig and gasoline refinery in your backyard working?

 

[Zelenec]

Come on, guys! Why waste your energy in such topics? A man who is confident in it's own right, is almost impossible to convince. Kuuuurija is probably one of the few Estonians who deny the benefits of great EV infrastructure making Estonia the paradise for I-miev and Leaf owners.

You'll find such stubborn individuals everywhere. Thay simply can not or don't want to understand and accept all benefits of electric powered vehicles. It's best to ignore them and let them believe they're right.

 

[Kuuuurija]

How is Level 1 charging defined in Estonia where household voltage is 230 v.? In the U.S., Level 1 is charging at 120 v. which you don't have.

There are some old installations in Tallinn, where the voltage is not 400V/230V but 220V/127V. But I did not mean this. My point was, that many households have main circuit breaker value 1x16A or less, that is insufficient for level 2 charging, especially considering, that there are other consumers in the household too.

If I assume that Estonia's Level 1 charging is 230 v. at 10 amps, a common household circuit capacity, that's 2.3 kW. Assuming no charging losses, to fully charge our 16 kWh battery pack would take 7 hours which would leave you 1 extra off-peak hour. But it is rare to charge from totally empty to totally full, so even with some charging losses, almost all i-MiEV's could be fully charged at 10 amps during off-peak hours in Estonia.

Why you ignore charging losses? The main circuit breaker does not ignore those! If to consider, that charging losses are ca 10%, then your estimation might be true if starting capacity is ca 10%, not zero.
We have quite cool climate here and during at least 6 months per year we meet subzero temperatures. Charging time will increase at subzero temperatures.
Not to mention, that many EV-s have larger than 16kWh battery pack.
But nevertheless, lets assume, that every EV is charged only during off peak time. Then at least at the beginning of the period the charging total power exceeds todays average power consumption, even if only less than half of ICE cars are replaced by EV-s. Please remember, that at the beginning of charging the charging current is much higher than at the end, so when all start charging in 23:00, the consumption would be much higher than I calculated v based on average.

That's not correct. If charging occurs during off-peak hours when power plants are wasting energy due to low demand, then the additional power generated during off-peak hours to charge EV's prevents energy from being wasted. There is no such parallel with the refining of gasoline.

How exactly those powerplants are wasting energy? And how could you charge your EV with the energy, already wasted by the power plant?

This power deficit almost certainly doesn't occur during non-peak hours when most EV's would be charging. So this would not increase the peak hour deficit and, in the future, could actually reduce the peak hour deficit when power is fed back into the grid from EV battery packs. ICE vehicles have no such advantage.

Are you talking about facts and real practices or EV owners fantasies? How many bucks have you earned this way? Anyone?

You don't seem to acknowledge that this shale oil would be wasted during non-peak hours because boiler output cannot be reduced quickly when demand drops and increased quickly when demand increases. So the electricity used by EV's during non-peak hours would not substantially increase the use of shale oil or any other fuel used for electricity generation.

I can not find any logic in your message, as those oil shale power plants produce almost twice the amount of power consumed in Estonia. Remaining power is sold to the neighbouring countries in energy deficit. Nothing is wasted.

 

[Kuuuurija]

I can make electricity on the roof of my house.

How's that oil rig and gasoline refinery in your backyard working?

How much energy is wasted to produce solar panels? In our climate those panels hardly produce as much energy, that is wasted producing them.

I can grow oil crops (rape seed, sunflower etc) on my fields and use my manual press to get oil. I can chop woods from my forest and use it in wood gas generator to feed my ICE car.
I can even build a wood gas generator by myself. Are you capable to build your solar panels by yourself?

 

[Kuuuurija]

Come on, guys! Why waste your energy in such topics? A man who is confident in it's own right, is almost impossible to convince. Kuuuurija is probably one of the few Estonians who deny the benefits of great EV infrastructure making Estonia the paradise for I-miev and Leaf owners.

You'll find such stubborn individuals everywhere. Thay simply can not or don't want to understand and accept all benefits of electric powered vehicles. It's best to ignore them and let them believe they're right.

Great Estonian infrastructure? According to the recent data our fast charger network is standing almost useless. Only 200 kWh per charger is used per month as an average. I wonder if the self consumption of the charger is in the same magnitude. Those chargers have to be warmed in cold season, and lighted in night time. 200 kWh per month equals constant power 278 W. And somebody is saying that this is environmentally sounded?

 

[Zelenec]

Kuuuurija, you are right! ICE cars RULE! I just don't understand what you are doing on this forum? Are you lost somehow? Maybe you'd feel better here:

http://www.shell.com/
http://www.bp.com/

 

[Kuuuurija]

Kuuuurija, you are right! ICE cars RULE! I just don't understand what you are doing on this forum? Are you lost somehow? Maybe you'd feel better here:

http://www.shell.com/
http://www.bp.com/

I try to collect facts about EV-s. But very often I meet some bluff, like comparing energetic efficiency of the EV-s electical engine (important, but still only part of the system) with energetic efficiency of the ICE car (as a whole system) but considering only propulsion function, etc. I am interested in total effects. Unfortunately most of researches drop many aspects out of scope and are biased.

I think, that cars price describes quite well, how much energy and resources are used for building a car. EV-s have almost twice the price of ICE cars of the same size. Therefore I think they are consuming more energy and resources.
I think that energy carriers price describes quite well, how much energy and resources are used for providing a car with energy. Taxes or subsidies are disorienting here and should be carefully analysed how to take them into account. If ICE cars pay for road use, but EV-s not, that does not mean, that EV-s does nor need investments to roads. So far it seems, that providing EV with energy is marginally cheaper if to do this at home using off peak cheaper power. But public fast chargers are more costly than fuel for ICE cars. This all might vary by country. Some countries have plenty of cheap and relatively clean power, some countries don't. Therefore the results might be different for Canada and Estonia. No reason to war about it!

I have no data about the total cost of the full life cycle of an EV yet, but so far it is not very promising, that this cost will be lower than in case of an ICE car. According to my todays knowledge it seems rather opposite. But I keep trying to collect more data, bit by bit. I do not want to offend anybody, but I will ask questions if I suspect that someone preaches his fantasies by truth. You may try to insult me, I do not care. In internet forums one can't be sure, that opponent is not a dog, so there is no reason to feel offended if someone posts some offencive words. Maybe this is great achievement for the species?

 

[Zelenec]

It's not my intention to offend you. If you have such feeling, I apologize. At our local forums there are always people who constantly point out any weakness of electric cars forgetting weaknesses of classic vehicles. I'm too for many years looking for the comparison of the effectiveness of both technologies. However I turn pros and cons I'm convinced that the investment in electric vehicle makes sense for me, because as you do, I live in a small country and I very rare travel more than 120 km. Most of your statements are true. However, if you put on scale both technologies you should get a clear result: electric transportation has a bright future until some smart inventor discover something better.

All comparisons between ICE vehicle with more than 100 years of history and improvements and an electric car that is just trying to penetrate on roads is unfair, since the ICE car has 100 years of first-mover advantage. You claim the price of electric cars reflects high production energy demands. Remember first cell phones, video cameras, LCD TVs prices. In short, every new invention costs a lot. As technology advances, the price of each new product goes down. This will happen with electric cars too. The main reason for the high batteries prices are mostly the patent wars for the Li-ion technology, relatively small-scale production, the geographical limitations of lithium extraction, excessive desire for profit, high cost of development...

Of course you act very wisely to seek information. Search by as long as possible, you'll miss the first wave of very expensive electric vehicles and over many years you can buy a much better, more advanced and of course cheaper car.