just had a thought about electric cars

nderwater wrote:

AngryCorvair wrote: Many people who are poseur douchebags wishing to give the appearance of saving the planet while blindly ignoring that the other end of that extension cord goes right to a coal plant, but that's ok because it's NIMBY, arrange something with their employers. If there's nearby power already available, it's usually pretty easy going. If facility improvement are required, it's totally a case-by-case basis depending on if the boss/owner digs EVs or not. fixed

I'm sick of hearing this argument. Cleaning up the energy producing infrastructure in this country is the Government's job and belongs in the political arena. If I start driving an electric vehicle (or even a plug-in hybrid), I've taken a serious stab at reducing the amount of pollution my daily driving generates, and that's true regardless of where the electricity is coming from.

sick of it or not, it's still a viable argument.

i would suggest that it is the powerplant owners who are responsible for any cleaning up that is to be done, and they will probably start on that as soon as they see a fiscal benefit in doing so.

know what i'm sick of? hybrid tax breaks. that's what i'm sick of. if the technology isn't cost-competitive, then put it back on the shelf while developing whatever is needed to make it cost-competitive.

Amen for the hybrid tax breaks.

There's "Hybrid only" spots at a couple of the local malls. I park my wife's '82 corolla in them.

Pisses the hybrid drivers off to no end. My car gets the same or better fuel mileage as theirs and I'm not polluting by buying a bew car and having my old one recycled.

Doucehbags.

Shawn

mblommel wrote: ...Third, fuel cells can be up to 85% efficient in a combined cycle application (Solid Oxide Fuel Cell). Low or intermediate temperature SOFCs produce waste heat that is between 500 C-800 C so I dont think cabin heat will be a problem. Last, solid storage of hydrogen in the form of metal hydrides could make it feasable to store enough hydrogen for extended range...

Fuel cells cars are much like electric cars in that they are much more of pollution solution than an "energy" solution. Even if you solve the storage and transportation issues you still either have to have a large amount of power or a lot of natural gas to produce it, thus not solving any "energy" problems. I may be missing something here, but it is pretty obvious there is no "free" hydrogen laying around.

BTW - build a bunch of nukes... no energy problem. Use it for electricity or to make hydrogen, either way.

aircooled wrote: I may be missing something here, but it is pretty obvious there is no "free" hydrogen laying around.

You're right. It's funny too, considering that 99% of all of the matter in the universe is probably Hydrogen.

...we just need a clever way to harvest it from stars. until we do, we get a lot more free electromagnetic energy from our closest star than we will will ever know what to do with. wouldn't it be swell if we had a way to capture that?

Chris_V wrote:

aircooled wrote: Of course, how much cleaner a coal plant is at producing electricity (adding in transportation, storage and efficiency losses) compared to a PZEV car burning gasoline? Might not be any, which means it is only moving the pollution (which has some benefit I guess).

Actually quite a bit. On the order of 90% reduction in pollutants if we switched a few million gasoline cars to coal fired electricity. http://electroauto.com/info/pollmyth.shtml And we could add a couple million electric cars to the grid just in California without adding a single powerplant, so long as people used smart chargers to do most of the charging in off-peak hours. If people DID recharge at work, they would basically only be "topping off," for the vast majority of them, so it would add very little load to the grid.

That's a pretty misleading web page. It's true ONLY if you get your power from non burning fuels- wind, nuclear (which is controversial of itself), hydro (again, controversial).

But for the most part, 90% is very much BS. And was proven in California court. Remember when California mandated EV's as exaclty what you are asking- to clean the air? But the EPA showed that it REALLY IS emissions displacement- since MOST power is generated via coal or natural gas- as much as we dream, this isn't going to change in the next 10 years. So, when the auto manufacturers showed that PZEV vehichles were just as clean as power plants, they sued California, based on the California Consitutional provision that said when a solution is both cheaper AND more effective, it's the one that has to be accepted.

So California relented- dropped the EV rule, and the OEM's agreed to a 20% equivallent (5 PZEV's = 1 EV). Data is a bitch.

BTW, one other thing to think about- materials. How much of the exotic battery materials are out there? How much energy does it take to produce those materials (Nickel or Lithium raw)? Is it realistic to support all of society with these fringe materials?

Remember, the most common materials used in cars are very, very plentiful (iron oxide, bauxite), and easy to recycle. From what I understand cars are more recycled than aluminum cans.

Eric

alfadriver wrote: BTW, one other thing to think about- materials. How much of the exotic battery materials are out there? How much energy does it take to produce those materials (Nickel or Lithium raw)? Is it realistic to support all of society with these fringe materials? Remember, the most common materials used in cars are very, very plentiful (iron oxide, bauxite), and easy to recycle. From what I understand cars are more recycled than aluminum cans. Eric

More on this point, what happens when we start running low on the unobtainium needed for the 100 air bags installed in the newer vehicles? The battery material? When the Petroluem Lords demand 300% more for the raw materials to make plastic where will we be?

I think this whole industry is going to be in for a shake up if we start radically changing the formula.

John Brown wrote:

alfadriver wrote: BTW, one other thing to think about- materials. How much of the exotic battery materials are out there? How much energy does it take to produce those materials (Nickel or Lithium raw)? Is it realistic to support all of society with these fringe materials? Remember, the most common materials used in cars are very, very plentiful (iron oxide, bauxite), and easy to recycle. From what I understand cars are more recycled than aluminum cans. Eric

More on this point, what happens when we start running low on the unobtainium needed for the 100 air bags installed in the newer vehicles? The battery material? When the Petroluem Lords demand 300% more for the raw materials to make plastic where will we be? I think this whole industry is going to be in for a shake up if we start radically changing the formula.

Can't debate the petroleum problems. But I'm not exactly worried about running out of aluminum or steel.

E-

I am not so worried about the steel and aluminum. It is the platinum, kevlar and plastic goods that are going to be extinct or even more expensive.

Hell if there was a way to recycle the plastic components currently being crushed daily we could reduce costs for all of that molded bracketry etc. and reduce petro consumption.

John Brown wrote: I am not so worried about the steel and aluminum. It is the platinum, kevlar and plastic goods that are going to be extinct or even more expensive. Hell if there was a way to recycle the plastic components currently being crushed daily we could reduce costs for all of that molded bracketry etc. and reduce petro consumption.

You'd may be surprised to find out how much they try to recycle everything on cars. Including the plastics. Not 100%, but relative to other, more throwaway items- a LOT better. There's a good SAE movement to make cars 100% recycleable.

(BTW, platinum, palladium, and rhodium are all recycled)

E

that webpage I linked to does have a lot of info on coal, as well. maybe you just missed it.

the info on Californai though, is spot on, and where auto emissions make up a large portion of the overall pollution picture, while coal does not. We had/have the same situation in Washington state.

at the same time, EVS have come a long way from when much of that data was recorded AND power plants, especially coal ones, have gotten even cleaner (in many cases, by orders of magnitude). As well as there being even more alternative sources of electricity than were widely avaiable then. It's always easier to regulate and clean single central sources of pollution, than millions of mobile tiny point sources.

As for other materials, even in the '30s Ford was experimenting with soy based plastics and paints, and a lot of their production plastics were soy based. Kind of like what they are doing today with the upholstery foam. There are other sources of recyclable and environmentaly friendly plastics.

And as was mentioned, quite a bit of what's currently being used or is proposed for electric vehicles, is recyclable. So when that battery pack reaches the end of it's lifespan at 10 years or so, it simply gets recycled.

Chris_V wrote: that webpage I linked to does have a lot of info on coal, as well. maybe you just missed it. the info on Californai though, is spot on, and where auto emissions make up a large portion of the overall pollution picture, while coal does not. We had/have the same situation in Washington state.

Which completely misses the pollution from electric use pollutes in remote areas, and NOT califonia. Seems kind of bad to me that you can pollute some remote location and be ok with it.

You can't use coal to pollute SOCAL when the plants are actually not even there.... As for Washington... hydro- when are you going to TEAR DOWN THOSE DAMS?? Or is it ok to compromise that, too? (I'm personally ok with it, since when I was in Idaho, our majority electric came from dams) But damned if you do, damned if you don't. Oh, and I'll not really mention Hanford.

BTW, what about the plants in SOCAL that pollute? There are quite a few chemical facilities that pollute, too.

And as was mentioned, quite a bit of what's currently being used or is proposed for electric vehicles, is recyclable. So when that battery pack reaches the end of it's lifespan at 10 years or so, it simply gets recycled.

Fine, but do we have enough materials to make 15M cars a year for 10 years? Or enough to support 150M cars, just in the US? Recycleable or not, we can't really build a sustainable system when you use a not so common material in rather large amounts. I know that's one of the major issues with hydrogen fuel cells- uses WAY too much rare earth materials to be able to support even a small part of the market.

Eric