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  • Energy cost and pollution of ICE vs EV

    [Moderator note - text below was split off from this post, to start this new topic]

    Now some wil say I have an EV. Give me a break and quit being foolish. Unless you are a vampire, you will not be home unless you are on welfare or night owl. Besides it is already known EV generate more pollution than gas guzzlers because of the dang batteries in them used more energy to make them than a gas car uses in it life time. New Flash folks, Lithium is a RARE EARTH material in very short supply. The countries that have the Lithium Reserves hate the USA like China, Bolivia, Chile, and Afghanistan.

    What is really sad is we already have the technology and fuel to generate extremely cheap emission free electricity with a million year supply of fuel all here in the USA and would generate millions of high paying jobs. You would not have to see any butt ugly solar panels or windmills. We are just to stupid to use it.
    Last edited by sensij; 01-11-2018, 06:04 PM.
    MSEE, PE

  • #2

    Originally posted by Sunking View Post

    Besides it is already known EV generate more pollution than gas guzzlers because of the dang batteries in them used more energy to make them than a gas car uses in it life time.
    Are there any citations you can provide that support this? This paper, from 2012, pretty much says the exact opposite. Yeah, the resources required to produce the materials and build the battery are significant, but appear to still be just a fraction of the energy required to produce the gasoline consumed by an ICE over its life. If their approach is flawed in some way, I'd gladly embrace a paper that does it better (regardless of its conclusions).

    energychart.JPG
    Last edited by sensij; 01-11-2018, 06:14 PM.
    CS6P-260P/SE3000 - http://tiny.cc/ed5ozx

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    • #3
      Stop messing with and moving my post. You are abusing your privileges. Now get lost. I have already provide links in other post which you choose to ignore. It comes from Sweden department of transpiration IVL
      Last edited by Sunking; 01-11-2018, 07:09 PM.
      MSEE, PE

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      • #4
        Thanks for the link. In the conclusions, number 1a, they state:

        Energy use for battery manufacturing with current technology is about 350 - 650 MJ / kWh battery
        Let's look at a 60 kWh battery, like what is found in the Chevy Bolt

        60 kWh * 350 MJ / kWh = 21000 MJ
        60 kWh * 650 MJ / kWh = 39000 MJ

        Now let's look at what it takes to produce the gasoline for a car.

        Energy content of gasoline is 33 kWh / gal = 118.8 MJ

        If the energy efficiency of production is around 80%, that means about 24 MJ are "used" by drilling / refining / delivery equipment per gallon delivered.

        At 40 mi / gallon, that means after between 35000 - 65000 mi driven, the energy cost of producing the gasoline has exceeded the energy cost of producing the battery. The looks substantially less than the "life time" of the car, to me.
        CS6P-260P/SE3000 - http://tiny.cc/ed5ozx

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        • #5
          That is because you are ignoring the energy and emissions of generating electricity to charge the battery. All you are doing is transferring the exhaust pipe in someone else back yard.
          MSEE, PE

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          • #6
            Originally posted by Sunking View Post
            Now some wil say I have an EV. Give me a break and quit being foolish. Unless you are a vampire, you will not be home unless you are on welfare or night owl. Besides it is already known EV generate more pollution than gas guzzlers because of the dang batteries in them used more energy to make them than a gas car uses in it life time.
            That might be true if gas guzzlers were made of fairy dust and unicorn farts. They're not. They are made of steel, plastic, copper, glass and aluminum. There's boron, gallium, phosphorous, indium and arsenic in its electronics, and benzene, naptha, tolulene, alkylate, isomerate and butane in its fuel tank.

            So EV's aren't being compared to fairy dust and unicorn farts. They are compared to existing gas guzzlers, which use large amounts of those evil materials.

            "But wait" you say. "Those batteries weigh HUNDREDS OF POUNDS! All that lithium weighs far more than the stuff in a gas guzzler!" Bzzt, wrong again. A Bolt battery, for example, contains only about 12 kg of that evil lithium. The vast majority of the weight in that battery is electrode (copper and aluminum usually) casing (steel) and separator (plastic) - the same stuff you find in your gas guzzler.
            New Flash folks, Lithium is a RARE EARTH material in very short supply.
            Then it's a good thing that EV's don't need much of it.


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            • #7
              Originally posted by Sunking View Post
              That is because you are ignoring the energy and emissions of generating electricity to charge the battery.
              I charge my EV via solar. Not too much emissions there.

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              • #8
                Originally posted by Sunking View Post
                That is because you are ignoring the energy and emissions of generating electricity to charge the battery. All you are doing is transferring the exhaust pipe in someone else back yard.
                I thought the comment you made was talking about the energy required to "make" the battery, not the energy required to operate it. But, as an EV driver for financial reasons, I haven't really looked at the energy balance before.

                The Bolt advertises 238 mi range from its 60 kWh battery. Let's call it 4 mi / kWh. (My experience with EV's is that the range is better in good conditions and careful driving, and worse in bad conditions, but it seems like a relatively accurate estimate, on average). If charging is 90% efficient, that is 0.280 kWh consumed from the grid per mi.

                Let's use 35% as the energy efficiency to get from the energy content of the fuel for the power plant to electricity available at the outlet for the EVSE. 0.280 kWh / 0.35 = 0.800 kWh = 2.9 MJ of raw energy per mi

                Ok, now back to gasoline.... we have 118.8 MJ of energy content and 24 MJ of energy consumed for production, for 142.5 MJ of raw energy per gallon. At 40 mpg, that is 3.5 MJ of raw energy per mi.

                The energy advantage per mi of the EV vs a 40 mpg ICE looks like 0.6 MJ / mi. To pay off that 21000 MJ - 39000 MJ debt from the battery production, the EV would need to last 35000 - 65000 mi. After that, it comes out ahead.

                I understand the pollution side is more complicated, and source matters, but does the energy side look right for a conventional power plant?



                Last edited by sensij; 01-12-2018, 01:33 AM.
                CS6P-260P/SE3000 - http://tiny.cc/ed5ozx

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by Sunking View Post
                  That is because you are ignoring the energy and emissions of generating electricity to charge the battery. All you are doing is transferring the exhaust pipe in someone else back yard.
                  And you're ignoring the energy used to drill and refine the gasoline...
                  Bottom line: Electricity can be generated cleanly with wind, solar, hydro, etc. Gas is always going to be dirty.

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                  • #10
                    Originally posted by emartin00 View Post

                    And you're ignoring the energy used to drill and refine the gasoline...
                    Bottom line: Electricity can be generated cleanly with wind, solar, hydro, etc. Gas is always going to be dirty.
                    Maybe but as of now and for the near future there isn't enough solar, hydro, wind and thermal to produce enough GW to power even 3 times the current number of EV's for the entire US.

                    So most new and existing EV's will be getting their charge from that "dirty" fossil fuel generating plants for a long time.

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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by sensij View Post
                      I thought the comment you made was talking about the energy required to "make" the battery, not the energy required to operate it.
                      Fair enough. You obviously did not read the report. Not my words. Not even my thread, it is yours.
                      MSEE, PE

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                      • #12
                        Originally posted by SunEagle View Post

                        Maybe but as of now and for the near future there isn't enough solar, hydro, wind and thermal to produce enough GW to power even 3 times the current number of EV's for the entire US.

                        So most new and existing EV's will be getting their charge from that "dirty" fossil fuel generating plants for a long time.
                        That makes perfect sense... "There isn't enough capacity now, to handle the loads in 5 years"
                        Sure, but if 5 years there may be...

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                        • #13
                          Originally posted by emartin00 View Post

                          That makes perfect sense... "There isn't enough capacity now, to handle the loads in 5 years"
                          Sure, but if 5 years there may be...
                          It comes down to real estate and power transmission lines. Eventually most of the prime solar and wind real estate will be used up or blocked by the locals from being used. Look how long it has taken to get the US first off shore wind farm. Most other off shore farms are being slowed down by bureaucracy and push back by people that do not want to see the turbines from shore.

                          There also have been push-back on installing power transmission lines which would be needed to get the power from the solar farms in the South West to the cities in the North East.

                          So if you installed more than 10 times the amount of solar and wind power generation you would still see times of little to no power production from RE. That requires some type of power plant that will work 24/7 and does not need to be started up when the sun goes down. No one will keep a generating plant sitting there waiting for the times RE is unavailable so it can be used. That cost would be staggering.

                          We still need some type of base power source that will work 24/7 without the wind or sun. That would be either a fossil fuel system or nuclear. Take your pick but it is still needed due to the amount of energy the US consumes every day.

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                          • #14
                            Originally posted by SunEagle View Post
                            It comes down to real estate and power transmission lines.
                            Real estate - agreed.

                            Transmission lines - keep in mind that it is a characteristic of EV's that they can be charged when convenient. (At least most of them.) Thus their recharge times can be coordinated for times that transmission lines (and generation facilities) have the margin to service them. Even today EV drivers use simple methods, like timers, to charge when power is cheap.
                            Eventually most of the prime solar and wind real estate will be used up or blocked by the locals from being used. Look how long it has taken to get the US first off shore wind farm. Most other off shore farms are being slowed down by bureaucracy and push back by people that do not want to see the turbines from shore.
                            Don't know about that. On the drive from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, for example, there are hundreds of miles of open desert that are ideal for solar generation (and are very close to the loads they would service.) Move the arrays a few miles from the road and no one (other than airline passengers) will see them.

                            However, I agree that there are places where it will be a lot harder (as in your example.)
                            There also have been push-back on installing power transmission lines which would be needed to get the power from the solar farms in the South West to the cities in the North East.
                            Also agreed - but they are happening. The Sunrise Powerlink got a lot of protesters riled up, but it happened anyway.
                            So if you installed more than 10 times the amount of solar and wind power generation you would still see times of little to no power production from RE. That requires some type of power plant that will work 24/7 and does not need to be started up when the sun goes down. No one will keep a generating plant sitting there waiting for the times RE is unavailable so it can be used. That cost would be staggering.
                            Right. But people are perfectly fine keeping a peaker plant sitting there as RE displaces conventional generation. (We know this because they do this right now to deal with peak loads.) As more load is displaced, more of them will sit idle - which is a lot better than having to build new ones.

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                            • #15
                              Originally posted by SunEagle View Post
                              We still need some type of base power source that will work 24/7 without the wind or sun.
                              Or maybe : Turn it around and say in the best of all possible worlds, what we need is some way to supply reliable and workable 24 hour power that will work without fossil fuel or nuclear fired power plants.

                              Not likely to happen any time soon, if ever, but given a commitment, generation from R.E. sources and lots of energy storage, load management and other tolls will get us a long way there - I'd bet more than the naysayers would have us believe.

                              Saying R.E. will never supply 100 % is a blast of the obvious but won't help improve things or make progress and won't matter anyway as it never was a true statement to begin with.

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