Electric vehicles (EVs), their emissions, and future viability

[aja8888]

With a smart grid and reasonable infrastructure, there is plenty of power available.
As for taxes, legislatures will put their thinking caps on and come up with a different way to levy road taxes. They aren't going to miss out on tax revenue just because they're phasing out internal combustion.
2040 is a long way away and the energy and transportation industries are advancing rapidly.

Article from The Guardian:

The UK is facing an unprecedented “energy gap” in a decade’s time, according to engineers, with demand for electricity likely to outstrip supply by more than 40%, which could lead to blackouts.

New policies to stop unabated coal-fired power generation by 2025, and the phasing out of ageing nuclear reactors without plans in place to build a new fleet of gas-fired electricity plants, will combine to create a supply crunch, according to a new study.


“Under current [government] policy, it is almost impossible for UK electricity demand to be met by 2025,” said Jenifer Baxter, head of energy and environment at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE), which published the report, entitled Engineering the UK’s Electricity Gap, on Tuesday.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/26/engineers-warn-of-looming-uk-energy-gap

Of course, like in the US, we really can't believe what we read in the news publications...

 

[nwdiver]

Article from The Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/26/engineers-warn-of-looming-uk-energy-gap
Of course, like in the US, we really can't believe what we read in the news publications...

Good thing that data is publicly available.

In the mid-west alone there's 75GWh available during off-peak hours on average every night. Assuming an average round trip commute of 40 miles that's enough energy for 5M electric vehicles.

I do love how the argument shifts... when I promote solar and wind the retort is 'fine, where are you going to store it?'; When I promote batteries on the grid parked in a driveway the retort is 'fine, where's the energy going to come from?'.....

 

[DPM]

I believe the detail of the UK announcement is no more pure IC vehicles. Hybrids are OK...

 

[turbocharged798]

Good thing that data is publicly available.

In the mid-west alone there's 75GWh available during off-peak hours on average every night. Assuming an average round trip commute of 40 miles that's enough energy for 5M electric vehicles.

I do love how the argument shifts... when I promote solar and wind the retort is 'fine, where are you going to store it?'; When I promote batteries on the grid parked in a driveway the retort is 'fine, where's the energy going to come from?'.....

They both are the same problem but it seems you don't understand that.

 

[oilhammer]

They both are the same problem but it seems you don't understand that.

His smugness makes it difficult to figure just exactly WHAT he understands. For someone who is "pro" something, he certainly does his best to put a sour taste in others' mouths about the subject.

Depending on what happens in emerging energy hungry markets like India, parts of Africa, and of course China, there may be a time when the use of petroleum globally will plateau despite the ever continuing population increase due to alternative sources. Shell recently announced they foresee petroleum use actually starting to decline within a couple decades. This is a sentiment other petro companies do not agree with, however.

 

[nwdiver]

They both are the same problem but it seems you don't understand that.

My understanding is that you can use excess energy from solar and wind to charge most cars most of the time with demand response... eventually you could even discharge car batteries onto the grid during the brief period when you REALLY need more power; Please enlighten me on where I'm mistaken.

Why not use this energy in cars instead of wasting it? Why not deploy more driveway based batteries to allow wind and solar to expand further faster?

 

[turbobrick240]

Here's an interesting article on the rollout of the model 3. Includes mention of a tdi owner waiting on his reserved Tesla.

http://www.theverge.com/2017/7/28/16051264/tesla-model-3-2017-reservation-buyers-hopes-musk

 

[VeeDubTDI]

Good thing that data is publicly available.

In the mid-west alone there's 75GWh available during off-peak hours on average every night. Assuming an average round trip commute of 40 miles that's enough energy for 5M electric vehicles.

I do love how the argument shifts... when I promote solar and wind the retort is 'fine, where are you going to store it?'; When I promote batteries on the grid parked in a driveway the retort is 'fine, where's the energy going to come from?'.....

Unfortunately, that 75 GWh includes a lot of fossil fuels. Fortunately, renewables are being added rapidly, particularly solar. If we can charge EVs during the day while people are at work, we can take advantage of the additional solar without relying as heavily on the off-peak fossil fuel plants.

 

[oilhammer]

Unfortunately, that 75 GWh includes a lot of fossil fuels. Fortunately, renewables are being added rapidly, particularly solar. If we can charge EVs during the day while people are at work, we can take advantage of the additional solar without relying as heavily on the off-peak fossil fuel plants.

Now THAT makes more sense.

 

[bhtooefr]

And, I mean, I look at all the parking lots at work, and see a massive wasted opportunity. (Plenty of shopping centers have the same situation, too.)

First off, it's a huge surface area, plenty of room for lots of solar panels.

Second, those solar panels would reduce the blacktop that's exposed to the sun, reducing heat island effect.

Third, those solar panels would provide covered parking, meaning that far less energy is required to cool down vehicle cabins in summer. (OK, in winter, you need more heat, but you get the benefit of not having to do as much cleaning of snow off of the car.)

Fourth, if you want to offer EV charging... well, you could even use this setup independent of the grid. (I believe there's even some workplace solar parking/charging setups that have local battery storage for further grid independence.)

 

[oilhammer]

And, I mean, I look at all the parking lots at work, and see a massive wasted opportunity. (Plenty of shopping centers have the same situation, too.)

First off, it's a huge surface area, plenty of room for lots of solar panels.

Second, those solar panels would reduce the blacktop that's exposed to the sun, reducing heat island effect.

Third, those solar panels would provide covered parking, meaning that far less energy is required to cool down vehicle cabins in summer. (OK, in winter, you need more heat, but you get the benefit of not having to do as much cleaning of snow off of the car.)

Fourth, if you want to offer EV charging... well, you could even use this setup independent of the grid. (I believe there's even some workplace solar parking/charging setups that have local battery storage for further grid independence.)

Yep, lots of things we could do, but lots of reasons (many quite lame) why we don't. Cost is a huge one. Which ties in with return on investment, since that is really what mitigates cost in long term.

Like ground sourced heat pumps. They do not work perfectly everywhere, but here in Missouri they work REALLY well. So well, it makes you wonder why anyone would even use anything else, especially in new construction. Yet they only account for a tiny fraction of home HVAC units. Why? Well, in my modest sized house, the whopping $7k cost difference is one. Not everyone can look ahead and think "This will knock $100 a month off my electric bill on average, so it will pay for itself in 70 months". No, they look at it like "HOLY CRAP THAT IS TOO 'SPENSIVE!"

You have to work towards not only making things more affordable, but making them so much more affordable that the old way becomes obsolete. Coal fired boiler furnaces (which were common here) did not go away because we ran out of coal, or that coal was too expensive. They went away because finally natural gas pipelines in urban areas became cheap enough to lay and tap into that it made sense to do so. The absence of coal smoke all over the city was just a bonus.

But if some environmentalist back then would have been pushing everyone to switch to something that was much more expensive because of the Black Lung, people would not have been receptive to change in large numbers.

 

[VeeDubTDI]

And, I mean, I look at all the parking lots at work, and see a massive wasted opportunity. (Plenty of shopping centers have the same situation, too.)

First off, it's a huge surface area, plenty of room for lots of solar panels.

Second, those solar panels would reduce the blacktop that's exposed to the sun, reducing heat island effect.

Third, those solar panels would provide covered parking, meaning that far less energy is required to cool down vehicle cabins in summer. (OK, in winter, you need more heat, but you get the benefit of not having to do as much cleaning of snow off of the car.)

Fourth, if you want to offer EV charging... well, you could even use this setup independent of the grid. (I believe there's even some workplace solar parking/charging setups that have local battery storage for further grid independence.)

A conservative estimate of my massive parking lot at work shows that it would provide 5 megawatts of energy if it was covered with a solar canopy. Our summer consumption for the buildings is about 1.5 megawatts, leaving 3.5 for EV charging.

If we take 3.5 megawatts and multiply it by 6 sun-hours, we get 21 MWh. If each car added 10 kWh (the energy required to drive about 40 miles), this solar array could charge 2,100 cars. Interestingly, that's approximately the number of parking spaces that we have.

These numbers are for summer time. Winter would obviously be less production, but we'd also consume less energy for building power. This also doesn't include rooftop solar on any of the buildings, which is at least another 3 megawatts.

 

[turbovan+tdi]

With a smart grid and reasonable infrastructure, there is plenty of power available.
As for taxes, legislatures will put their thinking caps on and come up with a different way to levy road taxes. They aren't going to miss out on tax revenue just because they're phasing out internal combustion.
2040 is a long way away and the energy and transportation industries are advancing rapidly.

People like hidden tax, IE tax in gas if that's how they do it, if they start charging a straight tax per say, people are gonna flip.

As for the grid, the other side have already said the grid won't handle it, can't imagine the cost to make it work-especially enviromentally, and all the battery's etc, job loss's, etc. Yep, going green is fun.

Also, how are they going to haul all these cars? With rigs banned, going to be kinda hard!

 

[turbovan+tdi]

My understanding is that you can use excess energy from solar and wind to charge most cars most of the time with demand response... eventually you could even discharge car batteries onto the grid during the brief period when you REALLY need more power; Please enlighten me on where I'm mistaken.

Why not use this energy in cars instead of wasting it? Why not deploy more driveway based batteries to allow wind and solar to expand further faster?

So killing more fossil fuels to recharge "clean" cars, lol. Brilliant plan! Wish I'd thought of it.

 

[turbovan+tdi]

Unfortunately, that 75 GWh includes a lot of fossil fuels. Fortunately, renewables are being added rapidly, particularly solar. If we can charge EVs during the day while people are at work, we can take advantage of the additional solar without relying as heavily on the off-peak fossil fuel plants.

That is a great idea, sadly though, UK doesn't get much sun,

Also, the initial cost of building millions of solar panels will be staggering. IIRC, I read solar panels are also not great for the earth as they reflect the light back up or something like that. Sorry, its been awhile, can't remember the details.

 

[aja8888]

That is a great idea, sadly though, UK doesn't get much sun,

I don't mean to be down on the UK but have spent a lot of time there in the past in their manufacturing plants. Remember, these folks are the same ones that ruled 3/4 of the modern world at one time and gave us Lucas electrical systems.

 

[turbovan+tdi]

I don't mean to be down on the UK but have spent a lot of time there in the past in their manufacturing plants. Remember, these folks are the same ones that ruled 3/4 of the modern world at one time and gave us Lucas electrical systems.

Was born and raised there, getting sun was like Xmas.

Lucas, bwhaahahahahahha. At least they kept mechanics employed,

 

[aja8888]

Was born and raised there, getting sun was like Xmas.
Lucas, bwhaahahahahahha. At least they kept mechanics employed,

I had a '68 MGB and a Jensen Healey...I was punished. And the sun??

 

[CraziFuzzy]

People like hidden tax, IE tax in gas if that's how they do it, if they start charging a straight tax per say, people are gonna flip.

As for the grid, the other side have already said the grid won't handle it, can't imagine the cost to make it work-especially enviromentally, and all the battery's etc, job loss's, etc. Yep, going green is fun.

Also, how are they going to haul all these cars? With rigs banned, going to be kinda hard!

Sorry, but saying 'the grid' can't handle something is really pointing out a gross generalization of what 'the grid' is. There is a huge difference between generation and distribution, and both are completely different challenges, and both are sized to be able to support a peak load. Luckily, designers of EV cars, and most especially, EVSE standards, built into every electric car the ability for charge rate to be regulated from the supply side. This is the first major instance of supply-side regulation of the electric grid, which for over a century has been driven by the loads on it, and the supplies just had to be able to respond to load changes. With the demand response systems in place, the generation and distribution supplies will be able to be optimized in such a way that they will allow the current system to operate much closer to real capacities. There is a very long way to go before EV's will cause any actual negative impact on the electric grid - because until the grid's load and distribution is flat, demand response regulated EV's can only provide positive benefits.

 

[CraziFuzzy]

Yep, lots of things we could do, but lots of reasons (many quite lame) why we don't. Cost is a huge one. Which ties in with return on investment, since that is really what mitigates cost in long term.

Like ground sourced heat pumps. They do not work perfectly everywhere, but here in Missouri they work REALLY well. So well, it makes you wonder why anyone would even use anything else, especially in new construction. Yet they only account for a tiny fraction of home HVAC units. Why? Well, in my modest sized house, the whopping $7k cost difference is one. Not everyone can look ahead and think "This will knock $100 a month off my electric bill on average, so it will pay for itself in 70 months". No, they look at it like "HOLY CRAP THAT IS TOO 'SPENSIVE!"

You have to work towards not only making things more affordable, but making them so much more affordable that the old way becomes obsolete. Coal fired boiler furnaces (which were common here) did not go away because we ran out of coal, or that coal was too expensive. They went away because finally natural gas pipelines in urban areas became cheap enough to lay and tap into that it made sense to do so. The absence of coal smoke all over the city was just a bonus.

But if some environmentalist back then would have been pushing everyone to switch to something that was much more expensive because of the Black Lung, people would not have been receptive to change in large numbers.

Again, I think this comes down to your location not being representative of everywhere. Where I am, which is NOT an affluent community at all, you can't drive down any commercial area and not see at least one or two parking lots per block without some form of solar canopy. Every High School and Middle school in my area has at least the staff parking lots covered in panels, and they are going to start on the elementary schools soon (these were all put in via self funded financing, with no tax expense beyond planning). There is a 1MW array of panels over the top level of the parking structure of the hospital. Even the mobile home parks and apartments have solar canopies over many of the shared parking areas. Heck, even McDonald's has solar canopy parking.

In the residential market, my suburban neighborhood, which is not new construction (built in the early 90s), has 2/3's of the homes with panels on the roof (this increased from about 1 in 8 homes just 3 years ago). Every new development in the valley here has 100% of the new homes built with solar, not just installed, but a part of the design (plumbing vents shifted to provide wide open spaces for the panels, flat roofing tiles in the solar area instead of the curved tiles that are standard everywhere else, etc).

 

[rotarykid]

With a smart grid and reasonable infrastructure, there is plenty of power available.
As for taxes, legislatures will put their thinking caps on and come up with a different way to levy road taxes. They aren't going to miss out on tax revenue just because they're phasing out internal combustion.
2040 is a long way away and the energy and transportation industries are advancing rapidly.

What a lot of people don't realize is with that Smart grid their power is measured 247 so the Bills are going to go up

I see examples every day of people who thought that the power Bill would be cheaper with a Smart meter.

Surprise!. Most people's power Bills are double OR triple with the Smart meters. Especially if they have the older type meters that only measure the power part of the day and average it. There was an example of the News local News last week of someone who asks for a Smart meter.

With their new Smart meter the Bill went from 55 to 80 dollars a month up to Close to 300 with the Smart meter. So think Long and hard before you ask to have your meter changed if you're not sure what kind of meter you have.

For those who do not know. Smart meters are the answer if you want expensive power but not for a whole lot else Today.

 

[compu_85]

Are you suggesting that traditional meters don't measure all the power that goes through them

Can you link the news article you're talking about?

You do realize that a traditional meter works by inducing a small current to drive the spinny part around from the larger current flowing through the meter?

Also, did you see Lawson's comment that our power bill went down when we switched to a different electric plan, which includes a smart meter, even though our overall usage has almost doubled?

-J

 

[rotarykid]

I don't have an article, but I did have a brother in law who worked for the power company who told me the time of day they took measurements not to use the power much if I didn't want to pay a big power Bill. Some of the older type meters readings could even be mucked with reduced by having a lot of capacitance load over resistance, because resistance was how they measured the power use.

The older type meters only averaged the power from the time that they are measuring it so they so yes they did not measure all it,

so if you used a lot of power when they were averaging it, your power Bill is higher. And there are Still a lot of these older meters in use out there. Also, many people do not realize that the mechanical workings in their older meter May be dragging and not measuring their Real power consumption. So surprise! When they get a new meter, especially a Smart meter, every bit of power they use is measured and charged for.

 

[bhtooefr]

Old meters just spun based on power drawn through them, the "time that they are measuring it" is the whole month.

 

[turbovan+tdi]

Sorry, but saying 'the grid' can't handle something is really pointing out a gross generalization of what 'the grid' is. There is a huge difference between generation and distribution, and both are completely different challenges, and both are sized to be able to support a peak load. Luckily, designers of EV cars, and most especially, EVSE standards, built into every electric car the ability for charge rate to be regulated from the supply side. This is the first major instance of supply-side regulation of the electric grid, which for over a century has been driven by the loads on it, and the supplies just had to be able to respond to load changes. With the demand response systems in place, the generation and distribution supplies will be able to be optimized in such a way that they will allow the current system to operate much closer to real capacities. There is a very long way to go before EV's will cause any actual negative impact on the electric grid - because until the grid's load and distribution is flat, demand response regulated EV's can only provide positive benefits.

I don't need to say it or generalize it, the powers at be, not the people who voted in EV's, already said it.

 

[turbobrick240]

Silly me, I thought the problem with smart meters was the cranium penetrating microwave radiation . Nothing a little tinfoil can't cure.

 

[turbovan+tdi]

Silly me, I thought the problem with smart meters was the cranium penetrating microwave radiation . Nothing a little tinfoil can't cure.

Did someone say tinfoil?

 

[nicklockard]

And, I mean, I look at all the parking lots at work, and see a massive wasted opportunity. (Plenty of shopping centers have the same situation, too.)

First off, it's a huge surface area, plenty of room for lots of solar panels.

Second, those solar panels would reduce the blacktop that's exposed to the sun, reducing heat island effect.

Third, those solar panels would provide covered parking, meaning that far less energy is required to cool down vehicle cabins in summer. (OK, in winter, you need more heat, but you get the benefit of not having to do as much cleaning of snow off of the car.)

Fourth, if you want to offer EV charging... well, you could even use this setup independent of the grid. (I believe there's even some workplace solar parking/charging setups that have local battery storage for further grid independence.)

They do that here at some stores in Phoenix. Several Fry's grocery stores and Walmarts have large covered areas, using solar panels to both collect free energy and give shaded parking to some customers. I wish it were so everywhere though.

 

[GoFaster]

"Smart meters" in Ontario resulted in huge increases for (most of) the people who had them. Higher rate for when there is high demand + lower rate when hardly anyone is drawing power anyhow = higher bills than average. I know that in theory if you shift the time of day when your demand is high you can theoretically lower your bills, but generally people don't demand peak A/C usage at night nor cook meals at 3 AM. I believe Ontario's "smart meter" program has been scrapped. (I don't have one - never did.)

 

[turbocharged798]

My understanding is that you can use excess energy from solar and wind to charge most cars most of the time with demand response... eventually you could even discharge car batteries onto the grid during the brief period when you REALLY need more power; Please enlighten me on where I'm mistaken.

Why not use this energy in cars instead of wasting it? Why not deploy more driveway based batteries to allow wind and solar to expand further faster?

So what happens if you get a cloudy week(which happens quite often here) and don't have enough solar power to charge your car? Again, this is the issue, solar is not consistent. Its a fundamental problem with solar. Wind is even worse.

I don't have an article, but I did have a brother in law who worked for the power company who told me the time of day they took measurements not to use the power much if I didn't want to pay a big power Bill. Some of the older type meters readings could even be mucked with reduced by having a lot of capacitance load over resistance, because resistance was how they measured the power use.

The older type meters only averaged the power from the time that they are measuring it so they so yes they did not measure all it,

so if you used a lot of power when they were averaging it, your power Bill is higher. And there are Still a lot of these older meters in use out there. Also, many people do not realize that the mechanical workings in their older meter May be dragging and not measuring their Real power consumption. So surprise! When they get a new meter, especially a Smart meter, every bit of power they use is measured and charged for.

When our meter was changed out to a smart meter, we noticed no change whatsoever. It is nice not having the electric company pulling up to read the meter though.