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Something to consider when discussing EV's is that they outsource energy production to industrial/rural areas. Sometimes to "sustainable" sources (hydro, wind,

Something to consider when discussing EV's is that they outsource energy production to industrial/rural areas. Sometimes to "sustainable" sources (hydro, wind, solar) but often to coal, nat gas, etc. I suspect the added electricity demand from everyone switching to EV's won't be easily supplied by renewables thus creating this problem elsewhere. Hopefully it's possible but the cynic in me disagrees.

sokoloff 6y ago
Even moving the combustion byproducts from where the people are to where the power plants are is a small win. That the plants can more easily install scrubbers for some pollutants is a further small win. That they are more efficient (even with 15% charging losses) is another small win. That the use of renewables can grow over time without car owners having to upgrade is another small win. Stack up enough small wins and you can get to sizeable gains.
stefan_ 6y ago
You can literally take the oil we use right now to power cars and dump it in a generator to get electricity, and not only would you go farther but do it with less pollution at places where pollution matters less. "Where will the electricity come from" is unadulterated FUD.
- xnx 6y ago
  I mostly agree, but still laugh a little when people purchase cars to be "green" in a location where most of the electricity comes from coal. Without an EV they never wouldn't have been able to find a car that runs on coal.
  - gambiting 6y ago
    Even in places which are pretty decent about green sources like the UK, most populated areas in the country have very dirty electricity - rated at about 250-300g/CO2 per kWh produced. In terms of emissions per mile driven, that's worse than some modern petrol and diesel cars. Yes, you can purchase green electricity from your supplier, but it doesn't change the fact that the electrons going into your car are not from a clean source at all.
    - sjg007 6y ago
      Those power plants could implement stronger emission controls.
    - danans 6y ago
      That is flat out incorrect. Even in places that use only coal to generate electricity, EV CO2 emissions per mile are lower than gas vehicle emissions. See for yourself: https://afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/electric_emissions.html https://afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/electric_emissions.html
      - gambiting 6y ago
        So I don't know why you're linking a US study when I specifically said UK where the emissions are 300g/kWh in some areas, but ok, I mean I can do this too. Where I'm from(Poland) the biggest power plant is the Bełchatów power plant, which burns lignite for power - the CO2 emissions per kWh generated from that power plant are about 1kg/kWh produced[1]. At such an insane CO2 emissions rate even the most efficient EV - let's take a Model 3 - is worse than a modern petrol car. According to this site[0] Model 3 is incredibly efficient, using only 11.9kWh for every 100km travelled. So that's about 120Wh per km. If you're getting electricity from the Bełchatów power plant, that also means that Tesla is "emitting" 120g of CO2/km travelled. There are many modern cars that have their CO2/km emissions at less than 120g of CO2/km. But even if they are slightly above that, it doesn't change the fact that the emissions from driving an EV are not zero like some people say they are. Even if we go back to the UK and use that 300g of CO2/kWh figure, the Tesla is still emitting 40g of CO2/km travelled. That's not zero. [0] https://thedriven.io/2020/10/20/model-3-achieves-record-low-energy-consumption-in-driving-efficiency-test/ https://thedriven.io/2020/10/20/model-3-achieves-record-low-... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be%C5%82chat%C3%B3w_Power_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be%C5%82chat%C3%B3w_Power_Stat...
    - Tade0 6y ago
      At 300g/kWh an EV would have to consume 500Wh/km to match combustion cars in terms of emissions. Highway driving in the winter is the only scenario where an EV can reach 250Wh/km.
  - fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
    This is still a win: it’s easier to replace one centralized fossil fuel burner than a bunch of cars.
    - megablast 6y ago
      Even when you take into account the huge environmental cost of those batteries??
      - fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
        I don’t know enough about the battery supply chain: but, generally speaking, centralizing problems often makes it easier to fix them by giving maximizing the leverage of improvements.
      - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
        What huge envrironmental cost of batteries? Australia mines >50% of the world's lithium and 1% of worlds oil, and for them oil pollutes more And lithium is recycled, oil is not. Oil is a biohazard, we had massive oil spills wich posioned areas as large as fukushima exclusion zone. Pour barrel of oil in a forest, and everything dies How many lithium spills were there? Zero. If you sprincle lithium in a forest, nothing happens.
      - adrianN 6y ago
        Gasoline doesn't just magically appear at the pump. Oil extraction has huge environmental costs too.
- nonethewiser 6y ago
  So we can just use coal then? Of course it matters. Unless the goal is just out of sight out of mind.
- masonic 6y ago
  Where will all the charging station access come from is the problem, not the electron count.
- staplers 6y ago
  Everyday this community outs itself more and more as a phony "smart guy club". I stated factual reality and am met with vitriol and attacks. I never said it wasn't slightly better.
munk-a 6y ago
We've always got Nuclear energy and that will scale pretty much to the moon - old generation reactors have all sorts of fatal flaws including requiring a fuel that we have trouble acquiring, but that problems mostly been solved. Nah - I think your gut reaction is mostly just decades of propaganda painting fossil fuels as a necessary evil. On the topic of pure renewables - hydro definitely can't scale, we can get a lot more out of it then we currently are but it's comparatively not clean and most locations don't have unlimited options for power harnessing - wind and solar scale up pretty ridiculously and in most parts of the world one or the other is going to be quite accessible and, we've also got geothermal and some other options that we can look at. Beyond that we can look into demand reduction, the dead simplist of these is insulation/passive cooling requirements on housing and taxing private transportation to encourage ride-sharing especially in the commercial realm. We've got some great options to look at if only the coal barons would STFU and go away.
p1necone 6y ago
Stationary power generation even with fossil fuels is still more efficient than ICEs. This is just FUD.
- p1necone 6y ago
  Actually to clarify: its not so much stationary as it is constant speed. I'm sure not having to be able to move around is a factor too though.
tzs 6y ago
Even if a given EV uses electricity produced by as much fossil fuel as it would have taken to fuel an equivalent ICE car, it's a win because a fossil fuel burning electric plant on the grid is stationary. An ICE car moves. With the ICE car, any equipment you add to try to capture emissions adds to the weight of the car, in turn making it burn more fuel, and you are also limited in the total weight that the car can have and still drive safely (or at all). You've also got space limitations. With the stationary power plant, by picking a place with sufficient space there are no weight limits on how much emission capturing equipment you can add to the plant.

sokoloff 6y ago

Even moving the combustion byproducts from where the people are to where the power plants are is a small win. That the plants can more easily install scrubbers for some pollutants is a further small win. That they are more efficient (even with 15% charging losses) is another small win. That the use of renewables can grow over time without car owners having to upgrade is another small win. Stack up enough small wins and you can get to sizeable gains.

stefan_ 6y ago

You can literally take the oil we use right now to power cars and dump it in a generator to get electricity, and not only would you go farther but do it with less pollution at places where pollution matters less. "Where will the electricity come from" is unadulterated FUD.

xnx 6y ago
I mostly agree, but still laugh a little when people purchase cars to be "green" in a location where most of the electricity comes from coal. Without an EV they never wouldn't have been able to find a car that runs on coal.
- gambiting 6y ago
  Even in places which are pretty decent about green sources like the UK, most populated areas in the country have very dirty electricity - rated at about 250-300g/CO2 per kWh produced. In terms of emissions per mile driven, that's worse than some modern petrol and diesel cars. Yes, you can purchase green electricity from your supplier, but it doesn't change the fact that the electrons going into your car are not from a clean source at all.
  - sjg007 6y ago
    Those power plants could implement stronger emission controls.
  - danans 6y ago
    That is flat out incorrect. Even in places that use only coal to generate electricity, EV CO2 emissions per mile are lower than gas vehicle emissions. See for yourself: https://afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/electric_emissions.html https://afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/electric_emissions.html
    - gambiting 6y ago
      So I don't know why you're linking a US study when I specifically said UK where the emissions are 300g/kWh in some areas, but ok, I mean I can do this too. Where I'm from(Poland) the biggest power plant is the Bełchatów power plant, which burns lignite for power - the CO2 emissions per kWh generated from that power plant are about 1kg/kWh produced[1]. At such an insane CO2 emissions rate even the most efficient EV - let's take a Model 3 - is worse than a modern petrol car. According to this site[0] Model 3 is incredibly efficient, using only 11.9kWh for every 100km travelled. So that's about 120Wh per km. If you're getting electricity from the Bełchatów power plant, that also means that Tesla is "emitting" 120g of CO2/km travelled. There are many modern cars that have their CO2/km emissions at less than 120g of CO2/km. But even if they are slightly above that, it doesn't change the fact that the emissions from driving an EV are not zero like some people say they are. Even if we go back to the UK and use that 300g of CO2/kWh figure, the Tesla is still emitting 40g of CO2/km travelled. That's not zero. [0] https://thedriven.io/2020/10/20/model-3-achieves-record-low-energy-consumption-in-driving-efficiency-test/ https://thedriven.io/2020/10/20/model-3-achieves-record-low-... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be%C5%82chat%C3%B3w_Power_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be%C5%82chat%C3%B3w_Power_Stat...
  - Tade0 6y ago
    At 300g/kWh an EV would have to consume 500Wh/km to match combustion cars in terms of emissions. Highway driving in the winter is the only scenario where an EV can reach 250Wh/km.
- fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
  This is still a win: it’s easier to replace one centralized fossil fuel burner than a bunch of cars.
  - megablast 6y ago
    Even when you take into account the huge environmental cost of those batteries??
    - fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
      I don’t know enough about the battery supply chain: but, generally speaking, centralizing problems often makes it easier to fix them by giving maximizing the leverage of improvements.
    - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
      What huge envrironmental cost of batteries? Australia mines >50% of the world's lithium and 1% of worlds oil, and for them oil pollutes more And lithium is recycled, oil is not. Oil is a biohazard, we had massive oil spills wich posioned areas as large as fukushima exclusion zone. Pour barrel of oil in a forest, and everything dies How many lithium spills were there? Zero. If you sprincle lithium in a forest, nothing happens.
    - adrianN 6y ago
      Gasoline doesn't just magically appear at the pump. Oil extraction has huge environmental costs too.
nonethewiser 6y ago
So we can just use coal then? Of course it matters. Unless the goal is just out of sight out of mind.
masonic 6y ago
Where will all the charging station access come from is the problem, not the electron count.
staplers 6y ago
Everyday this community outs itself more and more as a phony "smart guy club". I stated factual reality and am met with vitriol and attacks. I never said it wasn't slightly better.

munk-a 6y ago

We've always got Nuclear energy and that will scale pretty much to the moon - old generation reactors have all sorts of fatal flaws including requiring a fuel that we have trouble acquiring, but that problems mostly been solved. Nah - I think your gut reaction is mostly just decades of propaganda painting fossil fuels as a necessary evil. On the topic of pure renewables - hydro definitely can't scale, we can get a lot more out of it then we currently are but it's comparatively not clean and most locations don't have unlimited options for power harnessing - wind and solar scale up pretty ridiculously and in most parts of the world one or the other is going to be quite accessible and, we've also got geothermal and some other options that we can look at. Beyond that we can look into demand reduction, the dead simplist of these is insulation/passive cooling requirements on housing and taxing private transportation to encourage ride-sharing especially in the commercial realm. We've got some great options to look at if only the coal barons would STFU and go away.

p1necone 6y ago

Stationary power generation even with fossil fuels is still more efficient than ICEs. This is just FUD.

p1necone 6y ago
Actually to clarify: its not so much stationary as it is constant speed. I'm sure not having to be able to move around is a factor too though.

tzs 6y ago

Even if a given EV uses electricity produced by as much fossil fuel as it would have taken to fuel an equivalent ICE car, it's a win because a fossil fuel burning electric plant on the grid is stationary. An ICE car moves. With the ICE car, any equipment you add to try to capture emissions adds to the weight of the car, in turn making it burn more fuel, and you are also limited in the total weight that the car can have and still drive safely (or at all). You've also got space limitations. With the stationary power plant, by picking a place with sufficient space there are no weight limits on how much emission capturing equipment you can add to the plant.