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> The total energy usage shouldn't be much of an issue as we'll move electricity use from refineries to charging batteries – I believe these are at least in the

> The total energy usage shouldn't be much of an issue as we'll move electricity use from refineries to charging batteries – I believe these are at least in the same ballpark. I wouldn't be so sure. Back of the napkin estimate: for every 2M electric cars, you need 1 more nuclear power plant. - approx. 18 kWh per 100 km for a Tesla - let's say 15000 km per year (close to the average in France for example) - total consumption over a year for 1M cars is roughly 2.5 TWh - total production of a nuclear power plant varies, but is roughly 5-7 TWh per year on average That's a lot of extra power if you want to replace all the cars. For example in France, that'd be the equivalent of 20 extra nuclear power plants, or the equivalent in nuclear + solar + wind + coal/gas/...

brightball 5y ago
Those numbers are why I’ve always thought cleaner fuel options were the real future here (like natural gas and hydrogen).
- headmelted 5y ago
  Natural gas is significantly dirtier than nuclear, and hydrogen (in terms of how we use it) is a component of an energy storage technology and not a fuel source.
  - brightball 5y ago
    But significantly cleaner than oil and abundant enough to make an impact much sooner.
    - jnwatson 5y ago
      Impact in what? It still releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
      - nine_k 5y ago
        Way less carbon dioxide per joule produced, also, no sulfuric dioxide.
      - brightball 5y ago
        Reducing and replacing gasoline/diesel usage.
        jcfrei 5y ago
        LNG powered cars have been available for a long time. They never caught on (speaking from a Swiss perspective). Whatever the reasons may be: Less dynamic driving experience, not enough LNG gas stations, expensive to retrofit, no cool new cars, no that much cheaper compared to gasoline - the consumer apparently just doesn't want them.
- theshrike79 5y ago
  Natural gas isn't much better than gasoline, biogas is a good option but the production capacity is limited at best. Hydrogen won't be viable for consumer vehicles unless we get a Hydrogen Elon Musk who optimises the production efficiency by 500%. (It takes around 55kW of electricity to produce the hydrogen needed to get 11kW of energy from a fuel cell vehicle).
headmelted 5y ago
Sweet. Maybe we invest in travelling wave reactors or electromagnetic rod / saltwater harness designs. Or we just start building more nuclear infrastructure on less safe designs (although not sure why we should do that when we have safer designs available), given that the consequences of not pushing nuclear immediately vastly outweighs the consequences of pretending it's less safe than the status quo.
- rakoo 5y ago
  Or we don't change all thermal cars with electric cars. It's time we realize that moving a 1+ ton vehicle for 80kg of people on average is a folly. We need alternative ways of transportation, more efficient, less polluting
  - sofixa 5y ago
    In France that's a fact of life and significant improvements are underway. Public transit is very good in most bigger cities, bike lanes are plentiful, high speed rail is available for most intercity travel, and all of those are actively being improved. So the math is for an already decently non-car centric country.
    - rakoo 5y ago
      As someone who doesn't want to own a car I am biased, but to me there are still a few usecases where a car still makes sense: - If you don't live in a big city, public transportation is far from enough - When you want to go on vacation you not only want to travel from A to B, you also want to be able to transport all your stuff and not be bound by infrequent scheduling, and you want some kind of mobility freedom at your destination - For your bi-weekly grocery shopping you need to be able to haul a few dozens of kg of stuff that takes something like half a m^3 For all of those, there's no easy alternative, and I understand why people used to this way of life don't really want to change. Bikes can replace some of it, electric bikes even more, and why not electric cargo bikes. But it's still very expensive, especially when you can't totally replace your car. I think the intermediate solution will be some carsharing solution, where 1 car is not owned by 1 person or 1 family but shared on average with a few families, accross a whole city.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
chki 5y ago
Interesting calculation! But the point of shifting electricity usage from refineries to car batteries still stands: Apparently it's 1.5 kwh per liter of gasoline [Edit: this might not be accurate, or might be mainly related to drilling, see comments below]. At 7-8 liters/100km we've already covered 11 kwh. Edit: And 7-8 liters/100km for a Tesla seems optimistically low. But maybe 18kwh is also optimistic.
- twic 5y ago
  I think you should cite a source for that 1.5 kWh/litre number. It seems there are a lot of varying claims here [0]. Looking at the US statistics for 2019, it seems refineries used 47 140 million kWh of electricity [1], and produced 3 199 032 thousand barrels of Finished Motor Gasoline [2], plus a lot of other products. That makes 0.093 kWh per litre, for the package of a litre of gasoline plus a bundle of other products. If gasoline is half of the output of refineries, then the rate is more like 0.05 kWh per litre. This is just for refining, and doesn't include the energy cost of drilling, transport, etc. But 0.05 is a long way from 1.5. [0] https://greentransportation.info/energy-transportation/gasoline-costs-6kwh.html https://greentransportation.info/energy-transportation/gasol... [1] https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pnp_capfuel_dcu_nus_a.htm https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pnp_capfuel_dcu_nus_a.htm [2] https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pnp_refp_dc_nus_mbbl_a.htm https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pnp_refp_dc_nus_mbbl_a.htm
  - chki 5y ago
    Yes you are correct, that's an important thing to look at. Apparently the main energy usage which causes the 1.5kwh number is drilling, I'll see whether I can find some sources. If it's actually drilling that makes a big difference because drilling might not be done where the oil is raffined
cataflam 5y ago
I can't edit my own post anymore, but I've looked into it more. Total average production should not be an issue, at least in Europe. However peak power could be and will require some care. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27361065 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27361065

brightball 5y ago

Those numbers are why I’ve always thought cleaner fuel options were the real future here (like natural gas and hydrogen).

headmelted 5y ago
Natural gas is significantly dirtier than nuclear, and hydrogen (in terms of how we use it) is a component of an energy storage technology and not a fuel source.
- brightball 5y ago
  But significantly cleaner than oil and abundant enough to make an impact much sooner.
  - jnwatson 5y ago
    Impact in what? It still releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
    - nine_k 5y ago
      Way less carbon dioxide per joule produced, also, no sulfuric dioxide.
    - brightball 5y ago
      Reducing and replacing gasoline/diesel usage.
      - jcfrei 5y ago
        LNG powered cars have been available for a long time. They never caught on (speaking from a Swiss perspective). Whatever the reasons may be: Less dynamic driving experience, not enough LNG gas stations, expensive to retrofit, no cool new cars, no that much cheaper compared to gasoline - the consumer apparently just doesn't want them.
theshrike79 5y ago
Natural gas isn't much better than gasoline, biogas is a good option but the production capacity is limited at best. Hydrogen won't be viable for consumer vehicles unless we get a Hydrogen Elon Musk who optimises the production efficiency by 500%. (It takes around 55kW of electricity to produce the hydrogen needed to get 11kW of energy from a fuel cell vehicle).

headmelted 5y ago

Sweet. Maybe we invest in travelling wave reactors or electromagnetic rod / saltwater harness designs. Or we just start building more nuclear infrastructure on less safe designs (although not sure why we should do that when we have safer designs available), given that the consequences of not pushing nuclear immediately vastly outweighs the consequences of pretending it's less safe than the status quo.

rakoo 5y ago
Or we don't change all thermal cars with electric cars. It's time we realize that moving a 1+ ton vehicle for 80kg of people on average is a folly. We need alternative ways of transportation, more efficient, less polluting
- sofixa 5y ago
  In France that's a fact of life and significant improvements are underway. Public transit is very good in most bigger cities, bike lanes are plentiful, high speed rail is available for most intercity travel, and all of those are actively being improved. So the math is for an already decently non-car centric country.
  - rakoo 5y ago
    As someone who doesn't want to own a car I am biased, but to me there are still a few usecases where a car still makes sense: - If you don't live in a big city, public transportation is far from enough - When you want to go on vacation you not only want to travel from A to B, you also want to be able to transport all your stuff and not be bound by infrequent scheduling, and you want some kind of mobility freedom at your destination - For your bi-weekly grocery shopping you need to be able to haul a few dozens of kg of stuff that takes something like half a m^3 For all of those, there's no easy alternative, and I understand why people used to this way of life don't really want to change. Bikes can replace some of it, electric bikes even more, and why not electric cargo bikes. But it's still very expensive, especially when you can't totally replace your car. I think the intermediate solution will be some carsharing solution, where 1 car is not owned by 1 person or 1 family but shared on average with a few families, accross a whole city.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

chki 5y ago

Interesting calculation! But the point of shifting electricity usage from refineries to car batteries still stands: Apparently it's 1.5 kwh per liter of gasoline [Edit: this might not be accurate, or might be mainly related to drilling, see comments below]. At 7-8 liters/100km we've already covered 11 kwh. Edit: And 7-8 liters/100km for a Tesla seems optimistically low. But maybe 18kwh is also optimistic.

twic 5y ago
I think you should cite a source for that 1.5 kWh/litre number. It seems there are a lot of varying claims here [0]. Looking at the US statistics for 2019, it seems refineries used 47 140 million kWh of electricity [1], and produced 3 199 032 thousand barrels of Finished Motor Gasoline [2], plus a lot of other products. That makes 0.093 kWh per litre, for the package of a litre of gasoline plus a bundle of other products. If gasoline is half of the output of refineries, then the rate is more like 0.05 kWh per litre. This is just for refining, and doesn't include the energy cost of drilling, transport, etc. But 0.05 is a long way from 1.5. [0] https://greentransportation.info/energy-transportation/gasoline-costs-6kwh.html https://greentransportation.info/energy-transportation/gasol... [1] https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pnp_capfuel_dcu_nus_a.htm https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pnp_capfuel_dcu_nus_a.htm [2] https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pnp_refp_dc_nus_mbbl_a.htm https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pnp_refp_dc_nus_mbbl_a.htm
- chki 5y ago
  Yes you are correct, that's an important thing to look at. Apparently the main energy usage which causes the 1.5kwh number is drilling, I'll see whether I can find some sources. If it's actually drilling that makes a big difference because drilling might not be done where the oil is raffined

cataflam 5y ago

I can't edit my own post anymore, but I've looked into it more. Total average production should not be an issue, at least in Europe. However peak power could be and will require some care. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27361065 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27361065