4 ms·

Remember that you also need to recharge the car. EV are called environmental friendly, in the sense "they pollute less than ICEs in their life" only if charging

by kkfx 5y ago

Remember that you also need to recharge the car. EV are called environmental friendly, in the sense "they pollute less than ICEs in their life" only if charging is done from renewables.

DubiousPusher 5y ago
I would guess that even charging an EV from a "dirty" power source is still better than an ICE, simply due to efficiencies of scale.
- _0w8t 5y ago
  Indeed efficiency of a modern ICE engine in a car is 25% max in ideal conditions, while a modern industrial turbine powered by natural gas can get 60%. In fact even with coal the amount of CO2 will be smaller per distance driven. The efficiency of the latest coal power stations is about 48%. With this and accounting for significant energy losses to refine gasoline from oil the electrical cars are already greener than gasoline or Diesel engines unless one use the energy from very old coal plants with low efficiency.
- kkfx 5y ago
  What efficiencies? Those who demand energivore and polluting oil, gas, coal extraction and processing to a moderately near power plant + the energy you loose in transport + the energy you loose in battery and relevant inverter and intermediate transformers of the energy grid? An electrical motor is very efficient, a battery system is moderately efficient and combined with all environmental costs to source needed materials, dispose of end-of-life batteries (witch means 5 to 8 years per battery in mean) are huge. Of course pushing refined oil around the world is not efficient either but such infra is already there, while no country in the world can recharge their potential EVs on scale nor we can produce them in sufficient numbers nor we know how to dispose of them. Costs should be computed in total, not just in the running part. Like cost of trains must take into account the construction of the train network, it's entertainment etc NOT just the energy the train use.
  - dangrossman 5y ago
    Where are you coming up with this stuff? Well-to-wheel, covering every single CO2 molecule involved in producing, transporting, burning and consuming ANY fossil fuel used for electricity production, electric cars are still more efficient and produce less emissions per mile. You could turn over the entire fleet of cars on US roads to electric today, and charging them would not pose a problem for the grid. Batteries do not reach end of life in 5-8 years. Every EV battery on the US market comes with a minimum of an 8 year 100K mile warranty, and they do not get disposed of the day the warranty ends. They have 10-20 years of usable life in a car, then another 10+ years as stationary storage with reduced capacity. When an EV gets totaled out, the batteries never ever go to a landfill, even 10+ year old ones, as they have so much usable life in them they're still worth thousands of dollars. For one point of reference, a 10 year old Nissan LEAF EV battery -- which were tiny compared to the batteries that come in new EVs today -- will still have more usable capacity in it than a brand new $11,000 Tesla Powerwall for whole-home battery backup and solar storage.
    - rootusrootus 5y ago
      > For one point of reference, a 10 year old Nissan LEAF EV battery -- which were tiny compared to the batteries that come in new EVs today -- will still have more usable capacity in it than a brand new $11,000 Tesla Powerwall for whole-home battery backup and solar storage. Before the pandemic sent used cars prices to the moon, there were people buying used Bolts (and probably Leafs, I imagine) to park them permanently just to use the battery capacity for their off-grid home. Apparently it was cost effective, and the Bolt wiring is pretty straightforward to work with.
    - kkfx 5y ago
      > Where are you coming up with this stuff? From the Real Life World®©™ instead of the advertised world. Did you ever have a lithium battery of any kind for more than 10 years? Try to look for real EV patterns: there is not much easy to access but actually daily used EV with a bit of mileage can't be used anymore, at the performance level the owner need after 5 years. Less used EV cease to be usable in around 8 years. After that sure, if you buy a Tesla just for weekly casual trip and have ICEs for daily use things change, you Tesla can potentially last even 15 years. Also sorry but NO statistic, at least not one public, cover the pollution of lithium mining since that happen in exotic and poor places. Almost no one these days want to publish against the Green New Deal, it's seen like a classic patriotic act by many, unfortunately if you are intellectually honest and really an environmentalist you should know that from advertisement and reality there is a big difference. 100k miles came quickly for anyone who use a car for real, in 4-5 years actually BTW, and while ICEs cars have formally equal guarantees in mileage terms, they can last issueless for around 200k miles, and with not marginal entertainment till 400k. EU commercial vans, bus, trucks are used normally for 2 million km and some last other two in third world countries. So please be intellectually honest. Even carmakers publicly declare that with actual chemistry it's impossible going electric on scale except marginal markets like the (in)famous "glorified golf cart" and few luxury car. If today all USA cars switch to BEV the USA electricity grid will collapse in few hours and can't recover even with continuous rolling blackouts for years, even here (France) with all NPP operational it will be impossible to recharge the actual ICE magically transformed to EV. That not counting the homes switching to heat pumps. Just to gives you a realistic dimension this month I've used form grid 151.2kWh and from solar 209.18kWh, in January 460kWh from grid, just 171 from solar, that's in a modern home super-insulated with heat pump heating/cooling/cooking etc. If I count consumed diesel in kWh (around 1000kWh/month), well, I need to triple my small plant. And of course I need two car per head to be used alternatively to recharge them. Now try the same basic calculation for someone who live in an apartment and do not WFH nor that near home. Just to dimension mere energy needs, not counting costs (in natural and economical terms, producing capacity in natural terms etc).
nicoburns 5y ago
Right, but there are no technological barriers to renewable electricity generation. Not only is it possible with current technology, it's already the cheapest way to generate electricity. The limits on adoption of renewables are all to do with storage.
- kkfx 5y ago
  I have a p.v. system at home, not the maximum power possible but enough for my needs. With an EV I'll have to spend around half the price of the new EV for augmenting my solar part of the mini-plant with a life expectancy of solar inverter around 10 years and for the car from 5 to 8 maximum. After that time car battery got buried somewhere in the third world since we actually have no recycling strategies and I can only recharge from renewable if I do not use the car much and one day yes another no since I produce electricity only during the day. That not counting the environmental damage provoked by mining for solar panels and batteries. Not counting the fact that we already have issues satisfying electricity demand without much EV on the roads. Sorry, I'm an environmentalist and an engineer, I know people like dreams, but I also know what we can have, so far the proposed new deal is simply a disaster. I've built my new house well insulated, with actual green standard, because that's a good and doable thing for those who can afford doing so and now I consume far less energy to heat/cool the house, that's good. If gas prices goes up a bit more I might benefit economically from an EV but that's not a green in environmental sense of green, that's dollar green. First we can't rebuild in a decade the 99% of existing buildings to lower energy consumption, it's good going fast in that direction, but we can reach that goal perhaps in a century, and "we" means in the western world only. That's do a good job for us, but it's only a part, even if big enough, of our energy needs. We have industry needs, transportation needs. For industry actual best option is nuclear (constant production per nearly constant demand in developed industrial systems) witch also work for ships, even if is hyper expensive. Some goods can probably be transported by intermittent rail service that move goods only when we have energy, but such commercial-only network is to be built and is a colossal and not flexible at all solution so probably not even worth the investments in environmental terms. The sole Green New Deal I see theoretically possible is with a mass genocide that kill a large slice of humanity in very short time. With that scarce resources would be less scarce and so we can probably last longer enough to evolve if the reduced number of humans suffice to produce technological advancements witch is a bit uncertain, morality aside. Not counting the little issue of dealing with billions of death in a short time span and resulting social and biological consequences. Really, try to imaging, to dimension a bit a possible new society and draw your conclusion, I've done that with what I know and that's what I conclude, I'm curious about others opinions. Remember in the game that even our small p.v. plant in modern houses are not born in the backyard and the supply chain and industry behind them need to been able to exists forever if we want to live with such model. Similarly EV does not born in our garage. Just to say I can produce around 25kWh/day in moderately good days, I use around 12kWh for my house in mean, try to design a recharge pattern for an EV. Extend the computation for actual population density and needs. Try to determine how much TWh we consume in gasoline for our cars and how much renewable we need just to recharge a hypothetical equivalent fleet of EVs. Do such basic and approximate math. Add to it, even if it's not needed, the energy we need for industry and for heating/cooling. Really try that instead of dreaming or swallowing advertisements like most do dreaming a miracle car with a solar roof that run autonomously as the owner wish.
Tagbert 5y ago
Multiple studies have shown that, even if an EV is charged from a power grid powered 100% by coal, it still produces about the same CO2 as a 50mpg ICE vehicle. Very few grids are that dirty and contain a mix of cleaner sources like natural gas, nuclear, wind, solar, and hydro. Each cleaner source you add reduce the CO2 output due to that EV. On a typical grid, it only takes about 12K miles to offset the additional energy needed to manufacture that EV.
- kkfx 5y ago
  Unfortunately those studies do not take into account the pollution and energy needed to create actual battery chemistry, just because that happen in the poorest area of the planet and the fact that actual batteries last from 5 years if used much to 8 if used softly, while ICE cars last more than double and materials in them are partially recycled. As I said: remember the TCO pollution, not just the journey. Oh, BTW CO₂ is a problem, but is not the only nor the worst pollutant, it was just chosen because people can't really embrace nor like complexity and is a thing we can reduce, so something useful for economist games, not for science.

by kkfx 5y ago

Remember that you also need to recharge the car. EV are called environmental friendly, in the sense "they pollute less than ICEs in their life" only if charging is done from renewables.

DubiousPusher 5y ago

I would guess that even charging an EV from a "dirty" power source is still better than an ICE, simply due to efficiencies of scale.

_0w8t 5y ago
Indeed efficiency of a modern ICE engine in a car is 25% max in ideal conditions, while a modern industrial turbine powered by natural gas can get 60%. In fact even with coal the amount of CO2 will be smaller per distance driven. The efficiency of the latest coal power stations is about 48%. With this and accounting for significant energy losses to refine gasoline from oil the electrical cars are already greener than gasoline or Diesel engines unless one use the energy from very old coal plants with low efficiency.
kkfx 5y ago
What efficiencies? Those who demand energivore and polluting oil, gas, coal extraction and processing to a moderately near power plant + the energy you loose in transport + the energy you loose in battery and relevant inverter and intermediate transformers of the energy grid? An electrical motor is very efficient, a battery system is moderately efficient and combined with all environmental costs to source needed materials, dispose of end-of-life batteries (witch means 5 to 8 years per battery in mean) are huge. Of course pushing refined oil around the world is not efficient either but such infra is already there, while no country in the world can recharge their potential EVs on scale nor we can produce them in sufficient numbers nor we know how to dispose of them. Costs should be computed in total, not just in the running part. Like cost of trains must take into account the construction of the train network, it's entertainment etc NOT just the energy the train use.
- dangrossman 5y ago
  Where are you coming up with this stuff? Well-to-wheel, covering every single CO2 molecule involved in producing, transporting, burning and consuming ANY fossil fuel used for electricity production, electric cars are still more efficient and produce less emissions per mile. You could turn over the entire fleet of cars on US roads to electric today, and charging them would not pose a problem for the grid. Batteries do not reach end of life in 5-8 years. Every EV battery on the US market comes with a minimum of an 8 year 100K mile warranty, and they do not get disposed of the day the warranty ends. They have 10-20 years of usable life in a car, then another 10+ years as stationary storage with reduced capacity. When an EV gets totaled out, the batteries never ever go to a landfill, even 10+ year old ones, as they have so much usable life in them they're still worth thousands of dollars. For one point of reference, a 10 year old Nissan LEAF EV battery -- which were tiny compared to the batteries that come in new EVs today -- will still have more usable capacity in it than a brand new $11,000 Tesla Powerwall for whole-home battery backup and solar storage.
  - rootusrootus 5y ago
    > For one point of reference, a 10 year old Nissan LEAF EV battery -- which were tiny compared to the batteries that come in new EVs today -- will still have more usable capacity in it than a brand new $11,000 Tesla Powerwall for whole-home battery backup and solar storage. Before the pandemic sent used cars prices to the moon, there were people buying used Bolts (and probably Leafs, I imagine) to park them permanently just to use the battery capacity for their off-grid home. Apparently it was cost effective, and the Bolt wiring is pretty straightforward to work with.
  - kkfx 5y ago
    > Where are you coming up with this stuff? From the Real Life World®©™ instead of the advertised world. Did you ever have a lithium battery of any kind for more than 10 years? Try to look for real EV patterns: there is not much easy to access but actually daily used EV with a bit of mileage can't be used anymore, at the performance level the owner need after 5 years. Less used EV cease to be usable in around 8 years. After that sure, if you buy a Tesla just for weekly casual trip and have ICEs for daily use things change, you Tesla can potentially last even 15 years. Also sorry but NO statistic, at least not one public, cover the pollution of lithium mining since that happen in exotic and poor places. Almost no one these days want to publish against the Green New Deal, it's seen like a classic patriotic act by many, unfortunately if you are intellectually honest and really an environmentalist you should know that from advertisement and reality there is a big difference. 100k miles came quickly for anyone who use a car for real, in 4-5 years actually BTW, and while ICEs cars have formally equal guarantees in mileage terms, they can last issueless for around 200k miles, and with not marginal entertainment till 400k. EU commercial vans, bus, trucks are used normally for 2 million km and some last other two in third world countries. So please be intellectually honest. Even carmakers publicly declare that with actual chemistry it's impossible going electric on scale except marginal markets like the (in)famous "glorified golf cart" and few luxury car. If today all USA cars switch to BEV the USA electricity grid will collapse in few hours and can't recover even with continuous rolling blackouts for years, even here (France) with all NPP operational it will be impossible to recharge the actual ICE magically transformed to EV. That not counting the homes switching to heat pumps. Just to gives you a realistic dimension this month I've used form grid 151.2kWh and from solar 209.18kWh, in January 460kWh from grid, just 171 from solar, that's in a modern home super-insulated with heat pump heating/cooling/cooking etc. If I count consumed diesel in kWh (around 1000kWh/month), well, I need to triple my small plant. And of course I need two car per head to be used alternatively to recharge them. Now try the same basic calculation for someone who live in an apartment and do not WFH nor that near home. Just to dimension mere energy needs, not counting costs (in natural and economical terms, producing capacity in natural terms etc).

nicoburns 5y ago

Right, but there are no technological barriers to renewable electricity generation. Not only is it possible with current technology, it's already the cheapest way to generate electricity. The limits on adoption of renewables are all to do with storage.

kkfx 5y ago
I have a p.v. system at home, not the maximum power possible but enough for my needs. With an EV I'll have to spend around half the price of the new EV for augmenting my solar part of the mini-plant with a life expectancy of solar inverter around 10 years and for the car from 5 to 8 maximum. After that time car battery got buried somewhere in the third world since we actually have no recycling strategies and I can only recharge from renewable if I do not use the car much and one day yes another no since I produce electricity only during the day. That not counting the environmental damage provoked by mining for solar panels and batteries. Not counting the fact that we already have issues satisfying electricity demand without much EV on the roads. Sorry, I'm an environmentalist and an engineer, I know people like dreams, but I also know what we can have, so far the proposed new deal is simply a disaster. I've built my new house well insulated, with actual green standard, because that's a good and doable thing for those who can afford doing so and now I consume far less energy to heat/cool the house, that's good. If gas prices goes up a bit more I might benefit economically from an EV but that's not a green in environmental sense of green, that's dollar green. First we can't rebuild in a decade the 99% of existing buildings to lower energy consumption, it's good going fast in that direction, but we can reach that goal perhaps in a century, and "we" means in the western world only. That's do a good job for us, but it's only a part, even if big enough, of our energy needs. We have industry needs, transportation needs. For industry actual best option is nuclear (constant production per nearly constant demand in developed industrial systems) witch also work for ships, even if is hyper expensive. Some goods can probably be transported by intermittent rail service that move goods only when we have energy, but such commercial-only network is to be built and is a colossal and not flexible at all solution so probably not even worth the investments in environmental terms. The sole Green New Deal I see theoretically possible is with a mass genocide that kill a large slice of humanity in very short time. With that scarce resources would be less scarce and so we can probably last longer enough to evolve if the reduced number of humans suffice to produce technological advancements witch is a bit uncertain, morality aside. Not counting the little issue of dealing with billions of death in a short time span and resulting social and biological consequences. Really, try to imaging, to dimension a bit a possible new society and draw your conclusion, I've done that with what I know and that's what I conclude, I'm curious about others opinions. Remember in the game that even our small p.v. plant in modern houses are not born in the backyard and the supply chain and industry behind them need to been able to exists forever if we want to live with such model. Similarly EV does not born in our garage. Just to say I can produce around 25kWh/day in moderately good days, I use around 12kWh for my house in mean, try to design a recharge pattern for an EV. Extend the computation for actual population density and needs. Try to determine how much TWh we consume in gasoline for our cars and how much renewable we need just to recharge a hypothetical equivalent fleet of EVs. Do such basic and approximate math. Add to it, even if it's not needed, the energy we need for industry and for heating/cooling. Really try that instead of dreaming or swallowing advertisements like most do dreaming a miracle car with a solar roof that run autonomously as the owner wish.

Tagbert 5y ago

Multiple studies have shown that, even if an EV is charged from a power grid powered 100% by coal, it still produces about the same CO2 as a 50mpg ICE vehicle. Very few grids are that dirty and contain a mix of cleaner sources like natural gas, nuclear, wind, solar, and hydro. Each cleaner source you add reduce the CO2 output due to that EV. On a typical grid, it only takes about 12K miles to offset the additional energy needed to manufacture that EV.

kkfx 5y ago
Unfortunately those studies do not take into account the pollution and energy needed to create actual battery chemistry, just because that happen in the poorest area of the planet and the fact that actual batteries last from 5 years if used much to 8 if used softly, while ICE cars last more than double and materials in them are partially recycled. As I said: remember the TCO pollution, not just the journey. Oh, BTW CO₂ is a problem, but is not the only nor the worst pollutant, it was just chosen because people can't really embrace nor like complexity and is a thing we can reduce, so something useful for economist games, not for science.