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Good thing EV work on magic fairy dust with electric chargers appearing out of nowhere. Too bad most EV proponents are oblivious to the fact that electricity is

Good thing EV work on magic fairy dust with electric chargers appearing out of nowhere. Too bad most EV proponents are oblivious to the fact that electricity is made with the same fairy dust powering the ICE cars.

ben_w 4y ago
Solar, wind, hydro, nuclear, tidal, and geothermal all power EVs, none of those power ICEs.
- incrudible 4y ago
  Batteries power EVs. Those batteries are charged with fossil energy a lot of the time, because renewables are too volatile to power a grid. The fuel that powers ICEs can be converted from electricity as well. This is an inefficient process, but it would put surplus renewable energy to some use.
  - ben_w 4y ago
    > because renewables are too volatile to power a grid. This isn't why. Batteries stabilise grids. If every car was an EV, the batteries in the vehicles would be sufficient to stabilise a completely wind/solar grid. Heck, put PV on car bodies and you get 80-90% of their average demand, and that's one of the worst places to put PV. Also, geothermal is not at all volatile, tidal is regular enough for a smaller storage requirement, hydro doubles as storage, and even with PV and wind larger grids are always less volatile and yes you can go global on paper. No, the reason why grids aren't already renewable is that it takes time to build new infrastructure, combined with renewables only getting cheap enough to seriously consider that anywhere in the last two decades, and in most places in the last one decade.
    - AstralStorm 4y ago
      Unfortunate fact is that battery charging tends to halfway overlap with hours you would want to drain the cars a bit. People want their vehicles predictably usable, which is why any idea dependent on using car batteries as actual power smoothing will fail.
      - ben_w 4y ago
        Most people don't drive enough miles per day to drain batteries even close to 100%, so that isn't a critical issue. This is why car-mounted PV is being demonstrated, even though for normal-looking cars that PV will only add 10-20 miles range per day on batteries of 100-200 miles — those extra miles are 80-90% of the average vehicle's daily milage. Also, as batteries can be charged wherever and whenever there is electricity, we can simply install PV enough for the daylight hours to produce the energy desired for both daylight and twilight/nighttime and then just charge daytime and discharge nighttime even though it's probably the other way around wherever you are because currently demand is generally lower relative to supply at night and therefore the electricity is generally cheaper at night. And the same batteries can easily be given a second life, after degrading too much for car use and before refurbishment/recycling to make them suitable for car use again, as fixed batteries. And again, this is just presuming only PV, not wind which reduces the variance in supply, and not any of the other things I listed which don't get affected by weather at all.
        theshrike79 4y ago
        > And the same batteries can easily be given a second life, after degrading too much for car use and before refurbishment/recycling to make them suitable for car use again, as fixed batteries. This is the thing people tend to forget. Even if a battery is "useless" for an EV, meaning that it has degraded to 60-70%, it still has 25-50kWh of usable capacity as-is. And that's enough to run a house for 12-48 hours depending on how power-hungry your appliances are.
- ekianjo 4y ago
  Remind me the percentage of electricity production?
  - ben_w 4y ago
    Varies by country and is a moving target, especially given the context of the link.
quonn 4y ago
Everyone I know with an electric car has photovoltaic on the roof. I will soon get it, for around 150 Euros per month. And even if it wouldn‘t be like that, the fuel would be burned more efficiently in a plant and combined with renewables.
- ekianjo 4y ago
  > photovoltaic In california maybe ? In many areas the energy you get form the sun during the year is spotty at best.
  - ben_w 4y ago
    I know California has a reputation for being unlike the rest of America, but I’m fairly sure they don’t use Euros. As even the best places in Europe are worse for PV than almost everywhere in CA, and yet PV is working adequately even in bits of Europe as rubbish as the UK (which is more like southern Alaska), the meme that PV is “just for California” needs to go the way of the dodo: https://solargis.com/maps-and-gis-data/download/world https://solargis.com/maps-and-gis-data/download/world
    - ekianjo 4y ago
      efficiency drops significantly even they perform "ok" which is not the case for nuclear for example.
      - ben_w 4y ago
        I don't know what point you're trying to make here. The efficiency with regard to what? Joules out per unit of currency in? Joules of electricity out per joules of sunlight in? PV is great at those even in the dark moist British Isles, which are about as bad as southern Alaska. Nuclear however, is really expensive. Situationally useful, but really expensive — So expensive in fact that it's about the same as using dedicated batteries (rather than hydroelectric or hydrogen or refurbished batteries) to support PV when it's too dark.
theshrike79 4y ago
We can generate electricity in a dozen different ways. Some of the sources are practically unlimited. Some pollute more than others. But as we transition to less polluting electricity generation methods ALL existing EVs magically become less polluting. There is only one power source for ICE cars: dead dinosaurs. The source will run out eventually. All ICEs pollute the same amount during their lifetime, usually more the older they get because of wear and tear and lack of maintenance.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  Alcohol is rather easily created. All kinds of synthetic fuels can be, well, synthesized. The reason we just pump it out of the ground is it's cheaper.
  - theshrike79 4y ago
    Most synthetic fuels require 4-5 times more electricity to create than just charging an EV battery. Unless someone makes huge leaps in the process, that's really not an option.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      It's an option when "The source will run out eventually" which is what I replied to. Synthetic fuels were used in WW2 by the Germans.
- AstralStorm 4y ago
  Heck, natural gas is easily enough made given plenty of electricity. Power-to-gas is a thing that is deployed already. CNG cars, as well. Unfortunately it's at best a half measure.

ben_w 4y ago

Solar, wind, hydro, nuclear, tidal, and geothermal all power EVs, none of those power ICEs.

incrudible 4y ago
Batteries power EVs. Those batteries are charged with fossil energy a lot of the time, because renewables are too volatile to power a grid. The fuel that powers ICEs can be converted from electricity as well. This is an inefficient process, but it would put surplus renewable energy to some use.
- ben_w 4y ago
  > because renewables are too volatile to power a grid. This isn't why. Batteries stabilise grids. If every car was an EV, the batteries in the vehicles would be sufficient to stabilise a completely wind/solar grid. Heck, put PV on car bodies and you get 80-90% of their average demand, and that's one of the worst places to put PV. Also, geothermal is not at all volatile, tidal is regular enough for a smaller storage requirement, hydro doubles as storage, and even with PV and wind larger grids are always less volatile and yes you can go global on paper. No, the reason why grids aren't already renewable is that it takes time to build new infrastructure, combined with renewables only getting cheap enough to seriously consider that anywhere in the last two decades, and in most places in the last one decade.
  - AstralStorm 4y ago
    Unfortunate fact is that battery charging tends to halfway overlap with hours you would want to drain the cars a bit. People want their vehicles predictably usable, which is why any idea dependent on using car batteries as actual power smoothing will fail.
    - ben_w 4y ago
      Most people don't drive enough miles per day to drain batteries even close to 100%, so that isn't a critical issue. This is why car-mounted PV is being demonstrated, even though for normal-looking cars that PV will only add 10-20 miles range per day on batteries of 100-200 miles — those extra miles are 80-90% of the average vehicle's daily milage. Also, as batteries can be charged wherever and whenever there is electricity, we can simply install PV enough for the daylight hours to produce the energy desired for both daylight and twilight/nighttime and then just charge daytime and discharge nighttime even though it's probably the other way around wherever you are because currently demand is generally lower relative to supply at night and therefore the electricity is generally cheaper at night. And the same batteries can easily be given a second life, after degrading too much for car use and before refurbishment/recycling to make them suitable for car use again, as fixed batteries. And again, this is just presuming only PV, not wind which reduces the variance in supply, and not any of the other things I listed which don't get affected by weather at all.
      - theshrike79 4y ago
        > And the same batteries can easily be given a second life, after degrading too much for car use and before refurbishment/recycling to make them suitable for car use again, as fixed batteries. This is the thing people tend to forget. Even if a battery is "useless" for an EV, meaning that it has degraded to 60-70%, it still has 25-50kWh of usable capacity as-is. And that's enough to run a house for 12-48 hours depending on how power-hungry your appliances are.
ekianjo 4y ago
Remind me the percentage of electricity production?
- ben_w 4y ago
  Varies by country and is a moving target, especially given the context of the link.

quonn 4y ago

Everyone I know with an electric car has photovoltaic on the roof. I will soon get it, for around 150 Euros per month. And even if it wouldn‘t be like that, the fuel would be burned more efficiently in a plant and combined with renewables.

ekianjo 4y ago
> photovoltaic In california maybe ? In many areas the energy you get form the sun during the year is spotty at best.
- ben_w 4y ago
  I know California has a reputation for being unlike the rest of America, but I’m fairly sure they don’t use Euros. As even the best places in Europe are worse for PV than almost everywhere in CA, and yet PV is working adequately even in bits of Europe as rubbish as the UK (which is more like southern Alaska), the meme that PV is “just for California” needs to go the way of the dodo: https://solargis.com/maps-and-gis-data/download/world https://solargis.com/maps-and-gis-data/download/world
  - ekianjo 4y ago
    efficiency drops significantly even they perform "ok" which is not the case for nuclear for example.
    - ben_w 4y ago
      I don't know what point you're trying to make here. The efficiency with regard to what? Joules out per unit of currency in? Joules of electricity out per joules of sunlight in? PV is great at those even in the dark moist British Isles, which are about as bad as southern Alaska. Nuclear however, is really expensive. Situationally useful, but really expensive — So expensive in fact that it's about the same as using dedicated batteries (rather than hydroelectric or hydrogen or refurbished batteries) to support PV when it's too dark.

theshrike79 4y ago

We can generate electricity in a dozen different ways. Some of the sources are practically unlimited. Some pollute more than others. But as we transition to less polluting electricity generation methods ALL existing EVs magically become less polluting. There is only one power source for ICE cars: dead dinosaurs. The source will run out eventually. All ICEs pollute the same amount during their lifetime, usually more the older they get because of wear and tear and lack of maintenance.

WalterBright 4y ago
Alcohol is rather easily created. All kinds of synthetic fuels can be, well, synthesized. The reason we just pump it out of the ground is it's cheaper.
- theshrike79 4y ago
  Most synthetic fuels require 4-5 times more electricity to create than just charging an EV battery. Unless someone makes huge leaps in the process, that's really not an option.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    It's an option when "The source will run out eventually" which is what I replied to. Synthetic fuels were used in WW2 by the Germans.
AstralStorm 4y ago
Heck, natural gas is easily enough made given plenty of electricity. Power-to-gas is a thing that is deployed already. CNG cars, as well. Unfortunately it's at best a half measure.