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Student,
An EV can use the (otherwise wasted) extra energy that can be available at night. I am not sure what would be the effect on your calculations, which on for the rest I find fairly accurate.
Second point, never forget: today we are poisoning our urban areas, were most people live and die. Displacing all the pollution and effectively trapping most deadly pollutants would turn into millions of year man and health expenses saved. Greenhouse gases are not necessarily a poison, but all the pollutants coming out of ICEs are.

Basic,

Thanks!

"An EV can use the (otherwise wasted) extra energy that can be available at night."

I refer you to my above quote from Bramble in post #61.

As electricity generation is the largest source of GHG, I entirely understand the desire to reduce the emissions related to the generation of electricity. But any effect such hoped for improvements has on emissions won't occur until the massive necessary investment is made.

Until then, EVs don't present any emissions advantage over diesels. They just move the emissions to the poor areas where the plants are located.

seslaprime wrote:

student wrote:

According to a study by Envronmental Science and Technology, the Average lifecycle emissions are actually "670 g CO2-eq/kWh" electricity in the "U.S. avg. scenario" (ref35)

Thats higher than the 612g CO2/kWh I used. Hmmmmm... Looks like you're gonna have a hard time backing THAT argument up Seslaprime.

I do not care to back anything up. because "it does not matter". your argument is completely irrelevent. it will not effect the fact that the EV is the best alternative to the ICE. the Auto manufacturer's, you know, the guys who decide what you will be driving in the future? tend to agree with me. so enjoy.

Looks to me like the mainstream view from the auto manufacturers is Hybrid and Range-extender, not BEV.

Good analysis Student : places Tesla-like EVs as *decent* alternatives to the average car for reducing GHGs, but not the *ONLY* alternative and generally not the *BEST* alternative.

After seeing what Range-Extenders have done in buses (30% reduction in fuel use and emissions - link), I am looking forward to seeing what the Volt, Audi A1 e-tron, etc will be able to do.

It's certain that they will be able to outperform Telsa-like EVs in every area (except 0-60 time), based on the figures in the OP.

Student,
The point about grid leveling is that it creates inefficiencies. I mean: you can of course reduce and/or switch off power generation, but it takes time (minutes ? hours ?) and also implies that the power plant runs at lower efficiency. EVs recharging at night will, on my opinion, provide an inherent "freewheel" that would lead to a better overall efficiency.

About pollutants: cars are moving around in the most crowded areas, that's obvious. In each car there is a fairly sophisticated and expensive antipollution system, which most of the times doesn't work properly and it's very difficult to be kept under control.

Power plants are usually placed well distant from urban areas.
Its antipollution system is comparably much more efficient, cheaper and easy to monitor than the thousands or millions of equivalent systems that would have to be installed in each single ICE to be replaced by EVs.
Thus replacing ICEs with EVs and improving the exhaust filtering of the existing power plants would be a much better investment for our pockets and our healt when it comes to pollution control, on my opinion.

seslaprime wrote:

the problem is that you are showing data that is only good if the electricity used is from a coal or fuel fired power plant. Plus, you apply this data like the EV itself actually emits these hydrocarbons. and completely disregard all other benefits of the EV.

No! Don't let "Student" set the rules for the debate here, Seslaprime.

You can easily demonstrate that charging an EV creates *no* significant amount of pollution, even when powered 100% by coal-- so long as you charge at night or on the weekend. The reason is this: Coal-fired plants are "baseline" power plants, with the boilers run at a constant temperature day and night, regardless of the demand on the grid. Therefore, the coal-fired plant will put out precisely the same amount of pollution regardless of whether people are charging their EVs or not!

So, when Tec and "Student" and Oakthicket keep harping on how dirty and inefficient coal-fired power plants are, just smile and say "Thanks for supporting the pro-EV argument, dude!"

Last edited Wed, 05 May 2010, 11:38am by Lensman

Student, there is a problem though with your numbers (beyond others that have been said) - you are comparing to high end diesel. Guess what - nobody drives those here in the US!! Diesel cars are very rare. Trying to get americans to start driving diesel would be similiar to trying to get them to start driving EV's. So its not a question of diesel versus EV, its a question of ICE vs Diesel or ICE versus EV. But since we already drive ICE's Americans just are unlikely to want to switch to diesel. I think its more likely they would either stay with gas ICE or switch to EV's. And to belabor the point, my electricity is also mostly hydro, solar, wind, some nuclear and some gas turbine. Not what your numbers say. We are suppose to get a huge solar plant in a year just 5 miles ouside the city. Single point pollution control is always easier than tailpipe. Of course, in this case, there will be none to control. Sweet.

student wrote:

jimbobway wrote:

So you're saying the Teslas have a bigger carbon footprint than cars such as the Jetta?

Using electricity off the current U.S. grid, the Roadster emits the above emissions.

I didn't take the time to read your immense long post, but in respect of CO2 emissions here in Germany an electric driven Smart is just 10% better than the diesel driven Smart, if the electric cars uses grid electricity. Germany's electric grid has 16% renewable energy.

The government plan is to have a 25% share of renewable energy by 2020, and 50% by 2050. Without changing the electric Smart, it get's better and better each year.

But the best thing with electric cars is that the owner can decide by himself, how much CO2 is emitted by his car. A one-time investment of just 1.100 € (about 1.500 US$) in a windfarm project secures the total energy consumption of the electric car over it's full life time. Without any CO2.

X_V_Z: in Europe, nobody were used to Diesel cars until the '73 oil crisis.
After that, in ten years the revolution has completed: hundreds of new diesel models, performances constantly improving, tens of millions of diesel car solds.
Today, about 50% of the cars sold are diesel, but do take into account that the city cars are a big segment in Europe, and due the low average mileage they are usually gas, not diesel.
In US, the city cars segment is negligible thus there is potential for even higher share for diesels.

Basic - A good point but in Europe, what is the cost difference between gas and diesel?

In CA at last I noticed, diesel was about 16% more expensive. so any increased gas milieage from diesel could be lost in the cost per gallon to buy it. From a CA perspective EV's make more sense. Time well tell.

Lensman wrote:

You can easily demonstrate that charging an EV creates *no* significant amount of pollution, even when powered 100% by coal-- so long as you charge at night or on the weekend. The reason is this: Coal-fired plants are "baseline" power plants, with the boilers run at a constant temperature day and night, regardless of the demand on the grid. Therefore, the coal-fired plant will put out precisely the same amount of pollution regardless of whether people are charging their EVs or not!

Every power grid system operator in Canada and the U.S. has a stacking order for which plants run and which ones don't. The stacking order is primarily based on economics, the ability to ramp/start/stop and geographic location.

The stacking order shows specific generating plants. Generation types are usually in the following order. The top of the list is generation that runs baseload or will always put power to the grid if available.

1. Nuclear
2. Wind/Solar
3. Hydro -run of the river
4. Coal
5. Hydro -dammed
6. Natural Gas
7. Oil

There are slight variations if there is biomass, Orimulsion, tidal generation but the above list is typical.

Coal is middle of the pack. Coal plants can be base load depending on the generation mix. They can also cycle. They run high load during the day and low load at night. System operators won't willingly shut down coal plants because of the time it takes to start them up. They are less reluctant to ramp them.

Swing loads are usually taken up by natural gas plants. Many plants will shut down at night and run during the day.

Natural gas and hydro usually provide the spinning reserve to deal with grid bumps.

Dammed hydro ranking is location specific. Economics may rank it higher than coal for base load, but easier ability to store water and ramp rate may put dammed hydro lower in the ranking.

You're wrong Lensman, as usual.

Oakthicket wrote:

Every power grid system operator in Canada and the U.S. has a stacking order for which plants run and which ones don't. <snip>

The stacking order shows specific generating plants.
<snip>

Coal is middle of the pack. Coal plants can be base load depending on the generation mix. They can also cycle. They run high load during the day and low load at night. System operators won't willingly shut down coal plants because of the time it takes to start them up. They are less reluctant to ramp them.

Thanks for confirming what I said. But you seem to be confused on one point: "Load" refers to how much electricity a plant is feeding to the grid, not how much power it's producing from its boilers. At night, much of a coal plant's power is taken offline. But it keeps burning coal, and producing pollution, just the same. This is why charging even a significant number of EVs won't increase the pollution in the slightest, so long as we're talking about the types of plants that are run at a constant rate day and night.

Of course, not all power plants are run that way. But "Student's" entire argument is based on the *average*, and it's certainly true that on *average*, charging an EV at night or on the weekend will have relatively little impact on the output of pollution by power plants. Certainly much, *much* less than he claims, and not just because of his cherry-picking of figures.

Oakthicket wrote:

You're wrong Lensman, as usual.

Nope. Your *conclusion* is wrong, as usual.

X_Y_Z
In Europe, diesel fuel used to be MUCH cheaper than gasoline, but now the difference is very small (with differences from country to country).
You are right in US Diesel is more expensive than gas but I'm not sure why it is so.
I believed the actual production cost of the Diesel fuel is similar if not lower than the one of gasoline, or not ?

Taxes? I don't know, I do know it hurt truckers and driven food costs up the last few years. A few years back during the spike it drove or nearly drove many truckers out of buisness. Years back it was cheaper than reg gas here too, but not now.

Lensman wrote:

Thanks for confirming what I said. But you seem to be confused on one point: "Load" refers to how much electricity a plant is feeding to the grid, not how much power it's producing from its boilers. At night, much of a coal plant's power is taken offline. But it keeps burning coal, and producing pollution, just the same. This is why charging even a significant number of EVs won't increase the pollution in the slightest, so long as we're talking about the types of plants that are run at a constant rate day and night.

Ummm... so you're saying that coal plants run the same at at night as during the day but not producing as much power. Presumably the steam that would normally go to the turbines is just vented.

There are several operating scenarios for a coal plant. This is not one of them.

So you put coal to the plant to generate steam that you vent. That's patently ridiculous. Reduce the amount of coal, produce less steam, generate power from that steam all of which goes to the power grid.

You're so funny sometimes. You pick up pieces of information and cobble them together into a mismatched mosaic full of holes.

Basic wrote:

I believed the actual production cost of the Diesel fuel is similar if not lower than the one of gasoline, or not ?

The costs are indeed very similar. There are differences that make gasoline production a bit more costly but they are minor.

X_Y_Z wrote:

Taxes? I don't know, I do know it hurt truckers and driven food costs up the last few years. A few years back during the spike it drove or nearly drove many truckers out of buisness. Years back it was cheaper than reg gas here too, but not now.

Cheaper as in $/mile or as in $/gallon?

I think the price at the pump is 3.09 for unleaded reg and 3.49 for diesel. so you can work the number to figure out what mpg is the same with the cost added in.

Years back it was actually cheaper per gallon than reg unleaded but hasn't been for awhile.

Basic wrote:

...in US Diesel is more expensive than gas but I'm not sure why it is so.

Oakthicket wrote:

So you put coal to the plant to generate steam that you vent. That's patently ridiculous. Reduce the amount of coal, produce less steam, generate power from that steam all of which goes to the power grid.

Wrong as usual, dude. I didn't say anywhere that coal-fired plants vent the steam when they're taken offline. You need to learn more about how coal-fired plants work. You don't have an informed opinion, and furthermore you're incapable of recognizing it when someone else *does* have an informed opinion.

Oakthicket wrote:

You're so funny sometimes. You pick up pieces of information and cobble them together into a mismatched mosaic full of holes.

Look in the mirror when you say that, dude!

Anyone here can easily learn more than Oakthicket knows about power plants by reading a couple of Wikipedia articles. In fact, you only need to read this much:

The time that a peaker plant operates may be many hours a day or as little as a few hours per year, depending on the condition of the region's electrical grid. It is expensive to build an efficient power plant, so if a peaker plant is only going to be run for a short or highly variable time, it does not make economic sense to make it as efficient as a base load power plant. In addition, the equipment and fuels used in base load plants are often unsuitable for use in peaker plants because the fluctuating conditions would severely strain the equipment. For these reasons, nuclear, geothermal, waste-to-energy, coal, biomass and electrochemical energy storage systems are rarely, if ever, operated as peaker plants.

<snip>

The opposite of a peaking plant are base load power plants, which operate continuously, stopping only for maintenance or unexpected outages. Intermediate load following power plants operate between these extremes, curtailing their output in periods of low demand, such as during the night. Base load and intermediate plants are used preferentially to meet electrical demand because the lower efficiencies of peaker plants make them more expensive to operate.

Of course, reading a couple of Wikipedia articles won't make you an expert, and I encourage you to read other articles elsewhere on the subject. But one doesn't need to be an expert to see the fallacies in the arguments of diesel-heads like "Student", Oakthicket and Tec!

You talk in riddles Lensman. I know how power plants work, including coal. Unlike you, I've actually seen them run.

So tell me, if the coal generating plant runs at night, using the same amount of coal, producing the same amount of pollution, but producing less power, where does the extra energy go?

Of course, you got yourself into another mess. You don't know the difference between a peaking plant, a cycling plant and a baseload plant. A peaking plant actually shuts down. A cycling plant reduces load. Coal is rarely used as a peaker because, like I said in my previous post, it takes too long to start up again. Coal generation is often used in cycling service.

I know you're too dumb to feel dumb, but your lack of knowledge is incredible in juxtaposition to the drivel you spew.

If you're going to read Wiki, you're still going to need some fundamental knowledge to understand what you are reading.

Lensman wrote:

I didn't say anywhere that coal-fired plants vent the steam when they're taken offline.

Lol. What kind of gibberish is this? Is the coal plant running baseload, part-load or offline at night when you say it produces the same amount of pollution?

For the same amount of pollution, it would have to be baseload, which I`ve already shown often doesn`t apply.

At part load or offline, the coal-fired plant produces less or no pollution. (I know this is basic stuff, but you really do appear to be clueless).

student wrote:

An important task for grid control is to keep the frequency near to constant and the total frequency count exact over the day. This is achieved by loading and unloading generators and/or bringing generators on or taking them off line.

That's right-- the generators are brought online or taken offline as needed. But base load power plants-- including the *majority* of coal-fired plants-- are run at a constant speed, regardless of how few or how many of their generators are online at any time.

student wrote:

Therefore at the "end of the day" the energy book-keeping is exact. Energy generated less transmission loss is equal to energy consumed.

Wrong.

The energy provided to the grid is equal to the energy consumed. But the energy generated by all power plants is *greater* than that provided to the grid, because many generators are run at a constant speed even if they're offline.

By charging at night, EV owners can use some of the otherwise unused power generated by the base load power plants. And that's one of *several* reasons that Student's claims in this thread are *completely* untrue.

Oakthicket wrote:

So tell me, if the coal generating plant runs at night, using the same amount of coal, producing the same amount of pollution, but producing less power, where does the extra energy go?

You mean, you don't know? Yet you expect us to *believe* you've seen them run?

You're pwned, Oakhead! From this day forth, you'll be known as the "hexpert" (to use your own pejorative) who thinks coal-fired power plants are taken offline by venting the steam!

Seems a reasonable question to me Lensman.

Why don't you try answering it instead of copying juvenile animations into the forum?

Lol. You're a twit. How about answering how a coal plant can generate the same amount of pollution without running baseload?

You can't because you pulled that out of your ass. (:->) You realize that and are trying to deflect and avoid the argument because you made yourself look stupid.

You're a laughing stock, and have too much vanity to admit it. I'm sitting here just laughing at you.

Oh, and yes... when a coal plant shuts down the boilers are cut back, steam production cuts back, the steam turbines cut back. Once steam pressure is too low, the turbines are shut off and the steam is vented. This is a transitory phase as the boilers cool down.

Awww man. I'm still laughing at you. (:->) You're such a twit, but you sure can be funny at times.

Oakthicket wrote:

Lol. You're a twit. How about answering how a coal plant can generate the same amount of pollution without running baseload?

You can't because you pulled that out of your ass. (:->) You realize that and are trying to deflect and avoid the argument because you made yourself look stupid.

You're a laughing stock, and have too much vanity to admit it. I'm sitting here just laughing at you.

Oh, and yes... when a coal plant shuts down the boilers are cut back, steam production cuts back, the steam turbines cut back. Once steam pressure is too low, the turbines are shut off and the steam is vented. This is a transitory phase as the boilers cool down.

Awww man. I'm still laughing at you. (:->) You're such a twit, but you sure can be funny at times.

You know, Oakhead, *most* people realize when they've been pwned that the best thing to do is to shut up. But if you wish to continue to expose your ignorance here, far be it from me to stop you!

Tell us again, Oakhead, how coal-fired plants take their generators offline by venting steam.

Here's a hint, Oakhead, since you seem to be incapable of Googling the answer for yourself: "Taking the generator offline" is not equivalent to "shutting the power plant down".

Poor Oakthicket, pwned twice within an hour!

Anybody in there, Lensman? Knock, knock. Is your tongue in a wringer and your brain in neutral?

How does a coal-fired power plant generate the same pollution if it's not running baseload?

chalk up one more thing that Lensman doesn't know.

How about another example. Your common backyard generator runs at constant speed. However the fuel used to maintain that constant speed varies based on the load put on the generator. Make sense? Coal plants work the same way. more fuel based on more load.

student wrote:

Geofree wrote:

student wrote:

bEElzebub wrote:

student, I hate the AGW argumentations and always did. It is based on assumptions and exaggerations. Their solutions are reactionary, stupid and directly impossible. But when it comes to EVs it is just a matter of time. Not because of AGW, that might only speed it up a bit, but because everything is better with an EV compared to an ICEV. Electric engines are superior in every aspects compared to a ICE and that is solely the only true argument why the ICEV park will be be replaced by EVs. It is only a matter of time.

I like the ideal imaginary EV some here dream of. Until it is a reality I don't even have the option of purchasing one.

Comparing todays diesels with todays EVs and you find they emit very similar amounts of lifecycle emissions. I posted this thread to point out there is no emissions advantage for EVs until the U.S. actually changes major portions of electricity generation to renewables. Until that very expensive day has passed, EVs present no emissions advantage.

Nonsense. Regardless if you have an EV or not, the power plants are still running the same. There for you only decreased the use of gasoline when you use an EV. The power plants are still doing what they are doing.

As I understand it, it is not good for plants to put more energy on the grid than is used. They produce more energy when more is demanded and thus emit more GHG when you plug in your EV.

Geofree wrote:

Buy an EV for the safety of America! Stop supporting terrorist, like China wants us to do :)

Biodiesel can be American made. ;-)

NO Diesel--NO gasoline, it feeds the terrorist :) We don't want to feed the terrorist!!! Every electric car helps stop terrorism!!!

So buy electric cars and get rid of the ist and the ism :)

BTW, we have lots of extra power, with no manufacturing base since it moved elsewhere in the world. We could thank China for the surplus power.

Lensman seems to think that they keep the boilers fed at full capacity regardless of the generation requirement.

In the same way that you keep your oven on 24x7 regardless of your cooking needs. Not.

He also seems to think that when the steam is not being used to drive the turbines, it stays in the system rather than being vented to maintain system pressure.