In the US, Life Cycle Emissions For EVs Are Already 60-68% Lower Than Gasoline, Study Finds (arstechnica.com) 288
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Today in the US market, a medium-sized battery EV already has 60-68 percent lower lifetime carbon emissions than a comparable car with an internal combustion engine. And the gap is only going to increase as we use more renewable electricity. That finding comes from a white paper (PDF) published by Georg Bieker at the International Council on Clean Transportation. The comprehensive study compares the lifetime carbon emissions, both today and in 2030, of midsized vehicles in Europe, the US, China, and India, across a wide range of powertrain types, including gasoline, diesel, hybrid EVs (HEVs), plug-in hybrid EVs (PHEVs), battery EVs (BEVs), and fuel cell EVs (FCEVs).
The study takes into account the carbon emissions that result from the various fuels (fossil fuels, biofuels, electricity, hydrogen, and e-fuels), as well as the emissions that result from manufacturing and then recycling or disposing of vehicles and their various components. Bieker has also factored in real-world fuel or energy consumption -- something that is especially important when it comes to PHEVs, according to the report. Finally, the study accounts for the fact that energy production should become less carbon-intensive over time, based on stated government objectives. The life cycle emissions of battery EVs in Europe today at 66-69 percent lower than a comparable gasoline-powered car. China is at 37-45 percent fewer emissions for BEVs, and India shows 19-34 percent.
As for fuel cell EVs (FCEVs), they "are only abut 26-40 percent less carbon-intensive than a comparable gasoline vehicle," notes Ars. "But if hydrogen was produced using renewable energy rather than steam reformation of natural gas, that number would jump to 76-80 percent -- even better than a BEV's numbers."
The study takes into account the carbon emissions that result from the various fuels (fossil fuels, biofuels, electricity, hydrogen, and e-fuels), as well as the emissions that result from manufacturing and then recycling or disposing of vehicles and their various components. Bieker has also factored in real-world fuel or energy consumption -- something that is especially important when it comes to PHEVs, according to the report. Finally, the study accounts for the fact that energy production should become less carbon-intensive over time, based on stated government objectives. The life cycle emissions of battery EVs in Europe today at 66-69 percent lower than a comparable gasoline-powered car. China is at 37-45 percent fewer emissions for BEVs, and India shows 19-34 percent.
As for fuel cell EVs (FCEVs), they "are only abut 26-40 percent less carbon-intensive than a comparable gasoline vehicle," notes Ars. "But if hydrogen was produced using renewable energy rather than steam reformation of natural gas, that number would jump to 76-80 percent -- even better than a BEV's numbers."
Only gets better (Score:5, Insightful)
As times goes by and each of the processes for constructing an EV reduces it's pollution, making EVs will pollute even less. As our electrical grid shifts to cleaner and renewable sources then charging EVs will cause less pollution.
If we want to speed up that process then we need a pollution tax to force companies to either be better of cough up the cash needed to clean up their mess.
Re: Only gets better (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, battery EVs are like Mr Fusion. They'll run on literally any power source we can invent.
They're the perfect apocalypse vehicle. Have a stream? Recharge from a water wheel. Have wind? Power from a windmill. Have solar? Power from solar. Have a gas generator? Power from the generator? Have wood chips? Power from wood chips.
Not quite as clean and compact as Mr. Fusion on back to the future but with the necessary generator it accomplishes the same thing.
Depends (Score:2)
They're the perfect apocalypse vehicle.
That depends a lot on the apocalypse. According to Hollywood's instructional material, using your fuel to make Molotov cocktails is quite effective against zombies. I do not think throwing a battery at them will be quite as good, well unless perhaps it's one of Samsung's.
Re:Depends (Score:4, Funny)
In the case of an apocalypse we're likely going back to more primitive batteries which can be constructed with the materials at hand, making Lithium based batteries an relic of the past. Those more primitive batteries mainly used caustic things like acids as their electrolyte. Your regular car battery for example uses sulfuric acid.
Now the question that remains is how vulnerable zombies are to acid. If they're anything like the common Forgotten Realms troll, they can be destroyed by both fire and acid.
Re:Depends (Score:5, Funny)
I do not think throwing a battery at them will be quite as good, well unless perhaps it's one of Samsung's.
That's a pretty sick burn.
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I don't know what zombie movies you watch, but fire seems like the worst weapon to use.
Fire kills people mostly through asphyxiation, followed by redistribution of fluids in the body (hematomas and blistering). Zombies are already dead so they can't suffocate or bleed to death, at least in most versions.
Fire stops humans due to excruciating and debilitating pain, but it's not clear if pain is something zombies experience at all, let along to the point of debilitation.
*Eventually* the fire will cook the fle
Re:Current Brown Outs (Score:5, Insightful)
Lucky for you, the majority of electric car recharging already happens at night!
Vehicle to Grid (Score:2)
Developed countries don't experience brown outs (Score:5, Informative)
Developed countries don't experience brown outs, you must be in the US.
Without snark, the grid in Germany could easily support most ICE vehicles switching to BEV because this will not happen over night (sadly) but most of the charging will happen at night and it will just have to refill the few kWh that are used for a few kilometers per day on average.
The average car in Germany drives less than 40km/day. (*1)
A Tesla needs about 20kWh/100km, so it needs about (20/100*40)= 4 kWh per day. (*2)
4KWh is about what a regular (non-heatpumped) tumbler needs for one load.
That can easily be recharged over night, with a regular power plug, without breaking the grid in residential areas, especially since we'll unfortunately need decades to get there.
*1 https://www.kba.de/DE/Statisti... [www.kba.de]
*2 Really, what, that's so crazy effective (or tumblers so ineffective), I can't see a mistake.
1 Wh warms 1L of water by about 1 Kelvin, so this energy is what's needed to cook 50L of water from room temperature!)
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With the increase in severe weather events, the chances of power failures even in places that rarely experience them will increase in a direct relationship to the weather events.
One power line going down and you could be without power for hours... days... weeks even.
V2H is one solution, home battery systems are another.
Get enough home storage and generation and give your power company the finger.
Re:Current Brown Outs Are Controlled Collapse (Score:5, Informative)
Especially when the Barry Odingo administration killed all the coal plants
More coal companies went bankrupt under the Trump Administration than the Obama Administration.
Mr. “I alone can fix it” averaged over 1 coal company bankruptcy per quarter while president. He did not save coal [morningjournalnews.com] as he promised.
1) Armstrong Energy
2) Mississippi Minerals
3) Westmoreland Coal
4) Mission Coal
5) Trinity Coal
6) Piney Woods Resources
7) Cloud Peak
8) Cambrian Coal LLC
9) Revelation Energy LLC
10) Blackjewel LLC
11) Blackhawk Mining
12) Murray Energy
13) Hartshorne Mining Group
14) Foresight Energy
15) Rhino Resource
16) FM Coal LLC
17) White Stallion Energy LLC
18) Lighthouse Resources Inc
Re: Only gets better (Score:5, Insightful)
The hilarious thing about your comment is that you're oblivious to the significant interest in developing EVs for mining from both mining companies and companies like Caterpillar, because of the ability to reduce carbon footprint (which they would all like to announce progress on) and because the reduction in noise and elimination of tailpipe emissions will substantially improve the safety of mining operations. There are also significant potential savings from reduced fuel and service costs, as demonstrated most dramatically in Switzerland.
https://www.greencarreports.co... [greencarreports.com]
https://macleanengineering.com... [macleanengineering.com]
It will obviously be many years before the world's mining vehicles are largely EVs, but it will happen
Re: Only gets better (Score:5, Insightful)
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unfortunately the detractors cannot see beyond today, all their arguments about the future are based on todays tech still being the only game in town and progress will have stopped in time
You have to ask yourself to what extent that's really true and to what extent they are people in "buggy whip" businesses fighting a desperate rear-guard action in the hope of being able to sell their current assets to some other sucker before the whole thing goes bust. Whenever we have a story about electric cars recently we get told by someone "gas cars are recovering from COVID better". If they study car sales, they have to know that the reason there's a bigger increase in those sales is because there w
Re: Only gets better (Score:5, Insightful)
The last time I saw my Grandmother before she passed who was in her mid 90's, my father (in his late 60's) was complaining to her (hoping to get some confirmation back from her) about how things back then were so much better.
My grandmother just calmly stated, that things changes, and let the kids handle it.
Having Lived to see the growth of the automobile, electrification of homes, telephone, Radio, TV, Computers, Internet, Two World Wars, a cold war that threatened that mass death at any time, beatniks, hippies, Jim Crow, civil rights, Jazz, Rock and Role... She knew that she couldn't keep up with everything going on, so she decided it is better to trust the people who are keeping up, and focus on what makes her happy and content. Going to the French Mass at church, knitting mittens and hats for the poor, being around her family. She learned getting angry about change is just bad for your sole.
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unfortunately the detractors cannot see beyond today, all their arguments about the future are based on todays tech still being the only game in town and progress will have stopped in time
You know...this also applies to combustion engines too, right?
Re: Only gets better (Score:5, Insightful)
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Not to mention what Boring company does.
It's not about the tunnels. It's about reviving the idea of underground street networks, which are death traps with ICE vehicles, but an option with EVs.
Europe has a few old cities where you can't build new roads in the centre, and here and there they've dug tunnels. It helps getting around a lot.
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The thermal runaway effect from gasoline is kind of terrifying too.
Re: Only gets better (Score:5, Interesting)
... the mines that extract the components run on oil.
Tell me more about these component extracting mines that run on oil.
How many EV heavy loaders and earth movers do you see for sale in the Caterpiller catalog?
Pull you head out of your mine-hole.
Sure, because technology is a static phenomenon that never changes and where new and better ways of dong things are never developed, like creating electric EV heavy loaders and earth movers.
https://electrek.co/2019/01/29... [electrek.co]
https://electrek.co/2017/09/17... [electrek.co]
Now pull your head out of your hole in the sand and take a look at what the rest of the world is actually doing.
We already have a tax (Score:3)
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Its called carbon credits. Car companies who dont produce enough ZEV vehicles have to pay Tesla to buy credits. This is what is driving the adoption of EVs to a certain extent
The best way to think of this is a bit different. The car companies get permission to dump their CO2 in your back yard; however it's difficult to tell which CO2 belongs to who. Instead of making you collect the money for the use of your trees, which would be difficult and confusing, the government is responsible for collecting this money but they aren't doing a good job yet. Right now the car companies get this extra extra cheap, massively subsidised. Tesla doesn't use this resource nearly as much as ot
Re:Only gets better (Score:5, Insightful)
If we want to speed up that process then we need a pollution tax to force companies to either be better of cough up the cash needed to clean up their mess.
We've known that for half a century. Externalized costs and all of that. It's just that the people who make a lot of money by not paying for all theirs costs are spending a small part of that money to buy the politicians who make those decisions.
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Yep. We're only on post #20 and the amount of derp in this thread is off the scale.
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The average car weighs 2871 pounds, according to Google. The average car also uses 4002 pounds of gas per year, and about 32,013 pounds of gas during its lifetime. So that's about 11 times its weight in gas. Then there's the other automotive fluids like engine oil and transmission fluid, power steering fluid, tires (not a fluid, but they do start out from fluids and are waste) etc. All of that gasoline and those other fluids, in one form or another ends up as waste in the environment. An increasing amount o
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Explain how the one-time deposit of largely recyclable ewaste from an EV is worse than waste from regular oil changes or emissions.
If you work for an oil company, then every polluted lake is another bottle of fresh engine oil sold.
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Re:Only gets better (Score:5, Informative)
Because Toyota invested in the wrong technology and sees its investment slowly dwindling to zero - all that R&D basically going down the toilet.
Toyota bet big on hybrids, really big. They were the first to do it. They assumed BEVs were not going to be practical ever and thus had a willing market to sell their technology to.
But the problem is, they didn't see it as a transition technology which it ultimately turned out to be. It was supposed to be another evolution of ICE.
Now with EVs being really practical machines for a big part of the population, hybrids just aren't holding up. They're complex things with lots of moving parts that could go wrong, thus combining the worst of ICE with service requirements and EVs with painfully short runtimes on battery.
And they're being squeezed by ICE technology that gets better as the years go on, so their once heralded fuel economy is being chipped away at with regular ICE engines achieving 40 and 50 mpg.
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Notwithstanding the added complexity, BEVs are practical for some of the population, but far from all. Not everyone lives in compact cities full of charging stations, nor works a predictable 9-5 schedule.
Hybrids potentially fit the bill for a lot of folks like me. They come in minivan form factors which my family needs. They don't have to be charged for hours (which I sometimes don't have for days at a time). They can work for the not infrequent 150+ mile trips our family takes frequently.
I don't expect
Re:Only gets better (Score:5, Informative)
The sad part is, Toyota produced two generations of the all-electric RAV4.
The first generation of RAV4EVs used NiMH packs, since Toyota had been using NiMH for the Prius. However, Chevron subsidiary Ovonics owned patents relevant to using NiMH batteries in transportation, and successfully sued Toyota to end production. Ovonics (now known as Cobasys) more or less refused to produce NiMH batteries for EV use, due to legal pressure from Chevron who still owned the patents. The patents have since expired but now nobody is going to waste their time putting NiMH packs into EVs.
The second generation of RAV4EVs was a joint venture of sorts between Toyota and Tesla. That agreement expired in 2014 and was never renewed, and this is when Toyota went all-in on fuel cells.
They were *so close* to getting in on the ground floor... and they cocked it all up.
=Smidge=
Re:Only gets better (Score:4, Insightful)
Another thing, making batteries is a messy business.
It's getting better all the time.
(and that's the point... you need to start thinking in future tense)
Oil/gas/coal? It's getting worse (eg. Fracking).
is lack of repairs factored in ? (Score:5, Insightful)
the amount of repair work that can go into an ICE can be crazy. water pumps, fuel pumps, head gaskets, etc...
i bet that the emissions and expense of those repairs if you want to keep your ICE for 300k km really adds up.
sure it's cheaper than a new vehicle, but the maintenance /repair cost on an electric vehicle will be _much_ lower.
Re:is lack of repairs factored in ? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes. No more EGR valves. No more head gasket failures. No OHC timing belts. No valve interference when the belt snaps. ... but proprietary everything in the vehicle, and they all call home. 666 baby! Sorry, joking. Sort of.
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No scheduled oil changes...
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Re:is lack of repairs factored in ? (Score:5, Interesting)
That's not true. Look at the maths.
A typical new EV will have a range of about 400km (250miles). My 2020 Renault Zoe has this, for example.
300k km / 400km range = 750 discharge cycles.
EV batteries are expected to have 500 to 1500 discharge cycles before range reduces to 80% of the original. 750 is well within that. For example, there are 2013 Zoes being driven with 97% state of health (and their original range was only 90 miles to start with). BMS and active cooling are impressively effective.
And of course 80% of 250 is 200, which is still plenty for lots of people.
Finally, EV battery prices will continue to fall significantly for many years to come. Scale economies haven't really kicked in yet. So the replacement will be a lot less expensive in 10 years than its theoretical cost today, and it's going to be 10+ years before it needs doing
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I'm pretty sure they aren't taxis, they're nonauthorized Uber vehicles, so much smaller known fleet. But yes at 300-400k miles they still have most of their battery life. So figure that in the time it would take a Toyota Camry to need one or two transmission rebuilds, and probably an engine rebuild, (lets see, uh-huh, carry the 1, yep yep yep) which comes to about $15k, yes a tesla might need a new $15k battery, IF you need the full range. Difference is that the Tesla has paid for new batt by fuel savings a
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I currently have an old ICEV and am going to get an EV for my next car. I'd get a Model 3 but Teslas are a bit fancier than I want. What is Ford doing? I've not read about them -- the only long-range EV's on sale now in the USA from what I understand are the Bolt and the Teslas.
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EVs that I know are available in the US that cost under $50K, with EPA estimated ranges > 200 miles; unfortunately I can't say if these are available in every state or not without a lot of digging I don't care to do right now...
Volkswagen ID.4 (250 miles)
Ford Mustang Mach-E (300 miles)
Kia Niro EV (239 miles)
Chevy Bolt (259 miles)
Hyundai Kona Electric (258 miles)
Details for the F-150 Lightning are a little hard to come by but it looks like the base model would also make it to the list if it were available
Fewer but more costly (Score:2)
i bet that the emissions and expense of those repairs if you want to keep your ICE for 300k km really adds up.
It's clear that the general day-to-day maintenance of an EV is a lot less than an ICE but you'll probably need a complete battery replacement at least once in an EV to make it to 300k km (~10 years @ ~15,000 km/year) and the emission and expense of that will be quite large (~US$13-14k for a Tesla based on a quick Google search). Hence, without a more detailed analysis with better data, I'd not like to guess which one is cheaper/better from a maintenance aspect.
Re:Fewer but more costly (Score:4, Informative)
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Have you googled "million mile battery" recently?
(or ever)
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the amount of repair work that can go into an ICE can be crazy. water pumps, fuel pumps, head gaskets, etc...
Try fixing a decent fender bender on a Tesla if you want to see what "crazy" repair costs look like. It can make a transmission rebuild, look cheap. Gotta love sensors for sensors sake. Oh, and look forward to your $10K mandated battery swap. You know, for "safety".
i bet that the emissions and expense of those repairs if you want to keep your ICE for 300k km really adds up.
sure it's cheaper than a new vehicle, but the maintenance /repair cost on an electric vehicle will be _much_ lower.
My smartphone is _much_more waterproof than models of 10 years ago.
Sadly, it's also obscenely more expensive. Not unlike EV cars today. Between that and $5,000+ fender benders, don't hold your breath on who's ultimately "cheaper" for the c
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the amount of repair work that can go into an ICE can be crazy. water pumps, fuel pumps, head gaskets, etc...
i bet that the emissions and expense of those repairs if you want to keep your ICE for 300k km really adds up.
sure it's cheaper than a new vehicle, but the maintenance /repair cost on an electric vehicle will be _much_ lower.
Plot twist: Teslas have a water pump and coolant to cool the battery pack too.
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Right, but the ratio of waste heat to mechanical work done in a Tesla is an order of magnitude less than in an ICE.
Naysayers: Imagine if situation was reversed (Score:5, Insightful)
As usual there are people here who vehemently feel that going from ICE to BEV is a step in the wrong direction.
But imagine if the situation was reversed; we had an established base of battery powered electric vehicles and infrastructure but there is a desire to go to internal combustion engines.
The questions the naysayers against going to ICE will be making are:
- The people who have the best oil for fuel are who? Is it in our best interests to give them our money?
- People can buy futures in oil, doesn't that mean that they can manipulate prices and make it more expensive for people owning cars just because they're greedy?
- We're going to have to ship oil around the world, do you know how big the ships will have to be to do that? Once we get oil here we're going to have to build thousand mile long pipelines or move it in trucks or trains. Can you imagine the expense?
- When we burn the fuel, we're putting carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides into the air?
- Gasoline/benzine by itself isn't that great but to make it better you want to add lead?
- Gasoline is explosive, you seriously think I'm going to put something full of it in the garage attached to my home?
- Do you realize that we're going to have to create a network of "gas stations" every 20 miles or so across the continent? How long will I have to wait in line to get gas?
- Gasoline engines wear out? You mean if I want to keep the car more than a few years I am going to have some big bills to fix the engine?
- Hold it, you start a gas engine by turning a crank? If you're not careful it can break your arm? But there's somebody called Chuck Kettering who's designing an electric starter and it will add how much to the cost of the car?
I don't know if people just don't like change, are contrary by nature but the world changes and evolves - get used to it.
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- Gasoline is explosive, you seriously think I'm going to put something full of it in the garage attached to my home?
This one actually makes me laugh every time someone says how dangerous and flammable batteries are.
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I have been on the road when a car fire reached its gas tank. It was fucking *impressive*.
Let's see, gas has an energy density of 45 MJ/kg, multiply by the mass in the tank, carry the 2, you get a really fucking big pillar of fire.
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As usual there are people here who vehemently feel that going from ICE to BEV is a step in the wrong direction.
But imagine if the situation was reversed; we had an established base of battery powered electric vehicles and infrastructure but there is a desire to go to internal combustion engines.
The questions the naysayers against going to ICE will be making are:
-snip-
This needs reposting in every /. electric vehicle thread.
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Batteries have an energy density problem that will not be solved.
Yes, but most people can easily meet their daily needs just by plugging it in when they get home. No trips to the gas station!
and (b) Battery charge times are going down rapidly. Tesla says their new chargers can add 200 miles in 15 minutes.
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Morons are assuming that everyone is recharging their Tesla from empty to completely full every night. Unless your daily commute is 300 miles that isn’t happening.
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In an ICE vehicle we are used to devoting a lot of mass, complexity, and expense to the engine, and the energy storage (gas tank) is just an afterthought.
In an EV, it's reversed. The motors are small and cheap and generally not that worrisome; the battery pack is the heavy, complex, and expensive thing.
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Not everyone has a place to park that is near an electrical outlet.
But lots and lots of people do.
People buy a car to be free, not to have to baby it with a recharge every night.
You realize these are the same people who spend their lives recharging phones, right?
Getting 200 miles in 15 minutes is great but fast chargers are not everywhere yet
"Yet".
They're coming though. One appeared on my street about two months ago.
Now imagine if you'd applied the same mental processes to gasoline cars when they first appeared. The only possible conclusion would be that they'd be a complete failure compared to horses - just put the nosebag on while you pop inside for a coffee and horses will fill themselves up!
$big oil$ (Score:2)
The BEV is not new. It's been tried before. There's many many reasons why the BEV lost. The problems we have with the ICEV today is all in the fuel. Fix the fuel and the ICEV is fine. The fine article mentions e-fuels as an option but still believes the BEV to win. It's a pretty weak case to me on how e-fuels fail. Batteries have an energy density problem that will not be solved. The carbon emissions from the ICEV can be solved with e-fuels.
You can try to turn it around and think the BEV wins from more benefits to costs. It won't because we tried the BEV, again and again it's been tried, but it keeps losing.
I don't think you're supposed to just regurgitate the bullet point list they gave you verbatim.
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The BEV was tried before and then people invented better batteries, and now they work fine.
Evidence: there are a bunch of them on the roads and the people who drive them like them.
From the Study (Score:3)
Re:BULLSHIT (Score:5, Interesting)
But chucking a lump of lithium in landfill isn't "fucking far worse than the OIL". It doesn't have climate change implications, and it's just a battery. It doesn't spill out and destroy the surrounding ecosystem. It sits there perhaps leaching a few heavy metals.
Re:BULLSHIT (Score:5, Interesting)
... and the lithium is high value so very unlikely it goes into the landfill.
Don't know about your neck of the woods but around here all of the wreckers, trash haulers, and recyclers all watch for and strip vehicle batteries and catalytic converters for their precious metals. Lead is a bit down but $10 to $12 each last time I checked. Cats are $$$. They only get buried if someone hides them in with junk.
Leaching can be an issue and there are concerns about lithium and cobalt. Lead fortunately doesn't seem to leach beyond an inch or so even over lengthy time periods.
Re:BULLSHIT (Score:4, Funny)
... and the lithium is high value so very unlikely it goes into the landfill.
Don't know about your neck of the woods but around here all of the wreckers, trash haulers, and recyclers all watch for and strip vehicle batteries and catalytic converters for their precious metals
Around here people are recycling materials that are still attached to (other) people's cars.... Proactive greening!
Re:BULLSHIT (Score:4, Informative)
... and the lithium is high value so very unlikely it goes into the landfill.
False. Recovering the lithium from batteries costs more (not just energy, but dollars) than using virgin lithium. However, the electrodes are worth recycling, and you might as well recycle the lithium while you're there.
Don't know about your neck of the woods but around here all of the wreckers, trash haulers, and recyclers all watch for and strip vehicle batteries and catalytic converters for their precious metals. Lead is a bit down but $10 to $12 each last time I checked. Cats are $$$. They only get buried if someone hides them in with junk.
This has literally nothing to do with batteries or lithium. Catalysts are being stolen and recycled for palladium and platinum. About 85% of the world's palladium is used in catalytic converters. The only thing in batteries approaching that kind of value is cobalt, and they are using less and less of that (some designs now have none.)
Leaching can be an issue and there are concerns about lithium and cobalt. Lead fortunately doesn't seem to leach beyond an inch or so even over lengthy time periods.
Leaching is a problem for all kinds of batteries... which are landfilled. So we need to amp up access to battery recycling.
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... and the lithium is high value so very unlikely it goes into the landfill.
False. Recovering the lithium from batteries costs more (not just energy, but dollars) than using virgin lithium. However, the electrodes are worth recycling, and you might as well recycle the lithium while you're there.
Not exactly true. The major hurdle for lithium recycling is lack of established processing chains but that is changing. With the battery market exploding (pun) in value there is major investment going into recycling. It is hard to find good numbers but what I have been able to find is about $1500/T cost to recycle and $2500/T to mine, so there appears to be room from profit on the recycling side.
Scrap unprocessed used lithium is about $100/T at the crushers today which is similar to iron. Not a lot
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You do know that ALL batteries have heavy metals of some kind. THey arent 100% lithium despite the name. Go and read the components and tell me they are all perfectly safe.
how on earth did you read into his statement that the materials in a battery are perfectly safe? Maybe read his post and take a breath before answering
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Damn those pesky facts.
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Once you understand the fact that nothing happens overnight, especially big infrastructure changes, you'll have a more reasonable view on things.
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Re: E-fuels (Re:BULLSHIT) (Score:2)
Biofuels and bioreactor are the best carbon neutral outcome right? This is what you mean by the energy coming from other things than electricity, right? Even when the fuels produce CO2, it can still be neutral through the reaction the bacteria use to produce a fuel, if I am not mistaken.
My hope would be biofuels really takeoff. I agree about the issue of rare earth metals and an over reliance on batteries for pure electric power. However, if I recall right, they currently don't burn clean enough
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My hope would be biofuels really takeoff.
I am curious how you view this talk [ted.com], especially the point it raises regarding biofuels:
" So here's a question: Imagine if we said, "Oh yes, we can get off fossil fuels. We'll use biofuels. Problem solved. Transport ... We don't need oil anymore." Well, what if we grew the biofuels for a road on the grass verge at the edge of the road? How wide would the verge have to be for that to work out? OK, so let's put in some numbers. Let's have our cars go at 60 miles per hour. Let's say they do 30 miles per gallon.
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I am by no means an expert on biofuels but as I quickly understand it there are three levels of development to biofuels: food crops, energy crops, and microalgae. I cannot access the talk immediately but my guess it this is primarily talk about about the first level of development. When we more more into the realm of energy crops, microalgae, and other bacteria, we are talking about really radical potential solutions. For instance algae is grown in water and it can even be grown in gray or other waste water
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Keep away from the cobalt argument as you are standing in a glass house because cobalt is used in the fossil fuel industry too. There are already cobalt free batteries out there produced by CATL call LFP (Lithium iron phosphate).
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Re:BULLSHIT (Score:5, Informative)
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Renewables usually don't scale up/down to meet marginal demand and are usually much less reliable needing coal/gas to cover the difference. The marginal effect of adding one new EV is to increase the amount of coal/gas burnt. The percentage of the overall grid that is produced with renewables doesn't matter.
Did you copy/paste that from Conservapedia?
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Nuclear power is exceptionally reliable. The grid here gets most of its power from a nuclear plant, but few people who move here even know about it because it is just sitting there making power without a fuss.
Solar power and wind power are also exceptionally reliable. It is almost a guarantee that the sun will shine sometime and the wind will blow sometime. Not all the time -- which is why you need storage to deal with the intermittent supply (and, when it exists, intermittent demand).
Guess what EV's have?
A
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Re:Dodging the bullet (Score:5, Funny)
If you're worried about the big environmental impact (sorry, "huge") of mining for materials for EVs, I hope you're sitting down with a fan readily to hand to recover from when you first learn of the environmental impact of mining for oil.
Do you guy even listen to yourselves?
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That would be a flawed methodology. A proper accounting would also look at second uses for batteries and then recycling of the raw materials. All of this would further increase the gap between ICE and EV.
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BEVs are lower maintenance and cheaper to fuel. No e-fuel can beat the efficiency of driving on electricity directly, and ICEs are about 20-30% efficient in real world use, compared to about 80% in BEVs. E-fuel wil
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keep flogging your dead horse
write your paper with citations for your arguments and get it peer reviewed if you feel so strongly about your analysis. Then get it on slashdot
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The paper doesn't make a case on why or how people will choose BEVS....
Maybe the author thought that we were well informed [wikipedia.org] as to why people will 'choose' BEV's over ICE vehicles.
There will be no forcing the BEV on people because in a free nation people can vote, and not just in an election but with their wallets
Predicting the future is hard. I guess we'll see in 10-20 years whether you're right, and the people in those countries listed in the wiki article I linked to have changed their minds and voted in governments more aligned with your thinking. I suspect not.
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I only care about life cycle cost. My gas vehicle still wins.
You seem to have left out any data on those life cycle costs that would make this post useful.
Care to take a second swing at it?
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Yes, that is exactly what is going on in the USA.
My father has a pickup truck that he has used for work (he retired recently, but he used it to carry around auxiliary farming equipment on roads that are far too crappy for a trailer). He complains about how modern pickup trucks are too big -- they are built to look imposing, and are no better at carrying shit than the old ones.
Meanwhile there is a spotless FORD F-150 RAPTOR (rawr!) that parks next to my tiny 1.5L ICE car in the parking lot... at the universi
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Posting as an EV supporter:
I currently drive a VERY cheap ICE car (a manual-transmission roll-the-windows-down-by-hand Toyota Yaris). I bought it new in 2009 for $11k and it is a great car, except it burns gas.
The lifecycle cost for a Tesla is lower than a Camry, as you say: I showed my (70 yo) mother the numbers for this recently, and she wants to get a Model 3 as her next car.
But I don't drive a Camry: I drive the cheapest thing Toyota makes. I have enough money for the sticker price on a Tesla, but I don
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> Increasing EV use will cause fossil fuel generation losses, transmission line resistive losses, reactive losses and battery heating losses that require more, not less fossil fuel to convey an equivalent amount of energy to the vehicle as gasoline would provide directly.
You can drive an EV about as far as a gallon of gasoline will take you in an average ICEV, on just the energy it takes to produce and deliver that gallon of gasoline.
30MPG for gasoline is equivalent to 0.8 miles per KWH. A decent EV driv
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Why are you assuming that everyone is charging their cars from completely dead to full every night? The vast majority of the time it will be topping off the batteries.
Not necessarily. (Score:2)
An EV has ~18 moving parts, an ICE usually more than 250. ... Not joking [youtube.com].
You can build an EV that runs 2 million kilometers or more without much hassle.
If you want to build an ICE vehicle like that you're have to do a really good job and it will still use a massive amount of resources being built, not counting the fossil fuels it will eat.
There are EVs from 1900 that still run just fine. With the original batteries.
So by and large the eco- and effeciency balance for an EV is likely to be better, especially
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Another thing the article simply ignores is that we're seeing more and more EV chargers which are powered off included diesel generators because it turns out our power grid can't support the number of EVs that are already on the road, let alone new ones.
(a) I don't know where you're getting that from. The charger in front of my house doesn't emit any diesel fumes.
(b) That's probably just some cheap shysters trying to make a fast buck, they'll be banned soon.
(c) Power grids take time to upgrade, but upgrade they will. Guaranteed.
(d) The trick is to get the system working then improve it.
(e) Derp.
Re:Invalidated By Vested Interest (Score:4, Insightful)
Very exciting to learn that "more and more EV chargers [are] powered off included diesel generators".
Would you care to share any actual evidence or links to back up this extraordinary claim? Note, you've not just claimed that this one charger in this one place uses a diesel generator. No, you've claimed this is an increasingly common occurrence. You've also implied that this happens with a material fraction of all chargers -- not 0.01%, but like, say, 10 or 15% of chargers. So, pony up with the evidence for your claims.
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Completely agree that nuclear power is a fantastic technology.
But I know a guy who lives with his husband mostly off the grid in Maine. They both drive Teslas and they charge them from a fairly small solar unit near their house.
In Maine.
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They thought about that.
There are a bunch of ways you can generate electricity. Some of them suck (coal). Some of them suck less (natural gas). Some of them don't suck (nuclear, solar, geothermal). Some of them blow (wind).
Even the ones that suck the most (coal) are still less emissions-intensive than burning gas in an ICE, at least for CO2 emissions.