Is electric really better?

Call me crazy, but with all the electric vehicle hype these days, has anyone considered that the electricity still has to be produced?

In the Pacific West (which is the only place I can speak of with knowledge) electricity is generated with Hydro power, rivers, dams, turbines.

But from what I understand, that isn't commonplace around North America, let alone the world.

How much CO2 does a coal burning plant, garbage burning plant etc produce while making electricity?

I'd like to see a CO2 comparison, a gallon of gas burned in the average American car vs. CO2 emmisions from power plants, equal to producing an electric charge that will propel the car as far as an average gallon of gas.

Let's talk about cost:

The cost per gallon equivalent of an electric charge in America, on average, is about $1.50 Given an average driving distance of about 20 K miles a year, that represents a $320 fuel savings per year, at current gas prices. That's not a huge savings.... especially when this car could cost $10-$20K more than a Honda Civic. Take that $10K extra, divide by $320 savings a year, and you'd have to drive the car for 30 years to make your money back.

Yes, we all love earth, but with numbers like that it's real tough to get buy-in from consumers, and ultimately, it's consumers that will decide whether or not the Nissan Leaf thrives or dies.

Has anyone stopped to figure out what the strain on the electric grid would be when a few thousand people are re-charging their electric cars in states that ALREADY have rolling brownouts?

Or, are we supposed to believe that everyone will charge their own EVs with solar panels anyways?

In many countries one KWh is produced with CO2 emmissions of 0.5 Kg and more. The Nissan Leaf runs 160 Km using its 24 KWh, thus indirectly sending 12 Kg of carbon in the atmosphere. With my Astra I consume 6 litre of gasoline for 100 km. Burning a litre of gasoline creates 2.32 Kg of CO2. That makes about 22 Kg for the same 160 Km.

The three litre Volkswagen Lupo did not sell because of its higher price and inspite of the environmental benefit. The Leaf is also a "3-litre car". Let's hope that the Leaf doesn't face the same fate.

Call me stupid, but what the heck is a 3 litre car? I'm assuming we aren't talking engine cylinder displacement?

I think he is talking about comparable engine displacement? The Leaf puts out about the same power as a 3-litre car.

Oh, okay, that makes more sense... it's the ESL I have.

I think this really depends on where you live. For example, in some places all of the energy is produced from Coal - not real environmentally friendly.

However, in places like BC and some places down in California, electricity is generated by either Hydro, Solar or wind... it's places like that where people should all be driving Nissan Leaf and other electric cars!

Yes, if ALL your electricity is produced using coal, I believe a Leaf will cause more CO2 to be put into the atmosphere than, say, a Prius would. The truth is that nothing comes close to coal as a filthy source of energy. When you consider desecration of the land through mining, the effect on miners' health and lives, mercury poisoning, huge piles of slag ... use of coal to produce electricity is absolutely unconscionable.

Yet, nearly half the electricity in the US is produced in coal power plants. We need to change that as quickly as possible. Would you believe even burning oil (as they do in Hawaii) produces less CO2 than burning coal. Burning natural gas produces only half the CO2 of coal, and causes very little collateral damage. Nuclear plants produce no CO2 at all and, despite people's fears, are very safe and create relatively tiny amounts of waste (compared to coal).

But to answer the question, yes, electricity really is better for vehicles. Not only does it produce less CO2 overall, because the average for electricity is lower than for coal, but all the emissions are centralized, where they can be replaced as better ways of producing energy are implemented. It is far better that we convert hundreds of millions of cars one time from gasoline to electricity, than that we try to make that conversion every time engineers come up with a better answer.

Great comments planet4ever.

I totally agree that we need to do a mass conversion rather than a few electric (or whatever) cars here and there. I think that's the only way we will get the support infrastructure (such as charging stations) necessary to really make electric cars easier to own.

Right now it seems like there's too much hassle associated with owning an electric vehicle that I think it's scaring off lots of possible buyers.

I have been driving the RAV4EV since 2002 and it has been a great car and is way better (for me) than the gas one it replaced. It provides about 90% of my driving miles.

Please note, when people talk about burning gas and how it compares to electricity powered cars people seem to forget that the oil has to be pulled out of the ground and refined, and transported. All of that takes energy too. Most if not all of that energy is not clean...

I hope to only use "green" electrons, those produced by the sun on my rooftop.

Sort of like eating only the green M&Ms.

There have been countless studies on this topic, and they virtually always come out in favor of EVs, even on our current grid (and our grid is getting cleaner each year, while oil gets dirtier as we shift more to syncrude, deepwater, etc).

Here's an example for you -- a DOE/PNL joint study:
http://energytech.pnl.gov/publications/pdf/PHEV_Feasibility_Analysis_Part1.pdf

Their conclusions: even on our current grid, switching to EVs will reduce CO2 by 27%, increase PM, keep SOx the same, reduce NOx, and nearly eliminate VOCs and CO. Furthermore, the pollutants that are emitted will be emitted at altitude in less densely populated areas instead of ground level in populated areas, dramatically reducing their impact on human health..

evguy said:

Call me stupid, but what the heck is a 3 litre car? I'm assuming we aren't talking engine cylinder displacement?

Click to expand...

The VW 3-liter car is a reference to fuel used to travel 100km - about 78 miles per US gallon of fuel.

Something often overlooked in discussions about how much CO2 is released, or for that matter how energy is consumed in total, when a ton of coal or a barrel of oil is burned is that you expended a lot to produce those fuels. The coal has to be mined, processed and transported to a power plant, oil has to be drilled, pumped, transported, refined, etc. Ironically there is a lot of oil burned producing coal for a power plant and a lot of coal burned to put gas in your tank.

prius said:

Or, are we supposed to believe that everyone will charge their own EVs with solar panels anyways?

Click to expand...

More than half of us who are driving production EVs in the US are generating our own clean power... so it isn't too much of a stretch to belive it, no.

Few things to consider
- This whole "coal" plants is besically a talking point used by various groups interested in prolonging the status quo
- In the long term we need clean grid
- In the long term we need EVs
- To Reduce emissions we need to transition to EVs AND transition out of coal. Since these transitions take a long time, we can't wait for full coal transition to occur before EV transition. We need to start both now.
- The EVs get the benefit of cleaning up of the grid right away without any further capital or time costs.
- EVs help to reduce oil consumption directly
- Even with the current 50% average grid powered by coal, EVs are better than most of the cars, if not the most frugal. But it is better to transition now to EV rather than to a frugal car - only to have to transition away again later.
- Since in the long term we need to move to EVs, we need to get the industry started and get the infrastructure setup. Only by selling commcial EVs can the economies of scale kick in and start reducing cost of EVs.
- There are some 250 million cars in US. Last year car sales sales 10 million. So even if every car sold from next yeat is an EV - it will still take decades to replace the fleet.
- Every year more renewable generation capacity is being added than can be used by EVs in the next decade or so i.e. renewable power generation transition is outpacing EV transition by a large amount.

I'm sure I missed a few points. Transitioning to EVs is a nobrainer.

@ Evnow - Great list, and well written.

Even apart from the CO2 and other environmental issues, there are economic and national security benefits to EVs. Petrodollars finance many middle east radical groups and certainly force the US to stay friendly with some pretty despotic regimes, or go to war to preserve oil fields (Desert Storm, arguably Iraq II). Then there's the balance of payments. I believe most electric power generated in California is actually generated by burning natural gas although of course there are many hydroelectric dams and wind turbines and home solar. I look at it as I will be charging overnight when demand is low. Hydroelectric and wind and geothermal power can be generated at night with no net loss and thus I believe the percent of of the power stream that is relatively clean is higher at night than during the day when they turn the gas up to meet demand. So I have the impression I am using relatively clean power, too, although this is mostly surmise on my part. This might change if solar becomes really big, since that's a daytime thing, but if the rates change I can charge during the daytime. In any event, the one thing I feel very sure of is that EVs are better for the US and the world overall than ICE.