Gas vs Electric... material for discussion

Around here there are probably not many people who need to be convinced that an EV is a far better way to get around that an ICE when it comes to efficiency and CO2 emissions. And this is probably known to many of the people on this forum. However when discussing this matter with sceptics, I found myself looking for one fact which is simple, obvious and un-disputable to convince them that EVs are as environmentally friendly we claim they are. Until today. Here it is in its bulet point form:

"An EV needs less energy than a regular ICE before that one has even moved."

Per the US DOE, refining alone takes 6KHw per gallon. An average EV gets between 3-5 miles per KWh. That means 18-30 miles for the same amount of energy it took to refine one galon of gas. This # is pretty close to what the averge US car gets on a galon of gasoline. As the article and video point out this is a very conservative estimate because it doesn't even consider the drilling, pumping and transporting of the oil. So producing one gallon of gasoline takes as much energy as an EV needs to go the distance one can drive with that gallon of gas.

Have some of you already used that? How did it go? Have found better arguments yet? (with trusted data to back it up).

Below is a link to the data that backs this up. If you have time, check-out the 10min embedded video. It's fun and informative. But don't show this to hard core gasoline addicts because it will probably have the reverse of the intended effect: The guy in the video is probably THE stereotype of the eco-nut they have nightmares about ;-)

http://gatewayev.org/how-much-electricity-is-used-refine-a-gallon-of-gasoline

We had a long discussion of this here last year (July to December).
7.5 kWh of electricity to produce a gallon of gasoline?

I'm not sure we ever came to a complete agreement, but it seems the statistic is quite misleading. It may actually take only about 1 kWh of electricity to produce a gallon of gasoline, but the total energy used in the process might be the equivalent of 6 kWh. Of course there is also energy lost in generating and transporting electricity, so a fair comparison would have to allow for that.

Ray

Besides a horse with a large backyard, its the only practical vehicle that you can refuel at home.. and if so desired you can even make that fuel yourself.. that and simplicity are the only real advantages over ICE at this moment... and its a hard sell since ICE have been continually improved over 100 years.

A horse is not really practical since they are limited to about 20 miles a day, plus the vet and feed bills are high.. lots and lots of maintenance.

One argument that I use when displaying the LEAF is to compare the off-peak cost of electricity vs gasoline. What I tell them is that I traded in a PT Cruiser GT for the LEAF. The PT Cruiser got about 20 mpg. If I charge the LEAF to 100% and with some improved driving skills this should allow about 90 miles per charge (20 kWh of the 24 kWh x 4.5 miles/kWh). 20 kWh at our TOU at night of $.05/kWh costs us about $1.20 to go the 90 miles. The Cruiser would take 4.5 gallons to go the same distance. With the cost of $3.86 per gallon of premium (the GT is the high horsepower model) that would cost $17.37. People are amazed when I lay that on them.

Then I show them our PV array and tell them it costs me nothing and that the PV system with all of the tax credits and utility subsidies will pay for itself in 4 to 5 years. I then tell them to try and take the same money to the bank and ask them if they will pay them 20-25% interest on the money and to increase the yield as gasoline and electricity rates continue to climb.

We have displayed the LEAF at two events, one was the grand opening of a local convenience store and the other was at a Memorial Weekend car show. I've put together a three ring binder with several exhibits regarding EVs. If anyone is interested I can put together a "PDF" file of the pages. Interestingly enough some people are open to the information and some are just resistant to change and cling to the range issue. In that binder I compared the operating cost of the Cruiser over 8 years (that's how long we had it) and also mention that the LEAF's battery is guaranteed for 8 years or 100,000 miles. It turns out that even WITHOUT the $7,500 tax credit the LEAF is $7,000 cheaper to own and that uses a starting cost of the Cruiser of $25,000 vs the LEAF at $35,000. In that analysis I didn't even include the cost of oil changes, oil filters, gas filters and tune ups. And, I used the TOU rate of $.05 per kWh in the analysis.

YES! Interested in the PDF pages. Host it somewhere ?

( Thanks for the offer )

Herm said:

A horse is not really practical since they are limited to about 20 miles a day, plus the vet and feed bills are high.. lots and lots of maintenance.

Click to expand...

Lots of "exhaust", too. :lol:

Ray

Thanks planet4ever, I guess that's the thread what I was looking for for all this time

In the end it seems like you also got to the conclusion that producing 1 gal of gasoline needed as much energy as it takes for the LEAF to go about 30 miles (6KWh to refine... 7.5KWh overall seem right). Looking at it in terms of BTU or KWh is just a matter of conversion.

One related hard to find piece of information I couldn't get from any official source so far was the overall (average or typical) efficiency of the power grid. I believe that most electric components involved in the process of making, transporting and converting have efficiencies well above 90%. But as they get chained the total losses increase. Did you guys get to the bottom of that one too ?

Typical heat rates - a measure of power plant efficiency - for the common types of power plants are:

modern coal steam plant (baseload, near full output 24/7) 9,000 Btu/kwhr
average coal steam plant (load following) 10,400
gas-fired simple-cycle combustion turbine (peaking) 12,000
gas-fired combined-cycle (ct + steam) (base load and load following) 8,000
nuclear (baseload, full output 24/7) 10,450

~33% efficient for the electric system as a whole would be a reasonable enough estimate for the purposes of broad based discussion. As good if not better than the 6.0 or 7.5 kwhr per gallon of gas figures, anyway.

ericsf said:

One related hard to find piece of information I couldn't get from any official source so far was the overall (average or typical) efficiency of the power grid. I believe that most electric components involved in the process of making, transporting and converting have efficiencies well above 90%. But as they get chained the total losses increase. Did you guys get to the bottom of that one too ?

Click to expand...