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http://www.solarchargeddriving.com/news/scd-editorials/831-surprise-gas-cars-use-more-electricity-than-evs.html#.Tpe2JClpX3k.twitter" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This article states: "It takes more electricity to drive the average gasoline car 100 miles than it does to drive an electric car 100 miles."

It also has a lot of proof to back up the statement.
 
Let me get this straight now. If I hear you all correctly, if we could magically turn off all gasoline refining in the US and magically turn all cars to run on electricity, we would still have electric capacity left over because of the electric needs of the refining process?
 
AP1 said:
Let me get this straight now. If I hear you all correctly, if we could magically turn off all gasoline refining in the US and magically turn all cars to run on electricity, we would still have electric capacity left over because of the electric needs of the refining process?
Not sure about peak demand, but on the whole... that just might be possible.

Even with conservative numbers, you can drive as far in an EV with the energy needed to refine one gallon of gasoline as you could drive in a normal car burning that same gallon. That does not account for all the pumping and transporting that uses even more energy, nor for the energy use of the facilities themselves - just refining. Of course we need to keep refining oil for other things, not just fuel products...


dgpcolorado said:
It is worth considering that refineries also use a lot of natural gas in the refining process. That NG could be used to make electricity instead.
That NG could be used for heavy vehicles instead, or residential/commercial heating to displace fuel oil which is still quite popular here in the Northeast US.
=Smidge=
 
AP1 said:
Let me get this straight now. If I hear you all correctly, if we could magically turn off all gasoline refining in the US and magically turn all cars to run on electricity, we would still have electric capacity left over because of the electric needs of the refining process?
Only in theory. Refining tends to be clustered in certain areas of the country while EV charging will be widely dispersed. So, the power saved by reduced gasoline refining needs will not necessarily be available where it is most needed to charge EVs.

But the general idea appears to be correct. And that sure quashes the "long tailpipe" argument that is so often used to bash EVs, does it not?
 
Smidge204 said:
dgpcolorado said:
It is worth considering that refineries also use a lot of natural gas in the refining process. That NG could be used to make electricity instead.
That NG could be used for heavy vehicles instead, or residential/commercial heating to displace fuel oil which is still quite popular here in the Northeast US.
=Smidge=
Yes. That would be an even better use of the NG. I mentioned that the NG could be used to produce electricity because, in effect, it means that even more electricity could be displaced by eliminating the refining of oil into gasoline.
 
Caracalover said:
http://www.solarchargeddriving.com/news/scd-editorials/831-surprise-gas-cars-use-more-electricity-than-evs.html#.Tpe2JClpX3k.twitter

This article states: "It takes more electricity to drive the average gasoline car 100 miles than it does to drive an electric car 100 miles."

It also has a lot of proof to back up the statement.

From the article
Thus, using an 85% refinery efficiency and the aforementioned conversion factors, it can be estimated that about 21,000 Btu—the equivalent of 6 kWh—of energy are used per gallon of gasoline refined.

The 6KWHr of energy is not electricity but heat and is converted to electricity without regard to thermodynamics so I discount the entire article. :roll:

So does anyone have an actual electric demand or KWHr used for an oil refinery?
 
Nekota said:
So does anyone have an actual electric demand or KWHr used for an oil refinery?

The concept is sound but VERY complicated. To be accurate it also requires the well to wheels approach to oil production. EX: The electricity used to produce the oil that makes gasoline for all the tanker ships, tanker trucks, etc in the oil industry should be included. Someone would have to do an electrical audit on the entire Oil Industry from exploration to the gas pump motor. Then divide this total by the amount of actual gasoline produced for transportation (that could be replaced with EV's). Then you would need to somehow total the number of miles people drove on that transportation gasoline. This would provide the basics of a miles per Kw equivelant for this gasoline and base number to compare with EV's. The data collection would be huge and far reaching!
 
AP1 said:
Let me get this straight now. If I hear you all correctly, if we could magically turn off all gasoline refining in the US and magically turn all cars to run on electricity, we would still have electric capacity left over because of the electric needs of the refining process?
We would also have more potable water, since to refine oil it requires large amounts of that as well. Part of the electric consumption in California refineries is to get water to the site, raising that states KW per gallon refined to 8 or so.

NG fracking not only uses large amounts of water, it may pollute the ground water and lay vast areas wasteland, we will see in the not to distant future me thinks. I know people that live in the areas where fracking is going on, and trust me, they are not happy, and healthy anymore. Strange rashes they never had before, trouble breathing, the whole nine yards. Makes me feel bad that I drive a NG vehicle at work.
 
Caracalover said:
NG fracking not only uses large amounts of water, it may pollute the ground water and lay vast areas wasteland, we will see in the not to distant future me thinks.

The key word in your statement is MAY

Be careful when you talk about the electricity consumption that refineries use to make fuel.. its not really all 100% electricity.. refineries use a lot of NG to make hydrogen (for upgrading fuels, the opposite of cracking) and for process heat, but if that NG was used instead to make electricity then it is counted as such.. not sure if the studies allow for the various transportation and oil production costs. Diesel, gasoline, tar sands, CTL/GTL and ethanol all have different energy needs.
 
Herm said:
Caracalover said:
NG fracking not only uses large amounts of water, it may pollute the ground water and lay vast areas wasteland, we will see in the not to distant future me thinks.

The key word in your statement is MAY

Be careful when you talk about the electricity consumption that refineries use to make fuel.. its not really all 100% electricity.. refineries use a lot of NG to make hydrogen (for upgrading fuels, the opposite of cracking) and for process heat, but if that NG was used instead to make electricity then it is counted as such.. not sure if the studies allow for the various transportation and oil production costs. Diesel, gasoline, tar sands, CTL/GTL and ethanol all have different energy needs.
The key word is not May. The key word is pollute. Fracking pollutes, no question about that. Whether it will contaminate the ground water (rendering areas unlivable) or not remains to be seen. Careful speech has allowed the oil industry and others to destroy many areas, and now they are moving into rural America. It does not need to be that way, and an increased use of electric powered vehicles is a solution that is here now, not in some distant future like hydrogen fuel cells, which are currently a joke.

Also , when the nay sayers talk about the electricity needed to supply my Leaf, they are not careful, so no, I will not be too careful. It is not a lie, and it is far closer to the truth than the spin the oil industry markets.

It is really quite obvious - the EV is a better use of energy than burning anything (Even if you have to burn something to make the electricity). If you doubt that, you have blinders on.
 
Caracalover said:
Herm said:
Caracalover said:
NG fracking not only uses large amounts of water, it may pollute the ground water and lay vast areas wasteland, we will see in the not to distant future me thinks.

The key word in your statement is MAY

<snip>
The key word is not May. The key word is pollute. Fracking pollutes, no question about that. Whether it will contaminate the ground water (rendering areas unlivable) or not remains to be seen.
Absolutely Caracolover! There is plenty of proof available that shows everything from ill effects of pumping station emissions on the local area, the negative effects of produced water seeping into the ground or overflowing during rain, and the very real destruction of drinking water sources when wells are not properly installed/cemented.

An additional challenge is highlighted by the conflicting needs in South Texas as the industry tries to develop the Eagle Ford shale during a severe drought. The gas developers are working hard to acquire water rights from towns and farmers/ranchers - locals are being presented with an option to trade their current/future water supply and/or farm productivity for cash.

And if water isn't a factor, I wonder why Boone Pickens has become the largest single controller of water rights in the Texas panhandle? ;)

THANK YOU for putting facts ahead of spin!

edit...this factoid from EarthJustice this evening:
How bad is the air? In the drilling
rig-studded Upper Green River Basin
of Wyoming, levels of smog-forming
ozone reached 123 parts per billion
earlier this year—worse than the worst day in L.A. all last year.

Dear Andyh,
16,945.
That's how many Earthjustice supporters have already written to the Environmental Protection Agency asking for strong air pollution protections from oil and gas development.
But EPA needs to hear from many more of us. Help us send 30,000 letters to EPA—sending a clear message that we need to clean up the air in areas of the country undergoing a massive drilling boom.

How bad is the air in these areas? Well in the drilling rig-studded Upper Green River Basin of Wyoming, levels of smog-forming ozone reached 123 parts per billion earlier this year—worse than the worst day in Los Angeles all last year.

It's not just the people of Wyoming who are noticing a problem. A controversial technology called hydraulic fracturing—or fracking—has led to a gas drilling boom from Colorado to Pennsylvania. But federal air pollution protections for drilling are woefully outdated and do not cover most pollution sources. That means that people who live near the gasfields are left with lung-burning smog and cancer-causing benzene.

With your help, we can start changing that. Under a set of rules proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency, oil and gas drillers would be required to use equipment to capture significant amounts of air pollution before it can harm public health.

We have just two weeks left to make our voices heard. Will you join thousands of others in sending a message to EPA? Send your letter: http://action.earthjustice.org/site/Advocacy?pagename=homepage&page=UserAction&id=1187

Thank you,
— Earthjustice

Because the earth needs a good lawyer.
 
My apologies if this paper has been previously discussed. I couldn't find it in this thread. It's the most comprehensive analysis of the energy required to go from well to wheel that I've seen so far. It was written by the Argonne National Laboratory Transportation and R & D Center. It is quite lengthy and there's lots of info about green house gases as well as energy. If I understood it correctly, one of their graphs (page 25) shows that an ICE uses approximately 5200 btu for a mile of travel while an ev uses about 3000. Take a look.

greet.es.anl.gov/files/ea30hyon
 
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203733504577024000381790904.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsThird" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

More on this terrible stuff called gasoline.
 
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2011/11/groat-20111109.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"Preliminary findings from a study on the use of hydraulic fracturing in shale gas development suggest no direct link to reports of groundwater contamination, according to project leader Dr. Charles ‘Chip’ Groat, of The University of Texas at Austin’s Energy Institute. Rather, Groat said, many of the problems appear to be related to other aspects of drilling operations, such as poor casing or cement jobs."
 
Herm said:
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2011/11/groat-20111109.html

"Preliminary findings from a study on the use of hydraulic fracturing in shale gas development suggest no direct link to reports of groundwater contamination, according to project leader Dr. Charles ‘Chip’ Groat, of The University of Texas at Austin’s Energy Institute. Rather, Groat said, many of the problems appear to be related to other aspects of drilling operations, such as poor casing or cement jobs."
Absolutely Herm - and we've talked about just this in other threads here. As long as 'they' can break the entire process into small enough pieces in order to trivialize any complaints... How many wells drilled into the various shale plays will not need to be cemented? And how many will not be hydrofractured? And how many of the frack jobs will not create highly polluted produced water? And how many of those wells will be drilled thru a water table to reach the gas? Etc...

'Deconstruction' might be a convenient way to evade blame, but it's not a responsible, moral, or ethical way to do business.

UT-Austin is pretty highly respected around these parts - I hope they produce a high quality finished product when the study is complete.

edit...
Well, even well respected researchers can have a bad day when they have conflicts of interest. This 'study' is junk.

http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/morning_call/2012/12/university-of-texas-making-changes-in.html
http://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/2012/12/07/why-the-ut-fracking-study-controversy-matters/
http://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/20...nds-failure-to-disclose-conflict-of-interest/
 
http://www.teslamotors.com/goelectric#electricity" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Tesla made a nice page, check it out!
 
Sorry it took me so long to find this thread. I have put numbers to this more recently. I've linked the various sources of info. and thought it would make a nice edition to this resource thread. I am the biggest EV fan. But I feel it is important we be accurate in our comparisons and statements about gasoline etc.

I conclude that Elon Musk, Nissan, etc. are incorrect in their assertions that the EV could go as far on the energy used in refining. In the final well-to-wheels analysis they may be about right, but not with the numbers they say drew them to the conclusion. (many of the same numbers used in this discussion thread)

The key mis-step is the conversion of thermal kWh to electricity kWh. When EIA reports refinery efficiency, they are really talking about BTUs, not kWh. It is unfortunate that scientists that study such things use the units rather interchangeably. But you really have to think of those BTUs are going in to a power plant somewhere and how much electricity you would get out of that energy input. I used coal in my scenario, but the energy numbers work out about the same with natural gas (pollution and CO2 numbers, that's another story).

As for the actual electricity inputs in to the refineries, another way to look at it is to ask how many EVs you fuel. As has been pointed out elsewhere, the figures EIA publishes are for the whole refinery and all distillates. Not just gasoline. But it gives you an idea of the scale of what is consumed by the refineries.

One fact many neglect to point out, that is so simple everyone can understand it is:
Over the life of my EV the electric grid is getting cleaner, the petroleum cycle is not.

https://www.quora.com/profile/Mark-...miles-on-the-energy-used-to-refine-a-gallon-o
https://www.quora.com/If-you-stop-r...th-the-saved-electricity/answer/Mark-Pottorff

https://www.quora.com/profile/Mark-...-and-solar-power-combine-for-a-cleaner-future
https://www.quora.com/If-all-the-ca...ctricity-demand-increase/answer/Mark-Pottorff

https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-th...electricity-for-the-cars/answer/Mark-Pottorff

https://www.quora.com/What-do-you-t...iticism-of-electric-cars/answer/Mark-Pottorff
 
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