The (renewable) electron economy, part 3
A three-pronged approach to getting off oil for transportation 36
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Posted 12:43 PM on 10 Aug 2008
by Michael Hoexter -
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racc Posted 5:43 am
10 Aug 2008
Unfortunately, the big issue is not oil, it is resource usage and environmental footprint in general.
Large, personal vehicles, regardless of whether they are electrically powered or not, are not sustainable. They will just postpone the end of the age of the automobile by a few years. Unfortunately, we seem intent on wasting large amounts of money on this that could be better spent on rail and public transit.
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GreyFlcn Posted 6:06 am
10 Aug 2008
Probably something more like San Francisco, where they run a lot of their buses off of overhead electric wires.
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_sFln9F6sByA/Rt3b1LbynTI/AAAAAAAAAUI ...
-David Ahlport
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Bart Anderson Posted 6:28 am
10 Aug 2008
Kant's Moral Imperative urges us to act as if your maxims should serve at the same time as the universal law (of all rational beings)
In other words, we should consider the effects if the masses in China, India and rest of the world were to adopt personal vehicles, whether the old gas-guzzlers or the newer more efficient varieties.
It's not just about our immediate needs in America. What we do here will be the blueprint for much of the rest of the world.
Building the new vehicles will require prodigious amounts of energy and resources, as will maintaining them and their infrastructure (e.g. asphalted roads).
As Ivan Illich reminds us, beyond a certain threshold, motorized vehicles degrade the transportation system for other modes of transportation. Cars supplant mass transit, and they make riding by bike difficult and dangerous.
Most insidious, encouraging private vehicles spreads the psychological addiction to automobiles -- perhaps the most potent force opposing sustainability.
Bart
Energy Bulletin
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Blog It Green Posted 6:53 am
10 Aug 2008
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Bob Wallace Posted 7:36 am
10 Aug 2008
The issue with efficient vehicles is generally not size, but weight and aerodynamics. One can make a reasonable volume car by making it light and slippery.
There is absolutely no reason why we cannot continue to use personal vehicles. It takes only a few thousand dollars of solar panels to provide a lifetime of 'fuel' for an electric vehicle.
Eight thousand dollars of $4 per watt panels in a four hour solar climate would power the average person's 12,000 annual driving. ($8,000/25 years = $320 per year. Twenty-seven dollars a month.)
Wind and thermal solar electricity would be even less expensive.
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GreyFlcn Posted 8:16 am
10 Aug 2008
Well CNG is slightly more CO2 emissions per mile than Diesel.
http://greyfalcon.net/svlglca.png
http://greyfalcon.net/electriccars3.png
However it might make some sense for Class 8 Big Rig Trucks.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/01/pge-adds-five-c.h ...
As for your charts. It's kinda screwy. To start off with, it says imported natural gas, has less emissions than domestic natural gas. That sounds wrong.
-David Ahlport
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caniscandida Posted 8:33 am
10 Aug 2008
Not only do those atomizing forces make it very difficult to break the car habit; they make it difficult to participate freely in whatever strengthens the common good.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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Jon Rynn Posted 9:59 am
10 Aug 2008
I'm still to be convinced that when cars become completely electric, which I think they will be at some point not too far in the future when oil production starts to really decline, that those cars will be able to go over about 40 miles. If that is the case, then it is imperative to "infill" suburbs, to create town centers, and to have a very efficient and comfortable interurban electric rail system. So, basically, an electric transportation system, in the long-term, will have neighborhood electric vehicles within a town or city, connecting the towns and cities with electric trains.
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David Roberts Posted 11:16 am
10 Aug 2008
Let's pull our heads up out of the echo chamber and at least try to be realistic about what's going on.
grist.org
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Michael Hoexter Posted 11:47 am
10 Aug 2008
However, I think technologists might apply themselves to find a variety of new solutions for electric rights of way. As a minimum, pantographs and trolley poles could be designed to be more capable of high speed attachment and detachment; more minds could apply themselves to technologies that were abandoned as out-moded in an era of cheap oil but that are now of crucial importance.
I am agnostic about what mode or means to travel is ultimately the most resource efficient and sustainable. Personal electric vehicles, especially ones that are not oversized, will be a very efficient means to getting around. Public transit has many benefits and many Americans do not realize how much of their "bandwidth" is occupied by driving rather than focusing on other activities. Bikes are great too, though have their limitations as well.
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theBike45 Posted 12:04 pm
10 Aug 2008
the private transportatiob sector. Obviously,
Mr Hoexter realy doesn't comprehend how technologies become dominent. IF there were suddenly to appear a cheap, quick charging,
long lasting battry (i.e. a working EEStor),
then even a caveman would realize that battery-only electrics would be the way to go - no need for the expense of one of them range extender engines, etc. As long as batteries are NOT fast charging, then regardless, PHEV s will dominate. Swappable batteries make zero economc sense, and are totally inconvenient given current battery capacities - their ranges and the numcer of
expensive reserve batteres required, not to mention their placement in the right locales, make this scheme just plain dumb. PHEVs can easily eliminate 94% of the need for gasoline -
that far exceeds any goals we might have. Of course, gasoline only accounts for something over half of our crude - the diesel requirement is half as large as gasoline and fuel oil is also a big player, both of which will not be affected by electrification of the private transportation fleet. I might add that Obama's cherished goal of 1 million PHEVs on the road by 2015 is nonsensical - that would eliminate at most less than 1/4th of 1 percent of crude demand,
even if those million PHEVs used no gasoline whatsoever. Obama's math is as bad as his "57 state" geography, apparently.
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GreyFlcn Posted 12:14 pm
10 Aug 2008
However we need to put ourselves on the trajectory to reach quick charge electric cars.
Also you don't need a ultracapacitors to do quick charging. Both A123 Systems, and AltairNano's batteries can charge quickly also.
http://greyfalcon.net/quickcharge3.png
The other 4th option, ontop of PHEV/Swap/Quick, is of course merely Bulk. If you can give someone 600-1000 miles of range, then it wouldn't really matter if it takes all night to charge.
-David Ahlport
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Bart Anderson Posted 1:00 pm
10 Aug 2008
There is no gene that directs humans to buy cars, and in fact the impulse has much more to do with status than with actual desire for mobility.
The demand for cars is a cultural process, sparked by the huge advertising budgets of automobile companies (How many car ads have you seen during your lifetime?). The mass media are saturated with images that make car ownership seem sexy and fashionable. Finally, there is the social pressure to buy a car.
Bottom line: it's about sex, status and manipulated needs.
Perhaps that's not evidence of some deviant "addiction," but a consequence of every human being's obvious preference for being able to go where they want, when they want. In most cases, the choice of a car is irrational in terms of transport needs and costs. We have a skewed view in the US where the landscape has been designed around cars rather than people.
Are cars a great improvement for the citizens of Bangkok, where a traffic jam is not considered serious unless it lasts for an hour or more? Have cars been a great improvement for New York City, where the average speed of horse drawn vehicles in 1907 was 11.5 hrs, but had declined to 8.5 mph for cars in 1966? (The Epic of New York City).
We are much more in love with the media image of speeding down uncrowded roads in pristine landscapes, than we are with the reality of car payments, traffic jams and car repairs.
in the vast, vast, vast number of cases, automobiles are a huge step up from the other extant choices. Let's look at what it means when a country turns its transport system over to cars: Smog (e.g. China) Personal debt increases, stress increases Country becomes dependent on oil, its balance of trade suffers, it increases the chance of conflicts over oil. The vast majority in poorer countries do not have access to cars, and their means of transport suffer as a result. Cars kill people, a lot of people. Even with electric cars, many of the problems remain.
I think you are looking at the dream of what a car represents for an individual, rather than the reality of what it means for society as a whole.
They allow people a degree of freedom that affluent Westerners utterly take for granted. You have to be pretty damn rich and comfortable to turn around and view other people's desire for a personal vehicle as some sort of psychological or moral failing. Who is buying the cars in India and China? It is the fraction of people in the middle and upper classes.
Who suffers? The large fraction who will never be able to afford cars, but who breathe the air and have to fight the traffic in streets that have been taken over by cars.
If you are going to be a populist rabble-rouser, DR, at least look at things through the eyes of the car-less multitudes, rather than the affluent!
Bart
Energy Bulletin
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amazingdrx Posted 2:22 pm
10 Aug 2008
And you could merely park your car over a charge unit under a parking spot and it would charge and your electric fuel account would pay for it by electronic transfer. Doing away with the task of plugging in would get more miles driven on electric power and less on fuel backup in plugin hybrids.
Vehicles with plugin hybrid drivetrains, long haul trucks, buses, and cars on long trips could ride in charging lanes to recharge batteries while driving and power the trip, with a tuned induction power pickup riding a few inches above the induction strip mounted in the pavement.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Delay And Deny Posted 3:30 pm
10 Aug 2008
Once again the Solar-Wind-Battery combines carefully exclude the real answer: hydrogen.
Ok, now you can reply with the litany:
-not a fuel, a storage medium
-costs more to make than use
Blah, blah, blah.
Ignore the science and rant on about your favorite alternative while ignoring the very real research and success of BMW and the Honda Clarity FCX.
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vakibs Posted 9:18 pm
10 Aug 2008
@Bob Wallace :
There is two problems with this thinking.
The issue of money (or dollars) is deeply tied to the nature of fuels that we use. We now have a fossil fuel economy, and current money is defined in terms of fossil fuels. With the depletion of fossil fuels, the value of your dollars will change rapidly.
A better way to estimate the "cost" of a technology is in its environmental side-effects. Let's say you want to obtain energy for your electric vehicles with solar panels. These panels will have to be constructed (mining the materials, disposing waste products..), given a land area (the best solar panels give about 20w / sq-mt) given regular care (cleaning with water etc). Each of these operations are costly. Most importantly, there will be a constraint on the amount of land available for mounting solar panels. These kind of costs come up whatever be your energy source (wind : land area + construction of turbines, nuclear : construction + radioactive waste + dangers). We don't have a reliable way of quantifying these costs yet. But a future economy will be operating based on these costs. It will cost a certain number of eco-dollars if you own a personal vehicle.
If you run a car for 40 miles per day, you will consume about 40 kwh per day. Let's say that this will translate into 40 eco-dollars (irrespective of the mode of production of energy)
Whether you can afford these eco-dollars or not is not quite clear. It depends on your other lifestyle choices and your demands on energy : whether you eat a lot of meat, whether you need heating for your house, whether you shop very often for clothes and gadgets ...
But just to be on the safe side, it is better to discourage personal vehicles as a policy.
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vakibs Posted 9:27 pm
10 Aug 2008
Sorry for the wrong numbers. Dr Mackay has estimated that we need 40 kwh per day if we use personal cars.
But this estimate is based on the idea that we need to use 50 kilometres/day with 12 km/litre of fuel and 10kwh/litre.
Electric cars (like Rewa) can give an energy efficiency of 16 kwh per 100 kilometres. In practice this is computed as 21 kwh per 100 kilometres.
If you use your car for the same 50 kilometres/day, your cost in eco-dollars will be 8kwh to 10 kwh.
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Jonas Posted 10:54 pm
10 Aug 2008
But it's not meeting all our needs.
As an intermediary between road and rail, we are now working on the "superbus" - a highly aerodynamic electric bus which uses dedicated roads, but which can also drive on normal roads.
Check it out:
Superbus.
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vakibs Posted 11:44 pm
10 Aug 2008
Electric cars with lead acid batteries will have very limited range. If you keep 500 kg of these batteries, it might fetch you 200 km. It is very uneconomical, and very annoying to carry these battery blocks along with you.
So hybrids make sense if you want your car to have a reasonable range. I agree with thebiker45 in that these hybrids might be powered by biofuels when they are beyond range (if you use these cars less often beyond range, you will need less of gasolene/biofuels.. then your oil consumption will reduce and such reduced consumption might be entirely replaced by biofuels).
Fuel cells (compressed air, boron, hydrogen..) might be another alternative for increased ranges.
Increased battery capacity is something of a holy grail. Lithium-based batteries might have a chance there, they might make a range of 300 km to 600 km feasible. (you will have about 100 kg to 300 kg of batteries to carry along with you in the car).
GreyFlcn, you are clearly daydreaming when you mention ranges of 1000 miles (1600 km). It is nowhere possible with current battery technology. Your silly arguments about "trajectory" are more empty than the argument for corn-ethanol being a trajectory to cellulosic ethanol.
About the swappable battery scheme, this will be practical only if you have batteries of longer range. (atleast 300 km). Otherwise, it will be workable only in tiny countries such as Israel. Everywhere else it will be a dumb idea.
Thebiker45, I really appreciated your comments elsewhere. I agree that million PHEV scheme of Obama will cure nothing of US oil addiction. It is nowhere close in replacing oil. And I also believe in nuclear power as you do (but with more advanced breeder reactor technology).
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GreyFlcn Posted 1:20 am
11 Aug 2008
As for the "Bulk Range" thing, I'd suggest you take a look at Electrovaya. They are going for the Bulk strategy.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2007/01/electrovaya_int.h ...
Now if you REALLY want to kick it up there, then we can talk about nano-silicon conductors.
http://greyfalcon.net/10xrange
But as for quick charge speed, AltairNano and AeroVironment have already done a proof of concept for it months ago.
http://greyfalcon.net/quickcharge3.png
http://greyfalcon.net/quickcharge
But anyways, assuming we do want to focus on Lead Acid, you might want to take a look at FireFly.
They are trying to cut the weight by using lighter weight materials. Sure the battery life sucks, but it's simple and cheap.
http://www.evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=877
-David Ahlport
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amazingdrx Posted 1:59 am
11 Aug 2008
With a modern economy car that 6kwh will give you aproximately twice the 21 mile per day average trip length. That is plenty of mileage to achieve an average fuel savings of 70 to 90%.
With the latest available technology it takes 125 pounds of batteries to store 6 kwh.
I'd say that makes the plugin hybrid part of this energy revolution eady to proceeed at mass production rates. Only the capital to get the manufacturing going on a scale to do that is missing.
Millions of plugin hybrids ordered by government and industry would give automakers an assured market and reduce their risk. Time to get some leadership that will call for this and revive our job, manufacturing, and tax base. Obama is the one who can lead us into that better future.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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vakibs Posted 2:21 am
11 Aug 2008
First of all, thanks for the links. They are cool technologies.
I never said "batteries won't work". I am just for clear and fact-based discussion of technologies.
I have not mentioned lithium-polymer batteries in my account because they are kind of expensive for some reason, and their lifetimes are very small.
I hope these problems get fixed up, because these batteries have certain other advantages. If mass production can bring down the costs, a density of 330 Wh/kg will be very useful - a range of 1000 km or higher will become feasible.
@amazingdrx
Can you please give your numbers in reasonable units for international audience ? It is very annoying to make the conversions.
21 miles = 33.7 kilometres .
So your battery efficiency will give 6*100/33.7 = 17.8 Wh / 100 km .. This is pretty much the same number as I have mentioned.
Now the weight, 125 pounds = 56.7 kg. If the energy density is about 120 Wh/kg (what I have assumed), we might store 6804 Wh or 6.8 kwh as you have claimed. Again, we have no conflict.
The futuristic batteries mentioned by GreyFlcn would triple the energy density (330 Wh/kg) and so would be 3 times lighter. In reality, most of your favorite plugin hybrids would employ lead acid technology, and this has far lower energy density (40 Wh/kg). What this means is that your commute will routinely go beyond the range of the electric engine, and you will keep burning gasolene.
So I am not joining your million PHEV bandwagon, sorry. Because as thebike45 has pointed out, this will be of no help in curing the oil addiction of USA.
I like Obama but I hope he gets a smarter bunch of guys to iron out his environment and energy policy :)
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amazingdrx Posted 2:37 am
11 Aug 2008
But this wouldn't have to be the only alternative, if we all pushed for mass production of the better battery technology that comes in around 125 pounds and charges a lot quicker.
Your favored solutions are not in mass production either. If we put the capital into these batteries now, millions of vehicles could be produced per year in just a few years.
Ramping up fuel farming or nuclear power would take a lot longer, even if they were GHG neutral, or starvation and contamination free, or safe and economical as you claim. Which we know they really aren't.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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amazingdrx Posted 2:43 am
11 Aug 2008
Figure another 150 pounds for the motor and other conversion parts, that could be offset too. Cars are a lot heavier than they need to be, as the racing community has proven.
They build much safer cars that are half the weight, with 3 or 4 times the power. We only need half the power of most modern economy cars in the electric motor of a plugin hybrid conversion.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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vakibs Posted 2:56 am
11 Aug 2008
Thank you for sticking up to your American units. I wonder why the rest of the world thinks of Americans as pricks, kinda surprising heh :) ?
300 pounds for 6 kwh is a reasonable number for lead acid. (with a capacity of 40 Wh/kg.. you can do the conversions)
Storing energy is a different chapter from producing energy. In reality, all this energy in your PHEVs will be obtained by burning coal. We need a massive effort to replace coal, and this is the principal environmentalist battle.
If your plan doesn't use nuclear for replacing coal (and doesn't damage the environment or make life harder for poor people) good luck. But just stick to the task of replacing coal ASAP.
I don't see Obama mentioning anything about shutting down coal plants. So I am not yet screaming "Obama ! Give us hope. We are the change we are looking for" etc.. in some high pitched voice.
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Bob Wallace Posted 3:33 am
11 Aug 2008
The Tesla is almost as large as a Camry, just a bit shorter. It's not an unsafe assumption that technology will bring us a bit more improvement and we can power a 4-5 passenger car with no more than 0.25 kWh per mile. That's a lot less than the 1kWh that you suggest.
As we move to more renewable power we are going to build wind farms to meet daytime needs. That means surplus power at night when electric cars can be charged. I used PV as an example of how the most expensive source of renewable electricity is still affordable compared to filling up at the pump.
People want personal transportation. Not all that many are willing to ride a bike and live in densely packed cities. Yes, living cheek to jowl and riding a bike/the bus would greatly reduce our energy needs, but you're going to be fighting human nature if you try to force people into that life style. (I'd suggest that many people live in densely packed cities simply because they can't afford to get out.)
We've dispersed ourselves across the landscape. People are not going to willing abandon their houses and lifestyles in order to reduce their transportation impact unless forced. Try to look at how people other than young unencumbered urbanites lead their lives.
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Bob Wallace Posted 3:40 am
11 Aug 2008
We ignore the cost of creating an entirely new transportation, storage, and distribution system for a very hard to contain gas.
We ignore the limited amount of platinum available for fuel cell engines. Switch to fuel cell cars and we run out in about 15 years.
We ignore the amount of water that it would take to create the hydrogen needed.
Did I cover all your "blah"s?
Are you ignoring the fact that the other car companies have moved away from hydrogen fuel cells as 'the answer'?
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amazingdrx Posted 4:14 am
11 Aug 2008
http://www.fireflyenergy.com/index.php?option=com_content ...
Check on "specs" for kg.
I know how much it feels to drive my car with 350 extra pounds onboard and how much more gas it uses. And how far a mile driven is.
In kg or km I wouldn't have the feel for it.
No actually the Oasis battery is a signifigant improvement over standard lead acid.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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GreyFlcn Posted 4:24 am
11 Aug 2008
Last I checked, they were about 50% more expensive, but has 2-3x the lifetime than conventional lithium.
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/05/07/autobloggreen-qan ...
Also if we REALLY got serious about this, we could steal the NiMH patent from Chevron.
NiMH is the same batteries that were used in the Toyota RAV-4's and the Toyota Prius.
-David Ahlport
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Jon Rynn Posted 5:01 am
11 Aug 2008
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gzuckier Posted 5:05 am
11 Aug 2008
If you have any doubts, then explain why all of sudden everybody needs not just a car, but a 2-3 ton truck.
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Colin Wright Posted 7:43 am
11 Aug 2008
Mad Mac probably can concur on this one.
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Bob Wallace Posted 2:21 pm
11 Aug 2008
And I'm willing to assume that there is going to be great demand for individual transportation capable of carrying a family and luggage/groceries.
And I can do the math that tells me that small, efficient personal vehicles can be 'fueled' with renewable energy for much less than it now costs to fill a 20th Century car.
As for the developing world, I've spent part of almost every year in the developing world for the last 27 years. The desire for personal transportation is high there, just as in the developed world. There is a progression from foot/bicycle/public transportation to small motorbike to family carrying machine that is going on. It is only slowed by the economics of buying that first car.
Just watch what happens when Tata starts delivering large numbers of their $2,500 Nano.
Yes, it would be better if people were willing to live close together and ride the bus. Said that before. But it ain't goin' to happen without some major change in the world.
Luckily we have sufficient free energy falling on us every day to power those rides.
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Bart Anderson Posted 2:55 pm
11 Aug 2008
And do you think China and other developing countries are going to opt for renewables when coal is so much cheaper? And especially with the vastly increased demand for electricity to power all the new vehicles?
Powering the vehicles is just one part of the problem. What about the asphalt and concrete for the roads? And the metals and plastics in the vehicles? All take energy to mine or produce, and eventually, to dispose of.
Do you really think the earth can sustain a global population driving cars the way Americans do?
Bart
Energy Bulletin
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Michael Hoexter Posted 3:50 pm
11 Aug 2008
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vakibs Posted 6:42 pm
11 Aug 2008
I come from India, and I have first hand experience of what happens when you have a high number of personal vehicles in an over-populated country.
What happens ? Shit happens.
The roads are constantly under stress (the road space available per the number of vehicles is about 1/11 the required space), the air is deadly polluted, there is the constant annoyance of traffic jams, and increasingly more people are dying in road accidents.
Indian middle class cannot afford Tata Nanos. There will soon be a government directive to discourage personal vehicles. There is simply a constraint on the amount of road space available, and you cannot have people dying on the road every day.
Now, a good example of managing high density living is Singapore. Personal vehicles are seriously discouraged there. Housing is provided in sky-rise apartments. And there is a brilliant public transport. Maybe not your version of paradise, but it works.
Another very nice example is the city of Paris.
Luckily we have sufficient free energy falling on us every day to power those rides.
Welcome back to the real world. There are ecological effects on the amount of solar energy that you can tap - these thresholds are defined by the land area you possess.
Notice that they aren't pursuing fuel cell, nuclear, or hamster powered vehicles.
Fuel cells are just an energy storage mechanism. They have certain advantages (energy capacity per weight) and certain significant disadvantages (flammability, energy loss during conversions) when compared with batteries.
Nuclear is a way of producing energy, not storing it. You don't have to have nuclear reactors in your cars. Like any other electric power, you just store nuclear energy in batteries. Nuclear energy is indispensable for powering our society in a fossil-fuel free world.
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