Chevy Volt and Gen III Prius discussion about: "green" energy, mileage, etc

I could not agree with you more! What I like with my Prius is not having to plug in at night, steal a hotel /motel electricity and not charging my battery using coal fired electricity.

I admit, I was surprised to learn that the state of Colorado in in the top 10 coal producing states (coloradomining.org) in the U.S. The U.S. EIA 2012 / 2103 points the majority of electricity in the U.S. is and will continue to be generated by coal, despite the renewables being used in power generation. Also the rates of electricity will continue to increase in the next year or 2 (2012 / 2013). Currently coal, natural gas, and nuclear power are the "lions share" of electrical power generation. Renewables, while interesting, are extremely small, as you mentioned "pockets" of green.

DBCassidy

 

Probably not in the majority, but I consider nuclear "green".

 

One should never "steal" electricity, but your assertion is that's the only way. Every hotel I've ask as said yes and it makes sense as many hotels don't mind one charging just like they don't mind some people watching TV or others taking a bunch of ice or using air conditioning.

Well it would be good if you could get the fact straight. Can you provide a citation to the claim that coal is the majority.. The data from EIA shows Coal is not even close to being the majority (i.e. > 50%). and has not for many years see this thread:The Greening of the Grid: Nuke+Renewables > NG == Coal, sooner than expected | PriusChat


Renewables + nuclear are now more than coal. Of course it varies by region. But that is still only considering GHG, not the many other benefits of using local-produced electricity rather than sending money out of the country for oil.

 

Oh, I see the game your're playing, if I present sources on data - you do not like it. So you go into bashing mode. Other posters have experienced the same issues with you. Your data is the only data in the world that is correct - that is very
juvenile. Funny, how you twist the story (or now change it) with your using a hotel electricity and NOT mentioning that you asked the owners if it would be all right.

You do not like coal - thats' your issue. Colorado is in the top ten coal producing states. So, it does sound like you would be very happy seeing that industry go out of existance, at least in your state. Well, what do you say to the miners supporting their spouses, and kids, when they are out in the street with no place to go, when the breadwinner has no job? Renewables, then are not a top priority - having a JOB is - get it?

You do like to twist data to your own advantage, especially renewables. Today, at others have mentioned, renewables are a "pocket" of green.

Coal and nuclear is the majority in this country. Of course, you will retort the the U.S.Energy Information Administration is wrong, and you are totally right.

Why am I not surprised?

DBCassidy

 

hout its'
Yes, I would say that nuclear can be considered a green technology, but not without its' dark side. Protecting the waste from falling into the wrong hands will, perhaps, always be an issue.

Hopefully, we will be able to generate and perfect nuclear fusion - much like our dwarf star. That will be a very exciting day indeed!

DBCassidy

 

So, I googled EIA and this is what they say:

ANNUAL ENERGY OUTLOOK 2012 (published June 2012)

U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) - Pub

 

Really? I'm happy to consider other sources of data. You made an unsubstaintated claim

for which which I provided a chart, based on EIA data, to show was factually wrong. You are the one that has provided no data. Do just resort to name calling when people call you on your errors (or are they intentional lies)?

I did not mention asking the hotel because I would expect anyone to ask before using a plug. That is just common sense and common decency. Sorry I did not spell that out for your.

Coal will be used for a long time but yes I'd be happy to see Coloradians trading coal jobs for green renewable jobs.

 

A Cadillac Escalade will give you that same secure feeling of not plugging in and using 100% liquid fuel and no electricity that you get from your prius. Most owners don't find that to be a feature. I have never heard of a hotel owner complaign about stolen gasoline. Why are you repeating made us stuff that is totally false? Think about stealing electricity for a moment.

This should not suprise you, anymore than the fact that texas has lots of oil and naturual gas and imports much of its coal.

The EIA has consistently over estimated future coal use. It has a simple model for projecting coal use, that does not account for coal cost, natural gas cost, or changing regulations. Coal may have small up ticks, but the trend is clearly down, and prices and regulations show this. Coal, Natural Gas, and Nuclear do have the highest percentage, of existing power. Natural gas and wind are 95% of new power. As coal plants older than 35 yo are shut down, they will be replaced with cleaner power. Estimating new coal will will replace the bulk of old coal electricity shows a misunderstanding of market dynamics. If you read old moldy reports, you will get the wrong impressions. Read something from the last year or two and you will see coal is shrinking in both absolute and percentage terms in North America.

 

Maybe things have changed since my college classes in power generation and distribution, but I'd guess that coal and nuclear still account for the vast majority of baseload power plants. Everyone outside the coal industry would love to have much less coal burning. Many people would love to phase out nukes, too, especially after the disaster in Japan. But, the reality is, wind, solar and most other renewable generation methods are generally not as suitable for baseload generation with our current distribution grid and energy storage technologies.

Unless we find previously undiscovered hydro and geothermal locations or massively invest in energy storage and grid upgrades, we're gonna be stuck with coal and nuclear for a long time. I'm not seeing the government pump billions or maybe even trillions into that when much of government is influenced by lobbyists that support fossil fuel interests. So, that means the status quo for a long, long time: less coal, more nukes or vice versa. Newer "green" renewable power generation technologies will slowly increase, perhaps quicker if the cost of fossil fuels increase significantly. "Cleaner" coal and natural gas will increase steadily, too, I imagine, but also not likely to quickly replace existing baseload coal and nuclear plants.

Maybe I'm working on obsolete book knowledge, but this is the kind of industry that moves slower than the government, meaning it takes decades to make incremental changes. Short of a revolutionary development I might have missed, of course.

 

Yes, I agree with your viewpoint. Massive energy storage is a must for renewables. Once this is done, then renewable, then, one will be able to see renewables getting a larger share of the baseload. Until, that day, Renewables will pretty much stay where they currently are.

DBCassidy

 

Depends what you mean by incremental. It wasn't all that long ago that coal on its own was up around 54% of our electrical generation. Now it is down to 37% or so?
If that is 'incremental', I'll take it!

 

No. To use Renewables effectively you only need the same thing coal plants use. That is back-up natural gas turbines to pick up the slack when the wind or solar output dives. Natural gas is positioned to be a major player in future elec power. The only thing holding nat gas back is political preferences for more expensive alternates like coal and nukes, but if nat gas cost stays low as now the other alternates fall off the grid.

 

Your first hunch was right.. you are using old data. Newables have grow a lot and hydro and wind are now commonly used at night (i.e. baseload). But the bigger influence is the pricing of fuel and the increasing demanding environmental requirements that make coal more costly.

This article from EIA, and its graph below, shows the key tradeoffs in goal/NG and oil-for electricity generation.


(Note the chart stopps in mid 2011.. by early 2012 coal an NG had converged to the same overall %.


You'll note the strong increase in NG.. well beyond what would be just peaker usage. The new combined plants can be far more efficient. Also is interesting that a NG plant can be both base-load and peaker and that by combining NG + wind the cost per KW delivered can be lower than a new coal plan. And since what really drives "baseload is what is the least expensive thing to dispatch on average", this is a trent that may (hopefully) continue.

The most recent EIA analysis stated

The full article is a worthwhile read.

 

I think my terminology is old, too. Baseload used to refer to high output plants that maintain steady power generation 24/7. Hydro is indeed baseload, but few (if any) locations for new plants of this nature remained even 10-20 years ago. Also, I lumped Natural Gas into the fossil fuel category, rather than the renewable category. If it is still a limited resource that requires burning to produce power, I'm not seeing it as a revolutionary step over coal. It's relatively cheap now, but prices swing widely, often contrary to market expectations. Like oil, a couple major refinery or supply line issues and you've got a major crisis, especially for baseload plants since it tends to be more difficult and expensive to store and extract in huge quantities than coal. For example, experts all thought we'd see $5 a gallon gas by July 4th and instead it dropped pretty significantly in the spring. Yeah, perhaps NG burns cleaner than coal with less particulates and such, but you know those particulates are causing global dimming, which may be needed to offset the greenhouse gasses produced by any fossil fuel;-)

Also, if it is NG that is going to be used to replace coal (and possibly nuclear) long term for baseload generation, what happens if prices surge?

Natural gas prices surge 70% - Jul. 24, 2012

 

There is a new reality. New solar and wind are much less expensive. New coal is more expensive.

Base load is a term that is losing its meaning. The big hydroelectric projects and nuclear power plants are fixed. When we add solar it is fairly fixed too. These things cost money to turn off. Wind can be shut down, but fuel cost is not existent. Coal plants cost money to shut down, so we call this base load, but wouldn't it be better to build natural gas combined cycle plants that shut down and start up easily. That is exactly what is being done power added is natural gas and wind. Costs of natural gas and wind make new coal and nuclear risky, potential regulation makes these more risky.

Monthly coal- and natural gas-fired generation equal for first time in April 2012 - Today in Energy - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)
EIA's Energy in Brief: How much renewable energy do we use?

You will note from the first graph natural gas generation was about the same as coal in april, when natural gas prices hit a 10 year low. Since the bottom they have spiked 70%, as production has slowed.

All of the easy big hydro has been done. The entire country has the potential to use geothermal heat pumps for HVAC, reducing the need for electricity and natural gas for these. The west coast and alaska have large amounts of discovered geothermal potential for electric generation. Wind is the biggest addition to power generation this year. Waste biomass and biogas electric generation are also growing. Non-hydro renewable electricity doubled in the last 20 years to about 5%, I would expect them to double again in the next decade. Over the next decade the projection now are for more coal to be retired than built. The bulk of the coal currently being retired is 40+ years old and does not have proper pollution control equipment. In 2011, coal dropped to 42%, I expect another drop this year. By 2030, coal should be down around 33%. If you replace a 32% efficient coal plant with a 60% efficient natural gas combined cycle plant, you reduce most pollution by over 90%, and ghg by 75%.

The goverment removed regulations forcing the building of coal power plants. Fracking has reduced the cost and increased supply of natural gas. Coal is still favored by the government, but the playing field is more level.

 

natural gas is indeed fossil, the renewable form, biogas is counted separately, but can be burned in the same plant. The key advantages in natural gas is current tech allows the building of quick cycling combined cycle plants that are 60% efficient, can follow load, and be shut off and turned on quickly. These plants are much less expensive than building coal power plants that comply with emissions requirements. At today's natural gas prices new gas plants produce less expensive power than new coal plants.

These were the bad assumptions in 1978 when they made it illegal to build base load natural gas. Prices are volatile, but on a long term downward trend, and reserves are quite high. Transportation is easier through pipelines for natural gas than trains for coal. Prices got too low, which caused lower production, which got prices up. Its a cycle.

I assume this is a poor joke, and you don't want to remove the scrubbers from coal plants.

That surge was to recent prices, which are much lower than the price 3 years ago. Diversity is good. Wind, biomass, biogass, and natural gas are replacing coal. Coal was 42% in 2011, natural gas was 25% of electricity. The cost of coal in the last 5 years has been rising, natural gas falling. Duke recently got a rate increase because the cost of coal was higher than expected. Having more coal than natural gas is indeed risky, especially if regulations are added to mining that could spike coal prices. Coal is easily exported which may also raise its future price.

 

For things like wind and solar, you also need to be able to store the energy for times of no wind and sun and also move the energy from where wind and sun are plentiful to where they are not. It's a great idea and will be necessary someday, but an overhaul to the grid and improvement in electric storage on a national scale have staggering costs and won't happen quickly.

As for the environment, fracking and NG storage (often underground) isn't all that appealing, either, and it still burns and produces CO2 like any fossil fuel. An upgrade from dirty coal, perhaps, but definitely not "green".

The new reality is that to phase out fossil fuels and nuclear, it's going to cost a fortune. You know, I'm all for it, but the public isn't gonna want to pay a lot for it either through taxes or electric rates, at least not while fossil fuels are as cheap as they are now. Shifting coal/nuke to NG is not the long term green answer, in my opinion.

Honestly, I'd like to see a few bucks of taxes on gasoline to pay for it all, but that's not a popular enough sentiment for it to ever happen.

Thus, the ;-) I thought it was a decent joke. But perhaps I'm not taking the conversation seriously enough? Perhaps we can invent a way to burn NG without producing CO2, instead? ;-)

 

I am a Volt owner. I am little surprised over the concern about 'green' in this thread. The Union of Concerned Scientists have concluded that:

About 50% of the nation lives in a power generating in which emissions used to generate EV Power would BE BETTER THAN 50 MPG hybrids. The worst part of the nation would have emissions no worse than a car getting 30 MPG, which is about 8 MPG than the nationwide average of cars sold in 2012 of 22 MPG.

http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/clean_vehicles/electric-car-global-warming-emissions-exec-summary.pdf

I live in North Carolina, one of the cleanest areas mentioned on the list. I have driven 12,000 miles in 6 months, using only 14.6 gallons of fuel and 3,720 kWh at my cost of about $210.

For me, green was about the last reason I bought the car. But don't kid yourself... The Volt, at 120 MPG+ nationwide average, is clearly green.

I have a ton of technical data and resources on my blog: My Chevy Volt

You can also follow me on twitter: Voltdriver

 

If you check out the texas grid - ERCOT - you may notice there is plenty of natural gas generation to fill in for wind changes. You don't need to store the wind. You need to turn off the other source when its blowing. With natural gas this is easy. With coal, you shut down the entire coal plant for the low season, and use wind and natural gas. Many coal power plants are at less than 50% utilization, turning off in the winter, and on the rest of the year. That coal base load, needs to be retired.

Fracking versus mountain top removal You must be listening to the coal lobbiests.
There is no reason to store natural gas electricity, or wind or sun at current levels.

We are doing it on the local grid. I pay less than the east coast. Run the numbers, it costs money to do business as usual.

As I said, duke, raised rates because of the cost of coal. Your rates are going to go up, if you stick with coal. My rates have stayed stedy on wind. I started out paying more, but now those costs are coming up.

Enforcing the same clean air standards of natural gas to coal plants makes coal plants much more expensive. Do you want to pay the cost?

Its happening. open your eyes. Dirty coal gets expensive when standards are enforced.


Thus, the ;-) I thought it was a decent joke. But perhaps I'm not taking the conversation seriously enough? Perhaps we can invent a way to burn NG without producing CO2, instead? ;-)[/quote]