Electricity hidden CO2?

In the EU where a large number of Nuclear power plants are in use, doesn't compare the same to the US where there are a large amount of coal fired power plants, and very few nuclear plants, after all, all us US snobs dont want no stinkin nuclear plants in our yards.

Compare apples to apples, what are the numbers from coal plants in the midwest and eastern seaboard? The west coast has Hydroelectric, so those don't count, lets see the numbers for coal fired area and how much CO2 is needed to charge the cars for 500 miles a week.

 

In the US the average plug-in could reduce CO2 very little, because about half the US' power comes from coal, and as it happens the breakeven point is at about 50% fossil fuel sourced electricity. Every potential plugin buyer should discover how their electricity is generated before buying. With some providers it will actually do more harm than good.

 

I believe this is incorrect, due to the efficiency of scale. Coal-fired power plants are more efficient than the most efficient gasoline cars.

(FWIW here in WA, our electricity is mostly hydro, and in my neighborhood it's all hydro, with a little wind energy in the mix.)

 

In addition to Daniel's point, the whole new level of efficiency is reached when you move from an ICE (which is used in most all hybrids right now) and an electric motor.
You gain a lot of efficiency right there which gives you lower CO2 emissions even if you do use all coal.
As for midwest, much of MN power comes from natural gas. 20% of our electricity will be from wind/solar by 2025.

 

While the great bulk of our PNW energy is hydro, I am presuming that nearly all of our non-carbon capacity is used somewhere. What we don't consume is not spilled or dumped, but sold to others, displacing carbon somewhere.

Likewise, most of the extra hydro we consume is made up as carbon burned by other utilities that won't find as much 'green' stuff to buy.

 

As an FYI, EIA - Electricity Data, Analysis, Surveys is a graph of the US electricity generation mix. How clean is the electricity I use? - Power Profiler | Clean Energy | US EPA lets you look up the generation mix for your area.

 

coal power plants despite their inefficiencies are greater than 10 times more efficient than the best car engine on the road today. in Western WA, we have too much population and therefore too much peak power demand to stay on hydro, so about 30% of our power (used during 16% of our day) is coal. we have 61% is hydro including 100% renewable during off peak times with around 9% wind and solar tossed in.

another note, there was a guy in Eastern WA who became only the 4th known private owner of a wind generator. now he claims that he could pay off his investment ($87,000!!) in just a few years. with changes to renewables, Obama is giving him $28,000, the state a few thousand more.

now, him being one of four, granted not quite a drop in the bucket, but this is what we need to encourage.

 

Despite all the disadvantages to coal power plants, keep in mind:

When used as Combined Heat and Power or "co-gen" their efficincies are 80-85%

With Federal oversight eg EPA emissions controls are installed and monitored, usually 24x7. With a car, you're lucky if it comes in once a year for a quick smog check, and only in places that require smog checks

While we have problems with Peak Loading, usually the grid interties are far below maximum capacity. Night is almost always the lowest demand, so a plug-in parked at home, charging from 2300-0500, would be ideal

It's difficult to reason with anti-EV people. Plenty of meth-mouth hillbillies still believe that the Prius is soley responsible for the "moonscape" around Sudbury

Hint for trolls now reading this post:

There is NO "moonscape" around Sudbury, that was cleaned up back in the 1980's, long before the Prius.

The vast majority of nickel production is for the steel industry, eg the automotive industry in the United States. The heavier a vehicle, the more nickel content. Chrome also requires nickel

Toyota purchases around 1% of INCO's Sudbury total output. No doubt a small fraction of that 1% is put into the NiMH batteries

 

Interesting information there regarding the Coal plants. Now for the next line of questions, if Coal can be used more efficiently, then why is obama wanting to eliminate coal altogether? What will happen when coal plants become too expensive to operate, and get shut down, what will be there to replace them? What is the draw to charge an average size car pack, and multiplied by 2 for every household, what kind of draw would be seen on the grid?

 

I recall Obama citing the need for "clean coal" in some of his speeches. Where do you get your information?

Obviously it would be better if we didn't need to burn anything at all, but many compromises will need to be made, especially in the short to mid term.

Tom

 

He gave a speech on Oct 8th 2007 where he stated that his proposals would make it too expensive for coal. I got it mixed up with the clean coal fantasy.

At the same time of course, a clean coal facility in IL was canned.
FutureGen Fiasco: Killing Illinois Plant Set Clean Coal Back 10 Years, Congress Says - Environmental Capital - WSJ

Now if they renew this project, and it may very well be following a recent article in the Washington post, I will change my opinion on this topic. OTOH, what he has proposed is to make it too expensive to run existing coal fired plants with his cap and trade, so if and when they get shut down, what will take up the slack? It will take several years to build a new plant, and 10 years or more for a nuclear plant, if that can even happen.

 

even if you could get a cost effective way to burn clean coal there is still no way of MINING clean coal. it simply destroys too much. what if there is another slurry accident??
every time a slurry dam lets go, an entire watershed is destroyed

 

Which is why I call it a clean coal fantasy. For everything good attempted to do, to get there, something bad has to happen. To get the steel to make a car, you have to mine the ore, then process the ore, then the energy needed to turn the iron into steel. There is a lot of steel and aluminum in a Prius, so even though low or no emissions come out, a lot went into making it. Same will be for clean coal, sure you may get to where nearly zero emissions come out of the plant, but a lot sure went into getting the coal to the plant. Which brings me back to my biggest question, what will replace the coal plants when they are taken off line because cap and trade made them too expensive to operate? Cant charge a battery if there isn't enough electricity. Same can be said about hydrogen fueled cars, great concept, but how do you get the fuel to power it? It is pretty easy to get hydrogen, provided you have enough energy to expend on the process, which boils back to the power plants. I like wind power, I think they look pretty cool, but not everyone likes them, and the misinformed think they are a danger to wildlife. If I could afford one, I would have a wind tower installed on my farm and try to get off the grid.

 

It isn't a light switch. We are not going to flip a switch and turn off all coal plants one evening.
Renewables have been growing in capacity as have (worldwide) nuclear, tidal and geothermal plants.
Non centralized energy (residential solar, wind etc) has also been growing and will continue to do so.
The biggest hurdle for solar and wind that I see is a really good way to store the energy so it can save up energy when it is abundant and continue to put it into the grid when the generation is not active.

What people miss is that there is very little cost increase (if any) when you consider the true costs of coal.
Right now, the people that live near coal plants pay a VERY high cost in terms of health and early death. People not so near also pay for the polution (radiation and mercury even if you ignore CO2). And then the whole world MAY end up paying a very high cost for the CO2.
Clean energy may have a higher dollar cost (for now), but overall, it is a better deal.

 

Numbers, please. One should not just say "power plants are so much more efficient than car engines" and leave it at that. And in fact the situation is probably better than I first thought. Estimating (because I haven’t seen data from GM yet) it should take roughly 20 kW-hours of electricity to fully charge a 40 mile Volt. Generating 1 kW-hr from coal and delivering it to the average house creates about 1 pound of CO2, so driving 40 miles on battery only in a Volt will create about 20 pounds of CO2. Burning one gallon of gasoline also creates about 20 pounds of CO2, so if one gets all of one’s electricity from coal then a Volt will be no cleaner than many small cars. But about 50% of the US’ electricity is generated from coal, so on average a Volt will reduce global warming. Your utility or state’s public utility commission should be able to tell you what fraction of your electricity derives from coal.

 

Adding to Richard's post,

putting cars on the grid allows those cars to get cleaner over time as more renewables and cleanER coal, etc come on line.

putting cars on the grid has a huge benefit in terms of urban pollution and related health issues where most people live.

 

Which is why the real problem is politics: Americans do not want to pay now for a benefit to come later (which they may not be alive to enjoy). They'd much rather have a benefit now for which they must pay later (for which they hope the bill will come after their lifetime and someone else will have to pay). If the benefit is now and the bill comes after their lifetime, they don't care how high the bill is.

Your whole post confuses amounts of energy with rates of energy flow. It will probably take 20 kW, not 20 kWh, to charge a 40 mile Volt, if there ever is a 40-mile Volt. I don't think they're even talking about a 40-mile Volt anymore, and I don't believe they'll ever build the Volt at all.

FWIW, my Zap Xebra goes about 3 miles on one kW. The Xebra is a light but inefficient car. I'd be interested to hear from Darell how many miles his Rav4EV goes on one kW.

 

I covered that in my thread on how oil refineries work. There are various catalytic/reforming steps in a refinery that produce H2. If you repurpose an oil refinery to produce H2 instead of regular unleaded and ULSD, to run a fleet of hydrogen cars, all you do is translate the exhaust emissions of a fleet of cars to an oil refinery

 

Rough estimates on mine (RAV4 EV) will be a 34KW battery pack with a range of 100-130 miles. So about 3.5-4 miles/KW
I will be happy to give more test data once I am driving it

Also, a big part of the efficiency gain is the efficiency of an electric motor over an ICE. If you have a PHEV which still uses an ICE much of the efficiency is lost.