How will the Chevrolet Volt be better than a Toyota Prius plug-in hybrid?

It's not either/or. Efficiency and clean generation are both needed. It is possible to eliminate your net grid demand with PVs. It is not possible to eliminate your net grid usage with efficiency alone unless you stop using any electricity, or have some alternative method of making what you need.

Making less pollution than you were before is still making pollution. I may have misspoke in my attempt to express the idea that all pollution is bad. Making less is less bad, but is still bad. We pat ourselves on the back for driving a car (the Prius in the case of most here) that puts out half as much pollution as our previous car. It's like a mafia hit man bragging that last year he killed 10 people but this year he only killed 5, and asking for kudos for killing fewer people.

 

This is certainly true.
There are a few nuances though, if that prius driver is criticising that volt+pv driver, the odds are the prius driver will not have pv. Certainly the volt driver or the leaf driver can add more pv to win this competition. But I would say the prius driver and volt driver are both doing well. That bicycle rider with pv does win.....

So is a little more CO2 with a lot less gas a good trade off, that depends on your point of view. Certainly the grid can be cleaned up a great deal, and likely will in the lifetime of that volt, and zythryn has done his part to clean up the grid. The government has subsidized this, but I don't count that against the environmental impact. Another PC poster volt owner said he had reduced his other electric consumption about as much as the volt. I would not criticize that prius owner with an efficient home that does not like the current phev and bev choices, but reducing oil use is important, and more plug-ins allow for a cleaner grid to clean up transportation emissions in the future.

 

Of course, but consider this: Quasi-clean (because I include nuclear) energy is about 18% of current production overall in the US. My home uses less than 18% of the national average home energy budget. My car uses less than 1/3rd the personal fleet average normalized to a mile.

We will talk about the residual 20%, when the low lying 80% fruit is collected.

Addendum -- sorry about the annoying crap below. I think my copy/paste of a quote is responsible.

 

Nobody but you is getting that odd non-link. I sometimes copy/paste quotes. You've said you cannot delete it. Are you posting to the board in some unconventional way? I just type or copy/paste into the message pane in the browser. (Formerly Firefox, now Chrome.) Nothing shows up that I don't put there, and I can quote your posts (have done so) and delete the non-link. Something weird is going on. Again, are you posting in some unconventional manner?

 

I am not sure what conventional is, but I often quote by selecting text, copying it to the clipboard, pasting into a new message, and then selecting it and hitting the quote button which surrounds it in quotes.

Using FF 8.0 for OS X. I'd think about using a different browser if I could remember my password. Retrieving the password from PC is non-trivial because I do not use the email account today I used when the password was setup.

 

Sounds pretty conventional to me. Weird.

 

I still have a different view. When Mr.Z pump solar electrons into the grid, it makes the day-time electricity cleaner. This is a positive action. At night, Mr.Z charges his Volt from the grid. This is another positive action by increasing the efficiency of coal plant, perhaps by a tiny amount.

Mr.Z's interaction with the grid makes the grid a little bit cleaner and his PV system becomes part of the grid. Therefore, Mr.Z's Volt upstream emission should be the average of the grid, at least from the state level instead of the US average.

As you mentioned, there is no way to trace the electrons. So, once you are connected to the grid, you lose the trace-ability and would have to use the average. The only way to make sure is to disconnect the PV system from the grid and connect it directly to the Volt or store it in another battery pack.

The problem with your "effect of a given action" concept is that, it makes everything fungible. Coal and gasoline become fungible simply by converting them first to electricity. Money is fungible because $10 is $10. You can't say $10 worth of apples are fungible with $10 worth of oranges. Money is fungible but apples and oranges are not.

 

Sounds good so far, this seems to be what most of us are saying. That is until that last sentence.

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I'm not getting this part. Are you saying if when you hook up to the grid and say supply 12 kwh of fuel generated electricity during the day, then draw 12 kwh of electricity at night, that this is somehow worse than being off grid and generating 14kwh into a battery then draining it. Would not the net fuel used on the grid be a better way to analize this?

I don't think that is what most of us have been saying. Since the device powered with electricity does not care how that electricity was generated it can use any power source. The user of a gasoline engine needs to use gasoline. As shortages of fuel for electric consumption or or price spikes occur this fuel can change. Shortages of gasoline or price spikes may cause a bigger problem.

 

SO if I have an apple tree and grow and sell $10 worth of apples, then buy $10 worth of oranges while I am getting oranges at no net cost to me I can't claim to be having an effect on lessening the demand of the orange industry because I'm still buying their product.

I think I understand what you've been trying to say now, but I still disagree.

 

I am in a similar position as Zytherin. I have a Hymotion Prius, and 4.7kw PV system installed, which includes battery backup.

I just cannot understand usbseawolf's position, but my wife agrees. I find that it comes down to an instantenous view vs. an overall view.

It is agreed that if I store the electricity generated by the PV system in the batteries, then use the electricity, I am using "clean energy." But somehow, if somebody else borrows the batteries, drains them, and recharges them from the grid, and gives them back to me, I somehow lose my "clean energy?" And, in reality, by sending it back to the grid instead of storing it in the batteries, it is overall more efficient.

My local electric company is fairly efficient, at 42%. With my PV panels, I don't see how anybody could argue that my individual efficiency has improved. I calculate to 63%. I do use some at the time of generation, but most is sent back to the grid, then used at a later time. But it is MY electricity that I allowed the grid to borrow.

 

^^ I think USB is only pointing out that energy sources are not equal.

Say you send your PV output to the grid during the day when NG would have been used, but you use electricity at night generated from coal.

To me this is a minor point, and I give you kudos on your set-up. USB is right though.

 

"It is overall more efficient" is an excuse. It is a great one and justifiable. However, it doesn't change the fact that you demand and consume coal electricity (in the presented scenario). Yup, it is hard to accept and swallow. Women are good at catching us guys coming up with excuses and justifications. Don't argue with her, just tell her that she is right.

I thought it is a sale transaction with selling price during the day higher than buying rate lower at night.

 

+1. Either if your PVs are on or off the grid, what you are doing is a positive thing.

 

Certainly there is a difference between an excuse and an explanation. It seems that the gut argument is coal energy must be targeted to evs. And sometimes this is true, but in most cases it is entirely false. But this never seems to bother those arguing. But lets pretend that buyer A reduces demand of peaking natural gas plant, and at night increases the demand for coal. Is that really awful? Buyer B reduces peaking natural gas and at night uses wind. Each utility is different, but the only way I really see phev demand increasing coal demand is that it reduces the cost of electricity. Buyer C will trade day coal for night coal and because of grid efficiency will use less coal. Buyer D will trade day natural gas for night natural gas. Assuming that coal is the marginal fuel that must feed an EV and that PV will not reduce coal at the same time over the life of the pv + phev seems like a major assumption.

Adding a battery and going off grid simply adds cost and makes the grid+pv system less efficient. This may be the selfish best idea for someone with a big ego and bad grid, but it seems rather shallow to me.

This is not the normal case, but may be at some utilities.

 

I understand the "collective" synergistic view. That's how HSD achieve extraordinary results instead of focusing on the individual "engine/motor level" efficiency. The ultimate result is the total system efficiency. The energy re-circulation (heretical) mode is a great example. It doesn't make sense to lose efficiency through electric path but it allows the ICE to spin at lower RPM. The overall efficiency is higher.

Overall, there may be less coal used by utilizing the solar panels shave the peak and plugin cars charge at night. If you take that synergistic view and hook up your PV system to the grid, you lose the pure solar bragging right because you become part of the collective grid. You ought to use the average grid electricity efficiency and emission.

The only way to get the pure solar powered bragging right, is by operating the PV system off the grid. Yes, it is less efficient route to gain the bragging right.

All I was saying is that you can't do both - connect to the grid and claim your plugin car is powered by solar electrons with justifications.

 

well i see a link in a image tag that seems to go nowhere.

 

When an excuse is the truth, then it's valid. Using a valid and true argument as an excuse does not make it a bad thing, or change its validity and truthfulness.

If I decline to jump off a cliff because it would kill me, that's an excuse. But it's still true, and a wise decision.

Exactly my point all along!

Exactly. It's the effect of an action that matters.

 

If the electric utilities see their vision of a 'smart' grid come to fruition, PV tie-in will reduce expensive NG use during the day, and coal will increase its fractional fossil fuel contribution by time shifting EV charging to nighttime.

It can be quite complicated to accurately calculate how much GHG and pollution is averted by tie-in of PV. Worse scenario -- only NG is averted. Best scenario -- coal is averted. In practice for most people: ymmv somewhere in between.

 

Says who? This is an entirely arbitrary distinction. Certainly you can make this claim if you so wish, but it is only your opinion, and one not shared by most I would suspect. One's bragging rights to "pure" solar should be increased by a net return to the grid, not diminished. Without the grid, excess capacity is wasted. Why is this better from a green standpoint?

You can, as long as the PV generates at least as much energy as that consumed by the car.

I make money by designing electronic products. I take this money and deposit it into the bank. At some later date I withdraw money to buy groceries. Can I not say that designing electronics pays for my food? Not by your definition. To work with your definition, I would have to keep my money under my mattress, otherwise it gets contaminated by all of the other money in the bank. Or better yet, I should insist on being paid in food.

This is a silly argument.

Tom

 

If you put it that way, yes it is a silly argument. I did not think the grid like a bank.

The question is, if the grid can be thought as a bank. If you put in electricity into the grid, is that electricity still your? You don't have to draw that electricity back because it is converted to money when you get the monthly bill.