News from California 11

[zdas04]

California passes new auto emission rules

This article is AMAZING. The regulators in California have mandated that 1.4 million electric cars be on the roads of the state by 2025. I tried to count the number of times electric cars were called "zero emissions" in the article and got to 8 before I lost count. One of the comments after the the article hit the nail on the head by saying "Electricity comes from coal and natural gas, why don't they call these cars 'coal fired vehicles'?".

Why do regulators insist on pretending that they can ignore the laws of nature?

David

 

[ivymike]

I didnt convert the units myself, but that should be the figure you get when you convert the LHV of gasoline from kJ/kg to kWh/gal. Using efficiency was in the next sentence.

Nox limits for power plants used to be based on fuel heat released (like LHV) but I think NSPS has changed that (more familiar with NSPS for gas compression engines where its based on bkW of the engine.

 

[beej67]

GMIracing's point about California's electricity infrastructure is a pretty awesome one, considering all the trouble they got themselves into with deregulation and brownouts.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

http://www.campbellcivil.com

 

[owg]

I remember working on a very efficient use of wind power as an automotive driver back in 1972. Perhaps its time has come again. See

http://www.google.ca/search?q=mecca...s=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

It certainly bypasses some of the energy consuming intermediate steps. Smile!

HAZOP at

http://www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

 

[moltenmetal]

JMW said:

"Same as the costs of special steels batteries etc has to go into EV evaluations.
They are not zero emissions on an ashes to ashes accounting. Though the figures are disputed the early Prius came 60th in a list of lifetime pollutants and near the top came some kind of 4x4.... standard steels and they run a couple of times round the clock before they die and often as not they are kept running.
Battery disposal is also an issue."

Embodied energy is trotted out often in this sort of discussion to "prove" one thing is more virtuous than the other. Unless the auto manufacturers are paying a great deal less for their energy than I'm paying for mine, given the prices being charged for the vehicles, simple economics indicates that there's no way that the embodied energy in a vehicle comes close to the amount of energy it consumes during its lifetime.

The Prius has only 20 kg of nickel in its batteries. True, there's more energy in making a kg of nickel than in making a kg of steel, but probably not by more than an order of magnitude- say about the same as the cost of an extra 200 kg of steel. That's roughly the weight difference between most SUVs and the Prius, i.e. the embodied energy of the batteries is moot.

Battery disposal for the Prius is also no problem, as nickel metal hydride batteries are very different in the toxicology department when compared to nickel cadmium batteries or even the ubiquitous lead/acid batteries. Recovering the nickel from these batteries is far easier than recovering it from the ore. Lithium ion batteries are not used in the Prius, but are also not a particular toxicological problem. Lithium supply might be a problem once we have millions of EVs, but that's more a price issue than anything else.

So yes, "the figures are disputed" in that study.

What's put in and what's taken out of the analysis and what assumptions are made can entirely determine the outcome of studies like this. What I'd like to see instead is a carbon tax at the source on all the fuels, regardless whether those fuels are used to make electricity or car parts or to drive the vehicles themselves. Then all you'd need to know is the purchase price and some estimate of what your fuel and maintenance costs will be to determine what makes the most sense to buy.

 

[cranky108]

With the new electric recharging stations, what do they charge($) to recharge an electric?
If it's free, then it might be worth looking at an electric car. However, if it's not, what is the cost compairson of fuel?

They just made a big deal of installing one of those charging stations here. Although I haven't made the time to see it for myself. If the usage is big, I can't believe it would be free (on the other hand they give away those funny light bulbs for free).

 

[SomptingGuy]

I doubt it'll be free, but I suspect it'll have little or no tax on it, compared with diesel/gasoline.

We have a charging point outside our main entrance and it's always plugged into a vehicle. A bit like having an electric patio heater permanently on.

- Steve

 

[cranky108]

Noteing that electric taxes go to a different part of the same tax pot, than gasoline taxes. What future projects will or will not get funded with the proposed number of EV's?

Maybe some road repairs won't get done, that other wise would. Could be the same with natural gas vehicles.

 

[jmw]

I think one problem with EV is charging.
Where will you charge?
There are a lot of car owners who do not have off road parking but must on street park where they can find a space.
Unless charging points are installed on street, with meters, then a lot of people just won't be bale to operate an EV.


JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[moltenmetal]

Yes, EVs are not practical for a lot of people. Anyone having to depend entirely on charging stations away from their own home would be better served with public transit by a long shot.

MSRP for a Leaf in Canada is about $39,000 + tax. Government subsidy is about $7,500 off that. If that's $39,000 plus tax minus $7,500 PLUS a $200/month battery lease, this isn't a car- it's a rich man's toy. Forget about the cost of electricity- $200/month is more than I pay for gasoline for my Prius, and I'm a long distance commuter. Until those numbers get a lot more favourable, even a die-hard EV fan such as myself won't be buying one.

I'm betting the EV doesn't take off until the Chinese begin mass-producing them. And they will.

 

[jmw]

Oh dear.
The prospect of the Chinese "Rover" factory producing EVs isn't exactly enthralling.

Rover was part of British Leyland.
What happens when you apply "quality fade", for which Chinese Manufacture is famous, to a Rover....? It doesn't bear thinking about.

Besides, whose design will they copy?

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[beej67]

The cost comparisons for EVs are valid, but you're forgetting that oil price fluctuates. EVs are a hedge bet against the future cost of oil, not a viable alternative to the current cost of oil.

Hidden in the cost of petroleum based transportation is that the US is stealing from future generations to wage a semi-permanent global police state action to drive the price of oil down to the margins we see today. As that falls apart in the next decade, our costs for gasoline are going to go way up, and the same comparisons in this thread that seem unfavorable for EV are going to suddenly look very favorable. All y'all laughing at the Chevy Volt owner are going to be begging him to borrow his car when gas goes to $20 a gallon.

I don't know about you guys, but I simply don't see how spending a trillion dollars a year in global police state actions is sustainable.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

http://www.campbellcivil.com

 

[jgailla]

Good point, beej, but I think your numbers are a little off. The US defense budget in 2010 including Iraq and Afghanistan was around $750 billion. Some of this money would have to be spent on national defense even without funding a global police state.
Pulling a number out of the air, but we'd probably need at least $250 billion to be comfortably safe. So our savings are half a trillion dollars. Also, it will take some time to wind everything down even if the political will existed and there would be an issue with employment.
Regardless, the US budget including defense is unsustainable as you pointed out with our current level of taxation. Guns or butter, as the old saying goes. We have suicidally chosen as a society to spend money on two wars, expand the social safety net, and cut taxes. I don't think even two of these items would be economically feasible, let alone all three.

 

[jmw]

It isn't fossil fuel cost that is the killer but government taxation, bad enough at most times but now made worse by the discovery of the new "it's for your own good" environmental tax.
The higher price per barrel is what unlocks shale oil etc.
The ongoing demand is what enables genuine cost increases which makes new recovery methods feasible.
The growing size of the market and the higher prices are a necessary part of our path toward energy sufficiency such as fusion power. Fossil fuels are the investment capital that along with population growth (market growth) makes the end goal realisable.
I have serious doubts that we will be able to fund the future if we are forced down side roads and forced, as with coal, to leave the greater part of our fossil fuel capital in the ground.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[SomptingGuy]

The "it's for your own good" environmental tax works the opposite way for EVs. Current government thinking (at least in the UK) is that EVs are so green that they should be subsidised (negative tax). Even though they are (in most part) ultimately fossil fuel powered and at a lower efficiency than IC-powered vehicles.

God knows why they are excluded from the "congestion charge" in London, more tax exemption, although they still cause as much congestion as all other cars.

- Steve

 

[jmw]

Red ken is talking about extending the contagion zone (no that's the word I want to use) and introducing his big 4x4 tax. I guess he hates Chelsea Tractors and all those who drive them. (There is a small question in my mind as to why so many Chelsea Mums need the biggest 4x4 they can get to take the kids to school. I guess the kerbs are bummer in a G-Wiz, especially if you want to pavement park in front of Harrods).
He thinks this is how to get rid of Boris.
Worryingly, he is ahead at the moment.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[zdas04]

Notice the title of the thread changed? I wasn't consulted. I wish whoever got upset with the original title had just stopped opening the thread. I hate that they left my handle as the thread's originator, that is not the thread I started.

David

 

[berkshire]

I think you have seen the heavy hand of David.
B.E.

The good engineer does not need to memorize every formula; he just needs to know where he can find them when he needs them. Old professor

 

[SomptingGuy]

One of the comments on that article that zdas04 posted was:

DO the fruits and nuts in Kalifornia really believe that EV's are low emission? Where to they think electricity comes from? The electric fairy? Most comes from coal fired power plants. So in effect, EVs run on coal.

So I assumed the term was well established.



- Steve

 

[zdas04]

I don't think that anyone mis-understood the reference. I've always felt that if you have communication you should stop while you're ahead.

David

 

[jmw]

How can anyone be upset about the thread title?
How could they flag it to management?
Why should management fall over?
There are many good reasons for a red flag process but one of the biggest problems in society (not necessarily here, I could not possibly comment on the Eng-Tips policy) is the abuse of such systems where a minority of one can have the power over millions.
'Nuff said.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com