The Oil Drum | DrumBeat: October 19, 2006

321 comments on DrumBeat: October 19, 2006

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Hothgor on October 19, 2006 - 11:41am

Acutally, that is a typo. Im talking about converting all 220 million automobiles currently driven in the US. The energy equivlant from a powerplant production standpoint is 57 GW.

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tate423 on October 19, 2006 - 12:54pm

Hothgor,

I'm intrigued. How did you come up with the energy equivalent of 57GW? Does the 220 Million figure includes all cars and trucks including tractor trailers?

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The Interloafer on October 19, 2006 - 12:56pm

So less energy is required to run the fleet of automobiles traveling throughout the country than is required to run our air conditioning? Not that I don't believe you, but I'm, well, a bit stunned by that figure. I have zero figures for this, but it just seems that driving a 2-ton vehicle should use more energy than running an a/c unit. No?

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Nagorak on October 22, 2006 - 7:54am

I wouldn't be so sure about that. A/C is a hellaciously wasteful powerhog. Cars have a few things going for them, first of all the fact that they roll on wheels. A lot of people have surely rode a bike before at some time. I'm sure you know from riding a bike that oftentimes you don't even need to peddle. If you are going down even a slight incline you can pick up a lot of speed and just roll with no effort.

The truth is this applies to cars too, and actually you can roll quite fast on even a very slight incline as a result of the car's weight. I think many people are under the assumption that without the engine pushing constantly the car would just stop, but that is not true (if you have a manual it's easy to push the clutch in, it can be impressive sometimes just how far you can roll with no power input whatsoever).

Once a car is actually rolling it doesn't necessarily require that much power to keep it in motion, especially with low rolling resistance tires. On the other hand with AC we have the issue that people are trying to keep their houses well below the ambient outdoor temperatures. When you're trying to keep your house 20-25 degrees below the ambient outdoor temperature you are just going to waste tons and tons of energy. It's kind of like running uphill, you are spending a lot of energy fighting the laws of nature. An AC will be running basically nonstop during the day, whereas on average a car will not be in motion more than a small fraction of the day.

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Nagorak on October 22, 2006 - 7:57am

Just to clarify, I am not saying that Hrothgar is necessarily correct. I'm just pointing out how it might not be that surprising if vehicle power usage was not that much different from AC power usage.

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GliderGuider on October 19, 2006 - 1:09pm

Let's look at it another way.

The USA currently uses about 320 million gallons of gasoline in a day. A gallon of gasoline yields around 36.6 KWH, so the heat energy in the gasoline used in one day in the USA is about 12,000 GWH.

According to a Wikipedia article, electric vehicles are about 4 times as energy efficient as gasoline vehicles. If all the cars burning all that gasoline were converted to elctric drive, the efficiency gain would require 3,000 GWH per day. If all vehicles were recharged in a 12-hour off period, this would require an average capacity of 250 GW, or about 25% of the nominal grid capacity.

How do you get 57 GW?

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jim burke on October 19, 2006 - 1:42pm

It's easy. 73.5% of the replacement fuel will be enhanced with pixie dust.

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GliderGuider on October 19, 2006 - 1:46pm

I keep forgetting about that. I hope it's abiotic pixie dust...

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tate423 on October 19, 2006 - 2:16pm

Good point. We'll need a steady supply forever to make this work.

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Hothgor on October 19, 2006 - 2:38pm

Current battery recharging and discharging technology is well, technologically backwards. When you recharge a battery, only a fraction of the energy used actually gets stored in the battery. The rest is lost to heat. Dont believe me? Go and recharge your cell phone and then pick it up and feel how 'warm' the back side of it is, where the battery is located. Also, take a look at most laptop batteries and how hot they get. The heat produced by the computer doesnt cause all the heat to be localized in one location...
The Tesla itself takes only 3 hours to go from completely drained to a full charge. Far less then the 12 hour time period you expect the plugged in cars to drain energy from the grid.
The new batteries such as the one Toshiba developed take a fraction of the time current batteries take to recharge. These new batteries have the potential to be ~80% recharged in ONE MINUTE. Think about that for a second before you dismiss PEVs outright.
The ICE you are probably currently driving around only has an efficiency of less then 18%. That means for the 134,000 btu of energy stored in each gallon of gasoline, your only using at most 24,120 btus to move your car. The rest is lost to heat. To prove this to yourself, go and drive about 150 miles, then park and have a seat on your supposedly nice and cool engine cover.
Electric cars are VASTLY more efficent and using energy then ICEs are. And the ironic thing about EVs, the more powerful the electric motor is, the more efficient it becomes. Thats why vehicles like the Tesla have a 185 hp electric motor when many people point out that you really only need about 50hp to get the job done. It's all about efficiency.
Obviously, any massive EV scale up would require the usage of 'smart' recharging appliances. These appliances would be able to determine weather or not the energy grid is 'spikeing' due to excessive power drainage, or if energy usage is low and it is safe to recharge the batteries.
The Tesla and the upcoming 4 door sedan are stated to have a range of about 250 miles per charge. The nationwide AVERAGE miles per day per vehicle is about 30 miles. That means that on average, you will drive around 30 miles a day to do all your shopping, getting to and from work and any other trips you make. That means you technically only need to recharge ~once every 8 days. Lets just place that figure on a nice 1 day a week recharge period for the AVERAGE driver.

----

Now what does this all mean? It wont take 257 GHw of electricity every night to recharge the vehicle, it will take ~37 ghw a night, asuming INTELLIGENT recharging with intelligent applications by the consumers. Comments?

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GliderGuider on October 19, 2006 - 3:05pm

Current battery recharging and discharging technology is well, technologically backwards. When you recharge a battery, only a fraction of the energy used actually gets stored in the battery. The rest is lost to heat. Dont believe me? Go and recharge your cell phone and then pick it up and feel how 'warm' the back side of it is, where the battery is located. Also, take a look at most laptop batteries and how hot they get. The heat produced by the computer doesnt cause all the heat to be localized in one location...

So that means you will need more energy in total than just the amount expended in motion. That doesn't help your case.

The Tesla itself takes only 3 hours to go from completely drained to a full charge. Far less then the 12 hour time period you expect the plugged in cars to drain energy from the grid.

Charging time doesn't matter. What matters is the amount of energy drawn from the grid. Shorter time = higher current. The energy requirement remains the same.

The new batteries such as the one Toshiba developed take a fraction of the time current batteries take to recharge. These new batteries have the potential to be ~80% recharged in ONE MINUTE. Think about that for a second before you dismiss PEVs outright.

Again, charge time isn't the issue. A shorter charge time may make it easier for power companies to regulate the smart chargers and prevent grid overload, but it doesn't change the amount of power they will need to provide.

The ICE you are probably currently driving around only has an efficiency of less then 18%. That means for the 134,000 btu of energy stored in each gallon of gasoline, your only using at most 24,120 btus to move your car. The rest is lost to heat. To prove this to yourself, go and drive about 150 miles, then park and have a seat on your supposedly nice and cool engine cover.

As I said above, the efficiency advantage of electrics over fossil fuelled ICE is well known. The advantage is given as 4:1 by this Wikipedia article. That was factored into my analysis above.

Obviously, any massive EV scale up would require the usage of 'smart' recharging appliances. These appliances would be able to determine weather or not the energy grid is 'spikeing' due to excessive power drainage, or if energy usage is low and it is safe to recharge the batteries.

This is a given for preventing grid overload. It doesn't address the total amount of energy needed.

The Tesla and the upcoming 4 door sedan are stated to have a range of about 250 miles per charge. The nationwide AVERAGE miles per day per vehicle is about 30 miles. That means that on average, you will drive around 30 miles a day to do all your shopping, getting to and from work and any other trips you make. That means you technically only need to recharge ~once every 8 days. Lets just place that figure on a nice 1 day a week recharge period for the AVERAGE driver.

If you maintain the passenger-miles currently driven and just change the energy source, you wind up with the numbers I calculated above. Here you are moving the goalposts by assuming a change in driving habits.

My analysis stands - 250 GW supplied for 12 hours per day is required to replace the transportation capability provided by gasoline engines today. You can cut that energy requirement by changing people's driving habits, but to get it to 57 GW (I assume 37 was a typo?) you'd have to cut the passenger miles by three quarters, or quadruple the efficiency of elctric vehicles or some combination of both.

I still don't see how you got 57 GW.

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Hothgor on October 19, 2006 - 7:27pm

You dont NEED more power to do the same charging. Keep in mind that you have to have an inverter to convert electricity from 110 volts to 10 or 12 volts: this causes a LOT of energy to be 'lost' in the process. Secondly, current battery diodes arent capable of higher voltage charging, which is what makes the new Toshiba Battery so unique.

These new batteries can take a higher voltage of current running th rough them, meaning less energy is lost in conversion. You dont actually use more energy to charge the battery in a shorter period of time, you just charge them more efficiently for less power overall.

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GliderGuider on October 19, 2006 - 7:43pm

That does not address the issue.

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Down under on October 20, 2006 - 3:31am

Hothgor,
I suspect a lot of what you are saying is incorrect. For a start inverters don't convert AC to DC it's the other way around. Transformer rectifiers convert AC to DC. You state new batteries can take higher voltages of current. This is in correct, current is measured in AMPS not voltage and diodes control the direction of current not the amount going through them. I haven't time to look at the grid calculations but if the above is any indication it won't add up

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Hothgor on October 20, 2006 - 10:51am

So...because of an accidental typo, my entire arguement must be false? :P

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jkissing on October 21, 2006 - 11:54pm

So, the main point is that the current US coal + nuclear base loaded electrical generation system has suffient capacity to recharge the US fleet of gasoline cars, and probably enough to also charge the diesel burning ones, too. Cause for celebration, no? Maybe we can then go back to exporting oil.
Next, just replace the coal plants with 500 new nukes, and we can meet kyoto.

All we need is to persuade japan/korea/china to ship us 300 million new cars and 500 nukes in exchange for our highly desirable paper... We live on too high a plane to make this stuff ourselves.

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totoneila on October 19, 2006 - 3:27pm

Hello Hothgor,

I think you are forgeting how current-limited the grid is at the local neighborhood level. Even with intelligent appliances installed everywhere: fast, high amperage battery recharge cycles would still be limited by wiring safety limits. Therefore recharge cycles will take much longer than the theoretical ideal, unless we rewire every neighborhood [not likely]. Therefore, it will just take a certain # of fat-cat PHEVs to shutoff the heat, A/C, and refrigerators for the rest of their neighbors during the overnight battery recharge cycle. They won't be happy campers.

I am no engineer, but battery powered bicycles recharging everywhere would probably not overwhelm the current wiring limits of a neighborhood because the amp-draw is so low. No need for "smart appliances" either--which most people will not be able to afford postPeak anyhow.

But I could be wrong as this is speculation with no supporting facts. I just wanted to point out this potential roadblock to the dream of providing PHEVs for everyone. You might have better facts.

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

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Squalish on October 19, 2006 - 4:01pm

If the fast charge time he notes ends up being more than vaporware, it doesn't mean that it NEEDS to be charged that fast. It just opens up the possibility that it could - and that the retail market segment currently occupied by gas stations could retrofit with flow batteries, a major transmission line, and recharging terminals.

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totoneila on October 19, 2006 - 4:58pm

Hello Squalish,

Thxs for responding. Good possibility that your reply might be the best cost-effective response vs rewiring neighborhoods. If the potential energy savings are so high by PHEVs--how come all the delivery trucks are not converting over?--I don't understand why the trucking industry is not spear-heading this conversion now: a massive fleet re-design if the cost savings are so obvious. Do you have an answer?

I am in favor of everything TODer AlanfromBigEasy suggests, but we will still need local delivery vehicles. It seems to me that the international emphasis should be on truck-PHEVs, and not personal PHEVs. Toyota, GMC, MACK, Peterbilt, etc, should be building RIGHT NOW big fleets of Truck-Prius, instead of personal cars IMO, and finalizing the designs for battery powered PHEV trucks. I will gladly pedal a bicycle everywhere as a tradeoff to having food delivered to my local supermarket.

Long haul PHEV truckers could have truck stops where the battery packs are quickly switched out by forklifts to get them back on the road soon. I greatly worry that the trucking industry is not Peakoil Aware--at the very least we should already have PHEV fire-trucks and ambulances.

Attention: TODer Gail the Actuary--I think the insurance industry and other corporations would be frantic for PHEV firetrucks, if they are looking ahead--Do you have any idea why not? Thxs for any reply.

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

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tate423 on October 19, 2006 - 5:33pm

Bob,

As always great insight. I know that someone on this board months ago chimed in on this in relation to Volvo's plans. I can't remember what was said, so I won't lead you astray. This was coming from a guy working on the lines. I did a search and found that Magnus Redin is in Sweden, and he is mentioning something to do with Fords investment in their hybrids, but I don't remember if this is similar.

http://www.theoildrum.com/comments/2006/7/16/92623/0023/191#191

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totoneila on October 19, 2006 - 7:12pm

Hello Tate,

Thxs for responding. Yeah, truckers are not worried about fast acceleration like a TESLA sports car owner. But the high torque levels of an electric motor is IDEAL when you are hauling 80,000 lbs of cement, watermelon, lumber, beer, or whatever, in a big rig. Regenerative braking could be a big safety PLUS when these monsters have a long, steep downgrade ahead of them too. Much better than the current system of having your air-brakes fail, then the trucker hoping and praying that somehow he can control the rig until he can hit the offroad gravel safety runaway at the bottom of the hill.

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

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tate423 on October 20, 2006 - 9:28am

We've got a section of Interstate 44 near our six flags that goes down a STEEP hill. When I had my stick shift I used to take the clutch completely out and coast down it at over 90Mph (had a sporty car). It's STEEP and there are accidents around that section all the time and it's especially bad when there is traffic. In the last couple of years there have been like 15 deaths including an entire family. The more I learn about EV, the more I tend to like it.

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Squalish on October 20, 2006 - 2:01pm

It's not quite as easy as it sounds to recover all that energy, especially for long hills. I reference you the always entertaining, always informative Dan.

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Nagorak on October 22, 2006 - 8:03am

It's pretty easy to recover most of that energy, as the previous poster indicated, just turn your engine off and put your car in neutral. You don't even need to store anything. Granted you're not actually saving the energy, but by not using energy on the way down in a way you are displacing some not-used gasoline. :)

I use this trick all the time when going downhill. In a manual you can even turn the car off completely and just bump start the engine when you get to the bottom. Not sure I would try it at 90 MPH, of course...

With an electric motor and battery you could store some of the excess (going 90 MPH is not really all that safe most of the time). Even though you get only a small fraction of the energy through regenerative braking, it's still "free" energy.

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Hothgor on October 19, 2006 - 7:40pm

Think about the vehicle market for a moment. You have automobile companies that are selling vehicles for near cost. These same companies have a mechanical shop at every dealership nationwide. The average ROI for a car doesnt just stop at the purchasing price: they EXPECT the cars to have problems and require that a mechanic be there to fix them.

So where has that led us too? We have mechanic shops all across the companies and at every dealership: the parts that they used are sold by the same car manufacturers you got the car from in the first place. The price to fix the cars helps increase the car companies margins. And what about the oil servicing industy. On the trip home from work today, I passed 5 different oil changing businesses. Where do the parts and material they use come from?

When you look at the big picture, you can see why the auto industry has been against the EV potential. Why would any sane business produce a car that has less then half the current movable parts and is less prone to breaking down over its lifetime? There's no money in a super efficient EV when your entire business model has been based on the assumption that the cars will utilize the high margin secondary markets!

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totoneila on October 19, 2006 - 10:25pm

Hello Hothgor,

Thxs for responding. Truckers feel ripped off if the big-rig they purchased doesn't last a million miles with a reasonable amount of repairs/rebuilds. They want reliability and max uptime to earn income; there is not a lot more to be gained in further aerodynamic improvements when hauling large, bulky loads. If truck PHEVs have lower lifetime operating costs, improved safety and uptime improvements, and vastly lower emissions over present day diesel rigs--some manufacturer will get rich by being the first to market these vehicles.

Truckers are log-book limited by Fed law on how many hours they can drive in a day. I think tagteam truckers would gladly welcome one driver working the quiet electric drive while the other got silent, peaceful shuteye in the cabin bunk. Cooling the drivers' cab is nothing compared to the A/C required to keep a forty foot long trailer of ice cream cold.

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

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Nagorak on October 22, 2006 - 8:11am

I doubt PHEVs are that practical for big rigs for precisely the reason you mentioned: tag team drivers. What is the point of a truck that can be plugged in to recharge if it's going to be running the vast majority of the time? If there is not significant downtime then the plug-in aspect is not that helpful.

As for normal hybrid trucks, I think the reality is the way trucks are driven (primarily on the freeway at more or less constan speeds) limits the impact a hybrid drive can have on efficiency. A gas or diesel engine is most efficient when operating at constant speeds like on the freeway.

You can see this born out in the fuel economy figures of regular cars and hybrids. Much of the increase in hybrid gas mileage is under city driving conditions. On the freeway hybrids get better fuel economy, but most of that is a result of them having a smaller engine (since the electric motor is used to help accelerate when necessary). In reality the electric motor on a hybrid is rarely in operation on the freeway, and a car with a similar engine minus the hybrid components would do just about as well in terms of FEC. The non-hybrid car would not accelerate as well or go uphill as well without the electric assist, however.

A normal hybrid truck would still have some advantage over a non-hybrid, but it would not be that huge under freeway driving conditions. Going back to PHEV trucks, a better option is just to use electrified rail, not that PHEV trucks might not some day be the norm.

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AlanfromBigEasy on October 22, 2006 - 1:43pm

Agree about electrified rail :-)

Postal & UPS delivery vehicles might be good candidates for hybrid technology (hydraulic storage rather than battery perhaps).

Best Hopes,

Alan

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Gail the Actuary on October 20, 2006 - 1:28pm

I think the answer as to why the insurance industry and other corporation are not frantic for PHEV firetrucks is in the second part of your sentence - they are not looking ahead.

Other issues - One might think that emergency vehicles will be given first dibs on whatever fuel is available. Also, emergency vehicles are driven relatively little, so I would expect would last a long time. A disproportionately large share of their fossil fuel use would go into their manufacture, rather than their day to day use.

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jim burke on October 19, 2006 - 5:31pm

and we're still back to converting our fleet from running on oil to running on coal.

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jkissing on October 21, 2006 - 11:55pm

No no, you missed the part where we convert our coal plants to nukes.

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Hothgor on October 19, 2006 - 7:32pm

Actually, I expect most PEVs and EVs to recharged via onsite solar systems that charge up over a given period of time, then are discharged into the car batteries. The amount of energy burdeon on the grid will be minimalized this way. And I know, I know, solar systems arent widespread currently. I expect the solar recharging systems to be included in the cost of the vehicle. The tesla currently has one for sale with it for a cost of about $5,000. Prices have declined significantly over the years, and will continue to do so in the future. In 10 years time, I expect a number of vehicles on the road that are EVs will outnumber even hybrids :P

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JimK on October 19, 2006 - 4:08pm

Here are some nice big picture charts for the USA:

http://eed.llnl.gov/flow/

I don't understand the units, but the chart from this site that I posted in my office shows "distributed electricity" at 11.9 and "transportation" at 21.2. Transportation would include airplanes, trucks, etc. But anyway that should get the scales set in the ballpark.

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jim burke on October 19, 2006 - 9:13pm

Great link, Jim.

This site, from US DOE, shows the breakdown of all energy flows in the US, in quads, or quadrillion btus of energy.

It shows that total electrical power generation is 38 quads, used 19 quads residentical/commercial, and 19 quads industrial.

transport uses 26.5 quads
(chemicals, etc., use another 6 quads of petrol).

It also shows electricity generation results in lossesof 69% waste energy, and transport fuel at 80% lost energy. (Not that great a difference. Electricity is 31% efficient, petrol 20% efficient...)

If coal is 31% efficient at being turned into electricity, and then, to be usable for EVs, has to go through transmission lines and transformers, and then accept losses becoming battery power, I wonder whether it really IS more efficent than gasoline?

Also, since (realistically), any increase in electrical generation will be coming from coal, that would entail almost a doubling of coal excavation! (20 quads of coal now, plus perhaps another 16 quads to power our EV Hummers).

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Hothgor on October 19, 2006 - 9:11pm

Alright, I'll debunk this little rant :P

1 gallon of gas = 130.88 MJ stored energy
130.88 mj ~ 36.35 kw/h equivlant, or about what you stated.

Now here is where it gets tricky. The average consumer car only has a 12% efficiency from gasoline. That means for every gallon of gas, only 12% of the stored energy content is used to propell the vehicle. The most efficient ICE, a diesel, gets about 18.5% efficiency fyi.

36.35 kw/h x .12 = 4.362 kw/h

That is to say that the same energy in electrical power to propell the car is about 4.362 kw/h! Now, you have stated that wiki shows that EV engines are 4x more efficient.

4.362 x .25 = 1.0905 kw/h

Does it take 1.0905 kw/h to power an EV to go the same distance a comparable ICE goes?

210,000,000 x 1.0905 kw/h = 229005000 kw/h
229005000 kw/h =~ 229.005 GW/h
229.005 GW/h / 12 hours = 19.08375 GW/h needed!

Even if you use the same efficiency of 4.362 kw/h, thats still only 76.335 GW/h over the course of one night, ASUMING EVERYONE PLUGS IN THEIR CAR AND RECHARGES OVER THE ENTIRE NIGHT!!! In practice, it will be FAR LESS on the average night.

I bet you didnt think I would do my homework :P

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Hothgor on October 19, 2006 - 9:23pm

Note: this is based on the assumption that the average user would still drive about 30 miles a day, and are in far more efficient vehicles, not behemoths like an SUV. Most small cars do get 30 mpg :P

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GliderGuider on October 19, 2006 - 9:45pm

What is that 210,000,000 number?

You're making it too hard. If an EV is on average 4 times as efficient as an ICE, then you take the energy content in all the gasoline used by ICEs, divide by 4 and you have the electrical energy you need to replace it. Your 0.12 factor is included in that efficiency ratio.

If yoyu want to replace the existing daily usage of 400 million gallons of gasoline, you need to come up with the electrical energy equivalent of 100 million (10^8) gallons. That's about 36.5*10^8 KWH, or 3.65 billion KWH, which of course is 3,650 GWH per day.

It doesn't matter how long you take to recharge your cars, the system overall needs to deliver 3,650 GWH of energy to vehicles in the USA every day to maintain the same transportation capacity.

Byu the way, here's where that 4:1 ratio comes from, in the Wikipedia article on electric cars:

Production and conversion BEVs typically use 0.3 to 0.5 kilowatt-hours per mile (0.2-0.3 kWh/km). [7] [8] Nearly half of this power consumption is due to inefficiencies in charging the batteries. The US fleet average of 23 miles per gallon of gasoline is equivalent to 1.58 kilowatt-hours per mile and the 70 MPG Honda Insight gets 0.52 kWh/mi (assuming 36.4 kWh per US gallon of gasoline), so battery electric vehicles are relatively energy efficient.

1.58/0.4 is right about 4:1. As the article imples, better charging technology will boost that somewhat, but that's what we have right now.

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Hothgor on October 19, 2006 - 9:48pm

There are currently aprox 210 million vehicles on the road at present. Thats where the 210 million comes through. Cmon, you gotta give me the procs on showing you how your math was wrong :P

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GliderGuider on October 19, 2006 - 10:02pm

Oh dear.

First off, you're double counting the inefficiency of the ICE, first by using it to extract your 4.362 KWH, then by dividing that in turn by 4. The 0.12 factoir is included in the 4:1 ratio.

Next, you're calculating the amount of electrical energy it would take to travel the same distance as using only a single gallon of gas.

You need to factor in the number of miles travelled. And not double count the ICE inefficiency.

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Hothgor on October 19, 2006 - 9:51pm

Thats where your math is wrong. You cant take the TOTAL energy content of a gallon of gas and base your calculations off of that. You have to base it off how much of that energy is actually USED in moving a vehicle. The average consumer car utilizes only 12 PERCENT of the energy content of a gallon of gasoline.

At a minimum, the required energy is 12% of what you posted it would be.

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GliderGuider on October 19, 2006 - 10:06pm

The 12% is included in the 4:1 efficiency ratio. Read the excerpt from Wikipedia carefully.

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GliderGuider on October 19, 2006 - 10:22pm

The key to your misunderstanding is that while an ICE is only 12% efficient, an EV is only 50% efficient (as it says in the Wikipedia article). 12% is 1/8, but due to the 50% inefficiency of the EV you have to multiply that by two to get the right ratio between the two. Voila - 1/4.

And think about "using all the energy in a gallon of gas" for a second. Of course you use all the heat energy in a gallon of gas - 12% gets to the road, the rest goes out the tailpipe as wast heat. You still have to count that 7/8 as "used". In the same way you need to count the 50% charging loss in the EV as energy used.

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Hothgor on October 19, 2006 - 11:58pm

No. That heat energy is WASTED. Its not used to make the car travel another mile, or to run your AC and radio. Its lost energy that can never be utilzied by the car system. You HAVE to basae your energy analysist based on the energy actually USED by a vehicle to opperate, not the energy content of the fuel.

This is why ICE's are so ridiculous in principle! We have been driven to this point by oil interest and parts manufacturers. Imagine how different the world would be today if we stuck with the EV instead of the ICE...peak oil would be a completel non-problem.

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GliderGuider on October 20, 2006 - 7:06am

OK, in that case let's take the ICE out of the equation entirely and see where we get. The only reference we'll make to gasoline is to figure out the number of vehicle miles that are travelled in the USA.

Currently the USA vehicle fleet travels about 9.2 billion miles per day. This is derived from the amount of gasoline used (400 million gallons) times the average fleet fuel efficiency (23 mpg).

According to Wikipedia an EV uses about 0.3 to 0.5 KWH per mile. Let's take the lower limit of the range.

9 billion times 0.3 KWH is 2.8 billion KWH. Again we come out with a requirement for about 3 GWH of electricity every day.

Would you accept that this is an accurate calculation?

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GliderGuider on October 20, 2006 - 7:11am

Sorry, I hit the post button instead of preview.

The 3 GWH above is, of course, 2,800 GWH - virtually identical as the 3,000 GWH per day I derived in my initial calculation.

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chemE on October 19, 2006 - 10:04pm

FWIW to you guys I second Hothgor's analysis.

The mistake made by the other poster (gliderguider) was assuming that the entire energy in gasoline was being used to propel the vehicle. Not true: Only 12% is used (18.5% for a very efficient diesel).

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GliderGuider on October 19, 2006 - 10:07pm

You need to read the Wikipedia excerpt carefully as well.

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jim burke on October 19, 2006 - 10:55pm

I'm not sure if you are accounting for the inefficiencies of electrical production.

According to Lawrence Livermore Labs, out of 38.2 quads that go into the electrical power sector, only 11.9 quads become distributed electricity. That implies a 31% efficiency rate BEFORE THE ELECTRICITY GOES DOWN THE POWER LINE.

Losses due to transmission and transformers, as well as lost in battery conversion, come later.

How does this impact your calculations?

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Hothgor on October 19, 2006 - 11:53pm

It doesn't impact my calculations at all. Were talking about efficiencies on the wheel, and the energy it takes to make a car go the same distance as an EV verses the standard ICE. Gildis still doesn't seem to understand that the best ICE only utilizes 18.5% of the energy content of a fossil fuel.

We currently produce 450 GW/h in power in the US. We have a maximum production of about 1 TW/h, or 1000 GW/h at peak times. Its barely enough to keep up with current demand, but other posters have already demonstrated that this can be scaled up as supply is warranted. I want you all to keep in mind that these figures being used are AFTER the 69% or so energy is lost in the creation of the electricity and subsequent transmission to our homes.

I can't stress this enough: It takes far less electrical energy to move an EV then the POTENTIAL energy of gasoline used to power ICEs. Massive amounts of energy are lost in ICEs in the form of heat, friction, and plain inefficiencies of providing wheel power to move the vehicle forward. I also want to point out that as break recharging systems are improved upon, you can get back MOST of the energy you use to accelerate when you stop the car. This potentially caps at ~75% energy used.

Remember, working EVs have been around for over 100 years. GM had the EV-1 in the mid 90's that was a commercial success from the standpoint of a durable, long lasting, efficient EV. The reason we haven't switched is due to the fact that current car companies base their entire business model on the assumption that your vehicle will BREAK DOWN, and have to be repaired in a manner that benefits them and no one else.

It's going to take a start up company to show the world how things can really be done. What we lack is the political motivation to make it happen.

BTW: Futher proof of my KW/h analysist is show in the fact that it costs on average 1 to 2 cents per mile for the Tesla. Even a 30 mpg car costs ~8 cents per mile at current gas prices! Food for thought :P

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stock on October 20, 2006 - 11:21am

I like EV's but I don't buy the argument that the reason they haven't taken off is because of some conspiracy of the parts and auto repair business. If you know anything about fixing relatively modern autos (last 10 to 15 years) you will realize most problems are not related to the IC engine. More likely they are suspension, electric gadgets, power steering, AC, rust etc. These components are still present on EV cars. The modern IC engine on the whole is very reliable and lasts generally up to 150,000 to 200,000 miles. On an EV with regenerative braking you will save on brake pads/disks. However, this is also true for current hybrids and some of the mild versions (Saturn etc.) I suspect that in a few years time a lot more cars will have mild hybrid capability once the cost comes done.

EV cars have a couple of weak spots i.e. batteries and power electronics. I know people who have blown inverters on EV cars after only 5 years which cost a fortune ($5000). Plus you will always have the possibility of cell failure espcially with high cell counts (its just the law of statistical averages).

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Hothgor on October 20, 2006 - 12:04pm

I would take a $5000 replacement of an inverter over spending $2000 a year on gas 'and this will only go up apparently' over that same 5 year range. I think you are missing the point: ICEs have 2 to 3x more moving parts then an EV. Less moving parts mean fewwer places for things to break, which means over all far less maintenance for the life time of the vehicle.

BTW, how much do you suspect you spend on oil replacement over the lifetime of the average vehicle? My quickie math shows:

250,000 mile average usage
3,000 mile oil replacement
$20 cost

or about $1666.67 on just that alone. An EV doesnt have any oil to replace! Thats an entire year of gasoline right there. Just take a step back and look at all the hidden costs associated with ICEs.

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stock on October 20, 2006 - 12:36pm

That's not a fair comparison because you still have to pay for electricity to charge the batteries. At the moment this is cheaper. However, I can guarantee if a large number of people were driving EV's the government will tax electricity to reclaim the tax they are loosing from gas.

The oil change is about the only thing I agree with. However, going off on a bit of tangent, the current business of oil changes is a big scam anyway. You don't need to change it that often and there are ways to clean it and reuse it.

Don't get me wrong I like EV's and plug'ins but some supporters do the promotion of these no favours by making claims that cannot be supported.

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GliderGuider on October 20, 2006 - 7:29am

No, I'm not accounting for that - I was starting my calculations where the energy enters the vehicle.

You have a very valid point. Based on Lawrence Livermore numbers, the amount of generating capacity would need to triple in order to supply that much electricity to the vehicle. So that means being able to generate around 9,000 GWH per day to power the cars. If you recharge them all over 12 hours, you'll need 750 GW of new generating capapacity, or an addition of 75% to the existing capacity.

When you then factor in transmission & distribution losses of 20% you get a generation requirement of 900 GW. That's getting pretty close to the size of the entire American electrical system.

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Erynon on October 20, 2006 - 10:44am

>> 36.35 kw/h x .12 = 4.362 kw/h
>>
>> That is to say that the same energy in electrical power
>> to propell the car is about 4.362 kw/h! Now, you have
>> stated that wiki shows that EV engines are 4x more
>> efficient.
>>
>> 4.362 x .25 = 1.0905 kw/h

This is where your math starts to go wrong. That 4.36 kWh (no division there, btw) figure is the energy required to move the vehicle in terms of energy, not electric power. A hypothetical gasoline engine that was 100% efficient would use that much energy, as would a hypothetical electric engine of 100% efficiency. The amount of energy used by a real engine of any design will be higher--you can divide this raw energy number by the efficiency to get that figure. Assuming 50% efficiency for an electric engine:

4.36 kWh / 0.50 = 8.72 kWh

Not 1 kWh. Furthermore, this figure only covers the engine. As you know, battery charging technology is inefficient, wasting more energy as heat than it puts in the battery. And then there's generation and transmission loss to consider too, if we're talking about a society of declining total energy inputs.

Electric vehicles will have a place in the society of the future, but I don't think that place will be in the garages of hundreds of millions of people.

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Hothgor on October 20, 2006 - 11:03am

We already discussed and proved that an EV is 4x more efficient then an ICE, or that it uses 4x less energy to move an equivlant vehicle the same distance an ICE would. Your trying to multiply the rate, which overinflates your calculations.

1.0905 kw/h still stands :P

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GliderGuider on October 20, 2006 - 12:39pm

No it does not stand. By multiplying by .12 to begin with and then multiplying by .25 you are double counting the 12% efficiency of the ICE. The .25 multiplication takes into account both the .12 efficiency of the ICE and the .50 efficiency of the EV. You don't get to count the inefficiency twice. Not and retain any credibility, anyway.

You run the risk of being labelled innumerate here. I've clarified this point a number of times now, but you are resisting any reexamination of your methodology. I assure you, the criticisms of your procedure are correct.

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Hothgor on October 20, 2006 - 11:22pm

They are not warranted. Only one person other then yourself has even attempted to 'correct' me on this issue! The Tesla EV itself has a publicly stated $ per mile that is 1/4th that of current gasoline prices, or about 1 to 2 cents a mile. If your argument is true, it should actually cost around 28-35 cents a mile. This is NOT THE CASE!!

1. The ICEs on average utilize 12% of the energy content of gasoline.

2. EVs are 4x more efficient then ICEs. In simple terms, this means that a gallon of gas could send a hummer 10 miles down the road, while the same energy used in an EV can send the car 40 miles down the road. This means LOGICALLY that if you wanted to only go 10 miles down the road, you would need to use a quarter of the energy that is used in the ICE.

You cant magically multiply my calculations 16x just to make them fit your own. Several people have already agreed with my calculations. While I accept that you have not, you still have done nothing to support your own counter arguement.

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GliderGuider on October 21, 2006 - 1:23am

You're almost there. Both your first and second numbered statements are true., it's just that you can't apply them one on top of the other as you have been doing.

EVs are indeed 4 times as efficient as ICEs when you consider the total heat content of the energy fed into them.

As Wikipedia says, an EV uses 0.3 to 0.5 kwh per mile, while an ICE uses about 1.6 kwh. In fact, they say: "The US fleet average of 23 miles per gallon of gasoline is equivalent to 1.58 kilowatt-hours per mile."

The article also says: "Electric vehicles typically cost between two and four cents per mile to operate, while gasoline-powered ICE vehicles currently cost about four to six times as much."

Let's investigate that. At current average US electricity prices of $0.10/kwh and an energy requirement of .3 to .5 kwh per mile the cost comes out to $.03 to 0.05 per mile. Close enough.

On the other side of the equation, ICE powered vehicles consume on average 1/23 of a gallon per mile. At current gas prices of $2.30/gallon that's about $0.10 per mile for fuel. That's more than the EV, though not the 4-6x advantage claimed by the Wikipedia authors. The energy cost of an average ICE is actually 2 to 3.3 times more than an EV.

Now, the extra maintenance required for an ICE (excluding tires) adds about $0.045 per mile. An EV will be less than that, let's say half of that since it doesn't need engine oil. So from this back of the envelope calculation an ICE has an operating cost of $0.145/mile, while an EV has a cost of $0.05 to $0.075 per mile. That's still a differential of 2 or 3 times.

So, I'm prepared to believe that an EV will require 1/2 to 1/3 the operating cost of an ICE (without factoring in tires, insurance, licensing, financing costs etc, all of which could be expected to be roughly similar).

So, if the USA now spends about 1 billion dollars per day on gasoline, I'd expect the energy for an an electric fleet of the same size doing the same amount of driving to cost 330 to 500 million dollars per day. That amount of money pays for 3.3 to 5.0 billion kwh of electricity at $0.10/kwh. That's 3,300 to 5,000 Gwh. per day The same or even a bit more than I've been claiming all along.

Generating 3,300 to 5000 Gwh of electricity over 12 hours (the off-peak cycle) requires the generation of 275 to 400 GW. Just as I've been saying. Givedn this, we will probably never replace all our gassers with electrics. At some point transportation will become too expensive and driving habits will change instead.

Don't get me wrong, I think that EVs are useful vehicles. They are significantly more efficient than ICE vehicles. But their energy supply will be expensive to implement. How expensive? Let's say the EVs are at the high end of the efficiency range (0.3 Kwh/mile), and you can get 50% efficiency out of your generation and distribution system. The required additional capacity is (275*2)=550 GW. At a capital cost of $550,000 per megawatt this represents a capital cost in today's dollars of $300 billion.

Now this does not count transmission line upgrades or fleet replacement costs. Here's where it gets expensive. Let's ignore the transmission line upgrades. Just changing the fleet (200 million vehicles at $20,000 per vehicle) adds 4 trillion dollars to the cost of the project. Now, it's not quite that bad. If you make the change over 20 years, you will spend 15 billion per year building new generating capacity, and 200 billion dollars per year replacing your fleet. Toward the end of that period the excess fleet replacement cost will decline because the gassers would need replacing anyway. Let's say the average fleet replacement cost is 135 billion per year, for an average total cost (fleet+generating capacity) of 150 billion dollars per year.

Is it doable? Financially, yes. The American GDP is 78 times that, and that rate of spending amounts to only about 94 additional days of extra debt per year at today's rate of $1.6 billion of new debt per day. However, can you get the raw materials to build the plants, the fuel to power the plants, the raw materials to build the cars, and the willingness on the part of consumers and politicians to spend the money? There lies the rub, and why IMO it is ridiculous to expect a electrification of more than 10% to 20% of the fleet over that 20 year time period.

Given what we now suspect about oil depletion rates, and given what I expect from human nature (i.e. we don't make changes until we can see the need staring us right in the face), the private automobile is likely to be a museum peice before EVs have penetrated the global market far enough to do us much good at all.

Alan Drake's promotion of electric rail, which has many times the efficiency of electric cars, makes much more sense from a global point of view. In fact ity's the only transportation shift that makes any sense at all. Electric cars are cool toys, but in the face of what's actually needed that's really all they are.

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Hothgor on October 21, 2006 - 2:52am

GliderGuider, you are over complicating the issue entirely, and your relying on information that can be posted and edited by any number of unscrupulous persons.

From the DoE:

1 gallon of gasoline is the equivalent of 130.88 MJ
130.88 MJ is the equivalent of 36.35 kw/h

The ICE's utilize 12% of this, or 4.362 kw/h
An EV requires only 1/4th this energy content to go the same distance, or 1.0905 kw/h

We use 320 million gallons of gasoline a day.
We are talking about replacing all 320 million gallons of gasoline with the equivalent electrical energy.

320,000,000 x 1.0905 = 348960000 kw/h
348960000 kw/h = 348.96 GW/h
348.96 GW/h / 12 hour recharge cycle at night = 29.08 GW/h

This replaces every gallon of gasoline we consume a day with its energy equivalent of electricity. There is no other way to do these calculations!! You can overcomplicate the issue with $ per mile basis on maintenance all you want, it doesn't matter. The cold hard math is right there in front of you, you just have to acknowledge it!! Don't delve into miles, delve into the replacement costs:

320,000,000 gallons a day = 7,619,047 barrels of oil a day.
7,619,047 x $59.5 'spot price currently' = $4,533,332,965 a day to support our gasoline habit. Note that we currently import over 12 million barrels a day, so it's reasonable to simply assume the total amount of gasoline is coming from over seas.

348960000 kw/h x $0.10 kw/h = $34,896,000 spent to support our EV habit. This means we would essentially spend 1/129th less to power EVs over ICEs a day.

Would you like to do an analysis of how much we would have to invest a day/month/year/decade into improving our grid to make powering EVs = current waste on ICEs?

My quickie math shows that over a 20 year time span, we would spend 33 TRILLION DOLLARS on gasoline if the price never changes from today, or roughly 3 YEARS GDP!! Would the investment required be even 1/10th of that cost, no matter whose math you're using?

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GliderGuider on October 21, 2006 - 8:37am

130.88 MJ is the equivalent of 36.35 kw/h
The ICE's utilize 12% of this, or 4.362 kw/h
An EV requires only 1/4th this energy content to go the same distance, or 1.0905 kw/h

This calculation is again incorrect. You, sir, are innumerate.

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Hothgor on October 21, 2006 - 10:44am

How is this incorrect? I'm going by your acknowledged statements to prove the point. I'll make a check list for you.

You consider the DoE to be wrong about 1 gallon = 130.88 MJ
You consider the DoE to be wrong about 130.88 MJ = 36.35 kw/h
You consider the DoE to be wrong about the average efficiency of a US vehicle to utilize 12% of the energy content of gasoline.
You consider my calculation that 12% of 36.35 kw/h is 4.362 kw/h is incorrect.
You consider your own souces about an EV being 4x more efficient then ICE to be incorrect.
You dont believe that 400% efficiency means you need only 1/4th as much to do the same job.

Please, by all means, explain where my logical analysis is wrong!

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Hothgor on October 21, 2006 - 11:41am

I want to know which of the above 6 statements is true from your perspective. And please elaborate without the pithy comments :P

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Hothgor on October 22, 2006 - 1:13am

Still waiting!!

BTW: I just want to point out that since it seems your only contention is that I'm cutting my production from the gallon-energy equivlant, I wanted to show you exactly how much it would take just to replace the ACTUAL energy content the US fleet utilizes on average:

29.08 GW/h 'my estimate' x 4 'back to gasoline equivlant with no efficiency improvement = 116.32 GW/h addition to off peak capacity.

And thats just to drive around in EV's with the same efficiency as ICEs!!!

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GliderGuider on October 22, 2006 - 8:59am

Patience, grasshopper. I have a life beyone TOD, you know.

Let's look at this statement as the source of our disagreement:

3. You consider the DoE to be wrong about the average efficiency of a US vehicle to utilize 12% of the energy content of gasoline.

The DOE is, of course, correct. You, however, are using this statistic incorrectly. It has absolutely no significance when one is trying to calulate how much energy it takes to replace the vehicle-miles driven . This is what we are really trying to replace - vehicle-miles, not the energy (from whatever source) it takes to drive them.

Here's a thought experiment. Assume that all the current vehicle-miles in the USA were being driven with diesel engines, which have a recognized 50% higher efficiency. Would this change the amount of electricity it would take to replace them? If so, why? If not, why not?

I contend it would not change the amount of electricity needed, and indeed I demonstrated that in an earlier post. In it I calculated the count of electricity needed to replace the 9 billion vehicle miles per day driven today. If you want to drive 9 billion miles in electric vehicles with an electricity requirement of 0.3 Kwh per mile, you need to use 2.7 billion Kwh, or 2,700 Gwh per day.

For this result it doesn't matter what the original fuel was - it could have been gasoline, diesel, natural gas or wood - or what the efficiency was of the vehicle that consumed that fuel. All that matters is how much energy it takes to drive 9 billion vehicle miles per day using the system under consideration.

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GliderGuider on October 22, 2006 - 9:01am

Correction: "calculated the amount", not "calculated the count".

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Hothgor on October 22, 2006 - 11:06pm

Didn't we go over this already? Asuming every EV had the exact same efficiency of todays cars, it would only take 116.32 GW/h over 12 hours, say 6 pm to 6 am. And keep in mind that these EV's will be inheritantly vastly more efficent then current vehicles: theyll be smaller and 'smarter' so to speak. You however are trying to go about this the wrong way: your replacing total miles driven instead of total gallons of gasoline used a day! Total miles driven includes everything: 18 wheelers, UPS delivery trucks etc. I'm talking only about joe schmoe gasoline user. Stop trying to compare apples to oranges!!

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GliderGuider on October 23, 2006 - 11:44am

I'd caution you against basing any analysis on statements of faith like "keep in mind that these EV's will be inheritantly vastly more efficent then current vehicles". Given the efficiency of today's vehicles and the laws of thermodynamics, I'd be careful about using qualifiers like "vastly". Half the residual inefficiency of EVs appears to be in charging losses, but electric motors themselves are around 90% efficient, so from the standpoint of physics and electrodynamics there appear to be few gains remaining to be realized.

Smaller, lighter vehicles will lead to greater gains in the area of both fleet cost and energy per mile, but given real-world load requirements, you won't see vehicles on average much smaller than a current sub-compact gasser, i.e. of the same approximate size as current vehicles. I'd be willing to agree that you will see overall vehicle efficiency ultimately climb by 30% or so, but not much more than that.

That said, it looks like I've been overestimating the number of passenger car vehicle miles per year travelled in the USA. According the the DOT (PDF warning) this was 1.6 trillion in 1994, so a crude extrapolation gives an estimate right around 2 trillion passenger car vehicle miles per year today.

At a current EV energy consumption of of 0.3 kwh per vehicle mile, it would take only 600,000 Gwh/year to replace the whole shebang. Averaged over 8760 hours per year (24 hours pewr day), that's a bit under 70 GW of average capacity, or 140 GW if you provide the required power over 12 hours per day. That 140 GW gives you the capacity to replace all the passenger car vehicle-miles driven today with EVs of today's efficiency. That won't happen any time soon, so 5% per year market penetration of EVs seems quite supportable.

If EV efficiency goes up by 30%, that would drop the generation requirement for full replacement to under 100 GW. Not too bad at all.

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Hothgor on October 24, 2006 - 2:16am

I'm glad you agree!!

Now. When do we get started with saving the planet?

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GliderGuider on October 24, 2006 - 6:42am

You go ahead without me. Despite the fact that this has been an interesting little investigation, I don't actually think we should be trying to save the planet. Certainly not with more cars.

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