120 comments on Can hybrids make a difference in the near future?
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120 comments on Can hybrids make a difference in the near future?
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One of the earliest posts I wrote on TOD U.S. some year and a half ago was called "confluence", and discussed the hybrid and the direction that hybrid technology was going. I have repeated it all or in part multiple times on U.S. TOD as the technology moved in exactly the direction I discussed, and at an every increasing rate of acceleration.
I will not waste my time repeating that post and once again casting pearls before swine, but simply outline the principle points that I made then:
-The "hybrid" as we see it being sold and put on the road today was NEVER seen as the final solution to the energy/carbon problem in transportation. It was an intermediate step, and the only way to get batteries, controllers, and electric motors into highway use to develop them for the step to come.
-Diesel automobiles are a good alternative (I own two of them myself) in creating higher efficiency, but it leads to nowhere as far as improved technology goes. It will always be a strictly fossil fuel option. Bio fuel is already being seen as a catastrophic dead end, in that we now have prime farmland being used to produce fuel, if not inhumane, at least very risky given the food needs of the world, and the risk of massive deforestation in attempt to grow fuel crops, creating irreversible damage to the world.
-The hybrid car option leads directly to the "grid based" option. A hybrid car needs only better batteries and plug capability to become a grid based transportation device, thus bringing huge gains in efficiency, and bringing, for the first time, all the energy producing technologies into direct competition with oil. Thus, solar, wind, nuclear, natural gas, coal, propane even recaptured methane can be all be used in the transportation mix. This is a revolution that would have been completely impossible without the intermediate step of the current hybrid drive cars.
-The Japanese seem to have understood this revolution from a much earlier time than the U.S. or the Europeans, who still seem to be completely unable to grasp the nature of this revolution. The Japanese auto industry simply placed themselves in the lead, even though the hybrid in it's current generation was not a huge leap forward, but the only bridge to the real leap forward, and now time is on their side.
The one great American exception has ben Felix Kramer and the Calcars group
http://www.calcars.org , which will go into the history books as one of the great pioneers in transportation history.
-The coming grid based transportation system is a huge threat to the status quo. Thus, it has suffered under a level of slander and attack almost unheard of in modern industry. However, the attacks are losing their sting, as more and more people are beginning to grasp the real nature of the coming huge change in transportation energy use, and the great possibilities it brings.
-The one group that shows signs of grasping what is about to happen are the energy producers, both the national oil companies, such as Aramco, and the private ones, such as ExxonMobil, BP and Chevron among others. These companies are becoming more and more frightened of spending billions on oil exploration and production development, all to supply a massive increase in demand that may not be there in 5 to 10 years. The risk to the oil industry is great, and growing.
Lastly, again: It is astounding that intelligent people and organizations simply cannot grasp the possible magnitute of what is about to occur. There are hedge funds, mutual funds, companies and individual investors who are tying billions of dollars to the believe that oil demand will only grow, and oil prices will only rise. I beg them to use caution. The financial collapse if this does not occur could be massive.
In America, and I assume this is true in Europe, almost all oil consumed (with some small statistical exception) is used in transportation. A revolution in transport energy means a revolution in the energy industry, and in energy finance. It will change the whole economy to it's core.
Thank you, Roger Conner Jr.
RC
Roger, I agree that today's hybrid isn't the final solution. I see it as the stepping stone, the R&D platform that is facilitating the development of the electric drive train. That has to be the final solution as it increases efficiency significantly and decouples the car from oil by enabling any primary energy source to be used via electricity.
Most electric power is generated from burning coal, natural gas, and oil. Their is gigantic inefficiency in converting these precious fossil fuels to electricity and then more energy lost in power transmission lines. Thus, electric cars are not efficient and 1/2 the energy comes from dirty coal burning -- CO2, mercury, sulfur, and carbon particulates.
Electric motors are so much more efficient than internal combustion engines that they are cleaner overall -- even when accounting for dirty coal plants and transmission losses. See the report Environmental Assessment of Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles by the Natural Resources Defense Council and Electric Power Research Institute.
From the ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT report (page 2): "The 'well-to-wheels' analysis accounted for emissions from the generation of electricity to charge PHEV batteries and from the production, distribution and consumption of gasoline and diesel motor fuels." This means that the greenhouse gas emissions from coal mining, processing, and transportation are not counted for EVs. The same is true for electric power generated from natural gas and oil (the emissions for drilling, production, and distribution are not counted). This compromises the study and the credibility of the NRDC. The EPRI is a biased source. This casts doubt on the entire study. More important than green house gases are sulfur dioxide (acid rain), mercury (ocean/fish contamiation), and particulate contaminants from coal burning (1/2 of electric power generation. And, this analysis excludes the ecological damage from coal mining (land, forests, habitats, rivers, farmlands).
You're simply wrong.
The key is that while generating electricity from fossil fuels is inefficient, running a car on fossil fuels is so much more inefficient that electric cars come out far ahead even under the worst of assumptions.
Comparing a 1999 Ford Ranger to an electric version, the latter is more energy efficient and less polluting by a factor of two, even assuming 100% of its electricity comes from coal. Take any electric vehicle and a similar regular vehicle, do the math, and you'll come to the same conclusion.
20% of electric power is lost in transmission and 25% is lost in the chemical reaction in the battery. In addition, coal (source for 1/2 of the electric power generation) consumes much diesel in mining, transportation, and processing. Because we are concerned about energy consumption, these must be considered when comparing efficiencies.
thatsitImout
I remember that comment and agree on all counts except your belief that the multinational oil companies grasp whats happening and thats why they are not conducting the necessary exploration. I think that they cant access most promissing areas of the world because once a country gets oil production through them the country has its internal politics subject to being controlled by the US military. Look at all the assinations and coups conducted against nations who try to change out of that system. Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales are the two national leaders most at risk for trying to break away, and our feud with Iran is a relic of the troubles of the Iranians trying to break away, and also the war in Iraq. So, its much better for any less developed country to just not lease to the multinationals than risk that. Better poverty than slavery.
The multinationals can't make money on smaller fields because of their exhorbitant overhead. Exxon, Chevron, BP, Shell et al have just about drilled up the shallow prospects in the 12% of the world where they can operate, so they are doing stock buy-backs rather than just accumulating cash.
I doubt the multinationals will be in E & P much longer except by participating in with smaller companies. If the smaller company finds a super giant they will then buy the company. So if you want to invest in that type of exploration buy stock in companies like Anadarko or Devon that are still exploring.
At any rate, it looks the same as if they were threatened by hybrids and the changeover to electric cars. I don't think its anything but coincidental timing. On stuff where the multinationals do feel threatened like global warming they are a lot more heavy handed Bob Ebersole
I agree wholeheartedly with your analysis. Take any fuel and it will turn the wheels of an auto or train with greater efficiency and less pollution when burned in a modern power plant to power an electric vehicle (EV). This is true for gasoline, diesel, switchgrass, etc.
The question is not, Will we move to the grid?, but how fast. Even if we were shipping only electric vehicles today, it would take 10-15 years to replace the existing fleet -- too little, too late. This does not mean that we should not proceed ahead with all haste too implement EV's and to move the power sources of the grid over to renewables. It does mean that we need a bridge source of power for our existing fleet.
Natural gas, which is predicted to peak about 15 years after oil (see http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/11/27/61031/618) is the ideal bridge fuel. It generates less than 2/3 the CO2 per BTU of gasoline or diesel and costs about 1/3. If we are to use natural gas as a bridge transportation fuel, then we should conserve it by discouraging its use for power generation. Interestingly, Cummins Diesel already offers an LNG conversion kit for diesel engines which includes a cryogenic tank. CNG conversion kits are also available. When the first oil shortages hit, this may be the first lever we pull to keep our fleet on the road.
Grid based hybrid cars? With the primary energy coming from where? Coal fired power plants? Nuclear?
Our first job is to REPLACE all existing coal fired power plants with renewable energies or to equip them with geo-sequestration of CO2. 1 GW coal plant will require the CONTINUOUS sequestration of 150 kb/d liquid CO2 into safe sediment rocks. The reader might want to calculate what liquid processing capacity would be needed in his/her State and compare that to the capacity of the existing oil industry.
By 2013, the Arctic sea ice will be gone in summer.
Causes of Changes in Arctic Sea Ice; by Wieslaw Maslowski (Naval Postgraduate School)
http://www.ametsoc.org/atmospolicy/documents/May032006_Dr.WieslawMaslows...
Then one of the world's airconditioners will be gone and the warming Arctic ocean will endanger the Greenland ice sheet with 5 m sea level rise in there. During meltwater pulse 1A sea levels rose 1 m every 20 years.
That event will smash all your grid connected hybrid and/or electric car dreams.
Yes, we have to electrify our land transport system but because of the coming clean energy crisis and the slow build up of renewable energy capacity there will only be enough power to run electric rail, not electric cars.
And those in the low density suburbs, they have to bike or walk to the nearest station.
With oil production 30% less by 2020 and 50% less by 2030 as predicted in this study:
EWG Outlook 2007
http://www.energywatchgroup.org/fileadmin/global/pdf/EWG_Oilreport_10-20...
we'll be lucky if mass production of cars can survive the year 2020.