29 replies to this topic

[Shortpoet-GTD]

eds, on 12 August 2013 - 09:19 AM, said:

Maybe we could put Heavy industry on a diet?
We could start with the 5,900 lb Humvee (8mpg) and
. . . shrink it down to a  1,580 lb Kuebelwagen(35mpg)
. . . then make it an electric.

End the wars that go on for decades. There wouldn't be a need for these gas hogs. Added bonus-less death.

[Phil]

To be a little fair, those 5,900 pound Humvee's are heavily armored, while at 1580 pounds the other is definitely not.  When soldiers lives are on the line, I'll take the weight and burn the gas.

As a libertarian I'd just as soon we pulled back and minded our own business, let the entire region sink back into the sand from whence it came.      Unfortunately we need oil.  The only way to do both is to drill baby, drill so we control the worlds supply instead of OPEC.  That's not popular so we are stuck until we are all driving BEV"s or FCV's, about 25 years or so from now.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Teslais doing well on Wall Street.

[still learning]

Phil, on 14 August 2013 - 03:27 PM, said:

....5,900 pound Humvee's are...

    Irrelevant, but I thought the choice of a Saudi Humvee photo interesting (that's the flag flying from the antenna, I'm pretty sure.)

[still learning]

Shortpoet-GTD, on 18 August 2013 - 04:32 AM, said:

Teslais doing well on Wall Street.

   While I'd kind of like to see the Tesla company do well, and electric cars in general do well, If you accept what's in the original post in this thread, the idea that electric autos aren't always the best for climate change because of the additional CO2 emitted in battery manufacture, and consider that to achieve a good unrecharged range the Tesla S has an exceptionally large battery, it's probably just as well that large numbers won't get sold because of the selling price.

[eds]

Electric autos are very expensive to buy, but their expense for operating and maintaining is very low,
. . . but more importantly, their fuel is made in this country and
. . . when their fuel supply, comes from the Sun, their fossil Free.
In Afghanistan, the US was paying $400.- a gallon for fuel,
. . . used by 8MPG Hummers, and
. . . that caused an awful lot of killed US soldiers lives, in delivering all that extra fuel.  
The relevance of the Hummer, was in the wastefulness of an
. . . overweight, gas guzzling vehicles, that got people killed, and
. . . whether it was gas or electric it still would be a waste of resources.

In answer to your original question, are all electrics the most climate friendly kind of auto?
. . . you'd have to go a long way to make any electric, as unfriendly as a Hummer.

[still learning]

eds, on 18 August 2013 - 07:01 PM, said:

. . . you'd have to go a long way to make any electric, as unfriendly as a Hummer.

   No disagreement there.  The article that I linked to in my original post in this thread said more-or-less just that, among other things.  Said that any variety of electric auto is more climate friendly than the typical private vehicle now on the road in the US.  Not necessarily though when compared with a hybrid like Prius or plugin hybrid like Volt.  Mainly the original linked article made the point that if the electricity used to charge the electric vehicle is generated from coal and when the "carbon debt" of building a large battery is included too, then a hybrid is better.  Some areas in the US get most electricity from hydro, so all-electric is clearly better, climate-wise.  Some places with a mix of coal and hydro and gas and nuclear, hard to tell.  Looks like plugin hybrid can sometimes be best, climate-wise.  That's now though.  As more renewable electricity comes online and as batteries undergo improvement the picture will change.

[Phil]

I would think hybrids would be worse, you still have the battery and ancillary circuitry, etc., albeit smaller, along with the ICE, transmission, etc.  The worst of both worlds, two motors, two energy sources, and all the extra equipment to allow them to coexist.

With renewables growing exponentially and natural gas replacing coal on a large scale, I'd think BEV's will win the day on CO2.  FCV's should be even better.

The average car is not a Hummer, they aren't even made anymore.  Many ICE cars get better mileage than the average hybrid.  Even the F-150 truck gets 17/23 MPG.

[Tyler85]

Hm, if you look at all-electric cars you always have to ask yourself how environmentally friendly the production of the electricity was. I mean possibly a conventional coal plant increased its output and not necessarily a solar plant. So in this case... I don't know, is it then more climate friendly?

[Phil]

With the rampant expansion of wind and solar as well as coal being replaced by natural gas, our grid is getting cleaner and greener year over year.  That would seem to favor BEV's over time.

Also, I read on some environmental site that even if powered by coal, BEV's are still cleaner.  Gas engines are about 30% efficient while electric motors are over 95%, 99% not being unheard of.