Electric cars and CO2 emissions

[woodgeek]

Frankly, stopping all investments in fossil fuel infrastructure is unrealistic. It will never happen.

Clearly the word 'all' there is problematic. But the current thinking is that people don't want to invest their money in projects that won't pay back. A lot of FF infrastructure like coal mines and coal power plants used to look like it they were totally safe, low risk, high return investments. Build a plant, start a utility and sell stock to a bunch of grannies and pay a good dividend for 30 years.

Now that the costs of RE have fallen so far, and the technology has improved, the major costs (to society, not the RE owner) are in displacement. The coal industry is failing. Some coal plants are being scrapped before the end of their design life, and some stock holders are seeing a cost. People who have spent their lives in the industry are losing their jobs.

So, a key strategy going forward is to minimize such problems by all of us and companies being forward looking....not sinking billions into projects that will not pay back before they need to be scrapped for environmental reasons (not necessarily regulation either...this could manifest trough market forces as people demand cleaner electricity, products without embodied fossil energy, etc.).

Conservation is the answer before large piles of taxpayer dollars should be dropped on solar. If the tax credits for solar was applied to insulation you would see the amount of energy used to heat and cool homes plummet. Throw something like green roofs into the picture and waste water runoff is controlled, air is cleaned, cities are naturally cooled, and roofs start lasting 50+years.

IMO this thinking is a little out of date. We can all do things to reduce fossil energy use, and they all have a cost per unit of energy (or CO2) saved. Of course we should do them in order of cost, low hanging fruit first. Until recently, PV was at the top of the tree. Now it isn't.

Example: I had some pros retrofit my 1960 house (after I had done what I could DIY). The net effect is they saved me about 3500 kWh per year on HVAC, or $500/yr at current prices. The same program offered me a 0% 10 year loan to pay for it (US DOE pays the interest). Project cost was $5k. Simple payback is 10 years. I would not have done it without the 0% loan, because of the lousy payback. Of course, my house is a lot more comfortable too, I guess I got the comfort 'for free'.

From others experiences here, it looks like solar PV can have a similar or better payback in many markets. Why is it not a better investment?

And realistically, both conservation and PV pay a reasonable ROI...we will want to do BOTH.

I have neighbors who looked at green rooves, and all of them abandoned it after looking at costs versus savings. Seems to be a fad.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I'll have to admit I wasn't thinking coal plants when I was writing about FF infrastructure. I was thinking more on the lines of NG. I'm a bit torn on coal. Many communities are supported by it and if coal goes, they've got nothing. I see the results of an economy that was supported by a single mill, mine, etc in a lot of Adirondack towns and when it goes out, it's not pretty. It's tough when you see people who desperately want to work but can't. Then see people who can but won't in an area a couple hours drive away.

I did some work with green roofs when I went back to school. They aren't new, they've been around for thousands of years. I don't think they are right for every structure either. But for a flat roofed structure that can support the weight, I think the benefits can be huge. An urban setting such as New York City could really benefit from the reduced storm water and heat.

It's the low hanging fruit you speak of that I see insulation (and air sealing) being. Cellulose isn't expensive. Either is blown in fiberglass. Actually, when cost of cleanup for blown in fiberglass is added in, I think it might actually be cheaper to install. There really isn't any cleanup. 90% of the houses in my area are from before the 50s. Insulating the attic alone could significantly drop the amount of energy needed to heat and cool them. That's money that doesn't support coal, fracking, Arabs, etc. Money saved by not paying a utility can be put to other uses... More energy efficient upgrades, kids college, more reliable vehicle, etc. it's just not as sexy as a new PV system. I understand that press releases on insulation aren't as cool sounding as a new solar project.

If people are stuck on solar, than it just makes sense to make each dollar spent on it go as far as possible. Cutting a home's energy usage in half seems like a good way to make that happen.

 

[woodgeek]

Yar. But of course even simple conservation has negative impacts too. Less revenue for the elec utility and the gas/oil/propane man. We can always find losers in any change, and someone will get up in arms.

Now that folks are vilifying those who get solar as being 'free riders' on the grid, and those with EVs as 'free riders' on the roads (no gas tax), why can't we be fair and vilify those who have airsealed and insulated their houses as 'free riders' on the gas/oil/propane distribution system?

The oil man's kids gotta eat too, right?

 

[Seasoned Oak]

Cant please every one, no sense trying. I see nothing but good things coming out of electric cars and the electrification of transportation. The oil companies have sorely needed some competition for a long time now. That helps keep the lid on prices as much as the current oversupply.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Yar. But of course even simple conservation has negative impacts too. Less revenue for the elec utility and the gas/oil/propane man. We can always find losers in any change, and someone will get up in arms.

Now that folks are vilifying those who get solar as being 'free riders' on the grid, and those with EVs as 'free riders' on the roads (no gas tax), why can't we be fair and vilify those who have airsealed and insulated their houses as 'free riders' on the gas/oil/propane distribution system?

The oil man's kids gotta eat too, right?

I suppose there will always be a loser, but I really can't fault somebody for legally getting around a fee or tax. I trust if it becomes an issue, the politicians will impose a tax on tires or something, and also raise the gas tax for good measure! As far as revenue from the sales of electricity go, I think the average home is up to 900 kWh per month in usage. It'll probably increase as more appliances are added to houses. My house originally had 2 circuits! I don't see homes going back to that level of usage anytime soon. Overall I'd say the utilities will have steady revenue for decades. Their pension plans might become underfunded though. I suppose that's a topic for a different thread.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Cant please every one, no sense trying. I see nothing but good things coming out of electric cars and the electrification of transportation. The oil companies have sorely needed some competition for a long time now. That helps keep the lid on prices as much as the current oversupply.

I don't think competition is ever bad.

 

[woodgeek]

Re the EV gas tax issue....a number of states are just charging an annual surcharge at registration. Fine by me if it matches what a similar-sized ICE would have paid in gas tax.

But in GA, they are talking about $200/yr, roughly equivalent to the gas tax paid by the average Hummer owner.

http://insideevs.com/georgia-kill-5000-electric-car-credit-will-impose-200-annual-road-use-fee-evs/

 

[Ashful]

Hey, woodgeek... that coal stove of yours has been 30 yo for a number of years, now.

 

[woodgeek]

Fixed. Thanks.

 

[OhioBurner©]

Re the EV gas tax issue....a number of states are just charging an annual surcharge at registration. Fine by me if it matches what a similar-sized ICE would have paid in gas tax.

But in GA, they are talking about $200/yr, roughly equivalent to the gas tax paid by the average Hummer owner.

http://insideevs.com/georgia-kill-5000-electric-car-credit-will-impose-200-annual-road-use-fee-evs/

That's crazy, what if you only put 1,000 miles a year on your car! I'd really like to get an all electric car but they are still too much money. I'm keeping my truck so this would be an extra vehicle just for commuting. And when you have to buy and maintain another vehicle it usually doesn't pay back ever, or if it does it takes many years, even when compared to a big gas guzzling truck.

 

[btuser]

I don't think competition is ever bad.

Competition is overrated. The deregulation of the electrical market is a disaster for the end user.

 

[Ashful]

Competition is overrated. The deregulation of the electrical market is a disaster for the end user.

You're treading into politics here, but I would not call our system of "deregulation" true capitalist competition, by any measure.

 

[velvetfoot]

An article on TV just said that electric car prices are coming down.

 

[Seasoned Oak]

Competition is overrated. The deregulation of the electrical market is a disaster for the end user.

Im paying .069 KWH for over a year because of competition in the electric generating market . Id say it works for me.

 

[Seasoned Oak]

That's crazy, what if you only put 1,000 miles a year on your car! I'd really like to get an all electric car but they are still too much money. I'm keeping my truck so this would be an extra vehicle just for commuting. And when you have to buy and maintain another vehicle it usually doesn't pay back ever, or if it does it takes many years, even when compared to a big gas guzzling truck.

I found that out the hard way.

 

[woodgeek]

That's crazy, what if you only put 1,000 miles a year on your car! I'd really like to get an all electric car but they are still too much money. I'm keeping my truck so this would be an extra vehicle just for commuting. And when you have to buy and maintain another vehicle it usually doesn't pay back ever, or if it does it takes many years, even when compared to a big gas guzzling truck.

There are still some decent lease deals out there for first generation LEAFs, i.e. $200-ish a month. If you can do 12000 miles/year commuting, the gas savings, even at current prices are half of that, depending on what you driving now.

If you need even fewer miles, there are some cheeep used LEAFs on the market now. If a 60 mile range from a degraded battery works for you, its a cheap set of wheels. Might make a good 'teen car'. Dunno. My oldest is still 14.

 

[OhioBurner©]

I know very little about power generation, but as an EE, I did have to take the usual coursework in controls theory. Seems to me, even with the long time constants of steam turbines, a sophisticated control system could critically throttle steam generation from coal and oil fired boilers, to meet forecast demand. Heck, even a BSEE with solid understanding of second-order systems and PID controls should be able to get pretty darn close.

The plants (and their control systems) do not really control their own output. There are so many things going on the grid that dispatchers and their computers generally make those decisions or regional entities like RTOs and ISOs etc. Lots of things happening on the grid that at the power plant level they have no idea. They are just following an instruction, be it verbal or electronic.

Not just nukes, but any steam plant, including most coal and some oil plants. Pumped storage also works for storing wind or solar energy, but as you rightly point out, there's limited places to build it.

Pump storage is usually operated from a purely economic standpoint (at least the ones I'm familiar with). They do not 'store' surplus energy from any particular place though of course that happens since all power plants are all electrically connected to each other within the same interconnection (3 in the US). So when a hydro pumps, they are likely storing a portion of energy from hundreds or thousands of generators that are online, be it wind, coal, other hydros, etc. Sometimes they even need to pump or generate uneconomically for environmental reasons (excessive inflow or rainfall taking forebay levels too high), or yearly residential dock maintenance or other recreational activities, etc.

 

[OhioBurner©]

There are still some decent lease deals out there for first generation LEAFs, i.e. $200-ish a month. If you can do 12000 miles/year commuting, the gas savings, even at current prices are half of that, depending on what you driving now.

If you need even fewer miles, there are some cheeep used LEAFs on the market now. If a 60 mile range from a degraded battery works for you, its a cheap set of wheels. Might make a good 'teen car'. Dunno. My oldest is still 14.

Not bad, I've never looked at the 'LEAF'. My commute is 80mi not including the occasional stop for groceries or other errands and recreation. Currently I split driving duty between my V10 F350 and a V6 F150. Surprisingly the much much smaller and less capable truck only gets ~2mpg better. Averaging the two, taking into account winter vs summer, I'd ballpark 15mpg average. I was rather unwilling to give up either, but if I were to it'd be the F150. Unfortunately it has little resale (a big reason I've kept it) so it won't be offsetting much of the purchase of new vehicle.

 

[Ashful]

The plants (and their control systems) do not really control their own output. There are so many things going on the grid that dispatchers and their computers generally make those decisions or regional entities like RTOs and ISOs etc. Lots of things happening on the grid that at the power plant level they have no idea. They are just following an instruction, be it verbal or electronic.

Unfortunately, this is something I do know a bit about. You are correct, it is increadibly archaic. The distribution operators are working off code books, many years old, of predicted scenarios and reactions, in grid management. They can handle up to three errors in the system at any time, in terms of routing power around outages, handling a generator failure, etc.

Improved systems have been proposed, and following the great Northeast blackout of 2003, even received some congressional support. Unfortunately, the critical vendor involved (Lockheed) was unable to provide the final proposal prior to the inauguration of a new congress, and the deal fell flat on new ears in the following session. The proposal involved adapting the Aegis warfar system to real-time grid simulation and failure abatement, which would have also provided generation plants the means to predict and throttle generation according to forecast.

It always comes back to money... or lack thereof.

 

[OhioBurner©]

I'd also point out that load forecasting can often be very innacurate. I would never trust this to be automated, but as you say some of the methods used are pretty archaic currently. Think about how inaccurate weather forecasts can be... And realize weather forecast is a huge component of load forecast.

 

[Seasoned Oak]

That's crazy, what if you only put 1,000 miles a year on your car! I'd really like to get an all electric car but they are still too much money. .

ID go for a good deal on a used VOLT especially when the 2016s come out and everyone has to have the latest, greatest thing. No range anxiety with volt. I cant see myself buying an 70 mile electric car an stressing over the range all the time. The leaf batteries are inferior to the volts and proven unable to take the heat. IMO

 

[begreen]

Just did a 1000+ mile trip in the Volt. No range anxiety and it proved to be a very nice car to take. Handled like a champ through mountain passes and lots of switchbacks.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Interesting that some would put their teen in some of these small cars. They might save on gas, but are so light weight they are effectively a hockey puck on wheels. I know somebody is going to bring up crash ratings, but put up against my truck, which I'm sure has a lower rating, I'll pick the truck and use the volt/leaf to help slow me down.

The other thing that comes to mind is auto maintenance. These newer cars really won't have any. But I guess none of them really do now. Kids aren't going to learn how to do any work on their own vehicle. It was years for me before the time/money balance swung to the side where I wanted free time more than do maintenance on a vehicle. I like working on them, but would rather play with the kid, etc. I'll have to change back when she gets a bit older so she'll feel confident if she needs to do the maintenance herself on her car. It really rubs me the wrong way when the oil change places do scare tactics on my wife.

 

[woodgeek]

Its a fair point. But, for the record, the LEAF is a mid-size hatchback, with about the same interior space as a Camry. It also weighs in at 3500 lbs, more than nearly all mid-size sedans including the Camry.

One emerging consensus is that newer cars are a lot safer than older cars, due to a combination of (minor but important) structural changes made after improved crash testing over the last 10 years AND things like dynamic traction control (which can avoid an accident) and having 8 airbags versus 2. So the case for buying a large, old beater of a vehicle for a teen is arguable.

PRO:
The Leaf has front/side curtain airbags, dynamic traction control, and does well in frontal and side crash tests
The numbers suggest a teen would be safer in a 2012 leaf than 95% of cars more than 10 years old.

CON:
That said, the latest crash test developed, the partial offset frontal collision, failed the LEAF, along with 50% of other existing cars models. All the makers are now tweaking their car structures to address this test specifically. Near future models should do well. Those worried about this test should note that most common injury is to the legs, as opposed to the head/torso.

With teens, the big things seem to be working on attention issues (texting), DUI, and not having other teen peers in the car.

 

[woodgeek]

The other thing that comes to mind is auto maintenance. These newer cars really won't have any. But I guess none of them really do now. Kids aren't going to learn how to do any work on their own vehicle. It was years for me before the time/money balance swung to the side where I wanted free time more than do maintenance on a vehicle. I like working on them, but would rather play with the kid, etc. I'll have to change back when she gets a bit older so she'll feel confident if she needs to do the maintenance herself on her car. It really rubs me the wrong way when the oil change places do scare tactics on my wife.

Some of this IS generational. For the first pass over-generalization, Boomers liked to play with their cars, but the Gen-X kids just drove 'em, without thinking about whats under the hood. Gen-X folks liked to play with their computers, but the millennial kids just use them, without thinking about whats inside. What do the Millenial kids play with? I dunno....