Is converting to electric vehicles powered by green energy even feasible? - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15172539
At the end of the math below, to convert all cars to run on green energy, it requires a 772 times increase in our power generation, and that's only counting the cars.


The average electric vehicle consumes 30KWh/100 miles.
The average American driver drives 13.5K miles per year.
There are approximately 210 million drivers in America.

Thus, if the goal is to electrify the personally owned vehicle (POV) fleet and go to zero emissions...
210Mvehicles x 13.5Kmi/vehile x 30KWh/100mi = the power requirements of the Green New Deal (GND) in regards to POV

Expanding that equation in scientific notation:

2.1 x 10^8 x 1.35 x 10^4 x 30 / 100 = KWh (KiloWattHours of electricity)

The required electricity for entire replacement of the American POV fleet is 8.5 x 10^11 KWh, or 850,000,000,000 KWh.

At the end of 2020, the US had about 1.1 x 10^9KW of electrical generation capacity, so electrification of the entire POV fleet would take...

At the end of the math it requires a 772 times increase in our power generation. JUST TO POWER THE CARS.



The reality is that it doesn't make any sense to be using electric vehicles while the power grid still uses fossil fuels.

In their rush for trying to advance their "green" agenda and replace all those old "bad" cars with trendy new electric ones, they've completely ignored logic. It's become emotionalism pushing policy.

40% of the country's electric power comes from natural gas. Wouldn't it be better to just directly burn that natural gas in cars?

Because otherwise you would be adding unnecessary efficiency losses at four different points: efficiency loss converting gas powered motion to electricity (1) and then transmission of that electricity over distances (2), and then battery charging inefficiencies (3), and finally converting it to back to physical motion (4).


Coal generates 20% of the country's electric power, and nuclear another 20%.
#15172540
It is. But the cars should have solar arrays either at the charging point(drain the storage battery first then use the power grid) and/or in the car to help directly charge the battery itself while you're out and about.

You're failing to consider the full adoption rate is not going to be fast. It's probably 50+ years at least. They're "pushing it" mainly as a Marketing strategy, same way they pushed Hybrid cars (still not many of them).
#15172550
colliric wrote:It is. But the cars should have solar arrays either at the charging point(drain the storage battery first then use the power grid) and/or in the car to help directly charge the battery itself while you're out and about.

It has been proven to be theoretically possible, but I still very much think you are not being practical about it. A look at the math shows that solar panels that could cover the surface of a car barely provide much energy compared to how much energy it takes to move a normal car. It just wouldn't even be worth it, in most situations.
#15172551
Puffer Fish wrote:It has been proven to be theoretically possible, but I still very much think you are not being practical about it. A look at the math shows that solar panels that could cover the surface of a car barely provide much energy compared to how much energy it takes to move a normal car. It just wouldn't even be worth it, in most situations.


It would save some power costs, and so would help lower emissions. And obviously using them at the home charging point with a storage battery would be more effective. Of course they would still be using the Grid and need plug in charging as well.

Obviously the technology will improve over the years and that's what most people are expecting I believe.

Hyundai already used solar panels in the Sonata Hybrid to help charge the battery.
#15173057
Puffer Fish wrote:
At the end of the math below, to convert all cars to run on green energy, it requires a 772 times increase in our power generation, and that's only counting the cars.




Nope.

We will need to make a lot more electricity, but not that much more.

One more thing, natural gas powers a lot of electricity, and that produces less carbon emissions than gasoline.

But your underlying point is correct. We will need to expand our use of hydro, nuclear and solar, and it won't be cheap.

That's one of my disappointments with the Biden plan. He's proposed about 200B, and my guess is a trillion is what we need to get things going properly. That's just the tip of the iceberg, we need nuclear power to be part of the transition to a carbon free economy. We will need to declare an emergency to make that happen.

We should also start in on building the Smart Grid, it doesn't make sense to run blindly into all this without a plan on how it's all going to work and fit together.
#15173720
At the end of the math it requires a 772 times increase in our power generation. JUST TO POWER THE CARS.

@Puffer Fish
That makes no sense.
Combustion engine cars are generating power already, each one of them is a small power plant. Replacing a gas car for an electric car does not increase the overall energy production, it just displaces the need for energy production by the car, to energy production outside of the car (e.i solar panel, nuclear plant, coal plant, etc.) The overall amount of global energy production might change a bit because of the different modalities, and the calculations are certainly much more complex than what can be done with "napkin math" but it is within the same order of magnitude and I suspect it will favor the electric car due to efficiency of electric motors, not needing to transport large amount of fuel (gas to gas stations) etc.


It is easy to make mistakes when you start with the conclusion before you analyze the situation. Throw in a few "green new deal" zingers and voila.
Physics, chemistry and biology does not care about your political affiliations, if we continue to burn fuel, CO2 will continue to accumulate. Period. you don't get a pass on physics and chemistry based on your political ideation.

The real issue with the next generation of power generation is going to be power storage and not power generation. Make no mistake, this is not an unsurmountable hurdle either, the fuel storage capacity for combustion engine cars did not appear out of thin air either, we built it over a century of work, my guess is that the transition to electric will take much less than a century and will be easier.

Energy storage is going to be the real issue. The problem that you are suggesting is not really a problem, the real problem would be to create a battery pack for every single one of those cars, in addition to our already high demand for batteries for cellphones, laptops, powerwalls for homes and perhaps large industrial-grade battery packs for grid regulation and/or grid power storage. If we could store a lot of power in a common material... for instance salt water... we wouldn't even be having this discussion.
Last edited by XogGyux on 23 May 2021 09:47, edited 1 time in total.
#15173721
late wrote: That's just the tip of the iceberg, we need nuclear power to be part of the transition to a carbon free economy.


I agree with this statement. Unless we can figure out a way to use a common element for cheap, volume/weight efficient energy storage I don't see a path forward without significant push on nuclear fission, and hopefully some research and eventual substitution in nuclear fusion power generation.
It is possible that if we make significant advances in carbon nanotube/graphene supercapacitors and batteries we could bypass need for nuclear as carbon is readily available, in theory we could suck it from the CO2 in the atmosphere, that would be epic. But realistically, we will need to crawl before we run. Nuclear is readily avaiable, safe, efficient. The major drawback which is the waste can be mitigated and newer plants have significantly less waste and shorter lifespan of the residual radiation product.
#15175680
I think the maths is off.


"The required electricity for entire replacement of the American POV fleet is 8.5 x 10^11 KWh, or 850,000,000,000 KWh.

At the end of 2020, the US had about 1.1 x 10^9KW of electrical generation capacity, so electrification of the entire POV fleet would take..."

The US currently uses 3800TWh so 850TWh for cars is a 22% increase.
#15177561
Here's another disadvantage of electric cars. If one catches on fire, it can be a disaster to put out.

On April 17, 2021, when firefighters responded to a call at around 9:30 p.m., they came upon a Tesla Model S that had crashed, killing two people, and was now on fire.

They extinguished it, but then a small flare shot out of the bottom of the charred hulk. Firefighters quickly put out those flames. Not long after, the car reignited for a third time.

Eight firefighters ultimately spent seven hours putting out the fire. They also used up 28,000 gallons of water - an amount the department normally uses in a month. That same volume of water serves an average American home for nearly two years.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/an-el ... d=msedgntp

Yes it's true, fires are rare. But when an electric car does catch fire, it doesn't sound very eco-friendly.
Can you imagine, using up enough water that an average home uses in 2 years.

One wonders whether things like this are really taken into account, when calculating exactly how environmentally friendly these sorts of things are.
#15177562
Nuclear energy and hydro-electric are green energies, and so the answer is very much a, "Yes.".


If you had a few dumbass firefighters using water to put out a chemical fire, what you have is stupid firefighters who don't know their job. :knife:

It's also irrelevant to the question, too.
#15177575
Godstud wrote:If you had a few dumbass firefighters using water to put out a chemical fire, what you have is stupid firefighters who don't know their job. :knife:

Sometimes water is all that is available, and that's what they have to use and make due with.


It takes a lot of fire extinguisher tanks, or a very big fire extinguisher tank, to be able to put out a car sized fire.
Water, on the other hand, is often more readily available, since it comes out of a street hydrant near the fire.
One wonders how practical it would actually be to carry enough special extinguisher material on a fire truck to be able to put out a fire when the entire car is high in flames. Those special extinguisher materials also leave a lot of mess, even more than the burning car leaves.
#15177577
Foam, and dry chemical, as used in fuel fires( and battery fires) isn't as dirty as you'd think. It's still a pretty irrelevant argument to make about green energy vehicles. If more of them are on the road, fire departments will carry more suitable fire extinguishing materials. Fires such as this are hardly a daily occurrence.
#15181096
Godstud wrote:If more of them are on the road, fire departments will carry more suitable fire extinguishing materials.

I made the argument that it will not be so easy to do so. These tanks will need to be pretty big. Like 1000 liters at least.

Refilling will likely not be the cheapest either. It is not as simple as refilling with water.

Are we going to put an extra tax on these cars to retrofit the fire departments with the proper equipment (probably new specialized trucks) to extinguish these fires?
#15181097
One very interesting thing about the lithium used in these batteries is that it can burn in both nitrogen and carbon dioxide, and the reaction product is a solid. That means even if you put a fireproof blanket over it to try to smother it, as the battery burns it would create a vacuum that would start pulling in more air. The fire would continue burning, but just more slowly. The blanket would prevent the rest of the car from burning though, so long as the car remained covered.
#15181248
Puffer Fish wrote:
I made the argument that it will not be so easy to do so. These tanks will need to be pretty big. Like 1000 liters at least.

Refilling will likely not be the cheapest either. It is not as simple as refilling with water.

Are we going to put an extra tax on these cars to retrofit the fire departments with the proper equipment (probably new specialized trucks) to extinguish these fires?



We're developing better batteries, you can panic later..
#15181263
XogGyux wrote:@Puffer Fish
That makes no sense.
Combustion engine cars are generating power already, each one of them is a small power plant. Replacing a gas car for an electric car does not increase the overall energy production, it just displaces the need for energy production by the car, to energy production outside of the car...


This of course is true given it is basically Newtons third law in practice however the question still remains, does our power grid produce enough energy in order to compensate the energy being lost in the combustion engine? There is a LOT of energy being created everytime someone drives a car. And if you multiply that, it is a lot of electricity. I can't say I have looked enough into this to have an informed opinion. But I do know our (UK) power grid is basically on full capacity everytime there is a major Football match and people turn the kettle on at half time. And we are expected to produce the energy on the grid to power peoples commute as well? I would say there is going to be a wakeup call very quickly if all people do indeed go electric by the end of the decade.

Also, @colliric, solar panels are not good enough for cars at the moment and I suspect due to the limitations of them along with the energy produced in movement that they may never be good enough.
#15181268
B0ycey wrote:
This of course is true given it is basically Newtons third law in practice however the question still remains, does our power grid produce enough energy in order to compensate the energy being lost in the combustion engine?

I would say there is going to be a wakeup call very quickly if all people do indeed go electric by the end of the decade.

Also, @colliric, solar panels are not good enough for cars at the moment and I suspect due to the limitations of them along with the energy produced in movement that they may never be good enough.



Not even close, we not only need to add capacity, in both countries the grid needs updating (Not sure about Britain, but that's the impression I've gotten).

Absolutely, the era of the gasoline car is ending, and the reactionary attitude of politicians means we will have created yet another crisis.

In England?? You need actual sun for solar... 8)
#15181269
late wrote:Not even close, we not only need to add capacity, in both countries the grid needs updating (Not sure about Britain, but that's the impression I've gotten).

Absolutely, the era of the gasoline car is ending, and the reactionary attitude of politicians means we will have created yet another crisis.

In England?? You need actual sun for solar... 8)


The UK rely on wind. I do know we are building offshore wind farms like they are going out of fashion. But I also know our nuclear power plants are coming towards decommissioning time which creates far more power than offshore windfarms anyway. And doing some minor research on this, Eon is assuming our changing habits will make the electric revolution practical. I would say that is optimistic. So I only expect this will be a starting process rather than a final solution. We will continue to encourage electric vehicles and then curb that enthusiasm when the grid is at risk of meltdown.
#15181270
@Rancid

Rancid wrote:What is up with these fuck faces that don't want cleaner energy?


They don't want to find ways to pay for a good college education or alternative good paying trade and prefer to sit on their asses feeling sorry for themselves about why they don't have a job working in a coal mine that will give them black lung destroying their health and the environment. That's what's up with them. They are going to be left behind and it will be their own fault.

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