Protesters

[Ancient Citizen]

Some perspective when considering electric cars:

Most of our electricity generation is still carbon burning. You burn oil, gas or coal, to heat water to generate steam, which drives turbines, which drive generators. The electricity is then transformed to high voltage for transmission. It's transmitted great distances, then transformed back to mains voltage at the substation. Back to the charging point, it's transformed again and then in your car it's converted to chemical energy in the battery. Then to actually drive the car, the chemical energy is converter to electricity again.

All if these conversations are lossy, i.e. some of the energy is lost as heat in every step of the process.

Vs generating the power needed right there in your car by burning the fossil fuel in situe and avoid most of the conversation steps.

Then you have to factor in the energy cost of producing and disposing of the lithium batteries.

Factoring all of these things, electric cars are still more efficient and are responsible for about 75% of the amount of C02 that petrol or diesel cars.. So if everyone switched tomorrow, you'd reduce CO2 output by around 25%.

All road transport accounts for about 15% of man made CO2 output. And that's lorries, vans, coaches, buses, cars etc. Cars are just over half of that around 8% or 9%. So changing all cars to electric would yield a 25% drop in ~8% of the output, i.e. a circa 2% overall reduction in CO2 output. Hardly "enormous" and that's if we switched all cars over to electric.

Of course as we generate more and more electricity from renewables, the savings would get better. If we could generate all electricity from renewables then cars would be around 67% more CO2 efficient, not 25%. And you'd be looking at a 5% or 6% drop in total CO2 output if all cars went electric.

But on cold still nights when we're at home charging our electric cars, we have hardly any renewable sources, so until we have a massive investment in nuclear, carbon burning will be the primary source of fuel for powering electric cars.

Good post.
Although electric cars transfer the pollution from the streets to a power station, I didn't know about the 75%-25%
benefit. I'm all for the rapid development in electric vehicles, if only for the undisputed fact that there are zero pollutants
actually on the streets in large conurbations. So no coughing your tripes out, stinging eyes, asthma and other
very unpleasant maladies. The problems at present though involve the mining of rare and destructive
materials in the batteries, it causes more CO2, and releases other pollutants, but if battery technology improves, maybe
that will change too.

 

[Ban-jani]

Some perspective when considering electric cars:

Most of our electricity generation is still carbon burning. You burn oil, gas or coal, to heat water to generate steam, which drives turbines, which drive generators. The electricity is then transformed to high voltage for transmission. It's transmitted great distances, then transformed back to mains voltage at the substation. Back to the charging point, it's transformed again and then in your car it's converted to chemical energy in the battery. Then to actually drive the car, the chemical energy is converter to electricity again.

All if these conversations are lossy, i.e. some of the energy is lost as heat in every step of the process.

Vs generating the power needed right there in your car by burning the fossil fuel in situe and avoid most of the conversation steps.

Then you have to factor in the energy cost of producing and disposing of the lithium batteries.

Factoring all of these things, electric cars are still more efficient and are responsible for about 75% of the amount of C02 that petrol or diesel cars.. So if everyone switched tomorrow, you'd reduce CO2 output by around 25%.

All road transport accounts for about 15% of man made CO2 output. And that's lorries, vans, coaches, buses, cars etc. Cars are just over half of that around 8% or 9%. So changing all cars to electric would yield a 25% drop in ~8% of the output, i.e. a circa 2% overall reduction in CO2 output. Hardly "enormous" and that's if we switched all cars over to electric.

Of course as we generate more and more electricity from renewables, the savings would get better. If we could generate all electricity from renewables then cars would be around 67% more CO2 efficient, not 25%. And you'd be looking at a 5% or 6% drop in total CO2 output if all cars went electric.

But on cold still nights when we're at home charging our electric cars, we have hardly any renewable sources, so until we have a massive investment in nuclear, carbon burning will be the primary source of fuel for powering electric cars.

If this is true then it’s still worth doing.

25% less is a big difference.

Every single step on the road to fully green energy is one worth taking.

Eventually, should everything go to plan, the carbon footprint of electric cars will continue to decrease as manufacturing technology improves and we can effectively do so without Co2 emissions.

In a future where the making and driving a car leaves no carbon footprint, that car is definitely an electric one.

Add to that the thousands that die from air pollution in London every year not doing so.

 

[hammocity]

Global warming is shit but great for Sunny Easter Weekends

 

[Chippy_boy]

If this is true then it’s still worth doing.

25% less is a big difference.

Every single step on the road to fully green energy is one worth taking.

Eventually, should everything go to plan, the carbon footprint of electric cars will continue to decrease as manufacturing technology improves and we can effectively do so without Co2 emissions.

In a future where the making and driving a car leaves no carbon footprint, that car is definitely an electric one.

Add to that the thousands that die from air pollution in London every year not doing so.

I agree, just putting things into perspective. 25% of 8% or 9% is not such a big difference.

The reality though is until we've built a load of new nuclear power stations, we're going to be reliant upon fossil fuels to charge our electric cars. And a future where "where the making and driving a car leaves no carbon footprint" is many, many decades away reliant upon ubiquitious nuclear fusion power stations, since wind and solar don't cut it on still, dark nights. The idea you dig up the minerals, and run all heavy industry off solar and have electric supertankers to shift the stuff around? Absolutely decades away if not longer.

Electric car hype is as much to do with politicians' lack of basic scientific understanding, and an automotive industry wanting to sieze market opportunity, as it is about CO2 reduction.

 

[Ban-jani]

I agree, just putting things into perspective. 25% of 8% or 9% is not such a big difference.

The reality though is until we've built a load of new nuclear power stations, we're going to be reliant upon fossil fuels to charge our electric cars. And a future where "where the making and driving a car leaves no carbon footprint" is many, many decades away reliant upon ubiquitious nuclear fusion power stations, since wind and solar don't cut it on still, dark nights. The idea you dig up the minerals, and run all heavy industry off solar and have electric supertankers to shift the stuff around? Absolutely decades away if not longer.

Electric car hype is as much to do with politicians' lack of basic scientific understanding, and an automotive industry wanting to sieze market opportunity, as it is about CO2 reduction.

For me it’s all about time and how much of it we can buy ourselves before technology advances enough.

We will get there but we need to do what we possibly can at every point of that journey.

If electric cars are 25%, or 25% of 8/9% then it’s still something and it’s still less Co2 into the air and it’s more time for us to work it out.

 

[Armchair Supporter]

Some perspective when considering electric cars:

Most of our electricity generation is still carbon burning. You burn oil, gas or coal, to heat water to generate steam, which drives turbines, which drive generators. The electricity is then transformed to high voltage for transmission. It's transmitted great distances, then transformed back to mains voltage at the substation. Back to the charging point, it's transformed again and then in your car it's converted to chemical energy in the battery. Then to actually drive the car, the chemical energy is converter to electricity again.

All if these conversations are lossy, i.e. some of the energy is lost as heat in every step of the process.

Vs generating the power needed right there in your car by burning the fossil fuel in situe and avoid most of the conversation steps.

Then you have to factor in the energy cost of producing and disposing of the lithium batteries.

Factoring all of these things, electric cars are still more efficient and are responsible for about 75% of the amount of C02 that petrol or diesel cars.. So if everyone switched tomorrow, you'd reduce CO2 output by around 25%.

All road transport accounts for about 15% of man made CO2 output. And that's lorries, vans, coaches, buses, cars etc. Cars are just over half of that around 8% or 9%. So changing all cars to electric would yield a 25% drop in ~8% of the output, i.e. a circa 2% overall reduction in CO2 output. Hardly "enormous" and that's if we switched all cars over to electric.

Of course as we generate more and more electricity from renewables, the savings would get better. If we could generate all electricity from renewables then cars would be around 67% more CO2 efficient, not 25%. And you'd be looking at a 5% or 6% drop in total CO2 output if all cars went electric.

But on cold still nights when we're at home charging our electric cars, we have hardly any renewable sources, so until we have a massive investment in nuclear, carbon burning will be the primary source of fuel for powering electric cars.

Gonna disagree (and i could well be wrong tbh but)

Getting the fossil fuel power stations off the road and into a central location is massive. You massively reduce the complexity of cars, you massively increase reliability and you are able to really focus on getting what emissions you do generate down as much as possible.

Without ICE's you have a drastically reduced Oil and Gas industry. Less rigs, less drilling, less everything.
EV' have no oil to change every 12 months (or 3 in the US). No filters, no plugs, no exhausts, no gearboxs, no timing belts, no turbos no egrs, no drive train etc, all of which is expensive, unreliable and difficult to manufacure. Without all the ICE gubbins, cars can last millions of miles. literally.
There is no reason a car cannot last 2-3 battery changes during its life, batteries which are fully recyclable.

No petrol stations, no Engine dependent workshops and garages.

Much less noise.

The list goes on and on. I think EV's are a massive jump for humanity. The difference they will make to our quality of life will be staggering.

The last hurdle is accessible battery tech and its becoming more of a reality as time passes.

Out of the exhaust or out of the stack, the difference may be just (!) 25% but the knock on secondary effects will be the big change.

 

[Fred_Quimby]

Gonna disagree (and i could well be wrong tbh but)

Getting the fossil fuel power stations off the road and into a central location is massive. You massively reduce the complexity of cars, you massively increase reliability and you are able to really focus on getting what emissions you do generate down as much as possible.

Without ICE's you have a drastically reduced Oil and Gas industry. Less rigs, less drilling, less everything.
EV' have no oil to change every 12 months (or 3 in the US). No filters, no plugs, no exhausts, no gearboxs, no timing belts, no turbos no egrs, no drive train etc, all of which is expensive, unreliable and difficult to manufacure. Without all the ICE gubbins, cars can last millions of miles. literally.
There is no reason a car cannot last 2-3 battery changes during its life, batteries which are fully recyclable.

No petrol stations, no Engine dependent workshops and garages.

Much less noise.

The list goes on and on. I think EV's are a massive jump for humanity. The difference they will make to our quality of life will be staggering.

The last hurdle is accessible battery tech and its becoming more of a reality as time passes.

Out of the exhaust or out of the stack, the difference may be just (!) 25% but the knock on secondary effects will be the big change.

Add to that driverless vehicles which you dial on demand and so you no longer need to have one sat on your drive for 95% of the time. These are coming make no mistake.

 

[Armchair Supporter]

Add to that driverless vehicles which you dial on demand and so you no longer need to have one sat on your drive for 95% of the time. These are coming make no mistake.

Yea, good point, i forgot that one. Also huge.
Once you do that, a car just becomes public transport along with all of the economies of scale that has.

 

[Chippy_boy]

Yea, good point, i forgot that one. Also huge.
Once you do that, a car just becomes public transport along with all of the economies of scale that has.

It is a good point but it's peripheral to the discussion. You can have that with petrol powered cars.

Regards your point about the complexity of petrol (or diesel) cars and the infrastructure for them, I'm pretty sure this is factored into the carbon cost comparisons. I didn't just make it up, people have studied this - I'll dig out a source of two when I have a moment.

And the energy cost of converting from one form (chemical to heat, heat to kinetic, kinetic to electrical, electrical to chemical, chemical to electric, electric to kinetic) as happens with electric cars - is enormous. All thing being equal, it's inherently more efficient to generate the power in situe, in the car.

But fortunately for the electric car industry, all things are not equal and you're right that by consolidating the power generation in one place, you can get efficiencies of scale, which offsets the energy conversion losses and makes the whole thing viable.

 

[Armchair Supporter]

It is a good point but it's peripheral to the discussion. You can have that with petrol powered cars.

Regards your point about the complexity of petrol (or diesel) cars and the infrastructure for them, I'm pretty sure this is factored into the carbon cost comparisons. I didn't just make it up, people have studied this - I'll dig out a source of two when I have a moment.

And the energy cost of converting from one form (chemical to heat, heat to kinetic, kinetic to electrical, electrical to chemical, chemical to electric, electric to kinetic) as happens with electric cars - is enormous. All thing being equal, it's inherently more efficient to generate the power in situe, in the car.

But fortunately for the electric car industry, all things are not equal and you're right that by consolidating the power generation in one place, you can get efficiencies of scale, which offsets the energy conversion losses and makes the whole thing viable.

If you have links to some studies of this i would gladly read them :)

Whats the maximum efficiency of a power station though?
I think i read somewhere that the maximum for ICE's is not much more than 40%?