Blind to designers and developers of electric cars, primarily the plug-in variety so that bat-
tery charge is easily available from the grid, is the fact that any unbiased evaluation will show that
for most benefit the present designs are highly regional and in the aggregate, benefits in regard to
climate change and burning of fossil fuel are open to question. Away in the background, though,
the way to an acceptable design has been identified. In the words of an EPA executive: “The auto
industry has yet to wake up.”
Lost indeed, when the CEO of a major manufacturer of electric cars pronounces: “We’ve got to have electric cars and get off using fossil fuels,” when his product is almost wholly dependent on energy generated by fossil fuels.
The current situation is murky, at best. Existing gasoline powered cars boast an unassailable attribute called stand-alone independence. Independence is lost with grid dependent electric cars.The Federal Government, including its agency concerned with such matters, encourages manufacture of electric cars that draw power from the grid without regard to the consequences. To name one: There are frequent power outages from storms that may take days or weeks to get back to normal. The situation is apt to get worse rather than improve as a result of global warming, which indeed, the electric car in its present design may exacerbate.
Electric cars that obtain their battery charge by plugging into the grid in regions like Washington State and Western New York where electric power is primarily hydro do make sense.They also make sense in areas where power to the grid is geothermal, photoelectric, solar thermal, wind but these as yet form a very small part of the total U.S. power generated. Nuclear energy may fit the description of clean supply until one realizes that these plants operate at capacity and further demand is supplied by fossil fuel burning plants.
The percentage of electric cars that depend on a grid supplied by fossil fuels correlates roughly with the percentage of U.S. power generation that is fossil fuel based, which is about two thirds. Nuclear is another nineteen percent, and all other sources combined furnish a mere ten per cent.
Visions of an electric car as a coal burner or a natural gas burner may go against the grain, but that is the reality. Technology and systems engineering have missed the boat, But it is not too late to change, because the technology to do so is already a hundred years old.
Thermodynamic efficiency and resultant impact on climate change, i.e. release of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere are the key issues. Published data on generating plant efficiency vary, but typically fall within a range from twenty eight percent to about thirty-three per cent for coal burning plants and thirty three to thirty eight percent for natural gas burning plants. A limited number of combined cycle plants perform as high as fifty per cent. There are 600 coal burning plants distributed around the United States. All but two states generate a part of their electrical energy in coal plants. The owner of an electric car is thus quite likely to be driving a coal burner, or at least a natural gas burner, since two thirds of the U.S. power supply comes from those two sources. From the standpoint of efficiency, for example, should one be drawing power from a coal burning plant that operates at twenty eight per cent efficiency, an electric car would be operating at an efficiency that takes into account additional drive system losses, which are about ten per cent. With a thermal efficiency well under thirty percent, besides continuing to rely on fossil fuels, the electric car is thus a poor second to modern gasoline burning motor cars, which may have a thermal efficiency as high as forty per cent.
Lost indeed, when the CEO of a major manufacturer of electric cars pronounces: “We’ve got to have electric cars and get off using fossil fuels,” when his product is almost wholly dependent on energy generated by fossil fuels.
The current situation is murky, at best. Existing gasoline powered cars boast an unassailable attribute called stand-alone independence. Independence is lost with grid dependent electric cars.The Federal Government, including its agency concerned with such matters, encourages manufacture of electric cars that draw power from the grid without regard to the consequences. To name one: There are frequent power outages from storms that may take days or weeks to get back to normal. The situation is apt to get worse rather than improve as a result of global warming, which indeed, the electric car in its present design may exacerbate.
Electric cars that obtain their battery charge by plugging into the grid in regions like Washington State and Western New York where electric power is primarily hydro do make sense.They also make sense in areas where power to the grid is geothermal, photoelectric, solar thermal, wind but these as yet form a very small part of the total U.S. power generated. Nuclear energy may fit the description of clean supply until one realizes that these plants operate at capacity and further demand is supplied by fossil fuel burning plants.
The percentage of electric cars that depend on a grid supplied by fossil fuels correlates roughly with the percentage of U.S. power generation that is fossil fuel based, which is about two thirds. Nuclear is another nineteen percent, and all other sources combined furnish a mere ten per cent.
Visions of an electric car as a coal burner or a natural gas burner may go against the grain, but that is the reality. Technology and systems engineering have missed the boat, But it is not too late to change, because the technology to do so is already a hundred years old.
Thermodynamic efficiency and resultant impact on climate change, i.e. release of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere are the key issues. Published data on generating plant efficiency vary, but typically fall within a range from twenty eight percent to about thirty-three per cent for coal burning plants and thirty three to thirty eight percent for natural gas burning plants. A limited number of combined cycle plants perform as high as fifty per cent. There are 600 coal burning plants distributed around the United States. All but two states generate a part of their electrical energy in coal plants. The owner of an electric car is thus quite likely to be driving a coal burner, or at least a natural gas burner, since two thirds of the U.S. power supply comes from those two sources. From the standpoint of efficiency, for example, should one be drawing power from a coal burning plant that operates at twenty eight per cent efficiency, an electric car would be operating at an efficiency that takes into account additional drive system losses, which are about ten per cent. With a thermal efficiency well under thirty percent, besides continuing to rely on fossil fuels, the electric car is thus a poor second to modern gasoline burning motor cars, which may have a thermal efficiency as high as forty per cent.
The Chevrolet Volt, if driven locally, with frequent charges of its battery from the grid,
may be nothing more than a coal burner. At extended ranges, when its gasoline fueled engine kicks in, it becomes a conventional automobile, operating on refined fossil fuel. Claims of benefit to climate change are ill-founded.
An alternative to depending on the grid for electrical power is on-board power generation. That immediately brings to mind fuel cells instead of batteries, drawing on a supply of stored hydrogen or methane. The idea is old and has yet to gain traction. In 1959 Allis-Chalmers built a farm tractor that operated on natural gas fuel cells. It was successful but the concept was not carried beyond a demonstrator vehicle. These fuels have problems with leakage probability. For that reason insurance companies will doubtless ban garaging of such vehicles. Systems under pressure are not dependably leak proof. We see it in aircraft, rockets, and even in the air conditioning systems of automobiles. These are relatively few in number. With millions of automobiles, leakage, because of the fire and explosion dangers involve, becomes a serious problem
The safe technology for an on-board system with a potential near-zero carbon footprint originated a hundred years ago with the introduction of the diesel electric locomotive, first in Europe, then in the United States. Its many advantages led to displacement of all steam locomotives. The same technology is applicable to automobiles, with the exception that the Diesel engines driving the generator would be bio-Diesel, now coming into common usage. Still, seamless transition to all bio seems likely, as ordinary Diesel fuel can be substituted for bio-Diesel if required. Only a modest complement of batteries is needed for the bio-Diesel to keep charged. Diesel engines in development offer prospects of operating efficiencies as high as fifty-percent. On-board generation in this manner offers prospect of automobiles with a thousand mile range and a near zero carbon footprint, a feature no electric car can claim today.
Availability of biofuel is an attendant issue, and offers opportunity rather than problems. Among the many potential sources is hemp, which is currently banned erroneously as a source of smokable cannabis. Hemp will grow virtually anywhere, including land that is otherwise unusable. Bio-fuels are the subject of research in many areas, for example, in Craig Venter’s new research facility on the campus of the University of California, San Diego.
Hemp could become an enormous new cash crop for farmers.
With this recommended approach to electric car design, the driver preserves stand-alone independence and has confidence that the car being driven does not contribute to global warming. These are fundamental to sensible electric car design.
