Neil: Some of the harder-to-calculate but significant embodied costs of
petro you left out are cleaning up the Gulf Goof-ups: Gulf Wars I & II,
Gulf of Mexico Oil BP Disaster, Gulf of Alaska (Prince William Sound),
Exxon Valdez. And these are just the MAJOR leaks & spills, as they
completely overshadow the minor ones. Then there's the increased Global
Weirding from release of sequestered CO2 and 90% of the oil being wasted
as heat. Leaky underground gas station tanks. Health care costs from
smog. I'm sure I'm leaving out things as well.
It's absolutely amazing, but these make electricity disasters (buried
coal miners, black lung, strip mining, CO2 released, three-mile-island,
Chernobyl, ruined salmon migrations from hydro dams) pale in comparison.
And I'm sure I'm leaving out some here as well. Why? Because they
largely go away when you're able to convert to wind & water turbines,
solar, stored solar - aka BioMass, like Miscanthus can be burned in coal
plants), etc. I take quite a bit of solace though that since they're
locally produced fuels, the same folks suffer the damage as are using
the products (kinda -- the poor universally suffer the effects more.
See Appalachia).
But there is no way to eliminate the petroleum disasters other than to
stop using it. It's why I like the prospects of using diesel for a
range extender cause I can run the OTHER Canadian Oil -- canola oil (aka
Rapeseed) in it.
Electricity, even from the current US grid is the best option now AND in
the future:
http://illinoisev.googlegroups.com/web/ComparingAlternativeFuelsCO2Cost.
jpg
(this is a fairly complex and boring graph, so I added in some
color and the Easter bunny -- why?
Because just like the Easter Bunny, all of the "best" fuels on
the left are imaginary: you can't
get them in the US unless you make them yourself)
These are things an EV driver needs to be very much aware of and work to
improve. Are we better than petrol? You bet. I live by the 4H Motto
though: To make the best better.
[email protected]
DRIVE ELECTRIC: No Leaks. No Drips. No Spills.
-----Original Message-----
From:
[email protected] [mailto:
[email protected]] On
Behalf Of Neil Blanchard
Sent: Monday, October 25, 2010 11:31 AM
To: Electric Vehicle Discussion List
Subject: Re: [EVDL] Real plug-in MPG(E), marketing hoowey
Hi Dave,
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPGE <- I've been looking at this for a
while.
>
> mpge does not sound very impressive when it all boils down to it,
using the
> DOE's conversion factors of .83 (oil refining) and .303
> (generation/transmission of power) ...
> perhaps thats the point ? how did they arrive at those figures ?
> Using these the Tesla ends up at 69.5mpge
>
> It is a really tough argument to grapple with when all people ever
think of
> is gasoline/mpg.
>
> I ended up coming out with a figure of 27.5mpge for my truck which I
> estimated will be between 385-450wh/mile
> Whenever trying to sell the concept to someone, quoting that figure
will
> likely illicit the response "why bother ?"
>
> am I missing something ?
I am doubtful that the well-to-wheels for oil is just 17%. It takes a
long time to even find an oil field, then to do the drilling, including
special materials that are energy intensive like drilling mud,
extraction (is more than you think), long distance transportation (to
get around pirates), building pipelines, storage, then the refining
(which may take as much as 7.5kWh PER GALLON plus natural gas for heat,
more storage, more transportation, more storage, and finally pumping
into the tank. There is a LOT of embedded energy in gasoline.
http://neilblanchard.blogspot.com/2010/09/oil-is-finite-electricity-is-i
nfinite.html
Electricity on the other hand has far less embedded energy (trains are
used for transport of coal). The huge majority of the loss is in
generation, and this can be improved, or it can be eliminated by
generating electricity from renewable sources. Because electricity
*can* come from many renewable sources, I feel that we must transition
to EV's as fast as possible, and move to the renewables as we can.
MPGe should be done as straight BTU conversion, because that is the part
the vehicle is "responsible" for. If you put solar panels on your roof,
then does your Tesla gets infinite MPGe? It certainly doesn't lose the
60-70% generation loss.
Sincerely, Neil
http://neilblanchard.blogspot.com/
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