About Coastdown Testing
Wednesday, August 25, 2010 at 06:40PMThe engineering department at Edison2 is pleased about the informed and civilized discussion on car efficiency that we see on our blog. A constant strand in the discussion is: where does the crossover come between rolling resistance and aero drag?
The procedure used by the automotive industry to determine resistance to motion is the coastdown. There’s an SAE standard for how to do this but, broadly, the car is either driven, pushed or pulled up to a certain speed, usually a little over 70mph, after which it is put into neutral (or released) and coasts until the speed drops below 10mph. Speed and distance during this are recorded very accurately by special purpose instrumentation. Some checks and balances are applied to make sure the results are good: it’s done multiple times in both directions on a straight road to make sure the data is consistent and to cancel out the effects of wind and gradient. Analysis of the recorded speed and distance information yields the car’s drag “fingerprint”.
Although it’s obvious that the car’s speed will decay as it coasts, this does not happen at a constant rate because of multiple different components of the total resistance to motion. The drag that causes the car to slow down fits very precisely an equation of the form
In the equation, drag is in pounds and x is speed in miles per hour. The equation’s A term is a constant value representing static drag: it takes this much to make the car move at all and this drag is always present regardless of the car’s speed. The B term changes linearly with speed and is best thought of as mechanical drag, such as bearing friction. The C term is aero drag and it varies with the square of speed.
Thousands of these tests have been carried out over the years and there is vast accumulated experience showing that a car’s total resistance to motion very closely follows the simple three term equation. In fact, this method and analysis are so well accepted that A, B and C numbers for many current cars are available on the epa.gov website.
The Very Light Car’s A, B and C numbers are 6.31, 0.1862 and 0.00433 respectively. Plotted on a graph against speed, they look like this:
Inspection shows the static drag figure dominates at low speed. Static drag is in large part due to tire deflection caused by car weight and consequently the Very Light Car does extremely well. From numbers Edison2 obtained from the EPA, the corresponding figure for a 2 wheel drive Escalade is 33.61, more than 6 times as much.
The B value, mechanical drag, is similarly low because of the very careful attention we gave the VLC’s mechanical design. The corresponding Escalade figure is 1.0442, more than 5 times as much as ours.
Aero drag (the C term) becomes important above about 40mph and above about 70 it is higher than static and rolling drag combined. That this only happens at such a high speed is testament to the extremely slippery shape devised by Barnaby Wainfan.
It’s interesting that at about 40 mph, static, mechanical and aero drag are close to equal. Even with our particularly light and efficient car, if aero drag were zero, at 40mph there would only be about a 30% reduction in power required and therefore fuel consumption. Low aero drag is important, of course, but so is mechanical efficiency. The VLC has them all.
We would like to emphasize that these numbers are not guesses, estimates, projections or simulations. They are measurements taken in accordance with a recognized SAE standard by experienced and competent people. Edison2 was told by the test facility (Chrysler Proving Grounds, Chelsea, MI) these are the best numbers they have ever seen, by far.
In these measurements are the key to getting acceptable range from an electric car. We’ll be writing more about that in a future post.
Reader Comments (60)
Neil,
Nope, the electric drive train starts at the point fuel is burned, just like the ICE drive train.
If you want to compare a drive train after the heat engine, you can reasonably do so. In that case the mechanical drive train would be substantially better than the electrical.
Yes, we have heard this bogosity about 'electric drive trains' so much that we have a hard time remembering it is absurd.
After you set up the appropriate comparison points, it is reasonable to make corrections for processing and transporting of fuel. Coal is quite expensive to transport and oil is expensive to process and transport. I suspect that oil comes out cheaper, but not by a lot. CSX said it carries a ton of freight 460 miles on a gallon of diesel fuel. But they do not say if that includes shuffling the empty cars back to the mine. Neither do the oil companies tell us much about how the costs of processing oil allocate to the vast array of by-products. So I am content with starting at the point of heat production at the input to the respective heat engines. At least this recognizes the Laws of Physics correctly.
The Xprize system pretends that electricity is a fuel, and they assert that the kWhr of heat that can be made from a kWhr of electricity is equal to the kWhr of electricity that can be made from a kWhr of heat. That is an absolute violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and the error gives a huge unearned advantage to electric vehicles in the competititon.
CO2 levels are 390ppm and climbing. Many think 400ppm CO2 is a tipping point that will increase the speed of global warming and climate disruption.
We simply must stop burning anything for energy.
Packaging the VLCe with a matched Solar PV recharging station would encourage the switch to alternative energy in the USA, and eliminate electric car CO2 emissions and grid capacity issues.
The Hawaiian islands might be a great place to start a solar powered VLCe program. Hawaiian's are dependent on expensive oil imports and really want to switch to alternative energy. Very long distance travel is not an issue on most of the islands, and sunshine is abundant, so solar powered battery electric cars are a natural fit.
Standardized modular battery packs would simplify battery changes necessary for uninterrupted travel. The innovative 1.25 kWh battery modules used on the MotoCzysz E1pc motorcycle weigh only 19 pounds each and can be exchanged in seconds. Light weight standardized 1.25 kWh battery modules could be quickly switched out by hand anywhere, any time they are needed. This would eliminate the need for elaborate mechanized battery changing stations like those being proposed by Better Place.
A VLCe might be sold with just enough battery modules to meet the owner's daily driving needs, but the car's battery bus could be designed to hold additional standardized battery modules that could be quickly plugged in by hand for greater range on longer trips. Unlimited range would be possible using "filling stations" along the way to quickly exchange the standardized batteries.
Standardized battery modules could help lower battery production costs. And battery maintenance would be easier, since a weak battery cell could be repaired by quickly exchanging a module.
Why wouldn't you then include all the embedded energy in the petroleum-based fuel? Exploration, drilling, extracting, transportation, storage, refining, storage, transportation, storage, and then pumping into the car? Gasoline and diesel doesn't just materialize as if by magic. A lot of energy is expended to get it and turn it into a usable fuel.
There is a lot of electricity and natural gas used to drill, extract and refine petroleum -- a lot. Something like 7.5kWh of electricity is used to refine a gallon of gasoline. There is a lot of electricity used to extract oil, especially in today's deeper wells. If you are going to count the embedded energy to get the fuel and generate the electricity and the losses in the grid, then you also have to add those types of things to all the gasoline.
Electricity is energy just like liquid fuel is. The car is able to use a lot less of it, because the motor is much more efficient.
As I said before, electricity can come from many renewable sources: on land and offshore wind, solar PV, solar heat, geothermal, biomass (plant and animal), wave power, tidal power, small scale hydro power -- why would we want to punish electric cars for the backwardness of the way we generate power now? Oil and natural gas are finite, and only come from one place. Electricity is virtually infinite, and can come from many places.
The X-Prize did the right thing by measuring the car's efficiency, and not the fuel delivery system.
Many people think the tipping point was 350ppm. We are already seeing the effects of global climate change, and the amplifying effects, too. Even if we stopped completely burning carbon based fuel, there is some momentum and we will probably see a warming trend for a long time. As Bill McKibben writes, we are already living on a different Eaarth than we used to. The challenge now is to soften the crash and limit the damage.
Sincerely, Neil
I think there is one physics concept that needs to be understood before understanding how clear it is that the XPrize rules were not set up with the highest integrity – this is the understanding of EXERGY, or “energy availability”. See: http://yeroc.us/articles/exergy-crisis . This is a concept that is a little hard to grasp, and is closely related to understanding Entropy. Electricity and gasoline are NOT both just fuels. Electricity has the HIGHEST order of Exergy, meaning that it can be easily and efficiently converted to almost any other energy form (heat, light, mechanical work). That is basically WHY electric motors are efficient (because they run off of the most purified form of energy). Gasoline (or any other chemical fuel) has a lower-order of Exergy – and must be burned to create heat, and that heat used to create mechanical work and that work used to move a vehicle, or create electricity. Notice that converting a fuel to work takes multiple steps, and the efficiency of these steps is NECESSARILY not very efficient. The Carnot efficiency limit for heat engines defines the maximum possible efficiency any heat engine can have, running off a given temperature of heat (and running in a given ambient temperature). So….right off the bat - the XPrize has violated basic tenets of physics by glibly stating that “electricity is just another form of fuel”. They are wrong. There’s a good analogy in the link I provided – if you give a thirsty person a gallon of salt water – it is still a gallon of water, but it is not useful until converted to drinkable water, which takes work. Likewise, if you start with a gallon of fuel – while it may represent a certain amount of “energy”, only about half of that energy is actually AVAILABLE to be used, after conversion using today’s best technology. Apples vs. Oranges.
Let’s take a more practical stab at it – and compare results of two XPrize cars: Edison2 and Aptera (since I have recently analyzed these, and yes, I know they are in different classes). Per the XPrize FINAL results, the Edsion2 car #98 got 100.3 MPG and generated 89.5 grams/mile of CO2. The numbers for the Aptera were 164.3MPGe and 139 grams/mile CO2. By these numbers, the Aptera should “win”, right ? On the surface, it should be suspicious that the “clean electric car” generated so much more CO2…how is that ? This is because the amount of electricity used caused the power plant to burn enough FOSSIL FUELS (could be any combination of Coal, Oil, Natural Gas) to create this amount of CO2. Now, let’s ask the question: How much fuel did the power plants burn ? The answer is…at LEAST the energy equivalent of 1.2 gallons of gasoline, for a “true” MPG calculation of 83 MPG. Note that this is approx. HALF of the MPGe figure the XPrize calculates. So, to summarize: fuel burning car (Edison2) = 100.3 true MPG, 89.5 g/mile CO2. Aptera BEV = true 83MPG, 139 g/mile CO2. Now...which is better ? Even though the electric motor is more efficient – the entire CHAIN of energy conversion in an electric car is not better - usually a bit worse. That is not to take away from the accomplishment of either team - because they are BOTH significantly better than any cars on the road today.
Let’s take it to a grander scale – assume in the next 5 years the government spends ungodly amounts of our tax dollars to promote electric cars, and lots of people take the bait. Ask the question – how is the energy picture affected by this ? I think it is clear from the above picture that with TODAY’S power grid, total energy usage and total CO2 production get WORSE not BETTER ! Even best-case, let’s assume that they stay about the SAME. That would mean that it was a huge waste of money.
A much more beneficial use of resources would be focus on getting power plants converted to Wind, Photovoltaic, and (my favorite) Solar Thermal. Once converted – then electric cars can make a huge positive impact…but not before. Also, if we focus on creating biofuels (my favorite here is Algae based oil which can be easily refined into diesel, gasoline, even natural gas, etc.) – then TODAY’s internal combustion cars become ZERO net CO2 producers (because the biofuels sequester the same amount of CO2 out of the air when they are formed as they release when burned, for a net-zero CO2 output). It may be pertinent to think about the possible leverage between these two ideas – EXISTING power plants which currently run on oil or natural gas can burn the bio-versions of this new solar-synthesized fuel, and they too become magically zero fossil fuel and CO2. Our focus should be to GREEN THE POWER GRID (including many "flavors" of solar or maybe even nuclear), and to create GREEN non-fossil solar-synthesized fuels. In this future world – electric cars actually have great benefits, but so do internal combustion cars – it’s a win-win. Sorry for the long winded dissertation, but this is how I see it, and I hope that the government (and mankind) figures this out because the need is urgent.
I'm actually pro-electric cars, but feel that heavily promoting them today puts "the cart before the horse".
Well Neil, have you considered all of the fossil fuel and resources cost for the production of batteries?, I mean we could do this for eternity, which one is the most damaging and energy consuming, BEV or ICE? In the end for the x-prize, Kevin is correct. The laws of physics can't just be bent out of the way for BEV's and the x-prize is wrong for not including the energy cost of creating the power in the efficiency calculation. The main reason I like Edison 2 the most of all the teams is that they didn't focus so hard on powertrain source. Most of their engineering went into maximizing the efficiency of the car first. So if they were to engineer a BEV, you can be sure it would be for good reasons, not just because it's the next big new thing.
On a national level, the grid is by far more important of an issue on converting to renewable energy than forking more money on boosting popularity of BEVs. The average home uses much more electricity than any BEV car could use in a day's time. So, in effect, more fossil fuels than a car could burn which would mean that you could have some one in one house, running off of normal coal-fired electricity driving a BEV, and that person's net CO2 production would still be higher than another person who converted their house to solar power driving an average ICE.
I'm not against electric vehicles either, but I am with Edison 2, and Kevin in saying, wait let's do the most important things for efficiency where it will make the most real difference first. Because by the time, that has been done, batteries, hopefully, will have made it to the level that they promise. In other words, it will no longer be as hard to make a BEV because the vehicles have long been maximized on their efficiencies first, and the battery by then, being much lighter, will make a much happier marriage into the car.
The problem with battery electric vehicles is the battery. We can improve the efficiency of the battery or we can improve the delivery of electricity to the battery. Energy is moved from place to place with greater efficiency in a wire than carried in big, heavy batteries. Small batteries and on-road re-charging of those batteries would harvest these efficiencies. Unfortunately, wiring the course was against the rules of the X prize.
The potential energy density of gasoline could be further improved, but refueling on the road (like in-flight refueling to extend an airplane's range) is impractical. It's just so much easier to pull off the road to gas up.
Burning stuff to create energy has got to stop sometime. Sooner or later, everything that isn't renewable is going to get burned up anyway. Burning stuff pollutes the air, water, and land, too. Thus burning stuff in tiny little pots, like Edison2 VLC's is on the road to that ruin. However, reducing energy consumption and lengthening that road is the essence of the X prize, and at this, the Very Light Cars of Edison2 excel.
What can we do to help? We could limit the mass of automobiles. We could pass another law to increase gasoline mileage, another to insist upon decreasing coefficients of drag, too. What we cannot do is allow some of us to free-ride over the rest of us by not paying for all the costs associated with their transportation. Pollution costs, too, whether generated efficiently or inefficiently, and the incentives must be for efficiency, not inefficiency. We must expand subsidies for green energy at least to the point that carbon fuels free-ride. Such subsidies should also encourage energy efficiency in transportation. Government subsidies of Edison2's VLC should be substantial enough to make theirs the least expensive automobile on American roads.
@Kevin:
I understand the concept, and I appreciate you bringing it up. It seems to me that since electricity is the nexus of renewable energy sources, and the fact that it can be used directly w/o conversion, and the physics and the geometric efficiency within an electric motor (it is hard to imagine a purer way to rotate something), that these are exactly why we must use it for our cars. If something has a huge advantage, then how does handicapping it serve any purpose?
Even with today's power generation mix (~52% coal in the USA, I think?) the carbon output from electric cars is much lower than for gasoline. Taking Nissan's number of 7.5kWh per gallon alone (without adding the natural gas used all along the process), we can travel 30-60 miles on that electricity alone -- and then avoid ALL of the carbon produced by the gallon of gasoline, and the natural gas, and other energy used to produce the gallon of gasoline.
So, use the 7.5kWh directly to move a car, and totally dispense with any of the other energy involved with producing the gasoline.
@biologist111 Of course it take energy to make a battery. It also takes energy to make an engine, transmission, cooling system, exhaust system (including the catalytic converter), as well. And all the oil used for lubrication, coolants used to dump the prodigious heat into the air, etc. Batteries can be nearly fully recycled -- and they will be (just like lead acid batteries are now!), because they are so valuable, it would be silly to throw them away.
Electric motors last 3-5X longer than do ICE engines. ICE requires a huge amount of effort and resources to maintain -- electric motors are virtually maintenance free. Electric motors can last 800,000-1,000,000 MILES of operation; and never require an oil change.
@Bubba Let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I think batteries are already to a point where we can drive 200-300 miles -- the Tesla and the Illuminati and others are already doing this. I think that my CarBŒN design with a 50-60kWh pack would go at least 300 miles, and maybe 400+ miles. (See my blog for details: http://neilblanchard.vox.com/library/post/carben-concept-ev-an-open-source-project.html )
And, if you really must go farther than this in a single drive-day, then a serial hybrid like the FVT eVaro is the way to go. A reverse TWIKE (with 2 wheels in the front) would be all that we need for 50-75% of our travel needs, and we'd all get into much better health at the same time.
Sincerely, Neil
I wrote my comments last night, and after sleeping on it - I realized that in my effort to point out the "distortions" in the XPrize rules, I may have left the wrong final impression of how I feel about the overall subject, and the higher level goals of the XPrize, which are really good.
In my example of the Edison2 car (fuel burning version) vs. the Aptera - I pointed out that the electric car actually used more total energy and produced more CO2, and that converting cars to electric now (before the power grid is converted to green sources) provides minimal if any advantage to the total energy usage and CO2 issue.. However, to be balanced in my input - please note that BOTH of these cars use much less energy than average cars today. In that regard, they are BOTH really good advancements, and the XPrize has been very beneficial in pointing this out. Just be clear - it is the GOOD EFFICIENCY of the cars (mainly via low aerodynamic drag) that is providing most of the benefits - NOT the fact that the one is electric.
Also, for added balance, there are a few advantages (or potential advantages) of the government promoting electric cars on the road today: First, by creating a large marketplace for electric cars, more money will flow into this technology - probably speeding-up improvements in battery technology. And, although there are costs associated with it - even coal fired power plants can add CO2 sequestering technology to their smokestacks - making the electric vehicles (and all electric usage) low CO2 (even if they aren't really low energy use). As an interim step, this isn't too bad...but we need to get 100% off of fossil fuels ASAP!
As far as negatives to putting electric cars on the road now, vs. after the grid is greened - foremost is my comment that it is a big distraction of focus, resources and money away from what is MORE important and should be a HIGHER priority (greening the grid). Also, the BEV customers will need to put up with the inconveniences that result - short range and long refuel times. That's their choice - more power to them ! (bad pun intended). I think the "masses" of people will not accept these limitations at today's levels, so there could be a backlash when the public realizes that electric cars were foisted on them before they are ready to be "mainstream". If the government has their way - there will be lots more EV's on the road, and we will see many more traffic jams when a "dufus" tries to get to work with low batteries and needs to crawl at 20MPH or worse - stops dead in the fast lane. Imagine an especially cold morning in the midwest - you'll see lots of people surprised that they can't make it to work that day.
So, the efficient cars of the XPrize competition (including even low-tech but very effective ones such as BITW) are all steps in the right direction of reducing our transportation energy footprint. In closing, I'd like to add that BEHAVIOR changes can make a much bigger and more rapid improvement - carpooling, telecommuting (work from home via computer) using mass transportation, taking it easy on air conditioning all help, and don't require any new technology.
Kevin
Have you folks seen what the X-Prize has written on this subject?
http://autoblog.xprize.org/axp/2009/09/is-electricity-a-fuel-or-just-an-energy-carrier.html
Sincerely, Neil
Neil,
You might also note my counter arguments, and it is to their credit that they print some of what I say. John Shore has discussed this with me for about two years, but he often deletes my rebuttals.
Kevin,
The error that Xprize calculations cause depends on the assumption of the 'mix'. My factor of three is based on coal fired electrical generation 100% since that is the marginal response to new loads such as electric cars. Even in California or even France, the economic balances that exist support the conclusion that coal use is the ultimate impact.
If you add in the generation and grid losses for electricity, then you would have to also add the energy used to produce gasoline. This would be an apples to apples comparison, and it makes an even better case in favor of electricity.
Sincerely, Neil
Neil,
Thanks. Yes - I previously had seen this from John Shore. You can tell that he is "nervous" about what technical people may think of the decision to equate electricity energy = fuel energy, as he SHOULD be. He is 100% wrong, and I'd love him to try to get some College Physics professors to agree with him (he won't). It's like saying a pint of whisky is the same as a pint of beer, and saying "it's all just booze". One is more concentrated by far, and a lot less of it is needed to get the same job done ! When the OTHER altenate fuels are compared (such as ethanol) - the rules just use chemical energy ratios to equate them, which is completely valid. However, with electricity (which is admittedly harder to compare) - they have gone off into the weeds.
While some of John's ongoing comments are indeed reasonable, others are complete bunk (and I think he knows it). I would have been a lot more prone to stay quiet on the issue had they chosen the CO2 limit to be EQUAL for electric and fuel...but when they gave a 200/116=1.72X advantage to the EV's on CO2, it was clear that they are willing to blatantly distort and lie about the issues to promote the EV agenda.
He saves his biggest distortion for last: "the wells-to-wheels use of petroleum by EVs is roughly 90% less than that of gasoline". This is a specious statement if ever there was one. Yes, it is technically true, but only because power plants don't typically burn petroleum (oil or gasoline) - they burn Coal and Natural Gas !!! If one were to replace the word petroleum with <Fossil Fuels>, then the wells-to-wheels use by EV's is roughly THE SAME as gasoline fueled cars. Like I've been saying - it's not that EV's are bad, and they indeed have some nice advantages, but we shouldn't fool ourselves that they save energy or CO2 over and equivalent fuel-burning cars (with the current grid, or even the more green "California grid").
As said before - once the grid is powered by non-fossil fuel sources, then EV's become wonderful and all my objections vanish. However, that condition does not exist today, nor will it for decades to come (unfortunately...which is why I hate the EV distraction when we should be focusing on green power plants).
PS: Jim - I see what you are saying about 3X when considering 100% coal-fired power plants. I'm not sure I agree completely, but I think that generally you and I agree on the overall issue. Once the XPrize folks decided to obfuscate the truth, it doesn't much matter to me whether the "distortion" is 2X, 2.4X, or 3X - they have already stepped over the ethical line of creating fair and even-handed rules and entered into the domain of spin.
Kevin
Kevin,
I have seen carbon footprint numbers for gasoline that are 10X what they are for electricity, and while that may be a little high, it is not far wrong. Oil has a lot to account for:
Exploration is getting harder all the time; and can take years; and lots of energy is consumed doing so.
Drilling is very hard to do, and takes a lot of energy, including making a lot of "drilling mud", which takes a lot of energy to make, and to inject deep down underground. Look it up! The BP drilling rig is nowhere the deepest at ~23,000 feet below the surface of the ocean.
Extraction takes a lot of electricity (with all of it's overhead!) -- possibly more than refining(!); never mind the energy to build and move and operate those gigantic oil rigs.
Transportation to land is expensive, and super tankers burn a lot of fuel, with it's overhead of embedded energy. The routes taken now have to be lengthened to avoid pirates, and pipelines are hard to build and maintain.
Oil then has to be pumped into tanks onshore for storage, and/or into pipelines. Any energy used along the way has it's own overhead of embedded power.
It then has to be transported to refineries; burning more fuel with it's embedded overhead.
Refineries use a lot of electricity (and all it's overhead!) and they use a lot of natural gas to heat the oil, in a process that takes days. There is a lot of blending and other chemicals used, all of which that have to be made ahead of time, using yet more energy and all of it's overhead. The various fuels and by products are then pumped again to storage tanks.
Then the gasoline/diesel is pumped and transported using pipelines, trucks, and trains, burning more fuel and using electricity, added yet more to the overhead.
It then has to be pumped into the storage tanks at the filling stations, and then pumped out again into the cars, using more electricity, adding that overhead of energy.
I HAVE PROBABLY OVER SIMPLIFIED THIS LONG AND ENERGY INTENSIVE PROCESS.
Electricity from coal, on the other hand is fairly easy: mining takes a lot of effort and energy, then moving it around in the storage yards, then transporting it on trains, then moving it on storage yards, then burning it.
Electricity generated from natural gas is more similar to making gasoline, except for the refining stage.
Grids losses are not as bad as you might think: the average is a bit less than 8% loss on the grid. Any and all of the overhead for electricity that is used at all the various stages along the way to produce oil -- get added to the oil! So, the 7.5kWh PER GALLON of gasoline could instead just be used directly to move a car 30-60 miles *rather* that making the gasoline.
By rights, we should also include the military used to defend and maintain our access to oil, and maintaining stability in oil prices. There are huge hidden subsidies in foreign policy, too. Don't fool yourself to think that much of our battle with terrorism is tied to this whole messy and corrupt situation. Do you know how much oil gets stolen in the Congo or in Iraq?
Renewable energies democratize things, and take the power out of the hands the few, and spread them all over the place. Electricity is the nexus of most renewable energy sources. The great-big-fusion-reactor-in-the-sky is the ultimate source of all energy, and it shines pretty much everywhere on this Eaarth.
Sincerely, Neil
Neil, you are right on EVs. Using oil for transportation is problematic at every level.
The strategic problems associated with oil are a major security threat.
We are taking huge risks in the USA by allowing our transportation to be dependent on rapidly dwindling oil supplies, especially when 60% of that oil is imported; much of it from the most unstable regions of the world. That issue alone makes the case for electric light transportation, and natural gas heavy trucking (the Pickens Plan).
Hidden pollution is yet another big negative for oil. The real $10 to $15 cost per gallon of gasoline also involves a lot of hidden pollution. Massive amounts of CO2 is released in oil wars, and other oil related military actions. Oil wells flare huge amounts of natural gas, and even allow it to escape unburned into the air. The Gulf spill for example was 40% natural gas. Unburned natural gas is 20x more potent in causing Global Warming than CO2. All of that pollution and much more must be factored to determine the total pollution caused by using a gallon of gas or diesel.
We simply cannot continue using oil for transportation.
Oil dependence is ruining our environment, wrecking our economy, and threatening our national security.
But coal is certainly not the answer, and gas fracking is being banned because it poisons irreplaceable ground water supplies.
Biofuels destroy biodiversity and have caused even more total CO2 pollution than fossil fuels.
Nukes are too costly to build, and nuke risks are so extreme they can't get insurance coverage.
Fortunately solar energy is already less expensive per kWh than new nuke plants.
Soon, advanced alternative energy will bury big oil.... and thats exactly where oil belongs.
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I almost forgot -- it isn't just the fuel! ICE engines require a lot of lubrication and maintenance: you have to add in all the steps to find, produce, transport, store, refine, store, transport, use, then dispose of the engine oils used in the ICE. So, many of the same steps I listed above have to be repeated for the other consumable carbon based things used by ICE machines. This accumulates even more carbon footprint.
Electricity can come from renewable sources: solar PV, solar heat, wind power, geothermal (by drilling deep holes!), biomass (methane from plant and animal waste and others), wave power, tidal power, small scale hydro, etc. The more we use of these, the smaller the carbon footprint becomes in the future, as we make the new wind turbines from renewable energy, and so on, and so on.
All of these use energy from our sun, in one form or another -- much more directly that oil an gas.
Each gallon of gasoline represents ~100 TONS of biological material, that is millions and millions of years old. We are squandering it -- using so little of it potential. We should use it only when absolutely necessary.
We *must* think very long term, if we are to survive on this Eaarth we share. We can live without a lot, but we cannot live without the Eaarth.
Sincerely, Neil
Yes that's true, we are running our businesses, houses and cars from ancient solar energy. Now, if we consider everything for sustaining ourselves to prevent our own extinction, one thing very important to consider, people population. It's a simple equation: less people on the planet, less harm to our life sustaining earth, which means more resources are available for those who are alive. If you reduce demand, supply will go up. We have two options to try to save ourselves, one: we reduce the population by reducing breeding (genocide measures have been tried and failed, and even there it's still un-sustainable), or two: we increase the efficiency, and reduce our energy consumption, until it is low enough to be powered primarily by the sun. Ideally, we would and should do both.
In my opinion, currently, we are similar to a sea urchin plague upon a great kelp forest. We are multiplying exponentially, and eating away the Kelp which sustains all of the other creatures that are there. Now what's important to remember is that population explosions are natural phenomena, but so are the repercussions. Systematically we are trading, more people to feed = less earth to let live the way it desires.
It doesn't look much like anyone around, except us few people on here, are at the very least, wishing and thinking for a sustainable future, let alone actually doing something about it. So I propose that all of us on here do something about it.
Why don't we, instead of argue, how about we advertise the good in these teams? These teams don't have a penny compared to major car manufacturers, so they couldn't possibly pay for advertisements to get themselves popular. How about we all try to advertise/convince others, not in this circle, why this is worth our and their attention as much as possible. Edison 2 let us know what we fans can do for you. I've been handing out your e-mail address at work, but maybe there is a way we could do a lot more. Any suggestions you would like to discuss or share are welcome. We are all, one way or another tied to each other's success, and it's nice to see some people on here that already know that.
Part of our population explosion is because of our economy's oil bubble. Oil is so powerful -- it is part of what made it too easy to succeed, and we've overdone it. Bill McKibben in Eaarth talks about oil being kinda' like Viagra for our economy, and we are now being forced to face all of the various affects of this.
But, I don't think that too many people is the root of the problem. It is more of a symptom, which certainly complicates the problem; now that China and India et al "want" to consume energy at levels even approaching the level that we Americans/Europeans et al are consuming.
For many reasons, if we want to keep going on a path anything close to what we have been on, we are going to need to find out how to do it without consuming as much carbon based energy.
Sincerely, Neil
Kevin, thanks for the useful detailed explanations on energy conversion.
To John, Neil, Bio as well:
I explain myself further as follows with this post originally entered on Secy of Energy, Steven Chu's face page:
I would gladly end my campaign against electric cars if they would be honestly judged as to the energy needed for their operation, and if a credible solution to emissions of power plants was at hand.
EPA seems determined to cancel the Second Law of Thermodynamics with their present definition of ‘MPGe’ , where this definition is based on the physics fool energy conversion problem, where the fact that units of kWhr are used to measure both heat and electrical energy is taken to show that these forms of energy are equivalent. SHAME, SHAME, SHAME on EPA and it looks like our host here has some of it on him. Strangely, much of the developed world, and beyond, concurs in this foolishness in their stampede to promote electric vehicles. Looking under this pile of mental drivel that this effort has created, we might have to conclude that the electric vehicle promotion, is in fact, unrelated to green endeavors, and is strictly a measure to shift from oil to coal. That would be ok, but we still have the climate problem, and we should stop pretending that the electric vehicle will help. Unless of course, we actually solve the emission problem for coal fired power plants.
However, the EPA now has proudly published a study on ‘carbon’ capture and sequestration, though in this case it is entire CO2, that shows a cost per ton of that CO2 (presumably not C ) that would break the back of the coal fired power industry. (Most people discussing this subject do not even know that a ton of carbon makes 3.7 tons of CO2.) In this report, ‘Carbon’ capture is pronounced ‘technically feasible’ regardless of this cost, and many might fear that this would translate into ‘best available technology’ in the EPA thinking. And they have stated that ‘best available technology’ is what they intend to impose. I submit that the economy will not recover with this threat looming.
But we still have the CO2 problem, so we need to think a bit harder to find a better way to handle the CO2 emissions that are the voluminous output of our coal fired power plants. It seems that we are behind on this, as suggested by Chinese plans.
President Hu of China said, “--- we will energetically increase forest carbon --- we will endeavor to increase forest coverage by 40 million hectares (2.5 acres) and forest stock volume by 1.3 billion cubic meters by 2020 from 2005 levels.” This was reported by Joe Romm at his ‘climateprogress’ web site. See - http://climateprogress.org/2009/09/23/are-chinese-emissions-pledges-a-game-changer-for-senate-action-president-hu-un-speech/
This part of the speech went un-noticed on the particular Joe Romm discussion. However, it seems to contain the critical answer regarding ‘carbon’ capture and sequestration. For us to do it here in the USA it could turn out to costing less than nothing, and IT COULD ACTUALLY ACCOMPLISH THE FULL SCALE TASK.
A clue about how China might accomplish this might be perceived in the water policy behind their construction of the world’s largest dam.
In the USA we could establish on barren desert lands, standing forests with massive ‘forest stock volume’ which would capture CO2 from coal on a roughly ton of forest stock for a ton of coal basis. (Powder River Basin coal is the reference here.) I point out, we are talking about standing forest. It would only require water and a little good sense.
Good sense is necessary to negotiate North American water distribution that would bring excess water from the far North, yes Canada, down through the USA and Mexico. Yes, Canada would get a share of the productive benefits of this new water arrangement, and it goes far beyond forest establishment.
Of course Canada would get credit toward their green pledges, and to sweeten the deal, we could tell the EPA to leave off haranguing them about their oil sands CO2 emissions.
Then
I conclude from my previous, with this plan for water distribution in place, I could find it in my heart to cancel my campaign against the EV.
Then
Uh, providing of course that the MPGe nonsense was stomped out.
Jim -- The Water Box has proven very effective in replanting areas with little rain http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=could-a-water-box-help-reforest-the-world