This excerpt is only a small part of a fascinating, hard-hitting analysis of why the current state of batteries and the paucity of some materials needed to make them make replacing gas-powered cars with electric vehicles worldwide an impractical pipe dream at best.
The following comparisons assume that a new car with an internal combustion engine will use 400 gallons of fuel for 12,000 miles of annual driving. For the sake of simplicity, they assume a total of 96 kWh of batteries are available to reduce societal fuel consumption. The numbers are easily scalable.
* 96 kWh of batteries would be enough for a fleet of 64 Prius-class hybrids that will each save 160 gallons of fuel per year and generate a societal fuel savings of 10,240 gallons per year;
* 96 kWh of batteries would be enough for a fleet of six Volt-class plug-in hybrids that will each save 300 gallons of fuel per year and generate a societal fuel savings of 1,800 gallons per year; and
* 96 kWh of batteries would be enough for a fleet of four Leaf class electric vehicles that will each save 400 gallons of fuel per year and generate a societal fuel savings of 1,600 gallons per year.This example highlights the fundamental flaw in all vehicle electrification schemes. When batteries are used to recover and reuse braking energy that would otherwise be wasted, a single kWh of capacity can save up to 107 gallons of fuel per year. When batteries are used as fuel tank replacements, a single kWh of capacity can only save 19 gallons of fuel per year and most of the fuel savings at the vehicle level will be offset by increased fuel consumption in power plants.
Using batteries to enable energy efficiency technologies like recuperative braking is sensible conservation.
Using batteries as fuel tank replacements is a zero-sum game that consumes huge quantities of metals for the sole purpose of substituting electricity for oil. Since roughly 45% of domestic electric power is from coal fired plants and that percentage will decline very slowly, the only rational conclusion is that electric drive is unconscionable waste and pollution masquerading as conservation.
I prefer a bike.
You are correct! And whenever you transfer energy from one point to another as in this situation, the power plant to the receptacle that you plug the car into to recharge, there are additional losses: voodoo economics.
I disagree. The point being that electric cars based on battery storage still has some real problems. There are other solutions.
I still “like” the notion of driving adult sized slot cars to work. Every highway could have embedded electrical power sources and cars could pick up the energy from there using small batteries to make lane changes and off the grid movement. Perhaps a small diesel for back up.
The compressed air car is currently in production in India and has many fine points.
The market should provide a mix of alternatives instead of the same basic choice wrapped in different plastic each year.
Hog wash. Read this when you’re ready to read something outside the GOP Garden of Can’t do.
http://american.com/archive/2008/july-august-magazine-contents/our-electric-future
“Using batteries as fuel tank replacements is a zero-sum game that consumes huge quantities of metals for the sole purpose of substituting electricity for oil” – clearly points to the root of this Progressive push for electric cars. Gasoline is pretty much in public domain. It is business between private gas station and individual. Electricity is PUBLIC utility. Controlled by Government. Progressives are not interested so much as they claim in ecology (or they would be horrified about heavy metals usage in batteries). They are interested in control. If they don’t want most of the population driving electric cars to move – they have hand on the switch (few can evade that with generators… which will be on path to be banned as polluters…). It is not so trivial to disconnect people from portable energy source as gasoline (even if stations are forced to close, black market will mushroom immediately, no way to easily stop it, many dictators of the past failed on that).
Enough for Buzzpotting?
A lot of silly sophistry throughout Petersen’s article. Statements of attainder which are contradicted by practice.
Take an easy one where he blathers about battery packs in electric cars and hybrids losing efficiency. In his dreams.
Priuses have been around long enough and in sufficient numbers to evaluate the durability of their battery packs – and after 10 years of use and beaucoup miles more than one auto mag has gone back and retested the original vehicles first tested.
None has found less more than 5% diminishing capacity. Most have found less than 1% diminishing.
All of his premises are as suspect.
The rest of the libertarian crap in comments is exactly that. Conservative fear of the marketplace erasing their dearly held and hoped-for ideology.
I just have this very strong desire to END our dependence on foreign oil. I see Electric cars + nuclear power will help reduce if not eliminate our demand for oil from the Middle East!
As an aside (I wish American’s where smart):
Coal KILLS and is responsible for a host of more quotidian problems, such as mining accidents, acid rain and greenhouse gas emissions.
Coal waste produced by coal electric plants is MORE radioactive than that generated by nuclear counterparts. It is the fly ash emitted by a power plant—a by-product from burning coal for electricity—that carries 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of nuclear power energy.
This can’t be true ’cause CNN keeps telling me ‘lectric cars are best and really, really green. The CNN reporters always smile with the talk ’bout ‘lectric car. The giggle when they mention Al Gore.
If the public had listened to similar conservative propositions in 1910 we would all still have a horse in our back yard and buggy whip companies would rule. What about wind and solar? I see lots of wind farms going up in my area.
Change is not easy and the model T wasn’t the best but it was a step along the way just like the Prius and others are now. The oil companies can find all kinds of reasons for electric to fail and they will keep telling us it has, but it isn’t failing, it is here and will stay.
@#8
Yes, but do Coal plants suffer from Nuclear meltdowns?
Imagine if the Earthquake this week had been stronger. You DO know there are two nuclear plants only 11 mile from the epicenter and that one had to go to backup power?
So, Nuclear meltdown starting right by Washington, D.C
and then comes along Irene and radiation gets spread far and wide throughout the Eastern united States
The simple facts are that
1) The battery technology isn’t there yet for anything more than a trip to the corner grocery store WHEN IT’S NOT WINTER (batteries produces less power as it gets cold), and
2) Even if the battery technology was available and was cost effective, the power generation and distribution grids aren’t anywhere near up to the task of even a 10% electric vehicle fleet. Especially when the grid is already taxed during the summer. That should tell you how little spare capacity it truly has, as well as how poorly it’s set up.
Do I wish it was otherwise? You bet! I still remember the long gas lines of the early 70’s even though I was a small kid at the time (a gas shortage that the muslims engineered), and I would dearly love to defund the terror exporting muslims to the point where they can barely afford their own tents. Hell, the psycho bastards are running around yelling, “How dare you Infidel Dogs buy our oil at the prices we set!”. So, yeah, I want to see them reduced to pre Lawrence of Arabia standards of living. And to do that, we need a viable and cost effective alternative to muslim oil not only for fuel, but for plastics, rubbers, and lubricants, as well as nitrogen based liquid fertilizer.
Personally, I wonder if it’s cost effective to build a bunch of liquid thorium nuclear power plants whose sole purpose is to power chemical plants that synthesize oil based products like gas, diesel, plastics, rubbers, and lubricants from raw the elements that make up the hydrocarbon molecules. Produce enough at a low enough price and we can tell OPEC to f-ck off and die. Which would be Useful since almost(?) all the OPEC countries hate America.
Somebody mentioned compressed air cars.
I find it impossible to believe it’s viable from an energy efficiency stand point. In the 60’s or 70’s, my dad bought a Sears air compressor designed for spray painting. That thing sucked down power to run like nobody’s business. It made all the lights on the same circuit flicker bad, and it wasn’t that big of a machine.
The other problem I have with compressed air cars is that every last one of them is a high pressure bomb waiting to suffer a catastrophic structural failure. In India you can get away with that because their safety laws aren’t anywhere near the West’s standards.
I don’t care. I drive an old Ford Ranger, and it gets fine mileage for me, and only cost me $4000.00. Factor THAT dollar amount into your cost of driving, and let me know how your Prius is working out for you.
I don’t warm up to arguments that cook the books.
The premise here seems to be that the “M” in NiMH is lanthinum, a rare earth element that is pivotally only available at 5 g / person, worldwide, thus the whole electric car thing is some sort of mass delusion.
Sure, other factors are discussed, but they’re smaller in impact.
What it ignores is the notion that we live in an “era.” This time, it’s the era of transitioning away from oil/gas to renewable. Right now, electric is looking mighty good as a power source. In the future, the vast experience we are gaining in electric motivation will become primary to our survival.
If the future is, say, Hydrogen, with its enormously higher energy density, then the motor that runs on it will likely be a fuel cell. Electric. And today’s experiences will be the foundation to that. Hydrogen piston engines are possible, too, so the vast history of ICE engines will apply, too.
Here’s the cooked book. In the author’s own hand:
http://tinyurl.com/3us73j9
No prognosis for the future. No data past 8 years ago. No inclusion of mediating technological breakthroughs.
This is the final blow in the article. The idea that “batteries will not provide The Answer.” And by extension, they should not even be toyed with while we optimize the other electric options that will lead to a more evolved future.
This is technological xenophobia. I reject it utterly.
# 10 AC_in_Mich said,
@#8
Yes, but do Coal plants suffer from Nuclear meltdowns?
I guess # 10 AC_in_Mich you are a FAN BOY of the hundreds of thousands of deaths over the years (directly and indirectly) from just few of the Effects of coal and it’s mining:
1.mine fires, meltdown that’s burning for years
2.Release of methane
3.radioactive Waste products
4.heavy metal contaminants
5.Acid mine drainage (AMD)
6.Interference with groundwater tables
7.Dust nuisance (black lung)
8.Rendering land unfit for the other uses
9.fly ash sludge storage ponds
10.Mine collapses
11.mine subsidences
I’m surprised that nobody seems to have dug into the final paragraph of the cited article:
___
Disclosure:
Author is a former director of Axion Power International and holds a substantial long position in its common stock.
___
Axion Power’s history is a revealing investigation on its own. Bankruptcy. Lead acid battery tech. Capacitor tech.
Here’s an element of the story that never was discussed, too:
http://tinyurl.com/3ufczps
The electric car is still a pipe dream IMHO, regardless of battery technology. To me the bigger issue is charging. The Electric company can barely generate the power required to run our air-conditioners in the summer. We’re fighting the Greenies now, because they won’t allow new power plants to be built.
Too many people consuming power. It will only get worse.
Individual savings of 400 gallons of fuel per year = $1480
Societal fuel savings of 1,600 gallons per year = $5920
Smug feeling of moral superiority over the troglodytes that still drive a environmentally polluting internal combustion engine = Priceless
“I prefer a bike.”
Bikes work well if the weather cooperates. That is, relatively little rain and little or no ice or snow.
Otherwise, people have to walk or expect a stripe of mud up their back from their bicycle. Been there, done that in my college, bicycle touring, and snow days.
Electric cars are still very “hopium”…
The numbers don’t work for cars yet. the cost ,power and weight……
NiMH batteries OMG…. been there done that.
How impressed are you with that cordless drill ? It’s great for them small jobs, but try to do some real work. You need to have a back-up plan.
Lithium ion, yikes had one of those go all puffy on me. most everyone has heard of them catching fire in peoples cell phones and other equipment. it is very rare, but it does happen. hmm cell phone battery maybe 15watts max, oh yeah I really want to be sitting on 20Kw worth of those, not!
lead acid batteries, like lead is the key word here. HEAVY duty, I need say no more.. Dont get me wrong I LOVE LEAD. 100% recyclable. “they make great bullits”.
Of all the batteries I have used the past few years LiFePo4 is so far the best.
It’s about 1/3 the weight of SLA’s maybe half weight of my NiMH. They endure many more charging cycles than other rechargables..
“Another serious issue that i could go on and on about”.
The battery i currently use 48V 20A LiFePo4 {Lithium Iron Phosphate} only cost a mere $800 from China :{ Could not blow $3000 for a U.S. made one. It will push my 1000 watt hub 60+ miles at 20-25 mph, with juice to spare no worries…
If I could adapt this to a car I would. It cannot be done with off the shelf parts unless you are rich. As you see the rich, auto manufacturers have already made lame attempts.
Electric vehicles have been around for more than 100 years, Its just a passing fad.
Both sides of this battle really annoy me with the disinfo. I guess that happens when you get old and cranky.
And anyway global warming scares the crap outa me, we must do something people. we are even melting the ice caps on mars.
Good piece and spot on. I just hope gas cars continue to have latte holders for disgruntled crunchies.
It seems to me that many folks on both “sides” of the debate are falling for what I call the “drop-in fallacy”: the expectation that renewable energy and its products will just “drop in” to our existing ways of doing things and let us carry on as we do today. Not gonna happen, for reasons of cost.
For example: your current car can drive you to the corner store AND it can drive you all the way across the country – but its design is compromised so that it can do both. To cover long distances you need high speed, which needs lots of power: as you go faster, drag losses rise exponentially. (The Bugatti Veyron uses 300HP when travelling at 200mph, but it needs another 700HP to get to 250mph!) High speeds require stronger construction for safety & stability, which means more weight, which requires more power to move. So, logically, a car designed for short distances only can be slower, lighter & thus much more efficient in its use of energy.
So, in facing the future scarcity of oil, it will require a rethink about the journeys we take, how we take them. and whether those journeys are necessary. Cars won’t go away: they’ll just be much more expensive to run, pricing a lot of us out of the market.
I just read the whole article. The author glosses over Lithium… the only metal for batteries in abundance, and wrongly assumes that the capacity curve for batteries will remain flat. What he doesn’t acknowledge is that the synergism for electric vehicles is only a recent phenomena. There is promising research already being done using sulfur and nanotechnology to increase the capacity of Li batteries by 300% or more within a year or two.
I have always wondered what was so wonderful about so-called “plug-in hybrids.” Essentially, they run on coal. This is a good thing? I don’t think so.
Random thought:
From the article:
“…the most important challenge of our age will be finding new ways to satisfy insatiable demand for water, food, construction materials, energy and every commodity you can imagine.”
Including, for example, rosewood.
Uncle Patso, essentially they could run on uranium as well. I am not against nuclear energy. Like battery technology, there are new ways to make nuclear energy safer and cheaper.
http://cleantechnica.com/2011/08/06/small-modular-nuclear-reactors-a-big-part-of-americas-energy-future/
The author also didn’t talk about new zinc-air technology.
http://cleantechnica.com/2011/08/26/eos-rechargable-zinc-air-battery-energy-storage-el-dorado/
One last link that I thought was an interesting read:
The New Debate: Fukushima and Small Modular Nuclear Reactors
http://theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/03/the-new-debate-fukushima-and-small-modular-nuclear-reactors/73084/
Misinformation and misdirected arguments on both sides will not help matters. In my humble opinion plug-in hybrids are a good idea for eliminating airborne pollution in cities. The average car travels at around 15mph in town for an hour, barely time for their antipollution systems to begin working. A plugin hybrid would charge overnight with offpeak generation capacity and produce a zero emission ride to work in the morning. And the batteries of Lithium Ion and Cadmium are difficult, not impossible to recycle after their 15 year lifetime.
More links to go thru but it looks like we are all in agreement, was there any dispute to begin with, that battery powered cars will not become the bulk of our new transport?
I also agree that electrical cars means coal fired cars. Not a good thing except that net/net/net comparison to oil fired cars and the relative efficiency of both systems from start to end. I think electrical wins that comparison but it has lots of variables.
So–the future: switching to green energy and electrical MOTOR cars. Does kinda look like for various reasons that fuel cell could be a large part of the future?
I can see isolated wind/solar facilities making hydrogen in situ thereby negating the need for power lines to be built. “Earth, the Owners Manual” on PBS tells that when Brazil decided to get off oil, it invested in new tech of running their main electrical power trunk in DC rather than AC in order to avoid the power loss in transmitting the hydropower from source to main cities 100’s of miles away.
You know that Europe is about 70% efficient in using electricity in such ways with Japan about 90% and GOUSA is about 30%? If we could come up to European Standards, we wouldn’t need a new power plant for 30 years.
Yes, lots of new and exciting issues all interacting with one another. What kind of mind to best engage these issues? Progressive or Regressive? Ha, ha.
VOTE ALL “NO NEW TAXES” POLITICIANS OUT OF OFFICE.