Bermuda Is Soon To Have Electric Vehicles — But What About Renewable Energy?
I have mentioned that I work with four American and three Bermudan business partners in an effort to bring electric vehicles to this charming island nation. Bermuda has all the potential in the world for a super-steep EV adoption curve: expensive gasoline (imported at great cost), a total of 125 miles of twisty roads (militating low-speed, preferably narrow vehicles), and an off-the-charts wealthy, eco-aware population. I’m confident that we’ll ultimately succeed.
But to what end? I hope to make a buck; I’ve done it before, and folks tell me I’m a good bet to do it again — and that’s all just great. But though EVs have the potential to provide clean transportation, from an environmental viewpoint, we obviously need to understand the actual source of the energy.
And in Bermuda, that’s not pretty. Two huge smokestacks (soon to become three?) visible from all over the island, tell the story: diesel power plants – among the dirtiest of all the world’s energy sources. When the wind blows the wrong way, Hamilton (the capital) gets coated in soot. And to their credit, Bermudans know that there is far more at stake. In a recent white paper (linked below) we read:
This … will guide Bermuda to take an increasingly sustainable approach toward the production and consumption of energy. The paper outlines how we will begin a path toward an alternate future not bound by fossil fuels, but one where we conserve energy, use energy more efficiently and harness indigenous renewable energy resources.
But underneath the rhetoric, what is Bermuda doing about this issue? Where are they in their migration to renewables? After three full years of being a part of this group, to be honest, I’m not at all sure.
As one can imagine, this is a three-ring political circus, with a constantly changing set of personalities – and even ministries. When I was last “on island” (as they say), I made 30-minute-long presentations to eight different commercial and political groups, including the then-Minister of Energy, Michael Scott and his entourage. He was a kind and intelligent man with a deeply penetrating glare, completely attentive to every syllable coming out of my mouth. But as I was to learn later, the talk was totally inconsequential, as Scott was on his way out.
Now, not only is Scott gone, but the whole Ministry has been replaced. The current Minister of “Environment, Planning and Infrastructure Strategy,” Walter Roban, now offers this 2011 Bermuda Energy White Paper.
Is this whole conversation moving forward with the pace that we would have hoped? No. But is it becoming the political football that clean energy is in the US? Again, I’m not sure. I’ll ask you to read the white paper, if you want, and be the judge.
The honest answer for Bermuda is so much easier than that which we face in the US, as they have far fewer renewable resources about which to quibble. They don’t have the landmass or geologic resources we in the US argue about daily: no deserts for solar, no plains for wind, no geothermal, nor attractive amounts of biomass.
If the Bermudans want to solve the problem, let me ask them about the compound they have all around them: water. Therein lies the answer. If you want my input (at no charge), hit Contact, and ask me to tell you about the latest breakthroughs in hydrokinetics. All I ask of you is what I request of your American counterparts: put the politics aside, and let the technology do the talking.
I read your post on Bermuda with interest. I am located in Anguilla and work in solar and energy management. I a very interested to hear more about your thoughts on hydrokinetics. If you have some time, can you email me?
Chris
Hi…Great vision for E’V,s iN Bermuda. My thoughts go towards a more island coordinated effort…or at least sales focus. effort…some islanda are Solar mines others are wind power wells. I would love to talk more on Phone. 443 553 5888 as I travel all over the Islands surfing, Kitesurfing, and windsurfing. Just finishing a 5.9Mw development in NJ and working on some wind in Illinois…
How about cheap electric vehicles available in China. I have plenty of info, pictures and specifications (my job was/is sourcing agent, semi-retired). I can send files and all I know, 2, 3 and 4 wheel electric vehicles.
Pierre chinadirect@163.com.
Very interested in continuing this conversation as I am pulling together, with like colleagues, a business plan for EV infrastructure in New England, which also has a very long coast.
Donald, do the infrastructure right in New England, there are more than just charging to consider, the electrical grid can handle the load with an implementation of “Off Peak Discount “for recharging EV
What has been left out is a service anr repair infrastructure. Only dealers employees are being trained in any sort of organised way, we are trying to retrain all auto mechanics especially independents who do not work for a new car dealer! there are 3,000,000 auto mechanics in the usa so why should I have to take an EV to the dealer for tightening a loose wire but tires I can buy at a dozen more dealers for every dealership. And why should I have to take my EV to a dealer for a brake adjistment? Upgrading the other mechanics as a necessity! auto mechanics have little knowledge of electricity this MUST change. see my name as a web address and read my page, then contact me we can make money and enhance the EV market too . Would you buy an auto from a dealer who was the ONLY source of service and repair? (I think that is a deal breaker!)
see our electric trike @www.epowertrike.com
Craig,
I don’t know how much thought you’ve put into EV’s, but if you are interested in doing good for the environment, you should be aware that EV’s will significantly worsen emissions over small ICE or small HEV (NOT PHEV) vehicles.
All you have to do is follow the efficiencies and consider the vehicle weight (these are the two major issues that deal with overall miles/energy consumed).
For the case in Bermuda, you likely have a diesel generator that is ~45% efficient generating electricity. A quick check shows that in 2009 Bermuda generated 684 GWh (all through fossil generation), and consumed only 636 GWh, implying an average line loss of 7.3%, or a transmission efficiency of 92.7%. Then charging the battery of the car you see charging losses of ~8%, or efficiencies of ~92% (if you “rapid charge it” the losses increase dramatically). Finally, the vehicle motor has a ~90% efficiency.
Net EV efficiency from diesel power for EV: ~34.5%.
If you consider a Prius, the total vehicle efficiency is 38%, which is only slightly better than the EV from diesel.
However, the Prius has a curb weight of 1325 kg, while the Leaf has a curb weight of 1521 kg. So the Leaf requires 15% more energy to accelerate/navigate if we assume slow speeds (less air friction/road friction losses).
So the Nissan Leaf would require 27% more energy from burned diesel than the Prius would require from burned gasoline.
Diesel has a slightly higher carbon emission/MJ of energy, and has several hundredfold higher sulfur emissions/MJ of energy.
Why would you wish to have >27% higher CO2 emissions and hundredsfold higher sulfur emissions, all so the people of Bermuda can pay a great deal more for their transportation?
Craig,
Glenn has a grear display of confusing number magic, but I do not trust his agruements because of three facts: 1. Electric cars are 300 % more efficient than a typical five year old petrol fuelled vehicle. and therefore will consume less energy for the equivalent transportation results. 2. Repowering all the vehicles on Bermuda is very expensife and only electricity gives the opprotunity to modify the sourse of the energy changing from fossil fuel to wind, solar, or water current driven turbines. without any modification of the many vehicles themselves. 3. By changing to EV we eliminate vehicle emmisions as a seperate problem from the electric utility plants so cleaning up the electric plants or replacing the with an alternative sourse eliminates emissions polution from the plants an all the vehicles together, otherwise importing a fleet of micro-poluting 1.5 liter diesel powered cars may reduce vehicle emissions but not electric power plant emissions or fixing the diesel power plants woth ecological and “Clean”alternatives does not reduce the auto emissions replacing the cars with EV reduces forever the number of emissions sources to a minimum (Three?). and perhaps improves feasability of replacement. Three are much easier to manage than a thousand or ten thousand individual polution sources to upgrade or replace.
Perhaps Bermuda needs a conversion shop to specialize in rollsroyce, bently, mercadies, and other fine automobiles and limos. (Smooth and Quiet, rollsroyce have often been compared to an electric ).
Dennis,
There is no way to compare the efficiency of an EV to the efficiency of an ICE. It doesn’t work because they don’t do the same thing.
Consider this: the phase change of ice to water is 100% efficient at “cooling” an inclosed space. So why don’t we all just make ice in backyard ice machines and carry in buckets full of ice to cool our houses? Why use the much less efficient heat pump? After all, ice has 100% efficiency at cooling!
But it doesn’t mean anything until you consider the efficiency of generating the ice.
The same is true comparing an electric motor with a heat engine… The electric motor will always be more efficient than a heat engine, but the electricity wasn’t pulled out of the ground and shipped in barrels… electron impulses are not stored for longer than microseconds. The electricity has to be generated and transferred, and the efficiency of generating and transferring that electricity must be considered along with the efficiency of an electric motor in order to make any sense. (Normally the energy for extracting, refining, and transporting the petroleum would then be compared with the energy used in mountain-top removal, separation, transportation, and pulverization of coal… or extraction, separation, filtration, and long distance pumping of natural gas… but in this case Bermuda uses petrofuels for electricity, so the comparison is easier).
EV’s are always worse for the environment than SMALL petrofuel cars. If someone were to compare an SUV to a Nissan Leaf, obviously the Leaf would do better, but the Leaf is made on a Versa frame, and the Versa beats the Leaf in resulting in less total environmental damage. The Prius still wins overall, and it costs $10,000 less per vehicle.
Glenn,
Sorry, but we disagree on the important results. This is why, You are using the same “Only what I want to use.” criteria for selecting facts to use in the “Agruement” and ignore those which do not contribute and support your point of view. In this particular discussion you include the conversion of diesel fuel to electricity as a 45% efficient conversion process but ignore the advantages of untilizing the electric distribution both for power as a utility and as motive force for personal vehicles. Because as the electrical sources are improved all the emissions for all the users are improved so the EV are perhaps recharging with electricity from solar, wind, geothermal, or ocean currents,waves,or tides. Also Diesel does not pop out of a well and neither does gasoline the petroleum has to be “Refined” or “Crasked” and up to 25% of the crude is used as fuel in the refinery to heat the remainder of the crude and “Crack” it. and some undisclosed quanity of electricity as also used to run pumps and fans and operate electronic process control equipment at the refinery. Electric if not being run on electricity from a diesel generator doesn’t waste all that energy.
The statement that an EV is less poluting than a small diesel vehicle is simply not supportable if you use valid engineering measurements. the EV uses less energy than the diesel, (Note all the waste heat coming out the exhaust and dispensed by the radiiator. The electric isn’t wasting that 50% of the energy from the fuel to warm the local area via radiator, and exhaust. The general term is an electric car uses 48% less energy to drive 100 miles than a diesel or gasoline car the same weight and body style. (By the way you cannot believe what you read, I saw an interview in “Forbes” and they had every importand fact wrong.
Dennis,
It doesn’t work that way at all. I’m afraid your understanding of the power market is terribly off base.
If Bermuda were to suddenly start generating 100 GWh from wind power, then they would simultaneously reduce the amount of electricity that they generated from their diesel generation by 100 GWh. The end result is that they would still be generating ~700 GWh of electricity, now they just use less diesel to do so.
If you were to (foolishly) plug in an EV, then you have 9.5 MWh/year of additional generation required. They won’t magically call in higher wind speeds to accommodate that, they will ramp up the diesel generator. Regardless of the grid mix, the only power that can satisfy a new marginal demand is power that has SPARE or UNUSED capacity… So as electrical generation improves, the diesel generators will still be fired up to deal with new marginal demand, as the cleaner generation will be fully utilized dealing with current demand.
EV’s don’t get credit for clean energy until there is spare clean energy capacity, so until Bermuda has so much clean energy it is wasting clean power just because there is nothing to do with it… your EV will require fossil power, and will be far dirtier than driving a similar sized ICEV.
This is just the way the world works. There is no amount of wishing, hype, propaganda, lies, or magic fairy dust that makes it otherwise.
EV’s are always dirtier than ICEV’s, and that will remain true for at least two decades in America, possibly less than that in Bermuda, but certainly not less than 1 decade.
In my efficiency comparison of an EV vs an ICE, I forgot to include the efficiency of discharging the battery to power the electric motor – which is ~92% efficient… so the true efficiency of the EV should be ~8% lower than what I stated above.
There is value in diversity. One of our main problems with transportation is it’s so overwhelmingly dependent right now on just 1 energy source: oil. And we know oil is rapidly running out, likely the first of our fossil fuels to become depleted or too expensive, either or both. So it may be less important that we migrate to something perfect than to diversify our transportation energies.
Diversity is not accomplished by going from gas or diesel ICE to diesel-fed electric. But diesel is relatively easy to replace with filtered waste vegetable oil. That at least would be different from oil, also lower CO2 and no sulphur.
The point made abt minimizing vehicle weight AND miles is most important, regardless of what technology in the vehicle or energy supply-side. Just the other day, an engineer I know, who now drives a large fuel-guzzling SUV, asked if I thought he would be happy with a Honda Fit like I drive. He said his company is suddenly asking him to do more driving, so energy economics suddenly is more important. I told him I’ve been driving compacts and subcompacts my whole life (am 56 yrs old) so the question for him is can he be satisfied with a tiny car after driving behemeths his entire. If we could get people to down-class, in other words, switch en masse to smaller and less powerful vehicles, we’d be able to reduce transportation energy needs substantially without any changes in technologies. That is, as long as we’re measuring progress by how much less oil we use overall…
The number 1 and 2 factors influencing vehicle energy use are (1) weight and (2) power. Regardless of the energy being used or technologies applied.
Craig, as is often the case, you’ve posited a number of very thought-provoking issues here. I think that both in geographic and political (i.e., policy-making) terms, Bermuda ought to be a perfect environment for break-through hydrokinetic technologies. I sense your frustration over the prospect of EV adoption with electricity provided by expensive (especially in their case) and relatively dirty diesel fuel. Lamentably, some of the previous posters seem to miss your point entirely. I appreciate your macro-thinking on this as well as other issues; keep up with your role as thought leader..
Hi Craig. Thank you for your interesting article on Bermuda. I am interested in HYDROKINETICS. I’m working as a consultant for
Philippine Board of Investments on RE and other projects. Here in
the Philippines, we have ample shorelines as we are archipelago of 7,100 islands. We want to explore our resources such as sea water. and shy away from fossil fuel. Would appreciate receiving articles on
HYDROKINETICS and investors. Cheers and more power …… VerR.
resources and
Craig, I’m very much interested to know more on your thoughs about Hydrokinetics. Please send me an email if you have spare time.
cletho
Craig,
You should contact a company like Ocean Power. They are currently running a number of demonstration projects using anchored buoys that generate electricity as they bob in the ocean.
Gil
Thanks. I agree that hydro is very attractive in places like this.