Electric Vehicles and Clean Energy: Moving Beyond Hydrocarbon Fuels
In response to my piece on the electric vehicle adoption curve, in which I suggested that EVs represented more than a “niche” market, frequent commenter and senior physicist Glenn Doty wrote:
Most of those multi-car households have one SUV or pickup truck and one large vehicle. Why?
Why would the majority of households, when determining the vehicle they wish to purchase in a time of high gasoline prices, choose an SUV? The answer: versatility.
The Leaf is a car that does not fulfill the requirements of a vehicle: to get you where you want to go when you want to go there. So in order to own a Leaf I have to buy another whole car!
The exact same calculation will and must occur in a two-car household if family or business requires one member of the house to leave town (which of course also cannot be done in an EV).
Niche is a completely valid market expression for an expensive vehicle that one understands at the point of purchase cannot be used in thousands of conceivable cases in which a vehicle will be needed.
Glenn, you’re a brilliant guy, and I learn from everything you write. And there’s a lot of truth here. But, if it’s after 5 PM your time, I ask you to crack open a beer (as I did before settling in to write this last night) and look at it this way:
If we still have a civilization here in 100 years, it will be because we became a “Class I Civilization” in Michio Kaku’s parlance, i.e., one that has figured out to power its needs from its local star. Will there be politically, economically, and technologically perilous moments along the way? Of course. Obviously, we’re confronting one now: our own potential demise as a result of our harvesting the sun’s ancient energy that had been stored in long-dead plants and animals.
Call me a dreamer, a pseudo-scientist, or whatever you like. Not to digress, but there’s some level of truth in both. After all, I actually do think there is hope for mankind, and, though I am a man of science, I don’t pretend to play at the level of you and your father (Dr. David Doty) whom I so greatly admire.
But at the end of the day, the Earth receives 6000 times more energy from the sun every day than all seven billion of us consume. I am 100% convinced that we as a species can address the challenge of coming up with a way that harnesses 1/6000th of that energy.
If you haven’t yet done so, I urge you to check out (author/co-author of 50+ books on environmentalism) Lester R. Brown’s recounting of FDR’s approach to World War II, and how, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt mobilized damned close to 100% of the US manufacturing capacity to reassemble the sunken Navy, as well as build 60,000 planes and 45,000 tanks. When presented with the idea, the auto industry, which represented almost the entirety of this capability, was dutifully respectful (though they couldn’t understand how it was possible while they were still building cars). It all became clear when soon thereafter it became illegal to sell new cars in the United States.
The point? Our world needs to respond to this existential threat as we did to the Nazis in World War II.
Sorry to come off as cavalier, but a) I believe that through our combination of folly and avarice, we face the potential extinction of the world as we know it, but b) I don’t believe for a moment that we cannot address this with the technology at our disposal here and now.
Thus my point about EVs and the nexus with clean energy: I believe we need to move beyond liquid hydrocarbon fuels — and that it can be done.
Although dependence on fossil fuels was a necessary an unavoidable step, it is clear, as you say, that we must phase them out. However, statements like, “But at the end of the day, the Earth receives 6000 times more energy from the sun every day than all seven billion of us consume.” are as meaningless as knowing the distance between two stars. To us, the sun’s energy is intermittent, very diffuse, and of limited predictability.
In some countries, including India and Nigeria, electricity is provided intermittently, not by design, but because of rationing required by inadequate supply. People and businesses are coping as well as they can by starting up their own highly polluting generators when grid power fails. That would be likely to happen here in the U.S. and in other countries if we attempt to depend on renewables.
There is an energy storage method which has not been considered, but could be very practical when only limited storage is required. Actually, it has been used successfully for centuries to power clocks. It would consist of a tower of modest height, a drum around which a cable, attached a weight, is wound, and a motor-generator connected to the drum. When power is available, the motor-generator would turn the drum thereby lifting the weight to store potential energy. When power is not available, the potential energy of the weight would turn the motor-generator to generate power. If a house were equipped with energy-efficient lighting, the system could provide enough energy for lighting and a small refrigerator for a few days, although people would not be able to use an air conditioner, a dishwasher, or washing machine while they are using stored energy. The system would be very durable, require very little maintenance, and be entirely environmentally friendly. A suitable pulley system would make it possible to locate the drum, gearing, and motor-generator at ground level to expedite the minimal required maintenance. The speed at which the weight would drop would depend on the rate at which power is being used so that if little power were being used, the weight would descent very slowly. The most suitable material for the weight would be depleted uranium, i.e., U238, which is 15% heavier than lead.
Of course such an energy storage system would be insufficient for heavy industry, a problem for which there is currently no solution if we migrate to renewable energy systems.
Craig,
I’ll certainly have plenty to respond to here, but it’s not after 5:00 yet.
😉
However, I wanted to clarify that I am not a senior physicist. I’m an energy market analyst, and I have diverse knowledge backgrounds and experiences due to my work with my father, but my degrees lie outside of the scientific fields.
I simply didn’t want to claim a title that I have not earned.
More later… this is a good post, and worthy of a considered response.
Thanks, and sorry for the mistake. You certainly know a lot about the scientific side of this for someone whose degrees lies elsewhere. That’s one learned family you come from.
Craig,
There are times that I am afraid that I don’t well convey respect or appreciation for my opposite in debates… I tend to take a lecturing tone that can sometimes seem arrogant or dismissive. I hope that I have not done so with you, but there are times when I don’t recognize my own tone, and some niceties are forgotten in my attempt to make a point.
Please understand that I have a great respect your advocacy. I recognize that you are trying to better society, and that without tireless advocacy such as that you offer, then we’d still have air we couldn’t breath in every city and children would be getting poisoned from playing in any given stream, river, or lake.
I wanted to pause to make that clear, as it seems that 90% of my correspondence seems to be to counter some position or assertion that you take.
But while you dream of a society a hundred years in the future, I see an unfolding crisis that must be dealt with now, with the tools that we have now at our disposal.
Current technology for EV’s just doesn’t fit for the task at hand right now, and in my opinion that means we leave that tool in the toolbox.
I’m all for battery research. I believe wholeheartedly that within 2 decades we’ll see Li-air batteries hit the market, and within 4 decades we will probably achieve market-ready Zn-air batteries. These are worthy of investment, and may eventually yield an EV that is versatile and inexpensive enough to compete with an ICE.
But that means that we should fund R&D, not deployment. Spending obscene amounts of money on deployment of a technology that isn’t competitive in the market and doesn’t yield a substantial amount towards the goals set is – in my opinion – about as useful as spending money on R&D for a project that has little or no chance of ever succeeding (insert microbial fuel cells research here).
Right now our deployment ready technologies that can significantly reduce GHG emissions are wind, solar, geothermal, nuclear, and efficiency improvements. That’s what we have that can compete and achieve movement towards the goal of lower GHG emissions and less toxic pollution. That’s what we should use.
When R&D achieves an EV that can actually compete, there might be enough carbon-neutral energy on the grid that transferring transportation energy to the grid might make sense… or something like Doty WindFuels (ultra-clean carbon neutral liquid hydrocarbons – not really such a bad thing) might have come along, developed, and deployed to a scale as to make the point moot… We don’t know which technology would win in an evenly-funded and equal opportunity showdown, but whichever one WOULD win in such a scenario is the one that SHOULD win. Funding one excludes the possibility that the rightful technology (and there aren’t just two competing) may wither on the vine while endless resources are squandered attempting to fix a problem using the wrong tool.
We should fund all valid research very heavily and see what comes out of it… but deployment incentives should be reserved for the technologies that can compete and genuinely reduce our environmental damage.
If the technology doesn’t achieve that, then the market should be left to decide what fads are hot or not… but there’s no reason to incentivize an individual’s purchase of something that doesn’t really help. That just wastes money that could have been spent deploying something that is ready NOW to be deployed.
That’s my take.
I prefer mixed drinks to beer, but I appreciate the sentiment… and raise my glass to you.
😉
Thanks very much for this. And I don’t object to your tone in the least.
Actually, electric cars are not only a niche, but they can be a very useful niche. They require the owner to have a charger, and that can become a business model. Let’s say, for example, a store, wants to make it easier for older people to get their groceries home. At the moment, some stores have vans that can drive people home. I have not used these services, but it sounds complicated to drop off a bunch of people using a single vehicle. Imagine instead we use “self-driving” car technology that is being developed by Google. A customer without a car can use public transit to get to the grocery store, buy everything they want, and then rents a self-driving vehicle which they can use to go home, or other places along the way to home, then when they get home, use whatever means required to “tell” the car to return to its home base, where it can be re-charged on site and be ready for another customer. If we use very compact cars, they would be very energy efficient and the customer would have a very convenient way to move from point a to point b at a reasonable cost without needing to have a vehicle at home. This model could be used in quite a number of ways. I do think taxis will suffer, but if taxi companies branch out to provide this kind of service, we would have a new “niche market” to replace them.
“They require the owner to have a charger, and that can become a business model.”
Not necessarily.
For fast charging, an external charger would be required, but for overnight charging, a charger of more modest capabilities would surely be built into every electric car and could be plugged into a normal 120 volt or 240 volt outlet which could supply up to 20 amperes. Many people would not even require a fast charger at home, but fast chargers would need to be available in other locations.
Fast chargers at places of businesses could be credit card operated and the owners of the chargers could receive a commission. Municipalities could build fast chargers into some parking meters. But one has to consider that fast charging would be likely to shorten the life of the batteries. Of course charging need not be either fast or slow; intermediate rates are possible. So, depending on circumstances, electric car owners should be able to choose the charging rate appropriate for the circumstances and use fast charging only when necessary.
Here’s a link to an article about trolly trucks in California:
http://www.upi.com/Technology_News/2012/05/24/LA-could-adopt-electric-freight-vehicles/UPI-42461337900366/?rel=44781338568955
It looks like a good idea. California has had a checkered history. It has done some things that are incredibly foresighted and sensible, and it has done some things that are incredibly stupid. This looks like a sensible idea.