Validity of Electric Vehicles – Environmentally and Otherwise
I’m not sure how many readers are following the (extensive) discussions of the validity of electric vehicles. The conversation pertains to today’s U.S. energy market—one that features coal as the resource by which incremental load on the grid is met.
The take-away is that right here in 2015, if they are charged via the grid, EVs are worse ecologically than their ICE counterparts. Yes, this flies in the teeth of common wisdom, and yes, it’s a bitter pill for most environmentally conscious people to swallow.
Having said all this, here are a few reasons that I support EVs—even at this point:
• A growing number of EVs are being charged with distributed generation, especially PV arrays. With the EV purchase, many people buy PV canopies, and their cars never get anywhere near the power grid.
• As more EVs are plugged into the grid, the more benefit they can provide in terms of absorbing off-peak power and providing ancillary services. Also, grid operators can use the flexibility by which EVs can be charged to integrate more renewables into the grid mix in their real-time decision making. In short, the presence of EVs and the implementation of smart grid are mutually re-enforcing—even enabling V2G (vehicle to grid). Some people say all this is baloney; I disagree.
• The moment coal ceases to be the go-to source for incremental power, EVs become the eco-deal of the century. Because of the U.S. EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) coupled with demand growth, about 60 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity is projected to retire before 2020. It’s only a matter of time before all this is gone, and, as I argue in my new book, I believe this time period will be far shorter than is commonly believed.
• Reducing the importance of oil in our world has important side benefits that are rarely discussed. In particular, ending the dominance of oil takes the wind out of the sails of at least three malevolent forces:
1) The oil companies whose explicit business plans call for sucking the last molecule of crude out of the ground and burning it. Remarkably, this is not a secret; it’s what they’re telling the shareholders and bankers. As hard to believe as it may be, they care not a whit for the fact that this will mean the destruction of our civilization in just a few decades.
2) World hostility and the growth of the “military industrial complex.” Concern here was not born with the hippies of the 1960s; it was fathered a decade earlier, by five-star general and then president of the U.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower.
3) The most criminally insane terrorist groups in the history of humankind, one of which is currently on a mission to behead every Christian school child in the Middle East.
If you’re searching for a more important humanitarian goal, please let me know when you find it.
Hi Craig,
Again, the O&G business itself is NOT the culprit but our consumption patterns. I guess this century seems to be a transition period between that and other energy sources (renewables, nuclear), and more frugal, intelligent consumption behaviours.
Nonetheless, history has taught big economical transitions are not natural, like emerging out spontaneouly from people and governments. Business or even military wars or worse (climate change?) shall make the revolution, quite different from the natural, incremental changes that Kuznets predicted back in the 1930´s.
Best,
Vicente Fachina
I believe that we must expose the myth of St. Reagan. It was his decision to unwind Carter’s Energy Independence by 1996 plan that has led to the Middle East terror campaign fueled by oil dollars. Had we maintained the path to energy independence (largely through renewables) the bin Laden family would never have had the wealth to make a difference.
Reagan’s capitulation to OPEC in London in 1982 (when he agreed to unwind renewable energy support in exchange for a $25 per bbl Saudi led price cap) is the single worst act that resulted in the current situation and that fact needs to be known and understood by all Americans. I believe the blood shed in the oil wars and related terrorism is on his hands and when all of the old white guys who love him are dead, history will agree.
Reagan did not end the Cold War, he started the Oil Wars.
Good points, plus all the small benefits that are not realized in the discussions of EVs. No oil changes, fewer leaks on roads and driveways, less noise, and vehicles sized related to need and purpose. Another discussion not realized is the old American theory of more is better, and as EVs progress they will have more torque, more power available from better solar and better power storage. There is really a wealth of optimism to be realized as we see the actual progress of EVs dismantle the soundbite arguments of the old guard and much of that by more EV and more solar.
Excellent points. I friend of mine bought a BMW i3, and the salesman said as he was leaving, “Other than letting us top off your windshield fluid, there no reason for you ever come in here again.”
From your post: “and as evs progress they will have more torch”.
That’s a good example of the dangers of automatically correcting spelling checkers. They don’t like “fracking” either; they want to change it to “tracking”.
Thanks. I fixed that for the gentleman.
Recharging EVs is an application for which PV power may be justified because no additional storage is required. It might make sense to have dedicated PV panels for EV recharging in areas where large numbers of cars are parked.
Thanks, Craig. As always, you raise excellent points; thanks for putting this issue into the larger context of where we are and where we could (and should) be headed with our energy sources and uses. Two weeks ago, I took delivery of a 2015 Nissan LEAF and I couldn’t be happier with it. A few things I’ve noticed since driving it in the bitter cold dead of winter:
1) I’m more aware of my trips around town, more motivated to combine and be efficient. This is not a burden; it’s like a game (fun).
2) My car has heated seats and a heated steering wheel and is comfortable within minutes, even on these 9 degree days we’ve been having. It’s well engineered, and that’s saying something — I replaced a Honda Civic Hybrid and have been a loyal Honda owner for 25 years.
3) When I need to drive a longer distance to a meeting, I must plan ahead and see where the charging station is. If it’s not right next to my meeting site, I will have to reach out and ask one of my colleagues to meet me and give me a ride that 1.5 miles (or I can walk, which is good for me). Involving a colleague has many benefits – piquing their curiosity about EVs, as well as revealing the truth that we are all interconnected — asking for and giving help are an excellent illustration of that. Bill McKibben says fossil fuels let us pretend that we don’t need each other, but we are coming to the end of that.
4) Not sure how you feel about RECs and green power, but my house is 100% local wind, so when I charge here, I am not buying coal power.
5) You already mentioned not having to get regular service – this is going to be HUGE. I will have to find another reason to visit our wonderful local car mechanics, who I’ve known for 25 years. Maybe to bring them donuts.
When designers and engineers figure out the energy storage puzzle and we can maybe even move beyond batteries to something none of us have dreamed of, EVs will really take off.
Good points. As for “more frugal, intelligent consumption behaviors” please let me re-introduce the much neglected concept of electric scooters.
Please see: https://www.fundable.com/electric-avenue-scooters
As the developed world in the 1890’s switched from whale oil products, to petroleum power, so can the developed world now switch from its predominant use of oil, coal (and gas) to renewable energies. Switching from petroleum powered cars to wind powered scooters in urban areas (which hold more than half of the country’s population) will represent a relative change of a similar size, and at the same time fulfill the need to avoid incremental increase of coal-generated electricity by way of conservation (intelligent consumption behavior) due to the fact that the same tasks of, say, commuting to work, or performing commercial deliveries can be done by an electric scooter at approximately a tenth of the power consumption of even an electric car (without the need for new dedicated charging outlets).
The widespread adoption of electric scooters offers the most complete solution to transition from ICE vehicles to EV’s because it not only avoids the need for incremental increase in grid supply generation (presumably through coal, at least in part), but also because scooters cost only about 30% the cost of a car, even after you include the need for a helmet, a motorcycle license, and other personal gear (like a thick coat, and warm gloves for winter). This economic incentive might even help us avoid extracting fossil fuels to the “last drop” by eradicating demand for it by replacing automobiles with more automobiles, be they powered by ICE’s or electric motors.
Thanks again Craig, for your insights.
electricavenuescooters.com
Electric Vehicles have the only path to zero emissions among currently available technology. From the first day of use the EV has zero plug-to-wheel (PTW) emissions. The source used to generate electricity, well-to-plug (WTP), provides all of the GHG pollution. In an ICE vehicle it’s about 20% WTP and 80% PTW. This makes the EV the best and worst vehicle for the environment.
Add 1 EV to the grid and the grid fires up an underutilized coal plant to generate the electricity, and the WTP pollution is higher than the total for the ICE vehicle. That even takes into account that the EV uses about 1/4 the energy PTW of a comparable class ICE vehicle. The EV is the worst alternative for the environment when powered by coal, as Craig points out.
Add 117,000 EV’s to the grid as the US did in 2014 and the utilities build additional capacity. That capacity was roughly half in cleaner Combined Cycle Natural Gas and a little less than half in zero emission renewables in 2014. New coal plants didn’t even replace coal plant retirements, so aren’t a factor. That gives the advantage back to the EV as added capacity comes on line.
To make the EV the best for the environment and have a zero well-to-wheel vehicle right away, balance the WTP side with additional solar or wind generation at home or office, force new capacity to be built on the grid by buying 100% renewable energy from the utility, or conserve energy (turning off AC for the year roughly balances out the purchase of an EV) so there is no net increase in grid consumption. The EV is not just twice as good, or 10 times as good, but more than 100 times better than an ICE vehicle in terms of GHG when powered by Solar or Wind energy.
People buying an EV today should do so with a clear conscience. Even if their vehicle is a bit worse for the environment on the day of purchase, the buyer can actually affect that directly. When hundreds of thousands buy EVs, then the added demand will add capacity and the EV’s become cleaner. When Millions do, our energy consumption will go down and our air quality will go up. And then there are all the additional benefits mentioned above.
Tremendously insightful article Craig, I am pretty much of the same opinion as you, as soon as we can wean ourselves off petroleum the better and rid ourselves as you put it of all the malevolent side issues it creates. The use of fracking has caused gas prices to drop but only at tremendous cost to the environment which eventually will have to be accounted for.
Though the current drop in gas prices is causing its own set of problems for EV manufacturers in terms of the viability of some makes and models this will only be a temporary setback. A favourable side issue of this current drop in gas prices would be the fact that at least it is helping to syphon oil revenue away from these heinous oil cartels and terrorists into more beneficial areas of the world economy. The advancement of the electric car industry will help to alleviate many of the socio-political and environmental problems that the fossil fuel industry has inflicted upon us.
Particularly if the technology can move beyond Lithium battery storage so that we are simply
not substituting one resource with another and creating political instability in other regions of the globe. I am very much in favour of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and look forward to seeing how the technology progresses into the future. Checkout the hydrogen economy, “Free fuel for 3 years” @ http://greeningsolutionsone.com/blog/ and apply for a free subscription to “The Green Living Magazine” on the National News page.
As an EV tech writer for a number of years I have many times encountered statements like yours above, ” … coal as the resource by which incremental load on the grid is met. [and then] The take-away is that right here in 2015, if they are charged via the grid, EVs are worse ecologically than their ICE counterparts…” There are several considerations that tend to make these statements inaccurate. First is that a fundamental nature of coal fired power plants is that they can take up to 2 weeks to be brought up to full capacity from a cold start. Once operating they can’t be turned off or turned down very much or they tend to suffer damage to the boiler tubes. The “take away” is then that coal fired power plants are used along with nuclear power plants as base load power. Incremental power loads on the grid are handled by gas turbine power plants that can be started or stopped in about 15 minutes.
Power demand is not constant. It can decrease to 40% or less when compared to peak daytime loads. One study determined that if all of our present fleet of vehicles were to use electricity rather then fuel there is sufficient generating capacity to handle 86% of the fleet of over 200 million vehicles if they were charged at night during off peak hours. So simply comparing the number of EV on the road to their required electrical demand is not sufficient to predict additional generation capacity required.
Further in places like the mid-west where coal generation may represent 90% of the power mix on the grid there is far more base load generation than can be effectively turned down or turned off. That is power (and resulting pollution) that must be wasted if not exported. Having an EV charging at night on this power then would represent no additional demand or no additional pollution. (up to the point that night time load meets the limit that night time capacity can be turned down.) So the assumption that an EV charging is necessarily causing additional pollution from a coal fired power plant is also not necessarily accurate.
Finally what is almost never taken in to consideration is statements that find the EV more polluting than the ICE vehicle is that a lot of electricity is required to refine oil. What is contracted is usually the cheapest base load power … So we are using coal fired power plants to supply electricity to refine oil. The exact amount is now somewhat hidden by oil companies but seems to be slightly over 4.5 kWh per gallon of fuel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQpX-9OyEr4 So just the energy (and pollution) used to refine a gallon of gasoline would allow the Nissan Leaf (.3kWh/mile) to go about 15 miles. So even if both vehicles were using electricity from a coal fired power plant exclusively the ICE vehicle with its electricity pollution plus petrol pollution is never going to be less polluting than the EV. The reason for the misunderstanding is that electrical pollution for the refining of oil is never taken into consideration.
But I would agree that there are strategic and economical reasons to favor the adoption of electric vehicles. Due to the complexity the environmental consideration this may be the weakest argument but it is no less valid.
America’s Irrational Petroleum Dependence By Doug Korthof
For the amount of electricity it takes to refine oil, we could leave the crude in the ground. Open Access Article Originally Published: June 19, 2009
It takes 8% to 12% of the energy in a barrel of oil to refine it into gasoline.
Oil extraction and refining is the largest industrial user of electric and natural gas in California (about 12% of the national market for cars, gas and the car culture, more than our share by population). There are other costs: for example, 20 gallons of federally-subsidized potable water, the amortized cost of exploration, transport, distribution, cleanup, etc. The electricity used to refine oil alone would power cars further than what’s in the rest of the barrel.
Now, a simple calculation shows that, of the approximately 1470 kWh of potential energy in a 42-gallon barrel of oil, it takes about 140 kWh of electric and natural gas to refine the oil into appx. 44 gallons of “refined products”–diesel, gasoline, heavy oil, etc.
With simple “ceteris parabus” (all things being equal) assumptions, the 140 kWh of energy used to refine that barrel would propel an average EV (or CNG car) at least 640 miles and as much as 840 miles, depending on the type of all-electric car. The EV1 would go 6 miles on one kWh; the RAV4-EV small SUV might go as little as 3 miles on one kWh, so the average would be somewhere in between.
The rest of the barrel, if all converted to gasoline or its equivalent, would yield about 1300 kWh of energy in the burnable fuel (remember, we’re subtracting the energy to process the barrel of oil), or about 38 gallons of gas, enough to take the average Internal Combustion (“IC”) car about 760 miles (at our fleet average of 20 mpg).
So, as a nation, we use 140 kWh of electric to produce 1300 kWh of IC fuel to go 760 miles, even if some cars use more and others use less. Thus, you can see that the modest use of hybrids that can’t plug-in is not going to change this dynamic in the slightest. All it does is allow the hybrid drivers to relieve some guilt and feel better about themselves; as a people, we ALL contribute to this charade.
Using low-cost electric and “free” natural gas to refine the barrel of oil is really just an energy transferrence, a way of storing energy in the form that we, as a society, think it should be used best–as high-energy fuel for IC cars.
This pattern, of profligate energy usage (not to say waste) to produce the kind of fuel that produces the most money, is repeated again and again. Logically, it’s quite mad to expend the barrel of oil when the energy used to process it, without using the barrel of oil at all, would accomplish the same goal, i.e., to power individual auto transport for the average use (i.e., individual automobile cars).
So we, as a people, could get the 700 miles of transport without any further expenditure of energy, and still keep the barrel of oil in the ground, thus avoiding its expense, the oil wars needed to obtain and defend it, the air, ground and water pollution and the health problems it causes. But we see this madcap activity time and again.
In the case of the vast Athabascan shale-oil deposits, for example, the most cost-effective method of producing oil is to use “free” natural gas (free to the oil companies, that is) to heat the shale in-situ, then to pump out the resulting very-heavy and low-grade crude oil product, millions of barrels per day, which is then shipped to refineries for further processing. Obviously, the natural gas alone used for (or “wasted on”) this project would carry CNG cars far more miles than the resulting gasoline carries IC cars.
Not to mention how far the wasted electric would carry EVs.
Now, it’s true that the price of electric power is tied to the price of natural gas, because much of our electric is produced in high-quality natural gas “combined cycle” power plants. Similarly, the price of coal may be related to the cost of electricity, since much of our electric CAN be generated in antiquated coal power plants in the red states and the East Coast.
It’s a popular fiction that the price of oil is tied to the price of other energy, such as electric or natural gas.
The only causal relationship is that electric and natural gas is used to make oil and petroleum products; thus, if electric and natural gas rose, the price of oil would have upward pressure (if the price of oil had any relationship to the cost of production, which it does not).
As a rule of thumb, the price in dollars per 1000 cu. ft. of natural gas (at STP), which is about the same as 1 million BTU, is about the exact same cost, in cents, of one kWh of electric generated in a modern power plant.
Here’s the latest numbers, showing that while oil is still rising, due to the price set by the oil companies’ monopoly, the price of natural gas is falling, if anything; basically, it has languished in a range since the 1970s, even without counting inflation.
So what does it all prove? The obvious fact is that, as a nation, we don’t use the most efficient means to run cars, we use the method that results in the most profit – and the most controlled profit stream — that benefits the Standard Oil Trust “Seven Sisters” oil companies and evidently bribed officials in Congress. And in the administration. Note that generation of electricity via natural gas now costs less then 4 cents per kWh, which is expended to produce much more profitable, but less efficient and more socially objectionable, fuel for IC cars.
This analysis, then, sort of pulls the mask off the claim that the oil market is a free market, or that our energy policy is rational.
Well said and the “take away” is then that switching to electric cars may save our democracy from corporate influence derived from the profitable but inefficient pursuit of oil.
I live in New Zealand where 75% of the electricity generated and used, is from Renewable Energy. That is Hydro,Wind,Geothermal, P V , There is much more renewable approved and ready to be built when the electrical demand rises.
I have long said that the WORLD needs an example of a country that can ‘run’ on renewable electricity and N Z could show the world the way to go. But we have a stupid National government that Drills for oil and Fracks for more gas and Oil. We grow grass, and Cows make milk, we then Burn Coal to dry the milk into milk powder,which we sell overseas to pay for Petrol (gas in US ) and Diesel fuel. The politicians do not listen they are mostly old, grey haired, men who are living in the past and just planning how to get Re Elected in the next election. I despair for our grandchildren.
Roger Senior
I wish I had something encouraging to say. Yes, the failure of our “leaders” to lead is a tragedy in a great number of places, and certainly your country and mine are prime examples. As far as the overall environmental picture is concerned in the U.S., however, it could be worse. In fact, is was indeed far worse in the previous administration. Since Obama took office in 2009, he’s disappointed a great number of people who had hoped he’d do more, but on balance, he’s been a breath of breath of fresh in terms of most of these issues.
You might find the following vido on sustainability worth your time.
Have you ever heard/seen Dr. Richard Oppenlander, DDS? Here is a short video (10:04):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSS1dNm6tBg
Here is a longer lecture with more info (58:44):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drS5hHdelR8
Leo: FWIW, I’ve been trying to get cow’s milk out of our house for decades (without success). As I’ve (fruitlessly) explained to my wife and kids, it’s terrible for human health; it leads not only to bone disease but to all manner of other maladies as well. It’s just another wonderful example of a moneyed industry promoting a clearly harmful product to unwitting people.