Subject: (long) Re: PROPOSED GOVERNMENT DRIVING RESTRICTIONS

From: [email-masked] (Ed Hahn)
Date: 24 Jul 1995 16:56:46 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Persepolis) writes:

   [email-masked] wrote:
   : Environmental types want electric cars.  Fine.  How many coal burning
   : or nuclear power plants are they willing to have built to generate the 
   : power to charge the darn batteries?  There is no free lunch.  You can 

   I am not an environmentalist (nor do I play one on TV) but I can tell you 
   this, you have completely left out wind, solar, hydro and geothermal 
   alternatives-  This unfortunately is the same logic used by advocates 
   of fossil fuels: "Choose the lesser of two evils: Fossil or Nuclear"

   <description of geothermal project plant deleted>

====
One hears this line of argument all the time from alternative fuel
proponents; the problem is not that the technology can't be made to
work, it's that the infrastructure involved to generate the energy is
way too expensive and inefficient at this time.

Now, don't get me wrong; I would love to see solar or wind power
working, but the studies I've seen show that at most these particular
technologies could only supply a small fraction (something like 10%)
of today's total energy demand of the US, given weather patterns and
other factors.  This is before considering the growth in electricity
demand with the adoption of electric vehicles, and the cost of
implementing such a solution.  The problem with these technologies is
that the energy density is so low that you need a huge powerplant to
capture a "reasonable" amount of energy.

Geothermal has great potential; I don't know enough about how viable a
technology it is, but from your description, I would guess that a
powerplant with a large enough energy output (i.e. megawatts) would be
expensive, and an environmental hazard on par with nuclear fission
(assuming the working fluid is something exotic).

Hydro power - well, considering the environmental preservation efforts
to block construction whenever a new dam is proposed, I'm hard pressed to
believe that environmentalists would be pleased with this solution.

Even assuming that the electricity can be generated efficiently,
looking at the thermodynamic efficiencies of transporting, storing
in batteries, and then converting to motion the electrical energy, I'm
not sure how much better off you'd be than if you burned fossil fuels
at the end point (i.e. in the vehicle) in the first place.

Combine this with the research underway to create clean-burning gas
powered vehicles which meet the Ultra-Low emissions standards, I'm not
sure where electric vehicles will end up in the final analysis.  After
all, we are now at the point where the emissions from new vehicles are
much, much cleaner than they were for new vehicles 10-15 years ago, and
fuel economy is also way up.  At the same time, the amount of power-
per-liter displacement is at an all time high.

I am in favor of increasing the standards as a way to encourage
progress in this area - I am also confident that the automakers will
be able to deliver the needed increases in technology required (after
they really start to work on it).

In summary, I do believe that we should study energy alternatives and
electric vehicles, but I don't think that we can handwave the
arguments for or against either one.

ed

--------   Ed Hahn | [email-masked] | (703) 883-5988   --------
The above comment reflects the opinions of the author, and does not
constitute endorsement or implied warranty by the MITRE Corporation.
Really, I wouldn't kid you about a thing like this.

---

From: [email-masked] (Rick Nyman)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 1995 23:25:10 GMT

>of today's total energy demand of the US, given weather patterns and

Actually, there are power plants using many alternative methods
already online.  But their capacity is already used up.  Utilities
don't install large amounts of extra capacity unless they need it and
can pay for it.

>at the end point (i.e. in the vehicle) in the first place.

It depends.  Right now, they're claiming low 30's for car efficiency
and about the same for the installed generation facilities (although
some combined cycle gas turbine/steam turbine plants are getting up to
60% efficiency - a fantastic number).  I don't know what the losses in
the grid do though.

>arguments for or against either one.

Just one thing to remember in the electric car wars.  I've heard that
the average house uses 1-2kW of electricity at any given time.  (Of
course it peaks higher during the day and is lower at night).  Perhaps
this is a bit low and it's closer to 2.5kW, including HVAC and
lighting better than most have.  This is the same as a continuous 40
amp load at 120 VAC (That's 40+ 60 watt light bulbs) - I hope this
seems as high as it is, remember this is averaged over a 24 hour
period).

Now look at an electric car.  The current HVAC systems in electric
cars are rated around 6kW (yes, car air conditioners are rated around
3 tons, same as many house air conditioners - but car ones often run
continuously)  The drive motors in small cars are rated around 60kW
with the cruising power to be around 15kW.

Depending on how much driving you do, if you assume 2 hours/day at
21kW (We're assuming HVAC on all the time, but also 100% battery
efficiency and you're not driving like a maniac - I live in the DC
area and that's not the case here - the reduces economy a lot), than
you're using (21/12 because you're using the car 1/12th of the time
over a 24 hour period) 21/12=1.75kW on the average.  This is within
the range that I suggested above and over 2/3 the power used in my
hypothetical house.

The range for the house above, at $.06 per kWh would be $43.20 to
$86.40 per month for electric costs.  The hypothetical house would
have a $108 bill.  

So the electric car would cost $75.60 per month in electricity.  Now I
live in the DC area where electricity costs more like 9 cents per kWh
- it would cost me $113.4 per month for the power.  I don't know about
you, but I pay far less than that in gas.  I don't forsee electric
cars helping these costs much either because utilities would be forced
to build more power plants to handle the load - someone's gotta pay
for them.

--
Rick Nyman <[email-masked]>
A recent graduate of Virginia Tech's Mechanical Engineering department.
(Still looking for a job)
Home Page: http://sfbox.vt.edu:10021/E/enyman/index.html
My ASMEnet account: [email-masked]