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You'd have to do some fancy calcs to work out the ICE comparisons...the cost of making the thousands of parts in an ICE drive train and then maintaining them is big time. But a very basic efficiency deal might work out like this....
100 units of nat gas energy at the input of an electric plant - 62 units out (efficiency loses).
8% loss in transmission of that 62 units = 57 units delivered to your electric car
Electric Car is 80% efficient - so you get 45 approx units of motion for your original 100.
Compared to:
100 units of gasoline energy - 85 units delivered to the pipeline (15% refining losses).
85 units minus another 5% for trucking, storage, evaporation and leakage - 81 units.
Efficiency of ICE complete system (20%) - means you get 16 or 17 Units of energy.
The article was specifically discussing diesel vs electric, not gas. Diesels are 35-40% efficient, rather than the 20% value used for gas. Diesel can be produced more efficiently without as complex a refining process as gas (and I need to look for the numbers on this) and more diesel can be produced from a gallon of crude than gas. Typically refineries are constructed with gas as their primary product with diesel as a side effect. Diesel is also significantly less volatile, so evaporative losses are lower. It's probable that the efficiency in terms of energy output is at least similar to the electric vehicle.
As far as your value of 62% on a nat gas plant-the very best gas turbine currently available is at that value, far from all of them are. I believe (and could be wrong) that that value is based on the shaft output power (mechanical), not the electrical power generated. Further losses take place in the generating process, further lowering efficiency.
Conventional gasoline vehicles only convert about 17%–21% of the energy stored in gasoline to power at the wheels... A typical diesel automotive engine operates at around 30% to 35% of thermal efficiency,.about 65-70% is rejected as waste heat without being converted into useful work.... An electric motor typically is between 85% and 90% efficient.
The problem with the electric vehicles is that more of the electricity is being generated using methane which is a far more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2. In some regions where hydro is the main power source, they're far cleaner than gas combustion cars.
The problem with the electric vehicles is that more of the electricity is being generated using methane which is a far more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2. In some regions where hydro is the main power source, they're far cleaner than gas combustion cars.
Well, as long as you consider dams, the flooding of ecosystems and destruction of historical sites and fish habitat clean, they are. (fortunately...I do)
The problem with the electric vehicles is that more of the electricity is being generated using methane which is a far more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2. In some regions where hydro is the main power source, they're far cleaner than gas combustion cars.
A Tesla battery should still have 80% battery capacity after 500,000 miles of driving.
Burning methane releases only carbon dioxide and water. Since natural gas is mostly methane, the combustion of natural gas releases fewer byproducts than other fossil fuels.
Well, as long as you consider dams, the flooding of ecosystems and destruction of historical sites and fish habitat clean, they are. (fortunately...I do)
I guess I live in the right place then....BC Hydro operates 32 hydroelectric facilities and three natural gas-fueled thermal power plants. As of 2014, 95 per cent of the province's electricity was produced by hydroelectric generating stations, which consist mostly of large hydroelectric dams on the Columbia and Peace Rivers...... No wonder there are so many electric vehicles here.
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im confused by this OP
Its about diesel, but most cars dont run on diesel , its more common in Europe to use diesel, so I get the point of the article, just not the OP using it.
a quick google search says a typical gas car creates 620 grams of C02 per mile( so about 318 per KM), compared to an electric car which only gives off 180.(which is only slightly better than diesel)
putting that in US numbers.
there are 16.4 million diesel cars.
there are 253 million gas cars.
so what exactly is your argument here, because if we all switched to electric, we would still be better off based on your own link ?
I think you are making that weird " it isnt perfect so lets stick with what we have" argument
It is definitely a factor, but I'll say (as someone who owns a big old F-150 by choice) that it's a lot easier to control pollution from a single point source than from a lot of distributed sources. In terms of pollution directly from energy, it takes far less resources to stick a filter on top of a coal power plant, than it does a million vehicles. Electric vehicles are the way of the future and will only get more environmentally friendly as time goes on.
You can't stick a "CO2 filter" on top of a power plant or a vehicle. You need to capture it and for this to be practical convert it to something usable. Capturing it at a power plant is much more doable than a vehicle but what do you do with it afterward?
Until there practical method to convert it to usable product it;'s dead end. Possible solution would be using it as feedstock for biofuels. There was recent article where it was accidentally converted it to ethanol, if that can be done cheaply it may be path forward.
This would not completely remove the CO2 emissions but by recycling the plant emission into ethanol that may be burned in a car or whatever you have effectively removed the plant emissions.
... An electric motor typically is between 85% and 90% efficient.
The big hits on efficiency for electric are in the production of power and delivery. If I had electric heat it's 100% efficient, my coal boiler is about 80% efficient. It's local product and there is not a lot of energy expended to get it to me. The power plant is going to have a lot of those same energy expenses but it's efficiency is far lower than mine and then there is the grid efficiencies. Overall it's far more effective for me to burn it.
Last edited by thecoalman; 04-18-2019 at 02:42 AM..
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