Electric Cars Are Not Very Green

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

I don't even know how to comment that was so stupid.

Then don't.
You know your limits and lack of insight better than I DO....-Tyr

[cadet]

Not only do most people do not want to buy an electric car due to the high price, rotten mileage on a charge, and cramp quarters - now we find out they are not very "green" (except for the price tag)

Back to the begining!!!!

It depends on where you're getting your energy. Yeah, if you're getting it from a coal mine... It's pointless to have an electric car. But if say... You're getting it from solar panels all over your garage to charge the little machine...

• 10% of the energy content of the fuel is lost in combustion and only 90% of the calorific content is transferred to the steam.
• The steam turbine efficiency in converting the energy content of the steam into mechanical energy is limited to about 40%. (Carnot's Efficiency Law)
• The rotary electrical generator is very efficient by comparison.The conversion efficiency of a large machine can be as high as 98% or 99%.
• Transmission of the electrical energy over the distribution grid between the power station and the consumer results in a distribution loss of 10% mainly due to the resistance of the electrical cables.
• Further energy is lost due to the energy conversion efficiency of the end user's appliance. Incandescent lighting is particularly inefficient converting only 2% of the electrical energy into light.

http://www.mpoweruk.com/energy_efficiency.htm

^^^This should put things more into perspective for ya'll. Just goes to show how inneficient things are in a car or from transmitting energy from a power plant to your car.
It slowly adds up, but fossil fuels end up being the best since there's no loss in energy from fuel to car.
But power plant, added with loss in wires, added with the loss in what the car gets, ends up being alot. Unless you're going strait from your own generated power (like solar) to your car.

It ALL depends on where your power's coming from. And I personally think electric cars are pretty facinating. But I also find going back to steam (H2O) powered cars to be pretty cool...

http://inventors.about.com/library/w...carssteama.htm

In 1769, the very first self-propelled road vehicle was a military tractor invented by French engineer and mechanic, Nicolas Joseph Cugnot (1725 - 1804). Cugnot used a steam engine to power his vehicle, built under his instructions at the Paris Arsenal by mechanic Brezin. It was used by the French Army to haul artillery at a whopping speed of 2 1/2 mph on only three wheels. The vehicle had to stop every ten to fifteen minutes to build up steam power. The steam engine and boiler were separate from the rest of the vehicle and placed in the front (see engraving above). The following year (1770), Cugnot built a steam-powered tricycle that carried four passengers.
In 1771, Cugnot drove one of his road vehicles into a stone wall, making Cugnot the first person to get into a motor vehicle accident. This was the beginning of bad luck for the inventor. After one of Cugnot's patrons died and the other was exiled, the money for Cugnot's road vehicle experiments ended.
Steam engines powered cars by burning fuel that heated water in a boiler, creating steam that expanded and pushed pistons that turned the crankshaft, which then turned the wheels. During the early history of self-propelled vehicles - both road and railroad vehicles were being developed with steam engines. (Cugnot also designed two steam locomotives with engines that never worked well.) Steam engines added so much weight to a vehicle that they proved a poor design for road vehicles; however, steam engines were very successfully used in locomotives. Historians, who accept that early steam-powered road vehicles were automobiles, feel that Nicolas Cugnot was the inventor of the first automobile.

Besides the fact that steam cars are AWESOME, cars don't go very fast in cities, so it could be applicable to put them in the largest CO2 creators. (new york, vegas, etc)
Think about it, buses go freaking slow, and if we convert them all to steam... And that's not even adding to the fact that we can make these cars better due to better technology.. The speed might not even be much of an issue! (Nobody legally drives over 80 anyway)

[fj1200]

Why, is my knowing about the runoff going to get me a hit by a big swordfish?
Apparently you'd say a race car driver should study all about the tread wear on farm tractor tires and the high costs of farm equipment maintenance..
Not relevant was my point and it was valid. We were discussing oil and who cares about discussing copper prices in the same debate?

Your point was wrong. The discussion is the price of oil and if you don't think commodity prices are not effected by the same factors then you are sadly mistaken.

Then don't.
You know your limits and lack of insight better than I DO....-Tyr

You're right, the limits of what I can offer are clearly limited by your intelligence in being able to absorb new information.

[Robert A Whit]

Back to the begining!!!!

It depends on where you're getting your energy. Yeah, if you're getting it from a coal mine... It's pointless to have an electric car. But if say... You're getting it from solar panels all over your garage to charge the little machine...



^^^This should put things more into perspective for ya'll. Just goes to show how inneficient things are in a car or from transmitting energy from a power plant to your car.
It slowly adds up, but fossil fuels end up being the best since there's no loss in energy from fuel to car.
But power plant, added with loss in wires, added with the loss in what the car gets, ends up being alot. Unless you're going strait from your own generated power (like solar) to your car.

It ALL depends on where your power's coming from. And I personally think electric cars are pretty facinating. But I also find going back to steam (H2O) powered cars to be pretty cool...



Besides the fact that steam cars are AWESOME, cars don't go very fast in cities, so it could be applicable to put them in the largest CO2 creators. (new york, vegas, etc)
Think about it, buses go freaking slow, and if we convert them all to steam... And that's not even adding to the fact that we can make these cars better due to better technology.. The speed might not even be much of an issue! (Nobody legally drives over 80 anyway)

I have at least 7 years experience with using steam engines. We used them to power pile drivers.

These pile drivers at a minimum weighed 21 tons and some of them weighed up to 150 tons. So, all this tells us is that the way we ran them was to have a 55 gal drum of diesel on each pile driver and a huge boiler. It took the fireman at least half an hour to get the steam up. When we got steam up, we never got low on steam due to the huge boiler. We had a large water tank on the pile drivers that must have been several hundred gallons and we had water hoses hooked to them so that water never got low. They were super fast. If you hooked a line to say a concrete truck, you had to be careful to now yank the truck real fast. It was amazing what loads the steam could lift.

Here in town a guy has a collection of Stanley steamers but he does not use them much.

I tend to doubt people want to wait that long just to get steam up and I can't comment much on fuel economy. I know we put up full 55 gallon barrels of diesel during the day but can't recall how many it took for 8 hrs use. With a steam engine, one can spin the wheels pretty fast and I hear steam cars can hit some high speeds.

[logroller]

Back to the begining!!!!

It depends on where you're getting your energy. Yeah, if you're getting it from a coal mine... It's pointless to have an electric car. But if say... You're getting it from solar panels all over your garage to charge the little machine...



^^^This should put things more into perspective for ya'll. Just goes to show how inneficient things are in a car or from transmitting energy from a power plant to your car.
It slowly adds up, but fossil fuels end up being the best since there's no loss in energy from fuel to car.

thats not entirely true. I mean, theres little loss going from plug to battery...you need to start at the well and end at the wheel for an apples to apples comparison. The efficiency of well to pump is a little better than ~80%; which may seem gloriously better than the ~50% efficency of electrity delivery (nat gas turbine to plug). But when rubber meets the road, after you factor in the efficiency of the vehicle itself, electric cars are drastically more efficient. Operating with an efficiency rate of nearly 90% to the internal combustion's 35%(at best), the energy efficiency clearly favors the electric car. It ends up an electric vehicle gets twice the mileage/joule than even a hybrid getting 51mpg (true well to wheel).

[red states rule]

Back to the begining!!!!

It depends on where you're getting your energy. Yeah, if you're getting it from a coal mine... It's pointless to have an electric car. But if say... You're getting it from solar panels all over your garage to charge the little machine...



^^^This should put things more into perspective for ya'll. Just goes to show how inneficient things are in a car or from transmitting energy from a power plant to your car.
It slowly adds up, but fossil fuels end up being the best since there's no loss in energy from fuel to car.
But power plant, added with loss in wires, added with the loss in what the car gets, ends up being alot. Unless you're going strait from your own generated power (like solar) to your car.

It ALL depends on where your power's coming from. And I personally think electric cars are pretty facinating. But I also find going back to steam (H2O) powered cars to be pretty cool...



Besides the fact that steam cars are AWESOME, cars don't go very fast in cities, so it could be applicable to put them in the largest CO2 creators. (new york, vegas, etc)
Think about it, buses go freaking slow, and if we convert them all to steam... And that's not even adding to the fact that we can make these cars better due to better technology.. The speed might not even be much of an issue! (Nobody legally drives over 80 anyway)

Cadet, the entire point of this thread was to show government should not be the one financing these new ventures into finding alternate sources of energy. Obama has wasted hundreds of billions dollars by funneling them into losing companies and paybacks to political backers

If there was a viable chance at perfecting the electric car the private sector and private investors would leap at the chance to bring it to market

Instead we have had the Feds pay people to but electric cars and still people do not want them for various reasons

The Feds need to get out of the way and let the electric car work itself through the private sector. Something that Obama and his worshipers hate with a passion

[fj1200]

thats not entirely true. I mean, theres little loss going from plug to battery...you need to start at the well and end at the wheel for an apples to apples comparison. The efficiency of well to pump is a little better than ~80%; which may seem gloriously better than the ~50% efficency of electrity delivery (nat gas turbine to plug). But when rubber meets the road, after you factor in the efficiency of the vehicle itself, electric cars are drastically more efficient. Operating with an efficiency rate of nearly 90% to the internal combustion's 35%(at best), the energy efficiency clearly favors the electric car. It ends up an electric vehicle gets twice the mileage/joule than even a hybrid getting 51mpg (true well to wheel).

The real problem IMO is how much energy it takes to move the cargo. In that respect the efficiency is probably about 1% when you factor in a 200 lb. person riding in a 4000 lb car.

[MtnBiker]

Electric cars, hmmmmm. I wonder what people's perception would be if the electric car was marketed as a coal burning car?

The car's battery is charged from electricity, chances are it was a coal burning electric plant that produced that electricity.

[Robert A Whit]

Cadet, the entire point of this thread was to show government should not be the one financing these new ventures into finding alternate sources of energy. Obama has wasted hundreds of billions dollars by funneling them into losing companies and paybacks to political backers

If there was a viable chance at perfecting the electric car the private sector and private investors would leap at the chance to bring it to market

Instead we have had the Feds pay people to but electric cars and still people do not want them for various reasons

The Feds need to get out of the way and let the electric car work itself through the private sector. Something that Obama and his worshipers hate with a passion

The entire idea put forth by democrats can be summed up neatly.

We will decide what we like or don't like.

If we like you, you get money from the public even when they hate it.

If we don't like you, you won't get a dime, even if the public loves you.

Let me give you one example. The public clearly loves guns.

But Democrats won't lift a finger for gun research to be used by the public. (Such as a gun that can be made childproof, or some safety feature I can't think of)

[red states rule]

The entire idea put forth by democrats can be summed up neatly.

We will decide what we like or don't like.

If we like you, you get money from the public even when they hate it.

If we don't like you, you won't get a dime, even if the public loves you.

Let me give you one example. The public clearly loves guns.

But Democrats won't lift a finger for gun research to be used by the public. (Such as a gun that can be made childproof, or some safety feature I can't think of)

It has been going on for decades. In high school I remember my liberal social studies teacher holding up (I believe it was TIME) regarding the coming Ice Age. Then we were told how America is "running out of oil". Then libs went after SUV's and those who decided to drive them. All their scare and doom and gloom BS is just that - BS

It is all about forcing their agenda on us. Of cousre most of these same libs refuse to lower their standard of living as they demand the rest of us do

[Robert A Whit]

Originally Posted by Robert A Whit

The entire idea put forth by democrats can be summed up neatly.

We will decide what we like or don't like.

If we like you, you get money from the public even when they hate it.

If we don't like you, you won't get a dime, even if the public loves you.

Let me give you one example. The public clearly loves guns.

But Democrats won't lift a finger for gun research to be used by the public. (Such as a gun that can be made childproof, or some safety feature I can't think of)

It has been going on for decades. In high school I remember my liberal social studies teacher holding up (I believe it was TIME) regarding the coming Ice Age. Then we were told how America is "running out of oil". Then libs went after SUV's and those who decided to drive them. All their scare and doom and gloom BS is just that - BS

It is all about forcing their agenda on us. Of course most of these same libs refuse to lower their standard of living as they demand the rest of us do

Very good points, all.

[logroller]

The real problem IMO is how much energy it takes to move the cargo. In that respect the efficiency is probably about 1% when you factor in a 200 lb. person riding in a 4000 lb car.

In regards to freight movement, you're right-- ton-miles per gallon is the metric. Haven't seen the numbers for passenger travel, but rail freight is just shy of 500 ton-miles/ gallon, truck is just under 150.
the methodology ignores curb weight; its just the weight of goods moved. This makes better sense than gross weight though-- as its really the functional work done per unit energy that matters-- a train with nothing in it is certainly not very efficient from an economic perspective; a bit like rsr's intended reference to a solar-powered flashlight. A quick calculation for a passenger car: est. 1000 lbs (.5 tons) at 30 mpg (~ cafe fleet avg) yields 15 ton-miles per gallon. 50 mpg hybrid: 25 mi-ton/gal. 100 MPGe Electric car: 50 ton-mi/ gal* (*equivalent). So the efficiency ratio, miles/joule, I stipulated previously is quite similar to ton-mi/gal. Which makes sense really, as any economic calculation really boils down to energy; and the reason fuel prices have increased is because it requires more energy to extract, refine and deliver that fuel than it once did.

[fj1200]

... and the reason fuel prices have increased is because it requires more energy to extract, refine and deliver that fuel than it once did.

But mostly it's Federal Reserve failure.

[logroller]

But mostly it's Federal Reserve failure.

Its all Obama's fault ya pothead conservative Libtard dem hippy pinko commie!

[fj1200]

Its all Obama's fault ya pothead conservative Libtard dem hippy pinko commie!

Now that's just hurtful... I am not a pothead.