How Electric Cars Work

#26
#26
golfballs03 said:
the Amish don't **** around. They aint afraid to cut a ****
Mugshots released of Amish gang accused of cutting off beard and hair of fellow sect member - Mirror Online
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Just an internal dispute that got a little out of control...

Been to a few Amish farms and they are a lot nicer than you might think.

They do have electricity for those areas that need it--mostly inside the barn and work shops, but get it from a diesel generator instead of the grid. Their biggest prohibition is to be disconnected from society, so no wires to the house...

They use propane for lights, stove, oven, fridge etc inside the home.

They have modern toilets and running water, just use wells and septic systems instead of being connected to public water and sewer.

No art in their house, everything has to have a purpose, so since calendars have a purpose they use a lot of calendars around the house--the art in the calendar is a bonus!

Amish farms are not set aside in a separate community (for the most part) but are integrated into the rest of the population.

Amish handle their own education and it goes to about the equivalent of our 8th grade--however, by that time they actually have learned what a person with a BA in Ag Business would know.

Just a few tidbits on the Amish, you are welcome.
 
#27
#27
YorkVol said:
Just an internal dispute that got a little out of control...

Been to a few Amish farms and they are a lot nicer than you might think.

They do have electricity for those areas that need it--mostly inside the barn and work shops, but get it from a diesel generator instead of the grid. Their biggest prohibition is to be disconnected from society, so no wires to the house...

They use propane for lights, stove, oven, fridge etc inside the home.

They have modern toilets and running water, just use wells and septic systems instead of being connected to public water and sewer.

No art in their house, everything has to have a purpose, so since calendars have a purpose they use a lot of calendars around the house--the art in the calendar is a bonus!

Amish farms are not set aside in a separate community (for the most part) but are integrated into the rest of the population.

Amish handle their own education and it goes to about the equivalent of our 8th grade--however, by that time they actually have learned what a person with a BA in Ag Business would know.

Just a few tidbits on the Amish, you are welcome.
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I can handle this part.
 
#28
#28
Slydell said:
I would too if I worked. It would be great to be able to ride horses and have carriages again. Energy problem fixed.
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But then all of the methane gas from the horses sh!tting everywhere will go up into the atmosphere and cause more climate change.

There is no answer that will satisfy the environmentally-challenged nay sayers.
 
#29
#29
theFallGuy said:
But then all of the methane gas from the horses sh!tting everywhere will go up into the atmosphere and cause more climate change.

There is no answer that will satisfy the environmentally-challenged nay sayers.
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Or, anyone else. It's the nature of the beast. 50/50 split in US on about everything. Nobody's right and everyone is wrong. Or, something.
 
#30
#30
Post from TennTradition on this subject a couple months back. Interesting calculations.


TennTradition said:
I know that CO2 isn't the only "pollutant" (with respect to all views on the matter) of concern with regard to coal - but if I just use it as one metric, here is what I come up with.

Chevy Volt: 2.78 miles/kwh (reported mileage)
Coal: 2.0 kWh/kg coal (average Coal plant)
2.93 kg CO2/kg coal
Chevy Volt in all coal region: 0.53 kg CO2/mile

*Note: I don't know what the battery charge efficiency of a Volt is or what line losses are. If you assume a total efficiency of 90%, that would make this number more like 0.59 kg CO2/mile. Also not included here is the CO2 "cost" of mining the coal or delivering it to the plant.

Gas Auto: Let's just use an average of 20 mpg
Gasoline: 8.92 kg CO2/gal gas
Gas Automobile Emissions: 0.45 kg CO2/mile

Note: This doesn't account for the CO2 cost of drilling the oil, refining the oil, or delivering the gasoline to the gas station.

So, based on these numbers, you are somewhat better off to drive a gasoline automobile if all of your power comes from coal.

However, with something like CO2, local emissions don't really matter. What really matters is total emissions. So, it is appropriate to look at average CO2 emissions per kWH across the US rather than just coal emissions when looking at this problem.

Avg CO2 / kWh in US: 0.69 kg CO2/kWh

Avg Emissions of Electric Car in US: 0.25 kg CO2/mile

Again, assuming some transfer inefficiency, this number might look more like 0.30.

So, on average, a gas-powered car will emit about 50% more CO2 than an electric-powered car in the US under the assumptions of these calculations.
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#31
#31
IMHO, I contend that we do not have a energy problem. I believe we have an insane energy policy problem, and a gov't and regulatory problem.
 
#32
#32
YorkVol said:
Just an internal dispute that got a little out of control...

Been to a few Amish farms and they are a lot nicer than you might think.

They do have electricity for those areas that need it--mostly inside the barn and work shops, but get it from a diesel generator instead of the grid. Their biggest prohibition is to be disconnected from society, so no wires to the house...

They use propane for lights, stove, oven, fridge etc inside the home.

They have modern toilets and running water, just use wells and septic systems instead of being connected to public water and sewer.

No art in their house, everything has to have a purpose, so since calendars have a purpose they use a lot of calendars around the house--the art in the calendar is a bonus!

Amish farms are not set aside in a separate community (for the most part) but are integrated into the rest of the population.

Amish handle their own education and it goes to about the equivalent of our 8th grade--however, by that time they actually have learned what a person with a BA in Ag Business would know.

Just a few tidbits on the Amish, you are welcome.
Click to expand...

I'm very familiar with the Amish. I live in the state with the highest population on Amish.

A lot of yoders, hershbergers and schwartzentrubers here
 
#33
#33
PKT_VOL said:
Post from TennTradition on this subject a couple months back. Interesting calculations.
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He admits that he doesnt know what the battery efficiency is. That's a big component. And not anywhere close to 90%
 
#38
#38
Battery technology is constantly improving.
Mainly due to cellphones/laptops but electic car batteries are mainly lithium ion batteries as well.
 
#39
#39
WA_Vol said:
Battery technology is constantly improving.
Mainly due to cellphones/laptops but electic car batteries are mainly lithium ion batteries as well.
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If you look at the Prius battery, for instance, the nickel for the battery is from a mine in Canada that is one of the most environmentally damaging in North America. Then that nickel is shipped to China for some assembly, then to Japan for the rest, then shipped back here. Then when it goes out in 7 or 8 years, it's a few grand to buy a new one.

As I understand it, this is the same of plug ins like the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt. If you live somewhere like I do, where most of the energy in the sockets in your house come from renewable sources, then it might be a wash. But if you live out east, where most of the energy still comes from coal, that combined with the battery production makes it a bad deal if you're trying to be nice to the environment.

All that said, in spite of battery replacements, there do seem to be many cases where a hybrid does make good pure economic sense for many people, so I can't knock that. Honda Insight is under $20k, and there might still be a tax credit out there for it.

I'm still placing my bet on hydrogen fuel cells. Honda had a moderately successful run in southern California with the FCX Clarity, and I read in a science blog some time this last week (forget which) that scientists at UC Berkeley came up with a catalyst that can produce hydrogen from water without applying heat. That might end up being a huge advance. After that, storage is the big part to tackle.
 
#40
#40
golfballs03 said:
He admits that he doesnt know what the battery efficiency is. That's a big component. And not anywhere close to 90%
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I did a little more research and it looks like the low 60s is a more reasonable charging efficiency. At this value, the average CO2 cost in the US would be around 0.37 kg CO2 / mile. This is about 25% better than gasoline.

However, this does mean gas is better in all coal regions. However, like I said, it's the average numbers that matter more for something like CO2, not local. Local would matter much more for things like NOx or SOx.

Also, this is just CO2 cost. There are a lot of other ways to look at environmental impact and what I've done isn't a true life cycle calculation of footprint.
 
#41
#41
TennTradition said:
I did a little more research and it looks like the low 60s is a more reasonable charging efficiency. At this value, the average CO2 cost in the US would be around 0.37 kg CO2 / mile. This is about 25% better than gasoline.

However, this does mean gas is better in all coal regions. However, like I said, it's the average numbers that matter more for something like CO2, not local. Local would matter much more for things like NOx or SOx.

Also, this is just CO2 cost. There are a lot of other ways to look at environmental impact and what I've done isn't a true life cycle calculation of footprint.
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Charging efficiency. What about storage losses? Btw, thanks for your insight
 
#42
#42
golfballs03 said:
Charging efficiency. What about storage losses? Btw, thanks for your insight
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Do you mean self-discharge when sitting? When not in use, lithium-based batteries don't lose there charge all that much. I think that the biggest problem is the charging efficiency. I'm not sure you would notice self-discharge unless you just left the car sitting for a long time.

I couldn't find exact data, but I did find one figure that stated 2% of charge per day.
 
#43
#43
The biggest problem with electic cars is the fact that if you park in your garage for 5 years or you drive it for 5 years and put 150k on it, the batteries in both cars will still need to be replaced at the same time.

I don't think most people who say they would buy one of these cars realize that. Unless they get the price of the batteries down, it's not going to be economical for most people. :twocents:
 
#44
#44
golfballs03 said:
I've always laughed at the notion that environmentalists and liberals love the idea of electric cars, but they are so vehemently against coal plants. Coal provides over half the energy consumed in this country. How the **** do they expect to power their electric cars without it? Wind and sunshine?

If they were the least bit educated on the matter, nuclear energy would be far and away the preferred method of generation vs. coal.
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:good!:
 
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