@Nimbus Electric cars are silly. This really hasnt been thought through. Most of the elements needed to produce the batteries are not being currently mined in the US. The necessary rare earth minerals are mostly only found in China. Our grid is woefully deficient in supplying the huge amount of electricity needed to switch from gas to electric which would require fossil fuels to produce, so whats the point? The elites do not like the masses having the mobility of the auto and want to steer us towards public transportation so we can all huddle on a violence prone subway and sneeze the latest variant on each other.
@Nimbus a train is powered by electric motor the diesel engine only provides electricity for the motors.a nuclear power submarine is just powering a generator for the electric motor that propels the submarine. Not gas nor diesel for propulsion but electric motor.
The world has 8,000 gigawatts of installed electricity generation capacity, according to the International Energy Agency. In theory, if the capacity ran 24-7 it could generate 69 million gigawatt hours of electricity annually.
The world consumed about 27 million gigawatt hours of electricity in 2019. That electricity warmed homes and ran businesses. What’s more, the world consumed the equivalent of roughly 28 million gigawatt hours of electrical energy to power its cars and trucks. That energy, of course, was stored in liquid fuel. Power plants didn’t have to generate it. Gasoline and diesel make most of the world’s vehicles go.
So 27 plus 28 is 56. The world needs 56 million gigawatt hours to keep the lights on as well as drive cars and trucks. There is 69 million gigawatt hours of capacity.No problem. But the generating capacity of wind and solar, of course, can’t be “on” 100% of the time. And even coal, nuclear, and hydro power plants have to take maintenance downtime. Still, there looks to be some spare generating capacity and the world’s 2 billion or so vehicles won’t convert to battery power all at once.
@ElwoodBlues Forbes's 1106 TWh seems like a reasonable number for a nation full of electric vehicles, but claiming that it's only 27.6% (my bolding) of electrical generation, while true, kind of misses the point. That 4500 TWh or so of annual electrical energy generation is already being pretty much used somewhere now, so doesn't this suggest that we will need an additional 25% or so to charge those millions of electric vehicles that don't currently exist?
That notwithstanding, I think the devil is not so much in the generation capacity as in the aforementioned "just need proper management". I'm pretty sure the wiring in my house won't support an additional 20-odd kW of EV charging (assuming I might want to charge two vehicles simultaneously sometimes with a reasonably fast charger) and I'm doubtful that the lines and transformers from the substation will do that for me and all my neighbors either. There might be ways around some of that it by charging at off-peak times, smart chargers, in-house storage, etc, but I don't think any of that is trivial.
I think we're deluding ourselves by suggesting that "electricity grids can handle electric vehicles easily - they just need proper management".
@FrozenWasteland Current electric cars come with charge timing options - they don't have to charge the moment you plug them in.
I agree that we can't manage a complete changeover tomorrow. I think given the normal turnover time for cars, our grid is more than capable of adapting and keeping pace with normal rates of replacement.
@ElwoodBlues It's not setting the timer on the charger that's really the issue. The challenge is dealing with the case when too many people set the charger for the same time and the system gets overloaded. I'm thinking there might need to be some way to manage this on a larger scale to ensure grid stability -- and that sort of thing is seldom easy.
I think the electric vehicle is going to play a large role in the future of transportation, but I also think there are a number of significant challenges that are going to take time and $$$$$ to overcome. My point is simply that I think it's dangerous to assume that this "greening" of the world is going to come quickly or easily (as Forbes seems to imply by saying it "just needs proper management").
@FrozenWasteland if you ran out of oil today it might take a year to implement the electric cars. We can make the changes in 5 years if the government gets behind it. I will love not being at the mercy of oil companies.
@fddlpej If we ran out of oil today there wouldn't be any electric cars. Or rubber tires or plastic or car batteries or..... We would be reduced to walking or riding horses.
@hippyjoe1955 well we haven't but if we did we would adjust and make the things we need out of something else. The first diesel engines were designed to run on peanut oil. Hell there have been several people running diesel cars on used cooking oil from restaurants. It can and will happen. The first gasoline cars were pretty shity and the electric cars are about equal to new gasoline models. Wouldn't it be fun to watch a exon mobile executive out working somewhere.
Since your dependent clause is false, your contingency is irrelevant. Renewables in the US generate more power than either coal or nuclear, and renewables are growing faster.
These graphs are for Vancouver CA in 2018, so energy costs are similar to the US; however energy is represented in megajoules - there are 3.6 MJ in a KWH, and 1 MJ = .37 horsepower hours. It assumes 150,000Km of travel over the life of the car, about 93,000 miles.
a fossil fueled device is used to power another device.
The data I presented shows that even when fossil fuel is the major source of electricity, electric cars use HALF the energy and generate HALF the CO2 of similar gas cars. Scroll up, the data is RIGHT THERE!!
Were do you think electricity comes from - hint 70% from coal
@MarmeeMarch DUUUDE!!! You're the first person I've encountered who can't tell the difference between natural gas & coal. In particular, natural gas has a VERY different carbon footprint from coal.
Did you notice that natural gas & coal occupy different sectors on the pie chart? That's because they have very different environmental impacts. Did you notice nuclear has its own pie slice too? Again, different environmental impact.
Your attempt to hide your error by making incompatible groupings is a failure.
AND, as I've said before, and you keep ignoring, even when fossil fuel is the major source of electricity, electric cars use HALF the energy and generate HALF the CO2 of similar gas cars.
